Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast, your guide
Speaker 1: to the fundamentals of better deer hunting, presented by first Light,
Speaker 1: creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind.
Speaker 1: First Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson.
Speaker 2: Hey everyone, welcome to the Wire to Hunt Foundation's podcast,
Speaker 2: which is brought to you by First Light. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today's episode is all about big bucks,
Speaker 2: poaching egos, and the dark side of this whole white
Speaker 2: tail thing. I'm always amazed at how often people tell
Speaker 2: me stories about poaching deer and other critters. Now I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about people in my life. We have your
Speaker 2: relationship with here, but strangers that shows and who I
Speaker 2: just run into throughout life. It's wild, and a lot
Speaker 2: of it is kind of an inherited willingness to break
Speaker 2: some rules, it seems like, while there are just others
Speaker 2: that just seem to revel in coloring outside the lines
Speaker 2: whenever they can. It's weird, but not as weird as
Speaker 2: the link some go to when killing a big bucket possible.
Speaker 2: That's what this episode is all about, So buckle up.
Speaker 2: There is an ethical question that has floated around amongst
Speaker 2: humans for a long time, possibly in some form for
Speaker 2: as long as we've been able to communicate. It's one
Speaker 2: that you've probably heard, which is basically, if a person
Speaker 2: is starving, is it wrong to steal a loaf of bread?
Speaker 2: Presumably the loaf of bread is owned by someone who
Speaker 2: has lots of bread. Most people answer this as a no,
Speaker 2: and it's not that hard to argue with, although it
Speaker 2: can be done. This ethical dilemma is one that has
Speaker 2: been bent and twisted over time to absolve people of
Speaker 2: their guilt for stealing even when they aren't starving.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: Take something like password sharing on a streaming service, for example.
Speaker 2: This is real common and it is stealing, but it's
Speaker 2: also easy to look at a company like Netflix or
Speaker 2: Disney and say that they make enough money they can
Speaker 2: handle it. I don't know if there is a correlation
Speaker 2: between people who commit small theft like that and who
Speaker 2: have ever run a business for themselves, but I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be surprised if there is, because when you run a business,
Speaker 2: you find out quickly that a certain percentage of people
Speaker 2: will rip you off every chance that they can. If
Speaker 2: you have a platform and somewhat of a voice, you'll
Speaker 2: find another subset of people who will gladly try to
Speaker 2: use you for their own gains. It's how people are.
Speaker 2: But the question of stealing bread to feed a starving
Speaker 2: family and will never have a totally correct answer, because
Speaker 2: depending on who you are, there are different ways to
Speaker 2: justify behavior. But what about if that loaf of bread
Speaker 2: is actually a one hundred and ninety inch buck and
Speaker 2: the bakery owner isn't actually a bakery owner, but a
Speaker 2: landowner who won't let you hunt where the big buck lives.
Speaker 2: Or maybe we can look at the state as the bakery,
Speaker 2: and all of the antler loaves of bread out there
Speaker 2: are baked to be distributed equally amongst the citizens of
Speaker 2: that state, and instead of taking their fair share, someone
Speaker 2: takes more because they really like the biggest loaf of bread,
Speaker 2: and lots of people will think they are really cool
Speaker 2: for eating it. All Right, enough of that desin grading metaphor,
Speaker 2: because you know what I mean. Poaching is an issue
Speaker 2: in deer hunting, and the cases that get the most
Speaker 2: attention are the ones you'd expect the most, the ones
Speaker 2: involving giant bucks, because well, we all love giant bucks,
Speaker 2: and we all recognize that giant bucks make people do
Speaker 2: really dumb shit. You might all have a somewhat fresh
Speaker 2: memory of that fella down in Ohio who in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty three killed a monster eighteen point buck that scored
Speaker 2: over two hundred and thirty five inches. While it's crazy
Speaker 2: that a two hundred inch deer doesn't really make headlines
Speaker 2: that much anymore, a buck that tapes out at two
Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five just does, and rightfully so. There
Speaker 2: aren't more than a handful of them on the landscape
Speaker 2: in the whole country in any given fall, at least
Speaker 2: outside of ten foot high fences. That buck became the
Speaker 2: talk of the town, particular because the dude who shot
Speaker 2: it wanted to talk to everyone he could about how
Speaker 2: big it was and how awesome he was for killing it.
