Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
Speaker 1: modern whitetail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan,
Speaker 1: and today in the show, I'm joined by Dan nine
Speaker 1: Fingers Johnson to help break down the story of my
Speaker 1: early October success in Michigan and the lessons we can
Speaker 1: all learn from this experience. All right, welcome to the
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. Today.
Speaker 1: My friends, we've got a good one. I had some
Speaker 1: success in Michigan. I'm excited to talk about it. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to share the story and some so I think
Speaker 1: lessons learned and take away as it can help all
Speaker 1: of us throughout the rest of the season. But because
Speaker 1: this is such a great occasion, we had to bring
Speaker 1: in the o G. We had to bring in the
Speaker 1: man of all men, nine fingers Dan Johnson. We had
Speaker 1: to bring back the original dream team to have this podcast.
Speaker 1: So Dan's gonna help me tell this story. Dan, thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Yeah. Absolutely, I love I'll tell
Speaker 1: you what I love. I love this time of year
Speaker 1: for the bloody arrow pictures that get sad. Right, So
Speaker 1: all the all the buds, you know, all your buddies
Speaker 1: who are are also bow hunters. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're like, I look at my wife ago, oh Mark,
Speaker 1: Mark arrowed something tonight and uh and then you're just
Speaker 1: like then it's just like all these questions and then
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, I want picks, and you know, and
Speaker 1: then the whole, the whole flood comes and uh, it's
Speaker 1: awesome to to see friends find success and I love
Speaker 1: getting those notifications. Yeah. Man, it's a great time to
Speaker 1: the variously lived through all your buddies adventures and and uh,
Speaker 1: I wish we lived closer together so we could be
Speaker 1: getting together in person. But I had some people here
Speaker 1: locally who came and celebrated with me. What was it
Speaker 1: Saturday night? And uh, that's just the best, Like getting
Speaker 1: to be with your buddies and help them be either
Speaker 1: help them on a track job or them help you,
Speaker 1: or have a beer at the end of the night.
Speaker 1: I mean that is Uh, that's what's all about that
Speaker 1: you that you cracked when you got back to the house.
Speaker 1: I had a beer. It's called Deer Camp. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a beer from a brewery up in the
Speaker 1: Upper Peninsula of Michigan Upper Hand Brewing. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: just bought the twelve pack earlier that day and uh, man,
Speaker 1: I had a very good reason to crack into it
Speaker 1: that night. So yeah, yeah, yeah, man. So there's a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to cover. Um, I'm gonna be putty
Speaker 1: in your hands, though, I will let you take their
Speaker 1: reins as host today, my friend, and uh And basically,
Speaker 1: all I want to achieve here, just so you know,
Speaker 1: is like I want to recap, you know, what happened
Speaker 1: the story of how I killed the mature buck on
Speaker 1: home putting night in Michigan, and then, um, you know
Speaker 1: what the big takeaways were that I had from the
Speaker 1: lessons I learned the things that I think, you know,
Speaker 1: could help other people, uh with their their season this year.
Speaker 1: So that's what I want to achieve. How we do that,
Speaker 1: Dan is up to your crazy as mind. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna break it all down, right And
Speaker 1: this this is the this is the part that I
Speaker 1: love about podcasting is the the details, into the details,
Speaker 1: into the details that you know, the why behind the story,
Speaker 1: the data that goes into it, the decision making and
Speaker 1: breaking it all down. But I have to ask you
Speaker 1: one question first. Okay, this has nothing to do really
Speaker 1: with this hunt. So what We're gonna lighten the mood
Speaker 1: a little bit. We're gonna get everybody. We're gonna get
Speaker 1: everybody a little you see, so that they flow into
Speaker 1: this episode and really absorb it. So I've been talking
Speaker 1: with I've been talking with Tony Peterson recently. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know you know Tony Um, he every once in a
Speaker 1: while will throw a jab your way about your mustache
Speaker 1: and it's like a low blow. And I I say this,
Speaker 1: I go, hey, Mark's not here to defend himself. So
Speaker 1: I think it's only proper that you start off this
Speaker 1: podcast by low blowing Tony Peterson. Well, here's something that
Speaker 1: nobody knows about Tony is that Tony is a bigger
Speaker 1: nerd than I am. He tries to play off this
Speaker 1: whole like cool guy vibe when he does the podcast,
Speaker 1: and he likes to trash me and Spencer and our
Speaker 1: CShell collecting hobbies or something like that. But every time
Speaker 1: I see the guy, all he wants to talk about
Speaker 1: is the latest Star Trek stuff, Like WHOA, what's going
Speaker 1: on in the Star Ours? What's going on with Elon? Musk.
Speaker 1: The guy makes you and me look like varsity athletes.
Speaker 1: Stand it really is amazing. The job he's done, Absolutely,
Speaker 1: the job he's done pulling the wool over everybody's eyes
Speaker 1: here on the podcast is is impressive. So so he's
Speaker 1: a nerd, is what you're getting at, big big card,
Speaker 1: big time, Like we should give him Squirrel East type nerd. Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's definitely why he is the way he is now
Speaker 1: is because of all those that have gott in high school.
Speaker 1: I got you all right. Well, now we know a
Speaker 1: little bit more about Tony Peterson, the inside of what
Speaker 1: makes him work. He's just he's just a big nerd.
Speaker 1: If you ever run into him on the street, ask
Speaker 1: him for a space fact. Space he loves. He loves
Speaker 1: giving space facts so much so that his wife, who
Speaker 1: has got to be like a sympathy marriage kind of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: he is stuck to a quota. He's only allowed to
Speaker 1: share one space factor night to his wife because you
Speaker 1: can't handle any more than that. But he's so excited
Speaker 1: about space. This is no joke. This is literally real life, Dan,
Speaker 1: This is awesome. This is real life. So there's a
Speaker 1: little insight into Tony Peterson. Okay, perfect, there we go.
Speaker 1: Now we're now we've just talked trash on someone. And
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but every time I talk
Speaker 1: trash on someone, I feel just a little bit better
Speaker 1: about myself. So I feel good good, Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: it's it's no stranger. You've you've posted the pictures on
Speaker 1: on social everybody knows you you killed a deer. But
Speaker 1: there's a whole story behind it. It's not just hey,
Speaker 1: I showed up Opening Day and and put an arrow
Speaker 1: through this buck. It sounds to me like this is
Speaker 1: a multi year uh, a multi year type of a
Speaker 1: trail to get to this point. Now, what I want
Speaker 1: to know is how far back does this this trail
Speaker 1: go to to lead up to this Opening day buck
Speaker 1: that you shot in Michigan. So it is it's to
Speaker 1: two year story, but it is lightly tied to a
Speaker 1: three year story. Um and and kind of how my,
Speaker 1: how my goals and mindset and things have shifted, because
Speaker 1: I'll kind of jump a little bit of Hettie to
Speaker 1: Dan and you tell me if I'm going off base here,
Speaker 1: But the previous me, in many years, you know this,
Speaker 1: I would get stuck on one deer, right, do you
Speaker 1: remember the years of holy Field and six Shooter and
Speaker 1: all these bucks, and I chased him for a year
Speaker 1: after year, and it'd be like this buck or bust,
Speaker 1: all right. And so there was a deer that could
Speaker 1: have been a this buck or bust for me this year,
Speaker 1: which was a deer I called Junior. He was a
Speaker 1: buck that you know as a three year old three
Speaker 1: years ago I passed him when I was chasing that
Speaker 1: buck tran Um, and this buck looked like a like
Speaker 1: a smaller version of trans So I called him like
Speaker 1: Junior tran junior Um. And so that was to two
Speaker 1: or three years ago. I saw him a ton, passed
Speaker 1: him a bunch, and then the next year, which was
Speaker 1: last year, he was like the number one buck I
Speaker 1: was after. And I didn't get to hunt Michigan as
Speaker 1: much last year, but he was the one I wanted.
Speaker 1: So coming into this year, um, you know, he is
Speaker 1: a five and a half year old like stud this year,
Speaker 1: and he was he was my number one. Um. But
Speaker 1: because of what happened last year and what you and
Speaker 1: I have talked about this year a couple of times,
Speaker 1: kind of just the the interesting challenges I had last
Speaker 1: year and the kind of mental stuff I went through,
Speaker 1: and you know, just coming into this year, one of
Speaker 1: the big things I wanted to get back to just
Speaker 1: having fun and not stressing over certain things and not
Speaker 1: you know, locking myself into crazy goals or crazy things.
Speaker 1: And so coming into this year, you know, rather than
Speaker 1: doing what I've done the past, which is the it's
Speaker 1: this bucker boss to have to kill this one mega giant,
Speaker 1: I decided I wasn't gonna do that this year. I
Speaker 1: was gonna just have fun and take what kind of
Speaker 1: the hunt gave me. And so because of that, Uh,
Speaker 1: this bucket that I ended up shooting ended up being
Speaker 1: a deer that I set my sights on in addition
Speaker 1: to h JR. So that's a long winded way of
Speaker 1: saying why it's sort of tied to this three year story.
Speaker 1: But as my mind shift, as my mindset shifted this year, um,
Speaker 1: this buck kind of entered the story because of that.
Speaker 1: So so he first showed up two years ago last year. Sorry,
Speaker 1: so last year, but it was kind of, uh, the
Speaker 1: mindset change, it sounds like, went from one deer to
Speaker 1: a specific caliber of deer that that you were trying
Speaker 1: to accomplish. What was that caliber? Yeah, so my thoughts
Speaker 1: out here on my local stuff in Michigan was a
Speaker 1: four year old, um, and this year is a particularly
Speaker 1: good year. In this general area. UM, in this little
Speaker 1: neck of the woods that I've been focusing on, there
Speaker 1: are three bucks that I'm very confident are four year older,
Speaker 1: which is which is better than most years. UM when
Speaker 1: four year old in Michigan. Right, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: guys out there going dang for three four year olds
Speaker 1: in one general area. That sounds pretty good. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like it is pretty good. I'm
Speaker 1: pretty I'm pretty lucky to have, you know, a handful
Speaker 1: of properties in this kind of adjacent area that gives
Speaker 1: me access to a spot where there's three three bucks
Speaker 1: there are four. But to be clear, these aren't like
Speaker 1: big bucks in a lot of people's eyes. I mean
Speaker 1: their bucks that I'm stoked about in Michigan. But you know,
Speaker 1: Junior is, like I said, I'm pretty confident he's a
Speaker 1: five and a half year old and he's an eight
Speaker 1: pointer and he's probably like a hundred and forty class
Speaker 1: eight pointer. UM. And then there was this other buck
Speaker 1: who this is the third year I've known about him,
Speaker 1: and he is now a ten pointer. I call him
Speaker 1: wide nine because he was a nine wide nine two
Speaker 1: years ago. Um, he's probably like one thirty something and
Speaker 1: a four year old. And then there was another buck
Speaker 1: of nice nine pointer who is also four and a
Speaker 1: half and he's probably like a hundred and thirty class
Speaker 1: ish nine pointer. Um. And so I saw all of
Speaker 1: these three deer last year. Two of them were three
Speaker 1: year olds who as a four year old last year,
Speaker 1: and now this year they all showed back up on camera. Um.
