Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan,
Speaker 1: and this week on the show, I'm joined by Terry
Speaker 1: Drewy to discuss his year's long journey dealing with buck fever,
Speaker 1: target panic, and arrant shots and how he's overcome these
Speaker 1: challenges to find deer hunting success. All right, welcome to
Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Life,
Speaker 1: and today we are wrapping up shooting month all July,
Speaker 1: we've been talking about how to become a more accurate
Speaker 1: and effective shot at deer, so that or whatever year
Speaker 1: this is that you're listening to, can be your best
Speaker 1: shooting year at her At least that's my goal for myself.
Speaker 1: I want this year to be my best shooting year ever.
Speaker 1: I want good, clean, perfect shots. I don't want any questions.
Speaker 1: I want to know exactly what happened. I want to
Speaker 1: know I was in control and that I put that
Speaker 1: arrow or that bullet where it's got to be. That's
Speaker 1: my goal. And so over these past few weeks, I've
Speaker 1: been talking all sorts of folks about how they do that.
Speaker 1: Some of the very best out there, some of the
Speaker 1: best Archer's, best gun hunters, best bow hunters, folks like
Speaker 1: Taylor Chamberlayne, Spencer new Hearth, Jordan's Siller's, Randy Almer, and
Speaker 1: this some really good stuff from guys who get it done.
Speaker 1: But I also thought it could be useful to learn
Speaker 1: and to hear from someone who has struggled, right because
Speaker 1: I struggle. I bet you've had struggles to whether that
Speaker 1: be with target panic or buck fever or whatever way
Speaker 1: you're shooting, mishaps show up. I'm sure you've had something happened.
Speaker 1: How do we deal with that? How do we deal
Speaker 1: with the tough times? How do we deal with the
Speaker 1: pressure and anxiety that comes from having a few bad
Speaker 1: hits or a miss? How do we move on from
Speaker 1: that and get better? I wanted to talk to someone
Speaker 1: who has really dealt with that and dealt with it
Speaker 1: in a big way and in a public way. And
Speaker 1: the best person I could think of was Mr Terry Drewy,
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Drewy Outdoors, an incredible
Speaker 1: deer hunter, a great guy, but someone who has, you know, publicly,
Speaker 1: you know, shown some of his mishaps. He's had plenty
Speaker 1: of misses and bad hits and things like that along
Speaker 1: the way that we've all been able to see on
Speaker 1: there are many many different shows and videos and films
Speaker 1: over the years. He's someone who has had to publicly
Speaker 1: deal with that and figure it out and get better
Speaker 1: and keep going. And I think there's a lot we
Speaker 1: can learn from him. And that's what we wanted to
Speaker 1: discuss today. And Terry was gracious enough find enough open
Speaker 1: enough to be willing to discuss this, Discuss some tough times,
Speaker 1: discuss some tough situations and how he's pushed through it
Speaker 1: and how he's gotten better. So if you have ever
Speaker 1: dealt with target, panic, with bad shots, with buck fever,
Speaker 1: with I don't know what you want to call it,
Speaker 1: but if you've ever struggled, I think you'll be able
Speaker 1: to relate to Terry, and I think you'll be able
Speaker 1: to learn something from this one. So I'm excited for
Speaker 1: you to listen, and I really do help that's going
Speaker 1: to help you out. So that's what's in store. I
Speaker 1: want to give you a couple of quick reminders though,
Speaker 1: before we get into this. Uh Number one, remember I
Speaker 1: told you guys last week that I'm coming up with weekly, sorry,
Speaker 1: monthly gear recommendations from the Meat Eater store. I've got
Speaker 1: those right now if you head to the wired hunt website.
Speaker 1: You can just go to wired hunt dot com or
Speaker 1: go to the meat Eater and navigate to the wired
Speaker 1: Hunt website. There you'll see my four shooting month recommendations.
Speaker 1: You've got to recommended target, recommended shirt for summertime shooting
Speaker 1: and scouting, all that, uh, recommended shooting bags if you're
Speaker 1: gonna be trying to sit in and shoot with your
Speaker 1: firearm here soon. And then finally, the Vortex Impact one
Speaker 1: thousand is fift off on our store right now. That
Speaker 1: was one of my recommendations too, so be sure to
Speaker 1: check that out. I'll continue throwing up some different ideas
Speaker 1: over the course of the season, uh, something that might
Speaker 1: be helpful if you're in the market for any of
Speaker 1: those things. So that is one reminder. The other thing
Speaker 1: heading over to Instagram and follow me at wired hunt
Speaker 1: if you want to see what's going on in my world.
Speaker 1: Because I really start doubling down on preparations for this
Speaker 1: upcoming white tail season and I've even started TikTok. I
Speaker 1: don't really like TikTok, but you've got to be there,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna be posting more on there as well.
Speaker 1: So if you are a TikTok or look for Mark
Speaker 1: Kenyon on there and you will be able to follow
Speaker 1: along with some of my video exploits that I'll be
Speaker 1: sharing this coming season two. So holy smokes, guys, it's
Speaker 1: almost the end of summer hunting seasons almost here. So
Speaker 1: I really hope you're out there shooting, and I hope
Speaker 1: my conversation with Terry Drewy can help you as you
Speaker 1: do that. So without further ado, let's get into it
Speaker 1: all right with me back on the show. Is Mr
Speaker 1: Terry Drewy himself. Terry, welcome back. Well, thank you, Mark.
Speaker 1: I always enjoy this. You and I don't get to
Speaker 1: catch up near often enough, so I'm looking forward to
Speaker 1: speaking to you about a number of different topics. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too, I really appreciate it. I always enjoy our
Speaker 1: our catchups as well, and and this one, Terry is
Speaker 1: going to be I think, particularly helpful, but also a
Speaker 1: little bit of a doozy, So I hope you'll I
Speaker 1: hope you'll bear with me on this topic today. But
Speaker 1: it's a It's a personal topic for me as well,
Speaker 1: because we're we're in the midst of shooting month here
Speaker 1: on the podcast, and I'm doing this because I have
Speaker 1: kind of been going through a rough shooting spell myself,
Speaker 1: had one of my worst seasons last year that I
Speaker 1: can remember umber um and have kind of shared the
Speaker 1: publicly what's gone right, what's gone wrong, And coming out
Speaker 1: of a number of misses and bad hits last year,
Speaker 1: I decided that my really, my main goal in two
Speaker 1: is just shooting, just getting better. Like I don't I
Speaker 1: don't care if I shoot three bucks or a big
Speaker 1: buck or that one buck. I don't care about any
Speaker 1: of that this year. I just want to have good shots.
Speaker 1: If that means I shoot one dough perfectly, that would
Speaker 1: be a success for me this year. So that is
Speaker 1: why this whole month has been focused on this topic
Speaker 1: and hopefully helping all other people in the same boat.
Speaker 1: And I got to thinking the way we should wrap
Speaker 1: this series is with someone who has struggled with the
Speaker 1: same things that I've struggled with and and worked through it.
Speaker 1: And you tell me if I'm right about this, But
Speaker 1: from stuff I've seen in her, seems like you've had
Speaker 1: your share struggles when it comes to shooting too. Is
Speaker 1: that Is that an accurate assessment? You know why it
Speaker 1: appears that way because they know all of my mishaps,
Speaker 1: but they never show any marks that there's some truth
Speaker 1: in that. Really. But with that being said, absolutely, you know,
Speaker 1: and the way I look at that mark's I've never
Speaker 1: ever been been embarrassed to say, hey, I met an
Speaker 1: errand shot, or I had a difficulty making a shot,
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. Because if you've hunted any
Speaker 1: length of time at all, you're gonna go through some
Speaker 1: of those ups and downs. Not everyone is perfect. Now.
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of guys out there that
Speaker 1: think they're perfect, but it don't always work like that.
Speaker 1: And karma. Karma is a bit if you will because
Speaker 1: it will it will come back and bite you in
Speaker 1: the tail end. We've had those ups and downs and
Speaker 1: just about time you think you're getting really, really good
Speaker 1: at it, mother nature has a way of stumbling you.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, the deer doesn't always read the script.
Speaker 1: So we we try to always show what's happening in
Speaker 1: real life, and we want to make sure that everybody
Speaker 1: understands that it's easy to critique someone else, you know,
Speaker 1: to sit back at an armchair and say, man, that
Speaker 1: was a bad shot, or he made an errand shot.
Speaker 1: But it's unless you're in that position and you're standing
Speaker 1: in those boots. Sometimes it's it's easy to critique, it's
Speaker 1: another thing to make make that shot. And and I'm
Speaker 1: not embarrassed at all to say we we've had our
Speaker 1: our difficulties, We've had our ups and downs. Yeah, was
Speaker 1: it a was it a like what am I trying
Speaker 1: to say here? What was it tempting to hide some
Speaker 1: of those things and to not show them at all?
Speaker 1: And then did you make like an active decision to say,
Speaker 1: you know what. I know people are gonna give me
Speaker 1: a hard time about this. I know I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: some crap, but I think it's actually helpful for people.
Speaker 1: I mean, was that a thing that you had to
Speaker 1: talk about and think about over the years. Absolutely. You know,
Speaker 1: when you're younger and you're just getting into the sport
Speaker 1: and and you're in front of a camera, there's sometimes
Speaker 1: there's an added pressure on you that you don't you
Speaker 1: don't even think about. And if you're by yourself and
Speaker 1: you're hunting in the timber and you you launch an
Speaker 1: arrow and you missed the deer, you shoot under his
Speaker 1: belly or over his back. Nobody knows about it, nor
Speaker 1: do you have to tell anyone. With us, everybody knows
Speaker 1: about it and there is no hiding. So yes, there
Speaker 1: were times where you didn't want to show it because
Speaker 1: your pride and your ego and everything gets in the way,
Speaker 1: particularly if you're an archer. I mean, that's the pride
Speaker 1: is making the perfect shot each and every time, and
Speaker 1: from an ethical standpoint, that's exactly why we're there. We're
Speaker 1: wanting to make that double long or heart shot each
Speaker 1: and every shot. You want, you know, pinpoint accuracy. But
Speaker 1: it doesn't always happen that way. And you know, whether
Speaker 1: you drop your bow arm, or whether you anchored incorrectly,
Speaker 1: or whether your your stance wasn't correct. Some of those
Speaker 1: things happened in the heat of the moment, and the
Speaker 1: last thing you want to do is share it with
Speaker 1: somebody in and show that you're not as good as
Speaker 1: you would like to be. And will your pride really
Speaker 1: really gets hurt, It gets bruised, your ego gets bruised
Speaker 1: early on, and then after you've been through the motions
Speaker 1: for many many decades, you're okay with saying, you know what,
Speaker 1: I've killed several hundred deer and I've made great shots
Speaker 1: on a lot of them. But once in a while,
Speaker 1: things happen, and you've got to share it so that
Speaker 1: other people can understand they're not alone, They're not the
Speaker 1: only one that has issues and has problems, uh, and
Speaker 1: being willing to share and hopefully someone else will learn
Speaker 1: from your mistakes. That's really what we've always been all about,
Speaker 1: was making sure that somebody else could learn by one
Speaker 1: of our mistakes. Yeah. So, speaking of bruised pride, and
Speaker 1: I hate to do this, but can we dig up
Speaker 1: some skeletons from the closet or some long lost memories
Speaker 1: that you may be shoved away and hoped not to
Speaker 1: have to think back on, Terry? Is there is there
Speaker 1: any errant's shot, any mistake, any situation like this that
Speaker 1: stands out over your decades hunting as the most painful,
Speaker 1: or the most eye opening, or the most impactful in
Speaker 1: some way? Was Is there any one story that you
Speaker 1: can think back on that sticks out to you still
Speaker 1: for any one reason or another how much time you've
Speaker 1: got there. There are a couple Mr. Christmas was one
Speaker 1: in particular that was a dear that I was really
Speaker 1: really really hunting for several years, and he was a
Speaker 1: big deer. He was a two hundy and and UH
Speaker 1: shot over him and just didn't get him dead. Rushed
Speaker 1: the shot. A doe was uh in front of him,
Speaker 1: and she squirted on past this, you know, and as
Speaker 1: she squirted on past, and he squirted on past and
Speaker 1: stopping him and then not settling in and rushing the
Speaker 1: shot just cost me a really really big deer. Uh.
