Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't
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Speaker 1: first light dot com. F I R S T L
Speaker 1: I T E dot com. All right, so I'm joined,
Speaker 1: uh with Brent Reeves, I'm with Tony Peterson, I'm with
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and we're gonna we're doing a little white
Speaker 1: tail tutorial here, a white tail bow hunting tutorial, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna there's a lot of stuff we're gonna skip.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna warn everybody up top. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about scouting. We're not talking about uh cooking, what else?
Speaker 1: Are we not talking any of that stuff. We're not
Speaker 1: talking about how to you know, what kind of camper
Speaker 1: you want? You know, we're not counting about how to
Speaker 1: get permissions, none of that stuff. I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: food plots. I could go on all day about what
Speaker 1: we're not talking about. Long least we're not talking about
Speaker 1: the problem I'm currently having, which is black bears destroying
Speaker 1: your cameras. What we're talking about is you're in the
Speaker 1: you're in the you're in the white tail woods with
Speaker 1: your bow. We're talking about how to make your arrow
Speaker 1: go where it wants and what to do after you
Speaker 1: let the arrow fly. So we're talking about everything that
Speaker 1: happens between oh my god, here he comes or she
Speaker 1: oh my god, here it comes to I found it,
Speaker 1: and everything that fits between those two moments.
Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good, a man.
Speaker 1: Love it all right? Saddle up, white tail hunters at
Speaker 1: that little joke.
Speaker 3: Yep, we got it.
Speaker 1: Get your spurs on this. This is a white tail special.
Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of avid white tail hunters in
Speaker 1: the room. And when you say white tail hunters that
Speaker 1: I feel like it almost kind of means like you're
Speaker 1: bow hunting white tails, right, That's the first impression I Geah,
Speaker 1: if I say he's a big time whitetail hunter, you know,
Speaker 1: I picture a bow hunter, right, because because that you
Speaker 1: can hunt for such a long period of time.
Speaker 2: Is there anyone you know of who would consider themselves
Speaker 2: a diehard white tail hunter? But just do it with
Speaker 2: a firearm.
Speaker 1: I couldn't think of one. No, I think of Doug
Speaker 1: duran as a Doug Durren is a very enthusiastic, dedicated
Speaker 1: hunter of white tails.
Speaker 2: Who's antagonistic to bow hunters.
Speaker 1: Well he does, it's not these antagonistic buners. He's had
Speaker 1: a lot of late nights, yeah, looking for he's had
Speaker 1: a lot of late nights looking for people's deer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did they hit with a bow? And I don't think
Speaker 1: he's had that many late nights looking for the ones
Speaker 1: that he shot with his gun?
Speaker 4: Coming through our family deer camp is ninety five percent
Speaker 4: gun hunters like me and a nephew. There only two
Speaker 4: out of However, that math figures out that the bow
Speaker 4: hunt okay.
Speaker 2: But I do feel like that, like that was my
Speaker 2: family too, And I guess they would identify as like,
Speaker 2: I love deer hunting. But the number of days they
Speaker 2: actually did it, you know, it was four days a years.
Speaker 4: Yeah, week.
Speaker 2: So they're enthusiasts, but I don't know if they were practitioners.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we still have the goalpost for what
Speaker 3: an avid Yeah, we sort think an avid whitetail hunter.
Speaker 1: Sure, this this this episode is meant to be full
Speaker 1: of very practical information. But we're going to indulge this
Speaker 1: for one more second, and I'll point out when I
Speaker 1: was a boy, if you didn't hunt with a bow,
Speaker 1: if you were a big time whitetail hunter, you had
Speaker 1: ten days. So that'd be like saying, that'd be like
Speaker 1: if you went on an annual vacation to Florida for
Speaker 1: spring break week, you wouldn't say you're a big time
Speaker 1: Floridian right, yeah, yeah, be like, dude, you go there
Speaker 1: once a week. You go there for a week every year, right,
Speaker 1: So if you didn't bow hunt, you couldn't be a
Speaker 1: big time whitetail person because they'd be like, Okay, you
Speaker 1: had a ten day season.
Speaker 3: But I mean if you compared that to whitetail hunting,
Speaker 3: that would be like if you put a sandbox in
Speaker 3: your backyard and all summer long you pretended like you
Speaker 3: were at the beach building sand castles, you know, and
Speaker 3: like working on your beach umbrella.
Speaker 1: No, that's true. You could be a big time Florida guy.
Speaker 4: You could be a off season, off season.
Speaker 3: Florida That's what I'm saying. That the reason I don't
Speaker 3: think that the criteria for being an avid whitetail hunter
Speaker 3: is the amount days in the field necessarily good.
Speaker 1: Point Yep, it's where your head's at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did speak about this whole sand castle thing
Speaker 2: in the backyard.
Speaker 3: With a lot of experience, Tony, I could see myself
Speaker 3: just getting cold up. I'm maybe a couple of bad
Speaker 3: decisions away from being a beach bum like saltwater fishing,
Speaker 3: and I could see it.
Speaker 2: All right, stay focused, white tails.
Speaker 1: I have a piece of insulation lodged in my back
Speaker 1: of my throat, so you have to pardon me for
Speaker 1: my a lot.
Speaker 3: Can we get more contact to that.
Speaker 4: I went open my.
Speaker 1: Head at crawlspace late last night trying to identify a
Speaker 1: source of a leak, oh, and caused me to get
Speaker 1: insulation lodged in my throat. Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you guys this. I'll go out on
Speaker 1: a limb and say, most people wind up that they
Speaker 1: don't shoot their bow as much as they thought they
Speaker 1: were gonna before season starts.
Speaker 3: For me, yeah, you know, almost everybody.
Speaker 1: Snow melts, and I'm like, man, I'm gonna shoot this
Speaker 1: bow every day, you know, and like and then August,
Speaker 1: I'm like man, I really ought to be shooting.
Speaker 3: That bow and the US.
Speaker 1: It's not easy to how do you know an you're ready?
Speaker 1: What's ready? I mean, how many people do you know?
Speaker 1: This is a complicated question because do you have you
Speaker 1: ever known anyone in the end said I better not hunt,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready.
Speaker 2: Oh we were just talking about this yesterday, and Tony,
Speaker 2: we're just saying how we never feel like we are ready.
Speaker 2: There's always more we could have should have done. But
Speaker 2: you need to put yourself in as best a position
Speaker 2: as possible so that even though you feel like you're
Speaker 2: not ready, you are, you know, ten times more ready
Speaker 2: than you were last year, at least, or more than
Speaker 2: the average. And I think that might be a function
Speaker 2: of us being we have very high standards for what
Speaker 2: ready should look like, and the reason we're able to
Speaker 2: do half decent.
Speaker 1: Is because of that.
Speaker 2: I think there's always more you could do, right.
Speaker 4: That's what I was going to say. How much is
Speaker 4: that is due to anxiety and fat in a hunt
Speaker 4: getting ready for it? And is the time approaches you
Speaker 4: just get more angst about getting out there and and
Speaker 4: maybe checking the spot that you didn't get to check
Speaker 4: too And oh, man, that's eating me alive because I
Speaker 4: didn't get to go check that once.
Speaker 1: Oh No, when I talk about ready, I'm trying right now.
Speaker 1: Just talk specifically about how do you know when you're
Speaker 1: ready as a marksman, just the marksman with a bow,
Speaker 1: as an archer, arch archman. Yeah, there's no there's no word.
Speaker 3: I can tell you my before the season, I will shoot.
Speaker 3: I know, I have to shoot enough to where I
Speaker 3: can walk back to forty or fifty yards and every
Speaker 3: shot I take is gonna hit the vitals on a
Speaker 3: three D deer target in my backyard. And then I
Speaker 3: always when I hit that level where I can different distances,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe shoot like I don't. I don't shoot
Speaker 3: a lot, like twelve arrows a day, but where every
Speaker 3: one of them I'm like, very confident that's going right
Speaker 3: where I need it. And then I start shooting broadheads,
Speaker 3: and if they're doing that, then I start to feel
Speaker 3: like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so mixed distances out to fifty yards every
Speaker 1: arrow in the vitals on a three D target.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Like, I don't want to make this sound like I'm
Speaker 3: super methodical, because I'm not. But I do a lot
Speaker 3: of early summer not a lot. My early and midsummer
Speaker 3: shooting is always like twenty yards. Just get back into
Speaker 3: the groove, muscle memory kind of thing, get the bow
Speaker 3: settled in, and then as I start to hit August,
Speaker 3: I'll start to back out a little bit and just
Speaker 3: start working in twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty whatever,
Speaker 3: and then walk back range twenty seven yard shoot And
Speaker 3: I don't I don't do volume shooting, Like I go
Speaker 3: out and I'm like, you know, let's say I'm shooting
Speaker 3: four arrows, I'll just do three rounds, but I want
Speaker 3: to get to the point where I never miss, Like
Speaker 3: I'm never like, oh that one went in the shoulder,
Speaker 3: that one went in the guts. And when you start
Speaker 3: to get to that point out to like forty or
Speaker 3: I can shoot to fifty in my yard, then it's
Speaker 3: like okay, now now it's broadhead time. And if the
Speaker 3: broadheads follow suit and I'm matching up arrows and everything's
Speaker 3: going good, then I'm like, I feel really good because
Speaker 3: I'm not going to shoot a white till fifty yards,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I know when I'm at that point,
Speaker 3: when I'm on my standing their twenty yards away, then
Speaker 3: feeling pretty good.
Speaker 2: So when I get to the point where I can,
Speaker 2: I have that feeling, and then what I'll do is
Speaker 2: start practicing specific situations like I'm beyond I have that
Speaker 2: that threshold of confidence, and now I'm gonna actually get
Speaker 2: the saddle out and start shooting in the saddle at
Speaker 2: different distances, or I'll try kneeling and shoot, or I'll
Speaker 2: get to all sorts of wonky angles and start guessing distances.
