Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, Tony and I are breaking down our recent
Speaker 2: rut hunting adventures. Some highs, some lows, and a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of takeaways that can help you on your upcoming hunts.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 2: to you by first Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative,
Speaker 2: in which a portion of every sale of first Light
Speaker 2: Spectra Camo goes back to help the National Deer Association
Speaker 2: and the good work they're doing for deer and deer hunters.
Speaker 2: And today on the episode, we are talking rut hunting stories,
Speaker 2: rut hunting tactics, rut hunting tips, rut hunting survival ideas.
Speaker 2: Tony and I have just come back from very interesting
Speaker 2: hunts in which we, I think both of us experienced
Speaker 2: the wild swings that the rut sends you, without a doubt,
Speaker 2: the big highs, the big lows, the roller coasters of emotions.
Speaker 2: We had it all, and so we're going to share
Speaker 2: the story. We both have very significant stories to share.
Speaker 2: Big things happen with both of us. They are dead
Speaker 2: deer on the ground, they're deer still running, and there
Speaker 2: are a whole bunch of things. I think that both
Speaker 2: of us probably have learned from it, and I think
Speaker 2: that we can share with you guys to make sure
Speaker 2: that your upcoming hunts here for the next couple weeks
Speaker 2: in November are better. So that all said, before we
Speaker 2: get into the meat and potatoes of a tony. You
Speaker 2: probably haven't heard yet, but we have a new rock
Speaker 2: Christmas Carol this year. It's called Big White Tails. So uh,
Speaker 2: Phil Triva, cue the music, Here we go.
Speaker 3: I love those be algy bibe big white tails, those
Speaker 3: sneaky run beagy bie big white tails. I love those
Speaker 3: beachy big yeah ah shats e e tales. I love
Speaker 3: those beachy big white.
Speaker 4: Tails, big white tails, big white tails, Big white tales
Speaker 4: are great.
Speaker 5: Hold what fun it is to sit in the freezing
Speaker 5: cold tree all day?
Speaker 4: Big white tales, big white tails, big white tales are great?
Speaker 5: Hold, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
Speaker 5: cold tree all day, dashing through the woods for the
Speaker 5: morning light turns great across the fields and draws creep
Speaker 5: in all the way, climb into the tree. Big folks
Speaker 5: are on the wave. What fun he is to sit
Speaker 5: and wait for my gosh don deer all day? Oh big,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry? What is this? Pitsocado strings? Who do you
Speaker 5: think I am? And you get this out here? I
Speaker 5: don't want to hear it. Thank you? Big white tails,
Speaker 5: big white tails. Big white tails are great. Hold fun
Speaker 5: it is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day.
Speaker 5: I hope sand dreams are high the rut. He's finally here,
Speaker 5: Mark said, it's the most wonderful time to kill o
Speaker 5: whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where you'll find me? Hang,
Speaker 5: it's twenty feet in a tree, grunt tubes, my bowl,
Speaker 5: inspector Cambo. It's really camp nah or two ago. I
Speaker 5: thought that this was fun, but now I'm frozen to
Speaker 5: my seat and the good times they are gone. I've
Speaker 5: ate up all my snacks, my hands and toes unnumb
Speaker 5: and we're gonna climbed down from my stand. That son
Speaker 5: of a but decided to come out.
Speaker 3: Of those beg be white takes. Those you meg be
Speaker 3: white takes.
Speaker 5: I love those be I g big up yall eight
Speaker 5: shot gie etails. I love those big white tails all day.
Speaker 2: All Right, that's pretty good, right, Tony?
Speaker 6: Not bad? Man, not bad?
Speaker 2: So that said, how are you feeling like you just
Speaker 2: got back from your North Coata trip?
Speaker 6: Right, I'm not even unpacked, buddy, everything's still in the
Speaker 6: back of my truck just about. Yeah, just just got back.
Speaker 6: I'm tired, but I'm feeling good. You know, I went
Speaker 6: through I went through a lot of emotions in a
Speaker 6: very short hunt out there, and I left on a
Speaker 6: good one, So I feel I feel good about that.
Speaker 6: But man, this stuff, I know, it's so cliched, and
Speaker 6: we talk about it all the time, but it's when
Speaker 6: we say like, oh, it's you know, it's an emotional
Speaker 6: roller coaster. Bow hunting anytime, or bow hunting during the
Speaker 6: rut specifically, it's literally like that hour to hour all
Speaker 6: day long sometimes. And you know, when you think about it,
Speaker 6: you think it in your head like, oh, you have
Speaker 6: a couple of good days, a couple of bad days
Speaker 6: or whatever. But I was thinking about this when I
Speaker 6: was in North Dakota. I was like this, this happens
Speaker 6: to me and this same thing in Oklahoma earlier. I'm
Speaker 6: up and down all day long, every day just about
Speaker 6: it's so inconsistent and it can break bad or good
Speaker 6: so fast.
Speaker 2: Dude, you had an episode of Foundations out this week.
Speaker 2: I think it was this week or last week, I
Speaker 2: guess it was where you talked about just the added
Speaker 2: chaos that the rut brings to shooting opportunities, right, And
Speaker 2: I think that's just true, not just to shooting opportunities,
Speaker 2: but decisions, to your emotional state of mind, to everything,
Speaker 2: because everything's happening fast, everything's you know, there's all these
Speaker 2: heightened expectations. There's all this heightened pressure on the moment
Speaker 2: because like this is supposed to be the time, this
Speaker 2: is when you took your vacation, this is when the
Speaker 2: deer's finally daylight. There's all these things stacked on top,
Speaker 2: not to mention you might be hunting a new place,
Speaker 2: you might be out of state, or you might be
Speaker 2: you know, doing all these different things. So it is
Speaker 2: as its energy, tension, stress, excitement, everything packed to the brim.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and the whole reason I wrote that episode and
Speaker 6: it really hit home. I thought about it a lot
Speaker 6: when I was in North Dakota on the first day
Speaker 6: was how many people each out and are like, man,
Speaker 6: I cannot get a big butt killed like I. You know,
Speaker 6: I had three opportunities yesterday morning and I got busted
Speaker 6: drawing twice and I shot over his back once and
Speaker 6: you know, I thought he was gonna be at twenty
Speaker 6: and he stopped at thirty seven. And these these shots
Speaker 6: during the rut that you get, they are just amped
Speaker 6: up like they's so it's so rare to just have
Speaker 6: that like nice relaxed deer and just like you have time.
Speaker 6: It's it's always a little bit of chaos or a
Speaker 6: lot of chaos, and it's it's hard to close during
Speaker 6: the rut sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I think you and I both have very
Speaker 2: uh perfect examples of this to talk about and so
Speaker 2: get I mean, like, in the interest of time, let's
Speaker 2: get into it. If you want to take maybe you know,
Speaker 2: half of this time that we've got here today and
Speaker 2: share the story of your rut hunt, share your North
Speaker 2: Dakota hunt, which I don't know if you experienced this,
Speaker 2: but even though the hunts we're talking about half and
Speaker 2: at the end of October at least where i've been,
Speaker 2: it has felt like full blown peak rut. Like I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm seeing them doing everything they would do on November seventh,
Speaker 2: but they were doing it on October thirtieth or thirty first.
Speaker 2: I mean it was banging over by me. And I
Speaker 2: don't know if that was just because that amazing cold
Speaker 2: front we had just had everything feeling comfortable moving in
Speaker 2: daylight or what. But I the last few days of
Speaker 2: hunting I've had have been full blown peak crazy. What
Speaker 2: have you seen?
Speaker 6: Well? You know what I think is interesting about that.
Speaker 6: I think that that's tied to being around a high
Speaker 6: deer density, because where we were is not a high
Speaker 6: deer density, and where I have a bunch of cameras
Speaker 6: up over in northern Wisconsin's a real low deer density.
Speaker 6: And you would be like maybe the pre ruts kicking in,
Speaker 6: like maybe somebody's going. But there's like if you just
Speaker 6: took my life in the last five six days, you
Speaker 6: wouldn't be like, I wouldn't be like it is banging.
Speaker 6: I'd be like, it's like creepy, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: And I think it's just part of it is just
Speaker 6: a function of you know, I've got a buddy who's
Speaker 6: hunting south theasterm Minnesota where I killed that buck earlier,
Speaker 6: and he's he's like you, He's like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: it is on like they are chasing I'm seeing good ones.
Speaker 6: So I think I think that's partly tied to it.
Speaker 2: But real quick, before you go in to further, I
Speaker 2: think that's a really important thing for like people to
Speaker 2: key in on and remember, like, and we've said this
Speaker 2: over the years, We've all seen it. The rut is
Speaker 2: here but not there. It's now, but you know it's
Speaker 2: it's yesterday in this spot, but it's today in this spot.
Speaker 2: So so never assume that what's happening right now will
Speaker 2: be the case six hours from now or twenty four
Speaker 2: hours from now, because it is so different what you
Speaker 2: experience from property to property, or day to day, or
Speaker 2: state to state. I mean, you know, our rough Fresh
Speaker 2: radio episodes I think illustrate that very clearly. Every week too,
Speaker 2: when you're hearing about what's happening in different parts of
Speaker 2: the country, it's usually pretedar and different. Or in one
Speaker 2: week in November when we were doing that over the
Speaker 2: last couple of years, lots of times like I'd be
Speaker 2: having something awesome while you guys are sucking or whatever
Speaker 2: it was. So that's I think for people's mental state
Speaker 2: of mind, that's a good thing to remember, Like if
Speaker 2: it sucks right now, don't be too stressed because it
Speaker 2: can all changed.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, that's that's an easy thing to say, and
Speaker 6: I think it's hard for people to understand. I mean,
Speaker 6: I go into this stuff in most of the places
Speaker 6: I'm hunting where I'm not that surprised to either blank
Speaker 6: or not see crazy rot activity. I mean, when you
Speaker 6: see it, you're like, that's pretty sweet. But you get
Speaker 6: to the point where you're kind of conditioned to realize
Speaker 6: even though I'm anticipating this and I know it can
Speaker 6: happen in any moment, which is what makes it kind
Speaker 6: of fun. Like that's that's what makes the time pass by,
Speaker 6: is just the expectation and the anticipation. But so often
Speaker 6: it just doesn't happen, like for whatever reason why you're
Speaker 6: when you're there in that spot or that area, it's
Speaker 6: just it might be to moral, but it's not today.
Speaker 6: And that's a hard thing, you know, And I think
Speaker 6: you know, one of the things I noticed where I
Speaker 6: was hunting in North Dakota that I've never seen before
Speaker 6: was the sheer amount of trail cameras in where I
Speaker 6: was hunting, because you know, it's public land. And I
Speaker 6: was like, man, if you had one of those days
Speaker 6: where it was happening there and then you had one
Speaker 6: of those stretches where it wasn't happening for a couple
Speaker 6: of days, that trail camera would only tell you that
Speaker 6: you should have been there, do you know what I mean? So,
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people would look at their
Speaker 6: you know, and they were all cell cameras, and they
Speaker 6: would look at it and go, man, they're going today,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna get in there tomorrow. Well tomorrow might be
Speaker 6: no bueno.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. So so walk me through, like
Speaker 2: the most important points of this story. What how to happen?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 6: Man?
Speaker 2: I'm interested.
Speaker 6: So I went to a place not way out in
Speaker 6: west north Dakota, more in the kind of sand hills
Speaker 6: flatter area of the state. And my goal was I
Speaker 6: had a couple pinch points. One I hunted one time.
Speaker 6: I'd hunted this place one time four years ago, killed
Speaker 6: a pretty good one in there, kind of same timeframe.
