Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by first Light, creating proven
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
Speaker 1: Light Go farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire.
Speaker 2: To Hunt podcast. This week on the show, I'm breaking
Speaker 2: down the four year journey that led to me tagging
Speaker 2: my number one target buck in Michigan, the Wide Nine.
Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Wire two Hunt podcast, brought
Speaker 2: to you by First Light. And today I've got a
Speaker 2: story that I'm very, very glad to be able to share. Finally,
Speaker 2: this is a story of blind luck, some bad luck, perseverance,
Speaker 2: good fortune in redemption. It's got all the makings, Tony
Speaker 2: of a Hollywood blockbuster.
Speaker 3: Wow, that's that's ambitious, buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you gotta shoot for the sky when you're
Speaker 2: hyping up your your stories, and that's what I'm gonna
Speaker 2: do here. But but yes, for anyone who's been listening
Speaker 2: to the podcast this year or even last year, you've
Speaker 2: likely heard about this deer that I've called the Wide nine.
Speaker 2: It's five and a half year old buck that I
Speaker 2: have been able to follow for four years actually and
Speaker 2: I killed him, believe it or not, got him. So
Speaker 2: I want to tell that full story. You know, we
Speaker 2: talked several weeks ago about, you know, when I got
Speaker 2: a shot at him with a bow and hit him
Speaker 2: in the shoulder. We talked last week about how I
Speaker 2: was still bumming about it and processing it, and we
Speaker 2: had a rapid set of events here recently that changed
Speaker 2: that whole story. So here's my thoughts, Tony, And you
Speaker 2: tell me if this is a stupid I but I'm
Speaker 2: thinking of going all the way to the beginning, like
Speaker 2: go way back in time and walk us through like
Speaker 2: the steps from years ago, and then break down a
Speaker 2: more detail what happened this year, and then throughout anywhere
Speaker 2: you've got questions or anywhere you want to press me,
Speaker 2: or anywhere you think there's like a larger less than
Speaker 2: that we can jump on, let's stop and let's talk
Speaker 2: through that kind of stuff and try to make this
Speaker 2: as universally helpful to people as we can.
Speaker 3: Sure I think that works, man, All right.
Speaker 2: So I'm going to rewind the clock all the way
Speaker 2: back to twenty twenty to start this story, because twenty
Speaker 2: twenty was the first year that I noticed this dear,
Speaker 2: and this spot is the same spot, you know, same
Speaker 2: general area where I've killed a handful of my Michigan
Speaker 2: bucks over recent years. I've got permission on now it's
Speaker 2: three properties. I've had various permissions around this general zone
Speaker 2: over the years, and I think I've had permission on
Speaker 2: four different spots kind of off and on. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: can hunt him, sometimes I can't. Sometimes there's other people,
Speaker 2: sometimes there's not. But this year I have permission on
Speaker 2: three pieces in this zone, and three seasons ago, well
Speaker 2: four four seasons ago, I guess. So twenty twenty, I
Speaker 2: was after that big, tall eight pointer that we called Tran.
Speaker 2: I was hunting that deer and everywhere that deer. Everywhere
Speaker 2: I was going to hunt that deer, I saw this wide,
Speaker 2: short time nine pointer and I just saw him. Everyone
Speaker 2: was at He looked like a two year old. He
Speaker 2: was very active. He was in this thick brushy bedding
Speaker 2: area that Tran was in a lot, and I just
Speaker 2: couldn't get away from this deer. So every time I
Speaker 2: go in there for Tran this year would be like
Speaker 2: right up at the base of my tree, just hanging
Speaker 2: out like doing dumb two year old stuff. So he
Speaker 2: was noticeable because of how wide he was, and I
Speaker 2: don't get many young deer that are that wide. So
Speaker 2: start calling the wide and nine just so I could
Speaker 2: have something to refer to this deer when I would die,
Speaker 2: I saw that wide nine again. So that's twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I end up killing that deer Tran. The following year,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty one, I did not hunt this zone as
Speaker 2: much as I historically do because that was a year
Speaker 2: I was like just traveling like crazy. But the wide
Speaker 2: nine's back. He's a ten pointer. Now he's very similar,
Speaker 2: just wider and taller and heavier, but a nice looking deer.
Speaker 2: Like I remember getting pictures of him the summer and
Speaker 2: being like, man, he looks like that's a nice deer.
Speaker 2: And I was pretty sure, like I'm not going to
Speaker 2: shoot that deer. But when you see that big wide
Speaker 2: frame running through the woods like I saw him a
Speaker 2: couple of times, like running away, I was like whoa
Speaker 2: Like is that a shooter? And again he was in
Speaker 2: this North Betting year, same place I saw him last year,
Speaker 2: same place that Tran was in that year. And so
Speaker 2: you know, at this point he's very noticeable and I'm
Speaker 2: starting to kind of keep tabs on him. And what
Speaker 2: I try to do when you're in one of these
Speaker 2: properties where I've hunted a long time, I'm just when
Speaker 2: a deer stands out and a deer start it's you know,
Speaker 2: showing up on my radar again and again. I start
Speaker 2: cataloging that, just thinking like, okay, hopefully year or two
Speaker 2: down the road, if he's still alive, you know, this
Speaker 2: might be helpful. And so now I'm noticing, okay, like
Speaker 2: every time I see him, he's in this bedding area,
Speaker 2: this like five to eight acre betting zone that I'm
Speaker 2: hunting in and around, so he's in there again. But
Speaker 2: the deer I was hunting that year ended up not
Speaker 2: being in that zone very much. He ended up being
Speaker 2: on one of the southern properties in the south of me.
