God's Great Outdoors

Guest (Male): For an outdoorsman or outdoors woman, there's no better place to be than in the woods or on the water. Most of us look for every opportunity to get out into the outdoors to spend time alone or with others. There's something that draws us back over and over again, many of us until the day we die.

For those of us with kids or grandkids, it's one of the best places to introduce them to not only God's amazing creation, but more importantly, to the creator himself. There's so many things that point us to Jesus Christ and all that he's done for us in creation. If we allow God to speak through all that he's created, introducing him to others comes easily.

This week's program speaks to exactly these thoughts, especially in introducing our children to Jesus. Sometimes the outdoors does that just by our kids seeing our availability for them. But we still need to go further by telling them the truth of all that Jesus did for us. Let's join our host now, Dean Hulce, as he and his two guests discuss creation and the love of the creator. Let's venture out together down the trail to adventure in God's great outdoors.

Dean Hulce: Welcome to God's Great Outdoors on the trail to adventure. We are in the Woodlands in Texas, a beautiful spring day. We are with two gentlemen today. Aaron Fells, it's good to have you here. You've been born, raised, and basically everything in your life has been revolved around Texas. I love Texas, by the way. I could spend January, February, March, maybe the beginning of April here. I don't want the rest of the year.

Today was even pushing it, to be honest with you. It was nice. And we have David Escabel. David's a board member. David's done a program here sitting in the same spot last year. For our listeners, if you remember, David had a terrible car accident on a hunting trip, or a truck accident. If it weren't for God, you'd have been dead for sure, and your son as well and your dad. I do get a lot of people that ask me about that program. They said I heard that, what a great story.

Anyhow, we're going to talk to Aaron about a lot of different things in Texas, but some stuff from Spain as well. So were you in Spain or Portugal?

Aaron Fells: We did Spain on the front end of the trip, and then we flew over to Portugal just to run around and sightsee and tour over there. We did not hunt in Portugal, just in Spain for sure.

Dean Hulce: We'll talk about this adventure in Spain because I've never, to be honest, it's not something I've even dreamed about, believe it or not. Tell us about this. This is something that you actually, a friend of yours, bought at a Dallas Safari Club.

Aaron Fells: Absolutely. About three years ago, friends of mine, they went to the Dallas Safari Club and had a great time. The guys that went are just kind of getting into hunting, but had some tips and tricks and things like that. They said, "Okay, well if you go to the auction, sometimes you can get some really great deals." They ended up going to the auction and buying this package hunt to Spain and off they went.

One of the guys for some reason or another, he couldn't make it, so he had to back out. He had to go home the next morning and tell his wife what he spent and all that. I don't know if he told her or not, he just backed out before he had to tell her. Anyways, he had backed out and then a friend reached out to me and said, "Hey Aaron, would you be interested in doing something like this?" I said, "Absolutely. I'm always down for an adventure and to go someplace I haven't been before."

I'd been to South Africa. Spain was something different, something new. And then also being able to add on to the Portugal trip, my heritage is from Portugal. I've always wanted to get to Portugal and kind of go look around and see what that looks like too. So it was kind of the best of both worlds. It was an amazing place. I really, thoroughly enjoyed it. If I had to leave and go somewhere and retire, Spain could definitely be a very or Portugal, either or. It was totally different than what I expected.

Dean Hulce: Was it mostly open mountain country you were in? I mean, not a lot of trees?

Aaron Fells: It was very open. We flew into Madrid and then we car traveled through Toledo and south of Toledo to the ranch where we were going to hunt at. Down low was very open, but the trees that we would see would be all olive orchards. They had lots of olive orchards and then you kind of come to the base of the mountains and then up into the mountains. The mountains had similar trees kind of like our Texas oak trees. Just beautiful country, wide open.

The ranch that we ended up at was a very interesting place. It was part of the hierarchy of the royalty, one of the nobles had been deeded this property. It was 30,000 acres. Part of the ranch, they had several different income streams other than just hunting. One was the olive orchards. They would meticulously groom the fields to get the olives out of.