Speaker 1: And within five minutes after that, I killed another really
Speaker 1: nice dear that was following him. But that wasn't exactly
Speaker 1: the script, you know. I wanted to kill Mr Christmas
Speaker 1: and had dedicated a lot of years to killing him,
Speaker 1: and so that was that was the maybe the first
Speaker 1: and foremost that comes to mind. Another one was a giant,
Speaker 1: giant eight point over in Pike County, Illinois that a
Speaker 1: neighbor ended up killing the following year. And I think
Speaker 1: he was in the one eighties as a as an
Speaker 1: eight the year that I steam, I think he was
Speaker 1: in the high sixties, low seventies. But there too, Uh,
Speaker 1: I knew who he was and got rattled and shot
Speaker 1: over the top of him body. I didn't settle in
Speaker 1: like I should have rushed the shot. You always feel
Speaker 1: like there's not enough time to settle and oftentimes there
Speaker 1: isn't much time to settle it depending on where you're
Speaker 1: hunting and how skittish the deer are and whether they
Speaker 1: typically moved during daylight or not. Uh, some of those
Speaker 1: elements all factor into it, and particularly if it's a
Speaker 1: deer you know, when you're after mantle man, it's it's
Speaker 1: hard to settle in sometimes. Yeah. So, if you were
Speaker 1: to look back over your your journey as a deer
Speaker 1: hunter and think through all the ups and downs, is
Speaker 1: there a period of your hunting career where you had
Speaker 1: the worst struggles? Like, is there a period like this
Speaker 1: was your low point? Where you had a year or
Speaker 1: five years or a chunk of time where you really
Speaker 1: struggled and then you came out of it or you've
Speaker 1: improved a little bit. Does any kind of time period
Speaker 1: stand out is like, oh, this was the worst of
Speaker 1: this and there was I guess what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: get at as I'm curious to understand that what did
Speaker 1: the lowest point look like? For you? Like, what what
Speaker 1: did those struggles look like what was going wrong? Um,
Speaker 1: how did you diagnose that low point? If there is,
Speaker 1: maybe there's just spreadic little bits over the whole time.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what it was for you, But does
Speaker 1: anything like that stand out? Oh yeah, I lasted about
Speaker 1: a decade if I remember you, No, it was I
Speaker 1: went through one season that I can remember that what
Speaker 1: I had target panic so bad, and and it was
Speaker 1: from shooting a lot. I guess. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you can get target panic after you've been shooting for
Speaker 1: twenty five or thirty years, but I did. I went
Speaker 1: through a season and man, oh man, it was. It
Speaker 1: was the dold rooms. I just could not get out
Speaker 1: of it. And uh, you know, I talked to, uh
Speaker 1: some of the best archers in the world and different
Speaker 1: professionals on how do you get over or get rid
Speaker 1: of target panic? And it's a mind I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. There's some trigger in your brain. But
Speaker 1: the moment that that that target came in to view, man,
Speaker 1: you were launching the trigger and it just everybody tried
Speaker 1: different you know, tried different releases and this, that and
Speaker 1: the other, and and uh, I finally ended up shooting
Speaker 1: my way through it. But boy, oh boy, I had
Speaker 1: to shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot and shoot.
Speaker 1: And I was I'm so hardheaded, number one, and and
Speaker 1: determined that I wasn't about to let it get the
Speaker 1: best of me. And I just kept kept plugging and
Speaker 1: kept shooting and grinding and scratching and clawing. And I'm
Speaker 1: talking thousands of rounds through bow. Now. It took me
Speaker 1: a while to get over it, but I finally get
Speaker 1: through it. And I don't know what causes it, nor
Speaker 1: do I have any resolution for anyone in the future,
Speaker 1: because it's something that everybody's got a different way to
Speaker 1: get over it and get past it. And uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know what works for any individual that that I
Speaker 1: can relate to and say, hey, here's here's how to
Speaker 1: get over it. There's just no answer. But the only
Speaker 1: way I can tell you I literally shot until I
Speaker 1: wore myself out, and I shot my way through it.
Speaker 1: And was that just shooting in the backyard or did
Speaker 1: you do any higher stakes? I mean, I know one
Speaker 1: thing people talk about is try to practice more and
Speaker 1: shoot more in high pressure situations, so you're at least
Speaker 1: learning how to better handle that. I mean, was there
Speaker 1: some element to that. Did you shoot with friends, you
Speaker 1: shoot tournaments? Did you Was it just shooting more deer
Speaker 1: and just shooting lots of doughs like I know you
Speaker 1: do on your Missouri farm. Does that help at all?
Speaker 1: This majority of it was during the summer months, so
Speaker 1: I was I was shooting a lot of flat footed
Speaker 1: there in the driveway, and I have a you know,
Speaker 1: I had a tree stand on the side of a tree,
Speaker 1: and I'd be three foot up, six foot up whatever
Speaker 1: and shooting out of a tree stand. Sometimes I'd get to,
Speaker 1: you know, get the targets out and have the deer
Speaker 1: in the yard. And I went through all that. I
Speaker 1: tried it all. I tried all those methods, and there
Speaker 1: wasn't much helping, to be quite honest, But I ended
Speaker 1: up just plugging at a target and I just continued plugging.
Speaker 1: One of the one of the the guys, one of
Speaker 1: the professional archer, said, hey, shooting a pipe played a
Speaker 1: bigger shoot a bigger target. Don't try and shoot at
Speaker 1: something so small. And then another guy said shoot with
Speaker 1: your eyes closed, and this, that and the other. So
Speaker 1: I did. I did all that, but at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, I just kept shooting and kept shooting
Speaker 1: and kept shooting. Most of that was flat footed on
Speaker 1: the driveway until I finally worked my way through it.
Speaker 1: And it was just a matter of settling in and
Speaker 1: not not never putting my finger on the trigger, if
Speaker 1: you will. A lot of guys use back tension and
Speaker 1: so and so forth, but they say that that will
Speaker 1: cure it as well, or some release. But I just
Speaker 1: I would draw and hold on and just look at
Speaker 1: the target and not and not not punch it, not
Speaker 1: ever released the trigger, never released the arrow. And I
Speaker 1: just did that over and over and over one thousand one,
Speaker 1: one thousand two, one thousand three, you know, and those
Speaker 1: little tricks. But boh boy, it was painful. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: I can relate. I mean, that's that's been exactly my issue.
Speaker 1: As soon as that pins on the vital area, I
Speaker 1: it's it's gone. The arrow has just been off. I've
Speaker 1: I've had a hard time holding on and taking those
Speaker 1: extra seconds. So I'm dealing with the same thing right
Speaker 1: now myself and thinking, I think it's getting better with
Speaker 1: my new regimen this year. But you know that's all
Speaker 1: going to be tested here in a month or two
Speaker 1: once the season starts. So what s Mark? I will
Speaker 1: say that shooting those doughes makes a big, big difference.
Speaker 1: I I will admit, and I shoot a lot of them,
Speaker 1: trust me. But it does help. It really does help
Speaker 1: if you get a dough at ten or twelve yards,
Speaker 1: or you get one of fifteen yards and you know
Speaker 1: she's dead when she walks in there, and you can
Speaker 1: settle in uh and take your time, or just come
Speaker 1: to full draw and don't shoot. That's that's another option.
Speaker 1: It's come to full draw and just do not shoot.
Speaker 1: Never never shoot the deer, release or lay back, you know,
Speaker 1: let back down. Those those little tricks actually work about
Speaker 1: as well as anything, to be quite honest. Um So,
Speaker 1: speaking of that, then when you have a situation like that,
Speaker 1: a doze coming in, or any deer for that matter,
Speaker 1: what does your shop process look like now now that
Speaker 1: you've you've been practicing to get through that target pant,
Speaker 1: to be able to hold onto the arrow without releasing
Speaker 1: it too soon? Like? What does your whole process from
Speaker 1: beginning to end look like? As as a deer's coming
Speaker 1: into range and you realize in your head, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna shoot this deer. What what are the steps that
Speaker 1: follow my my primary number one focus is either broad
Speaker 1: or quartering away. So I'm gonna wait and wait and
Speaker 1: wait and wait until she gives you the shot. And
Speaker 1: Mark Mark was really Mark Drury was the one that
Speaker 1: uh instilled this in both of us many many years ago.
Speaker 1: And that's not coming to full draw until you're ready
Speaker 1: to shoot him. So that's a big, big plus. When
Speaker 1: she gets either broad or quartering away, meaning they're coming
Speaker 1: right at you, just let them walk past you or
Speaker 1: let him get broadside and then come to full draw.
Speaker 1: I see it all the time where guys get hung
Speaker 1: out to dry and they take a quartering two shot
Speaker 1: because they draw too soon. And I'd say that's probably
Speaker 1: the number one mistake that most people make, and we
Speaker 1: used to make it as well. I did it many
Speaker 1: many many decades ago, where I I just couldn't wait
Speaker 1: to get full draw. Well, the trick is not coming
Speaker 1: to full draw until you're ready to kill them. And
Speaker 1: you're ready to kill them when you know they're in
Speaker 1: your round house and you go, okay, dead, Well, what
Speaker 1: is that? That's maybe thirty yards for some guys, might
Speaker 1: be forty yards for others, maybe twenty yards. The older
Speaker 1: I get in the less pound edge I pull. I
Speaker 1: want that circle to be pretty dog on, small, pretty tight,
Speaker 1: and when they get into under twenty, you go okay dead.
Speaker 1: So now then the next step is go, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna wait till they're broad and you know, when they're feeding,
Speaker 1: if it's early season or late season, they're feeding, they're
Speaker 1: going to give you a shot. You just have to
Speaker 1: be patient. And sometimes it takes a little while before
Speaker 1: they you know, their noses down and they're eating clover
Speaker 1: or or they might be in soybeans or whatever, but
Speaker 1: they're eventually going to give you a great shot a broadside.
Speaker 1: So there then the patients comes into effect. And I'm
Speaker 1: always looking forward. If I'm in the timber, I'm looking
Speaker 1: ahead at these openings. Where is my next window? Where
Speaker 1: can I draw? And then where am I gonna shoot?
Speaker 1: You know, So there's a whole regiment of things that
Speaker 1: you go through in your brain, But in the timber,
Speaker 1: I'm always looking ahead as to where I'm gonna kill
Speaker 1: the deer. At Okay, now that deer steps into that
Speaker 1: lane or it stops, gives you that broadside, and now
Speaker 1: you're gonna draw your bow. Can you can you walk
Speaker 1: me through what goes through your mind, as the as
Speaker 1: the bow is drawn, as you settle in, as you
Speaker 1: do all the different things. Could you walk me through
Speaker 1: each piece of that well. Number One, I draw flat,
Speaker 1: meaning I draw a level to make sure because I
Speaker 1: practice on a flat surface typically, and then I'll get
Speaker 1: to an elevated position. But typically I draw a level
Speaker 1: so that my anchor is correct. I try to always
Speaker 1: draw my bow flat and level so that I anchor
Speaker 1: at the exact same spot. And then when I've been
Speaker 1: I try to bend at the waist, which you're supposed
Speaker 1: to do, but I don't change my anchor point. That
Speaker 1: always stays in the exact same spot, and and you
Speaker 1: kind of know the yard if once they get within twenty,
Speaker 1: I always like to say, hey, I can shoot out
Speaker 1: the thirty with top pin. If you're only shooting one
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys you're using a h k
Speaker 1: S where they have to dial them in. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, these new bows nowadays shoot relatively flat
Speaker 1: if you're pulling any poundage at all, and most guys
Speaker 1: can shoot one pin at the thirty yards, so if
Speaker 1: they get under thirty, you're usually pretty dog on safe
Speaker 1: in your you know, in your positioning. So once they
Speaker 1: get in that roundhouse, I make sure that I draw level,
Speaker 1: I make sure that I anchor correctly, I've bend at
Speaker 1: the waist, and then you just try to settle that
Speaker 1: pin the best you can. Behind the shoulder are depending
Speaker 1: on a high long low long, depending on how close
Speaker 1: they are. You're looking at that window, and then I'm
Speaker 1: always looking at the off leg always, because the off
Speaker 1: leg will tell you if they're slightly quattering too, or
Speaker 1: they're slightly quattering away. Sometimes you get lost in the
Speaker 1: shuffle or you can't see the farest through the trees
Speaker 1: because your eyes roll back in your head, particularly if
Speaker 1: if it's a big buck with a big rack sitting
Speaker 1: on his head and you lose track of where his
Speaker 1: shoulders are at. So watch for that off shoulder in
Speaker 1: lieu of the on shoulder, and that will always tell
Speaker 1: you if he's quartering two or quartering away. What about
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned, you know, working through target panic
Speaker 1: and learning to hold on without firing the arrow, But
Speaker 1: what about just simple buck fever and nerves? Uh? Does that?
