Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light,
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by Scott Bestell fielden Stream's longtime
Speaker 2: whitetail columnist, to discuss tactic and mindset shifts that can
Speaker 2: help you make the very most of these final weeks
Speaker 2: of the hunting season. All right, welcome back to the
Speaker 2: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light
Speaker 2: and their Camel for Conservation initiative. Today we are going
Speaker 2: to discuss how to save your hunting season, how to
Speaker 2: make the most of these final weeks of the year,
Speaker 2: especially if your hunting season has not been going the
Speaker 2: way you wanted to. If you have been struggling to
Speaker 2: fill a tag, or kill mature buck, or kill that
Speaker 2: one target buck, or if you have been burnout, stressed out,
Speaker 2: frustrated with the season. You are who we're talking to
Speaker 2: here today, because I guess I am you. I am
Speaker 2: that person. I have had a hunting season that has
Speaker 2: frustrated me, befuddled me, confused me, stressed me out. And
Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting timing because a new film of
Speaker 2: mine came out just a week or two ago on
Speaker 2: the Mediator YouTube channel, and the kind of underlying theme
Speaker 2: of that episode was this epiphany that I had a
Speaker 2: couple of years back that if you're a longtime listener
Speaker 2: of the podcast, you've heard me talk about but a
Speaker 2: few years ago. This was after the twenty twenty one season.
Speaker 2: I kind of realized that I had been getting burned
Speaker 2: out on this stuff. I was going too hard, I
Speaker 2: was putting too much pressure on myself. I was doing
Speaker 2: a bunch of things that were kind of taking the
Speaker 2: fun out of hunting because I was so obsessed with
Speaker 2: killing a mature buck or so obsessed with quote unquote success.
Speaker 2: And I tried to kind of right the ship after that,
Speaker 2: and in many ways I have. In many ways I've
Speaker 2: learned from that, I've gotten better at certain things. But
Speaker 2: on the flip side, I also have, you know, at
Speaker 2: times fallen back into those old ruts.
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: Experienced some of those same feelings. I think it's probably
Speaker 2: a combination of just who I am personally and also
Speaker 2: just the fact that, you know, chasing mature bucks all
Speaker 2: over the country and trying to do it consistently successfully
Speaker 2: is just inherently a thing that's going to be stressful
Speaker 2: and super challenging. And layer on top of the fact
Speaker 2: that I I'm very goal oriented, hard driving, and I
Speaker 2: guess tough on myself. All those things can be recipes
Speaker 2: for some adversity, recipes for you know, not always stuff
Speaker 2: being rainbows and butterflies. But I have also realized that,
Speaker 2: and this is something I realized a few years ago
Speaker 2: and continue to remind myself of, is the fact that
Speaker 2: it is a shame to ever let hunting bring you down.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be a thing that's fun, that is enriching,
Speaker 2: that's invigorating, that fills your cup. Shouldn't be draining your cup.
Speaker 2: And what I've gotten better at doing is catching myself
Speaker 2: in those moments when I'm feeling that way, and hopefully
Speaker 2: having enough self awareness to step out of it and
Speaker 2: snap myself too and say, hey, you got to start
Speaker 2: making some different decisions, or hey, you got to chill out.
Speaker 2: This stuff doesn't matter that much. That's been my big
Speaker 2: thing over the last five years is working through this
Speaker 2: because I love deer hunting, but sometimes I'm so obsessed
Speaker 2: with hunting deer that I lose that and that's a mistake.
Speaker 2: And that's what today's episode is all about. It's about
Speaker 2: how we can have success as deer hunters but also
Speaker 2: don't lose the fun and the joy in them. My
Speaker 2: guess today is someone who's dealt with this himself, mister
Speaker 2: Scott Bestel. He has been a long time columnist for
Speaker 2: Field and Stream magazine, a very experienced and as he
Speaker 2: put it, proficient whitetail deer hunter, and someone who can
Speaker 2: share with us both tactical ideas, so some specific tactics
Speaker 2: and hunting strategies that can help us here to make
Speaker 2: the most of these final weeks of the hunting season.
Speaker 2: So we do discuss some late season ideas to help
Speaker 2: you fill a tag here in these last weeks or
Speaker 2: month of the year. But then also we spend time discussing,
Speaker 2: you know, how to get back to the fun of it.
Speaker 2: How to make sure that we end this hunting season
Speaker 2: on a high note, not stressed out because we didn't
Speaker 2: kill enough deer or the biggest deer or the mature
Speaker 2: buck we're after. How to remember to focus on the
Speaker 2: important stuff and how to release some of that pressure,
Speaker 2: release some of that stress, and get back to the
Speaker 2: good stuff, because it'd be a real shame to end
Speaker 2: the year upset it yourself or bummed out or frustrated
Speaker 2: because it wasn't as good as somebody else's season that
Speaker 2: you saw on instagramm or it didn't kill as many
Speaker 2: bucks as you saw some guy on their YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: That kind of thing just is like a I don't know,
Speaker 2: it's like siphoning the energy and the fun and the
Speaker 2: good vibes out of you as a hunter.
Speaker 3: I can tell you that from experience.
Speaker 2: I have had a number of moments this year where
Speaker 2: looking back at them, I'm bummed out that I let
Speaker 2: myself get to that point because I know better and
Speaker 2: I've learned a lot about myself over recent years, and
Speaker 2: it is it's easy to slip down that slope. I
Speaker 2: was in Kentucky this year on a public land hunt
Speaker 2: that was, you know, gonna be challenging. I knew it
Speaker 2: was going to be really challenging from the get go,
Speaker 2: and spent a couple of days hunting national forests with
Speaker 2: low deer densities. It was a two plus mile hike
Speaker 2: into this area, then we sat all day long, and
Speaker 2: then a two plus mile hike out. We did this
Speaker 2: for several days in a row. We were wore out
Speaker 2: from that. On day three or four, I moved to
Speaker 2: a different area of public land and I was going
Speaker 2: to scout my way into this spot and try to
Speaker 2: You know, at first, I'd never seen this place ever,
Speaker 2: brand new to this area. I was going to slip
Speaker 2: in at first light and hopefully be able to navigate
Speaker 2: this dry creek bed and set up on an area
Speaker 2: that looked good on the map. Long story short, as
Speaker 2: I slipped in along this creek bed, I spooked deer
Speaker 2: after deer after deer. There was way more deer in
Speaker 2: this area than I realized, which is good. The bad
Speaker 2: news is that they were all on this creek and
Speaker 2: even though I was slipping very quietly in a great
Speaker 2: access route way, it just seemed like it just seemed
Speaker 2: like it was a disaster. Kept on educating deer, and
Speaker 2: when I got to the area I wanted to hunt,
Speaker 2: the wind was not doing what it was supposed to do.
Speaker 3: I was there was big.
Speaker 2: Kind of hills and stuff in the area, and the
Speaker 2: wind instead of the thermals getting sucked up this cliff
Speaker 2: base that I was gonna hunt near, and the wind
Speaker 2: kind of blowing past this betting area and then up
Speaker 2: the cliff behind me like I thought it would. Instead
Speaker 2: it was bouncing off of it and recycling right through
Speaker 2: this bedding area, and so I'm stressed out about that.
Speaker 2: Now I'm freaked out that the wind's wrong. I've educated
Speaker 2: all this deer as I've walked in there, so I finally,
Speaker 2: you know, sit there and I'm thinking and trying to
Speaker 2: figure out what to do and can't figure out anything
Speaker 2: that I think is gonna work. And it's quiet now,
Speaker 2: so every step I take is loud and noisy, and
Speaker 2: I decide, all right, I need to this isn't gonna work.
Speaker 2: I need to, you know, find something that actually will work.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna keep slipping down this creek, and so
Speaker 2: I go to the next spot on the map that
Speaker 2: looks good, and again the wind's not doing the right thing.
Speaker 3: So now we get to a river, and.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think about how to handle this situation.
Speaker 2: So I start slipping down on this river because there's
Speaker 2: another zone on the map that looks like it should
Speaker 2: be good, and I bet you she's far enough away
Speaker 2: from that cliff face and the wind will be consistent, and.
Speaker 3: YadA, YadA, YadA.
Speaker 2: Long story short, I spend half the day scouting this property.
Speaker 2: The wind is a mess. Everywhere I go, numerous deer
Speaker 2: see me or hear me or wind me. It's kind
Speaker 2: of a disaster. And I just remember being so stressed out,
Speaker 2: so upset about things not going right and not knowing
Speaker 2: the right choice to make, and things all kind of
Speaker 2: just being a mess. I remember turning to my buddy
Speaker 2: Charlie was filming, and I just just said, I hate
Speaker 2: this so much, Like in that moment, I hated it.
Speaker 2: I hate this so much, is what I said. And
Speaker 2: then looking back on that a few days later, it's
Speaker 2: just like, what a shame I keep saying that, But
Speaker 2: what a shame that I'm out there hunting in what
Speaker 2: was a beautiful place with a bunch of deer and
Speaker 2: I hated it. I don't want that to be the case.
Speaker 2: And I know I've got other friends, and there's other
Speaker 2: people listening who have probably been in some kind of
Speaker 2: situation like that, who have felt that way before because
Speaker 2: of the pressure they put on themselves or because of
Speaker 2: how they compare themselves to others, or because of whatever
Speaker 2: it is. We've lumped so much onto this hunting thing
Speaker 2: that at times, if we're not careful, we're too obsessed
Speaker 2: with a specific goal or a specific deer, or what
Speaker 2: other people think about what we do or how we
Speaker 2: do it, or quote unquote success.
Speaker 3: Whatever it is.
Speaker 2: There's all these different ways to do it, but there's
Speaker 2: many ways to poke holes in this boat. That is
Speaker 2: our experience as hunters. And today, with my conversation here
Speaker 2: with Scott, I would love to throw everyone a lifeline.
Speaker 2: Let to keep you afloat. Let's learn from some of
Speaker 2: my mistakes, Let's learn from maybe some of our own mistakes,
Speaker 2: and make the most of these final weeks of the season,
Speaker 2: let's say, the hunting season. Scott's got ideas for how
Speaker 2: to do that from a hunting perspective and from a
Speaker 2: mindset perspective. Making sure we're having fun, making sure we're
Speaker 2: making the most of this hunting season, and just sucking
Speaker 2: every last ounce out of it in a positive, super
Speaker 2: fun way. That's the plan for today's conversation. I think
Speaker 2: we should not be there on the bush anymore. Let's
Speaker 2: get right to it. I hope you guys enjoy this one.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 2: All right here with me on the line is Scott
Speaker 2: Bestel Scott, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 4: Nice to see you, Mark. I appreciate you having me on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right back at you. I greatly appreciate it. And
Speaker 2: last time we had you in the show, which is
Speaker 2: a while back now, I mentioned this, but I'm just
Speaker 2: gonna say it again. I'm gonna say it every time
Speaker 2: you're on the show. You were the very first person
Speaker 2: within the hunting industry, within this community we're in that
Speaker 2: ever showed a semblance of support to me way back
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight. Really, I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember this, but that's long.
Speaker 4: Remember I remember our first contact and I'm like, this
Speaker 4: is a nice, young, eager guy. I hope he makes it.
Speaker 4: And here you are.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know.
Speaker 2: It's it's only been because of the help and support
Speaker 2: of a lot of folks like you. So so I
Speaker 2: just want to again acknowledge that and thank you that
Speaker 2: I still remember it now twenty twenty four. Now, that
Speaker 2: was two thousand and eight, so it's been a lot
Speaker 2: of years. And that response to that note was something
Speaker 2: that gave me some some belief and that was that
Speaker 2: was pretty important back then. So thank you again for that, and.
Speaker 4: Thanks for reaching out. And I'm really honored that you
Speaker 4: thought of thought of reaching out to me. So that's, uh,
Speaker 4: that says a lot. I'm flattered, And.