Then they also raised Iberian pigs. They had several different areas where they're raising these pigs. Part of the pig finishing process, they turn them loose into these fields to eat the acorns off the ground and pick up some olives. That finishes out the meat, which makes them a delicacy.

Dean Hulce: Well, I've always heard, and I can't prove it, but I've always heard that pigs that are raised on acorns have extremely sweet meat. So that might be where it came from.

Aaron Fells: That's right. They'll take them and they'll process them and then they'll hang them. They'll quarter them and they'll just hang the quarters in a processing area. They'll hang them for maybe three years. And then once they've finished, one quarter is probably worth $500 or $600. They'll take them and they'll put them in a little fixture and then they'll just peel little slices of meat off, prosciutto, that type of meat. That's kind of where all that comes from.

Once we left the ranch and we started on our tour, every little restaurant had all of that. We ate a lot of it. Another thing that they did on the ranch is they raised the Spanish fighting bulls. They had a long lineage of breed of these Spanish fighting bulls. They had a whole bull fighting ring.

They'd raise the bulls, they'd get them up to about two years old and then they would bring them in and a matador would come in and work with them and see if they were ever going to be a fighter or if they were going to be a steak. They showed us all that and the way that the pens were raised and stuff. Then some of the bulls that they've raised have gone into some of the most prestigious bullfights that they have through there. I thought that was really cool as well.

Dean Hulce: Tell us about your hunt.

Aaron Fells: I went after the Iberian stag, Red Stag. I was super excited. It all happened really quick. We landed, we got in the vehicles, we went to the ranch, unpacked a little bit, put our hunting clothes on and it was time to get going. We'd just been on this 11-hour flight. We got to the hunting area and we got out and walked around, hiked around and we got into the area where there was quite a few stags.

It was a little drizzly at the time, so they weren't moving around a whole lot. They were able to spook and get a couple to stand up and then they kind of ran off. It was interesting because the weather changed on us rather quickly. It went from drizzly to the sun came out. Then animals kind of started moving around and we moved around a little bit and then found the one that I was going to shoot at.

Sometimes you never know. It's always our goal to take one out with one shot, but sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. We stalked him a little bit, not too far, probably maybe 50 yards from the hunting vehicle. I had a guide in front of me and then he set the shot up and I shot off the sticks. First shot, I hit the animal but he didn't go down. So we had to give him some time and kind of reset back up on him. And then the second shot was the kill shot.

Dean Hulce: Was the roar on? Was the rut on there? Did you hear roaring at all from the bulls?

Aaron Fells: They were in the prime time rut. They were making all kind of noises and moving around. They also had the fallow deer and stuff mixed in there as well. So there was a lot of activity. So that made it pretty cool.

Dean Hulce: That's cool. I've never done that and hunt elk, I've guided elk 35 years and I love the rut of that hunting. Listen, we're going to take a break and then we're going to get into talking to you about your family and your hunting here in the States and some of the other parts of what you're doing. We'll be right back with God's Great Outdoors on the trail to adventure.

Guest (Male): For the last 26 years, God's Great Outdoors trail to adventure has been broadcast out to win men and women, boys and girls, to Jesus Christ. This is only possible by the generosity of our listeners. Thank you to all who have supported us in the past. God has blessed us because of you, and we pray that you feel his blessing as well.

Additional underwriting support has been provided by Matthews Archery, the leader in the archery industry. Mission Archery, with revolutionary crossbow technology. Three Rivers Archery, supplying everything you need to make your own traditional archery equipment. Hunter Safety Systems, saving lives is what we do. And Conviction Game Calls. At Conviction, we don't separate work from our faith. We believe that our faith should be evident in every aspect of our lives and the outdoors is one of the best places to share that.

God's Great Outdoors has produced many ministry tools, including tracts, DVDs, and books to help you reach others for Jesus Christ. You can access these items, other God's Great Outdoors items, and so much more at our website, godsgr8outdoors.org. That's godsgr8outdoors.org.

Dean Hulce: Welcome back to God's Great Outdoors on the trail to adventure. Again, we are on a warm, I won't say hot, because today was far from hot for our Texas friends here. But it was a warm day, 80 degrees, I think, if it got above that or not. It was a perfect day, low humidity, perfect day. We are in the Woodlands north of Houston. Actually, I think we're actually considered Conroe here, aren't we?

