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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for

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Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host

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Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,

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Speaker 1: brought to you by on X. We are here for

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Speaker 1: a podcast that I am really damn excited to be recording.

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Speaker 1: Uh it's it's me here and the Nine Fingered Wonder

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Speaker 1: Dan Johnson. Dan, we are here for a celebratory conversation.

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Speaker 1: I know, if it wasn't so early in the day,

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Speaker 1: I think we both should be hammering some beers while

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Speaker 1: we record this. Who says who says? We're not right? Okay,

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Speaker 1: I guess you are on Eastern time, yep. Um, yeah, dude,

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Speaker 1: Today we are talking success stories. Um, you killed a

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Speaker 1: great buck in Iowa. So I want to hear about

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Speaker 1: how your rutcation went and how you killed that deer

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Speaker 1: and dive into all that. And then, as you know, um,

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Speaker 1: my three year story chasing the buck I called tran

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Speaker 1: just came to a close too, So I want to

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Speaker 1: recap that entire saga. Um, dive into details, dive into

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Speaker 1: how it ended and some of the lessons learned along

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Speaker 1: the way and all that kind of stuff. So this

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Speaker 1: is this is uh man, it's a culmination with a

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Speaker 1: lot of stuff for both of us. You know, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I love the I love the text messages. You know,

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Speaker 1: the got him that's it and instantly we I know

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Speaker 1: what you're talking about, right, And uh, I think I

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Speaker 1: threw you a text when I shot mine too. It's

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Speaker 1: like arrow launched or whatever, and those are the text

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Speaker 1: those Yeah, those are the best ones. That's it's It's

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Speaker 1: what I enjoy probably more than anything. This time of

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Speaker 1: years is just you just wait and wait and hope

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Speaker 1: that there's gonna be some good news from someone and

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Speaker 1: when it comes waiting it's what we work for all

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Speaker 1: year long. Man, So you want to should we just

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Speaker 1: get into it? I mean, we got a lot to cover. Um.

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Speaker 1: I do have one quick kid story that I have

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Speaker 1: to tell and it is Yeah, it's a So if

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Speaker 1: you're the kind of person who bitches about this part

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Speaker 1: of the show, fast forward about two minutes and then

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Speaker 1: I should be done. So um, so don't fast forward.

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Speaker 1: This is the good stuff, all right. So I'm rotating laundry, right.

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Speaker 1: I take the laundry out of the washer and I

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Speaker 1: put it in the dryer, hit start go away for

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Speaker 1: about four hours, do something come back? Open. I just

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Speaker 1: I'm getting angry even thinking about it. Open the door

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Speaker 1: and someone had ad put a entire canister of glitter

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Speaker 1: in their pocket and it is now I don't know

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Speaker 1: how many times. I don't know how many times I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna have to dry those clothes to try to get

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Speaker 1: it out of everything and take the filter out. It

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Speaker 1: is all over the place. And I don't know if

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Speaker 1: you've ever been so so angry with your children that

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Speaker 1: you skip the anchor and you go right into this

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Speaker 1: deep dark depression because yelling Adam isn't gonna do anything,

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Speaker 1: can change Nope, And you know, you get the dad

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Speaker 1: son of a bit. And then and then oh man, yeah,

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Speaker 1: all I did was shower and she's just like figures.

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Speaker 1: And then when she walked away like she just like

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Speaker 1: kind of left it in my hands. You guys are

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Speaker 1: that phase in life right now where it's just like,

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Speaker 1: oh yeah, another ship on the floor that we need

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Speaker 1: to deal with exactly exactly. Oh wow, man, Mark, it

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Speaker 1: must have been full because it is all over I

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Speaker 1: mean we had a fleece blanket in with that load

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Speaker 1: of laundry. I don't know if it's ever gonna be

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Speaker 1: like if if I'm afraid to take it out of

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Speaker 1: the dryer, because it's probably just gonna do one of

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Speaker 1: those things where it just continually spreads all over the

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Speaker 1: house until it's literally everywhere. So the only way this

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Speaker 1: could have been better is if this had been you

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Speaker 1: drying your hunting clothes and all of you was covered

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Speaker 1: and glitter. That would be the one way this could

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Speaker 1: be better. Imagine you're hunting closed covered in glitter and

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Speaker 1: dear just pegging you from the sunlight bouncing off, and

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Speaker 1: there's really it happens like if it happened like November four,

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Speaker 1: So you have to hunt the next day. You're not

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Speaker 1: gonna not hunt, and you're not gonna have time to

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Speaker 1: get new closer to deal with it. So you're just

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Speaker 1: stuck out there with pink glitter everywhere, and then you

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Speaker 1: shoot a buck and you have to take a picture

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Speaker 1: with your glittery camo too. That would be Oh, but

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Speaker 1: you would deserve it, man. You know what I would try.

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Speaker 1: I would try to market the gimmick uh somehow and

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Speaker 1: make money off of it. Oh, there's always an angle.

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Speaker 1: There's always an angle, man. Is that is amazing? That's right?

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Speaker 1: Back into the world world. Huh, you had all this

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Speaker 1: grand hunting success and then right back to domesticated life.

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Speaker 1: There's no easing into anything anymore. It is straight kick

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Speaker 1: to the nuts every single morning when I wake up

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Speaker 1: dead life. Welcome to your life, buddy. You should have

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Speaker 1: pulled out so so so tell me about the glory

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Speaker 1: days back when you used to sit in a tree

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Speaker 1: and see big Bucks and uh weren't worried about glitter

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Speaker 1: bombs in your laundry? How did how how did the

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Speaker 1: rotation kickoff? Man? It seemed like it was fast and furious.

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Speaker 1: So here's what I'm gonna here. Here is my I'm

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Speaker 1: gonna say two things. South winds and warm temps is

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Speaker 1: what I deal dealt with. So I'm gonna preface this

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Speaker 1: conversation with a conversation that we had all the way

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Speaker 1: back on episode seventy eight with Matt Ross the science

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Speaker 1: behind um the white tail rut or whatever. Some guy

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Speaker 1: uh two days ago hit me up and it was like, dude,

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Speaker 1: I love that episode because you kind of call out

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Speaker 1: some things that people think are uh you know, like

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Speaker 1: I think we talked about moon phase, we talked about

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Speaker 1: warm tempts. We talked about weather patterns, deer movement, all

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Speaker 1: of these things. So I go back and I listened

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Speaker 1: to it, and I'm I'm reflecting back on the seven

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Speaker 1: days it took for me to harvest my deer this year,

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Speaker 1: and I'm can back. I'm like, dude, oh, what Matt

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Speaker 1: said is is really right? And if I'm open to

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Speaker 1: observation and looking around, even in warmer temps, I I

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Speaker 1: would say that I saw equal deer compared to last

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Speaker 1: year's rut, which was below average temperatures. So I'm sitting

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Speaker 1: here thinking to myself, like, man, I should maybe I

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Speaker 1: should stay out for a night or because the temps

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Speaker 1: are worm Well, I didn't do that, and I saw

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Speaker 1: the same amount of deer. The only thing that gets

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Speaker 1: tried that started to get tricky with this rut vacation

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Speaker 1: was that I had so many south winds in a

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Speaker 1: row that I was worried I was gonna bump some

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Speaker 1: of my best spots, and I ended up having to

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Speaker 1: really play off a handful of hunts, like a morning

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Speaker 1: hunt or an evening hunt and goes somewhere so where

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Speaker 1: else where. I knew it wasn't the best option, but

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Speaker 1: I knew I knew that I would have a better

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Speaker 1: chance at connecting with a deer un let's say the

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Speaker 1: next morning, as opposed to maybe sitting in that place,

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Speaker 1: uh back to back for three days in a row

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Speaker 1: or whatever. So I opted to go to a different

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Speaker 1: south wind area that would be like choice number three

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Speaker 1: or four and hit choice number one after it sat

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Speaker 1: for a couple of days. Right, dude, I saw great.

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Speaker 1: I was seeing great deer all, you know, Like I

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Speaker 1: saw some shooters uh way in the distance. Um. I

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Speaker 1: passed a couple of four year olds this year, uh

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Speaker 1: that had less than desirable racks. Um, I passed a

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Speaker 1: couple of really good three year olds this year in

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Speaker 1: that time frame. And I did it all without freezing

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Speaker 1: my toes off. So I mean, I wish I could

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Speaker 1: sit here and say I had some hardcore strategy story

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Speaker 1: for you about how I, um did things different or

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Speaker 1: made all these game plans and chess moves to try

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Speaker 1: to to shoot a deer. Um. And I'll get to

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Speaker 1: this the kill story here in a second. But man,

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Speaker 1: it's like I just follow through, followed through with what

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Speaker 1: my goal was, and that was check trail cameras, look

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Speaker 1: for fresh sign cycle through my stands. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: the best possible stands on the wind direction that I'm giving,

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Speaker 1: make the best choices for access routes, and uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: run and gun whenever I needed to, and I put

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Speaker 1: myself in position of some really good deer. The only

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Speaker 1: thing is the big deer that I would was chasing

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Speaker 1: did not show up while I was in the tree

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Speaker 1: stand for that area. So real quick, those best stands.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I know we've talked about in this place

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Speaker 1: in the past, but can you illustrate, like, what are

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Speaker 1: these things look like? This is all on pinch points.

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Speaker 1: These are all back in the timber, I'm assuming, But

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Speaker 1: were you mostly do em betting area sits, transition, etcetera, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Yep of my hunts. So I'll tell you this an

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Speaker 1: evening and a morning of that seven days, So two

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Speaker 1: hunts out of fourteen hunts resulted in me hunting, betting

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Speaker 1: down wind, of betting down wind of betting or or

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Speaker 1: flanking betting, uh, and putting myself What I would say

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Speaker 1: would be where betting an edge connect? Does that make sense? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: So you're saying all but two or just two were

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Speaker 1: betting everyone except to OK. Yeah, that makes sense then Ye,

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Speaker 1: So my access points or my access routes were on point.

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Speaker 1: I mean I took no liberties there. I was played

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Speaker 1: that wind hard and with a south wind, you can,

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Speaker 1: you know, and in some of the areas you've hunted

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Speaker 1: them throughout the years, you get really comfortable with and

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Speaker 1: knowing what the deer are gonna do, how they're gonna

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Speaker 1: do it. You know what the thermals are doing, if

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Speaker 1: the sun's out or if the attempts are where they

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Speaker 1: need to be. And uh man, I had some really

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Speaker 1: cool encounters with a lot of deer. I didn't get busted,

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Speaker 1: and it just it was one of those It was

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Speaker 1: really fun to be in the tree that first week

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Speaker 1: in November watching all the action happened. You know, I

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Speaker 1: watched the three year olds and and some of the

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Speaker 1: four year olds really do that rut thing where they

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Speaker 1: were chasing those around, and you know, watching them just

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Speaker 1: dive in and out of betting areas all morning long.

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Speaker 1: It's settled down probably about ten thirty ish eleven o'clock,

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Speaker 1: I'd get out of the stand, go to a new spot,

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Speaker 1: and then pick right back up about two thirty ish.

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Speaker 1: Uh and just kind of nothing really crazy where one

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Speaker 1: dough brings about fifteen deer through, but more of this

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Speaker 1: one on one interaction where you know there may be

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Speaker 1: spike buck following a three year old or something like that. So, Uh,

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Speaker 1: I really focused heavy this year because I felt like,

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Speaker 1: for some reason, I felt like the warm weather was

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Speaker 1: going to keep them out moving around all day long.

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Speaker 1: So what did I do. I went to where the

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Speaker 1: concentration of deer movement is going to be the highest,

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Speaker 1: and that's betting areas. So I put myself down wind

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Speaker 1: or flanking with a flanking wind into betting areas, and

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Speaker 1: man had some really good encounters and and uh had

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Speaker 1: a blast doing it. And you were passing on these

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Speaker 1: good bucks? Was that just because well you're you're seeing

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Speaker 1: these good bucks passing on them? Was this because the

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Speaker 1: best bucks that you had on camera were still showing

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Speaker 1: up and you believe they were there? Or where was

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Speaker 1: your head out with that? Did you have a couple

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Speaker 1: of mine? Yeah? So that buck I passed last year. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he was a really beautiful three year old, probably in

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Speaker 1: that one forty class maybe one forty five class. Uh,

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Speaker 1: he was in eleven, and so this year he blew

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Speaker 1: up to a I'm gonna say low one seventies as

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Speaker 1: a as a four year old. He could be five,

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Speaker 1: who knows, but he made the hit list for sure.

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Speaker 1: And then there was the buck that I ended up shooting.

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Speaker 1: I had maybe one picture of him throughout the entire summer,

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Speaker 1: but the other guy who hunts the property had pictures

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Speaker 1: of him all summer and all October and all November. Right,

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Speaker 1: So we kind of put our trail cameras in a

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Speaker 1: little bit different of places, um, just so we're not

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Speaker 1: really overlapping each other, and we've kind of had a

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Speaker 1: We communicate now more than we used to in the past.

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Speaker 1: So you know, I'll send him a pick of a

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Speaker 1: deer and say, hey, you run into this guy, or

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Speaker 1: he sends me the deer that he kills, and I

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Speaker 1: send him the picks that he kills. And then we

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Speaker 1: exchanged any trail camera photos that we have of these deer. Yep.

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Speaker 1: So it was you know, I had definitely the one

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Speaker 1: hit lister on camera number two and number three. Uh

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Speaker 1: you know both were big ten pointers. Uh, No, one

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Speaker 1: was a nine and one was a ten. And so

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Speaker 1: I go to check trail cameras the first day back.

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Speaker 1: You know, I hunted up here the morning of like

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Speaker 1: November two, and the evening of November two before that hunt,

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Speaker 1: I went and I checked all my trail cameras, pulled

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Speaker 1: all the cards, went looked at him all on the computer,

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Speaker 1: and number two and number three were both broken all

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Speaker 1: the way. I mean, like dramatic. You know. They were

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Speaker 1: just a G two and a main beam, so they

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Speaker 1: had knocked off a ton of points. One broke off

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Speaker 1: almost his entire side. So number two and number three

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Speaker 1: were to me, we're both like, you know, I don't

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Speaker 1: even want to hunt the areas where these dyer running

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Speaker 1: because I don't want to shoot. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: shoot a broken buck. I want to shoot, you know,

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Speaker 1: something that's put together and that just that what this does,

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Speaker 1: is it now if these deers survive into the next year,

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Speaker 1: it automatically takes him out of the equation and now

247
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Speaker 1: they can come back. Right. So I wasn't really into

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Speaker 1: shooting a broken buck, and so I stayed out of

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Speaker 1: that area and UH focused my attention on a couple

250
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Speaker 1: other places where the big one had run a couple

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Speaker 1: of times he was kind of hit and miss on

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Speaker 1: trail cameras and let's see and then I went back

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Speaker 1: to the one betting area that I shot my dear

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Speaker 1: last year, just kind of hoping that Natalie Charlie would

255
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Speaker 1: show up, right, you know, almost like holy field, Yeah,

256
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Speaker 1: wish on a prayer, maybe he'll be there again. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

257
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Speaker 1: And I'm sure you thought about that too, where it's like,

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Speaker 1: well I really don't know where to go, so let

259
00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:54,360
Speaker 1: me go to us hit, let me go to a

260
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Speaker 1: historically good area or stand location, and let's just see

261
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Speaker 1: what happens, right, Yeah, And and basically that was it

262
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Speaker 1: I had. I got there and one of my cell

263
00:16:05,320 --> 00:16:10,680
Speaker 1: cams had been stolen, and I got pissed, and and uh,

264
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Speaker 1: I was hoping that he would show up on one

265
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Speaker 1: of those cameras. But if he shows up on that camera,

266
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Speaker 1: he typically shows up on a couple of other cameras

267
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Speaker 1: on the farm. He did not, So, um, I think

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Speaker 1: it's fair to say he has either gone and disappeared

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Speaker 1: to go somewhere else, or he's been you know, shot

270
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Speaker 1: and killed or died of a disease or whatever, because

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Speaker 1: typically deer stick around and they don't necessarily come back

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Speaker 1: if they if they're gone, If that makes sense. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So so I hit that betting area up a couple

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Speaker 1: of times, and that's my favorite. That's my favorite betting

275
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Speaker 1: area to hunt now, because the wind does something so

276
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Speaker 1: awesome in there. And we I'm sitting at the actual

277
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Speaker 1: top of a ridge and on this ridge, it's real

278
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:05,960
Speaker 1: thick on top and it created opens up and creates

279
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Speaker 1: this edge and along this edge where this edge meets

280
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Speaker 1: this I called a spur ridge. And it's a really

281
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Speaker 1: small terrain feature, really small ridge that flanks a bigger ridge.

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Speaker 1: And sometimes there are those terrain features are so small

283
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Speaker 1: that it doesn't show up on topographic maps, or if

284
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Speaker 1: it does, it's so subtle that you really need to

285
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Speaker 1: focus on what you're looking for in order in order

286
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Speaker 1: to identify it. Now, the closer that the topo lines

287
00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,640
Speaker 1: are to each other, the easier it is to tell.

288
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Speaker 1: But if they're you know, they're you know, thirty ft

289
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:45,840
Speaker 1: apart or a hundred feet apart you and you'll never

290
00:17:45,880 --> 00:17:50,439
Speaker 1: see it. Right. So I sat there, I passed a

291
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Speaker 1: really good three year old and then basically sat on

292
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Speaker 1: a really big ridge where the south wind blowing over

293
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Speaker 1: the top of the deer and the does just weren't

294
00:18:01,560 --> 00:18:04,400
Speaker 1: coming through there yet, which took which tells me that,

295
00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:07,720
Speaker 1: you know, they're still they're not getting pushed all over

296
00:18:07,760 --> 00:18:11,560
Speaker 1: the place yet. And so I went back to um

297
00:18:11,640 --> 00:18:15,520
Speaker 1: that main betting area again. And you know, like I

298
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Speaker 1: said before I even started rambling, here is I wish.

299
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Speaker 1: I wish I could sit here and break down everything

300
00:18:21,320 --> 00:18:24,400
Speaker 1: for you. But at the end of the day, it's, uh,

301
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Speaker 1: most of my success this year was just dumb luck explain. Yeah,

302
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Speaker 1: so it's it's November seven. I don't even remember what

303
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,480
Speaker 1: I did that morning hunt. I think I uh, I

304
00:18:39,920 --> 00:18:43,560
Speaker 1: hunted that big ridge again, and that I went and

305
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: I checked some trail cameras, went back home, did some

306
00:18:45,920 --> 00:18:48,760
Speaker 1: work on the computer. And I'll be honest, man, I

307
00:18:49,040 --> 00:18:51,720
Speaker 1: wasn't hitting the timber until two thirty. And some of

308
00:18:51,760 --> 00:18:54,440
Speaker 1: the times I wasn't even I wasn't even set up

309
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Speaker 1: in my tree until three o'clock or a little after three.

310
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Speaker 1: And just because I was trying to get work done

311
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Speaker 1: at home, so I wasn't up until midnight trying to

312
00:19:05,440 --> 00:19:07,679
Speaker 1: you know, get you know, get work done and then

313
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Speaker 1: wake up at four and get back out out there.

314
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Speaker 1: So so I ended up driving to Uh. I was

315
00:19:14,840 --> 00:19:18,639
Speaker 1: gonna do a hanging hunt on where a corner of

316
00:19:18,680 --> 00:19:23,040
Speaker 1: the marsh meets uh like a tree fell over a fence,

317
00:19:23,200 --> 00:19:26,320
Speaker 1: and they really crossed there a lot. And throughout the years,

318
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Speaker 1: I've had really good trail camera pictures of really good

319
00:19:29,280 --> 00:19:32,160
Speaker 1: deer crossing through there. My number one hit lister had

320
00:19:32,200 --> 00:19:35,560
Speaker 1: been through there, I think two days before I got

321
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Speaker 1: to the farm. So I was just kind of like,

322
00:19:37,680 --> 00:19:40,600
Speaker 1: it's a new south wind. Um, it's a new place

323
00:19:40,640 --> 00:19:44,160
Speaker 1: on a south wind. I can flank their travel real hard,

324
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Speaker 1: easy access. And so I parked at the end of

325
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,239
Speaker 1: this little sliver a timber inside of it was in

326
00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:55,680
Speaker 1: an egg field, but once they combine it, they let

327
00:19:55,680 --> 00:19:58,440
Speaker 1: the cattle in, so then it turns into a cattle pasture.

328
00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:01,399
Speaker 1: So I I said, man, there's no need for me

329
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:03,880
Speaker 1: to walk so far. I'm gonna pull up about two

330
00:20:04,280 --> 00:20:08,000
Speaker 1: yards closer and just save me, you know, three minutes

331
00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:11,800
Speaker 1: of walking or whatever. So I put my I load up,

332
00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:14,520
Speaker 1: and I'm getting ready to go to that fence crossing.

333
00:20:15,040 --> 00:20:21,600
Speaker 1: And what I I get loaded up stand bow, backpack, everything,

334
00:20:22,480 --> 00:20:26,440
Speaker 1: and I've been running my osonics in my backpack as

335
00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:29,320
Speaker 1: I'm walking to and front of my tree stands. And

336
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:31,840
Speaker 1: and that's a little foreshadowing because I think that actually helped.

337
00:20:31,880 --> 00:20:37,000
Speaker 1: But I park about so I get out of my truck,

338
00:20:37,040 --> 00:20:39,880
Speaker 1: I loaded up, start walking, and I'm about eight two

339
00:20:40,040 --> 00:20:42,280
Speaker 1: hundred yards. This is no joke. A d two hundred

340
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:45,920
Speaker 1: yards away from my truck, and it's pretty windy out

341
00:20:46,080 --> 00:20:48,960
Speaker 1: and I looked to my right and I'm looking in

342
00:20:49,080 --> 00:20:53,240
Speaker 1: this big thick section of timber. Inside it's like just

343
00:20:53,280 --> 00:20:55,720
Speaker 1: a pocket of timber. And I said, man, that's gotten

344
00:20:55,720 --> 00:20:58,640
Speaker 1: thick throughout the years. I bet you there's some deer

345
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,199
Speaker 1: that feel real comfortable in there. I took two more steps,

346
00:21:01,200 --> 00:21:03,280
Speaker 1: and I see times come up out of these bushes

347
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 1: and then just come straight back down and come up,

348
00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:10,800
Speaker 1: and they come down. So this buck is raking a tree,

349
00:21:11,760 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: and I go, oh my god, that's my number one buck.

