(upbeat music) - Hey there, I wanna talk to you about our show partners, polite but dangerous tools. I own a handful of the beautifully handcrafted knives from polite but dangerous. I've used both the nest muck and the little delta skinner to put your big game this season and use a large tracker knife for chopping, roughing out bows. Perhaps what I love most about these knives is that each one is unique and handcrafted in Alaska by my buddy Sam Curtis. Same as an army veteran, a family man and all round good human being. Supporting folks like Sam makes me happy so I do it and you should too. Use the discount code BOYER and all caps to save 10% on all your orders from polite but dangerous tools. If you wanna learn more about Sam and his creative processes check out episode eight of the podcast. Vuni Gear. I've used Vuni Gear all season this year from chasing pigs in Florida's July heat to sick of blacktail deer on Kodiak Island. My two favorite pieces of gear probably altitude pant in the Helios hoodie what you use on nearly every single hunt. When the weather sucks I'm grateful to have the Nimbus jacket and pants keep me dry which I used daily during the windy and rainy days while hunting on Kodiak Island earlier this year. Use the discount code BOYER15 and check out to save 15% on all Vuni Gear. Check them out at vunigear.com. That's V-U-N-I-G-E-A-R.com. Organic archery. My good friend and bow making mentor owns and runs the organic archery bow making school which will be releasing their 2025 horse dates this December via email newsletter. If you're not signed up for the newsletter you should do so right now. You'll never get spammed I promise. I personally attended the organic archery's beginning bow building course and I'm confident that the experience took years of trial and error off of the art and my personal skill of learning to make self bows. I'm excited to hone my skills in 2025 during one of organic archery's advanced bow making horses and filling my belly with all the wholesome food prepared by Corey's bride. Organic archery has hosted well over 100 students over the past four years and every student has left with a formidable self made bow. That's pretty dag gone amazing folks. You go in there, you spend three days going through the grind on learning basic wood skills, tools, hand tools, a little bit of history and context and how to select bows and how to prepare your stave and you come out with a bow that is ready to harvest game. So if so, you choose. It's a life changing experience in my mind. Go check them out. Check out organicartchery.com for more details where you'll learn about all the ins and outs of what you need to do in a much more clear and concise manner than what I can deliver on this year. Thanks. (upbeat music) - Good evening and welcome to the Bow Yours podcast where we explore the ancient art of bow making traditional archery and the age old pursuit of wild games. Together, we'll chat with masters of their craft to uncover the deeper why behind reviving the old ways in a modern world. Today, I'm sitting down with Mr. Trent Wingard, the man behind Wingard archery. Trent, how are you? - Doing good, how about you guys? - Good man, doing really good here. I know we're in a few different time zones. So I'm probably interrupting your supper time, but I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me. And I know we've been trying to plan a good date for the last month or two. One, we can sit down and have a talk and you allowed me to pick your brain, but you had a little thing called the elk rut and some other types of hunting in there involved. So I appreciate you taking the time to sit with me this evening. - No, it's, yeah, thanks for having me, appreciate it. - Right on. And for listeners, we've also got another guest. We've got Peyton Owens on here as well and Peyton's a buddy of mine. He's also from North Carolina, also a veteran and is also a voger in the realm of making self bows. And Peyton's gonna be really modest here. I'm sure when he gives us a little bio, but he makes some really beautiful self bows. And I just figured that we're about 20 episodes in now and it's probably time for somebody for the audience to hear somebody's voice that's not just mine. And somebody has a larger vocabulary. He can use a few bigger words from time to time, but Peyton, how about you give us a little Peyton Owens 101 real quick here? - I appreciate you having me on, man. First off, I don't know about the larger vocabulary, but thanks. Yeah, I've been shooting bows since 2019 or so and I started building bows 2021. And I've built about 20 self bows so far. I'm an amateur like yourself, but I love the craft and it's therapeutic for me. And I know I'll be doing it for a while. That's about it. - All right, man, thanks a lot. I appreciate you and I appreciate you joining us here tonight to the conversation going. So Trent, you've got a couple of, I guess we're like cavemen compared to you and the craft that you have, brother. And I've admired your work for a long time. And honestly, we have a lot of self bow guys on here, but we include all sorts of traditional archery types, whether it's long bows or recurs, typically within the traditional archery domain and the works of art that you have and that you produce on a regular basis are very top-notch and now, which is also, as I was just looking at your website, I noticed the wait list is three years out to take new orders. So I'd say that's a good measurement of success. I think you've been making bows for well over a decade. Now Trent, and I think you said you started in around like 2017 or so full time, but I guess before I try to mess up your origin story, could you give us a little windered archery 101 and give us a little bit of insight on your origin story? - Yeah, absolutely. Part of the backlog problem might be how slow I am at building bows too. But yeah, I know I started in 2022. I would have been 12 years old. And I obviously liked most kids. I was whittling some sticks and tying some strings on them and shooting them for a few days till the wood dried out and then I have to make myself another bow how a lot of guys did when they were young. But yeah, the laminated bows was from about 12 years old. And basically we saw an advertisement and I was showing my dad a picture of this guy building a bow and he just made a comment that he could, that looks like something I would do. And I showed some interest in it. And he said, hey, if you figure out what you need, go ahead and you can get the, he'll get all the stuff coming. And of course, back then, Bingham projects was going, I think within the last year or two, they actually went out of business. I think he just decided to quit, which is a bummer. But that's how I got started. Back then they had a kit with, they would send you like a blueprint and a couple of laminations and some glass and some glue. And you bought the different levels, the different, they had a long bow and a recurve and a takedown recurve and takedown along where they had different ones to pick from. And I started out with the one piece recurve, that's what I started out with. And I did that, I think by 14, 14 to 15, I think it was 14, I had quit using any of their patterns and went to just doing all of my own bows that I just drew up myself. And they were obviously just horrible. Honestly, if a lot of your audience is self-bo guys, I have a lot of people that ask me what the best way is to start building bows. And I feel like I could have saved myself a lot of headache if I started out with self-bows because you understand how a bow works a lot quicker, I feel like, if you start with a self-bow. And since then, I've obviously built a few self-bows, just a couple of them. And yeah, it's something I wish I would have done sooner. But yeah, that's a great way to start. - Yeah, I do feel like some of the guys that are bow years that really specialize in one piece self-bows or one piece, recurbs, reflux, deflects. They'd really harp on leveraging hand tools first over the bandsaw and a drum sander and things of that nature because of the amount of appreciation you start learning for the wood and where the wood wants to bend and how it wants to move and how it wants to be built. But man, I tell you, that's