Speaker 6: So I thought, I've got that pinch point. I've got
Speaker 6: a couple other pinch points with waypoints on them, and
Speaker 6: I'm like, this is going to be a volume hunt deal.
Speaker 6: Like the wind was forecasted to kind of be west
Speaker 6: northwest mostly for the whole trip, so I'm like, if
Speaker 6: I get set up right, the wind isn't gonna you know,
Speaker 6: it isn't going to switch one to eighty and then
Speaker 6: force me to recalibrate or whatever. So I'm like, this
Speaker 6: is going to be kind of a simple rut hunt.
Speaker 6: And we got there Sunday probably I don't know, midday,
Speaker 6: like noon ish, so we had enough time to suit
Speaker 6: up and go. I was like, we're going to hike
Speaker 6: into this one pinch point I know of and ride
Speaker 6: that out. And so we're walking in there, and you know,
Speaker 6: this out there everything is either a section or a
Speaker 6: half section, so it's a mile by a mile or
Speaker 6: a half a mile by a mile. Basically is pretty
Speaker 6: pretty consistent shape of the properties and the size. You know,
Speaker 6: a lot of checkerboard, some of it's bigger. But anyway,
Speaker 6: this piece that I wanted to go to is a
Speaker 6: mile long and it's mostly worthless till the back, you know,
Speaker 6: like ten percent and then you've got some river bottom
Speaker 6: stuff and a really nice funnel pinch point type thing.
Speaker 6: So walking out there, and I know you've heard me
Speaker 6: say this, you're gonna smirk when I tell you this,
Speaker 6: we find this one oak tree, just one giant, great,
Speaker 6: big oak tree that didn't get you know, like there's
Speaker 6: not very many trees out there to begin with, but
Speaker 6: this is just this big, towering oak tree. And as
Speaker 6: we're walking up to it, there's a little kind of
Speaker 6: scrubby tree and there's two fresh scrapes under it, and
Speaker 6: then under the oak tree there's acorns everywhere, and there's
Speaker 6: there was fresh snow, like twenty four hour fresh snow,
Speaker 6: with obvious sign that there was deer all over picking
Speaker 6: those acorns up. And then another big scrape, then another
Speaker 6: big scrape, and then a little patch of kind of
Speaker 6: dogwood and brush rubs all on the edge. And I
Speaker 6: was like, should I walk past this? Like I'm looking
Speaker 6: at this, going I did not expect this here. This
Speaker 6: is more signed than I saw the last time I
Speaker 6: was out there. And so anyway, I walk past it,
Speaker 6: and it's like bothering me a little bit, but I
Speaker 6: get to I get to where this river bottom pinch
Speaker 6: point is and the trails pounded by there there's fresh
Speaker 6: tracks and it's like a funnel of trees along the river.
Speaker 6: And then there's even a pinch point there, so imagine
Speaker 6: like a bluff top of ridgetop and then you have
Speaker 6: that kind of drainage on the side that always pinches
Speaker 6: them up or on top or in the bottom. You know,
Speaker 6: like a real consistent kind of bluffy deal. That's what
Speaker 6: I have going on. And so we get set up
Speaker 6: in stand and I'm like, this is you know, you're
Speaker 6: you're you can't be real picky and your trees out there,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, we got two of us.
Speaker 2: I don't know, like we're not you know, I hate
Speaker 2: I hate trying to get a tree that will work
Speaker 2: with two people.
Speaker 6: It's so hard, man.
Speaker 2: We we have either neither here nor there.
Speaker 6: But yeah, dude, we had. We had to use an
Speaker 6: extra strap on the bottom end to get it around
Speaker 6: this tree and get up there. And you know, the
Speaker 6: way the ground away. It's one of those deals and
Speaker 6: people run into this a lot where you're like, I'm
Speaker 6: gonna get up you know, sixteen seventeen feet whatever, but
Speaker 6: the ground in front of you is already eight feet
Speaker 6: higher than where the tree was because the train falls away,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean that's super common. So we were like,
Speaker 6: not real high, but whatever it was. You know, they're
Speaker 6: North Dakota deer. They don't look up as much as
Speaker 6: a lot of the deer I hunt. So I'm like,
Speaker 6: we'll probably be okay. And as we're sitting there, I'm like, man,
Speaker 6: there's a huge oak tree right on this pinch point
Speaker 6: that maybe that's got a bunch or a bunch of
Speaker 6: acorns under it. I can see down into dreamy river
Speaker 6: bottom stuff. And we sit for I don't know two
Speaker 6: and a half hours, and I look and see a
Speaker 6: deer coming up this cut right in front of me,
Speaker 6: this this little drainage, and so I grab my boat
Speaker 6: and I say, there's a there's a deer coming. And
Speaker 6: it's like a one hundred and thirty inch type eleven pointer, beautiful,
Speaker 6: like heavy, you know, short times, but a really cool deer.
Speaker 6: And he walks up and we weren't quite on the
Speaker 6: same page for being able to like being able to
Speaker 6: shoot right away, and this deer walks up underneath that
Speaker 6: oak tree and just starts like nose in the grass
Speaker 6: looking for acorns first, dear, we see right like right away,
Speaker 6: and so I'm I range him twenty six yards and
Speaker 6: I can't shoot. He's standing there. And finally he takes
Speaker 6: a couple steps forward and I got this window to shoot,
Speaker 6: and you know, Dylan's like, I got him. And so
Speaker 6: I'm like, this deer's freaking toast and so I draw,
Speaker 6: put the pin on him and shoot and just hear
Speaker 6: this twang and he runs off. My arrow went over him,
Speaker 6: and I was like, what I thought something broke on
Speaker 6: my bow. Like I'm like, I don't know what happened here.
Speaker 6: And I'm like looking around and like, is there something
Speaker 6: loose on my bow from travel or something? And I
Speaker 6: can't find anything. But I see that buck cutting back
Speaker 6: into the river bottom stuff. So I knock another arrow,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, maybe I just shanked it, you know
Speaker 6: how Like when that happens, and like, you know, I
Speaker 6: I was keyed up. I'm like, maybe I just screwed up.
Speaker 6: But we were both like something was loud. So this
Speaker 6: buck cuts down into the river bottom. We lose him,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, I can't believe I just missed a
Speaker 6: deer like that on public you know, right away in
Speaker 6: the hunt. So I hang my bow and turn around
Speaker 6: to give, you know, to just talk about this like
Speaker 6: colossal screw up that I just did. And I'm like
Speaker 6: talking to the camera and Dylan goes buck, big Buck,
Speaker 6: big Buck, and I turn around like to grab my bow,
Speaker 6: and this buck is like ten yards away on this
Speaker 6: hill right next to us, So he's like right there
Speaker 6: and he's looking at me, and I'm like, I get
Speaker 6: my bow get clipped on, and he's kind of like
Speaker 6: keyed up, like should I keep going through the cut?
Speaker 6: Should I turn around? And he looks away and I
Speaker 6: get drawn and he starts to walk, and I thought
Speaker 6: he was turning to go away, and so I just
Speaker 6: murped like like like really quietly, and he took off
Speaker 6: like a freaking rocket gone, you know, Like so dumb, right,
Speaker 6: Was that the same deer or different deer? Beautiful aid pointer?
Speaker 6: Just just dumb? Like I should have just let it
Speaker 6: play out, because the way he was probably gonna go,
Speaker 6: I would have probably got a really good shot either way.
Speaker 6: But I was like, you know how it is when
Speaker 6: a deer looks at you and gets wiggy and then
Speaker 6: he starts to like turn, You're like he's gonna leave,
Speaker 6: like I talked myself. Yeah, I talk myself and the
Speaker 6: like he's gonna leave, but I have gotten drawn. I'm like,
Speaker 6: and he's ten yards away, Like all he's got to
Speaker 6: do is just give me an opening, and just instinctively,
Speaker 6: I just like tried to stop him, and he bales,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, holy shit, like I just I just
Speaker 6: screwed up on too awesome deer, like great deer for
Speaker 6: public land, A great deal for private land in most places,
Speaker 6: to be honest with you. So then I'm sitting there
Speaker 6: and I'm like, okay, what happened with my bow? And
Speaker 6: we watched the footage and you can see that buck
Speaker 6: is relaxed. It's windy, that's that front was coming in.
Speaker 6: He's relaxed eating acorns. And when I shoot, he drops
Speaker 6: so hard that you can see his stomach his belly
Speaker 6: hit the snow on the ground and turn so you
Speaker 6: can watch the arrow just missed him. And so when
Speaker 6: we got back and watched it on the big screen
Speaker 6: with the sound, I don't know what I did. I
Speaker 6: was all bulked up, you know, and I just my
Speaker 6: string hits something on me. I don't know what it
Speaker 6: was because you can hear it in the mic, the
Speaker 6: microphone you have right on your you know, right below
Speaker 6: your mouth, and so he got like a head start dropping,
Speaker 6: you know, and it didn't it didn't look like it
Speaker 6: really threw my shot off hardly at all because it
Speaker 6: went right over his vitals, but it missed him, and
Speaker 6: it was just like, what are you gonna do? So
Speaker 6: then I was like I took you know, practice, I'm like, okay,
Speaker 6: I can't recreate this. So it was just one of
Speaker 6: those deals where you know, I just bulked up and
Speaker 6: all my clothes because we were sitting up on a
Speaker 6: ridge in that north wind and just total rookie like whatever.
Speaker 2: So what's going through your mind after that happens? Like
Speaker 2: two epic colossal failures on this hunt? You've got all
Speaker 2: this excitement built into leading up to those moments and
Speaker 2: then bam, it's there and gone. Do you have that
Speaker 2: thought like as that hunt ends, that night ends, Like, dude,
Speaker 2: those are my opportunities. You usually can only ask for
Speaker 2: one opportunity on a hunt, let alone two. And then
Speaker 2: there was on your first day and no dead deer?
Speaker 2: Where was your head at?
Speaker 6: Well? So what I didn't tell you? I should have
Speaker 6: told you is when we walked in there and I
Speaker 6: looked at it, I was like, we're just going to
Speaker 6: volume hunt this and kill a deer, like this is
Speaker 6: gonna happen. So I was way confident sitting there, and
Speaker 6: then some dude drove out, and this is before the
Speaker 6: bucks came in on a road that I didn't even
Speaker 6: know existed. There an access road from like a neighboring
Speaker 6: property or something, I don't know, parks. We can watch
Speaker 6: him getting all of his stuff on, and we had
Speaker 6: found one person's tracks in the snow, not coming to
Speaker 6: where we were hunting, but like close enough where you're like, okay,
Speaker 6: he was probably in here this morning. And that guy
Speaker 6: suits up in the back of his you know, back
Speaker 6: of the truck whatever, grabs his bow, grabs a camp chair,
Speaker 6: and starts walking right at me. And so I'm like
Speaker 6: kind of hanging off the tree, waving because there's only
Speaker 6: a little bit of cover back there, and he got
Speaker 6: finally got close enough where he saw me he waved
Speaker 6: and turn around. So that was really cool. I really
Speaker 6: appreciated that guy doing that because you don't you know,
Speaker 6: you don't know, like that's what I would do if
Speaker 6: somebody was there, but it's a small spot. So then
Speaker 6: I go from you know, I was real optimistic getting
Speaker 6: in there to seeing him pull up really kind of
Speaker 6: knock me down a peg. Then two deer come in
Speaker 6: that are great, and I screw up on both of them.
