Speaker 1: It's mid November and the white tail rud is in
Speaker 1: full swing. You kind of just have to be there
Speaker 1: to understand. But a buck walking through timber a glow
Speaker 1: with fallen leaves is rare. It's a fleeting moment and
Speaker 1: it impacts the hunter at a deep level. I don't
Speaker 1: want to over romanticize it, but the experiences that we
Speaker 1: have in wild places are often significant highlights in our lives,
Speaker 1: and these stories on this episode celebrate these moments of
Speaker 1: engagement with wild places and the moments we have with
Speaker 1: our friends. A lot of these stories are funny, and
Speaker 1: we're stacking them in like Cordwood this fall because the
Speaker 1: stories just keep getting better. This is our third Deer
Speaker 1: Stories episode. On this episode, a lot of stuff seems
Speaker 1: to be falling out of trees, and again, once again,
Speaker 1: a few people get thrown under the bus, and as always,
Speaker 1: some really big deer get killed. But something's really special.
Speaker 2: This week we will hear.
Speaker 1: From one of our living members of the Bear Grease
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame, and I really doubt that you're gonna
Speaker 1: want to miss this one. And very soon First Lights
Speaker 1: Black Friday sales will be coming up. It's one of
Speaker 1: the best times of the year to buy gear from
Speaker 1: any of the meat eater companies. And don't forget about
Speaker 1: the live tour tickets in Birmingham, Nashville, Memphis, Dallas, and Austin.
Speaker 1: And if you're hoping to come to Fedville, you're out
Speaker 1: of luck. Fedbele Arkansas has sold out. Thank you all
Speaker 1: so much for the support.
Speaker 3: A third brother pulls up, has nothing to do with
Speaker 3: the shooting, drags the deer over there to his truck,
Speaker 3: waller's it around, gets it in his truck, shuts the
Speaker 3: tailgate and leaves with the stinking deer. And he wasn't
Speaker 3: even in on the shooting. And these first two brothers
Speaker 3: are still standing. Their fighting took it.
Speaker 1: My name is Klay Nukem and this is the Bear
Speaker 1: Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search
Speaker 1: for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the
Speaker 1: story of Americans who lived their.
Speaker 2: Lives close to the land.
Speaker 1: Presented by FHF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 1: place as we explore. Our first story is unique because
Speaker 1: it's being told while the buck that we're talking about
Speaker 1: is still hanging in a tree within sight of our fire.
Speaker 1: Just last week, I had the privilege of being in
Speaker 1: camp with my friend Jason Kaylor from Telephone, Texas when
Speaker 1: he killed a dandy buck on a place that we
Speaker 1: hunt in Oklahoma. To set the scene, he's hunting at
Speaker 1: the foot of a big timbered ridge. Above him is
Speaker 1: thick timber and below him is open range land for cattle.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like hunting on the edge open rangeland
Speaker 1: and big timber. He's hunting a trail system coming off
Speaker 1: into the ridge into that open stuff. Jason's gonna get
Speaker 1: us rolling.
Speaker 4: Well, you know, we're here in Oklahoma and it's the
Speaker 4: it's perfect rout time and coming in the root, and
Speaker 4: it's been hot weather, and you know, just been hopping
Speaker 4: around saddle hunting, and like I told you, when we
Speaker 4: was easing down the road, there clays, these trails coming
Speaker 4: coming on here. I just want to hang by one.
Speaker 4: And I kind of spotted a little red oak tree
Speaker 4: when we was easing down through there.
Speaker 5: And when I left.
Speaker 4: Here today, I was like, I'm gonna go hang in
Speaker 4: that red oak tree. And I'd gotten aggravated this morning.
Speaker 4: I'd climbed up in a set, and I got this
Speaker 4: little you know, I don't know what it is, but
Speaker 4: it's kind of like a fishing reel, and your boat
Speaker 4: stays down on the ground and when you get up
Speaker 4: in your tree, you crank it up. You crank it
Speaker 4: up there where it goes. Well, it got twisted up
Speaker 4: and got knotted up, and my bowl was hung halfway
Speaker 4: in the middle, and I couldn't get my bow up,
Speaker 4: so I ended up having to pull it up. Well
Speaker 4: after the hunt this morning, I fought with it. So
Speaker 4: I decided I'm just going to hang my bow on
Speaker 4: my back, and I've got this thing that goes over
Speaker 4: the cams.
Speaker 5: It's like a string protector.
Speaker 4: So I just throwed it over my back and I
Speaker 4: get my steps, my first step set, and I start
Speaker 4: climbing my tree and I'm standing on my third step
Speaker 4: and I'm taking my fourth one off and getting it
Speaker 4: started on the tree and I hear I hear something
Speaker 4: coming down the ridge.
Speaker 5: It's probably like two fifty two fifty five three o'clock.
Speaker 4: And I've got my third step set and I'm standing
Speaker 4: on the top of it and I'm hanging my fourth one.
Speaker 4: Don't have my platform nothing, and I hear I hear
Speaker 4: a deer walking, and I'm like, you know, I grabbed
Speaker 4: my bowl and I just hooked my step with that.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that cord is called, but anyways,
Speaker 4: I just hooked my step of that cord and I
Speaker 4: grabbed my bow off my back and I take the
Speaker 4: cover off of it and I lay it on the
Speaker 4: limb and a knocking air and there's a there's a
Speaker 4: yearling comes out from on the fence and she kind
Speaker 4: of runs out there and she stops down there about
Speaker 4: sixty yards below my tree, come right out that trail
Speaker 4: that I'd set up on, and I thought, man, I said,
Speaker 4: dang Ireland. I said, ain't you know, I've never seen
Speaker 4: a buck chase Yerland, so I didn't know. Anyways, I
Speaker 4: just kept sitting there and then I heard another deer coming. Well,
Speaker 4: in my mind, I thought, I bet it's another yearling
Speaker 4: or it's a dough her mama, you know, coming with her. Well,
Speaker 4: it stops it, don't it don't continue on it don't
Speaker 4: keep it stops And I was like, yeah, I bet
Speaker 4: that's it. Mama, just looking survey in the area. And
Speaker 4: I almost put my bow back up and went ahead climbing.
Speaker 4: I thought, no, I don't want a bugger, no deer.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna stand here as uncomfortable as it is.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't even have my teather or nothing
Speaker 4: on that. It's got my lineman on my saddle, and
Speaker 4: I'm standing on that little roong of the step. And
Speaker 4: not just a second after I do that, this buck
Speaker 4: just darts under the fence, same trail that yearling come
Speaker 4: out of. But he stops about halfway between the yearling
Speaker 4: and the fence, which is I know, rangefinding or range
Speaker 4: finders in my bag. I don't have nothing ready, but
Speaker 4: I always wear my I've been caught too many times
Speaker 4: not having my release on.
Speaker 5: I always have my release on.