Speaker 2: So I didn't hunt up in the wide Nines cors
Speaker 2: a whole lot that year, but I had some cameras,
Speaker 2: had a bunch of encounters, passed him two different times
Speaker 2: at the bow, and saw him a few other times too.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty two season. He's going to be a four
Speaker 2: year old that year, and so now I'm thinking, man,
Speaker 2: he might be a deer. You know, I'd be interested
Speaker 2: in shooting. If he survives, I shed out him like
Speaker 2: crazy trying to find his antlers, because I did see
Speaker 2: him after the season, so I knew he'd made it
Speaker 2: through the year. And then there's one other deer junior
Speaker 2: who had made it through. So I scoured trying to
Speaker 2: find his sheds, and I stually do it time out
Speaker 2: and mention that the year prior I did find his shed,
Speaker 2: and I think I mentioned this on one of the podcasts,
Speaker 2: but I did find one of his antlers from his
Speaker 2: two year old set with my dog Boon. So that
Speaker 2: was the last antler that my dog Boone ever found
Speaker 2: before he passed away. So that was like a special
Speaker 2: thing that that last antler came from this deer. So
Speaker 2: coming into his four year old year, I started picking
Speaker 2: up pictures him again in the summer, and as you
Speaker 2: might recall from last year, I killed the deer early
Speaker 2: and then wasn't going to shoot another deer on this
Speaker 2: property except for maybe my number one buck, which had
Speaker 2: been kind of in and around some of his other properties.
Speaker 2: And he disappeared for a long time. And I told
Speaker 2: that whole story last December. But in late November I
Speaker 2: start getting pictures and a couple times when I was
Speaker 2: out there glassing, I saw the Y nine show up
Speaker 2: towards the west side of that betting year, actually out
Speaker 2: of one of my food plots and out on a
Speaker 2: cup beanfield, and I saw him, I think, two different
Speaker 2: nights when I wasn't hunting, I was just checking it out,
Speaker 2: and he was out there in daylight, and I have
Speaker 2: a blind up there, and so I got to thinking, like, man,
Speaker 2: this deer's moving in daylight out where I have this blind,
Speaker 2: that I could probably have a successful hunt with my son.
Speaker 2: And I know I wasn't going to shoot another deer,
Speaker 2: and I wasn't going to shoot him necessarily. He was
Speaker 2: my number two buck, and I kind of felt like
Speaker 2: I'd killed a few other deer I didn't need to.
Speaker 2: But then I got to think, like, man, if I
Speaker 2: could have ever, that would be amazing, and this is
Speaker 2: a setup that might actually work. So I bundle Everett
Speaker 2: up the next day and we have the right wind
Speaker 2: and we sneak out there and I've got the mister
Speaker 2: buddy heater, and I've got all sorts of snacks and
Speaker 2: books and hot cocoa and the whole thing, and we
Speaker 2: get in this elevated box blind that I've guy and
Speaker 2: it was just, you know, perfect setup for a four
Speaker 2: year old. And we sit there and read a couple
Speaker 2: of stories and we have hot cocoa, and we go
Speaker 2: through like four of his snacks already in the first
Speaker 2: two hours, and then deer start pouring out into this
Speaker 2: cut beanfield and it was one of those like kind
Speaker 2: of like dreary, dark cloudy days, like a light misting
Speaker 2: of rain, and just a bunch of deer came out.
Speaker 2: This would have been like November twenty sixth, I think
Speaker 2: last year. And long story short on that is he
Speaker 2: ends up coming out, but he comes out at two
Speaker 2: hundred yards and I'm looking at him, and I know
Speaker 2: my gun can shoot, you know, it's it could be
Speaker 2: a two hundred yard gun, but I've always been like
Speaker 2: a one fifty and in with this gun is like
Speaker 2: myself imposed limit. This is a three point fifty is
Speaker 2: what is what it is. And so I'm looking at
Speaker 2: him in the scope and Everett's all excited. He's like, Dad,
Speaker 2: shoot him, shoot him. And I just did not want.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want that first time he's around me
Speaker 2: shooting a deer to be anything but the most guaranteed
Speaker 2: slam dunk. Ever, so decide I'm not going to take
Speaker 2: this shot. It's not perfect and this needs to be perfect, perfect, perfect,
Speaker 2: So we just watched him. It was very fun. Ever
Speaker 2: was stoked. The next day. We have a wind shift
Speaker 2: a little bit to where I can't hunt that blind again.
Speaker 2: But I've got hayball blind about one hundred some yards
Speaker 2: away that would give you. I'd be in the same
Speaker 2: general zone. I could get away with it. And so
Speaker 2: I asked, Everr, Hey, do you want to try one
Speaker 2: more time? Because he's been very active. He's out there,
Speaker 2: he's like checking dose, he's still doing his late November thing.
Speaker 2: He very well might come again. Do you want to
Speaker 2: give a shot. He's like, yeah, yeah, we gotta do it, Dad.