Speaker 6: So I'm like, I don't at the end of the day,
Speaker 6: those are the only two deer we saw, two big bucks,
Speaker 6: and I'm like, this is still probably a volume hunt spot,
Speaker 6: but I don't know if other people are going to
Speaker 6: be coming in here, Like I don't know, I don't
Speaker 6: know if I did just lose my two chances, Like
Speaker 6: I don't know if those were my only ones or not.
Speaker 6: So it was like, you know, looking at the forecast
Speaker 6: and everything, it was like, we probably have enough time
Speaker 6: to get back on something. But my confidence level was
Speaker 6: like not quite as it wasn't quite as high as
Speaker 6: it was.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 6: All that goes like, I mean, you can go, I
Speaker 6: can go a whole season and not have two bucks
Speaker 6: like that that close to me, let alone in five
Speaker 6: minutes on public land.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what'd you do next?
Speaker 6: So the next morning, same wind, cold, I mean it
Speaker 6: was like twenty five mile per hour winds and we
Speaker 6: were up on this ridge, and you know, in North
Speaker 6: Dakota there's no tree, so it's like it's just whipping
Speaker 6: across the prairie. But I'm like, we gotta go back,
Speaker 6: you know, like we gotta go be in there, cause
Speaker 6: I kind of thought that pinch Point would be even
Speaker 6: better in the morning. So we go in there and
Speaker 6: sit till eleven o'clock and freeze and see nothing. And
Speaker 6: so then I was talking to Dylan. I'm like, we
Speaker 6: we'd kind of thought about doing an all days sit,
Speaker 6: but I was like, there's just no way we're gonna
Speaker 6: be It's it was brutal. So I'm like, let's go
Speaker 6: get down and go back to that oak tree. See
Speaker 6: if we can find a set up to just go
Speaker 6: grab the saddles and just do something or eat, like
Speaker 6: sit on the ground whatever. And I could tell Dylan
Speaker 6: was like, Uh, do you really think you should leave
Speaker 6: this spot? Like we might we might be in Jurassic
Speaker 6: Park here and you want to walk away. But we
Speaker 6: get down hike over there, and it's halfway back, so
Speaker 6: it's like a half a mile from the truck, half
Speaker 6: a mile from where we were sitting just about. And
Speaker 6: we get there and it's just it's just covered insigne
Speaker 6: and we look at like every tree, like, could we
Speaker 6: get in there, could we stand on that limb? Could
Speaker 6: he film this way? Could I shoot from this direction?
Speaker 6: Like and you only have a couple options, you know,
Speaker 6: And we're just looking at it, and I'm going, we're
Speaker 6: not We're not gonna be able to do it, Like
Speaker 6: I just I don't see it happening to be able
Speaker 6: to shoot to this specific tree. And so I'm looking
Speaker 6: at the ground where that all that dog wooden stuff
Speaker 6: is and I'm like, man, we could almost just tuck
Speaker 6: in here. There was like kind of some dead fall
Speaker 6: stuff and some brush and it was so windy that
Speaker 6: all these little, uh kind of like poplar saplings just
Speaker 6: blowing in the wind or these aspen saplings whatever they were,
Speaker 6: and they all still had their leaves on because they're
Speaker 6: low to the ground. And it was just movement everywhere
Speaker 6: like kind of you know, sawgrass and just brushy stuff.
Speaker 6: And I was like, if we tuck in here, maybe
Speaker 6: like maybe a buck will come through or go grab
Speaker 6: a bite acorns and not spot us. So we kind
Speaker 6: of set up and drag a dead tree over their
Speaker 6: little ways and whatever or you know, some dead brush
Speaker 6: and sit down and he's just behind me, and I'm like,
Speaker 6: look around them like there's no way, Like there's there's
Speaker 6: no way. But it was it was, you know, it
Speaker 6: was like kind of out of the wind. We were
Speaker 6: a little buffered thirty five yards from the base of
Speaker 6: that giant oak tree, you know, kind of some patches
Speaker 6: of brush and one patch of trees where they could
Speaker 6: just filter in, you know, and not get spotted. And
Speaker 6: then on a neighboring property you could see this private property.
Speaker 6: You could see on onex a giant slough and I
Speaker 6: was like, man, it's that slew probably has doze bedded
Speaker 6: all over in it. So I'm like, let's just ride
Speaker 6: it out. And we're sitting there. It's like noon, you know,
Speaker 6: so you can hunt till almost seven there, a quarter
Speaker 6: to seven something like that. So we have like seven
Speaker 6: hours of sitting on the ground where I'm like, we're
Speaker 6: not going to have like a crew, like a one
Speaker 6: o'clock cruiser coming through, Like this is just not that spot.
Speaker 6: So we sit there all day, you know, like the
Speaker 6: rest of the day, and it gets to like six
Speaker 6: twenty five and it's blizzard. The wind has blown even hard.
Speaker 6: We haven't seen anything. And we had been talking and
Speaker 6: I was like, there was one patch of big cottonwoods
Speaker 6: that had some dogwood underneath. It kind of like a
Speaker 6: three acre patch in the middle of this big grassland.
Speaker 6: And I was like, there's like, why wouldn't there be
Speaker 6: a buck bedded there that would just walk into here?
Speaker 6: And He's like, yeah, I wouldn't be so awesome if
Speaker 6: we looked up there and just like across the prairie,
Speaker 6: here comes this buck. And like five minutes later, I
Speaker 6: look up and here comes this buck, just like we
Speaker 6: envisioned it. And I'm like, oh my god, there's one coming.
Speaker 6: And that buck walked in and it was like he
Speaker 6: was committing a suicide. He walked in like he could
Speaker 6: have come in from any direction because it's pretty wide open,
Speaker 6: you know. And he like takes a route right at
Speaker 6: us and then takes a hard right and just goes
Speaker 6: to thirty yards and puts his head down to feet
Speaker 6: on acorns, never looked at us. So I dialed into
Speaker 6: thirty and shot him right through the heart. He took off,
Speaker 6: and it was like first year we saw being out
Speaker 6: there all day and I'm like, we've seen three deer
Speaker 6: and they've all been awesome bucks, just wild.
Speaker 2: Wild man. That is uh, that's the rut it can be.
Speaker 2: You're right, well, that was very much a rut type
Speaker 2: classic on craziness dude.
Speaker 6: And you know what so that, you know, there's two
Speaker 6: lessons there, right, Like again I walked by the sign
Speaker 6: that I shouldn't have walked by, and he was like,
Speaker 6: he's like, I did not think we should have left
Speaker 6: that other spot. Like he's like, I can't believe we
Speaker 6: came back here to do this. But it was just,
Speaker 6: you know, it was cold. Those deer were looking for calories,
Speaker 6: you know. Like the two bucks that I shot at
Speaker 6: were both they weren't rutting up. They were just zero
Speaker 6: point A to B to get to this one tree
Speaker 6: they knew about that had acorns under it, you know.
Speaker 6: And as soon as that, so he was like, don't
Speaker 6: walk by this, like, don't walk by this sign over
Speaker 6: and over again. I keep running into that. And the
Speaker 6: other thing was when when that buck ran off, he
Speaker 6: ran off, jump the fence and died right in front
Speaker 6: of us. Basically we were like, oh my god, I
Speaker 6: cannot believe that just happened. After a day of not
Speaker 6: seeing anything, and then I looked and I saw deer
Speaker 6: legs coming from the backside of the tree through some
Speaker 6: of this brush. I'm like, there's another one coming and
Speaker 6: looking it's a dough And she walked in through the brush,
Speaker 6: pegged us, and ran away like and so, you know,
Speaker 6: people are always like, you know, like when we went
Speaker 6: down in Oklahoma for that, when I hunted with Steve
Speaker 6: and I killed those two little bucks and he killed
Speaker 6: a buck, like, people will be like, how come you
Speaker 6: guys didn't shoot some does? It's like we literally didn't
Speaker 6: have a chance. Like sometimes, you know, we take it
Speaker 6: for granted that, you know, these big bucks, like they're
Speaker 6: so cagey and everything, but a lot of times they're
Speaker 6: super confident, and it's the doze you have to worry
Speaker 6: about busting you and blowing up your hunt. Like they
Speaker 6: they're tolerance like pressure does They're tolerance is so freaking low.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. So he was kind of on a
Speaker 2: pre rop pattern then, still like he was just like
Speaker 2: coming to eat at a high traffic area, right, So.
Speaker 6: I think, yes, I think both of the bucks I
Speaker 6: shot at were just like I'm gonna go get some calories,
Speaker 6: and I know I'm gonna be where dose are gonna
Speaker 6: go by, Like when you see it, when you see
Speaker 6: a fresh scrape line like that right now in a
Speaker 6: place with that much food, like concentrated kind of seasonal food,
Speaker 6: It's like the reason those scrapes are there is because
Speaker 6: there's a ton of dose using it too. So I
Speaker 6: think he was just like, I'm gonna go fill up
Speaker 6: my belly a little bit, like he knew that dose
Speaker 6: were gonna come to him too.
Speaker 2: So if you were hunting that spot today when people
Speaker 2: are listening to this November ninth, would you what would
Speaker 2: you do on November ninth? Would you go to that
Speaker 2: pinch point that you originally went to and just stick
Speaker 2: with that original volume strategy, like sit that terrain funnel
Speaker 2: and wait it out for days?
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, I would. And I'll say this too about
Speaker 6: that spot. This is real hard to describe, so I
Speaker 6: don't want to bore everybody, but this is like a
Speaker 6: ridge along a river that connects a bunch of cover,
Speaker 6: but it gets real neck down there. So you have
Speaker 6: a funnel where it's like if they want to stay
Speaker 6: in the cover, they're staying somewhere in this little band
Speaker 6: of river bottom cover.
Speaker 2: How little are we talking like, what's the distance this
Speaker 2: pinch is down to.
Speaker 6: From from the wide open stuff At the widest point
Speaker 6: to the river is one hundred and thirty seven yards,
Speaker 6: so anyway, it might be anywhere from like seventy five
Speaker 6: to one hundred and thirty seven yards. And it's a hillside,
Speaker 6: so they could be on top, they could be on
Speaker 6: the bottom, they could be on the side. But if
Speaker 6: they don't want to show themselves, which they don't, they
Speaker 6: stay in that band to cover somewhere. So then you think, okay,
Speaker 6: well we have that situation which is a banging funnel.
Speaker 6: But then you get to the point where that little drainage,
Speaker 6: that little ravine's running down there, and now you have
Speaker 6: a funnel with a pinch point in it where they're
Speaker 6: either going to go above it or below it. So
Speaker 6: you have like you have a good spot. Then you
Speaker 6: have the spot on the spot. And it also just
Speaker 6: happened to have those oak trees in there too, But
Speaker 6: that was like a that was like a bonus thing.
Speaker 2: Like so I would go there and was your wind
Speaker 2: blowing out into the open stuff or out to the
Speaker 2: river over the river? Okay, nice, so that's perfect.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's it's a sweet setup. And apparently me and
Speaker 6: every person in North Dakota knows about it because it
Speaker 6: was covered in Hunter sign. We when we went back
Speaker 6: and looked around, I was like, I just kind of
Speaker 6: want to go see it and figure it out in
Speaker 6: case I go back. I could not believe how many
Speaker 6: tree stands and cameras and stuff were in there.
Speaker 2: It was wild. Well, it's amazing there's still those all
Speaker 2: those bucks in there.