350
00:21:14,320 --> 00:21:22,200
Speaker 1: He's right there, and so I I I get lucky

351
00:21:22,359 --> 00:21:27,680
Speaker 1: here and there's a giant, giant tree right in front

352
00:21:27,680 --> 00:21:30,560
Speaker 1: of me. So I just take one big step and

353
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:32,640
Speaker 1: now I can see his back half, but he can't

354
00:21:32,680 --> 00:21:36,200
Speaker 1: see me because I'm behind this big tree and I'm

355
00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,120
Speaker 1: abe and the wind's blowing right at him. I mean,

356
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,320
Speaker 1: the wind is going right at him. I slide my

357
00:21:41,359 --> 00:21:45,040
Speaker 1: backpack off, get my arrow knocked to put my release

358
00:21:45,119 --> 00:21:49,960
Speaker 1: on and I creep around and I I couldn't see

359
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,480
Speaker 1: him anymore, but I kind of I thought I saw

360
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:58,840
Speaker 1: some fur something, and I click the I range the

361
00:21:58,880 --> 00:22:03,080
Speaker 1: bush in front of him nineteen yards. I range the

362
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:06,879
Speaker 1: bush behind him twenty nine yards, and he's right up

363
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,240
Speaker 1: against he's he's closer to the back end of that gap.

364
00:22:11,359 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 1: So I turned my dial to I got a single pin.

365
00:22:15,119 --> 00:22:21,240
Speaker 1: So I turned my dial to yards, draw my bow,

366
00:22:22,520 --> 00:22:26,680
Speaker 1: get my uh kisser button anchored, and I step out

367
00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:29,840
Speaker 1: and his nose is straight up in the air. He's

368
00:22:29,880 --> 00:22:33,479
Speaker 1: caught something right, like what what? What is this? Like?

369
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:35,520
Speaker 1: You could tell his body language was changed. He wasn't

370
00:22:35,600 --> 00:22:37,960
Speaker 1: rubbing the tree anymore, and he had since kind of

371
00:22:38,040 --> 00:22:42,480
Speaker 1: quartered away, but he was looking straight back, you know,

372
00:22:42,520 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 1: like sometimes when they itched their aunt their back with

373
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: their antlers or their their grooming themselves, their heads turned

374
00:22:48,119 --> 00:22:52,119
Speaker 1: all the way. And he was like that. And I

375
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:57,639
Speaker 1: stepped right out. I'm already drawn, and his noses in

376
00:22:57,680 --> 00:23:01,399
Speaker 1: the air, and I'm like, man, I was well before that.

377
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,560
Speaker 1: I was shaken so bad because I thought this was

378
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: number I thought this was number one, and I was

379
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: missing the D loop on my on my bowstring. With

380
00:23:13,040 --> 00:23:16,840
Speaker 1: my release because I was shaking so bad. And I

381
00:23:16,880 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: said to myself, Johnson, settled down, because if you mess

382
00:23:20,680 --> 00:23:23,359
Speaker 1: this up, you're not getting a crack at him again

383
00:23:23,359 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 1: this year. So handle it. So I took a deep breath,

384
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:32,280
Speaker 1: got composed, drew back, step out anchor, and let it fly.

385
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:36,119
Speaker 1: And he me he I heard. I could hear the

386
00:23:36,280 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: thud through through the wind, just like this little best

387
00:23:40,600 --> 00:23:45,480
Speaker 1: sound mule kick. And he runs off, and I was

388
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:48,280
Speaker 1: so fired up. And when he was running away that

389
00:23:48,359 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: deer looked running away, I was like, oh my god,

390
00:23:53,280 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: what did I just do? Like never happened. First deer,

391
00:23:56,720 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: first deer I ever shot on the ground. And so

392
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:06,600
Speaker 1: anyway he ends up. He ends up diving down into

393
00:24:06,600 --> 00:24:09,880
Speaker 1: this pocket running across a cattle pasture. I can see

394
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:12,320
Speaker 1: my arrow hanging out of him, and I thought to myself,

395
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:15,960
Speaker 1: oh my god, I did not get the penetration that

396
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: I wanted on that. I'm gonna say a little. I'm

397
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,760
Speaker 1: gonna say less than half an arrow. And I'm like,

398
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:23,720
Speaker 1: but if it's that much, you're still it's still a

399
00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:25,719
Speaker 1: good soul. I just stop what I'm doing. I pull

400
00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:29,320
Speaker 1: out my phone and I call one of my buddies

401
00:24:29,400 --> 00:24:31,520
Speaker 1: up and I'm like, dude, I just shot what I

402
00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:36,320
Speaker 1: think is an absolute giant. Everybody at the time that

403
00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: I knew my my buddy who helps me drag out

404
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: sometimes down there he had COVID. My mom and my

405
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,679
Speaker 1: stepdad they both had COVID. So I was sleeping in

406
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:51,960
Speaker 1: the garage during rut vacation. I wasn't in the house. Yeah,

407
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:57,199
Speaker 1: so I I I call it my buddies. He's like,

408
00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,680
Speaker 1: I'll be there, and I said, I'm gonna go to impact.

409
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:03,840
Speaker 1: I'm gonna see if there's blood, and then I'm gonna

410
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: back out and then I'll wait for you. Well, I dropped.

411
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:10,919
Speaker 1: After I hang up with him, I called my wife,

412
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: told her what happened. Dropped down into where I shot him.

413
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: Really good blood, like perfect bubbly bubble blood right like

414
00:25:22,160 --> 00:25:25,720
Speaker 1: and and like good splots of it. And so I

415
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 1: end up following it for ten yards, following it for

416
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:34,240
Speaker 1: twenty yards, and then I just it starts to open

417
00:25:34,320 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 1: up and it's really good and it's it's for a

418
00:25:37,200 --> 00:25:39,480
Speaker 1: for a seasoned hunter who has been on a lot

419
00:25:39,520 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: of blood trails, it is a no brainer lung shot.

420
00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 1: Now my question, I had to myself was is it

421
00:25:44,920 --> 00:25:47,879
Speaker 1: one lung or is it both lungs, because he was

422
00:25:47,960 --> 00:25:51,120
Speaker 1: kind of quartering, you know, quartering away at the time.

423
00:25:52,600 --> 00:25:55,480
Speaker 1: And so I back out and I wait a handful

424
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:59,200
Speaker 1: of hours for my buddy to come and and uh

425
00:25:59,520 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: help me act this deer. And he brought one of

426
00:26:01,600 --> 00:26:05,760
Speaker 1: his buddies to another guy that I know, and long

427
00:26:05,800 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 1: story short, we start picking up this blood trail, man,

428
00:26:08,160 --> 00:26:12,919
Speaker 1: and uh it just it's very good blood, very good blood.

429
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:15,320
Speaker 1: Now we're starting to see where there's two blood spots

430
00:26:15,359 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: every bound, right, So there's there's two holes in this

431
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:22,680
Speaker 1: deer somewhere right, and he is starting to bleed really

432
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: black bad. We find the arrow and it's broken off right,

433
00:26:28,280 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 1: and there's blood all the way up to the fletchings.

434
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:32,439
Speaker 1: So that tells me as he's running he kicked he

435
00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 1: kicks it out and it broke somehow. And then we

436
00:26:37,880 --> 00:26:42,000
Speaker 1: get into the timber where we where he disappeared from

437
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: me after I shot him. Right, that's probably a hundred yards,

438
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,800
Speaker 1: so I watched him run a hundred yards before he

439
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,399
Speaker 1: disappeared into this really thick, nasty little area again. And

440
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:58,200
Speaker 1: uh um, the blood trail not gonna lie. It's awesome.

441
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: When you can just at a normal walk follow it,

442
00:27:02,119 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: no hands and knees, grid searching, just blood all over

443
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:10,560
Speaker 1: the place up here, absolutely absolutely, and uh, man, we

444
00:27:10,600 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: walk up on we walk up on him, and uh

445
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,800
Speaker 1: the shot ended up being one lung front side lung

446
00:27:18,320 --> 00:27:24,360
Speaker 1: and trachia and jugular. So he he just got smoked,

447
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,679
Speaker 1: he got destroyed, and uh he ended up running about

448
00:27:27,680 --> 00:27:32,000
Speaker 1: a hundred and hundred twenty yards maybe and then pile

449
00:27:32,040 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 1: it up and uh, and then you know, you get

450
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:39,560
Speaker 1: that moment that is I don't know, man, it's one

451
00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,000
Speaker 1: of those it's it's a surreal moment the first time

452
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:45,119
Speaker 1: you ever get to touch the animal that you just killed.

453
00:27:46,119 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 1: I don't have the same feeling for turkeys. I don't

454
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 1: have the same feeling for fish or any other animal

455
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:58,359
Speaker 1: that I've ever hunted as far as you know, big game.

456
00:27:59,240 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 1: But that moment where you get to grab his antlers

457
00:28:02,320 --> 00:28:04,520
Speaker 1: and pull his head up and sit down and put

458
00:28:04,560 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: your hands on this animal and appreciate it, it's uh,

459
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:16,720
Speaker 1: it's just there's no words, man, you can't. It's different

460
00:28:16,760 --> 00:28:20,800
Speaker 1: for everybody. And uh, I just felt so happy at

461
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,359
Speaker 1: that moment. And and it wasn't my number one buck,

462
00:28:24,400 --> 00:28:27,040
Speaker 1: but it did not matter. It's if we're gonna sit

463
00:28:27,080 --> 00:28:31,800
Speaker 1: here and put numbers or a level to it. It's

464
00:28:31,800 --> 00:28:37,480
Speaker 1: probably my second biggest buck I've ever shot. And it's

465
00:28:37,800 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: a beautiful deer with awesome characteristics, and he's a beautiful

466
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,320
Speaker 1: ten pointer four year old, and uh I'm just I'm

467
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:50,120
Speaker 1: geeked out, man, you should be that he's a heck

468
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: of a deer and a crazy story how it came together.

469
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,040
Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, it's not like you put

470
00:28:56,040 --> 00:28:58,840
Speaker 1: together this master plan for him. But it's really cool

471
00:28:59,120 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: in its own unique way. When sometimes you have these

472
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:06,280
Speaker 1: crazy things happened that you find yourself in and you

473
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:09,080
Speaker 1: can take advantage of it, that's that's awesome in its

474
00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 1: own right. So I'll tell you what what what I

475
00:29:11,520 --> 00:29:15,280
Speaker 1: will say is that from a strategy standpoint, I was

476
00:29:15,400 --> 00:29:19,440
Speaker 1: going to where he had already crossed, so he was

477
00:29:19,480 --> 00:29:21,560
Speaker 1: already on his feet. He came through the area that

478
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt, and uh so from a strategy standpoint,

479
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,280
Speaker 1: I guess if you want to say I was going

480
00:29:27,360 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: to the right location, it's just he beat me to

481
00:29:30,120 --> 00:29:31,600
Speaker 1: it and I ended up shooting him on the ground.

482
00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: Well well done, my friend. Congratulations on a another successful

483
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:42,360
Speaker 1: Iowa season. Yeah, man, I I'm so happy. The best

484
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:46,320
Speaker 1: and one of the other parts is today today I

485
00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:51,320
Speaker 1: picked my buck up from the processor and there, my

486
00:29:51,320 --> 00:29:54,720
Speaker 1: my deep freeze is now full again. And that puts

487
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:57,960
Speaker 1: an equal smile on my face as it does walking

488
00:29:58,000 --> 00:30:00,680
Speaker 1: up and touching him for the first time. Gotta have

489
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 1: that full freezer. Yeah. So, um, my story isn't crazy, right,

490
00:30:08,280 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: first time I ever saw this buck on the hoof probably, um,

491
00:30:11,600 --> 00:30:14,280
Speaker 1: I got a shed laying out. It might be from him,

492
00:30:14,280 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: it might not be, who knows, not a big deal.

493
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:23,000
Speaker 1: But this uh, this dear name Tran, that's uh that

494
00:30:23,120 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: you've been following for a handful of years, kind of

495
00:30:27,320 --> 00:30:30,160
Speaker 1: met his match. When did you end up shooting him?

496
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:36,040
Speaker 1: What day was it? Shot him? Sunday? November I think

497
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:40,719
Speaker 1: would have been the date. Um, that's what it was.

498
00:30:40,920 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 1: And that's after the rifle season. Yeah, in rifle season. Okay,

499
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 1: so rifle season eight? So did you shoot this with

500
00:30:49,880 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: a bow or with a rifle. Let's wait till we

501
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 1: get to the story. Dan oh, okay, ship, Sorry, I

502
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: know I should know better than this. So, so why

503
00:30:58,600 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: don't you kick it? Kick it off? Go all the

504
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 1: way back? So This story begins in two thousand eighteen.

505
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,320
Speaker 1: So that year, if you were call, was the year

506
00:31:09,680 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: after I found another buck who I hunted for a

507
00:31:12,520 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: long time, holy Field. I found his shed that spring,

508
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: and so I thought maybe that buck was back for

509
00:31:17,800 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: a year number four. So I planning for him, looking

510
00:31:21,400 --> 00:31:24,200
Speaker 1: for him, and you know, the summer. The summer arrived,

511
00:31:24,200 --> 00:31:26,719
Speaker 1: he didn't show up. In September arrived, he didn't show up.

512
00:31:26,760 --> 00:31:29,480
Speaker 1: October arrived, and he didn't show up. I got pictures

513
00:31:29,480 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: of a big eight pointer. I'm like, maybe that's him,

514
00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:35,680
Speaker 1: but it was kind of like weird pictures, like foggy

515
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:38,440
Speaker 1: or not great lighting, different things. I couldn't really tell.

516
00:31:38,480 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: But he had tall G twos and I'm wondering, maybe possibly,

517
00:31:42,040 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 1: but probably not well that buck I was getting pictures

518
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:47,160
Speaker 1: of was this, dear. I eventually did get clear pictures

519
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: of him and realized, no, it's definitely not holy Field.

520
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:52,360
Speaker 1: This is a new buck um, or at least one

521
00:31:52,400 --> 00:31:54,160
Speaker 1: that I hadn't identified in the past. And he was

522
00:31:54,200 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: like just a really nice tall eight point with kind

523
00:31:57,280 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: of curving times um. And my guest was he was

524
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:05,440
Speaker 1: just a cool three year old and I pinned pointed

525
00:32:05,520 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: him as is like the best up and coming buck

526
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:09,479
Speaker 1: ahead in the farm. Right then, I started seeing him

527
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:13,200
Speaker 1: quite a bit, got some cool video of him, UM,

528
00:32:13,320 --> 00:32:15,680
Speaker 1: and knew that he would be the deer that if

529
00:32:15,680 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 1: he was around next year, he'd be one I would

530
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:21,040
Speaker 1: probably the best buck that I have around based off

531
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:24,520
Speaker 1: what I was seeing. So I started keeping tabs every

532
00:32:24,560 --> 00:32:27,080
Speaker 1: time I saw him, every time I got a daylight

533
00:32:27,080 --> 00:32:29,200
Speaker 1: trail Cara Pitcher. I started noting it way back then,

534
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: even though I wasn't trying to kill him. UM. Fast forward,

535
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: you know, later into the year, the whole frank thing happened.

536
00:32:36,240 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: If you remember, this really big ten pointer showed up

537
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,160
Speaker 1: on Halloween that year, UM, and I hunted him for

538
00:32:41,160 --> 00:32:44,760
Speaker 1: a month and ended up seeing him on the evening

539
00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:48,120
Speaker 1: of December. It's like the seventh, eighth or ninth one,

540
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:51,480
Speaker 1: somewhere right around there. And Trans showed up that night

541
00:32:51,480 --> 00:32:54,280
Speaker 1: and I passed on him at like sixty yards. Um.

542
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:58,480
Speaker 1: This was this was the late firearms season, and UM

543
00:32:58,560 --> 00:33:01,320
Speaker 1: and passed on Tran that night. Uh. And then like

544
00:33:01,400 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 1: twenty minutes later, the big guy showed up and killed him.

545
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:10,840
Speaker 1: So that was basically year one UH with Tran. I

546
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: guess I should make one other point, I did actually

547
00:33:13,320 --> 00:33:16,520
Speaker 1: see him in person once in the summer and got

548
00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:20,080
Speaker 1: velvet video of him. Just didn't connect the dots until

549
00:33:20,120 --> 00:33:22,120
Speaker 1: later in the year. But but he was there in

550
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,640
Speaker 1: the summer, was there all through the fall, and was

551
00:33:25,400 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: of of bucks of that caliber, Like he was other

552
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:30,800
Speaker 1: than Frank, who was this big new buck, Tran was

553
00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:32,760
Speaker 1: the best dear. There was one three year old that

554
00:33:32,840 --> 00:33:34,720
Speaker 1: was him that was shown up a bunch and so

555
00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 1: I kind of just knew, like he's the one. If

556
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:42,160
Speaker 1: he makes it, he'll be the one next year. Um question, Yeah, alright,

557
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:47,600
Speaker 1: So as you start to calculate or put together an inventory,

558
00:33:47,640 --> 00:33:50,160
Speaker 1: and you know, like Frank that one year was your

559
00:33:50,200 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: number one target buck. Um, Holy Field in the past

560
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: has been your number one target buck. How much thought

561
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,800
Speaker 1: do you give to these other dear throughout the season

562
00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:03,520
Speaker 1: or what are they doing while you're in the process

563
00:34:03,640 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 1: of hunting your number one target buck. Well, the thing is,

564
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:11,719
Speaker 1: because I'm hunting such small spots, there's almost never more

565
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,880
Speaker 1: than one deer I would actually shoot. Um, Like the

566
00:34:14,920 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: main farm my hunt is a little over eighty acres,

567
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,800
Speaker 1: but half of that's just open crop field next to

568
00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:22,920
Speaker 1: a road. So really it's like forty some acres that

569
00:34:22,960 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 1: I'm actually hunting, so there's only ever one. They'll sometimes

570
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: be some other bucks that are up and comers I'm

571
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,719
Speaker 1: keeping tabs on, but I've rarely have I had like

572
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:34,680
Speaker 1: multiple definite mature bucks that are there consistently that I

573
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:36,840
Speaker 1: could actually like put a game plan together. There's usually

574
00:34:36,840 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 1: one that calls at home. UM. I also got permission

575
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:42,800
Speaker 1: a few years ago on on part of a small

576
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,880
Speaker 1: like twenty acre piece that I could start hunting a

577
00:34:45,880 --> 00:34:47,960
Speaker 1: little bit too, so that gave me a little bit

578
00:34:48,040 --> 00:34:51,919
Speaker 1: more um. But basically what I do is usually there's

579
00:34:51,960 --> 00:34:54,720
Speaker 1: one mature one that I'm after, and I'm keeping tabs

580
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:56,919
Speaker 1: on him hunting him. But if I get a buck

581
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 1: that's like a really nice two year old or a

582
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:03,480
Speaker 1: three year old, I start kind of keeping tabs because

583
00:35:03,520 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: it seems like, from what I've seen this area, usually

584
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,080
Speaker 1: one buck of that caliberal caliber will make it through.

585
00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,479
Speaker 1: So there might be three bucks, three or four deer

586
00:35:14,520 --> 00:35:16,120
Speaker 1: maybe that I'll see in a given year that are

587
00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:17,839
Speaker 1: two or three years old. It used to be all

588
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:19,799
Speaker 1: two year olds. Now we're getting to the point where

589
00:35:19,800 --> 00:35:22,279
Speaker 1: I'm seeing some three year olds. Um, But I'm I'm

590
00:35:22,320 --> 00:35:25,120
Speaker 1: passing on those now. So in any given year, there's

591
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: maybe one buck that's four, and then there's a couple

592
00:35:27,160 --> 00:35:29,799
Speaker 1: two or three year olds that I'm watching. I'm observing

593
00:35:29,880 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: when i'm hunting, I'm paying attention to what they're doing. Um,

594
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:35,879
Speaker 1: but I'm not actually gonna shoot him. So in two

595
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:37,920
Speaker 1: thousand and eighteen, that was the story with Tran. He

596
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: was the one deer like that. Um. And you know,

597
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:44,759
Speaker 1: coming into the following winter, I thought, all right, man,

598
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:46,440
Speaker 1: this is the year. Twenty nineteen is gonna be the

599
00:35:46,480 --> 00:35:48,520
Speaker 1: year of Tran. I'm really hoping he made it. I

600
00:35:48,560 --> 00:35:50,719
Speaker 1: really hope I can find the sheds. I'm gonna get

601
00:35:50,760 --> 00:35:53,399
Speaker 1: after it hard. I'm gonna review everything I learned about

602
00:35:53,480 --> 00:35:56,200
Speaker 1: him last year, put together a game plan. So shed

603
00:35:56,239 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 1: season came, I pounded the timber, I got permission on

604
00:35:58,960 --> 00:36:03,520
Speaker 1: neighboring properties to shed hunt those spots. Never found him. Um.

605
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:07,880
Speaker 1: Fast forward into the summer and in August he shows

606
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:11,319
Speaker 1: up in the field. Was a being field next to

607
00:36:11,360 --> 00:36:13,440
Speaker 1: one of these places, and I saw him and instantly

608
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: you could tell as him. Um. Just essentially the exact

609
00:36:16,760 --> 00:36:22,080
Speaker 1: same formation was last year. Just everything bigger, um, awesome, tall, tight,

610
00:36:22,239 --> 00:36:24,719
Speaker 1: eight pointer, Um, biggest eight point I've ever seen in

611
00:36:24,719 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: this area before. So he was he was awesome, and

612
00:36:28,160 --> 00:36:31,440
Speaker 1: I was smitten um. And then the whole thing was

613
00:36:31,480 --> 00:36:34,520
Speaker 1: reviewing all that Dad I had thinking through, Okay, when

614
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:37,120
Speaker 1: did he start showing up in daylight? Where were the

615
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: daylight pictures? Where did I see him in person? There

616
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: was a lot of activity with him towards the back

617
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:46,879
Speaker 1: of the properties I had permission on, so I kind

618
00:36:46,880 --> 00:36:50,360
Speaker 1: of assumed that that might be, like, there's there's a

619
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:52,799
Speaker 1: couple of different betting areas on some neighboring properties that

620
00:36:53,040 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 1: I kind of hunt around, and I'm playing movement going

621
00:36:55,960 --> 00:36:57,640
Speaker 1: in and out of those spots, and it was the

622
00:36:57,640 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: back betting area of this eight acres that I thought, Man,

623
00:37:01,280 --> 00:37:03,120
Speaker 1: he seems to be spending more time back there. So

624
00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 1: my assumption was that that's when that would happen. But

625
00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:11,280
Speaker 1: we get to Oh, I guess it would have been

626
00:37:11,400 --> 00:37:14,239
Speaker 1: opening day. It was opening day, opening day of two

627
00:37:14,280 --> 00:37:18,400
Speaker 1: thousand nineteen UM, and it was a hot one. It

628
00:37:18,480 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 1: was gonna be really warm, way above temperare, way above

629
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,720
Speaker 1: average temperatures. But the next day, day two of the season,

630
00:37:26,160 --> 00:37:28,759
Speaker 1: was going to be this big cold friend hitting. So

631
00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,440
Speaker 1: every year. I always look at opening days like one

632
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: of my best chances in this area. It seems like

633
00:37:33,520 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: year after year there's if there's a good buck around,

634
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: they'll be active in late September, in the first day

635
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,200
Speaker 1: of October, maybe the second day of October. But then

636
00:37:41,200 --> 00:37:43,720
Speaker 1: pretty quickly they change when all these other people around

637
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: me start hunting and I start hunting. Um. But because

638
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:52,360
Speaker 1: you know, because I it was a little bit too

639
00:37:52,600 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: stuck on the weather and and folks, I know you

640
00:37:55,200 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: know these you've heard some of these stories. I want

641
00:37:56,760 --> 00:37:58,440
Speaker 1: to put it all in one place so we can

642
00:37:58,520 --> 00:38:01,520
Speaker 1: kind of see the whole traject three. So bear with

643
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:03,200
Speaker 1: me as you hear some of these stories. Again, I've

644
00:38:03,200 --> 00:38:05,040
Speaker 1: been talking about this guy for years, I know that.

