Speaker 1: Hey, folks, Mark Kenyan here and real quick, before we
Speaker 1: kick off the regular episode, I want to make up
Speaker 1: for an error we had last week in which we
Speaker 1: forgot to appropriately celebrate the month of November. And as
Speaker 1: any of you longtime listeners know, when it's November, we
Speaker 1: celebrate that most wonderful time to kill deer. And with
Speaker 1: that in mind, this year, we launched our latest rut
Speaker 1: themed tune, Big White Tails. So before we get into
Speaker 1: our main episode, our main topic of conversation, I want
Speaker 1: to set the mood appropriately and get that song playing.
Speaker 2: Enjoy.
Speaker 3: It's that time of the year again. I'm back, Marcus Kenyan.
Speaker 3: How are you your son of a gadwall? You look terrible.
Speaker 3: I'm just kidding a remma. I'm sorry, I'm late.
Speaker 4: I crashed my recumbent bicycle into the side of a
Speaker 4: quiz nose and I know what you're thinking. I am
Speaker 4: as sober as a newborn blue crab. I swear to you,
Speaker 4: this is just kombucha.
Speaker 1: I'm watching the gut health.
Speaker 2: You gotta do it as you get older.
Speaker 4: And also I'm wearing this ankle bracelet that makes a
Speaker 4: beep beep sound. If I have a drop of the
Speaker 4: stuff also alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my
Speaker 4: parole officer. So there'll be none of that in the
Speaker 4: studio today. I promise you.
Speaker 2: Let's get go.
Speaker 5: Oh you're queueing it up already.
Speaker 4: Okay, I thought we'd learned a lesson this year, but
Speaker 4: I guess not.
Speaker 1: Here we go.
Speaker 6: I love those dagy bi big white tape, those beachy
Speaker 6: bi big wide tails. I love those be achie b
Speaker 6: get eight chats eat tales. I love those be atchie
Speaker 6: b wat tails.
Speaker 4: Big white tails, big white tails.
Speaker 1: Big white tails are great.
Speaker 4: Oh, what fun it is to sit in the freezing
Speaker 4: cold tree all day? Big white tails, big white tail,
Speaker 4: big white tails are great. Hold, what fun it is
Speaker 4: to sit in the freezing cold tree all day? Dashing
Speaker 4: through the woods for the morning light, turns grave across
Speaker 4: the fields and draws creep in all the way, climb
Speaker 4: into the tree. Big folks are on the wave? What
Speaker 4: fun he is to sit and wait for my gosh
Speaker 4: dan dere all day?
Speaker 1: Oh big, I'm sorry? What is this?
Speaker 4: Pisocado strings? Who do you think I am? Enya?
Speaker 1: Get this out here. I don't want to hear it.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Big.
Speaker 3: White tails, big white tails, big white tails are great,
Speaker 3: hold fun.
Speaker 4: It is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day.
Speaker 4: I hope sand dreams are high the rut. He's finally here,
Speaker 4: Mark said, it's the most wonderful time. I'm to kill
Speaker 4: o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings where you'll find
Speaker 4: me hang it twenty feet in a tree grunt tubes
Speaker 4: my bowel inspector Camos really can't be belah, he haught
Speaker 4: two ago. I thought that this was fun, but now
Speaker 4: I'm frozen to my seat, and the good times they
Speaker 4: are gone. I've ate up all my snacks, my hands
Speaker 4: and toes unnumb and we're gonna climb down.
Speaker 1: From my stand.
Speaker 4: That son of a but decided to come out.
Speaker 6: Of those meegy be white takes those e bagy bee
Speaker 6: big white tastes.
Speaker 7: I love those beagy big dup yall eight shot ge etails.
Speaker 7: I love those big white tails all day.
Speaker 4: I don't know why this is happening, I swear to God, Oh, officer,
Speaker 4: what seems to be the problem here? Oh this, I
Speaker 4: don't know why this is happening. It must be a malfunction,
Speaker 4: you know. Sometimes it happens when the batteries run low.
Speaker 4: You don't need to smell that. That's just Kombuchai. Okay, yes,
Speaker 4: you've got me. It's ever clear and pacific. Kuli Caprice Son.
Speaker 4: I am so so sorry. I don't know why my
Speaker 4: life has brought me here. Mark Marcus, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: Enjoy the rut or whatever.
Speaker 2: Good luck.
Speaker 5: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
Speaker 5: the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
Speaker 5: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 5: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on
Speaker 1: the show, Tony and I break down our recent success
Speaker 1: in the Brow and Wisconsin and detail the strategies we
Speaker 1: employed and how you can apply them yourself. All right,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, brought to you
Speaker 1: by First Light and Camo for Conservation. If you are
Speaker 1: listening to this on the day it drops, it is
Speaker 1: November twenty three, twenty twenty three, and you might be tired.
Speaker 1: You might be wor out, have a sore tail end
Speaker 1: or a sore back, droopy baggy eyes, or whatever it
Speaker 1: might be in your case. Because we've just endured the
Speaker 1: marathon of the peak of the rut. That's when rocations
Speaker 1: usually happen. That's when we're pinning all of our hopes
Speaker 1: and dreams on a certain set of days. And Tony
Speaker 1: and I we've survived it and we came out the
Speaker 1: other end, and we've got some stories to tell, don't we, Buddy?
Speaker 2: We do. And I got to ask you, Mark, is
Speaker 2: the Greater White Tail community kind of ghosting you now
Speaker 2: because you keep calling me to be on these episodes.
Speaker 2: I'm wondering, did you lose a lot of your buddies
Speaker 2: in the industry or what?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're getting blackball. No guests left, it's just me, Tony.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: But it is hard to find guests this time of
Speaker 1: the year because everyone's hunting all the time. But it
Speaker 1: worked out well because coming into the season, you and
Speaker 1: I talked about how I want to have more episodes
Speaker 1: of you and me talking about our own hunts, right
Speaker 1: because people like to follow along with what we're doing
Speaker 1: and like to hear our first hand experiences. But the
Speaker 1: risk of that is that if you and I have
Speaker 1: a bunch of crappy hunts, we have not a lot
Speaker 1: of exciting things to tell. Fortunately, every single one of
Speaker 1: these episodes that we've done just you and me, we've
Speaker 1: each had a shot out, a deer or a kill
Speaker 1: to talk about, so we've had big things to talk
Speaker 1: about every week, and the same ghosts for today. Because
Speaker 1: I killed the buck during the rut in Nebraska, you
Speaker 1: kill the buck during the rut in Wisconsin, and you
Speaker 1: with your daughter when she killed a deer. Was that
Speaker 1: beginning of November as well?
Speaker 2: Yep? Okay, yep, So that was first week sometime six seventh,
Speaker 2: something like that, So pretty much the heart of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we have got a lot to cover. I
Speaker 1: want to cover those stories, and I want to, you know,
Speaker 1: as we try to do not just tell the story,
Speaker 1: but really break down the strategies we employed, the tactics
Speaker 1: that worked, maybe the things that didn't work along the way,
Speaker 1: any lessons learned, and really try to make this useful
Speaker 1: for folks so they can take what we learned from
Speaker 1: this and apply it to their own hunt.
Speaker 2: So that's the game plan.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk through a bunch of things related
Speaker 1: to the last three weeks of hunting, and then also
Speaker 1: at the end, Tony, if your game for this, I
Speaker 1: want to look forward a little bit too, and just
Speaker 1: kind of start setting the stage for what's to come.
Speaker 1: So how we might be thinking about our hunts the
Speaker 1: last week of November, how our mindset must shift once
Speaker 1: December comes around, and just help people you prepare for
Speaker 1: this next phase of the season, because I think you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you feel this way, but once
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving hits, it's a big shift as far as my
Speaker 1: hunting approach and really what I'm expecting and planning for.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we should probably cover that a little bit too.
Speaker 2: Me too, man. I go from I set my boat
Speaker 2: down and I pick up my twelve gage and I
Speaker 2: call my dogs, I go chase roosters for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you might have the right idea.
Speaker 1: So tell me this first off, how are you feeling
Speaker 1: right now? Like we're we're talking here mid November, when
Speaker 1: we're actually talking, Are you feeling good? Are you feeling tired?
Speaker 1: Are you feeling anything in between?
Speaker 2: Where are you at? I feel good, man. I've had
Speaker 2: a I've had a fun season. I've had a you know,
Speaker 2: I had fun with my daughters and I had fund myself.
Speaker 2: I've hunted a few different states and had good hunts,
Speaker 2: and I'm I'm feeling good man, and I still have
Speaker 2: I have one on left that we can talk about
Speaker 2: later that I'm really looking forward to. And it's just been,
Speaker 2: you know, it's it's a weird I feel like this
Speaker 2: season has been weird for me, you know, Like I
Speaker 2: know you'll probably talk about this with your Nebraska recap.
Speaker 2: I feel like I've had a lot of stuff kind
Speaker 2: of go wrong, but also the opposite end has hit
Speaker 2: pretty quick. And so even though some of these things
Speaker 2: that like could ruin a hunt happen, I mean there's
Speaker 2: going to happen. I feel like I've had a pretty
Speaker 2: level season as far as the you know, the downside
Speaker 2: being meeting the upside and it kind of just being
Speaker 2: a really really productive season. So I feel good man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's good. That's a good place to be at
Speaker 1: this time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I've I've had seasons where I don't feel
Speaker 2: this way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I kind of feel somewhere less than I should,
Speaker 1: and I don't I don't quite know how to process that,
Speaker 1: but I guess I am letting the situation with the
Speaker 1: Y nine cloud everything else because I have not felt satisfied,
Speaker 1: felt and I keep on telling myself, like you got
Speaker 1: to shake yourself out of this.
Speaker 2: And I'm working on that.
Speaker 1: But I've let my self dwell on that longer than
Speaker 1: I know I should. But you know, if anyone didn't
Speaker 1: hear two weeks ago or three weeks ago when we
Speaker 1: lasted our episode together, you know, I've had one buck
Speaker 1: I was after in Michigan, lot lots of history. That
Speaker 1: was like my number one goal for the year, without
Speaker 1: a doubt, and you know, got the shot at him,
Speaker 1: hit him in the shoulder and couldn't recover him. But
Speaker 1: coming out of that, I felt so confident that he'd
Speaker 1: be back, Like just what, you know, I can see
Speaker 1: the footage, We see the arrow like ninety nine percent
Speaker 1: of it sticking out of the shoulder, and then we
Speaker 1: do the blood trail, and the blood trail is exactly
Speaker 1: like you would expect with a shoulder shot deer, Like
Speaker 1: there's decent blood fur ways, drippy, droppy, and then just
Speaker 1: slowly dries up and then nothing. And we were able
Speaker 1: to follow like a little tiny drip drop blood trail
Speaker 1: with a dog for three quarters of a mile, you know,
Speaker 1: And after that, I was like, man, we all were
Speaker 1: at the end, We're like, hey, we're following a living deer.
Speaker 1: This deer's just been walking in a straight line forever.
Speaker 1: And now he just curled back into his bedroom. And
Speaker 1: you know he's going to be chasing dose tomorrow probably
Speaker 1: or something like that. That's what we're telling ourselves on
Speaker 1: October thirtieth. But I still haven't seen him. I still
Speaker 1: don't have pictures of him, and now it's mid November,
Speaker 1: and so I just have not been able to shake that,
Speaker 1: Like I just keep thinking about it and dwelling on it,
Speaker 1: and so that's clouded over everything, like even and.
Speaker 2: I hate that this is the case.
Speaker 1: But I killed that buck in Nebraska, which we'll talk
Speaker 1: about here in a second, and my dad. I was
Speaker 1: talking to my dad in the drive home, and he
Speaker 1: was so excited for me. Was like, oh man, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: You must be so stoked. This must make up for
Speaker 1: what happened the other day. And I was like no,
Speaker 1: I got mad at him. I was like like no,
Speaker 1: not at all, Like I'm not I'm hardly even celebrating
Speaker 1: like this because of what happened. So this is a
Speaker 1: long winded way of saying that I know I shouldn't
Speaker 1: feel this way, but I've not been able to shake
Speaker 1: that kind of gloom that has settled on me because
Speaker 1: of what happened with the why nine and and so
Speaker 1: I you know, I got to work through that. I'm
Speaker 1: working through that, and I think, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the upcoming hunts will help me with that, because I'll
Speaker 1: be going out with my kids, taking them to deer
Speaker 1: camp and that'll be a lot of fun and all
Speaker 1: those other things.