about all I know right now. I've even tried, I think I mentioned a couple of shows ago, as I got a nice band saw, big grizzly band saws. I'm gonna at least start framing out my self-bows. And I went through three staves and just cut through them right away and nice pieces of Osage. And I was like, "Nah, I'm going back to my draw knife right now." I think you selected a different path and maybe one would have been, I think it's like a grown man, maybe it had been felt a little more organic than the other, but like, and you started out at 12 years old out of pure curiosity and support from your old man to build something. I don't know anybody I've heard, that I've spoken to so far that was out there trying to make a real bow at the age of 12, other than some old willows or something like that. Like we all do when playing Cowboys and Indians. So hats off to you for sticking to that and actually recognizing a craft at such an early age. - Yeah, that's all thanks Mike. - That's all right, go ahead. - Yeah, I was going to say that's awesome. I imagine the difference between self bows and laminated bows, obviously the equipment, I have a woodworking background, I was curious what your starting setup looked like when you started making those laminated bows. Did you have, were you buying, you know, after your first couple of kits, were you buying pre-playing that stuff, or do you have a planer, are you getting into the thickness yourself? - Yeah, great question. So they, when I started out, they, most of the wood that you bought from Binghams, which back the first two or three years, I basically just bought everything from Binghams. And they had different wood options, it wasn't like a ton of options, but they, and they wasn't like crazy exotic wood as far as a lot of character, but they did have the different woods and so on. And they were just a dimensional two by four, fairly rough cut, but they had it smooth enough to where we were more like in a cabinet shop setup. And honestly, if you have a bandsaw and some kind of belt sander, that's a, that's, you can build a laminated bow, if that's basically all you've got is a, bandsaw and a belt sander, and a few other just tools that most woodworking shops would have. Obviously, if having a sander that you can, that's like a drum sander or belt sander, that's square to a platform, that's a big deal and that's, that makes life way easier, but you can't get by with really minimal tools. And there's some guys on Instagram or YouTube that they're building bows with very minimal tools and they're building really nice ones too. So you can, like my saying is you can get by with less tools and equipment and come out with just as good a product, it's just gonna take you longer generally to get the, take you longer and more skill. But yeah, some of those guys are really good at what they do for sure. - Cool. Trent, with your old man, or did you have gray beards in your family that were involved in traditional archery or any sort of borey, back in the day, or is this something that just sparked your own personal interest? - No, honestly, I would say my family in general was, at least back before I was old enough to hunt or anything. But if you go back far enough, they were mostly gun hunters. They did archery hunt a little bit, like my dad and my uncle, like their dad had bought them a bow when they were in their mid teens. And it was like a bare grizzly. I actually still have that bow. My grandpa gave me that bow when I was like nine or 10 years old. We saw an interest there, so he gave it to me. But no, they were mostly gun hunters, but they dabbled in it a little bit, but it was just for a couple of years and they didn't really do a whole lot with it. But then once my older brothers started getting to the age where they were hunting more, and we lived in northwest Montana at that point. And I think my brothers started getting to archery probably when I was, let me think here, they were probably getting to archery when I was like eight or nine years old. They really started to get into it. And obviously all compound and so on. And the main reason was to take advantage of the elk rot. And so that's, they got into it. And so by the time I was 12, they had, we'd gotten a couple bulls and so they were starting to figure it out. And then I got bit by the bug pretty good. I honestly, when I started building recurs, I nobody I knew hunted with a recurve. I was only gonna build them for fun. I was gonna hunt with a compound, but you build something like that. It's hard not to take it hunting. So I ended up just going to the recurve then and I never hunted with a compound. Actually, no, my first year I did hunt with a compound a little bit, but I didn't get any shots at anything. But yeah, I've never, never really hunted with a compound since then. But yeah, that was primarily gun hunters, but picked up the recurve to take advantage of elk was basically the reason we got into it. So yeah. - I'd say screaming bulls is a pretty good excuse for people to bow an arrow though, right? - Oh man. - I mean, if anything's gonna motivate you, that would probably be it. - Absolutely. - How long do you think that first bow took you to build and finish? - Oh. - The first one you felt comfortable with out to the mountains over. - I don't know. It took a while. (laughs) I was 12 years old and I had dad let us build stuff in the shop all the time. So we're definitely used to working with the tools, but I don't know how long it took me. I just remember I would shape it and work on it and I would run over to my dad and say, hey, I think this is good. - I should stop. - Maybe you should keep sanding a little here and there and so I'd go back and work on it some more. And I think finally he was like, okay, this kid's not gonna stop. He said, yeah, whatever, it's just finished. - Yeah, it's horrible. - It's like a two by four. It's still shoots, I still have it upstairs, but it's as ugly as, it's the literally ugliest bow I've ever seen, I think. (laughs) - Well, the bombs were kind of ugly, huh? - Yeah, it's nothing to look at for sure. And I'd never killed anything with it either. I think I hunted with it for a year or two. I didn't, I don't think I got anything with that bow. Yeah. - Yeah, see, I got spoiled because the first long bow I made was under the tutelage of Kory Hawk, who's a master bow, you're just specializing in long bows. And it was a three day kind of seminar full immersion course. And it was like probably, well, 12, I don't know, maybe 27, 28 hours worth of labor into it, but I had a good mentor there with me. But when I came home and tried to make bow two, three, four, five, six, basically, it was like, it ended up being bows for my kids and my wife and everything else, which I wouldn't tell them that they aren't the prettiest bows, but they're Frankenstein's monster compared to anything that's coming out of the shop now. So I mostly just asked for my own reassurance, Trent, because I see the works of art that you produce and I wanted to know that you could also make an ugly bow at some point in your life. - At the age of, I've got plenty of them. Yeah, I could send you some pictures that might make you vomit. - Go ahead, Payton, you had something? - Yeah, so he mentioned taking advantage of the okra. I've never been out less than hunted. Could you tell me a little bit about the season out there and what the dates are? - Yeah, absolutely. In Montana, we have a six week season. We would mostly focus our time and say the second and third week of the rut was typically when we hunted the most. It's usually peak rut, like maybe the end of the teens into the early 20s, it seems to usually peak somewhere in there. Just because it's the peak doesn't necessarily mean they're easier to call in at that point. Sometimes it can actually be a little harder to call in, but yeah, that's generally when we hunted here in Idaho and actually lived in Colorado for about seven years. And they, both of those dates, it's at four week season. So it basically opens August 30th or September 1st, that timeframe and ends like the end of the month. And it's, yeah, that's generally when it is. And most people are gonna hunt the middle of September. - So if that's archery only during that time, is that