Speaker 4: So you know, if you've hunted white tails long enough,
Speaker 4: you just kind of have, for lack of matter words,
Speaker 4: I call it the while factor.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: You you see there and you're like, oh, that's a
Speaker 4: good deal, Oh that's a nice dear, Oh that's a
Speaker 4: you know whatever. But when he ran under that fence,
Speaker 4: it happened really fast. But I was like wow, So
Speaker 4: I just draw back and I guess him at forty
Speaker 4: yards and I shoot him. And it happened so fast.
Speaker 4: That it didn't really have time to sink in. I
Speaker 4: shoot him, and he turns and he runs and he
Speaker 4: hops back up, hops the fence and runs back up
Speaker 4: on the hill.
Speaker 5: And I put my bow this tree. I'm in.
Speaker 4: I need to saw two limbs to finish climbing to
Speaker 4: where I want to get, And so I laid my
Speaker 4: bow on this limb. I laid my bow on that limb,
Speaker 4: and I got so much buck favor I'm shaking. So
Speaker 4: I just sat down until I felt my saddle all
Speaker 4: get tight. And when my saddle all got good and tight,
Speaker 4: I just wrapped my legs around the tree and bare
Speaker 4: hugged the tree with my legs and just kind of
Speaker 4: laid back.
Speaker 5: Like I was in a recliner. And I was like, man,
Speaker 5: what I just do?
Speaker 4: It's pretty hard to get me super excited, but that
Speaker 4: deer got me super excited.
Speaker 5: What did I just do?
Speaker 4: I didn't realize how big I how big he was,
Speaker 4: so I really thought that he was a clean ten.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that he was a five by six.
Speaker 4: I didn't realize he was a main trame eleven point.
Speaker 4: I didn't think he was as big as he is.
Speaker 4: You know, I was I was thinking I'd probably killed
Speaker 4: one hundred and forty ish type deer. He ended up
Speaker 4: scoring right now, you know, growth scoring one point fifty
Speaker 4: five and six eighths. But today's been a today's been
Speaker 4: an awesome day. It's been a been a good.
Speaker 5: Day at dear camp. I think tomorrow is gonna be better.
Speaker 1: Jason says he'd never set in that trie if it
Speaker 1: wasn't for the mobility of his tree saddle set up,
Speaker 1: and that redoak probably wasn't much more than ten inches
Speaker 1: at the base. Later in the episode, We're gonna hear
Speaker 1: from two other very recent fresh hunts. But I asked
Speaker 1: Jason if he had any other good deer stories, and
Speaker 1: like any good hunter, he did so.
Speaker 4: About twelve years ago, I was hunting a place in
Speaker 4: southern Oklahoma. I was setting in my stand one day
Speaker 4: and it was a perfect day. It was high pressure
Speaker 4: and the weather was cool, and had a big deer
Speaker 4: come in, which ended up being my biggest deer with
Speaker 4: a boat to date, still one hundred and seventy two
Speaker 4: inch deer, and he stopped out there at thirty yards.
Speaker 4: He's actually thirty two yard shot. Anyways, I drew my
Speaker 4: bow back I walked myself through my hall, my steps,
Speaker 4: you know, my anchor point and everything at my age,
Speaker 4: and as long as I've been bow hunting, I think
Speaker 4: I should be over that, but I still have to
Speaker 4: walk myself through it. And I shoot the deer and
Speaker 4: I make a really good shot on him. I can
Speaker 4: tell it's a double lung shot. And the deer breaks
Speaker 4: off running and he runs through a little old persimmon thicket.
Speaker 5: And he stops in a perfect open spot.
Speaker 4: And at this time, you know, I'm an eighty yard
Speaker 4: shooter all day long. I practice all the time at
Speaker 4: eighty yards. And he stops and I rangeing him and
Speaker 4: he's about seventy two yards standing in this thicket, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I'm gonna shoot him again, and he's
Speaker 4: just standing there, blood running out of him, but he's
Speaker 4: just standing there. So I I reach over and I
Speaker 4: get another air out.
Speaker 5: And while I'm getting the.
Speaker 4: Area out of my quiver, I realize that I'm using
Speaker 4: both hands to do this, and I'm like, where's my boat?
Speaker 5: And I look and I have dropped my bow.
Speaker 4: I don't shoot a wrist strap, and I guess for
Speaker 4: not having torque and being drawn back, I shoot open handed,
Speaker 4: and I guess when I shot that, I just let
Speaker 4: my bowl fall. I didn't grip my bowl. I walked
Speaker 4: myself off through the process. So good Luckily the deer
Speaker 4: died right there. He expired out there where he was standing.
Speaker 4: But my bow was laying on the ground and I
Speaker 4: was sitting there looking at it, thinking did the limbs explode?
Speaker 5: Did a bend to kim?
Speaker 4: I don't know how it landed because I didn't even
Speaker 4: know I dropped it. So I had a trail camera
Speaker 4: set up there, and I have a picture of the
Speaker 4: deer and all of his points, no broke off, nothing.
Speaker 4: I shoot the deer and when I get to him,
Speaker 4: he had seven inches of a flyer broke off of
Speaker 4: a two and we never did find it. I have
Speaker 4: the picture seconds before I shot him, and I have
Speaker 4: pictures of him minutes after I recovered him, and he
Speaker 4: has it in the pictures from the trail camera, and
Speaker 4: he does not have it when I recover it. Never
Speaker 4: could find it, have no idea where it was.
Speaker 1: He dropped his bow out of the stand and didn't
Speaker 1: even know it. That is a new one on me, Jason.
Speaker 1: But one thing I've learned about this guy. That's faux
Speaker 1: show is that he's killing some big deer with that bow.
Speaker 1: Our next story is from my friend Dustin Craig. Dustin's dad,
Speaker 1: Dale Craig told one of the best stories ever told
Speaker 1: on the Beargrease deer stories when he told about calling
Speaker 1: in a big buck with a rolling apple. But this
Speaker 1: one is a little more personal and it comes from
Speaker 1: Dustin because it involves none other than my father, Gary
Speaker 1: Believer Nukem. And if you've never heard us mention it,
Speaker 1: my dad likes to tinker with gear. As a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, they called him tinker Bell at the bow
Speaker 1: shop back when I was a kid. This is Dustin's story.
Speaker 6: Dustin Craig from Western Arkansas, and this is my deer story.
Speaker 6: So this started out about two months ago. A buddy
Speaker 6: of mine and bought a bunch of hunting gear from
Speaker 6: from Gary Believer Nukelem. And he was showing me all
Speaker 6: this stuff, and you could tell Gary really took care
Speaker 6: of his stuff. And he'd also tell that he liked
Speaker 6: to tinker with things because everything had extras on it
Speaker 6: or had been taped up so it'd be quiet and
Speaker 6: all this. So I got a saddle and I've never
Speaker 6: saddle hunted before. And I took this saddle out a
Speaker 6: couple of times and used it just with a with
Speaker 6: a hang on stand. I'd climbed the tree and just
Speaker 6: use it my hang on stand. Well, I didn't have
Speaker 6: a platform or any climbing stack, so my buddy told me,
Speaker 6: he said, hey, I've got some you can you can borrow.