Speaker 2: But November for me, are you are you at a
Speaker 2: place with him where you're starting to doubt whether he lived?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: That's I mean, like, are you getting there where you're like, man,
Speaker 2: maybe I really really did kill him. I don't know
Speaker 2: how I could have.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had this conversation with myself a thousand times, Tony, Like,
Speaker 1: I've gone back and forth so many times. I've watched
Speaker 1: the footage so many times, and I don't see how
Speaker 1: that could have killed him. But I also don't understand
Speaker 1: why it's been sixteen days or something like that, seventeen
Speaker 1: days and I don't have a picture yet, and I
Speaker 1: haven't seen him yet. And he was prior to that,
Speaker 1: it was like every single day. Maybe there'd be a
Speaker 1: two day gap here there, but I mean almost every
Speaker 1: single day or two i'd have pictures of him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm in his core, of his core. And I'll jump
Speaker 1: ahead a little bit to one of the things I
Speaker 1: was going to tell you about, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: after so I shot him, had the shoulder shot, had
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff happened. And then a couple
Speaker 1: days later I went to Nebraska, which we will talk
Speaker 1: about here shortly. And then as soon as I got
Speaker 1: back from that, I got back out hunting in the
Speaker 1: Wide Nines area. But then I also started bringing new
Speaker 1: cameras with me, and so every time I went and
Speaker 1: hunted around his core zone, I put a new camera up,
Speaker 1: and so I like, I got cameras now, like right
Speaker 1: in the good stuff. Like before I was all on
Speaker 1: the xterior and safe locations, but now I was hunting,
Speaker 1: I was like diving into the good stuff and placing
Speaker 1: cameras in there now too. So the level of surveillance
Speaker 1: I have on this deer is way beyond anything I've
Speaker 1: done before, just because I so badly want to know
Speaker 1: when he's back or if he's back, and despite that,
Speaker 1: it just just nothing's showing. So that has just, you know,
Speaker 1: every day, I've lost a little bit of hope every day,
Speaker 1: I've like, ah, gosh, why is he not back?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: And I know intellectually, like there are possible reasons for this,
Speaker 1: Like I've talked to numerous I've talked to Mark Jury,
Speaker 1: Bill Winky, Jeff Sturgis and several other people who have
Speaker 1: like been through this before multiple times and have all
Speaker 1: told me, like, hey, it's not unheard of for a
Speaker 1: deer with a hit like that to disappear for a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks a month or something and then have
Speaker 1: him show back up. So I know it's possible. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping on that. I'm banking on that. I've actually debated.
Speaker 1: I've wanted to go and just like do another tear down,
Speaker 1: like walk everything all over again and like check every
Speaker 1: single place in the world. But I've been battling like
Speaker 1: do I do that because I need this peace of mind?
Speaker 1: Or what if he's alive then that ruins my chance
Speaker 1: of being able to kill him and everything says he's
Speaker 1: should be alive.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is this is me speaking. The thoughts have been
Speaker 1: going through my mind for weeks.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I saw that video. I don't I
Speaker 2: think it's way more likely that there was just a
Speaker 2: lot of intrusion into his world in a very short
Speaker 2: period of time and he has other places to be
Speaker 2: and just said, nope, I'm that place got too risky
Speaker 2: for me for a while. I don't I just don't
Speaker 2: see that, Dear Dan from that that that video was
Speaker 2: pretty telling, man, And I think he's just he's playing
Speaker 2: it safe somewhere else and he's like, I'm not going
Speaker 2: in there for a while. There's too much going on.
Speaker 1: Well, I hope so, because my my strategy now has
Speaker 1: been to leave it completely alone for quite a while
Speaker 1: and I'm not hunting, you know, until i know he's back.
Speaker 1: So I've I've left it untouched for almost ten days
Speaker 1: now or something like that, and I'm planning on, you know,
Speaker 1: continuing on through gun season until something pops. Now, all
Speaker 1: that said, last year in November I did not get picked.
Speaker 1: I got pictures of him in a two week window
Speaker 1: from October twenty you know, from October twenty eighth through
Speaker 1: November fourteenth, I only had pictures of him two or
Speaker 1: three times. Last year, and the year before I only
Speaker 1: had one picture of him all of November. So history
Speaker 1: has shown that he does kind of vacate a little
Speaker 1: bit in November compared to other months of the year,
Speaker 1: and then at the end of November last year he
Speaker 1: showed up in a big way. So I'm hoping that
Speaker 1: maybe that's what's happened here, Like he had this crazy
Speaker 1: thing happen at the end of October, like you said,
Speaker 1: he's like, hey, I'm not into this, and then he
Speaker 1: usually kind of ruts somewhere else anyway, So maybe he
Speaker 1: took off and was doing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: And then hopefully, just like last.
Speaker 1: Year, when November twenty two or twenty five or twenty
Speaker 1: eight hits somewhere in that ballpark, he's back feeling good.
Speaker 1: And that's that's what I'm banking.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping for.
Speaker 1: But it's just it's just been weighing on me, like
Speaker 1: I just have gone through a thousand times and.
Speaker 2: And I can't I can't get past it. I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't think. I don't think he killed him, But
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, the thing about that is a
Speaker 2: deer like that could go get hit by a car
Speaker 2: the next night and you would like you might never know,
Speaker 2: or some other hunter might have shot him, or like
Speaker 2: there's a lot of things that could happen there, that
Speaker 2: could just be coincidental. But I think you'll just show
Speaker 2: up again, like I would just I would just think
Speaker 2: a deer like that is like he's going to play
Speaker 2: it safe for a little while and then he's gonna
Speaker 2: start sniffing around and come back in. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: I think he'll be back. I sure hope you're right, man.
Speaker 1: That would That would make me feel a whole lot
Speaker 1: better about a lot of stuff, because I don't know,
Speaker 1: there's there's some people who can say, like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just a deer and just brush it off and move on,
Speaker 1: And I just haven't been able to do that like
Speaker 1: ever you've known me, Like I get worked up about
Speaker 1: deer every year. But what do you mean? Yeah, but
Speaker 1: but like in a case like this where I just
Speaker 1: you know, you just invest so much time and energy
Speaker 1: and everything into it and you try so hard for
Speaker 1: it to go right, and and when it doesn't, just
Speaker 1: kind of it's a tough pill swallow.
Speaker 2: Man. So yeah, Well, the worst that's the worst negative encounter,
Speaker 2: Like that's the worst outcome you can have is hitting
Speaker 2: one like that and losing it after all of that,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's the worst thing that can happen, and
Speaker 2: it just sucks. But yeah, I mean, you know, like
Speaker 2: you know, you're on a bunch of group texts in
Speaker 2: the fall, and you know, every everybody who haunts and
Speaker 2: has their buddies, I mean, stuff breaks bad a lot,
Speaker 2: like it's so it is just you know, we we
Speaker 2: are like force fed and you know, like we're like
Speaker 2: hyper aware of this through hunting media. We're like force
Speaker 2: fed the positives, the sizzle reels and like the ones
Speaker 2: that go right. And it is just so the hunting
Speaker 2: deer with a bow is so ripe for something to
Speaker 2: go wrong and it just happens.
Speaker 1: So true, and it doesn't get sad enough. And I
Speaker 1: feel like I've I've with you and I have screwed
Speaker 1: up a lot of times and talked about it a
Speaker 1: lot of times, and still I feel like it's not
Speaker 1: said enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dude, I missed a spike this year, Like I mean, it,
Speaker 2: it freaking happens, like it's it sucks, but it's like
Speaker 2: things go wrong and it you know, so frustrating. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: unbelievably frustrating. He'll come back probably, Yeah, probably might, We'll
Speaker 2: see we hope.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't help, Like, I've got a couple buddies
Speaker 1: who are just like they know how to push my buttons,
Speaker 1: and so like, whenever this topic gets brought up, they'll
Speaker 1: chime in with the negative perspective all the time, like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, it could have this could have happened.
Speaker 1: They know they're just doing it so I won't sleep
Speaker 1: at night and it's working. Classic Peter, Yeah, classic Peter
Speaker 1: or us. Anyways, that's that's, I guess, not where I
Speaker 1: expected to start this, but but that is where I am,
Speaker 1: which is awaiting the Wide nine's return, and and in
Speaker 1: the meantime, I've been hunting a different buck, which I'll
Speaker 1: tell you about here a little bit later on a
Speaker 1: different place. But let's start with some good news. How
Speaker 1: about we start with a good story and some good takeaways.
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk Wisconsin?
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure? Yeah. I mean, honestly, the the best hunt
Speaker 2: that I've had this year, the most enjoyable encounter was
Speaker 2: with my daughter, you know, a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin and we I, you know, you and I
Speaker 2: talked a lot about the deer population over there this
Speaker 2: summer because you were going to maybe come up there
Speaker 2: and man, it's like there's a region of that area
Speaker 2: that's about fifteen miles from where I typically hunt that
Speaker 2: has a lot of deer, and the area that I'm
Speaker 2: in is like rough. I mean, the deer population is
Speaker 2: just low. I've I've got I don't know, five or
Speaker 2: six cameras over there, and I think I've gotten pictures
Speaker 2: of two dos that had faons the entire fall, and
Speaker 2: so it has just been a grind. My one daughter
Speaker 2: killed a little spike right away, and then my other daughter,
Speaker 2: you know, we hunted I guess five sits, saw one
Speaker 2: little three pointer. No, you know, no shot nothing. I mean,
Speaker 2: it took me twenty days over there between hunting with
Speaker 2: them and myself to see a dough. Just it's like
Speaker 2: it's hard to describe it. It's just like you're hunting
Speaker 2: where there are no deer, and but it's a it's
Speaker 2: a it's big woods. It's fun you see gross like
Speaker 2: it's a cool. I like the environment, it's just tough.
Speaker 2: So I told my daughter, I was like, this is
Speaker 2: our chance, Like we have a rut hunt to go
Speaker 2: do because usually you know, they'll kill pretty early and
Speaker 2: they're kind of out. They don't usually have a buck
Speaker 2: tag this late and so I was like, we're going
Speaker 2: to go do put a decoy out. Put that Dave
Speaker 2: Smith do out. We're gonna do all day sits and
Speaker 2: we're gonna get one like we because we're hunting anybody,
Speaker 2: right and know she's dude, she's awesome, man. I mean
Speaker 2: we've done We've done all day sits for turkeys, you know,
Speaker 2: like we'd never done it for deer because we never
Speaker 2: needed to. So we go over there and I had
Speaker 2: put this blind up in this spot and we sat.
Speaker 2: I said, let's sit here till noon and then we're
Speaker 2: going to go to another spot. We're just going to
Speaker 2: carry everything and move over because I think we have
Speaker 2: a good chance this evening the wind was going to switch.
Speaker 2: Whatever we sit. Nothing perfect, you know, like November sixth seventh, whatever,
Speaker 2: like frosty, beautiful, no dear, nothing moving. So we moved midday,
Speaker 2: walked over there, set up in this box blind on
Speaker 2: this on this private ground that's just in this kind
Speaker 2: of corner that's just good. Like they cut through there
Speaker 2: coming from the neighbors and they kind of go around
Speaker 2: a swamp through this little corner and I'm like, man,
Speaker 2: if they come through here and we have this decoy out.
Speaker 2: They're going to come in, you know, like they especially
Speaker 2: a little guy. Right, So we sit till like, you know,
Speaker 2: ten minutes after sunset, right, like you got like a
Speaker 2: little bit of time left. Maybe it was maybe it
Speaker 2: was a little earlier than that, but it was like
Speaker 2: we were staring down the barrel of an all day blank, right.
Speaker 2: We had twenty minutes left, half hour whatever. And I
Speaker 2: heard a stick snap back in the swamp, and I
Speaker 2: was like, that's a deer. He might be going to
Speaker 2: the neighbors or he might be coming here. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: but we got to get ready because this is going
Speaker 2: to be our chance if he shows. And I look
Speaker 2: and this little six pointer comes walking out of the
Speaker 2: swamp and he comes out and he looks at that
Speaker 2: decoy and he's about, I don't know, forty five yards away,
Speaker 2: and it was so cool because his body language just
Speaker 2: shifted like he was just like a little scrapper on
Speaker 2: the hunt. And then he saw that loan though, and
Speaker 2: he like kind of puffed up, stuck his chest out
Speaker 2: a little bit, and he walked to this scrape and
Speaker 2: scraped it and he got on his hind legs and
Speaker 2: he raked his antlers and he like it was like
Speaker 2: such a palpable difference in his body language. And he
Speaker 2: finished that up and he just walked in and he
Speaker 2: couldn't take it and ran right up to the decoy,
Speaker 2: you know, stuck his nose right on the butt, sniff
Speaker 2: it and she laced him at you know, fourteen yards
Speaker 2: and he ran off and tipped over, and it was like,
Speaker 2: it was so awesome, Like you don't you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't use decoy as hardly ever, And you know,
Speaker 2: I've had very I've killed a few deer with him,
Speaker 2: but I've had like, you know, at least way more
Speaker 2: negative interactions than positive. And to have it just position
Speaker 2: one like that and it just him play the game
Speaker 2: and put on a show man. It was so freaking cool.
Speaker 2: And she was just geeked.
Speaker 1: So what was the decoy set up? Like, how do
Speaker 1: you run a decoy in that situation? How'd you position it?
Speaker 1: All that stuff?
Speaker 2: Well, so you know they're gonna approach if it's a
Speaker 2: if it's a buck decoy, they're coming in head on right,
Speaker 2: because they're not gonna they're gonna keep track of those antlers.