Speaker 1: Do you? Do? You still get impacted with that kind
Speaker 1: of thing? Absolutely? Absolutely? I get his rattled on a
Speaker 1: dough an adult dough as I do a buck. I
Speaker 1: don't know why, but I just do because I know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna killer. I guess number one. But I still
Speaker 1: get extremely nervous on on an adult dough and in
Speaker 1: the same way with a buck, And I guess the
Speaker 1: day I lose, that will be the day I quit. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're a little better now, and the fact with with
Speaker 1: you know, trail cameras and the way they've advanced. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I don't know that we've ever shot a deer here
Speaker 1: on my farm that we didn't know. But sometimes if
Speaker 1: you know him, it's a little worse than if you
Speaker 1: didn't know him. You know, you get you still get rattled,
Speaker 1: particularly if you if you had an idea who it
Speaker 1: was and you've been hunting four or five years and
Speaker 1: you're finally going to get an opportunity. The last thing
Speaker 1: you want to do is screw it up. So that's
Speaker 1: always that's always an issue. You know, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna back up one second on a deer. You you
Speaker 1: mentioned a deer and I didn't. I didn't release an
Speaker 1: arrow at this year, but it's one I will never
Speaker 1: ever get back. And it was a monster up on
Speaker 1: Marx Farm in Iowa. Was both hunting up there and
Speaker 1: uh it was baby G and H and deer ended
Speaker 1: up the neighbor ended up killing him. But I came
Speaker 1: to full draw on him and I couldn't at that time.
Speaker 1: I didn't have lighted pins. I couldn't see, and uh,
Speaker 1: I got within like thirty and then he got seven
Speaker 1: and then and to make a long story sharp, I
Speaker 1: came to full draw twice on him. I came to
Speaker 1: full draw, I couldn't see my pins. I let down.
Speaker 1: I pulled back again, trying to find and I took
Speaker 1: my pins above his back, trying to come back down
Speaker 1: and see his vitals. And I just couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: I couldn't see him, and it wasn't all that dark,
Speaker 1: but it was dark enough. I could not put a
Speaker 1: pin on him exactly for yardage and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth, so I had to let him walk away.
Speaker 1: I never released an arrow, but that was one I
Speaker 1: would I would love to have back. Now, when you
Speaker 1: look at that one, though, do you what's your takeaway
Speaker 1: lesson from that? Do you look at that as like, oh,
Speaker 1: that was I should have found a way to take
Speaker 1: that shot, or as part of you glad you didn't
Speaker 1: because it might have resulted in a bad shot because
Speaker 1: of the bad lighting. Well, I will say this, it's
Speaker 1: the perils of filming and having having a cameraman with you.
Speaker 1: We weren't communicating real well, and I wasn't certain whether
Speaker 1: he could see him and when he was on him,
Speaker 1: and this, that and the other. So I was literally
Speaker 1: turning around and say, Ryan, you got to tell me,
Speaker 1: are you on this deer or not? So I was
Speaker 1: more worried about the footage, and I should have been
Speaker 1: worried about killing the deer in all reality, So I
Speaker 1: kind of let him get in and get out by
Speaker 1: worrying whether or not he had the footage of the deer.
Speaker 1: Come to find out, he had him full frame. But
Speaker 1: I wish he'd have said something like I'm on him.
Speaker 1: So if I'd have known that he was on him,
Speaker 1: the outcome may have been different. But I can't say
Speaker 1: that for sure. But um, I can't help but think
Speaker 1: if all I was worried about was killing him, a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance i'd have got an arrow in him,
Speaker 1: you know, because I would have just concentrated a little harder.
Speaker 1: I've had a little more time to get the pins
Speaker 1: above his back and bring it down into his vitals,
Speaker 1: and this, that and the other thing. But there was
Speaker 1: more to it than just him. It brings up, though,
Speaker 1: an important topic. I think, at least something I've found
Speaker 1: and you alluded to this already, but just how much
Speaker 1: build up there is to these encounters and so much
Speaker 1: pressure we put on ourselves because we want this deer
Speaker 1: so bad, whether it's because we've hunted this same buck
Speaker 1: for four years or just because we we have worked
Speaker 1: so hard this summer and fall and we've sat fifteen
Speaker 1: straight days or whatever it is. When that opportunity finally
Speaker 1: does come, it seems it seems like life or death
Speaker 1: for you, like you have to get this shot. At
Speaker 1: least that's how it felt for me. I've had moments
Speaker 1: where it seems like I've given every single ounce of energy, blood, sweat,
Speaker 1: and tears to get to this moment, and then here's
Speaker 1: this buck coming in. And you know, there's one story
Speaker 1: I can think of from two or three years ago,
Speaker 1: maybe two years ago, where the buck had have been
Speaker 1: after for three years. You know, finally it's coming into
Speaker 1: bow range, but he's back in this brush and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find some little hole, and I've realized that
Speaker 1: if I kind of half kneeled down, there's like a
Speaker 1: softball size hole, and I'm leaning over and bending down,
Speaker 1: and in that crazy high stakes moment, it seemed to
Speaker 1: my head that I had to try. And then you know,
Speaker 1: right afterwards, I forced this horrible shop and missed the buck.
Speaker 1: And then after that you realize, you know, what a
Speaker 1: stupid thing to do. Um, why would I have done that?
Speaker 1: It could have been worse. I could have wounded him,
Speaker 1: I could have never found him. Um, so at least
Speaker 1: I missed. But have you ever had situations like that too,
Speaker 1: where you force something because of that high pressure and
Speaker 1: then you realize, wow, you know it would have been
Speaker 1: so much better to just hold onto that arrow because
Speaker 1: of how much how how bad end up getting or
Speaker 1: how much worse it could have been. Or is that
Speaker 1: a thing you've dealt with too? Yes? And I would
Speaker 1: say that earlier in our career we probably forced some
Speaker 1: errand shots that we should never have taken. And I
Speaker 1: think some of that comes with experience, Meaning if you're
Speaker 1: a novice archer, it's easy to make those mistakes and
Speaker 1: wish that you had and you always you can never
Speaker 1: get the arrow back. But boy, when you when you
Speaker 1: let it go, you go, oh my god, why did
Speaker 1: I do? Why did I shoot there? That was so stupid.
Speaker 1: And I think as an ovous hunter, it's easy to
Speaker 1: do that, and experience will will sometimes rectify that or
Speaker 1: cure that. But it takes a lot of archery shots
Speaker 1: and a lot of deer on the ground to get
Speaker 1: to get past that, and experience sure makes a difference.
Speaker 1: But yes, in answer to question, we certainly have done that.
Speaker 1: The big deer that I was talking about, while it
Speaker 1: goes to clarify that number one, I was hunting on
Speaker 1: Mark's farm and I knew the deer. I knew exactly
Speaker 1: who he was, and I knew how big he was,
Speaker 1: and I just didn't want to screw it up or anything.
Speaker 1: I wanted to make sure that if I released an
Speaker 1: arrow at this year, he was dead. That was my
Speaker 1: number one concern was making sure that I killed him.
Speaker 1: And you know, when we when I wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to the camera guy and I said, if you're on him,
Speaker 1: you need to tell me or you on him or not.
Speaker 1: You know, I was turned around looking at him, and
Speaker 1: I let you get in on us. Make a scrape,
Speaker 1: and the footage is really good. I just wish he'd
Speaker 1: communicated a little sooner, and and I wasn't about to
Speaker 1: screw it up. So I literally let him, let him
Speaker 1: get his butt to me, and just walk dead away.
Speaker 1: And I never never released an arrow, But that was
Speaker 1: one that I wish I could have back, but one
Speaker 1: I can say I was proud I didn't. I didn't
Speaker 1: mess it up either. You know. Yeah, that seems like,
Speaker 1: like you said, one of those kinds of realizations that
Speaker 1: probably comes with time and experience, that realizing sometimes the
Speaker 1: best shot is the shot never taken. Um. It's a
Speaker 1: hard pill to swallow, I imagine in a lot of cases,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it's the right call. Um I had. I
Speaker 1: had one guy, a buddy of ours, it just happens
Speaker 1: to be a PBR bull rider, and he called me
Speaker 1: and literally tongue lashed me over the phone, saying, what
Speaker 1: were you thinking? Why didn't you shoot that deer? You know,
Speaker 1: after he saw the footage, he is really all over me.
Speaker 1: So I probably should have. I could have. I still
Speaker 1: should have maybe, But you know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: one of those damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Speaker 1: Kind of thing. So so back to being you know
Speaker 1: in that shot sequence, Um you mentioned you still get rattled,
Speaker 1: you still get excited. Um, what do you do now
Speaker 1: to try to control that? How do you try to
Speaker 1: control buck fever? Like in the field? Is it talking
Speaker 1: to yourself breathing? Is there is there any little trick
Speaker 1: or method you have to try to center yourself, calm yourself,
Speaker 1: get control of yourself in that moment. I truly believe
Speaker 1: at late season in early season, those two where you
Speaker 1: know the deer are going to be moving a little
Speaker 1: bit slower kind of helps that process because you've got
Speaker 1: a little more time to lay an eyeball on them,
Speaker 1: You've got a little more time to process the shot,
Speaker 1: You've got a little more time to settle in when
Speaker 1: they're not running rampant through the timber like you might
Speaker 1: see during the rut. So I think given the time
Speaker 1: to settle down and settle calm your nerves just a
Speaker 1: little bit, and breathe if you will. A lot of
Speaker 1: the baseball players all say that you've got to breathe.
Speaker 1: You know, Jim Tolmy one of the greatest home run
Speaker 1: hinters of all time. It is tremendous at settling in
Speaker 1: and settling down and preparing for a shot. But he's
Speaker 1: been on some of the biggest stages, you know, throughout
Speaker 1: his career. And that's what majority of those guys will
Speaker 1: tell you. It's it's just take time to breathe now
Speaker 1: easier said than done. You might be breathing at five
Speaker 1: beats a minute, you know. But and some guys may
Speaker 1: never get over it. I've seen them all, And I
Speaker 1: mean we've watched some really really a good big buck
Speaker 1: hunters that that can make that shot with nerves of
Speaker 1: steel and ice water in your veins and then fall
Speaker 1: apart after the shot, you know. So I wished I
Speaker 1: had that ability. I would much rather have ice water
Speaker 1: in my veins and fall apart after the shot than
Speaker 1: fall apart before the shot. Yeah, for sure. So when
Speaker 1: you when a shot goes bad for you now right,
Speaker 1: I know, like you dealt with a series of really
Speaker 1: really significant struggles, but I know stuff still has gone
Speaker 1: wrong in more recent years. What's is there any common
Speaker 1: um common factor nowadays? If, for example, I remember there's
Speaker 1: a hunt a few years ago that buck dangerous calling,
Speaker 1: Is there any kind of thing you can point your
Speaker 1: finger to now, like if something goes wrong. It's this
Speaker 1: kind of thing these days. Is it random one off
Speaker 1: things or is it a buck fever moments? Still, what
Speaker 1: what's your situation today? I guess is what I'm getting at.