Speaker 2: We gotta kill the Y nine. We gotta kill the
Speaker 2: y nine. So we slip out there and bring the
Speaker 2: cocoa and the snacks and the books and the magazines
Speaker 2: and all that kind of stuff. We do the whole
Speaker 2: thing all over again, and no deer show up, like
Speaker 2: zero deer, and so he's bummed out and I'm thinking, like, geez,
Speaker 2: did we blow it up this bad last night? Like
Speaker 2: I didn't think anything winded us like we got out
Speaker 2: of there good. I thought like we would have another
Speaker 2: good hunt. And it was actually colder that day. I
Speaker 2: thought it'd be a little bit better conditions. But for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, nothing wanted to come out. But at very
Speaker 2: last light, I actually think I had stood up in
Speaker 2: the blind and poked my head out the top, so
Speaker 2: I had glass over some tall grass to see to
Speaker 2: the very back corner of that bean field, and there
Speaker 2: he is. He's standing right in that inside corner, just
Speaker 2: right on the edge of the tall grass, just kind
Speaker 2: of looking around, surveying the field, like probably wondering where
Speaker 2: the hecker all the rest of the deer. And so
Speaker 2: I grabbed my gun and I put the scope out
Speaker 2: the top of the blind, and I can see him
Speaker 2: in the scope and I'm looking at him, but I'm
Speaker 2: like thinking it's dark, and I tell Ever I look
Speaker 2: back at Ever. I'm like, hey, cover your ears, Like
Speaker 2: sit back and cover your ears. And so I look
Speaker 2: in the scope again, and I look at my phone
Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, if I remember it's one
Speaker 2: minute before legal light's done, or on the minute that
Speaker 2: legal light's done, and I remember looking at him and
Speaker 2: thinking like you could do this, but I'm standing up
Speaker 2: but crouched and rest my gun on the top bar
Speaker 2: of the blind, like sticking it out of the roof
Speaker 2: of the haybell blind to get this. And again, same thing.
Speaker 2: It's one hundred yard shot. Now he's much closer. But
Speaker 2: again I'm thinking, this is not this is not a deal.
Speaker 2: Right at the end of legal light. It's shaky kind
Speaker 2: of shot, just just this is not I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: do this. So again I set that back down and
Speaker 2: everetts like his ears cover. He's like, Dad, did you
Speaker 2: shoot yet? Did you shoot yet? I'm like, no, but
Speaker 2: take your hands after your ears, and no, I didn't shoot.
Speaker 2: Wasn't quite right, So I had to explain to him
Speaker 2: why I didn't take the shot and all that kind
Speaker 2: of good stuff. But super fun hunts, like you know,
Speaker 2: two times getting to see a four and a half
Speaker 2: year old buck with a four year old that's nuts.
Speaker 2: So those are two of like my favorite hunts of
Speaker 2: all last year, just getting to have those encounters see
Speaker 2: this deer. Now, Everett's got like a connection to the deer,
Speaker 2: so he's always asking me if I'm gonna shoot him
Speaker 2: orf we're gonna go hunting for him again and anything
Speaker 2: like that. So I end up, you know, after that
Speaker 2: kind of fizzle didn't happen. He disappeared again a little bit,
Speaker 2: and then a week or two later, Junior, that number
Speaker 2: one dear showed up and I got a shot at him.
Speaker 2: And so now I was tagged out in Michigan. Wasn't
Speaker 2: going to go out for the y nine anymore because
Speaker 2: I couldn't. And so then I just kind of stayed
Speaker 2: out of there and let him hang out. And he
Speaker 2: continued to hang out in the late season, got some
Speaker 2: pictures of him, and season wrapped up, scoured all these
Speaker 2: areas that I can shed hunt, no sheds, but I
Speaker 2: did have pictures of him into January, so I knew
Speaker 2: he survived. And so coming into this second.
Speaker 4: Mark, Yeah, So isn't there when you talk about taking
Speaker 4: your kid out and it puts you in this place
Speaker 4: where you're like, I I have to have these self
Speaker 4: imposed rules. I mean, you'll have them either way, but
Speaker 4: where you're like, I can't have this one go ugly.
Speaker 4: It has to be like one hundred percent confidence because
Speaker 4: you know even then it can go, it can break bad.
Speaker 4: But isn't it amazing because I know when you get
Speaker 4: into this year with this buck. It's like it's a
Speaker 4: different thing when you take a shot where you're like,
Speaker 4: I can make this, but I'm kind of hoping I
Speaker 4: make this, versus being like so when you have him
Speaker 4: out there and you're like, I have this shot I
Speaker 4: could make, it's too far, I'm not gonna do it.
Speaker 3: Whatever, don't feel bad about it.
Speaker 4: Then the next one you're like, I have another shot
Speaker 4: I could make closer, but low lights still not great
Speaker 4: when you don't rush it that way. Isn't it crazy
Speaker 4: how often you get rewarded like sometime soon with the
Speaker 4: right shot.
Speaker 2: That's such a good point and it's so hard to
Speaker 2: remind yourself of though, like in the moment, like I
Speaker 2: almost wish. This is a really interesting thing you're bringing up,
Speaker 2: because when you're on your own out there, there's like
Speaker 2: a certain pressure, like you're like you're putting a pressure
Speaker 2: on yourself, like this is your only opportunity. You need
Speaker 2: to take this opportunity, right. I don't feel that way
Speaker 2: when I'm hunting with my son, Like I've never had that,
Speaker 2: Like it's been the opposite. It's like don't shoot, don't shoot,
Speaker 2: don't shoot unless it's like so so perfect, but it's
Speaker 2: the reverse when you're on there own. And never I've
Speaker 2: never actually thought about that, but it would be really
Speaker 2: great if I could have the same level of self
Speaker 2: control when I'm hunting solo, you know, because how many
Speaker 2: times have you and I and so many other hunters
Speaker 2: you know, felt that, like you gotta get the shot,
Speaker 2: gotta get the shot, and then you maybe you do
Speaker 2: the very best you could, or maybe you rush it
Speaker 2: a little bit or something, or maybe the situation is
Speaker 2: a little bit off and you can't get that arrowback,
Speaker 2: can't get that bullet back, and we're left shaking our head,
Speaker 2: losing sleep. Whatever.
Speaker 4: It's it's almost always a bad thing if you have
Speaker 4: to rush it. Yeah, Like if you if you make
Speaker 4: that decision to rush a shot somehow, I mean, the
Speaker 4: odds are nine out of ten times it's not gonna
Speaker 4: go great. Like you might still get them, or you
Speaker 4: might get lucky or whatever. And sometimes you know, like
Speaker 4: sometimes you just make.
