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 saddler blind, First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this week on the show, I'm joined
Speaker 1: by Sean Luchtel of Heartland Bow Hunter to dive deep
Speaker 1: into the four year hunt for a deer he called Caesar.
Speaker 1: Al Right, Welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to
Speaker 1: you by First Light, and this week we're continuing our
Speaker 1: Big Buck Breakdown series, in which we are chatting with
Speaker 1: hunters who have been in the midst of years long
Speaker 1: up and down hunts for one specific buck. We're trying
Speaker 1: to get into the minds of these people who have
Speaker 1: dedicated themselves to chasing after to studying, to learning, to patterning,
Speaker 1: to obsessing in one way or another over a deer
Speaker 1: and putting all their energy behind it, trying to figure
Speaker 1: that deer out and getting a shot at it. We've
Speaker 1: chatted with a couple hunters already with great stories. We've
Speaker 1: learned some interesting things. We've got to foul along with
Speaker 1: our sagas, and today we're continuing that with a story
Speaker 1: from Sean Luctel. Sean is a Missouri bow hunter. He's
Speaker 1: a guy that probably a lot of you are familiar with.
Speaker 1: We've had him on the show in the past. He's
Speaker 1: one of the co hosts and founders of Heartland bow Hunter.
Speaker 1: Terrific show, great work they've been doing over the years.
Speaker 1: And we have a story today of a deer that
Speaker 1: Sean called Caesar, and it's a story that he recently
Speaker 1: shared this past fall on their YouTube channel and a
Speaker 1: really great film or episode, whatever you wanna call it.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to peel back the layers of this story,
Speaker 1: get deeper into it, get deeper into his mindset, figure
Speaker 1: out what he was thinking about throughout this hunt, how
Speaker 1: we handled those ups and downs and speed bumps along
Speaker 1: the way, how he made decisions. You know, what was
Speaker 1: he thinking when he did this thing and that thing,
Speaker 1: and when the buck did this, how did he react
Speaker 1: to it? I want to know the naty gritty. I
Speaker 1: think that's an interesting way that we can learn more
Speaker 1: as hunters from these firsthand accounts. So that's the game
Speaker 1: plan today. I don't want to beat around the bushes
Speaker 1: at all. I just want to get into this story
Speaker 1: because it's a good one. So without any further ado,
Speaker 1: here's Sean lucktell of Heartland bow Hunter with the story
Speaker 1: of Caesar. Al right back with me on the show
Speaker 1: we got Sean Luctell. Sean, welcome back. Hey, thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. I think it's probably been about I don't
Speaker 1: know it was it a year ago that we last spoke.
Speaker 1: I think I'm here something like that. Yeah, um, And
Speaker 1: I think did you end up coming on rot Fresh
Speaker 1: Radio this year with Casey or Tyler at all? Or
Speaker 1: was that last year last time you were a guest
Speaker 1: on that too. I believe it was last year. I
Speaker 1: don't think it was. I know this past fall. Okay,
Speaker 1: then it must have been. I think Mike maybe came
Speaker 1: on to talk about Ohio or Colorado or something like that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: it's it's always good to get to catch up, especially
Speaker 1: this time of year like a t A. I was
Speaker 1: just telling someone the other day about um one of
Speaker 1: the times way back in the day when we were
Speaker 1: all young at A t A. And I think you
Speaker 1: were here for this night, Sean. But if you weren't
Speaker 1: telling me, but I was just telling someone the story
Speaker 1: of you know, like two thousand nine or ten or
Speaker 1: something at a t A and I was at you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a restaurant or bar, and Brian Craft
Speaker 1: was there, Mike was there. I'm pretty sure you were there,
Speaker 1: and yeah, okay. So we're sitting there talking and someone
Speaker 1: you know, asked the question where where's everybody staying to night?
Speaker 1: And you guys are, oh, we're at this hotel and
Speaker 1: Brian's like, I'm at this hotel. And then it gets
Speaker 1: to me. I'm like, wow, I'm sleeping the back of
Speaker 1: my wife's ford, focus on the parking crotch and uh.
Speaker 1: That night Brian insisted that I'm not sleep in the car,
Speaker 1: and he got a cot and put in his hotel
Speaker 1: room and let me stay in his in his hotel room.
Speaker 1: But it was the story that in mind when I
Speaker 1: was thinking the other day, but how far things have
Speaker 1: come since the early days when I couldn't even afford
Speaker 1: a hotel room. So good memories I was before, right
Speaker 1: before we started this, that was that crossed my mind, Like, well,
Speaker 1: first off, a cross my mind like, huh, March not
Speaker 1: an a t A. I'm not an a t right
Speaker 1: now I wonder, you know why, And then I was
Speaker 1: thinking of that exact time, but I had forgotten the
Speaker 1: part about you in your car. But as soon as
Speaker 1: you said that, I remember that. And yeah, we have
Speaker 1: definitely all come along ways. It's crazy. Yeah it's pretty wild,
Speaker 1: but we're still chugging along, still obsessed with deer and uh,
Speaker 1: we've got slightly better sleeping accommodations, so we're in the
Speaker 1: right direction. But but yeah, this is a great excuse
Speaker 1: to get to talk again and catch up because we're
Speaker 1: doing this series, as you know, UM, covering these you know,
Speaker 1: these exceptional long hunts for specific bucks. And you had
Speaker 1: a great story you guys shared recently over in your
Speaker 1: YouTube channel about this hunt you had for a buck
Speaker 1: called Caesar Um that lasted you know, years long, you
Speaker 1: and your dad getting to know this, dear, and I
Speaker 1: love that film you put together, and I thought this
Speaker 1: would be a really interesting story to to dive even
Speaker 1: deeper into, because you guys did a great job of
Speaker 1: you know, showing that visually. UM. But there's so many
Speaker 1: questions I had along the way about what was going
Speaker 1: on in your mind, you know, how did you make
Speaker 1: this decision of that one what were you thinking on
Speaker 1: this day? You know, how did all this stuff build up? So,
Speaker 1: so that's what I was hoping to do today, if
Speaker 1: you're down for it is to is to go through
Speaker 1: that story again and then pick it apart, you know,
Speaker 1: decision by decision and really see what we can learn
Speaker 1: about you know, how you were able to figure this
Speaker 1: dear out, how you approach the hunt, uh, and you
Speaker 1: know what you think ultimately led to that success. So
Speaker 1: so that's my hope for today. Does that that sound good? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that sounds great. I'm glad that we're doing this.
Speaker 1: Um it is a fifty minute long episode or film
Speaker 1: if you would call it. UM. But yeah, there's there's
Speaker 1: only so much that we can fit into there. There's
Speaker 1: obviously not every aspect of aspect of um what goes
Speaker 1: into this that's that's captured in that film. Um, that
Speaker 1: just isn't physically possible. And like you said, the things
Speaker 1: that are going through my mind definitely aren't aren't all
Speaker 1: covered in that in that film. So I'm happy to
Speaker 1: do this. Yeah, it's an amazing too. Like fifty minutes
Speaker 1: is a long you know, online video like that's basically
Speaker 1: like like a like a movie, and still, and still,
Speaker 1: you can only get the tiniest little bit you know,
Speaker 1: of the story and everything that actually happened in there.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to convey you know, hours and hours
Speaker 1: and weeks and weeks and years of this stuff into
Speaker 1: this little bite sized chunk. I'm always frustrated when I'm
Speaker 1: trying to do that and you can never get it
Speaker 1: out there in a complete way that tells the entire story.
Speaker 1: You just kind of have to like deliver a sense
Speaker 1: of it. Um. So it's kind of fun to get
Speaker 1: to dive in further with this kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: I guess to to start, Sean, if people haven't seen
Speaker 1: the film, I kind of want to get a picture
Speaker 1: for them in their mind of of what this dear
Speaker 1: is all about, just so they have like an image
Speaker 1: as we start, you know, exploring the story. Can you
Speaker 1: paint a picture for me of this deer of you know,
Speaker 1: his age, his body size, what does antlers look like,
Speaker 1: any defining characteristics, just so so we've got that image
Speaker 1: as we go. How would you describe this dear you
Speaker 1: called Caesar? Yeah, so Caesar. We we nicknamed him that
Speaker 1: when he was gosh, two and a half and at
Speaker 1: the time, I thought he was three and a half.
Speaker 1: Looking back through all the photos and once all of
Speaker 1: our data has been gathered over the years, um and
Speaker 1: came to the conclusion that he was, in fact only
Speaker 1: two and a half when he first UM started really
Speaker 1: taking note of him, and I don't know. His rack
Speaker 1: was very similar to another book, which we ended up
Speaker 1: calling Twin Tin Um. So as both of these bucks
Speaker 1: were at a young age, they looked very similar, just
Speaker 1: basically typical tins at the time, and I mean their
Speaker 1: racks looked like a crown. And so he was more
Speaker 1: distinguishable from a more distinguishable from Twin ten because his
Speaker 1: brows curled, but with his rack just looking like a
Speaker 1: typical crown, I was like, well, I don't really want
Speaker 1: to call him the king, Um, I don't really want
Speaker 1: to call him prince or anything like that, because I
Speaker 1: have already had already nicknamed the buck prince and whatnot.
Speaker 1: And the thought of just like the king or whatever
Speaker 1: you want to call it, the ruler of the area,
Speaker 1: Caesar came to mind. I was like, I'll call him
Speaker 1: that Caesar sounds great. And so really he just had
Speaker 1: a fairly typical ten point rack at a young age
Speaker 1: with these very distinguishable curl brows that kind of curled
Speaker 1: outward a little bit. And um, that was obviously the
Speaker 1: most distinguishable characteristic of his rack throughout the span of
Speaker 1: his life and up until I shot him at six
Speaker 1: and a half years old. Yeah, and in like, would
Speaker 1: you say he's super heavy? He's not crazy wide, but
Speaker 1: just like kind of like, don't I has to say tight,
Speaker 1: but like tall, taller, taller and slightly tighter and heavy
Speaker 1: is kind of how I would like imagine him. And
Speaker 1: then those awesome brow tons. Um is that about right?
Speaker 1: Would you say? Yeah, he was actually tight? You're not
Speaker 1: taken away from he was like I think fifteen and
Speaker 1: a half inches wide. Still kind of shocked me. Um.
Speaker 1: But after so we didn't even cover this in the film.
Speaker 1: After I killed him and everything, we gutted him and
Speaker 1: then hung him up. And where we hang him up,
Speaker 1: I have a scale attached to that and we weigh
Speaker 1: every every book that we shoot while every deer for
Speaker 1: that for that matter, and record the weight, um and
Speaker 1: gutted and this is uh. I think I killed him
Speaker 1: on October seventeenth. I believe that was the date, maybe
Speaker 1: the eighteenth, can't remember one of those two days. But anyways,
Speaker 1: a mental late October buck um. Typically they're pretty well
Speaker 1: rounded out on peak wait for the fall, and he
Speaker 1: weighed I think in the one eighties. I want to say,
Speaker 1: I was shocked. So he was a very for six
Speaker 1: and after a buck um at almost peak weight of
Speaker 1: the fall he was. He was pretty pretty lightweight, short body.
Speaker 1: And that's that's why so I believe that's what made
Speaker 1: his rack look even bigger than it really was. Um
Speaker 1: was just because he had a smaller body. And um,
Speaker 1: I think it just goes to show, you know, like
Speaker 1: not every buck um it's just gonna be like this
Speaker 1: giant two d fifty pound animal. Um. And they're just
Speaker 1: I mean, they're just like humans. Some some humans have
Speaker 1: genetics to be bigger bodied, some humans like myself a
Speaker 1: little smaller frame. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But he's he's
Speaker 1: an impressive animal. I mean he's even though without that massive,
Speaker 1: massive body like when you see him on film, I'm
Speaker 1: sure in person he still was just a cool looking deer.
Speaker 1: I mean, an absolute mature specimen of a buck um.
Speaker 1: I mean the kind of you you dream about for sure, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't, did you guys score the deer. Not that
Speaker 1: score really matters all that much, but I mean, just
Speaker 1: for a sense of this is if I were looking
Speaker 1: this buck, I said, was like a hundred sixty type
Speaker 1: category buck or maybe bigger. We did, um. We scored
Speaker 1: him afterwards. Um, And so like my biggest white tail
Speaker 1: to to date was a buck. I know you're familiar
Speaker 1: with Mark, others may not be. That we called Junior.
Speaker 1: Then I killed back in. I don't remember. I think
Speaker 1: it was like two thousand, yeah, two thousand ten. Uh,
Speaker 1: he scored one seventy three. Well, I said this right
Speaker 1: before scoring season. I mentioned exactly what I just said,
Speaker 1: and so we scored him, and Caesar scored one seventy three.
Speaker 1: I didn't, you know, like, it's just me rough scoring.