Speaker 6: And I said, okay, I'll come by and get them.
Speaker 6: So I got them, and uh, the morning was real
Speaker 6: cold and uh, just beautiful morning and uh so I
Speaker 6: got out there and it was it was breaking daylight
Speaker 6: when I got to the tree. So I put put
Speaker 6: my first stick up and climbed up it. Then put
Speaker 6: my second stick up, and I couldn't go very high
Speaker 6: in the tree because it forked. I was probably only
Speaker 6: ten foot off the ground. And I get the platform
Speaker 6: and I go to put it up, and I've never
Speaker 6: put this thing up before, never used it. And I'm
Speaker 6: looking at it, and I say, man, this thing looks wrong.
Speaker 6: There's something about this. It's not right. So I put
Speaker 6: the rope around the tree. It I can't get it
Speaker 6: sucked up tight to the tree. It's kind of hanging
Speaker 6: a little bit. And so I wrapped the rope around
Speaker 6: it again, around the tree and around the platform, and
Speaker 6: I can get it pulled up pretty tight, but it's
Speaker 6: still not right. And anyway, I was like, oh, I'll
Speaker 6: make it work. And I climb up in this platform
Speaker 6: and it's pretty shaky, and I'm like, oh, I can
Speaker 6: I can do I can. I can make it work.
Speaker 6: So I'm setting in the tree in my saddle, standing
Speaker 6: on this platform. I'd been there about three hours. It
Speaker 6: hadn't seen anything yet, and it was getting to be
Speaker 6: about nine o'clock in the morning. And all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: I hear the rope on the platform like start squeaking,
Speaker 6: and I looked down. I was like, what is going on?
Speaker 6: And all of a sudden snap the platform falls out
Speaker 6: of the tree. I fall down. Of course, the saddle
Speaker 6: catches me. I run into the tree about knock my
Speaker 6: bow out of the tree, and I'm scrambling around trying
Speaker 6: to gather myself. Had finally there's a knot on the tree.
Speaker 6: I can stand up on that knot, get myself pulled
Speaker 6: up against the tree, and get my lineman's belt out
Speaker 6: and get it around the tree and get tied off,
Speaker 6: and I can step down to the platform, and I'm
Speaker 6: pretty pretty mad at this point, and I grabbed my
Speaker 6: bow and I just tied not. I don't even know
Speaker 6: what kind of knought it was. And I start lowering
Speaker 6: that bow down and it gets to the ground and
Speaker 6: I turn and look up and here comes a dough
Speaker 6: and a good eight point right behind her. And I'm
Speaker 6: standing there on my top step, bows on the ground,
Speaker 6: mad and so I'm trying to pull my bow back
Speaker 6: up and I get it back up to me, and
Speaker 6: I'm trying to untie this knot that I tied, and
Speaker 6: I'm looking at the buck and he comes in ten
Speaker 6: yards right behind the tree, and I'm fiddling with this
Speaker 6: knot if he's walking to the right of me, and
Speaker 6: it gets pretty thick over there. So I'm untying this
Speaker 6: knot and I thought, well, I'm going to stop him.
Speaker 6: Maybe he'll stay there long enough till I'll get this
Speaker 6: nott and done and get an aero knot. So I
Speaker 6: grun at him and he don't even pay me any attention.
Speaker 6: He's focused on that dough. And I finally get the
Speaker 6: knot untied, get an arrow knot have to twist around.
Speaker 6: By that time, he had stepped just off in the brush.
Speaker 6: So I get my grint and I get the grunting
Speaker 6: on him, and grunting and grunting. He doesn't pay me
Speaker 6: any attention and he goes off. I'd lose track of
Speaker 6: him where he goes. It's real thick where he went,
Speaker 6: And of course I was upset. I start looking at
Speaker 6: this platform. Well, apparently at some point, Gary believe Nukem,
Speaker 6: I had taken the stick off the platform and added
Speaker 6: a piece to it, And when he put it back together,
Speaker 6: he put the platform on upside down, so the button
Speaker 6: part that you would tie your tie the rope to
Speaker 6: that goes around the tree was beneath the platform. That
Speaker 6: was what was causing it to kick back on me.
Speaker 6: And that piece that he had added on was a
Speaker 6: was a prout, a two inch flat piece of aluminum,
Speaker 6: and he had it all taped up, but it was
Speaker 6: sharp as a knife, and me standing up there moving
Speaker 6: around for two three hours, it had worn through that
Speaker 6: tape and then got into my rope and worn through
Speaker 6: the rope and cut the rope and caused me to
Speaker 6: lose not get a shot at this good buck, the
Speaker 6: biggest buck I would have killed with the bow so far.
Speaker 6: So I'd say all that to say, it's not really
Speaker 6: Gary's fault, but it's mine, because you know, you should
Speaker 6: always try out your gear, use your gear before you
Speaker 6: get into the field. And that's a big lesson that
Speaker 6: I learned, and I already knew it, but let's make
Speaker 6: sure from now on, I'm gonna check my gear, Dustin.
Speaker 1: I have never fallen out of a tree on account
Speaker 1: of my dad's tinkering, but it's not entirely surprising that
Speaker 1: someone did. That was funny, and at some point we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to get a rebuttal from the believer himself,
Speaker 1: because I figure he's got something to say about it.
Speaker 1: But I am sorry that you didn't get that buck.
Speaker 1: Our next story, though, is from Deeping the Ozarks, from
Speaker 1: a veteran woodsman and whitetail hunter and squirrel dog man
Speaker 1: named Gary Farmer. This story highlights the unique characters that
Speaker 1: we sometimes find ourselves hunting with and all their quirks.
Speaker 3: There was four, four or five of those guys. There
Speaker 3: were brothers, and they want me to go deer hunting
Speaker 3: with them, and we ran dogs. This is back when
Speaker 3: we ran ran dogs. And anyhow, I had a pair
Speaker 3: of young walker dogs, just young. So I went with
Speaker 3: these guys and they all had they had beagles, and
Speaker 3: we turned their beagles loose and we walked them. And
Speaker 3: they had walked them around the ridge and all this,
Speaker 3: and we ran deer and I can't even remember we
Speaker 3: killed one that day or not, but anyhow, they lost
Speaker 3: finally lost all their dogs. Whenever you get after a
Speaker 3: deer out here on these mountains, they'll go to the river.
Speaker 3: A lot of times they go to the river. And
Speaker 3: they all went to the river on them and they
Speaker 3: didn't have any more dogs to jump a deer with.