645
00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 1: But as we've talked about last year, I decided to

646
00:38:11,719 --> 00:38:13,960
Speaker 1: observe on night number one. So I sat on a

647
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,400
Speaker 1: hill on the ground a couple hundred yards away from

648
00:38:17,440 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: this front food source, this actual little food plot system

649
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: I've built specifically for these types of scenarios, tight to

650
00:38:24,080 --> 00:38:26,840
Speaker 1: a betting area in the neighbors. UM. I didn't have

651
00:38:26,880 --> 00:38:29,960
Speaker 1: any much good cover on my side, so I kind

652
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 1: of carved in these food plots and playing all these

653
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: sorghum strips and UM created a really cool zone of

654
00:38:38,400 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: food inside could cover right next to the best betting

655
00:38:41,600 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: and it's year and year out turned out to be

656
00:38:43,800 --> 00:38:46,359
Speaker 1: a pretty good spot UM to get at least an

657
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,040
Speaker 1: encounter or two per year with one of these good bucks.

658
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: And opening night, I decided, I'm gonna watch him afar

659
00:38:52,719 --> 00:38:56,240
Speaker 1: and then strike the next day with this big cold

660
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:58,239
Speaker 1: front hitting, and that's the night I thought that the

661
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:02,680
Speaker 1: big boy might hit that spot. Well, long story short,

662
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,880
Speaker 1: I sat that night and watched this front food plot

663
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: and Tran shows up that night even with the warm

664
00:39:08,000 --> 00:39:10,799
Speaker 1: temperatures and walks right past the stand that I would

665
00:39:10,840 --> 00:39:13,600
Speaker 1: otherwise have hunted. So that was a bummer and one

666
00:39:13,640 --> 00:39:15,840
Speaker 1: in the next day and he didn't show up the

667
00:39:15,880 --> 00:39:18,359
Speaker 1: next night, but another really nice three year old did,

668
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:20,719
Speaker 1: like a hundred and thirty class nine pointer, and I

669
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,640
Speaker 1: passed him. That's the best buck I've ever passed up

670
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:26,240
Speaker 1: to that point. So it's cool that a really nice

671
00:39:26,400 --> 00:39:29,479
Speaker 1: up and comers showed up um and and we usually

672
00:39:29,560 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: don't have multiple deer like that, but that year, so

673
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:34,880
Speaker 1: en there was Tran, who I believed to be four,

674
00:39:35,360 --> 00:39:38,040
Speaker 1: and then there was two other like hundred thirty class

675
00:39:38,120 --> 00:39:41,680
Speaker 1: three year olds UM at that point in the year.

676
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,319
Speaker 1: So it was a weird thing and that, for whatever reason,

677
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: we've had more good bucks survive. UM. And I was

678
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 1: just at a new place in my hunting journey where

679
00:39:49,719 --> 00:39:51,239
Speaker 1: I was gonna pass on deer like that. But it

680
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,399
Speaker 1: felt crazy having a deer like that, which is really

681
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:57,880
Speaker 1: top tier deer for Michigan, having a fifteen yards broadside

682
00:39:57,920 --> 00:40:00,759
Speaker 1: and not shoot. But I I knew I had to

683
00:40:00,760 --> 00:40:02,720
Speaker 1: save one of my buck tags for the back forty

684
00:40:03,120 --> 00:40:04,440
Speaker 1: and I knew I wanted to save one of my

685
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:09,800
Speaker 1: buck tags for trains, so that's what I did. UM. Question,

686
00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,080
Speaker 1: So do you feel that holy Field was the dominant

687
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 1: buck in this little area that you have access to?

688
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: He definitely was for that two years when he was

689
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:21,719
Speaker 1: mature that I was hunting him, and I watched him

690
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:26,439
Speaker 1: for three Frank, same question, Frank. He really didn't live

691
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,799
Speaker 1: on me. He showed up out of nowhere that the

692
00:40:29,880 --> 00:40:32,360
Speaker 1: year that holy Field disappeared. So the previous two years

693
00:40:32,880 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 1: I only had like one sighting of him. I got

694
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,319
Speaker 1: one trail camera picture, Frank, three years before I shot him.

695
00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:42,439
Speaker 1: I saw him one time in December the year before

696
00:40:42,480 --> 00:40:44,560
Speaker 1: I shot him, and in the year I shot him,

697
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:46,759
Speaker 1: he showed up in a big way on Halloween and

698
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:49,920
Speaker 1: basically stuck around for a month. So for that month

699
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,480
Speaker 1: he was the dominant guy there. But the rest of

700
00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:54,400
Speaker 1: the season there really wasn't a dominant buck. Okay, So

701
00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: we'll just say that dear though, was the dominant buck

702
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:00,960
Speaker 1: in the area for that moment. Yeah, okay. And then

703
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:05,319
Speaker 1: the other the buck train this year dominant buck. Uh.

704
00:41:05,400 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: Starting twenty nine he was the man. Okay. Cool. So

705
00:41:09,440 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: the question I have for you then is do you

706
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:16,480
Speaker 1: what what is it about this area, this property that

707
00:41:16,600 --> 00:41:20,720
Speaker 1: you hunt, whether it's the management that you do, whether

708
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:24,320
Speaker 1: it's the does the terrain, whatever, what is it about

709
00:41:24,360 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: this little area that brings in and above average dominant

710
00:41:29,480 --> 00:41:32,799
Speaker 1: buck for Michigan to stay in this little area for

711
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,600
Speaker 1: a given period of time. Yeah, So I think I've

712
00:41:35,640 --> 00:41:41,319
Speaker 1: got a set of circumstances that that's that's nice to have. Um,

713
00:41:41,360 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 1: even though it's a small property that I can hunt,

714
00:41:43,920 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of things. I've got myself who

715
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:49,280
Speaker 1: and I'm the only person who hunts my little piece

716
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,800
Speaker 1: that I have sole permission on. The eight um, the

717
00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:54,560
Speaker 1: eight five or whatever it is. Um, So I am

718
00:41:54,760 --> 00:41:56,800
Speaker 1: very picky there and I don't shoot anything under the

719
00:41:57,040 --> 00:41:59,759
Speaker 1: under the four. And then I also have within our

720
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,080
Speaker 1: like square mile block. Um, there's a handful of other

721
00:42:03,120 --> 00:42:06,239
Speaker 1: people in that square mile who also are you know,

722
00:42:06,280 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: they're not shooting everything. Um, they're at least passing on

723
00:42:09,000 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: year and a half old bucks. So there's a handful

724
00:42:10,680 --> 00:42:12,640
Speaker 1: of people in our square mile who are at least

725
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:16,080
Speaker 1: letting deer get to two, which in Michigan is not

726
00:42:16,120 --> 00:42:17,920
Speaker 1: a given. So there's a lot of places where everyone

727
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 1: will shot the first buck they see. So to have

728
00:42:19,880 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: a spot where you know you can get some of

729
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,640
Speaker 1: these bucks through, that's that's a good thing going for me.

730
00:42:25,320 --> 00:42:28,440
Speaker 1: There's also a couple of the pieces in this square

731
00:42:28,480 --> 00:42:31,520
Speaker 1: mile that don't get hunted very much. There's a bunch

732
00:42:31,520 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: of get pounded, but then there's also a couple almost

733
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: sanctuary properties, and I think that's a big thing that

734
00:42:37,040 --> 00:42:40,319
Speaker 1: helps me. I'm next to one of these spots that's

735
00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 1: relatively lightly hunted, and that one of those spots has

736
00:42:46,239 --> 00:42:48,720
Speaker 1: really good betting on it. So there's like a twenty

737
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:53,399
Speaker 1: acre chunk within one of these pieces that is just

738
00:42:53,680 --> 00:42:59,600
Speaker 1: nasty tall grass bushes, brambles Um just kind of the

739
00:42:59,680 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: prim mere betting habitat for for Michigan. UM. And that

740
00:43:04,960 --> 00:43:07,920
Speaker 1: is this zone that is just packed with does every

741
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:12,080
Speaker 1: year and whenever there's a dominant buck, which there usually is,

742
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:14,000
Speaker 1: one buck will make it to four. Usually there's usually

743
00:43:14,000 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: one dayer like that and he always is is hunkered

744
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:20,960
Speaker 1: in and around that stuff. That's just it's the best spot.

745
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: They always lay claim to it, and there's a lot

746
00:43:22,719 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 1: of ladies in there. So every year I know there's

747
00:43:25,320 --> 00:43:27,560
Speaker 1: gonna be one of these guys in and around that spot,

748
00:43:27,600 --> 00:43:30,080
Speaker 1: and traditionally I've just had to hunt around the edges

749
00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:33,359
Speaker 1: of it. But that would at least give me opportunities

750
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 1: and and once or twice a year they would come

751
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,000
Speaker 1: to my side. Um. In the case of Frank, I

752
00:43:38,040 --> 00:43:39,680
Speaker 1: was able to get a shot at him. In the

753
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: case of holy Field, I saw him a bunch but

754
00:43:41,640 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 1: never was able to get a shot at him. In

755
00:43:43,120 --> 00:43:48,040
Speaker 1: the case of Tran in twenty nineteen, UM, you know,

756
00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:50,480
Speaker 1: he had a couple, had a couple of encounters with

757
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:52,840
Speaker 1: them on my side, but it was it was a

758
00:43:52,880 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: lot more sightings on properties that couldn't hunt him. But

759
00:43:56,239 --> 00:44:00,400
Speaker 1: there are spots I could see into but couldn't shoot him. Um,

760
00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:03,600
Speaker 1: that's to answer your question. I think that's why I've

761
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 1: been able to get some of these deer that that

762
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,040
Speaker 1: make it to that age and then stick around because

763
00:44:08,040 --> 00:44:10,239
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a relatively small pocket, but it's a

764
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:14,000
Speaker 1: really good pocket that usually doesn't get bothered. So I

765
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:16,759
Speaker 1: think these deer just no it come guns season, I'm

766
00:44:16,800 --> 00:44:19,520
Speaker 1: not leaving it and traditionally I haven't been harassed here

767
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:27,000
Speaker 1: and and that gets them through. Yeah. So do the

768
00:44:27,040 --> 00:44:33,520
Speaker 1: does stick around all year long on on that property. Yeah,

769
00:44:33,640 --> 00:44:37,200
Speaker 1: it's usually uh just consistently a lot. It's high deer

770
00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:39,640
Speaker 1: density area too, so there's a lot of deer, a

771
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:42,360
Speaker 1: lot of does. Um, you know, always a bunch of

772
00:44:42,360 --> 00:44:45,000
Speaker 1: young bucks. And then you know over the hunted this

773
00:44:45,080 --> 00:44:48,719
Speaker 1: area now for ten years, I think, and you know,

774
00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:50,960
Speaker 1: it's it's come a long way. The very first year

775
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,279
Speaker 1: I hunted it, there was one deer that was three

776
00:44:53,400 --> 00:44:55,120
Speaker 1: and that was the best year, or that was the

777
00:44:55,160 --> 00:44:57,160
Speaker 1: best deer. The next year there wasn't a single deer

778
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,920
Speaker 1: I thought was three. Um. The following year there was

779
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,440
Speaker 1: a couple three year olds and a five year old Um,

780
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:05,160
Speaker 1: no sorry, two year old or three year old and

781
00:45:05,160 --> 00:45:08,040
Speaker 1: then a five year old. UM, and and then a

782
00:45:08,200 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: fast forward to the last couple of years and we've

783
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:12,960
Speaker 1: had you know, multiple three or four year old or

784
00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:16,680
Speaker 1: even a multiple four and five. Um. This year, I

785
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:18,600
Speaker 1: had a buck that I think was four and a

786
00:45:18,640 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: buck that I thought was five. So, you know, I

787
00:45:21,640 --> 00:45:25,600
Speaker 1: think between my efforts to pass on some of these

788
00:45:25,640 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: deer and then some neighbors that I think are doing

789
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:30,360
Speaker 1: the same in a couple of different pockets in our

790
00:45:30,400 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 1: square mile, I'm guessing that's starting to help. Um. So

791
00:45:35,360 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: so yeah, that that was the situation. Um. You know,

792
00:45:39,280 --> 00:45:40,880
Speaker 1: I passed on that buck on the second day of

793
00:45:40,880 --> 00:45:44,680
Speaker 1: the season, and then it was looking at historical data

794
00:45:44,760 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 1: which told me that, you know, based on the last year,

795
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 1: he's at least the first year years around. He didn't

796
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:53,480
Speaker 1: really start moving like a whole lot until around the

797
00:45:53,560 --> 00:45:57,360
Speaker 1: last week of October, which is is kind of a

798
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 1: that's common for deer all over the place. It's common

799
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:05,640
Speaker 1: for this property year after year of October's when things

800
00:46:05,680 --> 00:46:08,600
Speaker 1: seem to kick into gear and there's almost always a

801
00:46:08,600 --> 00:46:13,320
Speaker 1: hot dough that last week, like almost like clockwork, somewhere

802
00:46:13,320 --> 00:46:16,160
Speaker 1: around there, there's gonna be a good buck chasing, there's

803
00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:17,439
Speaker 1: gonna be a hot dough with a bunch of box

804
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:19,400
Speaker 1: on them. So every year, right around that time, I

805
00:46:19,440 --> 00:46:21,200
Speaker 1: make sure that that's going to be when I start

806
00:46:21,200 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: getting after it. And and so that's what I ended

807
00:46:23,160 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: up doing in But it wasn't until Halloween night that

808
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,879
Speaker 1: I actually saw him Sam chasing dough on Halloween night,

809
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:35,760
Speaker 1: and then after that it was almost DAILI or every

810
00:46:35,800 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: other day sightings at least or encounters. The second of

811
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:42,960
Speaker 1: November was my closest encounter with him in BO season.

812
00:46:43,920 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 1: I hunted the backside of a small betting area that

813
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,799
Speaker 1: was on my side of the property line that was

814
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,960
Speaker 1: closest to the best betting here that's other neighbors, and

815
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 1: I've found that I can catch during the rut, these

816
00:46:58,560 --> 00:47:01,080
Speaker 1: bucks will sent check each of these betting airs, so

817
00:47:01,120 --> 00:47:03,760
Speaker 1: they'll leave the best cunney hoole pocket on the neighbors,

818
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:06,440
Speaker 1: and they'll come down to hit the kind of ancillary

819
00:47:06,480 --> 00:47:08,839
Speaker 1: spots that I that I could hunt if I if

820
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:11,799
Speaker 1: I hit those places long enough, eventually one of these

821
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,640
Speaker 1: good bucks you know, typically will come through one of

822
00:47:14,680 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: these mornings or mid days during the rut. That's what

823
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 1: happened holy Field when I almost got a shot at him,

824
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:21,160
Speaker 1: but I was reading a book in the middle of

825
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:25,319
Speaker 1: the day UM, And that exact same stand is where

826
00:47:25,320 --> 00:47:28,280
Speaker 1: I had my closest called Tran. It was the second

827
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: of November, and there was a dough in this thicket

828
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 1: right behind me, and Tran was weather and they came

829
00:47:35,320 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 1: out of there, but just passed a little bit out

830
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: of range. I think it was fifty yards somewhere in

831
00:47:41,000 --> 00:47:44,799
Speaker 1: that ballpark. I remember them coming through and um and

832
00:47:44,880 --> 00:47:47,040
Speaker 1: passed out of range, went into the big betting area

833
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: and that was the last I saw them that day.

834
00:47:49,560 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: I had six more sightings um over the course of

835
00:47:53,040 --> 00:47:57,200
Speaker 1: November after that, and again mostly was in that honey

836
00:47:57,200 --> 00:48:00,600
Speaker 1: hole thick stuff over there, and I'm just bouncing around

837
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:02,719
Speaker 1: the edges, trying to make a guess like when's it

838
00:48:02,719 --> 00:48:06,080
Speaker 1: gonna come to my side, thinking through wind, thinking through

839
00:48:06,200 --> 00:48:09,319
Speaker 1: different hypotheticals like where most of the dough's coming out

840
00:48:09,320 --> 00:48:12,080
Speaker 1: to feed into my stuff? Because because the property that

841
00:48:12,080 --> 00:48:15,080
Speaker 1: I had access to, as I mentioned, was mostly a

842
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:16,920
Speaker 1: cut corn field on one side and the cut bean

843
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: field on the other. So most of what I have

844
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:21,920
Speaker 1: to do other than those little back betting year as

845
00:48:21,920 --> 00:48:25,160
Speaker 1: I mentioned was hope that he'll follow a dough that's

846
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:31,120
Speaker 1: feeding in the food plots or the fields of my side. Um.

847
00:48:31,360 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: To to make a long story short, I do that

848
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 1: see him, but never on my side or never in

849
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:40,520
Speaker 1: range all the way until December rolls around. Now it's

850
00:48:40,560 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 1: gunn season and we're in muzzle other season. Ah, I

851
00:48:46,400 --> 00:48:49,800
Speaker 1: have no qualms about shifting to whatever the legal weapon

852
00:48:49,920 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 1: is of choice. I put in a ton of work

853
00:48:52,239 --> 00:48:55,399
Speaker 1: to get after these deer, and it is not an

854
00:48:55,400 --> 00:48:57,800
Speaker 1: easy thing to do in these spots where I'm so limited,

855
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,000
Speaker 1: and with so many other hunters around me, they're taking

856
00:49:00,040 --> 00:49:03,840
Speaker 1: the guns out there. I certainly have no problem. You know,

857
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:06,759
Speaker 1: played by the same rules all of them. So I

858
00:49:06,760 --> 00:49:10,520
Speaker 1: took the gun out there. It's December, se I've waited

859
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,399
Speaker 1: until a big cold front and like the blue Bird

860
00:49:13,440 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: skys high bear metric pressure, UM cold day. UM. I've

861
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: been watching this cut corn field that I could hunt,

862
00:49:21,000 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: and a lot of deer been feeding there, but I

863
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:25,520
Speaker 1: hadn't been seeing the big guy. But with a weather

864
00:49:25,600 --> 00:49:28,879
Speaker 1: system that was coming through, I thought, man, um, this

865
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:30,640
Speaker 1: is probably the night to push back in there where

866
00:49:30,640 --> 00:49:34,200
Speaker 1: I thought most of them were coming out. And sure enough,

867
00:49:34,320 --> 00:49:37,800
Speaker 1: that's what happened. He came out of the neighbor bedding,

868
00:49:38,280 --> 00:49:41,080
Speaker 1: crossed to my side, but by the time he crossed

869
00:49:41,080 --> 00:49:44,440
Speaker 1: to my side, he popped into the field but was

870
00:49:44,480 --> 00:49:47,400
Speaker 1: heading straight away and behind branches of these trees that

871
00:49:47,440 --> 00:49:49,839
Speaker 1: stretched out over the edge of the field. And I

872
00:49:49,880 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 1: had him in my sights, like the back of his neck.

873
00:49:53,120 --> 00:49:55,720
Speaker 1: But I just I didn't feel taken, didn't feel comfortable

874
00:49:55,719 --> 00:49:57,799
Speaker 1: taking the shot as he was moving and branches, and

875
00:49:58,000 --> 00:50:02,120
Speaker 1: didn't like that angle of course. So that was that

876
00:50:02,160 --> 00:50:05,480
Speaker 1: was the closest I really came to killing him that year. Um,

877
00:50:05,520 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: it was. It was exciting. It almost came together but didn't.

878
00:50:08,920 --> 00:50:11,279
Speaker 1: And um, a couple of weeks later I saw him

879
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:13,520
Speaker 1: one more time on the last day of the season.

880
00:50:14,200 --> 00:50:17,319
Speaker 1: Something spooked him off another neighbor's property, like twenty five

881
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:21,040
Speaker 1: deer come running off another property and he was in

882
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:24,359
Speaker 1: that group and came running by like a hundred yards away. UM,

883
00:50:24,440 --> 00:50:26,239
Speaker 1: so I knew he made it to the end of

884
00:50:26,280 --> 00:50:28,200
Speaker 1: the season. That was like the last twenty minutes of

885
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 1: daylight of the last day and he was still alive.

886
00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:36,480
Speaker 1: So that was how wrapped up. I was hopeful that

887
00:50:36,520 --> 00:50:38,640
Speaker 1: he made it, but it has been a long tough season,

888
00:50:38,800 --> 00:50:41,319
Speaker 1: you know, chasing him only to you know, kind of

889
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:44,440
Speaker 1: have to watch him the distance so often. Um so

890
00:50:44,480 --> 00:50:47,840
Speaker 1: that's how year two ended. Yeah, and and knowing what

891
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:52,040
Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of cool because, um, I think

892
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: this is the same deer your when was your youngest

893
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,279
Speaker 1: son born? Yeah, so my youngest son was born at

894
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:02,360
Speaker 1: the end of January. Okay, alright, so so we have

895
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:06,400
Speaker 1: this this time frame. Is there any like throughout the

896
00:51:06,480 --> 00:51:09,120
Speaker 1: rest of the time until we start getting into that

897
00:51:09,160 --> 00:51:14,040
Speaker 1: February March time frame? Any any anything else significant happening

898
00:51:14,080 --> 00:51:16,799
Speaker 1: with Tran? So No, all in new was that I

899
00:51:16,840 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 1: really wanted to find his sheds. All right. All right,

900
00:51:19,880 --> 00:51:24,640
Speaker 1: so you're foreshadowing here your wife. Your wife is super pregnant,

901
00:51:24,640 --> 00:51:27,440
Speaker 1: and she says, let's go take a walk. What happens?

902
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:30,399
Speaker 1: So she she's due, she's supposed to be given birth

903
00:51:30,480 --> 00:51:33,799
Speaker 1: the baby like any day now, and she, like you said,

904
00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:34,880
Speaker 1: she's like, we need to go for a walk. I

905
00:51:34,920 --> 00:51:37,360
Speaker 1: need to kind of just work this thing out. And uh,

906
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:39,000
Speaker 1: I said, well, if we're gonna go for a walk,

907
00:51:39,040 --> 00:51:41,120
Speaker 1: why don't we just do do it at this spot

908
00:51:41,160 --> 00:51:43,480
Speaker 1: I can hunt and let's walk the cornfield and maybe

909
00:51:43,520 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: we'll get lucky and uh find an early shed. And

910
00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 1: this would have been like January, I don't know, January,

911
00:51:53,920 --> 00:51:56,440
Speaker 1: something like that, late January, but still pretty early to

912
00:51:56,440 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: find antlers, very early to find ailers for a lot

913
00:51:58,840 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: of places. Uh. But I thought, we're gonna walk around somewhere.