Speaker 2: But if you're going to try to promote yourself for
Speaker 2: being a big buck killer, you should probably also be
Speaker 2: aren't enough to lie competently if you didn't kill it legally.
Speaker 2: This guy didn't seem to have the mental horsepower to
Speaker 2: pull that off, and his story started to unravel pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: The twenty eight year old said he killed the buck
Speaker 2: on his sister's property with a crossbow, but cell phone
Speaker 2: data revealed that he killed at ten miles away on
Speaker 2: a private chunk of ground he did not have permission,
Speaker 2: don he did have the wherewithal to bring the dead
Speaker 2: buck to his sisters in stage a kill scene, but
Speaker 2: it wasn't enough to get away with the ruse now.
Speaker 2: He ended up getting charged with illegally hunting without permission
Speaker 2: and then taking possession of a deer under those circumstances,
Speaker 2: He got charged with a couple accounts of hunting without
Speaker 2: a license because I guess, why not go all in?
Speaker 2: He got charged with a bunch of other stuff too,
Speaker 2: including three counts of theft by deception. He also managed
Speaker 2: to rope in a couple other geniuses in his family
Speaker 2: and friend group to face charges themselves after helping him.
Speaker 2: The big deer cases always get a lot of attention
Speaker 2: and a lot of scrutiny, but so do the ones
Speaker 2: that seem to involve an almost serial killer level dedication
Speaker 2: to poaching white tails. A good Exams sample of this
Speaker 2: involves a fifty five year old dude down in Texas
Speaker 2: who is facing seventy four criminal charges and is staring
Speaker 2: at a real shit storm in his life for allegedly
Speaker 2: killing at least thirteen bucks in three counties over a
Speaker 2: time span of just eleven months between the fall of
Speaker 2: twenty four and the summer at twenty five. The whole
Speaker 2: investigation in this case started after people began to find
Speaker 2: headless whitetail buck carcasses in a couple of counties. Game
Speaker 2: wardens called onto the scene started finding crossbow bolts stuck
Speaker 2: in the carcasses, which is a real key piece of
Speaker 2: evidence to leave layer out. Not only did this MENSA
Speaker 2: member allegedly shoot a whole pile of extra bucks from
Speaker 2: his vehicle with a crossbow, he kept the heads in
Speaker 2: his freezer at home, which maybe could have been explained
Speaker 2: away somehow, although I don't know how, but a hell
Speaker 2: of a lot of them were in velvet still, which
Speaker 2: doesn't really jive with the Texas hunting seasons much now.