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people set up some cameras
Speaker 6: out there waiting to get real cruisers, and I think
Speaker 6: that they were just like I mean, this week now,
Speaker 6: they're probably all over out there. But the other thing too,
Speaker 6: this was a really good lesson there is you have
Speaker 6: that ridge top which is like the trail there's pounded
Speaker 6: right and it's obvious, like you look at it on
Speaker 6: a fence line. They're following the top of the woods
Speaker 6: there above the river. Most of the the Hunter Sign
Speaker 6: was concentrated there. Halfway down the hill, which is where
Speaker 6: the Big eight came in that I messed up on,
Speaker 6: is a pounded trail like a side hill trail, and
Speaker 6: then on the bottom there's another trail and so it's
Speaker 6: like if you if you were like I found this
Speaker 6: amazing funnel. I'm gonna run this camera on here and
Speaker 6: wait for them to be cruising. You might have most
Speaker 6: of the bucks cruising forty yards below you, below that camera,
Speaker 6: and you would never know it till you got in
Speaker 6: there and watched.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. Don't do not fall prey
Speaker 2: to cameras knowing everything. Yeah, that is so so so true. Hmm. Well,
Speaker 2: congrats on the buck.
Speaker 6: Man, thank you. Yeah, it was, it was. It was
Speaker 6: cool man. I mean that area is there's not very
Speaker 6: many deer there, like overall, but the quality, like I've
Speaker 6: only seen I've hunted that air six days. I've seen
Speaker 6: way more good bucks than dose. I've only seen two
Speaker 6: doughs while I was hunting the whole time there.
Speaker 2: That's weird.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just I don't know. I don't know what
Speaker 6: the deal. You know, if when you drive around the
Speaker 6: private fields and stuff, there's there's enough deer there where
Speaker 6: you see the dose out whatever, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 6: that spot has just been good bucks mostly. I don't
Speaker 6: even see scrappers in there.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 6: Well, worked out, it did, it worked out. It left
Speaker 6: me feeling pretty good, and it made me when you
Speaker 6: were when you were texting our little group text about
Speaker 6: what you're going to get into here, I was like,
Speaker 6: I don't want to tell these guys what I just did. Like,
Speaker 6: I'm like, I'm gonna let Mark just have this thing
Speaker 6: right now because I know he's in a rough spot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So should I tell my story?
Speaker 6: Yes? You should?
Speaker 2: All right. So since you and I last talked here
Speaker 2: on the podcast, when I had left you last, I
Speaker 2: had hunted a few more times for my target bucket Michigan,
Speaker 2: that buck the Wide nine, and i'd seen him, you know,
Speaker 2: from while glassing a few times. And I've gotten more
Speaker 2: than a few times, a good number of times I've
Speaker 2: seen him glassing basically like every evening I can get
Speaker 2: away for fifteen minutes or ten minutes, I'll glass this area.
Speaker 2: And I think I've glassed him like maybe four times
Speaker 2: in October or since September thirtieth, I think, in this
Speaker 2: kind of little bedding region. And I've also gotten a
Speaker 2: few more daylight trial camera pictures of him. So throughout
Speaker 2: the month of October, I had kind of been circling
Speaker 2: around the edges of this like core area. He ninety
Speaker 2: four percent of like all my daylight sightings or pictures
Speaker 2: of this deer have happened in like a ten acre
Speaker 2: fifteen acre ish type of region, you know, like tight,
Speaker 2: which is a betting area type thing. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 2: like a it's grassy autumnolives and little bru she things
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. So like from my hilltop where
Speaker 2: I can glass, I can see down along this creek
Speaker 2: into these different openings, so I can see like kind
Speaker 2: of the center pivot right in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: And so that's why I've been able to see him
Speaker 2: so many times. And I've got a couple spots where
Speaker 2: I hunt in there that also give you visibility in
Speaker 2: there seat. So I've just been over the years been
Speaker 2: able to you know, observe this deer doing this thing
Speaker 2: in this betting year. That's like I said, like it's
Speaker 2: you know, ten ish ach five. I don't know the
Speaker 2: actual I think I did a circle the other day.
Speaker 2: The actual like betting betting, the best of the betting
Speaker 2: is about seven acres and then you know the surrounding
Speaker 2: area around it that I have cameras or that I
Speaker 2: can hunt, you know, maybe gives us like a fifteen
Speaker 2: acres zone where I've kind of said, like since the
Speaker 2: beginning of the year, like it's gonna happen somewhere within
Speaker 2: this like fifteen to twenty acres, and I've just kind
Speaker 2: of worked the edges based on wind and some days,
Speaker 2: like I know he does come out of that. Course,
Speaker 2: I knew it was possible on the edges, but earlier
Speaker 2: in October I wasn't going to bust into the middle
Speaker 2: of it. But I did that and did not see
Speaker 2: him other than the scouting days, and I could glass
Speaker 2: into the middle of it. So then first third week
Speaker 2: of October went up to the family deer camp to
Speaker 2: try to help my dad get a deer up there.
Speaker 2: That was that week in October. It was really hot everywhere,
Speaker 2: or at least warm and rainy. We had like the
Speaker 2: entire hunt five days. It was high sixties and torrential
Speaker 2: rain almost the entire time. It was lousy and did
Speaker 2: not see hardly anything moving. Unfortunate, but my plan is
Speaker 2: I was going to get done with that, and then
Speaker 2: there's this big cold front hitting back in southern Michigan.
Speaker 2: So as soon as I got back from that hunt,
Speaker 2: I was going to start hunting back locally after the
Speaker 2: Wide nine and I would have three and a half
Speaker 2: days before I had to leave for Nebraska, So I
Speaker 2: was planning on at that point that hit it hard,
Speaker 2: like get aggressive, get into that core area, get tight,
Speaker 2: tight tight to where he's betting. You know, went between
Speaker 2: where he's going to leave that betting and train position
Speaker 2: out to you know, check does or head out to
Speaker 2: the dough spots where he's gonna feed in the evening,
Speaker 2: where the doughs will be feeding and he'll do a
Speaker 2: little both. So that was my game plan going into it.
Speaker 2: That coal front hit. It dropped, you know, twenty some
Speaker 2: degrees here, and my first hunt was a morning hunt,
Speaker 2: and so I was going to slip in and do
Speaker 2: a hanging hunt, saddle hunt just on the downwind edge
Speaker 2: of like his core bedding zone. Like if I had
Speaker 2: to narrow down like that ten acre area down to
Speaker 2: like the best three or four, that's where I was now.
Speaker 2: And so it was like I was right on the
Speaker 2: edge of this super thick downwind side and then there's
Speaker 2: an old like cut like maybe a I don't know,
Speaker 2: decades ago, maybe someone cut a pipeline there or an
Speaker 2: old two track or something, but there's like a twenty
Speaker 2: yard wide cut where there's no trees, it's just grass
Speaker 2: that kind of separates this timber. And then there's the
Speaker 2: cut and then there's like the thick, thick, thick, nasty
Speaker 2: brushy stuff where they really bed. And I've historically seen
Speaker 2: that when I'm hunting on this edge of it, you'll
Speaker 2: yet a good number of deer will follow that track
Speaker 2: because that's that path at least resistance. So I was
Speaker 2: downwind and I was also on that perpendicular track, so
Speaker 2: that was like kind of like a funnel on that
Speaker 2: down one side was my hope. So that was the
Speaker 2: thing I was hunting. My wind was gonna blow away
Speaker 2: from that back into some open timber behind me where
Speaker 2: there just isn't you know, compared to the rest of
Speaker 2: the area, it's it's lower deer traffic. So got in there,
Speaker 2: hung my sticks, got up there in the saddle, and
Speaker 2: right away there was deer chasing. There was like three
Speaker 2: little bucks on a dough running them around. Then I
Speaker 2: look in the another direction, there's a little buck chasing
Speaker 2: a dough. Look in the other direction there's a little
Speaker 2: scrappers just kind of cruising. So it was like on
Speaker 2: and this was the twenty ninth I think and I
Speaker 2: don't know if it was maybe nine thirty nine forty
Speaker 2: five something like that. I look to my north and
Speaker 2: so this would be like on the other side of
Speaker 2: the creek, on the north side of his bedding zone,
Speaker 2: and there's a dough standing there on the edge of
Speaker 2: this thick, thick stuff. And then you see like a
Speaker 2: deer like shake a bigger body deer, and then pull
Speaker 2: my bi notes and there he is. He's standing behind her,
Speaker 2: just doing that thing that a big buck does to
Speaker 2: get this little dough in front of him, and she's
Speaker 2: like cowering, and he's just standing tall over top of her.
Speaker 2: And then I see him this is probably one hundred
Speaker 2: and eighty yards one hundred and fifty yards something like that,
Speaker 2: because I can see up that cut across to the
Speaker 2: creek and then on this other thick stuff on that side. Okay,
Speaker 2: so he's like, I've got the really thick stuff to
Speaker 2: my right where I couldn't see more than like twenty
Speaker 2: thirty yards, but he's north of me, just on the
Speaker 2: edge of the edge, so I see that. Then he
Speaker 2: pins his ears back and I see him like start strutting,
Speaker 2: and then I zuome my glasses over to the left
Speaker 2: and there's another buck that was like staring at him.
Speaker 2: So he goes and pushes that buck off, and then
Speaker 2: he trots back and I see another buck come from
Speaker 2: the right, and he goes pushes that deer off. So
Speaker 2: right away, I'm like, okay, I know I've seen this
Speaker 2: movie before. He's on this dough. Everyone's circling him, like
Speaker 2: the sad lights are all circling around him, you know,
Speaker 2: hoping to poke in there and get a shot at her.
Speaker 2: But he's locked on this dough. So I watched that
Speaker 2: for a while and then she squirts back into the
Speaker 2: thick cover and they disappear. I stay there till midday,
Speaker 2: watching hoping to catch him again, see him again, anything,
Speaker 2: don't see anything else. I do see a few other
Speaker 2: bucks that like come up to this thicket and stop
Speaker 2: and like stare at it for a while and just
Speaker 2: like linger and so everything's telling me like they're still
Speaker 2: in there, right that's you just see this over and
Speaker 2: over again. He's in this thick, thick thick. It's you know,
Speaker 2: about two hundred yards away ish, maybe maybe a little less.
Speaker 2: So I decided I got to pull down the set,
Speaker 2: and I think the best thing I could do is
Speaker 2: get as close as I possibly excuse me, get as
Speaker 2: close as I possibly can to where they are, and
Speaker 2: be right in that zone if I can, Because every
Speaker 2: time I've seen a buck locked on a dough like this, like,
Speaker 2: they're usually not going to move a whole lot like
Speaker 2: once they're in their little spot, he's going to be
Speaker 2: there all the way till that dough decides that she
Speaker 2: wants to move on to feed, and then he's going
Speaker 2: to be right with her, and they're probably going to
Speaker 2: be there for twenty four hours or something like. I've
Speaker 2: got to I've gotta the way I looked at it,
Speaker 2: as I said, I have a unique piece of intel
Speaker 2: right now that I have to move on, and I
Speaker 2: know where there's a really strong chance he's going to
Speaker 2: be for the next day or so. So I got
Speaker 2: to be as tight as I can and hopefully take
Speaker 2: advantage of a few things that I know about this area.
Speaker 2: So Number one, get as tight as I could without spooking.
Speaker 2: Number two, I had to make a judgment call on
Speaker 2: where if this dough does want to push out to
Speaker 2: feed tonight, what's the most likely way she'll go to transition?
