Speaker 1: You're listening to the Sportsman's Nation podcast network, brought to
Speaker 1: you by Lacrosse Boots. Now Lacrosse is at it again
Speaker 1: with a new line of lace up hunting boots, the
Speaker 1: Navigator series. And in that Navigator series there are two models.
Speaker 1: There's the Atlas for men and the wind Rows for
Speaker 1: both men and women. To find out more information about
Speaker 1: this new Navigator series, visit Lacrosse Footwear dot com. My
Speaker 1: name is Clay Nucleman. I'm the host of the Bear
Speaker 1: Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be your host into the
Speaker 1: world of hunting the icon of the North American wilderness
Speaker 1: to bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation, but will
Speaker 1: also bring you into some of the wildest country on
Speaker 1: the planet chasing. Hey, check out our buddies at W
Speaker 1: Hunting Supply. They've got a shirt on sale this week.
Speaker 1: It's called their Hound Hunting America Shirt. It's a hoodie.
Speaker 1: Looks awesome. Check out W Hunting Supply for all your
Speaker 1: hound needs, from garments to Leasha's two callers to clothing.
Speaker 1: Check out our buddies also at Northwoods Bear Products. I'm
Speaker 1: holding in my hand right now bottle of this gold
Speaker 1: Rush Man this stuff if I opened it up right
Speaker 1: now would probably blow this office up. It's not bear
Speaker 1: bait in time, but this spring be ready with a
Speaker 1: full line of commercial scent products from from our buddies
Speaker 1: at Northwoods. Also check out our buddies at the Western
Speaker 1: Bear Foundation. They are a nonprofit hunting conservation organization that's
Speaker 1: given a voice to bear hunters out west. Check them out, hey.
Speaker 1: On this podcast, we're back up again with Tom Ainsworth
Speaker 1: in Manitoba, Canada, and we talked to Tom about his life,
Speaker 1: about some of his stories, and it may be even
Speaker 1: a lot like the podcast recorded with him last year.
Speaker 1: We may have even told some of the same stories,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to hear him again from Tom. We
Speaker 1: also talk about the big buck that that I killed
Speaker 1: it there just a few days ago. So you're gonna
Speaker 1: enjoy this podcast with with a true Canadian character and
Speaker 1: in my mind the legend Tom Ainsworth. A lot of
Speaker 1: people may be listening to this podcast and they have
Speaker 1: dreamed of doing a Canadian whitetail hunt. I want to
Speaker 1: say that this hunt with Tom grand View is a
Speaker 1: lot more financially doable than you probably think. Whatever number
Speaker 1: that you're thinking in your mind for what one of
Speaker 1: these hunts should cost. This hunt is a lot less
Speaker 1: And let me tell you I told Chris with Tom.
Speaker 1: Finding Tom has been like finding a bird nest on
Speaker 1: the ground. This is a great hunt. I've been up
Speaker 1: there three years and taking three exceptional deer. So check
Speaker 1: out check out grand View Outfitters and go to their website,
Speaker 1: find a contact information. At least called Tom and talked
Speaker 1: to him. Today's November seven, and we're in Manitoba, Canada,
Speaker 1: north of grand View, and it has been ice cold
Speaker 1: for a couple of boys from Arkansas. Has it been cold?
Speaker 1: It's cool for us, cold for you? Sure? Yeah. It's
Speaker 1: been uh low temperatures this week so far. I've been
Speaker 1: like two degrees or three degrees as a little seventeen
Speaker 1: our degrees, yeah, seventeen for our Canadian listeners. Our US
Speaker 1: listeners have no idea what seventeen degrees celsius is. But uh,
Speaker 1: I think the high temperature we've had all week that
Speaker 1: has been like twenty degrees. That's really the the way
Speaker 1: to tell how cold it is. But I've got Tom
Speaker 1: Ainsworth with me. Tom. I've known Tom for several years now.
Speaker 1: This is my third year coming up here in whitetail
Speaker 1: hunt with you. And then I've got my longtime buddy,
Speaker 1: Chris Roberts. Chriss. Chris and I have known each other
Speaker 1: since grade school and so he and I have been
Speaker 1: up here hunting. Um, Tom, tell me about the big
Speaker 1: buck on the wall over here, tell me tell me
Speaker 1: you kind of gave me the extended version. But uh,
Speaker 1: hanging on Tom's walls as a deal. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: tell how big the deer was, but just like what
Speaker 1: frame of mind you're in, and I kind of want
Speaker 1: to paint a picture for people of how Canadian whitetail
Speaker 1: hunting was in the in the eighties. I assume that was,
Speaker 1: So tell me the story of that, dear. There were
Speaker 1: some big deer around. We're finding some real big sheds,
Speaker 1: and uh I knew a place where they were, where
Speaker 1: nobody hunts, and it's about a mile and a half
Speaker 1: from where I live right now, and uh so I
Speaker 1: went over there to see if I could get one.
Speaker 1: Uh my gun in them days, I ran a fifty
Speaker 1: and my wife bought it for me in about nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two. And anyways, uh it was a good gun.
Speaker 1: You could you know, you could break an egg with
Speaker 1: it or make bullets touch at a hundred yards quite easy.
Speaker 1: But anyways, I went over there looking for a big
Speaker 1: deer and there's about eight of them come out of
Speaker 1: off of a fence line, out of a big bush,
Speaker 1: off of a fence line, into a field of stubble
Speaker 1: in the fall time. What were they coming into? Wheat stubble,
Speaker 1: stubble just like yours today? Yeah, just like where is
Speaker 1: that wheat stubble grow? Is it wheat? That's growing wheat
Speaker 1: for flour? And actually that where you shot yours today
Speaker 1: was half a mile from where I shot that one. Yes,
Speaker 1: just across the road from where you shot it. So anyways, Uh,
Speaker 1: I went out there and there's a bunch of there's
Speaker 1: some dos and calves, and I mean, we didn't have
Speaker 1: numbers like you're seeing nowadays. We maybe would have four
Speaker 1: or five animals, and the numbers were down, I guess.
Speaker 1: But anyways, Uh, I was looking for a big deer. Uh,
Speaker 1: this buck come across. I was sitting in the fence line,
Speaker 1: just in some little rose bushes. We'd call it down
Speaker 1: wind eighty yards down. This buck come across a little
Speaker 1: field with his head down, and uh, he didn't look
Speaker 1: that big, and uh, because his head was down to
Speaker 1: the starting the snow. And anybody knows that when a
Speaker 1: deer runs the horns and not go all up in
Speaker 1: the air, and he actually looks bigger than he is,
Speaker 1: I would say, but when their heads down and it's sewing,
Speaker 1: it was good. But I thought it was small. So
Speaker 1: I watched it for twenty minutes, and it was eighty
Speaker 1: yards away, just fading. Yep. What time of year was it? Uh,
Speaker 1: there was snow on the ground, so it would be
Speaker 1: a little later than this, you know, I mean, let's
Speaker 1: just he was just he was traveling with him animals,
Speaker 1: and so I looked at it for twenty minutes and thought, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the best one out here tonight. So
Speaker 1: I shot it. And then when I went over there,
Speaker 1: I realized that the horns were two ft off the ground,
Speaker 1: and so that made quite a difference, and it was
Speaker 1: a good deal. It was two inches and the thing
Speaker 1: was our dog, where you guys are staying our dog there.
Speaker 1: He brought shed horns into the yard that were pretty
Speaker 1: well in exact match for that. He brought one into
Speaker 1: the yard and I walked out to the field beside
Speaker 1: the house there and the other one was there. But
Speaker 1: we had some real big bucks in our day in
Speaker 1: this country. They're they're good quality, deary heavy beam, very heavy.
