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, I'm joined by Brian Lemke of The Deer
Speaker 2: Society to discuss his double booner twenty twenty three season,
Speaker 2: the lessons he learned along the way, and his favorite
Speaker 2: late season protactics. All right, welcome to the Wired to
Speaker 2: Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light in their
Speaker 2: Camel for Conservation initiative, which I love, love seeing him
Speaker 2: give them back to the National Deer Association and making
Speaker 2: good things happen for deer deer hunters. And today on
Speaker 2: the podcast, we are talking to a deer hunter who's
Speaker 2: had some pretty good things happened to himself this year,
Speaker 2: talking to Brian Lemke. He is the co owner of
Speaker 2: Almandai Productions. He is the host of the Deer Society
Speaker 2: podcast and a frequently seen hunter on the Deer Society
Speaker 2: YouTube channel. You know, diehard deer hunter from the Upper Midwest,
Speaker 2: and he has wrapped up or has just about wrapped
Speaker 2: up and absolutely banner hunting season. This year. He has
Speaker 2: killed his biggest buck ever, not once but twice this
Speaker 2: season and broke that magical one hundred and seventy inch
Speaker 2: mark both times. You know, it's it's not every year
Speaker 2: that that happens, not every lifetime that that happens for
Speaker 2: a lot of people. So I want to have Brian
Speaker 2: on the show to talk through this season, talk through
Speaker 2: those hunts, talk through the kind of unique circumstances in
Speaker 2: each one. One was one of those hunts that goes
Speaker 2: on for years, and one of these hunts was in
Speaker 2: some ways a surprise, and you know that's how hunting
Speaker 2: goes sometimes. So I wanted to talk to him about
Speaker 2: how these came together, what he learned along the way,
Speaker 2: the tactics, the strategies, the approaches he took that led
Speaker 2: to this extra special season, And then I wanted to
Speaker 2: wrap it up with a discussion around the late season.
Speaker 2: You know, for those of us still trying to fill
Speaker 2: a tag at this time of the year in December
Speaker 2: or January, what are some of those things that can
Speaker 2: work that can help you close the deal and wrap
Speaker 2: up your year on a high note. So that is
Speaker 2: the game plan today. I think it's a it's a
Speaker 2: fun conversation. We cover some good stuff. I think you're
Speaker 2: gonna enjoy it, and I think it's a perfect way
Speaker 2: for us to head into the holidays kind of on
Speaker 2: a lighter note. Right, We're gonna hear, We're gonna hear
Speaker 2: some fun stories, We're gonna learn some things, but mostly
Speaker 2: we're gonna celebrate hunting season. We're gonna celebrate this great
Speaker 2: fall that is now kind of edging towards the end,
Speaker 2: which is always bittersweet. But as we approach Christmas in
Speaker 2: the new year, I think heading into with a smile
Speaker 2: on her faces is the way to go. So well,
Speaker 2: that all said, and without any further ado, let's get
Speaker 2: to my chat with Brian Lenkey. All right with me
Speaker 2: now on the show. First time guest. We've got Brian Lemke. Brian,
Speaker 2: welcome the show.
Speaker 3: Appreciate it, thanks for having me on. Yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2: I'm glad we're doing this, glad to connect. We haven't
Speaker 2: really got to talk at all in the past, but
Speaker 2: I've been checking out your work for a number of
Speaker 2: years now, watching some Dear Society videos, listening to some
Speaker 2: of the podcasts, and I've enjoyed it, and so you've
Speaker 2: you've been on the list of like, hey, I got
Speaker 2: to get a hold of Brian someday. So glad it happened,
Speaker 2: and appreciate you making time to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I appreciate it, man, And have obviously seen and
Speaker 3: listened to a lot of your guys' podcasts and you
Speaker 3: do a great job. Definitely a fan and yeah, fortunate
Speaker 3: to jump on here with you and have a conversation
Speaker 3: and feelings mutual.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's there's good, good things to talk about today,
Speaker 2: because it seems like you've been having like a season
Speaker 2: for the ages. Is this ranked right up there at
Speaker 2: the top for you?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does. You know, it's it's crazy to think,
Speaker 3: you know, growing up as a little kid, you know,
Speaker 3: started hunting. I grew up in Pennsylvania. My dad got
Speaker 3: me into hunting and been hunting since a little kid,
Speaker 3: you know, watching all the old school guys, you know,
Speaker 3: the Michael Waddell's and the Buckmasters, and you know, it
Speaker 3: was always a dream of mine to you know, hunt
Speaker 3: big deer, and not just hunt big deer, but be
Speaker 3: in the industry and all these things. And then you know,
Speaker 3: you look at you know, Pennsylvania, we didn't have giant deer.
Speaker 3: I mean, I can remember my first year was still
Speaker 3: still super out of his little nine pointer, and you know,
Speaker 3: you grow and your goals changed as a hunter in
Speaker 3: different things, and always had dreams of shooting a deer
Speaker 3: of a certain caliber, whether it's a booner or you know,
Speaker 3: a big one, and have had, you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of opportunities over the years to shoot some pretty good deer.
Speaker 3: And I can remember, you know, growing up as a kid,
Speaker 3: it's like, man, I'm by thirty years old, I want
Speaker 3: to shoot a deer that's one seventy year bigger. You know.
Speaker 3: Then the years go on and go on, and I'm
Speaker 3: thirty four years old, and you know, it's something that
Speaker 3: you dream of your entire life. And fortunately in Minnesota
Speaker 3: finally was able to shoot my first year. It was
Speaker 3: over one seventy a booner, and then a few weeks
Speaker 3: later go to Iowa and shoot another one. So to
Speaker 3: say it was a dream season is kind of an
Speaker 3: understatement for me. I mean, I'm fulfilled, definitely. I've made
Speaker 3: a lot of memories over the years, but as far
Speaker 3: as deer hunting wise, it's definitely go one to remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I think there's a lot of us that
Speaker 2: grew up in a place like Pennsylvania or Michigan like me,
Speaker 2: or other states like that, you know, down the southeast Northeast,
Speaker 2: those regions where we watched TV. We watched the hunts
Speaker 2: in the Midwest, and we see these big, giant bucks
Speaker 2: and then we're thinking, man, I want to someday kill
Speaker 2: a big deer. But you know, maybe that's not around.
Speaker 2: It is more and more of these days in many states,
Speaker 2: but maybe we're not seeing one seventies in Pennsylvania all
Speaker 2: the time. Definitely not in Michigan all the time.
Speaker 3: No doubt.
Speaker 2: What what do you think it was it for you
Speaker 2: when you first made that switch to at least trying
Speaker 2: to target like older deer. And I'm not sure when
Speaker 2: when that was for you or if that was right away,
Speaker 2: but I know for me, like for most of my
Speaker 2: childhood and teenage years, it was like, I want to
Speaker 2: kill any buck that was like was a challenge that
Speaker 2: I hadn't figured out. And then it wasn't until I
Speaker 2: was like twenty one, I think when I decided okay,
Speaker 2: three and a half year old, I want to try
Speaker 2: to kill a deer like that, and that required a
Speaker 2: huge shift in everything I did. When did that? If
Speaker 2: you had a shift like that, when did that happen
Speaker 2: for you? And what were the things you had to
Speaker 2: change or saw the most success with once you changed?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know it's interesting. So, you know, started bowl
Speaker 3: hunting when I was twelve, and was fortunate shoot a
Speaker 3: deer when I was twelve with a ball and thirteen
Speaker 3: and again just we're talking little little deer and it
Speaker 3: was so happy. And fourteen and then I think I
Speaker 3: was It was a fall of when I was fourteen
Speaker 3: or fifteen. My dad had always wanted to go on
Speaker 3: and outfit at on his entire life and finally saved
Speaker 3: up enough money and thought I was at the age
Speaker 3: and kind of experience level that he could take me with,
Speaker 3: so he booked a hut at Bluff Country Outfitters in Buffaloky, Wisconsin.
Speaker 3: I know you've been there, you know, Tom and Laurie
Speaker 3: and Shane and absolutely unbelievable people people. So went up
Speaker 3: there and ended up shooting I probably a three and
Speaker 3: a half year old one hundred and thirty five inch
Speaker 3: year and was like on top of the moon. I
Speaker 3: thought I was a rock star. I'm like, I am
Speaker 3: fricking Michael Waddell. This is it, Like I am the man,
Speaker 3: you know. So in doing that, just built a really
Speaker 3: good relationship with Tom and Laurie, fell in love with
Speaker 3: their place and the people in the Midwest, and actually
Speaker 3: started coming up here in the summers to Wisconsin and
Speaker 3: working for Tom and just learning as much as I could. So,
Speaker 3: you know, it was one of those things where he
Speaker 3: would like ended up going to college in Madison, Wisconsin,
Speaker 3: and I'd come up all summer and work and then
Speaker 3: he'd let me on some but it was just spending
Speaker 3: time around Tom and Shane and Lori and those kind
Speaker 3: of people. I started learning as much as I could,
Speaker 3: So I think, you know, kind of at that point
Speaker 3: is when that gear kind of switched for me. My
Speaker 3: goal has changed a little bit. And I think the
Speaker 3: number one thing is, you know, I mean I became
Speaker 3: obsessed with deer hunting, and just you know, for me,
Speaker 3: it was more than just like even killing the deer,
Speaker 3: it was filming them. I mean, Shane and I were
Speaker 3: going out every night and filming deer in the summer
Speaker 3: and just seeing those bigger deer. I think what's got
Speaker 3: to change is just that that level of patience, you know,
Speaker 3: like you know that that want to if you want
Speaker 3: to shoot a bigger deer or have a different goal,
Speaker 3: you have to be willing to put the time in.