Speaker 1: It's not an official score, and I didn't sco him
Speaker 1: or anything like that. Didn't care if he was above
Speaker 1: or or below. But it's funny that they were pretty
Speaker 1: much right at the same, same same number. So yeah,
Speaker 1: he was right at one seventy right in that. That's crazy,
Speaker 1: And I guess I do remember that was at the
Speaker 1: very end of the episode. I think you guys had
Speaker 1: that little click. Um. Yeah, that's he's a heck of
Speaker 1: a deer. Um. So one thing more before we kind
Speaker 1: of get into the story, um, without giving away like
Speaker 1: specifics of the story, I'm just curious, like, for you,
Speaker 1: what made this hunt and story so exceptional? Like I
Speaker 1: think you said somewhere, whether it was in the episode
Speaker 1: or on Instagram or something like this was maybe you know,
Speaker 1: the greatest hunt of your life for the greatest story
Speaker 1: or something like that. I feel like I remember you,
Speaker 1: you know, categorizing this in that kind of way. Um,
Speaker 1: what about this deer or hunt or the story makes
Speaker 1: it so special? Why did this stand out above you know,
Speaker 1: the so many other deer you've hunted in the past.
Speaker 1: What made this one extra special? Why is this worth
Speaker 1: diving into like this? Yeah? So UM. You know, over
Speaker 1: the years, we've had a handful of opportunities to actually
Speaker 1: build stories with certain books that we pointed over the
Speaker 1: over the years. And that's what makes this one so
Speaker 1: much more special is because of how long it went on.
Speaker 1: You know, we we debated shooting him when he was
Speaker 1: four and a half. We we really try our best,
Speaker 1: um to let the bucks go um with hopes that
Speaker 1: they'll make it to five and a half. Very very
Speaker 1: few do UM, but just for the sheer fact of
Speaker 1: them actually reaching their full potential at five and a
Speaker 1: half or greater. UM is is the reason that we
Speaker 1: do so. And we had full intentions when he reached
Speaker 1: five and a half to shoot him. UM, it just
Speaker 1: didn't pan out. He had kind of just gotten off
Speaker 1: of his regular routine. Obviously at the age of five
Speaker 1: and a half that pretty well figured things out and
Speaker 1: are very intelligent, and I think that was the main
Speaker 1: reason we only had one kind of opportunity out of
Speaker 1: My dad almost ended up shooting him UM during the
Speaker 1: rut Um he had rattled him in. Didn't UM even
Speaker 1: expect him to be there. Um. We were on the
Speaker 1: other side of the farm, which we had never seen
Speaker 1: or had photos of him on that portion of the farm,
Speaker 1: and he came running in base way in UM kind
Speaker 1: of snuck up on us as well and just caught
Speaker 1: us off guard. And it was a quick thing where
Speaker 1: he almost had a shot used at full draw. I
Speaker 1: didn't take the shot and that was kind of the
Speaker 1: end of it. So it didn't happen at five and
Speaker 1: a half. UM ended up shooting him at six and
Speaker 1: a half. But the story in itself, just with how
Speaker 1: many encounters from the age of two and a half
Speaker 1: all the way up until UM six and a half,
Speaker 1: the sheds the work, UM, just constant thought process putting
Speaker 1: all the puzzle pieces together up until the end of
Speaker 1: the story and ending with a great shot and seeing
Speaker 1: him fall inside was just I mean, that was it
Speaker 1: was the picture perfect story that I could I mean,
Speaker 1: if I had to draw one up, that's that's how
Speaker 1: it would have would have gone. UM. But with that
Speaker 1: being said, there was obviously a pile of highs and
Speaker 1: lows in between, um really, mainly with trill camera photos
Speaker 1: and whatnot. But so, UH wasn't really thinking we were
Speaker 1: going to go into this yet, but I might as
Speaker 1: well jump into it when he was well. So throughout
Speaker 1: his entire I expanded that I'm aware of from two
Speaker 1: and a half to up until I killed him, well
Speaker 1: up until this summer, I pretty much had photos of
Speaker 1: him all the time. UM, when he had a rack
Speaker 1: on his head. If he didn't have a rack, he
Speaker 1: was obviously very hard to distinguish from the other bucks.
Speaker 1: But when he had a rack on his head, I
Speaker 1: he was pretty much there. I from summer until the
Speaker 1: time that he dropped his antlers in the winter and
Speaker 1: this summer, Um, I put out cameras like I always
Speaker 1: do um late June or early July and that time period,
Speaker 1: and I was specifically targeting the area that he had
Speaker 1: spent his life in that I was aware of up
Speaker 1: until that point. So I loaded up cameras on that
Speaker 1: part of the farm and I wasn't getting him. Went
Speaker 1: all the way into August past and then where in
Speaker 1: the September, and I'm like, okay, this deer must be dead. Um.
Speaker 1: In Missouri where our farm is, we are not allowed
Speaker 1: to put out any sort of bait or minerals or
Speaker 1: anything like that to attract year. You can use water,
Speaker 1: but you cannot use any sort of mineral or grain
Speaker 1: or anything like that to attract yourself. Getting photos of
Speaker 1: them up close can be difficult, very similar to the
Speaker 1: regulations and in Illinois. But still I had not had
Speaker 1: issues of getting pictures of bucks before, especially him in
Speaker 1: the summertime. And I still had nothing going into the season.
Speaker 1: And at that point I was very confident that he
Speaker 1: had somehow died. Um. I wouldn't wasn't sure exactly how.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was a car, maybe coyotes, maybe it was
Speaker 1: disease whatever. Um, I didn't have anything. And so September
Speaker 1: passes and I'm like, okay, he's for sure gone dead. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And so there was another deer that I was kind
Speaker 1: of targeting and wasn't really very familiar with the buck,
Speaker 1: and so um we were kind of hunting that that
Speaker 1: part of the farm. And UM, thankfully while I was there,
Speaker 1: I UM at the farm, I s kims are amazing
Speaker 1: and also I feel like a double double edged sword.
Speaker 1: And in some instances I got photos of the first
Speaker 1: photos of him, I think October six or something like that,
Speaker 1: and yeah, that was I remember, like I'm sure most
Speaker 1: of you guys that have sell camps can relate in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night and looked at my phone,
Speaker 1: which is the worst thing you can do because wake
Speaker 1: you up. And um, I got photos of him. And
Speaker 1: that was really the start of the hunt for him
Speaker 1: this year, like the real start. And then did you
Speaker 1: did you fall back sleep after that or we so
Speaker 1: jack that you were up for the next few Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was awake, like so far awake after that. I
Speaker 1: think probably took me in an hour or two to
Speaker 1: fall back asleep. And so Chandler the guy that hunts
Speaker 1: with me in films with me, um throughout the fall,
Speaker 1: He's in the room next to me sleeping. I sent
Speaker 1: it to him and I don't think it didn't wake
Speaker 1: him up, but I just remember sending it to him
Speaker 1: and like, oh man, I can't wait till he sees this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's incredible. It was. Yeah. So anyhow, that
Speaker 1: was very long winded. But to answer your question, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this story was just so with tons of highs and
Speaker 1: lows and basically, I guess you would say four years
Speaker 1: of history with the buck going on that long just
Speaker 1: made it so special. Yeah, yeah, I can I can imagine.
Speaker 1: Well let's get let's get back to the beginning. Let's
Speaker 1: start it out when you you know, first noticed this buck, Like,
Speaker 1: when did this deer become noticeable? Sounds like when he
Speaker 1: was two and a half that first year. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what that year was
Speaker 1: with him? You know, I'm I'm assuming you noticed like
Speaker 1: a high potential deer, like, oh man, he's a cool deer.
Speaker 1: We're not going to target him. But can you tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit what that first year was like?
Speaker 1: And uh, you know what happened with him? Yeah? So
Speaker 1: at two and a half. I was I didn't see
Speaker 1: him until late season, but I had photos of him
Speaker 1: talking with photos of him through the rut and then
Speaker 1: into late season, and that was when I had started
Speaker 1: to oh, that's when I named him. And then that
Speaker 1: late season when we were hunting to standing bean field, Um,
Speaker 1: that was when we first actually laid eyes on him
Speaker 1: in person, and um you can see it in the
Speaker 1: film and he was out there just feeding on standing
Speaker 1: beans at a distance. I think we saw him twice
Speaker 1: that that late season and then um, which is yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the same field that I ended up killing him, man,
Speaker 1: um just across the field on the other side. And
Speaker 1: uh so that was. Yeah, that was the first actual
Speaker 1: document um experience with him in late season and two eighteen.
Speaker 1: So did you know, like right then, like oh man,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be a good one. We need to
Speaker 1: keep tabs on him or at that point was he
Speaker 1: still kind of an average nondescript deer that you know
Speaker 1: there were several other young bucks that were kind of
Speaker 1: just like him, and you know, did I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to say is did he stand out and
Speaker 1: was he on your mind that offseason already or was
Speaker 1: he just another one of you know, a handful of
Speaker 1: young deer that weren't yet to that pom. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a great question. So yeah, he was definitely on my mind.
Speaker 1: But I I have also learned that, UM, I'll like
Speaker 1: to try not to get my hopes up. I don't
Speaker 1: focus too much on a on a two or three
Speaker 1: year old. I mean I do, but I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't heavily think about it too much, just because
Speaker 1: there's an abundance of two year olds, then there's a
Speaker 1: less abundance of three year olds, and then as it
Speaker 1: goes up, you know, clearly there's far less you know,
Speaker 1: as they get older. Um. And so with there being
Speaker 1: quite a few two year olds, UM, I definitely noticed him,
Speaker 1: which is why I named him. UM. And for the
Speaker 1: most part, a lot of the two year olds, I'll
Speaker 1: just think up some silly, dumb name like I don't know,
Speaker 1: short brow eight short, you know, split two ten or
Speaker 1: eight or whatever like that, just quick names because there's
Speaker 1: so many of them. UM. But yes, if there's somewhat special,
Speaker 1: I'll i'll kind of come up with a more distinguishable name,
Speaker 1: and UM definitely keep him in the back of my mind,
Speaker 1: but I try not to get my hopes up, just
Speaker 1: because I've learned over the years that it's it's very
Speaker 1: often that the deer don't know a lot of bucks
Speaker 1: just don't end up making it to maturity. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: did you find his sheds that next spring? That's a
Speaker 1: great question. I don't think I did. I don't fully remember, um,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that I did at two and
Speaker 1: a half. And if I did, I have him somewhere
Speaker 1: stashed away in a pilish Okay, so unsure on the
Speaker 1: sheds uh as a three year old. Then the next year, Um,
Speaker 1: at this point, you know, was he doing the same thing?
Speaker 1: Did you see him that same area? Was he more
Speaker 1: or less visible? What was basically the three year old
Speaker 1: story with him? Because again I'm assuming he's not a
Speaker 1: targetable deer, but he's still like one that year keeping
Speaker 1: tab zone right, Yeah, so same, pretty much the same
Speaker 1: story for the most part. He was actually um, very seldom. Um.
Speaker 1: Did I get too many photos of him? I had
Speaker 1: him throughout the year, but it was pretty rare, you know,
Speaker 1: every few weeks at least. Um. And then we ended
Speaker 1: up seeing him one time time in person. Uh, late
Speaker 1: season that that falls as a three and a half
Speaker 1: year old, and um that's also in the film. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: and at that point I did think he was four
Speaker 1: and a half. This wasn't until I believe, until yeah,
Speaker 1: until he was actually four and a half to where
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I thought he was five this year.
Speaker 1: But really in the reason being him standing next to
Speaker 1: a five and a half year old buck twin ten,
Speaker 1: the bucket looked similar to him. Um you could see
Speaker 1: the body size and just the overall characteristics of their
Speaker 1: body shape and everything that he was clearly a year younger. Um,
Speaker 1: at least in my opinion. I you know, I never
Speaker 1: did take the job on out and have it, um
Speaker 1: you know, fully aged. But this is all guests a mint.
Speaker 1: I just believe that at that time he was he
Speaker 1: was only four and a half the following year. But yes,
Speaker 1: when he was three and a half years old, I
Speaker 1: only saw him one time, and head photos of him
Speaker 1: sporadically throughout the fall. So that that's interesting then though,
Speaker 1: because you thought he was four and a half of
Speaker 1: that year, So I'm assuming then you were thinking, like,
Speaker 1: all right, next year on a target him is a
Speaker 1: five and a half year old. So at this point, like,
Speaker 1: were you starting to at least for me, if I
Speaker 1: if it is a deer that's one year away from
Speaker 1: me targeting him, I'm really paying attention to him now
Speaker 1: and I'm really thinking about, Okay, what's he doing now
Speaker 1: that I can take advantage of next year? Um, all
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff. So when you thought he was
Speaker 1: a four and a half year old, did you start
Speaker 1: doing anything differently to try to better keep tabs on him?
Speaker 1: Did you, you know, have more cameras out in the
Speaker 1: area he was living particularly to try to keep tabs
Speaker 1: on him, or did you stay out of his area
Speaker 1: because you didn't want to push into a neighbor's and
Speaker 1: get him killed or anything where you're trying to kill
Speaker 1: you know, the big bully Buck, the Twin ten or
Speaker 1: something like that, because you want to open up a
Speaker 1: spot for him to spend more time. These are some
Speaker 1: of the things I sometimes thinking about when there's like
Speaker 1: an up and comer. Did any of that play into
Speaker 1: your strategy on that year? Absolutely? So. Yes, he was
Speaker 1: sharing ring the same pulp portion core area of the
Speaker 1: farm that Twin Tin was as well, and so Twin
Speaker 1: Tin throughout those years that Twinin and Caesar were alive
Speaker 1: together there, Twin Tin was always a little bit bigger,
Speaker 1: had more mass um, even longer brows, just taller gy too.