Speaker 1: And then that's what I'm talking about. So I've got
Speaker 1: a couple, you know, three bucks that are over one
Speaker 1: thirty basically, uh, two four year olds, one five year old,
Speaker 1: and you know, throughout the summer they um summer in September,
Speaker 1: they were kind of they showed up at different times
Speaker 1: and have showed up to differing degrees. Yeah, talk to
Speaker 1: us a little bit about what you feel makes this area,
Speaker 1: you know, like all the farms that this this general
Speaker 1: area where these deer are living so special that it
Speaker 1: holds a higher age class. Yeah. So there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things going for this neck of the woods. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's the main property that I've been
Speaker 1: hunting for years now that I've been very careful with
Speaker 1: and so to recap on this farm, it's like a
Speaker 1: it's a little over six acres, about half of that
Speaker 1: is farm field, so there's about you know, forty ish
Speaker 1: acres of cover on it. Part of that is a
Speaker 1: swamp that I just never go into. I mean almost
Speaker 1: almost never go into it except for like a time
Speaker 1: or two in the off season. Um. And then there's
Speaker 1: two neighboring properties that have good cover and that are
Speaker 1: lightly pressured. So there's one property that does have another
Speaker 1: couple of hunters, but they they're not in there very often. UM,
Speaker 1: so that you know, works as like a pseudo sanctuary
Speaker 1: a little bit. And then there's a second property that
Speaker 1: at least last I heard, nobody hunts it. It's eighty acres.
Speaker 1: Last I've I don't know these people well, but I've
Speaker 1: talked to him a handful of times and they have
Speaker 1: not let people hunt there has storically. Um. Now there's
Speaker 1: other properties around that that get hunted a ton. So
Speaker 1: basically there's there's there's there's these pieces that I have
Speaker 1: access to the main place that I hunt, and then
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of neighboring hunt spots in this
Speaker 1: block that I also have access to that I lightly hunt,
Speaker 1: and then there's these two pieces that are lightly hunted,
Speaker 1: and then around it there's tons and tons of pressure.
Speaker 1: So I kind of think what happens is that there's
Speaker 1: this little core that's lightly pressured and then everything else
Speaker 1: around it that's just is absolutely hammered. And because of that,
Speaker 1: you know, I think stuff gets pushed into the lightly
Speaker 1: hunted area that I focus on, and so it kind
Speaker 1: of becomes like a like a sanctuary of sorts because
Speaker 1: there's so much pressure all around it. That's kind of
Speaker 1: my theory about what happens and why. You know, over
Speaker 1: the years, I've been able to, you know, have you know,
Speaker 1: mature box. Usually there's at least you know, one mature
Speaker 1: buck um and now we're getting to the point, you know,
Speaker 1: now that we're you know, I've I've been hunting this
Speaker 1: general area for eleven years, I think, you know, the
Speaker 1: very first year I hunted out there, there was one
Speaker 1: three year old all season that was the best that
Speaker 1: was around all season, and it's it's slowly gotten better
Speaker 1: and better too. Now, you know, I feel most years
Speaker 1: there's there's a four year old or two you know,
Speaker 1: like of that kind of caliber rarely or they're like
Speaker 1: big big bucks, like Iowa big Bucks, right, but you know,
Speaker 1: every once in a while there's a really big one.
Speaker 1: But I'm usually you know, I'm super stoked with any
Speaker 1: kind of four year old buck in Michigan, and there
Speaker 1: seems to be one or two of those around here
Speaker 1: most years. But you know, I'm I'm I'm super picky.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, in this case, if I shoot one
Speaker 1: buck on that in this area, I don't shoot any
Speaker 1: more bucks for the year. So it's it's a one
Speaker 1: and done kind of thing. And UM, I do a
Speaker 1: little bit of habitat work on one of these properties
Speaker 1: that I have permission to do so, so there's food plots,
Speaker 1: there's different stuff like that, and I think those things
Speaker 1: have slowly helped and improved. And uh, you know we
Speaker 1: are where we are now. Yeah, all right, So I
Speaker 1: do have to ask you question. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you want me to ask, uh, if you want me
Speaker 1: to ask it or not. So maybe this is edited out,
Speaker 1: but um, the one of the last times that we
Speaker 1: talked in detail about this property that um that I'm
Speaker 1: assuming you shot this deer on was some of the
Speaker 1: surrounding properties started getting some additional pressure. Do you feel
Speaker 1: that this additional pressure on some of the property and
Speaker 1: and strictly because they found out through maybe your social
Speaker 1: media or you where where this this these locations are at.
Speaker 1: And so another person that knew you moved in got
Speaker 1: access to a farm or maybe even purchased a farmer.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the scenario is there, but they started,
Speaker 1: uh putting a little pressure on a different farm that
Speaker 1: you didn't have access to. Has that hurt or help
Speaker 1: in any way? You know, I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's hurt me yet, I guess, I guess I
Speaker 1: do know. I would say I don't think it's hurt
Speaker 1: um because since you know, since that, I have not
Speaker 1: seen any difference in the deer activity I historically I
Speaker 1: have seen. Um. You know, there have been a couple
Speaker 1: of the bucks that I've been keeping tabs over the
Speaker 1: years on that have disappeared, But I haven't heard, you know,
Speaker 1: of these people killing them. So you know, every every
Speaker 1: year a couple of the good bucks them after disappear.
Speaker 1: Someone someone's getting them. I don't know where, um, But no,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen like a dramatic change in deer quality
Speaker 1: or like, you know, nothing has changed too much. It's
Speaker 1: basically been the same that it has been for the
Speaker 1: last five or six years. So as I mentioned, you know,
Speaker 1: I think that tons of hunting pressure around me that
Speaker 1: used to be like something in my mind is like, ah,
Speaker 1: that sucks. There's all these hunters and you know, these
Speaker 1: deer getting you know, chased all over the place. But
Speaker 1: I've kind of turned that into like a maybe a
Speaker 1: positive for me because if if even like in you know,
Speaker 1: forty forty acres of cover that I have solely to myself, Um,
Speaker 1: if I can at least make sure that's a safe place,
Speaker 1: that ends up being enough because everyone's you know, mobbing
Speaker 1: them so heavily everywhere else that these deer kind of know, like,
Speaker 1: there's a couple of little safe places and that ends
Speaker 1: up being the places that I have access to and
Speaker 1: that I can be careful with and strike when the
Speaker 1: time's right. Um, And that that's been enough to at least,
Speaker 1: you know, have opportunities here and there. Right. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: I've been to your house and I've been able to
Speaker 1: see the landscape surrounding it. Do do you feel that
Speaker 1: on that particular property. Crop rotation plays any type of
Speaker 1: role on when the deer are visiting your property. You know,
Speaker 1: I've wondered that. And you know, for folks that aren't familiar,
Speaker 1: this is like, you know, South Michigan, a lot of crops,
Speaker 1: a lot of egg land, and these these properties, this
Speaker 1: region that I'm hunting is a mixture of pretty flat
Speaker 1: um egg and mixed timber, you know, some little swamps
Speaker 1: and grassy areas, some big mature timber and fields. Basically
Speaker 1: is what we're dealing with here. And I've I've wondered,
Speaker 1: I've tried to pair, I've tried to, like see if
Speaker 1: there's a correlation between corn years and being years and
Speaker 1: all that, and I can't. I can't find any kind
Speaker 1: of consistent change that happens with it. Honestly, there's there's
Speaker 1: deer here on bean years, there's deer here on corn years. Um.
Speaker 1: The only thing that really seems to suck is if
Speaker 1: the beans get taken out early and they disc everything under,
Speaker 1: so then there's like no food, and that happened a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago. But as long as there's something,
Speaker 1: whether that be waste grain from beans or the corn
Speaker 1: on the ground, or something. As long as there's something,
Speaker 1: they'll always be bucks wronging through here. Um, how much
Speaker 1: they hang out or how late they hang out, can
Speaker 1: you know a little bit of that depends on just
Speaker 1: how much food is left after they harvest the beans
Speaker 1: are corn. But but no, basically they're gonna be around.
Speaker 1: I see them every year no matter what. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: having those little tiny, you know, nice little hidy hole
Speaker 1: food plots, I think is a helpful thing because I've
Speaker 1: always looked at those as like an ice cream stand,
Speaker 1: and so regardless of what's going on in the main
Speaker 1: farm fields, there's always this little, sweet little ice cream
Speaker 1: truck that dear want to roll through and take a
Speaker 1: look at for ten minutes a night. And um, that's
Speaker 1: the thing that has consistently helped. Um. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it makes or breaks my season or hunts, but it's
Speaker 1: always been a helpful thing. And and this year it
Speaker 1: ended up being so too. Yeah. Alright, So I got
Speaker 1: I got a question about those food plots, not necessarily
Speaker 1: from the food side of it, but from the drawl
Speaker 1: you know, the the the food plots draw the does
Speaker 1: the does draw the bucks? Uh come this, you know,
Speaker 1: come throughout the year, right, And so my question is
Speaker 1: are you able have you seen sign the the amount
Speaker 1: of sign and I'm talking rubs and scrapes increased throughout
Speaker 1: the years because of this food plot work that you're doing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's hard to say, like what can
Speaker 1: be directly attributed to these food plots, but but I
Speaker 1: think that it has become like these have been consistently
Speaker 1: present in these two locations now for about ten years.
Speaker 1: So like the local deer population just knows like every
Speaker 1: year there's gonna be a half acre of something nice
Speaker 1: and green in this little heidy hole spot, and there's
Speaker 1: gonna be you know, just under an acre of something
Speaker 1: green and tasty up in this place. And every year
Speaker 1: that's the case now, and every year it's like a
Speaker 1: safe secluded spot these deer can swing through and and
Speaker 1: a eat, but be a do you think it has
Speaker 1: become a concentration of deer activity? And so it's like
Speaker 1: the water cooler, right, it's a place that the bucks
Speaker 1: roll through and leave that some sign that hey, I
Speaker 1: was here, and the does are there and so and
Speaker 1: so yes, I think that probably you know, these are
Speaker 1: places that our hub of activity, year after year after
Speaker 1: year and so deer leaving their calling cards there. And
Speaker 1: there are always natural scrapes popping up along the edge
Speaker 1: of these uh little food plots. And I also put
Speaker 1: a fake scrape tree out in each one of these
Speaker 1: food plots and a camera on those. And every single year,
Speaker 1: you know, every big buck I'm looking at and chasing
Speaker 1: in this general area always ends up cycling through those
Speaker 1: food plots and hitting those scrapes. You know, whether it's
Speaker 1: in daylight or after dark, they're they're coming through and
Speaker 1: checking it. So so yes, I guess as as I
Speaker 1: say this, I do think, you know, sign probably has
Speaker 1: increased around here as these have become like known hubs
Speaker 1: of concentrated your activity. Like if a buck that lives
Speaker 1: in this you know, mild square block wants to know
Speaker 1: what's going on on this, you know part of it.
Speaker 1: This is one of the best places to get a
Speaker 1: quick sense of who's here, what's happening. Um, so so yes,
Speaker 1: I think as I as I think through this, I
Speaker 1: think that's probably true. And you know, I think there's
Speaker 1: something we said there about the consistency maybe. Um you know,
Speaker 1: these aren't like huge food plots, but they're they're small
Speaker 1: they're secluded and there's always something green and tasty there.