Speaker 2: So I can pick the right, you know, side of
Speaker 2: that betting stuff that they might go out on. So
Speaker 2: that was going to be to the west. Based on
Speaker 2: where I've been seeing a lot of these deer head
Speaker 2: out to feed. There was a standing cornfield a few
Speaker 2: hundred yards away, probably three hundred yards to the west,
Speaker 2: give or take. I figured that was the best guess
Speaker 2: of where they might head. So it's pretty windy and
Speaker 2: wet that more so I was able to tear my
Speaker 2: set down and I went back to the truck to
Speaker 2: grab some stuff. And then when I went back out
Speaker 2: maybe an hour later, it died down. And now it's
Speaker 2: like completely still, and it just the leaves had just
Speaker 2: crisped up enough that now like everything feels loud. So
Speaker 2: now I'm like paranoid, and I'm like, oh man, we
Speaker 2: can't get to where I want to get. There's no
Speaker 2: way we're gonna get there without blowing things up, YadA,
Speaker 2: YadA YadA. So I'm all stressed out about it, but like,
Speaker 2: you gotta get in there, And so I had to
Speaker 2: kind of I readjusted where I thought I was going
Speaker 2: to try to get to. I was originally thinking I
Speaker 2: could sneak right up this line of trees and get
Speaker 2: like forty yards off of where I saw them. I
Speaker 2: thought I could like get really tight because it's so
Speaker 2: thick where they're in, like as long as they weren't
Speaker 2: right within like a yard or two of the edge,
Speaker 2: I thought I could use this tree line to like
Speaker 2: literally line up a line of trees and travel right
Speaker 2: along that line of sight and then get up in
Speaker 2: the back of a tree. But when the wind died
Speaker 2: down and it crisped a little bit, I really I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, there's no way that's going to happen.
Speaker 2: I need to I need to figure out a different
Speaker 2: way I can approach this but still be in that zone.
Speaker 2: And so, to make a long story short, I decide
Speaker 2: instead of getting right on the like on the button
Speaker 2: where they were, I was going to get closer, but
Speaker 2: more down towards where I thought they would transition, so
Speaker 2: that way I would not have to get quite as
Speaker 2: close but hopefully still be in the game. So I
Speaker 2: ended up being able to get within about one hundred
Speaker 2: yards of where I saw them and set up right
Speaker 2: along the creek that I mentioned that they were on
Speaker 2: the edge of. But there on the other side of
Speaker 2: the creek in this thicket and I'm on the opposite
Speaker 2: side about one hundred yards down towards that cornfield where
Speaker 2: I was hoping they transition. This is also like I've
Speaker 2: seen him, like this is that zone I can glass into.
Speaker 2: So I've seen him right where I'm at, like a
Speaker 2: thousand times over the years. I've seen him cross the
Speaker 2: creek right here, Like there's a big crossing right there
Speaker 2: where I'm lined up at. They transition along the creek
Speaker 2: and then they bounce across the creek a bunch. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm right there where all this stuff happens,
Speaker 2: and i know, like he's ninety nine percent sure he's
Speaker 2: still going to be so or I'm within one hundred
Speaker 2: yards and I get set up in that tree, and
Speaker 2: within being like up there for five ten minutes, I
Speaker 2: see two bucks set up of that same spot and
Speaker 2: start lingering, you know, just that that zombie buck thing
Speaker 2: where they're just staring in there together, and then they
Speaker 2: start sparring, and then they start circling, and then another
Speaker 2: buck comes in sniffing around. And so for the last
Speaker 2: next like four hours, that's what was going on, just
Speaker 2: like bucks circling around, bucks chasing little or little bucks
Speaker 2: chasing dose, but they never popped out. Didn't see them,
Speaker 2: so that was kind of disappointing. I thought for sure
Speaker 2: I would see them. I thought, I can't guarantee they're
Speaker 2: in a trend like they're gonna move down towards me,
Speaker 2: but I gotta believe they're gonna come out of that
Speaker 2: pocket somewhere. I can see them because I can see
Speaker 2: all the way down this creek, and like there's grass
Speaker 2: along the creek for like fifteen yards on either side,
Speaker 2: maybe twenty yards, so it's like a forty yard cut
Speaker 2: basically in the middle of this bedding air that I
Speaker 2: can see. And I can see to the west side
Speaker 2: of this thicket too, So I've got good even though
Speaker 2: like for them, they feel incredibly incredibly safe because tall
Speaker 2: grass and brush, but from twenty some feet up, I
Speaker 2: can see down into all this stuff.
Speaker 6: Like very well.
Speaker 2: So I thought I was very confident that night that
Speaker 2: i'd at least get something to work with. But didn't happen.
Speaker 2: So the next morning that wind was going to shift
Speaker 2: just a little bit. It was northwest that night, No,
Speaker 2: it's northeast that night, and then that next morning is
Speaker 2: gonna be northwest, And I thought with the northwest, it'll
Speaker 2: be a little risky. It's gonna cut, like it's gonna
Speaker 2: cut just beneath this bedding area. But I had to
Speaker 2: be in there because I knew, like I thought he
Speaker 2: should be in there. Again, he's probably still in that dough.
Speaker 2: I gotta be in there, and I can make the
Speaker 2: northwest wind work. So I get in there really early,
Speaker 2: get I'll set up. Feels great, then starts raining again,
Speaker 2: so it's rainy. Now it's windy and rainy and just
Speaker 2: kind of bluck. But as those gusts pick up more
Speaker 2: and more throughout the morning, that northwest wind all of
Speaker 2: a sudden was like a west northwest wind, and I'm
Speaker 2: throwing milkweed and it's not cutting the bottom of the
Speaker 2: bedding area. It's like cut into the bedding aar. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, ah, this is bad. And then I would
Speaker 2: like throw another piece and then it cut beneath it,
Speaker 2: and then I'm like, okay, I can this will be okay,
Speaker 2: this will be okay. And then another gus comes up
Speaker 2: and I throw a milkweed and it blows it right
Speaker 2: into the bedding air do west. I'm like, ah, no,
Speaker 2: this is really really bad, and so for like fifteen
Speaker 2: minutes I played that game where like a little bit
Speaker 2: of my soul died every time, and I kept I
Speaker 2: threw so many pieces of milk weed, just hoping and
Speaker 2: praying that one of these times it would just consistently
Speaker 2: start going northwest. And it never did. It just got
Speaker 2: worse and worse and worse and worse, to the point
Speaker 2: where there's like fifteen to twenty miles on our winds
Speaker 2: and they're blowing like right at the best stuff. And
Speaker 2: the whole time, I'm thinking, like I gotta go. I
Speaker 2: have to go, Like this is a disaster. We hadn't
Speaker 2: seen a deer the whole morning, and I'm wondering, like
Speaker 2: how many deer have winded me? How many deer have
Speaker 2: gone into that thing? You know, this is disastrous. You
Speaker 2: know you can't be here. You have to get out
Speaker 2: of here. But at the same time, not only do
Speaker 2: I need to get out of this tree and get
Speaker 2: a saddle and sticks out of the tree, but I've
Speaker 2: got a camera guy in the tree with all his stuff,
Speaker 2: and it takes in like a half hour to get
Speaker 2: unpacked and packed up right, you know, So I just
Speaker 2: know that this is going to be a debacle, like
Speaker 2: every time you get in and out of a tree
Speaker 2: with two guys, it is so so so messy and
Speaker 2: takes so long. So I was debating all this in
Speaker 2: my head and trying to weigh like the risks of
Speaker 2: the rewards of doing this, and I finally decided, like,
Speaker 2: you have to go, and if you're ever gonna go,
Speaker 2: you gotta go right now because there's no deer around,
Speaker 2: it's rainy and windy. Cut your losses now, scoot and relocate,
Speaker 2: get around the other side of this bedding year get
Speaker 2: on the place where now it's like the right place
Speaker 2: to be, and don't f this up anymore. So I
Speaker 2: make that decision. I tell my camera, go, hey, we
Speaker 2: got to do this. You know this sucks, but I
Speaker 2: just think we have to do it. Otherwise I'm blowing
Speaker 2: this best. I'm blowing the entire place that I'm trying
Speaker 2: to hunt for half a day or whatever it's going
Speaker 2: to be. You just can't do that. So we start
Speaker 2: packing up, and I wait and I wait and I wait,
Speaker 2: you know, waiting for him to get all of his
Speaker 2: stuff put away, and I'm I usually don't put away
Speaker 2: my bow or anything until, you know, he's mostly done,
Speaker 2: and then once he's mostly done, then I can get
Speaker 2: my stuff packed up, and then he climbs out of
Speaker 2: the tree and then I come out of the tree
Speaker 2: and take this the platform and sticks down with me.
Speaker 6: Yep.
Speaker 2: So I'm stressing though, like we have to get out
Speaker 2: of here fast because anytime no deer are going to
Speaker 2: show up. Anything we can do to get this thing
Speaker 2: moving along will be better. So he's almost done, I'm realizing, Okay,
Speaker 2: I gotta get I gotta get my stuff out of here.
Speaker 2: So I start packing things away and put my quiver
Speaker 2: on the bow and unknock my arrow, put the arrow
Speaker 2: in the quiver, and I tie on my bow rope
Speaker 2: and I'm just about and you know, all throughout this,
Speaker 2: I'm like looking around. Then I'm working them, looking around
Speaker 2: and working, and the whole time I'm thinking, like, this
Speaker 2: is going to be so disastrous if the Y nine
Speaker 2: shows up while we're doing this. I'm so worried he's
Speaker 2: going to show up while I'm doing this. So I
Speaker 2: do a little look around, panic, Do a little look around, panic,
Speaker 2: But I don't see anything, and it's rainy and windy.
Speaker 2: I start to lower my bowt like I lean it
Speaker 2: over the side. I'm about to start lowering, and I
Speaker 2: turn a look over my shoulder one last time, and
Speaker 2: there's a deer twenty yards away over my back, left shoulder,
Speaker 2: and I realized, oh, there's a deer. And then the
Speaker 2: next thing, I realizes, oh, that's a big buck. And
Speaker 2: then the next thing I realized, oh shit, it's the
Speaker 2: why nine right there, twenty yards walking into my shooting line. Perfect.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, Charlie, Charlie, why nine? Why note? Why nine?
Speaker 2: Like trying to get my camera gus attention. I get
Speaker 2: my bow back up. He's just slowly walking. I mean,
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how amazing tony this would have
Speaker 2: been if we had waited ten more minutes. I'm able
Speaker 2: to get my bow up, I'm able to get an
Speaker 2: arrow knocked. He's still just nicely dopedy doing along. He's
Speaker 2: in my shooting line. I get an arrow knocked, I
Speaker 2: clip on. I look up at Charlie. Charlie is still
Speaker 2: packing his gear. He'd never heard me any of these
Speaker 2: times when I'm telling him, so look at him again,
Speaker 2: like Charlie, why nine right here, right here, right here?
Speaker 2: And he looks at me and then he sees my
Speaker 2: like complete panic stricken face, and he's like, oh my god.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, get a camera, get a camera. So
Speaker 2: now he's trying to get a camera out of his backpack,
Speaker 2: and I'm about to draw back on him because im
Speaker 2: I have him thinking, I'm s shooting this deer. I
Speaker 2: don't care if he's on him or what. I'm shooting
Speaker 2: this deer. And then I remember my toe rope is
Speaker 2: tied through the cam still, So now I'm like, I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't shoot this with a toe rope on there.
Speaker 2: So I get my bowl like in my knees and
Speaker 2: I start trying to unravel a thing around the cam.