Speaker 1: You know, that one's a really really good point, And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you why I was hunting there too. I
Speaker 1: was hunting on Mark's farm and I was in a
Speaker 1: blind that I had never sat before, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: comfortable sitting down or standing up. There was no in between,
Speaker 1: nor could I kneel down and get over the window.
Speaker 1: So there was one instance where everybody kind of you know,
Speaker 1: gives you a hard time about hunting out of a blind.
Speaker 1: It's not easy shooting through a window. It just isn't.
Speaker 1: Anybody that thinks it is needs to cut a hole
Speaker 1: in a in a cardboard box and try shooting through
Speaker 1: it at different different positions. It just isn't that easy.
Speaker 1: So I wished i'd have been a little more prepared
Speaker 1: and went into that blind sooner and figured out how
Speaker 1: high I needed to be or how low I needed
Speaker 1: to be. And it was partially from being my fault
Speaker 1: for not being prepared. So I was in between. I
Speaker 1: was crouching and you know, trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: I didn't hit a window with a fletching or hit
Speaker 1: it with your other thing you gotta worry about is
Speaker 1: hitting it with your limbs, on your bow or your cam.
Speaker 1: And I was in a really really awkward position. I
Speaker 1: wish I could do that one over again as well.
Speaker 1: It was just uh, not being prepared and either standing up,
Speaker 1: sitting down, or kneeling down if there was no I
Speaker 1: was in between all of that. I was crouched halfway
Speaker 1: down and had a terrible anchor terrible anchor point. You
Speaker 1: might draw a flat but when you're crouching halfway down
Speaker 1: and you're you know, it just wasn't I didn't feel good.
Speaker 1: I should probably have never taken the shot. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: looked like a tough situation. Um so, so then tell
Speaker 1: me this, how do you handle the moments or in
Speaker 1: some cases, the days after a bad situation like that?
Speaker 1: Because I know some people will miss a deer and
Speaker 1: then you know, it breaks them and for days they're
Speaker 1: so bummed out about it, or they hit a deer
Speaker 1: and they can't recover it and they want to they're
Speaker 1: done for the year, or they're depressed for a week.
Speaker 1: How do you handle those situations, How do you get
Speaker 1: yourself out of it? How do you get your head
Speaker 1: right again? That's one of the toughest things on the
Speaker 1: planet as an archer. I'll be honest you and I
Speaker 1: don't know that you ever truly get over those because
Speaker 1: we talked about pride and ego, and your your ego
Speaker 1: is hurt, itself inflicted and the only person you could
Speaker 1: blame is yourself. And man, oh man, those are really
Speaker 1: really tough pills to swallow, and I don't know that
Speaker 1: you ever truly get over it. Here we are talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, the hunts that happened decades ago. So it's
Speaker 1: it's one of those things you never quite get over.
Speaker 1: You always want to improve, and as an ethical archer
Speaker 1: or an ethical firearms hunter, you want to make the
Speaker 1: perfect shot each and every time, and the last thing
Speaker 1: you want to do is injured deer. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I don't know, I I some of you just never
Speaker 1: get over. But it's the old adage. You've got to
Speaker 1: get back on the horse and ride it. But you
Speaker 1: tuck that away in your mind and you go, how
Speaker 1: can I learn from it? How can I improve? How
Speaker 1: can I be a better hunter? How can I be
Speaker 1: a better shot? And what do I need to go through?
Speaker 1: What steps? What regimen do I need to go through
Speaker 1: to make sure that doesn't happen again? And that's the
Speaker 1: only or the best advice I can give is to say,
Speaker 1: get back on the horse and and play that that
Speaker 1: scenario over in your mind, over and over and over.
Speaker 1: How do I fix it? How can I get better? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Do you have any and I guess filming helps with this,
Speaker 1: but have you have you learned anything or do you
Speaker 1: have any process for kind of analyzing a shot, like
Speaker 1: diagnosing what went wrong? Because that for me, it's always
Speaker 1: been so hard to look back and try to identify,
Speaker 1: you know, where did I go wrong? Especially since in
Speaker 1: many of these cases I guess, I guess I do
Speaker 1: know where it went wrong because I was rushing and
Speaker 1: rushing so much that I can't remember where the problem was.
Speaker 1: But but but for you, how do you go about
Speaker 1: trying to analyze what happened? Here? Where is my mistake?
Speaker 1: How do I get better? Like? What does that look like?
Speaker 1: In the details? For you? You know, as readily available
Speaker 1: as you can lay something down on your phone nowadays,
Speaker 1: the best scenario you can possibly give yourself is to
Speaker 1: film yourself shooting out in your backyard and go through
Speaker 1: the motions and just see or have someone film you.
Speaker 1: But that is probably the best advice I can give.
Speaker 1: And we do have the luxury of having a cameraman,
Speaker 1: uh so we can SlowMo and watch every single thing.
Speaker 1: Oh I didn't anchor correctly, or you know what I
Speaker 1: didn't Uh I didn't follow through, or oh I dropped
Speaker 1: my bow arm. You know, oftentimes the deer so close
Speaker 1: that you think it's a chip shot. First thing you
Speaker 1: do is releasing. You're looking before the arrows barely out
Speaker 1: of the you know, at the riser, so it's easy
Speaker 1: to drop your bo arm and not follow through. So
Speaker 1: you know, obviously practice makes perfect. Pete Shepley with PSC
Speaker 1: used to say, you know, that's an adage, he goes,
Speaker 1: I like to say perfect practice makes perfect shooting. So
Speaker 1: being able to analyze your shot out in your backyard
Speaker 1: or on your driveway is one of the best ways
Speaker 1: to analyze it and look at it in SloMo and say,
Speaker 1: dog on, I'm I'm really not following through or I'm
Speaker 1: really not anchoring the same way that I should be
Speaker 1: each and every time, or I'm dropping my ball arms
Speaker 1: something terrible, you know. So I do believe that practice
Speaker 1: and practice perfect makes the right shot each and every time.
Speaker 1: But it's easy to say that it's a whole another
Speaker 1: thing when you get in a tree stand and I
Speaker 1: think that training your body, that regiment that you go through,
Speaker 1: you're gonna let some of that that instinctive shooting if
Speaker 1: you will, because your your body is going to take
Speaker 1: over that muscle memory. You know, if you do it
Speaker 1: enough times and you're repetitious about it, and you do
Speaker 1: it the exact same way over and over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over, in the heat of the moment,
Speaker 1: your body is gonna take over. Oftentimes, the last thing
Speaker 1: you want to do is pick up your bowl a
Speaker 1: week before the season and go out there and try
Speaker 1: and shoot a deer. I mean, it takes months of
Speaker 1: practice so that your muscle memory takes over in the
Speaker 1: heat of the moment. Yeah, what does that perfect practice
Speaker 1: look like for you? Like, what, what's the most important
Speaker 1: things you're doing? How much? How often is there anything
Speaker 1: unique that you add to that practice regiment to really
Speaker 1: simulate real world scenarrows or anything that well. I kind
Speaker 1: of touched on this briefly earlier before we went on
Speaker 1: air here. But I'm a left handed shooter, but so
Speaker 1: I have to work two or three times harder than
Speaker 1: everyone else to make a good shot. So no matter
Speaker 1: how many millions of rounds I may put through a bow,
Speaker 1: I'm never ever ever going to be a tremendous archer.
Speaker 1: I just I'm not unless I unless I go back
Speaker 1: to shooting right handed. I started forty years ago shooting
Speaker 1: right handed, and I probably should have stayed that way
Speaker 1: because I'm right eye dominant. But I played baseball, I
Speaker 1: played football, on golf and everything else I did left handed,
Speaker 1: and I right left handed, So I became a left
Speaker 1: handed archer, and I shoot left handed. And I've never
Speaker 1: ever shot a left handed gun. They're all right handed
Speaker 1: guns the way they discharge if it's an automatic. But
Speaker 1: I've never ever shot a left handed firearms. But I
Speaker 1: shoot left handed. I right left handed. Everything I do
Speaker 1: is a left handed So, to make a long story, shart,
Speaker 1: I practiced two and three times longer harder than probably
Speaker 1: everyone else has to because it's the wrong eyeball are
Speaker 1: the wrong set of hands, ever you want to look
Speaker 1: at it. So I have that regiment that regiment that
Speaker 1: I go through is I try to make sure that
Speaker 1: that I draw a flat I'm trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that I anchor the exact same spot each and every time.
Speaker 1: I try to make sure that I don't drop my
Speaker 1: bow arm. And then I may start with some bigger,
Speaker 1: some bigger you know, maybe uh not great fruit, but
Speaker 1: baseball size. Early season, I'll go plunk, you know, a
Speaker 1: dozen arrows, you know, And I start out with a
Speaker 1: little bit bigger pattern in the beginning, you know, in
Speaker 1: June and July, and then as the season gets closer,
Speaker 1: and I start one to two times a week, and
Speaker 1: then and then I'll go to three times a week
Speaker 1: in July, and then I start shooting every day in August,
Speaker 1: and then twice a day in the latter part of
Speaker 1: August and September morning and evening. So I refine that shooting,
Speaker 1: and I want that repetition to take over. Like I mentioned,
Speaker 1: but I go from those bigger targets in the beginning
Speaker 1: of the summer to a dime or something a little smaller,
Speaker 1: you know, dime, tenning quarter, and try to try to
Speaker 1: hone that in so that you're so that your group
Speaker 1: is much more consistent and it's much much tighter as
Speaker 1: the season gets closer. And then again, the repetition is
Speaker 1: is a big part of it, but is shooting flat
Speaker 1: anchoring the same way and not dropping your bow arm
Speaker 1: and settling in counting one thousand one, one thousand two
Speaker 1: and the old figure eight. You know that you go through,
Speaker 1: it's it. There's something to that, you know when you
Speaker 1: look at it, and you're looking at that target. So
Speaker 1: taking it to a smaller target is really really helpful
Speaker 1: as far as trying to refine your your group. When
Speaker 1: you say the figure eight, are you just talking about
Speaker 1: floating your pen on the target or what do you
Speaker 1: mean by that? Yes, I I really have trouble keeping
Speaker 1: it on one spot for longer than a second or two.
Speaker 1: I find myself doing that figure eight. So uh, knowing
Speaker 1: when to release, I think is a big big part
Speaker 1: of it now. And I know those professional archers may
Speaker 1: all have different a different way of doing it. You
Speaker 1: know those guys that can shoot at a hundred yards
Speaker 1: and and hit a quarter each time, By and Chris
Speaker 1: and don't know the guys, they're they're ridiculous. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're an anomaly. When you think about it, and
Speaker 1: you watch him, you go, oh my god, I wish
Speaker 1: I could shoot like that. Well, uh, not everybody can.
Speaker 1: It's just that simple. I don't care how long you
Speaker 1: practice or how hard you practice. You can become a
Speaker 1: better shot, and you can become very, very proficient at it.
Speaker 1: But shooting like those guys, that's that's just unlike anything
Speaker 1: I've ever watched. Watching those guys, you know, that brings
Speaker 1: up an interesting question then, because you're right, there's there's
Speaker 1: some people that can shoot crazy far and insanely accurately.
Speaker 1: And those people usually, you know, get a lot of
Speaker 1: press and a lot of people talk about him, and
Speaker 1: it's and it's easy to see that and think, well, jeez,
Speaker 1: if that guy is doing this, then I should be
Speaker 1: able to shoot at seventy or I should be able
Speaker 1: to go out on my western trip and shoot a
Speaker 1: prong horn at eighty five. Or gosh, I saw Lee
Speaker 1: Lakowski plug that buck at sixty five yards in this
Speaker 1: food plot. So when I've got my biggest buck ever
Speaker 1: at sixty five yards out in front of me, yeah,
Speaker 1: I could. I should do that. I gotta believe there's
Speaker 1: some folks that see that kind of thing. And then
Speaker 1: assume that, well, that's what I should be doing too.