Speaker 2: As a side note here, this hugely beneficial to society
Speaker 2: fella also had nearly six grams of meth on him
Speaker 2: when the warden's caught up to him. To be honest,
Speaker 2: this one might be less about big bucks making people
Speaker 2: stupid and more about the intersection of someone who is
Speaker 2: already really stupid and some whitetails. Maybe A better example
Speaker 2: a big bucks turning normal brain function to sludge can
Speaker 2: be found in the story of the Hollywood Buck, which
Speaker 2: isn't about a black tail out in the hills of California,
Speaker 2: but instead involved a monster non typical white tail that
Speaker 2: liked to spend his time in the Hollywood Cemetery out
Speaker 2: in Virginia, presumably because he felt he was safe from
Speaker 2: real hunters and only probably had to dodge the ghosts
Speaker 2: of hunters past that night. Well, one reel hunter, I
Speaker 2: guess if you can call him, that decided that giant
Speaker 2: graveyard creeper was too big to let live, and he
Speaker 2: shot it with a fifty caliber muzzleloader. The thing about
Speaker 2: this one is it's like most of the giant bucks
Speaker 2: that are poached, the boacher couldn't help himself but seek
Speaker 2: the limelight. Now, let's say you shoot a two year
Speaker 2: old eight pointer in a cemetery and post a picture
Speaker 2: of it. You might not get busted, but you'll also
Speaker 2: won't get tons of praise and digital high fives from
Speaker 2: people you will never meet and who actually don't care
Speaker 2: about you at all. But if you kill a true
Speaker 2: giant with a crazy, unique rack and a whole pile
Speaker 2: of stickers and kickers that has been seen by tons
Speaker 2: of people for years and photographed extensively. And then you
Speaker 2: submit that picture to a Facebook page that has over
Speaker 2: seventy thousand people follow it and which is dedicated to
Speaker 2: showing off hunters kills, you might find out that quite
Speaker 2: a few people will recognize the buck. It's almost mind
Speaker 2: boggling to dig into some of the more high profile
Speaker 2: cases of poaching that have hit the news in the
Speaker 2: last ten years. I guess it's the way of the
Speaker 2: criminal mind to think you can out smart law enforcement,
Speaker 2: and I'm sure there are a few crafty people out
Speaker 2: there who have figured this out. But I happen to
Speaker 2: be buddies with a conservation officer, and I have no
Speaker 2: reason to believe he's way above average intelligence for conservation officers.
Speaker 2: Now that might sound like it a dig at him,
Speaker 2: but I mean the opposite. He's a very smart guy,
Speaker 2: and the way he thinks about his job and his
Speaker 2: approach to busting bad guys is just clever. I'd wager
Speaker 2: than in mental chess. He has a significant advantage over
Speaker 2: the kind of person who would kill a two hundred
Speaker 2: inch buck illegally and try to get away with it
Speaker 2: while also trying to get tons of credit for being
Speaker 2: awesome at hunting. One such case that happened pretty close
Speaker 2: to where I grew up in southeastern Minnesota, happened like
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago when a nineteen year old killed a
Speaker 2: twenty one point buck with his bow that was, by
Speaker 2: all accounts, a frickin' toad. I mean, like the kind
Speaker 2: of deer you or I will never see in the wild.
Speaker 2: Well that's because it wasn't a wild deer. It was
Speaker 2: a pen raised buck that he whacked through the fence, tagged, registered,
Speaker 2: and even brought to the taxidermist before someone made the
Speaker 2: connection that a deer farmer was missing his antler livestock
Speaker 2: and had a hole in his fence. Big bucks don't
Speaker 2: just make dumb people poach more either. Big bucks are
Speaker 2: a big problem for a lot of things in our lives.
Speaker 2: Just think about this. If you've ever had a disagreement
Speaker 2: with a neighboring landowner over deer, what did it involve?
Speaker 2: That conservation officer buddy of mine, who is pretty sick
Speaker 2: of what big bucks do to people, told me a
Speaker 2: story one time about getting a call from a landowner
Speaker 2: who said his neighbor had picked up a dead head
Speaker 2: but hadn't gotten a possession tag for it. A lot
Speaker 2: of people don't know this, and it's not consistent in
Speaker 2: every state, but in some states, like Minnesota, we can't
Speaker 2: just pick up a deadhead we find in the spring
Speaker 2: while shed hunting. If it has part of the skull attached,
Speaker 2: it needs a possession tag. This is one of those
Speaker 2: laws that people look at like jaywalking or going sixty
Speaker 2: in a fifty five. Sure it's technically illegal, but who
Speaker 2: is going to call the game warden for a tag
Speaker 2: over a skull they found out in the woods. Well,
Speaker 2: this guy called because his neighbor found one, and you
Speaker 2: know why, because it was from you know, the big
Speaker 2: neighborhood buck that everyone had on camera and everyone wanted
Speaker 2: to kill. When the one landowner found it, the other
Speaker 2: wanted him punished for not following the law. So my
Speaker 2: buddy did an investigation, and while I don't remember the
Speaker 2: exact details, I think he just confiscated the skull without
Speaker 2: issuing a ticket since the guy cooperated. But then he
Speaker 2: drove over to the landowner's house who had made the call.