914
00:52:01,840 --> 00:52:03,320
Speaker 1: Might as will do it where there's a chance to

915
00:52:03,360 --> 00:52:07,000
Speaker 1: find something. And so I go out with my wife

916
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:11,400
Speaker 1: who's very pregnant, my almost two year old son, and

917
00:52:11,680 --> 00:52:16,239
Speaker 1: both of our dogs, and we just barely get into

918
00:52:16,320 --> 00:52:21,200
Speaker 1: this cornfield. I mean we're forty yards from the road

919
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:23,680
Speaker 1: or something like that. We're just getting out into this

920
00:52:23,719 --> 00:52:28,400
Speaker 1: cut cornfield and I see times and I'm like, holy crap,

921
00:52:28,440 --> 00:52:31,359
Speaker 1: there's an antler right there. And I go running up

922
00:52:31,360 --> 00:52:34,360
Speaker 1: to it. And once I got close up to see it,

923
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:39,839
Speaker 1: I realized, holy crap, that's it's the antler. It's him.

924
00:52:39,880 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: It's trans shed. And then I look a couple of

925
00:52:41,920 --> 00:52:45,160
Speaker 1: feet away and there's the other side his match set

926
00:52:45,680 --> 00:52:50,000
Speaker 1: sitting right there, just barely off the road. Uh. My

927
00:52:50,160 --> 00:52:54,640
Speaker 1: least hard shed hunt of all time, Like the craziest,

928
00:52:54,719 --> 00:52:57,520
Speaker 1: most lucky thing that's ever happened to me. The match

929
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: set of the number one buck I'm after, and I

930
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:02,359
Speaker 1: got to do it with my wife and my son,

931
00:53:03,080 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 1: and uh, it was wild. It was crazy, and I

932
00:53:05,400 --> 00:53:07,600
Speaker 1: guess I should have looked at it as maybe foreshadowing

933
00:53:07,640 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 1: of more good things to come, but uh yeah, they're

934
00:53:10,920 --> 00:53:13,440
Speaker 1: sitting here right behind me on the shelf. And and

935
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:17,600
Speaker 1: that just sent tran fever to another level because now

936
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 1: I had the match set off a buck that I

937
00:53:19,440 --> 00:53:21,439
Speaker 1: was hunting in Michigan. I've never had a match set

938
00:53:22,000 --> 00:53:24,600
Speaker 1: of a deer. I've never found a match that of

939
00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:26,520
Speaker 1: any buck in Michigan, I don't think. And now it

940
00:53:26,600 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 1: was one that I could actually hunt, and it was

941
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 1: a deer that would be five if he made it

942
00:53:30,480 --> 00:53:34,640
Speaker 1: to hunting season. Um, so it was really excited about that.

943
00:53:35,320 --> 00:53:38,880
Speaker 1: What what's awesome is like these stories that you have,

944
00:53:39,040 --> 00:53:43,160
Speaker 1: and I don't know if they're almost unbelievable because it's

945
00:53:43,200 --> 00:53:47,160
Speaker 1: it's like you're you're writing it, you know what I mean,

946
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:50,480
Speaker 1: Like here here's you know, this year, this is what happened,

947
00:53:50,480 --> 00:53:54,760
Speaker 1: and it's like this climactic, this climactic story and then boom,

948
00:53:54,800 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: here's just the sheds and it's it's it's almost like

949
00:53:57,080 --> 00:53:58,960
Speaker 1: you don't even know I need to know the rest

950
00:53:59,000 --> 00:54:00,919
Speaker 1: of the story because you are gonna shoot this deal.

951
00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: It's just like I found the sheds, had all this

952
00:54:04,040 --> 00:54:05,960
Speaker 1: history with him now and now it's just a matter

953
00:54:05,960 --> 00:54:08,400
Speaker 1: of time until you kill him. Man. It never feels

954
00:54:08,400 --> 00:54:12,399
Speaker 1: like that to me, though, Well, you're the guy who's

955
00:54:12,400 --> 00:54:16,600
Speaker 1: spending time in the trees. Yeah, man, it uh, But yes,

956
00:54:16,680 --> 00:54:19,360
Speaker 1: I've been I've been lucky to have a little pocket

957
00:54:19,400 --> 00:54:22,960
Speaker 1: where these bucks feel comfortable and I'm able to, you know,

958
00:54:23,000 --> 00:54:24,799
Speaker 1: not always be right on them, but at least be

959
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 1: seeing them and having the occasional encounter and getting to

960
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:29,680
Speaker 1: know them. And and the other nice thing about this

961
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:32,120
Speaker 1: area is that I can because there's a little bit

962
00:54:32,120 --> 00:54:34,440
Speaker 1: of topography more than a lot of places of Michigan,

963
00:54:34,680 --> 00:54:36,200
Speaker 1: And there's some spots where I can sit up on

964
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:38,839
Speaker 1: hills and seed down into some of this betting, which

965
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:41,320
Speaker 1: is relatively open when you're looking at it from above.

966
00:54:41,360 --> 00:54:44,200
Speaker 1: So I've got good visibility to some of these places. Um,

967
00:54:44,600 --> 00:54:47,360
Speaker 1: which leads me to having all these settings to um.

968
00:54:47,520 --> 00:54:51,200
Speaker 1: But yeah, I found the sheds. It's crazy. Um. Fast

969
00:54:51,200 --> 00:54:53,799
Speaker 1: forward into the summer. My whole plan, you know, in

970
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: preparation for the season, was all about this buck. Um

971
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:00,160
Speaker 1: prep and new trees that I wanted to hunt in

972
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:02,400
Speaker 1: the saddle for him this fall my year. You know,

973
00:55:02,480 --> 00:55:04,000
Speaker 1: as we talked about a few months ago, I was

974
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:05,880
Speaker 1: I was going to be more aggressive than ever before.

975
00:55:06,400 --> 00:55:09,800
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to you know, basically, I was, I

976
00:55:09,800 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: was gonna make moves immediately. I was going to push

977
00:55:12,600 --> 00:55:15,520
Speaker 1: into some spots that I typically maybe wouldn't have, maybe

978
00:55:15,560 --> 00:55:19,439
Speaker 1: even earlier than I would have. Um, I just wanted

979
00:55:19,480 --> 00:55:23,280
Speaker 1: to hunt him down. I was, even though I'm limited

980
00:55:23,320 --> 00:55:24,799
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, I was going to hunt him down.

981
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:30,360
Speaker 1: Was my plan. Um. And then a few things changed,

982
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:35,080
Speaker 1: which which change. This year three was really all about change.

983
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:37,600
Speaker 1: I had all these plans, at all this historical data

984
00:55:37,800 --> 00:55:40,120
Speaker 1: again like I did in year one. In year two,

985
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:44,759
Speaker 1: I've I've documented every daylight sighting, every daylight photo, what

986
00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:47,799
Speaker 1: the wind direction was, what the temperature was, where this was,

987
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:49,640
Speaker 1: where he was coming from, where he was going. So

988
00:55:49,680 --> 00:55:53,640
Speaker 1: I have all this stuff, and this, you know, has

989
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:58,960
Speaker 1: fully informed what I think I'm going to do. In UM.

990
00:55:59,000 --> 00:56:01,759
Speaker 1: You know, I changed my food plots to try to

991
00:56:01,880 --> 00:56:04,080
Speaker 1: encourage him to come out a little bit further. I

992
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:06,360
Speaker 1: planted different stuff, I plan it in different ways. I

993
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: changed tree locations. Um, I see him in August, he

994
00:56:12,280 --> 00:56:14,880
Speaker 1: shows up again. I'm seeing him. He shows up a

995
00:56:14,880 --> 00:56:18,000
Speaker 1: handful of times that I'm out there, and I'm confirmed

996
00:56:18,000 --> 00:56:22,960
Speaker 1: if he's alive. He's a mega stud Michigan five year old. Um,

997
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:26,360
Speaker 1: this is incredible. I'm so excited. Quite a few daylight

998
00:56:26,400 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: sightings leading up to the opener of season. I think

999
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:33,280
Speaker 1: I saw him two nights or three nights before opening day. Um.

1000
00:56:33,320 --> 00:56:40,600
Speaker 1: But then a few things changed. Um. Number one, I

1001
00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:44,040
Speaker 1: end up getting a little bit of additional permission on

1002
00:56:44,080 --> 00:56:46,719
Speaker 1: another neighbors who I'm able to hunt some of that

1003
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,440
Speaker 1: good betting now that in the past I had only

1004
00:56:49,440 --> 00:56:53,120
Speaker 1: been able to watch. Now I was able to hunt

1005
00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:56,040
Speaker 1: some of these places, and and that was totally new

1006
00:56:56,080 --> 00:56:58,000
Speaker 1: for me. There's are places I've watched but never been

1007
00:56:58,040 --> 00:57:00,480
Speaker 1: able to get in there. So all of son, all

1008
00:57:00,520 --> 00:57:02,839
Speaker 1: my ideas of having hunt these edges, having to hunt

1009
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:04,520
Speaker 1: this back betting air, but not being able to hunt

1010
00:57:04,560 --> 00:57:07,879
Speaker 1: the primo betting, having to kind of depend on him

1011
00:57:07,960 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 1: chasing a dough into one of my food plots are opening.

1012
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:14,560
Speaker 1: Now all of a sudden, I don't need to just

1013
00:57:14,640 --> 00:57:16,840
Speaker 1: wait for those things. I can actually go into the

1014
00:57:16,880 --> 00:57:20,560
Speaker 1: best of the best stuff that I've dreamed of forever. Um,

1015
00:57:20,640 --> 00:57:24,440
Speaker 1: So opening day, all that stuff passes and and he's gone,

1016
00:57:24,560 --> 00:57:29,480
Speaker 1: He's one second, one second. I think you're undervaluing that

1017
00:57:29,600 --> 00:57:32,840
Speaker 1: right there. I mean, we can't just skip, you know,

1018
00:57:32,840 --> 00:57:34,440
Speaker 1: you can't just say, well, I gained it access to

1019
00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:38,520
Speaker 1: this farm, because I think I've been in a scenario

1020
00:57:39,120 --> 00:57:42,919
Speaker 1: where that little bit of access plays a big role

1021
00:57:43,160 --> 00:57:48,160
Speaker 1: and maybe not killing him, but figuring him out. And

1022
00:57:48,800 --> 00:57:53,640
Speaker 1: So did that small little access that you got to

1023
00:57:53,800 --> 00:57:58,160
Speaker 1: that additional property get you closer? Did it get you

1024
00:57:58,440 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 1: I mean did it did it help in just a

1025
00:58:00,840 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 1: little way or did it help in a big way?

1026
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,920
Speaker 1: Helped in a big way. Um, if that hadn't happened,

1027
00:58:06,320 --> 00:58:10,200
Speaker 1: the story you're about to hear would be dramatically different.

1028
00:58:10,800 --> 00:58:14,600
Speaker 1: Um because of several other changes that came about. There's

1029
00:58:14,680 --> 00:58:17,600
Speaker 1: all these things that changed. And Um, if I hadn't

1030
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:20,320
Speaker 1: gotten that extra permission, I would have probably had my

1031
00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:24,440
Speaker 1: worst hunting season out here in years maybe ever. Yeah.

1032
00:58:24,480 --> 00:58:26,520
Speaker 1: So my whole point of me bringing this up and

1033
00:58:26,800 --> 00:58:31,000
Speaker 1: kind of emphasizing that particular point is what Mark did

1034
00:58:31,080 --> 00:58:34,440
Speaker 1: here is big. He went after it. He just didn't

1035
00:58:34,440 --> 00:58:38,160
Speaker 1: sit and wait. He he went and he made moves

1036
00:58:38,200 --> 00:58:40,240
Speaker 1: to try to access a piece of ground to get

1037
00:58:40,320 --> 00:58:42,840
Speaker 1: him closer to this buck. And I honestly think people

1038
00:58:42,840 --> 00:58:46,960
Speaker 1: don't do that enough. And access can make all the difference,

1039
00:58:47,480 --> 00:58:50,520
Speaker 1: that is for sure. And um and it certainly did

1040
00:58:50,560 --> 00:58:55,320
Speaker 1: for me because I got I had this extra access

1041
00:58:55,360 --> 00:58:59,040
Speaker 1: now and you know, opening A couple of days went by,

1042
00:58:59,200 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 1: and I stayed kind of conservative. For the first couple

1043
00:59:01,720 --> 00:59:03,520
Speaker 1: of days. We didn't have super great weather, so I

1044
00:59:03,600 --> 00:59:06,240
Speaker 1: hunted some of the edges of that stuff just to

1045
00:59:06,320 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 1: see what's going on, and there was. There wasn't as

1046
00:59:08,680 --> 00:59:11,680
Speaker 1: much going on as I was hoping, So I had

1047
00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: some back forty filming, I had some other things going on.

1048
00:59:14,360 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 1: I was gonna kind of just just because now I

1049
00:59:17,520 --> 00:59:21,160
Speaker 1: could get into that great spot. I didn't want to

1050
00:59:21,880 --> 00:59:24,760
Speaker 1: abuse that. I wanted to say, Okay, I'm gonna wait

1051
00:59:24,840 --> 00:59:27,440
Speaker 1: until I know he's there, and then I'm gonna go

1052
00:59:27,480 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: to the spots I've always wanted to go but couldn't.

1053
00:59:29,400 --> 00:59:32,840
Speaker 1: But I'm not going to rush in their prematurely. Um,

1054
00:59:32,920 --> 00:59:36,640
Speaker 1: So I kind of hunt some observation things, just trying

1055
00:59:36,680 --> 00:59:39,479
Speaker 1: to say, Okay, when's gonna start, you know, moving around

1056
00:59:39,520 --> 00:59:46,160
Speaker 1: a little more. And then my property that I have

1057
00:59:46,320 --> 00:59:52,320
Speaker 1: my original permission on the farmer disks the fields under completely,

1058
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:54,240
Speaker 1: so not just like a light disking. I mean we

1059
00:59:54,320 --> 00:59:57,000
Speaker 1: go from a bean field to a dirt field and

1060
00:59:57,080 --> 01:00:00,520
Speaker 1: dirt And I had to laugh because that when I

1061
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,440
Speaker 1: was in Michigan and I spent the night at your

1062
01:00:03,480 --> 01:00:06,760
Speaker 1: house that one night, and I just like listening to

1063
01:00:06,880 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: you tell me that story about how the the field

1064
01:00:11,760 --> 01:00:15,800
Speaker 1: got dissed under, I felt like like you were suffering

1065
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:19,800
Speaker 1: some kind of depression because like you must have felt

1066
01:00:19,800 --> 01:00:23,320
Speaker 1: that that was gonna play a huge impact in how

1067
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,280
Speaker 1: the deer we're going to move through your property this year.

1068
01:00:25,440 --> 01:00:29,000
Speaker 1: Huge and it and it did. Man. I mean all

1069
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 1: of the movement through the stuff I can hunt is

1070
01:00:31,400 --> 01:00:35,400
Speaker 1: predicated on having these food sources on the outside. All

1071
01:00:35,440 --> 01:00:37,800
Speaker 1: the movement goes from these interior bedding years to these

1072
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:42,200
Speaker 1: exterior agg fields, and without it, they're not going to

1073
01:00:42,320 --> 01:00:44,040
Speaker 1: come onto the stuff I can hunt at all. They're

1074
01:00:44,040 --> 01:00:46,240
Speaker 1: just gonna go the opposite direction to the other side

1075
01:00:46,240 --> 01:00:48,440
Speaker 1: of the square mile where there is food. So what

1076
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:51,760
Speaker 1: I usually have like fifty acres of food that I

1077
01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: can hunt on these farm fields. That brings a bunch

1078
01:00:54,600 --> 01:00:56,720
Speaker 1: of deer through the areas that can hunt, and now

1079
01:00:56,760 --> 01:01:01,760
Speaker 1: it's dirt, and I mean immediately that the next day,

1080
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:04,840
Speaker 1: I was going from seeing you know, fer coming out

1081
01:01:04,880 --> 01:01:08,720
Speaker 1: to these spots from any given location to zero. So

1082
01:01:08,880 --> 01:01:12,240
Speaker 1: if I hadn't been able to push into some of

1083
01:01:12,280 --> 01:01:16,000
Speaker 1: this neighbor stuff, it would have been almost no action

1084
01:01:16,000 --> 01:01:17,920
Speaker 1: at all. I had some food plots on my side,

1085
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:19,880
Speaker 1: but this is the worst year that my food plots

1086
01:01:19,920 --> 01:01:22,080
Speaker 1: have ever been because right when I planned, I'm a

1087
01:01:22,160 --> 01:01:25,040
Speaker 1: drought hit and so there's still food and there were

1088
01:01:25,040 --> 01:01:27,320
Speaker 1: still some deer hitting those little food plots, but it's

1089
01:01:27,400 --> 01:01:30,560
Speaker 1: very minimal. I mean it's it's an acre compared to

1090
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:36,800
Speaker 1: fifty that I would usually have. UM. So, as you mentioned,

1091
01:01:36,840 --> 01:01:38,920
Speaker 1: super depressed, really worried about how this is going to

1092
01:01:39,040 --> 01:01:41,480
Speaker 1: change things. And now I say, okay, well I'm not

1093
01:01:41,520 --> 01:01:43,640
Speaker 1: gonna be hunting a bed to feed pad anymore. I'm

1094
01:01:43,640 --> 01:01:46,360
Speaker 1: gonna be hunting. I needed like a rut kind of

1095
01:01:46,400 --> 01:01:48,440
Speaker 1: movement kind of thing, because they'll still be in these

1096
01:01:48,440 --> 01:01:50,360
Speaker 1: betting areas and now I can hunt the stuff I

1097
01:01:50,400 --> 01:01:53,600
Speaker 1: always hunted, plus some a little bit extra. UM. The

1098
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:57,120
Speaker 1: night of and I do see him finally from a

1099
01:01:57,160 --> 01:02:03,240
Speaker 1: distance the evening of I'm now pushed into. By the

1100
01:02:03,280 --> 01:02:05,840
Speaker 1: time I started hunting, I should preface this, like around

1101
01:02:05,880 --> 01:02:08,960
Speaker 1: the twenty or somewhere around there, I started getting into stuff,

1102
01:02:09,040 --> 01:02:13,120
Speaker 1: and my plan was to, based on the wind, kind

1103
01:02:13,120 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: of rotate around this main betting that historically had been

1104
01:02:16,920 --> 01:02:19,400
Speaker 1: checking for does and hanging out him and and just

1105
01:02:19,480 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: kind of slowly pushed my way in further and further

1106
01:02:22,400 --> 01:02:26,760
Speaker 1: as observations or sign tells me I should. Yeah, um,

1107
01:02:26,800 --> 01:02:29,360
Speaker 1: because again I hadn't hunted in this stuff before I

1108
01:02:29,440 --> 01:02:31,360
Speaker 1: watched it, but I hadn't hunted it, so I was

1109
01:02:31,400 --> 01:02:35,640
Speaker 1: going to kind of like tightening, I don't know, just

1110
01:02:35,680 --> 01:02:40,160
Speaker 1: squeezing down day by day as as I based off

1111
01:02:40,160 --> 01:02:42,720
Speaker 1: what I saw, right, And you had some restrictions too,

1112
01:02:42,760 --> 01:02:45,760
Speaker 1: because you had an X amount of time to do

1113
01:02:45,840 --> 01:02:48,040
Speaker 1: it before you had to leave and go start the

1114
01:02:48,240 --> 01:02:52,360
Speaker 1: back forty stuff exactly. So so yeah, so I knew

1115
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:54,920
Speaker 1: that there was this countdown clock coming down that eventually

1116
01:02:54,920 --> 01:02:56,600
Speaker 1: i'd have to you know, I had to. I had

1117
01:02:56,720 --> 01:02:58,479
Speaker 1: to leave. Even if he was still there and still

1118
01:02:58,560 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 1: running around, I'd have to leave. Um. So I see

1119
01:03:01,920 --> 01:03:04,120
Speaker 1: him the twenty seven, and from a long ways away,

1120
01:03:05,960 --> 01:03:08,440
Speaker 1: I see him with a dough and he's locked on

1121
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:11,520
Speaker 1: a doll, and I told this story a few weeks ago.

1122
01:03:11,600 --> 01:03:13,760
Speaker 1: He's locked on the doll. They're heading the opposite direction.

1123
01:03:14,120 --> 01:03:16,640
Speaker 1: I can finally get into this stuff he's in, though,

1124
01:03:16,920 --> 01:03:18,360
Speaker 1: So I actually get out of my tree and I

1125
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,040
Speaker 1: chase him down, and I tried to stalk and as

1126
01:03:21,040 --> 01:03:22,600
Speaker 1: close as I could get to them, because I knew

1127
01:03:22,720 --> 01:03:24,760
Speaker 1: I knew where they're going. There's nowhere else they were

1128
01:03:24,760 --> 01:03:27,840
Speaker 1: going to go except for to the corn field that

1129
01:03:27,960 --> 01:03:30,960
Speaker 1: was north of this area. So this isn't this would

1130
01:03:31,000 --> 01:03:34,000
Speaker 1: be a field that's adjacent to my dirt field. Um,

1131
01:03:34,040 --> 01:03:35,840
Speaker 1: I can't hunt the corn field, but I can now

1132
01:03:35,920 --> 01:03:38,360
Speaker 1: hunt some of the betting stuff that gets close to it.

1133
01:03:39,240 --> 01:03:41,160
Speaker 1: So I get out of the tree, I stalking as

1134
01:03:41,160 --> 01:03:44,120
Speaker 1: close as I can get. But eventually that wind dies down,

1135
01:03:44,240 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: they get out of sight and they're they're basically in

1136
01:03:46,240 --> 01:03:49,360
Speaker 1: the corn field. It's dead, no wind now, and there's

1137
01:03:49,400 --> 01:03:52,680
Speaker 1: other deer around. So I realized, okay, I'm stuck this

1138
01:03:52,800 --> 01:03:54,640
Speaker 1: As far as I got, I got a hunker down,

1139
01:03:55,360 --> 01:03:58,000
Speaker 1: but I was close to one of my food plots,

1140
01:03:58,040 --> 01:04:01,480
Speaker 1: and on the seven and twenty eight I had seen

1141
01:04:01,600 --> 01:04:05,320
Speaker 1: him sent and check that food plot and I'd also

1142
01:04:05,360 --> 01:04:07,920
Speaker 1: seen a lot of doughs that for whatever reason, we're

1143
01:04:07,960 --> 01:04:10,880
Speaker 1: leaving that corn field and walking the edge down to

1144
01:04:10,960 --> 01:04:14,720
Speaker 1: my food plot. So I thought, well, there's a chance

1145
01:04:14,760 --> 01:04:16,920
Speaker 1: that that dough will go to the corn feed there

1146
01:04:16,960 --> 01:04:20,080
Speaker 1: for a while, and maybe she'll transition down to hit

1147
01:04:20,080 --> 01:04:22,200
Speaker 1: the food plot, like these other doughs have been doing

1148
01:04:22,240 --> 01:04:24,480
Speaker 1: that I've watched. So I just was able to move

1149
01:04:24,520 --> 01:04:27,000
Speaker 1: another like, I don't know how far I went. I

1150
01:04:27,040 --> 01:04:29,360
Speaker 1: was basically there. I just just kind of crept a

1151
01:04:29,360 --> 01:04:31,640
Speaker 1: little bit closer to the spot where if they decided

1152
01:04:31,680 --> 01:04:33,920
Speaker 1: to come along this edge and cross the creek to

1153
01:04:34,040 --> 01:04:37,520
Speaker 1: check that food plot, they'd be in range. How uh

1154
01:04:39,120 --> 01:04:42,520
Speaker 1: and uh, you know. The night, I don't know. By

1155
01:04:42,560 --> 01:04:44,120
Speaker 1: this time it was down to the last half hour

1156
01:04:44,120 --> 01:04:46,280
Speaker 1: of daylight, maybe by the time I had to hunker down,

1157
01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:49,360
Speaker 1: And with maybe ten minutes the daylight left, I see

1158
01:04:49,360 --> 01:04:51,560
Speaker 1: a dough pop over the hill and then times and

1159
01:04:51,560 --> 01:04:54,640
Speaker 1: it was him, and they did exactly what I was

1160
01:04:54,640 --> 01:04:58,400
Speaker 1: hoping they would do. Almost she transitioned from the corn

1161
01:04:58,400 --> 01:05:00,200
Speaker 1: to the food plot, which I still do under dan.