Speaker 1: It's just a bigger, bigger buck. And um at that
Speaker 1: point we were that year as Caesar was four and
Speaker 1: a half. Um at the time, I'm thinking he's five
Speaker 1: and a half. We were targeting mainly Twin ten. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, Twinin is just bigger. He's just he's
Speaker 1: there more often, like this is his spot. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm keeping tabs on Caesar as well, but it was
Speaker 1: already loaded up for you know, with cameras and whatnot
Speaker 1: and strategy for twin Tins. So it's like, well one
Speaker 1: or the other, but you know it preferably I'd rather
Speaker 1: we would rather shoot twin Tin and Um. You know
Speaker 1: we didn't. We hunted some um for twin Tin. I
Speaker 1: ended up having an encounter with him around Halloween, but
Speaker 1: I did not see Caesar. Um. I had photos of
Speaker 1: him in there, but I never ended up laying eyes
Speaker 1: on him. And then the ruck came and basically had
Speaker 1: kind of passed. Rifle season even passed, and unfortunately I
Speaker 1: have no idea how both of those bucks survived through
Speaker 1: rifle season because you know, I know that they lived
Speaker 1: on the farm, but there is no way that they
Speaker 1: did not step foot off because there'd be days on
Speaker 1: end that I wouldn't get photos of him, and and
Speaker 1: they were living close to the border anyways. Um So
Speaker 1: there for sure had surrounding hiding pressure. But they made
Speaker 1: it through. And at that point, we had gone in
Speaker 1: to hunt to hunt twin Tin, and I did tell
Speaker 1: my dad when the hunt started, I was like, there's
Speaker 1: a good chance that Caesar could come in here, Like,
Speaker 1: it's your call, whatever you wanna do, Like if you
Speaker 1: want to shoo him, shoot him. Well, sure enough, Caesar
Speaker 1: came in this So this was just after Thanksgiving, I believe.
Speaker 1: And um so the rut was pretty much at we're
Speaker 1: at the tail end of the rut, so they're they're
Speaker 1: basically starting to refuel but yet still checking dose. And
Speaker 1: Caesar came out at like forty five and was feeding,
Speaker 1: and um, you know again, I told him like, it's
Speaker 1: it's your hunt, your call, you shoot him if you want.
Speaker 1: He's like, let's just see what happens. He's at forty five,
Speaker 1: Like I don't I don't really want to shoot Um
Speaker 1: and looking at him now like, yeah, he looks really big,
Speaker 1: but it would be cool to see him since he's
Speaker 1: made it through rifles, sceness would great to see him
Speaker 1: next year. And then as he waited, twin Tin ended
Speaker 1: up coming in and that's a part of the film
Speaker 1: as well, and he ends up killing Twinin. Um and
Speaker 1: seeing them side by side was really the deciding factor
Speaker 1: where we were like basically checking ourselves like, Okay, he
Speaker 1: doesn't really look like he's five and a half compared
Speaker 1: to Twinin. Twinin just dwarfs him. Um, he's made it
Speaker 1: this far. You just killed your biggest buck to date. Dad,
Speaker 1: Like I personally had already shot a deer, Like, why
Speaker 1: don't we just let him go and see see what
Speaker 1: happens next year? Um, you know, making it to five
Speaker 1: and a happen. So that was that was a deciding
Speaker 1: factor to really really that where we were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: he's not as old as we thought he was. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see what what happens if he can make it
Speaker 1: the rest of this year and going into the next
Speaker 1: fall to be five and a half. So then that
Speaker 1: would have been was this what year? Was that story?
Speaker 1: You just described that would have been the fall of
Speaker 1: so you guys see him, but I don't need to
Speaker 1: target him because of Twin ten getting killed and all
Speaker 1: that kind of. So, so now heading into Caesar must
Speaker 1: have been like, you know, top top of your mind,
Speaker 1: for sure, he's the big dog. Um, what did you
Speaker 1: do in the off season with that bucking mind? Were
Speaker 1: there any changes to your scouting or shed hunting or
Speaker 1: anything to try to like to narrow in on him
Speaker 1: and really figure him out? Now? Was there anything like
Speaker 1: that where you were trying to put the specific pieces
Speaker 1: for him, you know, went from being like he's one
Speaker 1: of several to now that he's the guy? What did
Speaker 1: you do then give him that? Yeah? Um, So the
Speaker 1: game plan was pretty well similar to the year before,
Speaker 1: where I had already had cameras pretty much loaded up
Speaker 1: on that side of the farm. Um. I had gone
Speaker 1: in that march and burned the timber where he spent
Speaker 1: the most most of his time that I was aware
Speaker 1: of on that side of the farm, with hopes to
Speaker 1: just help enhance betting um and and foraged throughout the
Speaker 1: woods and just have better native growth just in hopes
Speaker 1: to keep him there um the best that I possibly could.
Speaker 1: I did pick up one of his sheds, um, and
Speaker 1: then my mom and dad were around I think after
Speaker 1: that and ended up driving by another the other side
Speaker 1: and it was chewed up really bad from squirrel. So
Speaker 1: we did end up getting both sides then, UM. But
Speaker 1: UM anyhow, Yeah, so the game plan was about the same,
Speaker 1: just trying to enhance habitat and UM plant a couple
Speaker 1: staging plots which we're already there, but just try to
Speaker 1: make them the best that we possibly could. And then um,
Speaker 1: the destination food sources, the field that I that I
Speaker 1: ended up killing him in, which that was all always
Speaker 1: a part of the game plan. Was like, all right, look,
Speaker 1: here's the timber where we feel he spends the majority
Speaker 1: of his time. Here's like some food plots in between
Speaker 1: before he gets there. And then the destination food sources.
Speaker 1: That's agg field here where we where we often see
Speaker 1: him UM and had seen him in the years past. UM.
Speaker 1: So that that was really the game plan. And then
Speaker 1: if it's the rut, it's like, all right, it's a
Speaker 1: guessing game. We know, like the the main area he
Speaker 1: spends his time for the most part, we can just
Speaker 1: dive in and hunt him with UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: best wins possible, the winds that are given in that area,
Speaker 1: and in hopes that we can get him to come by. Okay,
Speaker 1: So can you describe for me a little bit about
Speaker 1: like the habitat where he was kind of calling home,
Speaker 1: like based on what you were seeing there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you describe destination food, transition food, and then
Speaker 1: some timber. Um. Can you can you just tell me
Speaker 1: more specifically like what is this timber or betting area?
Speaker 1: Like why was he in this betting area? What made
Speaker 1: it the place he was at? Uh? And then what
Speaker 1: were what was in these food plots in that destination
Speaker 1: field that that led him to making this zoe in
Speaker 1: his core? Yeah. So the timber where we would often
Speaker 1: find his sheds um in the years prior to killing him. Um,
Speaker 1: there's really um. Well, I would say that it's been
Speaker 1: poorly managed over the years We've had the farm I
Speaker 1: think for ten years, and then prior to that, um,
Speaker 1: at some point in the last I don't know, like
Speaker 1: seventy years, there were it was definitely some form of livestock.
Speaker 1: I would assume cows on there. Um you could tell
Speaker 1: because of like invasive species such as like multi floor
Speaker 1: rows and whatnot. And then the over UM really like
Speaker 1: that there's just over competition with trees. There's a lone
Speaker 1: of small trees in there, UM that need to be
Speaker 1: cut out, and that's part of a program that we're
Speaker 1: in right now where we will perform a timber stand improvement.
Speaker 1: But my game plan with UM actually going in there
Speaker 1: and cutting trees has been to run fire through there.
Speaker 1: And if I can get a hot enough fire through there,
Speaker 1: I've actually been able to kill some of those those
Speaker 1: UM small diameter trees and that's actually performed a sense
Speaker 1: of t s I in itself, like knocking back some
Speaker 1: of the trees so that there's less competition, getting more
Speaker 1: sun life the forest floor, which increases growth. UM you
Speaker 1: have native forbes that will will come in and that
Speaker 1: just creates better habitat for not only deer but all
Speaker 1: sorts for all sorts of wildlife. But it creates groundcover
Speaker 1: and food for the deer. So that was my objective
Speaker 1: and that in that portion of the farm UM. So
Speaker 1: that was where I was believing that he spent most
Speaker 1: of his time betting, and then from there he could
Speaker 1: either travel straight to the destination food source UM and
Speaker 1: in doing so he would pass through like an area
Speaker 1: that was a mixture. It was almost it's really like
Speaker 1: a savannah, so like a mixture of some trees, warm
Speaker 1: season grasses and like um smaller growth like um maybe
Speaker 1: like some small plum thickets and whatnot. So he could
Speaker 1: go there, um maybe stage up there or even bed there,
Speaker 1: I guess if you wanted, and then head right out
Speaker 1: into the field, or he could kind of dip down
Speaker 1: into the valley and go towards um some staging plots
Speaker 1: that we have and we really are our theory with
Speaker 1: those as we just rotate them. So we may have
Speaker 1: Clover in there for two to three years and then
Speaker 1: we'll rotate it out and do like a fall Bland,
Speaker 1: Nebraska plot for a year and then back to Clover again.
Speaker 1: And so um, I want to say, we put it
Speaker 1: into Clover three years ago. Um. And so he really
Speaker 1: only spent one year of his past the past four
Speaker 1: years in there when there was brassicas and so mainly
Speaker 1: it it was always Clover when he would travel through there,
Speaker 1: and so he may hit that before he would go
Speaker 1: to that. And the destination food source which was either
Speaker 1: soybeans or corn depending on the crop rotation of the year, Okay,
Speaker 1: and was the destination Like when you talk about destination
Speaker 1: food source, how big are we talking? You know, I
Speaker 1: would qualify something as destination. We're talking like a couple acres.
Speaker 1: There's this like a big, big farmfield, which is probably
Speaker 1: like a I think like seventeen um ag field. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we would all you can see in the film
Speaker 1: as well. Um, every late season will leave like maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of acres of that agg standing for specifically
Speaker 1: for the dear. You've got that whole habitat, you know,
Speaker 1: plan and play. It's looking good. I'm assuming you had
Speaker 1: cameras out in the summer to get a sense of
Speaker 1: whether he's back or not, what he was doing. What's
Speaker 1: your what's your camera strategy look like in this part
Speaker 1: of the farm when you know there's a deer like
Speaker 1: this that you know, well, you're hoping to get back
Speaker 1: on him. Um, do you do you put your cameras
Speaker 1: in the same places every single year or did you
Speaker 1: do anything unique because of what you already knew about him? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: having um ten years of history on the farm, I
Speaker 1: have a well up in that to that point, I
Speaker 1: guess it would have been eight Um, I had a
Speaker 1: pretty good idea of you know, deer movement. UM. And
Speaker 1: I've pretty well, I feel like, tried almost everything with
Speaker 1: camera positions. I've I've got things keyed in pretty well,
Speaker 1: I believe, as far as where I'm gonna put my
Speaker 1: cameras um, so going into it. Yeah, there wasn't too
Speaker 1: much UM that I had tried differently in in that
Speaker 1: that summer too, to differentiate myself from a few years
Speaker 1: a few years past, um to get get deer on camera,
Speaker 1: um and not with not being able to put anything
Speaker 1: out in front of them. Might I have their travel corridors,
Speaker 1: their their pinch points narrowed down pretty well, I believe,
Speaker 1: and then maybe I might try like a water source
Speaker 1: like a small pond or something like that. UM. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I have I had, yeah, the uh, the little pinch
Speaker 1: points keat in on pretty well to try to get
Speaker 1: him in the summer. And I'm sitting here on my
Speaker 1: computer right now looking back at those photos of the
Speaker 1: summer of one and I did have him in July. UM,
Speaker 1: I don't believe I had any daylight of him. But
Speaker 1: that usually doesn't discourage me too much, just because I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not hunting during the summer anyways, and and that
Speaker 1: would always change anyways, going into the fall, I knew
Speaker 1: that like September October rolls around. I would often always
Speaker 1: get him in daylight. So, and do you shift your
Speaker 1: cameras to new spots once you get into the fall
Speaker 1: or is it you know, the same general spots because
Speaker 1: it's more terrain, pinch points that kind of stuff. Ah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty well for the most part, the same spots
Speaker 1: until they start laying down like heavily laying down active
Speaker 1: scrapes all the time, and that's when that's when I would,
Speaker 1: uh would shift some cameras over to those spots. And
Speaker 1: that was that would typically be the deciding factor on
Speaker 1: on where he was at and what he was doing.
Speaker 1: By moving my cameras onto scrapes, and I typically always
Speaker 1: get him on those that would be the the most
Speaker 1: active place to get pictures or or of of Caesar.