why you picked up the bow? - Yeah, yeah, that would've been, yeah, that's archery only. Except for Colorado, they do have like a week long muzzle loader season right through the middle of the elk rut. I never quite understood that one. - Yeah, it's not all units out there, but there, yeah, there's a muzzle loader. There's some muzzle loader units out in Colorado during the rut. - Yeah, that's interesting. It's different here. Our archery season opens up in early September and it might as well be summertime. - Yeah, I could be hot out here too, but yeah, you can definitely get into some colder weather, but yeah, having those elk bugle, it's just, it's hard to beat. Me and my oldest son were talking about it and he was like, he's got to hunt a few different things now and he's, "Man, some of these special tags are cool, "but man, a bugle and elk." I said, "If that was a special tag, "that I wouldn't want anything but that." (laughs) - Yeah, that's awesome. - I guess it's a good segue for a second, Trent. So do you guys find yourself playing the point game a lot or are you trying to get the, a lot of over the counter opportunities as residents or those one and two point opportunities? - For elk or something? - For elk, yeah, yeah. I have, I've hunted elk my whole life and I've only ever had, all the elk tags I've ever had have been like either over the counter or basically same if you apply for it, you're going to get it type of tag. There was only, there was one time where I drew a tag in Colorado as like the year after we moved back to Montana from Colorado, I had built up a few points and I, there was just one unit I wanted to check out. And I think it was like three points or so with the point creep, it's probably six or seven now, I'm guessing, but, but it wasn't a very hard unit to draw but it was probably, and honestly, that was one of my harder hunts. I got one in the last day finally, but it was, just because it's a draw hunt doesn't mean it's going to be easier necessarily in all traces, obviously sometimes it is, but in that case, it wasn't, it wasn't easier, but yeah, I would love to get into the point game more, but I so far have just, with what I've been able to do is mostly just been the OTC type stuff, so, yeah. - That's really cool, man. I'm just not patient enough to play the point game. I live out east now, but I'm hunting in Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and it's always, either one of the lotto, as a non-resident, just the lotto basically trying to get a tag or search through over the counter. - And yeah, I just don't think I'm patient enough to keep playing like the point system and build a strategy from year to year in these of that nature, but I guess that's one luxury of living out east is we can shoot, what is it? I think six deer or something like that out here in North Carolina now, Peyton, and. - Yeah, six, two bearded turkeys, and one bear, one bear, two hogs, right, and the hogs are unlimited. - Hogs are unlimited in the, yeah. - And they're pretty hard. - That we have invasive pigs, it's still unlimited, yeah. I'm not very good at segways here, Trent, but I'd love to figure out a little bit more about your upbringing, which propelled you to get into this, man, or even if it wasn't just so much your upbringing. How did you go from picking up something that was just an interest to you, that you thought, hey, this is a good tool that I can use to start chasing some bugling below to be now within some impact and subsequently career. How did that journey start taking place in the last several years? - Yeah, it was, when I was in my teens, I was full shoot, I even, (laughs) me and my cousins just for the fun of it, made up some business cards when I was like 12 or 13 or something, just, that's how sure I was, I'm gonna start a business, I'm gonna do bows full time, that's gonna be my gig. And I sold a few, when I was like 15, 16, I sold a few through a local archery shop, but by the time I got to my upper teens, I started realizing how hard it would be to actually make a living, doing bows. And I started being like, man, yeah, I'm gonna build bows the rest of my life, but it's not gonna be my main thing. But while we lived in Colorado, I worked for this one guy, this one very wealthy guy, doing a lot of unique projects. Towards the end, I was working a lot with his interior, his interior, I'm sorry, I stuttered a little bit sometimes, his designers on different projects, and he was like, was he like a general contractor type, or like building houses? - No, so he owns properties all over the world, and he's always remodeling or building new places, and I was doing a lot of custom work, like a lot of custom, almost anything I built. It was like custom chairs, tables, desks, just little-- - It's like high-end interior designs. - Yeah, they would basically tell me what they want, and I would usually work with, there was two of the main people that I would work with on figuring out what exactly they're looking for, but they would have, you'd have the, there'd be like six or seven people sometimes, trying to put their input in one project sometimes. And it was really unique, it was a cool opportunity, I got to do a lot of that, that's where I really started doing a lot of carving, was for them, they had actually, they were looking for somebody to do some carved pieces, and I had told them, I said, hey, I can do it, I had never carved anything, but I told them, hey, I've done a lot of pencil art, I showed him some stuff, and I felt like it looked realistic, I was like, hey, if I can do this, carving is the same as just wherever you shade darker, you dig deeper, it shouldn't be that hard, and they're like, hey, I'm surprised, now they gave me a chance, but they said, yeah, go for it, do this and this, and we'll see what it looks like, and if we like it, we'll keep going. And I did a few pieces for them, they loved it, and I kept more and more, what I was doing for that guy, basically, towards the end there, it was all pretty much all this custom stuff, and it was pretty much all carved up too, but it was a lot of, let's say, if I've built cable and chair sets, where everything is, there's no metal anywhere, it's all like the mortise tenon dovetails, that kind of joinery, and there's no screw, no nothing in the whole piece. And then on top of that, it was carved on some stuff like that, so that's the type of thing I was doing. - That's impressive stuff, sorry to cut you off. - No, you're good. - I did some high-end cabinetry for the past two years, and we glue and screw, crag everything, and I can only imagine how much more work you would be if we did traditional joinery like that. I can definitely see how that translated to your bow making, just having those points for attention to detail and everything. - Yeah, yeah, it was general rule of thumb, I would like to make a drawer, say if you had something that had six drawers, we'd calculate how long it's gonna take me, it's to make one drawer, it was about two hours per drawer, and it would depend on how big the drawer was, but if you're hand cutting dovetails for a drawer, it would generally take me around two hours to make one drawer, to hand cut all that stuff. And it just, it's really monotonous, you can't, if you try to speed things up, you start messing up it. So it was a really unique experience doing some of that, but yeah, that's, basically, I was doing that, and I knew, once I was towards the end, I knew I was gonna move back to Montana. And I told them I'm gonna move, and the designer that I was working with, she had some wealthy clients up in Montana too, and she was like, man, can you just build stuff? It will bring wood up, you make it, and we'll trailer it back down to Colorado, and then I've got clients in Montana. Can you just keep making stuff for me? And she would check back every now and then, actually, honestly, I heard from one of my friends that she was wondering about me again a couple of years ago. So like, it was about two years ago, she was asking me about it again. So I knew I had that to fall back on, which helped a lot jumping into the bow thing, but really what pushed me over the edge was Jason Harrison made a, there was a quote, he's the founder of Kuyu, and he had, he said, I don't