Speaker 2: And when you're doing that and you're starting to have
Speaker 2: confidence with that, then I'm like, Okay, I can handle
Speaker 2: whatever might whatever the real world might throw at me.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you guys about that, how much
Speaker 1: time do you do you? Tony? Ever move up and
Speaker 1: start shooting from an elevated position.
Speaker 3: So I do. I can shoot from my deck, and
Speaker 3: so it's pretty easy if I want to. I don't.
Speaker 3: I've spent so much time bow hunting out of tree stands.
Speaker 3: Like I know, I think I probably know where you're
Speaker 3: going with this. No, I don't think about that, Like
Speaker 3: I have a kind of just like I know where
Speaker 3: I'm aiming on white tails, and I know what I'm
Speaker 3: gonna do. Uh, It's pretty second nature to me. So
Speaker 3: I don't really need to reinforce that with tons of
Speaker 3: elevated shooting or sitting on you know, on my knees
Speaker 3: or whatever. It's different. I actually go through a way
Speaker 3: different process when I'm coming out west because that's just
Speaker 3: a different deal. But it's I think for a lot
Speaker 3: of newer hunters, that's like a crazy important element to
Speaker 3: build in, like figure out how to shoot somehow set
Speaker 3: up a stand, figure out how to shoot off a deck,
Speaker 3: an elevated platform something, because it's just coming like you're
Speaker 3: going to take that shot.
Speaker 2: But I think just as important as the elevation thing,
Speaker 2: and sometimes maybe more important, it's it's the the positions
Speaker 2: you're shooting from that are different. Like how many times
Speaker 2: the deer hunter have you stood perfectly upright and shot.
Speaker 2: Usually you're sitting down, or you're leaning in a saddle,
Speaker 2: or you're swung around and shooting behind you, and we
Speaker 2: never most folks never practice that. And so doing that
Speaker 2: so even though I don't have a tree, actually I
Speaker 2: can actually get up into. I just have like a
Speaker 2: support pole in the back of my barn that I
Speaker 2: saddle into, so I'm not significantly higher on a little
Speaker 2: bit of a hill, but The biggest thing I try
Speaker 2: to do is practice shooting standing, leaning, turning, angled, high low,
Speaker 2: just because that's so different. You have a different structure,
Speaker 2: you have a different platform for your feet, you have
Speaker 2: totally different muscles that are being activated in those different positions,
Speaker 2: and that you know, you know, what's the first time
Speaker 2: you do that to be with the deer.
Speaker 4: And that was a big learning curve for me when
Speaker 4: I both hunted forever and then my son got into
Speaker 4: it in his early teens. He wanted to start hunting,
Speaker 4: so we obviously were shooting in the backyard. So I
Speaker 4: hung a stand up and showed in the difference between
Speaker 4: shooting at a thirty yard target level and then thirty
Speaker 4: yard an elev from elevated position, and the amount of
Speaker 4: the technique of bending at the keeping the tea and
Speaker 4: bending at the waist and all that was really reinforced
Speaker 4: in me. It helped me a lot. When I was
Speaker 4: supposedly teaching him what to do, he was really teaching
Speaker 4: me seeing it, putting that practical application. It was so
Speaker 4: I've I still got that that elevated stand back there,
Speaker 4: and I still shoot. I know it.
Speaker 1: Do you guys ever, do dress rehearsals.
Speaker 4: So I'll shoot out of your hunting.
Speaker 1: Suit, because man, I tell you, you shoot all summer and
Speaker 1: your T shirt yep. And then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: you got your freezing your ass. You now you got
Speaker 1: a net gat around which you've never found. You've never
Speaker 1: found your draw point. You know, you never found your
Speaker 1: hand position with a net gate around. There's a big
Speaker 1: old hood on that. All of a sudden you pull
Speaker 1: back and you're like, what the hell is that? You
Speaker 1: got binos? Maybe gloves? Yeah, you never thought about the
Speaker 1: fact that now you got a gloved hand or not
Speaker 1: a gloved hand. You realize the string is actually sort
Speaker 1: of like pressed into and folded into a heavy jacket,
Speaker 1: which surprises you.
Speaker 3: I mean, I I just shot some photos for a
Speaker 3: piece I did for for us shooting shooting like that,
Speaker 3: and I had to set up and shoot out of
Speaker 3: a saddle, and I you know, I'm still wearing shorts
Speaker 3: and a T shirt, but I've got my bino harness on.
Speaker 3: And no I didn't. I didn't do that because it
Speaker 3: was so hot. But I was out of a saddle
Speaker 3: like two feet off the ground.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: And even then, you know, so when when you're asking about,
Speaker 3: you know, shooting at an angle or whatever. People will
Speaker 3: hear that and go, I have to shoot at an
Speaker 3: angle just to understand my like where I'm holding, point impact,
Speaker 3: aero trajectory, all that stuff. But also it puts you
Speaker 3: in a position to be like get used to the
Speaker 3: safety harness, get used to the movement like Mark kind
Speaker 3: of alluded to on a little platform, you know, because
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't spend very much time in
Speaker 3: a tree stand, you know, you think about it. You know,
Speaker 3: even the avid hunters they spend a fair amount of time,
Speaker 3: but your average hunter is not going to be in
Speaker 3: a tree stand for that many hours in any given season.
Speaker 3: And now you have to do this thing that takes
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of concentration, a lot of
Speaker 3: form in a little tiny environment that you're just not
Speaker 3: that used to. And so you're also you're not just
Speaker 3: conditioning yourself for how to shoot, you know, like how
Speaker 3: to hit something, but you're conditioning yourself like how to
Speaker 3: work around these like parameters that you're gonna you're gonna
Speaker 3: be in.
Speaker 2: Maybe the most important dress rehearsal I go through, though,
Speaker 2: is not at home before the hunt. It's actually when
Speaker 2: I'm in the tree at the beginning of the hunt.
Speaker 2: So every time I get up into the tree or
Speaker 2: get into my blind or get into my position, I
Speaker 2: get you unpacked settled. The very first thing I do
Speaker 2: then at that point is I envision the scenarios that
Speaker 2: might happen. I envisioned, Okay, deer I think could come
Speaker 2: through here and I could have a shot there, and
Speaker 2: a deer might come through and it might have a
Speaker 2: shot there. And then I like role play that scenario.
Speaker 2: So imagine, Okay, if a deer comes through here, like
Speaker 2: I hope he does, how do I have to get
Speaker 2: my bow? How will I move? What do I need
Speaker 2: to And I'll literally do it. I'll practice doing the thing.
Speaker 2: I'll practice drawing back as if I'm going to shoot
Speaker 2: right there, and then I test. I'm testing to see,
Speaker 2: like does my elbow hit a limb here? Am I
Speaker 2: going to hit against my tree here?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: Can I do that? Can I make that movement quietly, smoothly?
Speaker 2: And I'll do that for every possible scenario, so that
Speaker 2: I've I've done it all. I'm not surprised in any
Speaker 2: kind of way from that perspective at least, And that's
Speaker 2: That's been a very important thing for me.
Speaker 3: Mark, when you're doing that heavier accidentally just hit the relief.
Speaker 2: Not yet, but knock on wood.
Speaker 1: The part of my dad's routine is he would, you know,
Speaker 1: climb up, pull his gear up, get situated, pick a leaf,
Speaker 1: shoot the leaf, and then start hunting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, every time.
Speaker 4: I don't know a lot of folks unless there was
Speaker 4: a squirrel.
Speaker 3: The squirrel. Yeah, well, I mean when we were growing up,
Speaker 3: we had an era with a judo point in the
Speaker 3: quiver every everywhere you went, and you might shoot at
Speaker 3: a squirrel. Like when I was younger, I shot at
Speaker 3: squirrels out of my sho you're staying a lot like
Speaker 3: my dad. I drove my dad nuts. He would spend
Speaker 3: all that time sharpening a broadhead, you know, like strapping
Speaker 3: that bear razor head, and then I'd shooted at a
Speaker 3: squirrel into the dirt and he'd have to start over. Ah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean that was that used to be
Speaker 3: really common now. I mean, can you imagine if you
Speaker 3: gave people that advice now, just leave that arrow with
Speaker 3: all your scent on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's a I think there's a difference in
Speaker 1: approaches and Mark had brought this up. That Mark, you
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time when you're bow hunting for
Speaker 1: white tails. You spend a lot of time where you'll
Speaker 1: have a particular deer in mind. Yeah, you'll know how
Speaker 1: the deer moves. You know, you'll kind of have a plan.
Speaker 1: You'll you'll have a couple of spots picked out where
Speaker 1: you might get an opportunity on the deer. And then
Speaker 1: with you Tony last fall, you don't know who's around
Speaker 1: and you're kind of hunting on the fly in the
Speaker 1: situation where you're in like on the fly on public
Speaker 1: land place, going to some places you hadn't had experience
Speaker 1: with before, and that approach necessitates unusual circumstances that can
Speaker 1: happen in the tree, Like like you're saying, you get
Speaker 1: up in the tree and you go like, okay, I
Speaker 1: got this shot in that shot, in this shot. But
Speaker 1: you can also probably plant it out a little bit
Speaker 1: throughout the year sure where you'd want to set up
Speaker 1: what it might look like as opposed to every night,
Speaker 1: perhaps every night being in a new situation where you're
Speaker 1: not able to put a lot of thought into it,
Speaker 1: and you get up there and you might realize well
Speaker 1: here I am. I'm not going to move again. But man, yep,
Speaker 1: that tree is not where that particular tree over there
Speaker 1: is blocking my best shooting lane.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, but.
