The Bone Collector on Turkey Calling, Red Dots and Why Hunters Are the Original Self Reliant Americans (w/ Michael Waddell)

In this episode of the Taking Aim podcast, host Rich Nance sits down with Michael Waddell known widely as the Bone Collector for one of the most wide ranging and genuinely entertaining conversations the show has produced. Michael opens up about growing up in Booger Bottom, Georgia, a place so rural and so authentically country that it shaped everything about who he became: the work ethic, the humility, the storytelling and the deep reverence for hunting, faith and the simple life. The two cover an enormous amount of ground together, starting with how Michael broke into the hunting industry by winning a turkey calling contest and eventually working his way up through guiding, running camera for Realtree and ultimately creating the Bone Collector brand and television show. Michael gets surprisingly deep on the philosophy of success — talking about how most people fail not because they tried and fell short but because they never tried at all, using vivid analogies from Blake Shelton moving to Nashville at 17 to Chipper Jones starting on a tee ball field — before pivoting to some of the most practical and entertaining turkey calling advice you will hear anywhere, including the unforgettable story of buying condoms at gas station vending machines as a kid just to cut them up and build mouth calls. The conversation also covers the transferable skills between tactical and hunting disciplines, the power of red dots for turkey hunting and shotguns generally, the role of technology in the modern outdoors, what it means to Michael to bring celebrities like Kirk Cameron and Theo Von into the hunting world and introduce them to a way of life that is about far more than killing animals — it is about self reliance protection provision and a connection to something real in a world that has largely lost it. Rich and Michael close out with a genuine and moving reflection on what it means to be a man in today's society and why the hunting community has something powerful to offer people who have never held a firearm or spent a morning in the woods.Follow Michael on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialbonecollector/Follow Rich Nance on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nance_training_consulting/ and https://www.instagram.com/rnancewartac/Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@AimpointUSAVisit: https://aimpoint.us/ to learn morePRODUCED BY IRONCLAD