Speaker 3: A good shot.
Speaker 4: But if you have that pressure and it's just self imposed,
Speaker 4: then man, it's he just goes south so fast so often.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, it's it's not like you make
Speaker 2: a decision to rush a shot, right, it's just.
Speaker 4: Like, well, for sure, it's like it's actually the lack
Speaker 4: of thought that you usually rush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I mean, how many times have you
Speaker 2: ever shot a deer when it didn't feel rushed in
Speaker 2: some kind of way? Like how many times do you
Speaker 2: ever get a shit situation where the deer's just standing
Speaker 2: stock still for a minute and you're not worried at
Speaker 2: all about him going out of range or something. Right,
Speaker 2: there's always that feeling like this is this is a
Speaker 2: short moment I have here. He's gonna take a few
Speaker 2: steps this way or this way, or or he is
Speaker 2: moving in the rud or whatever. Like I've got to
Speaker 2: believe that ninety five percent of shooting opportunities or something
Speaker 2: feel like this is a brief moment we have here.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know many times, at least I've
Speaker 2: never had the time where deer's sitting in a bean
Speaker 2: field in front of me for five minutes and I'm
Speaker 2: just sitting there thinking, oh shit, shoot, should not shoot? No,
Speaker 2: I've never heard that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it always feels rush. But that's I mean,
Speaker 4: that's one of the reasons. You know, you and I
Speaker 4: were talking before we started recording this on on how
Speaker 4: far we're willing to shoot these days and how much
Speaker 4: our effective range is kind of shrunk.
Speaker 3: And that's sort of an antidote to.
Speaker 4: That, because you're fundamentally aware that you are going to
Speaker 4: rush it somehow and talk yourself into just get it
Speaker 4: over with, take that shot now. But if you work
Speaker 4: really hard to set yourself up for super close shots,
Speaker 4: you know that, like ideal twenty yard broadside, quartering away, whatever,
Speaker 4: it's so much better when you know I'm prone to
Speaker 4: buck fever, I'm prone to pushing it, I'm prone to whatever,
Speaker 4: you know, not thinking everything through and melting down a
Speaker 4: little bit at the very least. If you have that
Speaker 4: deer at a stupid awesome range, it helps so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that is something that I'm learning
Speaker 2: more and more every single year, is that I think
Speaker 2: that we all get kind of tricked by a few outliers. So, like,
Speaker 2: we watch a few freaks of nature who don't get
Speaker 2: impacted by these things, and so they consistently kill deer
Speaker 2: fifty years six or whatever, and we see that on
Speaker 2: TV a few times where we talk to them on
Speaker 2: a podcast, or we've got one friend who's like that,
Speaker 2: and then you start thinking like, oh, that's just normal,
Speaker 2: and you start thinking that forty yard shots aren't that
Speaker 2: far that I, oh, yeah, I can shoot. I can
Speaker 2: shoot great at sixty all the times, so I could
Speaker 2: kill one at fifty or whatever. But it's so it's so, so,
Speaker 2: so so different, And I think that what I'm learning
Speaker 2: now is like every year, to your point, I'm shrinking
Speaker 2: instead of increasing my maximum range, I'm actually shrinking it
Speaker 2: because I'm learning, Like there's I'm just by experience learning
Speaker 2: how there's so many different things that go wrong. And
Speaker 2: I would much rather just try to avoid failure versus
Speaker 2: stretching myself to hope to maybe get lucky. I want
Speaker 2: to be one for one versus two for seven. You know,
Speaker 2: I would much rather get that one perfect thing then
Speaker 2: mess it up a time or two. I'm so sick
Speaker 2: of dealing with error in some kind of way like that.
Speaker 2: And there's so many opportunities for air yes, like pass them,
Speaker 2: pass on those shots, wait for the right opportunity, like
Speaker 2: that's I need to write that on my gun, rite
Speaker 2: that on my bow, like put that everywhere, because there's
Speaker 2: nothing more important these days.
Speaker 3: Well, and there is a component of that too.
Speaker 4: I So in twenty twenty, I drew my last Iowa tag,
Speaker 4: had a blast down there, killed a doe, killed a
Speaker 4: good buck, you know, a public land type deal, hanging
Speaker 4: a hunt. And one of my really good buddies drew
Speaker 4: the same unit this year, so I kind of gave
Speaker 4: him my waypoints and told him where I'd go and whatever,
Speaker 4: and he went down the end of October and had
Speaker 4: an unbelievable hunt as far as encounters, like multiple encounters,
Speaker 4: was big deer up to like one seventy one eighty
Speaker 4: type deer dcoin and.
Speaker 3: The whole thing.
Speaker 4: And he fell a part and what he You know,
Speaker 4: this is a guy that I used to travel with
Speaker 4: a lot, and we used to go do a lot
Speaker 4: of you know, public land hunts in different places.
Speaker 3: So he was kind of like sharpening that edge a lot.
Speaker 3: You know that.
Speaker 4: He hasn't been doing that the last few years. And
Speaker 4: he's got a pretty good place to hunt in Minnesota
Speaker 4: where he can set.
Speaker 3: It up really well.
Speaker 4: So he's he's been on a terror as far as
Speaker 4: making good shots on good bucks and doze and like
Speaker 4: you know, getting it done at home. And then he
Speaker 4: went to this new environment where you know, he was
Speaker 4: saddling up for the first time, and you know, it
Speaker 4: super windy and cold, so he's doing a lot of
Speaker 4: kind of natural groundblind stuff and sort of in the
Speaker 4: moment like the deer are going to be here, so
Speaker 4: I'm setting up here. But you can't create this amazing
Speaker 4: spot to hunt. You just have to enter into it,
Speaker 4: you know. And he was telling me about it, and
Speaker 4: he's like, it was just like he just ran smack
Speaker 4: dab into a reality he had sort of forgotten about
Speaker 4: because he's been hunting a specific kind of pretty good place.