know if it was in a, like on a podcast, or if he wrote it, or what he was like, the, if you do what you're passionate about, and you're truly passionate about it, you'll be in the top 5%, and the top 5% of any industry are always gonna make money, or make enough money. And that kind of, honestly, that kind of put me over the edge to be like, you know what, if I don't try now, I never will, it was the perfect time, I was making a big move. I had to fall back if I ever, if it went belly up. - What year was this Trent? How long ago was it when you started, when you really dove into the season here? Did that risk? - Yeah, so we moved back to Montana, I think it was spring of 2017. - Okay. - Yeah, spring of 2017. And so I had decided by probably a year prior, I had decided, okay, I'm gonna do this full time. And that was when I totally redesigned. And up to that point, my main thing, I was really had a thing for, I started out with recurves, and I really had a thing for like a hybrid longbow. And so I had built hybrid longbows for years. And with very few recurves. And then at that year, your tar model? - Yeah, something similar to the tar, and the chamois, it was a couple versions back, but it was, that was what I had spent most of my time on. And then when I knew I was gonna go full time, I was starting to get more, I was trying to get back in the recurve thing, I had made a few three-piece recurves, and I decided for going full time, I'm gonna focus on that as being my main bow. And so I totally redesigned my three-piece recurve, which ended up being the IBEX. I think I started on that 2015, 2016. I was working on that, made a few tweaks, and that was my, that was the IBEX. And I basically built that bow from 2015, 2016, up until 2021, and I redesigned it. But the limb is the same, but the riser's different now, and so on, but yeah, that was prepping for going full time was the IBEX, so. - Were you hitched with kids at the time? - Oh yeah, yeah, we, by the time we moved back to Montana, we had all of our kids except for one. So we have six kids. Our youngest is, she's three, almost four, so yeah. - Man, that's quite the brood, that's amazing. And you really felt, and not trying to traumatize this, I think it's a reality as the man, the husband, the father, we feel the need to be the provider and the safety net and all of these things. But you, through your journey, you had felt enough security and then subsequently passion with making bows that you took that entrepreneurial risk despite having the kids and the wife and everything else. So how, can you explain some of the internal dialogue that you might may have had then? And with yourself and also with Mrs. Wingard at the time to make that journey. - Yeah, no, absolutely. - It was, we definitely talked about it a lot. I'd say one other thing that really helped pick me in gear was I had, right before I was gonna move, I had, I actually lived not far from Eichler. - Yeah, Fred Eichler's place? - Yeah. - Okay. - I didn't live too far from him. And Mike Palmer was his neighbor and he's looking to sell his business. And I talked to Mike a few times and that kind of helped put me over the edge too. I was like, I think I'd be better off just doing my own thing. 'Cause I was looking at possibly buying his business, buying all his tools and all that. But that kind of helped. I was able to see actual numbers of someone else's business. And it was, in a business like this, it's, that was one of the big reasons I didn't wanna buy Mike's business out was, I felt like he was the, if I'm sure I could buy out someone else's business and take over their name, but it's a different lawyer and people are gonna know that. But it's like, it's convenient. - They put a lot of stock in that name and legacy too. - Yeah, yep. And it would have been awesome, especially at that point to see how he does all his jigs, how things, how things work, what you can get away with, what you can't and all that. It would have, it'd have been really cool 'cause I'd never really had a mentor or anything. And I was, it would have been really cool to have that for a little bit, but we ultimately decided it would be, we'd be better off in the long run just starting our own thing. And for me personally, that was definitely the way to go. - No, it probably doesn't come from Bob Lebo's. - Don't quote me on any of this, but I think back in the day him and Bob Lee were partners. - For, I think it was just like a year or so. I think maybe that business was called Partner Bose. Does that ring a bell? - Maybe. We need a, we need a, like a Joe Rogan has, right? We need a Jamie. - Look at him. - Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we aren't gonna quote anything for fear that the interwebs have. - Yeah, yeah. I almost think, so Bob Lee worked for Wing for a long time, Wing Archery. I don't know at what point, I don't know what, at what point they would have teamed up. I'm pretty sure Mike told me that they had teamed up for at least a little bit. And then they decided to just each start their own business, Bob Lee and Palmer. I think Mike is still building some Bose some, I think. And then yeah, obviously Bob Lee, they're building a lot of Bose. And so it's really cool. You can still get some of these Bose from these older boys and they're still making them. I mean, it's pretty cool to see these older guys put out a really cool product like that. - Well, I think there's a lot of like cool origin stories, which is actually part of the reasoning for starting this podcast is there's a lot of these gray beards out there that have come from these other, like larger, maybe perhaps legacy companies that are now making really impressive functional art, right? Really beautiful, fast shooting Bose. And there's some really great like traditional archery historians that really dive into this. But maybe there's a lot of folks that are in like our generation that we consume a lot of that data through the radio waves. And this might help bring some of that, but bring some of the sentiment. - Some people will pick up a bow and you're like, okay, this is going to be a tool that I'm going to use. I'm going to harvest a bounty this way. And I'm going to get a deer or a bear or what have you. And then I think there are also those of us that look at that and they're like, man, like this thing almost has a soul. It's really special. There's sentiment, there's some sort of nostalgia involved, whether you were raised in a long line of traditional archers or you just have a little red bear bow back in the day when you're six years old or whatever. But knowing that there is a lot of heart and legacy associated with some of these names that are out there, I think it's just really cool. I think there's stories that deserve to be told. And I appreciate your journey that you said, hey, like there's something that could fall into that might let's say there's the ground floor, which is what you started through the bootstrap process. But you maybe could have started a couple of echelons above, but it would have been putting your creative spin on something else that was already built maybe. Instead, you said, you're like, let's do this organically from the ground up and yeah. - And that was one thing I had talked to to Fred when I was thinking about it. And Fred, I didn't know him real well. I just met him a few times and he was like, look, if you buy Mike's business, he said every time people buy someone else's business like that, they go and change everything and try to make it their own. And they said, don't do that. And that was another thing is he had a really good point. It's don't go buy a Palmer Bo company and try to change it into the Wengard Bo company. Like that has its following, don't fix what's not broken. And just that's what people expect from that is don't go try to change anything. Or if you do change it, make it a separate model or whatever. And yeah, that was a very good point. I think very good advice. If you do buy something like that out, don't go try to, if you do change it, maybe do it slowly or do it in a separate model or whatever. But yeah, there's a lot of cool history. Like we talked about him and Bob Lee. There's some, you'd buy a Bob Lee shoot man. You could buy one that they've been