Speaker 3: But you have to be willing to you know, pass
Speaker 3: a smaller deer to have an opportunity at a bigger
Speaker 3: deer like that, because typically you know you're going to
Speaker 3: have opportunities that before, you know, you had take in
Speaker 3: a heartbeat. So it's just kind of switching that mindset.
Speaker 3: And I was fortunate enough to be around it, and
Speaker 3: for me it was like, Okay, I'm going to learn
Speaker 3: as much as I can about white tails and big
Speaker 3: deer and just engulf myself with it. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's transitioned into to where I am now. And
Speaker 3: you know, for me, it was never really about you know,
Speaker 3: maybe as a kid is like I want to shoot
Speaker 3: this big deer and scoring deer and whatever, but you
Speaker 3: know you mentioned it earlier. I think it's that transition
Speaker 3: into you know, shooting deer of older age and understanding
Speaker 3: what that quality deer management means. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think that there's now that I've been around enough deer
Speaker 3: and filmed enough, dear, you know, I that's what I
Speaker 3: do for a living, is film, you know, filmed enough
Speaker 3: other people shoot deer of a certain caliber, and man,
Speaker 3: I think you could walk up to one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventy inch deer, and you could walk up to one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty inch eight pointer that's just massive and gnarly,
Speaker 3: and like they're even a different caliber of deer, even
Speaker 3: though one scores more than the other. Like you walk
Speaker 3: up to a deer that's that's old, and just like
Speaker 3: you pick them up, and that's a different feeling, like
Speaker 3: a different level of even appreciation. You know, I think
Speaker 3: you should appreciate all deer you shoot. But when you
Speaker 3: get to deer of those upper age structures, there's just
Speaker 3: gnarly warriors. That's a that's a different game.
Speaker 2: That's pretty dark special. Yeah, that's for sure. I've yet
Speaker 2: to lose the sense of awe of a really old
Speaker 2: deer even like like you said, like even a smaller
Speaker 2: scoring deer still gets me way more fired up than
Speaker 2: a young, high scoring deer. There's just like the body
Speaker 2: you just see that big bowl walking through the woods
Speaker 2: and the way that all the other deer react to them,
Speaker 2: and the way they can carry themselves in the woods
Speaker 2: and the things they do and the savviness they bring
Speaker 2: to the table. Just man, I I've yet to get
Speaker 2: sick of it.
Speaker 3: Well, that's that's why white tail hunting is so awesome.
Speaker 3: They're all so unique, you know, everyone is so unique,
Speaker 3: and like I look at it. You know, I like
Speaker 3: to do a lot of shed hunting too, And it's
Speaker 3: like when I pick up a shed and it hits
Speaker 3: me with a shed more than like when I pick
Speaker 3: up a lie or not a live deer but a
Speaker 3: harvested deer for some reason. But you like, you pick
Speaker 3: up that shed and you hold it in your hand
Speaker 3: and you're like, man, think about what this this piece
Speaker 3: of bone went through, Like you know, whether that deer
Speaker 3: is two years old or a year older, five years old,
Speaker 3: six years old, Like a deer grew this thing on
Speaker 3: his head right, carried it around the entire year and
Speaker 3: then shed and here you are now with it in
Speaker 3: your hand. It's like, how crazy is that when you
Speaker 3: break it down and think of it? If you know,
Speaker 3: it's cliche to say, you know, if only the thing
Speaker 3: could talk, But I mean if you could learn so
Speaker 3: much from that. It's I just think that's the coolest
Speaker 3: thing in the world.
Speaker 2: I just sit there and spin them around my hand,
Speaker 2: just like stare at it, looking at all sides and
Speaker 2: thinking about those very same things. I'm right there with you.
Speaker 2: I could just spend like an hour just yea daydreaming,
Speaker 2: no doubt. So I tried to go ahead.
Speaker 3: Oh god, I was just gonna say, I try to
Speaker 3: tell my kids about that. My five year old, you know,
Speaker 3: he's at the age he's he's got a dog or
Speaker 3: we have a dog, and you know, go out there
Speaker 3: and shed.
Speaker 2: Hi.
Speaker 3: We're on my Minnesota farm this this past winter and
Speaker 3: we were shed hunting and we walk up and there's
Speaker 3: this little spike shedhorn laying there. And he runs over
Speaker 3: and he picks it up, and I'm like, dude, how
Speaker 3: cool is that? You know? And he's looking at it,
Speaker 3: and he looks looking at me and he's like, this
Speaker 3: isn't it shed Dad? And he throws it back on
Speaker 3: the ground. You know, It's just it's funny. But like,
Speaker 3: you know, you try to instill that in your kids
Speaker 3: and in the next generation, you know, just that appreciation
Speaker 3: how cool that is, you know, to just have the
Speaker 3: opportunity to enjoy that that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty done. Great. So Sticker ten, right, that's
Speaker 2: the name of that first buck you killed this year, right,
Speaker 2: So that was your first, your first booner. It's funny
Speaker 2: you mentioned the booner before thirty. A hunting buddy and
Speaker 2: I had a bet to see if we could each
Speaker 2: get a booner before thirty and and he did. He
Speaker 2: got his on his thirtieth birthday. And then on my
Speaker 2: thirtieth year, I shot a buck that I thought was
Speaker 2: and I was like, I did it, shot the buck
Speaker 2: and walked up in the absolute giant and then we
Speaker 2: scored it and he ended up scoring one sixty five.
Speaker 2: And for a half second afterwards, I was disappointed. And
Speaker 2: then that's when I realized, like, it's so silly to
Speaker 2: get worked up about a number, right, because it's such
Speaker 2: an incredible deer no matter what it scores. So that
Speaker 2: was a moment for me when I realized I had to,
Speaker 2: you know, get back to what we were just talking about,
Speaker 2: just the impressiveness of the animal's self, regardless of whatever
Speaker 2: numbers attached to it, regardless of what anybody else thinks.
Speaker 2: But all that said, it still is pretty durned cool
Speaker 2: to kill a deer like that, no matter what. So
Speaker 2: the sticker ten no doubt, give me the story how
Speaker 2: to go down?
Speaker 3: You know, it was crazy. So there's a piece that
Speaker 3: I lease here in Minnesota with a few other buddies
Speaker 3: and we've had it now for I think five years,
Speaker 3: and I've had a lot of success on it. It's
Speaker 3: a really good piece. You know, we kind of all
Speaker 3: worked together put in the work and it's been good.
Speaker 3: But low pressure approach, like we all you know, going
Speaker 3: there with the right wings. We don't don't over hunt it.
Speaker 3: And you know, I guess it was two years ago now,
Speaker 3: I still had a tag lead season and was hunting
Speaker 3: with the muzzloader. We had snow on the ground and
Speaker 3: I was over standing beans and saw just a ton
Speaker 3: of bucks and I think I ended up seeing like
Speaker 3: nineteen bucks that day. It was awesome. Nothing that I
Speaker 3: wanted to pull the trigger on, but some really good
Speaker 3: deer that we're three and a half years old, that
Speaker 3: you know, No, we wanted to make it till the
Speaker 3: next year. So anyways, fast forward to the next year
Speaker 3: and this deer shows up on trail camera early and
Speaker 3: he I mean, he looks like a giant. He's huge framed.
Speaker 3: That's where he got his name, Sticker ten. Just a
Speaker 3: big frame ten pointer and he had that year he
Speaker 3: had matching stickers on it, just on one side. He
Speaker 3: had two stickers coming off as G two. A clean ten,
Speaker 3: big frame. And so got talking with Lance and some
Speaker 3: other guys and he's like, man, that's that deer from
Speaker 3: the year before. So we started looking at pictures and
Speaker 3: we matched him up and I had actually filmed him,
Speaker 3: Andrews filming me that day, had actually filmed him that
Speaker 3: that day, late season. So he was a three and
Speaker 3: a half year old ten pointer, nothing super special to him.
Speaker 3: Beautiful deer, but just young, clean, you know, not a
Speaker 3: deer that I would even, you know, think about really
Speaker 3: even matching up looking like this. But we broke him
Speaker 3: down and like, man, that's him for sure, just same frame.
Speaker 3: But he, I mean he put on a top. And
Speaker 3: I think that there's deer out there that that just
Speaker 3: have it, and there's deer that don't. And you know,
Speaker 3: you can have a deer that gets old and gets
Speaker 3: gnarly and massive and all this stuff, but never reaches
Speaker 3: that that big frame, high scoring potential, and I think
Speaker 3: this year it was a parent that he had it.
Speaker 3: So we all sat down, We're like, okay, what do
Speaker 3: we do, Like, is this the deer a deer that
Speaker 3: we target he's four now, yeah? Or do we try
Speaker 3: to let him go? We have pretty good neighbors, but
Speaker 3: they you know, their their standards aren't necessarily as high
Speaker 3: all the time. And we're like, well, let's try. Hey,
Speaker 3: we we can't see what happens if we don't try it,
Speaker 3: So we're gonna we're gonna all agree to pass this year.
Speaker 3: So lo and behold, this year becomes one of the
Speaker 3: most killable deer on the property all year. Of course,
Speaker 3: I mean like I had to stop looking at my
Speaker 3: reveals because like there's places I wouldn't even go and
Speaker 3: hunt because I'm like, I don't even want to see him.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't want to put myself in that
Speaker 3: that scenario. So a few encounters with them, not personally
Speaker 3: with some of the other guys had encounters with them,
Speaker 3: passed him all year round. Fast forward to late season
Speaker 3: that year, I was tagged out on another deer. Uh
Speaker 3: my business partner Adam was trying to shoot his first buck,
Speaker 3: so he that's another kind of long story. But Adam
Speaker 3: has produced hunting content for a long long time, you know,
Speaker 3: over ten years. But he's never hunted, didn't grow up
Speaker 3: in a hunting family, never hunted himself. And he's got
Speaker 3: two young boys, five and three. And he said, you
Speaker 3: know what, he said, I've seen all the good that
Speaker 3: hunting does for you and for the people around and
Speaker 3: the values that teaches, and I want to get into
Speaker 3: hunting so I can pass that down to my boys.