Speaker 4: And man, when you when you see people go out
Speaker 4: and try this stuff and hunt new environments or do
Speaker 4: new things, that's sort of when you figure this stuff
Speaker 4: out the most. You know, it's like, yeah, you can
Speaker 4: screw up in the box blind that you sit ten
Speaker 4: times a year just as easily, or maybe not just
Speaker 4: as easily. But when you put yourself in those situations
Speaker 4: where it's like a new spot, a new kind of
Speaker 4: level of pressure, then you realize how important these rules
Speaker 4: are to have for yourself because it's so easy to
Speaker 4: screw up.
Speaker 2: Then yeah, yeah, that is the absolute truth. And I
Speaker 2: think one of the big things that comes out of
Speaker 2: this whole story for me is just you know, imposing
Speaker 2: more restrictions on myself, so shrinking my maximum range, dumbing
Speaker 2: down my setup, you know, basically changing my archery set
Speaker 2: up in a way that accounts for air in more ways.
Speaker 2: So like I want to talk about later, but simplifying
Speaker 2: my pins, simplifying and maybe adjusting some things of the
Speaker 2: arrow abroad and all those kinds of things, just assuming like, hey,
Speaker 2: stuff goes wrong, so remove is much chance for air.
Speaker 2: So instead of stretching out, instead of trying to get
Speaker 2: more opportunities, I'm now changing my hunting strategy and shooting
Speaker 2: or weapons is in ways to instead avoid mistakes versus
Speaker 2: trying to get a little more opportunity. Let's let's circle
Speaker 2: back to twenty twenty three spring. I know he survived,
Speaker 2: and he's the only deer I know of that would
Speaker 2: be five and a half and coming into him thinking like,
Speaker 2: all right, man, he should be five and a half
Speaker 2: because I've followed him last three years and I believe
Speaker 2: he made it, and I had all these encounters over
Speaker 2: the previous years. I've seen where he spends a lot
Speaker 2: of time, I've found his shed. I think he's probably
Speaker 2: gonna be the one that he's going to be the
Speaker 2: deer I'm after this year. So this spring I started
Speaker 2: preparing to hunt him specifically, I was like, all right,
Speaker 2: he's gonna be the one old deer. He's gonna be
Speaker 2: the one I'm after. So what are the things I
Speaker 2: need to do or what are the things I know?
Speaker 2: Number one thing I know about this deer is that
Speaker 2: he spent a lot of time on the north properties
Speaker 2: I've permissioned on and almost no time on the South properties.
Speaker 2: So spend some extra time walking around the north just
Speaker 2: like just trying to look at the property of the
Speaker 2: New Eyes again, like all right, just just think through
Speaker 2: like big picture, what have we seen in the past,
Speaker 2: Howard dear you doing this kind of stuff. Just tried
Speaker 2: to like make sure I've got the puzzle pieces right
Speaker 2: in my head. Did that earlier this year, shed hunting,
Speaker 2: and then I was able to make a couple of
Speaker 2: habitat improvements on one of the properties I've got access to.
Speaker 2: I can make some improvement, So I, you know, try
Speaker 2: to do my food plots in a different kind of
Speaker 2: way this year to make them like I really really
Speaker 2: really want to try to get these food plots to
Speaker 2: work out right. This year, I frost seeded and actually
Speaker 2: seated a two track trail that I used to not
Speaker 2: have planted. I planted that did some hinge cutting. Long
Speaker 2: story short on all of this is that the two
Speaker 2: track came as a nice clover path, which is great.
Speaker 2: The food plots were really hard to make work because
Speaker 2: of drought this summer. I'm doing trying to do no till,
Speaker 2: so I'm trying to not till it all up, trying
Speaker 2: to do like a rotation. I was able to get
Speaker 2: something going in both of these two plots I can plant,
Speaker 2: but I had to do it multiple seedings and all
Speaker 2: sorts of stuff. So it's kind of like a nightmare
Speaker 2: this summer trying to make all that work. But I
Speaker 2: just knew, like one of the best opportunities I have
Speaker 2: for these deer is I've got these two little plots
Speaker 2: right on the west and south side of his main bedroom.
Speaker 2: And so anytime any deer is in this big north
Speaker 2: bedding area, a lot like if that's like their favorite
Speaker 2: place to be, which a couple of these deer I've
Speaker 2: hundred over the years. It has been if you've got
Speaker 2: a deer like that, you've got a good chance either
Speaker 2: on those plots or as they transition to those plots,
Speaker 2: if you can get them to actually come in well.
Speaker 2: And I've had some years that they have not come
Speaker 2: in well, especially as I've been trying to do this
Speaker 2: no tail thing. So I've been trying to test no till,
Speaker 2: trying to do better stuff for the soil and use
Speaker 2: less herbicide and all that, and that's been like hit
Speaker 2: or miss. Some of the plots have been okay, some
Speaker 2: years not so much. But I just really tried to
Speaker 2: make them work this year, and I would give them
Speaker 2: like a B plus maybe be so did all that,
Speaker 2: you know checked. I've got a handful of tree stands
Speaker 2: that have been up forever that I keep up and
Speaker 2: just check every summer. And then I'm also always trying
Speaker 2: to like add a spot or two or prep another
Speaker 2: tree or two for my saddle. So there's a couple
Speaker 2: places that I've just kind of thought through locations I
Speaker 2: have or haven't a hunt in the past, you know,
Speaker 2: what might be a good tree to add to the mix,
Speaker 2: just to have already ahead of time. So I've added
Speaker 2: a couple spots like that. I just tried to this year.