around forever. There's a lot of history there with, I think it was Wengard Tree and all that. Bearard Tree, there's certain people that, I'm sure if it wasn't for certain people that it's owned by a conglomerate now. And so I doubt the traditional archery side of things is that profitable form. But there has to be just enough people there that have been there a long time to keep the trad line going. And there's just so much history there. It'd be really sad to see that go and-- - That'd be sad. I wanna ask you something before we run out of time. So I got your origin story, how you started making bows and building your business. But can you tell us a little bit about how you started hunting and maybe relive the first harvest that you got with one of your own homemade bows? - Yeah, yeah. So I had, I think at that point, I had, it was my first bow design that I had went completely off of my own limb design and all that. It was just awful. It was a horrible limb design. But I think, I don't know. I just wanted to see what I wanted to do my own thing. And I think I was 15 years old. It was, I got a shot at a deer as a really young deer. I think it was like 70 yards. I, it was quartering towards me a little bit. I put it right on the shoulder. And yeah, I watched it fall. It was like, I probably ran 30, 40 yards. But at that point, I had-- - So the limbs couldn't have been too bad, huh? - It was a young deer. - It was a really young deer. So shooting through the shoulder blade was like shooting through a rib. But, but yeah, it, that was the first actual archery, like big game archery pill I'd ever had. I had been along for some of my older brothers. I had been there for helping them gets, or helping pack out and helping just not helping. I got, I probably hindered more than help, but I was there for some elk and different things that they had gotten. And so it was mostly just having a dad and older brothers that took the time to actually take me out a few days a year to, to at least try. - Having those experiences is really special. - Oh man, yeah, you know. - So you got one with a pretty, what you say is a pretty crude bow. I imagine now you pretty much only come up with your recurbs and laminated bows now, huh? - Yeah, I've, I've hunted with my laminated bows. I've built a couple self bows. I've never mustered up the courage to hunt with him yet. That's the real, that's the real deal there. And I haven't, I guess I'm not quite man enough to do it yet, but. - No, you just have your tool that you're using, Trent, and you're not sticking with it. You're just smarter than someone else. - Yeah, fair enough. What about the value that your boy got? Was that with one of your bows? - Yeah, it was. - Yeah, he, one second here. I gotta pivot back a little bit here. - Yeah. So you've got six kids. - Yeah. - We already, we got this spoiler here, right? That you're, one of your boys just got a mountain dirt this year here recently. But can you give us a little bit about raising your kids in the out of doors and around, obviously, traditional archery and bow making is your passion and your calling, Trent. But how does that translate to your kids and their upbringing? Are they drawn to the same thing? If so, how does that, you know, work? If not, how do you balance that as well? Me being a father of two boys, I really, sometimes, it's like fishing a hunting. If there's animals that are walking around or the fish are biting, fishing and hunting is the coolest thing ever. But if we don't see anything in the fishing or biting, it is the dumbest hobby activity on the planet to them. - Yeah. - I would love to get your take on that and the transition to this epic hunting story with your boy. - Yeah, the kids have all had bows or access to bows from as soon as they could at all show any interest in it. My oldest son, he's 14, almost 15. He'll be 15 in January. He, I built his first bow the day before he was born, actually. I went to the shop and quick built a little long bow, a little carbon-limbed long bows, 12 inches long, probably. And I actually helped him shoot it that first day. But no, that might seem like I was pushy. I wasn't pushy at all. I tried not to be pushy at all. I had it there for him, but I never pushed it on him or tried to do anything like that. I just had it there. They saw me go outside and shoot every day. They saw me doing all the things. They saw me go hunting. My oldest son, he started doing, going with me in the mountains around six years old. He started going with me more. And he was all about it. I wasn't going to pressure them at all to archery hunt or even hunt with a recurve. I honestly, I think I was about 10 years old. I asked him, hey, you're getting old enough. You could bow hunt legally now. And I know you could bow hunt if you wanted to, if you pulled enough weight. He said, would you, if you could bow hunt, would you want to bow hunt? And would you want to shoot a compound or recurve? You know what? He was like, I probably want to shoot a compound. So, okay, I'll set you. I'll go, we'll go buy one and we'll set it up. And he said, I don't know a lot about it, but I'll go to someone who does (laughs) and we'll set one up. And at that point, he was on his prior fourth bow. Like, I would build him a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger, a little bit bigger. And he was probably on, I think his prior fourth bow. And by the time it was in the winter and so that spring I was going to set him all up with a compound. And I don't know what changed his mind. He all of a sudden was like that. I actually want to hunt with a recurve. I said, maybe someday I'll hunt with a compound, but for now I actually want to hunt with a recurve. - That's a good sound. - Yeah, so I was like, okay, hey, that's, yeah, we'll build you a bow. So he helped, he got in the shop that summer and he helped as much as he could and built a little 58 inch recurve. And yeah, let him pick between all the models, which when he wanted and all that point, at that point he was shooting like a 50 inch tar, like a youth tar. And so he went from that to a hunting weight recurve. And it was, I think at that point he was drawn, I think it was, I think by the time he was actually old enough he could draw a hunting weight bow. He was like, he was either 12 or almost 12. He was almost 12. And we got 40 pounds at 26 and a half, which was what his draw length was. So just so legal here in Idaho. And we, he wanted to hunt closer to home and have the option for a backup rifle season. And the area I was hunting that year didn't have a backup rifle season. So it was archery only. So I got a tag somewhere else to hunt archery and I had killed my bull and we came back and we hunted for, I think four or five days here, just right close to home. And so he got a good taste of it. And then the next year he used that same bow, the next year would have been the last year. He used that same bow and he got, and that year he went to the same area I did. And I, actually my older brother, I typically hunt by myself. As far as when I actually kill the animal that just, it seems for me it works better if I'm hunting solo. But I was with my older brother that day and his son and my son were doing like a group hunt and my brother called in a bull. I had set the boys up to try to take advantage of this bull coming in. He came out right where I thought he would, but, and he's actually closer to them than it was to me. But I was the only one with a clear shot so I ended up killing that bull. And then a few days later, we got in on another bull. I was calling, he wouldn't come in and so the boys snuck down the hill towards the bull and the bull. He got in, he got it, just long story short, he got in, the bull got in to the end of his shooting range. And he had a close call but just didn't quite make it happen. But there's enough, there's enough going on to where it really kept his, kept, kept and fired to the fuel or fuel to the fire. - Yeah, unless I'm just for a young man to get out there on the cold and he hiking up mountains, knowing where the food came from, that's awesome. So I'm proud of you doing a good thing for the next generation, for sure. - No, thanks, no, yeah. He spent two and a half weeks hunting really hard that year and was, didn't