Speaker 2: If it's a doe decoy. They're interested in the other end,
Speaker 2: And so I set him up fourteen yards away, you know,
Speaker 2: so that deer, if he if he plays the game,
Speaker 2: he's gonna come in and he's gonna be quartered away,
Speaker 2: focused on that decoy. And that we were on a
Speaker 2: corner of a field that was supposed to be planted
Speaker 2: this year and the farmer never planted it, so it's
Speaker 2: basically bare dirt, worthless to the deer. But I knew,
Speaker 2: like the eye lines, like the site lines are really good.
Speaker 2: So I'm like, if if a deer pokes his head
Speaker 2: out and sees this in this field, he's going to
Speaker 2: see that decoy. And so I'm like, you know, if
Speaker 2: they cross through or you see a cruiser or whatever,
Speaker 2: there's a good chance that they're just gonna lay eyes
Speaker 2: on it and come and a really good chance they're
Speaker 2: going to pop out of that corner where they kind
Speaker 2: of pinch around that swamp. And so it was like
Speaker 2: it was like scripted. Man. I mean, the way he
Speaker 2: came out as soon as I saw him look at
Speaker 2: that decoy and his body language changed, I'm like, this
Speaker 2: deer is gonna die, Like he's going to come you
Speaker 2: could tell, and it was just so fun, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, like, you know, everybody breaks about their kids
Speaker 2: and they're so biased toward their kids. But she's eleven,
Speaker 2: and she did all day out there, and she smoked him,
Speaker 2: and I was like, that is badass, man, that is
Speaker 2: cool man, that's great. That's that's as good as you
Speaker 2: can get. Yeah, especially you know, especially when you're in
Speaker 2: a situation where I you know, I told her going
Speaker 2: over there, I'm like, we might see a couple deer
Speaker 2: this weekend, like we might. But in that situation, if
Speaker 2: you you know it's the rut, and if you that
Speaker 2: and I know we own Dave smith whatever, like take
Speaker 2: this for what it's worth. That freaking decoy looks so good,
Speaker 2: Like when you when you look at that in a
Speaker 2: field and you're like, man, especially a little scrapper sees it,
Speaker 2: they're not going to turn that down during the rut.
Speaker 1: So I have never used a decoy in Michigan before
Speaker 1: until this year. I got one of those Dave smith
Speaker 1: buck decoys and so I was like, oh, let's try it,
Speaker 1: just see what happens. And this was when I'm hunting
Speaker 1: this new property. After you know, I'd hunted the Wide
Speaker 1: nine for a while after him disappearing, and then I
Speaker 1: finally said, Okay, I'm gonna back out until he returns.
Speaker 1: So I'm on this new spot where there's lower expectations,
Speaker 1: lower risk. And my worry with the decoy Michigan was
Speaker 1: always like, you put that thing out there, and deer
Speaker 1: are gonna be blowing at it and freaking out.
Speaker 2: You're gonna mess up your hunt.
Speaker 1: So I would never use that in a place where
Speaker 1: I was really after a deer, but on this other property,
Speaker 1: yeah whatever. So I just kind of wanted to see
Speaker 1: how it worked. And I did not have a single
Speaker 1: deer spook from it, and everything came in to check
Speaker 1: it out, little bucks does, and the doughs did not
Speaker 1: wig out like the worry, you know, it was always
Speaker 1: like a doe is gonna get spooky and wiggy on
Speaker 1: it and start blowing and stuff, and I didn't have
Speaker 1: that happen. In fact, I had a hot dough what
Speaker 1: I think was a hot dough. Well, a doll that
Speaker 1: could have been approaching it came over and just hung
Speaker 1: out by the buck and she just stood around it
Speaker 1: and would then start feeding next to it. And then
Speaker 1: I had another buck come in and you know, try
Speaker 1: to get that dough from the buck with my decoy.
Speaker 1: So it was very cool to see that. So I
Speaker 1: mean TBD on killing one on one hopefully someday, but uh,
Speaker 1: it was fun to experience that. At least. A question
Speaker 1: for you related to decoying. Back to what I just said,
Speaker 1: the risk of using a decoy is that it can
Speaker 1: spook some deer, at least other decoys. I've used a
Speaker 1: different decoy in the past and have had that happen
Speaker 1: in Ohio and Iowa. But do you think that in
Speaker 1: a low deer density kind of place like where you
Speaker 1: were at, decoying is actually more effective because you've got
Speaker 1: a lower risk of deer spooking, and it's maybe a
Speaker 1: higher opportunity. Like if a deer sees another deer in
Speaker 1: a low deer density area, they're even more keyed in
Speaker 1: to go check them out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's just it's just a rarity thing, right,
Speaker 2: you know, Like I was thinking about this, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm I'm going to be writing some on this topic.
Speaker 2: But like people were so conditioned to think you got
Speaker 2: to have like if you get your hands on some land,
Speaker 2: you've got to have these dreamy food plots and you
Speaker 2: got to do like follow like a kind of a
Speaker 2: certain pattern. But it's like, I don't know, if you're
Speaker 2: in a place with tons of good food already, you know,
Speaker 2: betting cover might be way more important, or you know,
Speaker 2: water might be way more important. Or if you're up
Speaker 2: in the big woods, you know you have betting cover everywhere.
Speaker 2: So like what's rare? Right, like the food is. And
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this with this dough decoy, I'm like,
Speaker 2: there's so few deer here that if you're a buck
Speaker 2: and you're on the if you're cruising and you don't
Speaker 2: have a dough with you, which is very likely, there's
Speaker 2: no way you're going to pass that up. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and the buck that I killed, we can talk about
Speaker 2: this later, but the one that I killed in Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: this is the same scenario. So I went from never
Speaker 2: taking a decoy into the field the killing back to
Speaker 2: back deer on a decoy in similar situations.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that is something that does not get
Speaker 1: talked about a lot. Makes a lot of sense. If
Speaker 1: you're in a low deer density area, you might want
Speaker 1: to have a decoy out like all the time, yep. Well,
Speaker 1: because you framed it perfectly. It's the rare thing. We
Speaker 1: always think about that, what's the rare thing from like
Speaker 1: a habitat perspective, But in some places it's just another animal.
Speaker 1: You provide that and boom, they're locked in and come
Speaker 1: and check it out.
Speaker 2: Yep. And I mean I think you could kind of
Speaker 2: apply this to calling and sense, Like I think there's
Speaker 2: a lot going on there, you know, like if you
Speaker 2: were if you were hunting there and you wanted to rattle,
Speaker 2: I mean sure, maybe you would call in a buck,
Speaker 2: but it's like, I don't know, I just don't see it,
Speaker 2: Like the density is so low, Like yeah, you could,
Speaker 2: you could rattle in a deer, but it just doesn't
Speaker 2: seem like it would be nearly as effective or you know,
Speaker 2: calling it just it doesn't feel the same way, like
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, I guess it would kind of
Speaker 2: be like, you know, fishing in a pond with like
Speaker 2: three deer or I mean three fish. You know, like
Speaker 2: you'd be like I would, I would switch my tactics
Speaker 2: on how I would do that versus just you know,
Speaker 2: like throwing top waters all over because I know there's
Speaker 2: tons of smallies here now I'm in a place that
Speaker 2: has nothing to work with, like I'm going to switch
Speaker 2: things up, you know, And I think I think it's
Speaker 2: like a really good teacher to hunt places with different densities,
Speaker 2: Like I think it forces you. I mean, that's part
Speaker 2: of the reason why the public land thing is such
Speaker 2: a great educator. Like even if you're in a really
Speaker 2: good state, you know, you if you go hunt public land,
Speaker 2: you've you've often disadvantaged yourself in a way where you
Speaker 2: have to level up a little bit to have success
Speaker 2: that you might not have to do on private land.
Speaker 2: It just forces you to think, like, how do I
Speaker 2: get through this the right way to have that encounter?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Interesting, So I guess now you've teed it up.
Speaker 2: Tell us about the buck you killed with the decoy.
Speaker 2: So I you know how it is when we when
Speaker 2: we do this, we have cameraman with us most of
Speaker 2: the time, and if we don't, like I've had an
Speaker 2: eleven year old with me the rest of the season,
Speaker 2: so I haven't had like a hunt where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I'm just going to go sit in a tree by
Speaker 2: myself and hunt. And I kind of saved my Wisconsin
Speaker 2: tag for this reason. I was like I just want
Speaker 2: to have something for myself to go do, and I
Speaker 2: kind of want to do a late rut thing anyway,
Speaker 2: because I was just I keep thinking it's going to
Speaker 2: be like a good chance to kill a big one.
Speaker 2: So anyway, I went over I guess maybe like on
Speaker 2: the eleventh or twelfth or something, and I had five
Speaker 2: or six days to hunt. And my plan was, you know,
Speaker 2: like get in deep, you know, hunt these swamps, get
Speaker 2: into these some of these places where I know there's
Speaker 2: some big deer. And I knew it was going to
Speaker 2: be like a mostly mostly I was gonna blank. But
Speaker 2: I'm like, I feel like I have a chance. And
Speaker 2: I had one spot I was saving. And this is
Speaker 2: another thing that we should probably do a whole podcast on.
Speaker 2: But I find myself, I know you do this too,
Speaker 2: Like there's a place I want to hunt, Like there's
Speaker 2: a location where I'm like, that's where I want to
Speaker 2: be now, But the wind isn't going to be right
Speaker 2: for two days, So what's my next best option? To
Speaker 2: leave that alone and just be smart about it. And
Speaker 2: I was doing that on this this spot that I
Speaker 2: really wanted to hunt, this kind of travel right along
Speaker 2: this swamp and I'm like, I can't go in there
Speaker 2: until the wind gets right, and I've got to wait
Speaker 2: like two and a half days. So I'm working other
Speaker 2: stuff and blanking, and I finally saw a dough nobody
Speaker 2: on her tail. I saw her twice like she was
Speaker 2: like all by herself, and I hunted the wind was
Speaker 2: It was like the third day I was over there.
Speaker 2: I've seen, you know, one deer so far in three days.
Speaker 2: And I sat this stand, had some neighbors come in
Speaker 2: with their four wheelers and stuff, and so it was
Speaker 2: like early in the morning, and I'm like, well, I
Speaker 2: was gonna go saddle up on this swamp edge where
Speaker 2: I really wanted to hunt. Anyway, like I was going
Speaker 2: to do that midday when the wind switched. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to do it in the dark, and so I
Speaker 2: drove back to the cab and I switched my stuff out,
Speaker 2: grab my saddle and get ready to go do that.
Speaker 2: And as I'm driving back, I saw this buck. You
Speaker 2: know how like when you see deer run, they have
Speaker 2: different kinds of ways of running, right, Like some of
Speaker 2: them are just kind of trotting along. Sometimes they bound.
Speaker 2: But when you see that like greyhound just like down digging.
Speaker 2: You know, it happens a lot if you like heart
Speaker 2: shoot them or you hit them in a heart and
Speaker 2: a bone, like they just dig.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 2: I looked up and I was like, holy shit, there's
Speaker 2: a German shepherd or something like streaking across the road.
Speaker 2: But it was a doe and she was just booking
Speaker 2: and this buck came in behind her and they ran
Speaker 2: in to my buddy's place where I was staying. And
Speaker 2: it was like nine in the morning, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen an ounce of running activity yet, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, they just ran in there. They weren't anywhere
Speaker 2: near where I was going to go set up, but
Speaker 2: I was like, maybe I should go do that setup
Speaker 2: I did with my daughter just for two hours, just
Speaker 2: maybe there's maybe that dough is hot, maybe they'll come
Speaker 2: streaking through like something, you know. Kind of just like
Speaker 2: fell into my lap and made me rethink my plan
Speaker 2: because I'm like, I still have time to go do
Speaker 2: the thing I want to do, but maybe I should
Speaker 2: give this just like a little bit of time.
Speaker 1: I had all my close to where you.
Speaker 2: Saw them, I probably set up maybe like five six
Speaker 2: hundred yards away, but where they ran across that field
Speaker 2: and went back into the swamp. But I just thought
Speaker 2: that kind of activity is like pretty rare for me
Speaker 2: to see up there. So I'm like, there might be
Speaker 2: something good, you know. And so I had all my
Speaker 2: stuff with me, the decoy and everything. I'm like, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go do this set up again. So like a moron,
Speaker 2: I'm walking across this field with a decoy at nine
Speaker 2: in the morning and go put it out, climb up
Speaker 2: in there. And I was like, this is so dumb,
Speaker 2: Like I'm I know where I want to be, Like
Speaker 2: I want to go hunt like a real hunter and
Speaker 2: not do this, Like this didn't feel right to me.