1162
01:05:00,320 --> 01:05:05,280
Speaker 1: They left like a hundred acre corn cut corn field, right, yeah,

1163
01:05:05,520 --> 01:05:07,760
Speaker 1: I think it was still cut. Yeah, yeah, it would

1164
01:05:07,760 --> 01:05:11,760
Speaker 1: have been cut by then. Yeah, So they left a

1165
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:14,840
Speaker 1: huge cut corn field to walk a hundred yards across

1166
01:05:14,880 --> 01:05:16,840
Speaker 1: the wide open dirt field to get to a one

1167
01:05:16,880 --> 01:05:20,240
Speaker 1: acre food plot. Um and a bunch of deer were

1168
01:05:20,240 --> 01:05:21,880
Speaker 1: doing that. I would have thought it would be the opposite,

1169
01:05:21,880 --> 01:05:23,600
Speaker 1: and usually it is they would hit the food plot

1170
01:05:23,680 --> 01:05:25,200
Speaker 1: first and then go to the big field. But for

1171
01:05:25,240 --> 01:05:27,400
Speaker 1: whatever reason, these deer were doing at the opposite and

1172
01:05:27,400 --> 01:05:31,640
Speaker 1: this buck followed her. But instead of them walking the edge,

1173
01:05:31,720 --> 01:05:34,760
Speaker 1: which most of the deer would do, they were about

1174
01:05:34,800 --> 01:05:37,400
Speaker 1: fifty yards farther on the field. So I'm forty yards

1175
01:05:37,400 --> 01:05:40,160
Speaker 1: inside the cover and their fifty yards out into the field.

1176
01:05:40,400 --> 01:05:44,160
Speaker 1: And they crossed daylight fades the closer they haked about

1177
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:47,440
Speaker 1: seventy yards from me. Um. But that was it so

1178
01:05:47,600 --> 01:05:51,000
Speaker 1: very exciting encounter, super cool that had happened. Um, it was.

1179
01:05:51,200 --> 01:05:53,720
Speaker 1: It was exciting to see an aggressive move like that,

1180
01:05:54,120 --> 01:05:57,840
Speaker 1: you know, not quite come together, but sort of proved

1181
01:05:57,840 --> 01:06:01,600
Speaker 1: out like the concept could have worked. And Um, you know,

1182
01:06:01,680 --> 01:06:03,760
Speaker 1: then it was I'm gonna be hunkered in here and

1183
01:06:03,800 --> 01:06:05,520
Speaker 1: he's gonna be locked on that dough. And in the

1184
01:06:05,520 --> 01:06:07,960
Speaker 1: next two days, next day and a half, I did

1185
01:06:08,000 --> 01:06:10,640
Speaker 1: see him again. Um. Basically I was trying to push

1186
01:06:10,640 --> 01:06:12,360
Speaker 1: in on where I thought this dough was gonna go

1187
01:06:12,440 --> 01:06:15,680
Speaker 1: back and forth, and I saw him, but never was

1188
01:06:15,720 --> 01:06:21,160
Speaker 1: Aliot super close. Um. Which takes us then to November two,

1189
01:06:21,960 --> 01:06:25,680
Speaker 1: and we're staring my back forward to start date in

1190
01:06:25,680 --> 01:06:28,640
Speaker 1: the face or running that of time and um again

1191
01:06:28,680 --> 01:06:30,960
Speaker 1: you know this story. I made an aggressive move right

1192
01:06:31,000 --> 01:06:34,000
Speaker 1: to the very smack deb middle of this betting and

1193
01:06:34,120 --> 01:06:36,000
Speaker 1: hunted a tree that I watched for years that I

1194
01:06:36,040 --> 01:06:38,520
Speaker 1: always wanted to hunt, um but hadn't been able to.

1195
01:06:39,240 --> 01:06:41,600
Speaker 1: And I got in there, got a new stand set up,

1196
01:06:41,640 --> 01:06:43,760
Speaker 1: and and I should say, like I'm not hunting prepped

1197
01:06:43,800 --> 01:06:46,320
Speaker 1: stands or anything. This is every single day. Every morning,

1198
01:06:46,360 --> 01:06:48,360
Speaker 1: I'm going in there and hanging a new set. Every

1199
01:06:48,440 --> 01:06:51,360
Speaker 1: night I'm tearing down and moving. Um. I've never been

1200
01:06:51,440 --> 01:06:54,080
Speaker 1: that mobile before. This is every single set. I was

1201
01:06:54,120 --> 01:06:57,680
Speaker 1: in new place almost. UM. So that was a lot

1202
01:06:57,720 --> 01:06:59,360
Speaker 1: of work, but I think it helped me in a

1203
01:06:59,360 --> 01:07:03,080
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Um. And you know he came through

1204
01:07:03,120 --> 01:07:05,720
Speaker 1: before daylight. He was there at ten yards, couldn't shoot him.

1205
01:07:05,840 --> 01:07:08,880
Speaker 1: Eventually got to my downwind side, blew out. Um. Some

1206
01:07:09,160 --> 01:07:13,760
Speaker 1: chasing does and cruising still in there throughout the day. Um,

1207
01:07:13,800 --> 01:07:17,640
Speaker 1: I think I think a couple of things about this

1208
01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 1: because because that happened right he he winded me right close,

1209
01:07:24,960 --> 01:07:26,920
Speaker 1: busted out of there, but then he stuck around chasing

1210
01:07:26,960 --> 01:07:29,800
Speaker 1: does and then like four hours later he crossed the

1211
01:07:29,800 --> 01:07:32,280
Speaker 1: creek with my wind was blowing down about two yards

1212
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:35,200
Speaker 1: away and caught something again and caught my wind there,

1213
01:07:35,440 --> 01:07:39,560
Speaker 1: but uh, you know, headed off after that. And then

1214
01:07:39,600 --> 01:07:42,120
Speaker 1: the next day I bump him when I'm walking to

1215
01:07:42,200 --> 01:07:45,000
Speaker 1: an evening set. He's better with a dough about a

1216
01:07:45,040 --> 01:07:47,200
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty yards from there. He's still in that area,

1217
01:07:47,200 --> 01:07:48,880
Speaker 1: better with a lock down dough. I bumped him out

1218
01:07:48,920 --> 01:07:52,080
Speaker 1: of there. Then the next night, now I'm making another

1219
01:07:52,120 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: adjustment based off you know, he's locked on this dough.

1220
01:07:55,040 --> 01:07:56,960
Speaker 1: If she's gonna come out, you know they're not gonna

1221
01:07:56,960 --> 01:07:59,040
Speaker 1: come right by where I bumped them, but she might

1222
01:07:59,080 --> 01:08:00,600
Speaker 1: come out, you know, down wind to that spot. So

1223
01:08:00,640 --> 01:08:03,440
Speaker 1: I make an adjustment, and here he comes fall in

1224
01:08:03,480 --> 01:08:05,840
Speaker 1: the doll the next night. So keep seeing him in

1225
01:08:05,840 --> 01:08:09,520
Speaker 1: this damn little area, like a ten to twenty a chunk.

1226
01:08:10,200 --> 01:08:15,120
Speaker 1: He doesn't want to leave it. And I've I've tried

1227
01:08:15,160 --> 01:08:17,360
Speaker 1: to think about this, like how come, I'm seeing this

1228
01:08:17,439 --> 01:08:20,120
Speaker 1: mature buck over and over. I'm hunting the heck out

1229
01:08:20,160 --> 01:08:25,479
Speaker 1: of this general area. Um, and he's still moving in daylight.

1230
01:08:25,800 --> 01:08:28,479
Speaker 1: That's something that you don't see from a mature buck

1231
01:08:28,479 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 1: in Michigan very often. So either is he dumb or

1232
01:08:32,120 --> 01:08:38,320
Speaker 1: is there something going on here? And my best analysis

1233
01:08:38,520 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 1: is that number one, I am being, you know, as

1234
01:08:42,360 --> 01:08:45,080
Speaker 1: obsessive as it possibly can about all the details. Right,

1235
01:08:45,160 --> 01:08:47,200
Speaker 1: So I'm not perfect, but I'm as close as I

1236
01:08:47,200 --> 01:08:50,000
Speaker 1: can possibly be. So yeah, he got down winded me.

1237
01:08:50,360 --> 01:08:52,400
Speaker 1: But he must have, you know, with those with my

1238
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:54,599
Speaker 1: O zone, with all the things I'm doing. It must

1239
01:08:54,640 --> 01:08:56,599
Speaker 1: have not been like the obvious, Oh my god, that's

1240
01:08:56,600 --> 01:08:58,840
Speaker 1: a human that's right there. It must have been like,

1241
01:08:58,920 --> 01:09:01,559
Speaker 1: I don't like it. I'm getting out of year. But um,

1242
01:09:01,600 --> 01:09:05,080
Speaker 1: it was enough of head scratcher that he was willing

1243
01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:08,880
Speaker 1: to still be active in their Number two, this deer

1244
01:09:09,160 --> 01:09:11,160
Speaker 1: or this is a mature buck that wanted to get

1245
01:09:11,160 --> 01:09:13,400
Speaker 1: on these doughs. And there was hot dos and that

1246
01:09:13,439 --> 01:09:16,240
Speaker 1: cloud's judgment. So the role of clouding his judgment. And

1247
01:09:16,280 --> 01:09:18,680
Speaker 1: finally a lot of this hunting was going on in

1248
01:09:18,720 --> 01:09:21,320
Speaker 1: a place that this deer historically had not been bothered.

1249
01:09:21,400 --> 01:09:25,519
Speaker 1: This was his safe zone. And for years he called

1250
01:09:25,520 --> 01:09:28,000
Speaker 1: this his safe zone, and it was always safe. And

1251
01:09:28,040 --> 01:09:30,360
Speaker 1: so now in year five, all of a sudden, you're

1252
01:09:30,400 --> 01:09:33,040
Speaker 1: telling me that my bedroom is no longer safe. It

1253
01:09:33,120 --> 01:09:35,599
Speaker 1: might take you a little while to come to grasps

1254
01:09:35,640 --> 01:09:37,559
Speaker 1: with that. So I think he was a little bit

1255
01:09:37,600 --> 01:09:39,840
Speaker 1: hanging onto his safe place. He's like, damn it, this

1256
01:09:39,880 --> 01:09:41,880
Speaker 1: can't be happening. This has always been safe. It's always

1257
01:09:41,920 --> 01:09:45,599
Speaker 1: been safe. So he's stuck with it. And and I

1258
01:09:45,680 --> 01:09:53,080
Speaker 1: kept poking around, and um, you know that eventually proved

1259
01:09:53,080 --> 01:09:56,679
Speaker 1: to be his demise. I didn't talk to you about this,

1260
01:09:57,000 --> 01:09:59,280
Speaker 1: but I did talk about this on a podcast two

1261
01:09:59,280 --> 01:10:01,920
Speaker 1: weeks ago. UM. I eventually had to leave for the

1262
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:05,240
Speaker 1: back forty hunted out there, killed the super cool buck.

1263
01:10:05,439 --> 01:10:07,679
Speaker 1: And because I killed that buck early in the trip,

1264
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:09,840
Speaker 1: I had a couple of day window where I didn't

1265
01:10:09,840 --> 01:10:12,800
Speaker 1: need to be hunting out there, um until our next

1266
01:10:12,840 --> 01:10:14,880
Speaker 1: set of guests came out. So I had two days

1267
01:10:14,920 --> 01:10:18,360
Speaker 1: in between where I could come back and hunt the transpots.

1268
01:10:18,439 --> 01:10:21,400
Speaker 1: And so I did, and I had three encounters with them.

1269
01:10:21,479 --> 01:10:24,200
Speaker 1: One morning, I went in on the south side of

1270
01:10:24,200 --> 01:10:27,000
Speaker 1: this betting area, and at this point My plan was,

1271
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:31,680
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm gonna stick to this area and

1272
01:10:31,680 --> 01:10:34,880
Speaker 1: I'm just going to kind of volume hunted. It's kind

1273
01:10:34,920 --> 01:10:36,920
Speaker 1: of crazy that I'm spending as many sits and am

1274
01:10:36,960 --> 01:10:40,760
Speaker 1: in this like acre zone. But this is where he

1275
01:10:40,800 --> 01:10:43,760
Speaker 1: wants to be, and until he tells me otherwise, I'm

1276
01:10:43,760 --> 01:10:45,960
Speaker 1: gonna keep pounding it. And so I got in there,

1277
01:10:46,479 --> 01:10:49,240
Speaker 1: and you know, an hour after daylight, here he comes

1278
01:10:49,280 --> 01:10:51,320
Speaker 1: cruising and he cruises in like he's head and right

1279
01:10:51,320 --> 01:10:53,000
Speaker 1: to me. I'm clipped on, I'm ready, and he gets

1280
01:10:53,040 --> 01:10:55,160
Speaker 1: like fifty five yards and then kind of angles the

1281
01:10:55,160 --> 01:10:58,439
Speaker 1: other way and angles out, you know, to seventy I

1282
01:10:58,479 --> 01:11:01,080
Speaker 1: tried to snort wheeze to him, and he didn't like it,

1283
01:11:01,120 --> 01:11:03,519
Speaker 1: and he kind of just buggered out of there. See

1284
01:11:03,560 --> 01:11:05,439
Speaker 1: him again that night, chasing a dough way off in

1285
01:11:05,479 --> 01:11:08,839
Speaker 1: the distance from another spot. Next morning, I go into

1286
01:11:08,920 --> 01:11:12,360
Speaker 1: the north side of this betting area. And most people

1287
01:11:12,400 --> 01:11:15,760
Speaker 1: heard this story two weeks ago. Dan, I don't know

1288
01:11:15,800 --> 01:11:18,120
Speaker 1: if you know this or not, but he follows in.

1289
01:11:18,120 --> 01:11:21,439
Speaker 1: The dough blows through my one spot I could shoot,

1290
01:11:21,760 --> 01:11:25,280
Speaker 1: gets into this thick, nasty stuff. I panic. I'm desperate.

1291
01:11:25,320 --> 01:11:28,040
Speaker 1: I've spent so many days and hours and so much

1292
01:11:28,040 --> 01:11:29,840
Speaker 1: time and energy trying to get this buck. And in

1293
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:31,439
Speaker 1: that moment, I'm thinking, I gotta get a shot. I

1294
01:11:31,439 --> 01:11:33,479
Speaker 1: have to get a shot. I can't let this, this

1295
01:11:33,600 --> 01:11:37,080
Speaker 1: opportunity that's finally here, slip away. And so I've forced

1296
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:39,760
Speaker 1: a shot through a little tiny pocket in the brush

1297
01:11:39,920 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 1: that really wasn't a good pocket at all, and I

1298
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:45,280
Speaker 1: miss him, hitting branches and crap. Um, And then I

1299
01:11:45,280 --> 01:11:46,960
Speaker 1: had to go to the back for it again. I

1300
01:11:47,080 --> 01:11:49,280
Speaker 1: leave the back forty. I'm out there for seven days.

1301
01:11:50,720 --> 01:11:55,880
Speaker 1: That takes me to the final hunt the gun season,

1302
01:11:56,040 --> 01:12:00,479
Speaker 1: right bum. Yeah, So gun season opens for seven days,

1303
01:12:00,560 --> 01:12:03,040
Speaker 1: I'm not there. I get back from the back forty

1304
01:12:03,040 --> 01:12:05,240
Speaker 1: and now I can hunt. I'm tired, I'm war out.

1305
01:12:05,400 --> 01:12:07,040
Speaker 1: I'm kind of sick and tired of it, but I

1306
01:12:07,040 --> 01:12:10,120
Speaker 1: feel like I gotta try. Um. Every day the gun

1307
01:12:10,120 --> 01:12:12,320
Speaker 1: season goes further on, there's a chance that one of

1308
01:12:12,320 --> 01:12:15,480
Speaker 1: these other people in the area going to shoot him. Um.

1309
01:12:15,520 --> 01:12:17,519
Speaker 1: So I go out and say, like, yeah, I'm gonna

1310
01:12:17,520 --> 01:12:19,320
Speaker 1: stick the original plan. I want to get back there

1311
01:12:19,320 --> 01:12:21,400
Speaker 1: in that pocket, see if he's still there. And the

1312
01:12:21,479 --> 01:12:25,679
Speaker 1: first day it was just dead. Um saw very little.

1313
01:12:25,840 --> 01:12:28,800
Speaker 1: A neighbor shot a deer and there's a bunch of commotion, uh,

1314
01:12:28,840 --> 01:12:31,760
Speaker 1: coming out. I saw what looked to be a trespasser

1315
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:34,080
Speaker 1: on a property that isn't supposed to be hunted. I

1316
01:12:34,080 --> 01:12:36,400
Speaker 1: saw flashlights out there, so I kind of ran them

1317
01:12:36,439 --> 01:12:39,240
Speaker 1: down and wasn't able to connect, but kind of let

1318
01:12:39,240 --> 01:12:41,920
Speaker 1: these people know that, hey, we saw you at least,

1319
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:44,800
Speaker 1: So all that happens, and then there's no deer heading

1320
01:12:44,840 --> 01:12:48,200
Speaker 1: to the food on the other neighbors like they had been.

1321
01:12:49,160 --> 01:12:52,240
Speaker 1: And I had seen that they had actually disc that

1322
01:12:52,280 --> 01:12:56,360
Speaker 1: field under two So now all of the food that's

1323
01:12:56,360 --> 01:12:58,960
Speaker 1: adjacent to anything I can hunt is all disked under.

1324
01:12:59,800 --> 01:13:03,320
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting here Saturday night thinking, all right, based

1325
01:13:03,320 --> 01:13:05,559
Speaker 1: off what I saw and all this pressure and that

1326
01:13:05,760 --> 01:13:09,439
Speaker 1: all the food's gone. Now these deer just I bet

1327
01:13:09,479 --> 01:13:11,240
Speaker 1: you these doughs have just got to be going to

1328
01:13:11,280 --> 01:13:14,080
Speaker 1: the other side of the square mile. And I still

1329
01:13:14,320 --> 01:13:15,920
Speaker 1: bet you if he's alive, and I don't know this,

1330
01:13:15,960 --> 01:13:18,479
Speaker 1: I don't have confirmations alive, but if he is, I

1331
01:13:18,520 --> 01:13:21,360
Speaker 1: bet you he's still gonna be betting in this area

1332
01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:23,639
Speaker 1: and checking this area for does but he's probably gonna

1333
01:13:23,640 --> 01:13:26,080
Speaker 1: be heading in a different direction than has been going

1334
01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:29,479
Speaker 1: on all year. So the next day I just said,

1335
01:13:29,520 --> 01:13:31,840
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna go hunt back on the main

1336
01:13:31,880 --> 01:13:33,519
Speaker 1: stuff that I used to hunt all the time, on

1337
01:13:33,640 --> 01:13:35,760
Speaker 1: my main property that I've hunted for years and years

1338
01:13:35,760 --> 01:13:38,200
Speaker 1: and years. I'm gonna hunt down on that side that

1339
01:13:38,280 --> 01:13:41,840
Speaker 1: has been absolutely dead all season because of the dirt field.

1340
01:13:42,040 --> 01:13:44,200
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been checking cameras, I've been hunting some

1341
01:13:44,200 --> 01:13:45,720
Speaker 1: stuff where I could still see in there, and it

1342
01:13:45,760 --> 01:13:49,280
Speaker 1: had been just a ghost town. But I thought maybe

1343
01:13:49,560 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 1: because they're on a a different neighbor. Now I've got

1344
01:13:52,920 --> 01:13:55,439
Speaker 1: I'm talking about two different sets of neighbors. There was

1345
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:58,880
Speaker 1: a recently cut cornfield on one east side of the

1346
01:13:59,080 --> 01:14:02,240
Speaker 1: square mile. Then there was a standing corn field to

1347
01:14:02,360 --> 01:14:04,920
Speaker 1: the south of the square mile that I knew of

1348
01:14:05,320 --> 01:14:07,360
Speaker 1: that were now like the only food sources in the

1349
01:14:07,400 --> 01:14:09,800
Speaker 1: area since everything up on me had been dissed. So

1350
01:14:09,920 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 1: my theory was that I'm gonna hunt down in this

1351
01:14:11,880 --> 01:14:15,160
Speaker 1: spot where I can intercept anything that wants to head

1352
01:14:15,160 --> 01:14:17,519
Speaker 1: to the south cornfield coming out of this bedding year,

1353
01:14:17,680 --> 01:14:19,800
Speaker 1: and I'd be able to see from way off in

1354
01:14:19,840 --> 01:14:22,080
Speaker 1: the distance anything that wants to go to the east

1355
01:14:22,479 --> 01:14:25,800
Speaker 1: side of the square mile, and at least see if

1356
01:14:25,800 --> 01:14:27,640
Speaker 1: my hunch is right, and then from there I can

1357
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:31,519
Speaker 1: make an adjustment. And it's gunned season. I'm taking a gun. Um,

1358
01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:34,439
Speaker 1: we're gonna see what happens and and kind of go

1359
01:14:34,520 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 1: from there. That's what I sat up on. I'm sitting

1360
01:14:38,600 --> 01:14:41,320
Speaker 1: kind of in between the good bedding that's off to

1361
01:14:41,360 --> 01:14:43,400
Speaker 1: my north aways, and then there's a little swamp to

1362
01:14:43,439 --> 01:14:45,800
Speaker 1: my south, and then there's other neighbor who that standing

1363
01:14:45,800 --> 01:14:48,680
Speaker 1: corn fields further back behind that. The first three or

1364
01:14:48,720 --> 01:14:51,640
Speaker 1: four hours the night were dead. It was snowing. I

1365
01:14:51,640 --> 01:14:53,960
Speaker 1: thought it would be great, but nothing was moving. Nothing

1366
01:14:54,000 --> 01:14:57,200
Speaker 1: was moving until the last half hour Doe pops out

1367
01:14:57,880 --> 01:15:00,240
Speaker 1: and the dough starts walking down my way, and then

1368
01:15:00,320 --> 01:15:05,880
Speaker 1: right behind her it's Tran And at this point think,

1369
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:09,240
Speaker 1: holy crap, he's alive. This is amazing. But they're heading

1370
01:15:09,240 --> 01:15:11,240
Speaker 1: into like this timber ahead of me instead of to

1371
01:15:11,320 --> 01:15:15,640
Speaker 1: the excuse me where I'm at. It's kind of in

1372
01:15:15,680 --> 01:15:18,280
Speaker 1: between a little finger of a field that goes into

1373
01:15:18,360 --> 01:15:21,080
Speaker 1: this timber on one side and then a power line

1374
01:15:21,080 --> 01:15:22,800
Speaker 1: on the other. And so they pop out in the

1375
01:15:22,800 --> 01:15:25,880
Speaker 1: power line, but then very quickly crossed into the timber

1376
01:15:26,160 --> 01:15:28,080
Speaker 1: and I can't see anything, and I'm guessing that they're

1377
01:15:28,080 --> 01:15:30,880
Speaker 1: gonna stay in the thick of that timber and foul

1378
01:15:31,000 --> 01:15:32,559
Speaker 1: that all the way down to the neighbor that does

1379
01:15:32,600 --> 01:15:34,760
Speaker 1: have the corn, and they probably won't come out to

1380
01:15:34,760 --> 01:15:37,200
Speaker 1: the open where I can get a shot. I still

1381
01:15:37,240 --> 01:15:39,360
Speaker 1: gotta be ready, though, so I get ready. I'm watching.