get one, but I was like, a lot of make or break. (laughs) But he would rarely go for the next season. - That's me right now. (laughs) - He'll be long and he'll be running circles around you up the mountain and out shooting. - Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to show him how I can out hike him still while I can. - He can out hike me if he wants to. I'm sure he just doesn't always want to. - But no, that got him all fueled up for this year and but yeah, I can talk about that later then. But yeah, is your oldest boy the only kid that's hunting right now? - No, I think all of my kids have hunted now except for the two youngest, the four-year-old and the eight-year-old. And he's excited 'cause he's old enough to shoot turkeys now. Sometimes this fall, we're gonna try to get him out on a turkey. But yeah, all the rest of, at the very least shot turkeys, some of them shot some deer and so on too. My second oldest is also a son and he loves getting out and hunting. He's not as, he's not too into the elk hunting yet. He loves deer hunting. He loves sitting on a ridge and glassing. He loves that kind of thing. - Again. - Yeah, so we're, we usually at this point he hasn't wanted to grab the bow and go elk hunting too much yet. I'm sure we will, but he's more about rifle hunting, especially for deer, he loves deer hunting. Get some excited. - With that many mouths of feed, you gotta put a few critters on the ground, right? But at least now your kids are starting to get old enough where they can help contribute to that. - Yeah. - Freezers that are going tags. - Yeah, for sure. It helps a lot with, they get some, a few tags filled. It definitely helps a lot. Like last year, I think we had calculated around having 150 pounds of meat we put in the freezer last fall. - That's all, too. - And we've eaten it all up already. And we just started starting to fill it back up again, but yeah, they eat a lot of meat. - That's great, they should, man. That's what they're supposed to do. And I don't know if we had hit the record yet, but so you grew up mostly in Montana, but you've now relocated across the border to Idaho, right? - Yeah, yep. - And in Idaho, there are three once-in-a-lifetime tags that's moose, sheep, and mountain goat. And your son was fortunate enough to draw one of those this year. - Yeah, he was. I probably shouldn't even say this, but he got lucky last year. He drew the moose tag last year. - Son of a gun. - Yeah. - I don't know what he did, but I don't know if he's got an end with the governor or what, but-- - I got it before you happened to draw an eye to this. So there's a friend of mine, and we actually met, I was elk hunting out in the Frank Church, like back in 2019, I think. And the first time out there, so I didn't really know that there weren't a lot of elk out there, to be honest. - Yeah. - There are way better hunters than me that are getting them, but there are a lot more wolves than there are elk out there in the Frank. But I met a guy back there, his name's Leonard, and you just bumped into each other on the side of a mountain, and he's already seen anything. I was like, no, no, this is-- To be honest, that was my first year elk hunting, actually. It took me three years of hunting straight before I could get my first elk. And I was talking to him out there, and he's from up north, I think like, Hoard Lane or something like that. And he's just this super cool mountain guy. He's like you. I grew up in the Midwest, I'm a flat lander, right heart. Getting out west is always a luxury and not like the norm. But he was talking to me, and he was like, oh, I'm actually out, mountain goat homing. And I was like, oh, man, I actually, I've seen several like this way. And I was trying to tell him, like, we're at Sheena and all that stuff. He like, well, they appreciated the candor. I'm like, oh, I'm probably never gonna get to hunt one of them. So if you get to go pull it off, that'd be really cool. He's like, it's like once in a lifetime tag, you pulled that off. And he was like, oh, yeah, I did. He goes, I'm really fortunate. He was like, when I was 18, I grew my mousse tag. And he was like, just a few years ago, I drew my sheep tag. And then that year in 2019, he had drawn his goat tag. So like your son, your son might be on a streak, man, where he just, before that, before he's 30, he gets all three of them bagged. Yeah, it could be. So he drew the mousse tag. And, you know, if you, if you kill the animal, then that's, you can never apply again for the tag. And so he got his mousse last year, mountain goat this year. He claims he's gonna get his sheep tag next year. So we'll see what happens there. But he's been really lucky with the draws, which I can't complain too much. I, when I was younger, I was pretty lucky with some of the draws too in Montana. I can't complain there. I definitely had my opportunities, but it's cool to see him get. Yeah, it's a lot of fun doing some of those hunts that they don't come around to often for sure not. So. - Well, let's hear it, man. I think the point of this whole episode was actually talk way more about your bows, but I'm more intrigued right now, which this means that you'll have to give me an IOU to come back in a few months and talk more about your beautiful bows. But right now, I need you to hit us with the goat story with your son. - Yeah. Last year after he, we were gonna bump him up with poundage a little bit. And I was gonna build some new limbs for his bow. And I got the drift. He wanted to hunt with my bow (laughs) 'cause it was just a couple pounds heavier. I'd go longer draw length, but his draw length, it was a couple pounds heavier than what he was shooting. And he's, man, that's about exactly the weight we're gonna be building. This ain't, kinda, you've killed a couple bowls with that. Bear and deer and stuff. I would like to hunt with that bow. And I was like, "Sure, it's a day, just take it." And so he took that bow and I just grabbed my old backup bow and just started shooting that. And he practiced with that one all summer. We got some arrows tuned up to it. And he got really comfortable with it. And we went out and obviously September comes around and elk is always our main focus. But obviously this year, because of the mountain goat hunt and other stuff I had going on, I was only able, we were only able to hunt elk like two and a half days this year for archery so far. But there's another opportunity to do that might come up. But, yeah, when he saw he drew the goat tag, he was like, "Man, Dad, I really wanna get it with my bow." And I was like, said, "The season goes 'til mid November." But if you wanna get it with your bow, we better hit it in September. Start right when it starts and keep going while the weather's nice. I said, "You're not concerned about hair or anything like that." I said, "No, I don't care about winter hair or anything. I wanna goat with my bow." I was like, "Okay, we'll go, we'll go." And it's a general tag, so he can use a rifle. So we did pack a rifle along to see Casey change his mind. But, yeah, so we packed in the first trip. We were seeing goats. I've been on a number of goat hunts before in Montana, but this area that we were in for this goat hunt was it's a lot more, it's fairly close to home here and it's a lot more broken up terrain. There's a lot more timbers. They can hide a lot easier. You don't see 'em near as much as the area that I was more used to hunting goats in Montana. And so you just don't see as many goats. And it's harder to stalk into 'em too with just the way all the terrain is and everything. And that first week was really hot too. I think it's another reason we didn't see as many. Or when we did see 'em, we'd only see 'em one time. And like that evening or the next morning, they just were nowhere around. But that's the luck we were having. And we did find one goat. We went after in a stockable location. What we didn't know as partway over there, he actually got up in the left. But what we didn't know is there was a big billy bedded just up the hill from him, about 150, 200 yards. And where we were coming down, we were going right through where this big billy was. And so we're sneaking down the hill. And also I looked down down the hill about 120, 140 yards. And