Speaker 1: All right, you're hunting him now the season opens. What
Speaker 1: was your strategy did you have, like, like coming into
Speaker 1: the year, did you have something in mind, like, Man,
Speaker 1: I think, based on what I've learned over the past
Speaker 1: couple of years, I'm gonna have my best chance at
Speaker 1: this time or these two times or anything like that,
Speaker 1: or were you kind of just gonna like start the
Speaker 1: season and hope to get a visual or pictures or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I'm sorry you said going into this pass ball,
Speaker 1: I guess I was thinking one, right, isn't this? Isn't
Speaker 1: this right? Because you hunted him one? And then yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right at five and a half? Yeah, so sorry,
Speaker 1: can you repeat the question? Yeah, it's okay. So this
Speaker 1: would be the year before you killed him, and you
Speaker 1: were saying you had pictures of them in the summer,
Speaker 1: and now we're heading into the hunting season and I'm curious,
Speaker 1: you know what your game plan was that year? Did
Speaker 1: you Did you have something unique in mind based on
Speaker 1: his historical patterns or anything, or was it just kind
Speaker 1: of a fly by the seat of your pants hope
Speaker 1: he shows up on camera and then move in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so I had gotten him through the summer, um,
Speaker 1: but my yeah, my plan was just really just stick
Speaker 1: to his core area, just like like he had done
Speaker 1: with with Twin Tin. But now that my my hopes
Speaker 1: and my beliefs were like, well, now that Twin Tin's gone,
Speaker 1: like he is going to for sure role the roost.
Speaker 1: This shouldn't be difficult. I don't think um to two
Speaker 1: key in on him, and yeah, we were going to
Speaker 1: heavily rely on those staging plots, and then as he
Speaker 1: started to hit scrapes and whatnot, I would try to
Speaker 1: hunt more on scrape lines, and then, you know, I
Speaker 1: don't enjoy like letting my My full intentions are not
Speaker 1: to let a deer get to the rut, because I
Speaker 1: do believe they're much harder to kill oftentimes during the
Speaker 1: rut on a farm that you're familiar with them on,
Speaker 1: because then at that point they have left their pattern
Speaker 1: and it's really just a guessing game and it turns
Speaker 1: into a scramble. I feel like, you know, you know
Speaker 1: you he You would think that he's going to be
Speaker 1: right here, but he's completely on the other side of
Speaker 1: the farm or something like that, or on someone else's
Speaker 1: property at that point, because he's not he's not too
Speaker 1: interested in hitting scrapes or doing his regular thing. He's
Speaker 1: more worried about finding it out. So really, yeah, my
Speaker 1: plan was to key in on those those staging plots um,
Speaker 1: and then if he made it two October, my plan
Speaker 1: was to try to hunt him just on scrape lines.
Speaker 1: So what ended up happening? How did that? How did
Speaker 1: those really hunts go? They didn't pan out? He he
Speaker 1: turned into a five and a half year old buck
Speaker 1: and his plans changed. How they do that exactly like?
Speaker 1: It never fails, well, very seldom doesn't fail. But for
Speaker 1: the most part, a dear I feel like, you know,
Speaker 1: those those early years in his life, you get him
Speaker 1: patterned really well, you know what he's doing for the
Speaker 1: most part, and then as he hits maturity, he there's
Speaker 1: a reason that he's mature now, and his plans change
Speaker 1: and he's he's definitely smarter, and things don't happen to
Speaker 1: be the exact same very often sometimes I do in
Speaker 1: some box it seems like, but more often than not,
Speaker 1: they're they've changed their ways, and they're much much harder
Speaker 1: to kill. What do you do in that kind of
Speaker 1: situation where you have a buck that seemed to be
Speaker 1: on a an understandable pattern of some kind of of
Speaker 1: some kind, and now he hits maturity and he's not
Speaker 1: showing up. You don't know what he's doing necessarily. How
Speaker 1: do you try to rEFInd him or reconfigure your strategy
Speaker 1: to try to get on him, what what we're what
Speaker 1: were you trying to do too to take the next step?
Speaker 1: UM strategized um based on weather patterns, and that's that's
Speaker 1: really I feel like the deciding factor. Like we often
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, we have all this history
Speaker 1: built up from like, oh, yeah, we're gonna I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna hunt him hard and get in there and do
Speaker 1: the same thing that you know I'm gonna be there
Speaker 1: because he was there in years passed all the time,
Speaker 1: and that it's gonna work out. Well. I feel like
Speaker 1: if you sit back um strategized, focus on the weather,
Speaker 1: only hunt when it's when you feel like it's truly
Speaker 1: right and you have your best, absolute best chance. Uh.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's really the you're pure placing your
Speaker 1: hots um in favor of killing him if you actually
Speaker 1: sit back and wait and and and do things right,
Speaker 1: hunt less really and uh just focus on on you know,
Speaker 1: maybe a post cold front to get him. And that
Speaker 1: was really my my my strategy that year still didn't
Speaker 1: pan out because we ended up really only having one
Speaker 1: encounter with him. Uh. That would have been during the
Speaker 1: rut and we were on the other side of the farm,
Speaker 1: so I never saw him early season in person. UM
Speaker 1: never had an encounter with him in October and then
Speaker 1: November rolls around and we were on the other side
Speaker 1: of the farm hunting. My dad and I were I
Speaker 1: was filming him and hunting another buck and he rattled
Speaker 1: in see either And that was the only encounter in
Speaker 1: person that we had with him. I think that I
Speaker 1: did end up seeing him late season, but never got
Speaker 1: video footage of him. But at that point it was
Speaker 1: like right at the tail end of the season, and
Speaker 1: you know, it didn't that was that was kind of it.
Speaker 1: So anyhow, during the rut was the only real, like
Speaker 1: close encounter that we had with him. So do you
Speaker 1: have any idea what he was doing? You know, what,
Speaker 1: how did he did eat? Was he still on camera
Speaker 1: all the time just at night? So did he become
Speaker 1: nocturnal in your particular area or was it nocturnal um
Speaker 1: for the most part, And I only had a hand
Speaker 1: full of UM photos of him in the in the
Speaker 1: in daylight in the middle of the farm, which was
Speaker 1: very weird. So everything up until that point had always
Speaker 1: been on one side of the farm. And I mean,
Speaker 1: there was no doubt in my mind that he was
Speaker 1: traveling off you know, I never actually saw him do that,
Speaker 1: but I was like, I mean, he has to be
Speaker 1: where he's at, like he has to be leaving the
Speaker 1: farm and going too neighboring properties and U So up
Speaker 1: until that point, I was thinking, oh, he's on the
Speaker 1: side of the farm. Well, it was almost as if
Speaker 1: his his um core area had shifted and moved more
Speaker 1: towards the center of the farm basically just like right
Speaker 1: there in the middle of all of it. And that
Speaker 1: was not too far from where we ended up having
Speaker 1: that encounter. And so I don't know if like his
Speaker 1: core area shrank, it just shifted or what it was,
Speaker 1: but he was he wasn't spending as much time on
Speaker 1: the side of the farm that we were always getting him.
Speaker 1: He was more in the very center of it, which
Speaker 1: is fine, that's great, not complaining, um, but it did
Speaker 1: throw us off, so for sure, Yeah, um, what what
Speaker 1: do you what were you noticing? I guess as the
Speaker 1: year progressed and you're seeing pictures of him, his his
Speaker 1: range kind of shifted. What were you noticing, you know,
Speaker 1: heading into the end of the year, if anything at
Speaker 1: all that you thought might be you know, useful coming
Speaker 1: to the new year, because he only saw him the
Speaker 1: one time, but you were getting pictures of them. You're
Speaker 1: starting to kind of refigure how he shifted. Um moving
Speaker 1: into two, is that year was ending did you have
Speaker 1: were you given up hope on him or were you thinking,
Speaker 1: oh man, we're gonna we're gonna figure out his new
Speaker 1: thing and we're still in on it. It's funny so
Speaker 1: um as I've aged with with my white tail hunting.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I uh, I almost enjoyed watching
Speaker 1: the year grow up. I do enjoy it more than
Speaker 1: I do actually even killing them, Like it's weird, but
Speaker 1: I like it's almost like, oh man, if he goes
Speaker 1: one more year, would be cool to see what happened.
Speaker 1: So since he had made it to the end of
Speaker 1: the season basically as a five and a half year old, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you only have a few weeks left, I
Speaker 1: almost started, I do I really just write it off?
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, yeah, like if he waltzed right in
Speaker 1: right in front of me, of course what I'm gonna
Speaker 1: shoot him, But like, I'm not gonna go out of
Speaker 1: my way to just full in target him and kill him.
Speaker 1: Because I was like, you know, um, my dad had
Speaker 1: shot a buck. I had shot a buck, I'd already
Speaker 1: feel the tag. I was like, I don't have to
Speaker 1: go use my other tag, like it's just not I
Speaker 1: don't know I could, but I don't have to. And
Speaker 1: so I was like, you know, if he if he
Speaker 1: walks in, I'll shoot him, but if not, I'm perfectly
Speaker 1: fine with letting him go till six and a half
Speaker 1: and so uh, and I really didn't have him regularly anyways.
Speaker 1: Um I knew he was alive, but I didn't have
Speaker 1: him regularly, like hitting a food source late season. So
Speaker 1: I did hunt that late season and I was targeting
Speaker 1: another deer and I ended up seeing him caesar across
Speaker 1: the field, like a few hundred yards away, not in
Speaker 1: the field that we would always get him in, but
Speaker 1: another field in the it all the farm, and um
Speaker 1: so I knew he was alive, knew he was gonna
Speaker 1: make it. Um still was starting to throw me off
Speaker 1: because I'm like, Okay, he's not doing what he's done
Speaker 1: in the years past, but it's okay because he's right
Speaker 1: here in the middle, like he's gonna, I mean more
Speaker 1: than likely going to make it the season and maybe
Speaker 1: something will happen. At six and a half Um, like
Speaker 1: it's very I know there's guys in Iowa and other
Speaker 1: places that have gigantic farms that that have deer that
Speaker 1: make it six and a half. Often it's very seldom
Speaker 1: for for us because we just don't have enough land
Speaker 1: for that. Um. And but you know, this was an
Speaker 1: instance where I was like, you know what, he's gonna
Speaker 1: make it to six and a half. He has a
Speaker 1: lot of potential to to be just like a giant deer. Um,
Speaker 1: so let's see what happens. And so he ended up
Speaker 1: making it. And I found his shed. I only found
Speaker 1: one of his sheds this past winter. Um, and it
Speaker 1: was I mean right in the very middle of the farm.
Speaker 1: And that was very reassuring. Um, just like it's like okay,
Speaker 1: like he's kind of shifted, Like I feel like he's
Speaker 1: living right in the middle now for whatever reason. Um.
Speaker 1: But when I did pick up that shed, I was
Speaker 1: actually surprised. It was much smaller than I had anticipated. Um.
Speaker 1: And um yeah, I was like wow. So I wasn't
Speaker 1: too bummed out. It was like this is great, Um,
Speaker 1: he'll have he'll have another year to grow potentially and
Speaker 1: get bigger. Um. He's just not he's not that not
Speaker 1: as big as we all thought he really was, which
Speaker 1: you know, like I'd already hit on his body size
Speaker 1: was much smaller than most year and I guess that's
Speaker 1: why I thought he was a lot bigger than he
Speaker 1: was at five and a half. So the new middle
Speaker 1: of the farm range he was living, now, Um, was
Speaker 1: there a different betting area that he that he tended
Speaker 1: to be using. Was there anything different about that terrain
Speaker 1: there that you think maybe attracted him? Uh? Like described
Speaker 1: to me this new zone he was in. So for
Speaker 1: the most part, the middle of the forum, there's like
Speaker 1: a lot of open terrain um basically like pray airy
Speaker 1: slash savannah openness that just has a lot of warm
Speaker 1: season grasses, a lot of tall native species that are
Speaker 1: growing up. It's like there's just great cover, they're great
Speaker 1: habitat um And I assume that's what drew him in.
Speaker 1: And so then the destination food sources are the agg
Speaker 1: fields that I'm talking about, and they all pretty much
Speaker 1: are on the perimeters of the farm. So the center
Speaker 1: of the farm for the most part, is where all
Speaker 1: the great the best habitat is, where like the bedding
Speaker 1: and all that would be. And then we have some
Speaker 1: food plots intermingled, and then we have staging plots that
Speaker 1: may go to these um to these destination food sources
Speaker 1: and these agg fields. These destination food sources aren't what
Speaker 1: we set up. That's just what was there when when
Speaker 1: my dad bought the farm, so that that's the reason
Speaker 1: that it's set up that way, which I'm fine with.
Speaker 1: I enjoy that like for the most part, because then
Speaker 1: it seems like, you know, the general bettings tends to
Speaker 1: be in the middle of the farm and then the
Speaker 1: deer move outward as the evening progresses. That interior of
Speaker 1: all that grassy savannah stuff, it sounds awesome. Did you
Speaker 1: guys make that or improve that? Or is that a
Speaker 1: natural pasture that just grew up after he gets bothered
Speaker 1: or how did that get there? So, um, it was there,
Speaker 1: but um it was kind of a mixture between um
Speaker 1: some cool season like fescues and um some warm season
Speaker 1: native stuff that was there. But immediately that was one
Speaker 1: of the first few things that we did was start
Speaker 1: to burn it off. And then we've we've treated some um,
Speaker 1: some invasive species in there to try to knock those
Speaker 1: back and then just basically help progress the native habitat
Speaker 1: that's there. But for the most part, like we have
Speaker 1: not gone in and like planted any specific species within
Speaker 1: those areas. We've just helped promote them natively through through fire.