Speaker 1: I would say Double Bros. From Triple Bros. Yeah, Chris
Speaker 1: described that dear just like, how would you describe that
Speaker 1: dear massive? I mean, it's it kind of takes your
Speaker 1: breath away when you see it. Um, I mean I
Speaker 1: would have super mass, Yeah, super mass. I mean we
Speaker 1: just I don't want to give I don't know what
Speaker 1: you want to give away. I mean it's kind of
Speaker 1: hard to of what happened today. So I mean because
Speaker 1: that I've got that buck on my mind, so it's
Speaker 1: kind of hard to think I should have went and
Speaker 1: looked at it before. But it's got I mean, it's
Speaker 1: a very beautiful deer. I mean it's a very double
Speaker 1: drop I really I can't think of but there's probably
Speaker 1: in the inside maybe Yeah, it's it's it's it's got
Speaker 1: double double drop times. It's a main frame tin with
Speaker 1: as big a mass as you'll see and several kickers
Speaker 1: on it. Right, So we went and looked at it
Speaker 1: with you. It's a very majestic type. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's just very Yeah, it's a beast. So the cool
Speaker 1: part of that story is you didn't think it was
Speaker 1: very big. It probably was on a two hundred and
Speaker 1: seventy pound frame or or three hundred. I think the
Speaker 1: cool part is is he watched it for twenty minutes
Speaker 1: and then I shot it with a fifty which is
Speaker 1: which is a varmit gun. How do I mean it
Speaker 1: would drive attack? There was nothing to it, and in
Speaker 1: them days, that's all I had. Yeah, it wasn't you
Speaker 1: just dropped. No, he made a little tight circle there
Speaker 1: for us yards and that was it. Your lung. Shoot him,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I think that story tells the story of
Speaker 1: Canadian white tail hunting pretty good because in the eighties,
Speaker 1: in the early eighties, Chris nobody knew about Canadian white
Speaker 1: tail hunting except the Canadians in the in the in
Speaker 1: the hype of whitetail hunting and the frenzy that was
Speaker 1: going on in the States had really yet to spread
Speaker 1: up here, and so like, there wasn't that much value
Speaker 1: put on that animal. I mean, you were just like, Hey,
Speaker 1: this is a good buck, gonna have a lot of
Speaker 1: meat for my family. And you were just getting started
Speaker 1: white tail outfitting and so, I mean, you knew that
Speaker 1: this was an incredible animal. But but you know, but
Speaker 1: my first hunters that come in here forty five years ago, Uh,
Speaker 1: they just come in here and shoot a large animal.
Speaker 1: I mean it wasn't you know. They're coming from Texas
Speaker 1: at that time, and they you know, the zero we're
Speaker 1: big up here and massive deer, like we have mass
Speaker 1: and that and we and right now the mass is
Speaker 1: coming back because there's been so many years since, you know,
Speaker 1: the hard winters and that, and it's just like you're
Speaker 1: seeing today. We're seeing a lot of good quality deer
Speaker 1: here now. And next year is going to be better
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned. It's just gonna be bigger
Speaker 1: deer and better. And it's you know, we've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of good quality bucks around. Yeah. Well so kind
Speaker 1: of the story of Manitoba. It was that in the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties up there, the mid early two dousands,
Speaker 1: I mean, the white tail hunting would have been just incredible,
Speaker 1: and then you had a tough stretch where the population
Speaker 1: went down, but now it's coming back. It took time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've got to grow up. And you told me something
Speaker 1: last year that since the kind of the hype and
Speaker 1: white tail craze from America came here, now you have
Speaker 1: more resident Canadian hunters. Is that? Is that correct? You
Speaker 1: don't have a lot. I'm not saying you have the
Speaker 1: pressure that we have, but there's more guys that are
Speaker 1: interested in it. People know what they've got when they
Speaker 1: see a huge And the thing is now everybody is
Speaker 1: getting to word. They know what a one seventy buck is.
Speaker 1: You know, they just look at it. Do you know
Speaker 1: it's got to be so white. You know, you've gotta
Speaker 1: have ten inch tanks. You know, it's got to be
Speaker 1: a five by five and it just seems to be
Speaker 1: everybody knows that. It's I hate to say it, it's
Speaker 1: not like bear hunting. Yeah, you know, it's it's people
Speaker 1: look at it and they can figure it out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so it makes a big difference. Yeah, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we're lucky the big buck was shot in
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan as far as I'm concerned, because if it would
Speaker 1: have came here, it might have ruined our industry. And
Speaker 1: we're just do you know what he means by that?
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan it's the world record in ninety four came from
Speaker 1: Saskatchewan and which is sixty miles from here. It's not
Speaker 1: even sixty miles from here. And I'm glad it was
Speaker 1: there because everybody went there, and it's just like a
Speaker 1: lot of places they're paying, you know, you're paying I
Speaker 1: don't know nowadays, but don't matter five or seven thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: It's kind of was the going right long time ago.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm glad it went there personally, because
Speaker 1: if it would have come in here, you would have,
Speaker 1: you know, a red hat and every tree. Well it's
Speaker 1: like this, and we didn't hear another gun shot. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like, here are our hunters so far, haven't seen
Speaker 1: another hunter, haven't heard a gun shot, and yet we're
Speaker 1: seeing quite a few bucks and good numbers of deer
Speaker 1: in that. And uh, that's where I would go hunting,
Speaker 1: and that's where I you know, you've got to do
Speaker 1: treat people and stuff the way you'd like to be treated.
Speaker 1: And I think that's just what a person wants when
Speaker 1: you go somewhere and stuff. You know, you're in the law,
Speaker 1: you know, the last wilderness. Yeah, yeah, describe to me.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people that have not hunted
Speaker 1: Canada kind of kind of like Texas has its own
Speaker 1: white tail culture. You know, if you go to Texas,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be hunting these mesquite flats over a deer
Speaker 1: feeder or sindaro's that have been spread with corn. You're
Speaker 1: gonna see a bunch of small bodied deer with huge racks.
Speaker 1: Like there's a hunting culture in Texas. There's the same
Speaker 1: thing in Canada, except very vastly different, completely different. Let's
Speaker 1: describe for people what Canadian white too uns, because I
Speaker 1: think there's a misconception that I had, which was that
Speaker 1: Canadian white tail hunting is negative ten degrees all the time.
Speaker 1: Now it's been cold here, snow on the ground all
Speaker 1: the time, which we've not. We've had it with just
Speaker 1: a skiff of snow on the ground all day. Sits
Speaker 1: I mean, kind of it's kind of a grueling picture sometimes,
Speaker 1: but that's not necessarily what I'm saying. You can make
Speaker 1: it that if you wanted to, and if you came
Speaker 1: in late November, yeah, you're gonna be hunting in snow
Speaker 1: and cold. But describe like just a typical hunt, how
Speaker 1: you would just do normal hunters. Well, a typical hunt
Speaker 1: for me is First of all, we try to accommodate
Speaker 1: our clients. So by doing that, Uh, we have huts,
Speaker 1: heated huts. I'm a tall person myself, so we have them.
Speaker 1: Also the you know, a six ft man or I'm
Speaker 1: over that can walk through the door, standing up in
Speaker 1: our huts, throw up off the ground. They can be
Speaker 1: heated in uh, muscle older season for no, I mean
Speaker 1: you could have it raining and stuff like that. Guy's
Speaker 1: really on lots of yours. Well, you're at least you
Speaker 1: can at your day in hunting, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You don't have to get wet, you can you're being
Speaker 1: comfortable and you can hunt. And the more hours you
Speaker 1: can put into the stand for an outfitter, as far
Speaker 1: as I'm concerned, Uh, the more success rates you're gonna have.
Speaker 1: And it was just like today, we kind of had
Speaker 1: the idea, were coming in at ten o'clock this morning,
Speaker 1: but you had the idea, Clay, I'm gonna stay out
Speaker 1: till noon. And by staying out till noon, we hit
Speaker 1: that old you know time next time from ten to two.
Speaker 1: And just because of the time of year when ruts
Speaker 1: on and starting and all that. Hey, you've seen a
Speaker 1: lot of bucks. You shot a beautiful buck at eleven
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and most people are either having
Speaker 1: lunch or having a nap or stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: it's about choice, you know. How much you want to
Speaker 1: put in is how much you get back. But you know,
Speaker 1: up here the weather can be real cold. You know,
Speaker 1: are quite cold, and uh, we've had it in when
Speaker 1: I started, not we had a guy that come from
Speaker 1: Texas up here and in dear season. He was sitting
Speaker 1: back here in the park with a white T shirt on. Wow,
Speaker 1: and the bull elk walked up behind him and bugled,
Speaker 1: you know, and it just shows you, Uh, it's weather
Speaker 1: and we can't predict it. Yeah, you just you know,
Speaker 1: I like the cold coming from Arkansas. To me, if
Speaker 1: if I came up here and we were comfortable, Chris,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been a hunt. I mean to me
Speaker 1: that every hunt has some element of challenge and testing,
Speaker 1: and here it's the cold, you know. So this is
Speaker 1: the fourth day of a sixth day hunt and I did.