Speaker 2: And by the time I'm able to get the rope
Speaker 2: off the cam, he had crossed my shooting lane and
Speaker 2: got like to the edge of where my wind had
Speaker 2: been gusting up into and he got wiggy. He stopped,
Speaker 2: he freezes, he's like nose up, he's looking around. He's
Speaker 2: like something's not right. He didn't completely freak, but he's
Speaker 2: like this doesn't feel right. He turned and bounced back
Speaker 2: like ten yards back across my lane. Stops and then
Speaker 2: like takes like a ten yards straight away a walk
Speaker 2: and then he stopped and he's fifty two yards, and Charlie,
Speaker 2: at this point, it's like, I'm on my mom. I'm like,
Speaker 2: it's fifty two I'm not shooting him there, and and
Speaker 2: then he just trotted off, and so I'm devastated, you know, like, yep,
Speaker 2: you only get you don't get a whole lot of opportunities,
Speaker 2: especially when you're after only one deer. Like there's one
Speaker 2: deer I'm trying to kill and I just had him
Speaker 2: at twenty yards in my shooting lane and somehow was
Speaker 2: not able to get an arrow off, you know, nightmare,
Speaker 2: nightmare scenario. That is just such bad timing, Like how
Speaker 2: unlucky can you get?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 6: Such bad timing. So but at least it got better, right.
Speaker 2: Sure, So I tell myself like that all happens, and
Speaker 2: I tell myself like I'm mad, like I'm frustrated, but
Speaker 2: I say, hey, it's not the worst case scenario, Like, hey,
Speaker 2: you didn't get a shot, but at least you didn't miss,
Speaker 2: and at least you didn't wound him, so it could
Speaker 2: be worse. So it's okay. You know he's still in
Speaker 2: the area. You know he's not going to leave his
Speaker 2: core core core, Like he's probably not gonna walk by
Speaker 2: this tree today, but he's gonna be in the zone still.
Speaker 2: He's thinking about does he's back on the move. He's cruising,
Speaker 2: so he's not with his dough now, so he's on
Speaker 2: his feet. You're still in the game. So I decided,
Speaker 2: like I'm going to finished yank in the set and
Speaker 2: I'm going to go make the move I wanted to make.
Speaker 2: I'm going to reposition and get on the other side.
Speaker 2: So I do that. I get I do a big
Speaker 2: wide half moon circle. I go way south way, yeah,
Speaker 2: so be way. I go west south and get all
Speaker 2: the way up on the other side of the property,
Speaker 2: to the opposite side of this betting air. So that
Speaker 2: wind was supposed to be northwest but instead of his west.
Speaker 2: So that meant I had to get to the east
Speaker 2: side of this core zone of this betting of this
Speaker 2: like you know, seven to ten acre area. Get over there.
Speaker 2: And this is an area that I have not hunted
Speaker 2: a lot in, but I've hunted around it, and I
Speaker 2: know there's like three There's the main betting air that
Speaker 2: I've been talking about, and then there's like two smaller
Speaker 2: betting airs further to the south, and I've seen the
Speaker 2: past bucks will cruise this line when you've got a
Speaker 2: westerly the cruise from the big big betting are that
Speaker 2: I'm on down to these two micro betting airs to
Speaker 2: the south. And there's also basically a travel transition route
Speaker 2: from that big big ed area down to another section
Speaker 2: of this corn, another area of standing corn, plus a
Speaker 2: little food plot I have in between them. So I thought,
Speaker 2: all right, if I get set up kind of at
Speaker 2: this far eastern edge of that big betting area, but
Speaker 2: just south, there's like a tip of it that extends out,
Speaker 2: so I could be south and east of the main bedding,
Speaker 2: so I could catch deer cruising the downwind side of
Speaker 2: the bedding, but also catch if there's a transition heading
Speaker 2: from the bedding heading south to the corn, I could
Speaker 2: catch that bed to feed transition. To get set up.
Speaker 2: Had a heck of a time trying to find any
Speaker 2: kind of tree with any kind of cover. It was
Speaker 2: like all bean pole trees, you know, one of those
Speaker 2: where you know where you want to be, but no
Speaker 2: tree will work well for it unless you like. So
Speaker 2: if I go to a good tree, I'm gonna be
Speaker 2: right in the middle of where the travel will be
Speaker 2: I'll get winded if I go to where it's safe
Speaker 2: from a wind perspective. I'm in a tree with zero cover,
Speaker 2: so I spend like I don't know how long, standing
Speaker 2: around like and then I go to a tree. I'm like,
Speaker 2: maybe we make this work. And then you can't get
Speaker 2: your straps around because it's way too big. And ended
Speaker 2: up having a dough walk in with two little bucks
Speaker 2: following here, and I just lay on the ground for
Speaker 2: twenty minutes waiting for them to go away. So just
Speaker 2: everything was like just felt like a disastrous day with
Speaker 2: everything that happened. We get set up in the tree.
Speaker 2: Finally I find a tree that about twenty feet up
Speaker 2: something like that. There's a big fork in the tree,
Speaker 2: so there's there's a big y so there's no big
Speaker 2: branches on the tree, but I've got a big fork,
Speaker 2: and I thought, hey, we could get up in that
Speaker 2: fork and tuck in between the two forks of it.
Speaker 2: It's a pretty big tree, and I thought, that's that's
Speaker 2: the best we can do. I think, so get set up,
Speaker 2: and you know, the buck parade continues like lots of
Speaker 2: year and a half old's just cruising around anytime there's
Speaker 2: a dough, there's a buck like nosing there, bumping around
Speaker 2: doing that kind of stuff. And to make what's been
Speaker 2: a very long winding story a little bit quicker here tony.
Speaker 2: After all that kind of stuff going on, the last
Speaker 2: like forty five minutes or half hour of daylight, I
Speaker 2: see a big bodied deer step out of the southern
Speaker 2: edge of that betting area and start kind of cutting
Speaker 2: through the timber towards one of those micro betting areas.
Speaker 2: Pull my bid knows it's him. He's on his feet,
Speaker 2: and he's heading from north to south. He's out of
Speaker 2: range and heading towards that next little betting pocket south
Speaker 2: of me. I try grunt, can't get his attention. I
Speaker 2: try snort wieze. It stops him. He looks in my
Speaker 2: direction and then keeps going the way he was headed.
Speaker 2: I let him get right to the edge of that
Speaker 2: betting pocket. He's now maybe one hundred ish yards, and
Speaker 2: I give him one more really hard snort wheeze, and
Speaker 2: that stops him. He looks at me, stares for like
Speaker 2: thirty seconds, and then starts coming in, stops, makes a
Speaker 2: big old scrape, and then starts hooking downwind, so instead
Speaker 2: of heading straight at me, he does the down wind circle,
Speaker 2: so he's he makes that scrape of like forty five
Speaker 2: yards and then starts cutting. And I had ranged a
Speaker 2: down tree in front of that scrape earlier in the day,
Speaker 2: so I knew that that was about forty. So as
Speaker 2: he starts, he starts walking through that lane I have
Speaker 2: at forty. I murp him to try to get him
Speaker 2: to stop. He doesn't hear it. He keeps walking. So
Speaker 2: he's getting closer and closer and closer to my down
Speaker 2: wind side, staying at about that forty yard wide area,
Speaker 2: but behind trees. Now there's one more gap that he's
Speaker 2: going to get to that I see that should be
Speaker 2: right around forty. I'm able to range it and check
Speaker 2: it's about I think I got like thirty nine on
Speaker 2: one side of this log and like forty one on
Speaker 2: the other side. So I said, if he comes right
Speaker 2: through there, it's gonna own. I'm gonna use my forty
Speaker 2: yard pin and my wind is gonna be blowing like
Speaker 2: just a little ahead of that. So if he makes
Speaker 2: his past this gap, I'm in trouble. So this is
Speaker 2: also on my off shoulder with my saddle set up
Speaker 2: so as he's making this hook. So for people to understand,
Speaker 2: like in a saddle, you can shoot very well in
Speaker 2: front of you. You can shoot very well to your left.
Speaker 2: If you're right handed, you can shoot very well at
Speaker 2: right behind you. The one place that is a little
Speaker 2: bit more difficult to shoot is to your right side.
Speaker 2: So the way to get that shot to your right side,
Speaker 2: which is like your off side, would be to stand
Speaker 2: up on your platform and spin and have your bridge
Speaker 2: go over your right shoulder. And then now you're standing
Speaker 2: up as if you're on a tree stand and that
Speaker 2: bridge or sorry not your bridge, but your your tether
Speaker 2: is over your right shoulder holding you to the tree,
Speaker 2: and you're standing up right like like I said, tight
Speaker 2: to the tree, like you're in a tree stand with
Speaker 2: a rope holding you tight to that. So I'm able
Speaker 2: to make that maneuver. As he's walking through and doing
Speaker 2: that fork or doing that hook, I get all that done.
Speaker 2: I get ready. He steps into that lane step step
Speaker 2: step and stops. I mean perfect. As I'm drawing back,
Speaker 2: I was thinking about trying to murp him again because
Speaker 2: he was going to walk through that, but he stopped,
Speaker 2: and my cameraman's like on him, and I released that arrow,
Speaker 2: and immediately when I hit all I could see was
Speaker 2: like he has moved a bunch and there's a bunch
Speaker 2: of arrow sticking out. When when he's spun and ran
Speaker 2: off and he goes running out of there like a
Speaker 2: bat of hell, maybe one hundred yards away or something,
Speaker 2: he stops for a second. I thought, like, man, is
Speaker 2: he about to tip over? And then he bolts off again.
Speaker 2: I didn't know what to think. My first thought was
Speaker 2: shoulder based on the fact I can see this arrow
Speaker 2: like it looks like all my arrow is hanging out
Speaker 2: and like flopping, and so first thought was, holy crap,
Speaker 2: I his shoulder shot him. But I don't know. Maybe
Speaker 2: I poked it in there, maybe it slit underneath the
Speaker 2: shoulder blade. I don't know. But to save folks from
Speaker 2: more sob stories, we waited until I got some buddies
Speaker 2: that came out to help me because I can't see
Speaker 2: bad blood trails with my red green issues. So I
Speaker 2: had the whole cavalry come out with hopes that maybe
Speaker 2: you know, I had got in there, Like we watched
Speaker 2: the footage a thousand times and it doesn't sound like
Speaker 2: a really loud crack. So I started trying to convince myself, well,
Speaker 2: maybe I didn't get the shoulder, despite the fact that
Speaker 2: it looks like there's no penetration, that maybe I got
Speaker 2: in there. But we got on the blood trail. There
Speaker 2: was blood and it was consistent, but it was like
Speaker 2: a drop here, a drop there, then like a smear
Speaker 2: and then a drop here, drop there. We tracked it
Speaker 2: for three quarters of a mile and he basically just walked.
Speaker 2: It looked like, you know, he ran off, and then
Speaker 2: he got into this cornfield and he walked for like
Speaker 2: half a mile down this cornfield and then hooked and
Speaker 2: made like a jay hook back into his bedding area,
Speaker 2: and we were basically on I don't even know how
Speaker 2: my buddy's well, my one front has a dog, so
Speaker 2: it always brings his dog with The dog got us
Speaker 2: through sections where there was no blood for fifty or
Speaker 2: seventy yards, and the dog would gets across that and
Speaker 2: then he'd find like a pin prick, and then we
Speaker 2: would go for twenty or forty more yards and then
Speaker 2: like a pin prick and I couldn't see any of
Speaker 2: the stuff. So if it weren't for my friend, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been able to do half of this, but
Speaker 2: we covered about three quarters of a mile, cover a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff. We were tracking until like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: two something in the morning, and you know, dried up,
Speaker 2: no more blood. And at that point, I think all
Speaker 2: of us for a long time knew what had happened.