Speaker 3: That's that's why I love that. Okay. So when you
Speaker 3: think about the hunt we did that first night that
Speaker 3: Chris gil and I went out, I had a pond
Speaker 3: that I had scouted out and there wasn't a tree
Speaker 3: there that was more than like six inches in diameter.
Speaker 3: So we were up there and it was super windy
Speaker 3: that night, and then I think, what was it three
Speaker 3: days later or two days later when we figured out
Speaker 3: that little deal where you hit that spike And then
Speaker 3: now you're sitting on the ground on an edge of
Speaker 3: a you know, twenty foot drop down to a dry
Speaker 3: river bed in a totally different kind of setup. And
Speaker 3: that's that's that hunting makes you just like I have
Speaker 3: to figure out what works here now because this is
Speaker 3: the spot they're at. So I can't I can't like
Speaker 3: choose that awesome, perfect tree with all these branches for
Speaker 3: cover and then sort of curate a white tail spot
Speaker 3: around it, which is like a pretty common thing. Now,
Speaker 3: Like you go in there and you're like you're just
Speaker 3: working with what it gives you.
Speaker 4: I love that we had that same kind of thing
Speaker 4: happened to Clay and I in Mississippi last year. We
Speaker 4: got into we took we took the boat down there
Speaker 4: was it was deer hunting down there. We went to
Speaker 4: a spot that had only a few cameras on it,
Speaker 4: but there's a lot of deer on it, but it
Speaker 4: had been hunted z. So we went from day one
Speaker 4: trying to figure out where we needed to go, and
Speaker 4: we just kind of eased into each place. You know,
Speaker 4: there was a lot of sign here in this in
Speaker 4: this area right here, so we just stayed back a
Speaker 4: little bit and on the third day we finally kept
Speaker 4: moving up and moving up and moving.
Speaker 1: Up, hanging stands all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, rehanging hunting out of Sadad is going from tree
Speaker 4: to tree to tree. And finally on the third day
Speaker 4: we finally did it. You know, I killed that deer
Speaker 4: like you U with a rifle, but.
Speaker 1: You were you essentially stalked, you slowly stalked the spot.
Speaker 4: You wanted to be in, yep, exactly. And it would
Speaker 4: weather conditions prevented us from from continued to hunt with
Speaker 4: a bow because it was twenty five miles an hour
Speaker 4: of sustained winds gusting up to forty that day, and
Speaker 4: it was just miserable and there was just no way
Speaker 4: I could shoot a bow further than I don't know
Speaker 4: that I would have trust myself to shoot further than
Speaker 4: fifteen or twenty yards with the high wind. With the
Speaker 4: high wind like that, Yeah, so we I switched to
Speaker 4: a rifle and luckily we got it done there. So,
Speaker 4: but we just incrementally worked our way closer and closer,
Speaker 4: not because we had we had four days to do it,
Speaker 4: and we started on the third day. We finally got
Speaker 4: close enough to make it happen and where you wanted
Speaker 4: to be.
Speaker 1: What do you guys think is the number one reason
Speaker 1: people miss deer don't hit them?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Missimer wound him. Let's talk physical first and then we'll
Speaker 1: talk mental.
Speaker 3: It's all mental. Yeah, there's no we can skip the
Speaker 3: first part, buddy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mental it's always mental and lack of
Speaker 1: experience going through that mental turbulence.
Speaker 2: Like so many hunters especially now get into hunting and
Speaker 2: they see folks like the three the four of us
Speaker 2: out there shooting deer or passing on younger bucks, and
Speaker 2: we shoot big deer, and then they come in and
Speaker 2: they're they're seventeen years old, and they think that they
Speaker 2: should hold out for a big buck for their first
Speaker 2: year or something like that, and so they never go
Speaker 2: through what many of us did, where for years and
Speaker 2: years and years we shot the first year we saw
Speaker 2: and we got experience going through that incredibly wild ten
Speaker 2: seconds right, And even after all of the experience that
Speaker 2: I like, at least the two of us have talked
Speaker 2: about this a lot, We've had a lot of experience
Speaker 2: going through that, and we still screw it up mentally
Speaker 2: sometimes in those moments. So how can someone who's done
Speaker 2: it four times expect to get it just right?
Speaker 4: And so just.
Speaker 2: Going through that many, many, many times to try to
Speaker 2: learn how to control yourself mentally in that moment is
Speaker 2: the biggest thing that a lot of people just never
Speaker 2: go through.
Speaker 3: So I think the easiest way to frame this up
Speaker 3: is like imagine you're just imagine you've shot enough right,
Speaker 3: and you put out a full sized deer target at
Speaker 3: twenty yards, climb into a tree whatever, shoot from the ground.
Speaker 3: How many times do you think you'd have to shoot
Speaker 3: at that before you missed it completely? Target practically. I mean,
Speaker 3: you might go thousands and thousands of shots. Now that
Speaker 3: thing has a heartbeat and it walks in and it's
Speaker 3: not a physical thing. I mean everybody said, oh, I
Speaker 3: misjudged the range, or I hit an unseen limb, or
Speaker 3: he ducked the string or like the you know, the
Speaker 3: greatest hits, right, but it's always between your ears and
Speaker 3: you just didn't do the basic stuff to execute your shot.
Speaker 3: You know, we run and it's all panic, right like
Speaker 3: people I used to do. I suffered from buck fever
Speaker 3: so bad for so long. I mean it forced me
Speaker 3: to totally reinvent how I shot and everything because I
Speaker 3: was like I have to quit or I have to
Speaker 3: do something different because it was like ugly and so
Speaker 3: once I kind of got my stuff figured out, and
Speaker 3: I like how Mark talks about it, like training yourself,
Speaker 3: you know, to go through your internal you know, here's
Speaker 3: my checklist, bubble level whatever. I had to dumb down
Speaker 3: my whole setup and work with how I just naturally shoot.
Speaker 3: I naturally shoot really fast. I shot a lot of
Speaker 3: traditional archy growing up, and I don't know if that's why,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, I don't take a long time to
Speaker 3: aim like, it's just I can't do it. It's the
Speaker 3: same thing like people will ask me about wing shooting
Speaker 3: like pheasants. I'm like, I can't give you any tips
Speaker 3: because I can never remember what happens.
Speaker 1: Count it down for me. So you hit full draw
Speaker 1: on your hit in your punch and the trigger at
Speaker 1: what full draw?
Speaker 4: One too?
Speaker 3: For sure? Very often really yeah, in like a two count. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean it's quick, you know. I've even had camera
Speaker 3: men say that, like Holy god, you know. But so
Speaker 3: I had to dumb down my setup for that. But
Speaker 3: I would do when I when I started to kind
Speaker 3: of get my shit together a little bit, I started
Speaker 3: doing seminars on how to beat buck fever because I
Speaker 3: kept reading about like traditional advice and I was like,
Speaker 3: my path was just vastly different. And you know, you'd
Speaker 3: have a lot of people show up sometimes as I
Speaker 3: would Dear Classic or wherever, and then I would say,
Speaker 3: right at the beginning of the seminar, I'd say, hey,
Speaker 3: how many of you guys and gals get buck fever?
Speaker 3: And there'd be like three hands raised, and I'd be like, well,
Speaker 3: why are the rest of you here? And you just
Speaker 3: want to hear me talk, you know, So it's not
Speaker 3: something it's just not something that people really want to
Speaker 3: talk about. And I don't think they understand the depths
Speaker 3: it goes, you know. And when you're talking a game
Speaker 3: of variables like bow hunting, you just don't have to
Speaker 3: be off by very much, like one little part falls
Speaker 3: like that cascading failure thing, and now you're going to
Speaker 3: miss that deer at twenty yards that you would never
Speaker 3: miss in a thousand shots target shooting.
Speaker 2: Now, I think there might be two different parts of
Speaker 2: this equation, or two different versions of this. There's something
Speaker 2: that I would think of as buck fever, and then
Speaker 2: there's something that I would think of as like target panic,
Speaker 2: and I think they're different. Oh okay, yeah, so so
Speaker 2: I would I would define buck fever as breaking down,
Speaker 2: as the animals approaching, like you are physically breaking down, shaking, nervous.
Speaker 1: So I did I have target panic then?
Speaker 2: So I used to have buck fever. I don't have
Speaker 2: that anymore. Like when I see like I'm like in business,
Speaker 2: it's like business time, like you just know what you're doing,
Speaker 2: You're doing the thing.
Speaker 3: It's fine.
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, yeah, oh my god, oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah that's here he goes.
Speaker 3: That's me. That's me on the inside.
Speaker 1: I remember having the feelings sometimes of like oh no.
Speaker 3: Now, uhh yeah, when I a couple of years that
Speaker 3: I hunted. That's how I knew I had to stop
Speaker 3: hunting deer with a recurve because I started to be like,
Speaker 3: oh ship, like here he comes, I come. Now, I
Speaker 3: know I'm gonna have to shoot at him, and this
Speaker 3: sucks because I'm probably gonna screw it up.
Speaker 2: But target panic is more like what or at least
Speaker 2: how I experienced. Target panic is how I think you
Speaker 2: had in the past, where I would rush through that
Speaker 2: final part of it. So as soon as I would
Speaker 2: draw back, as soon as my pen at the vitals,
Speaker 2: I didn't have conscious control of my release at that point.
Speaker 2: It was as soon as the was on the vitals,
Speaker 2: it was gone, like the arrow was sent surprise and
Speaker 2: and and I've that led to a lot of rush shots,
Speaker 2: like I hit. I mean, I was used. It was
Speaker 2: usually usually fine, but sometimes it's a little back back,
Speaker 2: it's a little bit forward, or when you're not fully
Speaker 2: in control of that, there is this increased possibility for
Speaker 2: things to go wrong in a situation where already so
Speaker 2: many variables are out of your control, and that is
Speaker 2: not acceptable.