Speaker 1: I killed it this morning and we'll go into detail.
Speaker 1: I'll tell the story. And there's no heater or involved
Speaker 1: with you. No heater. So for three days I bow hunted,
Speaker 1: and I was using my my tethered tree saddle hanging
Speaker 1: out of a little poplar about eight inches in diameter,
Speaker 1: just taking it in the face with temperatures. I don't
Speaker 1: know how cold it was afternoon hunting, but one day
Speaker 1: I got in there about eleven thirty and set tel
Speaker 1: six o'clock and the wind was blowing at you and
Speaker 1: it was cold. Yeah, it was. It was probably fifteen degrees.
Speaker 1: With this cold, I was cold in a box blode. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I woke up this morning and I looked in the
Speaker 1: mirror and I looked like at age ten years and
Speaker 1: it wears you down. I will say, if you do
Speaker 1: come up here and make sure you have the gear.
Speaker 1: If it's yeah, it's easy to bring with you, bring
Speaker 1: it with you. It's eat Like anybody phones me, I'll say, hey,
Speaker 1: bring it with you. If you don't need it, don't
Speaker 1: put it on, but bring it close with you. It's
Speaker 1: better to have. And and I'll say this about being
Speaker 1: up here with with you know, with Tom, it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's almost like you're being treated his family. And that
Speaker 1: that's been amazing. That's how that's how I think the
Speaker 1: overfitting business should be. You've got to become family with
Speaker 1: your clients. And know, like me, I never went to
Speaker 1: a shoal. So really what I do is hunt family
Speaker 1: least it's called, and that is I have to have
Speaker 1: You got to be satisfied, and when you're satisfied, you
Speaker 1: bring your brother or your father or your friend. And
Speaker 1: another advantage to that is when you've got good people,
Speaker 1: don't look for people because good people breed good people,
Speaker 1: so you don't have to worry about it. If you've
Speaker 1: got a good person, there's a very good chance his
Speaker 1: friends and that are just as good as him. So
Speaker 1: it's a way, you know, but I never did went
Speaker 1: to a show, So we have to have satisfied clients
Speaker 1: and you you try to just treat people the way
Speaker 1: you would like to be treated in life. It's just
Speaker 1: simply and it it's worked for us for forty five years.
Speaker 1: You know, well, let's just be accommodating. It's you can
Speaker 1: hunt all day or you you know, you can will
Speaker 1: come pick you up and were here and you're not
Speaker 1: a number. And that's kind of the way that we've
Speaker 1: done it. In in this being my third year, I
Speaker 1: kind of to know the farm and know the different
Speaker 1: stands and it's it's a blast because you know we're
Speaker 1: kind of partnering together. You know, you're asking me what
Speaker 1: I think. I love that, I mean that's what I want.
Speaker 1: I don't but we to give a little like usually
Speaker 1: we're hunting in the mornings, three or four hours, come
Speaker 1: in and have lunch and then get back in the
Speaker 1: stands is I mean, if you're taking it serious, you
Speaker 1: want to get back in the stand as quick as post.
Speaker 1: But there's no pressure to do that. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if we had wanted to just hunt the last couple
Speaker 1: of hours a daylight, we could have in the we're
Speaker 1: seeing a lot of deer. That that's the other misconception
Speaker 1: I think people have about Canada is that you don't
Speaker 1: see the deer numbers. At least that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: We're seeing a ton of dude. I think different with
Speaker 1: me compared to a lot of outfitters. Is I owned
Speaker 1: my own private land. Yeah, so I've got my own
Speaker 1: six decres along the Duck Mountain Park. I've got access
Speaker 1: to other people's land along here, and so I give
Speaker 1: you a different kind of a hunt. If you don't
Speaker 1: have land, and that way you have to hunt bush
Speaker 1: hunt in the mountain and that when you bush hunt
Speaker 1: in the mountain. Um, it's good hunting, but it's a
Speaker 1: different style again, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: totally forested and you get up there and you might
Speaker 1: sit all day and you might see one or two
Speaker 1: or three deer, uh stuff like that. But behind my
Speaker 1: place there's about sixty miles of provincial park. There's no road.
Speaker 1: The first road is twenty five miles up. There's one
Speaker 1: road that goes through it. So it's location. We're gonna
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to go back there. You know. I've
Speaker 1: never been back in there to the ducks. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: one day we're gonna have to go for a drive. Well,
Speaker 1: we can go for a drive anytime you want up here,
Speaker 1: because my last guys in they went right through the
Speaker 1: edge and come out and swan river another side and
Speaker 1: drove around just to see it. And like in our
Speaker 1: mountain here, uh, twenty five miles from here, for example,
Speaker 1: it's a little over twenty eight miles or whatever. But
Speaker 1: twenty miles up, we've got great lakes to fishing. Guys.
Speaker 1: We've got great trout, you know, and stuff like that. Now,
Speaker 1: stranglers are you know, pretty easy to get. So it's
Speaker 1: there's good fishing. You know what people want to if
Speaker 1: they're Tagg don't want to go fishing or something like that,
Speaker 1: you can and stuff like that too. Well, we're down
Speaker 1: here and what you guys call the settlement you call
Speaker 1: the park now, what you're calling park, we would call
Speaker 1: national forests ron lists, Yeah, crown land, national forest. It's
Speaker 1: just public land and uh, and then the settlement down
Speaker 1: here is relatively flat, kind of rolling, but Agg country.
Speaker 1: I mean we're looking today, where I was sitting, I
Speaker 1: could see half a mile across the wheat field probably
Speaker 1: and you could actually see twenty miles to the next
Speaker 1: Riding Mountain National Park. Yeah, it's twenty miles across. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's yeah, and so it's to me that's really
Speaker 1: neat because it's coming from Arkansas eastern deciduous forest. We
Speaker 1: can't see very far in most places we hunt. We
Speaker 1: have you know, cattle pasture in some places. But to me,
Speaker 1: it's really fun to be on these crop fields and uh,
Speaker 1: to just have these big grain fed deer, maybe not
Speaker 1: grain fed, but they're eating some beans, but a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of wheat, a lot of we're just
Speaker 1: on the It's just like where we are. When you
Speaker 1: drop off my land here on the south side, you
Speaker 1: hit grain country. Yeah, it's just that simple. So I'm
Speaker 1: right on this edge between the bush and agriculture, and uh,
Speaker 1: the worst of it is nowadays. Well everybody's taking the
Speaker 1: fence lines out and getting rid of the bush and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And it's just like when I come
Speaker 1: up in here, there's only twenty seven acres broke on
Speaker 1: this back quarter or land a hundred sixty acres there,
Speaker 1: twenty seven acres broke. Well, we've been here for forty
Speaker 1: five years. We've owned the land for my grandpa and
Speaker 1: grandmar for a hundred and I never broke another acorn here.
Speaker 1: Because when I leave this area, your country, Uh, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be the way it came. And I think, if anything,
Speaker 1: it will be improved, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 1: I don't believe in knock countries down. If somebody wants
Speaker 1: to buy it and do it, that will be their
Speaker 1: choice with time. But we're gonna, you know, leave it
Speaker 1: to our kids and they will have that opportunity and
Speaker 1: they can do what they want. You know. It's they're
Speaker 1: lucky to have that. Yeah, yeah, so your your grandparents
Speaker 1: had this place a hundred years ago, turn of the century.
Speaker 1: Where were they from England? They actually migrated yep, from England.
Speaker 1: They come over to Canada nineteen and that, and they
Speaker 1: come over here. And you know, if you really think
Speaker 1: about it, the closer you are up here to the park,
Speaker 1: the poorer the people are, and the poorer the land is,
Speaker 1: and the poorer everything is. You know, that's the It's
Speaker 1: just how it is. And so you know, when you're
Speaker 1: poor people, you get pushed up to the poor lantern
Speaker 1: along the park and yeah, I'm glad they did. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, Tom, I can I can envision you being
Speaker 1: a tall, lanky guy walking down the street in London,
Speaker 1: you know, I kind of see as an Englishman. Now
Speaker 1: that now that you say that, um, well, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1: Before we get to my buck story, which we'll we'll
Speaker 1: talk about that, I got a couple of questions for you.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite dear rifle for hunting up here? So
Speaker 1: we're talking about big bodied white tails, you know, deer
Speaker 1: between top end three hundred mature buck to thirty ish
Speaker 1: big animals. Just your favorite, not what you'd tell somebody else.