Speaker 3: So cool, will you take me? Will you take me?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, heck, yes, I'll take you. So, you know,
Speaker 3: we start hunting and he's got limited time. We hunt
Speaker 3: a couple of times and we have a couple encounters
Speaker 3: and late season it's just like the time that, okay,
Speaker 3: we get out there so we can talk about some
Speaker 3: of the strategy later on, because I think it's kind
Speaker 3: of cool. But we crawled into this blind and I
Speaker 3: actually I got a picture on a cell camera like
Speaker 3: seven hundred yards away of stick or ten right, and
Speaker 3: he's coming that direction. Well, we were sitting over standing
Speaker 3: beans and I'm like, I'm like, dude, we're going to
Speaker 3: see this, dear, And he's like, well, what are we
Speaker 3: going to do. I'm like, man, I said, I would
Speaker 3: love for you just to shoot that deer. I said,
Speaker 3: I hope we don't see him, to be honest with Yeah,
Speaker 3: I said, because you know, we all had an agreement.
Speaker 3: Sure enough, it was like ten minutes later outcome sticker
Speaker 3: ted right into the field and he was hunting the
Speaker 3: crossbow and stood there and fed for fifty yards and
Speaker 3: I had fifty yards for ten to fifteen minutes and
Speaker 3: we just watched him. Got some epic footage of him.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And it was just a cool encounter, like to just
Speaker 3: see him on the hoof like that and know that
Speaker 3: he was probably gonna make it. So kind of kind
Speaker 3: of a twist there. But anyways, he makes it through
Speaker 3: the year, sheds on our property to the guys at
Speaker 3: least with picked each picked up one of his sheds.
Speaker 3: So it was like, man, success, it worked. You know,
Speaker 3: we got him through. So you know, the next year,
Speaker 3: it was like, hopefully he was gold to keep his home.
Speaker 2: I got ask him, I got the time out in
Speaker 2: here and ask you a question leading into the is
Speaker 2: the coming year that year killed him at five?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so the coming year would be the show.
Speaker 2: Okay, So one of the things that I've been curious
Speaker 2: about as I've listened to you tell some other stories
Speaker 2: on the Deer Society podcasts and stuff, and you just
Speaker 2: shared a couple examples of this. You guys hunt with
Speaker 2: multiple guys in the same property. And I've always thought
Speaker 2: I've done this on a small scale with one other buddy,
Speaker 2: but I've never had like a pile of buddies all
Speaker 2: on the same property, especially when you've got like a
Speaker 2: target deer. I've always or I've wondered, how do you
Speaker 2: do that in a way that doesn't become just tough,
Speaker 2: Like I know, when I have on a target deer,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure them out, and then once I
Speaker 2: have an encounter, then I'm like right back in there
Speaker 2: after them. Or I'm super strategic with where I'm going
Speaker 2: and what I'm doing. But when I've hunted a property
Speaker 2: with a buddy, it's kind of like, you know, well,
Speaker 2: let's flip a coin to see who picks where today
Speaker 2: or who's gonna hunt war. And you're trying to be
Speaker 2: fair about it, and you're trying not to, you know,
Speaker 2: be a jerk about anything, but it would seem really
Speaker 2: hard to be able to like make a strong play
Speaker 2: and a deer when you're constantly have to shuffle around
Speaker 2: with other guys or where you're stepping on toes or
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're trying to do this in a way
Speaker 2: that's not ruining your friendship. So how do you How
Speaker 2: do you do it?
Speaker 3: Man? I think it's hard, and I think that there
Speaker 3: is no great answer to it. I think that you
Speaker 3: have to, you know, find a group of people that
Speaker 3: are like minded and understanding and understand that. Look, sometimes
Speaker 3: you might get them, sometimes somebody else might get them.
Speaker 3: And it's hard. Like I'll be honest with you, we
Speaker 3: talked about at the beginning of the year because we
Speaker 3: knew that was going to be a target. The target
Speaker 3: and there's a other good deer on this property, but
Speaker 3: like that was the one. And you know, we talked about, okay,
Speaker 3: do we split up the property into three sections? Well,
Speaker 3: that's hard to and you know, so and so put
Speaker 3: in work over here and they might not get to
Speaker 3: benefit for it. So like that that was an option
Speaker 3: that was thrown around. When it came down to it,
Speaker 3: it was like, look, you know somehow and it's way
Speaker 3: easier said than done, right, But like we have to
Speaker 3: all be on the same page and say, look, you know,
Speaker 3: we got to work it out somehow. Maybe you go
Speaker 3: and hunt and then you get first picked tonight. And
Speaker 3: if we're going to hunt next Tuesday, well then you
Speaker 3: get first pick on where you're gonna hunt. And I
Speaker 3: won't say that I have a great answer for it,
Speaker 3: because I don't think that there is one, but I
Speaker 3: think it's you have to put yourself in the mindset
Speaker 3: of Look, it's a team effort, as hard as that is.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I'm gonna be happy if Lancer
Speaker 3: Kyle gets them, and you know if I get them, great,
Speaker 3: I think they'll be happy for me too. Again, Wait,
Speaker 3: that sounds like a perfect environment or scenario, and it's
Speaker 3: hard to feel that way, but you know that's just it.
Speaker 3: So you know, I think we all have a pretty
Speaker 3: good understanding of you know, what stands we can hunt,
Speaker 3: what stands we can waiting for the right time. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of us are busy, so like a couple
Speaker 3: those other guys are filming or guiding during the fall too,
Speaker 3: So it's not like any one of us has the
Speaker 3: opportunity to just go in there and pound it every day.
Speaker 3: Like I might have this week and Lance might have
Speaker 3: next week or you know, so it all works out
Speaker 3: in the end, I guess, is the simple answer.
Speaker 2: So if you have it sounds that you kind of
Speaker 2: rotate who gets first pick to some degree, right, But
Speaker 2: what happens if you have an encounter, like if you're
Speaker 2: in hunt multiple days in a row, and so today
Speaker 2: you have a close encounter with the sticker ten and
Speaker 2: now tomorrow you had and you had first pick that night,
Speaker 2: so you had first pick, you picked a spot, you
Speaker 2: almost killed him but didn't quite come together. You of
Speaker 2: course want to be right back there tomorrow or wherever
Speaker 2: you think he's going to be. Do you get do
Speaker 2: you get like a Mulligan and get to go in
Speaker 2: again because he had the close call and you kind
Speaker 2: of have like that, or or do you guys have
Speaker 2: to rotate?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'll tell you it kind of happened this
Speaker 3: year kind of bit. So you know, I think it's yeah,
Speaker 3: if you if you have an encounter with a deer
Speaker 3: and you want to go back in there, it's like,
Speaker 3: I'm not going to say no, don't go back in there,
Speaker 3: like like I think you should, and I'll tell them
Speaker 3: the story Lance was super close to killing this deer
Speaker 3: a few days before I killed him, and I would
Speaker 3: have been super happy if you did just worked out
Speaker 3: that I was there and shot him on that day.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, if you have an encounter with
Speaker 3: the deer, I think it's it's only right that you
Speaker 3: go in there, you know, back after them, and you know,
Speaker 3: we try not to step on each other's toes, and
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's what it is. I've accepted the
Speaker 3: fact that's the hard thing about group hunting, you know,
Speaker 3: you accept the fact that, hey, that's part of it.
Speaker 3: I couldn't lease this piece just on my own, and
Speaker 3: neither could they. So that's that's part of the give
Speaker 3: and take of the whole deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I got to believe that you more than
Speaker 2: make up the possible downside of the hunting being a
Speaker 2: little bit more challenging. I'm betting you make up for
Speaker 2: it with the fun and the camaraderie you have getting
Speaker 2: to like do all this stuff with your buddies, right.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, definitely, you know, sharing that intel back and forth,
Speaker 3: like you know, early season, those first couple weeks of
Speaker 3: the season, it's like, man and the half was Sticker
Speaker 3: ten it was like, okay, where's stick or ten? You know,
Speaker 3: I'm running five ten cameras, Lance Kyle, They're all running cameras.
Speaker 3: So it's like, you know, in the morning and sending
Speaker 3: pictures like okay, where was he last night? Yeah? And
Speaker 3: that deer the cool thing about him. I actually kind
Speaker 3: of changed his name right at the very end of
Speaker 3: Waldo because that year traveled more this year than really
Speaker 3: any other deal that we've had on that farm. I mean,
Speaker 3: he was north to south, to east to west, all
Speaker 3: over the place.
Speaker 2: So I guess, let's let's hear it. How did it?
Speaker 2: How did that year five come together?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So he started showing up in velvet looking huge.
Speaker 3: I mean he was. He was a giant. He had
Speaker 3: made that that next leap and turned from sticker ten
Speaker 3: into really sticker twelve. His main frame six by six
Speaker 3: had matching stickers. He actually had a little pigtail drop time,
Speaker 3: split brow times like, I mean, he was he was
Speaker 3: the man. And you know, it was one of those
Speaker 3: things where we were just getting intel and you know,
Speaker 3: he was there all the time, but he was all
Speaker 3: over the place. We this this particular section is like
Speaker 3: four hundred acres and it kind of splits up, like
Speaker 3: we have the north section, the middle section, in the
Speaker 3: south section, and a lot of time the deer on
Speaker 3: the north side, stand north side, south side, deer stand
Speaker 3: on the south side. Well, this year he would be
Speaker 3: on the north side in the evening, south side in
Speaker 3: the middle of the night, west side in the morning.