Guest (Male): Yes, it's Conroe, Oak Ridge North. I like the name Oak Ridge North, but it's Conroe. Right here in a little triangle, you've got Woodlands, Conroe, Magnolia, and Shenandoah, all stuffed right here in a pocket. It's actually a beautiful area if you don't have to get on Highway 45. It's ruthless for sure.

Dean Hulce: Tomorrow I'm going north, but Monday morning I have to be all the way down on the very south end of Houston in the morning. I might have to leave Sunday afternoon to get there, but I don't like traffic. I told someone today that traffic in where I live is a 30-second stoplight is a heavy traffic day if you got stuck at a light.

But we're with Aaron Fells and David Escabel and Aaron, we were talking about your trip to Spain and Portugal and some of the cool things there. You brought some of your family or all your family there?

Aaron Fells: My wife, she traveled with me. And then my friend Jason, he also brought his wife and then their little five-year-old daughter. So she was able to join. My kids were in school, so the grandparents came and got the kids back and forth from school while we were off. But my wife, she hunted a few days later and she hunted a fallow deer.

Helping her and we went to a different ranch for the fallow deer. Going through that was really special. It was really meaningful. She wasn't able to join me on the stag hunt, so she felt a little bit isolated, but us being able to go do the fallow hunt together was super cool. Just watching her build up her confidence to be able in a foreign place to be able to have a successful hunt, a successful kill, was very special for sure.

Dean Hulce: How many kids do you have?

Aaron Fells: I have two kids, a boy and a girl. My daughter's the oldest, she's 13 and my son's 11. We've been hunting for a while now. We have a deer lease out in Sterling City and we go out every year for the week of Thanksgiving. We take the whole week and we go out there and we hunt together as a family. I built a deer stand, it's an 8x8 deer stand that holds all of us in there.

Being together doing it as a family's been a lot of fun. Watching my daughter shoot her first deer, the questions that she would ask, "Well dad, what do I get to shoot?" I was like, "Well, I think we're going to start this your turn to shoot a doe." She's worried, "Well is the doe going to have a baby? Or if it does have a baby, then the baby's not going to have a mom to take care of it." So we went through all those questions.

Then it was just wonderful watching her first kill. The doe came out and was in the middle of the feeder broadside and my daughter couldn't really see over the window, so she had to sit on my lap. For some reason, somehow, thanks to God, this deer decided to sit broadside for an hour and not move and just eat corn with its head down.

My daughter was sitting on my lap and I think she came up with every excuse possible to not squeeze the trigger. It was, "Dad I can't see," or "Dad I need to switch," or "I need my earmuffs," or "No now he moved," or "Is the safety on? Is the safety off?" We went through all that. Finally, I said, "Addison, you don't have to shoot this deer. We're here for you, wanting you to participate, but there's no pressure for you. But if you don't shoot this deer, I'm going to go get your brother and he's going to shoot it." Boom! She squeezed the trigger and successfully killed her first doe. It was so much fun just watching her build up the confidence and the nerve to go do that.

Same with my son. He sat on my lap and he was more anxious to shoot. He didn't really have to talk him into it, just kind of had to point him in the right direction and off he went. But that was so much fun. We have a thing between me and my son is we like to bass fish as well. I think he was five and we were out fishing. It was around February time frame and we were just messing around. He goes, "Dad I got one."

I looked and I was like, "Okay, he's hung up on a stump or whatever." I looked back and he had one and it had come out of the water. I was like, "Oh my goodness." I saw the size of this thing. I was like, "You do have one." My first thought was to grab the rod and just do it. I was like, "No, no, this is his. Let's do it. If he loses it, whatever. I'll go get the net." So I worked on the net. We got it in. It's just a little Zebco reel and it ended up being a seven and a half pound bass that we landed.