Speaker 1: Just what does Tom ains Worth carry if he's white
Speaker 1: tail deer hunting up here? I care? Actually at two seventy, yes,
Speaker 1: I've got quite a few guns, you know, I've got
Speaker 1: three hundred weather Bees and all lot, but uh I
Speaker 1: have a two seventy. I think you should carry any
Speaker 1: gun you can shoot well with. You've got to shoot
Speaker 1: well with it. Uh At two seventy could be light,
Speaker 1: but I mean also I can take and make two
Speaker 1: shells touch at a hundred yards, two bullets, and uh
Speaker 1: so that's your gun. A choice, That's what I use.
Speaker 1: It's just what I started out with, really, you know,
Speaker 1: was I got into two seventys. But probably if I
Speaker 1: were to look at it nowadays, I might I might
Speaker 1: step it up to a probably something like a three
Speaker 1: hundred meg okay, because if you want to, it's how
Speaker 1: good of a shot yard? But I think you should
Speaker 1: be able to shoot good to three hundred yards. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you in this country, because you guys are
Speaker 1: shooting three hundred yards with a muzzle loader and you're
Speaker 1: getting nice bucks and so you know, and the only
Speaker 1: problem at two seventis great and they're flat shooting and great,
Speaker 1: but you're shooting the Jack O'Connor was a hund and
Speaker 1: thirty greens a lead, and I shoot one forty because
Speaker 1: it'll tighten my group up with an inter bond bullet,
Speaker 1: and that's why I do it. But you know, I
Speaker 1: appreciate a hundred forty grain inter bond out of your
Speaker 1: testet and you bit and tell me what that bullet
Speaker 1: is designed to do. It's designed not to blow up.
Speaker 1: Is it's not like a barn that is a very
Speaker 1: hard shell. It goes right through. It's not a bullet
Speaker 1: as soon as it touches something that blows up. Uh,
Speaker 1: Expanding at the right time is very important. And the
Speaker 1: inter bond will it goes in, it expands and it
Speaker 1: puts a good exit on the outside and leaves a
Speaker 1: blood trail and stuff like that. But if you get
Speaker 1: something that hits something hard and blows up, you need
Speaker 1: enough penetration. So if you happen to hit a shoulder
Speaker 1: blade or something, you know what I mean. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: that's why I would go to like nowadays, I would
Speaker 1: go to a bit heavier caliber because I'm using it
Speaker 1: on deer, but I use it on moose and elk
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. To a yeah, yeah, Okay, what sorry,
Speaker 1: what what would you use for ELK? Well, I use
Speaker 1: I use my two seventy, but right right now, I
Speaker 1: use it depends on the location where you're hunting. If
Speaker 1: it's nice and clothes shots, it's one thing. But if
Speaker 1: I figure it's uh gone to get out, like to
Speaker 1: a three or four hundred yards shot, and I want
Speaker 1: knockdown while I take my three, weather be a But
Speaker 1: otherwise a seven mag would of all the guns if
Speaker 1: I were to put him up, A thirty ot six
Speaker 1: is probably a great all round gun because it's very
Speaker 1: versatile on the monel that you can get. It's a
Speaker 1: poor man's magnum, that's my opinion, but it's good. It's
Speaker 1: very That's what I bought my son. Okay, six, you
Speaker 1: bet I bought him a thirty at six because I
Speaker 1: had the two seventy and I thought we needed to
Speaker 1: step up, so I got him a thirty ot six.
Speaker 1: But anything between a thirty out six to yeah, it'd
Speaker 1: be a it'd be a great gun. Yeah. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm switching. I'm switching topics a little bit too. Why
Speaker 1: old game cooking? Tom is a He is an expert
Speaker 1: when it comes to butcher and well, Deb's the cook.
Speaker 1: Tom's getting the credit here, but no, Deb's getting the credit.
Speaker 1: But as far as butcher in and Tom, what is
Speaker 1: your go to? If I was asked this question, and
Speaker 1: I so, I'm gonna ask you the same question. If
Speaker 1: you had one way to cook white tail deer, how
Speaker 1: would you cook it? If you just had one? Well, my,
Speaker 1: that's not that's a very hard crap. It's not fair,
Speaker 1: he says, because there's two different things. If you'll give
Speaker 1: you two, Okay, if I wanted my favorite dish, And
Speaker 1: we take backstrap and we call a Kentucky fight batch
Speaker 1: strap and a guy by the name of Mickey Melton
Speaker 1: from Houston, Texas come up here about forty five years ago.
Speaker 1: And uh, the way we do it is we cut
Speaker 1: our backstrap a little over a quarter of an inch
Speaker 1: thick a thick quarter inch. We take and take the
Speaker 1: course side of a meat hammer and patty it out
Speaker 1: on both sides. We sprinkle that with lori, season salt,
Speaker 1: black pepper, and a bit of garlic. And loss is
Speaker 1: just kind of garlic, our own garlic, oh, just minced garlic. Well,
Speaker 1: we powder our own garlic. We dehydrated dry it and
Speaker 1: our own garlic powder. So you put that on both sides.
Speaker 1: And if you're going to deep fry this, you take
Speaker 1: some oil and you can use anything from Connola oil
Speaker 1: to peanut oil or whatever. And you could put a
Speaker 1: half inch in a patter, an inch or whatever turns
Speaker 1: your crankcake. And then if you're gonna deep fry something,
Speaker 1: you have to batter it. So you put flour in
Speaker 1: a dish. And then what you're gonna do is take
Speaker 1: for every person you might say, you put one egg,
Speaker 1: so if you've got far people, you put four egg
Speaker 1: in there and uh cream or milk or egg no
Speaker 1: aug or something like that. The thicker you want it,
Speaker 1: the thicker the product you use. Now I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to try that. No, it's good, and uh you bet.
Speaker 1: You take your eggs and you whip them with your
Speaker 1: will say cream, and then you double uh you're gonna
Speaker 1: deep fry it, so you double battered. So we take
Speaker 1: the meat and we go into the flour first on
Speaker 1: both sides, back into your we'll say cream or egg
Speaker 1: and milk back into the flour, and then you put
Speaker 1: it in and you just let it come to a
Speaker 1: golden brown, which don't take very long and it's so tender. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's good. It's good. And then just another way of
Speaker 1: doing meat is this is your second favorite. Yeah, if
Speaker 1: I were to do something else, especially depends on how
Speaker 1: tough your media is, okay, But another way of just
Speaker 1: doing it is is to can it like my grandma did.
Speaker 1: And all you did was take court stealers out. You
Speaker 1: take steak or good like a like a court mason jar.
Speaker 1: You bet court sealers, that's what you're calling. And then
Speaker 1: you just take your we use steak or some good
Speaker 1: quality meat, of course, no fat on it, no sinew
Speaker 1: on it. You cut it into one by two or
Speaker 1: whatever squares you take and put it in. You take
Speaker 1: some salt, You take pepper, and a little bit of garlic,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean much, maybe half a teaspoon of each.
Speaker 1: You put it in a dish. And what you do
Speaker 1: is you start take your meat at the bottom and
Speaker 1: touch it and put it in the bottom, and as
Speaker 1: you come up, you touch it and touch it instead
Speaker 1: of pouring it all on top with the top few
Speaker 1: pieces of so salty and that you can't eat, Okay,
Speaker 1: So you're you're seasoning as you're putting little chunks of
Speaker 1: meat in there, and you know what you mean by
Speaker 1: touch it? Yeah, yeah, So put the salt, pepper and
Speaker 1: garlic in. Let's say, on each little piece as you
Speaker 1: put it in the jar, what you mean how many? Okay,
Speaker 1: just once in a while, pardon? How many pieces in
Speaker 1: the jar? And then do you do is take a
Speaker 1: plastic cup or something to keep pushing it down, pushing
Speaker 1: it down. You add no water, nothing to this, and
Speaker 1: you can put peck to two ways of putting jelly
Speaker 1: into a product. One is pecton. You add a little pecton.