Speaker 3: It was crazy. There was no rhyme or reason what
Speaker 3: he was doing. So, you know, I just started trying
Speaker 3: to understand, you know, what he did the previous year,
Speaker 3: So like, where was his core area? Once October came,
Speaker 3: where was it? And breaking that all down, we're sharing intel.
Speaker 3: Kyle actually went and it was one of those deals
Speaker 3: where this is kind of a good example. So you know,
Speaker 3: early season opening weekend, that deer was there. I don't
Speaker 3: think that he was going to be super killable yet.
Speaker 3: He daylighted maybe a couple of times. But Kyle, he
Speaker 3: had time to hunt. He's like, guys, I'm gonna hunt
Speaker 3: opening opening week you know, is anybody else gonna hunt?
Speaker 3: And I think Lance was gone. I said, man, go hunt,
Speaker 3: I I can hunt. I'm not gonna I'm gonna stay
Speaker 3: out of there, like go get him, and he hunted.
Speaker 3: Didn't end up seeing him, but like he had quite
Speaker 3: a stretch there where he hunted, and the deer was
Speaker 3: around just pretty nocturnal. Yet so finally as we get
Speaker 3: into and I had maybe hunted once before, kind of
Speaker 3: that mid October time, and I'm a big believer in
Speaker 3: scout more than you hunt, so like, I try to
Speaker 3: get my cameras, let them do a lot of the
Speaker 3: intel and scouting for me, but I try to stay
Speaker 3: out of there until those windows are kind of right.
Speaker 3: And I don't mean to say this arrogantly, but when
Speaker 3: I go and hunt, like I legitimately think that I
Speaker 3: have a chance of killing the deer, right, So I
Speaker 3: don't trust me don't always get them, but like when
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go, like I want to put all the
Speaker 3: odds in my favor. So anyways, this deer, we start
Speaker 3: seeing that he moves kind of to the northwest side
Speaker 3: of our property, and it's kind of what he did
Speaker 3: last year around that mid October time, kind of started
Speaker 3: to shrink his core area down. And then it was
Speaker 3: like boom, We're getting pictured on in the same spot
Speaker 3: every night, you know, every morning. It wasn't during the daylight,
Speaker 3: but ended up going in at this point crops are
Speaker 3: starting to come off, and I hung a new stand
Speaker 3: kind of in the in the middle of this. We
Speaker 3: call it the deep middle field. It's it's kind of
Speaker 3: a big field. Right in the middle of the property
Speaker 3: was corn. It just got cut and hung us out there,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, this is where I think, you know,
Speaker 3: we can kill this deer with a north wind. We
Speaker 3: had a bunch of stands on the other side of
Speaker 3: the timber that we can help on the south wind.
Speaker 3: And anyways, lo and behold. I never had a picture
Speaker 3: of that deer coming out that way, but I just
Speaker 3: knew that. I figured he was going to do that
Speaker 3: because he did that a lot last year.
Speaker 2: It's so sorry. I was going to ask, why is
Speaker 2: it just based off of that historical pattern or was
Speaker 2: there something about how that terrain set up or something.
Speaker 3: So basically, yeah, so basically it's a it's a big
Speaker 3: drainage ditch and we never go in there. It's all
Speaker 3: sanctuary and it's probably I say it's a ditch, I
Speaker 3: mean it's it's a significant section of tim We're probably
Speaker 3: oh three hundred and fifty four hundred yards wide, but
Speaker 3: just a big ditch with egg on either side. And
Speaker 3: he usually goes out to that north side, but I
Speaker 3: know when he comes out to that south side, like
Speaker 3: he's got to be coming by there somewhere. There was
Speaker 3: a big scrape there. A lot of dolls were coming
Speaker 3: out there, and I know that the previous year I
Speaker 3: got a lot of pictures of him coming out that way.
Speaker 3: He was coming out more on the other side, but
Speaker 3: we can't hunt that side with a with a north wind,
Speaker 3: so it was tough. I just knew we needed to
Speaker 3: have something on that other side for that north wind. Well,
Speaker 3: Lance was coming in to hunt and across that field
Speaker 3: probably two hundred yards away, we have a groundbline there
Speaker 3: and Lance was coming down to hunt. I think it
Speaker 3: was Thursday. He's like, I'm going to go to that
Speaker 3: groundbline and I said, well, I said, just hung this
Speaker 3: other stand. I said, maybe you should go sit that
Speaker 3: other standing. It's close to the timber. And he's like, well,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go and kind of observe and see what happens.
Speaker 3: I said, okay, you know, I said, I I may
Speaker 3: go in and hunt that other stand Friday. It was
Speaker 3: gonna be Friday morning and see what happened. So that
Speaker 3: was kind of the plan. I didn't hunt that Thursday.
Speaker 3: He goes in there Thursday night. Guess who shows up
Speaker 3: walks right under that stand stick or ted. So he
Speaker 3: sees the deer and he comes out and he actually
Speaker 3: called to him, and that deer just stands up bully
Speaker 3: walks four steps towards him, and I'm like, I'm watching
Speaker 3: the video. I'm like, oh my god, that dear's gonna come,
Speaker 3: you know. After he's showing me, and a dough ran
Speaker 3: out behind him and he ended up circling and chasing
Speaker 3: that dough off. Well, so he's like, well, next morning,
Speaker 3: I want to go back in there. I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 3: go back in there. And he's like, I know you
Speaker 3: were going to sit that stand that you hung and
Speaker 3: it's just across the field. He's like, you can still
Speaker 3: go sit there. And I'm like, dude, we got plenty
Speaker 3: of ground here. You go hunt that deer you know
Speaker 3: this morning and whatever, like you saw him go on him. Well,
Speaker 3: he goes and sits there. Sure enough, that deer comes out,
Speaker 3: walks right under that stand again and comes out and
Speaker 3: he sees him and ends up following a door. So
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, at this point, I'm like you know, man,
Speaker 3: I wish that, you know, you have encounters this deer,
Speaker 3: like I wish that you could shoot him. And on
Speaker 3: the other hand, I'm thinking, like, man, I knew that
Speaker 3: deer was going to do this. It's just a gut instinct,
Speaker 3: like he should have sat in that standard or I
Speaker 3: should have been there.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: Well, he had to leave that evening go back and
Speaker 3: take care of some family stuff, and so I went
Speaker 3: and jumped in that stand in the evening and had
Speaker 3: a guy that just started working for us names Patrick,
Speaker 3: and he was filming me and sitting there and we
Speaker 3: see this buck chasing the doo below us, and he's like, man,
Speaker 3: that looks like a good deer, and I said, oh,
Speaker 3: that's Wide nine. It was a deer called Why nine,
Speaker 3: and he's just a big name, but he was just
Speaker 3: this five and a half year old heavy He's one
Speaker 3: of those deer that's like super impressive. I mean, he
Speaker 3: has basis for days, kind of short times, but like
Speaker 3: just a gnarly old like big face. So he asked me,
Speaker 3: He's like, if that deer comes out, you're gonna shoot him.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, man, I don't know, I said, I
Speaker 3: you know, game time decision, I said, maybe. Well, he
Speaker 3: ends up coming out in the cornfield, probably one hundred
Speaker 3: yards away from us, and right about that time, a
Speaker 3: doe comes up the trail right under us, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: we're about to find.
Speaker 2: Out off your wheel, so decision.
Speaker 3: Anyways, that deer turns and here he comes bline right
Speaker 3: to us, and we're that standing I hung was in
Speaker 3: a big oak tree. We weren't very high off the ground,
Speaker 3: probably twelve feet off the ground, just the way the
Speaker 3: limbs were. And he stops at fifteen yards and starts
Speaker 3: making a scrape on the oak tree that we're sitting in,
Speaker 3: and I had my bowl there and I'm a release
Speaker 3: on it and I'm just looking at him like God,
Speaker 3: And for whatever reason, in that moment, any other day,
Speaker 3: I probably would have shot this year and I didn't.
Speaker 3: It was just like I didn't feel it. They turned
Speaker 3: and he walked down the trail and Patrick looked at me.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget and he says, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, man, I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 3: But then it was like boom, here we go. The
Speaker 3: next morning went and jumped right back in that same stand,
Speaker 3: and it was interesting because this deer. So I was
Speaker 3: going in the gate, going the gate on the south side,
Speaker 3: and it's a hike to get into the middle. I'm
Speaker 3: going in the gate and I just pull up my
Speaker 3: reveal up quick, and I look and there's sticker ten
Speaker 3: on the far east side of the property, like way
Speaker 3: far east side, Like well, I'm not gonna go and
Speaker 3: chase a picture, like I know where he's been, where
Speaker 3: he wants to be. I'm still going both my plan.
Speaker 3: It wasn't an hour half hour after daylight that year
Speaker 3: got all the way around me. And I'm talking this
Speaker 3: is probably seventeen hundred yards ish. That year got all
Speaker 3: the way around me, ended up coming out my west
Speaker 3: so on the complete other side, comes out in the cornfield,
Speaker 3: and here he came. I mean, he just came across
Speaker 3: that cornfield. He was cruise and he checks some does
Speaker 3: on the way and ended up shooting him at like
Speaker 3: I think he was like thirty nine yards out in
Speaker 3: that standing cut cornfield. And that was it just fortunate.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of intel, a lot of history
Speaker 3: played into that. Going with the gut. I think waiting
Speaker 3: for the right time to hunt him was kind of crucial.