there's a giant goat. And I haven't hunted goats a ton. I've maybe been on maybe three or four different goat hunts. But so I've been on enough to know, I'll tell a nanny from a billy pretty quick, just by looking at 'em, you can tell pretty quick. But I'm not the greatest at judging. They're a hard animal to judge. But this one, this was a giant billy. Like I've never seen a billy this big. And I was like, I told him as I look, said this thing knows we're here, he's gonna leave. Said you can dump 'em with your gun. Or you can watch him walk away because we're not gonna get in bow range. And so he put the rifle on a rock, looked at him through his scope. And this was a huge billy. And I'll be honest, I was hoping he dumps it 'cause it was huge. I've never seen a billy this big. And just being honest. And he's there looking at it. And it laid there for a bit and looked. And finally it got up and gave us one last look. And I was like, it's now or never. And he looks at his head. I just wanna keep hunting with my bow. I just, I don't wanna shoot that thing. And I was like. - God bless that kid, that's amazing. Oh man, I just, I don't think I've had that patience or for the amazing. - He was like, Dad, what would you have done? I was like, oh, I would have dumped it. That's a giant, you're not gonna find one that big again. It's huge. And he was like, yeah, you've got one already. So of course you would have shot it. So anyway, I was like, okay, whatever. So we kept hunting. And I think it was like two days later, we saw this goat on a ridge line. It was all by itself. It was like a mile and a half away. So I couldn't tell with a billy or a nanny. And you're allowed to shoot a billy or a nanny, but obviously you'd try to shoot a billy if you can. But it's just coming right to us. It's like a mile and a half away. And it's just following the ridge and coming towards us. And so it looped all the way around the mountain until it came and bedded a few hundred yards down underneath us. And we got in, we had to go around the other side of the mountain and glass back on it and get a good beat on where it was at. Then we went down. It had actually laid down on this side of this cliff. And we stalked down in there and it was super steep and there was brush and everything. So it was hard to be quiet. And so it actually hurt us coming down and actually came up the hill a little bit to see what was going on. 'Cause it was, we were being quiet, but it was just enough noise where it must have hurt us. And yeah, it popped out in range. Like it came out there and one look at it. I was like, oh, that's a big nanny. It's not a billy. But the thing came out, he was that full draw, I think twice, but every time it would stop, there was branches in the way. And finally it moved off. And so we just let it leave. And then we snuck down to where it was. And we were there talking about it and I said, we'll probably come out on the side. We're just gonna see what happens. And finally, all of a sudden it popped out about 150 yards away. It just all of a sudden it would stand in there. And he was like, oh, let's go after it. You know, I can stock in on it right there. I was like, wait, we gotta wait and see if it leaves or if it stays there, if it comes back underneath us or what it's gonna do. And all of a sudden the thing just lays down but watch our direction for a while. I guess it finally was, excuse me. It was satisfied that whatever it had heard wasn't a threat and it laid back down. And so he took his boots off again and went up the hill, went over and came back down. And I don't know how he even got within range but he got in range of it. And afterwards I went over there and it was a tough place to sneak through but he got within range of it. And I think right when he got around 25 yards it heard him coming and it like stood up and looked up his way and he was, I'm not sure if he had an arrow knocked already or not but he was ready and he shot. He thought it was farther than it was and he just took care right off his back. And, or no, sorry, that shot he missed. And then it's actually stayed on the ledge. There's a big drop off hundreds of feet right behind the goat. The arrow was gone. It was, the goat was all confused and it finally turned, it was like a minute and a half later I've got it all on film and it turned, went the other way and looked back up at him. And I was like, oh dude, like, he can shoot pretty good. I'm, he's good enough to where I was like, okay, that goat gave him a second chance. Like it's gonna die now. Like I was like fully expecting to see an arrow and decided this goat and he shoots and the goat runs off and I watch it for half a mile, leave like nonstop running. I was like, oh yeah, obviously he didn't hit it. I didn't hear a hit. And so I reviewed the video and yeah, just took a puff of hair right off the back. - I think I remember what you texted me at or said to me on Instagram. - Yeah. - And I was like. - Yeah, so it just gave it a little tough tough of hair off the top. - Yeah, yeah. And he, so yeah, we reviewed the footage. I went and looked, I went over to him. We looked at where it was standing. And I think he did the classic, like there was grass right in front of the goat. And so he could see like the top half of the goat really well, but the bottom half was covered up with grass. And I had given him a big long lecture about how, before this time, I'd give him a big long lecture about how mountain goats are so easy. Mountain goats moose are the same way. It's so easy to hit too high on them because their spine is so tall, so big compared to an elk or a deer right above the vitals. Like the front part there. And I was, I was telling him, like, dude, you gotta be sure to not hit too high. I think what happened, the grass was in front of them. And it's so easy, especially if you don't, you're shooting more of a instinctive, he has more of a gap method, he shoots, but it's more instinctive type. It's so easy to shoot a little higher. When there's like, for me personally, I must have to pick out a piece of grass or a leaf and actually try to hit that. Where that vitals is to not, yeah, 'cause you've probably been that white in his case, right? That fur, he's probably the middle of the fur or whatever, and not, yeah, it's just even, it's like an optical illusion. Yeah, he was like, oh man, that first shot was up there. And I was like, why didn't you hold? Do you knew about, okay, 12 inches down is where the vitals are. So why don't you hold your arrow 12 inches down 'cause you shoot a gap method anyway? And I was like, yeah, I knew you were gonna say that. It was like, I thought about it after the second arrow, but not before. So anyway, the goat was unharmed, it was ugly. So we went, we hunted a little longer, we went home, went back out for the second trip, and of course in back of both of our minds is like, man, this is eating away elk season, and we're gonna get to hunt elk. So he was getting pretty antsy too. And he was like, if we see that big giant belly again, I'm probably gonna pull out the rifle. If we can't get a good stock situation going, I might just pull out the gun. But we went out, we found a few goats, but we were waiting for one at a good place for a stock. And it was like the second or the first full day of hunting, we were sitting there and a rainstorm came through. And we were underneath the tarp. And on this trip, it was Michael and I, and then it was my cousin and his son, and then my wife's dad and his son. So it was a big crew up on top of this mountain. And oh, hey, there's a goat over there on that side hill over there. And so we all start looking and sure enough, there's this goat and it's working its way over underneath us. And so I went out to the edge of the cliff and I could see a few hundred feet down. I was expecting it to go through this one bench down below us. And I'm there watching, I had to wait like 20 minutes or so. And all of a sudden it comes up. All of a sudden I see a goat, like it had come way up the hill, like halfway up the mountain up towards us. And it was only like 80 hundred yards down below us. It was this goat and it bedded up on this ledge. And so we went back, planned a stock. And I told him he'd be better if he went in by himself