That was the coolest thing. We got it mounted and that's the largest one that we've caught out of my bass boat. So he loves to tell everybody, "Well I got the biggest fish in the boat." He's 11 now, but he was five then. So a few years ago, it was his turn to shoot what we call the trophy buck at the deer ranch. We're able to kill two does and two bucks, a trophy buck and a cull buck and we all take turns on who's going to get what each year. Unless a Big Grande comes and since I paid the bill, I'll take it. But I try to play fair.

Anyways, it was his turn for the big buck. We waited hard through the season and was patient and it was probably coming up to last day to be able to shoot one. We're looking at two different feeders and there's a couple 10 points over here and a couple 10s over there and we're trying to figure out which one's the oldest one to shoot and best one for him. He's counting horns and then all of a sudden a big one walks up. I go, "You're going to shoot that one." He goes, "Well how many is it?" I go, "You count." He goes, "Is it 11?" I go, "Sure, let's say it's 11, do it."

So he gets ready and he shoots it. Kill shot first shot. So I said, "Okay, let's get down there." We get down there and he starts counting. He goes, "Dad, you said it was 11." I go, "Yeah." He goes, "Well I'm counting 13." I go, "Well I didn't want to tell you 13 because I didn't want you to get buck fever." So now he loves to tell everyone, "I have the big fish and the big deer."

Dean Hulce: Any idea what the score was on that?

Aaron Fells: We didn't score him. It's a West Texas deer. They're not as heavy as the ones down south. But if you kind of compared the two, it would have definitely been in the 140-ish range for sure. It doesn't matter what it is at that point. It's being together. As you're talking, there's so many things that go through my head of raising my own kids. My boys are 40 and 43. I've got a grandson that I raised that's in his 20s. My younger grandkids, all but one of my grandkids have shot bucks and have shot turkeys and shot all kinds of things.

My youngest granddaughter's only five. She'll probably be a hunter, but I don't know that for sure. But the others all are. That's way better than shooting yourself. The stories that you build together, we wouldn't have any of them if we'd never left, if we'd never left the house. One opening morning out in West Texas where we were, my daughter and I are opening day and we're hunting and I'm looking at the deer on the feeders and she's looking as well. She goes, "Dad there's a bear."

I go, "A bear?" She goes, "Yeah, there's a bear." I go, "Okay." I was trying to be quiet. About that time, the bear had walked out and stood up and put its hands on the feeder and kind of gave it a shook seeing if he could get any corn out of it. We don't have bears out in West Texas. It's not a thing. It went down and it took off. We got done hunting and we got back and started telling everybody about the bear that we saw. They kind of thought we were all crazy.

Anyways, we called the game warden for Sterling City and said, "Hey we saw this bear." He goes, "Hey, we've heard of people seeing it on their deer cameras and things, but nobody's actually seen it." So my daughter, that was one of her things, "Hey well I was the first one to see this." Ended up being a kind of a Mexican desert bear that came in from Mexico, travels through. Sometimes they stick around a little bit and then they take off.

We've even seen, Dean, when we lived up in East Windwell, there was a big pond there. One year I saw two Mexican wolves coming through. It was pretty interesting because they were hunting ducks and we were close to a duck pond there. Neighbors thought they were just large dogs. I go, "No, that's not a large dog, that's a wolf." That would have been scary for sure. Of course, around there there's Jones Forest where we lived. So you could easily see where these things were migrating to and from Mexico. So it's a real thing.

Dean Hulce: They didn't have to get checked at the border either. Just walk right through. Come on through the river, you got it. Well, I've raised my kids like you have. I've been at some churches and didn't turn mine off and had it go off when I was. So I really can't say much. Anyhow, I've raised my kids like that. I think there's no better. I will tell you a quick story. My granddaughter, who's now 15. She, when she was seven, Michigan removed their age restrictions on hunting. We used to have an age restriction of 14 to deer hunt.

So when she was seven, my son took her out and they get in the deer stand. Every time they get in the deer stand, the first thing they do before they load the gun, they pray together. They just said that God would that they'd have a great time together, that he be glorified. They got all done and they're seeing some deer. I just told my son, I said, "Let her shoot the first buck that comes out. Don't wait on a big buck, just let her shoot something that she wants." We don't trophy manage as much as Texas does on average.