1382
01:15:39,520 --> 01:15:41,479
Speaker 1: I'm already thinking, like, okay, based on what I sell,

1383
01:15:41,520 --> 01:15:44,120
Speaker 1: what does that mean for tomorrow? He's alive. I can

1384
01:15:44,160 --> 01:15:46,680
Speaker 1: adjust on this. They're heading to the south. Um As

1385
01:15:46,680 --> 01:15:48,800
Speaker 1: I'm thinking to this, the dope pops out again. But

1386
01:15:48,840 --> 01:15:52,760
Speaker 1: now she's closer to me on the power line side,

1387
01:15:52,800 --> 01:15:54,479
Speaker 1: like she's heading to this little food plot that I

1388
01:15:54,560 --> 01:15:56,599
Speaker 1: have over in this other direction too. I'm thinking, man,

1389
01:15:57,160 --> 01:15:59,320
Speaker 1: they're gonna come close. This is actually gonna happen. And

1390
01:15:59,320 --> 01:16:01,280
Speaker 1: then I see a buck pop up and I look

1391
01:16:01,320 --> 01:16:05,360
Speaker 1: at it and it's not Tran. It's this like mini

1392
01:16:05,479 --> 01:16:07,439
Speaker 1: me of Tran. There's this other buck I've been seeing

1393
01:16:07,479 --> 01:16:09,160
Speaker 1: all year that I passed a bunch that's like a

1394
01:16:09,160 --> 01:16:11,960
Speaker 1: two or three year old miniature version of Tran, and

1395
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:14,360
Speaker 1: he's with her, And now I'm thinking, damn it, that

1396
01:16:14,439 --> 01:16:16,439
Speaker 1: was him. I didn't see the real trend. It was

1397
01:16:16,439 --> 01:16:22,240
Speaker 1: the fake tran um ah like I'm having this internal battle.

1398
01:16:22,560 --> 01:16:24,400
Speaker 1: I swear to God it was him. How there's no

1399
01:16:24,439 --> 01:16:27,120
Speaker 1: way I could have mistaken it. He's he's just massive

1400
01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:29,880
Speaker 1: compared to this one. And as this is all playing out,

1401
01:16:29,920 --> 01:16:32,479
Speaker 1: Mini Tran pops over to my side of the tree line,

1402
01:16:32,800 --> 01:16:36,880
Speaker 1: comes across this field um this little finger and gets

1403
01:16:36,960 --> 01:16:39,000
Speaker 1: to the downwind side of me. Comes all the way

1404
01:16:39,000 --> 01:16:41,800
Speaker 1: across to the downwind side of man, stops, hits the

1405
01:16:41,840 --> 01:16:45,120
Speaker 1: wind and has like that you know what when you

1406
01:16:45,120 --> 01:16:46,920
Speaker 1: you do the same stuff I do, use nose onics,

1407
01:16:47,000 --> 01:16:50,040
Speaker 1: you're playing other you know, send control things. He stops,

1408
01:16:50,080 --> 01:16:52,200
Speaker 1: he looks, he's thinking. He's like, I don't there's something

1409
01:16:52,200 --> 01:16:53,880
Speaker 1: over there I don't really like, but I can't quite

1410
01:16:53,920 --> 01:16:56,479
Speaker 1: put my finger on it. And he's looking looking, and

1411
01:16:56,520 --> 01:16:58,479
Speaker 1: then he turns and just starts walking back the way

1412
01:16:58,520 --> 01:17:02,800
Speaker 1: he came. That doe pops out, he stops. He's getting

1413
01:17:02,840 --> 01:17:05,240
Speaker 1: kind of like funky doing the head things, staring at me,

1414
01:17:05,600 --> 01:17:07,840
Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, anytime now this is gonna blow up.

1415
01:17:07,920 --> 01:17:09,840
Speaker 1: He's gonna bugger out of here. And if the real

1416
01:17:09,880 --> 01:17:13,280
Speaker 1: trend is here, he's gone to And just when I'm

1417
01:17:13,320 --> 01:17:16,360
Speaker 1: like worrying through all that, the real trend steps out

1418
01:17:16,400 --> 01:17:18,479
Speaker 1: of the thick timber and starts walking right out to

1419
01:17:18,560 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 1: the edge to where that dough is. And he comes

1420
01:17:21,040 --> 01:17:24,000
Speaker 1: walking right out, gets to the edge, kind of turns

1421
01:17:24,080 --> 01:17:27,439
Speaker 1: quartering to me, and I pull up the scope and

1422
01:17:27,479 --> 01:17:29,519
Speaker 1: I look at him, and there's a huge tree close

1423
01:17:29,560 --> 01:17:31,760
Speaker 1: to me in between us that he is rund the

1424
01:17:31,840 --> 01:17:34,839
Speaker 1: edge of. And if if I let him keep walking,

1425
01:17:34,880 --> 01:17:37,720
Speaker 1: he will go behind that big tree that's by me,

1426
01:17:37,800 --> 01:17:41,360
Speaker 1: So it covers like a like a sixty yard zone

1427
01:17:41,680 --> 01:17:44,400
Speaker 1: or maybe not that much for meet yards of area

1428
01:17:44,439 --> 01:17:45,920
Speaker 1: that he would cover. And then once he got to

1429
01:17:45,960 --> 01:17:47,920
Speaker 1: the other side of that tree, he'd be almost down wind.

1430
01:17:48,000 --> 01:17:51,920
Speaker 1: So I thought, is it's an hour never basically, so

1431
01:17:51,960 --> 01:17:55,400
Speaker 1: I prop up the gun, my elbows on my knees,

1432
01:17:56,160 --> 01:18:00,320
Speaker 1: and he's kind of quarter two and basically put on

1433
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:03,880
Speaker 1: the shoulder and and that was it. I let her eat,

1434
01:18:04,479 --> 01:18:09,080
Speaker 1: and um, it happened fast. It was crazy. He went

1435
01:18:09,160 --> 01:18:12,160
Speaker 1: pile driving out of there, disappears behind a big clump

1436
01:18:12,160 --> 01:18:15,519
Speaker 1: of trees in the swamp. And you know, a couple

1437
01:18:15,560 --> 01:18:17,439
Speaker 1: of hours later, I got some buddies and we went

1438
01:18:17,479 --> 01:18:21,960
Speaker 1: in there great Blood Trail, and Tran was on the ground.

1439
01:18:22,280 --> 01:18:27,160
Speaker 1: It uh it came together. And you know that, just

1440
01:18:27,160 --> 01:18:29,280
Speaker 1: just an hour before that, I've been texting with my

1441
01:18:29,360 --> 01:18:31,800
Speaker 1: friends saying, man, I think it's it got buggered up

1442
01:18:31,800 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 1: hard this weekend. All this food's gone. It's just dead.

1443
01:18:36,040 --> 01:18:37,720
Speaker 1: I'm betting I'm probably have to pull out for a

1444
01:18:37,720 --> 01:18:41,240
Speaker 1: couple of weeks and just wait until December. Maybe, you know,

1445
01:18:41,320 --> 01:18:44,240
Speaker 1: I can refigure stuff out and I'm just gonna observe

1446
01:18:44,280 --> 01:18:47,479
Speaker 1: and move cameras around. I did not think things are

1447
01:18:47,479 --> 01:18:51,320
Speaker 1: gonna come together. And uh, it had been a long, crazy,

1448
01:18:51,400 --> 01:18:54,760
Speaker 1: wild ride, and I was definitely at the end of

1449
01:18:54,760 --> 01:18:56,920
Speaker 1: my rope by the time that had come together. I mean,

1450
01:18:56,920 --> 01:19:01,120
Speaker 1: I had hunted a ton for this year, um and

1451
01:19:01,160 --> 01:19:04,000
Speaker 1: he had he. I just felt like I was chasing

1452
01:19:04,040 --> 01:19:07,000
Speaker 1: my tail. I was seeing him close, not close enough.

1453
01:19:07,040 --> 01:19:09,080
Speaker 1: I mean I had him within sixty five yards or

1454
01:19:09,120 --> 01:19:11,840
Speaker 1: sixty yards so many times. I had the the miss,

1455
01:19:11,880 --> 01:19:14,559
Speaker 1: the almost shot at ten yards, the spotting stock, the

1456
01:19:15,360 --> 01:19:17,240
Speaker 1: you know, I'm here, he's there, he's there, I'm here,

1457
01:19:18,000 --> 01:19:20,920
Speaker 1: over and over and over. And that's exciting and amazing,

1458
01:19:20,960 --> 01:19:24,200
Speaker 1: but it was also really frustrating and being just so

1459
01:19:24,280 --> 01:19:26,840
Speaker 1: close but not close enough, and also every day thinking

1460
01:19:26,840 --> 01:19:28,960
Speaker 1: like any time now the way he's moving, someone's gonna

1461
01:19:29,000 --> 01:19:32,840
Speaker 1: kill him. Um, And it's it's probably not gonna be

1462
01:19:32,880 --> 01:19:34,800
Speaker 1: me because I seemingly can't get out of my own

1463
01:19:34,800 --> 01:19:37,759
Speaker 1: way or can't get that final piece to fall into place.

1464
01:19:37,960 --> 01:19:39,680
Speaker 1: And I just remember as I was walking to the

1465
01:19:39,720 --> 01:19:42,559
Speaker 1: stand that day, actually, as I was walking in, I

1466
01:19:42,560 --> 01:19:46,360
Speaker 1: remember thinking to myself, Man, you gotta get lucky eventually,

1467
01:19:46,360 --> 01:19:49,760
Speaker 1: like you just right, you gotta have I was like,

1468
01:19:49,760 --> 01:19:51,599
Speaker 1: you're doing the right stuff. Like I kept on trying

1469
01:19:51,600 --> 01:19:53,000
Speaker 1: to think, like what am I doing wrong? Is there

1470
01:19:53,000 --> 01:19:54,519
Speaker 1: something I should be doing different? Do I need to

1471
01:19:54,560 --> 01:19:56,800
Speaker 1: be going about this different? I kept thinking, Man, I

1472
01:19:56,840 --> 01:19:59,080
Speaker 1: don't think I would be doing anything terribly wrong. You

1473
01:19:59,160 --> 01:20:01,400
Speaker 1: just haven't had that find a little tiny piece of

1474
01:20:01,479 --> 01:20:03,800
Speaker 1: luck go your way. Just keep doing the right things,

1475
01:20:04,200 --> 01:20:07,599
Speaker 1: and if you do the right things enough times, one

1476
01:20:07,600 --> 01:20:11,000
Speaker 1: of these times that final puzzle piece will be where

1477
01:20:11,000 --> 01:20:14,160
Speaker 1: you need it. And and that's what was on my

1478
01:20:14,200 --> 01:20:17,040
Speaker 1: minds that went to the stand, and and finally that's

1479
01:20:17,040 --> 01:20:20,599
Speaker 1: what happened, The one little chip went my way. Yeah,

1480
01:20:20,760 --> 01:20:24,280
Speaker 1: and it happened. I'll tell you what, man, that's that

1481
01:20:24,520 --> 01:20:29,320
Speaker 1: is a a statement in itself again, something that man,

1482
01:20:29,360 --> 01:20:32,680
Speaker 1: people get real frustrated. And I get it because they

1483
01:20:32,720 --> 01:20:34,559
Speaker 1: don't get the time to hunt like me and you

1484
01:20:34,600 --> 01:20:37,680
Speaker 1: do right. And some of them may be limited to

1485
01:20:38,720 --> 01:20:42,920
Speaker 1: um weekends or only five days of vacation that they

1486
01:20:42,920 --> 01:20:48,320
Speaker 1: can allocate towards hunting or whatever. But if if you

1487
01:20:48,360 --> 01:20:51,920
Speaker 1: put in your time and you cover your basis and

1488
01:20:52,000 --> 01:20:55,680
Speaker 1: you do the right thing, man, I am confident. Now

1489
01:20:55,680 --> 01:20:58,439
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen every time, but I'm confident that you're

1490
01:20:58,520 --> 01:21:03,880
Speaker 1: gonna get more encounters, You're going to have the tide

1491
01:21:03,880 --> 01:21:08,679
Speaker 1: eventually turns your way. I feel yeah. And and sometimes

1492
01:21:08,720 --> 01:21:14,639
Speaker 1: it really is like there's these different there's these different

1493
01:21:15,479 --> 01:21:18,479
Speaker 1: um parts of a hunt, and you need to check

1494
01:21:18,520 --> 01:21:20,439
Speaker 1: off each one of these different boxes. And sometimes you

1495
01:21:20,479 --> 01:21:22,439
Speaker 1: can get away with checking a few of them. Sometimes

1496
01:21:22,439 --> 01:21:25,160
Speaker 1: you need more of them to be checked. Um. You know,

1497
01:21:25,200 --> 01:21:27,519
Speaker 1: sometimes you're gonna get just straight up lucky, and then

1498
01:21:27,520 --> 01:21:30,760
Speaker 1: other times you gotta do everything just right for it

1499
01:21:30,840 --> 01:21:33,680
Speaker 1: to happen. And other days you can do everything just

1500
01:21:33,800 --> 01:21:38,920
Speaker 1: right and it still doesn't happen. Um. So you know,

1501
01:21:39,000 --> 01:21:40,360
Speaker 1: I think it goes back to what we've said a

1502
01:21:40,400 --> 01:21:44,599
Speaker 1: thousand times. You you check every box you possibly can.

1503
01:21:45,360 --> 01:21:48,519
Speaker 1: You work as hard as you possibly can you hunt,

1504
01:21:48,760 --> 01:21:51,200
Speaker 1: you know, as much as you can when it's right,

1505
01:21:52,160 --> 01:21:55,120
Speaker 1: and eventually good things will happen. Like you said, it's

1506
01:21:55,160 --> 01:21:58,720
Speaker 1: not gonna happen every time. Maybe it doesn't happen every year. Um.

1507
01:21:58,760 --> 01:22:01,360
Speaker 1: You know, I'm fortunate that in this case, you know,

1508
01:22:01,840 --> 01:22:03,599
Speaker 1: I'm able to hunt more than a lot of people,

1509
01:22:03,640 --> 01:22:06,519
Speaker 1: and so in this scenario, it required a lot of volume.

1510
01:22:06,600 --> 01:22:09,000
Speaker 1: It required a lot of doing the right thing over

1511
01:22:09,080 --> 01:22:12,639
Speaker 1: and over and over um for all the different mistakes

1512
01:22:12,640 --> 01:22:14,519
Speaker 1: and things to iron out and for it to actually

1513
01:22:14,520 --> 01:22:17,519
Speaker 1: come together for me. So so I'm thankful for being

1514
01:22:17,520 --> 01:22:22,640
Speaker 1: able to do that, but I'm also I guess it

1515
01:22:22,680 --> 01:22:26,280
Speaker 1: also came down to just keeping a little bit of

1516
01:22:26,280 --> 01:22:29,759
Speaker 1: belief and persisting. Um, there were a lot of times.

1517
01:22:29,760 --> 01:22:31,880
Speaker 1: There was a lot of negative self talk over the

1518
01:22:31,960 --> 01:22:34,960
Speaker 1: last two months. There's a lot of days where I

1519
01:22:35,000 --> 01:22:37,639
Speaker 1: was kicking myself or mad about picking this spot rather

1520
01:22:37,680 --> 01:22:39,439
Speaker 1: than that spot, or thinking, man, you're never gonna get

1521
01:22:39,439 --> 01:22:41,920
Speaker 1: another opportunity. Now, you're never going to see him again. Man,

1522
01:22:42,000 --> 01:22:46,160
Speaker 1: you're never gonna you know, there was just so much

1523
01:22:46,760 --> 01:22:49,639
Speaker 1: built into this hunt because it was three years running,

1524
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:52,120
Speaker 1: because all the work in the spring and summer have

1525
01:22:52,240 --> 01:22:54,240
Speaker 1: been about this dear, I can't tell you how many

1526
01:22:54,320 --> 01:22:57,639
Speaker 1: days I've spent with binocular staring out at these fields

1527
01:22:57,640 --> 01:23:01,799
Speaker 1: and these openings trying to see him. I mean hundreds

1528
01:23:01,840 --> 01:23:05,879
Speaker 1: of hundreds of hours um, watching and searching and thinking

1529
01:23:05,960 --> 01:23:09,320
Speaker 1: and planning. UM. And then it makes what's kind of

1530
01:23:09,320 --> 01:23:13,920
Speaker 1: an absurd thing the case, which is I was obsessing

1531
01:23:14,040 --> 01:23:16,880
Speaker 1: over a deer and letting it consume a ton of

1532
01:23:16,920 --> 01:23:19,799
Speaker 1: my mindset and my thought and my time and energy,

1533
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:22,640
Speaker 1: and so it builds this thing up into this huge thing.

1534
01:23:22,720 --> 01:23:25,360
Speaker 1: And I kept telling my wife that, yeah, it's just

1535
01:23:25,400 --> 01:23:30,599
Speaker 1: a deer, but it's also like so much work, so

1536
01:23:30,680 --> 01:23:32,800
Speaker 1: much of me has gone into this thing, and and

1537
01:23:33,040 --> 01:23:35,320
Speaker 1: there's not many other things in life I can think

1538
01:23:35,360 --> 01:23:39,960
Speaker 1: of where I can work unbelievably hard. I can work work, work, work, work,

1539
01:23:40,040 --> 01:23:42,160
Speaker 1: and do everything I know I'm supposed to do and

1540
01:23:42,200 --> 01:23:44,840
Speaker 1: still not get the payoff. Like when I'm writing a book,

1541
01:23:45,200 --> 01:23:47,280
Speaker 1: I knew that if if I work my butt off

1542
01:23:47,520 --> 01:23:49,320
Speaker 1: and if I do the stuff I need to do

1543
01:23:49,520 --> 01:23:51,519
Speaker 1: that I know how to do, I'm going to get

1544
01:23:51,520 --> 01:23:55,040
Speaker 1: that book done. If you know, if I put in

1545
01:23:55,080 --> 01:23:56,919
Speaker 1: the work I need to to do a good podcast

1546
01:23:56,960 --> 01:23:59,120
Speaker 1: and do the right preparation and plan and ask the

1547
01:23:59,200 --> 01:24:01,439
Speaker 1: right questions and spend the time leading into it, make

1548
01:24:01,439 --> 01:24:02,800
Speaker 1: sure we do a good job atting. I know we'll

1549
01:24:02,840 --> 01:24:06,400
Speaker 1: get a good podcast out. Um that's not the case

1550
01:24:06,720 --> 01:24:09,559
Speaker 1: with a hunt like this. And that was like I

1551
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:11,600
Speaker 1: was getting to this point where I was I was

1552
01:24:11,680 --> 01:24:15,360
Speaker 1: feeling I had actually reached a point of resignation. To

1553
01:24:15,360 --> 01:24:16,880
Speaker 1: be honest with you, I gotten to a point where

1554
01:24:16,920 --> 01:24:20,840
Speaker 1: I've been so frustrated and like stressing. I was loving it,

1555
01:24:20,880 --> 01:24:23,400
Speaker 1: but also stressing. And then I got two guns season.

1556
01:24:23,400 --> 01:24:25,560
Speaker 1: When gun season hits, I always kind of used to

1557
01:24:25,640 --> 01:24:28,000
Speaker 1: just kind of hands off, and you realize that it's

1558
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:30,519
Speaker 1: out of my hands. Now, there's way more people out

1559
01:24:30,560 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 1: there now than usual and a lot better chance of

1560
01:24:33,160 --> 01:24:35,599
Speaker 1: than killing him, he's probably gonna get it smoked by someone.

1561
01:24:35,680 --> 01:24:38,000
Speaker 1: And I kind of had to be like, Okay, you

1562
01:24:38,120 --> 01:24:40,400
Speaker 1: did your very best, you worked your damnedest, you put

1563
01:24:40,439 --> 01:24:42,880
Speaker 1: in the time. Um. So I kind of made peace

1564
01:24:42,920 --> 01:24:48,800
Speaker 1: with things when November rolled around. Um And and you know,

1565
01:24:49,479 --> 01:24:51,960
Speaker 1: I don't have much advice to give a person, Mark

1566
01:24:52,800 --> 01:24:57,639
Speaker 1: and especially you, but one thing that I've learned throughout

1567
01:24:57,680 --> 01:25:00,200
Speaker 1: the years is if you can learn to get us

1568
01:25:00,240 --> 01:25:04,800
Speaker 1: that or over that feeling, hunting becomes so much more

1569
01:25:05,360 --> 01:25:11,559
Speaker 1: than then that, if that makes sense. Like the stress part,

1570
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:15,280
Speaker 1: like you said, it's like you can work as hard

1571
01:25:15,280 --> 01:25:17,080
Speaker 1: as you want and the payoff still won't be there,

1572
01:25:17,200 --> 01:25:19,320
Speaker 1: and you start to get this this some sort of

1573
01:25:19,360 --> 01:25:25,880
Speaker 1: stress build up or uh, the worrisome build up that

1574
01:25:25,920 --> 01:25:29,040
Speaker 1: you were feeling. I'm telling you right now, man, I

1575
01:25:29,160 --> 01:25:31,720
Speaker 1: used to be like that too, and i've since I

1576
01:25:31,760 --> 01:25:34,840
Speaker 1: feel like I since planned prep, I do all the things,

1577
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:38,360
Speaker 1: but I leave the worry at home. I leave all

1578
01:25:38,400 --> 01:25:42,400
Speaker 1: the worry. I just don't do it anymore. I just

1579
01:25:42,439 --> 01:25:45,840
Speaker 1: go out and I hunt. And I feel like when

1580
01:25:46,000 --> 01:25:50,040
Speaker 1: I was able to do that and make that step

1581
01:25:50,120 --> 01:25:52,840
Speaker 1: and just say, you know, dude, if it happens, it happens.

