Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this week on the show, we are
Speaker 1: kicking off a month of big buck breakdowns and I'm
Speaker 1: joined by Tyler Utter to dive into the story and
Speaker 1: the strategies he ultimately used to kill his biggest buck
Speaker 1: to date. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
Speaker 1: presented by First Light. And I think when you guys
Speaker 1: are listening to this one, it will be the first
Speaker 1: episode of three. So welcome to the new year. Mary,
Speaker 1: Belated Christmas, Happy New Year, all that good stuff, and
Speaker 1: here we go. New season is upon us, and I
Speaker 1: thought we'd kick off this year with a month long
Speaker 1: series of stories, not just you know, let's tell the
Speaker 1: story kind of thing, but actual breakdowns of special stories
Speaker 1: of special bucks. This month, I talked to I think
Speaker 1: four different folks who have had epic, years long hunts
Speaker 1: for single specific bucks and really had a thoughtful, detailed
Speaker 1: approach to how they tried to hunt these deer and
Speaker 1: ultimately found success. That's the plan for this month, going
Speaker 1: to try to really get into the nitty gritty and
Speaker 1: learn some stuff from these people. And today we've got
Speaker 1: a great example, a great way to kick that off.
Speaker 1: I'm joined by my buddy, Tyler Utter. He's an Ohio
Speaker 1: hunter who have got to spend some time with and
Speaker 1: he just capped off an epic six year story, a
Speaker 1: six year adventure chasing a once in a lifetime Ohio
Speaker 1: white tail nearly two buck. Just a gargantuan, dear, really
Speaker 1: interesting experience that Tyler had studying this deer, following this deer,
Speaker 1: trying to get them killed. Lots of ups and downs,
Speaker 1: that the full roller coaster you could imagine. And that's
Speaker 1: what we're covering today. Um, you're gonna hear everything from
Speaker 1: trail camera strategies to some interesting approaches to just you know,
Speaker 1: getting access in and kind of the perseverance or require
Speaker 1: some times to be able to hunt where these deer live. Um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna hear about dealing with the ups and downs
Speaker 1: of of misses, of bad shots, of of everything you
Speaker 1: could imagine. We've got that today. UM, So that's the play.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping you guys will enjoy this one with Tyler.
Speaker 1: I know I did. And then we've got some other
Speaker 1: really great stories coming up this month. This is going
Speaker 1: to hopefully prime the pump for us to kick off
Speaker 1: the new year as we dive into scouting and land prep,
Speaker 1: conservation work, volunteering to help improve habitat and public land,
Speaker 1: exploring new places, shooting our bows, shooting our guns, doing
Speaker 1: everything we need to do to prepared for the next season,
Speaker 1: which it's already time to start prepping for. I hope
Speaker 1: you guys all had a really good um. I'm sure
Speaker 1: I will do an episode here soon, kind of recapping
Speaker 1: my past season, probably talk with Tony or some of
Speaker 1: the other guys about the season. We just wrapped up
Speaker 1: what we learned from it. But I can tell you
Speaker 1: one thing out the gate is that my goal coming
Speaker 1: into the deer season was to have fun, just to
Speaker 1: get back to the fun of it all. And I
Speaker 1: did it, guys. I somehow was able to keep the
Speaker 1: stress out. I was able to focus on just hunting
Speaker 1: my hunt, doing things for for my enjoyment and why
Speaker 1: I got into deer hunt in the first place, getting
Speaker 1: back to the love of it. And it worked. It
Speaker 1: freaking worked. I had the most fun deer season I've
Speaker 1: had in years. I got back to the basics, and oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, it also led to some pretty decent
Speaker 1: success too, So more to come on that. We'll definitely
Speaker 1: talk about this, unpack that as we go into the
Speaker 1: new year. Um, but hope for this is proof of
Speaker 1: concept if we can all get back to just having fun,
Speaker 1: not worrying about what people think on social media, not
Speaker 1: worrying about what our neighbors think, not worrying about what
Speaker 1: our friends think, not worrying about how big the deers
Speaker 1: or how little the deers or whatever, but just enjoying
Speaker 1: deer and deer hunting and wild places, enjoying these things,
Speaker 1: caring about these things. Man, that's what's all about. So
Speaker 1: keep that in mind this coming year as we build
Speaker 1: into the three season, and without any further ado, then
Speaker 1: let's get to our first big buck breakdown of the month.
Speaker 1: We've got the story of this giant deer that Tyler
Speaker 1: Utter was fortunate enough to wrap his tag on. Let's
Speaker 1: get to it, and I'm gonna welcome Tyler to the
Speaker 1: show all right now with me on the line, is
Speaker 1: Tyler Utter? Tyler welcome the show man? Hey, Mark, I
Speaker 1: appreciate the invite, man, Yeah, I'm glad this worked out.
Speaker 1: It's Uh, it's been cool getting to uh spend some
Speaker 1: time with you after we kind of randomly bumped into
Speaker 1: each other because we had some hunting properties close together,
Speaker 1: and uh and since then, I've got to find a
Speaker 1: kindred spirit in your my friend, you are just as
Speaker 1: nuts as me, So I cheers to that. I agree,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of nice, fine in the same type
Speaker 1: of person, because sometimes you get looked at a little
Speaker 1: nuts look out than that. Yeah that's the truth. But uh,
Speaker 1: but yeah, man, We've got a really good excuse to
Speaker 1: talk some more tonight because this month, as you know,
Speaker 1: on our podcast, we are doing a series of buck
Speaker 1: profiles of stories the folks who have had just like
Speaker 1: an incredible hunt for a specific buck um deep in
Speaker 1: the weeds, losing sleep at night, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And uh, I think that would that would be accurate
Speaker 1: for your situation. Would you say that that's about right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would fit it really good. Yeah, well, a sleepless night.
Speaker 1: So tell me this. I want to I want to
Speaker 1: go through the whole store, the whole long story, and
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully pick out a lot of details of
Speaker 1: how you did what you did and why you did
Speaker 1: what you did and all that kind of stuff. But
Speaker 1: before we get into that, UM, tell me this just
Speaker 1: what made this deer and this hunt so special for you?
Speaker 1: Like why did you lose sleep for for years? Why
Speaker 1: were you so damn excited when you finally killed this tier? Um?
Speaker 1: I think the biggest reason was just finding him kind
Speaker 1: of the way. I did not really expect. You know,
Speaker 1: you put cameras out and you kind of expect, you know,
Speaker 1: a big deer to be in certain areas, and this
Speaker 1: was just an area and never you know, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like a last resort type of thing. One year
Speaker 1: and that was the first year I got pictures of him.
Speaker 1: It was real late season, and I think that was
Speaker 1: exciting in itself. And then it was a really, like
Speaker 1: I said, weird type of area that he was in,
Speaker 1: and you just wouldn't look at it on a map
Speaker 1: and go, hey, that deer lives there, Like there was
Speaker 1: absolutely unless I missed something key, I mean, you just
Speaker 1: wouldn't think that. So it was exciting. And then his
Speaker 1: potential was what really excited me. But it was hard
Speaker 1: to uh to let the deer get to where he
Speaker 1: needed to. But I think that was part of what
Speaker 1: made it so rewarding and so exciting, Like I love
Speaker 1: letting deer grow, Like I kind of get into that
Speaker 1: perspective more than actually hunt him sometimes, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like it ends up being you kind of
Speaker 1: just like I just wanted maybe one more year here,
Speaker 1: like fun to watch him, fun to see what what
Speaker 1: they might turn into next. Yeah, And that's what made
Speaker 1: this deer so special to me. It was just the
Speaker 1: potential we had when I first saw him, and then
Speaker 1: the way it kind of unfolded, and just the amount
Speaker 1: of time and just history with him, and how hard
Speaker 1: he was to really kill in this area because like
Speaker 1: I was saying, it's just not an area where you
Speaker 1: would think he would be. And then it's just super
Speaker 1: open a lot of cattle pasture and stuff. So it
Speaker 1: was really difficult, uh even have opportunities at him at all. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: so paint me a picture for for people who haven't
Speaker 1: seen a literal picture of this deer. I think for
Speaker 1: the story to to really hit home, we gotta have
Speaker 1: like something in our minds when we're imagining what this
Speaker 1: deer looks like, what he is. How how old do
Speaker 1: you think this deer was when you were hunting him
Speaker 1: to the last year, so when he killed him, and
Speaker 1: then describe what this deer looks like now that he's
Speaker 1: you know, in the back of your truck. Don't don't
Speaker 1: tell me what he looks like now in the back
Speaker 1: of your truck, because I'm pretty sure that's just a
Speaker 1: skull cap. But tell me what he looked like this year.
Speaker 1: It looked really good. Um. So he it's just a
Speaker 1: mega typical dear like he just he never really had
Speaker 1: much trash. I mean, had a couple of you know,
Speaker 1: inside points in between times and stuff here and there,
Speaker 1: and in a couple um kickers on his two on
Speaker 1: the one side. But he's just a giant frame. It
Speaker 1: was the twelve pointer in the beginning, ended up being
Speaker 1: a ten pointer that was just as big as his
Speaker 1: twelve point frame when I killed him. And m my
Speaker 1: guess is, you know, I had six years of history
Speaker 1: with the deer, So my guess is like nine years
Speaker 1: old or so is where I really think he's at.
Speaker 1: But um, he could be more. I mean, I know,
Speaker 1: he's no less than that. Um. When I first started
Speaker 1: getting pictures, you know, he was probably a hundred and
Speaker 1: forty year and I mean that's a where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a three year old generally, you know,
Speaker 1: he could have been four, but he had some character
Speaker 1: even that year, so I mean he could have been four,
Speaker 1: which would put him at ten. But I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: nine is where he's at. But that's kind of what
Speaker 1: I always said since the first time I got a
Speaker 1: picture of him, was that is that? Is that rare
Speaker 1: in your area? For Buck to get that all? I mean,
Speaker 1: it seems like crazy to me. But is that not
Speaker 1: unheard of in your neck of the woods or is
Speaker 1: it it's pretty unheard of. I don't know of too
Speaker 1: many deer. Um, we got a lot of buddies that
Speaker 1: hunt big deer, and I don't really know of anything.
Speaker 1: You know, eight nine years old is probably the oldest
Speaker 1: I know of, and it's super rare. But it it's
Speaker 1: kind of like it just goes back to the area thing,
Speaker 1: like if I would paint you a picture of that area,
Speaker 1: like or show you on a map, you know it.
Speaker 1: It's just it's super hard to hunt every angle you
Speaker 1: come in on. He can see, like, it's just it's
Speaker 1: super difficult. And I and I from my knowledge, like
Speaker 1: I don't think many people knew about him at all,
Speaker 1: even though he's been there that long. Like he didn't
Speaker 1: show himself out in fields, you know, in bean fields,
Speaker 1: Like it was a perfect protected area, like where you
Speaker 1: couldn't see in but at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: hard to hunt because it was so open. But it
Speaker 1: was just one of it was a perfect case scenario.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had a lot of deer that you
Speaker 1: know that are everybody knows about them if they get
Speaker 1: that big. I mean, just there's a celebrity around town.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so this one somehow flew under the radar. Um.
Speaker 1: But how did you I guess let's let's start with this.
Speaker 1: How did you find out about him? So? What was
Speaker 1: your introduction to this deer? Uh? Where to begin? So?
Speaker 1: I huh, A lot of area around this area, UM,
Speaker 1: A lot of good farms where I grew up hunting.
Speaker 1: You know, we've killed some of my first bucks up
Speaker 1: until my biggest year. So the general area I know
Speaker 1: is good. But this farm, um, it's actually a good
Speaker 1: friend of my parents and I I don't know what
Speaker 1: triggered it. One one year, I just I didn't really
Speaker 1: have a shooter that I was like, you know, dead
Speaker 1: set on a lot of deer wanted to grow and
Speaker 1: I didn't really have anything to chase. And it was
Speaker 1: late season. The deer I was after got um killed
Speaker 1: by the neighbor. He he went like one he was
Speaker 1: a giant but similar year. And then yeah, just when
Speaker 1: he was gone, there was just nothing else. So I
Speaker 1: it was like, oh, ask for permission. And you know,
Speaker 1: I know nobody really hunted over there or anything. And
Speaker 1: like I said, it was all cow pasture. It's like
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty acres of just cattle pasture with
Speaker 1: a little bit of finger woods through it. And I
Speaker 1: went to one of the finger woods, put a camera
Speaker 1: out on the fence line and like that was you know,
Speaker 1: splitting the property because of the cattle pins. And he
Speaker 1: showed up, like the only deer that showed up a
Speaker 1: couple of days in him and uh that was the
Speaker 1: first picture, and I was like, wow, that's a good deer.
Speaker 1: Like I didn't really I didn't know if he was
Speaker 1: a homebody, you know, didn't know what would unfold after that.
Speaker 1: Like I never would have guessed this would have happened.
Speaker 1: But so you get pictures of this like buck that
Speaker 1: you think the three year old maybe it's so like
Speaker 1: a I mean, in my eyes that'd be like a
Speaker 1: great three year old, but in your eyes are kind
Speaker 1: of like, all right, he's like he's a nice three
Speaker 1: year old. Is that what you were thinking? And did
Speaker 1: you have like high hopes already or he was this
Speaker 1: kind of like all right, there was another decent buck. Uh,
Speaker 1: I had high hopes. I was, you know, unsure, like
Speaker 1: at first, you know, I kind of looked at Hiven.
Speaker 1: He was ran down. You know, it was late season,
Speaker 1: it was after the route, so he was really ragged
Speaker 1: ran down. But so I couldn't really tell if it
Speaker 1: was you know a lot of people can judge dear's
Speaker 1: ages and you know, look at him one time and
Speaker 1: see it. But he just was so ran down that
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell if it was like an order buck
Speaker 1: ran down or he was just actually that young, which
Speaker 1: was kind of my first you know thoughts about it.
Speaker 1: But he had some kickers like on the inside of
Speaker 1: his beam, and he just had the genetics like that
Speaker 1: you want to see, like he didn't have like a
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of kickers off his you know,
Speaker 1: his brows or his bases or whatever. You know that
Speaker 1: some dear get that, you know, are just gonna be
Speaker 1: that every year he had him like in between his
Speaker 1: times and had you know, a flyer on the one side.