Speaker 1: Really that's about it. Okay, this off season then to spring,
Speaker 1: did you have any other changes to habitat? Given like
Speaker 1: he's there again, you're hoping he's going to be this great,
Speaker 1: big six and a half yield giant. Was there anything
Speaker 1: you did different from the habitat perspective or even I
Speaker 1: guess prep work two. Did you start setting any new
Speaker 1: stands or setting up blinds or anything different leading into
Speaker 1: that year when you're planning and setting the stage for
Speaker 1: this hunt after this year? Um? Not really. We did
Speaker 1: treat um some invasive stuff which was like multi floral
Speaker 1: rose um throughout the timber, but that wasn't specifically for him. UM.
Speaker 1: But no, actually I really didn't. UM. You know, I
Speaker 1: tried my best to plant those get those staging plots
Speaker 1: UM set up differently, like the one staging plot that
Speaker 1: he had often used used in years past to enter
Speaker 1: that that one I had field where I typically always
Speaker 1: gave him, Um, I split it in half this year,
Speaker 1: so it was it was all Clover last year. This year,
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I'm gonna try this differently.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna split this thing half. It's like an acre
Speaker 1: acre and a half food plut on to split in
Speaker 1: half and New Braska's on one side and then leave
Speaker 1: Clover on the other. So then he has, um, he
Speaker 1: really has a choice which everyone he would like to
Speaker 1: hit or the deer would like to hit prior to
Speaker 1: go into that that agg field. And that was about
Speaker 1: the only thing I did differently. And it did not
Speaker 1: pan out well at all. We had the driest year
Speaker 1: that we've had in a very very long time. So
Speaker 1: um it changed things drastically, And UM, you know, I
Speaker 1: really didn't. I didn't have anything too much differently that
Speaker 1: I that I had done this past offseason. Um, I
Speaker 1: just based on my my previous knowledge. I'm thinking, are
Speaker 1: you going into this year, I'm gonna we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a great shot at him. And in hindsight, like I
Speaker 1: remember my dad and I talking about, it was really
Speaker 1: just it was mainly focused. Our focus was for my
Speaker 1: dad to shoot him, to be honest, and um, because
Speaker 1: he'd almost gotten an opportunity yet him there um last
Speaker 1: fall and and whatnot. And it is his farm, so
Speaker 1: like that in mind, So it's like I don't we
Speaker 1: don't ever like are you or fight or anything like
Speaker 1: that over um, you know who gets to hunt water whatever.
Speaker 1: I obviously try to give him first DIBs on stuff,
Speaker 1: um since it you know, I wouldn't have it if
Speaker 1: it wasn't for him and my mom. So, um, back
Speaker 1: to that staging plot real quick, despite that not working
Speaker 1: out with the moisture. Um, what are the you've mentioned
Speaker 1: having several of these staging plots? Is it? Am I
Speaker 1: right to assume that when you say staging plot, this
Speaker 1: is the kind of plot that you're more often planning
Speaker 1: on hunting as they transition through to the destination. So
Speaker 1: if if I'm right about that, how do you or
Speaker 1: do you at all design them in such a way
Speaker 1: to make them more huntable? Yeah, so you're right, it
Speaker 1: is a staging plot. So like for for them going
Speaker 1: to that destination food source, it's essentially set up to
Speaker 1: where they would, um, they would come out of their
Speaker 1: bedding area, they would hit this food plot and then
Speaker 1: from there just walk right out of that basically into
Speaker 1: the destination food source and go out into that agg
Speaker 1: field and in that instance, it's great. It's set up
Speaker 1: perfectly so like if you don't end up getting a shot,
Speaker 1: most of the deer have already left this food plot
Speaker 1: and headed into their destination food source, so you can
Speaker 1: get out of there without interfering um with deer movement
Speaker 1: or spooking all the deer off. UM. There's a road
Speaker 1: that goes along the southern edge of it, like just
Speaker 1: a path for us to either drive a truck or
Speaker 1: um for whether or whatever you want to drive down
Speaker 1: that um to get to that agg field. That's the
Speaker 1: access and right next to that is the food plot,
Speaker 1: and it's it's kind of triangular shaped, and really that
Speaker 1: has to do with the way the terrain lays, and
Speaker 1: that's the only flat portion of that area because then
Speaker 1: it leads into like a hillside that goes upwards and UM.
Speaker 1: And so that's the reason that it's shaped that way.
Speaker 1: It's really the flattest area we could fit the most
Speaker 1: um food in in that particular area. And so it's
Speaker 1: also set up perfectly to hunt with a north wind
Speaker 1: where your wind is blowing obviously to the south where
Speaker 1: the access where we're accessing from, so your wind is
Speaker 1: blowing right back to where you park your truck or
Speaker 1: whatever to get there, where you walk in from, or
Speaker 1: you can kind of hunt it on a west wind
Speaker 1: where it's somewhat blowing out into the destination food source.
Speaker 1: But at that point you're hoping that you're either going
Speaker 1: to get your shot at the animal that you're hunting um,
Speaker 1: or you're kind of you're kind of screwed for the
Speaker 1: most part, because they're gonna get past you, and then
Speaker 1: some other deer may get past you and you may
Speaker 1: end up spooking the mall or whatever. So it's typically
Speaker 1: often it's it's ideally set up for a north or
Speaker 1: northwest wind. Okay, um summer, then you you you know,
Speaker 1: you did your work, you planned your plots, did some burning,
Speaker 1: You've got your stuff out, you've got your stands ready,
Speaker 1: you've got trail cameras out in your usual locations. When
Speaker 1: you're thinking about the year coming up, the season coming up.
Speaker 1: I know you mentioned you never did get summer pictures
Speaker 1: of him um, but let's say we're still kind of
Speaker 1: middle of the summer, so you're not too worried about
Speaker 1: that yet. If I were to ask you at this
Speaker 1: point in the summer of what was Caesar's weakness, Like,
Speaker 1: what was the thing about him that you thought would
Speaker 1: lead to you getting a shot, whether that be like
Speaker 1: a spot you thought he'd be vulnerable, or a tendency
Speaker 1: or something you learned about him. Was there something that
Speaker 1: you had identified it for this point that you thought
Speaker 1: would be that silver bullet for you? Pre Rut. Absolutely
Speaker 1: I thought I would have absolutely had my best chances
Speaker 1: at him pre Rut just because um, you know I would.
Speaker 1: I would get him early season and throughout the summer.
Speaker 1: But it was nothing that was like super patternable. There
Speaker 1: was nothing consistent. I didn't I didn't have it like
Speaker 1: a defined game plan where I thought, all right, the
Speaker 1: season is opening September, I'm going to have my best
Speaker 1: shot at killing him. Right years I didn't. I did
Speaker 1: not have that um up until I mean even from
Speaker 1: the age of two and a half to six and
Speaker 1: a half, there was never a like a September where
Speaker 1: I would have been like, oh yeah, he was so
Speaker 1: patternable then there. I never had that. So he was
Speaker 1: very sporadic. So I thought, you know what, I'm getting
Speaker 1: him on scrapes very very consistently every year in October,
Speaker 1: like late late October pre rod, like he's going to
Speaker 1: be on a pattern. He's just you know, doing his thing,
Speaker 1: you know, setting his territory, waiting for that first dough
Speaker 1: to come into heat, and you know that that's gonna
Speaker 1: be my best shot. Um. And so that was really
Speaker 1: my my main game plan for him, um going into
Speaker 1: this pass ball. So would you have avoided or was
Speaker 1: the game plan heading into the fall to completely avoid
Speaker 1: his area until then or were you still gonna try
Speaker 1: to hunt around there hoping he would show and then
Speaker 1: you know if you didn't, you'd still have that late October,
Speaker 1: you know in your back pocket. Yeah, So my game
Speaker 1: plan with not having photos of him through the song
Speaker 1: or what's I was really not focusing on him because
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I have you know, five or
Speaker 1: six cameras in that general area where where he's always been.
Speaker 1: If I don't have him that by now over the
Speaker 1: last two months, like he's not there, Like I'm very well,
Speaker 1: very well just confident that he's not. He's not he's
Speaker 1: either dead or not on the farm, like not there.
Speaker 1: And so I really didn't have a game plan for
Speaker 1: him then. And I wasn't gonna hunt over there because
Speaker 1: there was nothing else anyways that I that I wanted
Speaker 1: to shoot or um or of that age class five
Speaker 1: and a half year old buck. So I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna waste my time with going over there,
Speaker 1: and I didn't um, And there was just one other
Speaker 1: deer that we were targeting, and so I was I
Speaker 1: was spending my time on the other end of the
Speaker 1: farm when I when I was there to hunt. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're hunting this other deer, you kind of gave
Speaker 1: up on Caesar. What was was that? Is this is
Speaker 1: this something that you've experienced enough times now with a
Speaker 1: deer you're excited about disappearing that this was like, well
Speaker 1: on the next one, keep on going? Or did this
Speaker 1: were you Were you really disappointed or was this kind
Speaker 1: of like this is just how it is? I was
Speaker 1: disappointed for sure. Um, there's there's one other duer that
Speaker 1: I can think of that um that made it to
Speaker 1: five and a half of I almost killed one year.
Speaker 1: UM just never ended up getting a shot at and
Speaker 1: he you know, I picked up the sheds and everything
Speaker 1: and then nothing never saw him ever again. And so
Speaker 1: I had that in the back of my mind, like
Speaker 1: all right, well that's kind of what just happened to Caesar,
Speaker 1: don't I you know, I really don't have any closure, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Um, you know, I guess maybe he
Speaker 1: could have possibly been hit by a car or you know,
Speaker 1: died from from disease or HD something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: And I just so yeah, I just it was I
Speaker 1: was definitely definitely bummed out, but I had pretty well
Speaker 1: just written it off that he was gone. Um. Other
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like I pulled my cameras or
Speaker 1: anything like that, but I was just like, you know,
Speaker 1: my focus was elsewhere. Yeah, alright, So we get to
Speaker 1: October and you're hunting another deer and then you wake
Speaker 1: up with the middle of night, you check your trail
Speaker 1: cameras and he's back. Yeah, you can't sleep. You're waiting
Speaker 1: for Chandler to get up in the morning to tell him.
Speaker 1: What did you do that next morning when you were
Speaker 1: awake and you were ready to figure something out. Did
Speaker 1: you immediately say, all right, forget the other buck, we
Speaker 1: gotta we gotta figure out what Caesar is doing or
Speaker 1: what What was the thought process and what did you
Speaker 1: do that next day? The thought process did not change
Speaker 1: at all. So well, the thought process changed, but the
Speaker 1: game plan. The strategy did not change because he showed
Speaker 1: up on the camera right there in this quote, not
Speaker 1: not the clover plot where I had typically always gotten him.
Speaker 1: He was on the other end of the farm again
Speaker 1: well well really where I had never ever gotten him. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was are we were already planning on hunting
Speaker 1: there because this other buck was there, and I was,
Speaker 1: you know, this is another buck that I really wasn't
Speaker 1: that big in probably like a um, nothing in comparison
Speaker 1: to Caesar. But I did not have pictures of this
Speaker 1: other deer um in years past. He looked to be
Speaker 1: pretty giant bodied size, like an old deer that I
Speaker 1: don't know, and I just, I guess just happened to
Speaker 1: wander in and move into that area. Anyhow, that was
Speaker 1: the exact same camera that I got Caesar on in
Speaker 1: the middle of the night, and I'm like, we're already
Speaker 1: planning on going there, um, not that morning, but that
Speaker 1: that coming afternoon, Like we're gonna be there hopefully he's there.
Speaker 1: This is incredible. It's like this ghost just appeared, um,
Speaker 1: you know, out of the blue, and uh, this is great.
Speaker 1: He and he really he didn't appear to have put
Speaker 1: on a whole lot, Caesar. Um, but that at that
Speaker 1: point it didn't matter. I mean, my mind was already
Speaker 1: made up anyways, like we wouldn't It wasn't gonna change
Speaker 1: it anyways, even if he had gotten smaller, like it
Speaker 1: was more about the story in the age of the
Speaker 1: animal and just everything that had gone into it to be,
Speaker 1: you know, to want to shoot this deer. So that
Speaker 1: next day or so, did you So you hunted that night? Right? Correct? Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: So that night you go out to hunt this tree
Speaker 1: that you dared have been planning and hunting for the
Speaker 1: big bodied but now Caesar's back, He's in the same zone.