Speaker 2: But you know, the way I saw it going was like,
Speaker 2: either this deer either I poked it in there, and
Speaker 2: that deer is dead fast, Like there's a bunch of
Speaker 2: blood and he's dead fast, because if I got in there,
Speaker 2: it would have been like a heart shot or the
Speaker 2: front of the lungs. It's either that or I did,
Speaker 2: in fact hit the shoulder and this is just a
Speaker 2: meat hit and he's gonna dribble blood for a long time,
Speaker 2: but he's going to live and we're never going to
Speaker 2: find him. And so after we didn't find him dead
Speaker 2: within the first couple of hundred yards and we never
Speaker 2: got like that screaming blood trail, I kind of knew it,
Speaker 2: but we're like, hey, we have to keep following as
Speaker 2: far as we can and keep looking. And you know,
Speaker 2: we walked all around where we couldn't find blood, circling
Speaker 2: out and bring the dog all over the place, just
Speaker 2: trying to hopefully smell something or pick up on any thing.
Speaker 2: But no more blood, no deer, no recovery. And that
Speaker 2: is where things stand out.
Speaker 6: Have you got a picture of him since.
Speaker 2: Not yet, It's been dead, Like my cameras are completely dead.
Speaker 2: And I think that's because there was seven guys walking
Speaker 2: all over the core betting area for like eight hours.
Speaker 2: So I think I think every deer in this zone
Speaker 2: has known now to vacate the premise for a while.
Speaker 2: So I'm hopeful that eventually the deer will return and
Speaker 2: he'll be one.
Speaker 6: Of them, you know. I mean everybody's when that happens,
Speaker 6: everybody's like, oh, he I'm sure he lived. But honestly,
Speaker 6: seeing that video, I was like, you're chasing a deer
Speaker 6: that's healthy, Like it didn't didn't look like that arrow
Speaker 6: got in there at all, like I would. I would
Speaker 6: be very surprised if you don't start picking that deer
Speaker 6: up again eventually, unless he wanders off and gets shot
Speaker 6: by somebody else.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, man, it was, without a question, the worst
Speaker 2: day of my hunting life. Like I've never had a
Speaker 2: day like that where first I blow an opportunity. I
Speaker 2: have my target buck at twenty yards and can't shoot him.
Speaker 2: And then I say, well, at least the worst case
Speaker 2: scenario didn't happen, at least didn't wound him. And then
Speaker 2: that night get another opportunity shoot him and.
Speaker 6: Wound him. Do you what do you what do you
Speaker 6: feel like happened on the shot?
Speaker 2: Man? If you look at the just like your situation,
Speaker 2: that deer dropped so so so far, he dropped and
Speaker 2: spun and so if he had stayed where he was
Speaker 2: when you look at the video, it would have been
Speaker 2: a hard shot. It would have been like right at
Speaker 2: the like it was on the forward side of it,
Speaker 2: but it would have been beneath the bone, beneath that
Speaker 2: big bone plate and when it got you know how
Speaker 2: you know how it looks how there's like a j
Speaker 2: or like a big curve in right yep. So it
Speaker 2: would have just ten ringed him right through that spot
Speaker 2: if he had not dropped, you know, a big big chunk.
Speaker 2: So could I have, like I always like my I
Speaker 2: still don't ever wait quite long enough, like would I
Speaker 2: give myself an a plus on the shot?
Speaker 5: No?
Speaker 2: But I was still like it was a good shot.
Speaker 2: It would have killed him. Great if that hadn't happened.
Speaker 2: So I the big thing I took away from it
Speaker 2: is two things, Tony. The last five deer I have
Speaker 2: shot at with a bow, four out of the five
Speaker 2: have jumped the string in a really significant way. I've
Speaker 2: hit high on four of the last five deer, all
Speaker 2: because they jumped the string in a big way. So
Speaker 2: in two of those, the last two deer have been
Speaker 2: forty yard shots. So I know lots of people shoot
Speaker 2: deer at long ranges, and forty yards isn't that long,
Speaker 2: but I think I feel kind of done with forty
Speaker 2: yard shots for a while. Like I'm just not dudetty
Speaker 2: about this at all.
Speaker 6: Forty yards were I was talking about this with Dylan
Speaker 6: on the drive back. I'm like, forty yards is a
Speaker 6: poke on a white tail and they are just different.
Speaker 6: You know, you go meal deer hunting and you get
Speaker 6: a forty yard shot, You're like, there's a gift in
Speaker 6: the white tail woods. You're like, like, you know, it's
Speaker 6: and it's different too. You know, if they're in the
Speaker 6: beans and it's opening night and they are just nibbling
Speaker 6: away and they haven't been hunted and it's like truly relaxed,
Speaker 6: like different thing. But when they're keyed up during it's
Speaker 6: just that's a long shot, man, Like a lot can
Speaker 6: go wrong. And you know, I saw that video of
Speaker 6: how much that buck moved and I said the same thing.
Speaker 6: I'm like, this buck did just what my my first
Speaker 6: one did. I mean, you can you know, that's one
Speaker 6: of the crazy things about filming is you can sit
Speaker 6: there and mark where their back line is. Yeah, when
Speaker 6: you shoot and then watch how much they drop and
Speaker 6: it is crazy even you know, we did this when
Speaker 6: when my daughter shot that little spike with her crossbow
Speaker 6: in September, that dear at twenty yards out of a
Speaker 6: crossbow that's smoking fast. That deer still dropped like five
Speaker 6: inches at the shot. And that's a tiny spike close,
Speaker 6: So you think about, you know, double that distance on
Speaker 6: a deer that's you know, been around and done that.
Speaker 6: Like they can get out of the way, man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I know, like I always aim like lower
Speaker 2: third is I'm usually aiming for a hard shot, is
Speaker 2: what I'm aiming for. And so I've always done that
Speaker 2: thinking like, well if they if they jumped the string,
Speaker 2: I'll still get in there. And you know that happened
Speaker 2: with the bucket killed in Nebraska last year. Is like,
Speaker 2: so I was aiming lower third, he jumped the string
Speaker 2: and I hit high, like top of the both lungs.
Speaker 2: So that worked out in that case. But in this case,
Speaker 2: you know, it was four just enough so that when
Speaker 2: I went high, you know, it wasn't high into the
Speaker 2: back of the lungs. It was high into the back
Speaker 2: of the shoulder. Yeah, and and so yeah, like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, man, I feel like it might be thirty
Speaker 2: thirty five yards max for me for a while. After
Speaker 2: these couple of situations, I just I do I hate
Speaker 2: I hate, hate, hate, hate hate this. Man, there's some
Speaker 2: people I know who like they miss a deer like, well,
Speaker 2: you know what happens early, they hit a deer and
Speaker 2: don't find it. Like, ah, you know whatever, I don't
Speaker 2: get that at all, Like I don't, I do not
Speaker 2: get that at all. I can't. I can't swallow it.
Speaker 2: And I would much rather watch a deer walk than
Speaker 2: have this. So I think I don't think I'm taking
Speaker 2: a forty yard shot for a while. Yeah, I'm also sorry.
Speaker 2: I was also gonna say I need to figure out
Speaker 2: what else I can do to maximize the sound reduction
Speaker 2: of whatever archery setup I have, Like, I need quiet,
Speaker 2: I need quiet, quiet, quiet, and and something's not quiet
Speaker 2: enough about what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 6: So do you do you know what the total weight
Speaker 6: of your arrows is?
Speaker 2: I can't. I'll say it wrong if I try to
Speaker 2: guess it right now, I can't remember the top of
Speaker 2: my head. And I know, like Yanni already told them
Speaker 2: when it comes to like Yan's like, ah, you gotta
Speaker 2: might want to reconsider your arrow setup or hitting shoulder blades.
Speaker 2: And and I'm not on that track yet.
Speaker 6: Well, what I was going to say is, you know,
Speaker 6: the heavy one of the real benefits of heavier airs
Speaker 6: is quiet your whole thing down, you know. And yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, okay, you might hit a shoulder and get
Speaker 6: through it whatever. That's not why I would. I'm just
Speaker 6: curious because if you shoot, there's there can be a
Speaker 6: noticeable difference if you're you know, you have somebody who's
Speaker 6: shooting like a four hundred grain pretty light set up
Speaker 6: out of you know, sixty five seventy pounds versus somebody
Speaker 6: who has like a five twenty or you know, like
Speaker 6: a little bit heavier. I mean, it's it's one way
Speaker 6: to you know, tone down the vibration a little bit
Speaker 6: on your bow, but then you've got bigger pin gaps
Speaker 6: and it changes things a little bit, you know, it
Speaker 6: slows it down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. I think in the off
Speaker 2: season I'm going to go back to the drawing board
Speaker 2: and uh, change some things up, because four out of
Speaker 2: five is not a coincidence anymore. Yeah, And those were
Speaker 2: two forty yard shots and a thirty yard shot, and
Speaker 2: I'm blanking on what other deal I'm thinking of here,
Speaker 2: and there's a twenty five yard shot. I don't know.
Speaker 2: What I'm getting is that they weren't all long shots
Speaker 2: like I've had string jumpers at thirty two. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna mess with my archery set up a little bit more,
Speaker 2: not right now, obviously. For right now, I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna shoot super far. So I'm leaving for
Speaker 2: Nebraska here in like an hour, and I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: get them close. Yeah, we're not shoot at all.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean, that's that's one of those things like
Speaker 6: twenty yard shots are just dreamy like that's just it's
Speaker 6: just such a nice range and once you just push
Speaker 6: it out. I mean, it's just everything changes and it
Speaker 6: doesn't seem like it should be that big of a difference.
Speaker 6: But man, you start getting to thirty to forty yard range,
Speaker 6: like thirty. To me, thirty to forty is like a
Speaker 6: world of difference. You know, forties out there. Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Man, like thirty thirty and in feels like it.
Speaker 2: I mean I shouldn't say this. I won't say it
Speaker 2: because they'll jinx myself, but but I agree, Like you know,
Speaker 2: a thirty yard shot feels like I don't know, throwing
Speaker 2: a dart the wall from five yards away or whatever.
Speaker 2: Compared to that longer range, just more stuff happens. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I've been in a real low point for the last
Speaker 2: day and a half, very bummed about it, very disappointed.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it is what it is.
Speaker 2: It's hunting. This happens. Keep on keeping on trying to
Speaker 2: figure it out. And I feel very confident, like you said, like,
Speaker 2: I feel very confident he should be back, he should
Speaker 2: be around. I don't think the hunt's done.
Speaker 6: I don't see that that dude dying from that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe get a little redemption to Nebraska and
Speaker 2: then come home after that and pick it back up.
Speaker 2: But I think my big takeaways as far as like
Speaker 2: things other people could take from this is number one,
Speaker 2: be careful about your shot distances. I think hunting TV.
Speaker 2: I know we sometimes knock on Hunting TV a lot,
Speaker 2: and we are hunting TV too, so it's a little
Speaker 2: bit the kettle calling the pot black. But I would
Speaker 2: say we're a little different than the usual. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff out there that make long range shots
Speaker 2: seem easy. There's a lot of people that talk about
Speaker 2: long range shots and it's become norm and I actually
Speaker 2: feel I am guilty of this. I feel like, oh my,
Speaker 2: like you won't shoot past forty yards. I feel a
Speaker 2: little bit like people maybe think it's crazy that I
Speaker 2: have a max range of forty. So many people shoot
Speaker 2: to fifty or sixty now for white tails, and like
Speaker 2: so many guys shoot to seventy to eighty out west,
Speaker 2: one hundred yards out west, all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 2: And so I was like, I'm still holding it forty.