Speaker 2: I've been hunting here a long time, so it's easy
Speaker 2: to just like fall back into the same old, same old.
Speaker 2: What I tried to do leading to this year was
Speaker 2: like think about specific situations that it might have with
Speaker 2: this deer and try to like tighten things up a
Speaker 2: little bit. So, for example, on the back food plot,
Speaker 2: there's this is the food plot that is on the
Speaker 2: southern edge of that betting zone. I've had a tree
Speaker 2: stand out there forever. I've had some success there but
Speaker 2: had not killed any well, I did kill one buck
Speaker 2: out of the food plot. But what I'm getting at
Speaker 2: here is that I thought, like, there's a situation here
Speaker 2: where you might be able to get a shot out
Speaker 2: of deer here. But there's a couple of situations where
Speaker 2: I found where things don't work out, Like if you've
Speaker 2: got any kind of south in the west wind, if
Speaker 2: there's any kind of movement with that wind, you can
Speaker 2: end up getting winded by deer. So I thought, you
Speaker 2: know what, I need to have a second stand location
Speaker 2: on this plot for when I've got you know, any
Speaker 2: bit of like southwest or south southwest, or just give
Speaker 2: me a few more options. I'm going to do another
Speaker 2: stand over here and then I'm going to put slay
Speaker 2: some tree tops down on one side to make sure
Speaker 2: that if deer do come in the food plot, there's
Speaker 2: a better chance that they come out in range of
Speaker 2: this side of the plot instead of the other plot.
Speaker 2: So it's like just stuff like that, like and a
Speaker 2: bunch of my different stand setups. I was just trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, look for what's the little detail thing I
Speaker 2: could do better this year. So in this case, was
Speaker 2: trying to make sure that if anything came this half
Speaker 2: acre plot, I would have a shot at it. And
Speaker 2: you know, in the past, maybe I'd be good sixty
Speaker 2: five percent of the time, and now I'm good eighty
Speaker 2: five percent of the time. So I was doing those
Speaker 2: types of things all around this main core area that
Speaker 2: I thought he would spend the most time on, and
Speaker 2: then late summer put out my cameras and bailed out
Speaker 2: at the end of August and stayed out of there
Speaker 2: in September. I take that back. One other thing to
Speaker 2: take note of is I went out a couple times
Speaker 2: in August and glassed a neighboring field that was beans
Speaker 2: that was adjacent to all this, and saw him twice.
Speaker 2: And so that just confirmed for me like, all right,
Speaker 2: you know, he's doing the things he used to do.
Speaker 2: He's in this core area. I started to get a
Speaker 2: few pictures. So all of this just basically says, all right,
Speaker 2: your plan will work. He's here, he's doing his thing.
Speaker 2: He's big bodied, he's he's who he was. Then September
Speaker 2: rolls around. I stay out. I basically for like my
Speaker 2: local properties, try to leave them untouched until opening the day.
Speaker 2: The night before opening day, I wanted to try to
Speaker 2: get an idea of like, you know, is he coming
Speaker 2: out to one of these spots. Can I see where
Speaker 2: he's crossing one of these openings? Can I see into
Speaker 2: this little bedding zone. There's some thick brushy grass. So
Speaker 2: I go and actually get out to this hilltop and
Speaker 2: bring a step leader out and put a step leadder
Speaker 2: in the standing corn on a hilltop so I can
Speaker 2: see over the standing corn. I do that, and I
Speaker 2: actually glass him up in this grassy bottom down beneath me,
Speaker 2: which is a spot I had never seen him before,
Speaker 2: so not in the core zone where I thought he was. Instead,
Speaker 2: he's like way up by the road. So you and
Speaker 2: I were talking about this, you know, a month ago
Speaker 2: or two months ago whenever this happened, right, And you
Speaker 2: said he might be doing that more often, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's a safe spot. I never go in there,
Speaker 2: nobody ever goes in there, so it's one hundred percent
Speaker 2: pressure free. He's close to the road but also close
Speaker 2: to where I access, so you know, he maybe knows
Speaker 2: some of the time when I'm coming and out because
Speaker 2: I go along the south edge of this grassy swale
Speaker 2: to get in and out of the property most of
Speaker 2: the time. So that was like an eye opening moment
Speaker 2: for me where I was like, huh, I wonder if
Speaker 2: this is a thing that has happened more often. And
Speaker 2: see him that night. Next day, hunt over in that
Speaker 2: zone and I don't see him, And if I can
Speaker 2: fast forward here a little bit, over the course of
Speaker 2: the next three ish weeks, the next two weeks, I
Speaker 2: spot him one night when I couldn't hunt, but I
Speaker 2: could it was either a night or morning. But I
Speaker 2: saw him another time in that grassy swale, So he's
Speaker 2: twice now that I've seen him in that grassy swale,
Speaker 2: betted and standing up. And then I got a picture
Speaker 2: of him in daylight on the back plot. So the
Speaker 2: south of the edge of his betting air on like
Speaker 2: the eighth So there was like, you know, I can't
Speaker 2: remember with the specifics, but basically once a week I
Speaker 2: was getting at some kind of daylight sighting of him,
Speaker 2: which continued into the month of October, which was surprising
Speaker 2: to me because lots of times like I'll have these
Speaker 2: deer you know, around, but then once opening day hits,
Speaker 2: then it's pretty much ghost town for a while. But
Speaker 2: he kept like kind of showing up and a little
Speaker 2: different different spots every time. It wasn't like he was
Speaker 2: always going towards the west or always going to the south.