Speaker 3: Well, and there's a good lesson in there, right because
Speaker 3: how how you miss tells you partially what you're doing wrong.
Speaker 3: So my my failure starting out, even the twelve years
Speaker 3: old bow hunting, I started right out of the gate
Speaker 3: where I would draw and come down on my target
Speaker 3: and I would get some part of deer in my
Speaker 3: site window I'm punching that trigger. So I never shot
Speaker 3: under a deer. Literally, it was every time I would
Speaker 3: miss him high, and if I got one, it would
Speaker 3: be because I miss misjudged the artisan. He was a
Speaker 3: lot farther than I thought. And so when that nailed right,
Speaker 3: I had a little buck come in once I'm one
Speaker 3: of the first bucks I killed. I had he started
Speaker 3: coming in a little six pointer and I drew and
Speaker 3: I shot square into a little tiny sapling about six
Speaker 3: feet in front of my tree stand, just bong, and
Speaker 3: he spooped out and just in like desperation mode, I
Speaker 3: knocked another arrow, and you know we didn't I didn't
Speaker 3: have a rangefinder then I was like fifteen, and I
Speaker 3: drew and shot and that arrow just went right into
Speaker 3: his heart and he ran up the hill and fell
Speaker 3: all the way back down, and I was like, oh
Speaker 3: my god, looking back on it, now, all that was
Speaker 3: was that deer picked a horrible spot to run to
Speaker 3: when I just panicked, and didn't you know, I shot
Speaker 3: exactly like I always do. I just had an extra
Speaker 3: fifteen yards for that old alumina marrow to fall into
Speaker 3: his heart, into his pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like there's a magnet in their paunch
Speaker 1: that pulls arrows in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that does seem common.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh with the target panic, how did like I understand
Speaker 1: overcoming it through repetition, but then I feel like there's
Speaker 1: like a thing that needs to be refreshed. I Uh.
Speaker 1: When I was at Tony last year, I hit a
Speaker 1: spike that I lost, and then reviewing it in my mind.
Speaker 1: In reviewing it in my mind, I'm like, I knew
Speaker 1: exactly what happened, and it reminds me of that you
Speaker 1: might go to bed last night, or like you might
Speaker 1: go to bed at night like I did last night, thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: next time I get really annoyed at my kids, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna handle it more professionally. Right today, I'll get annoyed
Speaker 1: at one of them about something and I'll handle it unprofessionally,
Speaker 1: and then the minute, a couple of seconds after I
Speaker 1: handle it unprofessionally, i'd be like, so the gun I
Speaker 1: just said last night, I wasn't gonna do that. And
Speaker 1: so with shooting, you're like, there's no way I do
Speaker 1: that anymore. I'm never gonna let an arrow fly. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have the hair picked out. And even when you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: here comes a deer. When he gets here, I'm going
Speaker 1: to pick out a hair and shoot that hair, and
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you're you're drawing your bow
Speaker 1: back and whatever commitments you made yourself. It's just something
Speaker 1: so powerful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but part of it is just the repetition
Speaker 3: and the mechanics. Like for me, you know when Mark
Speaker 3: talks about like target panic, what I did was started well.
Speaker 3: I went to a single pin site, which was huge
Speaker 3: for me because I couldn't in the moment of truth.
Speaker 3: I couldn't gap. I couldn't like, I couldn't keep it
Speaker 3: together enough to put the yellow pin high or the
Speaker 3: red pin low. I had to just dumb it down.
Speaker 3: But also I specifically taught myself to draw at the
Speaker 3: target so instead of coming down even if you come
Speaker 3: down just a little bit. That was the death of me.
Speaker 3: So I would draw at the target and what that
Speaker 3: actually did for target, right, And then what that did
Speaker 3: for me was I off and drew and had to
Speaker 3: come up. And that was that's a different thing for
Speaker 3: me because when I get that target acquisition, when I'm
Speaker 3: coming up, the pin finds its spot for me. And
Speaker 3: it was just like a you know, enough arrows gets
Speaker 3: you sort of like where you're going to take to
Speaker 3: that to the woods. But there's still so many times
Speaker 3: where you don't do that.
Speaker 1: Like still when I pull back my pin when I
Speaker 1: come to arrest right pre shot, my pin is always
Speaker 1: to the left or where it needs to be, and
Speaker 1: I always need to consciously move it to the right,
Speaker 1: like I like, I don't like to, like there's something
Speaker 1: in my head that doesn't want to obscure the area.
Speaker 1: So and so I'm looking and the pin's always to
Speaker 1: the left, and I always got to like then like
Speaker 1: hop it over to where it belongs.
Speaker 4: Regardless of which way of the animal's face.
Speaker 1: Because you're a left handed shooter, yeah, and you're totally regardless,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, always.
Speaker 4: Left, just left.
Speaker 3: You're shooting multipin sight, right. Yeah, so you're looking around
Speaker 3: that rack of pins. So if you did a if
Speaker 3: you did vertical pins and had that had equal spacing
Speaker 3: on both sides through your aperture where your pins are
Speaker 3: perfectly centered in the middle coming from the bottom, you
Speaker 3: wouldn't do that, I bet.
Speaker 4: You think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something about obscure in the thing.
Speaker 4: You went to it this year? Yeah, single pin this
Speaker 4: year and that what do you say? And worked from me?
Speaker 3: You see this with a lot of new hunters. A
Speaker 3: lot of new hunters hit too far left, too far right, shoulders,
Speaker 3: guts right, And it's because they will. I mean, imagine
Speaker 3: how little you have to move your head to get
Speaker 3: just a slightly different view through your site window. So
Speaker 3: you're already looking through your peep you're already looking through
Speaker 3: your aperture to that deer, and if your just natural
Speaker 3: inclination is to see just a little bit more of
Speaker 3: that deer, you've changed your point of impact by six inches.
Speaker 3: And it's you would never know. You would never do
Speaker 3: that on a target because you don't care. It would
Speaker 3: never your brain would never take over and do that.
Speaker 3: But on a deer people do it a lot and
Speaker 3: So that's like back to our earlier point. If you're
Speaker 3: a chronic shoulder or a gut shooter, that's that could
Speaker 3: be very well.
Speaker 1: The reason why Yeah, well, I'll point out the buck
Speaker 1: eye just referenced. Uh, the buck eye just referenced.
Speaker 4: It was to the left. Yep.
Speaker 1: It was the left where it belonged.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: And I bet you had he been the other had
Speaker 1: he come from the other direction, it probably would have
Speaker 1: probably hit him.
Speaker 3: In the shoulder.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And you know what, I'll bet that maybe this is
Speaker 3: totally this is just speculation on my part. But you've
Speaker 3: shot a lot of stuff through a rifle scope with
Speaker 3: like a perfect view, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 3: your brain is used to in that moment, which mirrors
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff you've shot, you know, the same emotions,
Speaker 3: the same kind of like adrenaline rush, whatever that you've
Speaker 3: shot with a rifle. But you've had a very clear
Speaker 3: sight window. Yeah, and when you pull out a bow,
Speaker 3: you're you're kind of obscuring half of that sight window,
Speaker 3: and your brain is used to seeing the whole thing.
Speaker 2: Well, go ahead, Mark, I was just gonna say just
Speaker 2: to kind of rewind us to half a step to
Speaker 2: your your issue or your question around actually dealing with
Speaker 2: target panic in the idea, like we know what we
Speaker 2: should do, but then when it actually happens, you don't
Speaker 2: do it. You mentioned mechanics being one thing that can help.
Speaker 2: I had to introduce a new mental mechanic of sorts
Speaker 2: to force me into actually executing on the right thing,
Speaker 2: because again, my issue has always been it's like a
Speaker 2: roller coaster, and like, as soon as I draw back,
Speaker 2: I'm at the top of a roller coaster, and then
Speaker 2: I'm flying down that hill. And so what I had
Speaker 2: to do was introduce speed bumps into it. And so
Speaker 2: I followed this the shot iq program. That's kind of
Speaker 2: the model that I turned to and helped me. And
Speaker 2: the way that I've done it, and the way this
Speaker 2: program recommends you do it is by tying in actual
Speaker 2: verbal cues to physical actions, and you drill that into
Speaker 2: your psyche through repetition over and over and over again
Speaker 2: until you have a certain degree of conscious control of
Speaker 2: each step in the process. So instead of being at
Speaker 2: the top of the roller coaster and then just it's gone,
Speaker 2: I'm at the top of the roller coaster and then
Speaker 2: I'm three cords of the way and there's a pause.
Speaker 2: And then I'm halfway down, there's a pause, and I'm
Speaker 2: making when I'm doing this right, I'm making a conscious
Speaker 2: decision to take each step down the roller coaster, keeping
Speaker 2: me from pins on, shot off. So it's when I
Speaker 2: draw back, no matter what, I'm going to do this right,
Speaker 2: and I'm literally saying this, and then I have to
Speaker 2: address the target. So that's just dropping the pin right
Speaker 2: in the bo Tell me what you're saying. That's what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, start, start from the scratch. I draw back.
Speaker 1: I'm a big buck. Also, Nick there, I am, Hey Mark,
Speaker 1: but I don't see you. You don't see me.
Speaker 2: As literally as I'm drawing back, I'm saying, no matter what,
Speaker 2: I'm going to do this right. So that's that's like
Speaker 2: locking in, so trying to like take a degree of
Speaker 2: conscious control, no matter what, I'm going to do this right.
Speaker 2: Then it's address the target. So that means drop the
Speaker 2: pin on the vitals. Now address the trigger. So that's
Speaker 2: me locking on my finger around the release and then
Speaker 2: here we go. And when I see here we go,
Speaker 2: that's when I can begin my pull. And each one
Speaker 2: of those verbal cues triggers the physical.
Speaker 1: Direction you copyright there.