Speaker 2: That's exactly why I'm reaching out to you again here today,
Speaker 2: because I think back then you were someone who had
Speaker 2: a lot of experience and wisdom in the world of
Speaker 2: whitetail hunting, and you still today have that, but but
Speaker 2: probably much more so since it has been you know,
Speaker 2: approaching two decades since that point, and and really today's theme,
Speaker 2: the thing that brought me to you, Scott was a
Speaker 2: little bit of angst, maybe a little bit of stress
Speaker 2: that that I personally have been feeling this hunting season,
Speaker 2: and that I imagine a lot of other folks have felt
Speaker 2: at some point during the season, especially as we're edging here,
Speaker 2: you know, towards that last third of the year, or
Speaker 2: maybe even less than that for some people, right because
Speaker 2: it's it's so funny. We go through you know, January, February, March,
Speaker 2: and we're dreaming about hunting season, and then April, May, June, July,
Speaker 2: it's getting closer it's getting closer, and we're planning and
Speaker 2: we're plotting, and we're excited and the anticipation is high,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, it's here, it's going,
Speaker 2: and then it's gone. It just always seems to go
Speaker 2: so fast, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, it's it's just crazy. It was. It was
Speaker 4: so funny. I remember joking to one of my hunting
Speaker 4: buddies the season opened and we were, you know, we
Speaker 4: were talking about it, you know, our target deer and
Speaker 4: what are we going to do opening week and blah
Speaker 4: blah blah. Pretty soon one of us just lasts and goes,
Speaker 4: you know what, next week, it's going to be late season,
Speaker 4: and here we are.
Speaker 3: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Every year I warned myself of that, and it still
Speaker 2: sneaks up on me. It's still absolutely Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's wild how that happens. But but how how is
Speaker 2: your season?
Speaker 3: Ben Scott?
Speaker 4: You know, I really had a fun season. I have
Speaker 4: not put a tag on a buck yet this year,
Speaker 4: but I've passed up a couple, you know that. I
Speaker 4: I don't know one. I remember I rattled in I
Speaker 4: was in Minnesota. I rattled in my fourth buck of
Speaker 4: the year in Minnesota, which is I think a personal
Speaker 4: record for me. But anyway, it was a nice, you know,
Speaker 4: like three year old eight pointer and came right in,
Speaker 4: stood there fifteen twenty yards. I shoot my recurve. I'm like,
Speaker 4: this is just like a you know, like a gift.
Speaker 4: I mean, here he is, and I don't. I don't know.
Speaker 4: I just didn't. I wasn't in the zone, and I
Speaker 4: let them walk. I remember walking back to the truck
Speaker 4: and I call my hunting buddy. I go, You're gonna
Speaker 4: remind me this day when it's December fifteenth and I'm
Speaker 4: freezing my butt off all there, and You're gonna go,
Speaker 4: why did we not kill that deer? So anyway, but
Speaker 4: I mean I really looked at it as a I
Speaker 4: mean it's kind of like catch and release trout fishing.
Speaker 4: You know, you get the victory without without having to
Speaker 4: deal with the dead animal and all that good stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but anyway, so I've had a lot of fun, but
Speaker 4: I've not tagged anything yet. But I'm not giving up either.
Speaker 4: So yeah, this is actually my one of my favorite
Speaker 4: parts of the season. I've always loved late. I can't
Speaker 4: explain it. Well, maybe we'll talk about it more. But yeah,
Speaker 4: I like this phase of the season.
Speaker 2: Well that's perfect because you and I are both kind
Speaker 2: of in a similar a similar boat then, because we
Speaker 2: still have goals and hopes for the rest of the year.
Speaker 3: Neither one of us are.
Speaker 2: Tagged out and completely done with the year yet. So
Speaker 2: that said, I think that there's probably a lot of
Speaker 2: folks out there right now who are feeling the same
Speaker 2: way we are, who are feeling like the season has
Speaker 2: just flew by, and I'm sure they came into this
Speaker 2: with all sorts of hopes and dreams, and if there
Speaker 2: are people who still haven't filled their tag yet who
Speaker 2: are maybe starting to sweat it a little bit. You know,
Speaker 2: as you and I talked about before we started recording,
Speaker 2: you know, we kind of want to cover two sides
Speaker 2: of this coin, one being how to deal with maybe
Speaker 2: some of the mental.
Speaker 3: Stress of this part of.
Speaker 2: The year coming without having a tag filled, or maybe
Speaker 2: things not going the way you wanted. But then there's
Speaker 2: also just the practical side of things, like what can
Speaker 2: I do now if I still don't have a deer killed,
Speaker 2: or if I still don't have the target buck I'm
Speaker 2: after killed, or if I don't have meat in the freezer,
Speaker 2: whatever the goal is, what are some of those first
Speaker 2: few ideas that come to mind to you if someone
Speaker 2: is in this situation and they came to you saying, hey, Scott,
Speaker 2: I'm down to the last two, three, four weeks of
Speaker 2: the season and I haven't achieved my goal yet. What
Speaker 2: are some of those first couple ideas you might give
Speaker 2: someone on that front?
Speaker 4: Okay, well, you know this isn't rockets. Science are probably
Speaker 4: news to many people. But I started moving my cameras around.
Speaker 4: I'm a big from like, well, soon summer goes into
Speaker 4: early fall, I go heavy onto mock scrapes. That's where
Speaker 4: almost all my trail cams go. And now I'm pulling
Speaker 4: them off of mock scrapes unless they're really tight to food.
Speaker 4: So anyway, I've I've I've pulled a lot of mock
Speaker 4: scrape sets, put them on good food sources, and I'm
Speaker 4: out there scouting. You know, we don't. We had just
Speaker 4: a tremendous acorn crop last year, probably the most prolific
Speaker 4: one I've ever seen, and this year consequently, it's not
Speaker 4: quite as good. But those few oaks that are dropping
Speaker 4: are gonna be huge here in the next few weeks
Speaker 4: and so yeah, you know, I'm putting my scouting boots
Speaker 4: back on and looking around and trying to identify those
Speaker 4: food sources. And uh so, yeah, I mean that's kind
Speaker 4: of it's almost like you're you've got a season reset now.
Speaker 4: It's almost like going back into early season again, finding
Speaker 4: finding where the groceries are and you know, getting some
Speaker 4: scouting done and formulating new game plans. I get excited
Speaker 4: about it. It.
Speaker 2: So, so you mentioned acorns. What are your other top
Speaker 2: late season food sources. There's you know, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of options out there, but what really gets you excited?
Speaker 4: Okay, well, we've got some food plots that are planted
Speaker 4: with late season in mine, you know, with some brassicas
Speaker 4: and stuff we also get in I'm lucky enough to
Speaker 4: have my my main hunting partner is a farmer, and
Speaker 4: so I get to hunt hunt a lot of his spots,
Speaker 4: you know, just on permission, and so he puts in
Speaker 4: some corn and bean plots, and anytime you get those
Speaker 4: this time of year, it's just you know, it's kind
Speaker 4: of like a no brainer. But yeah, I like the acorns.
Speaker 4: I look, you know, I look for good browse sources
Speaker 4: self facing slopes where there's you know, woody brows and
Speaker 4: grasses and forbes for him. You know, in the colder
Speaker 4: we get in Minnesota here, both self facing slopes. Really
Speaker 4: they play a huge role and you know, giving to
Speaker 4: your place to bed and hang out for the day
Speaker 4: where they're you know, ambient temperatures are a lot a
Speaker 4: lot higher, and you know, they just like the lolligig
Speaker 4: on those spots. So anyway, I'm doing a little shifting
Speaker 4: around now and you know, looking for looking for new
Speaker 4: food sources.
Speaker 3: Do you ever.
Speaker 2: One of the things I've historically spent a lot of
Speaker 2: mental energy trying to figure out is on any given
Speaker 2: day in the late season, trying to decide which of
Speaker 2: the possible food sources the deer might prefer. Do you
Speaker 2: give any credence to you know, super cold weather pushing
Speaker 2: them to one type of food source, while a warmer,
Speaker 2: late season day might push them towards a different kind
Speaker 2: of food source. Is there any kind of condition that
Speaker 2: might help you make that decision?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, it's not a whole lot different than
Speaker 4: rout hunting. I find that if temperatures are you know,
Speaker 4: and everything is relative, So like if deer have been
Speaker 4: living in forty degrees and all of a sudden it's twenty,
Speaker 4: you know, they freak out, think they're never going to
Speaker 4: eat again. Whereas if it's been zero and all of
Speaker 4: a sudden it's twenty, they're like, oh, yeah, I can
Speaker 4: sleep in all day, We'll not worry about things. But anyway,
Speaker 4: so the warmer, the relative tempts are. I tend to
Speaker 4: go into the timber more and kind of approach it
Speaker 4: like a rud hunt, where I want to be a
Speaker 4: little bit tighter to bed. I'd rather have a food
Speaker 4: source in the timber. Whereas if it's if it's cold
Speaker 4: and we got snow on the ground, they're gonna go
Speaker 4: for the easiest groceries. In my experience anyway, they're gonna
Speaker 4: go for the easiest groceries they can get, and they
Speaker 4: you know, they don't care if it's daylight or whatever.
Speaker 4: I've seen some of the best bucks of the season
Speaker 4: on those super cold days, you know, just I mean
Speaker 4: out there in a you know, corn stubble or rye
Speaker 4: field or I mean just any you know, no brain
Speaker 4: or food source, and they're you know, they're out there
Speaker 4: in the middle of the day, you know, trying to
Speaker 4: trying to scarf up some calories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So I've got a kind of a perfect
Speaker 2: scenario coming up for me. We're in our late gun
Speaker 2: season here in Michigan here very shortly, or we're in
Speaker 2: it right now, it's coming to an end very shortly,
Speaker 2: and then basically I have until this Thursday to use
Speaker 2: a firearm in my home state of Michigan, and then
Speaker 2: it's and then it's done. So I'm curious, when you're
Speaker 2: down to the last few days of your late season
Speaker 2: trip or late season opportunity, whatever it is in your case,
Speaker 2: and you're kind of getting desperate, do you have any
Speaker 2: Hail Mary type ideas for late season deer? Is there
Speaker 2: anything that you'll pull out of the bag of the
Speaker 2: tricks when you're down to your last couple chances it's
Speaker 2: now or never and you don't have, you know, the
Speaker 2: the absolute perfect, no brain or easy situation where it's
Speaker 2: you know, perfectly cold and you've got the one amazing
Speaker 2: food source, Like that's an obvious one. But what if
Speaker 2: the obvious one isn't available any other tricks of your sleeve?
Speaker 4: I'm well, I revert back to security cover and self
Speaker 4: facing slopes, and I just I pushed the en Wolpe.
Speaker 4: I figure, you know, like in your situation, you've got
Speaker 4: a couple of days left. I mean, you got to
Speaker 4: swing for the bleachers. You got nothing to lose, you
Speaker 4: might as well push your luck. And yeah, if it involves,
Speaker 4: you know, even still hunt through some of that heavier
Speaker 4: cover or along the edge of it, or you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you know, especially if there aren't working in your
Speaker 4: favor that are going to put the deer on their feet,
Speaker 4: then you got to kind of you know, as Thelensil
Speaker 4: brothers either always say, you know, the tactics either wait
Speaker 4: for the deer or go to the deer. And so
Speaker 4: sometimes you got to go to the deer. And when
Speaker 4: you got you know, when you're down to the wire
Speaker 4: and you got nothing to lose, you might as well
Speaker 4: might as well push it. And it's you know, it's fun,
Speaker 4: kind of fun to get out of tree stand once
Speaker 4: in a while and you know, go after them and
Speaker 4: see what you can do. So anyway, yeah, those I'm
Speaker 4: not sure if that's a hardy enough fodder for your answer,
Speaker 4: but you know, I do push it. I don't mind.