Speaker 1: If you want to do it the old style, you'll
Speaker 1: take a chicken's foot that's cleaned, you don't really and
Speaker 1: you put it in there and it's natural pectin and
Speaker 1: it'll completely gell a court sealer of meat. And then
Speaker 1: all you do is I use turkey friar cooker, put
Speaker 1: water in it, um cooking for three and a half
Speaker 1: to four hours, let it cool off. Then you have
Speaker 1: jellied meats, jellied chicken like a jellied ham or something
Speaker 1: you buy, but it's jelly chicken. You can eat it
Speaker 1: cold and it's you know when it's tinder, Oh, it's
Speaker 1: it's sure it's canned, and so what do you what
Speaker 1: do you how how would you primarily use that? It
Speaker 1: would kind of be jellied, so it would be like
Speaker 1: I kind of have the white ish stuff. It's kind
Speaker 1: of yellow, but it's jellied. And then you can take
Speaker 1: it out and just eat it when it's cool and
Speaker 1: it's great. Or if you wanted something quick, you could
Speaker 1: take that out, put it in a frying pan and
Speaker 1: heat it up, add a little bit of something to it,
Speaker 1: and so you can just fry it or use in stew,
Speaker 1: use it and stews, use it in lots of things,
Speaker 1: and so it's pre cooked. I'm gonna have to try that,
Speaker 1: but I do. You're gonna use the chicken foot. But
Speaker 1: see that's tradition. Before you add pecked in and stuff.
Speaker 1: You have to work with what you got. And that's
Speaker 1: one thing that it will do. Because if anybody's ever
Speaker 1: can chicken, you'll find out you don't need to put
Speaker 1: pecked in or nothing in it because it's natural in
Speaker 1: the bones. Huh yeah, Okay, that's good. And you really
Speaker 1: like to You like to grind your meat too, like
Speaker 1: you got you get a lot of ground ground meats.
Speaker 1: You butcher your own elk, kill elk on this property,
Speaker 1: but your own alk, but your own deer. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Do you kill moose on this property? Not now, but
Speaker 1: we used to do, used to bull moose and that
Speaker 1: was standing my gateway. But no, the populations don't. But
Speaker 1: other ways we'd see moose right out of our yard
Speaker 1: all the time. You know, we see and l can
Speaker 1: hear you see elk. We still see r elk. Yeah yeah. Okay,
Speaker 1: another change of topic. I'm trying to I'm trying to
Speaker 1: like categorize all these things I've learned from hanging around
Speaker 1: with Tom. Okay, let's talk about your trick for cleaning
Speaker 1: dear skull. Yeah. So so last year, uh well, twice
Speaker 1: I have taken a close, a complete skull out of Manitoba.
Speaker 1: And because of the c w D area, you can't
Speaker 1: take brain matter with you. It's got to be a
Speaker 1: clean skull. And so what do we do. We we
Speaker 1: get because we kill these deer and we gotta leave
Speaker 1: pretty quick, so you don't have a lot of time.
Speaker 1: We want to take the whole skull. And there's I
Speaker 1: should say one thing before we give you the answer.
Speaker 1: Here in some areas you can't you can't take your
Speaker 1: you can't take your skullar. You gotta clean, you know.
Speaker 1: But on the west side of three sure our road,
Speaker 1: we don't have to take no samples off. Yeah there's
Speaker 1: no Yeah, there's no cdbuts But what I did I
Speaker 1: learned from one of my clients, was all you do
Speaker 1: is there's a hole on the back of the skull,
Speaker 1: and we run our air compressors up to about a
Speaker 1: twenty pounds pressure, and uh, you can take a screw
Speaker 1: driver in there and work it a little bit, or
Speaker 1: you probably don't have to. You just insert a little
Speaker 1: copper hose in there and pull the trigger once and
Speaker 1: the heads clean. You didn't see it, is Chris, okay,
Speaker 1: So what you do. What you do is you you
Speaker 1: get a bucket. What we did, We get a bucket
Speaker 1: and you kind of tilt the antlers back so that
Speaker 1: the whole the hall on the back of the skull,
Speaker 1: where the final column connects to the skull, you tilt
Speaker 1: tilt that down into the bucket. And then Tom's got
Speaker 1: his air compressor going, and he's got a little custom
Speaker 1: fitting that has a little copper Probably the brains out
Speaker 1: of mind, I was thinking, where's their compressor. Well we
Speaker 1: cut we cut yours to make like a flat European mount.
Speaker 1: But so he's got this little quarter inch copper tube
Speaker 1: that he just bent up to make a little curl
Speaker 1: at the end. Well, you hold those horns, boy, you
Speaker 1: better make sure the hole's pointing down, and you just
Speaker 1: hook that. You put the little copper hook up into
Speaker 1: the hole. Probably an inch and a half two inches, Okay,
Speaker 1: you maybe even go all the way to the back
Speaker 1: if you're hooks long enough, and just like that one
Speaker 1: and that inside of that brain cavity, you could eat
Speaker 1: Chinese food off of it as your fingers down into
Speaker 1: the bucket. I mean it. The only way it goes
Speaker 1: is out of that hole, because that's the only place.
Speaker 1: And if you're if you're standing behind it, you so
Speaker 1: if you if you were, you know, wherever you pointed
Speaker 1: that hole, that brain is going that way. You've got
Speaker 1: brain matter on it. Yeah, So anyway pointed down the bucket.
Speaker 1: Done deal. It's it's the simplest way. And it works
Speaker 1: on beer skulls too, you see. Yeah, we used it
Speaker 1: on bear skulls and stuff because it's becomes it's pretty
Speaker 1: hard to get that out there clean and so it's
Speaker 1: so easy to just do this and you just like that.
Speaker 1: I learned that quite a few years ago when I've
Speaker 1: told a few people, but not too many. It works great,
Speaker 1: but it does work. It really does work. Great. Um okay, man,
Speaker 1: I keep I'm I'm bouncing around, Tom what okay, before
Speaker 1: we get into my the story of my dear tips
Speaker 1: for what do you tell people about judging white tails?
Speaker 1: I'm I'm bouncing here? What what? Why do you tell
Speaker 1: somebody that comes up here for judging white towns? Because
Speaker 1: I have I've been up here three years and brought
Speaker 1: three different groups of people with me, and in every
Speaker 1: year there's been kind of a judging mishap if you
Speaker 1: could call it that, or just a surprise, not a mishap,
Speaker 1: but a surprise. Well, it depends on where you come
Speaker 1: from to eight. Yeah, and the reason being is like myself,
Speaker 1: I went to Mexico and hunted, and all the deer
Speaker 1: looks so big. But what I didn't realize a mature
Speaker 1: bucktown there was about ninety pounds. So when you throw
Speaker 1: a one head, which I got, you put that on
Speaker 1: a ninety pounder. I was shocked. But then when I
Speaker 1: went over and just picked him up and set him
Speaker 1: on the back of the bike. I realized how it was.
Speaker 1: So that's why my first clients came from Texas. And
Speaker 1: you've got to realize that mature bucks up here, away
Speaker 1: from what I'm being honestly, from two and fifty pounds
Speaker 1: to two seventy is a great buck, but you do
Speaker 1: get three hundred. So what happens is it's so hard
Speaker 1: to judge ahead on two seventy pound buck to you know,
Speaker 1: compared to something that if you you come from an
Speaker 1: area with a hundred pound bucks or even hundred and fifty,
Speaker 1: it throws you off that ratio. But you know, for
Speaker 1: judging deer, as far as I'm in certain, it's got
Speaker 1: to be it don't have to be passed his ears
Speaker 1: to be a bookhead or a good one around here
Speaker 1: because we have mass. You you know, it's nice to get.
Speaker 1: I guess you might say it's you want something with
Speaker 1: a twenty inch beam on it. Twenty four is better,
Speaker 1: of course, and you've got to look for ten inch tanks, uh,
Speaker 1: look for long brow tangs and stuff like that. But
Speaker 1: if you get into mass up here, it just depends.
Speaker 1: I'm a person that likes mass I'm not really interested
Speaker 1: in the numbers too much. It couldn't be a three
Speaker 1: by three or a four by four or five by
Speaker 1: five or six by six. But if it's got mass,
Speaker 1: that's what I like. And you get hunters. The mass
Speaker 1: means maturity. Yes, you've got mature. Yeah, you've got to
Speaker 1: and you get a real you know, you get it.