Speaker 1: It was just one of them do you look for
Speaker 1: And I'm like, if this dear is really three, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be something. But at that time, I didn't
Speaker 1: know what the hopes were because I don't know if
Speaker 1: he would stay around, Like I didn't know if that's
Speaker 1: where that deer lived there. It was just like season
Speaker 1: and I just got lucky, like I didn't have a
Speaker 1: clue if i'd seen the next year. But I knew
Speaker 1: right then he was special. But I didn't know, you know,
Speaker 1: what my history was going to be, because you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't know the hunting pressure. I was still learning,
Speaker 1: Like I'm in that area. I kind of thought I
Speaker 1: knew what I knew, but at the same time, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know who was hunting the side there, or
Speaker 1: you know, the neighbors, who was they were allowing to hunt,
Speaker 1: and how much pressure he really would get. And so
Speaker 1: it just kind of the next year, it kind of
Speaker 1: I realized, wow, like there's nobody around here, like this
Speaker 1: could be a deer that I could let grow for
Speaker 1: a few years and he could be a mega giant
Speaker 1: and he ultimately worked out. It about killed me at times,
Speaker 1: but so so walk me through from They're like when
Speaker 1: you when you get a buck like this on camera
Speaker 1: in place even hunt, and I think one thing you
Speaker 1: do that a lot of people could learn from, and
Speaker 1: you tell me if I'm wrong on this, But it
Speaker 1: seems like you cast a really wide net. It seems
Speaker 1: like you get permission on a bunch of different places,
Speaker 1: like you've got X to a lot of different farms
Speaker 1: in your general area, and it seems like you're just
Speaker 1: like kind of keeping tabs on everything everywhere. And then
Speaker 1: you're you're you're not dedicating yourself to any given farmer
Speaker 1: area until you find like that one special deer and
Speaker 1: then you know, you zoom and then but you've got
Speaker 1: this really kind of far reaching gaze. You're looking all around,
Speaker 1: looking all around, and you only focus when you find
Speaker 1: that one. Is that right? That's you couldn't hit it
Speaker 1: more on the head like that? Yeah, that's exactly kind
Speaker 1: of my tactics, um, just because they're so hard to find,
Speaker 1: you know, the big mature deer that are going to
Speaker 1: be something special where or something special and usually if
Speaker 1: you do, you know how it is, like it's pretty competitive.
Speaker 1: There's usually somebody that knows about anymolready. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm from a small town to where I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people, and you know, you're like, I don't
Speaker 1: want to make that guy mad, Like I don't want
Speaker 1: to go here and make this guy mad, like I
Speaker 1: know he hunts every here. So the area that I
Speaker 1: have and that i've been, you know, lucky enough two
Speaker 1: kind of really, you know, at least in such a
Speaker 1: big thing now, But a lot of this area I've
Speaker 1: just had permission since i've been a kid, Like my
Speaker 1: dad always hunted there, and it's my dad's good friends
Speaker 1: and they don't let anybody else hunt. Like I couldn't
Speaker 1: explain how fortunate that is, especially nowadays, like it seems
Speaker 1: to be everywhere you look it's a lease and there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that at all, but it's just kind
Speaker 1: of the way it's went. So I've just been fortunate
Speaker 1: to keep this ground without needing to do that really,
Speaker 1: so cast the net in that area pretty wide. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I find a deer and I try to focus on
Speaker 1: that deer, like I don't really bounce around and you know,
Speaker 1: but some years, like this year, that's the only reason
Speaker 1: I found him is because the deer I was after
Speaker 1: was gone and you know, it got killed. And when
Speaker 1: that happens, it's like when you set your you know,
Speaker 1: your goals for one deer, all of a sudden it's
Speaker 1: over and you're like, all right, where do I go now? Now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's that's difficult at times. But so yeah, so
Speaker 1: this one, you see him in the let you get
Speaker 1: pictures in the late season. He falls kind of in
Speaker 1: the like interesting folder. Maybe in your brain you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is when he keep tabs on what happens the
Speaker 1: next year? And what do you do when you get
Speaker 1: a buck? When you kind of get tabs on the
Speaker 1: buck you see one or you get a picture of
Speaker 1: one that's like interesting, but you're not gonna want to
Speaker 1: shoot him right away? Like how does that impact your
Speaker 1: strategy the following year? Do you do a bunch of
Speaker 1: different kind of preparations given that you're hoping this deer
Speaker 1: might blow up? Or are you still like all right,
Speaker 1: I wanted to see what see what happens here? Um,
Speaker 1: what does that look like? And then what did you
Speaker 1: actually do? So yeah, I kinda like this, dear, I
Speaker 1: keep alluding back to it because he was he was
Speaker 1: on my radar, but I never knew what was going
Speaker 1: to happen the following year. Like as far as when
Speaker 1: I actually got pictures of him, I'm like, oh wow,
Speaker 1: like he blew up. Um he went from that you
Speaker 1: know frame too, mid one seventies. Yeah, he he exploded,
Speaker 1: And uh that kind of changed a lot. I was
Speaker 1: chasing another pretty good deer that year, and uh, I
Speaker 1: knew that I as bad as it sounds, are as
Speaker 1: good however you want to look at it. But like
Speaker 1: I knew I couldn't. I knew I couldn't shoot him
Speaker 1: because at that point, you know, he was healthy and
Speaker 1: you know, velvet pictures, and I knew I'm dealing with
Speaker 1: a four year old, you know, five year old at
Speaker 1: the most. Bounce back and forth with that. But I mean,
Speaker 1: let's call it a four year old. But he exploded,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this could be the next year like this,
Speaker 1: I'll never probably have an opportunity to chase the deer
Speaker 1: like this again. So that's kind of where my mind went.
Speaker 1: I when I first saw him, I went in and
Speaker 1: put some stands in obviously went and you know, put
Speaker 1: cameras out and kind of tried to uh pinpoint or
Speaker 1: just get pictures of him again, you know, from the
Speaker 1: following year, just see what he did. And then when
Speaker 1: I did, I was like, okay, wow. It wasn't so
Speaker 1: sure at first, you know that I wasn't gonna shoot
Speaker 1: him just because he was a giant. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, all right, I'm not shooting him. People thought
Speaker 1: I was crazy. I got a good buddy of hunt
Speaker 1: with all the time, and he was like, you're I'm
Speaker 1: gonna shoot that dear, like I gotta let him grow.
Speaker 1: And he was daylight and a lot oh man on
Speaker 1: this farm, and it was difficult. It was de a
Speaker 1: call Um actually sat in the stand a couple of
Speaker 1: times that year, like in the beginning first week of season,
Speaker 1: and I got to lay my eyes on him and
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I was like, so when you
Speaker 1: went out there, though, were you thinking in your head,
Speaker 1: like were you still unsure? And you were sitting like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe not. We'll see how I feel.
Speaker 1: A moment. Was that kind of thing pretty much, But
Speaker 1: I mean I knew I wasn't gonna shooting, but the
Speaker 1: pressure from friends and family were kind of you know,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? I don't, and and so a little
Speaker 1: bit in my mind, you know, I'm still figuring out
Speaker 1: you know, who's around, what's around as far as hunters
Speaker 1: or predator, you know, like something that's gonna take him out.
Speaker 1: I'm like, where's his dear? Go? Does he travel a
Speaker 1: lot during you know? It's all or what if at
Speaker 1: this point. So that to me was probably the biggest
Speaker 1: like the reason that I even kind of thought about it,
Speaker 1: because I'm like, well, you know, is he for you know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make him five or six in my
Speaker 1: head like is he gonna be around? Like oh, what
Speaker 1: if somebody and go back to the year before where
Speaker 1: the neighbor killed that deer. I'm like kind of a
Speaker 1: little bit bitter because I'm like, gosh, and I watched
Speaker 1: that deer for three or four years and then that happens. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a hard decision to make. But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I just I I knew I wasn't gonna shoot him,
Speaker 1: but when I'm sitting in there and I saw him
Speaker 1: and I was like, wow, I mean just a giant
Speaker 1: and yeah, I don't know it was it was easy,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't easy. I guess if that makes any
Speaker 1: sense at all. So you hunt, you obviously, you know
Speaker 1: anyone listening hearing you say what you just said, Like
Speaker 1: it's obvious it must well it should be obvious to
Speaker 1: anybody that you hunt in a pretty good area where
Speaker 1: you have opportunities a good deer um to be able
Speaker 1: to see a booner and be like, you know, he
Speaker 1: needs another year. So you're you're in a place that
Speaker 1: these deer get a chance to get old and they've
Speaker 1: got good genetics and so you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: you're a fortunate guy to be in a zone like that. Um,
Speaker 1: But but why like why why do you want to
Speaker 1: see what happens? Like why was that a buck that
Speaker 1: you saw? And you're like, you know what, I want
Speaker 1: to I want to keep this story going. I want
Speaker 1: to see what happens next, Like is it? Is it
Speaker 1: simply curiosity and like manage it could be like a
Speaker 1: once in lifetime deer or is it? I don't know?
Speaker 1: Like what is that in your head? I think the
Speaker 1: best way to explain it is, I mean, you can't
Speaker 1: killer if you don't let them grow. I mean that's
Speaker 1: always you know, everybody's chasing that two mark, and obviously
Speaker 1: I'm chasing it too, and I just it's easy for
Speaker 1: me to let dear grow like I almost you know,
Speaker 1: like seeing like you're saying, the curiosity part gets me.
Speaker 1: And then it's just the fact of putting a story together,
Speaker 1: putting the history together, putting you know, all the ups
Speaker 1: and downs, like anybody that's hunted and chase the deer.
Speaker 1: I mean you as well, do you you you understand it,
Speaker 1: like for sure, it's a mental battle that is tough
Speaker 1: more than it's good. Like, but when it's good, it's
Speaker 1: so good, and you can't explain that to people like
Speaker 1: if you've never done it. So I think that's probably
Speaker 1: one of the bigger reasons that I enjoyed, is just
Speaker 1: you know, putting the history together and then given the
Speaker 1: deer a chance to be, you know, at its full potential,
Speaker 1: which a lot of times hasn't worked out. I've had
Speaker 1: a lot of big deer. You know, something's happened, the
Speaker 1: neighbors killed him to give by a car. Like it's
Speaker 1: just and it's tough to swallow because you know, you
Speaker 1: got all that history and time and you're exciting because
Speaker 1: this is the year and then something happens, and but
Speaker 1: it's still not worth the alternative, Like it's it's way
Speaker 1: better than the alternative, which is shooting a young deer
Speaker 1: that I think has big potential. Like like I was
Speaker 1: saying earlier, I I think I enjoy letting them grow
Speaker 1: subtimeous to see what they're gonna be. And I mean,
Speaker 1: white tails are I don't know. I mean, if you
Speaker 1: don't hunt them, you don't understand, but if you do,
Speaker 1: you get it. Like there awesome creatures. I mean, they're
Speaker 1: they're wild animals that shed bone every year, grow it
Speaker 1: back and a lot of times just bigger. It's just
Speaker 1: kind of wild to see what they do. It's it
Speaker 1: really is, well, you know, I think to your point,
Speaker 1: like the thing that maybe I like the most about,
Speaker 1: you know, letting a deer go and and trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, watch them over time is just the fact
Speaker 1: that I don't know how you feel, but sometimes I
Speaker 1: like to hunt more than the kill. Like I love
Speaker 1: just like watching these deer learning these deer, studying these deer,
Speaker 1: seeing what they do from year to year kind of
Speaker 1: just like you get get to know them, and they're
Speaker 1: just so fascinating. I just love that, like trying to
Speaker 1: figure it out. Like there's like a puzzle in front
Speaker 1: of me every year and you get to see, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what's this they're gonna do this year? What's he gonna
Speaker 1: do this here? And you're slowly putting together this puzzle.
Speaker 1: You're slowly getting a picture of what's happening in that
Speaker 1: process itself is so much fun that sometimes I don't
Speaker 1: want to end, and and so part of it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: so sometimes like man, I really want to see what,
Speaker 1: you know, how big it gets. But also sometimes it's
Speaker 1: like I just want this to keep going because this
Speaker 1: is just fun. Yeah it is. You couldn't. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you said everything right there, like what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to explain. That's that's the perfect way to say it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it is fun. It's so frustrating at times,
Speaker 1: but it's so it's so much fun, and I don't
Speaker 1: it's a hobby and it's it's I've never been more
Speaker 1: passionate about something. And I hope that it never goes away.
Speaker 1: I don't think it will. But you know, you've heard
Speaker 1: the stories. You know a lot of people that hunted
Speaker 1: when they were younger and really kind of I don't know,
Speaker 1: burnt ourselves out, you know, the older guys that are
Speaker 1: like used to hunt a lot, but I don't anymore.
Speaker 1: And you'll get that way too. I don't think that's me.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's there. I hope so too for
Speaker 1: me to um So, so, okay, you you get pictures
Speaker 1: of him, he's a booner, he's a giant, but you realize, like,
Speaker 1: all right, you know, I want to I want to
Speaker 1: see where this thing goes. Still, um you hunt early
Speaker 1: in the season, you see him, but you decide, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to shoot him. So what do you
Speaker 1: do with a buck like that where it's like a
Speaker 1: giant but you're not going to shoot it? What was
Speaker 1: your What did you do the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: Did you have a plan to try to like still
Speaker 1: keep trying to learn about him, or did you decide
Speaker 1: to stay out completely to keep pressure super low? How
Speaker 1: did you how do you do that? I quickly learned
Speaker 1: that the neighboring property was where he lived, and that
Speaker 1: was a little bit concerning to me because there was
Speaker 1: somebody leashing that property. Um that I've found out, like
Speaker 1: what I of my head set on a deer, you know,
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out, and you quickly realized like, okay,
Speaker 1: this deer doesn't live there, Like I really go into
Speaker 1: some digging and we all do it, um, trying to
Speaker 1: figure out you know, okay, well who does hunt over there?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to step on any toes,
Speaker 1: does anybody hunt over there? Trying to get my plans
Speaker 1: together for next year, because after he sheded velvet, probably
Speaker 1: two weeks. I mean he would show up time to time,
Speaker 1: but like two weeks in the season. It went from
Speaker 1: you know, every every day or every couple of days
Speaker 1: of pictures in daylight and pictures in general, to you know,
Speaker 1: one a week, and then you know, a couple in
Speaker 1: that month. And so I just quickly realized okay, and
Speaker 1: it made a lot more sense on you know, looking
Speaker 1: at it on the map and everything. That's where that
Speaker 1: deer lives was the neighboring property. He summered where I
Speaker 1: was in or where I was hunting, and then you know,
Speaker 1: late season he came back. So I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: that's how I caught him the year before. Um, and
Speaker 1: I know all this now, but at the time I'm
Speaker 1: just kind of putting it together, like, all right, this
Speaker 1: deer doesn't live here, I'm gonna have to make a
Speaker 1: plan or figure out what I can do to get
Speaker 1: that property. So I kind of started digging on it,
Speaker 1: and I knew, um, one of the boys that his
Speaker 1: grandpa owned the farm. Um, they did have somebody leasing it,
Speaker 1: which is what I heard, but I confirmed it through them,
Speaker 1: and you know, I was like, well, if something ever changes,
Speaker 1: you know, if they don't want to lease it next year,
Speaker 1: or if they um give it up whatever, you know,
Speaker 1: like in the future. I'm thinking even a couple of years.