Speaker 4: I used to be I used to be a little
Speaker 4: more timid about it, you know, but you know when
Speaker 4: you're when you're kind of down to the wire and
Speaker 4: at the end you might as well push because it's
Speaker 4: going to be a long it's going to be a
Speaker 4: long season. Until they you don't have time to respond
Speaker 4: to any pressure you put on them.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, there's nothing to lose at that point, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've had I've got a weird situation in that
Speaker 2: I have one tag left in Michigan and the area
Speaker 2: that I've been trying to hunt is a zone that
Speaker 2: I've gotten to know well over the years. I've got
Speaker 2: a handful permission properties in this area, and this has
Speaker 2: been the first year and probably a decade where the
Speaker 2: deer I thought I would be after this year have
Speaker 2: just disappeared. One of them disappeared the third day of
Speaker 2: the season, one of them completely changed his behavior from
Speaker 2: the last two years. And Joe showed up a few
Speaker 2: times throughout the year, and then since November ninth, he's
Speaker 2: been gone. So I'm in a situation now where I've thought,
Speaker 2: I just don't know if I have a deer to hunt,
Speaker 2: and so I've been monitoring. I've been scouting, I've been
Speaker 2: moving cameras and keep on I've been hoping and waiting
Speaker 2: and hoping and waiting that eventually the cold weather would
Speaker 2: push them into this kind of sanctuary I've created by
Speaker 2: not overhunting it because I've been kind of waiting and waiting,
Speaker 2: like eventually the pressure everywhere else has got to push
Speaker 2: them back into my place and start moving, or eventually
Speaker 2: the fact that all the other fields have been harvested.
Speaker 2: But I have some plots on in my zone and
Speaker 2: there's a cover crop field in the neighbors, Like there's
Speaker 2: got to be deer coming in. Eventually a big boy
Speaker 2: is going to show up, and it just hasn't happened yet. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So it's been a weird, a weird deal where it's
Speaker 2: been waiting and watching and nothing has arrived yet. But
Speaker 2: I'm at the point now where I think I just
Speaker 2: need to start taking some swings at the fences and
Speaker 2: just hope that maybe something's happening that I haven't been
Speaker 2: aware of, that I haven't been able to see, that
Speaker 2: I haven't been able to observe or catch on camera,
Speaker 2: and at least be out there and push it the
Speaker 2: last couple of times.
Speaker 4: Right, I think that's a great idea, And you know,
Speaker 4: one thing that I've learned. And I'm sure you know
Speaker 4: this and a lot of your viewers do as well.
Speaker 4: You know, our cameras don't get everything. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: It's it's always exciting and encouraging when you're like, oh there,
Speaker 4: you know, there he is. I've been looking for that
Speaker 4: deer and now he's back. You know. But just because
Speaker 4: you're not catching him on camera doesn't mean he's not back.
Speaker 4: He could be you know, well, he could be skirting
Speaker 4: that camera. You just you know, you can you don't.
Speaker 4: They don't have to be very far away for you
Speaker 4: to miss them, you know. So it's uh, yeah, I'm
Speaker 4: I'm with you, man. I would push it. And if
Speaker 4: you've got it, sounds like you've got sanctuary and you
Speaker 4: got food. I mean, those are those are two pretty
Speaker 4: big deals this time of year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, usually it works, usually works pretty well for
Speaker 2: the late season around here. And this year, I don't know,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going on, but we've got a
Speaker 2: few more tries.
Speaker 4: So yeah, how late does your archery season go on?
Speaker 2: Then the archery season continues till January first, so perfect,
Speaker 2: I could I could still get it done with a bow,
Speaker 2: but it just seems, at least in Michigan. I've always
Speaker 2: looked at I've got a great chance with the bow
Speaker 2: until gun season opens, and then once gun season opens,
Speaker 2: you've got a chance.
Speaker 3: But it's very, very hard to pull it off.
Speaker 2: In close quarters if you go back to the bow,
Speaker 2: so open to pull it off with the firearm here
Speaker 2: these next few days. But if not, you could always
Speaker 2: pull the stick and string out again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'll get them, keep chasing them.
Speaker 3: I appreciate that. I appreciate the belief.
Speaker 2: So I think that brings me to kind of the
Speaker 2: next thing, which is why I originally reached out to you, Scott,
Speaker 2: which was, you know, the other side of this whole thing,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, when you're in pursuit of a
Speaker 2: deer lots of years, I'm after one specific deer. This
Speaker 2: year it's been a few, or you have some kind
Speaker 2: of goal, which more and more a lot of us
Speaker 2: serious deer hunters do, whether it be to kill up
Speaker 2: certain size buck or certain age buck, or a specific deer.
Speaker 2: You know, all of that can lead to stress, frustration, burnout,
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. And it's not unique to me,
Speaker 2: because I've talked to a whole lot of different people
Speaker 2: who feel this way, people who don't have you know,
Speaker 2: you and I are a little bit unique in that
Speaker 2: our careers are wrapped up in this. But there's a
Speaker 2: whole lot of folks who just do this for fun,
Speaker 2: who tell me the exact same things. I've got a
Speaker 2: group text with a bunch of hunting buddies, and every
Speaker 2: year you can hear them and see them getting stressed out, burnout, frustrated, upset,
Speaker 2: And it always is kind of silly because we do
Speaker 2: this because we love it. We do it's because it's fun.
Speaker 2: But then somehow we let ourselves get so worked up
Speaker 2: in it that we sometimes get lost. I guess, does
Speaker 2: any of that ever happen to you? Has that resonated
Speaker 2: with you in any what kind of way?
Speaker 4: Oh? Absolutely? I think it's kind of built into the
Speaker 4: to the modern deer hunting experience. You know, I can
Speaker 4: remember as a kid when I started in the seventies.
Speaker 4: I'm dating myself, but you know, our group, they didn't
Speaker 4: know half half, They didn't know a tenth about white
Speaker 4: tails that the average twenty year old knows right now.
Speaker 4: You know, it was just deer hunting was an event
Speaker 4: that you did every year and it was just a
Speaker 4: bunch of fun getting together with guys and trying to
Speaker 4: kill any buck that you saw. And it's morphed into
Speaker 4: this thing that's completely different, you know, and it's you know,
Speaker 4: when you when you approached me with the idea for
Speaker 4: the show, I was I was thinking about my dad,
Speaker 4: who's ninety five and still deer hunting, still killing him
Speaker 4: got one with his crossbowl this fall, and so anyway,
Speaker 4: he's seen this whole gamut of you know, the early
Speaker 4: deer seasons in central Wisconsin. And you know, we did
Speaker 4: a lot of We sat for a little bit, did
Speaker 4: a lot of driving, but you know, we didn't we
Speaker 4: didn't know any deer. You know, every big any big
Speaker 4: deer that we stumbled into was just it was just
Speaker 4: that it was stumbling into you know, getting struck by lightning.
Speaker 4: It was we didn't we didn't know what we were
Speaker 4: doing half the time. But anyway, so then we then
Speaker 4: we started like, well, you know, maybe we should sit
Speaker 4: more and start passing deer and blah blah blah. And
Speaker 4: that came with its own learning curve and and you know,
Speaker 4: most of us were on board. And my dad made
Speaker 4: a comment about five or ten years into that process
Speaker 4: and he said, you know, our hunting is in many
Speaker 4: ways better, and he said it's definitely safer, you know,
Speaker 4: without without the gang drives that we used to do.
Speaker 4: But he said it's interesting because he says, in a
Speaker 4: lot of cases, it's not as much fun. And I
Speaker 4: was like, ouch, but true, you know, I mean we
Speaker 4: had a gang of guys, you know, my old Norwegian
Speaker 4: uncles and and us tag along kids that were just trying,
Speaker 4: you know, not to fall in the swamp and drown.
Speaker 4: I mean it was it was kind of a gregarious,
Speaker 4: goofy fun time that was really social and you know,
Speaker 4: uh and you know we weren't as I mean, we
Speaker 4: were serious and that we pushed hard, and you know,
Speaker 4: we shot a lot of deer, but we weren't I
Speaker 4: don't know, we weren't this laser focus like we are today.
Speaker 4: Like you said, I mean, you we turned you know,
Speaker 4: we start we started in spring with you know, shed
Speaker 4: hunting and spring scouting and summer trail cams, and all
Speaker 4: of a sudden we're building this campaign. You know, it's
Speaker 4: it's almost like a surgical We're trying to make a
Speaker 4: surgical strike on a deer or two that we you know,
Speaker 4: were really after and and that just is a different
Speaker 4: experience entirely, so I think and obviously, you know, in
Speaker 4: my opinion, deer a lot better at surviving that we
Speaker 4: are killing them, especially a mature buck. And you know,
Speaker 4: we we tend to forget, you know, sometimes what we're
Speaker 4: what we're up against. I mean, we're especially in you know,
Speaker 4: places like Michigan where you are, in Minnesota where I'm at.
Speaker 4: I mean, these are naive deer. These are deers you know,
Speaker 4: they've been shot at and chased by predators since they
Speaker 4: were spots. So they're you know, they get three four
Speaker 4: years old, they're pretty darn smart. And we're just doing
Speaker 4: this part time. So yeah, it's it's easy to kind
Speaker 4: of get your expectations way up here and your hopes,
Speaker 4: you know, way up there, and you know they and
Speaker 4: they can kind of, you know, handy your butt pretty easily,
Speaker 4: and it's easy to get disappointed in that. You know,
Speaker 4: I know that you're I mean, you don't get where
Speaker 4: you got in your profession without setting goal and working hard,
Speaker 4: and I mean it's kind of hardwired into your personality
Speaker 4: and a lot of modern deer hunters are that same way.
Speaker 4: And so yeah, when you when some of those goals
Speaker 4: aren't met, I think it's real easy to get frustrated
Speaker 4: and discoura then you know, kind of pull your hair out.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, my long winded answer to your question
Speaker 4: is yes, I've been.
Speaker 2: And you know, I think it also seems to be exaggerated.
Speaker 2: There's like two two things going on. There's one which
Speaker 2: you just described, which is the fact that we've kind
Speaker 2: of turned hunting into like a military mission and this
Speaker 2: this campaign as you described it, right, and then the
Speaker 2: flip side. We also have then widened our social circles,
Speaker 2: and like our our our group of people we can
Speaker 2: compare ourselves against, has grown dramatically as so many folks
Speaker 2: have gotten on social media, and we've gone from just
Speaker 2: discussing our hunting exploits with our small group of friends
Speaker 2: to now maybe sharing it with hundreds or thousands of
Speaker 2: other people. And I think there's a little bit of
Speaker 2: a comparison culture going on that I think adds to
Speaker 2: that stress too, and and and and then I guess
Speaker 2: you know, there's also it's all like I mean, with you,
Speaker 2: maybe Scott again this is a little bit unique, but
Speaker 2: you talk to hundreds of hunters. I think given in
Speaker 2: a given year or two, interviewing folks for articles and
Speaker 2: all these different feature pieces and all this different stuff,
Speaker 2: and you're looked at as someone who's who's supposed to
Speaker 2: share with us how to get this stuff done, how
Speaker 2: to do this stuff. You're an expert, you know. You
Speaker 2: know the answer is, Scott, right, does that pressure? Does
Speaker 2: that pressure ever get to you?
Speaker 4: I think I felt that at one time, at one
Speaker 4: time a little bit, but you know, but for the
Speaker 4: most part, no, I'm I've consider myself more of a reporter.
Speaker 4: I've never considered myself an expert deer hunting. I'm deer hunter.
Speaker 4: I'm a proficient deer hunter. I spend a lot of
Speaker 4: time at it. You know. It's interesting. I was talking
Speaker 4: to Gordon Whittington and at a North American white tail
Speaker 4: a while back, and you said, I don't consider myself
Speaker 4: a great deer hunter. I consider myself an educated deer hunter.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, yeah, that kind of makes sense. You know.
Speaker 4: I know a lot of the stuff, and you know,
Speaker 4: and I'm fortunate enough like you to be able to
Speaker 4: talk to some of the country's very best and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, soak up a lot of their knowledge like
Speaker 4: a sponge. But I've always considered myself as more of
Speaker 4: a reporter in what I do. I like to cover
Speaker 4: what's happening with deer hunting and deer management and deer biology.
Speaker 4: So I'm more of a conduit from the true experts
Speaker 4: to you know, the general public that you know, the
Speaker 4: garden variety deer hunter that I conclude myself in that number.