Speaker 2: But I'm sitting there and I'm like, you just you
Speaker 2: just don't know, right, And I'm like at this point,
Speaker 2: I'm like, I just want a deer to come by
Speaker 2: so I can shoot it. Like I'm like, i just
Speaker 2: want that part of the hunt. And like ten minutes
Speaker 2: after I sat down, I looked and here comes this
Speaker 2: buck trotting and I'm like, oh shit, there's one right there,
Speaker 2: and he comes through. I don't I don't think so
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not exactly sure. Maybe it was maybe it wasn't. Uh,
Speaker 2: but you know, in one of those box lines you have,
Speaker 2: like those tall windows on the side like to bohon
Speaker 2: out of. So I've got the decoy out sixteen yards
Speaker 2: quartered away, same kind of deal, and this buck's coming
Speaker 2: through at like thirty five, and he's like not looking
Speaker 2: at the decoy at all. He's just trotting. And so
Speaker 2: I'm like, I know because I've ranged it a million
Speaker 2: times because I sat there with my daughter forever, and
Speaker 2: so I'm like, holy crap, like is he gonna stop?
Speaker 2: And I'm like trying to murp him, and he just
Speaker 2: runs right on through and stops like where I can't
Speaker 2: shoot him. And so I'm like looking at him, like
Speaker 2: I can't believe this worked. And there's a buck right here,
Speaker 2: and now I'm not going to get to shoot him,
Speaker 2: like he just he's going to ignore this decoy. And
Speaker 2: I'm telling you, dude, that book. It was like his
Speaker 2: brain was running in slow motion because he was like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go run over here and go check for
Speaker 2: doz on like this neighboring property. But you could see
Speaker 2: it like kind of grind to a halt, and he stopped, dude,
Speaker 2: he stopped, yeah, facing yeah, He's like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: another deer. I can't believe this, like, can't be right.
Speaker 2: He's facing into the swamp and I'm thinking, I can't
Speaker 2: believe that this is gonna I'm not going to kill
Speaker 2: this deer. And he looks for like twenty seconds into
Speaker 2: the swamp, spins a one eighty and runs right up
Speaker 2: to my decoy and I shoot him just like it
Speaker 2: was and he and I don't know, it was wild,
Speaker 2: Like I couldn't. I could not believe it. And he
Speaker 2: ran off and I could see the blood coming out
Speaker 2: of his side. It was one of those wonderful blood
Speaker 2: trails where you're like, I know there's going to be
Speaker 2: a dead deer here, but I get to do the
Speaker 2: blood trail part, you know what I mean? Yeah, And
Speaker 2: so it was. It was wild. So I did basically
Speaker 2: the exact same setup twice with that decoy, and the
Speaker 2: two deer that saw it came right in. Just that's
Speaker 2: amazing wild. So and I mean, he's he's a weird
Speaker 2: deer too. I'll send you a picture. But when I
Speaker 2: saw him coming, I was like, man, that's a big
Speaker 2: deer with a runty rack, Like you know how when
Speaker 2: you're like in Texas and they're hard to judge, Like
Speaker 2: body to rack is just weird. This one's like it
Speaker 2: looked like a horse coming in with this little eight
Speaker 2: point rack and it's just it's just weird. Like I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, like we always joke about like a call buck.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I think I just killed like the ultimate
Speaker 2: call buck because this guy's his head gear sucks and
Speaker 2: I don't you know, but it was it was wild.
Speaker 2: It was cool.
Speaker 1: Big was the big I mean, is he big? Body?
Speaker 2: Up close?
Speaker 1: Is he what you saw?
Speaker 2: It was? Yeah? Nice? I mean it just you know,
Speaker 2: and we see that up there sometimes, especially like you know,
Speaker 2: after a bad winner, it feels like they put a
Speaker 2: lot of resources into their body and not a lot
Speaker 2: of resources into their rack up there. Sometimes, I mean
Speaker 2: it catches up when you get like an old one.
Speaker 2: They're big, like they're you know, like you get one
Speaker 2: fifty one sixty deer up there legitimately, but they're the
Speaker 2: deer that like made it through and they have you know,
Speaker 2: access to the best stuff. Yeah. So but I don't know,
Speaker 2: I was pretty I was pretty freaking happy anyway. Yeah
Speaker 2: that's awesome, man.
Speaker 1: So, uh, your tactic with the decoy worked very well
Speaker 1: with a dough decoy. Would you say, now, like, if
Speaker 1: you had a buck, would you always still use that
Speaker 1: dough during the rut or would you go and use
Speaker 1: the buck decoy at some point too?
Speaker 2: Like I would make that decision. I don't think i'd
Speaker 2: use a buck decoy up there. I mean there's there's
Speaker 2: certain situations, especially like a Halloween type haunt or maybe
Speaker 2: the first couple of days of November. I would use
Speaker 2: a buck decoy. You know, it just depends, but that
Speaker 2: that dough decoy, man, I think I think we've been
Speaker 2: really conditioned to use buck decoys. And that's because we're
Speaker 2: watching stuff that's created by people who are focused on
Speaker 2: really big deer. Like if you're gonna if you're hunting,
Speaker 2: you know, a specific one sixty in the corner of
Speaker 2: this field or whatever, like you want to challenge that deer, right,
Speaker 2: And like we said earlier, if there's you know, if
Speaker 2: you're in a high deer density place, he might have
Speaker 2: does everywhere, like that's not that special to him. But
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people who aren't, like
Speaker 2: I don't you know, if you're like I just want
Speaker 2: a decent buck, I don't need a one to fifty
Speaker 2: or whatever, or you're like, I just want to put
Speaker 2: a buck in front of me that will give me
Speaker 2: a good shot. I think that dough decoy is like
Speaker 2: way underutilized.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a really interesting point, and something like
Speaker 1: you said does not get talked about very much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I'm gonna talk about it. I'm a believer
Speaker 2: now body.
Speaker 1: So other than using the dough decoy, and here follow
Speaker 1: up questions that would you use this tactic only in
Speaker 1: November or do you think in a low deer density
Speaker 1: place where you're not too terribly picky about the deer
Speaker 1: year after? Could you use dough decoy in a cut
Speaker 1: cornfield in December on a late season hunt to just
Speaker 1: get that like schooling fish effect?
Speaker 2: Yep, maybe, I mean I used to use a Montana
Speaker 2: decoy has made a couple of feeding deer decoys. They
Speaker 2: had a meal deer one first and it was just
Speaker 2: a silhouette of a deer with its head down, and
Speaker 2: then they made a white tail one. I used to
Speaker 2: use that in September, October, November and December because I
Speaker 2: would have deer come out. You know, you take that
Speaker 2: early season, you know, soybean field hunt those deer come out,
Speaker 2: you know, in seven different spots. They might make their
Speaker 2: way there. They might not. But when I would put
Speaker 2: that out, even the dose they'd come out, they get
Speaker 2: they'd get a little wiggy. They'd almost always come right
Speaker 2: over to it. And so this one and and if
Speaker 2: you're calling, you know, if you if this, this is
Speaker 2: obviously a heads up decoy. This uh, Dave Smith. You
Speaker 2: know the head's up, it's looking you know, if you
Speaker 2: if you could put one that was a head down
Speaker 2: so you couldn't really see the head, but you could
Speaker 2: see like it was a little body calling to deer
Speaker 2: all season long. Would be amazing with that because they
Speaker 2: wouldn't you know, a buck would look over there. You
Speaker 2: could and you know, dose could look over there. You
Speaker 2: could bleed Adam. Bucks could look over there. You could
Speaker 2: grunt at them whatever. They don't really there, they don't.
Speaker 2: They just know there's a deer there that's making noise.
Speaker 2: And so I think there's applications for this in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways. That would be really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I want to experiment some more with these.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting these different ways you can go about it.
Speaker 1: Is there is there any other takeaway from these two
Speaker 1: rut hunts, tony or any other lessons you learned or
Speaker 1: that we can take from them.
Speaker 2: Man, I know we say this all the time, but
Speaker 2: there's there's two things I noticed with my hunt and
Speaker 2: with seeing other people. And this is not just this
Speaker 2: is not just in the Wisconsin thing. This was down
Speaker 2: in Oklahoma. This was actually in North Dakota. There's a
Speaker 2: there's this is gonna make me sound horrible, but there's
Speaker 2: an element of laziness to a lot of people's hunting
Speaker 2: that cost them. And so when I when I killed
Speaker 2: this buck in Wisconsin, I went out just to shoot
Speaker 2: photos and drive around. I had to go pull some
Speaker 2: stands and blinds and stuff. So I was just in
Speaker 2: and out of the woods in different spots, driving around.
Speaker 2: And the amount of trucks I see pulled like all
Speaker 2: the way through the field parked on the edge of
Speaker 2: the woods. It's like, man, you could have walked two
Speaker 2: hundred yards and not done that. Like you put a
Speaker 2: totally different impact on there. And that's like that's super common, right,
Speaker 2: Like you hear that story a lot. You hear it
Speaker 2: during gun season a lot. Like riding the four wheeler
Speaker 2: out to the tree stand. Like, man, you are advertising
Speaker 2: your presence in a way. Like think how often there's
Speaker 2: a there's a truck parked right there on the edge
Speaker 2: of that field. Almost never? Yeah, and when when there is,
Speaker 2: there's always a person one hundred yards away in that
Speaker 2: ladder stand, you know, like that that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: How you get in there, where you park, that doesn't change, man,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's like universal across the white tail space
Speaker 2: that if you're kind of taking the easy way out,
Speaker 2: you're you're probably costing yourself some encounters, I think, you know.
Speaker 2: And it's and it's often the difference between you know,
Speaker 2: fifteen minute walk in a ten minute walk or a
Speaker 2: fifteen minute walk and a five minute walk, you know,
Speaker 2: because this is white tails and we're not going that far.
Speaker 2: But it so that and just time, like you know,
Speaker 2: I had two sits in a row between North Dakota
Speaker 2: and my daughter's Dear that were all day sits where
Speaker 2: the first deear that came in at the end, which
Speaker 2: is right at the end, is the deer that we killed.
Speaker 2: And you know how it is like sometimes you kill
Speaker 2: that noon buck, sometimes it's one o'clock. Sometimes you just
Speaker 2: see something that clues you into what you should do
Speaker 2: you know at eleven o'clock in the morning, and I
Speaker 2: just think I'm getting to the point now where I'm like,
Speaker 2: I just think most hunters don't put in as much
Speaker 2: time as they should. Like if you if you're sitting there,
Speaker 2: and you're like, I could go out at three o'clock
Speaker 2: or two o'clock or one o'clock, or I could go
Speaker 2: out right now, go out right now, as long as
Speaker 2: the wind's right and the situation works, because it's just
Speaker 2: like it's just time in there, and it's it's like,
Speaker 2: you know how it feels when you walk out, especially
Speaker 2: if you're sitting in the woods, you walk out for
Speaker 2: an afternoon sit it feels like it takes a while
Speaker 2: to calm down, like the woods has to get back
Speaker 2: to like the normal rhythm. You know. It's like it's
Speaker 2: the same thing when you're you know, if you sit
Speaker 2: an elk wall or a water hole out west in September,
Speaker 2: when the frogs start chirping again and things start settling, now,
Speaker 2: you're like, okay, now something could come in. But when
Speaker 2: you walk in there, it goes quiet, and like there's
Speaker 2: just things like that. And I just think that the
Speaker 2: more time you give it the more time. And I
Speaker 2: know that, like people want to hear something way cooler
Speaker 2: than that, But I just think it's like you have
Speaker 2: to put in the hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is not always rainbows and butterflies when
Speaker 1: you're sitting out there for ten twelve hours or whatever
Speaker 1: it is for day after day after day. But to
Speaker 1: your point, sometimes that's what takes well.
Speaker 2: And you know the thing sometimes to keep interested in that,
Speaker 2: you know, if you can do that midday switch or
Speaker 2: you know, I'm gonna sit this pinch point today and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna sit that field corner tomorrow or whatever, like
Speaker 2: giving yourself a different view because you know, we see
Speaker 2: this a lot, especially we saw this when we were
Speaker 2: filming one week in November the two years we did it. Man,
Speaker 2: you can be on a property and be in a
Speaker 2: dead zone, just dead, and you can move five hundred
Speaker 2: yards away to a different valley or something and it
Speaker 2: is on. And so sometimes you know, sometimes you think
Speaker 2: you got a volume hunt that pinch point, make it
Speaker 2: happen there. But if you if you're not wired for that,
Speaker 2: like okay, go sit a different stand, but put in
Speaker 2: your time there, like you know, make a qualified decision,
Speaker 2: but make sure that you're giving yourself a chance to
Speaker 2: like see this through, like what you need to see
Speaker 2: it through. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that changes. Scenery can make a huge difference, just
Speaker 1: as morale and focus and all that. That's that's so true.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard going back to a place where you
Speaker 2: blank a whole bunch. Oh yeah, yeah, it is.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad that you did not blank in the end, Tony.
Speaker 1: I'm glad it came together. You put in the time,
Speaker 1: and you and your daughter came out on top.
Speaker 2: That's very good. Victorious, Yeah, victorious cocky, and I love
Speaker 2: that they both are. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: I guess I should share my story and we can
Speaker 1: break that down. And this one's quick because it was
Speaker 1: a pretty quick hunt. We talked just after I shot
Speaker 1: the Y nine. The whole thing happened that we just discussed.
Speaker 1: A day and a half later, I had left for Nebraska,
Speaker 1: fourteen hour drive thinking the whole time about you know,
Speaker 1: what just happened to Michigan and what we just talked about.