Speaker 1: You don't get lots of times, you don't get a
Speaker 1: chance to look at your deer too long. A lot
Speaker 1: of times where I am here, we do have that
Speaker 1: advantage where you can look at a deer quite a
Speaker 1: bit to kind of judge your size. It's not like
Speaker 1: they're just running into or out of site and you've
Speaker 1: got to make a split decision, you know. And our
Speaker 1: deer here they're not quite wild, you know, they're not
Speaker 1: as wild as a lot of places where they here
Speaker 1: a door stop or this. And it's because we don't
Speaker 1: have hunting pressure in my area. Like we've hunted here
Speaker 1: muszloader a while ago. And if you come up here
Speaker 1: in archery season, well you probably will see pretty basically nobody.
Speaker 1: But in muszloader season here we usually don't see another hunter.
Speaker 1: We don't see another red hat. We it's it's very quiet,
Speaker 1: and that gives you a big opportunity, uh to get
Speaker 1: something good because you've got no and you can leave here.
Speaker 1: We have lots of hunters that leave here in the
Speaker 1: last week rightful season or second last week, and to
Speaker 1: leave a buck here that's it could be a one
Speaker 1: fifty buck or one six and they will leave it
Speaker 1: here because they know when they come back next year
Speaker 1: it's still here. Yeah. So once you get to be
Speaker 1: a mature hunter, it's not all killing. It's if you
Speaker 1: want something, you gotta wait till it gets coming you.
Speaker 1: You know, you're managing it or trying to manage it
Speaker 1: in So that's why it's like where we are, it's
Speaker 1: a great area to hunt. I think it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that the thing that I would
Speaker 1: tell people, and Chris, we're gonna talk about your whole
Speaker 1: story and a different podcast or driving home, so I
Speaker 1: don't want to get into your deal. But the real
Speaker 1: issue is for a hunter to be able to determine
Speaker 1: the body size of a mature buck up here, because
Speaker 1: like this morning, maybe it would be a good segue
Speaker 1: into my story. This morning, I saw a ten point
Speaker 1: buck that for his body size his antlers looked good,
Speaker 1: like if you would have and it was a two
Speaker 1: year I believe it was a two year old buck.
Speaker 1: If if somebody would have mistaken that two year old
Speaker 1: ten point for a four or five or six year
Speaker 1: old ten point body size, just the way his body looked,
Speaker 1: they would have shot him and thought they were shooting
Speaker 1: a hundred deer. And when I first saw the deer,
Speaker 1: I thought, oh boy, and then quickly I was like,
Speaker 1: that's a two year old deer. He was. He was shorter,
Speaker 1: but he was still thick. He still had a big neck.
Speaker 1: His horns went out to his ears. They looked like
Speaker 1: they had a little bit of mass. But when he
Speaker 1: turned his head, his main beams didn't come out to
Speaker 1: the end of his nose. His main beams went out
Speaker 1: to about halfway between his eye and his nose. And
Speaker 1: then when he turned and looked, his horns were inside
Speaker 1: of his ears. And then as times I could tell
Speaker 1: were about five inches long. And you know, I got
Speaker 1: the idea that this is a He was fourteen inches wide,
Speaker 1: had five inch times, and probably had three and a
Speaker 1: half to four inches of math. You know, probably not
Speaker 1: even a hundred and twenty dear but I think a
Speaker 1: guy could shoot that deer thinking that he was shooting
Speaker 1: a big one up here, because uh, I think we
Speaker 1: kind of uh get psyched out a little bit um
Speaker 1: with these deer because their bodies are so big, especially
Speaker 1: coming from a place where a good buck is a
Speaker 1: hundred fifty sixty pounds, where these bucks are a hundred
Speaker 1: pounds more than what we're used to Shooting a big
Speaker 1: rack doesn't always look so impressive on such a big deer.
Speaker 1: For instance, this morning, and maybe this is where I
Speaker 1: can start and telling my story, I went to a
Speaker 1: stand this morning that well, first of all, we've been
Speaker 1: hunting a place we called the dugout, which is basically
Speaker 1: a food plot four acre food plot, and in uh
Speaker 1: fall Rye and uh two days ago I was hunting
Speaker 1: in there with a tree saddle in my bow, and
Speaker 1: I the last two years and I don't know what
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do if I come back, but the last
Speaker 1: two years I've bow hunted for a couple of days
Speaker 1: and then switched to the muzzleloader when I realized what
Speaker 1: I was up against. Um, and I was bow hunting
Speaker 1: and I had a very nice ten point come in
Speaker 1: right at dark on the second day, I believe it
Speaker 1: was a hundred forty point younger deer, but just a dandy,
Speaker 1: and he came into fifty yards and I actually drew
Speaker 1: on him, couldn't get him to stop. Was getting dark.
Speaker 1: Didn't shoot hunting in there the next day, the third day,
Speaker 1: for six hours. That was when I got so cold.
Speaker 1: This morning I came back and I said, hey, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot the muzzloader. And uh, kind of what
Speaker 1: I've made this hunt for me to be is, you know,
Speaker 1: every hunt I do, I find a way to challenge
Speaker 1: and limit myself, you know. And some some hunts I'm
Speaker 1: using the traditional boat just because it's you know, that's
Speaker 1: where I want to find the challenge. Sometimes I'm using
Speaker 1: the compound bowl. Like up here, it's a pretty big
Speaker 1: deal to kill a deer with a compound boat. That's
Speaker 1: where I wanted the challenge. Well, midway through the hunt,
Speaker 1: I decided I wanted the challenge to be just taking
Speaker 1: a nice deer with whatever method in its muzzloader season.
Speaker 1: So we went to this stand over here that is
Speaker 1: that the could you describe where that stand is? Just
Speaker 1: kind of the terrain features. Uh, it's a it's basically
Speaker 1: a fence line which is a mile long, or a
Speaker 1: cut line, Sindaryl and uh, we have I own fos
Speaker 1: on it's three quarters of land on it, and uh,
Speaker 1: it's just set up where you can look down this
Speaker 1: for you know, it's kind of rolling land in there,
Speaker 1: you see, but you can look down the fence line
Speaker 1: as far as you can shoot four yards, yeah range,
Speaker 1: I think it's four hundred yards you can see down
Speaker 1: with bush on both sides and about a forty yard.
Speaker 1: It looks like a pipeline or something. It's probably yeah,
Speaker 1: like you said about that wide. But anyways, and then
Speaker 1: you're on a bush line there and it just set
Speaker 1: up like a t system. It's a funnel system. Everything
Speaker 1: comes together at that corner. So we've got to stand there.
Speaker 1: And it worked before, but that's where you got your
Speaker 1: big one with a bowl and it just it just works.
Speaker 1: And the reason you that sometimes is a wind direction.
Speaker 1: If you've got a strong west wind, the deer aren't
Speaker 1: gonna stand outen that wind and take that pressure, so
Speaker 1: they go behind the bush, which is that side the
Speaker 1: east side, So they go behind the bush or out
Speaker 1: of the wind, just like yourself. You know, you get
Speaker 1: out of the wind. Well, that's what they try to
Speaker 1: do is get out of the wind, have something to eat.
Speaker 1: So that's why they'll come out there. But they come
Speaker 1: out are all the time anyways, of course. But I
Speaker 1: mean you're getting into rut. So the you know, if
Speaker 1: you've got the girls and boys will come. It's kind yeah.
Speaker 1: So it's a it's a it's a corner in a
Speaker 1: huge wheat field. So in this stand I'm sitting in,
Speaker 1: I can see what feels like a half a mile.
Speaker 1: It's a half a half a mile. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: a huge wheat field and it's at the corner of
Speaker 1: two two blocks of just heavy timber and then this
Speaker 1: sendero that we're talking about. So so I can look
Speaker 1: to my right and I can see four yards down
Speaker 1: to Sindario through the bush bushes you know we call it,
Speaker 1: we call it woods and call it bush up here.
Speaker 1: And then in front of me, I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: huge wheat field. And uh. The thing about to me
Speaker 1: that spot is that there's not really concentrated food like
Speaker 1: where I was sitting at the dugout. I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the foek or food lot. Deer coming in from all
Speaker 1: over to that four acres. I'm looking at this huge
Speaker 1: section land. They could they could feed anywhere. And uh
Speaker 1: so this morning, Tom, I walked in there before daylight.
Speaker 1: You dropped me off and I walked down the fence line,
Speaker 1: and first of all, I was so loud walking in there.