Speaker 2: I don't care what other people do, and now I'm
Speaker 2: going to make it even shorter. But do not be
Speaker 2: convinced because you see a few people on TV taking
Speaker 2: these long shots to think that you should be doing
Speaker 2: that too. It's so much better to let a deer
Speaker 2: walk than have to deal with what I.
Speaker 6: Just dealt with.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not worth it well, and especially during the run.
Speaker 6: And one of the things about it too is it's
Speaker 6: just if there's like if you're pushing it some way,
Speaker 6: whether it's distance or get a shot off quick or something,
Speaker 6: if there's like a little bit of rush to it,
Speaker 6: a little bit of panic to it, the odds of
Speaker 6: it breaking bad for you are just they like orders
Speaker 6: of magnitude worse. So you just got to think that, like, oh,
Speaker 6: if I'm gonna oh now he didn't take this trail,
Speaker 6: he's gonna be forty, and it's like I got one window,
Speaker 6: I better make it happen. That is a recipe for
Speaker 6: a screw up almost always. You know it's different at closer,
Speaker 6: like you can still like it's different, but when you
Speaker 6: start pushing that range and things like that happen, it's
Speaker 6: so easy to screw up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to your point in that episode I was
Speaker 2: talking about earlier, like in the rut, those things that
Speaker 2: you just mentioned are almost the case all the time,
Speaker 2: all the time, Like during this time period you almost
Speaker 2: never get that calm, cool deer's feeding in the food
Speaker 2: plot or in the beans kind of shot. Like almost
Speaker 2: all the time. Everything's more stressful, everything's faster, everything's so
Speaker 2: So if ever there's a time to shrink your shooting range,
Speaker 2: now is the time to do it. This is not
Speaker 2: the time to stretch it out because you really want
Speaker 2: to kill that deer. But that's probably what a lot
Speaker 2: of people do, right is they feel like this pressure like, oh,
Speaker 2: I mean there is a forty five this is gonna
Speaker 2: be my only chance. I better take it. Ah, shit,
Speaker 2: there goes Yeah, don't do that.
Speaker 5: Don't do that.
Speaker 2: I mean, I wish I could take my forty yard
Speaker 2: shot back, or I wish I could have I don't
Speaker 2: know what. I wish this whole thing had not happened
Speaker 2: the way it did, but it did. So learn from
Speaker 2: my situation.
Speaker 6: Yeah and yeah, and I mean one thing that happens
Speaker 6: there too. The two things you do see that on
Speaker 6: hunting shows a lot. But I also know that there's
Speaker 6: a lot of self censoring out there. There's a lot
Speaker 6: of stuff that gets left on the editing floor.
Speaker 2: They don't show it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so take that with a grain of salt. Right,
Speaker 6: like there's you're seeing a highlight reel, You're going to
Speaker 6: see the heart shot and not the leg hit. You know.
Speaker 6: The other thing is like it's so easy to panic
Speaker 6: when you finally have that encounter. But if you if
Speaker 6: you're kind of getting your act together and you're you're
Speaker 6: like in the game that way, it's you'll have more chances,
Speaker 6: like you can you can let it like like what
Speaker 6: happened with you, You get busted by a buck. He
Speaker 6: wins you your target buck and he's right by his
Speaker 6: betting area. So often you would look at that as
Speaker 6: like this is over for now, and you go scoot
Speaker 6: on to the other side. And he didn't, you know,
Speaker 6: go nuts and get out of there. He wasn't living
Speaker 6: somewhere else. He just walked away and started doing his
Speaker 6: thing again. Like you can. You don't need to always
Speaker 6: force something to happen, because when you get into that realm,
Speaker 6: like it's just a recipe for failure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, man, And that's my That was my next
Speaker 2: big takeaway was that exact point, which is just that
Speaker 2: you know, when shit hits the fan, it's not all done.
Speaker 2: You know, pivot make an adjustment, Like if if there's
Speaker 2: any silver lining I can take out of the other day.
Speaker 2: It was the fact that, like I had, I was
Speaker 2: set up in a spot. Like a lot of things
Speaker 2: that I thought would be true proved to be true
Speaker 2: like I thought. The first I thought, okay, hey, I
Speaker 2: gotta be tight, tight inside this core betting air. So
Speaker 2: I went in there, saw him locked on a dough.
Speaker 2: Next thing, I decided like, hey, I got to get
Speaker 2: tight to that again, tighter, and then I need to
Speaker 2: give it some time here because I think he's gonna
Speaker 2: stick around. And sure enough, the next morning he wasn't
Speaker 2: on the dough, but he was still right in there.
Speaker 2: Now it didn't work out because of what I described.
Speaker 2: Then things got messed up, and I said, Okay, he's
Speaker 2: not gonna totally change his world up and get to
Speaker 2: the other side of this whole section. He's still gonna
Speaker 2: be cruising, he's still gonna do his thing. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: surprise him in the other opposite side where he's not
Speaker 2: expecting me. I just basically did a wind push for
Speaker 2: him to the other side, and there he was. So
Speaker 2: I think, you know, sticking to your core RUP principles,
Speaker 2: I made sure, like I'm always on the down one
Speaker 2: side of dough betting area, or I'm in some kind
Speaker 2: of pinch or something that's going to funnel some deer
Speaker 2: activity together, I try to do the same thing on
Speaker 2: the other side there as best as I could. And
Speaker 2: I think that that general approach, like it's so easy
Speaker 2: during the rut. It has been for me in the past,
Speaker 2: like ten years ago, I would chase sightings, I would
Speaker 2: chase pictures. I'd be here, then i'd be there, then
Speaker 2: it'd be here, then I'd be there. And these deer
Speaker 2: don't do the exact same thing from one day to
Speaker 2: the next. So if you're chasing seeing like a picture,
Speaker 2: it almost never works out. You gotta stick to principles.
Speaker 2: I think, don't chase isolate incidents. Stick to principles when
Speaker 2: it comes to the rut. The principle being like, Okay,
Speaker 2: is there a reason for this deer, for for any deer,
Speaker 2: but and maybe it's a specific deer to be downwind
Speaker 2: of this betting or in this pinch point, or is
Speaker 2: there convergence of all these things, like how many of
Speaker 2: these things can I stack on top of each other
Speaker 2: to make this an optimal location? Like in your case,
Speaker 2: you've got that ridge kind of pinge with the river
Speaker 2: cover pinch, and then you also had an oak tree
Speaker 2: in there too, so you had like stacked attractions all there.
Speaker 2: Like that's that's a principle for rut hunting success. That works.
Speaker 2: So don't get hung up in these freaking trail cameras
Speaker 2: and and this crazy like oh do this wiggy waggy thing, like,
Speaker 2: just keep it simple, stupid, it's the rut. Do the
Speaker 2: things you know that works, stick to those, stay focused,
Speaker 2: don't go crazy with your shots, don't get caught up
Speaker 2: in the craziness of the whole thing, and you know,
Speaker 2: manage expectations.
Speaker 6: Well that was a laundry list, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all I got, though, Tony. I don't know
Speaker 2: any other thoughts on your end or any other thing
Speaker 2: that you want to add. To leave people here when
Speaker 2: they're listening. It's November ninth, tenth eleven somewhere in that window,
Speaker 2: so I mean people are like right there in the
Speaker 2: heat of it. We're about to hit lockdown maybe for
Speaker 2: some people. Any other suggestions on that front.
Speaker 6: Man, I would say, treat the next ten twelve days
Speaker 6: like you would have treated the last ten twelve days.
Speaker 6: And even though you're gonna hear about the lockdown, and
Speaker 6: even though your cameras are going to slow down and
Speaker 6: people are gonna start talking about how it's getting harder
Speaker 6: for me this I'm heading to Wisconsin here to hunt
Speaker 6: some big wood stuff, and I know it's gonna not
Speaker 6: be like too fast and furious, like it's gonna probably
Speaker 6: be a little bit subdued. But I think I have
Speaker 6: a better chance at a big one now. Even though
Speaker 6: my days are going to be probably more boring, they're
Speaker 6: still going to be out there doing their thing. There's
Speaker 6: there's plenty of time left here, even though we're not
Speaker 6: on the crazy chase fest that was Halloween or whatever.
Speaker 6: Just stick it out like it's not it's not over
Speaker 6: and it's not going to be over for a little
Speaker 6: while yet, like keep going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's whyse wise words are there, Tony. I guess
Speaker 2: with that, let's wrap the sucker up. I appreciate you,
Speaker 2: uh excuse me. I appreciate you hopping right out of
Speaker 2: the truck after the trip home and doing this with me,
Speaker 2: And thank you for the words of consolation for me
Speaker 2: coming off of mine.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but I gotta go. I gotta go finish. Butcher
Speaker 6: in that, dear, do you need me to send you
Speaker 6: some venison or are you good? Hey?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: Hey, no, too soon, too soon.
Speaker 6: Too good, there buddy, you'll get there all right, man.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you, Tony, and thank you to everyone listening.
Speaker 2: Make sure you're following me and Tony over on Instagram
Speaker 2: to see any other more frequent updates or up to
Speaker 2: date updates from us. Make sure you're listening to the
Speaker 2: Foundations podcast every Tuesday. We've got the Rough Fresh Reports
Speaker 2: every Wednesday, where we're getting up to the intel from
Speaker 2: hunters from all across the country right now. That's particularly
Speaker 2: useful and interesting as things are changing really quick, so
Speaker 2: check that out. I think that's it, So thank you
Speaker 2: for listening, Thank you for being a part of this community.
Speaker 2: Stay wired to hunt, and this week we're gonna send
Speaker 2: it out with some different tunes. Let's queue last year's
Speaker 2: rut sing along of the Year, the most Wonderful Time to.
Speaker 5: Kill Deer Boys. Good to see you, Hayden, it's been
Speaker 5: a while. Hey, Sorry, I'm late. I crashed my Pontiac
Speaker 5: Castec into a light pull and had to walk the
Speaker 5: rest of the way, But I'm here now. That's what matters.
Speaker 5: Give me a glass of scotch, please, Hey, just two
Speaker 5: rocks in there. I don't my guys, we're starting already.
Speaker 5: This is happening. Okay, just give me the give me
Speaker 5: the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go. It's the
Speaker 5: most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now
Speaker 5: just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean,
Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. There's far
Speaker 5: too much isonus glass. It's the half happy seeds of all.
Speaker 5: There's gotta be at least twelve cues with grunting and
Speaker 5: bleeding and call fronts and sleeting the last weeks of fun.
Speaker 5: It's the half happy seedssin of home. There'll be pictures
Speaker 5: for posting and bragging and boasting, and truck beds with
Speaker 5: big bucks in toe. There'll be narrow miss stories and
Speaker 5: tales of your glories of booner bucks missed with our bulls.
Speaker 5: It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. Not just one,
Speaker 5: maybe two. There will be no dose of blowing and
Speaker 5: looming knocks glowing and blood trails so clean. It's the
Speaker 5: most wonderful time to kill de Excuse me, can I
Speaker 5: have a napkin. Please. I just spilled some scotch on
Speaker 5: my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in the studio.
Speaker 5: Thank you Tailgate Beers for drinking. And big Bucks is
Speaker 5: slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting
Speaker 5: and scraping and no more escaping and arrowshot true hitting.
Speaker 5: Oh key, change what. No one told me that it's
Speaker 5: the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very
Speaker 5: unprepared for this. There will be much morning sitting in
Speaker 5: cold fronts, are hitting the dawn, crispin clean. It's the
Speaker 5: most wonderful time, most swonderful time, yes, the most swam
Speaker 5: diffle time to kilty. There's too much ice in the glass.
Speaker 5: Two rocks