Speaker 2: No, that's this all Joel Turner from Shot. I Q
Speaker 2: the actual words, even the words. Yeah, he helped me
Speaker 2: with us and and I do not get a one
Speaker 2: hundred percent all the time, but it has definitely helped
Speaker 2: me regain a level of control and has improved things
Speaker 2: and against it's the speed bumps. Just getting a little
Speaker 2: bit of a stop gap in there from that free
Speaker 2: fall can help.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this through the approach of I come
Speaker 1: home and I see a bunch of my tools are
Speaker 1: like out in the road and out in the yard.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say to myself, I'm gonna get this right.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 1: Then I call my kids all into the grange and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, here we go. Please, all right, let's
Speaker 1: move post shot.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's the longest twenty minutes ever. Here we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: We're gonna break up post shot until you guys are
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna give you each an assignment. You can
Speaker 1: pick who gets what assignment.
Speaker 3: Dude, I feel like you gave me a couple of
Speaker 3: assignments last fall. Okay.
Speaker 1: Assignment number one is like it just looks perfect and
Speaker 1: you hear a crash. Okay, someone can have that. Okay,
Speaker 1: someone can have man, I don't even know if I
Speaker 1: hit that thing. Okay, and someone can have that wasn't good.
Speaker 1: You guys can fight amongst yoursel I'll take whatever's lived.
Speaker 3: I'll take the I don't know if you hit it one.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if I hit it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I my dad was he patented that shit.
Speaker 3: There's a copyright on it. It's my dad.
Speaker 2: Well, based on some phone calls I've gotten from you,
Speaker 2: you've done a few of those.
Speaker 3: I've been there. But it was like there was a
Speaker 3: time period and so.
Speaker 1: This is like a so you're taking out you know
Speaker 1: if I hit it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, you want me to go.
Speaker 1: And well, here's an added dimension. It's dusk.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's not neon. It's never noon, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've been on. I've went on one of those last year.
Speaker 3: Not with a buddy of mine who's just kind of
Speaker 3: getting into it. Although, to be like, to be totally
Speaker 3: fair to that situation, he was like, I smoked it,
Speaker 3: oh okay, and then it became after some questioning, it
Speaker 3: became I'm not sure. And then it became a total miss.
Speaker 3: When we went out und the arrow.
Speaker 2: It's amazing how not uncommon that is.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean, I'm sure I'm sure there's some white
Speaker 3: tail guides listening to this, and there's some people who've
Speaker 3: been around the block with this stuff who are like,
Speaker 3: who can just totally understand the post shot thing of
Speaker 3: just total confusion, like it just the brain happened, no idea,
Speaker 3: felt like I did everything right, like deer ran off
Speaker 3: reaction was this no clue?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: And so often with that, you know, like it doesn't
Speaker 3: do you any good typically until you just go find
Speaker 3: that arrow, like you know, because you can be like,
Speaker 3: where was he standing? All you standing right by that
Speaker 3: birch tree or whatever, and then you go over there
Speaker 3: there's no tracks, and then fifteen yards away there's big
Speaker 3: digging tracks, you know what I mean, Like it's just
Speaker 3: or what did he run by? When he left? Right
Speaker 3: by brush that teeter tree out there, and you go
Speaker 3: over there and the blood trail is, you know, ninety
Speaker 3: degrees in a different direction.
Speaker 1: In literary criticism, that's called an unreliable narrator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there's some unreliable narrators in the deer Woods. Buddy,
Speaker 3: let me tell you I'm and I came from some
Speaker 3: of them, man. But it's always just kind of just
Speaker 3: like feeling out, trying to get every detail because you
Speaker 3: know the Poe shot thing, and we've been we've all
Speaker 3: been through this a million times. You have to trust
Speaker 3: your initial instinct like did he kick his did he
Speaker 3: meal kick? Did he not? Did he wheel this way
Speaker 3: or that way? Like what did your brain register right away?
Speaker 3: And that will be right like forty percent of the time.
Speaker 1: Not what you think happened forty five minutes later, but
Speaker 1: what you initially.
Speaker 3: Thought happened, not what you talked yourself into because you
Speaker 3: heard that crash or all the squirrels started barking down
Speaker 3: the ridge, or you know, the full moon came out. Whatever.
Speaker 3: Like however, you know black magic, you want to introduce
Speaker 3: into it, you have to go what did it feel like?
Speaker 3: And then like what were the initial reactions? But it
Speaker 3: doesn't it really doesn't matter till you go try to
Speaker 3: find that arrow. And what really sucks is when you
Speaker 3: can't find the arrow and then you're.
Speaker 1: Like, do you wait it all on a I don't
Speaker 1: even know if I hit that thing. It's getting dark?
Speaker 4: Are you?
Speaker 1: Are you cool? Just climbing down and going looking for
Speaker 1: the arrow. Yeah okay, oh yeah, I wouldn't so that personally.
Speaker 3: Oh really okay, every everything Marks, but Mark's got his
Speaker 3: own assignment, Mark Mart.
Speaker 1: That ain't good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'll give my thought on this. When we
Speaker 2: get to my piece.
Speaker 3: I'll go right away. Now, I will say this. I
Speaker 3: will be real stealthy, and I will not push it
Speaker 3: in any way. So if my in my head or
Speaker 3: if somebody one of my buddies is like, I know
Speaker 3: you was standing there and we like, I'll go investigate that.
Speaker 3: And if I start getting vibes like this is going
Speaker 3: to turn into something we got to do some real
Speaker 3: detective work on, then typically I'll pull out because there's
Speaker 3: no that's only like a net game.
Speaker 1: Can you quickly explain what we're talking about? The people
Speaker 1: pull out for what reason?
Speaker 3: Oh, because we don't want to push it, right, because
Speaker 3: you you just don't know. You know, Yanni hit that
Speaker 3: buck last year in Wisconsin, that sucker ran off a
Speaker 3: little ways better down he thought it was over, got
Speaker 3: up like they're that stuff happens, yeah.
Speaker 1: And like he might have would have otherwise probably just died,
Speaker 1: but you spooked it, right, And then it ran another
Speaker 1: three hundred yards and now you can't find themn thing right,
Speaker 1: and there's just nothing.
Speaker 3: The thing, the hardest thing to do with people is
Speaker 3: to blood trail with impatient people.
Speaker 2: It's almost everyone right.
Speaker 3: It's like a you know, when you like when we
Speaker 3: were looking for your buck, the good one you shot
Speaker 3: in Oklahoma, you like fall into that cadence where there's
Speaker 3: like a leader a follower, a leader a follower, but
Speaker 3: the pace is kind of dictated by like it's it's
Speaker 3: always like way slower and more methodical than you think.
Speaker 3: Even when you're on like there's blood here, blood here,
Speaker 3: blood here, you're kind of like there's like a little
Speaker 3: governor on people who know what they're doing, just because
Speaker 3: you might come up. You might you know, like the
Speaker 3: potential fifteen yards down that you might run out of blood,
Speaker 3: you know, so you're just like you just fall into
Speaker 3: this sort of cadence where you're like, there's nothing good
Speaker 3: that comes from us. We're running down this or all
Speaker 3: of a sudden just starting to grid search or go
Speaker 3: look ahead, like you just got to dial it back.
Speaker 3: In a lot of people and this is just probably
Speaker 3: mostly because they don't get to do it very much,
Speaker 3: and they haven't been through all those different scenarios where
Speaker 3: you've had that those real late nights, the Doug Durn
Speaker 3: thing where it's like you've been on another nightmare, one
Speaker 3: that didn't turn out, or the coyotes got it the
Speaker 3: next morning. And so when I say go look for
Speaker 3: that arrow, and then if you don't get it right away,
Speaker 3: or it's like you feel that poll to just go
Speaker 3: a little bit farther down the trail, that's when you
Speaker 3: got to just check yourself and go, I'm gonna get out.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go get a sandwich, We're gonna go get
Speaker 3: like good lights, batteries, we're gonna set up for this,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna have a discussion outside of that zone
Speaker 3: where that deer might still be, and just figure this
Speaker 3: plan out. And then cause there's you might you might
Speaker 3: go back, your buddy might relax, or you might just
Speaker 3: be like man kind of felt like maybe it was
Speaker 3: too far back or just like something, or if it's
Speaker 3: just something you usually do, like we talked about, if
Speaker 3: you're a lot of times too far left, too far right,
Speaker 3: you could go if even though I can't remember, I
Speaker 3: don't know that if I did screw up and hit him.
Speaker 3: That's probably or what did it sound like? It's kind
Speaker 3: of like the sound of that arrow is kind of
Speaker 3: jiving with the mistake I make a lot, God, so
Speaker 3: did I got shoot him? And so you just always
Speaker 3: err on that side of don't go push it, you know, like,
Speaker 3: just do not do that. And I know, I mean
Speaker 3: we talk about that all the time, but it really
Speaker 3: hits home when you're on one of those or you know,
Speaker 3: you're like, it's probably you talk yourself into it, and
Speaker 3: then you jump that sucker and now he's on the
Speaker 3: neighbors across the neighbor's fence, and now it's like it's
Speaker 3: become a thing that it didn't have to become. And
Speaker 3: it never almost never becomes a better thing by accident,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. You never like, well, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna look for the arrow. Oh there he is.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, oh, it's much more common
Speaker 1: to go look and I'd be like, oh, right, right.
Speaker 4: I guess I got the crash and you.
Speaker 1: You got the man that looked perfect and I heard
Speaker 1: a crash.
Speaker 4: It's the hardest twenty minutes ever. That's what you do.
Speaker 4: Twenty minute twenty minutes is what I shoot for. Thirty
Speaker 4: is what I shoot for. Twenty I think.
Speaker 1: That's where you come from.
Speaker 4: Okay, twenty will be good enough. And then at fifteen
Speaker 4: I'm standing at the bottom of the tree and go
Speaker 4: find and go find the arrow and it's just absolutely
Speaker 4: painted and it looks just like you want it to look.