Speaker 1: How how do you terry go about or how did
Speaker 1: you go about figuring out your own personal limits? How
Speaker 1: did you figure out what was the right kind of
Speaker 1: shot for you to take the right maximum range? How
Speaker 1: do you figure that out? How do you go through that?
Speaker 1: Because I think that's an important part of this whole equation.
Speaker 1: I do. I would agree with you there. I think
Speaker 1: knowing your roundhouse and that's what I call it, that
Speaker 1: that dead zone where if they get within that perimeter,
Speaker 1: you know they're dead. And I think confidence has a
Speaker 1: lot to do with that. You're shooting confidence and you're
Speaker 1: shooting ability. Is is important. And recognizing that, which is
Speaker 1: the question you're asking, and being fine with that with
Speaker 1: yourself and saying my confidence level is thirty yards and under,
Speaker 1: or my confidence level is forty yards and under. You
Speaker 1: have to be disciplined enough to say, you know what
Speaker 1: he might be at fifty six, I'm just not going
Speaker 1: to take that shot. I'm gonna I'm gonna work on
Speaker 1: him tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow is another day. We'll get another
Speaker 1: opportunity and you may never see him again. But having
Speaker 1: the discipline and being a good sportsman and a good
Speaker 1: woodsman and being ethical with your shooting is number one.
Speaker 1: It really is. And being being that person, and I
Speaker 1: know it takes a while. I think it takes years
Speaker 1: of experience and years of screwing up to say, you
Speaker 1: know what, I'm just not that good at at sixty yards.
Speaker 1: I'm just not so I'm not gonna try it out
Speaker 1: of respect for the animal. And I think that's first
Speaker 1: and foremost is respect for the quarry that you seek.
Speaker 1: And we wrote that in our catalogs thirty five years ago.
Speaker 1: Respect the quarry that you seek. And if you respect
Speaker 1: that animal in the game enough to say, I'll try
Speaker 1: him on my church tomorrow. You know, we're playing his
Speaker 1: game today and he won. He didn't get close enough.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I'm gonna try him and get tomorrow.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna do a little different. I'm gonna change
Speaker 1: up a little bit. I'm gonna move in on him.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna, you know, play the wind a little different.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ut him in the morning instead of evening
Speaker 1: or whatever it may be. I think respect is number one.
Speaker 1: And and knowing what your safe zone is, knowing what
Speaker 1: your dead zone is and the confidence in your shooting ability.
Speaker 1: If you're not confident at sixty, just don't take it.
Speaker 1: Don't take that shot. Yeah, like you said earlier, you
Speaker 1: can never get an narrow back. And boy does it
Speaker 1: hurt when you release it and you see it going
Speaker 1: the wrong way or going under him, going over him,
Speaker 1: or hit him in the in the tail or in
Speaker 1: the guts or something. You go, oh my god, what
Speaker 1: was I thinking? You know, it's the worst feeling in
Speaker 1: the world, highest of highs and the lowest of blows.
Speaker 1: And we've all been there. You just described it a
Speaker 1: little while ago with that dear you were trying to
Speaker 1: wake one through there, you know, Yeah, it's the roller coaster. Serious. Um,
Speaker 1: Back to practice a second. You talked about how you
Speaker 1: kind of scale up your practice regiment through like this
Speaker 1: early summer and into the beginning of the season. But
Speaker 1: what about in season practice do you do? Do you
Speaker 1: do much shooting throughout the season? What does that look like?
Speaker 1: Because that's the thing that I've al is thought to myself,
Speaker 1: I need to do more of But I always have
Speaker 1: struggled with sticking to it consistently and doing it enough
Speaker 1: amidst the chaos of the actual hunts. What's that look
Speaker 1: like for you? Shoot every day? We shoot every single
Speaker 1: day throughout the season, and and if I miss a
Speaker 1: day or two, I know it. I can tell it immediately,
Speaker 1: you know, because you don't get but one. Typically you
Speaker 1: get one shot, so you it better be a good
Speaker 1: one when you release it. So we we shoot every day,
Speaker 1: try to stay sharp so that when you get into
Speaker 1: a tree stand, or you get into a blind, a
Speaker 1: ground blind and elevated blind, whatever it may be, when
Speaker 1: you get in there it's your fourth or fifth shot
Speaker 1: that day, or six shots, meaning you've taken one to
Speaker 1: three and four and you got dialed in and go damn,
Speaker 1: I'm ready, and then you you know that that next
Speaker 1: one is gonna be a good one. And I stay
Speaker 1: in sharp every day, keeping that muscle memory, keeping that
Speaker 1: anchor point, making sure you're not dropping your bow arm.
Speaker 1: All those things are so important. And we shoot every
Speaker 1: single day throughout the season. So what's that look like
Speaker 1: on I don't let's say No. Member seventh or something,
Speaker 1: when maybe let's say you're playing hunting all day, how
Speaker 1: do you where do you and how do you slip
Speaker 1: slip in that little bit of shooting and is it
Speaker 1: is it like you said, like a couple of arrows,
Speaker 1: or do you try to get in twenty minutes or
Speaker 1: what does that actually look like? Mine's usually three or four.
Speaker 1: Three or four arrows is all I shoot. But it's
Speaker 1: every single day. And if I got to do it
Speaker 1: at night in the barn with the lights on at
Speaker 1: ten yards, that's fine, you know, or fifteen yards, whatever
Speaker 1: it may be. But typically it's mid day if we
Speaker 1: come in and grab a sandwich or something. If it's
Speaker 1: if it's early season, it's every day. You know, you
Speaker 1: got all morning or whatever. Unless the moon's right. We
Speaker 1: may go hunt in some morning hunts, but we'll squeeze
Speaker 1: it in there wherever the time will permit. If we
Speaker 1: come in and grab a sandwich, you make plump an
Speaker 1: arrow or two before you go back out. But early season,
Speaker 1: it's usually in the mornings, will stand out in the
Speaker 1: driveway there and plunk. Sometimes it's ten or twelve arrows,
Speaker 1: but usually it's three or four. If i'm if we
Speaker 1: know we're ready by the time the season gets here,
Speaker 1: then it's three or four arrows. If we're not ready,
Speaker 1: then at twelve, the fifteen, maybe twenty, you know, but
Speaker 1: you like to hope that you're ready when a season hits.
Speaker 1: So we will squeeze it in there wherever we can
Speaker 1: throughout the day, and then you know when a firearms
Speaker 1: seasons start kicking in, when Missouri's firearm season starts to
Speaker 1: roll around. Because we're partners with Winchester ammunition, partners with
Speaker 1: Winchester firearms, uh, partners with Traditions muzzleloaders, you know, you've
Speaker 1: got to be prepared for that end of things as well.
Speaker 1: So the archery tackle kind of gets put to the
Speaker 1: side for a little while and then you start picking
Speaker 1: up the firearms. So it's easy to forget about it
Speaker 1: there for for a moment. So if you do drop
Speaker 1: off and you don't shoot for a couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: then it takes a little bit longer because it's it's
Speaker 1: cooling down, you've got more clothes on, you're shooting with gloves,
Speaker 1: you may have a head net and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. So all that changes the dynamic as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: speaking of firearms, have you struggled on that side at all?
Speaker 1: Have you have any of the target panic or you know,
Speaker 1: rushing shots or any of those things translated to the
Speaker 1: gun Sidon. I think that it is not too indifferent
Speaker 1: from the archery tackle, meaning years and years ago when
Speaker 1: we were novice hunters and just learning and had to
Speaker 1: camera over your shoulder with a little extra pressure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've we've made some errand shots there as well. But uh,
Speaker 1: I will say that firearms is a whole another element.
Speaker 1: Some of the same you go through some of the
Speaker 1: same regiment as far as the breathing and and your
Speaker 1: focal point, but it's a whole different just a whole
Speaker 1: different can of worms. I enjoy shooting a firearms. We
Speaker 1: we love shooting all everything Winchester's God, and love shooting
Speaker 1: the traditions at Nitro fire the muzzleloader. You know, the
Speaker 1: conservation departments have given us the times where you uh,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of get to extend your season a
Speaker 1: little bit on on almost every state now, so we
Speaker 1: really enjoy the muzzleoader seasons. And late season is always
Speaker 1: fun because we plan a lot of food obviously with
Speaker 1: carn and beans and biologic and uh, they're just in
Speaker 1: a different mode when the ruts starts to wind down
Speaker 1: and they're all about feeding instead of about breeding. It's
Speaker 1: a whole different animal. Once again, so I enjoy shooting,
Speaker 1: and we're we're pretty disciplined at it. You know there too,
Speaker 1: you wait for that the right shot. Even though a
Speaker 1: firearms will do some different things and the archery tackle
Speaker 1: will and you can take them in different positions on
Speaker 1: the body, I still like to wait till the broadside
Speaker 1: or quartering away placed the perfect shot. We pride ourselves
Speaker 1: and trying to do that with the with the firearms,
Speaker 1: and uh, I don't know, I just I enjoy it.
Speaker 1: Can you Can you do the same thing with a
Speaker 1: gun that you did when we talked through your bow process.
Speaker 1: Can you walk me through what you're shooting process looks
Speaker 1: like with a gun? How you you know, I'm curious
Speaker 1: about the details of how you get them into your
Speaker 1: scope and what you're thinking about and when you start
Speaker 1: to breathe or squeeze or all that stuff. What what
Speaker 1: does that look like for you? And how do you
Speaker 1: go about calming yourself and settling in in that situation.
Speaker 1: If it's any different than your boat, maybe it's the same.
Speaker 1: Well I had said early on that I was hard
Speaker 1: headed when I when I work through the target panic,
Speaker 1: I'm just as hardheaded with with the firearms. I've got
Speaker 1: a certain roundhouse there, and and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: guys that are tremendous long distance shooters. We see it
Speaker 1: out West all the time, where they're making four and
Speaker 1: five hundred yards shots, you know, and six hundred yard shots.
Speaker 1: Where we're at in the Midwest there typically a shot
Speaker 1: might be one under. But if it's not, you know,
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty yards, I just won't. I won't shoot
Speaker 1: at him. I'll wait till the next day or the
Speaker 1: following day or the following week. I just won't. And
Speaker 1: I prefer that at one thirty and under, one and
Speaker 1: under and and everything. We've got dialed in at a
Speaker 1: hundred yards, you know. So we know that we know
Speaker 1: the trajectory, we know how flat they shoot, we know
Speaker 1: you know the violence that you're gonna get on on impact.
Speaker 1: So we're just pretty dog on discipline about it. And
Speaker 1: I think that's there too. I think it takes years
Speaker 1: of practice and years of harvesting a number of animals,
Speaker 1: and when you get disciplined enough and you say this
Speaker 1: is my round house, this is my shooting cop, but
Speaker 1: this is my dead zone. This is where I want them,
Speaker 1: and I'm not gonna shoot until they get there. And
Speaker 1: if you go in with that attitude, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and because they're on camera, he might be out there
Speaker 1: at one eight or two hundred. You're going, I'm just
Speaker 1: not gonna shoot him until he gets to one thirty.
Speaker 1: And some days they do, some days they don't. So
Speaker 1: you've got to be a disciplined hunter in that in
Speaker 1: that respect. But man, we we pride ourselves in trying
Speaker 1: to make a good shot. The last thing we want
Speaker 1: to do is make an errand shot, and uh, we
Speaker 1: just wait till they get into our confidence zone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So once they're in that zone and you're getting ready,
Speaker 1: how what do you go How do you go about
Speaker 1: settling in? Calming down? Is just the deep breathing in
Speaker 1: the same situation or what does that actually look like?
Speaker 1: You know, Mark, I like to heal, I call it hell.
Speaker 1: I like to heal my gun and or my elbow
Speaker 1: if I can, if I have that opportunity to heal
Speaker 1: your elbow or even your back for that matter. So
Speaker 1: there is zero movement, meaning you're you're really really rigid,
Speaker 1: and and from the moment they get into my roundhouse,
Speaker 1: even when they're quartering too, I keep the scope and
Speaker 1: the crosshairs on them the entire time. And I do
Speaker 1: that so that when I when I get the shot,
Speaker 1: meaning when he finally does turn broadside or quartering away,
Speaker 1: I'm already settled in. If you've been on him for
Speaker 1: two minutes, five minutes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, when you
Speaker 1: get the opportunity to shoot, then it's a matter of squeezing.