Speaker 3: And I had these young walker dogs. Well, they didn't
Speaker 3: have any faith in my dogs, really, but they said, well, Gary,
Speaker 3: you can take yours around that old brushy ridge over
Speaker 3: there and walk them around through there and see if
Speaker 3: you can flush something out. And I said, I won't
Speaker 3: have to walk, man, I said, you tell me where
Speaker 3: you want the tailgate dropped. They'll go find something. So
Speaker 3: we go over there. I dropped my tailgate. Now those
Speaker 3: young dogs had round through there, and it wasn't five minutes.
Speaker 3: They went to trailer and then they jumped all these
Speaker 3: brothers and some of their uncles. They were all ganged
Speaker 3: up around the trucks. Didn't have a bit of faith
Speaker 3: in my dogs. When those dogs jumped the deer, they
Speaker 3: went to scattering like quail vehicles going everywhere. Well, I
Speaker 3: heard my dogs go take the deer back and go
Speaker 3: down a gap head towards the river. So I jumped
Speaker 3: in the truck and I went down to drove to
Speaker 3: the river and got down there. Two of these brothers
Speaker 3: were there. One of them had missed the deer crossing
Speaker 3: the bottom. The deer was kind of up under a bluff,
Speaker 3: and there's a gap around the hill. But the deer
Speaker 3: had missed the gap, actually, and he's going around under
Speaker 3: that bluff on this steep bank. Two brothers standing there
Speaker 3: shooting at it. I shot at it. It wads up
Speaker 3: and it's steep. It just slides all the way nearly
Speaker 3: down to us. Okay, these two brothers they get in
Speaker 3: a fight. I killed it, the other than he says,
Speaker 3: I killed it. Well, they get into it. I let
Speaker 3: them fight for a little bit, and I said, what
Speaker 3: about me? I said, did ever dawn on you that
Speaker 3: I could have killed the deer? I said, I might
Speaker 3: have killed this deer, And I said, I went up
Speaker 3: there and I peeled the hair back, and I was
Speaker 3: using the twenty two two fifty they were using like
Speaker 3: thirty thirty and thirty ought six. I said, be real
Speaker 3: easy to tell by the bullet hole.
Speaker 5: I said, you.
Speaker 2: Was have her out.
Speaker 3: I didn't kill the deer, I said, my bullet's not
Speaker 3: any A third brother pulls up down there, runs up there,
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with the shooting, drags the deer
Speaker 3: over there to his truck, wallers it around, gets it
Speaker 3: in his truck, shuts the tailgate, and leaves with the
Speaker 3: stinking deer. And he wasn't even in on the shooting.
Speaker 3: And these first two brothers are still standing their fighting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, nice bug. That was funny.
Speaker 1: Gary has one of those laughs that makes it hard
Speaker 1: not to laugh along with him when you hear it.
Speaker 1: And we still don't know what happened to that buck
Speaker 1: or how the brothers sorted it out. Our next story
Speaker 1: is unique and it's close to home for me. It's
Speaker 1: told by none other the nineteen year old baron John
Speaker 1: knukemb And it's about the biggest buck that he has
Speaker 1: ever killed, which just happened on November tenth, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Like Jason's first story. This one is fresh.
Speaker 7: This is a dear story about the biggest buck that
Speaker 7: I have ever killed, and it is so fresh that
Speaker 7: the antlers I'm holding my hands right now still have
Speaker 7: meat on them. I'm going to give you a little
Speaker 7: bit of context for this year. Whenever I was younger,
Speaker 7: my dad he would hunt this area and he hunted
Speaker 7: three deer that were over one fifty in the first
Speaker 7: couple of years that he hunted it, and he killed
Speaker 7: one of them. And after that the big deer kind
Speaker 7: of seemed to tail off until about ten years later,
Speaker 7: whenever I first started to bowhunt, this big buck came
Speaker 7: on the scene that we called Jody.
Speaker 2: We called him Jody because of a David allen Coe song.
Speaker 7: Jody like a melody, and if you listen to the lyrics,
Speaker 7: it's pretty much perfect for a big buck. We first
Speaker 7: got a picture of him whenever he was three and
Speaker 7: a half and he had this giant kicker coming off
Speaker 7: as G two. And the next year he exploded into
Speaker 7: a probably one hundred and fifty inch year and then
Speaker 7: whenever he was five and a half he exploded into
Speaker 7: a just an enormous buck, a mainframe eleven kickers everywhere.
Speaker 7: We heard some rumors about him getting killed, but we
Speaker 7: really don't know what happened to him. But we go
Speaker 7: a couple of years, the biggest deer that we see
Speaker 7: are these little basket racked eight points, maybe every now
Speaker 7: and then a three and a half year old deer,
Speaker 7: And so I started hunting public land pretty hard and
Speaker 7: kind of fall in love with that. This year, we
Speaker 7: got access to a new section of private land right
Speaker 7: there in the area that was just this big, thick,
Speaker 7: overgrown thicket. We had a camera just kind of for
Speaker 7: the sake of having a camera out there, just to
Speaker 7: see what was going on, and for the first month
Speaker 7: of season, we didn't see we didn't have much on it.
Speaker 7: And November third, we get a picture of a ten
Speaker 7: point is all we could tell. But he was super heavy,
Speaker 7: and so that got us excited because all of a
Speaker 7: sudden we had, you know, a nice buck to chase,
Speaker 7: and we started getting more pictures of him and we
Speaker 7: realized he's way bigger than we thought. The more pictures
Speaker 7: we get of him, we kind of look at him,
Speaker 7: we realized he was probably well I asked him it was.
Speaker 7: He was one hundred and forty eight inch dear and
Speaker 7: he had the two big kickers coming off of his
Speaker 7: G twos. So we hunt him hard last week and
Speaker 7: don't see him, but he comes in at night and
Speaker 7: we'd see pictures of him just crossing through this property.
Speaker 7: I had a deer camp this weekend, and so I
Speaker 7: wasn't able to hunt him. But the day after the
Speaker 7: deer camp, there's a big cold front got down to
Speaker 7: twenty three degrees, and so that morning I went and
Speaker 7: I sat a field with the six y five creed more.
Speaker 7: I kept seeing it. There were doze busting out of
Speaker 7: this property. And this property is just thick as can be.
Speaker 7: I mean, there's almost no way to hunt it other
Speaker 7: than just the edges. And so I hunt till about noon,
Speaker 7: and I had something to go do in town. I
Speaker 7: come back, get a little bit of a late start
Speaker 7: out there by about three, and I set up on
Speaker 7: the far side of this field. I went over there
Speaker 7: and I got a really solid rest where I could
Speaker 7: shoot prone across this field and God set up to
Speaker 7: where I felt really good to four hundred and I
Speaker 7: don't see any deer until about thirty minutes before daylight,
Speaker 7: and six doves come out the bottom corner of it,
Speaker 7: and they start to circle way down to my right
Speaker 7: until eventually I just lose sight of them and some timber.