Speaker 1: You know, I never thought what would have happened. But
Speaker 1: so that whole year goes by, they were releasing the property,
Speaker 1: and I kept my feelers out there, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: let me know, let me know without on a bug him.
Speaker 1: And lucky enough for me. I don't guess the people
Speaker 1: knew that deer was there, you know, I don't some
Speaker 1: people we'reun a lot of cameras. Some people hunt a lot,
Speaker 1: and apparently these people didn't because they didn't they didn't
Speaker 1: know that deer was there, or you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: didn't want to lease it again because of they don't
Speaker 1: want to spend the money. I don't know what it was,
Speaker 1: but they gave it up and I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to be staying in there waiting on it, like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take it. Yeah, you know, like I kind of
Speaker 1: one of them to name your prices. But I was
Speaker 1: trying to play poker, you know, yeah, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: want to act too excited, but U So that was
Speaker 1: the game changer. That was Um, that was really where
Speaker 1: it changed for me as far as realizing, Okay, I
Speaker 1: got a shot to kill this deer because I knew
Speaker 1: just after that year he's gone for nine percent of
Speaker 1: the season. He's back, you know, the last couple of
Speaker 1: weeks this season, and obviously he sheds, and um, I
Speaker 1: was fortunate enough to find a shed that year, um,
Speaker 1: laying right out in the middle of the field, and
Speaker 1: kind of, yeah, I was pure just luck that he
Speaker 1: dropped on that side. But I couldn't find the other one.
Speaker 1: And there's not much woods there to serve. So if
Speaker 1: it's not on the field, it's just not there where
Speaker 1: I'm able to get it. So I did get the
Speaker 1: lease and started preparing that kind of thinking what do
Speaker 1: I do here? You know, I don't know anything about
Speaker 1: the farm. I don't know anything about how the deer
Speaker 1: moved through there. It kind of makes sense in my
Speaker 1: head looking at it, But at the same time, you
Speaker 1: know how that is, every time you think you gotta
Speaker 1: figured out, they do something totally opposite. So I don't
Speaker 1: know if you want to jump into any of that
Speaker 1: or if you want me to keep going with the
Speaker 1: kind of the timeline. Yeah, well, we'll tell me. Tell
Speaker 1: me what the trail camera strategy was as far as
Speaker 1: like trying to figure some of that stuff out, and
Speaker 1: and how how do you run I guess generally, how
Speaker 1: do you run cameras to learn about these deer? And
Speaker 1: then what did you have to specifically do on this
Speaker 1: new property to figure out this? Dear? Okay, so the
Speaker 1: property is kind of like it's it's a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: acres also, and it's a lot of cattle pasture, and
Speaker 1: that's a lot of finger woods. But there's one big
Speaker 1: block of timber on it, and I say big block,
Speaker 1: like thirty acres of its um, you know, really thick, nasty,
Speaker 1: But that's the majority of the woods there, and then
Speaker 1: everything that's kind of like fingers off of that, which
Speaker 1: is there's three two main fingers and then kind of
Speaker 1: like a little satellite finger or whatever you wanna call it.
Speaker 1: But um so I started slow. I put some cameras
Speaker 1: out natural trails through them fingers, and really didn't want
Speaker 1: to go into that other area at all, um just
Speaker 1: because I knew if he was gonna stay on the property,
Speaker 1: I mean, that was his core betting area. Like there
Speaker 1: was no doubt in my mind on that. But I
Speaker 1: was quickly proven wrong. Uh he this, So I put
Speaker 1: some cameras out on these fingers and just natural corridor
Speaker 1: type stuff, you know, no no bait or nothing at first,
Speaker 1: and really, uh try to just learn what the deer do.
Speaker 1: And I had the other property still, so you know,
Speaker 1: we're fast forward to the next year, and I got
Speaker 1: pictures of him on that other property where I was
Speaker 1: originally getting pictures of the velvet pictures of him. Um
Speaker 1: the past year, like had the camera on the same tree,
Speaker 1: you know everything. Um he blew up again, like I
Speaker 1: mean another um so, now he's a big six by
Speaker 1: six and just a giant, like I mean it was
Speaker 1: his frame is comparable now when I killed him, But
Speaker 1: I mean it was when I got the first pictures.
Speaker 1: I was like, this has gotta be fake. Like I
Speaker 1: was just like, this isn't real, Like I actually have
Speaker 1: a chance to kill this dear or you know, an
Speaker 1: opportunity I landed the least, Like I was kind of nuts,
Speaker 1: if you will, about trying to pin that lease down
Speaker 1: and you know, good confirmation that I can hunt where
Speaker 1: I thought this dear was living. Um. But I put
Speaker 1: cameras out over there like I always did, and and
Speaker 1: started getting velvet pictures of him. I'm like, wow, all right,
Speaker 1: that's when I went into a different gear of I'm
Speaker 1: gonna try to kill this dear. So I had the
Speaker 1: new lease, I was putting cameras on their fingers. Nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, didn't get any pictures of him. I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, I gotta move back a little bit, move
Speaker 1: towards the other property that I was hunting, which they do,
Speaker 1: but you know they're side by side. Um. So I
Speaker 1: moved a little more towards that fence line, and still nothing.
Speaker 1: You know, we're into August at this point, probably, but
Speaker 1: he's still up there on you know, the property had
Speaker 1: the year before and as soon as he shed velvet,
Speaker 1: you know, two weeks in he slowly started moving into
Speaker 1: this property. Like I mean when I say slowly, like
Speaker 1: the closest you know camera I had to that property.
Speaker 1: He started showing up on a little bit, but no
Speaker 1: other cameras. Then he started showing up a little deeper
Speaker 1: into the property, and then a little more and then
Speaker 1: a little more, and then as the season came around,
Speaker 1: I really started to figure out, Okay, this is where
Speaker 1: he lives. Like I had a confirmation like all right,
Speaker 1: this dear is here. Now I gotta figure out a
Speaker 1: strategy on how to kill him because everything coming in
Speaker 1: and out of the property, he can see me. Like
Speaker 1: I just have that feeling like okay, he can see me.
Speaker 1: So it was that was probably the biggest hurdle of
Speaker 1: all of this, But I don't wanta dive too deep
Speaker 1: into that. But so I started getting the pitch. You know,
Speaker 1: I got them on scrapes at this point, you know,
Speaker 1: they're really starting to hit scrapes, and I'm getting a
Speaker 1: bunch of pictures of him, Like I'm excited, like I'm
Speaker 1: thinking I might be able to kill this deer like
Speaker 1: this year, like almost easier than I thought because he
Speaker 1: was showing up all the time, but quick questions for
Speaker 1: you for the with the cameras. How So you've got
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty acres that you get the lease, within
Speaker 1: a hundred fifty acres that you have permission on next
Speaker 1: to it, how many cameras are you running in a
Speaker 1: situation like that trying to figure this deer out? So
Speaker 1: the the one I had before, I had two cameras
Speaker 1: on it, and only because like I said, I mean
Speaker 1: there might have been fifteen acres of woods, you know,
Speaker 1: it was super small, and most of that was like
Speaker 1: strong out, you know, fingers, so I kind of knew
Speaker 1: what how the deer moved through there. So I only
Speaker 1: had two over there. And then the new property, I
Speaker 1: had three on it at first, um, because I was
Speaker 1: just trying to really not press in anywhere that would
Speaker 1: bump that deer or you're just trying to learn before
Speaker 1: I just went cowboy on it. Um. So five total
Speaker 1: on both of those pieces at first, but that changed
Speaker 1: dramatically in the next few years. Alright, So so continue
Speaker 1: on from the other. So UM kind of like I was,
Speaker 1: I just I thought, all right, I got a chance here,
Speaker 1: but you know, getting in and out was the access
Speaker 1: was the problem. Um. Anytime I was there. He wasn't
Speaker 1: We've all been there, um, but I ended up having
Speaker 1: an opportunity like October, No, it was late November that year, um,
Speaker 1: and this it's this property is like it's all broke
Speaker 1: up to where when I say, like, I have a
Speaker 1: camera on this finger, you know, it's two ft long
Speaker 1: and you know, fifty yards wide, just to paint the picture.
Speaker 1: And if I had it at one end on a scrape, nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, there's another scrape at the other end of it.
Speaker 1: This is literally kind of what happened. And he would
Speaker 1: show up there all the time. So like any like
Speaker 1: little movements, micro movements was kind of how I was
Speaker 1: getting a little bit of intel this year. Like if
Speaker 1: I just kept it on that into that uh finger
Speaker 1: you know on a scrape that was you know, blowed
Speaker 1: out every time I was there, I wouldn't have him
Speaker 1: on there. Like that kind of was a game changer
Speaker 1: for me. It was kind of weird. So you then
Speaker 1: see you he said he had an opportunity of him though,
Speaker 1: so how did you how did you manage to get
Speaker 1: the opportunity despite the fact that it seemed like every
Speaker 1: time you went there otherwise he was not there. Because
Speaker 1: you've got this like sneaky suspicion he's sometimes or someone
Speaker 1: sees you. Yeah, so um, I started kind of really
Speaker 1: only hunting one spot, which you know, I like to
Speaker 1: bounce around a little bit on other properties. But this
Speaker 1: year I was just, like I said, just trying to
Speaker 1: figure him out, and it wasn't really going by in
Speaker 1: my favor. So there was one camera he was kind
Speaker 1: of alluding to more than anything, and it happened to
Speaker 1: be the camera that I could, you know, the stand
Speaker 1: set up that I could get to the easiest um,
Speaker 1: like a little drainage whale went through the middle of
Speaker 1: the property and I could walk it in, and then
Speaker 1: it led me to a creek and I could walk
Speaker 1: the creek up, and then from the creek it like
Speaker 1: went up a little hill and then there was a
Speaker 1: big field that was all you know hidden in the
Speaker 1: back um which was beans that year and actually it
Speaker 1: was yeah, it was corn that year, and he just
Speaker 1: liked to be back there, I think, just to you know,
Speaker 1: being secluded. But I still couldn't really figure out where
Speaker 1: he was bedd and I had a couple of options
Speaker 1: in my your head that I thought, but that was
Speaker 1: just the biggest opportunity I felt like I had, and
Speaker 1: you know, I hunted it. I don't know how many times,
Speaker 1: but not very few. A lot of my friends are
Speaker 1: you know, why aren't you hunt? Why don't you hunt?
Speaker 1: Whych hunt? If the scenario wasn't perfect, you know, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't hunt, like I'd rather not run a deer out,
Speaker 1: you know, then just be in the woods. To be
Speaker 1: in the woods. I think a lot of that happens
Speaker 1: because it's season. You know, everybody thinks they need to
Speaker 1: be in the woods, and I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: have that. Whatever that ticket is or whatever that is,
Speaker 1: I just don't have it. I feel like I need to,
Speaker 1: especially this year, I needed to make sure that I
Speaker 1: didn't bump him off the property and push you over
Speaker 1: to you know, the neighbors that I was still you know,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out. But anyways, I kept hunting that area.
Speaker 1: In late late season when he got cold, Um, I
Speaker 1: had corn out and I kind of tried to only
Speaker 1: put it out in one spot after I kind of
Speaker 1: figured out this is where he likes to be, so
Speaker 1: I just broadcasted out through the cut corn and he
Speaker 1: came in at like sixty yards or so. Um, it
Speaker 1: was as close as he got that night, But it
Speaker 1: was just I'm comfortable with that in a field scenario.
Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with a sixty yard shot. But it was
Speaker 1: just a little not the right scenario that makes it
Speaker 1: like it was a little bit low light. It was
Speaker 1: a little bit he was kind of you know, facing
Speaker 1: me at times, like it just wasn't comfortable, and I couldn't.
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I drew on him. I'm like
Speaker 1: setting my pen, you know, getting it on him and
Speaker 1: really barreling down on him and thinking this is gonna happen,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, just something off in my head house,
Speaker 1: I can't do it, Like it just wasn't the comfort
Speaker 1: wasn't there. So little did I know that that would
Speaker 1: have been the only time that year I would ever
Speaker 1: have a chance. You know, there's still yeah, yeah, late December,
Speaker 1: so there's still you know, a month, a month and
Speaker 1: a half or so or whatever here a month in
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks. So I'm still pretty optimistic. And
Speaker 1: that was it for that year, I mean nothing, And
Speaker 1: did he just just disappear off the property or was
Speaker 1: it that he was there? But you just couldn't see
Speaker 1: him person. Yeah, he was there, he stayed there. Um,
Speaker 1: just never got him in person. Um. Little tidbit for
Speaker 1: the future, like if like so, the first time I
Speaker 1: ever got consistency of daylight with him, like in a
Speaker 1: few days in a row, Um, we had dusting of
Speaker 1: snow and then like another dusting behind it the next day.
Speaker 1: And he showed up three days in a row and daylight.