Speaker 1: And we do a lot of target practice, much like
Speaker 1: we do with the archery tackle. We do the same
Speaker 1: thing with the firearms. We shoot, and we shoot and
Speaker 1: we shoot, and we pride ourselves and trying to touch
Speaker 1: bullets with you know, depending on who you're shooting with
Speaker 1: and and at different distances, different yardages and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, different cartridges, and uh, we just we
Speaker 1: go through the go through that motion and that regiment
Speaker 1: so that I don't know that it's necessarily muscle memory
Speaker 1: like it is with archery, but there's a certain regiment
Speaker 1: that you go through with your eyes and training the
Speaker 1: eye and the finger and when to squeeze and the
Speaker 1: breathing and all those different things that we go through.
Speaker 1: But I keep that crossair on him the entire time,
Speaker 1: and then when you're finally presented with the shot, you're
Speaker 1: pretty pretty well calmed down, you're settled in, and all
Speaker 1: you gotta do is squeeze and pull the trigger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we we started this conversation, Terry, digging up some
Speaker 1: dirt and talking through a couple of your more painful
Speaker 1: experiences with the shop. What about the flip side? Is
Speaker 1: there any hunt you can recall on the archery side again,
Speaker 1: where you were in the moment, you were fully in control,
Speaker 1: you did everything right, the shot was perfect, and and
Speaker 1: you can recall that. And I'm curious to hear that
Speaker 1: story here. I'd love to hear about a time when
Speaker 1: you did it all right and what that felt like
Speaker 1: and what that process looked like. Um, I think that
Speaker 1: could be just as helpful to understand in detail as
Speaker 1: the as the painful missed opportunities sometimes as well. Well.
Speaker 1: Oddly enough, nobody remembers those remember the bat. They all
Speaker 1: remember the bad ones. But there are you know, there
Speaker 1: are dozens and dozens of those two. And I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to brag or say we're good or anything.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying that we have is way way more
Speaker 1: good ones than bad ones. It's just that the bad
Speaker 1: ones stick with you, and they stick in your mind
Speaker 1: and you wish you could have it back. But we've
Speaker 1: had some really really great hunts with great deer over
Speaker 1: the years and killed a lot of nice bucks. And
Speaker 1: and I can't tell you how many doughs I've shot
Speaker 1: in my career. And and I try to pride myself
Speaker 1: on making as many good shots with the dose I
Speaker 1: do with the buck. I you know, I I really
Speaker 1: really cherish the fact that we've got an ample supply
Speaker 1: and our deer density is high and we're able to
Speaker 1: do that year after year after year. And I enjoy
Speaker 1: shooting dose. But man, we've had a ton of really
Speaker 1: good bucks that we've killed and made the perfect shot,
Speaker 1: and the feeling is is one of yes, finally, all
Speaker 1: the work, everything that you put into it, all that effort,
Speaker 1: all that practice, all that you did, and even the
Speaker 1: chest match. I mean, it's not easy to kill a
Speaker 1: good buck in Missouri, you know, with consistency and regularity,
Speaker 1: and you know, because you know, we do what we do.
Speaker 1: We're trying to kill four and five good bucks a year.
Speaker 1: And it's like it's the race of all races. It's
Speaker 1: a it's marathon trying to do it, because it's it's
Speaker 1: like trying to hit the lottery three, four or five times.
Speaker 1: It's just don't happen that way. So consistency and killing
Speaker 1: him year after year after years is not easy. And
Speaker 1: I'm not complaining whatsoever. We love doing it, we love
Speaker 1: spending the time, We love the chess match. But I
Speaker 1: have had an ample supply of really good deer that
Speaker 1: have come into our roundhouse or into that circle. Make
Speaker 1: a good shot. The deer runs over seventy yards, falls
Speaker 1: over on camera, and uh, I just you know, the
Speaker 1: rest is history, as they say. I had one deer
Speaker 1: in particular, there was a hundred sixty two or four
Speaker 1: inch nine point he would attend the previous year. I
Speaker 1: didn't get a shot at him the previous year, but
Speaker 1: he came in, presented us with an opportunity. Watched him
Speaker 1: for an hour and a half on camera. He stayed
Speaker 1: out there. He finally got in there, opened the window
Speaker 1: on a blind and boom, he was gone. I didn't
Speaker 1: get a shot at him, and that was prior to Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: Came back after Thanksgiving, did the same exact thing. Uh.
Speaker 1: He came into our round house into the dead zone.
Speaker 1: If you will, and a doe bugger open the window,
Speaker 1: doe bugger, and he stood there and uh, and then
Speaker 1: he and then he bolted just a little bit and
Speaker 1: make a long story short, and put it put a
Speaker 1: great shot on him, and he ran sixty seventy yards
Speaker 1: fell over dead. So there are a lot of those
Speaker 1: two with firearms and with archery tackle and I just
Speaker 1: when you do it, the feeling is one of I
Speaker 1: don't I don't know how to describe it other than
Speaker 1: somewhat of an ecstasy, if you will, because all the
Speaker 1: work you went into it, it's kind of a big deflation.
Speaker 1: All the air comes out of your lungs, and there's
Speaker 1: such a relief and such a yoke or burden off
Speaker 1: your shoulders that you just you can't describe it words.
Speaker 1: I don't think words truly describe it. When they go
Speaker 1: down and tip over on camera, man oh man, there
Speaker 1: is no better feeling. Yeah. So when you look back
Speaker 1: over the last years or what ever it's been, terry,
Speaker 1: and you go back and you think about all these
Speaker 1: various um low points, mishaps that happened along the way,
Speaker 1: and you, like you said, you've had different coaches talked
Speaker 1: to You've had different friends talk to you. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're your brothers talked to you, Your family and other
Speaker 1: folks have all probably offered maybe unsolicited advice at times too. Um,
Speaker 1: what has been if you can think back on any
Speaker 1: one most important piece of advice that you've got, was
Speaker 1: there one thing or one change you made, or one
Speaker 1: one liner that's helped you the most, or or something
Speaker 1: that that you can look back on say, yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what that was that was important? Does anything stand
Speaker 1: out when you look over those years and when it
Speaker 1: comes to helping you handle these situations, shoot better, deal
Speaker 1: with the pressure better, whatever part of this you want
Speaker 1: to tackle. One year and Mark pointed this out. We
Speaker 1: watched it over and over on on video. Which we
Speaker 1: talked about early on was having somebody fail me and
Speaker 1: I was really really gripping the riser, like extremely hard,
Speaker 1: like talking and gripping it way way harder than needed
Speaker 1: to be. You know, so many guys shoot open palm
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, it's easy to get caught up
Speaker 1: in that moment where you grip and I think maybe
Speaker 1: in the heat of the moment, you kind of lose
Speaker 1: side of the fact that you're even doing it. You know,
Speaker 1: because you don't want to you don't want to screw up,
Speaker 1: so you're gripping just that much tighter, and you're you're
Speaker 1: talking and doing some things that you wouldn't normally do.
Speaker 1: And market points that out one year and it's just
Speaker 1: easy to get caught up. But that was one of
Speaker 1: the things that was very, very helpful was just watching
Speaker 1: it on camera. Uh. And I think everybody can do
Speaker 1: that because almost everybody's either got an iPhone or an
Speaker 1: Android now and the cameras are spectacular, and you can
Speaker 1: shoot them in slow moor. You can shuttle back and
Speaker 1: forth and watch what you're doing. And I would say
Speaker 1: take it from different angles, a frontal and both sides,
Speaker 1: and then maybe from the back and see if your
Speaker 1: bo arms dropping and so on and so forth. Then
Speaker 1: see if you're gripping, see if you're anchoring the same
Speaker 1: way each and every time. But I guess, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I really don't have one in particular.
Speaker 1: I do believe that the harvesting a lot of animals
Speaker 1: has helped more than anything. You know, when you start shooting,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'm gonna get into say, you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds when you shoot hundreds of animals or hundreds of gear,
Speaker 1: then you should be, you know, over those those nerves.
Speaker 1: Even though you're not, you should be. But it does help.
Speaker 1: It helps you go through the right motion, the right
Speaker 1: regiment at the right time, and that you get your
Speaker 1: brain process right. You know, there's a certain set of
Speaker 1: fuck processes that you go through, which we did. We've
Speaker 1: described and we went into that, and I think a
Speaker 1: guy should go through that regiment each and every time.
Speaker 1: And the other way to do it. If you see
Speaker 1: a dough, pretend it's a buck. If you see a fawn,
Speaker 1: pretend it's an adult dough, and go how where am
Speaker 1: I going to kill this at? How am I gonna
Speaker 1: kill it? Go through the motions, And it's about getting
Speaker 1: your feet right on a platform. Where am I gonna
Speaker 1: have to get my butt? You know? If I want to,
Speaker 1: If I want to shoot this deer, you left, enter
Speaker 1: the right hand at it. We call it, I call
Speaker 1: it into your hand and away from your hand. If
Speaker 1: you're a bull rider, they love when when a buck
Speaker 1: or bull turns into their hands or away from their hand,
Speaker 1: you know. And and that's what I talked about all
Speaker 1: the time. Whether you're turkey hunting, it's about getting your
Speaker 1: fannie switched around there. If you're a lefty or righty,
Speaker 1: and archery is not too indifferent. If you know he's
Speaker 1: gonna be walking one side of the tree or the other,
Speaker 1: then you better be getting your feet turned, you know,
Speaker 1: so that you can make that shot, and you can
Speaker 1: turn into your hand or away from your hand a
Speaker 1: lot easier than you can the other direction. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great point. So what about the flip side that
Speaker 1: being the worst advice you've been given, because again, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've gotten some of that too. Is there anything
Speaker 1: that you've heard over the years that that you recognize
Speaker 1: right away as being horrible advice or maybe you took
Speaker 1: the advice and then down the road learned was not
Speaker 1: such a great suggestion. You know, we get critiqued a lot,
Speaker 1: and being in the public eye, you're going to get that,
Speaker 1: so you you take each with a grain of salt.
Speaker 1: But so many people have gotten things that they tell
Speaker 1: you should be doing, and the majority of it is
Speaker 1: not the best of advice. You know, it may be
Speaker 1: a novice that hasn't been hunting very very long. You know,
Speaker 1: if it's you know, if it's uh, Don Kiski, Lelakowski,
Speaker 1: j Gregory, Mark Drury. Uh. You know, LEVI, those guys
Speaker 1: know what the hell they're talking about. So when they
Speaker 1: when they say something, you really do want to listen
Speaker 1: and you want to go, okay, thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: But boy, beyond that, if you start getting critique from
Speaker 1: the average hunter, and I'm not trying to dismiss any
Speaker 1: of it, because some of those guys are really good archers,
Speaker 1: but you gotta kind of take it with a grain
Speaker 1: of salt and say, hey, what works for me? What
Speaker 1: what really is helpful for me and my scenario in
Speaker 1: my situation, and because we have so many different scenarios,
Speaker 1: tree stand, ground blind, elevated blind, you know, it's you
Speaker 1: never know where we're gonna be sitting. You better be prepared.
Speaker 1: And I think preparation has got a lot to do
Speaker 1: with that. I sit down and I practice all the
Speaker 1: time because oftentimes we're sitting on a chair and a
Speaker 1: ground line, or we'll be sitting on a chair in
Speaker 1: an elevator, lind or we'll be sitting down. I'll sit
Speaker 1: down and shoot in my tree stand because you can
Speaker 1: heal your back against the tree trunk, and you're just
Speaker 1: a lot more a lot more solid. Now when you're
Speaker 1: sitting down, it limits you. You know, he hed better
Speaker 1: be either in front of you or moving around on
Speaker 1: one side of you, because the other side you're not
Speaker 1: gonna be able to get a shot. Then you gotta
Speaker 1: get up, and you gotta move. You gotta twist your
Speaker 1: body all the way around one eight. So it's about
Speaker 1: knowing where the deer are gonna be and about knowing
Speaker 1: what trails they might be on. But you know, preparation
Speaker 1: is so important. And we've had some bad advice that
Speaker 1: we get that on a regular basis via email, and
Speaker 1: we thank each and every one of them for their advice.