Speaker 7: I keep sitting there and I kind of hear something
Speaker 7: back behind me up the mountain. So basically behind me
Speaker 7: there's timber. In front of me, there's four hundred yards
Speaker 7: of field, and I'm sitting next to a giant.
Speaker 2: White oak that has a little cedar right at the base.
Speaker 7: And I just thought, you know, a deer could come
Speaker 7: in from behind there, and I could tell it wasn't
Speaker 7: an acre, and could tell it wasn't a squirrel, and
Speaker 7: I actually thought, that's probably a deer up there.
Speaker 2: I just didn't think too much about it.
Speaker 7: Well, about ten minutes later, with twenty minutes of shooting
Speaker 7: light left, I hear behind me and I could tell
Speaker 7: those deer were about to come, and I was like, well,
Speaker 7: i'd better get set up just in case when they
Speaker 7: pop out. And so I get my gun and I
Speaker 7: just get I push myself into this wide up tree
Speaker 7: as hard as I could, and these does come over
Speaker 7: the hill, you know, whenever I first see him, they're
Speaker 7: like ten yards from me.
Speaker 2: But I didn't see that buck.
Speaker 7: So I put my hat bill over my face, and
Speaker 7: I just sunk into that tree and just tried so
Speaker 7: hard to imagine I was just a rock.
Speaker 2: And hope that they wouldn't spook.
Speaker 7: And so they come into the edge of this field
Speaker 7: and they're all eating, I mean literally probably within five
Speaker 7: yards of me, and I was, you know, I was like, dang,
Speaker 7: that big buck. He's gonna come in from behind me
Speaker 7: over across that field. And I'm over here trying not
Speaker 7: to spook these does. And I sit there, sit there,
Speaker 7: sit there, and eventually my calve he gets so tired,
Speaker 7: and it's starting to cramp, and my arms from holding
Speaker 7: that gun up started to get tired, and my hands
Speaker 7: were freezing because I didn't have gloves, and I was like,
Speaker 7: am I about to have to spook these does? Because
Speaker 7: I can't hold this position? And about the time I
Speaker 7: was thinking that, from up on the mountain, I hear
Speaker 7: where I heard that noise earlier here, and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, holy spokes, this might be it.
Speaker 7: Up where I heard that grunt is it's kind of skylined,
Speaker 7: and the sunset was real pretty that day, and I
Speaker 7: could just see a deer coming down that and he
Speaker 7: stops and I can see his brow ties and they're
Speaker 7: kind of were curved outward, and I was like, that
Speaker 7: looks like that looks like him. So I keep waiting,
Speaker 7: and he comes down the mountain, grunting the whole way,
Speaker 7: and finally I get a glimpse of his rack in
Speaker 7: the silhouette and I could see these two big kickers,
Speaker 7: and I could see his crab claws out front, and
Speaker 7: I realized that this was him and he is in range.
Speaker 7: But the issue is I can't get my gun up
Speaker 7: because there's six dos around me. And then I'm also like, well, crap,
Speaker 7: I had this gun set up for a four hundred
Speaker 7: yard shot. I'm zoomed all the way in turrets set
Speaker 7: for a four hundred yard shot, and I was like,
Speaker 7: this is about to be a twenty five yard shot.
Speaker 2: While as just slowly.
Speaker 7: As I can, I move my hand off the pistol
Speaker 7: grip with that sig and I pushed the magnification all
Speaker 7: the way out, and then I was just like, I'm
Speaker 7: just gonna have to aim for his heart, like real low,
Speaker 7: five inches low from where I want to hit, because
Speaker 7: there's no way I'm gonna be able to turn that
Speaker 7: turret before without those dose. Seeing he gets twenty five
Speaker 7: yards from me, and I flick that safety and that
Speaker 7: buck walks right behind some trees and right he's about
Speaker 7: to go, I move my gun a little, and he
Speaker 7: stops and looks down at me, and I freeze, and
Speaker 7: then he goes back to doing what he's doing. I
Speaker 7: get my scope up and I can see his head
Speaker 7: pop out from behind these trees, and I mean, there
Speaker 7: was just no doubt it was him. And this is
Speaker 7: the biggest buck I'd ever even seen while hunting. And
Speaker 7: he takes a step out with his left foot. I
Speaker 7: could see a little sliver of his vitals. I almost
Speaker 7: pulled the trigger, but decide to wait. He takes a
Speaker 7: step with his right and then steps uphill with his left,
Speaker 7: opening up his whole side, and I just put it
Speaker 7: right above where the white meets the brown, and I
Speaker 7: squeezed the trigger and I hear these does run from
Speaker 7: behind me, but I don't hear anything up the mountain,
Speaker 7: and I was just like, oh my gosh, did that
Speaker 7: just happen? And I jack another shell in, and I mean,
Speaker 7: it's like five minutes to legal shooting light, so I
Speaker 7: can't see anything, but I just knew I didn't hear
Speaker 7: a deer running and so I'd run up there and
Speaker 7: whenever I get up there, he's laying on the ground dead.
Speaker 7: I mean, it was just it was just one of
Speaker 7: those moments. I mean, anyone who's killed, I mean, not
Speaker 7: even a big buck, but just like a deer that's
Speaker 7: really special to him, Like there's it's it's it's impossible
Speaker 7: to describe, but if you know that feeling, you know
Speaker 7: that feeling. And whenever I walked up to the buck,
Speaker 7: I mean, I thank God for because I just knew,
Speaker 7: I mean just the way that that all worked out,
Speaker 7: that this was absolutely not on my own efforts, and
Speaker 7: I put my hands on the deer and just kind
Speaker 7: of like recognize the moment for what it was.
Speaker 2: I mean, called my dad and the first thing he said,
Speaker 2: I don't know how he could tell, but.
Speaker 7: He just goes, did you get him? And I said,
Speaker 7: I got him? And I mean, it's still hard to believe.
Speaker 7: The deer that I've been used to hunting, the biggest
Speaker 7: you'll see is maybe one thirty this year net scored
Speaker 7: or gross scored.
Speaker 2: One fifty four and a half.
Speaker 7: Oh and here's the craziest part of the story is
Speaker 7: the big deer we chased four years ago that we
Speaker 7: called Jody. This year is undeniably Jody's offspring. Whenever you
Speaker 7: put the two pictures up side by side, you would
Speaker 7: almost think it was the same, dear, and so we
Speaker 7: named this one Jody two. But this was my first
Speaker 7: truly big buck, and it is still kind of hard
Speaker 7: for me to.