Speaker 1: So that evening when you sat up, when you set up,
Speaker 1: did you have a thought in your mind about what
Speaker 1: you would do if the big body new buck showed up.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't. I wouldn't shoot him. So that was Caesar bust. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and I also do have to keep you know,
Speaker 1: make sure you guys know this. So I I showed
Speaker 1: my dad right away and um the next morning, and
Speaker 1: he's like, you shoot him, like I thought you wanted
Speaker 1: to shoot him. He's like, yeah, I do, but you
Speaker 1: know you shoot him? Well okay, And so you know,
Speaker 1: like it's a good dad. Yeah, I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: really want to do this, Like it's kind of his buck,
Speaker 1: you know, for the most part, to hunt. And so
Speaker 1: we hunted there, and sure enough, he didn't show up,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember exactly what happened if um, well,
Speaker 1: the wind shifted and we're like, wow, we're not gonna
Speaker 1: hunt there anymore. And I think we went home. Um
Speaker 1: after that, well, like in the next few days, my
Speaker 1: dad had already him and my mom had planned a
Speaker 1: vacation and so they left and went out of town.
Speaker 1: And at that point, I'm like, all right, this steers here.
Speaker 1: He's told me to shoot him. He's not even he's
Speaker 1: clearly not able to hunt. He's gonna be gone for
Speaker 1: over a week. I'm going to hunt this deer. And
Speaker 1: so that was the game plan moving forward, and um,
Speaker 1: I'll just get straight to it. Really like shortly after that,
Speaker 1: I think I maybe got him one more time on
Speaker 1: that camera. Right after that, Um was that a daylight
Speaker 1: picture or still nighttime? Nighttime? We came back and I
Speaker 1: started hunting him there again, and while we were hunting there,
Speaker 1: he ended up moving straight back into like his core
Speaker 1: area where he would had always been like in years past,
Speaker 1: not the middle of the farm, but over on the
Speaker 1: end of that he was I was most familiar with
Speaker 1: him being and where everything was pretty much set up
Speaker 1: like specifically for him. Um, he had moved over there,
Speaker 1: and so I couldn't have been more excited because I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, he's back to his home turf, like this
Speaker 1: is mid October. Like i feel like I've got him,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty well patterned, like you know he granted
Speaker 1: he's only been there once, like based on everything I
Speaker 1: know leading up to this point in years past, like
Speaker 1: I feel like he's like settled in. There's really no
Speaker 1: other buck in that area that's gonna mess with him.
Speaker 1: Like he's he's top dog, Like he's caees hear he,
Speaker 1: this is his spot, Like he's gonna he's gonna stick
Speaker 1: around here. Ye all right. So if if I'm in
Speaker 1: a situation like this and I've got this buck that
Speaker 1: showed back up, and I'm sitting there in the middle
Speaker 1: of the day trying to think about where I'm gonna
Speaker 1: hunt the next or that evening, i am like looking
Speaker 1: at the wind direction, of course, I'm looking at the temperature.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about Okay, you know the conditions right, is
Speaker 1: the wind right? And then I'm trying to make like
Speaker 1: the best guests like, oh, well, he could be betting
Speaker 1: in this specific spot maybe, and he might be betting
Speaker 1: there in this little corner over here. So then I'm
Speaker 1: trying to like go back and forth between like which
Speaker 1: one of these possible betting areas he might be in.
Speaker 1: And then I'm thinking about, well, with the wind direction,
Speaker 1: where's the best place I could hunt based on where
Speaker 1: I think he's gonna go. And and then I'm debating
Speaker 1: like this trailer, this trailer, this food source or this
Speaker 1: food store, like I'm going through all these million different things. Um,
Speaker 1: what does that process look like for you when you
Speaker 1: are there, like the day of the hunt and let's
Speaker 1: let's hypothetically say the next hunt you had when he
Speaker 1: came back to his core and now you're like, okay's
Speaker 1: back in the spot I'm comfortable with. Can you give
Speaker 1: me like the detailed nitty gritty as much as you
Speaker 1: remember about how you were choosing where to hunt that
Speaker 1: first night back in the core area. Yeah, so, um,
Speaker 1: with it being mid October, I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: weather patterns, like looking at the forecast ahead, Like I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna play it safe. It's not it's
Speaker 1: not like, well, let's just dive right into the woods
Speaker 1: and try and kill him right where, you know, stories betting,
Speaker 1: Like let's just hunt these food sources in hopes that
Speaker 1: he comes out there. UM, and I do need to
Speaker 1: keep um reiterate, Like so when I did get photos
Speaker 1: of him over there, it was right at last light
Speaker 1: in that staging plot. UM, So I'm like, he's he's
Speaker 1: hit the staging plot right at last light. Like he's
Speaker 1: pretty much killable right there. Like let's play it safe
Speaker 1: and not right in that that general area and um,
Speaker 1: and try to kill him there because it's not very intrusive. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, he just got back to there for that
Speaker 1: that I can at least from what I can tell, UM,
Speaker 1: I don't want to go in and blow him out
Speaker 1: of there, so we'll play it somewhat safe. And so
Speaker 1: that was really that was the game plan. But I'm
Speaker 1: looking ahead at the weather and I'm saying, like, all right,
Speaker 1: for October, there's a pretty good cold front coming, Like
Speaker 1: our odds are very very good that he'll show up
Speaker 1: into this food plot in daylight if he's already done
Speaker 1: it prior to this cold front hitting like, odds are
Speaker 1: likely he's going to be there in daylight after this
Speaker 1: this front passes, and so um, that was really our
Speaker 1: game plan in the next coming days ahead. So walk
Speaker 1: me through what happened on those that that next hunter
Speaker 1: several hunts leading into what it will happen. We went
Speaker 1: in and hung a stand right there, basically intercepting him
Speaker 1: as he would enter that that agg field right off
Speaker 1: the side of that that staging plot. I could see
Speaker 1: the staging plot to my left. I think we had
Speaker 1: a north west maybe a northwest wind, and so I'm like,
Speaker 1: all right, well we'll hunt off to the side of
Speaker 1: it here where like there's a path. We the path
Speaker 1: that we drive in like leads straight into the field, um,
Speaker 1: the agg field, and um, like I said, we can
Speaker 1: see into the staging plot. There's a scrape right there,
Speaker 1: a giant scrape. I put a camera on it. As
Speaker 1: we're hanging the stand, I'm like, all right, we'll hunt here,
Speaker 1: um this or tomorrow evening and then like the next
Speaker 1: few days because we have the right wind and everything
Speaker 1: as this front passes, So we set the camera there
Speaker 1: this is just a regular This isn't a cell camera anything,
Speaker 1: but like you know, you could clearly tell that the
Speaker 1: box were just like annihilating the scrape, Like I'll have
Speaker 1: a good shot at him if he if he comes
Speaker 1: to the scrape or like right enters the field right here,
Speaker 1: like he's in range. And so that was our game
Speaker 1: plan moving forward. And um, two quick questions for you further. First,
Speaker 1: how do you get out of a spot like this, um?
Speaker 1: Because I know you mentioned like where the staging plot.
Speaker 1: Hopefully they've moved off to these destination food plots before
Speaker 1: you leave. Button. I feel like I also remember you
Speaker 1: saying that these these destination food sources on the outside
Speaker 1: of the property, So how do you get past them
Speaker 1: to get out to the road or where where you are?
Speaker 1: Is there a back doorway you can get out or
Speaker 1: how do you handle that exit? So like this is
Speaker 1: actually this field is in a valley, um, And so
Speaker 1: Whey Park is on the top of the hill a
Speaker 1: little ways away, Like you can't see it from the field,
Speaker 1: and you can't see the field from the road or
Speaker 1: anything like that. But um, we're hunting it with the
Speaker 1: north wind, so you're walking straight north or west wind
Speaker 1: and you're pretty much walking straight into the wind to
Speaker 1: get to this, so there is potential that you could
Speaker 1: have deer behind you. UM him specifically, I didn't believe
Speaker 1: was coming from that direction, so I wasn't too worried
Speaker 1: about it. We had some doves come in from behind us,
Speaker 1: and they actually did not spook or anything. Um. They
Speaker 1: came right through and um and walked by. But yeah,
Speaker 1: that's our our plan of attack. When we went in
Speaker 1: to hang the stand, we accessed it the exact same
Speaker 1: way we hunt and everything. You're not you're not jumping
Speaker 1: any deer. You're walking down the road that you um
Speaker 1: that you access the field with anyway, So you're walking
Speaker 1: down that that road anyways. Then you peel off and
Speaker 1: you go into the woods a little bit to get
Speaker 1: to the stand. UM. And in that area where we
Speaker 1: peel off of our interior road to get to that stand,
Speaker 1: it's about fifty sixty yards or so. And so we hanged,
Speaker 1: we hung the stand, hung the camera, and in our
Speaker 1: way out, Channe and I both used our boots to
Speaker 1: clear like every single leaf off of that are walking like,
Speaker 1: so it's just bare ground UM walking in and out
Speaker 1: to make it even quieter um for really just for
Speaker 1: access on the way in, and if you don't end
Speaker 1: up getting a shot, you can potentially hopefully get out.
Speaker 1: And my theory like on this farm particularly, there's a
Speaker 1: decent sized deer density um decent sized deer heard, so
Speaker 1: there's quite a few deer. Um, it's it's very tough
Speaker 1: to get out without speaking dear. But if it's not
Speaker 1: the you know, if it's not the particular dear you're hanging,
Speaker 1: I'm not that worried about it usually, And my like
Speaker 1: way of really getting around that, I feel like, don't
Speaker 1: know if it's like it's not foolproof or anything, but
Speaker 1: oftentimes when I'm wanting to get out and like I
Speaker 1: have a few deer in front of me, I'll end
Speaker 1: up playing like, uh, like a coyote howl on my phone.
Speaker 1: It sounds funny, but pretty much every night at dusk,
Speaker 1: like the coyotes all sound off. So it's it's a
Speaker 1: normal occurrence. And you know, I'm not saying that it's
Speaker 1: it's the best absolute answer to spook deer off, but
Speaker 1: it seems to work well for me and um. Fortunately
Speaker 1: that first night, UM, I didn't have to spook any off,
Speaker 1: and we didn't end up getting a shot. Um, so
Speaker 1: we were able to just climb down quickly. We left
Speaker 1: everything as far as our not our cameras, but like
Speaker 1: our tree arms, everything else. Um in the tree. We
Speaker 1: didn't tear anything down. We literally just grab our packs,
Speaker 1: throw the cameras in there, and climb right out as
Speaker 1: quick as we can't leave, just like most normal hunters would.
Speaker 1: So um, we were able to get out of there
Speaker 1: very quickly that first night without spooking anything that we're
Speaker 1: aware of. Yeah, now about picking the tree, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: always curious when you're picking the tree. One of the
Speaker 1: things I'm always constantly debating is this this kind of
Speaker 1: give and take between picking the spot that's the closest
Speaker 1: to range to the perfect place where I think that
Speaker 1: deer is most likely to come through, versus you know,
Speaker 1: trying to pick a tree that maybe is got a
Speaker 1: little more cover or is down wind of more of
Speaker 1: the deer activity. You know, very at least, you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you find the perfect tree that has it all,
Speaker 1: But most situations you have to kind of make choices.
Speaker 1: You can't get all five of the perfect criteria you want.
Speaker 1: You might have to do three out of five or
Speaker 1: whatever it is, UM, So can you kind of tell me?
Speaker 1: First off, you know, what did this specific tree set
Speaker 1: up look like? How did you pick this tree? Why
Speaker 1: was this the tree the place to be? And then secondly,
Speaker 1: more generically, you know, if you had to choose between
Speaker 1: a tree that is in easy range of the very
Speaker 1: best like crossing of trails or whatever it might be
Speaker 1: with the scrape, or pick a tree that's a little
Speaker 1: bit further away but has better cover better wind, which
Speaker 1: of those, more generically would you pick? So wind is
Speaker 1: always the first, um, the first factor that I always
Speaker 1: weigh on. And with this particular tree, like the wind
Speaker 1: set up pretty dayn good for it. Um. With this
Speaker 1: being a valley, I'm always concerned with the wind swirling,
Speaker 1: and I was pretty confident with the northwest wind that
Speaker 1: it wouldn't because it would in my mind theory wise,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, all right, this this tree line, UM runs
Speaker 1: east to west. If the wind is coming in out
Speaker 1: of the northwest, it's going to kind of hit this
Speaker 1: tree line and carry off towards my southeast, which is
Speaker 1: where some deer might potentially come. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: that is not where the bulk of the deer coming
Speaker 1: from there, coming from the northwest. I'm not I'm thinking, like,
Speaker 1: all right, this is gonna be perfect for the wind direction. Um,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't. I definitely don't think I'm gonna spook him.
Speaker 1: And if I spook anything, it's just gonna be a
Speaker 1: few doughs or something like that. I'm not not concerned,
Speaker 1: and I think it's great. It's set up perfect then. Um,
Speaker 1: So that that was my main factor that I'm factoring in. Secondly,
Speaker 1: like this group of trees was like some cotton woods,
Speaker 1: and maybe like some I don't know, there's like some
Speaker 1: birch trees in there as well. It like kind of
Speaker 1: stick out a little bit into the field, just a
Speaker 1: little bit, maybe like five ten yards further than the
Speaker 1: rest of the tree line for whatever reason. And so
Speaker 1: it kind of like positions you outward a little bit
Speaker 1: into the field for a closer shot. Um where the
Speaker 1: where it kind of pinches down where these deer are
Speaker 1: entering this field, and then that's right where that scrape is.