Speaker 1: But I can't come out with one specifically. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you said, there's there's a whole lot of examples of
Speaker 1: pull from I'm sure. Yeah, I gotta ask you this, Uh,
Speaker 1: Terry zoom out. I guess zooming out here a little bit.
Speaker 1: If I were to look back on my past kind
Speaker 1: of tough year that I mentioned at the top, shooting
Speaker 1: was a big part of it, but tied to that,
Speaker 1: I think was also expectations or pressure or something that
Speaker 1: ramped up and probably led to some of the shooting
Speaker 1: issues and also led to a little bit at periods
Speaker 1: kind of losing some of the joy of things. I've
Speaker 1: heard from a number of other people, not just people
Speaker 1: that kind of work in this world like we do,
Speaker 1: but even just die hard deer hunters that love it
Speaker 1: so much that spends so much time that's it's their obsession.
Speaker 1: They sink so much time and money and energy into
Speaker 1: it that they too have developed these expectations and these
Speaker 1: pressures on themselves, and they've found themselves, you know, on
Speaker 1: November seven, during what's supposed to be the best time
Speaker 1: of the white tailed year, but instead they're miserable because
Speaker 1: something's not going right, or because something went wrong, or
Speaker 1: they they haven't filled their tag, or their buddies have
Speaker 1: all killed giants and they can't, or whatever the thing is,
Speaker 1: or someone critique their buck on Instagram, or who knows
Speaker 1: what it could be these days. Um, I think this
Speaker 1: is something that I'm beginning to hear more and more
Speaker 1: often from folks. Have do you have any thoughts on
Speaker 1: dealing with those types of issues. Have you ever experienced
Speaker 1: that yourself, have the expectations of the pressures or what
Speaker 1: if the people think or anything like that. Does any
Speaker 1: of that resonate? Have you dealt with that? Do you
Speaker 1: have any thoughts or lessons on how to work through
Speaker 1: that kind of thing? You know, it's funny you ask that,
Speaker 1: because we we have that pressure each and every year,
Speaker 1: particularly in the outdoor industry, and you're you're expected to
Speaker 1: perform and you're expected to perform at a higher level
Speaker 1: because that's what you do and that's what you're you know,
Speaker 1: that's what your aspirations are. But man, oh man, going
Speaker 1: into a season, you know, we target certain deer because
Speaker 1: you know, number one, they've got to be mature anymore.
Speaker 1: And then and there's no perfect science to that determining
Speaker 1: whether there are five and as sticks and a half
Speaker 1: seven and a half. Sometimes you can make mistakes and
Speaker 1: you don't even realize you did. But you know, we're
Speaker 1: going to target a certain deer going into the season,
Speaker 1: and if you just don't seem and you don't get
Speaker 1: an opportunity, you know you're not going to kill him obviously, uh.
Speaker 1: And then you're only as good as the area that
Speaker 1: you hunt, or you're only as good as the spot
Speaker 1: that you're hunting. You can't kill a two hundy if
Speaker 1: you don't have a two hunty. It's just that simple.
Speaker 1: If if your dear top out in the mid one
Speaker 1: forties or one fifties and you're you're after a deer
Speaker 1: like that, that's that's just it. If you kill that deer,
Speaker 1: you should be extremely happy that you killed a hundred
Speaker 1: inch deer. Hundred deer if that's what your territory, that's
Speaker 1: what your neck of the woods, or that's what your
Speaker 1: area provides. And I think are in the story as
Speaker 1: a whole. Back when we started, hell, you didn't see,
Speaker 1: you didn't know what anybody shot. If you know, there
Speaker 1: was a few television shows between uh Massioake and you know,
Speaker 1: it wasn't as readily available as it is now. With
Speaker 1: digital media, you can find out instantaneously what people are
Speaker 1: killing and how big they are. And and I do
Speaker 1: believe that puts added pressure on everyone nationwide because we
Speaker 1: all want to kill a big deer, and we all
Speaker 1: want to, you know, enjoy it with our buddies. And
Speaker 1: and when your buddies are killing deer and you're not, man,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a sick feeling. I mean, you go,
Speaker 1: why can't I I can't even get a sniffle one
Speaker 1: of you. I can't even see one. What's the problem here?
Speaker 1: What's wrong with me? Why? What am I doing? So
Speaker 1: I don't know how you would get past that, other
Speaker 1: than to say that, because we've been doing it for
Speaker 1: so long, and we've had a number of different team
Speaker 1: members over the years, some guys will go through a
Speaker 1: tough season for a year or two, and then by golly,
Speaker 1: the next year, all of sudden, they're sitting on top.
Speaker 1: So it's a psychic, cyclic event. Some years are gonna
Speaker 1: be better than others. I think some years fall in
Speaker 1: line with the rut in different states a little bit better,
Speaker 1: with different moon phases and all those things. So some
Speaker 1: guys are gonna be blessed and some guys are not.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not uncommon to see that guy that
Speaker 1: historically has struggled, all of a sudden to kill a
Speaker 1: giant one year, and you have to stay after it.
Speaker 1: You gotta be persistent, you can't give up, and somehow
Speaker 1: work through those low spots. Uh. It's a matter of
Speaker 1: enjoying what the other guy killed. You know, if your
Speaker 1: buddy killed a one eighty, you've gotta be happy for him,
Speaker 1: you know, jealous as you may be and say, damn,
Speaker 1: I wish tied to kill that, dear, you still have
Speaker 1: to be happy for the guy that's really worked hard
Speaker 1: and uh and put all the time and the effort
Speaker 1: into it. So uh, it's not easy. I know the
Speaker 1: pressure is on us each and every year it's a
Speaker 1: big chess match. And some years we we win. It's checkmates,
Speaker 1: some years we don't. Do you do you? I think
Speaker 1: you kind of alluded to this, But do you even
Speaker 1: feel that way personally yourself? Sometimes, even though you've killed
Speaker 1: so many great deer, do you still find yourselves sometimes
Speaker 1: sitting there and end of October and seemingly everyone in
Speaker 1: the team's killed a buck and you haven't seen a
Speaker 1: shooter in eight weeks or something, and what's your self talk?
Speaker 1: Look like? What's your how do you? How do you
Speaker 1: psyche yourself back up? Is it just simply reminding yourself
Speaker 1: of the past like you just mentioned, Well, it would
Speaker 1: always seem that no matter what I killed, Mark would
Speaker 1: kill one ten or fifteen inches bigger, just seriously, and
Speaker 1: his his he had spots were there early season was
Speaker 1: usually good. He'd have he'd had big deer on you know,
Speaker 1: biologic non typical clover early season, and he'd bopped one
Speaker 1: right out of the gate. So then the pressure was
Speaker 1: on immediately, you know, and you're like, okay, my farm,
Speaker 1: because we have so much agg around us, it doesn't
Speaker 1: get good until middle of October, end of October, once
Speaker 1: the crops start coming out. So I was always a
Speaker 1: late harder at the All Star break, if you will,
Speaker 1: and then I would be a strong finisher. But man,
Speaker 1: it's a tough bill to swallow when he gets two
Speaker 1: or three good ones under his belt right right out
Speaker 1: of the gate, and you're trying to keep up, you know,
Speaker 1: So there's always pressure in and we pull for each
Speaker 1: other no matter what. I'm always I'm always thankful when
Speaker 1: he kills a couple of good ones right off the bat,
Speaker 1: you know, early season, because it takes a little bit
Speaker 1: of pressure off as far as you know, filling the
Speaker 1: shows and coming up with enough content. But it's added
Speaker 1: pressure and the fact that I'm trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: find a big deer and and get on one and
Speaker 1: kill it, because he's always got a big one somewhere,
Speaker 1: some some ways, some shape or form. He's got a
Speaker 1: giant on some little bitty fifty acre parcel that he
Speaker 1: got permission on or something, you know, and he and
Speaker 1: he went in, he carved out of food plot and
Speaker 1: that's one eight shows up. You know. So some people, right,
Speaker 1: they're always always in the money. A harsh shoe, four
Speaker 1: leaf clover, rabbits foot, your name, and he's got he's
Speaker 1: got all that stuff his pocket, his backpack. But he's
Speaker 1: he's just he's at another level, much like Leila Kosky
Speaker 1: and some of those other guys. He marks just one
Speaker 1: hell of a white tail hunter. He really is tremendous
Speaker 1: shot too, you know, but we don't go his mrs
Speaker 1: are his errand shots. We just never have. He's somes
Speaker 1: more control in the editor's box. Huh. We gotta get
Speaker 1: that change. Oh yeah, oh yes, absolutely yeah. Those shows
Speaker 1: get sometimes get proofed when I'm out of town or
Speaker 1: on the farm or something. Yeah. Funny how that happens. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but it's all good, it's all fun. I will say
Speaker 1: We've been really very very blessed and very fortunate. The
Speaker 1: most humbling experience in the world is to grow up
Speaker 1: in the outdoor industry and be blessed enough to harvest
Speaker 1: some really really good deer and and trying to help
Speaker 1: someone else learn. You know, that's what our biggest aspiration.
Speaker 1: And we have not talked about deer cast, but that
Speaker 1: was the whole reason we we came up with the
Speaker 1: app in deer cast. Yeah, so what's what's new a
Speaker 1: deer Cast? I know you guys have updated this year.
Speaker 1: What's uh, what should we be looking for? Wow? It's
Speaker 1: it's just really really been fun. It's been a labor
Speaker 1: of love, if you will. We've been two years. We
Speaker 1: were supposed to release this last year. We didn't get
Speaker 1: it done, but it did give us time to do
Speaker 1: some additional testing with the beta series and we think
Speaker 1: we've got it down now where it's it's pretty dog
Speaker 1: on sweet. We added mapping to the original deer Cast.
Speaker 1: Obviously is the movement predictor, which tells you, you know,
Speaker 1: the when the white tails are more most likely to
Speaker 1: be up on their feet and moving during daylight hours.
Speaker 1: And then in addition to that, it's got deer cash Track,
Speaker 1: which helps you find your dear, recover your animal. It's
Speaker 1: it's got a news feed, it's got our entire library
Speaker 1: and and the weather data. So we added mapping to that,
Speaker 1: and with that mapping, we added rain stations. Where you
Speaker 1: can put a rain station on your food plot and
Speaker 1: it will tell you the actually the precipt that you
Speaker 1: have that fallen. It's a it's a an estimated you
Speaker 1: will until after the precept falls. You know, if it
Speaker 1: says you're gonna get three tents of rain, and then
Speaker 1: after it has time to update once the rain has fallen,
Speaker 1: you know you may have got four tents. You may go.
Speaker 1: But it's awfully nice knowing when you got rain coming,
Speaker 1: you know what the next seventy two looks like, and
Speaker 1: when you can get your food plots in and then
Speaker 1: if you've gotten rain, you know, you say, oh man,
Speaker 1: you may live four hours from your farm or two
Speaker 1: hours and you go, hell, I got an inch of
Speaker 1: rain on my farm, which is awesome. So it's got that.
Speaker 1: It's also got wind check. The wind check is phenomenal.
Speaker 1: It tells you you know what wind direction it will
Speaker 1: be coming from. It's got a cent cone on there.
Speaker 1: That sent tone changes speed and it changes size depending
Speaker 1: on the speed and the velocity of the wind. You know,
Speaker 1: one to five is one cone. Uh six to ten
Speaker 1: is another cone, tend to fifteen and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. Those sent streams change and the uh, it's
Speaker 1: just really trying to show you, you know, exactly what's
Speaker 1: happening when you're sitting in a tree stand. And then
Speaker 1: there's some information that goes along with each and every
Speaker 1: one on the more the sweet spot is, you know,
Speaker 1: I like to hunt seven eight mill on our winds.