Speaker 1: You know. Over the years, I've planted a lot of
Speaker 1: different things. This year it's a mixture of clover am
Speaker 1: brassicas in a little bit of oats, um And there's
Speaker 1: kind of a mix of oats and peas and some
Speaker 1: different stuff that I planted in these two plots. Um.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I think that while it's not the
Speaker 1: food that these deer depend on, it's that sweet little
Speaker 1: treat and uh, they like check it out. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1: We've already kind of discussed this mindset change that you've
Speaker 1: had over the past couple of years right where you were, Um,
Speaker 1: I mean you mentioned that you were you were trying
Speaker 1: to go do this this one buck thing, that change
Speaker 1: to a specific caliber of deer. You've described the caliber
Speaker 1: of deer. But there was also it sounds like some
Speaker 1: some change like summer work, some things that you prepared
Speaker 1: for for specifically for this upcoming season. Talk to us
Speaker 1: about what those things were. Yeah, I mean there's two
Speaker 1: sets of change, I guess, like one, like you mentioned
Speaker 1: like coming into the season, Um, I wanted to just
Speaker 1: get back to having fun and you know, not be
Speaker 1: so stressed out by all these different kind of outside things, right,
Speaker 1: and you and I talked about this. I don't know
Speaker 1: what it was. This sometime this August we did uh,
Speaker 1: we did a podcast talking through our goals and hopes
Speaker 1: and hit lists for the year. Um. So, coming into
Speaker 1: this year, you know, I really had only two main goals.
Speaker 1: There wasn't any specific buck goals. There wasn't you know,
Speaker 1: I want to shoot a bunch of mature bucks. It
Speaker 1: was I want to have a good shooting year, like
Speaker 1: I want to. I want to follow through my shop
Speaker 1: process and have good confidence shots. And I want to
Speaker 1: just have a fun year and get back to what
Speaker 1: made me love hunting so much. And so part of
Speaker 1: that was having time to hunt and enjoy my local
Speaker 1: Michigan stuff again. Last year, I didn't get to do
Speaker 1: very much of that. Yeah, So coming to this year,
Speaker 1: you know, I knew I was going to spend more
Speaker 1: time locally in Michigan, and you know, was going to
Speaker 1: have loose fun expectations for it. Um but I still
Speaker 1: want to do some work. So there were some things
Speaker 1: I knew I needed to tweak and maintain to kind
Speaker 1: of keep the Michigan local stuff looking good. So what
Speaker 1: that entailed this year was getting those two food plots
Speaker 1: uh planted and and kind of maintained properly, which is
Speaker 1: kind of a disaster in some ways. UM. There's one
Speaker 1: plot that was like uh perennial clovers, and I was
Speaker 1: able to kind of get that up and going again.
Speaker 1: But the front food plot UM got taken over by
Speaker 1: weeds while I was gone over the summer, and so
Speaker 1: I had to have some folks come in and help me.
Speaker 1: And it was too wet, like two or three different times,
Speaker 1: UM to get equipment in there to get rid of
Speaker 1: these weeds. And that was the whole thing. But you know,
Speaker 1: it got done. So those food plots are put in. UM.
Speaker 1: There are a handful of tree stands that I've set
Speaker 1: over the years that I've kept up year after year
Speaker 1: because they're kind of an old, faithful locations that are
Speaker 1: are tried and true at least for you know, they're
Speaker 1: gonna work for killing does every year, and you know,
Speaker 1: every once in a while that'll be the right spot
Speaker 1: for a buck. So you know, this summer when I
Speaker 1: got home from Idaho, I went and just checked those
Speaker 1: tree stands, checked the straps, checked um, the ladders, going
Speaker 1: up to them, trimmed everything out, just made sure those
Speaker 1: are all good. So I think there's probably five locations
Speaker 1: like that that I just made sure we're good and
Speaker 1: cleaned up and all that kind of stuff. I installed
Speaker 1: two fakes grape trees and these plots, I mode trails,
Speaker 1: and otherwise it was going to be a saddle game.
Speaker 1: So you know, earlier in this winter and spring, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I always go and do a good full
Speaker 1: run through of everything, walking through everything again and just
Speaker 1: trying to look at the properties um with a new
Speaker 1: set of eyes. Right, I've hunted this place for eleven
Speaker 1: years now, so I know this. I know this general
Speaker 1: region pretty well, but I try to go into it thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, what what am I missing? What have I overlooked?
Speaker 1: Is there anything that's changing? So I did that kind
Speaker 1: of scouting and then just thought through, you know, is
Speaker 1: there anything? Are there any new spots I would want
Speaker 1: to hunt here in my saddle, And so I prepped
Speaker 1: a couple of places in the summer, uh, just going
Speaker 1: in and cutting out a path to these trees and
Speaker 1: clearing a tree and shooting lanes from that tree, so
Speaker 1: that if I want to go in there with my
Speaker 1: sticks and saddle that tree is ready. So there's a
Speaker 1: couple of spots I did that in and that was um,
Speaker 1: you know, that was the extent of physical work on
Speaker 1: these properties. And this all happened in August because I
Speaker 1: was gone all summer, So in August I did all
Speaker 1: that stuff, um And then the only other thing from
Speaker 1: there was was scouting work. So I do two kinds
Speaker 1: of you know, preseason scouting in this area. I do
Speaker 1: some glassing. So I get out there in the summer
Speaker 1: and in September, and there's a couple different places that
Speaker 1: I can get up on hills or get on them
Speaker 1: from a distance and glass and watch some of these
Speaker 1: open fields or these like brushy spots um. And as
Speaker 1: you know, over the years historically there are some places
Speaker 1: I've been able to see deer and get an idea
Speaker 1: of what they're doing from a distance and make a move.
Speaker 1: And then cameras, So I glassed in the summer and
Speaker 1: all the way through September, as many different nights as
Speaker 1: I can get out and do some watching. And then
Speaker 1: I had five trail cameras up this year, no, six
Speaker 1: cameras up. Five of them are cell cams. One of
Speaker 1: them was a regular camera UM put into some some
Speaker 1: kind of right now. They are set in that like
Speaker 1: kind of a spot where I thought, basically, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get early October data, so September through early October
Speaker 1: kind of locations, which means they were on food sources
Speaker 1: and scrapes next to those food sources, UM or mock
Speaker 1: scrapes in the food plots. UM. That was the That
Speaker 1: was the work that I've done leading into the year
Speaker 1: out here. UM, that was the setup I had to
Speaker 1: get some information leading into the season. So once we
Speaker 1: you know, got into September, as you know, UM, I
Speaker 1: like to get all of my preseason work done by
Speaker 1: September and then stay out until opening day. UM. I
Speaker 1: had to do a little bit of food plot stuff
Speaker 1: still in September because of those high water issues I
Speaker 1: was mentioning, but other than that, I was out of
Speaker 1: there and UM just was was glassing and letting the
Speaker 1: cameras silk so that I could get some good intel
Speaker 1: and then you know, in the days leading up to
Speaker 1: the opener make a decision. Yeah, so what were those
Speaker 1: trail cameras telling you, uh, leading up to you know,
Speaker 1: throughout that September time frame, leading up to the opener. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is where kind of the the hunt was
Speaker 1: a big part of the hunt came together because of
Speaker 1: my glassing and cameras this year. Um. Historically, historically in
Speaker 1: early October, there's a lot of activity up on the
Speaker 1: west side of this farm. There's like some really good
Speaker 1: betting up there, and almost always, like if there's a
Speaker 1: good buck or two in the region, they usually bed
Speaker 1: over on the west side and the thick, nasty brushy
Speaker 1: stuff and then they come out and feed in the
Speaker 1: crop fields to the far west or in one of
Speaker 1: these food plots I have. Um, you know, this is
Speaker 1: where holy Field was a lot. This is where that
Speaker 1: buck Frank that I ended up killing a few years
Speaker 1: ago was hanging out. So I kind of no most years, like,
Speaker 1: that's usually where my first night or two or three
Speaker 1: of the season is spent is somewhere on that side.
Speaker 1: That's where I hunted opening night in the first couple
Speaker 1: of nights last year. Um, so that's usually where I
Speaker 1: count on it. And so this year I'm glassing up
Speaker 1: in that section, I'm watching and I'm just not seeing
Speaker 1: the good bucks up there. Um, nothing's showing. And Um,
Speaker 1: the opposite though it was true in the back of
Speaker 1: the property. I had a couple of cameras in this
Speaker 1: back region. There's this narrow, tiny finger of beans, and
Speaker 1: there's the swamp back there, and then one of those
Speaker 1: food plots in this eastern section. And what was unique
Speaker 1: this year that I think maybe had a little bit
Speaker 1: to do with this is that it's a bean yere
Speaker 1: and it was a late planting of beans this year,
Speaker 1: so this is maybe a little bit. You know, you
Speaker 1: mentioned did the crop rotation impact things at all? And
Speaker 1: most years it doesn't, but this year it kind of
Speaker 1: did because the beans were planning really late, and that
Speaker 1: led to me still having green, fully leafed out beans
Speaker 1: on this property all the way until October one. Most
Speaker 1: years they're all dried up, defoliated, and you know, they're
Speaker 1: not a major thing, and that's the case around me,
Speaker 1: like most the other farms around me, UM do have
Speaker 1: fully dried down beans. But this property in particular still
Speaker 1: has a lot of green beans. And so because of that,
Speaker 1: all through September, these bucks were feeding out into these
Speaker 1: bean fields, but they weren't feeding on the west side.
Speaker 1: They were feeding in this little secluded east section um
Speaker 1: and so that's where like all my camera activity was,
Speaker 1: that's where the mature bucks were showing up most consistently.
Speaker 1: Had a camera on the food plot, and then I
Speaker 1: had a couple of cameras on these in this back
Speaker 1: corner of beans, and that's where I was getting pictures
Speaker 1: of JR. That's where I was getting pictures of um
Speaker 1: this buck that I ended up calling just referred to
Speaker 1: as G this big nine pointer. And that's where the
Speaker 1: wide nine was showing up a handful of times. Now
Speaker 1: he he showed up some in the front west. Um
Speaker 1: in the west section a couple of times. But I
Speaker 1: knew as I got into late September, like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be a different year than most. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to be focusing on the west. I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: to take a stab into the back of the property
Speaker 1: because that's where that's where it's happening. Um. So, I
Speaker 1: you know, leading into the season, I started putting together
Speaker 1: um my crazy person files. So I sent some pictures
Speaker 1: to a couple of my buddies of what I was doing.