Speaker 1: And kind of put that in the back of my head, like, huh,
Speaker 1: you know, we all know that deer moved better than
Speaker 1: but when you gotta do that's there all the time,
Speaker 1: but not daylight, and it's you know, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a time to be in there. Of course I'm in
Speaker 1: a different stand when he did it, um, but I
Speaker 1: kept that in the back of my head and in
Speaker 1: the in the future years that that was kind of
Speaker 1: his trademark as far as daylight, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of wild snow snow a dusting is now the first dusting,
Speaker 1: the first dusting or you know, snow at all. He
Speaker 1: would show up in daylight. All right, So this is
Speaker 1: year three right that we're describing here, and you you
Speaker 1: have him at sixty not quite the right opportunity, but
Speaker 1: he daylights a bunch with that snow you are now,
Speaker 1: you know, to see the rest of the season goes by,
Speaker 1: never get another chance at him. Year four, year five,
Speaker 1: Year six is when you killed him. So you've got
Speaker 1: two years in between now, between now and when you
Speaker 1: kill him. Yeah, what what happens that next year? He's
Speaker 1: got to be like number one? For sure? You're obsessed.
Speaker 1: You're full blown crazy at this point, Is that right? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't even like the year that we were just
Speaker 1: talking about. I didn't sit anywhere else, didn't care about
Speaker 1: anything else, Like I ran all the same cameras I
Speaker 1: normally run, had some really good dear on you know,
Speaker 1: some of those properties had some really good dear that
Speaker 1: I you know, hindsight, but you don't wish I would
Speaker 1: have Probably would have after versus you know the story.
Speaker 1: I would never change it for anything with him. But
Speaker 1: you know how it is when you focus on that
Speaker 1: dear and you know you don't kill him, you're like, man,
Speaker 1: I should have went after that dear. She did this
Speaker 1: and because they were big mature dear too, they just
Speaker 1: weren't him and they weren't that big and um back
Speaker 1: to the you know, like you were saying, just the
Speaker 1: kind of the chess match you have with them, and
Speaker 1: you're like, I'm not letting him beat me this year,
Speaker 1: but they do over and over and uh so the net. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the end of that year. But so the
Speaker 1: next year I did, I did kind of the same thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't really change much because this property, there wasn't
Speaker 1: much I could change. What I needed to figure out
Speaker 1: was where and what like he was doing in daylight
Speaker 1: because he was there. The only time the deer would
Speaker 1: disappear was during the rut. And this property is super weird.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about, you know, three hundred acres. I
Speaker 1: had the same three bucks every year, him being one
Speaker 1: of them, and nothing else, like a couple of spikes
Speaker 1: and you know, stuff you wouldn't even realize. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you really look at on your camera? You know,
Speaker 1: just some random deer. But as far as anything like
Speaker 1: anything from a hundred you up, it was the same
Speaker 1: three deer every year. It was one of them being him,
Speaker 1: and but I didn't have a handful of those on
Speaker 1: that property. It was just a weird. So that was
Speaker 1: kind of weird for me, you know, I like trying
Speaker 1: to figure out, Okay, it's getting close to rut. I
Speaker 1: know he's gonna disappear again, and he'd be gone for
Speaker 1: like the whole month in November, and it would make
Speaker 1: me nervous, so nervous because I wouldn't get a picture
Speaker 1: at all. You know, we're going from pictures every night
Speaker 1: on one or two cameras. You know, something's triggering every
Speaker 1: night with him, to nothing, I mean, not a glimpse
Speaker 1: and boom, like clockwork, he'd show back up the in
Speaker 1: in November. And that kind of played a big role
Speaker 1: on kind of how I handled it. But at the
Speaker 1: at the same time, I'm kind of in the lost
Speaker 1: world for words, because it was it was so mind
Speaker 1: boggling to me, like I couldn't figure anything out on
Speaker 1: this year, Like I I go out there to glass
Speaker 1: you know, observation type stuff and Wooden's team, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: get a glimpse of hing like this, dear. Out of
Speaker 1: the six years that you know, I hunted him four years, yeah,
Speaker 1: four years out of the six that I knew about him,
Speaker 1: And until this year, I you know, I saw him
Speaker 1: in person three times, four times at zero footage of him.
Speaker 1: I'd go out there for velvet footage, zero footage of
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like I putting all my
Speaker 1: time in this year, and any other year I did that,
Speaker 1: I would have glimpses and I would have footage in velvet.
Speaker 1: Like it was just you know, really putting a story
Speaker 1: together and putting some time in and it was paying off.
Speaker 1: But this year, no, no, what's not happening. So I'm like,
Speaker 1: do I even know what I'm doing? What do I
Speaker 1: do here? Like I couldn't get anywhere? It was, it
Speaker 1: was wild. But um, that year that you were talking about,
Speaker 1: so going on, what is that the fourth year? So
Speaker 1: going on the fourth year, Um, I kind of did
Speaker 1: the same thing I was saying, you know, I knew
Speaker 1: where the scrapes are gonna be, and they were in
Speaker 1: the same spot, and they ran in the same cameras,
Speaker 1: and kind of just accepted the fact that late season,
Speaker 1: when he gets cold, cold, cold, I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: that's my opportunity for this year. So once again we
Speaker 1: got snow coming, Um, I gotta be in the stand,
Speaker 1: Gotta be in the stand. He shows up, but he
Speaker 1: stays out at like seventy yards and wouldn't come any closer,
Speaker 1: just fed out in the field and just never did come,
Speaker 1: you know, through my pinch point where I was hunting
Speaker 1: him and still in that same stand that I was
Speaker 1: telling you. You know, it was the easiest way in
Speaker 1: and out where I didn't feel like I was ever
Speaker 1: bumping him or or affecting anything. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of doing that. The wind, you know, the normal wind
Speaker 1: was good there. Um, so just just safe. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta get aggressive, but I just was, I
Speaker 1: don't know, scared to do that, so um, stay safe
Speaker 1: and just kept doing the same things and the same stand,
Speaker 1: same results. But first now shows up. UM stays out,
Speaker 1: you know, out of range, and there goes that night.
Speaker 1: Next night, same thing, but he stayed out farther, like
Speaker 1: on the other side of the field. So I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm getting close. You know. About a week goes by,
Speaker 1: UM and I get an opportunity. He comes all the
Speaker 1: way across the field. I too watch him for like yards.
Speaker 1: It was great trying to keep my stuff together. And
Speaker 1: there's a couple of does in front of him, and
Speaker 1: they're moving right where I need him to go, and
Speaker 1: he's kind of kind of just following suit Like I'm
Speaker 1: like man, this might happen. But I'll backtrack for a second. So,
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes before that, there's a kaya that comes
Speaker 1: out and if I get a chance to kill a
Speaker 1: guy and I'll kill it, isn't matter. And no deer
Speaker 1: in the field. This guy trots by ten yards and
Speaker 1: I draw, and as I'm shooting this guy, he turns
Speaker 1: towards me. So it goes in behind his shoulder and
Speaker 1: goes out like his you know, his butt, and it
Speaker 1: cuts his tail plumb off. And yeah, so now I
Speaker 1: got an arrow in a coyote tail land ten yards
Speaker 1: in the field. And I'm like, uh, that was that
Speaker 1: was different kind of yeah, I was. It was not ideal,
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm hunting on I really started to try
Speaker 1: to hunt, you know, the edges of these sent zones,
Speaker 1: you you know, really putting that was my riskiness, Like
Speaker 1: was hunting what the wind was good for him and
Speaker 1: he would come my direction, but I was, you know,
Speaker 1: on the edge of the zones. Um. I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: talked about it a lot with people that kill big deer.
Speaker 1: That's something that I was kind of learning at that
Speaker 1: time to really push in and try to do that
Speaker 1: because you know, a big deer wants to the wind
Speaker 1: in his favor. Yeah, so he was getting like a
Speaker 1: what like a kind of quartering across wind or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you were just coming. Yeah, I was just cutting the
Speaker 1: corner and really trying to just stay just stay on
Speaker 1: the edge of that field to where my wind was
Speaker 1: kind of casting down the edge of the woods to
Speaker 1: where they'd have to come in the woods to pick
Speaker 1: me off. But if they were in the field, I
Speaker 1: was good. But it's still the wind that he needed
Speaker 1: to come across that field, and I knew that's what
Speaker 1: he did a lot. That's kind of what I was
Speaker 1: figuring out. Um, just being out there. I would seem
Speaker 1: quite a bit like in this back corner when I
Speaker 1: was getting glimpses of him, and then he would come
Speaker 1: across that field kind of the same way, but he
Speaker 1: would never come, you know, far enough to me. So
Speaker 1: it was a real risky wind. And I believe it
Speaker 1: or not. Then does come out and they get super
Speaker 1: alert and they're kind of stopping and they start blowing,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what in the world that kyote tail?
Speaker 1: It's all I can think about, Like, I'm thinking, I
Speaker 1: know they're not smelling me, are they smelling that? They
Speaker 1: come all the way over across this field like four
Speaker 1: yards and they're walking and stopping and their tails up,
Speaker 1: and I'm we all have the painting the rear endow
Speaker 1: that she blows it everything like McCall the Karen, but like,
Speaker 1: I mean, she would come out and the way would
Speaker 1: be dead in my face and she just started blowing
Speaker 1: like so it's that dough. So I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what she's doing, but she's still come in my
Speaker 1: direction with her phons and she gets over there and
Speaker 1: she goes right to it, um my arrows, you know,
Speaker 1: sticking with a luminoc glowing out of it, and there's
Speaker 1: the tail lay in there. It's like it's full tail.
Speaker 1: You know. She's sniffing it and messing with the arrow
Speaker 1: and she kind of comes like right to my ladder.
Speaker 1: And at this point he's behind her, probably see eight yards.
Speaker 1: So I'm really you know, dialing and getting focused, trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's what's his next move. And he
Speaker 1: starts to do the same thing like kind of like
Speaker 1: but he freezes, but he's in the same you know,
Speaker 1: he's he's smelling that tale is all I can ever think.
Speaker 1: I know it sounds crazy, but there was no way
Speaker 1: he was smelling me, and um, he kind of froze
Speaker 1: and lights, you know, like right now, he's probably sixty
Speaker 1: seventy yards to give you a picture, um, right in
Speaker 1: the middle of the field. And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: he's gonna come here, he's gonna come in. So I
Speaker 1: draw when he starts to move, and he gets to
Speaker 1: like sixty I don't know, fifty five and he's facing me,
Speaker 1: and I sit there for like three minutes at full draw,
Speaker 1: like I don't know how long it was. It felt
Speaker 1: like it was an hour. But I finally let down
Speaker 1: and that dough is at my ladder and my arrow
Speaker 1: slaps because I was just so fatigued it slaps, and
Speaker 1: uh no, none of the deer moved. She It's like
Speaker 1: she didn't even hear it. And I'm like, what in
Speaker 1: the world, Like I'm thinking she was gonna scatter, like
Speaker 1: I thought I already messed it up, you know how
Speaker 1: that happens, And uh nothing, nothing. So it just stayed
Speaker 1: the same, like she's staying at my ladder. He standing
Speaker 1: out there, and I'm like, all right, when do I
Speaker 1: draw again? He goes to make another couple of steps
Speaker 1: and I draw and he's still facing me. I'm like,
Speaker 1: come on, turn bro outside, come on, turn bro outside.
Speaker 1: He doesn't, and I'm like at another couple of minutes
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm filming this. So it was like a
Speaker 1: three minute interval or something I can't remember exactly, but
Speaker 1: he finally does make a move and everything felt right,
Speaker 1: Everything was perfect. I didn't have a luminoc on this era,
Speaker 1: so it was kind of hard to see, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of a lower light situation, and I had my
Speaker 1: camera adjusted that point because I was just focused on
Speaker 1: killing him. But everything was on footage, you know, on film,
Speaker 1: but you couldn't see, you know, where the arrow hit
Speaker 1: or anything, and it, you know, is that empty, hollow
Speaker 1: sound that you want to hear. Like everything felt perfect, um,
Speaker 1: and he runs off and I gave my binoculars on him,
Speaker 1: and I can see blood pouring out of him because
Speaker 1: he stopped at like eight yards in his heads hung
Speaker 1: and kind of looked a little bit low. But I
Speaker 1: still couldn't tell exactly what happened, and uh, I still
Speaker 1: felt good about it. You know, I didn't look too concerning,
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't see it perfect. But you know,
Speaker 1: because he's walking away from actually blood pouring out of
Speaker 1: both sides, he walks off. Um, I kind of watch
Speaker 1: him walk off and he's you know, super hurt head hung.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking maybe I hate him in the guts. I
Speaker 1: you know, really didn't know. It was distraught. First year
Speaker 1: I've ever really on you know, say it. I teared
Speaker 1: up over and like, I mean just every emotion poured
Speaker 1: out of me because I thought I finally, you know,
Speaker 1: it finally happened. And UM went and took a couple
Speaker 1: of hours, like three hours, and went back and it
Speaker 1: was a bunch of blood, really good blood every fit.
Speaker 1: So this is cattle fent, you know farm once again,
Speaker 1: and there's really good fence, UM all around it. So
Speaker 1: there was one spot in the fence where it was down,
Speaker 1: and he like went to the fence where it wasn't
Speaker 1: down and would not jump it, and walked up and
Speaker 1: crossed there and went into the big set of woods
Speaker 1: you know where I know they all bed and started
Speaker 1: in that and like instantly kind of turned left and
Speaker 1: went out of it, went back into the field and
Speaker 1: he went to like three fences and would not jump
Speaker 1: any of them. Um, just like walked all the way
Speaker 1: down him and then boom, nothing blood disappeared. I had
Speaker 1: good blood the whole time. It just disappeared like it vanished.
Speaker 1: And I had coyotes slide up probably forty five minutes
Speaker 1: after I shot her. So so I'm thinking to maybe
Speaker 1: they ran him or something. I walked for like m
Speaker 1: probably seven days in a row, just getting permission on
Speaker 1: every property that neighbored it trying to find him because
Speaker 1: I just had this gut feeling that he was dead,
Speaker 1: and I had this gut feeling that the kyo bumped him.
Speaker 1: And you know, who knows how far a deer can run.
Speaker 1: You hear different stories all the time where they're killed
Speaker 1: two miles away from where they were shot. But there,
Speaker 1: you know, I just want to put every stitch of
Speaker 1: effort I could to try to find him in. Uh,
Speaker 1: that did not happen. I never even jumped him or
Speaker 1: saw him during that whole time. Um, so I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, like back to that sleepless night thing, like
Speaker 1: I didn't, I couldn't function, Like it shut me down. Um.