Speaker 2: In the first place, and while they were chatting, my
Speaker 2: buddy noticed a whole bunch of skulls in the guy's garage.
Speaker 2: Guess who also had a bunch of dead heads that
Speaker 2: got confiscated that day. Big bucks make people dumb, and
Speaker 2: this is not something that is a problem only outside
Speaker 2: of the hunting industry either. Nothing riles up the masses
Speaker 2: and pushes the hunting population into single aligned tribe quicker
Speaker 2: than a hunting celebrity getting busted for killing a deer
Speaker 2: illegally or in some cases, many deer illegally. One case
Speaker 2: you might remember involved a guy who was real popular
Speaker 2: for a short amount of time on outdoor television, but
Speaker 2: who then shot a buck on camera, and while doing
Speaker 2: his post shot interview, saw a much bigger buck and
Speaker 2: he shot that one too. The problem was that he
Speaker 2: only had one buck tag. Well, that was one of
Speaker 2: his problems. He was also a grade ad beg who
Speaker 2: treated his cameramen like they were trash people, which isn't
Speaker 2: a great idea if those trash people also happen to
Speaker 2: have digital proof of you shooting extra bucks just because
Speaker 2: a bigger one stepped out after you shot a really
Speaker 2: great deer, which you didn't work for at all. By
Speaker 2: the way, I hear stories often and have no real
Speaker 2: reason to doubt them. Of the links some industry folks
Speaker 2: have gone to in order to keep Bucks on their properties.
Speaker 2: It's kind of mind blowing things like high fencing two
Speaker 2: or three sides of a property to keep bucks from
Speaker 2: wandering onto the neighbors, but also being able to still
Speaker 2: claim your hunting free range deer and are super awesome
Speaker 2: at it. You hear about feeders set at a foot
Speaker 2: past the minimum allowable distance from stands, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: All this behavior leads back to ego and something that
Speaker 2: is perceived to be gained from killing big Bucks. That
Speaker 2: might be a one off event where you can get
Speaker 2: your name in the history of books and maybe get
Speaker 2: some praise and adoration at local deer classics and sports shows.
Speaker 2: Or it might be really lucrative sponsorship deals in partnerships
Speaker 2: if you have a big enough name or brand. But
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to manifest itself in criminal behavior or
Speaker 2: even just kind of deceitful behavior that is still legal
Speaker 2: but definitely wouldn't look great if you bragged about it.
Speaker 2: There's also the hard truth that big Bucks can make
Speaker 2: us all dumb in a bunch of different ways for yours. Truly,
Speaker 2: giant deer have the tendency to shut off most of
Speaker 2: the parts of my brain that I need in order
Speaker 2: to complete simple tasks like I don't know, drawing and
Speaker 2: aiming a bone in the same way I've done literally
Speaker 2: thousands and thousands of times in my life. I won't
Speaker 2: bore you with the stories of my buck fever troubles
Speaker 2: over the years, because I've talked about that enough, but
Speaker 2: I will say that at no point in my long
Speaker 2: white tail career have I ever consistently, over a long
Speaker 2: enough timeline involving enough encounters, not eventually totally fallen apart
Speaker 2: on a shot on a big buck. I've killed a
Speaker 2: fair amount of them, but I've let far more of
Speaker 2: them go out of my life unscathed or lightly scathed,
Speaker 2: or in some cases very scathed, but also capable of
Speaker 2: walking great distances and hiding really well. They just do
Speaker 2: something to us that we can't control, mostly because they
Speaker 2: are so rare to encounter and so likely to get
Speaker 2: the best of us when we do have one. Walk.