Speaker 1: This like two nights before opening day, and I was
Speaker 1: sitting in my computer desk at like ten o'clock at
Speaker 1: night and I had a spreadsheet and I had a
Speaker 1: word doc open, and in the spreadsheet I had taken
Speaker 1: every daylight picture I had of Junior from the last
Speaker 1: two years and had listed out like the date, the wind,
Speaker 1: the temperature, all that kind of stuff, and every daylight
Speaker 1: photo in location of where he was. And then on
Speaker 1: my word document I had the notes. I had a
Speaker 1: set of notes, and these notes documented, um, not just
Speaker 1: what Junior had been doing, but also what these other
Speaker 1: bucks the Wide nine had been doing, what h G
Speaker 1: had been doing, both two pictures that I had gotten
Speaker 1: so far in September, but then also what I had
Speaker 1: from last year. So I looked at one what happened
Speaker 1: in the days leading up to opening day. Um, I
Speaker 1: looked at what happened on opening day, and so I
Speaker 1: had like some some very interesting information that showed me
Speaker 1: where these bucks were. And there were two locations that
Speaker 1: these bucks had showed up on last year on opening day.
Speaker 1: And then there was also like the recent intelligence I
Speaker 1: had been getting from these cameras leading up in the
Speaker 1: two weeks leading up to opening day in two so
Speaker 1: all of that information, I'm looking at all these pictures,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this historical data I'm looking at the
Speaker 1: observations that I have not been having in two and
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the observations I made from glassing last year,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to look at, Okay, what's like my
Speaker 1: year over year pattern looked like, and what's like the
Speaker 1: recent stuff that's happening right now telling me? And what
Speaker 1: it told me? Dan was one of two things. Basically
Speaker 1: my number one location seemed to be this little low
Speaker 1: spot in this bean field. Basically this bean field next
Speaker 1: down into a tiny, tiny little finger that's about seventy
Speaker 1: yards wide, and there's a low spot in it. And
Speaker 1: historically I've always ran a camera on a scrape right
Speaker 1: there in this low spot, and it's always a place
Speaker 1: that like deer always passed through. I always get good
Speaker 1: bucks passing through there. It's very secluded, it's way in
Speaker 1: the back of this property. The problem has always been
Speaker 1: that I've never been able to figure out a good
Speaker 1: way to hunt it because there's it's just scraggly, nasty brush.
Speaker 1: There's no good trees, and so I can't get in
Speaker 1: a tree stand or saddle there, and so I've I've
Speaker 1: kind of like dabbled around it, but never hunted right there.
Speaker 1: So this year, I said, well, that's where these bucks
Speaker 1: are coming through the most often. It seems like the
Speaker 1: second best location would be my back food plot. A
Speaker 1: couple of times over the last like ten twelve days
Speaker 1: leading into opening day, some of these bucks have been
Speaker 1: showing up there, passing through that plot and heading to
Speaker 1: the beans. So leading into opening day, I had looked
Speaker 1: at all these things and I said, Okay, my number
Speaker 1: one place that I really think I need to be
Speaker 1: is in that low spot in the pinch, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to do something different this year. I came into
Speaker 1: the year saying, you know what, I've hunted that front
Speaker 1: food plot, of hunted that front western area a lot
Speaker 1: in the past, and you know, most seasons I don't
Speaker 1: kill one up there. Um. Early on, when I first
Speaker 1: started hunting this property back in like two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve, I did hunt the back food plot
Speaker 1: quite a bit because I thought that would be deadly um,
Speaker 1: and never killed a buck there on opening night in
Speaker 1: Rolla's first couple of days. So I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: this year, I'm gonna change it up. You know, if
Speaker 1: it hasn't worked in the past, why I keep doing
Speaker 1: the same thing over and over again. Let's do something different.
Speaker 1: Let's figure out some way to hunt that little low spot.
Speaker 1: And that's gonna mean you're gonna hunt the ground. So
Speaker 1: I decided I was going to pull out a gilly
Speaker 1: suit and I was going to sneak in there, and
Speaker 1: I was going to carve out a little opening in
Speaker 1: this thick, brushy fence row, and I was gonna lay
Speaker 1: on the ground in my gilly suit and try to
Speaker 1: kill one of these bucks have been passing this low
Speaker 1: place from the ground. So that was my game plan
Speaker 1: going in the opening down. So there's was Was there
Speaker 1: a lack of tree options back there? Yeah, there's just
Speaker 1: there's no trees you can get into it. It's just
Speaker 1: like it's like buckthorne and multi flora rose. It's like
Speaker 1: it's a brushy fence row, um, and there are a few, um,
Speaker 1: there are a few trees you could hunt, but they
Speaker 1: wouldn't put you in the right place. You'd have to
Speaker 1: be like fifty sixty yards down on either side. Right.
Speaker 1: So I can I can remember when you were hunting
Speaker 1: for Frank right the op, like just his movement you
Speaker 1: had identified and then you thought too uh, you know, Hey,
Speaker 1: the best thing to do at this point is is
Speaker 1: getting a ground blind. Get the ground blind up, get it,
Speaker 1: you know, in this area, and sure enough you shot
Speaker 1: him out of you shot him out of the ground blind, right,
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, Frank, Yeah, out, Frank, I have
Speaker 1: a Frank, I have a ground blend. A different different
Speaker 1: this he was that that was like the west side
Speaker 1: of the property. But yes, I'm just talking about the
Speaker 1: deer strategy portion of it, right, Like you've identified some
Speaker 1: the movement and you you adjusted based off of what
Speaker 1: this deer. You know, what these deer were doing, So
Speaker 1: no no tree options in this little low spot. Kind
Speaker 1: of taking a step back though, were you getting all
Speaker 1: of these what you would consider shooters on the same
Speaker 1: trail camera in this low spot? So they were kind
Speaker 1: of shifted throughout the month of September. So I was
Speaker 1: getting pictures of my number one, actually several of the bucks,
Speaker 1: but definitely Junior a lot um in a in an
Speaker 1: area that was coming out to these beans, but in
Speaker 1: a basically from the south part of this property. There's
Speaker 1: a swamp and he kept popping out of this swamp
Speaker 1: and I would get these pictures and this this kind
Speaker 1: of southwestern corner, and so in like late August and
Speaker 1: early September, he starts showing up here a lot. I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to go hunt that part of the spot.
Speaker 1: You're that part of this property. And then as the
Speaker 1: month progressed, I got less and less activity there and
Speaker 1: more and more activity farther to the north, but still
Speaker 1: in the back. So the most pictures that I was getting,
Speaker 1: we're in this low spot and on the back food plot,
Speaker 1: with a few other of these swamp pictures still popping
Speaker 1: up here and there. But but my best camera Dada
Speaker 1: was telling me this low spot or the back food plot,
Speaker 1: which told me that these bucks were betting in one
Speaker 1: of three locations basically for for that to be where
Speaker 1: they're heading out into the evening, they're either betting sometimes
Speaker 1: in the southern swamp. They could be betted in the
Speaker 1: far eastern backside of this property that kind of is
Speaker 1: like a high ridge along the back of the swamp,
Speaker 1: and then there's some grassy stuff on the neighbor's or
Speaker 1: these bucks could be betted in the northern location, where
Speaker 1: you know historically has been the best betting. And basically
Speaker 1: this low spot and the food plot are like the
Speaker 1: central food that those three betting areas surround, and you
Speaker 1: know those are the options. And going into the hunt,
Speaker 1: I have to I have basically trying to make a
Speaker 1: best guess on where are these dear bedded tonight? In
Speaker 1: what direction they're gonna come to the food Like I
Speaker 1: felt very confident they were coming to these two food sources.
Speaker 1: You know, they would come to some part of that.
Speaker 1: They're gonna either pop into the finger of beans from
Speaker 1: the south or and they're pop into the finger of
Speaker 1: the beans from the east, or they're gonna pop into
Speaker 1: the food plot from the north and transition into the beans.
Speaker 1: But based on you know, a month's worth of trial
Speaker 1: camera information, um, they were doing that on a fairly
Speaker 1: regular basis, and historically like last year, Um, they were
Speaker 1: coming through the same area. I had the wide nine
Speaker 1: and I had Junior hit my northern food plot on
Speaker 1: October one and then transition into the corn in the
Speaker 1: low spot. So so I knew this was a thing
Speaker 1: like they've been doing year after year, they're doing it
Speaker 1: again this year or I just don't know what they're
Speaker 1: gonna do in this particular night. Yeah, So why so
Speaker 1: why a guilly shoot and not a ground blind. Well, basically,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to pop up some big, new obtrusive
Speaker 1: thing that would make you know, that'd be noticed by dear.
Speaker 1: The biggest thing would be getting past the does, Like
Speaker 1: this is a high deer density area, and so the
Speaker 1: biggest challenge most of the time is just not getting
Speaker 1: does to booger out for one reason or another, whether
Speaker 1: that be seeing you in a blind or winding you. Um.
Speaker 1: So that was why the guilli suit seemed like the
Speaker 1: way to do this kind of impromptu ground hunt. I
Speaker 1: could get in the grass and brush, I could get low,
Speaker 1: I could conceal myself as best as possible. And you know,
Speaker 1: last year I did a lot of ground hunting and
Speaker 1: all these different states on hunt, all these different places.
Speaker 1: So I have become become more confident in, you know,
Speaker 1: my ability to be able to pull off that kind
Speaker 1: of hunt. So, and the reason I'm asking this line
Speaker 1: of questioning is because I wanted to kind of identify
Speaker 1: the time frame you got this data, You made this decision,
Speaker 1: and you instantly reacted to it. Right, It's not like
Speaker 1: you you had this idea in early September or this summer.
Speaker 1: What these deer were doing right, You set the trail
Speaker 1: cameras up, then you got the data. Then you decided
Speaker 1: to make the move in there, and you felt it
Speaker 1: was too late to put a ground blind in there
Speaker 1: because they wouldn't they wouldn't uh get used to it
Speaker 1: in time. Exactly, okay, exactly, all right? Cool, cool, alright?
Speaker 1: So um, you know you have this, you have this
Speaker 1: idea in your head. What kind of conditions did you
Speaker 1: feel that you needed to get in there and make
Speaker 1: this happen. So this is where things get a little
Speaker 1: bit interesting, dam because I I need a You know,
Speaker 1: I love good weather, like I would love a cold front,
Speaker 1: I would love cool temperatures. I love like all these
Speaker 1: different little things that line up to typically good activity.
Speaker 1: But I don't I don't um when it comes to
Speaker 1: the first couple of nights of this season in Michigan,
Speaker 1: I don't care what the weather is. I'm gonna hunt
Speaker 1: and take a stab no matter what, because I just
Speaker 1: year in and year out, almost always have a good
Speaker 1: opportunity the first day or two of the year, regardless
Speaker 1: of weather, because these deer just there, it's just this
Speaker 1: little window before they really get hammered by everybody. Else
Speaker 1: that they're still being slightly dumb. They're still doing their
Speaker 1: daylight stuff just a little bit. So you know, regardless
Speaker 1: of weather, I'm going, I just need the right wind
Speaker 1: to hunt the right spot. That was the big thing.
Speaker 1: So in this case, opening day weather looked pretty good.