Speaker 1: So my head spinning, my wheels turning, thinking over and
Speaker 1: over and over again about what happened with the Y nine.
Speaker 1: But I kept on telling me. I said, hey, you
Speaker 1: gotta just set this aside because you're gonna you're going
Speaker 1: on your dream hunt for the year, Like this is
Speaker 1: your hunt that was just for you.
Speaker 2: Like several of my other trips.
Speaker 1: This year have been like mentoring or helping other people
Speaker 1: and like doing these different things. There wasn't a hunt
Speaker 1: that was just like go to a place where there
Speaker 1: should be a lot of big deer and do the
Speaker 1: fun thing. Like this was the hunt where I was
Speaker 1: gonna go hunt this property that I've hunted in the
Speaker 1: past that I was getting to know pretty well. I
Speaker 1: you know, last year, in like two days, I saw
Speaker 1: seven mature bucks and I shot that really nice seven
Speaker 1: point in the first night. So I said, going into
Speaker 1: this Hunt'm like, okay, Mark, let's take your time this time.
Speaker 1: Let's be picky. I bet you could kill like a big,
Speaker 1: big deer out here if you just gave it time.
Speaker 1: It's the rut in the river bottoms of Nebraska, where
Speaker 1: you know, anything's possible. So I was thinking, like, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be the dream hunt. I'm bringing my decoy
Speaker 1: in the evenings. I'm gonna put the decoy out in
Speaker 1: these open, grassy planes and gonna rattle and call and like,
Speaker 1: do all the stuff that actually might work in a
Speaker 1: place like this.
Speaker 2: I was so excited.
Speaker 1: So that was what I kept telling myself. Every time
Speaker 1: I'd start bumming about the Wide nine, I'd say, hey,
Speaker 1: shake it off, You're about to have this fun hunt
Speaker 1: like pure on an undultered fun Big bucks are gonna
Speaker 1: do big buck things. There's not gonna be anyone out
Speaker 1: there to mess it up for because this is private
Speaker 1: land that I have permission to hunt now. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's several miles of river bottom and so there's it's
Speaker 1: just grass all around it, and then there's this river
Speaker 1: that runs through the middle, and along that river there's
Speaker 1: cover and the white tails hang out down by that
Speaker 1: and they cruise up and down. I mean, as we've
Speaker 1: talked about the past, you couldn't ask for a better
Speaker 1: rut situation because you've got a built in funnel all
Speaker 1: along that river, and you also have visibility, so I
Speaker 1: can call, I can decoy, I can do all that
Speaker 1: stuff that works particularly well during the rut too. So
Speaker 1: I had a game plan going in to go back
Speaker 1: to the zone that i'd hunted the last two years.
Speaker 1: So the I had permission two years ago, I guess
Speaker 1: was two seasons ago and I hunted just two evenings
Speaker 1: at the end of a public land hunt. But on
Speaker 1: those two evenings I got to know a little spot.
Speaker 1: And then I came back last year and scouted the
Speaker 1: first night, hunted the next day, same zone, got to
Speaker 1: know it better, killed this buck, scouted around some more,
Speaker 1: put up cameras and stuff. So I'd learned some more
Speaker 1: that second year, and now coming back for year three,
Speaker 1: I had like a real game plan. You know, I knew, okay,
Speaker 1: this is one of the main betting areas. This is
Speaker 1: one of the main betting areas. This is where I
Speaker 1: think I can set up for a morning on day one.
Speaker 1: And I, you know, thought through all this on the
Speaker 1: drive out there, and you know, I'm thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: definitely holding out for like a five year old type buck,
Speaker 1: a big, big deer. You know, I don't know what
Speaker 1: that means, but like a deer that would be like
Speaker 1: And I was like, I told myself, I'm gonna pass
Speaker 1: some deer, like I'm gonna pass mature bucks that are
Speaker 1: not giants, because this is like my only chance to
Speaker 1: do that every other hunt. You know, I can't I
Speaker 1: couldn't possibly pass up on a mature buck. But this
Speaker 1: might be the kind of place I could actually be picky.
Speaker 1: So I get there chatting with the landowner.
Speaker 2: Great guy.
Speaker 1: I'm very, very very appreciative of him letting me hunt here,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was gonna let me camp out
Speaker 1: there on his property. So he went out and he
Speaker 1: showed me an area he was okay with the ca
Speaker 1: so I was all excited about that, And just before
Speaker 1: he heads out to leave, he's like, oh, and by
Speaker 1: the way, there's two other guys hunting. They're hunting the
Speaker 1: whole east side. So just as long as you don't
Speaker 1: cross this line, you can hunt the stuff on the
Speaker 1: west side. And my heart just dropped to my toes.
Speaker 1: And I don't know, I don't know what I said,
Speaker 1: but I think I just said what I just said
Speaker 1: over and over again, because all of the cover, all
Speaker 1: of the habitat, all of the stuff that I had
Speaker 1: hunted in the past, was all to the east side.
Speaker 1: Like that was my entire game plan, was hunting the
Speaker 1: east side, and basically two thirds of the property were
Speaker 1: now off limits to me because these other guys had
Speaker 1: got there first and had claimed it, and so all
Speaker 1: I had was the other third to the west, which
Speaker 1: had like very very few trees. There was cover, but
Speaker 1: it's just like this buckbrush kind of stuff is what
Speaker 1: they call it. It's just like shoulder high brush that's
Speaker 1: just right along the river. There's no trees, is set up,
Speaker 1: and I'm talking like there might be twenty yards of
Speaker 1: it along the river, and then otherwise it's grass and
Speaker 1: then there's a couple of pockets where it goes like
Speaker 1: on an inside bend, and maybe there's like fifty sixty
Speaker 1: yards of it, but I mean we're talking slim pickens.
Speaker 1: And I'm standing there thinking what am I going to do?
Speaker 1: And yeah, just what am I gonna do? Like all
Speaker 1: of my hopes and dreams went out the window, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I'm thinking, like, whoa, I won't
Speaker 1: have a hard time killing any deer now.
Speaker 2: So he leaves and I.
Speaker 1: Just like I am sitting there like my whirl falling down
Speaker 1: around me and my poor camera guy. I just had
Speaker 1: met him like half hour earlier, we just met for
Speaker 1: the first time, and the land on our leaves and
Speaker 1: I look at him like, hey, dude, this is probably
Speaker 1: not gonna be the first impression I'm gonna try really
Speaker 1: hard to stay positive. But you are seeing me in
Speaker 1: full blown crisis mode right now because I just came
Speaker 1: off this really bad day in Michigan and now my
Speaker 1: entire plan for this week's hunt has just gone down
Speaker 1: in flames. So we're gonna have to do some real
Speaker 1: crisis management over the next half hour or half the head.
Speaker 2: Hold on a second mark. So the two guys that
Speaker 2: were hunting out there, didn't you say they're from Michigan? Yes?
Speaker 2: Did they know that you were? That was your spot?
Speaker 1: Well, I mean it's not my spot, to be fair, right.
Speaker 2: What I'm saying is were they aware that you were
Speaker 2: hunting there? Or was this just a coincidence?
Speaker 1: So I believe they knew I was hunting there because
Speaker 1: we met them last year and they had hunted a
Speaker 1: different area last year, and and then and then this year.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not trying to throw these guys under
Speaker 2: the bus.
Speaker 1: They have every right to be there, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: they got to hunt it and they had a great hunt.
Speaker 2: Did they kill a way am I?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Did they kill big killed a real nice one?
Speaker 1: Yeah? One one of them killed a big one.
Speaker 2: So you know, I wouldn't be ashamed if somebody got
Speaker 2: out there ahead of those guys next year, huh.
Speaker 1: I have no ill will towards them, and I appreciate
Speaker 1: that they had a good hunt.
Speaker 2: I'm glad they had a good hunt.
Speaker 1: But selfishly I did feel like, oh no, this is
Speaker 1: this is a bummer. So all that said to what
Speaker 1: I think is valuable to other people listening, I had
Speaker 1: that happen. I had like that flood of like oh
Speaker 1: shit kind of feelings, and then I, as quickly as
Speaker 1: I could force myself to say, Okay, stop feeling bad
Speaker 1: for yourself, stop freaking out, Like we have to reassess, like,
Speaker 1: here's the cards we have, here's the cards.
Speaker 2: We've been dealt.
Speaker 1: The only thing we can do is like think through
Speaker 1: what is the situation now? Can't change past, can't control
Speaker 1: who else is here. All we can do is like
Speaker 1: analyze the situation we have and make the very best
Speaker 1: of it and understand, like what are the positives here?
Speaker 1: Like what do we have working for us? And what
Speaker 1: I still had working for me was that nobody had
Speaker 1: been hunting this section. So while there's not as much cover,
Speaker 1: and while I didn't know much about it, it still was,
Speaker 1: you know, relatively unpressued. So that's going for me number two.
Speaker 1: It's still the rut that's going for me number three.
Speaker 1: This is still river bottom stuff. So even though the
Speaker 1: area that had a lot of good trees and a
Speaker 1: lot of good cover and next to an amazing ranch
Speaker 1: with tons of deer and stuff like, even though that
Speaker 1: was like three miles away, I still am along a
Speaker 1: river that still acts as a funnel and there's still deer.
Speaker 1: They're going to cruise up and down this that the
Speaker 1: deer do cover some ground, So I had to believe.
Speaker 1: I just told myself, like, hey, there are still things
Speaker 1: going here that can.
Speaker 2: Work for you.
Speaker 1: It's still possible. You still have to follow like the
Speaker 1: basic principles of hunting the rock, Like, still do the
Speaker 1: thing you're gonna do. Instead of having like ten different options,
Speaker 1: you might have two now, Like I might just have
Speaker 1: like one spoty canon on the north side of the
Speaker 1: river and one spoty canon on the south side, and
Speaker 1: you're just gonna hunt the heck out of it and
Speaker 1: hunt as smart as you can and see what happens.
Speaker 1: That was the mindset shift I tried to have. And
Speaker 1: that first night, instead of going I was originally going
Speaker 1: to go and hang a stand for the morning and
Speaker 1: then hunt a different spot that first night over in
Speaker 1: the zone. I knew, but when this all happened, I decide, Okay,
Speaker 1: change of plans. Instead of doing that, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: go get up on a hill with my spotting scope
Speaker 1: and glass this area and just learn it. So I
Speaker 1: brought my bow just in case something crazy happened, but
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna need to learn.
Speaker 2: I gotta get eyes on.
Speaker 1: This and just see if there's deer, see how deer
Speaker 1: using it, See what's happening. So that's why I do
Speaker 1: in day one. I think this goes back to a
Speaker 1: major theme that we talked about after our September hunts,
Speaker 1: which was a theme that gets talked about a lot,
Speaker 1: which is just the value of learning stuff like scouting,
Speaker 1: whether it be through observation or on the ground. Like
Speaker 1: one hunt that's well informed by scouting is worth four
Speaker 1: blind hunts. You know. I think you and I have
Speaker 1: both seen that be true time and time again. So
Speaker 1: I knew in this case, like I'm going to sacrifice
Speaker 1: the night's hunt to get a really good idea of
Speaker 1: what's happening in this new spot. So I sat there
Speaker 1: on the hill my glassed, and what I saw was
Speaker 1: at first mostly discouraging. There was like nothing moving on
Speaker 1: the proper da could hunt. But I could see to
Speaker 1: a neighbor's property, and I did see some deer coming
Speaker 1: out there and feeding out on a pivot field. They
Speaker 1: head over there. The neighbor has a crop field. There's
Speaker 1: no food on the proper deck can hunt. So I
Speaker 1: saw a lot of deer leaving the river bottom on
Speaker 1: their side of the line and going.
Speaker 2: To the food on their side of the line.
Speaker 1: And then I saw one group of five doughs come
Speaker 1: out right on the line and head up towards that food.
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, all right, there's not a lot living
Speaker 1: on my stuff right now or moving through, but there is.
Speaker 2: Food next door.