All kinds of little bucks coming in. There was a big doe in the middle of this small alfalfa field and every time a buck would come out, she'd chase it off. A monster buck came out and she even chased that off. Couldn't get a shot. So she said, "Dad," they prayed about it again and said, "Dad, how big is the biggest buck you've ever shot?" He said, "11-point." She said, "Let's pray for a 12-point." We've never killed a 12-point buck on our leases in our camps ever, in South Dakota but not in Michigan.

Literally minutes later, a buck walks out. They think it's a 10-point. She shoots it, seven years old, dies in the field. Go down, "How many points do you think there are? There's 12 points on it." Our grandkids, my son and our grandkids, when they get in the blind, before they do anything, they pray. I think that's so important with our kids to teach first of all, to teach our kids to pray is important. I think to have a relationship with the Lord is so important.

The other thing we used to always pray and I did this, I was telling you I do some stuff with special needs kids. When we do things with special needs kids, lots of times the kids say, "Can we pray for a buck?" So we do and lots of times these kids in all different things, I mean from Down syndrome to terminally ill and everything in between, physical issues. Either they pray or I do. I always offer and they say they would and that's fine with me.

What we used to do is we'd get done, we'd kill an animal and we'd go about our way and we'd forget. We prayed about this. So we eventually I said, "Hey this is wrong. We just prayed for this and God supplied it." Now we kneel and I've got some great pictures of me with some kids kneeling with our hands on the deer and thanking the Lord because what great opportunities. We have such amazing opportunities. David, did you have a verse on that?

David Escabel: Yeah, I do. I think part of this whole hunting experience is also acknowledging that God created the wildlife, created the things that we get to enjoy. Then he gave man dominion over it. So we get the opportunity listening to you, Aaron, and to Dean, we get the opportunity to introduce our kids to a sport that we love and you're hopeful that they'll love the same thing. But what makes it common is having family time together.

I think that's what creates a bond of love. No TVs are on, no cell phones are on, no iPads are on. I think that's where we're missing opportunities to really spend quality time with our family. When I look at scripture verses, one of the scripture verses that always comes up is, "Train a child in the way they should go, and when he is old, he won't depart from it." That's under a biblical context. That's under a context of introducing our family to God.

But there's also it's also under a context of how they're wired. If they love music and you see that as a father, then you want them to gravitate towards that kind of wiring that they have, music. If it's hunting and the outdoors, man the minute we see that, we got to take time to introduce them to the outdoors and doing what you're doing, having a really nice place to hunt, a deer stand. All four of you being in the blind together, that's really cool. At times if you're really seriously hunting, you think I don't know if that's ever going to happen. But there's other times where you got to remember in your head that's not the important thing.

Dean Hulce: Well thank you guys, I appreciate it. We are going to sign off on the radio program now and we will hopefully have everybody join us next week as we travel down the trail to adventure in God's great outdoors.

Guest (Male): Everybody has a passion for something. It might be one of countless outdoor activities, but it might also be something like music, writing, or anything else. Whatever our passion, we have the opportunity to share that passion with others. When we make a connection with others through the interests that God provided, it opens a door for a special relationship.

We heard today how a passion for hunting draws a family closer together. In the Book of Proverbs, chapter 22, verse 6, we read the words, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it." These words are not about outdoors specifically. However, if we train up our children where we have a mutual passion for the outdoors and we bring the concepts of the love of God for us, this thought will continue with our children as they grow. They'll be more likely to not only understand the concept, but retain it as well. God created us that way.

We challenge you this week to spend some time with your children or grandchildren in God's great outdoors. Tell them about how the one that created all of this creation loves them in ways we can't even imagine. Then show them your love by making their interests your priority.

If you've enjoyed today's program and would like to hear the extended podcast version, you can find it by looking for Dean Hulce or Trail to Adventure wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. This program is provided by and can be contacted at God's Great Outdoors, P.O. Box 414, Powers, Michigan, 49874 or on the web, godsgr8outdoors.org. That's godsgr8outdoors.org. Thank you for joining us today as we shared the passion for the creation and the creator. Please join us every week as we'll travel again down the trail to adventure in God's great outdoors.