Speaker 1: It was like right around average high temperatures a couple
Speaker 1: of degrees below average, no big cold front or anything,
Speaker 1: but solid weather, not crazy hot, and high pressure which
Speaker 1: high bear metric pressure, which some people I don't know
Speaker 1: if I believe it or not, but I don't mind
Speaker 1: how high barre metric pressure days. They seem to be
Speaker 1: pretty good days usually. So like all those things lined up, Um,
Speaker 1: if you're a moon guy, which I'm not necessarily a
Speaker 1: moon guy either, but I you know, I kind of
Speaker 1: just keep tabs just because I'm curious. It was a
Speaker 1: red moon evening, so people that believe in the red
Speaker 1: moon would tell you that's a really good time to
Speaker 1: be hunting. Um, So those things all looked like, hey,
Speaker 1: this could be its certainly not bad weather. Um. The
Speaker 1: trick would be the wind. Would I have a wind
Speaker 1: direction that would let me hunt the place that seemed
Speaker 1: to be the best place. And I felt pretty excited
Speaker 1: when I looked at the extended forecast leading into opening
Speaker 1: day because I was actually getting easterly winds. And easterly
Speaker 1: winds don't happen very often ever, but they are really
Speaker 1: good for this farm because most of the bedding is
Speaker 1: always happening to the east on this particular in this
Speaker 1: particular region. Um, So whenever I get those east winds,
Speaker 1: I can be way more rest of than I usually am,
Speaker 1: actually because I can get to places I usually can't.
Speaker 1: So we're supposed to have predicted northeast wind for opening night,
Speaker 1: and I think, okay, this low spot for me to
Speaker 1: get to this place I want to hunt the ground.
Speaker 1: Northeast wind actually would work just about perfect because it
Speaker 1: would be a just off wind. It would be blowing
Speaker 1: just down and across from where this swamp is that
Speaker 1: Junior has been coming out of a lot, and then
Speaker 1: it'd be blowing away from the northern bedding where g
Speaker 1: might be bedded or where the Wide nine might be betted.
Speaker 1: So basically it's going to be in a position where
Speaker 1: if Junior is in that swamp like he had been
Speaker 1: quite a bit this summer in September, he's gonna have
Speaker 1: the wind kind of in his favor, right, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be the situation where he'll think he could come out
Speaker 1: into the beans and have a good sense of what's
Speaker 1: going on, but my wind is blowing just off and
Speaker 1: down the other way, just past the swamp. So that
Speaker 1: was what things look like coming into opening morning. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to hunt the morning because basically this is
Speaker 1: like open bean field kind of hunt situation. I don't
Speaker 1: have a way to get in there without blowing out
Speaker 1: deer in the morning. So this was an evening hunt plan.
Speaker 1: The morning comes along, I look at the wind direction
Speaker 1: prediction and it's changing dan and it's changing to north northeast.
Speaker 1: So now it's midday and I'm looking at north northeast.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, northeast would have been just off, but
Speaker 1: you get that like north northeast. In my head, I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: that's probably gonna end up being like you know, some
Speaker 1: gusts are straight north, some gusts are east, some gusts
Speaker 1: are straight north. And if I get that straight north,
Speaker 1: that's gonna be blowing right across the bean field low
Speaker 1: spot where I think these deer might feed, and right
Speaker 1: into that swamp where I think Junior is likely bedded
Speaker 1: and maybe some of these other deers sometimes and in
Speaker 1: my head, I'm like, gosh, like I felt so confident
Speaker 1: in this location, like this is gonna be the hunt,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be the set up. But if that
Speaker 1: winds like that, like, I don't know how that could
Speaker 1: possibly work? Did uh? Did the Mark Kenyan paralysis by
Speaker 1: analysis set in at any point? Can you you've ever
Speaker 1: seen um in the In the Hangover, there's that scene
Speaker 1: where Zach Galfanakis is like rain manning on the craft's table.
Speaker 1: Do you know that part where you're like seeing like
Speaker 1: all like the different figures and things going in his head.
Speaker 1: That was me during the day on October one, as
Speaker 1: I'm thinking through like oh god, what am I gonna
Speaker 1: be started yet? And you're just like racking your brain
Speaker 1: to try to find the best the best spot. Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly like I had. I had felt so confident, like
Speaker 1: the night before, I had like made my decision like
Speaker 1: this is how I'm gonna do. What I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: the ground, It's gonna be a little risky, but I
Speaker 1: can pull it off. I'm gonna be in this place.
Speaker 1: And now the wind shift just a little bit, and
Speaker 1: now I'm having to reconsider, and so it's like two o'clock,
Speaker 1: it's three o'clock, and I'm like, all right, I gotta
Speaker 1: make I gotta figure this thing out. And what I
Speaker 1: ended up deciding to do dan is I decided I
Speaker 1: was going to go to the low spot, and I
Speaker 1: was gonna bring everything I needed to hunt on the ground.
Speaker 1: I was gonna bring a little hand saw to cut
Speaker 1: out some stuff. I was gonna bring my gilly suit,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna bring a whole hell of a
Speaker 1: lot of milkweed, and I was gonna get to that
Speaker 1: location and I was gonna just start loft and milkweed
Speaker 1: and hang out there for a little bit and see
Speaker 1: what the wind was actually doing in this spot. See
Speaker 1: how I was looking, There's this low spot, like a
Speaker 1: mentioned and then there's a hill that comes up to
Speaker 1: the side of me, like not a big hill, but
Speaker 1: a hill in the in the field. And I thought,
Speaker 1: if I get just enough to easterly push on this
Speaker 1: north or east excuse me, north northeast, my wind might
Speaker 1: hit that hill and funnel along the side of it
Speaker 1: instead of going into the swamp. So I thought maybe
Speaker 1: I could get away with this, but I gotta see
Speaker 1: in person. So I brought my stuff to hunt on
Speaker 1: the ground, but I also brought my climbing sticks and
Speaker 1: my saddle and platform, so that if I couldn't make
Speaker 1: the low spot work, I could pivot and pick a
Speaker 1: new location to hunt from a tree that the wind
Speaker 1: would work. So I brought in two full sets of
Speaker 1: gear for two different kinds of hunts, and I was
Speaker 1: going to make an infield decision based on what the
Speaker 1: wind was doing in that exact location. So I sneak
Speaker 1: out there, I get to the low spot, I start
Speaker 1: throwing milkweed, and it's just it just was not looking good.
Speaker 1: And I wanted it to work so bad, and I
Speaker 1: was so confident in this plan, and I would stop
Speaker 1: and I throw milkweed, and I sit and watched, and
Speaker 1: I think, and I racked my brain. And then I
Speaker 1: walked twenty yards and I check again, and I throw
Speaker 1: it and think, and I waked another ten yards, and
Speaker 1: I sat and thought and that and thought, and I
Speaker 1: ended up just trying to envision, like, Okay, what scenario
Speaker 1: would this work in? Okay, so what if the wind
Speaker 1: is pushing like this? So I just the way the
Speaker 1: wind was pushing the southerly portion of this swamp and
Speaker 1: stuff like. It just seems like I'm gonna be blowing
Speaker 1: right to where these deer are probably popping out where
Speaker 1: they historically have popped out. I don't think I could
Speaker 1: pull that off. Okay, well, what if they come from
Speaker 1: the east. What if the bucks are actually bettered to
Speaker 1: the east. What if they come that way, Well, gosh,
Speaker 1: by the time they get into a spot you could
Speaker 1: actually shoot there, basically going to be downwind of you
Speaker 1: now too. And then I thought, okay, well what if
Speaker 1: they come from the north. Well, if they come from
Speaker 1: the north, if I'm hunting this place, I won't be
Speaker 1: able to see them at all until they're downwinded me
Speaker 1: again too. So I just couldn't envision a scenario where
Speaker 1: the thing I really wanted to do would work. So
Speaker 1: at like three thirty four o'clock, I decided, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm gonna have to hunt my Plan B location,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have to sacrifice something because if I
Speaker 1: were to move further back, the next best option I
Speaker 1: had is that I had to hope for bucks to
Speaker 1: be bettered to the north, and that maybe these deer
Speaker 1: that had been coming out and transitioning through the food
Speaker 1: plot to the beans. They that would be perfect for
Speaker 1: this win direction. I thought, I could kill one of
Speaker 1: those deer. And if I want to kill one of
Speaker 1: those deer, though, I have to get down there by
Speaker 1: that back food plot where they transition through. That's gonna
Speaker 1: mean sacrifice in the swamp though. Yeah. And so I
Speaker 1: sat there and I thought to myself, Okay, I've got
Speaker 1: two options. I can pull out of here completely and
Speaker 1: just go back to the front of the farm where
Speaker 1: I've been glassing a lot, and I've not seen any
Speaker 1: of the shooter bucks up there. But I could go
Speaker 1: up there and just sit and maybe get lucky, like
Speaker 1: maybe something will come through for the very first time,
Speaker 1: or you know, maybe I'll be all observed something um
Speaker 1: And that'd be the safest thing. I wouldn't blow anything up,
Speaker 1: would be perfectly safe when to be easy, peasy, nothing wrong.
Speaker 1: I've done that many other years in the past. That
Speaker 1: was one option. Or the other options be aggressive, get
Speaker 1: to the back of this back food plot section where
Speaker 1: they were sometimes transitioning through, hope that these bucks are
Speaker 1: better than the north and sacrifice the swamp, which is
Speaker 1: where Junior had been the most. And that is a
Speaker 1: tough call, Like I really was unsure, like basically, my
Speaker 1: number one buck, I am gonna be blowing my wind
Speaker 1: right into a place where my number one buck has
Speaker 1: been bettered a lot, and basically saying, well, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get a crack at this deer tonight
Speaker 1: probably if he if he is better there, like it
Speaker 1: seems like he beds a lot. But I thought, in
Speaker 1: the end, I'm thinking through what usually happens in this area,
Speaker 1: and what usually happens is you get a night or
Speaker 1: two where there's this early first sit magic, and if
Speaker 1: you don't take advantage of that first day or two,
Speaker 1: they're gone for weeks like they're around, but they're nocturnal,
Speaker 1: and then it might not be untill laid October until
Speaker 1: you have another chance. And so my mindset, basically, you know,
Speaker 1: I decided I'd be happy shooting any one of these
Speaker 1: three deer. I think there's still an opportunity for that
Speaker 1: first sit magic, but it's not happening from the south.
Speaker 1: There's no way I can pull off a hunt for
Speaker 1: a deer come of from the south. But I can.
Speaker 1: There's no way to get behind him, right. There's there's
Speaker 1: just there's there's no there's no way to get to
Speaker 1: where these deer are gonna be coming out to feed
Speaker 1: and get in between them there without this wind completely
Speaker 1: blowing it out. But I could get a crack at
Speaker 1: these deer if there's deer to the north. So that'st
Speaker 1: the decision I made. I decided to sacrifice the south,
Speaker 1: sacrifice the swamp in order to have a really good
Speaker 1: chance still for dear to the north, because I believe
Speaker 1: that there could be this buck g there could be
Speaker 1: this buck the y nine that could be up there,
Speaker 1: and this is set up very well for that. So
Speaker 1: that's what I did. I moved this is like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know, eighty ninety yards down to this back section.