Speaker 1: Two weeks goes by, like two and a half weeks.
Speaker 1: He shows up on camera with no horns on? Uh,
Speaker 1: big wounded and I hit him low, perfect alignment, but
Speaker 1: just low. I still don't know how I didn't. I
Speaker 1: don't know nicka hard or you know, hit that artery
Speaker 1: that runs down there, and still trying to put it
Speaker 1: all together in my head. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, I realized, Okay, he's alive. That's good, but
Speaker 1: he's got no horns on. Before before you go further,
Speaker 1: how did you handle just like after that wounding and
Speaker 1: you couldn't find him? Like, how did you handle those days?
Speaker 1: The couple of weeks after that? Did you? Were you
Speaker 1: where you're like, man, I'm done, I don't want to
Speaker 1: hunt anymore. Or were you kind of like all right,
Speaker 1: I gotta get back on the saddle, keep trying again,
Speaker 1: Like how did you how did you handle that? Like
Speaker 1: lowest of low moment, I'm not not very good Mark. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't handle it well at all. Um Uh, I don't.
Speaker 1: This dear is just completely consumed me. So I had
Speaker 1: no if, like I had no thoughts of wanting to
Speaker 1: go hunt anything else. Um. My goal was just finding
Speaker 1: him if he was dead, you know, confirming something. Because
Speaker 1: I had such good blood and I thought the shot
Speaker 1: was still good, and you know, I was still trying
Speaker 1: to figure that out in my head. And you know
Speaker 1: how it goes when you replay everything, everything changes a
Speaker 1: million times. And uh, I still couldn't convince myself that
Speaker 1: he wasn't dead. Like I just everything felt right. I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, nothing felt wrong other than the fact that
Speaker 1: you know, the the blood just was boom gone. Um.
Speaker 1: So really I just went into survival mode of trying
Speaker 1: to like to do anything I could to find him.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I mean I asked everybody that
Speaker 1: was around for permission and walked and walked and walked
Speaker 1: and walked, and you know, never even like I was saying,
Speaker 1: never saw him, never found any anything else. It was
Speaker 1: kind of wild. It's kind of one of the only
Speaker 1: times I've had that happened where you know, I had
Speaker 1: I still after all that had no had no confirmation
Speaker 1: of anything. So I really went into Okay, I'll dump
Speaker 1: a bunch of feed and just try to keep something
Speaker 1: here so if he is hurt and he's wounded and
Speaker 1: he comes back, I'll get a picture and I'll know.
Speaker 1: And that's what happened. He did, and he stayed the
Speaker 1: rest of the year, and he stayed all through the winter,
Speaker 1: and man, he shriveled up to nothing, like he was
Speaker 1: skinning bones. Like I felt so bad, Like I felt
Speaker 1: like I shot my dog, like I felt terrible. Um,
Speaker 1: So I fed all year. I never stopped feeding. I
Speaker 1: kept a bunch of um protein type feed you know,
Speaker 1: out for him, just trying to really do anything I
Speaker 1: can do to help his nutrition and keep him alive.
Speaker 1: At that point, and I was thinking that, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stop getting pictures of him and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna find him. Um. But that didn't happen, so he
Speaker 1: didn't make it. But jumping back real quick when he
Speaker 1: had when he came in and he didn't have the
Speaker 1: horns on, they were like bloody, bloody, like they looked
Speaker 1: like it just fell off. And it was actually my
Speaker 1: mom's birthday, so we were doing dinner for her that night,
Speaker 1: and we were all going to dinner and this he
Speaker 1: showed up like noon that day, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta run out and at least drive the fields.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of stuff is you know, was fields,
Speaker 1: So I'm like, at least cover the easy stuff, like
Speaker 1: real quick, just to see if I can find his sheds.
Speaker 1: Um drove all over that property, never did find him.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm in there maybe forty five minutes
Speaker 1: an hour or something, and we pull out of there,
Speaker 1: and as we're driving away on the main road, UM,
Speaker 1: and my wife was with me, and I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, I always feel like I'm gonna find sheds
Speaker 1: right here, and we're just talking about and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go slow and look down this fence
Speaker 1: line and I'm not. I know it happens, but I've
Speaker 1: never been one to really find them when they jump
Speaker 1: fences and stuff, so I don't really kind of ever
Speaker 1: focus on that. But um, my kind of sent driver
Speaker 1: was slow and boom, they're laying thirty yards off the roof,
Speaker 1: side by side. Yeah that's crazy. Yeah, she got a video.
Speaker 1: I mean she's like, if I wasn't with you, I
Speaker 1: would have never believed yet. I'm like, thanks, honey, but
Speaker 1: you got to see it. It was pretty It was
Speaker 1: pretty wild. I couldn't It's kind of just another, you know,
Speaker 1: adding to the story. But yeah, it was it was
Speaker 1: a sick it was he was sick like it was
Speaker 1: it was I felt. I can't reiterate that enough. I
Speaker 1: felt terrible, Like, honestly, I've never had a deer that
Speaker 1: I've you know, wounded like that, where he shows back
Speaker 1: up and you watch him digress, like you just watch
Speaker 1: him with away to nothing. And I was miserable, Like
Speaker 1: that was terrible, and there was nothing I could do.
Speaker 1: You know, it was late season, so when he did
Speaker 1: show back up, it was already season was over, and
Speaker 1: you know, there was nothing to be done other than
Speaker 1: trying to keep him alive and put it, you know,
Speaker 1: nutrition out there for him to put weight back on.
Speaker 1: And I mean he was like skinning bones. It was terrible. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's brutal. What what was the uh the following year?
Speaker 1: Did you go into that year with a different game
Speaker 1: plan at all? Did you go in thinking, keep on
Speaker 1: trying the same things and hope he's alive and and
Speaker 1: then just keep on chipping away at her. What what
Speaker 1: was the next year plan? Um? Pretty much? But I
Speaker 1: kind of committed this year to to be in a
Speaker 1: little more aggressive um at least, you know, in my head,
Speaker 1: that was going to be my plan because the deer
Speaker 1: did the same stuff, you know, really every year, but
Speaker 1: he just was nocturnal. He just did in daylight much
Speaker 1: and we all they moved somewhere in daylight. You know,
Speaker 1: they move a little bit in daylight here and there.
Speaker 1: You know, it happens. But I just could not figure
Speaker 1: him out, and uh so I started running cameras. I
Speaker 1: kept cameras out in his core area. So I kind
Speaker 1: of kept track of him, you know, all through that winter.
Speaker 1: And as he started to grow the next year, you know,
Speaker 1: I never pulled cameras. I left him and he started growing,
Speaker 1: and his bases were a lot smaller. Like I'm thinking
Speaker 1: he's gonna be you know, a hundred and fifty year
Speaker 1: or something. I'm thinking, you know, he's gonna be it's
Speaker 1: gonna be bad. Um. But I kind of committed committed
Speaker 1: to you know, no matter what, I'm gonna know, whatever
Speaker 1: he is, it's it's still him, and I'm gonna you know,
Speaker 1: it's not about the score and stuff at that point,
Speaker 1: it's you know, the history and the story that's kind
Speaker 1: of unfolded. And uh I was gonna kill him if
Speaker 1: I had the chance. And he actually grew, like his
Speaker 1: bases were a lot smaller, but when he grew out,
Speaker 1: he grew a really goofy side on his right side,
Speaker 1: which was obviously from the wound. UM. And he had
Speaker 1: like two big spikes and then like a third spike,
Speaker 1: but it had like some little drop time points off
Speaker 1: of it, like completely nothing in any type of shape
Speaker 1: that he was. You know, he's a big, clean, typical
Speaker 1: um cigaret this really funky, kind of non typical side
Speaker 1: and then the left side stayed exactly like it always was. UM.
Speaker 1: So then I was kind of like, all right, this
Speaker 1: is you know, it's kind of cool. But he did
Speaker 1: kind of the same thing, and I kind of did
Speaker 1: the same thing up until November when he disappeared. And
Speaker 1: I had some other knowledge of this big buck that
Speaker 1: was close to where my mom lives and had found
Speaker 1: some of the sheds of that deer, and a buddy
Speaker 1: of mine found some sheds, and so I knew this
Speaker 1: deer was in the area, and I got permission um
Speaker 1: to hunt that like this fifty anchor piece kind of
Speaker 1: at the same time. So I knew when he disappeared,
Speaker 1: I was gonna go over and you know, just try
Speaker 1: my luck with that for a little bit. This was
Speaker 1: a big main frame eight with double drops, and I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, if it works out, it works out,
Speaker 1: and maybe my dear will recover from you know what
Speaker 1: he is this year, and uh, I ended up getting
Speaker 1: lucky enough to shoot that dear that I'm telling you
Speaker 1: about last year. So, um, I got lucky enough and
Speaker 1: shot him, and that was kind of the end of
Speaker 1: me hunting my buck at that point that year. And
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I shoot my dear and like
Speaker 1: three days later he like daylighted, like four days out
Speaker 1: of out of a week. My dear shi like of
Speaker 1: course she did, and uh so that was kind of
Speaker 1: the end of that year. I looked all over for
Speaker 1: the sheds, like I had him on camera, you know,
Speaker 1: one side of the farm, and then he showed up
Speaker 1: on the other side of the farm, you know, sixteen
Speaker 1: hours later, and didn't have any any of the sheds.
Speaker 1: And I looked all over and couldn't find That was
Speaker 1: the only year that I didn't find at least one
Speaker 1: side of him was last year, and I never did
Speaker 1: and never heard of the neighbors or anything find in him.
Speaker 1: So I don't really know what had happened with that.
Speaker 1: But fast forward this year, and he was the biggest
Speaker 1: he ever was. I don't even need he went right
Speaker 1: back to normal. Um, right the other. I mean, there's
Speaker 1: not even like a glimpse of the side he had.
Speaker 1: I don't know, have you ever seen that happen? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had one buck that I followed closely.
Speaker 1: They got really wonky, um, but I've never seen it
Speaker 1: go from like wonky to really normal again. But I
Speaker 1: I can get it, like, I can kind of see
Speaker 1: how that might be the case. Um, like whatever happened
Speaker 1: that year, they're able to heal back up and stuff
Speaker 1: gets normal again and they're back to square one. I
Speaker 1: don't know, they're crazy, Cris. Yeah, it's back to the
Speaker 1: interesting part of him, but like to totally recover. Honestly,
Speaker 1: it kind of blew my mind. And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm I know he's going on you know, that nine
Speaker 1: year old range this year, and I'm really, I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you, I didn't know what to expect, hadn't
Speaker 1: no clue of what what he was gonna be. But
Speaker 1: when I first got started getting pictures and these pictures
Speaker 1: that I'm telling you, I'm getting there in the same
Speaker 1: spot where it all started, like every year, that's where
Speaker 1: the velvet pictures were, you know, and then it moved.
Speaker 1: He moved through the property this, you know, over to
Speaker 1: the other property where I still have at least, and
Speaker 1: he did the same things. But the fact that he
Speaker 1: went back to normal blew my mind. And the fact
Speaker 1: that he was the biggest he'd ever been at nine
Speaker 1: years old. It was kind of O don't breath of
Speaker 1: fresh air. And I don't know, so you you kind
Speaker 1: of came into the picture at this point. Uh so
Speaker 1: you know a little bit you know of the story
Speaker 1: at you know, kind of when you you came out
Speaker 1: and hunted and I'm telling you know, I'm seeing him
Speaker 1: and I don't know, this year just felt different and ah,
Speaker 1: I don't really know that I did anything different other
Speaker 1: than when I killed him, do you know what I mean? Like, well,
Speaker 1: hold on, hold on, we gotta we gotta rewind the
Speaker 1: cloud just a little bit. So so coming to this year,
Speaker 1: you get pictures of him in the summer, right, is
Speaker 1: that right? Summer pictures, Yeah, summer pictures. Sorry, So you
Speaker 1: see what he is. He's back to normal. He's of
Speaker 1: course you're number one target and you're thinking, I guess
Speaker 1: what do you know? Like at the beginning of this year,
Speaker 1: if you were to sit down and tell me, like
Speaker 1: all right, what are the key things I know about
Speaker 1: this deer? And how do I think I'm gonna kill him?
Speaker 1: What were those things like in my mind? Like, for example,
Speaker 1: I was after a buck this year in Michigan, and
Speaker 1: from my three years of history with him, I kind
Speaker 1: of knew, like, all right, I've ald in like where
Speaker 1: his absolute core areas it's nearer the swamp, and I
Speaker 1: know like I've got a window in October and then
Speaker 1: a window in early December, and those like my best chances,
Speaker 1: I think, based on what has happened in the previous years.
Speaker 1: And so I went into this year thinking, all right,
Speaker 1: I've got like I'm going to take an early strike,
Speaker 1: maybe late October strike if he's daylighting or anything like that,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna stay out in November unless he
Speaker 1: surprises me because he's gone. And then this annual pattern
Speaker 1: when that comes around, I'm I'm gonna hits. As soon
Speaker 1: as the conditions are right, I think they'll be back.
Speaker 1: And like that was my plan for that. Dear. Did
Speaker 1: you have like what were the things you thought you
Speaker 1: knew about this, dear, and what was your plan this
Speaker 1: year based off that? So kind of exactly what you
Speaker 1: just explained. It's kind of weird, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: how I attacked it. Um. I kind of knew where
Speaker 1: at this point. You know, I've kind of been hectic
Speaker 1: and bouncing all around with the story, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's more of the excitement of just you know, it
Speaker 1: finally happened and everything, but to kind of back, you
Speaker 1: know up, I learned so much hunting this deer that
Speaker 1: it really taught me a lot about hunting whitetail. But
Speaker 1: he was a super super small core area. Dear, like,
Speaker 1: his core area was tiny, and every year it got
Speaker 1: smaller and smaller, and I started to learn that throughout
Speaker 1: the years and kind of his little like you're saying,
Speaker 1: like you're gonna take that early October, you know strike. Um,
Speaker 1: I kind of attacked it the same way. I kind
Speaker 1: of knew what he was gonna do or what areas
Speaker 1: he was going to frequent the most on this farm. Um.