Speaker 3: Like I didn't. I didn't need to go in there
Speaker 3: and burn days just to burn days, Like I wanted
Speaker 3: to wait and let him do what he was going
Speaker 3: to do and become killable before you go in and
Speaker 3: try to kill him and then just I mean, there's
Speaker 3: obviously a lot of luck involved there, me being the
Speaker 3: one that was there, and and the deer showing up
Speaker 3: when I was, you know, when I was there.
Speaker 2: So did that deer teach anything after hunting him so
Speaker 2: hard this year and watching him the year previous and
Speaker 2: and all that history. Is there anything you can take
Speaker 2: away from this? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think, you know, one of the main things is
Speaker 3: big deer. And I've noticed this several other other big deer,
Speaker 3: and not just ones of shop ones have filmed big
Speaker 3: deer like that that have a core area that you
Speaker 3: can hold their habitual so they will do the same
Speaker 3: things over and over again. Like I look at a
Speaker 3: lot of yearly historical data, I pay a lot of
Speaker 3: attention to intel. Well, my cameras are telling me. But
Speaker 3: like from four to five years old, that deer did
Speaker 3: a lot of the same things. I killed another big
Speaker 3: deer a few years back, like to the te you know,
Speaker 3: it was like when the rut hit. He was in
Speaker 3: this same spot for five days. Like I think those bigger,
Speaker 3: older deer figure out what's safe, right, and they just
Speaker 3: learned that after doing it year after year, and they'll
Speaker 3: continue to do those, you know, same things. So I think,
Speaker 3: you know, looking at that historical data if you can,
Speaker 3: I think is really really crucial. And then you know,
Speaker 3: not over pressuring your deer before you go in and
Speaker 3: he becomes killable. Some deer become killable the first week
Speaker 3: of the season, right, you get him on a pattern whatever.
Speaker 3: I thought this year potentially would be killable, maybe the
Speaker 3: first week, but he just wasn't. He was nocturnal. He
Speaker 3: was coming to food, but just at night. So it
Speaker 3: was like, Okay, wait till the time is right and
Speaker 3: then go in there and kill him.
Speaker 2: How do you keep track of that historical data? That's
Speaker 2: something that I personally geek out about a lot, and
Speaker 2: my buddies give me a hard time about the spreadsheets
Speaker 2: I make trying to keep track of all that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff. But I've always thought, like, how do people
Speaker 2: keep the cell in their head? Are you are you
Speaker 2: one of those guys that can just store it up there,
Speaker 2: or do you have to write it down or put
Speaker 2: it somewhere.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, so that's an interesting question. Like I
Speaker 3: learned from Tom uh Interbow over there, who's got thirteen
Speaker 3: million yellow note pads with notes of what this dough
Speaker 3: did back in nineteen seventy two, you know, with the
Speaker 3: wind direction and all that stuff. So yeah, I do that.
Speaker 3: I'm a big one of keeping. Like I make sure,
Speaker 3: even though I'm running cell cameras, like to go get
Speaker 3: those cards after the season or whenever I can log
Speaker 3: all that day to try to organize it the best
Speaker 3: that I can right at the moment. So when I
Speaker 3: excuse me, when I go back, you know, I can say, okay,
Speaker 3: look here's kind of what that deer did and make notes.
Speaker 3: You know. Fortunate for what I do. Like, we film
Speaker 3: a lot of our stuff, so like I can always
Speaker 3: go back and look at footage too, and you know
Speaker 3: that stuff's all really organized some big server system here,
Speaker 3: so you know, it's easier for me to go back
Speaker 3: and kind of compare footage to trail camera and that
Speaker 3: kind of thing too. But I don't have a long
Speaker 3: list of stuff. It's you know, I guess a lot
Speaker 3: of it's up here and just you know. I guess
Speaker 3: I'm always thinking about it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, man, speaking of the uh, you know, storing
Speaker 2: all of your trail camera pictures and logging all those
Speaker 2: I've had, I don't know, you'd call it just a
Speaker 2: folder system of all of my bucks, like older than two.
Speaker 2: I usually save every buck that's like two or older.
Speaker 2: Since two thousand and nine, I think I've had them
Speaker 2: all on my computer, organized by property by year, and
Speaker 2: I've kept that going so fourteen years or whatever it is.
Speaker 2: And last week I was I ran out of space
Speaker 2: on my computer, and so I was clearing out some
Speaker 2: old podcast files and different things like that, and so
Speaker 2: I wiped a whole bunch of stuff like that, stuff
Speaker 2: that I didn't need anymore, so i'd have some you know,
Speaker 2: space in the computer. And then the other night, I
Speaker 2: was looking for a camera picture, looking for some picture
Speaker 2: that I wanted to reference back to him, like why
Speaker 2: is my trail camera folder not coming up? Where's my
Speaker 2: trail camera folder? And I somehow deleted my entire trail
Speaker 2: camera archive. It's gone.
Speaker 3: That is brutal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my goodness, I yeah, that's devastating.
Speaker 3: I'm glad.
Speaker 2: Like the only silver lining is that the last two years,
Speaker 2: all of my camera I've used only sell cameras the
Speaker 2: last two years and then use them partially for the
Speaker 2: last like probably three or four. So I have a
Speaker 2: lot of that stuff still in the cloud. So at
Speaker 2: least like the recent dead like deer, I'm still hunting. Now,
Speaker 2: I'll be able to look back on and and get
Speaker 2: that stuff. But still like all the pictures I have
Speaker 2: of all these bucks over the years that you sometimes
Speaker 2: go back there and look or I need a picture
Speaker 2: of this deer, that deer like it's gone.
Speaker 3: Man, that's brutal. Yeah, that's a good lesson. Back it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you know, so, yeah, I do know,
Speaker 2: and I just didn't didn't follow follow the advice I
Speaker 2: would have given. So, man, anyways, start a new catalog. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so you killed stick or ten your first booner, and
Speaker 2: you're flying high and then you go to Iowa. How
Speaker 2: did how did this buck in Iowa come to be?
Speaker 2: It looks like, am I right that that buck's even bigger?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it looks and then and there maybe substantially, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's they're actually pretty close, to be honest with you,
Speaker 3: score wise, the buck in Iowa is kind of that next,
Speaker 3: next level up, you know, kind of what we talked about.
Speaker 3: I mean, you you hold stick or ten and he
Speaker 3: is just big. He's big framed, he's just that beautiful
Speaker 3: stack tie and he's got it all. And then you
Speaker 3: hold this Iowa deer and he's just heavy, gnarly like
Speaker 3: probably you know, I don't know exactly how old this
Speaker 3: deer was, you know, for sure five could be six,
Speaker 3: easily seven, you know, like in that that upper eight structure,
Speaker 3: but super massive heavy. The only thing that I think
Speaker 3: the reason that they score real similar that year in
Speaker 3: Iowa actually had pretty short beam. So like he on
Speaker 3: the one side is one beams right beam was only
Speaker 3: eighteen and a half inches, and I think this other
Speaker 3: one was twenty one. But again, he had it all.
Speaker 3: He had a big inline time and that deer, I
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's interesting, kind of a different story.
Speaker 3: I don't have a lot of history. I didn't put
Speaker 3: in a ton of time with that deer outside of
Speaker 3: of killing him. So I was hunting with some friends
Speaker 3: of mine down a big Buck outfitter or big Buck
Speaker 3: down outfitters in Iowa, and I've known those guys for
Speaker 3: quite a few years, and one of the shows that
Speaker 3: we produced Love the Grind, those guys hunt down there
Speaker 3: quite a bit and hunted down there this archery season,
Speaker 3: and they were going back down there. Trey's wife Kira
Speaker 3: was going to be hunting, and I had the opportunity
Speaker 3: to go down there during the first shotgun season and
Speaker 3: hunt with all those guys. So you know, I was
Speaker 3: pretty excited still, like you said, flying high from this
Speaker 3: this other Minnesota buck. I mean, my season was made already.
Speaker 3: And there was a deer that that Jeff from Love
Speaker 3: the Grind actually had had two encounters with during the
Speaker 3: bow season and talking to Corbyn somebodies down there, they're like, man,
Speaker 3: this deer is still there, and like he is, he's there,
Speaker 3: and I think we got a good chance at him. So,
Speaker 3: you know, the week before the season sending me lots
Speaker 3: of tru camera photos and this year is like he's
Speaker 3: all over the place. He's you know, here mid days,
Speaker 3: three times a day in the day, ladies there and
Speaker 3: he's going to this food, big food source, a big
Speaker 3: standing beanfield, and I think, you know, there's probably still
Speaker 3: tail end of the rout there. That's why he was
Speaker 3: moving during the day a lot. So I was like man,
Speaker 3: I was getting excited, you know.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 3: Probably three days, four days before I got down there,
Speaker 3: deer quit doing it, Like he absolutely changed his pattern,
Speaker 3: wasn't shown up on the north side of the farm anymore.
Speaker 3: And they're like, man, what what happened? Where'd you go?
Speaker 3: And I think it was just, you know, he was
Speaker 3: at that point where you know, temperatures were mild, didn't
Speaker 3: need to drive him to food. He wasn't you know,
Speaker 3: really focused on dos anymore. Well, the south side of
Speaker 3: the farm is big crp tall grass, just some little
Speaker 3: creek bottoms, and they said, maybe we need to shift
Speaker 3: our focus down there. Well, set up some cameras. Boom,
Speaker 3: there he was, and he had shifted from the north
Speaker 3: side of the farm down to the south side of
Speaker 3: the farm.
Speaker 2: How far is that?