Speaker 1: Believe that was some good hunting bear John. And what
Speaker 1: I'm most proud of is that he killed a much,
Speaker 1: much smaller buck on public land a few days before
Speaker 1: and was ecstatic about that one and recognize its value
Speaker 1: almost equal to the big one. I was in Oklahoma
Speaker 1: hunting when he killed that buck, and I drove straight
Speaker 1: home after his call. There was no way I was
Speaker 1: gonna miss getting to see Bear's buck in the flesh
Speaker 1: and miss the celebration. When I got home and we
Speaker 1: saw the buck, I told him, let's just let the
Speaker 1: deer hang overnight in the barn and we'll skin it
Speaker 1: in the morning. You only get so many hours in
Speaker 1: a lifetime to really enjoy success in these special moments.
Speaker 1: As much as we seek after these big deer, the
Speaker 1: times that we actually see them alive on the hoof
Speaker 1: usually just add up to minutes in the lifetime, and
Speaker 1: after you kill one, I just kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: soak it in and we did. Our next story is
Speaker 1: pretty unique. Bar Neukom would like to introduce us to
Speaker 1: his friend Weston Taylor, who is riding high on a
Speaker 1: good streak of hunting.
Speaker 2: So I've grown up with Weston.
Speaker 7: He was one of my first hunt buddies, and I've
Speaker 7: been going to his deer camp since I was maybe
Speaker 7: thirteen or fourteen, and We've done a lot of hunting together,
Speaker 7: squirrel hunting, deer hunting, even some bear hunting.
Speaker 2: But for some.
Speaker 7: Context, Weston he drives a nineteen ninety three single cab
Speaker 7: Chevrolet pickup that I think has a hole rusted in
Speaker 7: the muffler, so it has a little.
Speaker 2: Bit of a growl to it.
Speaker 7: And Weston will drive that thing around in the woods.
Speaker 2: He hunts mostly public land.
Speaker 5: His whole life.
Speaker 7: He's under public land, and you'll hear that thing coming
Speaker 7: for miles away and you'll know that Weston's coming back
Speaker 7: to camp.
Speaker 8: Well.
Speaker 7: Yeah, and he used to have a giant eagle like
Speaker 7: sticker or on the on the rear glass, this giant eagle.
Speaker 2: So anyway, it was quite the rig.
Speaker 1: Here is Weston. He's also known as the Eagle amongst
Speaker 1: his friends.
Speaker 9: Well, I'm Weston Taylor. I've been hunting with my dad
Speaker 9: since I was about four eighteen years old and killed
Speaker 9: nineteen year.
Speaker 7: This year before deer season, my buddies and I we
Speaker 7: were sitting around, Weston being one of them, and you know,
Speaker 7: we were talking about like, you know, I'll probably won't
Speaker 7: shoot anything under two and a half and.
Speaker 2: Try and save my tags for the rut, and.
Speaker 7: Weston goes, he goes, you know, I don't think I've
Speaker 7: ever passed a deer in my life, and we were
Speaker 7: all just like, what, like, how do you not pass
Speaker 7: a deer?
Speaker 1: So the Eagle has never purposefully let a single deer
Speaker 1: walk past him. I wanted to ask him if this
Speaker 1: is true, that.
Speaker 9: Is correct, that is correct. Yeah, it just never really
Speaker 9: happened growing up. It's just like I never seen anybody
Speaker 9: do it.
Speaker 5: I never.
Speaker 9: It was never really talked about. And also it's like
Speaker 9: where are we hunted, Like if the deer like walk past,
Speaker 9: you might be the one dear you see all season.
Speaker 9: So it's kind of like, I mean, take your chances,
Speaker 9: and I mean I mean I did try to pass
Speaker 9: the deer one time, but it like it kind of
Speaker 9: lingered a little too long and I was like, ah,
Speaker 9: I don't know, took a shot at it. But yeah,
Speaker 9: it's like every time a deer pot walks past me,
Speaker 9: like it seems like I just kind of black out
Speaker 9: and just like sometimes it's just sometimes there's a dead deer,
Speaker 9: sometimes they're not. It kind of depends on the situation,
Speaker 9: you know, either miss or skin into deer, and it's like,
Speaker 9: oh uh, yeah, it's just kind of like anything that
Speaker 9: walks in front of me, I get about us amped up,
Speaker 9: Like any deer, I get amped up.
Speaker 5: And yeah, that's what I mean.
Speaker 9: It is kind of like feels like I'm just kind
Speaker 9: of like whatever happens happens, Like I just kind of
Speaker 9: go into problem lotis seems like but.
Speaker 2: Purely instinctual.
Speaker 7: Another interesting fact about Weston is that he's killed more
Speaker 7: three points than anybody I have ever met in my life.
Speaker 7: I don't know how he I mean, like almost every
Speaker 7: little buck that he shoots has three points, which I've
Speaker 7: recently heard a term for that called a spork. It's
Speaker 7: not a spike, it's not a fork, it's a spork.
Speaker 7: Weston has killed an unbelievable amount of sparks. And anyway,
Speaker 7: Weston is a He's a great guy. Anyone who meets
Speaker 7: him really likes him. Good hunter, but he has one
Speaker 7: of the most unbelievable streaks I've ever heard of in
Speaker 7: my life of eighteen years deer hunting hard, never once
Speaker 7: past the deer.
Speaker 1: I'd like to give a big salute to Weston Taylor
Speaker 1: the Eagle for carrying on the tradition of the American
Speaker 1: meat hunter. Weston's dad is Matt Taylor, who spoke on
Speaker 1: the last episode about their deer camp. These guys have
Speaker 1: a rich history and hunting, and Matt has taught all
Speaker 1: of his kids to be ethical hunters.
Speaker 2: And these guys.
Speaker 1: Take wild game meat incredibly serious. They live off of it,
Speaker 1: and they love it. Our next story is from my
Speaker 1: good friend Shane Auman. Shane is an incredible whitetail hunter
Speaker 1: and actually had multiple videos on Primetime Bucks back in
Speaker 1: the early two thousands. Shane shot professional archery for years
Speaker 1: and was sponsored by Matthews for fifteen years. He's not
Speaker 1: an amateur, and that's why this story is so good, all.
Speaker 10: Right, Shane, I'm Alpine, Arkansas, born and raised in Boone County,
Speaker 10: just as Clay likes to discuss and talk about this
Speaker 10: typical redneck hillbilly that likes to deer hunt, mainly with
Speaker 10: a bow. But in twenty fourteen, I'd come across and
Speaker 10: got information of a pretty nice deer, had a piece
Speaker 10: of property I could hunt on. But the neighbors had
Speaker 10: been talking about seeing a really good deer and I
Speaker 10: had got word of it, and they's talking to me
Speaker 10: about it, and they none of those are none of
Speaker 10: those guys as bow hunters. They are all gun hunters
Speaker 10: and don't hunt till you know, mid November. So I'd
Speaker 10: got to trying to find or get pictures of the deer.
Speaker 10: So I started, you know, had cameras out like everybody does.