Speaker 4: But what I will do, regardless of my excitement level,
Speaker 4: I have taught myself in the story office. And to
Speaker 4: tell you, it was the day that I did it.
Speaker 4: When I heard that crash took I had my compass
Speaker 4: in my hand and I shot an as with to
Speaker 4: it from where I was sitting in that tree, so
Speaker 4: I knew the direction because it's the world is a
Speaker 4: different place when you're fifteen feet closer to the planet
Speaker 4: and you get down there, and which tree was was
Speaker 4: I am? You know, once you get out there and
Speaker 4: you can't see the sand. But I get out there
Speaker 4: and I find the arrow. If I'm finally waiting twenty minutes,
Speaker 4: and it's just blood, blood, blood, blood, and you and
Speaker 4: like to Tony, like what Tony's talking about, you just
Speaker 4: start walking faster and faster. Oh, I can see it,
Speaker 4: I can see it. And if you ain't careful if
Speaker 4: it stops, if that hole plugs up, or if it
Speaker 4: rubs up against a tree and it doesn't drip on
Speaker 4: the ground that you don't see when it goes by,
Speaker 4: and all of a sudden there's no blood and you
Speaker 4: turn around looking, you've already walked five yards past it,
Speaker 4: and then you got to go all the way back.
Speaker 4: If you can find it again.
Speaker 1: Then you gotta wonder if you didn't step on what
Speaker 1: was there exactly?
Speaker 4: Now I've ruined it. So this blood trail on this
Speaker 4: deer went, it's like a sling shot straight away from
Speaker 4: where I shot it. And then it started very kind
Speaker 4: of back to the left. And in my mind, I'm
Speaker 4: thinking I heard him, heard him crash over here, But
Speaker 4: maybe maybe that's not Maybe that was just excitement, because
Speaker 4: the blood's going here. Well, the blood starts, it gets
Speaker 4: sixty yards away from the tree now in the bottoms
Speaker 4: there where there's thickets, and I can't see the tree
Speaker 4: I'm in now, So I'm in my mind I'm assuming
Speaker 4: I have got this bloodline is straight, but I've actually
Speaker 4: made a big curve to the left, and the blood
Speaker 4: trail starts going up this bluff and it stops. But
Speaker 4: where I missed where and I get to the top
Speaker 4: of the bluff, I can't find blood anywhere, I can't
Speaker 4: find a deer, I can't find anything. But where I
Speaker 4: missed was when that deer got to the edge of
Speaker 4: that bluff, he fell and rolled down the other side.
Speaker 4: And where I heard him crash was where I heard
Speaker 4: him crash, But it was eighty yards difference from where
Speaker 4: I lost That blood trailed right there and was actually
Speaker 4: back closer to the deer standing from where I shot
Speaker 4: him at I got you. So when I and how
Speaker 4: I found him was I walked back to the base
Speaker 4: of that tree and took asthmus, and I walked that
Speaker 4: asthmus that I shot out there and walked right up
Speaker 4: to that sound you heard and to the sound I heard,
Speaker 4: and that was him because I thought maybe if if
Speaker 4: that was him, maybe he bedded, you know, and I
Speaker 4: would jump him up at least know which way he
Speaker 4: was going. But I mean, but he was dead as
Speaker 4: a hammer.
Speaker 1: That's a good idea on that compass deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it cats come in handy a lot.
Speaker 1: I remember being kids and it would be a big thing.
Speaker 1: It was the old man that sends you back up
Speaker 1: in the tree yep, yep, and you'd have a surveyor's
Speaker 1: tape yep. And he wanted to where did you first
Speaker 1: see it?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 1: Where was it when you shot? Okay, where do you
Speaker 1: think it last saw it was? And mark all this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, and start laying out like a crime scene,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because he's trying to pry
Speaker 1: as much out of an unreliable narrator as he could,
Speaker 1: you know, like visually on the ground.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. Well, it became painfully obvious
Speaker 4: how they're not. They may leave in a straight line,
Speaker 4: but that don't mean they're going to stay in one,
Speaker 4: you know. And I'm gonna believe that there would have
Speaker 4: went on top of that bluff and lay and fell
Speaker 4: over dead. But he fell over before you got the
Speaker 4: top and rolled down to that other spot over there.
Speaker 4: You know. If I hadn't done that, you know, we
Speaker 4: could still be out there looking for it.
Speaker 3: You're like fighting, you're fighting this this dual thing where
Speaker 3: you have real information, which is like the spore, and
Speaker 3: then like this information you're making up, like you're filling
Speaker 3: in the blanks. And so I think that's like the
Speaker 3: the most dangerous stuff on blood trails is always and
Speaker 3: never stuff and then talking yourself into like, we got
Speaker 3: to go because there's a whole lot of coyotes around here,
Speaker 3: or we got to go because it's kind of warm,
Speaker 3: and maybe you know, like when you're when you're when
Speaker 3: you're talking yourself into going and you're filling in the
Speaker 3: blanks instead of working off the actual information that tends
Speaker 3: to break bad a lot.
Speaker 4: Well, the only reason you're coming up with those things
Speaker 4: to do is because you want to get there and
Speaker 4: put your hands on right right, so.
Speaker 1: You're gonna take over on your thing about this Ian
Speaker 1: to tell you a funny story. One time we were
Speaker 1: out and hit a bowl elk and then drew back
Speaker 1: and kind of like went off to a rock area
Speaker 1: just to lay.
Speaker 4: Down and wait.
Speaker 1: And the whole time we're I can't wait forty five minutes.
Speaker 1: The whole time, I'm like kinda smell elk, I can
Speaker 1: smell elk, and in are going back wound up like
Speaker 1: setting up like right next to that thing. No waited
Speaker 1: forty five minutes.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, that I pointed that out, because that's
Speaker 5: usually not how that goes, all right, So Mark take
Speaker 5: it where it's just like that ain't good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So in that scenario, everything that we've talked about
Speaker 2: so far is even more important. So the very first
Speaker 2: thing I'm going to do in that situation is try
Speaker 2: to collect as much information as I possibly can to
Speaker 2: ensure that the narrator is as useful as possible, at least.
Speaker 1: Even if it's you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, even if let's put it the it is me, which, hey,
Speaker 2: this has happened. So so in a situation where like
Speaker 2: I saw the hit, I knew it wasn't great. Now
Speaker 2: I know, man, my job from here on out is
Speaker 2: going to be extra difficult.
Speaker 1: Let's put a finer point to it. It's way back, yeah,
Speaker 1: way back. Not in the hip, it's in that narrowest
Speaker 1: little waste part.
Speaker 4: Yeah when it sounds like yeah.
Speaker 2: So So in that scenario number one, I see that happen.
Speaker 2: Then I'm watching that deer and very very carefully trying
Speaker 2: to see where's the last place I saw, like marking
Speaker 2: any possible visual waypoint in my mind. And then I
Speaker 2: try to take it a step further two ways. One
Speaker 2: I will oftentimes like after the deer disappears out of you,
Speaker 2: the first thing I'm thinking about is in my mind
Speaker 2: trying to think through okay, what did I hear? What
Speaker 2: I see and trying to like have an internal dialogue
Speaker 2: and very clearly like okay, he went that way, saw
Speaker 2: him by that big oa. Try last, and something I
Speaker 2: haven't done but I should do and would recommend is
Speaker 2: actually pull out your notes app in your phone and
Speaker 2: actually write this down right then in the moment, write
Speaker 2: down everything you can remember while it's fresh, before your
Speaker 2: mind starts playing tricks on you. Another thing I have done,
Speaker 2: I will take a picture from the tree stand of
Speaker 2: where I shot it, so I know what the view
Speaker 2: looks like from up there with my phone, and then
Speaker 2: I will take a picture of the last place I
Speaker 2: saw him, and then like even like circle in the photo,
Speaker 2: like there's where he was. In my mind's eye, it's fresh,
Speaker 2: it just happened. I can see what it looks like
Speaker 2: right now, I'll zoom in and get a picture of
Speaker 2: that that way. You know, just like you said, when
Speaker 2: you're down there on the ground, it's like you know
Speaker 2: your dad in the surveyor's tape, similar thing, But you
Speaker 2: can do this on your own right, so then when
Speaker 2: you're on the ground, you can be like Okay, is
Speaker 2: this the tree? Look at the picture. Oh yeah, this
Speaker 2: is the oak tree. Here's that little sapling he was
Speaker 2: standing by. This is that sapling. You can orient yourself
Speaker 2: on the ground. Cause again, I know that my job
Speaker 2: is going to be extra challenging. I need every single
Speaker 2: possible data point. So I'm doing these things, collecting all
Speaker 2: that data that I can from the tree already. If
Speaker 2: I know it's a far back hit right away, I know, hey,
Speaker 2: this steer is going to need time. I will with
Speaker 2: any shot. And maybe I'm overly conservative here, but even
Speaker 2: if I heard it crash, I always will wait an hour.
Speaker 4: The only.
Speaker 2: Time that would not be the case would be if
Speaker 2: I can literally see the deer dead. But if I
Speaker 2: can't see it dead, I just think it's off there somewhere.
Speaker 2: I'll at least wait an hour. God, that's a lot
Speaker 2: of discipline, try to It just seems like there's so
Speaker 2: many ways that can go wrong. There's no way it
Speaker 2: can get more right. Like, if he's dead, he's not
Speaker 2: going to be more dead if I get down there
Speaker 2: at thirty minutes. If he's dead, he's dead. As long
Speaker 2: as it's not crazy hot and I'm not worried about
Speaker 2: the meat going bad, Like that would be the only
Speaker 2: time I'd like rush down there if that was case.