Speaker 4: So anyway, Yeah, it's really funny though. My daughter when
Speaker 4: she entered high school, she was, you know, like all
Speaker 4: young teenage girls, she was worried about fitting in and
Speaker 4: are people gonna like me and talk to me? And anyway,
Speaker 4: this nice looking high school boy walked up to around
Speaker 4: It's like the first week of school and he said,
Speaker 4: are you Brooke Besteal? And Brooke goes, yeah, yep, that's me,
Speaker 4: and she goes, you're He goes, your dad is Scott
Speaker 4: Besteal right? And she goes, yep, that's my dad. She goes, wow,
Speaker 4: he hunts deer for a living. Just launch and she's like, yeah,
Speaker 4: that's what he does for a loving. We'd all be
Speaker 4: starving right now.
Speaker 2: That's pretty funny. So so that that said, though, how
Speaker 2: do you so I think one, the fact that you separate.
Speaker 2: I think you just showed something that is useful for
Speaker 2: all of us, which is that you made a a
Speaker 2: kind of delineation or I guess you were clear to
Speaker 2: yourself about who you are and what your goals are.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people feel pressure to be
Speaker 2: an expert or to be some amazing deer hunter, or
Speaker 2: to be just like some guy they see on Instagram,
Speaker 2: and I think that leads to more stress. And maybe
Speaker 2: what you just described there, the fact that you're okay
Speaker 2: being a proficient deer hunter but not being the best
Speaker 2: deer hunter in the world.
Speaker 3: Is that something that you.
Speaker 2: Have actually thought about with yourself and like gave yourself
Speaker 2: permission to be like, Hey, I'm gonna be a proficient
Speaker 2: deer hunter. I don't I'm not gonna worry about being
Speaker 2: like one of these other guys who I report on
Speaker 2: and trying to be the hero or trying to be
Speaker 2: the expert or whatever it is. Is that something that
Speaker 2: you ever had to kind of work on, as you know,
Speaker 2: as you were a younger hunter, kind of figure out
Speaker 2: your identity, what you're trying to be here or who
Speaker 2: you are, or was that always just kind of obvious.
Speaker 4: No. I think that's a great question, and I think
Speaker 4: it's something we all kind of need to look in
Speaker 4: the mirror and you know, have a discussion with ourselves,
Speaker 4: because yeah, I mean, you know, it's really interesting. The
Speaker 4: first year that I got serious about hunting, you know,
Speaker 4: mature big bucks, I actually killed two pope and young
Speaker 4: deer in one week. I shot one in Wisconsin on
Speaker 4: October twenty fourth, and then a week later I hopped
Speaker 4: the river in Minnesota I killed another one. You know,
Speaker 4: both were great, biggest bucks I'd ever shot. And you know,
Speaker 4: you kind of get this little, you know, warm gush
Speaker 4: of feeling like I'm I'm pretty good at this right
Speaker 4: And it didn't take me long, really, you know, for
Speaker 4: the deer to teach me that, yeah, you really don't
Speaker 4: know very much. And you know, this is another thing
Speaker 4: that I'm going to sidetrack. It's just momentarily a lot
Speaker 4: of you know, the we've given rise in this in
Speaker 4: this hunting culture to the you know, the the role
Speaker 4: of a quote unquote expert, you know, a guy that
Speaker 4: really has this stuff together. And there definitely there are
Speaker 4: those people. You and I both know them, you know,
Speaker 4: just really really good deer hunters that have the time
Speaker 4: to do it. But what a lot of us don't
Speaker 4: like to talk about. And I've actually heard a guy say,
Speaker 4: get kind of testy about this and maybe you have
Speaker 4: to that the role of luck and deer hunting, it's
Speaker 4: it's definitely a factor you can't you know, I've I've
Speaker 4: told a lot of people if you don't believe that
Speaker 4: there's luck involved in deer hunting, you're just not paying attention.
Speaker 4: You know, you can know a whole lot about a
Speaker 4: buck and even an individual deer. And like I was
Speaker 4: talking to Tom Inderbrol, one of the better guys in
Speaker 4: the Midwest, and he said, you know, we were talking
Speaker 4: about early season deer hunting, and he said, you know,
Speaker 4: we're talking about you know, patterning, patterning deer on their
Speaker 4: bed to feed, you know. And he said, you know,
Speaker 4: it's really it's really easy to get misled on something
Speaker 4: like this because he said, you know, I know the
Speaker 4: general area a lot of bucks bed. I don't know
Speaker 4: the bed that they lay in every night. I know
Speaker 4: their general area. Yep. He kind of kind of likes
Speaker 4: to hang on this hill side and he said, I
Speaker 4: can have that pin down right when archery season opens,
Speaker 4: and he said, but here's the thing. He says, I
Speaker 4: can I can get him in a bean field one
Speaker 4: night and think, oh, I've got no where general betting
Speaker 4: area is. Now I got his I saw him in
Speaker 4: a beanfield, so I think he's on a pattern. He says,
Speaker 4: total hogwash. He says that deer gets out of his
Speaker 4: bed at night. He's got eight or ten different places
Speaker 4: he can go, and it's just do we know why
Speaker 4: he picks what he does most of the Time's not.
Speaker 4: We can make educated guesses. But you know, you you
Speaker 4: could go sit that beanfield seven nights in a row
Speaker 4: and that's not his pit that night. So you just
Speaker 4: weren't lucky, you know. I mean, this is just my opinion.
Speaker 4: There are some guys that will get real prickly and go, oh, well,
Speaker 4: you know, if it's the northwest wind, he'll do it,
Speaker 4: and if it's southeast wind, he won't do it. And
Speaker 4: some of that is definitely true, but you know, you
Speaker 4: you definitely have to. You got to have some luck
Speaker 4: on your side, like I did that first year that
Speaker 4: I was dedicated to shooting big deer. You know, I mean,
Speaker 4: I I rolled the dice and I got I came
Speaker 4: up double sevens, you know, and it doesn't happen very often.
Speaker 4: So anyway, luck is definitely a part of it. So
Speaker 4: that helps to me, that helps take some pressure off.
Speaker 4: You know, I can do everything I can do, then
Speaker 4: the deer still has got to do what he's got
Speaker 4: to do. But yeah, anyway I did, I did kind
Speaker 4: of derail us there. But yeah, I think it was
Speaker 4: we all have to kind of make a conscious decision about,
Speaker 4: you know, why are we doing this? And like you,
Speaker 4: I've been lucky enough to kill a couple you know,
Speaker 4: pretty nice bucks. And it was really interesting because I
Speaker 4: mean a couple of times I knew the deer, I knew,
Speaker 4: you know, kind of knew where they're hanging out, went
Speaker 4: in there with a hope that I would shoot that
Speaker 4: particular deer, and a couple of times I got lucky
Speaker 4: and did that, and it was It's really funny. So, yeah,
Speaker 4: I found a mature buck, you know, did some sniffing around,
Speaker 4: use my knowledge, and I you know, set up a
Speaker 4: stand and I was able to get them. And I
Speaker 4: tell you what, the next day, my world hadn't changed
Speaker 4: a whole lot. I mean, I was the same guy,
Speaker 4: my kids just like, yeah, I just boring old dad.
Speaker 4: You know. My friends were like congratulatory, but you know
Speaker 4: it's like everybody else two days later they're like, did
Speaker 4: Scott get that? Dear? This year? Was that last year?
Speaker 4: So you know, it's really easy to put all heap
Speaker 4: all is pressure on yourself and it's like, really, you're
Speaker 4: the only one that's worrying about it. And so I
Speaker 4: did make a conscious decision that you know, I'm I'm
Speaker 4: doing this because it's fun. I mean, I want to
Speaker 4: enjoy it. And what taught me that, what helped helped
Speaker 4: me kind of laser focus on that, was I'm I'm
Speaker 4: not only a deer hunter, you know, like you, I'm
Speaker 4: a trout fisherman. I love chasing the rough grouse with
Speaker 4: my dog and pheasants, waterfowl, and uh, it's it's really
Speaker 4: interesting when I go out there and do those those activities.
Speaker 4: I don't have those high goals for myself. I catch
Speaker 4: a few brown trout on a dry f line, I'm like,
Speaker 4: what I'm you know, Yeah, I didn't know any of
Speaker 4: those trout. I didn't you know, I didn't go out
Speaker 4: there to target home yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I just went out and I enjoyed a beautiful evening
Speaker 4: on a felt stream of a fly rod in my hand,
Speaker 4: and I went home at night thinking, man, life is good.
Speaker 4: This is a great world, you know, And why can't
Speaker 4: deer hunting be like that? It should be like that,
Speaker 4: it should Why?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought about that a lot too, and I've
Speaker 2: the exact thing you mentioned. I thought, Man, all these
Speaker 2: other things I do can be just fun and enjoyable,
Speaker 2: adventures and kind of serendipitous, and you see what happens
Speaker 2: and you enjoy it no matter what. Why is it
Speaker 2: the deer hunting has to be different? Why is it
Speaker 2: that I get so worked up and so wrapped up
Speaker 2: in it? And I don't know if it's I don't know.
Speaker 2: I don't know exactly why. But part of it might
Speaker 2: be the fact that I and so many other people
Speaker 2: have have attached goals to ambitious goals, and I don't,
Speaker 2: you know, I don't know. I think there's probably pros
Speaker 2: and cons to that, to having these ambitious goals, to
Speaker 2: targeting mature bucks, or to targeting the e buck, or
Speaker 2: to try to you know, fill a tag in this
Speaker 2: state and that state, or whatever it is. But so
Speaker 2: many of us have all of these we come into
Speaker 2: every year with all these hit lists and all that
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. Absolutely, ye, is there something to be
Speaker 2: said for if someone's experiencing what we're discussing, which is
Speaker 2: this stress, that burnout sometimes losing the fun in it,
Speaker 2: might it be a good idea to re examine those goals.
Speaker 2: Because that's something I've started doing and started thinking about
Speaker 2: more seriously, is is maybe I need to change that
Speaker 2: those goals and rethink that.
Speaker 3: Is there something to that?
Speaker 4: Oh I to I totally agree. I think you know,
Speaker 4: goal setting is super healthy, and you know, this is
Speaker 4: how we get better, you know, I mean we I
Speaker 4: think it's pretty common. You know, we all we look
Speaker 4: at a season and go, oh, you know, I could
Speaker 4: have done this a little better, or I didn't scout
Speaker 4: hard enough in the spring, or you know I should
Speaker 4: I should have moved that standard never got to it,
Speaker 4: or you know, blah blah blah. And so yeah, the
Speaker 4: way we get better is to set some benchmarks for ourselves,
Speaker 4: go out there and push it. But it's pretty easy
Speaker 4: for those goals, in my opinion, to get out of
Speaker 4: hand in a hurry. I know one of my cousins was,
Speaker 4: you know, like he so he wanted to shoot a
Speaker 4: pop and young buck. So you know he got a
Speaker 4: one twenty five or one thirty beautiful buck and then oh,
Speaker 4: you know, then then then it needed to be you know,
Speaker 4: one forty or one fifty, and you know, you start
Speaker 4: climbing that ladder and it's like when when does that stop?
Speaker 4: Because it better stop pretty quick because I mean, like you,
Speaker 4: I've hunted some pretty good places in my life, and
Speaker 4: I tell you what, one hundred and fifty inch deer
Speaker 4: is a pretty dog on good deer no matter where
Speaker 4: you go anywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you know, you
Speaker 4: can go to Ohio and you know, recognize all of
Speaker 4: the two hundred engineer that come out of Ohio. But
Speaker 4: you walk in there and if you've got your you know,
Speaker 4: if your hope is to shoot a two hundred inch deeer,
Speaker 4: I can almost guarantee you disappointment. So anyway, yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: I think I think you got it. Would you have
Speaker 4: to adjust and figure out if your goals healthy ones?
Speaker 4: You know? Anyway, I look at my dad and you know,
Speaker 4: he's happy with any He's happy with any buck, which
Speaker 4: is great. You know, sometimes sometimes I'd like him to
Speaker 4: hold out and The only reason I want him to
Speaker 4: hold out is so I can hunt with him more.