Speaker 1: So I'm like it it's just the perfect setup. Um.
Speaker 1: The cotton woods are tall trees. Yes, they're pretty barren
Speaker 1: um just because they don't throw out a ton of
Speaker 1: branches and there they're the trunks you know, are pretty
Speaker 1: straight going upwards. But I was like, we can get up.
Speaker 1: There are ways, and I'm not going to get out
Speaker 1: on that lead cotton wood that's sitting out right on
Speaker 1: the edge. I'm gonna use it as a sense of cover,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna hang in the tree that's right with
Speaker 1: the cotton went right behind it. And so that was
Speaker 1: in the video you can see that's exactly what we did.
Speaker 1: Like we used that that one in front of me
Speaker 1: as like cover. I hung my bow on it. I
Speaker 1: could kind of like I feel like I could kind
Speaker 1: of get in line with it. So my body, like
Speaker 1: my my outline lines up with the tree. Well, um,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sticking out too much. And that's another
Speaker 1: thing that I look at as well as all oftentimes. Um,
Speaker 1: when I'm hanging a stand, I'll go out to where
Speaker 1: I believe I'm going to potentially get my shot at
Speaker 1: and look back at the tree for my my backdrop.
Speaker 1: And in this instance, my backdrop was fine. Well, Chandler
Speaker 1: was a little bit higher than I because that's how
Speaker 1: we set up for our camera setups. Um, so he's
Speaker 1: kind of like shooting over my shoulder and my head
Speaker 1: a little bit. He was a little bit skyline. He
Speaker 1: didn't have the backdrop that I did, um, and so
Speaker 1: thankfully he was even he was set up kind of
Speaker 1: behind the tree that we're hung in, so he had
Speaker 1: not only the one in front of me, but also
Speaker 1: the tree that's behind me as his cover as well.
Speaker 1: So he he used to hide behind some too. But um,
Speaker 1: we did in fact figure out that, like some of
Speaker 1: these deer work, we're spotting him or me just because
Speaker 1: we didn't have the best backdrop. But um, thankfully, with
Speaker 1: the wind that we had, I think we had a
Speaker 1: ten fifty our wind, with all the leaves and branches
Speaker 1: kind of moving around it, it ended up hiding us
Speaker 1: well and breaking us up. But yeah, really that the
Speaker 1: positioning of this one, being able to get up high,
Speaker 1: having a good backdrop in that tree in front of me,
Speaker 1: great wind, and then positioning close to that scrape and
Speaker 1: the trails entering the field, it seemed to be the
Speaker 1: you know, the absolute perfect set up. Next question, then,
Speaker 1: did you get any more sell pictures of him between
Speaker 1: the time you got that first picture of him back
Speaker 1: in his core area and when you killed him? I
Speaker 1: believe I did. I think I got one in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night of him hitting that that same
Speaker 1: scrape on the cell cam. Um. That really just like
Speaker 1: you know, gave me reassurance like, Okay, he's uh, he's there,
Speaker 1: so you know, I mean, I believe he's settled in. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm looking back right now actually as I'm sitting, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did. I got him the next the next um,
Speaker 1: early early morning, at like one thirty am. UM, so
Speaker 1: I knew that he had, you know, most likely settled
Speaker 1: into there. And then I had also set so on
Speaker 1: that scrape in front of me. I had put a
Speaker 1: trail camera on video mode, which I wasn't gonna check.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not checking that, Like I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna walk over there. Um, it's just there for my reference,
Speaker 1: like just to know if he's hitting that scrape. I'll
Speaker 1: check it later on. Well after I ended up killing him,
Speaker 1: I checked it, and he was all over that thing,
Speaker 1: um all the time throughout the night. So but anyway, anyhow, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I was still very very very confident that
Speaker 1: he was in the area. I was like, he's I
Speaker 1: don't think he's gonna leave. What do you think you
Speaker 1: would have done. And I know this is you know, hindsight,
Speaker 1: but if so, let's say you hunted that spot that
Speaker 1: first night when which you didn't see him. If that
Speaker 1: night you were to have gotten a picture of him
Speaker 1: back in the middle of the farm in the other
Speaker 1: spot he'd been at, you know, over the last period
Speaker 1: of time, would that have changed your plan at all?
Speaker 1: Do you think? Or would you have still stuck with
Speaker 1: the scrape set up because you liked everything else about it.
Speaker 1: I would have stuck with it, just um, given the
Speaker 1: fact of like his history, and um, there's been hand
Speaker 1: plenty of times where I've gotten photos of deer there
Speaker 1: in the middle of the farm one evening, and then
Speaker 1: the following evening I get him not like the complete
Speaker 1: opposite end of the farm, but down where he was at.
Speaker 1: So like it's probably like I would say, like a
Speaker 1: half a mile to that area down there, and really
Speaker 1: like I remember when we first started hunting his place,
Speaker 1: and like I don't know, like that there's a deer
Speaker 1: herd here in the middle and there's a deer herd
Speaker 1: down there. Well not really like it's not that that's
Speaker 1: not far for a deer to travel at all, Like
Speaker 1: and this farm has really opened up my vision of
Speaker 1: how far deer actually travel. They're all different, all all
Speaker 1: their movements and couriers are different from one another. But
Speaker 1: as far as like they're traveling goes, they traveled much
Speaker 1: further than I had um, I had ever anticipated and
Speaker 1: really given them credit to travel. And then when you
Speaker 1: really think about us as humans, like if we want
Speaker 1: to go walk a half a mile, that's like really
Speaker 1: nothing like walking half a mile is not that far
Speaker 1: at all. For a year to go half a mile's like,
Speaker 1: I mean that that's nothing at all to them. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so true. So what happened next? So yeah, we ended
Speaker 1: up hunting them again the following evening, and um, that
Speaker 1: cold front had completely passed and like we had pretty
Speaker 1: steady wind. It was like a fifteen mile per hour wind,
Speaker 1: but given we were down in the valley, it's a
Speaker 1: little bit less. Um, and I went, I want to
Speaker 1: say it was in the thirties. Um for mid October.
Speaker 1: That was that's pretty chilly for me, at least for
Speaker 1: us in Missouri. And um, he came out gosh an
Speaker 1: hour before sunset into that that staging plot. We could
Speaker 1: see him over there, and given we had such a
Speaker 1: terrible drought like the Braskas that I had planned. We're
Speaker 1: not really there, but something had I mean, they were there,
Speaker 1: I guess because the deer were hitting that and that's
Speaker 1: what he was hitting. Like he he transitioned and moved
Speaker 1: over to moved over to the clover right next to
Speaker 1: it for a little bit, but for the most part
Speaker 1: he was sticking to that brasket plot that didn't come
Speaker 1: in very well, and the other deer were as well.
Speaker 1: He ended up kind of feeding off where we couldn't
Speaker 1: see him because we're kind of looking. We're looking through
Speaker 1: some trees where where we can see him at and
Speaker 1: we can't see him all that well, but we're getting
Speaker 1: bits and pieces he might be in an opening. And
Speaker 1: then he kind of goes away. And then it appeared
Speaker 1: that he kind of left. We had some deer just
Speaker 1: gets like really skittish and spook off of the act
Speaker 1: field because of the wind, like it was just blown
Speaker 1: and they just got nervous and left, which is kind
Speaker 1: of domino effected to him. And I'm like, all right,
Speaker 1: it's over. He's probably leaving, and he was. He would
Speaker 1: He watched the deer spook off, stood there and stood
Speaker 1: there for like five minutes just watching everything head up,
Speaker 1: like looking around, kind of just scanning the whole area,
Speaker 1: and then he finally calmed down. That happened. They ended
Speaker 1: up happening twice, and then um, he fed off and
Speaker 1: it looked like he went up to where that cell
Speaker 1: camera was at and was possibly hitting the scrape. We
Speaker 1: couldn't quite tell where we were at, and ended up
Speaker 1: um we thought maybe leaving, and then probably right at
Speaker 1: a little after sunset. Um, some deer kind of trickled
Speaker 1: in from that that staging plot, and then Chandler was
Speaker 1: able to see him kind of coming back in that
Speaker 1: staging plot. I'm like, all right, like he's coming um
Speaker 1: and he was at like eighty at that point, I believe,
Speaker 1: and then he like another younger deer and a three
Speaker 1: year old came in and we're kind of like one
Speaker 1: of them hit the scrape. I think it was a
Speaker 1: three year old. And then they worked in and that
Speaker 1: was kind of like the the deciding factor for him.
Speaker 1: I think he knew that other buck was hitting that
Speaker 1: scrape and just you know, they're starting to get territorial.
Speaker 1: That was when that was really just what drew him
Speaker 1: right in and he came through, walked behind my camera,
Speaker 1: did not go down the trail leading right to that scrape.
Speaker 1: I didn't even hit the scrape, went right around it
Speaker 1: like a few, like a few yards, and stood right
Speaker 1: there in front of it, and was standing there just
Speaker 1: looking around and like ate a little bit, like ate
Speaker 1: some corn in the field there. And then um that
Speaker 1: was like he's at twenty six yards and that's that's
Speaker 1: where I shot him at. Describe to me your self
Speaker 1: talk in those moments as he was coming out of
Speaker 1: the woods heading out into the field and you realized
Speaker 1: I'm getting a shot. Were you just like an autopilot
Speaker 1: locked in? You weren't thinking about anything except for just
Speaker 1: you know, wait until he stops, drawback anchor do the thing.
Speaker 1: Were you freaking out and trying to calm yourself down
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So when he first stepped out
Speaker 1: an hour before sunset, I you know, you first a deer,
Speaker 1: especially when you're you're hunting the one that you're hunting. Um, you,
Speaker 1: like all of us, do you, You immediately have that
Speaker 1: adrenaline rush. And when that hit me, like I said,
Speaker 1: it was cold for that time of year, the winds blowing,
Speaker 1: I thought, I dressed warm, apparently not warm enough. I
Speaker 1: already had that little shiver going on from being a
Speaker 1: little bit chilly. Then you added that adrenaline. I had
Speaker 1: like a massive sugar going on, and so pumped up.
Speaker 1: I was, like I told afterwards, and like, if you
Speaker 1: would have came in when we first saw him, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I would have been able to together
Speaker 1: because I had that combination of being nervous and cold
Speaker 1: at the same time. I was shaking like a leaf.
Speaker 1: So um, thankfully he gave me well over an hour
Speaker 1: to calm myself, gather my thoughts, and by the time
Speaker 1: he came in, I was all I had in my
Speaker 1: mind was shot opportunity, just waiting for the perfect moment,
Speaker 1: stay focused, think about what you're doing. Um, you know
Speaker 1: you've ran this through your mind a hundred times. Part
Speaker 1: of this like just focus on what's going on, and
Speaker 1: and you know, shot angle and shot opportunity, and that's
Speaker 1: that's what happened. And so thankfully, like the way he entered,
Speaker 1: he entered a little closer than than that scrape for
Speaker 1: whatever reason, and it's just barely slightly quartered away, if
Speaker 1: not broadside. Um stopped right there at twenty six yards
Speaker 1: and um, you know I had drawn, he's relaxed. I
Speaker 1: you know, I asked Chainler to make sure that he's
Speaker 1: got him what he did, and then, um, you know,
Speaker 1: just like you practice. It was That's really all it was.
Speaker 1: Was just it turns into that repetition and mental game
Speaker 1: of what we practiced for. And so you get the shot.
Speaker 1: He runs off and he he dropped in sight is there, right? Yeah,
Speaker 1: So he ran right at the edge of the field.
Speaker 1: He had absolutely no idea because like I didn't have
Speaker 1: to stop him or anything. He just stopped himself and
Speaker 1: he had zero clue I was there. Um, So when
Speaker 1: I shot him, he turned and ran and you can
Speaker 1: just see blood starting to pour out immediately just you know,
Speaker 1: bounds off and stops and you know, stops to look
Speaker 1: back and looking around, and then it's just the classic
Speaker 1: like you know, just kind of stumble around and fall over,
Speaker 1: and you know it's like when that whole moment of
Speaker 1: relief comes on. Um and in that very instance, like
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, wow, this is great, this is incredible. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a really bitter sweet moment. But like in
Speaker 1: the back line line, I'm like, man, my dad wanted
Speaker 1: this year. I don't know, you know, like you have
Speaker 1: a little sense of guilt. Um, yeah, it was. It
Speaker 1: was incredible. And then to be honest, I say bitter
Speaker 1: sweet because like you've had all those years of that,
Speaker 1: Like it turns into far more than just shooting a
Speaker 1: deer and you're like, man, like the whole everything leaning
Speaker 1: up at this point, Um, there were so many different
Speaker 1: emotions going on that now it's it's over for him,
Speaker 1: Like the whole thing's over and he's laying their dad's
Speaker 1: or like, wow, I just ended that. Like it's pretty,
Speaker 1: but like stories over, it's sometimes it leaves you a
Speaker 1: little empty afterwards. You want to you want to keep
Speaker 1: going almost it does. It's a weird, weird, weird feeling. Um,
Speaker 1: but you know, thankfully there's more dear to come in
Speaker 1: our future. Um, we hope. So yeah. So if you
Speaker 1: were to look back over this four years or whatever
Speaker 1: the total end up being, um, and you were to
Speaker 1: think through all the decisions you made, the work you did,
Speaker 1: the changes you made to set ups or habitat or
Speaker 1: the things you did just in the days leading up
Speaker 1: to the hunter or anything. If you had to write
Speaker 1: down a piece of paper three things that led to
Speaker 1: you killing that deer, like the top three something's decisions
Speaker 1: or factors that led to that dear showing up at
Speaker 1: twenty six yards and you get in a shop, what
Speaker 1: would you write down that piece of paper? Um, one,
Speaker 1: I would write, Man, it was like divine interventions, so
Speaker 1: like God man, like I said, prayerwells in the tree,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like that had that had to be
Speaker 1: part of a very large major factor of it. Um.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I wouldn't even be on this earth if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for him. But that was one too for sure.