Speaker 1: But it goes back to it. I don't I've never
Speaker 1: been known as like an aggressive hunter. I'm usually the
Speaker 1: one that plays it safe as far as you know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to bump him and I want to
Speaker 1: push him to the neighbor. And I think it just
Speaker 1: comes from that happened, and you know, not necessarily bumping him,
Speaker 1: but just the neighbors killing him or you know, hit
Speaker 1: by a car or whatever. Like, I just didn't want
Speaker 1: to push this deer to the limits where I lost
Speaker 1: him of of any magnitude, so I always played it safe.
Speaker 1: But this year, I told myself, I'm gonna be little
Speaker 1: more aggressive and kind of do things differently. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do like go to what I know, and you
Speaker 1: you just said it perfect. I mean, I was gonna
Speaker 1: take an early strike where I knew he was gonna
Speaker 1: be and he never He's never rutted on the floor
Speaker 1: like I've never seen him right on the farm. I've
Speaker 1: never seen him chase it though I've never seen and
Speaker 1: I've hunted during all those times. And you know, once
Speaker 1: he disappears, you know, I wait for him to show
Speaker 1: back up and then I go back in. But this
Speaker 1: year was it was different from the start of the rut,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really where my tactics change. And
Speaker 1: I got aggressive because he was messing up like I've
Speaker 1: never seen him mess up, like I've just never seen
Speaker 1: him do it. And I don't know what changed this year.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe them Does came in first and
Speaker 1: he just you know, bred everything on the you know
Speaker 1: bread the three does. That's there. But I think that's
Speaker 1: really where the game changed for me this year because
Speaker 1: I would have done kind of took that early strike
Speaker 1: like you're talking, and only because I felt comfortable of
Speaker 1: knowing what he does. But then when you know, he
Speaker 1: kind of starts getting in that rut phase. You know,
Speaker 1: he's just bouncing around everywhere, and I would hunt, but
Speaker 1: I just really didn't. Yeah, I didn't really know where
Speaker 1: to be and win to be there. You know, it
Speaker 1: is a cat and mouse game of bouncing around, and
Speaker 1: it seems like you always picked the wrong place. But
Speaker 1: the core area I knew, and I knew what he did,
Speaker 1: and I knew when he was gonna do it. It
Speaker 1: was just getting in there and being unseen on the
Speaker 1: way and and you know, just setting it up for
Speaker 1: an opportunity to see him and get a glimpse and
Speaker 1: see you know, hopefully walked you know past me that day.
Speaker 1: But this year, when I got a picture of him,
Speaker 1: like so, I started running a lot of cell cams
Speaker 1: and that was, to be honest, a game changer because
Speaker 1: you're you know, you can you can kind of talk
Speaker 1: them back in them core areas and you don't have
Speaker 1: to go check them, and you don't have and you
Speaker 1: got live, you know, live footage of what he's doing
Speaker 1: to a certain extent, and uh, you don't have to
Speaker 1: put boots on the ground to go pull your card
Speaker 1: and oh man, he was in here all week last week.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just a it's just a different it's
Speaker 1: a it's a game changer. But that I had like
Speaker 1: seven or eight cameras on this property this year, and
Speaker 1: I really put them everywhere that I had learned from
Speaker 1: the past years of what he does, and I really
Speaker 1: went to focus on two scrapes that I know he
Speaker 1: frequents and I know it's gonna be him if if
Speaker 1: that scrapes bloat out, and then all of this travel
Speaker 1: like any areas that I thought he was like, I
Speaker 1: know what, you know, knowing what he does, like I
Speaker 1: really want to attack those areas with cameras just kind
Speaker 1: of catches every move and it I got a picture
Speaker 1: of like noon one day and there was a doe
Speaker 1: running past the camera. First it like triggered and then
Speaker 1: like he's in the background. Then it triggered again and
Speaker 1: he be late October early November. Yeah, like her. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was probably the first. Yeah, it was the first
Speaker 1: couple of days in November. Actually, you're surprised them, very
Speaker 1: very because I'm like, it looks like he's rutting. It
Speaker 1: looks like he's chasing a doe on this farm. What
Speaker 1: in the world. Like kind of really threw me off guard.
Speaker 1: And it just so happened that that was right in
Speaker 1: front of what I would call my safe spot, you know,
Speaker 1: where I can walk in and I'm not worried, and
Speaker 1: you know the stand location that I keep telling you
Speaker 1: I was hunting all those years, like so it was
Speaker 1: a perfect case scenario. And I go in that evening
Speaker 1: and he showed up and he I knew what I
Speaker 1: Well you always say like I'd say I knew, but
Speaker 1: you know, I had an inkling of of where I
Speaker 1: thought he went that day and bedded down, and I
Speaker 1: was really comfortable that that's where he went. So I
Speaker 1: kind of walked out of my realm of the way
Speaker 1: I normally walked and kind of stayed away from that
Speaker 1: because where I thought he was was probably a hundred
Speaker 1: yards from my stand. And sure enough, he came out
Speaker 1: of that little wood lot and uh ran the dough
Speaker 1: right out in front of me about ninety yards hundred yards. UM,
Speaker 1: got some really cool footage of him, got some UM
Speaker 1: it was just cool to see him. It was it
Speaker 1: was awesome, but it was it was early. It was
Speaker 1: like three thirty four o'clock, Like, it was cool, and
Speaker 1: he was rutting, and he was on that door and
Speaker 1: like he was tending her and would not let her
Speaker 1: get away from him at all. So that being said,
Speaker 1: I'm like, all right, here we go. Like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: gonna being here every day all day if I have to,
Speaker 1: I'm taking my chances. So I went back in the
Speaker 1: next morning, I saw him the same. So when he
Speaker 1: came out of that little wood like he went straight
Speaker 1: across the field, um in front of me, but then
Speaker 1: kind of veered away and went into another spot where
Speaker 1: I know he beds. And that morning he came out
Speaker 1: of that spot with that dough because like three little
Speaker 1: bucks went in there and he ran one out and
Speaker 1: was on the edge of the woods and then keep
Speaker 1: like went in and got his dough and then came
Speaker 1: across the field of about a hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 1: um in front of me and kind of turned around.
Speaker 1: His dough went in the woods and he turned around
Speaker 1: just stood there for like ten minutes, like waiting on
Speaker 1: them bucks to come out of that woods and the
Speaker 1: like come on try. Like it was kind of wild,
Speaker 1: Like he let his dog go and he turned around
Speaker 1: and he was just stomping his feet constantly, like just
Speaker 1: standing there like you know, breathing are like he was
Speaker 1: ready for a fight. It was kind of cool just
Speaker 1: getting to see him do buck stuff because I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to see that, you know, all this
Speaker 1: time I'm hunting this deer. You know, I don't. I
Speaker 1: didn't really get to see a whole lot of that.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of I'm just taking it all in.
Speaker 1: I'm filming it, and yeah, I know I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: kill him, but I just I feel you know, that
Speaker 1: day I wasn't gonna kill him, but I knew, I
Speaker 1: knew I was. It was different this year. I just
Speaker 1: had that, Okay, this is my chance. If you're gonna
Speaker 1: ever kill this deer, this is it. So I hunted
Speaker 1: four days in a row, three of those days all day,
Speaker 1: and uh, I maybe five days in a row, but
Speaker 1: I saw him another like four times, um, and he
Speaker 1: stayed at that The closest you ever got was eighty
Speaker 1: three yards. You talked about how you get in for
Speaker 1: these afternoon sits, um, following this draw up to the
Speaker 1: creek and then to the back of the tree. But
Speaker 1: what about morning hunts? How do you get in with
Speaker 1: all the this field edge stuff. Are you worried about that?
Speaker 1: And then how do you get out without ever spooking
Speaker 1: this deer? Like do you have some kind of secret
Speaker 1: magic to keep this deer from knowing how you're getting
Speaker 1: in and out? Or is that like incredibly stressful for you?
Speaker 1: How do you handle that? So it's incredibly stressful because
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not a morning hunter, um unless it's
Speaker 1: you know this scenario. I don't really hunt mornings. So
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the reason I don't always you know,
Speaker 1: feel like I'm bumping the deer. Um. You know, back
Speaker 1: to the cautious thing. But um, yeah, I was. It
Speaker 1: was super stressful every time I went in. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm moving like a sloth and just trying to Luckily
Speaker 1: this area I had walked it enough to where I've
Speaker 1: kind of you know, had a clean path on the
Speaker 1: way in and went in a couple of days early,
Speaker 1: you know and kick kick my path out if you will. Um.
Speaker 1: So I felt good as far as the sound, um,
Speaker 1: but always worried about running into him or you know whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, bumping his dough or whatever at that case,
Speaker 1: you know, bumping any deer. But back to the you know,
Speaker 1: this farm doesn't have a lot of deer, so that
Speaker 1: was kind of the blessing in disguise that you know,
Speaker 1: I really didn't realize until you know, a few years
Speaker 1: into hunting this farm. But um, super stressful. Uh. Some
Speaker 1: days I went in it like you know, I let
Speaker 1: it get daylight a little bit. And that might sound
Speaker 1: crazy to some people, but like I wanted to see
Speaker 1: going in, so I didn't bump him like I was,
Speaker 1: you know, glassing all the way in and just making
Speaker 1: sure he wasn't already out in that field. And to me,
Speaker 1: that was I was willing to take that chance versus
Speaker 1: walking into the duck and you know, crossing paths with him.
Speaker 1: So I kind of did that. I think I did
Speaker 1: that like two days out of that five. But um,
Speaker 1: I I don't know, it was super stressful. I don't
Speaker 1: like doing that at all. I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know it was, but I knew where he was going,
Speaker 1: Like the times I did seem he was going in
Speaker 1: the big timber and so I really had you know,
Speaker 1: unless he had come out of there with his dough
Speaker 1: at that time, I just was real comfortable that he
Speaker 1: was on that dough and he was not leaving her,
Speaker 1: and unless she took him that way. You know, at
Speaker 1: that point, that's a I guess a percentage factor you
Speaker 1: kind of, I mean, that would be hard to do,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, the cross paths at the
Speaker 1: same time. So I don't know, I kind of approached
Speaker 1: it that way. I didn't trust me. My wife thinks
Speaker 1: I'm crazy sometimes and she's like, you just gotta get
Speaker 1: in there and hunting. She's super into you know, she's
Speaker 1: killed a lot of good deer and she's pretty smart
Speaker 1: with it. And she's like, I think you ever think
Speaker 1: it sometimes, which I do. But at that you know,
Speaker 1: with this deer is just when you're not learning what
Speaker 1: or seeing what you want to see with the time
Speaker 1: you put in, it's hard to to to know your
Speaker 1: next step, I guess. You know, it's hard to be
Speaker 1: confident in anything, but in this case, you were so
Speaker 1: you hunted that four or five days stretch in November
Speaker 1: and you were seeing him, but just never quite close enough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he will walk in the middle of the fields and
Speaker 1: stuff like he never walked down the edges of the
Speaker 1: you know, the woodline. He always stayed out in the
Speaker 1: middle of the fields. And it was kind of wild, really,
Speaker 1: like I've seen a few big deer do that, and
Speaker 1: I don't really Maybe you know why they do that,
Speaker 1: but no, I don't. Yeah, I don't either. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'd be interested to hear somebody's take
Speaker 1: on that. But did you did you at any point
Speaker 1: think like I gotta do something different, like do something crazy,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, set on the other side somewhere else,
Speaker 1: or put a decoy or do something or you like,
Speaker 1: you know, if I just stick to the plan and
Speaker 1: be safe, he'll eventually make the mistake. So yeah, everything
Speaker 1: did change during them five days. I did. Uh. I
Speaker 1: started saddle hunting last year and really did that all
Speaker 1: year until I killed my dear um last year. But
Speaker 1: I like the mobility of the saddle and I know
Speaker 1: you do a lot of saddle hunting, so kind of
Speaker 1: put your take on it. But I like the mobility
Speaker 1: of it and being able to kind of hunt different
Speaker 1: trees that you never looked at before. Um, getting in
Speaker 1: different little areas that you just really never had that
Speaker 1: opportunity to do because you know, hanging a stand and
Speaker 1: that tree you wouldn't work. And I gotta cut forty
Speaker 1: len down if I'm gonna do, you know. It's just
Speaker 1: it's a different perspective. And honestly, that was a game
Speaker 1: changer because I kept seeing him do one thing more
Speaker 1: than the other, which was crossed this corner of this
Speaker 1: field and kind of cut the edge of it and
Speaker 1: go through that down fence that I talked about he
Speaker 1: walked through after I shot him that year, UM, and
Speaker 1: I really started to focus on that corner a little
Speaker 1: more because it just seemed like that and I knew
Speaker 1: he betted in this little section of woods that was
Speaker 1: basically disconnected to the big set of woods. So there's
Speaker 1: a little block, like fingersh type of woods where I
Speaker 1: know he betted, and then it was the big block.
Speaker 1: But that was like their little easy way to cross
Speaker 1: that and it was the same field that I was
Speaker 1: always hunting. It was just the other side of it,
Speaker 1: and so two things. I saw him doing that. And
Speaker 1: then I was hunting in that same stand that always hunt,
Speaker 1: on that same side of the field that always hunt,
Speaker 1: and I kind of see another field from that, you know,
Speaker 1: through a bunch of trees and it's like probably four
Speaker 1: or five yards away, and I was glassing it one
Speaker 1: night because I saw some deer running. And this is
Speaker 1: during that days that we're talking. Um, and I saw
Speaker 1: some dear run and I kind i'm glassing, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just barely picking out what they are their does
Speaker 1: and it's early and uh I go back to where
Speaker 1: I saw the last dough run and I look and
Speaker 1: there he's like standing in my you know, just boom,
Speaker 1: there he is. And I'm like oh, and then I
Speaker 1: go into like all right, what do I do? So
Speaker 1: I actually got out of the stand and was gonna
Speaker 1: try to make a stock on it because it was
Speaker 1: like a perfect scenario. He was kind of up on
Speaker 1: this hill and was there was a little crest and
Speaker 1: the way I could come up it was just perfect.
Speaker 1: And uh so I got down and tried to make
Speaker 1: a move and um, there was a dough like that.