Speaker 4: But I tell you what, the first like this year,
Speaker 4: he shot a nice, nice, you know, two and a
Speaker 4: half year old eight pointer with no brow tines. And
Speaker 4: they're definitely better deer on that farm that we hunt together,
Speaker 4: you know. And I would have liked to have seen
Speaker 4: him hold out a little bit longer, just because I
Speaker 4: want to. I like to hunt with him. And once
Speaker 4: he shoots his buck, he's done, you know. But anyway,
Speaker 4: he's happy as a clam and he's ninety four, and
Speaker 4: I got to go, wait a minute, not my goal.
Speaker 4: He met his goal and he was just you know,
Speaker 4: he's ecstatic. I mean, we found that deer and you
Speaker 4: can running up to me and bear hug me, you know,
Speaker 4: And that was you know, gold met happiness achieved. And
Speaker 4: that's that's the way it's supposed to be. So yeah,
Speaker 4: it's it's easy to let those things get out of control.
Speaker 4: And yeah, I mean I think you just need to
Speaker 4: As we discussed, my personal philosophy is deer hunting is
Speaker 4: it's got to be fun. I mean, why do it.
Speaker 4: None of us are doing this for a living. We
Speaker 4: don't need the meat to survive, you know, although I live,
Speaker 4: you know, I quote unquote live on venison by very
Speaker 4: little beat. But you know, if I don't kill my deer,
Speaker 4: I'm still gonna not gonna starve to death, not getting
Speaker 4: paid for any deer that I kill. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: not getting celebrity endorsements or anything. So by golly, I
Speaker 4: better enjoy it. And so then you have to look
Speaker 4: in the mirror and go, well, what what are the
Speaker 4: things about deer hunting that makes me happy? You know?
Speaker 4: And I saw you had a great picture in one
Speaker 4: of your articles about you with you and two of
Speaker 4: your buddies. You mentioned about, you know, coming out of
Speaker 4: the woods and taking a lunch break with your friends,
Speaker 4: and like that's the kind of stuff. It's so much fun.
Speaker 4: You sit there and share a few stories and recharge
Speaker 4: your battery and back out in the woods you go,
Speaker 4: you know, and like you noted in a couple of
Speaker 4: those pieces, and I've done this too. It's like, man,
Speaker 4: I'd get out there at the crack of dawn, grind
Speaker 4: it out in a tree stand all day long, come
Speaker 4: back home, and you know, of course you're disappointed. You
Speaker 4: spent ten hours in the woods on a clausterphobic little
Speaker 4: hang on freezon and probably a little bit hungry, and
Speaker 4: you didn't kill a deer and sometimes you might not
Speaker 4: even see a deer for all that effort. So yeah,
Speaker 4: you're gonna go home. You might be a little bit
Speaker 4: drumpy around your kids, you know, and they don't always
Speaker 4: appreciate the goal that you'd set here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well that's That's one of these things I've
Speaker 2: found is that when we're I'll speak for myself, and
Speaker 2: I think this applies to other people too, from folks
Speaker 2: I've talked to. But I found that I feel, because
Speaker 2: I have these ambitious goals, because I feel internal pressure
Speaker 2: that I got to kill the mature buck or I
Speaker 2: need to kill mature buck on every different out of
Speaker 2: state trip I go on, or I've got to kill
Speaker 2: the one buck I'm after here in southern Michigan.
Speaker 3: That I know the right things to do.
Speaker 2: And I know the plan that I put in place,
Speaker 2: and I know how much time and energy is required
Speaker 2: to achieve those goals. If I do not give one
Speaker 2: hundred and ten percent in pursuit of those specific goals,
Speaker 2: I will then feel bad or upset with myself or
Speaker 2: feel like I'm not doing everything I should be doing
Speaker 2: and that I'm slacking or I'm not working hard enough
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. And so then because of that,
Speaker 2: you feel the pressure to hunt thirteen hours straight every
Speaker 2: day all day during the rut, or when you don't
Speaker 2: feel like getting up in the morning because you've done
Speaker 2: it seven days in a row you gotta go still,
Speaker 2: Or when you're out there and you're sitting in the
Speaker 2: tree stand and it's one o'clock in the afternoon and
Speaker 2: you haven't seen what you've been looking for the last
Speaker 2: three days. You're sitting there beating yourself up in your
Speaker 2: mind like you should have done this, or you should
Speaker 2: have moved there, or you should have or what do
Speaker 2: you do next? Or how do you fix this? Or
Speaker 2: what's going wrong? And you're just beating yourself up. And
Speaker 2: because of all of that, you are not doing the
Speaker 2: things that actually are fun, which is the going out
Speaker 2: and having lunch with your buddies, or the taking your
Speaker 2: kids to hunt with you, or whatever. It might be
Speaker 2: doing something that's a little bit different the tactic, like
Speaker 2: walking around still hunting, or something that maybe doesn't give
Speaker 2: you the very best chance to kill the deer. After
Speaker 2: but it actually would be a fun change of pace.
Speaker 2: I constantly find myself waffling between those things and intellectually recognizing, oh, yes,
Speaker 2: that would be the more fun thing to do. But
Speaker 2: on the flip side saying, you know, the other side
Speaker 2: of me say, well, you got to give it your all.
Speaker 2: You have to be the hardest worker, you have to
Speaker 2: be X y and Z. How have you How have
Speaker 2: you dealt with that or do you deal with that?
Speaker 4: Well? Yeah, I mean I you basically have. I mean,
Speaker 4: you basically have vocalized a lot of my journey. You know,
Speaker 4: I've I've I've felt all those things. And uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I was I was a competitive runner in high school
Speaker 4: and college, and so I knew all about goal setting
Speaker 4: and hard work and you know, yeah, not going to
Speaker 4: miss a run. I don't care if it's Sunday and
Speaker 4: it's you know, twenty degrees and there's the foot of
Speaker 4: snow out, I'm going running. Yeah, and uh and then
Speaker 4: after a while it is funny though, because you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, I see a lot of comparisons between athlo
Speaker 4: and hunting. They're both really physical, you know, outdoor pursuits,
Speaker 4: at least for me, they were, and uh, you know,
Speaker 4: I just got to a point with running where it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm kind of tired of competing because no
Speaker 4: matter how hard you work, there's there's always somebody better
Speaker 4: than you, and and it takes a toll on other
Speaker 4: parts of your life. And yeah, the competition is it's great,
Speaker 4: you know, it's joyous and fun and when you know
Speaker 4: you have some success, it's so Anyway, I think that
Speaker 4: was a good prep for me for hunting where I realize,
Speaker 4: I mean, I realized that at some point with running
Speaker 4: it's like, you know what, I'm not doing this to
Speaker 4: compete anymore. I'm just doing it because I love it.
Speaker 4: I want to I like to stay in shape, I
Speaker 4: like to feel like gravel crunching under my shoes and
Speaker 4: the wind in my face, and you know, that's what
Speaker 4: I love about running. And and uh so I reverted.
Speaker 4: I quit the competing part and just ran because I
Speaker 4: loved it. And so I think I reached a point
Speaker 4: in my deering career it was kind of like the same.
Speaker 4: It's like, hey, you know, you moron, and you know
Speaker 4: you're not. You know, your your personal worth is not
Speaker 4: judged by the number of bucks on your wall. Your
Speaker 4: kids and your wife don't care about that that much.
Speaker 4: They want you happy, but they don't you know, oh Dad,
Speaker 4: it was only a one forty. You know, you never
Speaker 4: heard things like that, you know, So I mean I
Speaker 4: just kind of did a little reset, and it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, what, what what are the things about this
Speaker 4: sport that I that bring me joy? And a lot
Speaker 4: of it was going back to my roots where you know,
Speaker 4: I killed my first buck with a bow when I
Speaker 4: was a senior in high school and it was a
Speaker 4: little basket rack eight pointer I shot on public land
Speaker 4: in Iowa. Man, I tell you what, I rode that
Speaker 4: for years. I mean, it was just it's just such
Speaker 4: a great hunt. And it was, you know, just about
Speaker 4: everything wrong, including missing my first shot at the deer
Speaker 4: at ten yards. But anyway, it was just such a
Speaker 4: great experience and it just one of those things that
Speaker 4: hooked you on the sport, hooked me on the sport.
Speaker 4: And you know, I start kind of reflecting on those things,
Speaker 4: like what are the happiest moments that you've had and
Speaker 4: what about that kind of cat for to you and
Speaker 4: trying to focus on those things and my Dad's I
Speaker 4: keep going back to my dad, but I get such
Speaker 4: a kick out of him. You know, we'll go come
Speaker 4: meet back at the truck after hunting together, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: seeing you deer, nobody said I had a chicken he
Speaker 4: land on my crossbow. And he was just you know,
Speaker 4: like a little fourteen year old kid, and it's like, well,
Speaker 4: it's not the first time he's seen that, but tonight
Speaker 4: it was a really big deal, you know, And I'm like,
Speaker 4: that's the kind of stuff that you know. We were
Speaker 4: just talking the other day he said, I remember this
Speaker 4: was and honestly, goodness, this was thirty five years ago.
Speaker 4: He's like, I remember that night I saw three otters
Speaker 4: run past my deer stand. I mean, this is on
Speaker 4: the open timber, you know, a mile from the nearest water,
Speaker 4: and he remembers that. So anyway, it's you know, if
Speaker 4: you don't appreciate the woods and can't see the beauty
Speaker 4: of things happening around, if all you're worried about is
Speaker 4: getting an arrow or a bullet into that big buck,
Speaker 4: it might be I'm not telling you it is. It
Speaker 4: might be time for a little recharge, a little reset.
Speaker 4: Because I've been there. I know that feeling. You know,
Speaker 4: you get crustbrated, you get you know, I'm not like
Speaker 4: you said, but I'm not working one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 4: You know, why did I go peasant hunting with my dog?
Speaker 4: You know, instead of grinding on another four hours in
Speaker 4: that tree stand? Well, you know what SPS hunt when
Speaker 4: my dog is pretty dog on fun?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you keep bringing up your dad and being out
Speaker 2: there with other people, and and that brings up another
Speaker 2: one of these things that I've that I've recognized and
Speaker 2: that I know, and I've tried to make an effort
Speaker 2: to change this, but I still fall guilty to it sometimes,
Speaker 2: which is the sacrificing of like the community side of
Speaker 2: hunting to pursue like solo success. And oftentimes not always,
Speaker 2: but oftentimes when you are like single mindedly focused on
Speaker 2: trying to kill a buck, the best way to do
Speaker 2: it is to, you know, do it on your own,
Speaker 2: get your own permission, or find your own spots or
Speaker 2: hog that special place just to yourself, because you know,
Speaker 2: if there's more people in there, it's gonna be harder
Speaker 2: for you to kill that big old buck. Or because
Speaker 2: you're after this one deer, it's just.
Speaker 3: You go, go, go, go go.
Speaker 2: And I have found myself because of that, many times
Speaker 2: doing a lot of out of state trips by myself,
Speaker 2: a lot of times hunting properties by myself, and then
Speaker 2: I'll catch myself and realize, man, sure, it would be
Speaker 2: fun to be doing this with a bunch of buddies,
Speaker 2: or to share this experience with other people, or to
Speaker 2: be out here with my dad or out here with
Speaker 2: my kids. And oftentimes that falls by the wayside if
Speaker 2: you were just focused on the kill or just the
Speaker 2: big deer and so and so I've recognized that as
Speaker 2: something that I personally have been trying to change and
Speaker 2: trying to get better and try to get back to.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious if that's something that you have any
Speaker 2: thoughts on or have seen in your own experience too.
Speaker 4: Oh definitely. Yeah. I've been going out to northwest Kansas
Speaker 4: for twenty five years, I guess, and lucky enough to
Speaker 4: have a permission spot to hunt out there, and great
Speaker 4: family that's you know, just treated me like family, and
Speaker 4: I typically go by myself. And anyway, last last fall
Speaker 4: I invited a friend to go with me, and we'd
Speaker 4: donned turkeys out there before, so I knew, you know,
Speaker 4: as we both know, you got to you got to
Speaker 4: pick your hunting buddies carefully. I mean, some of them
Speaker 4: don't appreciate the privilege that you're offering them by letting
Speaker 4: him you hunt, letting them hunt your spots. But I
Speaker 4: knew this guy was good as gold. He's a wonderful friend.