Speaker 1: So deer got to be cruising through my stuff to
Speaker 1: get to that food eventually and check or check that food,
Speaker 1: you know, for does and all that. So I'm sitting
Speaker 1: here processing and I'm thinking, all right, there's a gotta
Speaker 1: be along the river, of course, Now can I find
Speaker 1: a tree I can get up? And I spent a
Speaker 1: bunch of that night glassing trees, just trying to find
Speaker 1: a tree that would set up to get a stand
Speaker 1: or a saddline, and literally tony the entire night, I
Speaker 1: could not find one tree that I could get a
Speaker 1: saddle up into where I could like confidently say from
Speaker 1: this view, like, oh yeah, that's a tree that would
Speaker 1: get me up. It was almost all like the little low,
Speaker 1: scrubby junk trees that like are ten foot tall and
Speaker 1: a thousand branches of that kind of thing. There was
Speaker 1: a few cottonwoods like way down by the river, but
Speaker 1: they're like, the way this area works is like a shelf,
Speaker 1: and so like the shelf right by the river, the
Speaker 1: shelf drops down like ten to fifteen feet and then
Speaker 1: there's like another layer there, and there were a couple
Speaker 1: of cottonwoods down the bottom layer, so I could see
Speaker 1: the tops of them. I just couldn't tell like how
Speaker 1: much there was to work with and if I'd be
Speaker 1: able to get in it, because the thing is like
Speaker 1: if I'm going and setting up, I can't be down
Speaker 1: there and doing a bunch of limb trimming. So not
Speaker 1: only do I need to find a tree that has
Speaker 1: a trunk I can get up into high enough, but
Speaker 1: it also can't have a million branches because I can't,
Speaker 1: you know, do major trimming renovations on a tree right
Speaker 1: in the area while I'm hunting that day, right, so
Speaker 1: trying to find a tree, never find a tree. So
Speaker 1: as the evening progresses, I'm starting to think, Okay, is
Speaker 1: there somewhere I could hunt on the ground tomorrow, Like
Speaker 1: maybe I could bring my saddle stuff with me, sit
Speaker 1: in the ground for the first hour or two, and
Speaker 1: while I'm down there on the ground, maybe I can
Speaker 1: get a better look at these cottonwoods from up close,
Speaker 1: and maybe I can find one I can get up into.
Speaker 1: And as I'm thinking through that, it's last light, I'm
Speaker 1: still glassing. I spot a single deer come off of
Speaker 1: my property on the other side of the river, about
Speaker 1: six hundred yards away, maybe something like that. Five hundred
Speaker 1: six hundred yards away. I spot a big body deer
Speaker 1: come out of this brush right along the river and
Speaker 1: kind of go up this grassy hill and cross over
Speaker 1: to the neighbors. And I can see it is a
Speaker 1: decent sized buck. It's a solid buck. I can't really
Speaker 1: see well enough to tell you if it's a big big,
Speaker 1: but it's like a decent buck. And that gave me
Speaker 1: a little hope. I'm like, Okay, there's a buck doing
Speaker 1: the thing that you would hope they'd be doing.
Speaker 2: That positive.
Speaker 1: But again on that side, there's no trees, there's no nothing.
Speaker 1: So I decide the next morning, I'm gonna go do
Speaker 1: the thing where I bring in my sticks in my saddle,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna go sit on the ground. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tuck myself up into a ceed or tree down by
Speaker 1: the river right where that shelf breaks. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sit on the top of that shelf looking down to
Speaker 1: that lower bit, and there's a couple like erosion ditches,
Speaker 1: like cuts, they go down to the river. And what
Speaker 1: I had seen the previous year in the other area
Speaker 1: is that sometimes these deer would leave the river and
Speaker 1: take an erosion dish like can imagine, like like a
Speaker 1: t junction, right, and the river bottom is the top
Speaker 1: of the tee. But then every once in a while
Speaker 1: there's this ditch or gully that goes into it at
Speaker 1: a ninety degree angle, and if ever they were gonna
Speaker 1: leave the river, they would take that out. So there
Speaker 1: was a couple of those that kind of angled out
Speaker 1: from the river up towards the crop fields on the neighbors.
Speaker 1: So I thought, hey, there's a chance that a deer
Speaker 1: might you know, come into the funnel through that too.
Speaker 1: So I got where those two met, tucked myself into
Speaker 1: a seater tree. The next morning, sat there on the ground,
Speaker 1: hoping that some people come cruising through again, thinking, you know,
Speaker 1: from a rough perspective, out there, hunt the funnel, which
Speaker 1: is the river corridor, and then be close to those
Speaker 1: bends in the river where there's a little bit of
Speaker 1: that brushy stuff where you'd hope some does would bed.
Speaker 1: And nothing did that. I sat there most of the morning,
Speaker 1: had no deer moved through it all. But late morning
Speaker 1: I spotted deer on the other side of the river
Speaker 1: again and pull up my bios and it's a tank.
Speaker 1: It's a big buck, and he's over on the other side,
Speaker 1: on the neighbor side of the line. And then a
Speaker 1: second buck comes out and the two of them stand
Speaker 1: there for a while, and the big guy starts making
Speaker 1: a scrape, and I tried to snort weeze, and I
Speaker 1: tried to grunt see if I could get this deer's
Speaker 1: you know, curiosity peak to see if maybe he'd come across.
Speaker 1: Never did, but they were out there doing the thing,
Speaker 1: just kind of milling around, and then finally five doughs
Speaker 1: came out of this little brushy stuff he was standing by,
Speaker 1: and they run down cross the property line onto my
Speaker 1: side of the line, and go down to that same
Speaker 1: little patch of buck brush that the buck came out
Speaker 1: of the night prior. They drop in there, and then
Speaker 1: that big buck runs down and follows them into the
Speaker 1: same stuff. So I'm excited to have seen like a
Speaker 1: really nice buck. And he's on my side of the line,
Speaker 1: and he disappeared into this cover, and I washed him
Speaker 1: go into this brush, and then I saw him pop
Speaker 1: out on the other side and then disappear right back
Speaker 1: into it, and then nothing. And I keep on watching
Speaker 1: further down the river trying to see if he pops
Speaker 1: out of it again. I do not see him pop
Speaker 1: out the other side.
Speaker 2: But don't think of a patch of brush as that mark.
Speaker 1: So if you were to imagine, you know, a snaking
Speaker 1: river right that's making all these spends on those inside
Speaker 1: curves where it goes in, that cover might be fifty
Speaker 1: to eighty yards wide right at the biggest portion, and
Speaker 1: then where the river comes back up it gets tight again.
Speaker 1: It might be there might be no brush, or there
Speaker 1: might be five or ten yards of brush, that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But that basic trend continues, you know, for
Speaker 1: a long ways down the river. So if you were
Speaker 1: to add up all that brush, you know, it'd be
Speaker 1: it'd be quite a bit. But like the pocket he
Speaker 1: went to was like, you know, an acre maybe two acres,
Speaker 1: and then and then you know, then it's just like
Speaker 1: a couple of little scrubby trees. And then there might
Speaker 1: be another half acre of brush, and then a couple
Speaker 1: of scrubby trees, and then there's an acre or two
Speaker 1: on another bend. Like I think, it's that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: you know, and it doesn't look like much, but when
Speaker 1: you're standing in it, it is, you know, tall enough
Speaker 1: that a deer could be moving through there and you
Speaker 1: would never be able to see him. So to the deer,
Speaker 1: it feels like, you know, great cover. So I saw
Speaker 1: him going there, I couldn't see him go out the
Speaker 1: other side. But at the same time, I knew like
Speaker 1: he certainly could just keep on going on that edge
Speaker 1: and I would probably never see him. About an hour
Speaker 1: or two later, maybe around noon, I'm still glassing over that.
Speaker 1: I keep on glassing that whole area, watching, watching, watching
Speaker 1: around noon, I see a little tiny scrubby tree in
Speaker 1: there start shaking doing that thing right, and I'm thinking, ooh,
Speaker 1: like that looks like there's a buck work in that tree.
Speaker 1: So it gives me another little glimmer of like hmm,
Speaker 1: because my big thing I was debating was is that
Speaker 1: buck in there and gonna hunker down with those dos
Speaker 1: or is he cruising two miles down the river and
Speaker 1: he's gone?
Speaker 2: And you know, on.
Speaker 1: November third or whatever this day was. You know, in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm thinking, man, it was a very high
Speaker 1: likelihood that buck kept on cruising and just kept on
Speaker 1: going and he's not going to be anywhere near here,
Speaker 1: but you never know.
Speaker 2: And during the rut.
Speaker 1: I don't know what your thought is on this, but
Speaker 1: a lot of times, if I see a buck do
Speaker 1: something once, you can't draw too many conclusions off of
Speaker 1: like a one time thing, because there can be random movements,
Speaker 1: there can be you know, things happen outside of the
Speaker 1: ordinary during the rut. But if you see something happen twice,
Speaker 1: I would say it goes from like a one off
Speaker 1: to a trend. And I didn't necessarily think that I
Speaker 1: had this buck patterned by any kind of me, like
Speaker 1: I did not go into this thinking like, oh, he's
Speaker 1: gonna do the same thing tonight. But I said, I
Speaker 1: saw buck come out of this buck brush here last night,
Speaker 1: and I saw buck go into that buck brush this morning,
Speaker 1: and I've seen nothing else. This is something like, this
Speaker 1: is the absolute best thing I have to work off of.
Speaker 1: I need to be over there where these deer moved
Speaker 1: through there, because there's for some reason they prefer that
Speaker 1: side of the river, and uh, they don't like to
Speaker 1: side I'm on right now, So I need to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to get to that side. Two problems
Speaker 1: with that, though. One problem was that you can't cross
Speaker 1: the river. It's too deep to get across the river,
Speaker 1: and the only way to get across the river is
Speaker 1: to go several miles down the river to a bridge,
Speaker 1: get over the river on the bridge, and then you
Speaker 1: have several miles to get back to this area where
Speaker 1: the deer were. Now we could deal with that, but
Speaker 1: we had a north wind, and this is the north
Speaker 1: side of the river that we want to hunt, and
Speaker 1: so if I were to cross the river and try
Speaker 1: to walk down, I would be blowing my wind into
Speaker 1: all that brush. For these deer bedded, so I can't
Speaker 1: do that. So the game plan I have is I
Speaker 1: end up walking back to camp, get to the truck,
Speaker 1: drive the truck down a couple miles to.
Speaker 2: This bridge, cross the bridge.
Speaker 1: And then get off of the or get out of
Speaker 1: the truck, and then I was able to do a
Speaker 1: really big half moon walk so that instead of walking
Speaker 1: right along the you know, if I walk right along
Speaker 1: the river, I would spook the deer. But if I
Speaker 1: went like way way way north into the hills, I
Speaker 1: could get several of these big, big hills in between
Speaker 1: me and the river and hopefully not have my wind,
Speaker 1: you know, be able to get down to them. So
Speaker 1: it's a long way away of saying I took a
Speaker 1: very long walk to get way way way up winto them,
Speaker 1: get past them. And only once I was way past them,
Speaker 1: I circle back down to the river on their backside,
Speaker 1: and did that that afternoon, got set up over on
Speaker 1: that side. The issue with this spot again, there's no trees,
Speaker 1: so I can't hang a saddle sid I can't get
Speaker 1: up in the trees stand. So I was thinking about
Speaker 1: all this when I was sitting on the ground, thinking
Speaker 1: about how I was gonna pull it off. I was
Speaker 1: gonna have to just figure out a way to hide
Speaker 1: in that buck brush right by the river, so that
Speaker 1: with that north wind blowing, I'd be tight to the water,
Speaker 1: so my wind would blow straight into the water behind me,
Speaker 1: and hopefully that buck or some other buck doing a
Speaker 1: similar thing would come cruising through that buck brush step
Speaker 1: out of it, and then hopefully I could get a shot.
Speaker 1: I had to figure out a way to stay hidden
Speaker 1: in there. And the other thing I didn't like about
Speaker 1: it was it was gonna be uphill, so I was
Speaker 1: gonna have to shoot uphill because down the river is
Speaker 1: the lowest point and then the hill rises from there,
Speaker 1: so I was gonna be lower than the deer and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out a way to hide myself in
Speaker 1: this grass and brush. So long story short, we sneak
Speaker 1: our way over there. The wind dies down, so it's
Speaker 1: like very very very quiet trying to creep in there.
Speaker 1: I'm like a little part of my soul is dying
Speaker 1: with every step because of how crunchy everything is. Plus
Speaker 1: have a camera guy, so there's two crunches for every step,
Speaker 1: and we just went really slow, painstaking as much as
Speaker 1: we could. I actually was very frustrated because there was
Speaker 1: cattle in there, and there weren't supposed to be cattle
Speaker 1: in there, but there were. So that was like just
Speaker 1: kind of like bumming me out because cattle sometimes don't
Speaker 1: always mix well with deer. But it helped me in
Speaker 1: this case because I actually spooked some cattle as I
Speaker 1: was trying to walk in there, and I was trying
Speaker 1: to be really quiet, but when those cattle spooked, I thought, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to take advantage of that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to be a running cattle. So we just started scooting.