Speaker 1: I never saw it. I mean I didnt see he
Speaker 1: until I got up on her, but like I got
Speaker 1: within like fifteen yards of her, and I looked up
Speaker 1: because I was kind of looking over in the direction
Speaker 1: where he was headed, thinking yeah, I'm gonna keep my
Speaker 1: eyes on him and hopefully he doesn't drop over this
Speaker 1: hill before I get to where I need to be.
Speaker 1: And I look up and there's a dough and she
Speaker 1: sa in the cup corn and never did see me.
Speaker 1: So I just like laid on the ground and had
Speaker 1: to sit there. And thirty minutes go by, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, now, I don't even know where he is,
Speaker 1: and how many the choice to go back to the stand.
Speaker 1: So I get up in the stand and I look
Speaker 1: at my trail cameras and he's standing on his hind
Speaker 1: legs making a scrape. I think I showed you that picture.
Speaker 1: It was it was pretty cool as a while, but
Speaker 1: it's awesome. Oh so he he does that. I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well good, I'm glad I didn't like press in because
Speaker 1: where he went was kind of dead away from me,
Speaker 1: and it would have been I would have never caught
Speaker 1: up to him. Um. But he decides like ten minutes
Speaker 1: later to come back across that scrape and he's headed
Speaker 1: back towards where I'm at where I was gonna be,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to make that stop. And he's he's
Speaker 1: got a dough in front of him and he's coming
Speaker 1: towards me, but he's you know, five yards away at
Speaker 1: this point. And uh, this is kind of happened a
Speaker 1: couple of times, not this scenario exactly, but you know,
Speaker 1: he's moving on the farm in daylight, and I'm over
Speaker 1: in my stand over here, and you know, I bounced
Speaker 1: out to this fingerstand where there's some scrapes, and then
Speaker 1: he'd be over here, and so I'm thinking it's the
Speaker 1: same old you know, he's moving in daylight, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna have it. You know, I'm not gonna see him. Well,
Speaker 1: he came through. He came all the way across the
Speaker 1: farm and came right in front of me with his
Speaker 1: dought like forty yards but it was too dark, aucust
Speaker 1: he was you know, through the binoculars, I could see
Speaker 1: him and uh, oh my god, Like this is this
Speaker 1: is rough, Like he's getting he's just showing himself enough,
Speaker 1: and he's really putting the pressure on me and really
Speaker 1: turn it up the heat as far as like I'm
Speaker 1: still just as far as I ever been, but I'm
Speaker 1: as close as I've ever beenefit make you know, it's
Speaker 1: just it was tough. It was hard to swallow because
Speaker 1: every night, you know, I'm seeing him, which go back
Speaker 1: to you know, the last you know, three or four years,
Speaker 1: like I didn't see him at all hardly. You know,
Speaker 1: I'd have a couple of sightings of the year, maybe
Speaker 1: one opportunity, and at that it was a subpar opportunity
Speaker 1: every time. So now I'm seeing him a lot, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of in contact with you at this point
Speaker 1: and kind of play by play and feed me some
Speaker 1: of it, and he just boom, done, disappeared. He did
Speaker 1: his typical November thing, but he did it two weeks
Speaker 1: into November, and uh here I sat for two weeks
Speaker 1: on my hands, just wait, not even show back up.
Speaker 1: And so the plan was, like, you're not going to
Speaker 1: go back in there and hunt until you get confirmation
Speaker 1: he's back. Is that like get the pressure load, don't
Speaker 1: screw it up until I was there? Was that the plan? Now? Absolutely? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was exactly the plan. Just because like you were
Speaker 1: talking about your deer, you know, you know, he's gone
Speaker 1: during November and there's kind of no reason to be there.
Speaker 1: And I know that isn't always the truth, but you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've had this. I got this deer
Speaker 1: figured out at this point to where I know where
Speaker 1: my opportunities are to kill him. And you know, when
Speaker 1: he disappeared, I was like all right, and I hunted,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of times right after that, thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe he's not disappeared, maybe he's just locked
Speaker 1: down and he's not showing up on camera anywhere, and
Speaker 1: he's not hitting the scrapes, and you know, I got
Speaker 1: so many cameras on that property. I felt like that
Speaker 1: I had everything covered as far as where he would
Speaker 1: move and how he would move, and he wasn't showing up.
Speaker 1: So I was like, I'm just gonna stay out until
Speaker 1: he shows back up. So what happened next? So two
Speaker 1: weeks go by and nothing, and um, my wife's family,
Speaker 1: my brother in law, and my father in law come
Speaker 1: into hunt for gun season and they get here, you know,
Speaker 1: that Thursday before gun season actually Thanksgiving, and uh so
Speaker 1: I'm kind of gearing up for them, and you know,
Speaker 1: my dear has been gone for you know, at this point,
Speaker 1: like I said, two weeks and I'm just I'm getting
Speaker 1: them ready and got some good bucks for them to
Speaker 1: try to kill, and you know, kind of went in
Speaker 1: that mode. And Saturday before gun season, boom, he shows
Speaker 1: up for like ten thirty in afternoon. And so when
Speaker 1: I went across the field and hung that, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I actually said that, but I went over
Speaker 1: across the field in that corner where I kept seeing
Speaker 1: him throughout these days I was hunting and hung my
Speaker 1: saddle set up, and I left my saddle set up
Speaker 1: there and I only hunted it like one or two nights,
Speaker 1: and uh, the wind had to be totally opposite, you know,
Speaker 1: it had to be a dead south wind um to
Speaker 1: work for this setup. So this year has been a
Speaker 1: little weird with the winds. But I really couldn't just
Speaker 1: go out there and hunting, and I didn't really want
Speaker 1: to because it was a lot longer walk in, a
Speaker 1: lot a lot louder, And so I just hunted did
Speaker 1: a couple of times, and I just felt like a
Speaker 1: cow walking in like it was the most noisy thing
Speaker 1: in the world. So I didn't really hunt it a
Speaker 1: whole lot, but I knew that I just had in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind that was gonna be my scenario.
Speaker 1: So I hung a camera on that fence crossing where
Speaker 1: it was down, where the fence was laid down, and
Speaker 1: I have a couple of cameras around that field, and
Speaker 1: that was just a hot spot throughout this you know,
Speaker 1: time that he was gone. There was a lot of deer,
Speaker 1: you know, cutting that corner that I was talking about,
Speaker 1: and uh, that's where he showed up at ten thirty
Speaker 1: on Saturday before gun season, and I had it set
Speaker 1: on video modes. I kind of watched where he went,
Speaker 1: and he went in that little block of timber. I
Speaker 1: was just telling you about where I know he beds
Speaker 1: and I knew it. Just something in me was like,
Speaker 1: I was so confident he was betted over there. So
Speaker 1: I was talking to a buddy on the phone. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go in. He's like, you want me to
Speaker 1: drop you off on a side by side. I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I've never done that. I don't know, you know, I've
Speaker 1: heard stories of people doing that and I kind of
Speaker 1: done it in a different area, but I've never done
Speaker 1: on this farm. And I was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: let's try it. I'm like, because I us, I'm not
Speaker 1: comfortable walking in it's so loud, the leaves were just
Speaker 1: unreal in this little area, and I couldn't walk any
Speaker 1: different way. And I was still even nervous about him
Speaker 1: seeing me there, so I was like, yeah, drive me
Speaker 1: on the side by side. So I get up in
Speaker 1: the trees, set everything up, and he takes off. No dear,
Speaker 1: nothing nothing. Night's getting to the point where I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, it's now or never. And I had a
Speaker 1: little four pointer walk under me, and I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: I hope he doesn't walk that way because that they
Speaker 1: was just dead down winds. I'm like, I'm hoping that's
Speaker 1: not where he comes from. And there he kind of
Speaker 1: goes out in the field and he just kind of
Speaker 1: grazing and he just picks us up and he's locked
Speaker 1: right where I thought my dear would come from. And
Speaker 1: he's not lifting, and I'm like playing, I like looking
Speaker 1: at him, looking over him like he's got it, like
Speaker 1: he knows there's something boom there. He shows up, comes
Speaker 1: out right where like if I'd drew it up, it
Speaker 1: couldn't have been any better. Um comes out right in
Speaker 1: front of me. Uh made a bonehem mistake of he
Speaker 1: was just on a dead walk, like and it felt
Speaker 1: so close. I didn't need to range it. And I
Speaker 1: had some I mean, I caught cornfield, but I had
Speaker 1: some you know, grass strips and some stuff in the
Speaker 1: cornfield that I felt confident in my yard. And you
Speaker 1: know it was markers that I had. You know, I
Speaker 1: shot them all and I kind of knew everything, and
Speaker 1: but I hadn't hunted this stand very much. So that
Speaker 1: being said, you know how it is when he finally
Speaker 1: does show up, everything kind of uh yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: thirty five yard Yeah, yeah, that's it. I talked myself, right,
Speaker 1: I didn't even thinking it was the thirty five yard
Speaker 1: one and it wasn't. Uh so full draw, turned a
Speaker 1: camera on full draw perfect, like gosh, it was perfect,
Speaker 1: and uh my, I shoot a one pen and with
Speaker 1: two dots um and the first thought was sent on
Speaker 1: thirty five and I left the other one on you know,
Speaker 1: a second dot was at fifty. So I draw and
Speaker 1: talk to myself, right, didn't thinking that's thirty five, and
Speaker 1: I shoot and I don't know where they avery went.
Speaker 1: I don't have a luminox on it, don't I'm kind
Speaker 1: of weird about them. Don't really know how I feel.
Speaker 1: But so I didn't shoot Lumanox this year, and I
Speaker 1: didn't I didn't see where my mara went at all.
Speaker 1: Everything felt great, and he kind of ran out and
Speaker 1: just stopped, and I'm thinking, all right, this is one
Speaker 1: of those movies or you know, like the shows, like
Speaker 1: he's gonna have blood pouring out on the bottom of
Speaker 1: He's just gonna fall over the field, because you know,
Speaker 1: it smacked the corn when I shot to it kind
Speaker 1: of sounded like what I wanted to hear, and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: And he's standing there like, doesn't look he's looking my direction,
Speaker 1: never looks up at me, never even really looked my
Speaker 1: direction long. He didn't know what happened at all. And uh,
Speaker 1: he kind of does this big loop in the field
Speaker 1: and he's coming back to that fence crossing like he's
Speaker 1: wanting to go still where he was going. So I
Speaker 1: was like, I had another air knock at this point,
Speaker 1: and I ranged you this time, and it was fifty
Speaker 1: two and my other pan was already on fifty. So
Speaker 1: I just drew and he's perfectly broadside and that little
Speaker 1: four pointer like ran over and was like where I
Speaker 1: shot at him. It was like kind of messing around
Speaker 1: and acting real funny, like with my arrow. I guess
Speaker 1: he was smelling my arrow. I wasn't real sure, but
Speaker 1: I didn't know any of this at the time, but
Speaker 1: I knew my deer got super alert, like he kind
Speaker 1: of turned towards me. It was kind of quarter two,
Speaker 1: and I knew if I could just get it behind
Speaker 1: that shoulder to be perfect, and I was confident in
Speaker 1: my shot, and I shot, and I heard what I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear, and you know, once again, you know,
Speaker 1: I thought I saw what I saw. You know, I
Speaker 1: thought it looked perfect. It looked right where I was aiming.
Speaker 1: But then you know your second guess and you're like,
Speaker 1: is that we're there? Actually? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Kind of way too well. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's
Speaker 1: a it's a weird thing. We all do. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe some people don't do it, but
Speaker 1: I know I'm bad about it, and especially from you know,
Speaker 1: the two years ago when I shot him and thought
Speaker 1: it was perfect, and now I'm just like, don't get
Speaker 1: your hopes up. You know, one of those deals and uh,
Speaker 1: I could tell you it was hurt when he ran off,
Speaker 1: and he like ran off and he was kind of
Speaker 1: running out of steam and he went into the woods.
Speaker 1: And as he went into the woods, like I heard
Speaker 1: a crash, but I heard no aftermath, like no other
Speaker 1: sticks break, no other like pauling on the ground, you know,
Speaker 1: no kicking, no nothing. And I'm like, okay, did he
Speaker 1: just so now my mind's working on against me again.
Speaker 1: I'm like, did he just run into a spot that
Speaker 1: wasn't a trail and he just broke through some stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, like went into a thick spot. So I
Speaker 1: backed out and went home and looked at the footage,
Speaker 1: and um, I had the camera panned out just enough
Speaker 1: that I got the second shot on camera and still
Speaker 1: really couldn't pinpoint where it hit. Like it looked like
Speaker 1: it was going good and everything was good, but you know,
Speaker 1: just I didn't want to push the deer. So I
Speaker 1: waited a little bit, like probably of three hours overall,
Speaker 1: and went in there and uh went to the spot,
Speaker 1: started instantly a bunch of blood and started falling the blood.
Speaker 1: I'm like, already went in right here, and my buddy
Speaker 1: had already seen him at this point, but I didn't
Speaker 1: if he would have like he basically just face planet
Speaker 1: in the woods, like he barely made it out of
Speaker 1: the field and there was no kick marks, there was
Speaker 1: no like he must have just ko like right there,
Speaker 1: like he didn't you. There wasn't a leaf that looked
Speaker 1: like it was moved, like he just went in there
Speaker 1: and fell over. And if you'd have died like five
Speaker 1: yards before that, I want to watch him die in
Speaker 1: the field. But I had the worst fifteen minute drive
Speaker 1: that felt like two hours back to my house to
Speaker 1: watch the footage, to drive them back there and just stressing, oh,
Speaker 1: like you wouldn't believe just because I got my hopes
Speaker 1: up the last time and two years ago and it
Speaker 1: didn't work out. So it was like you killed him,
Speaker 1: You killed him? And I'm like, did I because don't
Speaker 1: see him yet? Like I don't I don't have him
Speaker 1: sitting here yet. So and man, the feeling when I
Speaker 1: walked up, Wow, I do you remde me cry three times? Times?
Speaker 1: What what do you think when you look on it,
Speaker 1: When you look back on that hunt, do you do
Speaker 1: you feel like if you had to say what it
Speaker 1: was that did it, if there's a key to your
Speaker 1: success or if there was like a man, I did
Speaker 1: this thing really well and that finally got me here.