Speaker 1: I had a tree prepped on the edge of this
Speaker 1: food plot that I had planted there. So I've got
Speaker 1: the beanfield finger to the south of me. I've got
Speaker 1: this little food plot to the north of me, and
Speaker 1: very good bedding to the north, the swamps to the
Speaker 1: south of me. I'm blowing right to the swamp, so
Speaker 1: like a little part of my soul is dying because
Speaker 1: I'm blowing my wind into the swamp, and I just
Speaker 1: know a bunch of deer are smelling me, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm willing to make that sacrifice and that risk because
Speaker 1: I know, like I've got a chance for kill tonight
Speaker 1: from somewhere else. And I also knew that I could
Speaker 1: pull out and return in three weeks, and I still
Speaker 1: felt confident I could be back in the game in
Speaker 1: three weeks. But I'm I'm making a ruckus right now.
Speaker 1: And I get up in the stream the edge of
Speaker 1: the food plot, and um, you know, going back and
Speaker 1: forth in my mind like this is a stupid did
Speaker 1: you just blow up your whole place for the first
Speaker 1: night and you're not gonna see anything? And then some
Speaker 1: doughs start coming out into those beans and they come
Speaker 1: out from the side that should be safe, and they booger,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, what's weird? Is my wind swirling
Speaker 1: or something like that? Should not be happening. And then
Speaker 1: like a half hour later, another dough and two fonts
Speaker 1: comes out in the beans to the southeast of me.
Speaker 1: Again should be very safe, and they bogger out of there,
Speaker 1: and the night's progressing, and like, good Lord, like I
Speaker 1: took this risk, your um milk weed isn't like going
Speaker 1: back and getting sucked back in by I don't know.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I've noticed that if if I'm if I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in the sun, then and I'm maybe in a
Speaker 1: not necessarily the highest spot, but not necessarily the lowest
Speaker 1: spot the and you know, as the evening starts to
Speaker 1: get cooler, the predominant wind will blow in one direction,
Speaker 1: but the thermals will suck down into a low spot
Speaker 1: and then potentially, you know, get sucked back into the
Speaker 1: terrain and go back into the timber or something. Did
Speaker 1: you feel like any of that was going on? So
Speaker 1: there there had to be something funky like that going on,
Speaker 1: but I could never get it to show with the
Speaker 1: milk weed consistently. But I'm in like this thick fence
Speaker 1: row with a lot of big trees and a lot
Speaker 1: of leaves on, and so I think it was it
Speaker 1: was a strong wind night. So the best I could
Speaker 1: figure is that the wind was blowing through this fence row,
Speaker 1: through these trees, and it was kind of swirling when
Speaker 1: it hits this tree line. Maybe in some way something
Speaker 1: was going on. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't happening all the time, and I couldn't
Speaker 1: get the milk weed to show me consistently, but something
Speaker 1: was getting my wind to push not it was supposed
Speaker 1: to be going northeast, but it seemed to be pushing
Speaker 1: northwest occasionally too, because these doughs coming to that side
Speaker 1: of me were blowing and busting out there. So we're
Speaker 1: down to the last hour and a half a daylight,
Speaker 1: and I've had this happen a couple of times at
Speaker 1: the doughs, and in my head, I'm just thinking, jeez,
Speaker 1: you really, you really did a great job here tonight.
Speaker 1: You blew out the whole swamp and now the other
Speaker 1: deer are winding you. Um, this is uh just a
Speaker 1: classic Mark Kenyan f up and seasons often classic and uh,
Speaker 1: And I just kept thinking, man, you just you gotta
Speaker 1: believe that these bucks are to the north, like you know,
Speaker 1: they've done it in the past. You know, you've had
Speaker 1: some pictures of them coming from the north. It's possible.
Speaker 1: And that's rock solid from the wind. So just as
Speaker 1: long as a dough doesn't blow right as these bucks
Speaker 1: pop out, if they do, you know you still have
Speaker 1: a chance. You still have a chance, and um. You know,
Speaker 1: most years you make it, You make these series of decisions,
Speaker 1: you take a risk like this, and nine point nine
Speaker 1: times that a tenant does not pan out right most
Speaker 1: of the time, it doesn't most of the time. You know,
Speaker 1: you take the risk, you screw some stuff up, and
Speaker 1: you live to hunt another day, and you learn something
Speaker 1: from it, and you keep trying. Um. Last year, I
Speaker 1: did a lot of these kinds of things and they
Speaker 1: didn't pan out. And I just kept saying to myself, man,
Speaker 1: you keep doing these things. You keep doing most of
Speaker 1: the stuff right. You know. Ever, once in a while
Speaker 1: the cars will fall in your favor. Ever, once in
Speaker 1: a while that risk you take will pan out. You
Speaker 1: just gotta let fate get give enough time and then
Speaker 1: fate will fall right way and um and so. On
Speaker 1: this particular night, a lot of stuff had gone wrong,
Speaker 1: a lot of things have changed, but I made a
Speaker 1: few decisions. I took a couple of risks, and tonight
Speaker 1: it was lucky enough that it did pan out in
Speaker 1: my favor, because with an hour before dark, I see
Speaker 1: a buck pop out from the north, steps out in
Speaker 1: this food lot, walks right to my little fake scrape tree,
Speaker 1: and I right away, see like nice time length and
Speaker 1: pulled the buyos and I look at him like, oh man,
Speaker 1: he's a nice three year old. It's a nice buck. Um.
Speaker 1: He starts working that scrape and doing his thing, and
Speaker 1: I filmed in with my phone. I'm watching him. I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 1: well there's one. There's usually more at this time of
Speaker 1: the year, there's these bucks are usually still hanging out
Speaker 1: in groups for a little bit longer here. And as
Speaker 1: I'm filming that buck, I see another dear step out
Speaker 1: behind him and come walking towards and throwout the buyos.
Speaker 1: Look at him, and right away you can just see
Speaker 1: this is like a different kind of animal, like double
Speaker 1: the body size, you know, antlers just like clubs compared
Speaker 1: to the spinley three year old. And just knew right away, well,
Speaker 1: that's that's the nine. That's that's this buck. I was
Speaker 1: calling g this eight pointer that I'd seen a bunch
Speaker 1: last year, had been passing him last year. At the
Speaker 1: end of the year last year, I was like, gosh,
Speaker 1: she's you know, after I had a tough season last year.
Speaker 1: I almost I was on the fence, but maybe trying
Speaker 1: to take a crack at him. At the end of
Speaker 1: last year, um, because he was the only other good
Speaker 1: buck that was still showing with Junior last year. But
Speaker 1: now he's back this year and he's a big, big bodied,
Speaker 1: solid nine point buck. And he was one of those
Speaker 1: three deer that I said, if I saw him, I'm
Speaker 1: taking a crack. So he pops out, he walks to
Speaker 1: the mox grape, but he's behind branches and stuff. I
Speaker 1: can't get a shot at him. But I'm like, holy crap,
Speaker 1: this is actually happening. I'm actually seeing one of these
Speaker 1: shooter bucks. Came out to the food plot and very
Speaker 1: happy and excited at the moment, and then the little buck,
Speaker 1: the three year old, turns and starts walking right to me.
Speaker 1: And this is not what these deer usually do. Usually
Speaker 1: they transition either, you know, working about yeah, basically they
Speaker 1: usually work away either side of me. And you know,
Speaker 1: all the doughs that night that had popped out on
Speaker 1: the food plot had worked through about thirty yards and
Speaker 1: crossed the fence row and went into the bean field
Speaker 1: to the south. Sometimes they do this to the other
Speaker 1: side of me. But this buck instead comes on a trail,
Speaker 1: not trailing a b line, right to me and walking
Speaker 1: through cover like I've got like a bunch of basically
Speaker 1: had two shooting lanes to this food plot, and he
Speaker 1: chose to come walking through the thick cover right in
Speaker 1: between the two shooting lanes and is walking right at me.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, my gosh, this buck is gonna come
Speaker 1: right to the base of my tree. He's gonna smell something,
Speaker 1: he's gonna wig out and spook out, and I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna get a shot. The big one behind him, and
Speaker 1: sure enough, I'm holding my belt and watching this happen
Speaker 1: and thinking to myself, there's just nothing I can do
Speaker 1: right now. This buck walks right to the bottom of
Speaker 1: my tree, and something's not quite right, and he he
Speaker 1: doesn't blow, but he bounces back to the plot. He
Speaker 1: takes like two big leaps back to the edge of
Speaker 1: the plot and stops. Meanwhile, gee, the big one stops
Speaker 1: right in the edge of the plot and just starts
Speaker 1: looking around, like what's going on? What's going on? And
Speaker 1: fortunately they did they knew. The young one knew something
Speaker 1: was up, but didn't really know what it was because
Speaker 1: he went back to feeding. He starts feeding again, and
Speaker 1: the big one just stands there for like five minutes,
Speaker 1: doesn't move for five I'm standing there, hold in my bow.
Speaker 1: He's staying there, just kind of looking around. But again,
Speaker 1: he's behind all this cover in between my two shooting lanes.
Speaker 1: I can see him and remember thinking like I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there and I'm watching him forever, and I'm thinking, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, I've got the shooter within range. He's at
Speaker 1: twenty yards, but I can't shoot him. I remember thinking,
Speaker 1: is there any hole in this cover? Can I find
Speaker 1: a little openings or somewhere I could squeeze one in there?
Speaker 1: And then I just thought, dude, you do not You're
Speaker 1: not gonna do this again. You're not going to force
Speaker 1: a shot like you did on Tran two years ago.
Speaker 1: You're not going to rush a shot like you did
Speaker 1: last year trying to get this other big eight point
Speaker 1: in Iowa that you really wanted. Like, you're not going
Speaker 1: to make all these mistakes. You're gonna wait until it's right.
Speaker 1: You're gonna slow, You're gonna follow your process, and if
Speaker 1: it works, you're gonna make it work right. If it's not,
Speaker 1: you're just not gonna You're not gonna do it. You
Speaker 1: can't get an arrow back because I just kept on
Speaker 1: trying to tell myself to just just wait it out,
Speaker 1: do it right. Waited out, do it right. And finally
Speaker 1: he turns and starts slowly fee eating back towards the
Speaker 1: shooting lane. He gets right to the last set of
Speaker 1: branch that I need him to clear, and he's slowly
Speaker 1: taking a step, taking a step. I draw back because
Speaker 1: he's just about to step out from how the branches,
Speaker 1: and then he stops again. I'm at full draw. And
Speaker 1: this is like exactly what happened to me last year
Speaker 1: on a dough. I got stuck at full draw for
Speaker 1: like two minutes and got all shaky and ended up
Speaker 1: hitting that dear a little low. So now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about that again, like gosh that this can't happen again,
Speaker 1: Like should I draw down? Um? Can I stay a
Speaker 1: full draw? Unfortunately, as I'm thinking through like should I
Speaker 1: draw down or should I not, he takes one more step.