Speaker 1: Weather like without a doubt, if that weather pattern was
Speaker 1: not there, like there's no way, Um, I just don't
Speaker 1: think that it would have happened the way it did.
Speaker 1: Like the pressure was right the wind um, you know,
Speaker 1: like that front had passed so it was cool and everything,
Speaker 1: like deer activity was just off the charts that that evening. Um,
Speaker 1: there were deer everywhere moving and um, so that was
Speaker 1: a very big deciding factor. And then um the habitat
Speaker 1: and food. I would say we're the number three for sure,
Speaker 1: like just being able to have, you know, having the
Speaker 1: way that it's all set up with the betting, the
Speaker 1: staging plot, and destination, food source all being right there,
Speaker 1: Like it was like the stage was set, will be
Speaker 1: for him to do what he did, and and and
Speaker 1: the other deer as well. Um, just for all those
Speaker 1: things that come together. You know that does would be
Speaker 1: the three deciding factors. Do you do you feel like
Speaker 1: you learned anything from this, dear? Is there anything that
Speaker 1: you know now you can look back and say, you
Speaker 1: know what he taught me this? I learned a lot.
Speaker 1: I've learned a lot over this, this entire ball um,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, having pretty much ten years to
Speaker 1: hunt this form, it's changed drastically. When we first got it, Um,
Speaker 1: we were just following like a massive killoff I feel
Speaker 1: like from E H D. So there really wasn't a
Speaker 1: good age structure at the time. There was still a
Speaker 1: heavy deer presence, but a lot of does and I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of that's gotten into check. It's
Speaker 1: changed m quite a bit with that habitat improvements. UM.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's actually given the deer more variety,
Speaker 1: and so they've kind of their patterns have changed. I
Speaker 1: feel like they've kind of spread out, if you will,
Speaker 1: Like they don't necessarily all take the same exact out
Speaker 1: of corridors they always used to to take. So with
Speaker 1: things changing, UM like that, it's it's changed my mindset,
Speaker 1: changed my viewpoints each year. UM. And then going into
Speaker 1: this year, you know you I thought I had this
Speaker 1: year like completely figured out, UM, thinking he's living. Oh
Speaker 1: he's right here in the middle of the forum, like
Speaker 1: this is this is perfect, like you know, like I
Speaker 1: don't think he leaves the farm much at all. Well,
Speaker 1: clearly he had to have because I didn't have him
Speaker 1: early on, And I think the majority of that had
Speaker 1: to do with how dry it was us going through
Speaker 1: a drought. I don't know where he went. I don't
Speaker 1: know what he was doing, but he was. I don't
Speaker 1: believe he was there. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: it just had to do with how dry it was
Speaker 1: the vegetation, UM, water sources all that, Like, just we
Speaker 1: have water there, But that doesn't mean that he's always
Speaker 1: using those ponds and whatnot or lakes whatever to to
Speaker 1: drink from. Maybe he uses a bigger river or stream
Speaker 1: elsewhere to drink from, UM or whatever. UM. Just something
Speaker 1: changed drastically, And it wasn't just him either that I noticed,
Speaker 1: Like overall, UM, it just seemed like the summer, there
Speaker 1: were far less deer um summering on the farm, and
Speaker 1: I it has to do with the trout. I would think, Hm,
Speaker 1: is there any mistake that you could pinpoint that maybe
Speaker 1: you've made throughout this hunt over the years. Is there
Speaker 1: anything you can look back on and say, Man, if
Speaker 1: I hadn't done that, this might have been a short
Speaker 1: story or anything like that. Um, not really in that aspect,
Speaker 1: Like like I was saying earlier, like I I've I've
Speaker 1: gotten pretty soft when it comes I feel like over
Speaker 1: the years with when it comes to like killing a deer,
Speaker 1: like I'm always wanting to like see them go another year.
Speaker 1: So I don't really think of him think of it
Speaker 1: as like a mistake necessary now if you if you
Speaker 1: made it to seven and a half. And I'm not
Speaker 1: saying that I want a deer to always get to
Speaker 1: six and a half, but like starting to get to
Speaker 1: seven and a half eight and have something like that,
Speaker 1: it's like all right, like he's gonna he's going to
Speaker 1: get past his prime. But like just being able to
Speaker 1: see what can happen the following year, I wasn't too
Speaker 1: bummed about sir and the way things turned out, certainly
Speaker 1: but I guess the one mistake that I can think
Speaker 1: back to that we for sure made, Like my dad
Speaker 1: should have been able to get a shot at this
Speaker 1: year five and a half, but we did not clear
Speaker 1: like a branch that was clearly in the way. Um.
Speaker 1: And that is one thing that I need to be
Speaker 1: better about, for sure in the off season is going
Speaker 1: in and checking, um shooting lanes more often. I used
Speaker 1: to be really really good about that, UM, but I've
Speaker 1: kind of put it on the wayside, to be honest,
Speaker 1: over the years, and you know, then it comes to
Speaker 1: be the rut and I'm like, all right, we'll go
Speaker 1: hunt that stand. It's like, oh yeah, I haven't cleared
Speaker 1: lanes out of there in like two years, sure or whatever.
Speaker 1: And that was a classic example of why you didn't
Speaker 1: get a shot. So that would definitely I would say
Speaker 1: to be a mistake right there. But UM, as far
Speaker 1: as like, I don't know, I really wasn't too bummed
Speaker 1: about him. He was was definitely his biggest um at
Speaker 1: six and a half, and UM, it was just cool
Speaker 1: to see the story go that long, but um, they
Speaker 1: don't typically often go that long. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't I wouldn't say there were too many mistakes.
Speaker 1: It's just it was fun to watch the progression of
Speaker 1: this animal through the year. Yeah, that's that's pretty awesome
Speaker 1: to get to see that over such a long period
Speaker 1: and and then to have the perfect ending to wrap
Speaker 1: it all up. Like you said that that's rare and
Speaker 1: uh special when it happens. So yeah, very seldom, you know,
Speaker 1: like you said, very rare, like most times to end
Speaker 1: up I don't know, getting shot by someone else or whatever,
Speaker 1: disease or hit by a car or something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so Sean, give us, give folks who haven't seen
Speaker 1: the film yet, then the plug on where they can
Speaker 1: watch this whole thing and see it play out in
Speaker 1: real life. Yeah so it um right now, the only
Speaker 1: place that you can watch it is on our YouTube channel,
Speaker 1: um just Harlan bow Hunters our YouTube channel, and then
Speaker 1: it's called the Story of Caesar, um Sean's biggest buck
Speaker 1: to date, So you can find it like they're on
Speaker 1: our YouTube heck of a Deer. Uh what is the
Speaker 1: plan with the YouTube channel? You guys are putting out
Speaker 1: a lot more stuff there. It's a lot more like
Speaker 1: full feature length kind of even bigger than the TV
Speaker 1: episode you guys keep doing that? Is there still going
Speaker 1: to be stuff on regular cable? Can you not talk
Speaker 1: about this yet? Talk about it? Yea. So we will
Speaker 1: continue to be on the Outdoor Channel as well as motv,
Speaker 1: which is owned by the Outdoor Channel, and UM, we
Speaker 1: will can also continue to be put placing stuff regularly
Speaker 1: on our YouTube channel as well, just because UM, we
Speaker 1: feel like our audience that is on the Outdoor Channel
Speaker 1: is different than our audience on YouTube, and we've kind
Speaker 1: of neglected our YouTube I would say, over the well,
Speaker 1: they really the the lifespan of it. We've had it,
Speaker 1: I think for probably almost ten years, and we have
Speaker 1: not put a lot of our original content on there.
Speaker 1: So what you're seeing on the Outdoor Channel is in
Speaker 1: fact different edits than you'll see on our YouTube channel. UM.
Speaker 1: Our YouTube channel, we do not have restrictions like you
Speaker 1: do on TV where it has to be twenty two
Speaker 1: minutes long. On our YouTube channel, we can. We can
Speaker 1: tell the story as it is, however long we think
Speaker 1: it needs to be, or however long the story was, UM.
Speaker 1: And that's the beauty of it, and we can UM,
Speaker 1: I mean that that lives there for free as well,
Speaker 1: so anyone and anyone that has access to the internet
Speaker 1: can go and watch it, and so it's there. How
Speaker 1: painful is it gonna be to have to edit down
Speaker 1: this story to just twenty two minutes, um, the TV episode. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it'll be uh, yeah, it'll be tough. Um.
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on how you like to retain
Speaker 1: your your content. Um. I guess if you if you
Speaker 1: don't like to watch fifty minute films, then maybe you
Speaker 1: should watch it on TV but where it's twenty two minutes.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, I think based on the feedback
Speaker 1: we've perceived from the fifty minute one, um, everyone's really
Speaker 1: enjoyed the length of it, just because there was enough
Speaker 1: content to tell that story in fifteen minutes. But yeah, tough.
Speaker 1: I feel like, as as the editor, that's going to
Speaker 1: be very difficult to be like happing to slash this
Speaker 1: and slash this, and you're like, oh, but that's so
Speaker 1: important and that was so important. Yeah, I'm glad I'm
Speaker 1: not the one cutting it down to twenty two minutes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Just just plug your ears, close your eyes, and just
Speaker 1: let it go. Yeah. So, but that will be the beauty.
Speaker 1: So like if you see the twenty two minute version
Speaker 1: on TV and you've never seen the full length fifteen
Speaker 1: minute one. I mean I would encourage people if they
Speaker 1: if they see that and they want to see the
Speaker 1: full length and to go right over to our YouTube
Speaker 1: and watch it there as well. Yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you guys are putting more out there. Um, My,
Speaker 1: my son, actually my we're getting old here. So I've
Speaker 1: got almost five year old son and he's become a
Speaker 1: big fan of the YouTube channel and uh particularly likes
Speaker 1: it when the kids are in the episodes, so like
Speaker 1: Skyler having his i think his son shot one in
Speaker 1: an episode and you know, like having the boys come
Speaker 1: out to help along in different things. He's always like, yeah,
Speaker 1: show me a kid one day. Let's see a kid
Speaker 1: one So some more of that and my son ever
Speaker 1: will be stoked. That's awesome. Yeah, that's really cool. It's
Speaker 1: it's wild, Like you just said, we are getting old.
Speaker 1: My I have a three and a half year old
Speaker 1: and then five month old, and it's I already see
Speaker 1: it because Mike's kids are even old it than your
Speaker 1: son and your oldest and like it's just wild, like
Speaker 1: how fast it changes. And I mean, just like you said,
Speaker 1: you know, literally what twelve years ago, thirteen years ago
Speaker 1: we were we were at a t A and you
Speaker 1: were sleeping in the back of your car. Life is
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. Well, man, I appreciate you sharing this, telling
Speaker 1: your story. Um As you know, I've always been a
Speaker 1: fan of you guys work, and you keep on doing
Speaker 1: great stuff. So um M, I'm happy for you guys,
Speaker 1: and proud to know you and excited to see what
Speaker 1: comes next. Likewise, man, thank you very much for having
Speaker 1: me on here. I truly appreciate it. And you've definitely
Speaker 1: earned a name for yourself as well. There's no doubt
Speaker 1: about it. It's an honor to be on here. Thanks man,
Speaker 1: We've we've both been fortunate, that's for sure, all right,
Speaker 1: And that's a rap. Thank you for listening, Thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in. If you want more, be sure to follow
Speaker 1: me over on Instagram at wired to Hunt. That's we're
Speaker 1: gonna see different updates from my hunting life from the outdoors,
Speaker 1: fishing stuff, reading stuff, book lands, conservation, hunting, all sorts
Speaker 1: of good stuff like that. That's where I share things
Speaker 1: that are a little bit outside of the norm for
Speaker 1: the Wired Hunt podcast. So check that out. Check out
Speaker 1: the Mediator website. Check out the meat eater dot com
Speaker 1: slash wired for all of our Wired Hunt articles. We've
Speaker 1: got lots of great content. They're coming from folks like myself,
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson, Alex Gilstrom, Tony Hansen, Beaumartonic, all sorts of
Speaker 1: really really accomplished white tail hunters sharing their thoughts, lessons
Speaker 1: and ideas in the written format too, So check it out.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. I appreciate being a part
Speaker 1: of this community, and until next time, stay wired to hun.