Speaker 1: What would you what would your point out? I would
Speaker 1: just say probably the persistence, you know, like just being
Speaker 1: in there any chance I felt like it was good,
Speaker 1: you know, and probably just retaining the information because I
Speaker 1: think that's what honestly ended up, you know, why it
Speaker 1: ended up working out. But I would say, you know
Speaker 1: that on top of just actually maybe getting a little
Speaker 1: bit aggressive this year, kind of changing because I don't
Speaker 1: really feel like I was changing a whole lot. So
Speaker 1: you know, him being there and rut and giving me
Speaker 1: the confidence to kind of bounce around a little more
Speaker 1: than I normally do. And then you know, having the
Speaker 1: camera where I've never had it, you know, putting it
Speaker 1: at that crossing, because if I didn't have it at
Speaker 1: that crossing, I mean think about I would have never right,
Speaker 1: you know, I wouldn't. So just switching up my my
Speaker 1: locations a camera and then switching up obviously the location
Speaker 1: where I was hunting, and just I don't know, just
Speaker 1: a perfect storm you know of getting dropped off on
Speaker 1: my side by side and I think that helped because
Speaker 1: I didn't you know, walk in you know, even if
Speaker 1: he did see it. You know, he didn't. He didn't
Speaker 1: bother him. You know, he he thought that. You know,
Speaker 1: the farmer drives around on tractors and side by side
Speaker 1: and stuff all the time. And you know, I kind
Speaker 1: of just think that was a you know, didn't bother him.
Speaker 1: It didn't make him un calmiable, and you to where
Speaker 1: if you would have saw me walking in, it would
Speaker 1: have definitely made him uncomfortable. But um, I think just
Speaker 1: taking some risk really and then just staying staying uh,
Speaker 1: staying with the game plan as far as sticking with
Speaker 1: that deer and not really you know, other than last year,
Speaker 1: I never straight I hunted that deer straight for pretty
Speaker 1: much four years and never even gave another deer and
Speaker 1: opportunity other than the deer I killed last year. And
Speaker 1: I didn't really think that was very doable, if that
Speaker 1: makes sense. Just kind of thought, I'm gonna go sit
Speaker 1: in a different place and you know, maybe to work
Speaker 1: out where I killed this awesome gear. And it did.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, I'm kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: nerd out like you do on the on the little
Speaker 1: things and the details, and I might not have gave
Speaker 1: you much of that in this just because it's more
Speaker 1: about the fun part of it. But like you know,
Speaker 1: in the story of killing him, But there's so many
Speaker 1: little things you you do that are might seem monotonous
Speaker 1: or might seem you know, dumbin other people. But this
Speaker 1: deer was like the like the poster child for small
Speaker 1: little changes, gave me so much more information. Like it
Speaker 1: almost didn't even feel like I was doing it. Didn't
Speaker 1: It didn't make sense. You know. I moved a camera
Speaker 1: forty yards and all of a sudden there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of day like pictures of him or something, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like just just weird little stuff that
Speaker 1: I didn't really ever run into with another deer. But
Speaker 1: it took me a long time to figure that out.
Speaker 1: So you said that when you look back on this,
Speaker 1: this might be like I think you said this that
Speaker 1: this deer maybe taught you more than any other deer
Speaker 1: or something like that. Um, what what were your biggest
Speaker 1: lessons from this hunt and from this buck? What do
Speaker 1: you take away the I'd say, probably like if to me,
Speaker 1: like I I knew the deer was living there, But
Speaker 1: the biggest lesson I figured out was kind of back
Speaker 1: to strategy of walking in like The deer taught me
Speaker 1: to pay more attention to that than what most people
Speaker 1: ever do. Most people, you know, bump deer and they
Speaker 1: don't even know they're bumping the deer, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. They there hunts over before they even get
Speaker 1: to their tree stand. And I think that was a
Speaker 1: big lesson I learned because I was hunting some spots
Speaker 1: in the beginning that I just didn't really think about that.
Speaker 1: And I know that's kind of something you know, maybe
Speaker 1: some people think about it second nature or some people don't,
Speaker 1: but you know, you get excited and he's shown up
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, I'm gonna go this way to
Speaker 1: get there, and you don't really, you know, think about
Speaker 1: how you're ruining your hunt before you ever get there. Like,
Speaker 1: I think that deer taught me a lot about that,
Speaker 1: a lot about hunting the edges of the you know,
Speaker 1: the wind, the zones that people talk about, and being
Speaker 1: on that disaster zone to where it's good for the
Speaker 1: deer and you know, it's almost bad for you, you know,
Speaker 1: like and that could change. That's a fine line. I
Speaker 1: feel like it's hard to play. But I think that's
Speaker 1: one big thing I did differently and Uh, just just
Speaker 1: staying persistent on it, Like I don't you know how
Speaker 1: it is. There's so many ups and downs, you feel
Speaker 1: like you're never gonna kill the deer, and then you
Speaker 1: can just boost the confidence you feel like you're going
Speaker 1: to And I don't know, this deer never gave me
Speaker 1: that boost of confidence until this year. So I think
Speaker 1: just keeping my head down and plugging along was probably
Speaker 1: the biggest lesson that he taught me. Was just ups
Speaker 1: and downs of the miserable part of hunting, but also
Speaker 1: what makes it so sweet when you do kill him, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: the grinding part of it, Like this dear pushed me
Speaker 1: to the grinding my grinding limits completely, Like it's so
Speaker 1: hard to hunt a dear year after year and what's
Speaker 1: so little interaction with them. So so here's what I
Speaker 1: wonder next. And this is something I felt before this.
Speaker 1: This has been a six year hunt, and you talked
Speaker 1: about like the perseverance and just like sticking to it
Speaker 1: and the obsession and all those kinds of things that
Speaker 1: finally comes to an end. How does that? How does
Speaker 1: that feel? Was that was that bitter sweet? How do
Speaker 1: you feel now? Are you? Are you? Are you lost?
Speaker 1: Do you know what'st lost. That's it. That's the word lost. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I mean that's it. I do feel lost. Like every
Speaker 1: time you know it's called you called it, like the
Speaker 1: session part of it, but like you're you'll get it,
Speaker 1: but a people might not. It's got kind of sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but like I don't even want to take my cameras now,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to move the cameras from where
Speaker 1: I get pictures of him. And like every time I
Speaker 1: look at my phone and you know, or you know,
Speaker 1: pull up the app and just look at the cameras
Speaker 1: and he's I know, he's never gonna show up again.
Speaker 1: It's it's weird, but it's like, oh, he's right here.
Speaker 1: But it's such a bitter, bitter sweet ending. It's so sweet,
Speaker 1: but it's so I've never had a dear pour so
Speaker 1: many emotions out of me that you can't control. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you've ever experienced that, Like you get
Speaker 1: shook up and like stuff happens, and you know, obviously
Speaker 1: the normal this deer like it just felt like the
Speaker 1: way of the world was lifted when it actually, you know,
Speaker 1: when I actually got to lay my hands on him,
Speaker 1: like and that's just because we're crazily obsessed with white
Speaker 1: tail hunting, and it's, uh, it's unlike anything else I've
Speaker 1: ever experienced. But this deer really poured that out of me,
Speaker 1: like it was It was the most bitter sweet thing
Speaker 1: I've ever been through, almost wanting to be alive again
Speaker 1: just so I can go do it. But like I say,
Speaker 1: that is that that hunt sometimes is the very best
Speaker 1: thing that the constant chase, the questioning, the the wondering,
Speaker 1: the putting things together little by little by little, um Man,
Speaker 1: that's a that's just so so much fun. So I
Speaker 1: gotta believe if I know you, or if you're at
Speaker 1: all like me, you must be like jumping too, all right?
Speaker 1: Who who's the next buck? Who's the next guy gonna
Speaker 1: start like thinking this through? And have you already started
Speaker 1: like plotting out who might be the next one he
Speaker 1: could start the next six year journey with. Do you
Speaker 1: have an eyeball on someone who you're thinking, man, that
Speaker 1: could be the next one? I got a couple, But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna ask you a question, where do you Where
Speaker 1: do you go from here? It's not like in a
Speaker 1: you know, arrogant way of saying that at all, Like
Speaker 1: it's just kind of I never really you know, he
Speaker 1: went a hudes, like I just can't even wrap my
Speaker 1: head around it still that you know, where do you?
Speaker 1: Where do you? What do you do? You just you know,
Speaker 1: I know some people that go and you know, it's
Speaker 1: the next big mature deyear and it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not all about score, but there's a little bit
Speaker 1: about it that is obviously intriguing to all of us.
Speaker 1: And you know, do you do I wait again for
Speaker 1: you know, the next er or you know whatever. Man,
Speaker 1: I don't know. That's kind of my struggle. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't you know, it's not all about the score,
Speaker 1: but I tell you it's I tell you the next
Speaker 1: one that trips to trigger and you find yourself it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: just just do what's fun? Chase that feeling. Man, that's
Speaker 1: exactly what I'm looking for. And I guess to answer
Speaker 1: your question, I don't have any of that right now. Um.
Speaker 1: I got some good potential deer that I'm excited to see,
Speaker 1: but I know it's you know, a three year journey
Speaker 1: for them to be where I want them to be. Um,
Speaker 1: just because of their age, not really even you know
Speaker 1: they're racking the score, but just the age and I don't. Man,
Speaker 1: I've been so distant to all my other farms, Like
Speaker 1: I've ranked cameras like I always do, you know, I've
Speaker 1: not put any of that like out on the wayside.
Speaker 1: Like but um, it's almost like I'm hunting new properties again.
Speaker 1: Like I just haven't. I haven't set in any other
Speaker 1: stand other than last year, you know, for that week
Speaker 1: and I got lucky enough to kill that deer, and um,
Speaker 1: other than that, I haven't sit anywhereouse in four years.
Speaker 1: That's pretty wild. Yeah, it's kind of hitting me as
Speaker 1: I'm saying it to you because I've never really thought
Speaker 1: about it like that. But I haven't and I don't know.
Speaker 1: My um next thing is, you know, getting a good
Speaker 1: buddy of mine trying to get you know, he's on
Speaker 1: some good deer and trying to help him get on them,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe film him doing that, and obviously
Speaker 1: trying to get my wife on a go and she
Speaker 1: killed a good deer laugh neast year and that's really
Speaker 1: my next goals And that's kind of been my mindset
Speaker 1: and it's kind of keeping my mind off the reality
Speaker 1: of trying to or needing to find another one because
Speaker 1: like as of right now, I don't I don't know
Speaker 1: what I'm jason next year, I guess just sitting in
Speaker 1: the tree stand, which it might be fun to go
Speaker 1: back to that for a little bit, to be honest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. There's something about just some pressure free just
Speaker 1: just just sitting to sit and hunt and see what
Speaker 1: might surprise you. That's that's kind of pressure free, like
Speaker 1: just just being out there to be out there, and
Speaker 1: you know, with cameras and stuff nowadays, it's hard to
Speaker 1: be surprised. I mean on really what's there. But that's
Speaker 1: you know, maybe I'll do some of that, just just
Speaker 1: be exciting to hunt and not really know what's there
Speaker 1: and not really know what's gonna walk in because Shoe,
Speaker 1: I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen every
Speaker 1: year on that farm. What's him besides him? Of course,
Speaker 1: But man, well that is a heck of a journey.
Speaker 1: I uh, I've had some good ones, but never a
Speaker 1: six year hunt for a buck like that, and obviously
Speaker 1: not a buck of that caliber. So soak it in,
Speaker 1: my friend. I hope you, I hope you get to
Speaker 1: uh spend some time just just reveling in this experience
Speaker 1: and uh the good fortune and the story and all that,
Speaker 1: because that's a pretty a pretty special hunt. Congratulations. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, man. I appreciate the opportunity to be on
Speaker 1: here and stuff too, and I and people are you know,
Speaker 1: excited to hear it, and it kind of hits home
Speaker 1: for some people. And you know, I don't know, just
Speaker 1: the just the part of it that, you know, like
Speaker 1: his even the deer's ups and downs, you know, like
Speaker 1: and being wounded and then making a comeback with his
Speaker 1: you know, as horns being bigger than they ever were
Speaker 1: at nine years old. Like it's just kind of wild
Speaker 1: what kind of animals these animals really are, and like
Speaker 1: their will to live and I mean everybody's probably had
Speaker 1: a tracking story where you know that dead deer can't
Speaker 1: be alive, and you know it is, but they're just
Speaker 1: they're different and they obviously people like us, they just
Speaker 1: do different things too. And I don't know, I'm my
Speaker 1: dad introduced me to hunting, and I'm so fortunate appreciative
Speaker 1: of that because without that, I don't I like, I
Speaker 1: don't even know what I'd be doing right now. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe we'ddle in some wood or something, I don't know,
Speaker 1: doing something productive with your life other than Jason tales
Speaker 1: all day. Yeah, at least that's what some people think.
Speaker 1: Wasted time, that's for sure. But it's it's worth every
Speaker 1: bit of it when it comes together on something like this.
Speaker 1: But it's serious. Well, Tyler Man, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking time to share this story and to kind
Speaker 1: of break it all down and what you learn and
Speaker 1: what worked. And I think there's a lot of not
Speaker 1: only is it the fun story, but also some stuff
Speaker 1: that I think that that I can take away and
Speaker 1: hopefully everybody else can too. And uh, whether it's a
Speaker 1: hundred ten inch buck or hundred nine buck, I think
Speaker 1: the chase for one deer is is pretty darn compelling
Speaker 1: and this is a perfect example of it. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, man, I appreciate it. Like I said, the
Speaker 1: opportunity to be on here too, that was it was
Speaker 1: pretty cool. I worked out. Well, let's do it again
Speaker 1: in three or four or five six years when you
Speaker 1: get the next one, right, I hope saw that. Let's
Speaker 1: do it. I appreciate it, Mark, all right, and that's
Speaker 1: a wrap. Thank you for tuning in appreciate you joining
Speaker 1: me here at the beginning of the new year. If
Speaker 1: you still have a tag from the two Deer season,
Speaker 1: I'm wishing you luck. I hope you can close it
Speaker 1: out here at the bottom of the ninth with some
Speaker 1: magic in the last moments, and if not, either way,
Speaker 1: thanks for being here, and until next time, stay wired
Speaker 1: to Hu.