Speaker 3: Oh, you know, probably, you know, not super far if
Speaker 3: you look at like a section, you know, north side
Speaker 3: south side, but I bet probably from where he shifted
Speaker 3: his core area was fifteen hundred yards. Yeah, so not
Speaker 3: a super long ways, but like from him religiously doing
Speaker 3: what he was doing to now not doing it at
Speaker 3: all anymore, and just in those few days and they said, okay,
Speaker 3: well here's where we got to change. They went in there,
Speaker 3: put a blind on that CRP. You know, it's kind
Speaker 3: of backwards, so like you're switching. You're in those December
Speaker 3: months and you're thinking, Okay, got to start focusing on food. Well,
Speaker 3: now we're shifting away from the food. And it was
Speaker 3: one of those deals, like, man, we got to kill
Speaker 3: this deer in where he's feeling comfortable. He's living in
Speaker 3: the CRP, nobody's bothering him. Just and we got down
Speaker 3: there and I remember climbing into the blinding to get
Speaker 3: light and it was like there wasn't a lot of
Speaker 3: timber around it all. There was some across the road,
Speaker 3: but it was just like these little tiny creek drainages.
Speaker 3: And man, we saw pile of deer the first day,
Speaker 3: I mean a pile. Didn't see him, saw some bucks,
Speaker 3: a lot of doughs, just working through the CRP. You
Speaker 3: could tell they just felt comfortable there. Second day we
Speaker 3: went in there. We were in the morning, in the evening,
Speaker 3: and it was the second evening we were actually watching
Speaker 3: some deer out the right side of our blind and
Speaker 3: I saw him spun all the way around Connor, who's
Speaker 3: filming me. He looks down to the left and say, hey,
Speaker 3: there's a buck coming down the creek and this is
Speaker 3: probably an hour before dark, and he's like, it's him,
Speaker 3: it's him. And sure enough, I turned around and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't see him. Where is he? He's like, he's
Speaker 3: right there, He's right there, right in front of us.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, Connor, I don't see him.
Speaker 2: Wherethy right there? Right?
Speaker 3: We're running some secondary angles in there, and it's cool,
Speaker 3: Like that's kind of the coolest part for me is
Speaker 3: just watch this interaction back and forth. And finally he
Speaker 3: was just in one section where the blind, you know,
Speaker 3: the corner of the blind was there, and I peeked
Speaker 3: out to the left and there he was, and he
Speaker 3: was coming and kind of had to wait for him
Speaker 3: to get clear because he was behind some crp and
Speaker 3: then it'd be open and whatever else. And yeah, made
Speaker 3: it and made a shot. I was shooting a custom
Speaker 3: muzzloader from Elevated Arms. That was a sweet, sweet gun,
Speaker 3: and shot him in one hundred and eighty seven yards,
Speaker 3: I think, And that was kind of end of that deal,
Speaker 3: you know. It was. It was interesting because I had
Speaker 3: seen a lot of trail camera photos and videos of
Speaker 3: that deer and you know, some of he looks like
Speaker 3: he's you know, one sixty. Other ones he turns, he
Speaker 3: looks like he could be two hundred. So there was
Speaker 3: a lot of and when I saw him, you know,
Speaker 3: it was like I looked at one side and that
Speaker 3: was it. Didn't look at him again. Everybody's like, how
Speaker 3: do you look? How do you look? I'm like, I
Speaker 3: couldn't tell you. I just know it's him. And I
Speaker 3: remember walking up and there's a group of us that
Speaker 3: walked up there, and it was like, man, that hit
Speaker 3: me like a freight train. When I walked up there
Speaker 3: and picked them up. It was just like, you know,
Speaker 3: I was so appreciative this season I already had, and
Speaker 3: then to have this year now holding this year, it
Speaker 3: was like am I dreaming? Somebody pinched me because it
Speaker 3: was like this year is a whole different even caliber
Speaker 3: than that one. And you know, then it was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, this dream season. Everybody saw me and
Speaker 3: I'm like, look, everybody, just calmed down. I want to
Speaker 3: appreciate this one for what it is, you know, like
Speaker 3: I don't want to take away from that one or
Speaker 3: take away from this one. It was just, man, I
Speaker 3: still kind of surreal it didn't really sink until I
Speaker 3: got back here and started getting back in the in
Speaker 3: the swing of things, and it's like, man, it's been
Speaker 3: an incredible year for sure.
Speaker 2: So when you look back on this whole season, and
Speaker 2: you kind of talked like, you've had this progression since
Speaker 2: you moved up to Wisconsin and started taking it more serious.
Speaker 2: And now over the years you've gotten deeper and deeper
Speaker 2: and deeper, and you've killed a lot of good deer,
Speaker 2: but you still hadn't crossed that, you know, that pinnacle
Speaker 2: mark that so many of us kind of obsess over,
Speaker 2: and then you did twice. When you look back on
Speaker 2: this year, is there anything can you attribute this success
Speaker 2: you had this year to anything different that you did?
Speaker 2: Is there any step that you've taken that you think
Speaker 2: was like that thing that got you over the hump,
Speaker 2: or or was there was this really just hey, this
Speaker 2: was your year and you've been doing the right things
Speaker 2: all these years and this just happened to be the
Speaker 2: year that it all lined up just perfect.
Speaker 3: You know, that's a good question. I think it's a
Speaker 3: combination of both. I think it's one. You know, I
Speaker 3: think I obsessed this year even more and I've done
Speaker 3: this for years, but like obsessed over you know, the
Speaker 3: strategy and looking at on X I mean daily and
Speaker 3: pictures and like just trying to build these strategies and
Speaker 3: take you know, eliminate as many variable as I can
Speaker 3: and take it to the next level. I won't say
Speaker 3: that I did anything more crazy than that. I think it.
Speaker 3: You know, I think I had the opportunity at two
Speaker 3: deer that we're of that caliber. Not saying that I've
Speaker 3: never chased a deer that big, but I mean not
Speaker 3: one that sticks out that's like, man, I had an
Speaker 3: opportunity to chase that dear. So I think the deer
Speaker 3: we're there.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: It's the old adage you can't shoot a booner or
Speaker 3: two hundred each year if you don't have one. So
Speaker 3: I think that all lined up this year. And I
Speaker 3: do think the other thing too, is and this is
Speaker 3: even outside of hunting kind of an awful one, is
Speaker 3: just building relationships, like you know, building relationships with not
Speaker 3: only people that you have opportunities through so like you know,
Speaker 3: building those those friendships in Iowa and you know, with
Speaker 3: love the grind, having that opportunity to go down there
Speaker 3: and hunt, building the relationships with the people on my lease,
Speaker 3: you know, having the Deer Society guys over here, JJ
Speaker 3: and Brian and Chris, like man sitting down and looking
Speaker 3: and going through these strategies almost daily and what did
Speaker 3: the deer do last night? And you know, getting those
Speaker 3: different opinions. So like, as much as I was the
Speaker 3: one that shot these deer, there's so much more behind
Speaker 3: the scenes that I that I look when I look
Speaker 3: at the rack setting there, like, those are the relationships
Speaker 3: and those strategies between people that that I think was
Speaker 3: a big standout for me this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's such a great point. And so I have
Speaker 2: a hard time convincing my wife of this. But I'm
Speaker 2: trying to explain her the value of my mounts or
Speaker 2: keeping the euros and all that kind of stuff. She's like,
Speaker 2: I just don't get why you need these all over
Speaker 2: the place. And it goes back to what you said, Like,
Speaker 2: when I see that animal again, it brings back not
Speaker 2: just the hunt, but it brings back everything that was
Speaker 2: going on. It brings back the relationships and the friendships
Speaker 2: and the ups and the downs and all that stuff
Speaker 2: just comes flooding back to you every time you stop
Speaker 2: and look at it, and you stop and look at
Speaker 2: them so often, and it's it's pretty special, how you know,
Speaker 2: something like an animal can capsulate encapsulate so many other
Speaker 2: things too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no doubt. And then you know it's again talking
Speaker 3: about cliche things, but like you know, talk about in
Speaker 3: anything in life, enjoying the chase and enjoying the process.
Speaker 3: You know, like when I look at the deer they're
Speaker 3: on my wall. I hardly ever say that deer scores
Speaker 3: one fifty or that deer. It's like, man, remember that,
Speaker 3: remember that hunt, Remember that everything that went into that.
Speaker 3: And that's why you know it's hard. I guess it's
Speaker 3: easy for somebody that's tagged out to say to somebody else,
Speaker 3: like enjoy the process. Who still has tagging their pocket
Speaker 3: or is having a tough season or whatever, But like, man,
Speaker 3: that's that's what it's about. Like you gotta love the
Speaker 3: for lack of better terms, love the grind, love the
Speaker 3: strategy involved in it. I can tell you, like when
Speaker 3: I shot stick or ten, like it was a bittersweet moment,
Speaker 3: like it was one of those things like man, I
Speaker 3: don't get to look wake up in the morning and
Speaker 3: try to figure out where he is or like it
Speaker 3: was like it's almost like this connection or this this
Speaker 3: intimate relationship that you have and it's like you kill
Speaker 3: him and that's the goal, right, But then it's like, man,
Speaker 3: you know, you almost miss that, Like I missed the
Speaker 3: It's like right now I'm tagged down Minnesota. I wake
Speaker 3: up and I'm like, I might look at my cameras.
Speaker 2: I might not, but I love that, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's true. It's a weird thing when you realize like, oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't I didn't obsessively check my cameras already. When
Speaker 2: that when that deer's gone, it is a little different.
Speaker 2: So so let's let's imagine a different scenario though. Let's
Speaker 2: imagine you didn't kill the stick or ten. Let's imagine
Speaker 2: he was still out there right now and you still had,
Speaker 2: you know, a few weeks this season. What would you
Speaker 2: be doing at this time of year to try to
Speaker 2: kill a deer like that? What's your late season approach
Speaker 2: that you would that you'd be leaning on now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, So you know, it's interesting because this year, like
Speaker 3: right now in Minnesota, it's mild, you know, we have
Speaker 3: no snow, Mild temperatures typically late season, Like I'm going
Speaker 3: to focus one hundred percent on food for the most part.