Speaker 2: But like, assuming that's not a concern, the only thing
Speaker 2: that could happen is it could be worse. Maybe he crashed,
Speaker 2: but he's actually not dead and I spook him. So
Speaker 2: when it goes out, it comes down to checking the arrow.
Speaker 2: I like to wait to check the arrow because again,
Speaker 2: worst case scenario, what if he crashed but it's not dead.
Speaker 2: You go walk thirty yards out, it's crunchy, You go
Speaker 2: check that arrow, and all of a sudden he's up
Speaker 2: and running. I just don't want that to happen. I
Speaker 2: don't I want zero chance of that happening. So I wait.
Speaker 2: If I know I hit this deer back, I might
Speaker 2: not even go check the arrow at all.
Speaker 4: So this is.
Speaker 2: This is exactly. This is very close to a scenario
Speaker 2: I had last fall at Doug's place. So speaking to
Speaker 2: Doug with guys with archery shots and not hitting getting
Speaker 2: perfect hits. So I had a shot at a buck
Speaker 2: and I probably rushed the shot a little bit and
Speaker 2: he spun on the shot and the shot hit back.
Speaker 2: And so wait at an hour, thought about going to
Speaker 2: check the arrow, and I'm having a hard time remembering
Speaker 2: if I did. I'm pretty sure that I did not
Speaker 2: go to the tree to check the arrow at all.
Speaker 2: I remember we talked on the phone afterwards, but I
Speaker 2: went back and immediately knew you hit a deer back.
Speaker 2: My view is like a ten to twelve hour wait,
Speaker 2: no matter what. Again, it goes back to what's the
Speaker 2: worst come out come.
Speaker 1: Like any shot is an hour a punt shot. You're
Speaker 1: going to give it ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just because that deer is going to die like
Speaker 2: that deer. A deer does not survive a shot in
Speaker 2: that region. But unfortunately, the reality is that is not
Speaker 2: a fast thing. It might, you might get lucky, but
Speaker 2: most of the time it is not a fast thing.
Speaker 2: But what you can count on usually is that that
Speaker 2: deer does not want to travel far. That deer wants
Speaker 2: to get to its first point of safety and it
Speaker 2: wants to lay down and it does not want to
Speaker 2: move again. And so the only silver lining here is
Speaker 2: that that's the case. So you hit a deer back,
Speaker 2: there's a pretty darn good chance he's going to bed
Speaker 2: down quickly and he's not going to leave that bed
Speaker 2: unless you bump him. So that's why it's it's almost
Speaker 2: always better to give that deer a good amount of time,
Speaker 2: at least ten to twelve hours, and then you can
Speaker 2: know with relatives certaintly certainty that deer is going to
Speaker 2: be somewhere kind of close. Just don't screw it up.
Speaker 1: Give it to me. Let's say we're not out in
Speaker 1: like prairie country, but we're in mixed egg land, and
Speaker 1: you're we're in mixed egg land with a lot of
Speaker 1: betting covers scattered around how many yards away?
Speaker 2: One to two hundred yards, you think? So first good
Speaker 2: security cover. Usually they'll they'll bed down. And so I
Speaker 2: was on the edge of really thick cover, and I
Speaker 2: knew that he could be within seventy yards. Got it like,
Speaker 2: I don't think he went far, And so I knew he.
Speaker 1: Might go seventy yards from that point of like feeling
Speaker 1: that scared and feeling that hurt, he might go seventy
Speaker 1: yards and feel safe enough to lay down.
Speaker 2: Like I've seen deer get hitting that paunch, they bound
Speaker 2: off like one or two bounds, stop, kind of hunch up,
Speaker 2: and then just slowly walk away, And as soon as
Speaker 2: they hit cover, they bed down.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so many people though have this pull like
Speaker 2: I just need to see, I just need to know.
Speaker 2: I just want to find it and it'll go. It's
Speaker 2: the worst, but nothing good comes of that. So I
Speaker 2: am I am going to if if I feel very
Speaker 2: confident because of the terrain and the habit, that I
Speaker 2: can get to the arrow site without spooking it, then yes,
Speaker 2: I will go there and collect all the information that
Speaker 2: you talked about, get as much information as I possibly
Speaker 2: can to arm me with, you know, the ability to
Speaker 2: make as good of a decision as possible. So wanting
Speaker 2: to see, like trying to confirm if maybe you're not
Speaker 2: sure if it was liver or stomach or something, then
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the arrow, I'm looking at the blood.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at that kind of thing. But if I
Speaker 2: saw far back like we know that's what it is,
Speaker 2: then I'm backing out and I'm doing two things, waiting
Speaker 2: three things. I'm waiting that long predetermined time. Number two,
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get some help. And number three, if
Speaker 2: it's legal in your state and you have someone who
Speaker 2: has a dog, get the dog. There's no downside of
Speaker 2: getting a dog. They are like magic. They are an
Speaker 2: incredible asset and tool, and if you can do it,
Speaker 2: there's no reason not to do it right. Twelve hours passes.
Speaker 2: Now I'm going to return to the site of the
Speaker 2: where the shot was. I have all of this information.
Speaker 2: I have my photo of the last place that saw him.
Speaker 2: I have the photo of the shot site, I have
Speaker 2: my arrow, I have the blood at the sight of impact.
Speaker 2: And now doing everything Tony talked about, and you know,
Speaker 2: Brent talked about slowly trying to follow that blood if
Speaker 2: at all possible, if you have the dog, staying out
Speaker 2: of the dog's way. A big thing is like a
Speaker 2: mistake many people make with a subpar shot, is that
Speaker 2: maybe they thought, well, maybe it was liver, maybe back
Speaker 2: a lungs, and they want to believe the best case scenario,
Speaker 2: and then they start walking around and looking and they
Speaker 2: mess up the whole area. And then six hours later like, well,
Speaker 2: now I got to call a dog, and they call
Speaker 2: the dog, but you messed up the first four hundred
Speaker 2: yards of circumference around the area of impact. What I've
Speaker 2: learned with a I've got one of my best buddies
Speaker 2: as a dog, and so he's done this hundreds of times.
Speaker 2: And now he comes out with me just for practice,
Speaker 2: and so I've gotten to see this many times myself.
Speaker 2: The best thing you can do is that the first
Speaker 2: hint of eh, I'm not like I've lost blood, not
Speaker 2: feeling good about this. If you have that tool in
Speaker 2: your toolbox, grab it because it can. It can cure
Speaker 2: so many woes. If you have that tool, Yeah, there
Speaker 2: are a lot.
Speaker 3: Those dogs are a lot better at it.
Speaker 4: Than we are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So of course, like if you can follow blood, absolutely,
Speaker 2: but if you're reaching that question mark point and you're
Speaker 2: thinking dog, no dog, dog, no dog, I would always
Speaker 2: lean towards dog. So now we've waited, we have the information,
Speaker 2: we're on the trail. Now it's just slow. Do not
Speaker 2: be impatient, Do not rush ahead mark last blood. Always,
Speaker 2: don't rush into the well. Let's just start around the corner.
Speaker 2: Just follow all those protocols that force you to go slow,
Speaker 2: that force you to be methodical about it, and more
Speaker 2: often than not, with that far back hit deer, if
Speaker 2: you do all of that within one hundred and two
Speaker 2: hundred yards, you're gonna find it. Bet it up not
Speaker 2: that far away, and you have your happy endingg And
Speaker 2: it worked out as best as it can out of
Speaker 2: a bad outcome good because I was nervous forer me
Speaker 2: there as we all are, and that that that thing
Speaker 2: that's that process is exactly the process we followed, and
Speaker 2: we found a great, big giant buck on Missus Duran's farm.
Speaker 2: And it was a happy ending and a little stressful
Speaker 2: in between. But you never want that situation to be
Speaker 2: the situation you're in. But once you find yourself there,
Speaker 2: you have to just do everything you possibly can to
Speaker 2: end it well. And that's easier than done.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be one last thing, now, go ahead, you
Speaker 1: had something.
Speaker 3: Well, I was just going to weigh in on like
Speaker 3: a couple quick things there. The thing that we do
Speaker 3: a lot of times, especially if you're talking about shooting
Speaker 3: one in the evening right as it's getting dark, is
Speaker 3: you've got your head lamp with you, and it's easy
Speaker 3: to just start down that trail with like the wrong stuff.
Speaker 3: You know, you've got what you have with you. So
Speaker 3: I started keeping like a blood trailing box in my truck.
Speaker 3: It forces me to leave go back, like no matter
Speaker 3: what if I'm not like I smoked him and he's
Speaker 3: seventy yards away. It forces me to take that moment
Speaker 3: to get out of the woods. And at the very least,
Speaker 3: I'm like, I got to go arm up with the
Speaker 3: right lights batteries. And then the other thing. I think
Speaker 3: a big mistake people make on a blood trail as
Speaker 3: they think they need a lot of help. And I
Speaker 3: kind of equate it to pheasant hunting with a young dog.
Speaker 3: If you go out into the cattails and there's just
Speaker 3: you and you have a dog, that dog will set
Speaker 3: the pace because it knows how to work the cover
Speaker 3: and it's figuring things out. So you're pacing yourself to
Speaker 3: that dog. But you get one more person in there,
Speaker 3: or two more people in that slew, Now everybody wants
Speaker 3: to be in front because everybody wants to shoot that rooster. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so then that dog is like shit, they're walking up
Speaker 3: on me. They're forcing that dog to go faster. So
Speaker 3: then you get that stuff where that dog gets out
Speaker 3: works back because they're moving past them, and it changes
Speaker 3: the entire dynamic of the process. Now you think about
Speaker 3: a blood trail, now, grid searching is different. Like if
Speaker 3: you run out of blood and every eyeball you even
Speaker 3: gets better. But when you get just two people on
Speaker 3: a blood trail, a real blood trail where you're following
Speaker 3: actual spore you just fall into. Uh, I found this,
Speaker 3: he found this time to do circles. He found this.