Speaker 10: And this is you know, mid Septembers about you know,
Speaker 10: it's probably the second week of October or so started
Speaker 10: getting a few, seeing a few more bucks right on scrapes,
Speaker 10: and then a really good one did show up, you know,
Speaker 10: really really nice nine pointer five before with a lot
Speaker 10: of trash on.
Speaker 5: He's on his right side.
Speaker 10: So anyway, the way I like to hunt, goat standing
Speaker 10: on my back, you know, never stays anywhere more than
Speaker 10: a couple of times. So that's what I was doing
Speaker 10: the whole the whole time. You know, I'd get pictures
Speaker 10: of a deer on a field edge, and I'd be
Speaker 10: looking for any areas where they're starting to scrape for
Speaker 10: white oaks they's feeding on, trying to get horned in
Speaker 10: on doughs, knowing it's just clockwork around home. You know,
Speaker 10: time muzzloder season opens, that's right before Halloween. There's always
Speaker 10: going to be some bucks at home, just breeding dose.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's just bottom line. I mean it has
Speaker 5: been that way for as long as I can remember.
Speaker 10: So anyway, i'd i'd been hunting the deer, hadn't seen him,
Speaker 10: seeing lots of activity. I mean, it had been storming, raining,
Speaker 10: coal front blew in. It was just perfect north wind.
Speaker 10: So I had a I had a place in mind
Speaker 10: I'd been wanting to sit that I thought needed to
Speaker 10: be north wind.
Speaker 5: And it's at the head of a holler.
Speaker 10: And this this holler where this holler cuts in right
Speaker 10: makes you know, really good flat on the ridge comes
Speaker 10: rolls around old growed up field home place, just one
Speaker 10: of those bucky looking places and a few scattered white
Speaker 10: oaks in it, and you know, some precimmons. I mean,
Speaker 10: just just place you ought to see deer messing around,
Speaker 10: walked in, stand on my back, found a tree and
Speaker 10: as I'm standing there looking I could see I could
Speaker 10: see several you know, big horn bushes and a few
Speaker 10: scrapes around here and there. So oh yeah, I'm just
Speaker 10: going to get in this particular tree. So I got
Speaker 10: crawled up in it. I pulled my bow up, hang
Speaker 10: my bow up on my hangar, had everything ready to go,
Speaker 10: looking around, and there was one little limb come out
Speaker 10: in front of me here, and I thought, well, I
Speaker 10: need to I'll just snap that off. Well, I on
Speaker 10: the end of my platform, just reach out there, snap
Speaker 10: that limb off. And somehow my safety line on my
Speaker 10: harness hooked my bow and I didn't really realize it,
Speaker 10: and I turned around messing around looking at some other stuff,
Speaker 10: just getting everything situated.
Speaker 5: Knocked my bow off.
Speaker 10: The hook lands on the ground, you knowin I was
Speaker 10: like fifteen foot wasn't super high this cedar bush there.
Speaker 5: I mean no, I didn't think much about it.
Speaker 10: I mean I didn't hit very hard. So I crawled down.
Speaker 10: I get to my bow, go back up the tree,
Speaker 10: pull it up. Look it over and then nothing looks
Speaker 10: out ordinary. I mean nothing, I mean, everything looks fine.
Speaker 2: I mean I.
Speaker 5: Everything looks good.
Speaker 2: Pulled the bow and blah blah blah.
Speaker 10: So I sitting there thinking about it, you know, and
Speaker 10: I had I had three arrows in my quiver, which
Speaker 10: is mistake number one. You've got a six arrow quiver.
Speaker 10: You need all three arrow you know, all your arrows
Speaker 10: in your quiver. But I shot a couple of coyoats
Speaker 10: like a couple of days before, you know, something like
Speaker 10: you know, and didn't didn't take time to put them.
Speaker 5: Back in, which still no excuse.
Speaker 10: But in my mind I kept thinking, well, how to
Speaker 10: shoot my bow at that leaf over there, so just
Speaker 10: double checking.
Speaker 5: No, that's not good either, there's no need doing that.
Speaker 5: That's just a.
Speaker 10: Waste, you know, waste air, brake era or whatever. Anyhow,
Speaker 10: sat there dwelled on that, finally decided it's all right.
Speaker 10: But the other kicker to that is something I've always
Speaker 10: had with me, always.
Speaker 5: Carry with me.
Speaker 10: I'd have a little bag that I keep watered up
Speaker 10: in my fanny pack or in my cargo pockets, on
Speaker 10: my hunting pants or whatever that has an extra knock
Speaker 10: a field point and a broad head wrench, so absolutely
Speaker 10: no problem to check the bow.
Speaker 5: But anyway did not.
Speaker 10: So anyway, continue on. We're like thirty minutes before dark everything,
Speaker 10: you know, just the prime time. No deer had filtered through.
Speaker 10: And then I thought I heard a grunt. Well then
Speaker 10: I kept really fixated over and watching it, and about
Speaker 10: that time, coming through old broom sage, I see it
Speaker 10: a dou will coming and she is just kind of
Speaker 10: skirting along and buck pushing her. Well, as soon as
Speaker 10: I seen the buck, I mean, no, he's a good one,
Speaker 10: you know, I got ready, getting ready. Then it's the
Speaker 10: deer I had seen and had pictures of. He comes
Speaker 10: in pushing that dough and gets thirty yards broadside just stops.
Speaker 10: He's standing there, jacking around in a scrape and paw
Speaker 10: on the ground and mean this this is yeah, this
Speaker 10: is it. So I got drawed anchored, and I aimed
Speaker 10: on him, and I went and that shot broke. I
Speaker 10: mean there was no doubt in my mind that deer
Speaker 10: was dead. I mean there was zeroed outs except when
Speaker 10: I seen the era go about two foot over him
Speaker 10: and to you know, right went shot way high into
Speaker 10: the right. Well, I knew exactly you know, well that
Speaker 10: wasn't that wasn't me, and that wasn't my bow's fault.
Speaker 5: That was all because I knocked it off and didn't
Speaker 5: check it. So anyway, I deer run off.
Speaker 10: You know, he had no idea what happened in the dough.
Speaker 10: She's went the other way, And I thought, well, I'll
Speaker 10: go ahead and get down right quick, try not to
Speaker 10: booger anything else, and got over aarraw was clean, thank god,
Speaker 10: I mean didn't didn't foul shooting him, didn't gut shoot him, know,
Speaker 10: nothing like that. So anyhow, he gathered up my stuff
Speaker 10: and pouted all the way back to the.
Speaker 5: Truck and got to my house.
Speaker 10: So I've I've always had a place at my house
Speaker 10: where I could shoot, even you know, after dark. I've
Speaker 10: got to had a big outside light in my target
Speaker 10: so I could shoot twenty yards pretty easy. So I've
Speaker 10: opened the door, flipped the lights on, shot the bow,
Speaker 10: and yeah, it was like you know, at twenty yards,
Speaker 10: like a foot to the right and eighteen inches high. Anyway,
Speaker 10: eventually messed around looking at everything I could tell my sight.