Speaker 4: And we were there for you know, on hundred and
Speaker 4: six days, and it was just great. I mean we
Speaker 4: would text each other from the stand, what are you
Speaker 4: seeing blah blah blah. You know, meet at lunch, go
Speaker 4: do some Scotland, hang another set together, and at night
Speaker 4: you had somebody to kind of bounce things off with
Speaker 4: in it. I truly, you know, I didn't realize until
Speaker 4: about two days into the trip, but EHD had hit
Speaker 4: that area and there were basically no deer. I sat
Speaker 4: for four four days and never saw a deer from stand.
Speaker 4: It took me that long and then we finally realized
Speaker 4: what was happening. But it was honestly, it was so
Speaker 4: much fun. I mean, if I'd been out there by
Speaker 4: myself with that limited success, I'd be like, man, best
Speaker 4: of you really suck at this. I thought you knew something.
Speaker 4: But it was so great to have somebody to you know,
Speaker 4: you shore each other up and you know, he missed
Speaker 4: a nice bock and you know I patted him on
Speaker 4: the back and said, well, next time you'll get him.
Speaker 4: And you know it was Uh, I don't know, It's
Speaker 4: just there is something about that camaraderie, camaraderie that's really
Speaker 4: for a lot of us, it's an important part of hunting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it seems to I think that oftentimes when
Speaker 2: I look back on the memories and the things that
Speaker 2: stand out from over all of the years of hunting. Sure,
Speaker 2: you know the deer I've shot, some of them stand
Speaker 2: out and definitely are you know, memories that are special.
Speaker 2: But then there's oftentimes those best memories or even the
Speaker 2: best part of the memory of the deer isn't actually
Speaker 2: shooting the deer. It's like when your buddies come with
Speaker 2: you to help track it and you recover and you
Speaker 2: celebrate that night, or when you have your son or
Speaker 2: your dad or your family members with you, or all
Speaker 2: these other things that we do. But the best memories
Speaker 2: often are with other people, and that is It's something
Speaker 2: that I think has gotten lost in the last ten,
Speaker 2: fifteen to twenty years for a lot of the serious
Speaker 2: deer hunters and I think I think we're missing out.
Speaker 2: And at least I can speak for myself. I have
Speaker 2: been missing out sometimes on that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, easy to do, and I'm guilty as charged as well.
Speaker 4: And yeah, like I said, I don't think i've I
Speaker 4: don't think I've hoarded my Kansas spot, but I haven't
Speaker 4: been you know, specifically oozing with generosity with it either,
Speaker 4: you know. And anyway, when I had when I had
Speaker 4: my friend out there with me, I remembered how fun
Speaker 4: it was to hunt hunt with somebody, and uh, yeah
Speaker 4: it was. It was great. So yeah, it's pretty it's
Speaker 4: pretty easy, and we do and you know, I don't
Speaker 4: feel like I mean, I'm sure you feel this way too.
Speaker 4: I'm not speaking for everybody. There are people who are
Speaker 4: perfectly happy to hunt solo all fall. They don't need that,
Speaker 4: and that's great. I mean, you've got to My biggest
Speaker 4: thing is, you know, you've got to find out what
Speaker 4: makes you happy, what brings you joy in that process.
Speaker 4: And if it's you know, if it's going out there
Speaker 4: by yourself, you know, grinding away you know, day after
Speaker 4: day and you are truly enjoying it, man, awesome, I'm
Speaker 4: I'm happy for you. I wish I could learn from it,
Speaker 4: you could rub it off on me a little.
Speaker 2: So the flip side of that, I guess kind of
Speaker 2: adjacent to that is the the comparison culture maybe that
Speaker 2: our deer hunting community has fostered. This kind of happened
Speaker 2: by way of media and social media and everyone's goals
Speaker 2: kind of growing more and more because of that, where
Speaker 2: you have a lot of people who get their identity
Speaker 2: maybe is defined by how big of deer they shoot
Speaker 2: or how many deer they shoot. Everyone's got these little
Speaker 2: scorekeeping boards going on with their Instagram like or their
Speaker 2: Facebook comments or whatever it is. Everyone's a content creator
Speaker 2: now on TikTok or YouTube or whatever. Everybody wants the
Speaker 2: most views, likes, whatever for their big giant buck.
Speaker 3: There's there's a whole lot of ego.
Speaker 2: In deer hunting these days, and self worth sometimes being
Speaker 2: tied to that, and and also the opposite people feeling
Speaker 2: bad because they shot a little buck and they have
Speaker 2: to apologize for it, or you know, getting you know,
Speaker 2: a little bit jealous deep in the dark parts of
Speaker 2: their mind when they see their budies shoot a really
Speaker 2: big buck for the third year in a row. Or
Speaker 2: whatever it might be. How have you experienced any of
Speaker 2: that over your years?
Speaker 4: Have you?
Speaker 2: Do you have anything to share on how to to
Speaker 2: deal with that, how to think about that, or how
Speaker 2: other folks maybe have shared with you how they've dealt
Speaker 2: with that.
Speaker 4: You know, it's really interesting because I cover Big Deer
Speaker 4: for the magazine on the website all the time. I've
Speaker 4: been doing it for a long time. It's really interesting.
Speaker 4: A few years back, I was really getting kind of
Speaker 4: sick of it because I would find out a bit
Speaker 4: about a giant deer that somebody killed and I would
Speaker 4: manage to contact the hunter. And this didn't happen every time,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't infrequent where their attitude was you know,
Speaker 4: what's in it for me? Am I Am I going
Speaker 4: to get a free bow? Are you going to pay
Speaker 4: me for this? And I was just like, oh man,
Speaker 4: you know, this isn't the reason we should be deer hunting,
Speaker 4: you know, And I got I got, you know, kind
Speaker 4: of disgusted with it, and and voice out to my editors.
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, I'm kind of getting to the
Speaker 4: end of my rope with this thing, because they'd want
Speaker 4: and you know, to our discredit sometimes we did pay
Speaker 4: for a big deer. I thought it was a mistake,
Speaker 4: you know, but if it was a really big deer,
Speaker 4: sometimes they'd you know, give them a little bit of money.
Speaker 4: And anyway, we've gotten away from that. But an interesting
Speaker 4: shift has happened within the last couple of years, and uh,
Speaker 4: it's been really refreshing. And there have been some world
Speaker 4: class or you know, I've I've talked to four or
Speaker 4: five guys just this fall that have killed deer over
Speaker 4: two hundred inches and they're like, to a guy or
Speaker 4: a gal, they're just like, I mean, I am so lucky,
Speaker 4: you know, I've been so blessed to be in the
Speaker 4: woods with this critter and get a chance, and and
Speaker 4: I didn't screw it up. I got a clean kill,
Speaker 4: and blah blah blah. I'm just like, allelujah. You know,
Speaker 4: this is how we should feel, you know. And it
Speaker 4: didn't matter, you know, I mean most of them would
Speaker 4: know the score, but it wasn't like, well, yeah, but
Speaker 4: you know that guy got a bigger one, or you know,
Speaker 4: I was really disappointed because he broke off ten inches.
Speaker 4: You know, I don't know, it just it really gets
Speaker 4: to the point, in my opinion, where it gets kind
Speaker 4: of silly after a while, you know, because it didn't
Speaker 4: it wasn't that long ago where it wasn't that way.
Speaker 4: You know, we didn't have this as you call comparison
Speaker 4: culture and that. Yeah, it's it's really kind of It
Speaker 4: just strikes me as a little bit say, maybe I'm
Speaker 4: just an old fart and I don't but anyway, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't like it. Yeah I have advice, I'm not
Speaker 4: I'm not quite sure. I'm not really sure how to
Speaker 4: deal with it, except that, you know, if if you
Speaker 4: drop the hammer or trip the release on a deer,
Speaker 4: you should be proud of that critter, no matter what
Speaker 4: his score, his body weight is. You know, if you
Speaker 4: harvested that animal cleanly and ethically, then man, you should
Speaker 4: you should be proud, because it's not especially you know,
Speaker 4: especially if it's a mature bucket's you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: not that easy, as as we both know, and for
Speaker 4: most of us it takes a lot of work.
Speaker 2: So anyway, but to your to your earlier point, too,
Speaker 2: nobody else really cares. I think we we oftentimes trick
Speaker 2: ourselves into thinking that people care more than they do,
Speaker 2: or that people notice more than they.
Speaker 3: Do or that it matters.
Speaker 2: Right, We're not saving We're not saving life here. We're
Speaker 2: not rocket scientists. We're not curing cancer. We're not we're
Speaker 2: not doing anything really worthwhile at all. We're doing something
Speaker 2: that is inherently selfish. We are, you know, feeding ourselves
Speaker 2: and our families, and we're doing something that gives us
Speaker 2: value personally. But you know, whether or not I shoot
Speaker 2: a mature buck in Michigan or not this year, probably
Speaker 2: I'm the only one losing sleep over it. And if
Speaker 2: I did end up miraculously still killing one later this year,
Speaker 2: people will notice for a half a second and then
Speaker 2: move on with their lives. Like you said, Like my
Speaker 2: sons and my wife, they're not going to look at
Speaker 2: a buck I shoot, Oh geez, should have been bigger. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they don't care. And I think we probably all need
Speaker 2: a little reminder like, really, this doesn't matter that much.
Speaker 2: It's not life or death. It should if it's not.
Speaker 2: And when it comes down to it, if you are
Speaker 2: not enjoying the process, if you're not enjoying this moment,
Speaker 2: then you're missing the point because nobody else is forcing
Speaker 2: you to do this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're that's so great. I love you articulate to
Speaker 4: that just beautifully, my h and you know my editor
Speaker 4: Field and stream Day for total y Well and our
Speaker 4: standing joke is I really hope that the thing that
Speaker 4: they print on my gravestone is I hope that's Scott Bestel.
Speaker 4: He was a really good deer hunter.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 4: You know, I mean, come on, let's you and like
Speaker 4: you said, you you kill a nice block, your boys
Speaker 4: or not be like, wow, our dad's really special.
Speaker 2: Right, They'll be They'll be just as excited. They'll be
Speaker 2: excited to go track that deer, but they would be
Speaker 2: just as excited to go track a dome, exact bike,
Speaker 2: to go fishing anything, right exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And the thing about you know we really do,
Speaker 4: isn't it just a fascinating aspect of of the of
Speaker 4: the you know this, the Facebook, Instagram, you know social
Speaker 4: media craze is we think people are paying a whole
Speaker 4: lot more attention to us than they than they really are.
Speaker 4: And like you said, yeah, I mean you shoot that,
Speaker 4: and you know your close circle is going to be like,
Speaker 4: way to go, Mark, way to go, Scott, great job.
Speaker 4: And a week later, you know, I mean if somebody
Speaker 4: off the street said, did best of them get a
Speaker 4: buck this year, and I'd be like, huh was that
Speaker 4: this year? Was that last year?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Was it? I can't remember which deer that was. I
Speaker 4: you know, I've only had one guy who said, and
Speaker 4: this was man, this happened a long time ago, but
Speaker 4: I shot. I had my editor from Fielding Stream was
Speaker 4: with me, and we were hunting together and it was
Speaker 4: the peak of the rod and at ten thirty in
Speaker 4: the morning, I hadn't seen a single deer all morning.
Speaker 4: At ten thirty morning, I look up and here comes
Speaker 4: a ten pointer walking right to my tree. Wasn't the
Speaker 4: biggest buck in the world, a nice solid, probably a
Speaker 4: three year old, you know, but just a pretty deer
Speaker 4: made my heart jump and I'm like, I want him,
Speaker 4: you know. So anyway he walked in. I shot, my
Speaker 4: god him, made a nice bow shot on him. And anyway,
Speaker 4: I didn't even post it on Facebook or anything. I
Speaker 4: just sent, you know, sent to a few friends. Hey
Speaker 4: waled out on this tempointer and one guy said it
Speaker 4: was really fascinating to me. I just blew me away.