Speaker 1: I mean just the just the snow crunch, and you
Speaker 1: you just feel like you're just running everything off, you know.
Speaker 1: And uh walked all the way back in there, and
Speaker 1: then you climb up in the stand and you're making
Speaker 1: all kind of racket, you know. I've got stuff hanging
Speaker 1: off of me. I got tripods and this big old
Speaker 1: gun and opening that opened that door, and I mean,
Speaker 1: you just feel like when you get in there that
Speaker 1: you've spooked every critter on the planet off. I get
Speaker 1: in there, open the windows on that on that blind
Speaker 1: and uh, I gotta admit, I don't know what I
Speaker 1: was thinking. I guess I was just trying to get comfortable.
Speaker 1: But I didn't even put a primer in my gun.
Speaker 1: Uh it was loaded, but it was loaded, but I
Speaker 1: didn't even have a four or nine primary in it.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting in there and kind of getting my
Speaker 1: just bearings. And it gets daylight and I look out there,
Speaker 1: and I see a doe and two year lens at
Speaker 1: about two h yards that have been feeding this whole time.
Speaker 1: I mean, they certainly heard me walk in there and
Speaker 1: didn't care. And so I'm watching them, and it's a
Speaker 1: dough in two year lens and it's getting close to
Speaker 1: the rut November seven. But she's clearly not in Estrius
Speaker 1: because she's still got her got her funds with her,
Speaker 1: and so I mean, I'm just kind of like, guy, well,
Speaker 1: it's nice to have a few deer out in front
Speaker 1: of me. I don't know what I did after that,
Speaker 1: but I just took my sweet time, didn't even have
Speaker 1: the gun loaded, didn't have anything up, and I turned
Speaker 1: back to my left just about the time you could
Speaker 1: see good enough to tell what a buck was. And
Speaker 1: a buck had come half a mile across that field
Speaker 1: and was standing forty yards from that dough, just staring
Speaker 1: her down. And I just see a buck, and I
Speaker 1: could tell it. It was a big body there, and
Speaker 1: I just go, Holy smokes, and I knew from the
Speaker 1: direction that came in the way it was acting that
Speaker 1: it was a buck. It was still it actually was
Speaker 1: still too dark to see its horns. With the naked eye.
Speaker 1: I threw up my binos and I see a good rack.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I could tell by the shape of
Speaker 1: that deer again going back to you know, I knew
Speaker 1: that it was long, it was thick. It was not
Speaker 1: a two year old deer. I mean, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: world beater, it wasn't a but And finally, and this
Speaker 1: deer is just standing like a statue watching these doughs.
Speaker 1: And boy, I go to scrambling getting that good I
Speaker 1: had to dig into the pouch to find my four
Speaker 1: or nine prices. It didn't have a pri Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just I don't know. I guess I was just it
Speaker 1: was like a holiday, not hanging in the tree, taking
Speaker 1: the wind in the face, being in that box. I
Speaker 1: guess I just through everything religious and my you know,
Speaker 1: held it outside and had my primer and it had
Speaker 1: everything set up, and he's just I guess I just
Speaker 1: thought I was on vacation when I was sitting in
Speaker 1: that in it, I was just like, yeah, I was
Speaker 1: just kicked back. Anyway, I go to scrambling around, find
Speaker 1: the primer, get it put in, get everything up, and
Speaker 1: it probably takes two minutes, you know, And uh, and
Speaker 1: look at this deer, and you know, we're getting into
Speaker 1: the latter half of the hunt, and you I knew
Speaker 1: your tag was filled, and so I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that's a nice deer. It was eight point but he
Speaker 1: but he was narrow, he was not wide. He didn't
Speaker 1: even go past his ears. But he had mass, you know,
Speaker 1: and he didn't have real long times. I knew it
Speaker 1: would have just been kind of an average deer, but
Speaker 1: a mature deer. And uh, it was one of those
Speaker 1: that you're like, oh done, dude, I take that, dear,
Speaker 1: Do I not long drive back to Arkansas with a
Speaker 1: tag in your pocket? And uh, I actually drew down
Speaker 1: on it and was going to shoot. I actually started
Speaker 1: to put pressure on the trigger and he turned and
Speaker 1: rather than going into the bush where the does, he
Speaker 1: turned and went back just the way he came, which
Speaker 1: was amazing to me that he did that. And when
Speaker 1: he turned to the left, he went in behind some
Speaker 1: brush that was about five ft ten ft from my
Speaker 1: blind and I knew I couldn't shoot through it, and
Speaker 1: so I watched the deer and anyway, I'm kind of
Speaker 1: kicking myself but also kind of glad that I didn't
Speaker 1: shoot it. And uh, I didn't you text me? I
Speaker 1: texted Tom and I said, I just couldn't get a
Speaker 1: shot on a deer, but probably should have, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't a great deer anyway. Long story short, while that
Speaker 1: buck is coming to those does I look out on
Speaker 1: the four yards of way and there's another buck coming
Speaker 1: across the field. So it's a buck coming and going.
Speaker 1: And it was just a racked buck. I could see
Speaker 1: it four yards that had a rack. I don't think
Speaker 1: it was big speed this story up an hour later,
Speaker 1: I see three small bucks come out of the the
Speaker 1: cut line and it was a spike, kind of a
Speaker 1: funky horn dear that he he had just like a
Speaker 1: unicorn horn and a regular side, but he was a
Speaker 1: two year old deer thin horn. And then that nice
Speaker 1: two year old tin point that I that I described earlier,
Speaker 1: that you know was probably hundred fifteen inch tin point
Speaker 1: that could have fooled somebody. And those three bucks came
Speaker 1: out of the came out in the scenario two hundred
Speaker 1: yards and walked within five ft of the blind. They
Speaker 1: just walked right past me. They sparred a little bit
Speaker 1: out there in the sunlight. It was beautiful, well because
Speaker 1: I'm not hanging in a tree taking the wind in
Speaker 1: the face. Uh. I was just comfortable in that blind.
Speaker 1: So comfortable you were, I said, let's i'll hunt til ten. Well,
Speaker 1: when it got about nine thirty, I said, I feel good.
Speaker 1: I've seen five bucks. And I think I said I'd
Speaker 1: hunt til noon, didn't I say that. I said, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna sit in here until noon, and then we're
Speaker 1: gonna go eat lunch quick and go to another spot. Well, um,
Speaker 1: about ten forty five. I believe it was the same
Speaker 1: dough and two year lands that I saw it. Daylight
Speaker 1: popped out again and and they just popped out in
Speaker 1: the same place they went in dough in two year lands,
Speaker 1: which in the rut that doesn't mean much because it
Speaker 1: means it's a dough that's not been chased. They popped
Speaker 1: out and never even looked behind him. Tom, You know
Speaker 1: how if a doze being followed by a buck they
Speaker 1: stepped on the edge of a field. Boy, their ears
Speaker 1: are turning there looking behind them, their nerves of us.
Speaker 1: This dough didn't have a care in the world. The
Speaker 1: fawns didn't have a care in the world. So I
Speaker 1: was hardly even paying attention to him, it was just
Speaker 1: nice to look out and see some deer. And uh,
Speaker 1: but I went ahead and readjusted my gun because my
Speaker 1: gun was pointing down the Sindario, because that's where I
Speaker 1: figured i'd see deer. And it's a pretty big chore
Speaker 1: to get that big muzzleloader out and turned around. And
Speaker 1: so it took me a few minutes and I got
Speaker 1: the gun pointed out this way, so it's pointed to
Speaker 1: your left. It's pointed out into the wheat field to
Speaker 1: my left. It was pointed this way. So all these
Speaker 1: deer came out here in the wheat field where the
Speaker 1: deer was No, well, the bucks came out from the sendero,
Speaker 1: calling the sendero. It's not so. All the bucks came
Speaker 1: from the woodpile. Yeah, the woods, the woods. Yeah. Well
Speaker 1: I'm looking out in this wheat field at these does
Speaker 1: and uh, I was distracted, so was shining, feeling good,
Speaker 1: and I just look up after a minute or two
Speaker 1: of not even looking, and look, in my goodness, the
Speaker 1: sight that every white tail deer hunter dreams of seeing
Speaker 1: in Canada, no doubt, forty yards passed the dough, just
Speaker 1: outsteps a giant buck. I mean, what to me was
Speaker 1: a giant buck. He was twice as big as that
Speaker 1: dough looked to be. I mean a hundred pounds bigger
Speaker 1: than the dough. I mean, out of my peripheral vision,
Speaker 1: I never even really made contact with the eye contact
Speaker 1: with the buck before I was grabbing the gun getting read.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was just a no brainer, tall, times wide, heavy,
Speaker 1: big deer, and that that dough never even gave any
Speaker 1: indication that she even cared he was there, which was
Speaker 1: odd to me. Usually they, you know, they would have
Speaker 1: looked and so I mean, I'm just like, holy cow, look,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's just a picturesque. That's why you come
Speaker 1: to Canada. Giant deer. Anyway, he's it. I know the
Speaker 1: does are at two hundred yards, so I know he's
Speaker 1: about two thirty. I know this gun. I'm using it
Speaker 1: Steve Schultz gun, my father and laws muzzleloader, custom built muzzleloader.