Speaker 5: I could see where it had bent. Should have caught it,
Speaker 5: but anyway, I didn't.
Speaker 10: To add more insult to the injury that one of
Speaker 10: the neighbors kills a big deer and he's one hundred
Speaker 10: and fifty seven inch deer. I mean, you can't ask
Speaker 10: for a better and it's the deer. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 10: I've got picture here. He is a nyeu pointer, you know,
Speaker 10: on the same trash on the right. I mean, just unbelievable, nice,
Speaker 10: super nice. Can't ask for a better deer for you know,
Speaker 10: full out acron deer. This ain't no food plots, nothing there.
Speaker 10: I mean, it's just an all out mountain acron deer.
Speaker 10: And I mean it's one of them. It's just a
Speaker 10: freak and a rarity that you see.
Speaker 1: But anyway, of all the stories that Shane Aumand could
Speaker 1: have told, I appreciate that he told that one. Shane's
Speaker 1: as good a white tail hunter and archery shooter as
Speaker 1: they make, and he told us about the one that
Speaker 1: got away when he did something stupid. For our final story,
Speaker 1: we've saved the best for last. And it's not really
Speaker 1: that it's the best story, even though it's an incredible story.
Speaker 1: It's really more about the unique person telling the story.
Speaker 1: This is one of the few living Bear Grease Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame members my dear friend James Lawrence. Below his
Speaker 1: name on the Hall of Fame placa, it says Arkansas backwoodsman.
Speaker 1: That's a good description of James. And this story is
Speaker 1: about a buck that he killed just a few days ago.
Speaker 8: This hunt. The last two or three years, and maybe
Speaker 8: longer than that, I've still hunted that area. And it
Speaker 8: seems like all the sign that I was finding still hunting,
Speaker 8: whether it be scrapes, trails, signed just tracks for seeing deer,
Speaker 8: it all led to this holly tree. And that holly
Speaker 8: tree is probably seventy yards from where my blind's at.
Speaker 8: But my blind was the traffic of the deer, and
Speaker 8: I've put up cameras and the traffic of the deer
Speaker 8: is all coming from that holly tree. This one's about
Speaker 8: sixty yards from where I've got my blind. This hunt,
Speaker 8: I've had two good bucks that I've hunting. When of
Speaker 8: them's a just a long time eight point and the
Speaker 8: other one's it's a six or six. But uh, the
Speaker 8: t fours has broke. I mean you still got cauntible point,
Speaker 8: nice boat. But I was in my blind and I
Speaker 8: picked up this movement just the edge of vision be
Speaker 8: where I see in the brush. I could see movement
Speaker 8: and see deer and the shape that I come up with,
Speaker 8: I mean was watching. I finally focused in on it
Speaker 8: and it was a deer standing and he stood. I mean,
Speaker 8: he's been standing there for a long time. And this
Speaker 8: don't make any sense for a white tailed deer, deer
Speaker 8: in the rut, when there's deer over twenty yards from
Speaker 8: him or thirty and him's standing in their broadside. I
Speaker 8: had the bright idea of maybe a grunting with a
Speaker 8: grunt call. Had a grunt call in my backpack that
Speaker 8: I've carried for I don't know, many many many years.
Speaker 8: Uh it's to me, it works better, sounds better. But
Speaker 8: one day I got caught without it out of my backpack.
Speaker 8: I lift it in my coat and my backpack, but
Speaker 8: at in it, so I didn't have my backpack. So
Speaker 8: as soon as I could after that, I bought a
Speaker 8: grunt call. All it does it just looked like the
Speaker 8: one I had, which was a nighting hail. Anyway, I
Speaker 8: thought I would grunt to him because I seen movement,
Speaker 8: and I used two calls to grunt hurt, you know,
Speaker 8: just not enough. I figured to could hear it it's
Speaker 8: really to call too loud or too much. The deer
Speaker 8: turned a little bit, but it didn't move. I mean
Speaker 8: this this deer stood there forever. The deer turned, and
Speaker 8: this other deer was still out here. I mean I
Speaker 8: could see them, but I mean, if they were bucks,
Speaker 8: I and it took a shot at them because I
Speaker 8: could just see their legs, and that deer kind of
Speaker 8: turned and went out and looked straight at me. And
Speaker 8: when he did, all I seen was that horns come
Speaker 8: out and the head and neck, and I thought, oh
Speaker 8: my word, you know, but there's nothing I could do
Speaker 8: about it. He didn't come in. I grinded maybe three times,
Speaker 8: just one note. This drunk, he slipped out on me.
Speaker 8: I guess I could just see movement. And then I
Speaker 8: didn't see the deer, but the other deer, I didn't
Speaker 8: see them, just see them kind of moveing went out
Speaker 8: of sight. So he did notice the factor pick up
Speaker 8: the grunt. So I would do just a low grunt,
Speaker 8: probably thirty minutes apart, just one note hurt. An hour later,
Speaker 8: I was drinking just once low, and here this buck
Speaker 8: appeared ten yards away walking. But that buck come to
Speaker 8: my grunt. I grabbed my rifle come up, got cross
Speaker 8: hairs and hair. I towardst it off. The deer went bawn,
Speaker 8: so I unse uped it out and the deer was
Speaker 8: trying to get up. So I put him down. And
Speaker 8: it turned out it was the twelve point that I
Speaker 8: had pictures of, you.
Speaker 4: Know, So.
Speaker 8: Patted myself on the back tickle to death, counted the
Speaker 8: point six by six. I looked at the where did
Speaker 8: I hit him? All I done was just clipped to
Speaker 8: his back. It didn't even bring blood, It just burnt,
Speaker 8: I guess the backbone, and I jar There was a
Speaker 8: matter of just seconds that deer would have got up
Speaker 8: and run off. Scared me to death. When I actually
Speaker 8: seen I thought he was down and I just had
Speaker 8: to finish him off. The second one, the one that
Speaker 8: killed him, he was fixing to get up and go,
Speaker 8: But that positively was a grunt call brought him in.
Speaker 1: The stories we bring back from wild places can't be
Speaker 1: bought with money, They can't be replicated, and they enrich
Speaker 1: our lives with something intangible, something primitive, something that only
Speaker 1: comes from engagement with the wild. It's only in the
Speaker 1: mind of the hunter that the imagery of the hunt
Speaker 1: can be replayed, and our words bring it all to
Speaker 1: life inside of a story, when it's expressed into something
Speaker 1: that's truly magical and can be shared with others. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of sad that our Dear Stories episodes are coming
Speaker 1: to an end this year, but I look forward to
Speaker 1: making more stories in the future. I cannot thank you
Speaker 1: enough for listening to Bear Grease this country life in
Speaker 1: the Backwoods University. Keep the wild places wild because that's
Speaker 1: where the bears live.