Speaker 4: It took him about a day and he finally got
Speaker 4: back to me and he goes, I've been looking at
Speaker 4: your buck picture, and I realized that someone in your position,
Speaker 4: he knew I was an outdoor writer sometimes has to
Speaker 4: kill kill a deer to give himself credibility. And I
Speaker 4: was like, really, wow, I took an animal so that
Speaker 4: I could look good for my readers. I'm sorry. I
Speaker 4: don't do that. You know, when i'm when I see
Speaker 4: a buck coming, the last thing on my mind is
Speaker 4: what are people going to think of me if I
Speaker 4: if I tagged this deer, if I passed this deer anyway,
Speaker 4: some anyway. That is the only time I've ever I've
Speaker 4: ever encountered that, and I so I took a deep breath,
Speaker 4: I let it rest for a minute, and then I
Speaker 4: got back to him later and I'm like, I think
Speaker 4: you did I think you misunderstand me. I said, I
Speaker 4: shot that buck because I'm super proud of it, and
Speaker 4: he made me really excited, and I think he might
Speaker 4: have apologized later. I don't know, but anyway, I thought
Speaker 4: it was important point out that I don't do that.
Speaker 4: I don't look at deer hunting that way. And I
Speaker 4: you know, I learned. I mean, like every young hunter,
Speaker 4: I went through a period where I was just stacking
Speaker 4: them up you know, my teens and early twenties, it
Speaker 4: was important to you know, tag and we we grew
Speaker 4: bagged unashamedly. I mean that it was legal, and we
Speaker 4: drove deer. So you know, man the deer. If you
Speaker 4: were tagged out and a buck walked in front of
Speaker 4: you on a deer drive and you had open tags,
Speaker 4: you shot it. I mean that's just what we did,
Speaker 4: you know. And so anyway, there was a time, you know,
Speaker 4: when it was important for me to get my buck.
Speaker 4: But it's interesting, I can't remember. I don't know if
Speaker 4: I remember the specific deer, but I remember I was
Speaker 4: in my mid mid to late twenties and I shot
Speaker 4: a buck and I think I didn't I think my
Speaker 4: tag was filled and I had shot it because I
Speaker 4: knew somebody was looking for me. And anyway, I shot
Speaker 4: that deer and I walked up to it, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: you just killed this thing for a that even kill
Speaker 4: his own deer, you know, I mean, this is I
Speaker 4: don't know it. It kind of hit me then that
Speaker 4: it was like, this is kind of serious business. I mean,
Speaker 4: you're taking a life, you know. And I have a
Speaker 4: lot of love and respect for white tail deer and
Speaker 4: killing them is not something that I do lightly. You know,
Speaker 4: it's a it's a fairly big deal to me, even
Speaker 4: if it's a dough, you know, just a dough. I'm
Speaker 4: very grateful and humbled by that experience. You know, I'm
Speaker 4: super I'm super happy. I know I'm gonna have meat.
Speaker 4: I achieved a goal. You know, I sat out there
Speaker 4: in the cold or whatever, and I got my deer.
Speaker 4: But you know, I mean, I killed something, and I
Speaker 4: think we need to I think we need to be
Speaker 4: honorable about that. It's a big deal.
Speaker 3: You know. In my opinion, yeah, so so true.
Speaker 2: But I think I think what you're describing there earlier
Speaker 2: with with your with your friend who who made that comment,
Speaker 2: I don't think that is uncommon for people, especially the
Speaker 2: younger people these days, like my age and younger who
Speaker 2: grew up in this social media world where everyone feels
Speaker 2: like they are on a platform and everyone's watching them
Speaker 2: and and and everyone's commenting, like everyone has an opinion
Speaker 2: in the Internet age, and so so whether whether we
Speaker 2: will like it or not, Like I know that if
Speaker 2: I shoot a deer, and if I choose to share
Speaker 2: that with a world, or if I you know, uniquely
Speaker 2: have like a video showcasing what happens. In the back
Speaker 2: of my mind, I know they are going to be
Speaker 2: people with opinions who are going to share them and
Speaker 2: who will talk badly about me or my decisions or
Speaker 2: what I did or how I did it. And so
Speaker 2: it's in this in this weird world we live in now,
Speaker 2: and it's a really unfortunate side effect that we almost
Speaker 2: can't avoid that if you choose to share this stuff
Speaker 2: with the world, you're going to have negativity out there.
Speaker 2: And so what I've what I'm getting, what I'm learning
Speaker 2: is that I need to more and more dissociate myself
Speaker 2: and like my self worth and who I am from
Speaker 2: you know, hunting success quote unquote success. And the more
Speaker 2: I have for too long in my early years, I
Speaker 2: attached like my own value to my hunting success, so
Speaker 2: like I wasn't good enough, if I wasn't killing as
Speaker 2: many deer as this guy or that guy, or big
Speaker 2: enough deer or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the more that.
Speaker 2: I've realized that that's not actually important in the big
Speaker 2: scheme of things, the better I feel and the more
Speaker 2: I enjoy it. I mean, what I have found is
Speaker 2: that I have not just like been able to flip
Speaker 2: a switch and all of a sudden not care about
Speaker 2: these things ever. But I have become more self aware
Speaker 2: and I can catch myself when I have those moments
Speaker 2: where I'm slipping down that slope and I can be who, well, well, Mark,
Speaker 2: that doesn't matter, step back, focus on the things that do.
Speaker 2: But it's a constant kind of seesaw or something that
Speaker 2: I'm on as I that's huge.
Speaker 3: I guess that's a step in the right direction.
Speaker 4: If nothing else, I cut, I find myself on a
Speaker 4: similar path because I do, like you. I enjoy the
Speaker 4: work I have. You know, I don't know what my
Speaker 4: goals are. I mean, I just I get I guess
Speaker 4: my basic goal is I want to shoot a deer
Speaker 4: that makes my knees knocked, you know, it gets my
Speaker 4: heart racing. And I mean, I've got several deer on
Speaker 4: camera going in every season where I'm like, well, I'd
Speaker 4: like to I'd like to see him with a bow
Speaker 4: and bow in my hand, you know, But I don't.
Speaker 4: I've tried to avoid the one buck mission and the
Speaker 4: you know, uh, targeting a specific deer, although I have
Speaker 4: done that and it can be exciting. But I think
Speaker 4: I think when you set yourself again. Goals are great,
Speaker 4: but I think you you know, you just gotta you
Speaker 4: gotta temper them, and and and your ability to say,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, I'm feeling kind of funky here, do
Speaker 4: I need to step back and kind of re evaluate
Speaker 4: how I'm approaching this or thinking about that. I think
Speaker 4: that's a huge step. That's you know, we we all
Speaker 4: need to be able to do that, because, as you said,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, it's supposed to be fun. We
Speaker 4: gotta have fun. And I remember I was hunting a property,
Speaker 4: a pretty exclusive property in southern Iowa, you know, fairly large,
Speaker 4: managed intensively, and you know, and the standards were pretty high.
Speaker 4: I mean it was like a one fifty or one
Speaker 4: sixty minimum, you know. So anyway, you know, you go
Speaker 4: out in the woods and you're just terrified you're gonna
Speaker 4: shoot the wrong deer. And I remember describing that to
Speaker 4: my wife and she's like, why are you hunting there?
Speaker 4: It doesn't sound like you're having very much fun. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know, that's it. I didn't say it,
Speaker 4: but I'm like, it's kind of a good point. Am
Speaker 4: I really having fun? I Mean, I'm on this place
Speaker 4: that most guys would just kill the hunt, you know,
Speaker 4: just three thousand acres or whatever. I mean, it's just
Speaker 4: you know, probably one of the best hunting properties in
Speaker 4: the North America, you know. And anyway, Yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Well along the along the same line, scat. You know,
Speaker 2: I found when I'm out there hunting for a mature buck,
Speaker 2: and I you know, when you're out there after mature buck,
Speaker 2: you know that there's so much that you have to
Speaker 2: do just right right if you can't make this mistake,
Speaker 2: you can't make that mistake. You have to you have
Speaker 2: to have the perfect access route, you have the perfect
Speaker 2: exit route. You got to make sure you're thinking about
Speaker 2: your wind direction. Make sure you're thinking about where these
Speaker 2: deer are going to travel, how will the mature buck
Speaker 2: move through, or how will you evade, you know, the
Speaker 2: noses in the eyes of every single dough And make
Speaker 2: sure you don't crack that twig when you're walking in,
Speaker 2: and make sure that when you're up in the trees
Speaker 2: and you do this, this, that and the other. There's
Speaker 2: so much stuff, right, yeah, And I find myself constantly tense.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's a very tense experience. And so the
Speaker 2: stakes seems so high, and the pressure is on everything.
Speaker 2: As soon as I flip the switch to not targeting
Speaker 2: mature buck instead just trying to shoot, does everything changes?
Speaker 2: And all of a sudden, it's like, oh man, this
Speaker 2: is fun, this is the fun hunting.
Speaker 3: And what an idiot?
Speaker 2: Like, what an idiot I am that I don't allow
Speaker 2: myself to have fun out there until the last like
Speaker 2: three weeks of the season when I start focusing on
Speaker 2: dos and and like there's something there that, for some
Speaker 2: reason I don't notice early enough in the year or
Speaker 2: or apply to the rest of the year. That something
Speaker 2: changes for me when I shift from trying to kill
Speaker 2: a mature box to instead being okay with you know,
Speaker 2: hunting for does. And how can I apply that feeling
Speaker 2: or that level of just having fun with it to
Speaker 2: the rest of my year or do I need to
Speaker 2: change my goals to feel that way the whole year.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the takeaway there is, but there's
Speaker 2: something there. When I have a totally different hunting experience
Speaker 2: and one of them is largely more fun than the other,
Speaker 2: there's something there to learn.
Speaker 4: And it's fascinating because really, when you think about it,
Speaker 4: and I've had this discussion with several guys, you know,
Speaker 4: in my mind, especially when we're at this phase of
Speaker 4: the season where we've been through early archery and most
Speaker 4: of the fire arms and muzzleoder now we're down to
Speaker 4: the you know, we're kind of down to the bar
Speaker 4: bones stuff. I will I will stand on this. The
Speaker 4: smartest deer in the herd is a mature dough. She
Speaker 4: has spent her entire life doing nothing but raising babies
Speaker 4: and getting them through, you know, this gauntlet of predators
Speaker 4: and hunters and cars and all kinds of things. And
Speaker 4: when she steps out onto a field or a food
Speaker 4: plot man, her radar is on. And I've seen mature
Speaker 4: bucks act like complete dopes this time of year, like
Speaker 4: I'm just doing homery. I'm just gonna go out through
Speaker 4: me and I don't care what what's happening. So it's
Speaker 4: it's fascinating, isn't it that you know, we're just we're
Speaker 4: just hunting a dough. Well, I tell you what, that
Speaker 4: big old nanny with a head like a burrow. You know,
Speaker 4: she's a pretty tough customer. You put an arrow in
Speaker 4: her this time of year, you've done something, I mean,
Speaker 4: that's you know, you may not get your your your
Speaker 4: picture on the cover of a magazine, or you know,
Speaker 4: be an Instagram hero. But man, I tell you what
Speaker 4: I shot one a couple couple falls or a couple winners. Back.
Speaker 4: Was the coldest night of the season, and I actually
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe it. I bumped that deer and three
Speaker 4: other There was two other doughs and a couple fawns.
Speaker 4: They were all on the food plot. When I got there,
Speaker 4: it wasn't a food plot, it was it was a
Speaker 4: stubble field. Anyway, they trotted off. They saw me coming
Speaker 4: from half a mile away, and I'm like, oh, the
Speaker 4: night is done. But I'm like, well, I've walked this far.