Speaker 1: As soon as those cattle started running, I started like
Speaker 1: half jogging to like pretend like mix my noise in
Speaker 1: with theirs. So I get down to the river. Then
Speaker 1: I spend like twenty minutes just standing there, thinking through, Okay,
Speaker 1: where's gonna be the best possible place to sit my
Speaker 1: butt down and hide? And I'm weighing, Okay, I have
Speaker 1: to be able to stay hidden, and I need the
Speaker 1: cameraman to be able to stay hidden. I need to
Speaker 1: also be within forty yards of where I think this
Speaker 1: deer is gonna pop out of this brush, and then
Speaker 1: there's all this tall grass, and how do I stay hidden,
Speaker 1: Like I want to use the grass to stay hidden,
Speaker 1: but then I need to be able to shoot, and
Speaker 1: I need to be able to range, and this tall,
Speaker 1: wispy grass, as you know, is a nightmare to try
Speaker 1: to get a range on anything through. And it was
Speaker 1: gonna make getting a clear shot really hard because not
Speaker 1: only am I trying to use grass, but the deer's
Speaker 1: gonna be uphill with me, so I'm not going to
Speaker 1: have the downward advantage advantage. I'm going to be shooting
Speaker 1: up and so that grass is going to be even
Speaker 1: more challenging. So again, my cameraman must have thought I
Speaker 1: was nuts because I took so long to Like I
Speaker 1: would go to one spot and I was like, uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is good for cover, but I just don't think
Speaker 1: I'll be able to get a shot if he comes
Speaker 1: Like if he comes this way, if he comes this way, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna work. So I'd move five yards over
Speaker 1: and I'd sit here, and I'd think about, well, I
Speaker 1: could I hide here, where's my camera got go? And YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 1: It took forever to do this, but I just I
Speaker 1: didn't like the situation. I was worried about shots. I
Speaker 1: was worried about us getting pegged, and I just if
Speaker 1: I had to be on the ground like this, I
Speaker 1: had to pick like the very best possible place to
Speaker 1: pull it off, and finally found a place that I
Speaker 1: thought balance those criteria. I thought I could stay hidden
Speaker 1: behind this tall grass, and then I had a patch
Speaker 1: of that buck brush right on my tail, and the
Speaker 1: camera guy could hide behind the buck brush and film
Speaker 1: around the side of it. And I had a little
Speaker 1: bit of a lane where there had been like a
Speaker 1: trail from cattle or deer or something, so you could
Speaker 1: shoot through this trail, or I could get up on
Speaker 1: my knees and kind of possibly lean around and shoot
Speaker 1: around it to where it opened up just a little bit.
Speaker 1: So I thought I had the best possible scenario and
Speaker 1: settle in, thinking to myself, like, what an idiot, You're
Speaker 1: gonna sit here, You're gonna see nothing. You've got a
Speaker 1: thousand little cactus things stuck in your stuck in your hand,
Speaker 1: and YadA, YadA, YadA, like what a disaster this is
Speaker 1: turning out to be. And then I hear some crunching
Speaker 1: to my side, and I hear like a twig snap,
Speaker 1: and another twig snap, and like, holy crap, there might
Speaker 1: be a deer coming. I like get my camera guys
Speaker 1: and say, hey, focus this deer. I hear another twig snap,
Speaker 1: and the holy crap, there's actually a buck's gonna come
Speaker 1: popping out of here, cruising early afternoon because it wasn't
Speaker 1: like primetime yet so anything like at this time here,
Speaker 1: I'm thinking it's got to be a buck, and so
Speaker 1: I like.
Speaker 2: Grab my bow. I'm getting ready, and then.
Speaker 1: Freaking cattle. So I'm like, ah no, I've gotten.
Speaker 2: All jacked up. It's just the cows again.
Speaker 1: So then I settled back in and sitting there waiting,
Speaker 1: and maybe another hour passes, and then the same thing happens.
Speaker 1: I get jacked up because I hear some twig snapping
Speaker 1: and then you hear a move. It's the cow again.
Speaker 1: So this whole thing has got like up down uptown.
Speaker 1: We get to the last hour daylight and I hear
Speaker 1: a crunch, crunch over there in the branches. Again, I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: just a cow. I'm not going to get all jack
Speaker 1: eduff about it. But I'm still like on my knees
Speaker 1: and I'm still gonna glass.
Speaker 2: I'm still gonna watch.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking off to my right side where this
Speaker 1: noise is and knowing is probably a cow. But I
Speaker 1: still I knew, like, one of these times it's not
Speaker 1: going to be a cow, so you better assume everyone's
Speaker 1: a deer because one of the times it won't be.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking over there where the sound is, where
Speaker 1: you know it's either a deer or a cow.
Speaker 2: And then I.
Speaker 1: Glanced off to my left, just by luck, I glanced
Speaker 1: to my left where there had been no sound. This
Speaker 1: is just out in the open grass, and there's the
Speaker 1: buck from that morning, standing broadside. He silently had materialized
Speaker 1: out there while I was watching for the noise in
Speaker 1: the brush. He's standing out there perfectly perfect. I'm like,
Speaker 1: holy crap, buck's right there. Holy shit. Grab my bow
Speaker 1: and he starts walking. He's like on a mission, like
Speaker 1: he's just he's cruising, moving through the quickly doing his thing.
Speaker 1: And I'm trying to range and figure out what range
Speaker 1: she was at. And I try to pre range a
Speaker 1: bunch of stuff earlier because I knew, like this is
Speaker 1: gonna be a tough scenario, so I try to pre
Speaker 1: arrange a bunch of things. But again, like everything is
Speaker 1: ranging through grass, so I'm trying to like figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: this little part on the hill is thirty and like
Speaker 1: if you're over there, he's forty. But long story short,
Speaker 1: I'm able to get my bow get clicked on, can't
Speaker 1: get a range on him, gets him at thirty shoot
Speaker 1: and it sails right underneath his belly.
Speaker 2: And so I kind.
Speaker 1: Of in that moment and like collapsing down out of
Speaker 1: like dismay, thinking like how did you just muff another shot?
Speaker 1: And as I'm like dropping down in dismay, I noticed
Speaker 1: that he like stopped, he'd bound it off but stopped,
Speaker 1: and so I crouched I'm crouched down. I see that
Speaker 1: he stops and he's looking back. He maybe only bounced
Speaker 1: off like ten yards, stops, turns and looks, and he
Speaker 1: starts doing the head swivel. He starts doing the head
Speaker 1: bob and then just stands there and stairs for a
Speaker 1: while and stairs for a while. And as I realized
Speaker 1: that he's not running off, I'm thinking like, hey, maybe there,
Speaker 1: maybe I have another shot here. So I reached back
Speaker 1: and grabbed my quiver, and I'm hiding. I'm behind this
Speaker 1: great grass. So I picked a spot thankfully that actually
Speaker 1: did hide me very well, because I'm able to get
Speaker 1: an arrow out of my quiver, I'm able to knock
Speaker 1: another arrow, I'm able to get clipped back on, and
Speaker 1: I'm like trying to melt into the ground as best
Speaker 1: as I possibly can. And that buck starts walking towards me.
Speaker 1: So he has no idea what had happened. He never
Speaker 1: you know, saw me, He never heard me. He just
Speaker 1: heard like a weird sound and that was it. So
Speaker 1: in his mind he's thinking, like, maybe there's a dough
Speaker 1: down there, maybe there's you know, what's going on down there.
Speaker 1: So he starts coming towards me, you know, just very inquisitively, slowly,
Speaker 1: takes a few steps, stops, looks around, takes another step,
Speaker 1: stops and looks around, and just starts closing the distance.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, I shot for thirty. Later I
Speaker 1: ranged it, he was more like forty. So he's now
Speaker 1: the win from he's at forty when I shot, he
Speaker 1: bounded it off to fifty. And then he starts closing
Speaker 1: from fifty to forty, from forty to thirty, from thirty
Speaker 1: to twenty, coming head on at like twenty yards. And
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking, okay, you cannot do anything obviously, when
Speaker 1: he's coming at you like this, you need to wait
Speaker 1: until he hopefully breaks off and starts to head back
Speaker 1: off where he wanted to go. And I think he
Speaker 1: will eventually do that if you just don't get spotted.
Speaker 1: So just wait.
Speaker 2: The big thing was like.
Speaker 1: Be patient, be patient, be patiently, don't be tempted to
Speaker 1: try to pull off a crazy shot in the moment.
Speaker 2: You have to let this deer go off.
Speaker 1: And so, thank goodness, somehow, by a miracle, he got
Speaker 1: to within maybe I don't know, fifteen yards, never could
Speaker 1: figure out what we were, and then turn and started
Speaker 1: quartering away, very slightly, heading back in the direction he
Speaker 1: wanted to go. And as soon as he got to
Speaker 1: where he was slightly cornering away so that I was
Speaker 1: not fully in his frame of view, drew back, raised
Speaker 1: up him right behind the shoulder, and because of the
Speaker 1: angle that was at, because I was weighed downhill of him,
Speaker 1: I went through that front lung and top and like
Speaker 1: clipped the back of his spine and it dropped him
Speaker 1: right in his tracks and he died within ten seconds,
Speaker 1: right in front of me at twenty yards. It was nuts.
Speaker 1: It was very very intense, and I just like when
Speaker 1: you when you watch the footage of me after that,
Speaker 1: I when I turn and look back at the camera,
Speaker 1: my face is just like aw, it was just pure shocked,
Speaker 1: Like did all that just happen?
Speaker 2: I mean just crazy, crazy situation.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what uto up and down? What an up and
Speaker 2: down hunt? Huh yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean we talked about it every time we have
Speaker 1: one of these chats, right, But it is, and you
Speaker 1: mentioned this last time, like, it's not only a roller
Speaker 1: coaster day to day, it's a roller coaster hour to
Speaker 1: hour during the months, or minute a minute in this I.
Speaker 2: Mean, it just is. I mean that's but that's such
Speaker 2: a I mean, I want to hear what you think
Speaker 2: the lesson was. But when I hear that, the patience
Speaker 2: to not rush that follow up shot after you've already
Speaker 2: screwed up one is the difference maker. Like when I
Speaker 2: hear that, I'm like, that's the difference between putting your
Speaker 2: tag on that deer and not, because it is so
Speaker 2: hard to not push it and try to redeem yourself
Speaker 2: when he's doing that. But that's the right move, is
Speaker 2: just to let it play out till he gives he's
Speaker 2: when he's that close, he's probably going to give you
Speaker 2: your chance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think I think you're right. I think
Speaker 1: the patient it comes down to to a lot of
Speaker 1: like the little things that in the moment maybe seem insignificant,
Speaker 1: but they can you know, once every twenty times they
Speaker 1: matter a lot. So you know in that case, like
Speaker 1: having you know, making sure that my quiver was accessible,
Speaker 1: Like I don't want to shoot my quiver on, so
Speaker 1: I always take my quiver off. But you actually, like
Speaker 1: three years ago, did a little video for Wired to
Speaker 1: Hunt about this about the importance of like are you
Speaker 1: ready for a follow up shot at all times? And
Speaker 1: you know that's something I thought about a lot. But
Speaker 1: for some reason after we did that video together, I
Speaker 1: just always think about that every time I get set
Speaker 1: up in a new place, like double checking, like okay,
Speaker 1: if you have to have a follow up shot, are
Speaker 1: you sure that your quivers accessible? Are you sure you're
Speaker 1: at a good angle that you could reach it and
Speaker 1: do it? And so like I thought about that that night,
Speaker 1: I made sure, like Okay, where am I going to
Speaker 1: position my quiver? So if I need to carefully and
Speaker 1: hid and pop out another arrow, I can, So you know,
Speaker 1: of my last two thousand hunts. That's never mattered once,
Speaker 1: but this time it did matter. It made all the difference.
Speaker 1: Or another thing. I took so long to pick the
Speaker 1: right spot to hide on the ground, and I literally
Speaker 1: apologized to my cameraman. I told them, like, hey, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I know this is taking so long and you must
Speaker 1: think I'm nuts, but trust me, this is this might
Speaker 1: be important. I took so long trying to make make sure,
Speaker 1: like like looking at it like a ten yard square,
Speaker 1: but what's the best one yard square in this ten
Speaker 1: yard square that might possibly give me the balance of
Speaker 1: cover and a.
Speaker 2: Shot and all that.
Speaker 1: And if I hadn't been in that perfect spot, I
Speaker 1: do not believe I would have killed that deer because
Speaker 1: he would have pegged us or I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: able to get that follow up shot. So I think
Speaker 1: that stuff mattered a lot. So again, like the little
Speaker 1: details and trying to think through Like I said this
Speaker 1: to him that night, I said, I can't remember why
Speaker 1: I said this, but I think that one of the
Speaker 1: very most important things that white tail hunters do, like
Speaker 1: good white tail hunters, to be a good white tail
Speaker 1: hunter is almost all about predicting possible futures and accounting
Speaker 1: for them. So it's all about, well, what if this happens,
Speaker 1: what will I do? And what if this happens, what
Speaker 1: will I do? And this is what I think might happen,
Speaker 1: So because of that, I will prepare it in this way,
Speaker 1: in this way, in this way. So like that whole night,
Speaker 1: like as we're trying to pick the right spot, I
Speaker 1: was then thinking through, Okay, if a deer's up in
Speaker 1: this spot, here's what I need to do. Here's what
Speaker 1: you need to do. If a deer pops out in
Speaker 1: this spot. Here's how we're going to react. If I
Speaker 1: need to make a move, if I need to reposition,
Speaker 1: like I practice, how will I reposition in this situation?
Speaker 1: And like there are all these little things that I
Speaker 1: try to do that most of the time don't matter,
Speaker 1: but I think, you know, in this case, it did,
Speaker 1: And so I just think those little bits of anticipation
Speaker 1: and preparation, the more of those you can stack up,
Speaker 1: the better, because, as we've talked about, so many things
Speaker 1: are outside of our control, so many things can go wrong,
Speaker 1: so many things can be surprised when the deer does this,
Speaker 1: the deer does that. If the more of those possible contingencies,
Speaker 1: you are prepared for the better And this was one
Speaker 1: of the best examples of that for me.