because of all the vegetation and everything. I told him we had planned to come in from this other way. But on the way there, he was supposed to check this one rock. I said, I don't think it's in range, but you should stop and check just in case because you might not have a good enough approach from the other end. So we came in, he went down there and peaked over this rock. And here it was actually in range and he didn't think he could get a better angle from the other way. He decided to just stay right there. And yeah, the goat stood up. He wasn't there more than five, 10 minutes. The goat stood up and walked over to the edge of the cliff. The ledge there and he did a little bat to stop it. And the thing like whips his head up and looks. And he did a, he shot, I have it all on film. It would have been a perfect shot, but right as he shot, the goat turned to walk towards him. And so like, you hear the bow go off and the goat starts turning right at the same time and it hit it right in spine and it dropped it. And so he had the, he put two more arrows into it and then it basically died right where it was standing right there, but. - Yeah, that's still, I think that's probably feel better than it taking a nose dive off of a 200-foot cliff like some guys have. - Yeah, one of the guys was like, man, I hope it dies right on that ledge. I'm like, if he does a good shot, or if it hits it in both lungs or the heart, it's not going to be on that ledge anyway, but, but as like the only way is if it, if he spines it, which obviously we don't try to do that, but that's just how it worked out. And it ended up working out great. - Man, the stoke hadn't been so high to see your boy do that and pull it off and then having some of the relatives blasting at distance too, that's pretty magical. - Yeah, no, honestly, that was our glassing point. And so we were all right there. We were all, everybody except, except my dad in law, he was down the ridge a little bit. But the rest of us were all right there and got to watch the whole thing go down like just right in front of us. And someone that was really good with a compound could have probably almost shot it from where we were at. So it worked out so perfect. It, yeah, I was, yeah, I was really excited. I was maybe a little too excited. I'm not sure who was more excited, me or him, but it was the stoke factor was high for sure. - Oh yeah, I think that's a lot more gnarly of a hunt than the swamps and the sand hills that Peyton and I have out here in North Carolina. - Man, I don't know, I think I'd rather deal with the mountains and the snakes. - Yeah, I tell you, it's not even the, so actually, I'll text you a big picture. I just killed a big timber rattler two days ago when I was out. - Yeah, yeah. - And it had, I was walking on the edge of the field going to the forest and it was there and it had gorgeous self. Its belly was just, I'm holding up my hands here, but it was probably four inches around. It looks, it was just like a giant and I was like, oh my gosh. So it was an easy target and I'm gonna use the skin. Actually, I was talking to Peyton about it. I'm gonna attack up the skin and it's tacked up and I'm gonna use it to back a bow with, but when we cut open its belly, it had a whole squirrel in there, like a whole full grown squirrel in its belly. - Wow. - Yeah. But man, honestly, it's the big spiders out here that get me more than the snakes. 'Cause I'm like, you're hiking to a tree stand or back and it's dark and the spiders are like, half the size of your hand out here in the swamp and I'm sure Peyton knows these things. And they're just like, when that web gets you in the face, but you still feel the weight of something attached, that's when I'm like, (indistinct) - Dude, I probably walked into 50 spider webs this morning. - Oh man, I've got a knife here, but it's just, I usually, like when I'm walking, I have a stick and I just kind of like, I don't turn on a headlamp or anything 'cause I like to mess up my night vision, but I usually just walk through the wood and just stick out like this out here. - That's what I do with my bow. I just, just like, oh man. - That's awesome. I appreciate it. And I tell your son that one of these days we'll have him on and get the firsthand encounter 'cause he might've been like, oh, I knew I didn't want that goat to flop off the edge. So I sniped that thing in the spine and put it down real quick and it's all part of the plan. - No, it's not what he's been telling me. - Man, I don't wanna take up too much of anybody else's time tonight, but I appreciate that and Trent, like I wanted to hear, I've admired your bows. And to be honest, man, I've never seen one in person that's on me, but I've been wanting to. And I wanna hear a bit of the origin story and hopefully in a few months, we'll just get back on here and go into more, we'll just super nerd bow, bow, bow top. - Yeah, that'd be great. - But I think my soul needed some good hunting stories tonight, anyway, because I've been struggling the last couple of weeks with putting anything on the ground. So it was encouraging for me. And I know Peyton's not putting anything on the ground this season yet, so we both needed a few stories to success, boost morale. - Yeah, I actually feel a little better, I'm gonna go in the morning. (laughs) - We got a new chunk of public land on the checkout, so. Right on. Hey Trent, sometimes we like to share a call to action. A lot of times I'll tell folks on the end shows, I remember to get outside, you get out, get dirty and learn something new. It sounds to me like you latched onto learning something new at a young age, which I think is just very bold and admirable. And you ended up sticking with it. I feel like you found your calling relatively really wife. But I wanna ask, I hate to put you on the spot, but I'm doing it anyways. I don't hate it so much, I'm not gonna do it. Is, you know, if there was a call to action out there for somebody that's looking at a craft or some sort of art as a pill or entrepreneurial duty or task that they're feeling compelled to do, what kind of advice might you have for them? - Man, if they're passionate about it, just jump and just try it, it's obviously be smart and have a backup plan, like for me, it was the people that I had worked for before, especially, like I knew I could dive back into that if I had to, it wasn't working out. But, so yeah, I have a plan for what you do if it's a little slower take off than what you might think. But at some point, you have to jump and at least try, 'cause if you don't, you'll have a wonder if for the rest of your life and the what ifs aren't, you don't really wanna have too many of those either. If you're truly that passionate about it, you have to at least give it a go at some point. And yeah, especially if you have a family, obviously, you gotta have a backup plan, but man, you gotta at least try. And it takes, it's like jumping off of a cliff into the water a little higher than you're comfortable at some point, you have to just tell yourself, just then take the jump, I guess. I don't know what else to say. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
In this episode I sit down with Trent Wengerd, of Wengerd Archery. As crazy as it sounds, Trent started making bows at the young age of 12 years old! While his first models may not have been anything to write home about (Trent’s words), who else can say they started this craft at such a young age? Nowadays, the bows that come from Wengerd are arguably some of the best in the business. In addition, Trent is a talented craftsman and wood worker, family man, and spends much of his time hunting big game in the Rocky Mountains of the American West. While the intent was to dive deeply into the inner workings of Wengerd Archery, we spent much of our time chatting about hunting and hearing about an epic mountain goat hunt that Trent had with his son.
I’m also joined by fellow bowyer and pal Peyton Owens, who filled the role of co-host on the episode. I look forward to having Trent on the show again in the coming months and diving deeper into the amazing bows that come from the Wengerd Archery shop.
Wengard Archery: www.wengerdarchery.com
Instagram: @wengerdbowyer
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