Speaker 1: I knew it was z Rode at two hundred, so
Speaker 1: you know, I just knew I needed to just put it.
Speaker 1: I just put it, put it on the front shoulder,
Speaker 1: and I wasted no time because you told me, Tom,
Speaker 1: you said, if you've got time to count points, you
Speaker 1: should have been shooting. You like to pet him. That
Speaker 1: that's what Tom says. He says, I like to pet
Speaker 1: him and then we can look at the horns. And
Speaker 1: I just put it on the front shoulders quarter and
Speaker 1: to me, just a little bit boom, gun went off.
Speaker 1: We've had some trouble with primers every hunt I've been
Speaker 1: up here, somebody with me has had trouble with muzzloaders
Speaker 1: going off in this cold weather. So I was pleased
Speaker 1: when the gun hard and uh the buck ran, which
Speaker 1: I was a little bit surprised at because I thought
Speaker 1: I thought he might drop where I put it. I
Speaker 1: may have been two inches to the right of where
Speaker 1: I was really wanting to hit him. Hit him just
Speaker 1: a little not back. I mean it hit him right
Speaker 1: behind the shoulder, but he took a big spin out
Speaker 1: into the field with his legs. He was doing the
Speaker 1: chicken leg deal and down, down, down, and bam hit
Speaker 1: the ground. Within seconds, I was calling you, Tom, I
Speaker 1: really was, and uh it went to voicemail at first. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we go Chris. Tom goes and picks Chris up who's
Speaker 1: at the bunk house. And that's part of what's so
Speaker 1: fun about this hunt is it's it's deer camp. You
Speaker 1: got your buddies here, and Chris was waiting at the house.
Speaker 1: He came, anyway, beautiful ten point. We scored the deer today.
Speaker 1: I scored it one fifty nine and uh well we
Speaker 1: did it in decimals, so one fifth nine point nine
Speaker 1: we're calling is a hundred and sixty inches, all right,
Speaker 1: So hundred and sixty inch on the on the money,
Speaker 1: ten point had one of the longest time was twelve
Speaker 1: inches long. It was only seventeen inches wide twenty one
Speaker 1: and a half inch main beams. But on the G
Speaker 1: three's and G four's on one side, we're both over
Speaker 1: ten inches or ten inches. Had a kicker coming off
Speaker 1: one of the points. I mean, just a beautiful buck
Speaker 1: way two thirty pounds, which was the smallest of the
Speaker 1: deer that i've killed here body size. The buck last
Speaker 1: year scored what way two or forty eight pounds, but
Speaker 1: had a rack that would would not have scored in
Speaker 1: here with this one. Said it was just a more
Speaker 1: mature buck. Yeah, yeah, this one had great potential when
Speaker 1: you think of it, because it was a younger buck.
Speaker 1: But the potential was there when you're starting ten and
Speaker 1: twelve inch turns. It had all the potential to be
Speaker 1: uh you know, a bookhead next Sure it would have been.
Speaker 1: It was not close. Yeah, well it kept off an
Speaker 1: incredible four or five days in hunting here really did. Wow.
Speaker 1: I was not expecting to bring home a hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty inch deer at all. What do you think of it, Chris?
Speaker 1: It's amazing, I mean it was. We've seen some really
Speaker 1: big deer. Yeah, and that deer is I mean, it's
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest deer we've seen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah. And that I didn't realize too
Speaker 1: that that I mean until we saw I mean, that
Speaker 1: picture didn't do it justice. The picture, Yeah, no, it
Speaker 1: didn't know. Yeah, we had one chucking picture. We didn't
Speaker 1: realize it until after we killed it. But Tom, had
Speaker 1: you set up a camera for one day in a
Speaker 1: food We got eight a picture of eight bucks, and uh,
Speaker 1: as far as I'm concerned, out of those eight, three
Speaker 1: to four of them are good ones. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: this kind of quality and better. Yeah. Well yeah, well
Speaker 1: we'll uh we'll have another conversation between Chris and I
Speaker 1: about his hunt um in in this kind of our
Speaker 1: Our synopsis of the week but no in closing comments
Speaker 1: or thoughts Tom what any uh? What's your What's Tom?
Speaker 1: Tom is a master at efficiency. Really, anything he does
Speaker 1: is gonna be efficient. So I want to like ask
Speaker 1: him for like a tip about something. But we got that.
Speaker 1: We got the deer, the cooking tip, the skull clan tip. Uh,
Speaker 1: we got we just got a great lesson and the
Speaker 1: butcher and butcher and deer out here. Uh but don
Speaker 1: you think of me, think Chris Well, I mean it
Speaker 1: was just interesting as we're looking for a deer. I
Speaker 1: mean it's just you think you were going down the
Speaker 1: trail that was a good trail, and you could already
Speaker 1: see you know, Tom had walked down the trail. I
Speaker 1: mean I think, yeah, I think part of it. He's
Speaker 1: been here, you know, so long. But also too, he's
Speaker 1: just very efficient at what he does. He doesn't mess around.
Speaker 1: It's just let's get it done. But at the same
Speaker 1: time very accommodating. So yeah, yeah, it's like you said,
Speaker 1: I mean, you show up at your bunkhouse and you
Speaker 1: know your your fridge has stuff in it, and you
Speaker 1: know your place is warm and the lights on. We
Speaker 1: got in at what four am? Four am? What did
Speaker 1: I tell you. I told you there'll be a pound
Speaker 1: of bacon, dozen eggs, loaf of bread, orange juice, half
Speaker 1: gallon milk cream coffee. It's exactly there. Dam probably does
Speaker 1: that give a lot of we gotta give credit. I
Speaker 1: just you just work. The light was on and and
Speaker 1: it was hot, wave was warm and yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was Is that building over there with the little
Speaker 1: banches is that at another bunkhouse? Yeah, I'll have to
Speaker 1: shot you. It's really nice inside. Oh, it's nice. I've
Speaker 1: never seen that. We have people that come up here
Speaker 1: and they request to stay there. Oh, really out in
Speaker 1: a little the little one out there. I hadn't seen
Speaker 1: that one. We wait, maybe we'll have to stay there
Speaker 1: next year. Yeah, it's just I'll show it to you
Speaker 1: tomorrow morning or something. I'll slip over or something and
Speaker 1: if you know, we'll have a look at Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much, Tom And uh yeah, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: give some details later about how people can contact you
Speaker 1: and stuff. We appreciate. What are your closing closing comments?
Speaker 1: Just about the week or about about hunting up here,
Speaker 1: or we had a good week here. I think it was.
Speaker 1: This is a great week to hunt, guys. Um it's
Speaker 1: just pre rut h. I think it goes right through
Speaker 1: to November nineteenth. I liked hunting as latest November nineteenth
Speaker 1: when all the girls are bred, and uh, you got
Speaker 1: these bucks just running all over looking for them last one.
Speaker 1: So it's really good hunting. You're hunting muzzloader season up
Speaker 1: here and into rifle season, and you know, we've done
Speaker 1: archery season two and we've shot very good bucks in
Speaker 1: archery season. You know, you're just in an area where
Speaker 1: there's some good quality stuff and I think you have
Speaker 1: a real honest opportunity to get something, you know, I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's just you know, that's about it. I can't
Speaker 1: say much. I'm trating. I'm tratt Yeah. Well, all right,
Speaker 1: keep the wild places wild because that's where the big
Speaker 1: Canadian bucks live. All thank you to