Speaker 1: And this is where the next big thing happens, which
Speaker 1: is can I accomplish my goal of of good shooting,
Speaker 1: of like sticking to this new shooting process I have
Speaker 1: and doing it the right way? And and basically, um,
Speaker 1: I have this like set of like like um words,
Speaker 1: like phrases, that I say to myself every single time
Speaker 1: I shoot, to keep myself in control into like follow
Speaker 1: each step of the process to make sure I don't
Speaker 1: rush and punch punch a trigar Russia shop. So as
Speaker 1: I draw the bow back, because I'm like mid draw,
Speaker 1: I say, no matter what, I'm gonna do this right,
Speaker 1: I get locked in. And then the next thing I
Speaker 1: say is I say, addressed the target. So when I
Speaker 1: say addressed the target, that means that pin goes right
Speaker 1: there behind the shoulder. And the next thing that happens
Speaker 1: I said, address the trigger, which means now I can
Speaker 1: put my finger on the trigger and lock in. And
Speaker 1: then I say, here we go. And then that's when
Speaker 1: I can start pulling through. And I we'll give myself
Speaker 1: a b on how I did with this shop. Because
Speaker 1: I got through step one, I said, no matter what,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this right when I got drawn back,
Speaker 1: and I'm focusing on just staying in the moment, focus,
Speaker 1: take a slow. When he stepped out from behind the branches,
Speaker 1: I said to myself in my headset, addressed the target.
Speaker 1: I saw that pin go on there behind the shoulder.
Speaker 1: In the previous world of me, as soon as that
Speaker 1: pin hits the deer, it's usually gone. The arrows on
Speaker 1: the way right then, but I was able to not
Speaker 1: do that. I got that pin behind the shoulder and
Speaker 1: I was able to then address the trigger. I got
Speaker 1: my finger on the trigger. But then before I said
Speaker 1: here we go, in my mind, I was pulling through.
Speaker 1: So I did the right process. I pulled through. I
Speaker 1: didn't use my finger at all. I pulled through. I
Speaker 1: went through the slow process all the way. But I
Speaker 1: did not say here we go. So in my you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't do it perfectly. I'm a working progress still there.
Speaker 1: But I did pretty good with it. I made progress.
Speaker 1: It definitely forced me a slowdown more than I had
Speaker 1: done in the past, and all that led to the
Speaker 1: arrow getting right behind the shoulder. Double long shot. I
Speaker 1: watched that buck kick and run out of there like
Speaker 1: a bad out of hell, and I knew that was
Speaker 1: a dead buck. I knew I had just center punched
Speaker 1: a four and a half real Michigan deer after a
Speaker 1: really tough year last year. Um, and it felt absolutely
Speaker 1: incredible and I was really, really really thrilled. That's awesome, man.
Speaker 1: Uh So that uh that shot process, right, you've been
Speaker 1: practicing and working on it. You called it a b
Speaker 1: but I I would look at it more binary than that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's what you did is way
Speaker 1: more than what most people do, and way more I mean,
Speaker 1: for me, way more than what I do. You know,
Speaker 1: I still almost I don't want to say I live
Speaker 1: by it. I I slowed myself down a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's better than grip it and rip it, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So that that that's a win, dude, Yeah, definitely,
Speaker 1: I mean it was it was improvement. It was improvement,
Speaker 1: and so I'm glad for that. And it was a good,
Speaker 1: really good shot, and it was an improvement, and it
Speaker 1: was a thing that I had not done yet, right,
Speaker 1: I hadn't shot a deer before with that new process,
Speaker 1: and so it felt good too. I felt good to
Speaker 1: do it. And and now I'm I'm gonna go on
Speaker 1: dough patrol and just keep fine tuning and keep working
Speaker 1: until I get all the way through, you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand percent in control. Um. But I've been working really hard.
Speaker 1: I mean I went and met with his coach in April,
Speaker 1: spent a day with him, and then since April, I've
Speaker 1: been doing this, you know, as close to every day
Speaker 1: as I possibly can. Um. I mean I've been shooting
Speaker 1: a ton just trying to make this like second nature.
Speaker 1: So um, to see that come together pretty darn close
Speaker 1: was was encouraging. Yeah, awesome, awesome, congratulations Mark, So thank you.
Speaker 1: The arrow goes through him. Did you know it was
Speaker 1: a pass through right away? Yeah? I knew as it
Speaker 1: passed through. How far it was? The shot now yards yards? Okay,
Speaker 1: passed through. Did you see immediate blood? Uh? You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I saw immediate blood. I remember,
Speaker 1: I guess what I do. What I remember seeing is
Speaker 1: when he turned, when he spun to run back the
Speaker 1: way he came. I remember seeing something coming out the backside,
Speaker 1: and I remember wondering my head, was that the arrow
Speaker 1: still stuck in there? Or was that blood shooting out
Speaker 1: the backside? Because I could have swore it was a
Speaker 1: pastor because it had to be a pass through where
Speaker 1: it hit. But I remember like seeing something shooting out
Speaker 1: the backside, and it must have been blood because it
Speaker 1: was a pastor right where I hit him, So that
Speaker 1: must have been blood I was seeing coming out the
Speaker 1: back But um, you know, I waited like a half
Speaker 1: hour in the tree, made some phone calls, sent some texts, Uh,
Speaker 1: celebrate a little bit, and then got down checked the
Speaker 1: arrow saw that yes, it was a pass through right
Speaker 1: where I thought looked the good blood. And then I
Speaker 1: backed out and went back to my house and was
Speaker 1: going to wait for some buddies to come out, but
Speaker 1: also my family, My boys wanted to come along for
Speaker 1: the track job, so I was gonna wait for them
Speaker 1: to come home from a Halloween camp out. And uh,
Speaker 1: and yeah, so do you want me to make a
Speaker 1: I can make the quick final final? Uh, here's what
Speaker 1: I here's what I. I have another question here? When
Speaker 1: it so that all right? So when it so at
Speaker 1: this point you still I mean, you shot this buck.
Speaker 1: But in the back of your head, Michigan is a
Speaker 1: two buck state, right, so you have the possibility of
Speaker 1: I don't running into another one of these deer. Did
Speaker 1: I know your boys wanted to come out, you wanted
Speaker 1: to have the whole crew come out and and do
Speaker 1: the recovery. But did any part of you go, Hey,
Speaker 1: if I can get this deer out of here quietly
Speaker 1: and low like, as low pressure as possible, then I
Speaker 1: might be able to get right back in here. And
Speaker 1: and hunt another one of these deer that's still on
Speaker 1: one of the on the same pattern. Good question. Um,
Speaker 1: but I have like a self impose one buck rule
Speaker 1: in this area, got you, So my thought is, you know,
Speaker 1: you get one, you leave the rest alone, so you've
Speaker 1: got something fun to hunt next year. So as soon
Speaker 1: as I shot that deer, the first thing I thought
Speaker 1: was man and juniors get a free pass. Um. So
Speaker 1: I'm not going to shoot one of those other deer
Speaker 1: the rest of the year. I'm gonna hunt out here
Speaker 1: for dose and do that. Um. But the bucks will
Speaker 1: have a really nice little sanctuary. Um. And then next year,
Speaker 1: you know, hopefully we'll get to uh see these deer.
Speaker 1: Hopefully these deal will make it and we'll get to
Speaker 1: chase one of them then. But uh but no, I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna I wasn't gonna worry about that. I wanted
Speaker 1: to fully celebrate and enjoy and just just have fun,
Speaker 1: like I just leading into the season I had. Even
Speaker 1: though I even though I joked about, you know, going
Speaker 1: rain Man style and trying to figure out what to
Speaker 1: do and YadA, YadA, YadA, I had way lower levels
Speaker 1: of stress and worry and analysis by paralysis. This year
Speaker 1: than I've had in a long time, because I just
Speaker 1: I don't want to stay. I didn't care, but I
Speaker 1: wasn't I wasn't like living and dying and whether I
Speaker 1: was gonna kill Junior or one of these deers, Like, man,
Speaker 1: I'd love to get a crack of one this deer.
Speaker 1: I really enjoy this fun like puzzle old chess game
Speaker 1: that you know starts now. And like my buddies were
Speaker 1: joking like, god, this looks miserable looking at my spreadsheets
Speaker 1: and my notes and you know, trying to think through
Speaker 1: these different patterns and stuff. But I was like, no,
Speaker 1: this is like the really fun part for me. I
Speaker 1: geek out about this. Um it's just like if I
Speaker 1: take it too serious and like get upset when things
Speaker 1: don't work out, that I let it go bad. But
Speaker 1: this year I was like, you know what, who cares
Speaker 1: if I if it doesn't pan out. They just just
Speaker 1: get back to having fun with it, having a nice
Speaker 1: quiet night in the tree stand with like no other
Speaker 1: you know. You know, I enjoy a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: with the filming and producing the shows and everything that
Speaker 1: there's it's a really cool thing and I'm glad I
Speaker 1: get to do that, but having nights like Saturday night
Speaker 1: where I've got no other people, no cameras, no talking
Speaker 1: points I need to cover, no story I need to
Speaker 1: like capture. I just get to hunt and enjoy what happens.
Speaker 1: Like that was really really nice and um so that
Speaker 1: was that was what was on my mind. I was
Speaker 1: just enjoying it and like soaking it in. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: a And so talk to me a little bit of
Speaker 1: out the recovery, the recovery with the boys. What this
Speaker 1: year did after the shot that kind of stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the biggest thing that came out of it
Speaker 1: was there was a good blood trail, and you know,
Speaker 1: my family was close enough locally that um, you know,
Speaker 1: we could they could be a part of it. It
Speaker 1: wasn't so late. It wasn't you know, a situation where
Speaker 1: we had to travel really long ways. And the kids
Speaker 1: were interested, like very excited. They both when they heard
Speaker 1: that shot a buck, they both really wanted to track.
Speaker 1: And my oldest Everett, he's like really really into it
Speaker 1: and so he's already helped me track three does we
Speaker 1: did two last year and one the year before, and
Speaker 1: like he's a pro, Like he can see blood blood
Speaker 1: better than I can. So he's actually an asset. So
Speaker 1: I knew, like if I shot a buck and it
Speaker 1: worked out with bedtimes and all, that would be awesome
Speaker 1: if he could come. And then my youngest who's too
Speaker 1: for the first time, he was like he really wanted
Speaker 1: to come, so because of that that my wife had
Speaker 1: to come. So my wife, a two year old, and
Speaker 1: my four year old, we we all had it out there,
Speaker 1: and then my buddy Dustin showed up a little bit
Speaker 1: later to help, and uh, you know, the blood trail
Speaker 1: took us through some thick, nasty stuff, but maybe like
Speaker 1: eighty ninety yards something like that. Uh you know, we
Speaker 1: found him piled up in the thick brush, and and Everett,
Speaker 1: my four year old, he was leading the way the
Speaker 1: whole time. There's blood, there's blood, there's blood. And so
Speaker 1: we spotted the buck up in the distance, you know,
Speaker 1: and let him discover it on his own, and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, just getting to see his excitement when we
Speaker 1: finally came up on it and trying to pick up
Speaker 1: the antlers and like, oh man, this is heavy. Um,
Speaker 1: that whole thing was just just so so cool too
Speaker 1: to have everyone there and um, you know, just it
Speaker 1: was It was just great. It was everything I could
Speaker 1: have asked for. You know, I kind of had a
Speaker 1: hunch that this year, coming into the year focusing more
Speaker 1: and just getting back to basics and enjoying myself and
Speaker 1: enjoying the simple things and community and my local stuff
Speaker 1: and all that. I kind of had a hunch, like,
Speaker 1: I bet you this is gonna be a good year
Speaker 1: when I'm just like less stress less, travel all all
Speaker 1: these things. And sure enough, you know, made a couple
Speaker 1: of good decisions, got a little lucky, and um you
Speaker 1: kind of need those two things to come together, and
Speaker 1: they usually come together a couple of times a year,
Speaker 1: and uh, if you're lucky, and this year it happened
Speaker 1: to be here at the beginning, and um man, it
Speaker 1: was just great. It feels really really good to uh
Speaker 1: to get a bow a bow kill under my belt
Speaker 1: and um, you know, onward, onward, onward. So awesome. First off, congratulation.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what it's like to hunt like
Speaker 1: opener anymore. I I used to way back in the day,
Speaker 1: pre kids, but now with all the activities and things,
Speaker 1: I save all my you know, I put all my
Speaker 1: eggs in the basket for for the time with the
Speaker 1: uh you know, for the rut the late late October.