1582
01:25:52,840 --> 01:25:56,320
Speaker 1: If it doesn't, it doesn't, and and accept that fact. Dude,

1583
01:25:56,360 --> 01:25:59,120
Speaker 1: I feel like I've reached a different level in hunting

1584
01:25:59,160 --> 01:26:03,120
Speaker 1: and I've been able to enjoy it so much more. Yeah,

1585
01:26:03,160 --> 01:26:06,519
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's awesome. Man. Um. I don't know

1586
01:26:06,520 --> 01:26:09,840
Speaker 1: if I'm I'm probably not that person that I can.

1587
01:26:10,040 --> 01:26:11,920
Speaker 1: I can, I can I get to that point Like

1588
01:26:11,960 --> 01:26:14,360
Speaker 1: I kind of got to that point. I had to

1589
01:26:14,360 --> 01:26:17,280
Speaker 1: force myself into that and realize, like, hey, you tried,

1590
01:26:18,479 --> 01:26:20,400
Speaker 1: and this is where we're at and it is and

1591
01:26:20,479 --> 01:26:23,040
Speaker 1: you know what what has helped me the most, there's kids.

1592
01:26:23,439 --> 01:26:25,240
Speaker 1: You know, whenever I have a bad hunter, or whenever

1593
01:26:25,280 --> 01:26:27,040
Speaker 1: I feel like this stuff didn't go the way I wanted,

1594
01:26:27,040 --> 01:26:29,200
Speaker 1: I would just remind myself of the boys that I

1595
01:26:29,240 --> 01:26:31,000
Speaker 1: was gonna come home to and see him and hug him,

1596
01:26:31,040 --> 01:26:33,320
Speaker 1: and you know, that always bring me back to what's

1597
01:26:33,400 --> 01:26:37,760
Speaker 1: really most important. But but I'm just so goal oriented

1598
01:26:38,000 --> 01:26:41,840
Speaker 1: and I can't help but put so much into this

1599
01:26:42,000 --> 01:26:44,439
Speaker 1: and and really really really wanted to come together. We

1600
01:26:44,479 --> 01:26:47,880
Speaker 1: talked about every year. Um, it's something I worked through

1601
01:26:47,880 --> 01:26:56,960
Speaker 1: every year, but um, I don't Yeah, there's the dogs, Um,

1602
01:26:57,280 --> 01:27:01,840
Speaker 1: congratulations man. Yeah, this one was a wild ride. He

1603
01:27:01,840 --> 01:27:04,400
Speaker 1: he worked me over, he beat me up, he stressed

1604
01:27:04,439 --> 01:27:06,680
Speaker 1: me out, he made me work my tail off. Um.

1605
01:27:07,720 --> 01:27:10,320
Speaker 1: And and it was pretty satisfying for me to get

1606
01:27:10,360 --> 01:27:11,840
Speaker 1: to a point where I kind of was okay with

1607
01:27:11,880 --> 01:27:13,120
Speaker 1: not being able to kill him. I knew that was

1608
01:27:13,120 --> 01:27:16,040
Speaker 1: a possibility, and then to have it actually come together

1609
01:27:16,840 --> 01:27:22,519
Speaker 1: was was a crazy, amazing satisfying ending that. Um that

1610
01:27:22,640 --> 01:27:26,240
Speaker 1: leaves me in a very happy place today. Absolutely. Man,

1611
01:27:26,400 --> 01:27:28,639
Speaker 1: those these big bucks, man, they can make a smile

1612
01:27:28,720 --> 01:27:32,080
Speaker 1: or they can make us cringe, you know. So congratulations brother,

1613
01:27:32,479 --> 01:27:35,120
Speaker 1: thank you, my friend. I'm glad that uh I could

1614
01:27:35,120 --> 01:27:38,719
Speaker 1: share it with you over these years. And um, thanks

1615
01:27:38,760 --> 01:27:40,960
Speaker 1: for all the thanks for all the kind words and

1616
01:27:41,000 --> 01:27:45,439
Speaker 1: advice encouragement along the way. Absolutely, and I guess what

1617
01:27:45,640 --> 01:27:49,280
Speaker 1: here's to uh, here's two white tails for dare I

1618
01:27:49,360 --> 01:27:53,280
Speaker 1: say one? It's gonna be a good year. It's gonna

1619
01:27:53,320 --> 01:27:55,439
Speaker 1: be a better year. It's gotta be better than got

1620
01:27:55,560 --> 01:27:58,519
Speaker 1: to be a better year. Is It's only up from here.

1621
01:27:59,200 --> 01:28:03,320
Speaker 1: That's all right, man, thank you. Let's uh, let's catch

1622
01:28:03,400 --> 01:28:06,799
Speaker 1: up soon and talk about the plan for next year. Alright.

1623
01:28:06,840 --> 01:28:09,040
Speaker 1: So Dan had to bounce off, he had a he

1624
01:28:09,080 --> 01:28:10,720
Speaker 1: had a hard stop. So we kind of had to

1625
01:28:10,760 --> 01:28:13,040
Speaker 1: rush things a little bit there at the end. But

1626
01:28:13,120 --> 01:28:15,280
Speaker 1: I wanted to take a second here to kind of

1627
01:28:15,720 --> 01:28:18,640
Speaker 1: tie a bowl on this and and synthesize some of

1628
01:28:18,640 --> 01:28:21,960
Speaker 1: the main takeaways or lessons learned here for me, And

1629
01:28:22,240 --> 01:28:24,280
Speaker 1: then I think maybe we can all take from this

1630
01:28:24,320 --> 01:28:26,840
Speaker 1: because this isn't yeah, this is a story of my

1631
01:28:26,880 --> 01:28:29,320
Speaker 1: own personal hunt and and this kind of journey I

1632
01:28:29,360 --> 01:28:32,160
Speaker 1: went on. But my hope all along has always been

1633
01:28:32,160 --> 01:28:34,880
Speaker 1: that by sharing these stories you all are able to

1634
01:28:35,000 --> 01:28:38,559
Speaker 1: learn right alongside me. And so now as I'm wrapping

1635
01:28:38,640 --> 01:28:41,080
Speaker 1: up this hunt and I'm trying to process what what

1636
01:28:41,120 --> 01:28:43,680
Speaker 1: did I take away from this? Uh? I want to

1637
01:28:43,720 --> 01:28:48,160
Speaker 1: make sure that that you all can take away something too. UH.

1638
01:28:49,280 --> 01:28:53,200
Speaker 1: When I you know, over this last seven days essentially

1639
01:28:53,200 --> 01:28:56,040
Speaker 1: it's been seven days as I'm recording this, since the

1640
01:28:56,200 --> 01:29:00,200
Speaker 1: hunt actually happened. Now at this point, um, here here's

1641
01:29:00,240 --> 01:29:04,080
Speaker 1: what stands out to me. One of the major things

1642
01:29:04,560 --> 01:29:07,200
Speaker 1: going into this hunt that I wanted to do differently

1643
01:29:07,280 --> 01:29:10,200
Speaker 1: this year was to be more aggressive and mobile than

1644
01:29:10,400 --> 01:29:13,000
Speaker 1: ever before. You've heard me talk about this throughout the year.

1645
01:29:13,040 --> 01:29:14,920
Speaker 1: That was a goal of mine. And you heard me

1646
01:29:15,000 --> 01:29:16,760
Speaker 1: just mentioned to Dan that I thought I did that,

1647
01:29:16,840 --> 01:29:19,400
Speaker 1: and I really do. I think I was more mobile,

1648
01:29:19,600 --> 01:29:24,080
Speaker 1: more adaptable than I ever have. UM. I really fine

1649
01:29:24,120 --> 01:29:27,519
Speaker 1: tuned my mobile setup. I've I had the process nailed.

1650
01:29:27,640 --> 01:29:29,360
Speaker 1: I mean I was going up and down, up and

1651
01:29:29,400 --> 01:29:32,839
Speaker 1: down every day for day after day after day. From

1652
01:29:32,880 --> 01:29:34,679
Speaker 1: you know. I did some of that in early October.

1653
01:29:34,720 --> 01:29:36,880
Speaker 1: There a lot of that laid October right on through

1654
01:29:36,920 --> 01:29:40,240
Speaker 1: the middle and almost towards the end of November. And

1655
01:29:40,400 --> 01:29:44,679
Speaker 1: because I had dialed in that process, and become really

1656
01:29:44,680 --> 01:29:48,000
Speaker 1: comfortable with my gear. It wasn't something that held me

1657
01:29:48,080 --> 01:29:52,240
Speaker 1: back previously. When I wasn't comfortable with those two things.

1658
01:29:52,280 --> 01:29:54,920
Speaker 1: It was a real inconvenience to to move from this

1659
01:29:55,040 --> 01:29:57,599
Speaker 1: stand to that stand, to go hang a news stand

1660
01:29:57,680 --> 01:30:00,200
Speaker 1: fifty yards over there, or to adjust twenty yards, or

1661
01:30:00,320 --> 01:30:02,240
Speaker 1: to move at all. You just want to go hunt

1662
01:30:02,360 --> 01:30:05,320
Speaker 1: the pre hung sets that were there and easy, um.

1663
01:30:05,360 --> 01:30:07,680
Speaker 1: But oftentimes that's not going to put you in the

1664
01:30:07,680 --> 01:30:11,240
Speaker 1: place you need to be, especially if your bow hunting. UM.

1665
01:30:11,280 --> 01:30:13,360
Speaker 1: This year, I wasn't going to let that stand in

1666
01:30:13,439 --> 01:30:17,080
Speaker 1: my way anymore. So I made the moves when I

1667
01:30:17,120 --> 01:30:19,080
Speaker 1: had to make them. When I saw a movement that

1668
01:30:19,200 --> 01:30:22,479
Speaker 1: was thirty yards farther away, I would bump up. I

1669
01:30:22,479 --> 01:30:24,960
Speaker 1: would make that move. Um. I would go in the

1670
01:30:25,000 --> 01:30:28,400
Speaker 1: next day, two hours before daylight and hang new sets,

1671
01:30:28,439 --> 01:30:31,080
Speaker 1: something maybe five years ago I never would have done.

1672
01:30:31,520 --> 01:30:34,160
Speaker 1: Now I'm realizing time and time again that that stuff

1673
01:30:34,240 --> 01:30:37,479
Speaker 1: pays off. It's inconvenient, it's a pain in the butt,

1674
01:30:37,560 --> 01:30:40,880
Speaker 1: it's not easy. It's hard at times. UM. It takes

1675
01:30:40,880 --> 01:30:43,280
Speaker 1: some work to get comfortable doing that kind of stuff,

1676
01:30:43,800 --> 01:30:47,800
Speaker 1: But so often I'm finding that the hard thing is

1677
01:30:47,880 --> 01:30:50,760
Speaker 1: usually the right thing to do if this is the

1678
01:30:50,760 --> 01:30:55,880
Speaker 1: goal you're working towards. Of course, secondly, I had to

1679
01:30:57,760 --> 01:31:02,400
Speaker 1: adopt a different kind of strategy as the season progressed.

1680
01:31:02,720 --> 01:31:06,559
Speaker 1: So early on when I started this, this a couple

1681
01:31:06,560 --> 01:31:08,360
Speaker 1: of week period where I was gonna be hunting for

1682
01:31:08,479 --> 01:31:13,599
Speaker 1: Tran pretty aggressively. That first week, UM, I was mobile.

1683
01:31:13,680 --> 01:31:16,040
Speaker 1: I was bouncing all around the outside of this area,

1684
01:31:16,040 --> 01:31:18,120
Speaker 1: trying to figure out where is this deer, what is

1685
01:31:18,120 --> 01:31:21,240
Speaker 1: he doing. I hadn't seen him at all since late September,

1686
01:31:21,360 --> 01:31:24,080
Speaker 1: So during that period I was moving. I was moving,

1687
01:31:24,200 --> 01:31:27,679
Speaker 1: I was moving, adjusting based off wind, adjusting based off

1688
01:31:27,840 --> 01:31:31,559
Speaker 1: of different things going on. But once we got into

1689
01:31:32,120 --> 01:31:35,040
Speaker 1: that second week in November, I had been seeing him.

1690
01:31:35,080 --> 01:31:38,240
Speaker 1: I had been having these encounters. I kind of had

1691
01:31:38,360 --> 01:31:40,000
Speaker 1: it die all day what he was doing. He was

1692
01:31:40,040 --> 01:31:42,320
Speaker 1: staying in this little, tiny pocket, and every one of

1693
01:31:42,320 --> 01:31:44,880
Speaker 1: the times I saw him or encountered him, it was

1694
01:31:44,920 --> 01:31:47,160
Speaker 1: within this you know, I don't know, ten twenty acres

1695
01:31:47,280 --> 01:31:49,240
Speaker 1: or less, even you could almost in zeer it down

1696
01:31:49,280 --> 01:31:53,680
Speaker 1: to I don't know, I mean of it maybe was

1697
01:31:53,720 --> 01:31:57,599
Speaker 1: happening in five acres um. It was really a small

1698
01:31:57,680 --> 01:32:00,000
Speaker 1: little pocket where so much of this stuff was happening.

1699
01:32:00,000 --> 01:32:02,200
Speaker 1: So eventually got to the point where I was I

1700
01:32:02,280 --> 01:32:04,040
Speaker 1: was bouncing from this spot to that spot, and that

1701
01:32:04,080 --> 01:32:06,559
Speaker 1: spot to this spot, and I was realizing what he

1702
01:32:06,600 --> 01:32:08,200
Speaker 1: was here, and then I was over there, and then

1703
01:32:08,200 --> 01:32:10,479
Speaker 1: I was there and he was here, and I got

1704
01:32:10,479 --> 01:32:13,800
Speaker 1: to the point where I realized, Okay, there's sometimes and

1705
01:32:13,880 --> 01:32:15,320
Speaker 1: you need to be mobile, and you need to be

1706
01:32:15,320 --> 01:32:19,360
Speaker 1: bouncing around, but maybe there's sometimes when you shouldn't do that,

1707
01:32:20,000 --> 01:32:24,519
Speaker 1: and you just need to hunker down and hunt a

1708
01:32:24,640 --> 01:32:27,880
Speaker 1: basic zone that he knows right that you know you've

1709
01:32:27,920 --> 01:32:29,840
Speaker 1: got the right wind for, and you know he will

1710
01:32:29,880 --> 01:32:32,879
Speaker 1: eventually come through and give it two or three days

1711
01:32:33,000 --> 01:32:34,920
Speaker 1: or two or three sits, give it the time for

1712
01:32:35,080 --> 01:32:39,240
Speaker 1: him to rotate through there. And so I eventually realized, Okay,

1713
01:32:39,280 --> 01:32:41,760
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop trying to get fancy with it, and

1714
01:32:41,800 --> 01:32:45,040
Speaker 1: I'm gonna stop outsmarting myself, and I'm going to zero

1715
01:32:45,080 --> 01:32:48,479
Speaker 1: win on these couple of spots and and just hunt

1716
01:32:48,520 --> 01:32:52,400
Speaker 1: him until he's either here or he's not. And that

1717
01:32:52,560 --> 01:32:56,439
Speaker 1: is what eventually led me to, you know, those last

1718
01:32:57,400 --> 01:32:59,800
Speaker 1: two out of the final three encounters with him, one

1719
01:32:59,800 --> 01:33:01,680
Speaker 1: of him was when he came in and got to

1720
01:33:01,680 --> 01:33:04,400
Speaker 1: about fifty five, and then the other one was when

1721
01:33:04,400 --> 01:33:07,880
Speaker 1: I missed him with a bow, and then finally I

1722
01:33:07,920 --> 01:33:10,680
Speaker 1: had to adjust later. But I do think that there

1723
01:33:10,720 --> 01:33:14,920
Speaker 1: was something to be said about finally realizing that my

1724
01:33:14,920 --> 01:33:17,679
Speaker 1: my comment, my my intuition was saying, Oh, this is crazy.

1725
01:33:17,840 --> 01:33:21,040
Speaker 1: He can't keep popping up in the same stupid places. Um,

1726
01:33:21,080 --> 01:33:23,240
Speaker 1: he's got to have moved on. He must have smelled

1727
01:33:23,240 --> 01:33:25,280
Speaker 1: you right now. You must have done something. He should

1728
01:33:25,280 --> 01:33:29,080
Speaker 1: have been educated. But I kept seeing something different, and

1729
01:33:29,360 --> 01:33:35,920
Speaker 1: eventually I had to tell myself, Okay, don't don't what

1730
01:33:36,000 --> 01:33:37,479
Speaker 1: am I trying to say here. Believe what your eyes

1731
01:33:37,479 --> 01:33:41,120
Speaker 1: are telling you, and don't outsmart yourself. Sometimes you just

1732
01:33:41,160 --> 01:33:44,240
Speaker 1: gotta be there and wait until things go the right way.

1733
01:33:44,280 --> 01:33:47,439
Speaker 1: So there's there's this interesting line you have to walk

1734
01:33:47,600 --> 01:33:50,400
Speaker 1: between be mobile, be mobile, get that first set, get

1735
01:33:50,400 --> 01:33:53,799
Speaker 1: that first set, adjust, change, surprise him. But then sometimes

1736
01:33:53,840 --> 01:33:56,719
Speaker 1: you just gotta be there and wait. So that's something

1737
01:33:56,760 --> 01:33:58,719
Speaker 1: that I don't know if what I just said there

1738
01:33:59,560 --> 01:34:03,799
Speaker 1: cleared articulates this thing yet, But there's there's this balance

1739
01:34:04,000 --> 01:34:07,200
Speaker 1: that I'm finding, and you need to learn how to

1740
01:34:07,400 --> 01:34:09,800
Speaker 1: and when to strike that balance and go one way

1741
01:34:09,880 --> 01:34:14,120
Speaker 1: or the other, which then brings me to another big takeaway,

1742
01:34:14,200 --> 01:34:16,799
Speaker 1: which is related to this whole idea of being mobile,

1743
01:34:17,120 --> 01:34:21,000
Speaker 1: and that's the importance of adapting fast. More than any

1744
01:34:21,040 --> 01:34:24,880
Speaker 1: other year, this season, on this set of properties, I

1745
01:34:24,960 --> 01:34:27,639
Speaker 1: had to deal with major changes, lots of different stuff

1746
01:34:27,640 --> 01:34:28,960
Speaker 1: going on for the first time ever that I can

1747
01:34:28,960 --> 01:34:33,080
Speaker 1: remember out here, these crop fields got plowed under, and

1748
01:34:33,240 --> 01:34:37,480
Speaker 1: one of those happened in late October and change things dramatically.

1749
01:34:37,680 --> 01:34:40,519
Speaker 1: And then another set of fields got disked under and

1750
01:34:40,880 --> 01:34:44,720
Speaker 1: I don't know, it was like November somewhere around there,

1751
01:34:44,720 --> 01:34:47,960
Speaker 1: and that changed things even more dramatically. So each time

1752
01:34:48,120 --> 01:34:51,439
Speaker 1: that happened, it it was like a light switch event

1753
01:34:51,600 --> 01:34:54,599
Speaker 1: for the local deer populations. And I went from knowing

1754
01:34:54,600 --> 01:34:57,200
Speaker 1: what deer doing these places historically year after year, to

1755
01:34:57,320 --> 01:35:00,240
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, they're doing things completely different. If

1756
01:35:00,280 --> 01:35:02,400
Speaker 1: I had not been mobile, if I wasn't willing to

1757
01:35:02,600 --> 01:35:07,200
Speaker 1: quickly say, Okay, things are changing, how are they changing?

1758
01:35:07,640 --> 01:35:09,120
Speaker 1: What do I need to do? And I had to

1759
01:35:09,160 --> 01:35:11,840
Speaker 1: do that within a day or two, and and that

1760
01:35:11,920 --> 01:35:15,599
Speaker 1: was key to staying on this deer. Other examples would

1761
01:35:15,600 --> 01:35:19,880
Speaker 1: be hunting pressure. Several different times I had hunters really

1762
01:35:20,000 --> 01:35:22,640
Speaker 1: changed the game for me. Uh So you remember the

1763
01:35:22,640 --> 01:35:25,240
Speaker 1: story back in late October, when I thought I was

1764
01:35:25,280 --> 01:35:27,120
Speaker 1: getting in close. I was really in the best hot

1765
01:35:27,160 --> 01:35:30,080
Speaker 1: fresh sign hunting this spot ahead meal hunt in the past.

1766
01:35:30,479 --> 01:35:32,519
Speaker 1: Finally snuck in there, finally had the wind to do it.

1767
01:35:32,800 --> 01:35:34,960
Speaker 1: And then a neighbor shot a deer like fifty yards

1768
01:35:34,960 --> 01:35:37,080
Speaker 1: away from me and blew their wind all three and

1769
01:35:37,120 --> 01:35:39,080
Speaker 1: really blew that spot up. I thought that was going

1770
01:35:39,120 --> 01:35:41,719
Speaker 1: to be the spot. It wasn't. I had to quickly

1771
01:35:41,840 --> 01:35:44,840
Speaker 1: change put together a new plan how to attack this

1772
01:35:45,240 --> 01:35:48,320
Speaker 1: core zone from a different direction where that hunting pressure wasn't.

1773
01:35:48,560 --> 01:35:50,160
Speaker 1: I was able to do that this year, and within

1774
01:35:50,160 --> 01:35:53,519
Speaker 1: a few days got back on him. Another example, this

1775
01:35:53,640 --> 01:35:57,920
Speaker 1: was the whole example, when Tram was locked on that dough.

1776
01:35:58,479 --> 01:36:01,719
Speaker 1: I saw him locked on the door heading a different direction,

1777
01:36:01,760 --> 01:36:05,080
Speaker 1: and he was the only darem after and he was

1778
01:36:05,120 --> 01:36:07,720
Speaker 1: heading to a food source away from me. And in

1779
01:36:07,800 --> 01:36:10,800
Speaker 1: past years I would have said, well, you know, there

1780
01:36:10,800 --> 01:36:13,040
Speaker 1: he goes. I guess the next hour and a half

1781
01:36:13,280 --> 01:36:15,479
Speaker 1: of the hunt is just gonna be me sitting here

1782
01:36:15,520 --> 01:36:18,760
Speaker 1: and wondering what's gonna happen. That maybe would have been

1783
01:36:19,040 --> 01:36:22,000
Speaker 1: me six seven, eight years ago, but this year it

1784
01:36:22,040 --> 01:36:24,920
Speaker 1: was Nope, I need to think fast. I needed to adapt,

1785
01:36:25,000 --> 01:36:27,040
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be aggressive and make this thing happen.