Speaker 2: And it like to further that point when you're telling
Speaker 2: the story about how okay, well this is where I
Speaker 2: need to be. Now I need to just like I
Speaker 2: need to run through this and figure out where where
Speaker 2: here is like the acts on the ax on the ax,
Speaker 2: like where do I really need to be? If you
Speaker 2: don't have the confidence to saddle up, to get into whatever,
Speaker 2: to get on the ground and do a natural blind,
Speaker 2: you're gonna find spots you absolutely should hunt and you're
Speaker 2: not gonna hunt them right, And that's I mean that
Speaker 2: buck that I killed in North Dakota we did. I
Speaker 2: did the same thing. I apologized to my cameraman too,
Speaker 2: because I looked at every tree, every angle, like can
Speaker 2: I get a stand? Can we saddle? Can we stand
Speaker 2: on a limb with our saddle? Like what? And then finally,
Speaker 2: just like the best scenario here is to tuck in
Speaker 2: on the ground and pick the best spot and cross
Speaker 2: your fingers that they follow the script. But if you
Speaker 2: if you're going to force it or you're just like
Speaker 2: not that confident in a bunch of different styles of ambush.
Speaker 2: You're gonna let some of those opportunities slip through, and
Speaker 2: the only way to learn is to do them. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's why it's so beneficial to go on hunts
Speaker 2: like you're talking about, where you put yourself in a
Speaker 2: situation where you don't have like that tree cleaned up.
Speaker 2: That's you've been planning on hunting since March, you know,
Speaker 2: like when you when you have to show up and
Speaker 2: the deer like we're here, now do your job. That stuff.
Speaker 2: It's it's different and it's important for your development. I think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: so so much.
Speaker 1: And it you know, that's that's a hunt I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't have tried ten years ago like I would have been.
Speaker 1: I would not have been confident enough that you know,
Speaker 1: I could pull it off. I would have been like, ah,
Speaker 1: well there's no trees over there, or jeez, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be super risky trying to get up there
Speaker 1: and not get winded and.
Speaker 2: YadA, YadA, YadA or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I think to your point, putting yourself out there
Speaker 1: hunting new places, being willing to take risks and try
Speaker 1: new things, and then learning from them when they don't
Speaker 1: work out you know. All of that over many years
Speaker 1: of trying this over and over and over again has
Speaker 1: given me the confidence to a to take the risk
Speaker 1: and b to believe in it enough to pay attention
Speaker 1: to the details, because the flip side could have been
Speaker 1: like I could have been willing to take the risk,
Speaker 1: but then have gotten there and been like, man, this
Speaker 1: is such a stupid idea. I'm just gonna sit somewhere
Speaker 1: and see what happens. But I tried really hard to
Speaker 1: really believe in it and really believe enough to check
Speaker 1: all of those things, to dot all those eyes, and
Speaker 1: and hey, nine times out of ten you do all
Speaker 1: that stuff and it doesn't work out still, right, like
Speaker 1: I got I happened to get lucky that on this
Speaker 1: tenth time out of ten, this one time out of ten,
Speaker 1: the buck actually followed the script and I got the
Speaker 1: opportunity and got the opportunity for the follow up. So
Speaker 1: there's a lot of luck and good fortune that went
Speaker 1: into this, of course, But you don't get to take
Speaker 1: advantage of that luck and good fortune if you don't
Speaker 1: do all those other little things that put you in
Speaker 1: a position to take advantage of it. For sure, for sure, Man,
Speaker 1: that was That was the takeaway for me from that hunt.
Speaker 1: It was the you know, the little detail steck enough.
Speaker 1: It was shaking off the bad news and like believing
Speaker 1: in the thing, like okay, hey, like everything I thought
Speaker 1: I was going to do, like Plan ABC and D
Speaker 1: are gone. And I remember telling my camera guys like, man,
Speaker 1: bad news is I don't really have a plan B,
Speaker 1: Like I don't have a Plan C or D, Like
Speaker 1: I really was all in on this zone and I
Speaker 1: had a bunch of abcde options over in that zone.
Speaker 2: But now I'm in a.
Speaker 1: Totally different place miles away where I had no thoughts
Speaker 1: of trying to be over here. So I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do, but I'm gonna have to figure it
Speaker 1: out quick. And after that initial hour, I was like, ugh,
Speaker 1: you know, it just got back down to okay, now
Speaker 1: what now what? And that helped in a big in
Speaker 1: a big way. And then finally, I think the last
Speaker 1: thing to think about here is you hear a lot
Speaker 1: about how you can't pattern deer during the rut and
Speaker 1: everything's random during the rut or whatever it is, YadA YadA, YadA, Right,
Speaker 1: And it might be true that a buck, a single
Speaker 1: specific buck, may not do the same thing every night,
Speaker 1: like he might do in September, right, But I think
Speaker 1: in this case, like I saw a trend, and I
Speaker 1: couldn't guarantee. I couldn't. I didn't know for sure if
Speaker 1: it was the same buck from the night before and
Speaker 1: that morning, and I didn't know if the same buck
Speaker 1: from that morning would do the same thing that night.
Speaker 1: But I noticed a trend and that was enough of
Speaker 1: a pattern, quote unquote pattern for me to say like, hey,
Speaker 1: I might be stupid, but I'm not that stupid, Like
Speaker 1: you gotta be over there. And and so I made
Speaker 1: And it was inconvenient to have to figure out a
Speaker 1: way to go over there and do a big hike,
Speaker 1: and knowing I was gonna have to hunt the ground
Speaker 1: and again, and knowing that there was the.
Speaker 2: Risk of the wind and all these things.
Speaker 1: And I had moments where I thought, well, maybe you
Speaker 1: should just, you know, do something different, but but every
Speaker 1: time I went back like, no, you gotta be over there.
Speaker 1: You have to. You saw this thing. It's you got
Speaker 1: to listen with the deer telling you. We say this
Speaker 1: a lot like when the deer tell you something, you
Speaker 1: have to listen, even if it's not the convenient thing,
Speaker 1: even if it's not the thing that lines up with
Speaker 1: your original plan. And that was that was this case.
Speaker 1: Yes it was the rut. Yes, I wasn't counting on
Speaker 1: that exact deer do the exact same thing, but hey,
Speaker 1: you know what he did and he's dead now. So
Speaker 1: that was a big lesson and reminder for me during
Speaker 1: the rut that when you see something like that, you've
Speaker 1: got to jump on it pretty quickly. If you know,
Speaker 1: there might be something like a random buck chasing a dough, right,
Speaker 1: and that happens in one place, and that happens someplace else,
Speaker 1: and okay, like in that situation, yeah, that's random if
Speaker 1: it's a completely wild, random thing like that. But when
Speaker 1: you see like a cruising buck do something and then
Speaker 1: a cruising buck do the same thing again, they're telling
Speaker 1: you something about that area, like they're cruising through there
Speaker 1: for a reason. You got to listen to that.
Speaker 2: You gotta move on that. That's that's such an important
Speaker 2: distinction to make. A chase is just different. But cruising
Speaker 2: is reliable. And what one buck does to cruise, he's
Speaker 2: doing because there's advantages to it, and it's point A
Speaker 2: to B and he's got the wind in the right
Speaker 2: situation and he knows where he's going and other bucks
Speaker 2: know that so valuable to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was my hunt, man, That's awesome, dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was wild.
Speaker 1: It was unexpected many ways, but I appreciate it if
Speaker 1: they ended well. And uh yeah, I wrapped up things
Speaker 1: and hopped in the truck and drove home and right
Speaker 1: away got back after the Wide nine. I was hoping,
Speaker 1: you know, thinking he'd be back, and so hunted another
Speaker 1: three days for him, like I told you, and got
Speaker 1: in all there around his core area again, like thinking,
Speaker 1: just be around this major area that he spent most
Speaker 1: of his life and be in the dough betting areas
Speaker 1: and be on the edge of that stuff, and if
Speaker 1: he's there, he'll show. And he did not, So now
Speaker 1: I'm now I'm waiting, and went hunted a new farm
Speaker 1: because I eventually decided I was gonna wait to hunt
Speaker 1: the Wide nine until he shows back up. So I
Speaker 1: went hunted a different spot where I was after a buck.
Speaker 1: There's a pretty nice deer over there, kind of a
Speaker 1: funky titan tall deer. And the only interesting encounter I
Speaker 1: had with him, I think, is the one that I
Speaker 1: told you about. In the beginning where I saw him
Speaker 1: runnerunerneath another other hunter and then another hunter came in
Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of where I'm in.
Speaker 1: That's the only other deer in Michigan that I would shoot.
Speaker 1: So I'm just kind of in a holding pattern a
Speaker 1: little bit waiting for of the Y nine to show
Speaker 1: back up or to you know, try to get a
Speaker 1: crack at this other deer and a little bit of
Speaker 1: a lost puppy feeling at the moment.
Speaker 2: But I got to try to practice what I preach and.
Speaker 1: Keep on keeping on and and uh, you know.
Speaker 2: See what You've been a running cow and a lost
Speaker 2: puppy in the same podcast, Buddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it's hunting season, Tony. Anything's possible. So really quick,
Speaker 1: we got to wrap this up. But I want to
Speaker 1: take like just a couple of minutes here for you
Speaker 1: to give me a quick rundown of your thoughts for
Speaker 1: gun season hunting. I think you did a Foundations episode
Speaker 1: about this this week that we should we should tease
Speaker 1: for people, but give us like a real quick cliff notes.
Speaker 1: If folks have a gun season opening or that just
Speaker 1: opened and now they're dealing with the ramifications of that.
Speaker 1: What's a few things people should be thinking about because
Speaker 1: that's happened in a bunch of states right now.
Speaker 2: Man, I think the number one secret to being a
Speaker 2: better gun hunter is not hunting like most gun hunters like,
Speaker 2: get in the cover, get off the easy views. You know,
Speaker 2: think if you think about your gun hunting setups from
Speaker 2: a bow hunter's perspective, as far as the wind and
Speaker 2: why they should be there, and you forget that you
Speaker 2: have a gun that you can shoot three hundred yards
Speaker 2: with and you want to be able to see three
Speaker 2: hundred yards in every direction. When you start thinking about
Speaker 2: what does the deer need? Right now? When half a
Speaker 2: million people go into the woods, it's always going to
Speaker 2: be in the cover, unless unless you just have a
Speaker 2: banging spot. But if you know, if you're primarily hunting,
Speaker 2: your crossing your fingers, do something different. Get in where
Speaker 2: it's tighter, where your shots are, you know, forty fifty
Speaker 2: sixty yards whatever, not this not just reach out and
Speaker 2: touch them on the power line and go hunt where
Speaker 2: those deer are going to go, you know, like that
Speaker 2: that field edge stuff, the open clearcut stuff's great maybe
Speaker 2: opening day, but after that they're pretty clued into what's
Speaker 2: going on, and it's time to get into the into
Speaker 2: the thick stuff. I think. I think that's like the
Speaker 2: the hardest thing for gun hunters to do, but probably
Speaker 2: the most important by the time you're on day two
Speaker 2: of the season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's pretty tough to have a three hundred yard
Speaker 1: range but only be able to shoot thirty yards. But
Speaker 1: to your point, probably the better option if you are
Speaker 1: in a couple days into the season and after a
Speaker 1: deer that's not completely brainded. Yep, all right, man, I
Speaker 1: think that's a good place to leave things. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the name of that podcast that you did that's
Speaker 1: all about gun season?
Speaker 2: I don't know. It dropped the fourteenth week. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I don't remember what the title was.
Speaker 1: Something about like being your best orange clad self or something.
Speaker 2: How to be yourself? Yeah, I can't remember.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but if you want some more advice for being
Speaker 1: more effective hunter during gun season, go listen to Tony's
Speaker 1: episode from last week on Foundations and Well that Tony
Speaker 1: appreciates you joining me man, sharing your story. Congrats and
Speaker 1: the buck, congrats to your daughter, and and I hope
Speaker 1: that in another couple of weeks we will both have
Speaker 1: another buck or two down to do another one of these.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep on keeping on and maybe maybe you'll
Speaker 1: have a couple of pheasants down and I'll have a
Speaker 1: buck down.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have both, buddy, I'm gonna I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: some roosters down, and I'm gonna see what I can
Speaker 2: do about killing a public land muzzle or buck here
Speaker 2: in just a little bit too, so we'll have some
Speaker 2: more to talk about here in a couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: All right, sounds good man, And to all of you listening,
Speaker 1: appreciate you tuning in. Best of luck out there as
Speaker 1: we round out on November, as you maybe are kicking
Speaker 1: off gun season or late season.
Speaker 2: Which is quickly approaching here. We'll be talking about that soon.
Speaker 1: All of it is great and good and fun and
Speaker 1: write for opportunity. So thanks for being here, thanks for
Speaker 1: being a part of this community, and stay wired to hunt.