Speaker 2: In almost every encounter with a big buck that I've had,
Speaker 2: at least ones that were close enough to get me
Speaker 2: to grab my bow. Have reminded me of the times
Speaker 2: when I've been out in the spring turkey hunting and
Speaker 2: just looked into my decoy spread randomly to see a
Speaker 2: full strutter just doing this thing. It's like, you know
Speaker 2: what they look like, you've killed them before, but when
Speaker 2: they're suddenly ten or twenty yards away in real life,
Speaker 2: it's almost hard to believe. And from the moment that
Speaker 2: first sighting happens until they are dead or out of
Speaker 2: your life for good. The brain melt just happened. I
Speaker 2: don't know how to describe it any other way. I've
Speaker 2: had encounters with big bucks that left me physically exhausted.
Speaker 2: If I have to watch them for a long time
Speaker 2: and they seem to be generally on a path in
Speaker 2: my direction, I almost get to the point where I'm
Speaker 2: mentally begging for them to come in so we can
Speaker 2: get the whole thing over with. That happened to me
Speaker 2: once on a booner on public land in Iowa, and
Speaker 2: last year when I killed my best Wisconsin buck while
Speaker 2: using a decoy. By the time the arrowflies, I'm ready
Speaker 2: for it to be over, so my nervous system doesn't
Speaker 2: just factory reset me. Honestly, you know, I'm a space geek,
Speaker 2: and I firmly believe there's a lot more life out
Speaker 2: there in the universe than some people do. But I
Speaker 2: wonder if some of the alien abduction incidences are just
Speaker 2: from people who had, you know, a reaction to something
Speaker 2: the way I react to a prolonged encounter with a
Speaker 2: big buck. You know, you black out, you wake up
Speaker 2: with you're hunting, boots on the wrong feet, can't remember
Speaker 2: what day it is. In some cases, your buck's a
Speaker 2: little sore, you know, the usual stuff that happens when
Speaker 2: a really solid deer walks in. But it doesn't even
Speaker 2: have to be one hundred and eighty inchure to cause
Speaker 2: that level of mental delamination. It just has to be
Speaker 2: a deer that you really want to kill. You might
Speaker 2: be just starting out like my kids and lose your
Speaker 2: mind over a big wood spike or a tiny basket
Speaker 2: rack six or eight pointer. The same rules apply according
Speaker 2: to your definition of big. You might be a public
Speaker 2: land hunter who sees three deer a year and who
Speaker 2: has never killed a deer who suddenly sees just a nice,
Speaker 2: long nosed, old dough heading down the trail in your
Speaker 2: direction and then the firecrackers in your brain are gonna
Speaker 2: get lit. It's wild what they do to us, and
Speaker 2: honestly pretty cool as long as it doesn't send you
Speaker 2: into the kind of territory where you break in every
Speaker 2: law out there just to get a big set of
Speaker 2: antlers in your hands. In fact, that feeling of losing
Speaker 2: our minds and having a giant adrenaline dump over something
Speaker 2: we think about all year but almost never ever happen
Speaker 2: to see an encounter is one of the biggest reasons
Speaker 2: to go out there. Even if we know that it's
Speaker 2: most likely going to break the bucks away. Once in
Speaker 2: a while it doesn't, and even when it does, it's
Speaker 2: just the thing that simultaneously breaks our hearts but keeps
Speaker 2: us coming back for more. And speaking of coming back
Speaker 2: for more, that's what you should do next week, because
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about how I start to build
Speaker 2: my fall plan this time of year and what you
Speaker 2: can do to set yourself up for a successful deer
Speaker 2: season while we are still a couple months out. That's
Speaker 2: it for this episode. I'm Tony Peterson. This has been
Speaker 2: the Wired to Hunt Foundations podcast. As always, thank you
Speaker 2: so much for listening. And for all your support. If
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