Speaker 4: I actually snowshoot into this place. It was that far
Speaker 4: off the so I'm like, well, I'm just gonna crawl
Speaker 4: up in the tree and you know, whiddle away. The
Speaker 4: rest of the afternoon was the last night of the season,
Speaker 4: you know. And I crawled up my tree and I
Speaker 4: couldn't believe it. Twenty minutes before dark, here they come
Speaker 4: back out, and that big nanny Doe was leading the way,
Speaker 4: and she stuck her head out of the woods and
Speaker 4: she just sat there looking while all the other deer
Speaker 4: held out into this corn stubble and she finally walked
Speaker 4: out there. I shot her. She made like a little
Speaker 4: thirty yard loop and collapsed in the field. And I
Speaker 4: don't know, I must be getting old and sappy, but
Speaker 4: I walked up to that deer and I knelt in
Speaker 4: the snow and I cried. I mean, I was so
Speaker 4: proud of that. You know, it was just like that
Speaker 4: was the deer. I don't know, I would have been cool.
Speaker 4: She was wearing one hundred and fifty inch ten point
Speaker 4: rack that she wasn't but she's probably seven years old.
Speaker 4: I'm like, what is that old gal scene in her lifetime?
Speaker 4: You know? And uh, that was was a heck of
Speaker 4: a trophy. Yeah, anyway, special and it was interesting. I
Speaker 4: did post that picture of that deer on Facebook and
Speaker 4: I had three different guys go, that's a shed buck,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, trust me them, I feel dressed her.
Speaker 4: There was plumbing to be a doll was there. But
Speaker 4: she was huge, you know, so I'd hate to guess
Speaker 4: how old she was. You know. That's pretty special anyway.
Speaker 4: So yeah, the old just a dole thing. That's that's
Speaker 4: interesting because I mean I do the same thing. I
Speaker 4: think exactly the same way. Well, let's just go out
Speaker 4: and have some fun shoot those you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe we can apply that to larger parts
Speaker 2: of the year somehow, right, you know, there might be
Speaker 2: a way to do that, A couple of different ways
Speaker 2: to do that, but one of them you you mentioned,
Speaker 2: and I'm curious if you did this for this reason.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you use a recurve sometimes or maybe
Speaker 2: all the time. Now, I guess I'm not sure, but
Speaker 2: was the decision to start using a recurve something related
Speaker 2: to all of this in some kind of way, because
Speaker 2: I've started thinking, maybe that's maybe that's something I should try,
Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, you know, any deal with
Speaker 2: the recurve would be really a heck of an accomplishment
Speaker 2: and something super exciting and might be very different and
Speaker 2: a fun new thing for me to do rather than
Speaker 2: obsess over you know, the one hundred and forty inch
Speaker 2: four year old that's within five spare miles of me.
Speaker 4: Right, you still like you felt what I do? No,
Speaker 4: it's an interesting So, I uh, I told you about
Speaker 4: that first year that I got you know, I got
Speaker 4: two p and y bucks in a week, and I
Speaker 4: think a couple it was a year or two after
Speaker 4: that I started. I was kind of inspired by the
Speaker 4: Wensil brothers and Paul Schaeffer and some of the other
Speaker 4: these other guys, and so yeah, I picked up a
Speaker 4: recurve and I hunted exclusively with a recurve for over
Speaker 4: a decade and it was really it was fun. It
Speaker 4: was sometimes frustrating. Yeah, you know, you pass some shots
Speaker 4: a deer that you probably would have get taken with
Speaker 4: a compound. But so anyway, then then my kids were born,
Speaker 4: and for me, anyway, it takes a lot of practice
Speaker 4: to be professional with a recurve. I have to shoot
Speaker 4: every day just to burn that into my muscle memory
Speaker 4: and really stay sharp. And so anyway, when my kids,
Speaker 4: I have boy girl twins, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 4: life got really really busy and practicing was not as
Speaker 4: easy it was. And so and plus I was writing
Speaker 4: more and more about bowl hunting and testing bows, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, I really gotta I gotta be So I
Speaker 4: hadn't shot a compound bowl in ten years, so they'd
Speaker 4: obviously changed quite Yeah. When I picked up the new ones,
Speaker 4: I was like, holy God, these things are really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So anyway, so then I shot compounds for you know,
Speaker 4: for many many years. Well then now my kids are
Speaker 4: growing off on their own, and I'm like, I've got
Speaker 4: a cousin who continues, and he not only shoots recurves,
Speaker 4: he builds them. And so anyway, he just kept kind
Speaker 4: of gently, really gently working on me, like you know,
Speaker 4: I could build you a bowl. And so anyway, I'm like,
Speaker 4: you know what, And I talked it over the friend
Speaker 4: and he said, you know, hey, you don't shoot that
Speaker 4: many bucks anymore anyway, so why do you care? And
Speaker 4: then I started thinking about it, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 4: my maximum range with a recurve, you know, fifteen yards
Speaker 4: is like ideal. I can do twenty if the situation
Speaker 4: is right. And then I thought, you know, bestil, how
Speaker 4: many of the deer that you shot with a compound
Speaker 4: were further than twenty yards away? And I could think
Speaker 4: of like three, you know, almost all of them are
Speaker 4: just they're just right there. And that's one of the
Speaker 4: to me. You know, you talk about goal settings, One
Speaker 4: of my greatest goals and challenges as the bowl hunter
Speaker 4: is where do I set my stand to get that
Speaker 4: super killing shot. I'm not interested in killing a deer
Speaker 4: at fifty yards, zero interest in it. I won't. I
Speaker 4: just won't shoot that. I don't care if I can
Speaker 4: do it on a target course. This is just me,
Speaker 4: not talking about people who like to shoot long range.
Speaker 4: This is just my thing. My joy is setting a
Speaker 4: tree stand or a ground blind or whatever so that
Speaker 4: I can get a close range shot at a mature buck.
Speaker 4: And that I'm like, why can't I use a recurve
Speaker 4: for that? And I can? So yeah. So anyway, I
Speaker 4: started getting serious about it last summer and shooting and yeah,
Speaker 4: I've hunted with one off all this fall, and yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just it's funny. I've got a little Judo point.
Speaker 4: I got an arrow with a Judo point on it,
Speaker 4: and when I walk out after a morning hunt, I'm
Speaker 4: shooting at leaves and stumps and sticks and it's just
Speaker 4: a blast. I enjoy it. There's just something about So, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's brought some joy into my life. I like it. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I'd recommend it so.
Speaker 2: That I think is a perfect place to send us
Speaker 2: to end it. Okay, the recurve is something that's brought
Speaker 2: some more joy to your hunting life. We've talked about
Speaker 2: some of the social stuff. Are there any other ideas
Speaker 2: that you would want to leave folks with as we
Speaker 2: wrap this conversation up here now, with folks, you know,
Speaker 2: they might have three to five weeks of hunting left,
Speaker 2: depending on what state they're in for this last phase
Speaker 2: of the hunting season. What final words of wisdom would
Speaker 2: you give folks to help them, you know, make the
Speaker 2: very most of these final weeks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just as I think I indicated earlier in
Speaker 4: the show, I this is one of my favorite parts
Speaker 4: of the season. And I think part of it is
Speaker 4: maybe because I used to be a competitive runner, and
Speaker 4: so I value endurance. And you know, when you've gotten
Speaker 4: this far and you're still hunting, you've proved you've you've
Speaker 4: got endurance you can keep you can keep plugging away.
Speaker 4: And I think that's that's kind of a little badge
Speaker 4: of honor. It might be a minor one for some people,
Speaker 4: but yeah, and and for one thing, I know how
Speaker 4: long it's going to be till that next hunting season
Speaker 4: comes around. So I want to milk everything I can
Speaker 4: out of these last few weeks and enjoy it. You know,
Speaker 4: the sunsets and sunrises of winter to me, are the
Speaker 4: most spectacular and beautiful I love every minute of that
Speaker 4: part of it. And to me, I don't know. The
Speaker 4: other thing that I mean it's a little bit selfish too,
Speaker 4: is that I mean I hunt a lot during the rut,
Speaker 4: and I see as many mature bucks now from now
Speaker 4: till the end of December. We close December thirty first.
Speaker 4: I typically, if we get the right weather and I
Speaker 4: can find the food, I'll see as many mature bucks
Speaker 4: in the next three weeks as I will the entire
Speaker 4: month of November. And that's just my area. I'm just lucky,
Speaker 4: you know, I've got some farms that don't get pressured
Speaker 4: very hard in December. So anyway, yeah, I just I
Speaker 4: don't know. I think you just got to keep the
Speaker 4: faith and recharge sometimes, you know, it feels good to
Speaker 4: take a couple of days off, like today, it's going
Speaker 4: to be forty five around here, so I'm not going
Speaker 4: deer hunting. It's like the deer, you know, I need.
Speaker 4: I need a couple of days of you know, reset
Speaker 4: and recharge my batteries. Is I don't think the deer
Speaker 4: are gonna move that great tonight. But anyway, when when
Speaker 4: the weather flips and it's gone in two days, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna be out there and I'm gonna keep plugging away
Speaker 4: to the bitter end just because I love it. I
Speaker 4: don't I want to say goodbye to the season in
Speaker 4: a proper way, which to me is in a tree stand.
Speaker 3: I love it. I love it. I'll be doing the same, Scott.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate you taking the time to do this,
Speaker 2: and I go, I guess I want to give you
Speaker 2: a chance if there's any specific article or place that
Speaker 2: you would want to send folks to read more of
Speaker 2: your work, or to take stay up to data and
Speaker 2: some of the things you're sharing out there with Field
Speaker 2: and Streamer or anything else that you'd like to send
Speaker 2: folks towards to take a look at.
Speaker 4: Sure, well, I'm mostly writing this time of year. I'm
Speaker 4: mostly writing for fieldstream dot com, so the website, and yeah,
Speaker 4: we've got some how to stuff and some big bucks stories.
Speaker 4: There's been some tremendous deer killed this year. Just oh,
Speaker 4: it's just it amazes me. I mean, we are living
Speaker 4: in the good old days of white tail hunting right now.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, it's I can't remember. It used to
Speaker 4: be a huge deal when you know, for the magazine
Speaker 4: we'd find it out angle two hundred deer in the fall,
Speaker 4: you know, And now, I mean, good lord just raining
Speaker 4: on us. You know, there's just some tremendous deer out there,
Speaker 4: and hunters, I tell you what, hunters are just better
Speaker 4: now than they've ever been. I mean, the average the
Speaker 4: average twenty five year old white tail hunter in America
Speaker 4: right now and knows way more than I knew before
Speaker 4: I was forty. I mean, you know, they just they
Speaker 4: just know, you know, they got good spots and they
Speaker 4: know how to hunt them. So anyway, but yeah, go
Speaker 4: go to fieldstream dot com. You might find some good stuff.
Speaker 4: And I'm really honored to be on this show. And
Speaker 4: I appreciate your approach and you're you know, you're really
Speaker 4: really a smart and sensitive and uh really sharp deer hunter,
Speaker 4: and I appreciate it. Your presences is greatly appreciated on
Speaker 4: the on the deer hunting landscape for me.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you saying that, and thank you again for
Speaker 2: everything you're doing, for being here today, for answering my
Speaker 2: email seventeen years ago or whatever it was, and for
Speaker 2: continuing to be a great voice and leader in our space.
Speaker 2: And I really enjoy your guys's print magazine. I'm glad
Speaker 2: it's back. Great with you too.
Speaker 4: I'm exciting to see you actually have a magazine you
Speaker 4: can hold on to again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a it's a really it's a really great product,
Speaker 2: a really nice, physical, beautiful magazine.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking forward to the future issues too.
Speaker 4: Cool. I hope, I hope there's a lot of them.
Speaker 2: Thanks Mark, thank you, and that is going to do
Speaker 2: it for us here today.
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2: I hope you found value in this conversation, and I
Speaker 2: hope it will help inspire and inform you for these
Speaker 2: final weeks of the year. Let's make the most of it.
Speaker 2: Let's enjoy this hunting season. Let's have a lot of
Speaker 2: fun out there. Let's fill a tag or two more
Speaker 2: if possible. Let's enjoy the company of our friends and family,
Speaker 2: and let's end this season on a high note. Thanks
Speaker 2: for being here, and stay wired to Hunt.