Speaker 3: Now that food a lot of times for us is
Speaker 3: standing corn, standing soybeans. Standing soybeans can be absolutely lethal
Speaker 3: this time of year and can be one of my
Speaker 3: favorite times to hunt if I still have a tag,
Speaker 3: just because those deer they get back on their patterns.
Speaker 3: You know, they're going from betting to food. So you
Speaker 3: know what I would be doing is finding where the
Speaker 3: food is and really hunting evenings waiting for those those
Speaker 3: deer to come to me. Now, I think talk about food,
Speaker 3: you know, it's easy to say, well, standing beans, standing
Speaker 3: corn right now. I don't think it's cold enough where
Speaker 3: we have the temperatures here that are driving deer in
Speaker 3: the daylight to standing corner beans. I think there's when
Speaker 3: you talk about food, there's a lot that's overlooked. Like
Speaker 3: I think woody brows, deer feeding in the woods right
Speaker 3: now is a huge thing. Like if you have any
Speaker 3: kind of downtree tops or hinge cutting or or anything
Speaker 3: like that, there's a lot of deer utilizing that right now.
Speaker 3: I shot a deer with in Buffalo County shoot there's
Speaker 3: probably twenty ten over at Tom's and it was January second.
Speaker 3: I'll never forget it, and it was a big a
Speaker 3: point and I shot him in the woods. Now he
Speaker 3: was going to a food source, but wasn't getting there
Speaker 3: till night. Got in the woods and that deer was
Speaker 3: feeding on what he brows. It was negative eighteen degrees.
Speaker 3: We had snow, but it was it was a matter
Speaker 3: of getting in there and understanding where that deer was
Speaker 3: feeding in the daylight. So I think that's that's really
Speaker 3: the key to any late season hunting right now. Understanding
Speaker 3: that these deer aren't doing a whole lot like they're resting,
Speaker 3: they're recovering from the rout. They're going from bedding to
Speaker 3: food whatever that food source is. So if you can
Speaker 3: try to understand that and then get in a position
Speaker 3: where you know they might move in the daylight, you know,
Speaker 3: I think that's that's your best option. It can be hard,
Speaker 3: I think, you know, like last year, I want to
Speaker 3: go back to that encounter a stick or ten. So
Speaker 3: we had snow last year, it was cold, and this
Speaker 3: was the last days of December and our season goes
Speaker 3: out December thirty first here in Minnesota. We had the
Speaker 3: farmer leave an acre and a half of standing beans
Speaker 3: and all he did, though he didn't he didn't give
Speaker 3: us the option of where we were leaving it. Like
Speaker 3: he was going to leave one head row and that
Speaker 3: was going to be it, and he left it right
Speaker 3: along the wood edge, so it was going to be
Speaker 3: hard to hunt with a bow. Like you could try
Speaker 3: to get in the middle of it and put a
Speaker 3: tree standing in the middle. But like south wind, you're
Speaker 3: blowing into the woods into the bedding, north wind you're
Speaker 3: blowing out into the beans. And it was like, what
Speaker 3: do you do? So Adam had a tag and I'm like, man,
Speaker 3: I know there were deer coming there. What do I do?
Speaker 3: We had like five days left of the season, and
Speaker 3: I said, you know, the only option is I don't
Speaker 3: like this option, but the only option is to go
Speaker 3: and put a ground blind right in the middle of
Speaker 3: the field. There was nothing else there. Put a groundline
Speaker 3: right in the middle of the field, so we can
Speaker 3: hunt it with the north wind, stay you know, south
Speaker 3: of the beans, be able to shoot it right in
Speaker 3: the middle and hope the deer put up with it. No,
Speaker 3: I'll never forget, you know, I had my doubts. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm all for hunting in blinds and things
Speaker 3: like that, but like putting a groundline out in the
Speaker 3: middle of nothing, you know, snow, and going and hunting it.
Speaker 3: I said it one afternoon, we went and climbed in
Speaker 3: it the next day and man, we had that was
Speaker 3: the day that we saw stick or ten. Andy came
Speaker 3: out and fed at fifty yards and it was like, man,
Speaker 3: it worked and it didn't bother him. Now, I'm not
Speaker 3: saying that that'll work every time. And you know, I
Speaker 3: think it's there's something too when you set a blind
Speaker 3: like that. I think they honestly feel more comfortable if
Speaker 3: you put it right out in the middle of nothing
Speaker 3: and you're like or you try to half ass brush
Speaker 3: it into the woodline like they they feel like almost
Speaker 3: like you're hiding from them, you know, or like go ahead.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, it's funny you bring that up.
Speaker 2: I had the exact same scenario that time. I went
Speaker 2: and hunted with Town and there was a little food
Speaker 2: plot he had, but there was not a blind on
Speaker 2: it to hunt with specific winds. I was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I think I'm gonna go in there and put a
Speaker 2: pop up up. And so I was kind of describing
Speaker 2: to him, like you're asking him like, hey, you know,
Speaker 2: is there a fencer wrong along there where I'd be
Speaker 2: a you know, kind of brush myself in And he's like,
Speaker 2: oh no, don't brush yourself in. Put it right out
Speaker 2: in the open. Like, ah, that doesn't sound like a
Speaker 2: good idea of Tom. It's like, no, trust me, they're
Speaker 2: gonna be more weirded out by you kind of brushing
Speaker 2: it in than if you just stick it right out
Speaker 2: in the middle and they'll just assume it's kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, farmer stuff. And so that's what we did,
Speaker 2: and they, you know, all sorts of deer came out
Speaker 2: and weren't bothered by it at all. So that was
Speaker 2: a very interesting Like you said, I'm not sure that
Speaker 2: would work every time, but there certainly seems that there's
Speaker 2: something to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think, you know, as we get to the
Speaker 3: end of the season here, like if you have a
Speaker 3: tactic that you think you should try, man, you might
Speaker 3: as well try it because you're gonna run out of time.
Speaker 3: But I think the big thing is thinking outside the
Speaker 3: box when you think of what the food source is.
Speaker 3: Don't always necessarily focus on corn and beans obviously that
Speaker 3: they're the big ones or braskas or food plots whatever.
Speaker 3: But you know, if your dear aren't coming to there,
Speaker 3: try to figure out what they're doing. I mean, you're in,
Speaker 3: You're in your last ditch efforts, so you know, focus
Speaker 3: on that. We do have a little flurry of a
Speaker 3: second rout that comes in. You know, if you see
Speaker 3: any of that on your cameras, definitely getting get out there.
Speaker 3: But you know that it can be really hard late season,
Speaker 3: Like if you don't have a buck that that you
Speaker 3: think you can go after, you know, it's like, you know,
Speaker 3: must give up. And what I've done a lot of times,
Speaker 3: Like there's a streak a few years ago where I
Speaker 3: think it was like five years in a row I
Speaker 3: didn't shoot a buck, not that I didn't have opportunities,
Speaker 3: it was just like not the right one or something happened,
Speaker 3: And you know, it can get hard towards the end
Speaker 3: of the year and you're gonna eat another tag. I
Speaker 3: think late season is also a good time if you
Speaker 3: don't have a buck to go after a buck to shoot,
Speaker 3: like get excited about something, go shoot some dose or
Speaker 3: or something like that, Like you'd be amazed. Like I
Speaker 3: still get excited going to shoot dose. You know, if
Speaker 3: like I didn't have a buck to shoot, Like man,
Speaker 3: go out and get excited about you know, find what
Speaker 3: the does are doing and go shoot one and enjoy
Speaker 3: that with you know, the people you hunt with, or
Speaker 3: just for yourself. So you know, I think it's that's
Speaker 3: a lot of mindset. You know, towards the end of
Speaker 3: the year can get grueling, can be one of the
Speaker 3: best times, I think to get out there and hunt.
Speaker 3: If you have good weather, if you have a food
Speaker 3: source that that you know de you're going to can
Speaker 3: be one of the best times. But you know, it
Speaker 3: all just depends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm right there with you on the dough thing.
Speaker 2: Like it seems like even even if I do have
Speaker 2: a buck tag in my pocket, if it gets to
Speaker 2: the last week or two of the season and there's
Speaker 2: not like an incredible reason to really really really focus
Speaker 2: on that buck, I'll usually just just shift to dough season, like, hey,
Speaker 2: it's time to just do some management and relax a
Speaker 2: little bit and have fun with it, Like go into
Speaker 2: it with a target rich environment. All of a sudden,
Speaker 2: it totally changes the way you feel when you go
Speaker 2: on that hunt. When you know, like man, I'm there's
Speaker 2: just a really good chance I'm gonna shoot a doe
Speaker 2: tonight probably, you know, invite the buddies out or take
Speaker 2: the take my son's out, like that is so much fun.
Speaker 2: I took my son out last night, and I've got
Speaker 2: a couple of friends coming up tonight to do the
Speaker 2: same thing, gonna mentor a new hunter tomorrow, like, and
Speaker 2: that's all so much easier when you're shifting to those
Speaker 2: doughs and and can just enjoy that. So it's a
Speaker 2: very good idea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of excitement that occurs around that,
Speaker 3: you know, like even you know, for for guys that
Speaker 3: that's the thing to shoot big box. It's like when
Speaker 3: you go out and you know, like I'm going to
Speaker 3: shoot a dough, like you can't help but not get
Speaker 3: excited about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I still get fired out. Yeah, something
Speaker 2: I'm curious about back to kind of tactics when you're
Speaker 2: after and I guess this could be a buck or dough.