Speaker 1: Mark likes to hunt ten to eleven mile on our winds. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's very very informative when it comes to that sense
Speaker 1: dream and and let's face it, a deer list and
Speaker 1: eyes by their nose. It's got parcel data, it's got radar,
Speaker 1: it's got just every single thing you would want as
Speaker 1: a white tail hunter. And you know, a food plot area. Uh,
Speaker 1: it will pass track, it's got distances. Every single thing
Speaker 1: you might need as a white tailed guy is in
Speaker 1: this mapping features and and man oh man, we we
Speaker 1: just strongly feel like people are going to enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And I think the more they use it, the more
Speaker 1: they're gonna want to use it. Very cool and still
Speaker 1: deer cast track, You've got that tool on there as
Speaker 1: well too, right, Yes, you know, Mark, everybody tells you
Speaker 1: how to kill them, but nobody tells you how to
Speaker 1: find them. We said, you know, what let's try and
Speaker 1: help people find them. And we we've taken a number
Speaker 1: and I don't know how many hundreds of deer hits
Speaker 1: that we've got on there. But we've got two other
Speaker 1: guys that will tell you a little bit about it.
Speaker 1: One is tracker John Inglecan and the other one is
Speaker 1: uh Bobby Culberson down at Tara Wildlife. Those guys are
Speaker 1: tremendous trackers. And they two and Mark and I too,
Speaker 1: both give you some insight on how long to wait,
Speaker 1: what vitals you might have hit, what arteries you may
Speaker 1: have hit, uh you know, and when you hit this
Speaker 1: artery let's say living or long or or double lung
Speaker 1: or heart lung or our our guts and and liver,
Speaker 1: how long you need to wait for that dear to expire,
Speaker 1: and how far they may have went, and and what
Speaker 1: other arteries you might have cut so and and there's
Speaker 1: a three D model in there that will go uh
Speaker 1: quartering to broadside, quartering away, so that you can kind
Speaker 1: of say, oh, he was he was quartering to me
Speaker 1: just slightly, So where did my arrow go through there?
Speaker 1: And that three D model will kind of give you
Speaker 1: an idea what you would have hit on that particular shot.
Speaker 1: So all of those are cashed away in there and
Speaker 1: you can pull them up and take a look at
Speaker 1: him and and say, you know what, I was gonna
Speaker 1: give him thirty minutes, I need to give him four hours.
Speaker 1: Or I was gonna give him four hours, I need
Speaker 1: to give him eight. So it's, uh, it's extremely informational
Speaker 1: when it comes to those hits. Yeah, I really like that.
Speaker 1: That's that's coming hand you a couple of times, just
Speaker 1: even when it's something you feel like, pretty confident, I
Speaker 1: know what I should do in this situation. It's always
Speaker 1: nice to have a second opinion, and you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's too late at night to call a friend or whatever,
Speaker 1: and being able to go on there and see how
Speaker 1: it went down for for one of the guys in
Speaker 1: your team and see your thoughts on it. I've found
Speaker 1: that pretty pretty nice to have so nice, nicely done
Speaker 1: good stuff, you know, And because of the things are nowadays, Mark,
Speaker 1: I don't know why everyone isn't trying to self film,
Speaker 1: because we have the luxury of watching the hit over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over, and some of them
Speaker 1: will watch, you know, three or four dozen times to say,
Speaker 1: you know, as he dead, or should we give you
Speaker 1: more time? Or what did we hit? Blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. But a guy sitting in a tree by
Speaker 1: himself and makes a shot, oftentimes you're not a hundred
Speaker 1: percent certain, And I'd say more and more times than not,
Speaker 1: you're not exactly certain where you hit him and how
Speaker 1: he was standing, whether it was he quartering too, was
Speaker 1: he broad? But boy, if if you have the opportunity
Speaker 1: or the luxury to watch it on camera, there is
Speaker 1: no no better feeling than to watch it over and
Speaker 1: over and over and then make that decision. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy, too easy to guess. But if you
Speaker 1: have the opportunity to do some self filming, then I
Speaker 1: would highly encourage it. Yeah, so so helpful. So the
Speaker 1: last question for you, Terry, what what's in store for
Speaker 1: you this season? Do you are you feeling good about
Speaker 1: what's coming up? Is there a special deer you're helping
Speaker 1: to get your eyes on this year? What what's Deer
Speaker 1: Season two going to look like? For you? Well? Last
Speaker 1: year I felt really really good about things because we
Speaker 1: had you know, a number of different bucks, several up
Speaker 1: and comers and so on and so forth. And killed
Speaker 1: a good one last year, killed two good ones last
Speaker 1: year on my farm, and so did Forest, my farm manager.
Speaker 1: Forest bad and killed a couple of good ones there
Speaker 1: on the farm. So we had a really really banner
Speaker 1: year last year. But with that being said, none of
Speaker 1: them made it through. There was a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of deer that got taken in and around my
Speaker 1: farm and and they just disappeared. So we really don't
Speaker 1: have anything to hunt this year. I'm hoping something shows
Speaker 1: up other than a few doughs, we'll be we'll be
Speaker 1: dope shooting for a while. But with that said, I've
Speaker 1: got a couple of good ones over in Illinois, same
Speaker 1: deer I've been hunting in Illinois for the last three years.
Speaker 1: Haven't got them dead, and uh, we'll we'll go after
Speaker 1: them and try to harvest one or two of those
Speaker 1: if we get the opportunity. We killed a really good
Speaker 1: deer over there last year and shot it with a
Speaker 1: crossbow mission crossbow, and uh, I know we catch a
Speaker 1: lot of grief over that too. Uh. We didn't talk
Speaker 1: about this at all. I'm getting to a point in
Speaker 1: with my age. I tore a rotator, uh a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago and I'm I milked my way through
Speaker 1: it last year, kind of nursed it along, but it's
Speaker 1: it's really really bad this year, and I'm too big
Speaker 1: a sissy to go get it fixed. So everybody I've
Speaker 1: talked to said it's the worst pain they've ever had
Speaker 1: when they got their rotator operated on. So I've been
Speaker 1: I can't. You can't put a belt on, you can't,
Speaker 1: you know, get your seat belts, you can't brush your teeth,
Speaker 1: you can't call mer hair, you know. It's one of
Speaker 1: those deals. It's like a butcher knife in your shoulders.
Speaker 1: So that's an issue. But that's why. That's why God
Speaker 1: made crossbows. I didn't believe. So that's the crossbows working
Speaker 1: pretty well for you. Then now, yes, those things, my goodness,
Speaker 1: they've made them now that they're just and we'll probably
Speaker 1: get hammered because we talked about it. But for those
Speaker 1: that that need it and have shoulder issues, my golly,
Speaker 1: it's they're fun to shoot, and we really really thoroughly
Speaker 1: enjoy We like this target. Practicing with it, I mean,
Speaker 1: Forest and I spent a great much like our firearms
Speaker 1: and much like the archery tackle, we spend a lot
Speaker 1: of time shooting a crossbow and have become very very
Speaker 1: proficient in it there too. We know what our roundhouse is.
Speaker 1: We're not gonna take any errand shots at a hundred
Speaker 1: yards eighty yards and a lot of guys can, a
Speaker 1: lot of guys will, but we try to keep it,
Speaker 1: you know, reasonable, and we know if they're in our
Speaker 1: round house, there's a pretty good chance we're going to
Speaker 1: be successful. And we're very very adamant about that as well.
Speaker 1: But boy are they fun to shoot. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever tinkered with one, but man, they're blast. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My my dad has some eyesight issues and because of that,
Speaker 1: he you know, he tried shooting a regular compombo and
Speaker 1: just really struggled with that. So a crossbow ended up
Speaker 1: being great for him because there's the scope and he
Speaker 1: can really see things well through that, and so that
Speaker 1: was a game change for him and it lets him
Speaker 1: you know, participate in archery season now, which is you know,
Speaker 1: a godsend. So it's been it's been fun to shoot
Speaker 1: those and help him with that. And I'll never crap
Speaker 1: on crossbows because there's there's a lot of people that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to get outside and enjoy hunting the
Speaker 1: way we do if they didn't have a tool like that.
Speaker 1: So I'm all, I'm all for people being able to
Speaker 1: get out there and enjoy it however they need to. Well,
Speaker 1: I shot seventy two pounds for years and years and years,
Speaker 1: and then as I started get a little older, I
Speaker 1: dropped down to sixty seven, and then sixty four, and
Speaker 1: then sixty two and then fifty nine, fifty seven. I
Speaker 1: shot fifty three last year with a bad shoulder, and
Speaker 1: I got it back the other day and I'm pulling
Speaker 1: forty nine pounds and I can't draw it. It hurts
Speaker 1: so so bad. I literally cannot draw it forty nine.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna drop it down to forty five and
Speaker 1: then forty two, and I probably won't go lower than that.
Speaker 1: But if I can't draw it, I can't draw it,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'll be shooting across bow if I
Speaker 1: if I have to. But in regardless, it is what
Speaker 1: it is. Is you can start to get a little older,
Speaker 1: things change and as people find that out, they go,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not what I once was, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't much to begin with. So you have to
Speaker 1: come to the come to the reckoning and say there's
Speaker 1: certain things you just gotta do. Now. If I go
Speaker 1: get it operated on in the off season and get
Speaker 1: it fixed, I might be able to get it back.
Speaker 1: But so I'm right now, I can't draw forty nine pounds,
Speaker 1: which is pretty sad, to be honest. And I was
Speaker 1: pulling fifty three last year, killed too, killed the biggest
Speaker 1: year of my life last year fifty three pounds. So well.
Speaker 1: I I hope that whether it's with a kam Pombo
Speaker 1: or crossed. Oh, Terry, I hope a big one shows
Speaker 1: up in missouriphor you. I hope the Illinois buck finally
Speaker 1: meets his maker. And uh, I hope you have a
Speaker 1: great season, and likewise, I hope you do too. I
Speaker 1: love your stuff. I always have. I've always enjoyed visiting
Speaker 1: with with you. I really really am always enthralled with
Speaker 1: everything you do. I hope you continue hunting with your dad,
Speaker 1: and I hope he kills a monster with the crossbowt
Speaker 1: I hope so too. Thank you Terry for for making
Speaker 1: time to do this. I really appreciate it. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Anytime you need anything, just give me a holler,
Speaker 1: all right, And that is a rap big things. Again
Speaker 1: to Terry for speaking with us. I hope you guys
Speaker 1: enjoyed this one. As we just mentioned. Everything they're doing
Speaker 1: over with the deer Cast app is is really great.
Speaker 1: I personally enjoy it. I follow it. I've got the app.
Speaker 1: The YouTube channels packed with great content to so check
Speaker 1: that out and um stay tuned, f y. I speaking
Speaker 1: of YouTube, a new show that I filmed last year
Speaker 1: for meat Eater will be launching soon on the meat
Speaker 1: Eater YouTube channel, So if you're not already, head on
Speaker 1: over and subscribe to the meat Eater YouTube channel to
Speaker 1: see my wild season and the crazy adventures I went on.
Speaker 1: It should be launching sometime in September, so keep an
Speaker 1: eye out for that. And in the meantime, we've got
Speaker 1: our new waterfowl show, duck Lure is airing right now.
Speaker 1: There's a fishing show, The Canadian Angle that new episodes
Speaker 1: are coming up right now and lots more to come
Speaker 1: over the fall. So man, if you got a little
Speaker 1: free time, there's no shortage of great hunting and fishing
Speaker 1: content out there for you to check out, so you
Speaker 1: can find it in the Mediator YouTube channel at the
Speaker 1: meat eat dot com Follow me on Instagram at wired
Speaker 1: to Hunt, or just get outside, shoot your bow and
Speaker 1: forget all this internet ship. Get better at shooting, get
Speaker 1: ready for a great hunting season. You guys are the best.
Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in, and until next time, stay wired
Speaker 1: to Hunt.