Speaker 1: I am going to be going out this week though,
Speaker 1: but I'm a little jealous because I definitely wanna, uh
Speaker 1: someday get back into the opening day, even if it's
Speaker 1: just for the one evening. So kudos on that. Uh
Speaker 1: So you mentioned onward, What does onward look like? Now? Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of my October schedule I had
Speaker 1: assumed was going to be hunting, you know, these deer
Speaker 1: here in southern Michigan. UM a lot of you know,
Speaker 1: most of that's off the table. So there's a few
Speaker 1: other spots of Michigan that I can hunt that I
Speaker 1: will dabble with um throughout the coming weeks, but mostly
Speaker 1: I'm going to be shooting dos because this general, this
Speaker 1: pocket that I hunt has got a lot of doughs,
Speaker 1: and now that I've got a buck off of it,
Speaker 1: I can focus on just doing that, and I want
Speaker 1: to keep working on that shop process. I think this
Speaker 1: is a great opportunity to just do some dough hunting,
Speaker 1: get more and more confident with this new shop process
Speaker 1: so that I'm you know, really really confident it with it.
Speaker 1: And then I got access to a property in Ohio
Speaker 1: just recently, and so I'm gonna start getting down there
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna I'm gonna save it because I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to uh, We're doing that one week in
Speaker 1: November show again this year, and so I want to
Speaker 1: save that location for that show. Um. So I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna shoot anything down there in October, but I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go down for some scouting, Like We're gonna go down
Speaker 1: tomorrow and put some cameras up and just walk it
Speaker 1: for the first time, and then I'll probably show up
Speaker 1: again one time mid or laid October just for observation
Speaker 1: sits and more scouting and check cameras and stuff. Um.
Speaker 1: But I don't have a planned traveling hunt outside of
Speaker 1: just like some other Michigan stuff, going up to our
Speaker 1: deer camp hopefully a couple of times. Um, nothing until Halloween,
Speaker 1: when I'm gonna drive to Nebraska and start filming that
Speaker 1: one week in November. And basically the idea is to
Speaker 1: hunt Nebraska until I kill something, hopefully, and then once
Speaker 1: I do, then drive back down to Ohio to finish
Speaker 1: things off, and then you know, the rest of the year.
Speaker 1: The only other travel I have is a Texas hunt.
Speaker 1: So much less travel this year, but still like some
Speaker 1: fun stuff. Um and hopefully, you know, without as many
Speaker 1: of those traveling hunts, I'll just have more time to
Speaker 1: you know, take my son out or go hunt with
Speaker 1: my dad or um just do some of these local
Speaker 1: things or these family and friend things that I've I've
Speaker 1: not gotten to enjoy in a while. Um, but that
Speaker 1: are such an important part of like my hunting love.
Speaker 1: So that's, um, that's what I'm looking forward to. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what's in store. Less less stress, more fun
Speaker 1: this year. Less stress, more fun. And you know that's
Speaker 1: that's like one of the big takeaways for me, Like
Speaker 1: out of this opening day hunt and my season so far,
Speaker 1: there's a few things that I think I can learn
Speaker 1: from this. But I just think that, you know, coming
Speaker 1: into the year with that attitude that like, that's not
Speaker 1: why I old this dear, right, but it's certainly I
Speaker 1: think set me up in a way that I was, um,
Speaker 1: you know, in the right headspace to allow this thing
Speaker 1: to happen, right, And so I came into the season
Speaker 1: more flexible with what I was willing to shoot, what
Speaker 1: I was interested in hunting. And so when I, you know,
Speaker 1: had my Plan A and Plan A. Didn't you know
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna work out right. I wasn't dead set
Speaker 1: on it. I wasn't stuck. I wasn't like, well, if
Speaker 1: this doesn't work, I'm screwed. So I'm done. No, I
Speaker 1: could fall back on a Plan B, and I had
Speaker 1: a Plan B in mind, and I had to Plan
Speaker 1: C in mind. And so I think my big lessons
Speaker 1: are takeaways from this stand or one, like it's so
Speaker 1: important to be flexible and like your decision making. And
Speaker 1: I think I think the key or something I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get better as to have like to have well
Speaker 1: thought through decisions. So like when I'm deciding where I
Speaker 1: want to hunt or what i want to do, I
Speaker 1: want to have a really well thought through plan, but
Speaker 1: I want to be lightly held, So well thought through
Speaker 1: but lightly held. So I've got a great Plan A,
Speaker 1: and I really had a good thing going, I thought,
Speaker 1: But when the situation on the ground is different, or
Speaker 1: when something changes and it's not gonna work, you need
Speaker 1: to be willing to pivot fast. You need to be
Speaker 1: flexible and adjust. And maybe an older version of me
Speaker 1: would have been like so dead set in the plan
Speaker 1: that I would have so well, I gotta try it anyways,
Speaker 1: But you know, being able to realize, okay, this this
Speaker 1: isn't gonna work, we need to adjust. That got me
Speaker 1: into position somewhere else where I could still have success.
Speaker 1: That was one big thing Dan. A second big thing
Speaker 1: was just like this is just another good reminder for me,
Speaker 1: just like that first set magic, whether it be opening
Speaker 1: day or the first time into a new place, like
Speaker 1: I am, I am willing to I've been reminded this
Speaker 1: year after year, and this was a really good example,
Speaker 1: Like it's worth taking a swing when you have that
Speaker 1: first set opportunity, Like it's worth taking a risk, It's
Speaker 1: worth being aggressive when you have that fresh set, when
Speaker 1: you have that unpressured, dear kind of thing, whether it's
Speaker 1: opening day or whether it's a place you haven't touched
Speaker 1: for three weeks, and you just know it's golden. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, I used to be a lot more conservative
Speaker 1: and I never would have done something like that. And
Speaker 1: with that brings me to my third thing, which is like,
Speaker 1: sometimes you have to sacrifice something to get something. When
Speaker 1: it comes to deer On, like you always have to
Speaker 1: make a choice. There's gonna be something you're gonna sacrifice.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's gonna be a small sacrifice, like okay, you know,
Speaker 1: Dear are gonna blow. If Dear come to the east
Speaker 1: of me, they're gonna win me. Or some days it's
Speaker 1: gonna be a big sacrifice, like I made a big
Speaker 1: sacrifice on Opening Night where I said, basically, I'm writing
Speaker 1: off the swamp, which is one of the big betting
Speaker 1: eras that I think my number one buck is likely
Speaker 1: using a lot, and like that was a that was
Speaker 1: a huge risk. It was a big like sacrifice and
Speaker 1: I just knew, like all right, but because I was
Speaker 1: because I had a set of goals that allowed me
Speaker 1: to have some flexibility, I said, all right, I'm I
Speaker 1: know that the first set can be magic. I have
Speaker 1: to take a chance on this first set, first night opportunity.
Speaker 1: I have a chance to still get a nice buck
Speaker 1: that could be better to the north. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: right off the south, take a big swing because I
Speaker 1: know there is this home run opportunity to the north.
Speaker 1: And I think that six seven years ago I never
Speaker 1: would have touched that idea. But I you know, I've
Speaker 1: seen enough now to realize that you've got to give
Speaker 1: to get. So so those are my big takeaways I
Speaker 1: think from this hunt that I think could apply to
Speaker 1: the whole year, um in in different kind of ways. So, um,
Speaker 1: sometimes that aggressive and flexible approach is really the best
Speaker 1: way to go. Yeah, well, hey, your your season is
Speaker 1: off to a good start. And uh that's uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, that's uh, that's a good thing to have.
Speaker 1: I have yet to have a season where I just
Speaker 1: knocked one out of the you know, knocking off the
Speaker 1: list right away. I usually hit some kind of uh
Speaker 1: uh drought period where I'm just hunting and hunting and
Speaker 1: hunting and then and then it comes together. But uh,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you're on a roll already and hopefully
Speaker 1: the role continues through the to the season. Man. So
Speaker 1: once again, congratulations, thanks man, I appreciate it. It's a
Speaker 1: it's a great feeling. I haven't last year I didn't
Speaker 1: shoot them mature buck, and then the year prior to that,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess two years ago it was the
Speaker 1: last time I shot a decent buck on my boss.
Speaker 1: So it's been a little bit and uh it felt
Speaker 1: good to uh finally see it all come together. So
Speaker 1: thank you, my friend for coming on here to pick
Speaker 1: my brain on it and to celebrate with me a
Speaker 1: little bit. And um, I'm ready to have you on
Speaker 1: here soon to tell your story. So get out there
Speaker 1: and let's let's have another one of these. And that
Speaker 1: is a rap. Thank you for listening, Thanks for going
Speaker 1: on this journey with me. Uh. As I've already said,
Speaker 1: it was a great kick off to the season, and
Speaker 1: I'm excited for how the rest of it goes. Now.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to do this at the beginning, so
Speaker 1: bear with me here. I gotta plug a few things.
Speaker 1: Number one, have you seen Dear Country yet? That's my
Speaker 1: new show. So we're on the Meat Eater YouTube channel
Speaker 1: at this point five of the episodes. Five of the
Speaker 1: six episodes are out, so please head on over to
Speaker 1: the YouTube channel, check them out, subscribe to the channel.
Speaker 1: Like those videos, leave a comment and share some feedback.
Speaker 1: Would love to hear what you think. It was an interesting, challenging,
Speaker 1: uh growth inducing hunting season for me last year, but
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of the show we put together and
Speaker 1: the stories you told along the way made all those
Speaker 1: ups and downs worth it, I hope. So thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you. Um Meatior season eleven. It's coming
Speaker 1: out October, and that season and the four seasons prior
Speaker 1: are being made available on the meat Eater website, so
Speaker 1: that's the meat eater dot com. And finally, next week
Speaker 1: is a great big white tail week for meat Eator.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna leave it at that. But we've got
Speaker 1: some great deal, some good news, some new stuff all
Speaker 1: drop him next week. So stay une, check out this podcast,
Speaker 1: check out rough Fresh Radio, checkout Tony's Foundations episode. It
Speaker 1: would be a new episode of Deer Country. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be all sorts of articles over on the Wired Hunt website.
Speaker 1: We are pumping out the Dear Ship for you. Excuse
Speaker 1: my French if you're underage your muffs. Otherwise we love
Speaker 1: to hear. It's dear season. It's the greatest time of year.
Speaker 1: I'm loving it. I hope you're loving it. And until
Speaker 1: next time, my friends, my family, stay Wired to Hunt.