Speaker 2: But I've heard you and and Mike and JJ and
Speaker 2: those guys talk a lot about water throughout the year.
Speaker 2: Is that something that ever you think about in the
Speaker 2: late season. I mean, that's not something I typically would think,
Speaker 2: but I'm curious if that does fall within you guys,
Speaker 2: you know, set of tools.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. I think water all year around it
Speaker 3: super crucial. I have seen over the years so much
Speaker 3: success over little water holes, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: it's easy to understand why water works early season when
Speaker 3: it's hot and that kind of thing. Throughout the whole
Speaker 3: entire season. I think they just get better. Like during
Speaker 3: the rut, water holes are can be killer even now,
Speaker 3: Like deer still need to get water right and it
Speaker 3: becomes tougher for them. So if you think about it,
Speaker 3: like right now out there, it's as much as it's mild,
Speaker 3: like a lot of the water is frozen. So like
Speaker 3: if you have you know, brassicas, there's some of those,
Speaker 3: plus that those some of those plants hold some water,
Speaker 3: you'll find more deer on there. Water can be killer
Speaker 3: late season if you can find an open water source.
Speaker 3: That's the hard thing though, is most of the water
Speaker 3: sources are frozen. I do know some guys that will
Speaker 3: go in. It's like it's almost like they're duck hunt.
Speaker 3: You know, guys going in, they'll break ice and you know,
Speaker 3: little pockets and maybe ducks coming in land. But I
Speaker 3: know guys that will go out and try to break
Speaker 3: some ice. Now that's hard because a lot of it
Speaker 3: freezes back overnight. But if you can find an open
Speaker 3: water source late season this time of year, man, I
Speaker 3: think again, it's understanding what the deer need, like, they
Speaker 3: need water. So if you can find an open water
Speaker 3: source late season, heck, yeah on it.
Speaker 2: Yeah makes sense. Are there any other off the wall
Speaker 2: late season things you're trying or would try, or any
Speaker 2: other thing we haven't covered. That's like tape, one more
Speaker 2: thing they have in your back pocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's a good question. I guess one
Speaker 3: of the things that you could try. And I am like,
Speaker 3: if you talk about talk about calling, I guess I
Speaker 3: am not a guy who does a lot of calling.
Speaker 3: I will call very minimally when I have to, but
Speaker 3: I don't do a lot of calling. I think there's
Speaker 3: a certain window, like pre rout where it can be
Speaker 3: game changing. But I am a guy that will do
Speaker 3: a little calling early season and even late season. Now,
Speaker 3: you have to be careful when you're calling like that
Speaker 3: late season because it's not like I'm going to go
Speaker 3: and bang horns together. But I do think, say you're
Speaker 3: hunting a food source that's close to bedding, right, and
Speaker 3: you know there's a buck in there potentially because they're
Speaker 3: not going very far, but he's not moving until just
Speaker 3: after dark. I would not be afraid to go in there,
Speaker 3: and as it's getting close to maybe like that last
Speaker 3: half hour, last fifteen minutes, you know, take the black record,
Speaker 3: take any kind of call, like rallying horns, and just
Speaker 3: tickle them together, because what you're doing is you're not
Speaker 3: challenging him. Well, all you want to do is convince
Speaker 3: that deer that hey, there is other deer out there
Speaker 3: in the food plot. He's laying there like he's going
Speaker 3: to get up. He's probably hungry. It's just when if
Speaker 3: you can convince him for even a second to get
Speaker 3: up two minutes earlier and think, hey, there's deer out there,
Speaker 3: you know, it's creating this illusion that hey, I maybe
Speaker 3: it's even convincing him a few minutes early. Not be careful.
Speaker 3: It's just think about what you're seeing. That's when people
Speaker 3: ask me, how do you call? It's like, well, I
Speaker 3: call based on what I'm seeing out there, what are
Speaker 3: the deer doing? And that's how I do it. That
Speaker 3: time of year. But like you'll see little bucks out
Speaker 3: there just kind of tickling around, messing around. Try it.
Speaker 3: You know, at that point, if you can do anything
Speaker 3: to get that deer up two three, one minute earlier
Speaker 3: before you know, shooting light ends.
Speaker 2: I hope you know, might help. Yeah. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: great point. And I do think sometimes we discount how
Speaker 2: important just that little bit of social confirmation matters to
Speaker 2: a buck. Just enough, Hey there's a other deer out here,
Speaker 2: and they're feeling safe. The coast is clear. If you're
Speaker 2: hearing some bucks sparring, that means the coast is clear.
Speaker 2: If you a little if you hear a little contact grunt,
Speaker 2: you know, Okay, hey it's safe enough that there's a
Speaker 2: couple other deer out there, Maybe I'm gonna start edging
Speaker 2: my way. I mean, that's uh, that is important stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 2: no doubt so, Brian. If my five year old son,
Speaker 2: who is nuts about deer hunting, wanted to go on
Speaker 2: YouTube tonight and watch one of your guys's YouTube videos
Speaker 2: there that you've produced for Deer Society, or really, I
Speaker 2: know you work on a whole bunch of things. Where
Speaker 2: would you send us if you were going to send
Speaker 2: us to one video that you've worked on or that
Speaker 2: you are in that you think my five year old
Speaker 2: will get a kick out of. Give me one recommendation
Speaker 2: on that, and then and then give me the rest
Speaker 2: of the resume of things we can be looking for
Speaker 2: ways we can connect with you and your work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, that's that's a that's a really great question.
Speaker 3: You know, there's one that pops out, but I you know,
Speaker 3: I don't know if it it would resonate yet with
Speaker 3: your five year old, it would resonate with you. There's
Speaker 3: a film we did a few years back and it
Speaker 3: was called Love Dad, and it's on Deer set of
Speaker 3: YouTube channel, and it was a film based on the
Speaker 3: premise of me going on my first meal deer hunt
Speaker 3: and it was an Alberta and but it wasn't about
Speaker 3: me shooting this deer. It was a letter to my son.
Speaker 3: So that's how the film progresses. So you know, it
Speaker 3: opens up with you know, me writing this letter and
Speaker 3: it says to my son Barrett and at the time
Speaker 3: he was just born. That was here he's born, and
Speaker 3: it walks through this process of the hunt. But what
Speaker 3: hunting has taught me and how it's molded me as
Speaker 3: a person, and like the lessons I've learned and failures
Speaker 3: and all of these different things. I'm pretty passionate about
Speaker 3: that one just because I think it's well produced, but
Speaker 3: it's it's really from the heart, you know, and and
Speaker 3: it meant a lot to me. Now, my son's five
Speaker 3: and and took him turkey hunting for the first year
Speaker 3: this year. And you know, I look at him when
Speaker 3: I was writing that letter. It is just a little baby.
Speaker 3: And now he's five years old and teaching him those traditions.
Speaker 3: So I think that's a pretty special one. So you
Speaker 3: could try to try to have them watched that one.
Speaker 3: It's it's pretty cool. It's a good message there, and
Speaker 3: and uh, I think I think maybe you'd enjoy watching
Speaker 3: it with them, So that'd be the one that I recoon.
Speaker 2: All right, that's the one. So so then plug everything else?
Speaker 2: Where can we see the other videos? Where can we
Speaker 2: get the podcast? Anything else you want folks to know about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so a lot of our content, some of the
Speaker 3: film content, stuff you'll find on the Deer Study YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: A ton of stuff out there, really great hunting there, too,
Speaker 3: lots of different stuff, some some engaging off the wall stuff,
Speaker 3: so entertaining stuff there. Also host the Deer Study podcast
Speaker 3: that's obviously up there on the dear Stety YouTube channel
Speaker 3: as well. And then as far as other almond I stuff,
Speaker 3: you know, we produced Love the Grind TV which is
Speaker 3: on the Sportsman channel, do the post production for uh
Speaker 3: for being the Help with Thrick and Julie, and then
Speaker 3: do a lot of other films and and things across
Speaker 3: the board, working with just different brands and and and
Speaker 3: people within the hunting industry as well as outside of it.
Speaker 3: So kind of more of that stuff is all over
Speaker 3: the place. You can check out almond I Productions on
Speaker 3: Instagram and Facebook. We try to do a good job
Speaker 3: keeping up with that, don't always do the best, kind
Speaker 3: of get get lost on focusing on our clients there,
Speaker 3: but definitely gonna get get better at that. But yeah,
Speaker 3: so almond Ie Productions and stuff kind of all over awesome.
Speaker 2: Well, Hey, you're doing good work, man. I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate the effort and hard work you guys put
Speaker 2: into it, and I'm glad that you had a heck
Speaker 2: of a season. Congratulations.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate it very much. Again, I appreciate the
Speaker 3: invote or invite to be on here, big fan, you
Speaker 3: guys do a great job. You do a great job
Speaker 3: and and really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2: Thanks man, I appreciate it all right, And that's a wrap.
Speaker 2: Thank you all for listening, Thanks for being here. You
Speaker 2: know I say it every week, but I really do
Speaker 2: mean it. I appreciate you being a part of this community.
Speaker 2: It's been the privilege of my life to get to
Speaker 2: hear from you, to share these stories, to learn alongside
Speaker 2: of you on this journey. It's been I don't know
Speaker 2: fifteen plus years now for me and ten ish years
Speaker 2: on the podcast, and it's been a wild ride. So
Speaker 2: here's to another great year coming up. Hope we all
Speaker 2: have a wonderful Christmas, happy Holidays, have fun with your
Speaker 2: friends and family, get out there. I hope you get
Speaker 2: a chance to fill another tag or two before the
Speaker 2: end of the year, and until then, stay wired to Hunt.