Speaker 3: But if you have three, where's that third guy go?
Speaker 3: He starts walking.
Speaker 1: Ahead, going and checking at one spot right, and then.
Speaker 3: You're like, you're like, well, this guy doesn't know the
Speaker 3: bloodshair like I do, so I want to get ahead
Speaker 3: of him. And now it becomes a pacing issue where
Speaker 3: it's just no, boy, no.
Speaker 4: And everybody wants to everybody wants to be the guy
Speaker 4: that finds it right here, here's your deal.
Speaker 3: Well, there's just like a It just changes the pace,
Speaker 3: and not in a in a good way.
Speaker 2: The exception is when you're color blind. Yeah, they didn't
Speaker 2: need a little more help.
Speaker 3: No, well, right, which is like you fall over the
Speaker 3: back and.
Speaker 1: Right, we're gonna do one last thing. Uh. The focus
Speaker 1: is on making the shot, and then the moments after
Speaker 1: the shot, we're skipping all that other beautiful white tail stuff.
Speaker 1: I want a hot tip from each of you. Take
Speaker 1: your pick on post shot. What everything leading up to
Speaker 1: everything beginning with you pulling your bow back and ending
Speaker 1: with you saying like, oh my god, there he is
Speaker 1: meaning he's dead, found him, any kind of hot tip
Speaker 1: within that area. Just be prepared.
Speaker 4: Have the stuff you need to take care of that animal,
Speaker 4: regardless of the situation that happens between climbing up the
Speaker 4: tree and finding him at the end. Take this stuff
Speaker 4: with you that you need to take care to get
Speaker 4: you to get the animal taken care of, and get
Speaker 4: you both to the back to the truck. Would be mine.
Speaker 1: So load it in there, have it be ready. No surprises,
Speaker 1: no surprises, No damn. I should have brought my knife.
Speaker 4: I wish I had brought my knife. Should have brought
Speaker 4: some where's my flashlight? Man?
Speaker 3: I want to do a pre shot one? Yeah, this
Speaker 3: has changed, so we're we're a in the white tail
Speaker 3: space right now. The primary scouting methodist trail cameras very
Speaker 3: effective in a lot of different ways. Not a substitute
Speaker 3: for watching deer and so are. The reason that we
Speaker 3: get buck fever and fall apart bad is there's something
Speaker 3: we really really want. It means a lot to us,
Speaker 3: and we are not comfortable around there. Like I always,
Speaker 3: I always kind of like equate this to like if
Speaker 3: missus Peterson got hit by a train tomorrow and I
Speaker 3: had to go into the dating world and Margot Robbie
Speaker 3: showed up next to me at the buck, I would
Speaker 3: not be that smooth, Like, I think my odds would
Speaker 3: be pretty low to begin with, but I don't think
Speaker 3: i'd help my case in.
Speaker 1: And then then the next day you'd be sitting there
Speaker 1: being like, I can't even remember why I said what
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 3: Right, I just know it didn't work. But so watching deer,
Speaker 3: that's why I love the long rain scouting thing. Just
Speaker 3: seeing bucks, it like demystifies what they do. But also
Speaker 3: when you're sitting in a tree stand and we're we're
Speaker 3: in this like kind of hit lister mentality, where like
Speaker 3: I know the bucks that I'm like, I'm gonna shoot
Speaker 3: because they're worth my tag and this is the effort
Speaker 3: I put in.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: When you have deer around you and you look at
Speaker 3: them from a perspective of you were going to shoot them.
Speaker 3: So that little foky comes in, you'd never kill, but
Speaker 3: you watch him and he walks in and he turns
Speaker 3: this way, and where where did your point of impact go?
Speaker 3: Because he scratched his nose with his back hook? Yep,
Speaker 3: where did your point of impact go? When he kind
Speaker 3: of he heard that squirrel behind you and he just
Speaker 3: made that kind of half body turn.
Speaker 1: Understood. Yeah, so you're sort of like like, let's play
Speaker 1: this game, dude. Let's say I did want this buck,
Speaker 1: So did I really have a shot opportunity?
Speaker 4: Right? You know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all I think about when a deer's coming in
Speaker 3: that I know I want to shoot as I'm looking
Speaker 3: at where my point of impact is. And that's like
Speaker 3: my little internal computer is always going now it's here, now,
Speaker 3: it's there, here it is. Stop. He try to stop
Speaker 3: him and he jumps six feet Like thinking about that
Speaker 3: because we get so conditioned to just well we aim
Speaker 3: three inches behind the shoulder, halfway up whatever. But they're
Speaker 3: three d anim and you're you know, like your aerow trajectory,
Speaker 3: that wound channel is everything. And if you're thinking about
Speaker 3: that all the time when you're looking at deer, it
Speaker 3: just gets you into that mindset of when that big
Speaker 3: boy starts coming down the trail during the root, You're
Speaker 3: you're not looking at his antlers. You're not like I
Speaker 3: gotta get this over with. You're like, where would I
Speaker 3: shoot him? Like when he hits this window, you're already
Speaker 3: your eyes are like there's my point of impact and
Speaker 3: it's rarely, not rarely, but often not three inches behind
Speaker 3: the shoulder and halfway up, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: Like where do I need to run that arrow through?
Speaker 3: And that's that's something that has really helped me because
Speaker 3: I look at deer that way. You know, I don't.
Speaker 3: I'm not drawing and aiming at the dough with a
Speaker 3: fawn walking by, but I'm looking at her. And then
Speaker 3: when you do that, because you know, most people probably
Speaker 3: listening to this aren't doing the they're not hunting out
Speaker 3: of a saddle in a new spot every night, right,
Speaker 3: They're going to that ladder stand on the food plot.
Speaker 3: And so when that foky comes down the trail and
Speaker 3: you know you're on Instagram because you don't care, and
Speaker 3: he walks through and you don't pay attention to it, Well,
Speaker 3: when one hundred and forty incher comes down there, he's
Speaker 3: doing the same thing that Forky did. Like he's on
Speaker 3: the same trail and he jumps through the crossing the
Speaker 3: same way, you know what I mean, And like you're
Speaker 3: learning that like the minutia of like deer behavior in
Speaker 3: that spot, and it just changes how you view like
Speaker 3: the setup to your shot.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I just think I think we don't spend enough
Speaker 3: time watching actual deer do actual deer things.
Speaker 4: God, there's a science behind that, and we used it
Speaker 4: in law enforcement when we would be clear in the house,
Speaker 4: just practicing going from stress shooting, and the more you practice,
Speaker 4: when it becomes second nature in stress level, you always
Speaker 4: result in stress. In times of stress, you will always
Speaker 4: resort back to your level of training, whether it's low
Speaker 4: or whether it's very high. And that's what makes you know,
Speaker 4: special forces so good because they constantly train, train, training, training,
Speaker 4: train about different scenarios, but they constantly train about them
Speaker 4: all the time. And what Tony is saying is is
Speaker 4: really the same concept. He's looking and watching, looking and watching,
Speaker 4: looking and watching, and then there's that guy. Then he's
Speaker 4: looking and watching doing it subconsciously just because he's he's
Speaker 4: amped up, but he's going back to that level of
Speaker 4: the stress is taking him back to the highest level
Speaker 4: of training that he's put hisself through. That's that's a
Speaker 4: really good deal.
Speaker 2: So my tip would be something that I say to
Speaker 2: myself often, like all the time during a hunt or
Speaker 2: during the hunting season, and that is slow as smooth
Speaker 2: smooth as fast. I'm constantly trying to remind myself to
Speaker 2: slow down. For example, when I'm about to head out
Speaker 2: for hunt, my my uh, my usual default mode is
Speaker 2: like I'm rushing to get out there, rushing, rushing, rushing.
Speaker 2: And then you do that and you realize I walked
Speaker 2: out to the tree and didn't put my saddle on
Speaker 2: all right, left my release back of the truck or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I'm always slow down, be smooth. Same thing when
Speaker 2: you're walking to the tree, slow down, be smooth. Same
Speaker 2: thing when I'm setting up sticks in the saddle going
Speaker 2: out of the tree. I'm always wanting to rush. I'm
Speaker 2: always worried, Oh God, a deer is gonna come up
Speaker 2: while I'm getting ready. And then as soon as you
Speaker 2: start trying to rush it, you make mistakes, you make
Speaker 2: a noise, you end up screwing things up. That slows
Speaker 2: you down more in the long run. You get into
Speaker 2: the tree, you want to rush into glassing whatever, or
Speaker 2: rushing into your phone and doing something on Instagram. But again,
Speaker 2: slow down, do the visualization, practice everything like I talked about,
Speaker 2: when the shot comes right, again, slow down, slow down.
Speaker 2: That's the most important thing for me in the shot
Speaker 2: processes is slow down, do your thing, don't fly down
Speaker 2: the roller coaster. After the shot, same thing. The instinct is,
Speaker 2: I want to go. I want to see the arrow,
Speaker 2: I want to go find the deer.
Speaker 3: I want to hold them.
Speaker 2: Slow as smooth, smooth as fast, slow it down. If
Speaker 2: you don't rush, you've got a much better chance of
Speaker 2: the happy ending in the end versus rushing down there
Speaker 2: and then having a nightmare in your hands. So constantly
Speaker 2: trying and tell myself that.
Speaker 3: What and slowest is quiet too and quite important.
Speaker 1: You need to add that and do the same well,
Speaker 1: Mark Canyon, Brent Reeves, Tony Peterson. Thanks for the advice.
Speaker 1: I'm sure people at home will appreciate it. And when
Speaker 1: everybody gets up in that gets up in that tree
Speaker 1: or up in that box blind this white tail season,
Speaker 1: a couple of things to keep in mind. Thanks guys,