1786
01:36:27,040 --> 01:36:29,800
Speaker 1: So I decided, you know what, with this wind we have,

1787
01:36:30,880 --> 01:36:32,280
Speaker 1: I think I know where these deer going. I think

1788
01:36:32,320 --> 01:36:34,040
Speaker 1: I know what they're gonna do. I might be able

1789
01:36:34,000 --> 01:36:36,639
Speaker 1: to cut him off. And I went for it, got

1790
01:36:36,640 --> 01:36:39,280
Speaker 1: out of my tree, took a stab at going after

1791
01:36:39,320 --> 01:36:43,040
Speaker 1: those deer, and it didn't come together, but it almost did.

1792
01:36:43,840 --> 01:36:49,519
Speaker 1: So once again, I just have seen examples of quickly

1793
01:36:50,960 --> 01:36:55,200
Speaker 1: analyzing the situation and adapting to those new things fast

1794
01:36:55,520 --> 01:36:59,280
Speaker 1: and being confident in how you adapt. That proved to

1795
01:36:59,320 --> 01:37:01,439
Speaker 1: be very very important. I guess the very most important

1796
01:37:01,479 --> 01:37:03,560
Speaker 1: example was the very last one. I mean it is

1797
01:37:03,600 --> 01:37:05,880
Speaker 1: the very most important. I went from focusing on this

1798
01:37:05,920 --> 01:37:09,479
Speaker 1: core zone I've been talking about all day. Um, that

1799
01:37:09,560 --> 01:37:12,000
Speaker 1: was where I focused like two weeks of the hunt,

1800
01:37:12,439 --> 01:37:14,679
Speaker 1: and then I get back from the back forty seven

1801
01:37:14,760 --> 01:37:18,559
Speaker 1: days later, and everything is different. The deer gone, hunting

1802
01:37:18,560 --> 01:37:21,600
Speaker 1: pressures increased, they're doing things different, and I had to

1803
01:37:21,720 --> 01:37:24,880
Speaker 1: quickly fare, Okay, why are they gone and where have

1804
01:37:24,920 --> 01:37:28,880
Speaker 1: they gone to? And my hunch was that they're heading

1805
01:37:28,880 --> 01:37:30,880
Speaker 1: in a totally different direction out of this core zone.

1806
01:37:31,200 --> 01:37:33,439
Speaker 1: I made the pivot and lo and behold that was

1807
01:37:33,479 --> 01:37:36,160
Speaker 1: where they were and I killed the buck that night. Now, yeah,

1808
01:37:36,200 --> 01:37:38,120
Speaker 1: I got a little lucky, of course I did. Like

1809
01:37:38,160 --> 01:37:40,120
Speaker 1: I mentioned, you have to get lucky every once in

1810
01:37:40,120 --> 01:37:42,360
Speaker 1: a while. But I think because I was willing to

1811
01:37:42,360 --> 01:37:45,720
Speaker 1: make that quick change, trust the gut, trust my analysis,

1812
01:37:45,720 --> 01:37:48,120
Speaker 1: and then move on it fast. I wasn't gonna sit

1813
01:37:48,200 --> 01:37:51,120
Speaker 1: in my usual spot for two, three, four days. Well, eventually, change,

1814
01:37:51,160 --> 01:37:54,280
Speaker 1: eventually change. Nope, when you're not seeing what you want

1815
01:37:54,280 --> 01:37:57,240
Speaker 1: to see, change fast with it. And that's what I did.

1816
01:37:58,160 --> 01:38:00,960
Speaker 1: This brings me to the final big takeaway, which is

1817
01:38:02,000 --> 01:38:04,439
Speaker 1: related to what Dan was talking about there at the

1818
01:38:04,560 --> 01:38:06,720
Speaker 1: end when he made a really good point about how

1819
01:38:06,760 --> 01:38:08,680
Speaker 1: he's been able to get away from the stress and

1820
01:38:08,720 --> 01:38:11,799
Speaker 1: the worry of hunting season and just enjoy it. And

1821
01:38:12,760 --> 01:38:15,439
Speaker 1: he's one correct, that is what we need to be

1822
01:38:15,640 --> 01:38:18,120
Speaker 1: striving for. And for some people that's a lot easier

1823
01:38:18,160 --> 01:38:20,479
Speaker 1: to do than for other people. If you listen to

1824
01:38:20,479 --> 01:38:23,960
Speaker 1: this podcast, you know me. You know me well, you've

1825
01:38:23,960 --> 01:38:29,559
Speaker 1: heard me verbally vomit for seven years now, telling you everything,

1826
01:38:30,360 --> 01:38:32,760
Speaker 1: telling you my deepest, darkest fears, telling you about the

1827
01:38:32,760 --> 01:38:34,479
Speaker 1: best things I've done, the worst things, I've done. You've

1828
01:38:34,680 --> 01:38:38,720
Speaker 1: you've heard me share my mistakes and my successes. You've

1829
01:38:38,760 --> 01:38:42,880
Speaker 1: heard me try to verbally work out my thought process.

1830
01:38:42,920 --> 01:38:46,240
Speaker 1: You've heard me talk about my stresses and think through

1831
01:38:46,280 --> 01:38:49,880
Speaker 1: my strategies. You know what, you know what you're gonna

1832
01:38:49,920 --> 01:38:51,760
Speaker 1: get when it comes to me. And one of those

1833
01:38:51,760 --> 01:38:58,080
Speaker 1: things is being very goal oriented, being very mission focused,

1834
01:38:58,560 --> 01:39:02,360
Speaker 1: shooting for the moon, and and having a hard time

1835
01:39:02,520 --> 01:39:05,519
Speaker 1: not striving for those things. That's me, That's that's just

1836
01:39:05,600 --> 01:39:07,679
Speaker 1: who Mark Kenyon is. I want to do that stuff

1837
01:39:07,720 --> 01:39:10,479
Speaker 1: and I love that stuff, but it also inevitably does

1838
01:39:10,640 --> 01:39:14,519
Speaker 1: lead to stress, frustration, and it leads to you know,

1839
01:39:14,560 --> 01:39:17,360
Speaker 1: every hunting season, I have this back and forth go

1840
01:39:17,400 --> 01:39:19,400
Speaker 1: out in my head, and I've talked about it every year,

1841
01:39:19,520 --> 01:39:23,320
Speaker 1: so you you know this um and when I come

1842
01:39:23,320 --> 01:39:27,280
Speaker 1: back to every year and this year again is being

1843
01:39:27,320 --> 01:39:31,760
Speaker 1: able to find this strike this right balance. So much

1844
01:39:31,760 --> 01:39:33,519
Speaker 1: of what we're talking about here today, you know, this

1845
01:39:33,600 --> 01:39:36,920
Speaker 1: hunt comes down to striking balance. For me. It's this

1846
01:39:37,000 --> 01:39:42,240
Speaker 1: balance between chasing goals, chasing a dream, chasing something you're

1847
01:39:42,240 --> 01:39:44,439
Speaker 1: trying to achieve, or whatever it might be, filling the

1848
01:39:44,439 --> 01:39:47,639
Speaker 1: freezer for the first time, killing your first dear, killing

1849
01:39:47,720 --> 01:39:49,840
Speaker 1: a dear killing your first three and a half year old,

1850
01:39:49,880 --> 01:39:56,439
Speaker 1: dear whatever um striving for them, pushing yourself to do that.

1851
01:39:56,680 --> 01:39:59,759
Speaker 1: I really personally think there is value and pushing yourself

1852
01:39:59,800 --> 01:40:02,840
Speaker 1: to do things that are hard, to take on, things

1853
01:40:02,880 --> 01:40:06,040
Speaker 1: that are challenging and that you might fail at. Maybe

1854
01:40:06,040 --> 01:40:08,639
Speaker 1: that you probably will fail it. I think there's value

1855
01:40:09,040 --> 01:40:12,879
Speaker 1: in trying to do really hard ship and forcing yourself

1856
01:40:12,880 --> 01:40:16,360
Speaker 1: to grow and change and to face that adversity and

1857
01:40:16,400 --> 01:40:18,639
Speaker 1: to push through that. I think that leads to growth.

1858
01:40:18,920 --> 01:40:21,320
Speaker 1: I think that leads to good things. I think that,

1859
01:40:21,920 --> 01:40:26,120
Speaker 1: at least for me, is a really important part of life.

1860
01:40:26,680 --> 01:40:31,160
Speaker 1: So I like that. But what I also have been

1861
01:40:31,200 --> 01:40:34,559
Speaker 1: continuously trying to do is to get better at enjoying

1862
01:40:34,600 --> 01:40:39,280
Speaker 1: not just reaching that pinnacle, but really enjoying the entire process.

1863
01:40:39,800 --> 01:40:42,080
Speaker 1: And I'm really good at enjoying the process prior to

1864
01:40:42,120 --> 01:40:44,320
Speaker 1: unning season, when I'm thinking about it and planning for

1865
01:40:45,240 --> 01:40:48,000
Speaker 1: I'm really good at enjoying the process after hunting season,

1866
01:40:48,760 --> 01:40:50,680
Speaker 1: when it's all said and done and I can look

1867
01:40:50,720 --> 01:40:53,800
Speaker 1: back on it enjoy it in the moment. I'm great

1868
01:40:53,800 --> 01:40:56,920
Speaker 1: at enjoying the process seventy percent of the time, probably

1869
01:40:57,040 --> 01:40:59,120
Speaker 1: I really love it. And then thirty percent of the time,

1870
01:40:59,560 --> 01:41:02,400
Speaker 1: I get it too worked up, and I get too

1871
01:41:02,960 --> 01:41:06,479
Speaker 1: focused on when things aren't going well or why things

1872
01:41:06,479 --> 01:41:09,640
Speaker 1: aren't going well, or this decision versus that decision, or

1873
01:41:09,640 --> 01:41:11,800
Speaker 1: this outcome versus that outcome, and that's this thing that

1874
01:41:11,840 --> 01:41:13,800
Speaker 1: I guess gotta keep on working on. But this year,

1875
01:41:13,880 --> 01:41:19,519
Speaker 1: again I'm reminded of process, process, process, And throughout this year,

1876
01:41:19,520 --> 01:41:21,880
Speaker 1: I kept on going back to this when I read

1877
01:41:21,880 --> 01:41:24,320
Speaker 1: get into one of those little low points. Um, at

1878
01:41:24,360 --> 01:41:27,200
Speaker 1: least what I've seen my progress has has gotten to

1879
01:41:27,240 --> 01:41:29,800
Speaker 1: the point now where I'm not feeling like stressed out

1880
01:41:29,800 --> 01:41:31,559
Speaker 1: and bummed for days on end. It's it's like I'll

1881
01:41:31,600 --> 01:41:34,320
Speaker 1: have a moment and then I have a little mental

1882
01:41:34,360 --> 01:41:37,559
Speaker 1: conversation or internal conversation and then I get out of it.

1883
01:41:37,760 --> 01:41:39,560
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna have those those ups and downs, and

1884
01:41:39,560 --> 01:41:42,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have these conversations, a little self talk crazy

1885
01:41:42,400 --> 01:41:48,280
Speaker 1: markship where I say, Okay, Mark, you're frustrated, you're bummed out, Yeah, okay,

1886
01:41:48,960 --> 01:41:52,040
Speaker 1: but that's just part of it, or okay, that's not

1887
01:41:52,080 --> 01:41:54,360
Speaker 1: achieving anything. What can you do next? How do you

1888
01:41:54,400 --> 01:41:57,040
Speaker 1: move forward from this? Where do we go? And you

1889
01:41:57,080 --> 01:42:01,080
Speaker 1: know what, something I didn't mention, but it probably should

1890
01:42:01,120 --> 01:42:05,120
Speaker 1: be mentioned, is that this last weekend of hunting, all right,

1891
01:42:05,160 --> 01:42:07,400
Speaker 1: I told you that I got back from the Back

1892
01:42:07,439 --> 01:42:09,200
Speaker 1: forty and then I started hunting that weekend, and that

1893
01:42:09,240 --> 01:42:12,599
Speaker 1: first day, that Saturday, Saturday morning, Saturday night was a disaster.

1894
01:42:12,680 --> 01:42:15,560
Speaker 1: Didn't see anything, neighbor shot a deer, saw trespass, or

1895
01:42:15,600 --> 01:42:20,240
Speaker 1: all that stuff happened that night. I came back in

1896
01:42:20,880 --> 01:42:24,040
Speaker 1: Chattel my wife and I said, you know what, I'm

1897
01:42:24,080 --> 01:42:27,120
Speaker 1: just kind of I've been given it my all. I've

1898
01:42:27,160 --> 01:42:29,640
Speaker 1: been hunting NonStop between here and the Back forty and

1899
01:42:29,720 --> 01:42:33,200
Speaker 1: hosting people and filming and doing all these things, and

1900
01:42:33,640 --> 01:42:35,519
Speaker 1: it's great. I can't complain about it. I love it.

1901
01:42:35,560 --> 01:42:37,920
Speaker 1: I'm very I just want to make it clear that

1902
01:42:38,120 --> 01:42:40,519
Speaker 1: I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining about this,

1903
01:42:40,720 --> 01:42:43,880
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it also is. It's a

1904
01:42:43,880 --> 01:42:46,479
Speaker 1: lot of work still, and I had gotten to the

1905
01:42:46,479 --> 01:42:48,439
Speaker 1: point where I was I was worn out too, just

1906
01:42:48,520 --> 01:42:53,240
Speaker 1: worn to the grindstone. I'm not just whooped And I said,

1907
01:42:53,280 --> 01:42:55,760
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not. I'm not going to go

1908
01:42:55,800 --> 01:42:58,280
Speaker 1: out in the morning. I'd originally planned on hunting next morning,

1909
01:42:58,520 --> 01:43:00,599
Speaker 1: but I've been away from my family at I hadn't

1910
01:43:00,600 --> 01:43:03,680
Speaker 1: had a weekend morning to wake up and play with

1911
01:43:03,680 --> 01:43:05,920
Speaker 1: the kids and have a good time. I hadn't done

1912
01:43:05,960 --> 01:43:10,400
Speaker 1: that in three and a half weeks. And I said,

1913
01:43:10,439 --> 01:43:12,360
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going out tomorrow. It's snowing,

1914
01:43:12,640 --> 01:43:16,840
Speaker 1: it's cold, it's awesome. You know, it's stupid not to go.

1915
01:43:16,920 --> 01:43:19,240
Speaker 1: I should go, but I'm not. I'm sleeping in. I'm

1916
01:43:19,280 --> 01:43:21,040
Speaker 1: gonna play with the kids. I don't have a good time.

1917
01:43:21,320 --> 01:43:22,880
Speaker 1: I want to have a little bit of this back.

1918
01:43:22,920 --> 01:43:24,320
Speaker 1: I want to enjoy that, and then I think I'll

1919
01:43:24,320 --> 01:43:26,439
Speaker 1: be more refreshed and enjoy it more when I go

1920
01:43:26,520 --> 01:43:28,360
Speaker 1: back on the evening. And at this point in the

1921
01:43:28,439 --> 01:43:30,800
Speaker 1: hunting season, that's probably what I needed to be a

1922
01:43:30,840 --> 01:43:33,840
Speaker 1: little more focused on. And that's what I did, and

1923
01:43:33,960 --> 01:43:37,400
Speaker 1: lo and behold a morning with the kids um led

1924
01:43:37,439 --> 01:43:42,160
Speaker 1: to an evening with a buck on the ground. Coincidence, correlation,

1925
01:43:42,200 --> 01:43:47,000
Speaker 1: I don't know, But maybe that was Mother Nature or

1926
01:43:47,040 --> 01:43:51,120
Speaker 1: the good Lord above or something telling me that, you know,

1927
01:43:51,439 --> 01:43:54,440
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta take a step back, enjoy the process,

1928
01:43:55,040 --> 01:43:57,120
Speaker 1: have fun with this thing. This thing is about fun.

1929
01:43:57,800 --> 01:43:59,840
Speaker 1: This thing is about enjoying the connection we have with

1930
01:44:00,000 --> 01:44:02,960
Speaker 1: wild animals and wild places. And our family and friends,

1931
01:44:03,600 --> 01:44:06,559
Speaker 1: and and once again that was you know, that was

1932
01:44:08,360 --> 01:44:11,160
Speaker 1: that was illuminated, I guess for me, for lack of

1933
01:44:11,160 --> 01:44:15,040
Speaker 1: a better term. At the same time, though, at the

1934
01:44:15,080 --> 01:44:19,920
Speaker 1: same time, persistence is the name of the game as well,

1935
01:44:20,280 --> 01:44:24,600
Speaker 1: keeping at it, believing it could still happen, grinding in

1936
01:44:24,680 --> 01:44:27,800
Speaker 1: a day after day, all those early mornings, I mean,

1937
01:44:28,560 --> 01:44:32,280
Speaker 1: nothing can really make up for that. Sure you might

1938
01:44:32,320 --> 01:44:34,439
Speaker 1: get lucky some years and kill early. Sure you might

1939
01:44:34,439 --> 01:44:38,120
Speaker 1: get you know, something bounce your way and you don't

1940
01:44:38,120 --> 01:44:39,599
Speaker 1: need to put it in a lot of time and work.

1941
01:44:39,600 --> 01:44:45,479
Speaker 1: But if you want to have consistent success with anything, really,

1942
01:44:45,760 --> 01:44:48,360
Speaker 1: but in this case deer hunting, in my case, trying

1943
01:44:48,400 --> 01:44:51,439
Speaker 1: to kill a mature buck on small properties in Michigan,

1944
01:44:52,040 --> 01:44:56,439
Speaker 1: you gotta just keep after it. And the three year

1945
01:44:56,520 --> 01:45:00,120
Speaker 1: hunt for Tran all these things I just meant and

1946
01:45:00,160 --> 01:45:02,240
Speaker 1: are definitely wrapped up into it. But the name of

1947
01:45:02,280 --> 01:45:06,880
Speaker 1: the game, the big headline across the top over all

1948
01:45:06,920 --> 01:45:13,440
Speaker 1: this is persistence. Persistence through every crazy thing, every obstacle,

1949
01:45:13,520 --> 01:45:16,880
Speaker 1: every mistake, every bad decision, every good night, every bad night,

1950
01:45:16,880 --> 01:45:20,040
Speaker 1: every early morning, every late night, every time where you're

1951
01:45:20,080 --> 01:45:22,120
Speaker 1: tired and didn't want to get up in the morning,

1952
01:45:22,120 --> 01:45:24,120
Speaker 1: and I wanted to hit the snooze button on the

1953
01:45:24,240 --> 01:45:30,360
Speaker 1: little harm clock. Persistence is what killed this dear, So

1954
01:45:31,200 --> 01:45:35,679
Speaker 1: that is, uh is my typical Mark Kenyon long winded

1955
01:45:35,720 --> 01:45:37,519
Speaker 1: way of saying. This has been a hell of a hunt,

1956
01:45:37,960 --> 01:45:42,680
Speaker 1: a heck of a journey. I hope that through this story,

1957
01:45:43,280 --> 01:45:46,080
Speaker 1: this one here on today's podcast, but also the story

1958
01:45:46,080 --> 01:45:48,080
Speaker 1: that I've been telling you that has stretched over so

1959
01:45:48,080 --> 01:45:51,760
Speaker 1: many podcasts over these years, I hope that there's been

1960
01:45:51,800 --> 01:45:55,120
Speaker 1: something that that resonates with you or that you've been

1961
01:45:55,120 --> 01:45:57,559
Speaker 1: able to learn from it. Maybe learned from my mistakes,

1962
01:45:57,560 --> 01:46:01,000
Speaker 1: maybe you learn from my success, may be learned from

1963
01:46:01,040 --> 01:46:07,320
Speaker 1: all my knuckle headed um naval gazing, um talking all

1964
01:46:07,360 --> 01:46:09,600
Speaker 1: this stuff out as I'm just thinking it through. I

1965
01:46:09,640 --> 01:46:12,880
Speaker 1: don't know, but I sure I'm hoping that we all

1966
01:46:13,000 --> 01:46:15,880
Speaker 1: can come out of this um having learned something. And

1967
01:46:16,080 --> 01:46:18,760
Speaker 1: I just appreciate all of you following along. I know

1968
01:46:18,880 --> 01:46:22,000
Speaker 1: some people tire of my stories of these deer over

1969
01:46:22,040 --> 01:46:24,920
Speaker 1: and over again. UM, I hope that's not the case

1970
01:46:24,960 --> 01:46:28,000
Speaker 1: too often, because I I enjoy the heck out of it.

1971
01:46:28,360 --> 01:46:32,320
Speaker 1: I find um, I find it just to be never

1972
01:46:32,439 --> 01:46:36,120
Speaker 1: endingly fascinating, and so I'm thankful that you could all

1973
01:46:36,160 --> 01:46:39,040
Speaker 1: be here along with me. So that is a rap

1974
01:46:39,080 --> 01:46:42,120
Speaker 1: for today. Uh. The only other thing I'll mentioned is

1975
01:46:42,160 --> 01:46:45,160
Speaker 1: that new back forty episodes are up. Speaking of high

1976
01:46:45,200 --> 01:46:47,840
Speaker 1: points this season, my hunt with my dad killing his

1977
01:46:47,920 --> 01:46:50,160
Speaker 1: first deer with the archer equipment that just dropped here

1978
01:46:50,200 --> 01:46:53,880
Speaker 1: a few days ago. It was it was another one

1979
01:46:53,920 --> 01:46:59,000
Speaker 1: of those examples where family friends enjoying the process, enjoying everything,

1980
01:46:59,000 --> 01:47:03,080
Speaker 1: the ups and the downs. Um Man, that that really

1981
01:47:03,120 --> 01:47:05,200
Speaker 1: came to life for me during that experience. So, man,

1982
01:47:05,240 --> 01:47:08,400
Speaker 1: it has been a crazy, crazy hunting season. I've I've

1983
01:47:09,160 --> 01:47:11,400
Speaker 1: I've been really lucky to have a lot of things

1984
01:47:11,479 --> 01:47:14,439
Speaker 1: come together and and learned a lot and enjoyed a

1985
01:47:14,479 --> 01:47:17,479
Speaker 1: lot of incredible experiences out there. I hope you've had

1986
01:47:18,120 --> 01:47:21,519
Speaker 1: a successful, fun and fulfilling hunting season with your friends

1987
01:47:21,560 --> 01:47:24,000
Speaker 1: and family. I hope you're staying healthy. I know these

1988
01:47:24,040 --> 01:47:26,559
Speaker 1: are tough times for a lot of people. Um So

1989
01:47:26,600 --> 01:47:28,519
Speaker 1: I'm wishing you all the best here in these days

1990
01:47:28,520 --> 01:47:32,559
Speaker 1: after Thanksgiving. I hope you can enjoy this holiday season.

1991
01:47:33,000 --> 01:47:36,439
Speaker 1: I hope you can stay healthy and safe and best

1992
01:47:36,479 --> 01:47:38,160
Speaker 1: of luck out there hunting. Thank you for being a

1993
01:47:38,200 --> 01:47:41,000
Speaker 1: part of this community. Thanks for tuning in and until

1994
01:47:41,040 --> 01:47:45,160
Speaker 1: next time, stay wired to hunt.