Speaker 2: There was no kind of pattern that I could kind
Speaker 2: of figure out as far as like how to predict
Speaker 2: where he might daylight. I knew it was just around
Speaker 2: this core like ten acre ish bedding zone, but how
Speaker 2: he left that, you know, I had no idea, And
Speaker 2: so as we talked about throughout this fall, that was
Speaker 2: like my challenge throughout October. I was trying to figure out,
Speaker 2: how do I make sure I'm in the right place
Speaker 2: because I know this deer, this deer still feels comfortable. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: I was able to be you know, careful with when
Speaker 2: I hunted him where I hunted in a way that
Speaker 2: was low impact. So I just try to really careful
Speaker 2: about how I access, really careful about how to get
Speaker 2: out of there, and enough so that he was still
Speaker 2: showing up every once in a while. But I just
Speaker 2: couldn't find a rhyme or reason to why he might
Speaker 2: go in any one direction. So finally one of the
Speaker 2: things we talked about was, hey, maybe we just need
Speaker 2: to like volume hunt a spot and sit a location
Speaker 2: for two or three evenings in a row or something
Speaker 2: like that. And so I did try that maybe like
Speaker 2: in the twenties of October or something like that. Still
Speaker 2: didn't see him take off for a week, go to
Speaker 2: deer camp, do a thing up there. I come back
Speaker 2: from deer camp, and now it's late October and we're
Speaker 2: moving into the rut, and this is basically my window
Speaker 2: that I think, like, this is probably my last best
Speaker 2: chance to kill him, because I had like four or
Speaker 2: five days I could hunt from late October through like
Speaker 2: the first of November, and then I had to leave
Speaker 2: for Nebraska. And over past years he disappeared for parts
Speaker 2: of November. And it just becomes harder killes deer during
Speaker 2: the rut because they're off doing other things. So I thought, man,
Speaker 2: like I got a push into the good stuff. So
Speaker 2: throughout most of October I was hunting around the exterior
Speaker 2: of that betting zone and just trying to catch him
Speaker 2: when he moved out, and now I was going to
Speaker 2: go into it. So I go in that first morning,
Speaker 2: push in like right to the edge of like the
Speaker 2: core of the core, and see him locked on a dough,
Speaker 2: watch him kind of follow a dough just stand around
Speaker 2: with her maybe one hundred some one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: yards away something like that. And this is in this
Speaker 2: like thick, tall brushy grassy stuff. I can just kind
Speaker 2: of barely see him through this tall grass. Disappears midday,
Speaker 2: I pulled on the set, try to relocate to another
Speaker 2: spot that gets me closer to them, but then also
Speaker 2: in between the direction they think they're going to transition
Speaker 2: out to end up not seeing him again that night,
Speaker 2: but saw a bunch of deer and it looked to
Speaker 2: me like he was still in this little tiny thicket
Speaker 2: where I last saw him all throughout the evening, because
Speaker 2: you know when those satellite bucks just kind of like
Speaker 2: stand around looking like dummies, staring into a thicket, just
Speaker 2: standing there and then another buck comes out and they're
Speaker 2: all just kind of standing around staring when there's a
Speaker 2: buck locked on doe in there there's hot dough. It
Speaker 2: was that kind of deal. So next morning, I'll go
Speaker 2: really fast this part because we did talk about this,
Speaker 2: you know, two weeks ago or three weeks ago or
Speaker 2: whatever it was when it happened. The next morning is
Speaker 2: the morning when I had the wind issue part way
Speaker 2: through the morning hunt, and we decided, like, man, this
Speaker 2: wind is awful. It's blowing into the bedding area. You know,
Speaker 2: it shifted on me. This just isn't gonna work. So
Speaker 2: I decided part way through the morning hunt that I
Speaker 2: had to bail because I was just ruining the property
Speaker 2: with this wind that was doing what was not supposed
Speaker 2: to do. So as I'm climbing out of the tree,
Speaker 2: were about to climb out of the tree, I'm lower
Speaker 2: my bow, I hear something, and of course the wide
Speaker 2: nine is right next to me going through this twenty
Speaker 2: yard lane and he walks through before me able to
Speaker 2: get my bow up in the tow row. Boff, and
Speaker 2: he catches this swirl of wind and kind of trots off,
Speaker 2: not like fully, like out of there. Like a bat
Speaker 2: out of hell. But no, something's not right, so he
Speaker 2: books it back into the thick thick I hang or
Speaker 2: pull down the set, and then we do a big
Speaker 2: half circle all the way around to the other side
Speaker 2: of the property, to the other side of the bedding area.
Speaker 2: Have a hell of a time trying to find somewhere
Speaker 2: to set up there that night. Eventually find a tree
Speaker 2: that'll work. And what I'm setting up now. Previously I
Speaker 2: was just off. I was like doing a downwind of
Speaker 2: the dough betting air kind of set up that morning,
Speaker 2: but the wind shifted. So now to be downwind of
Speaker 2: this main dough betting ara, I have to be to
Speaker 2: the other side. Gets set up there in the saddle,
Speaker 2: and as you know, about an hour before dark or
Speaker 2: forty five minutes before dark something like that. Here he
Speaker 2: comes cruising out on this side. I snort, reads him in.
Speaker 2: He circles into forty yards. I take the shot. He jumps,
Speaker 2: the string, hits him in the shoulder, runs off. You
Speaker 2: can see a big like what seems like almost the
Speaker 2: entire arrow hanging out of him and like flopping. When
Speaker 2: he runs off, I'm immediately think shoulder shot. We wait,
Speaker 2: I don't know a few hours till my friends get
Speaker 2: there and pick up the trail. We have blood for
Speaker 2: you know, a long ways, but not good blood. We'll
Speaker 2: have like drop here, smear here, drop here, smear here.
Speaker 2: We're able to follow that blood. Plus with my buddy's
Speaker 2: dog that he always brings, we covered three quarters of
Speaker 2: a mile, much of which was like he was just walking,
Speaker 2: like he went down a single corn row for like
Speaker 2: half a mile or something like that, like just just
Speaker 2: follow that row, just forever, and then he jay hooked
Speaker 2: back into his bedroom, lost blood, kept looking, didn't find anything,
Speaker 2: and you know, at that point we're all what we
Speaker 2: all thought from the beginning, but had to make sure.
Speaker 2: It was like man looking at footage, looking at everything,
Speaker 2: it looks like this shot just hit the shoulder, and
Speaker 2: you know, either it poked through or was just behind
Speaker 2: the shoulder enough that had got into the vitals. And
Speaker 2: if that's the case, that'd be a dead deer like
Speaker 2: fast and we would have seen a great blood trail
Speaker 2: or hits the shoulder and there's this blood trail that
Speaker 2: Peter's out and you know he's alive. So you know,
Speaker 2: we talked about how devastating that was for me, and
Speaker 2: frustrating that was for me, you know, to what we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier, Tony. This is just another huge
Speaker 2: reminder of why I just want to focus more and
Speaker 2: more on minimizing any kind of error versus trying to
Speaker 2: get more you know, poking out there for more opportunities,
Speaker 2: just because I hate, hate, hate that feeling of missing
Speaker 2: a deer or wounding a deer. You know, it was
Speaker 2: you know, it's the worst, it's the absolute worst. It
Speaker 2: changes you, yeah, it does. And this was the I'm
Speaker 2: trying to think of. This is right. This is the
Speaker 2: first buck that I have ever hit and not recovered
Speaker 2: that I can think of. And so I've missed I've
Speaker 2: missed you plenty of deer, but this was the first
Speaker 2: one that I hit and wounded it and couldn't recover it.
Speaker 2: And I take that back. I did hit like ten
Speaker 2: years ago or something. I hit that buck back and
Speaker 2: it killed him, but I missed him didn't find him
Speaker 2: until later in the year. But so so point being,
Speaker 2: this was like the thing that everyone talks about and
Speaker 2: this dreaded and it's like always the worst case scenario,
Speaker 2: and I had just gotten, you know, been lucky that
Speaker 2: it hadn't happened yet to me in this kind of way,
Speaker 2: but now it had, and it just so happened to
Speaker 2: be a deer. You know, I'd been chasing for four
Speaker 2: years and had put all this time and energy into
Speaker 2: and was you know, really really really invested in and
Speaker 2: then I go and screw this whole thing up. And
Speaker 2: so you know, that just got me thinking about again,
Speaker 2: like this, it's a game of inches, and if it
Speaker 2: had been a couple of inches back or you know whatever,
Speaker 2: it might be a couple of inches lower, probably less
Speaker 2: than that, it would have been smoke city game over,
Speaker 2: high fives, hugs, all the good stuff. And instead I'm
Speaker 2: losing sleep at night and just very very disappointed with
Speaker 2: the whole thing. So that was you know where our
Speaker 2: podcast a couple of weeks ago left off, right. You know,
Speaker 2: we talked about me trying to change my archery set,
Speaker 2: get to a quieter setup, maybe because you know, I
Speaker 2: had a bunch of deer jumping the string with my
Speaker 2: current setup. This was the second buck this year that
Speaker 2: made a significant move jump in a spin at the shop,
Speaker 2: both forty yard shots to our earlier points. So I
Speaker 2: started thinking through all that kind of stuff and you know,
Speaker 2: we talked about pulling in range, you know, maybe not
Speaker 2: taking those forty yard shots anymore, which I've not decided
Speaker 2: I'm not doing. I'm a thirty yard pinner now for
Speaker 2: a while at least, and proud of it. And someone
Speaker 2: texted me or sent me a message or something after that,
Speaker 2: hearing that podcast, and they just said, like, you know,
Speaker 2: that's something like we've been. We've been like, what's the
Speaker 2: way I'm looking for here? Glorifying long shots too much? Right,
Speaker 2: We're like, oh, man, that guy's so awesome. Look at
Speaker 2: this guy can shoot one hundred yards and well that's incredible.
Speaker 2: And so now it's almost like a badge of honors, say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: killed them at sixty, but we should be glorifying like
Speaker 2: I killed them at ten. Yeah, Like, how about let's
Speaker 2: let's get like under twenty yards, Like, man, that that's
Speaker 2: the most hunting skills. Can you get that close to
Speaker 2: a deer and not know you or not know that
Speaker 2: you're there?
Speaker 4: That this long range stuff with bows and with the
Speaker 4: rifles is not doing us any favors.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. So so I'm going to start giving
Speaker 2: guys extra big high fives for when they kill deer
Speaker 2: within thirty or within twenty or you know, teens lower.
Speaker 2: Like man, you're that's the real hunter right there. So
Speaker 2: that's my new goal is to start killing super close
Speaker 2: range deer. Minimize chances for air. It's harder to pull off,
Speaker 2: but a better chance of the shot. Good shots. Just
Speaker 2: harder to be able to get a deer that close,
Speaker 2: is what I'm trying to say. That's that's what I
Speaker 2: want to start, really positioning myself for no more of
Speaker 2: this forty yard stuff.
Speaker 3: So you're really making your bed here.
Speaker 4: So I hope next year your hit laster doesn't show
Speaker 4: up at forty yards mark because.
Speaker 2: I really, I really, I really feel invested in this, Tony.
Speaker 2: But you're right, all right, all right, but I just
Speaker 2: it's just no fun being in that situation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no fun at all.
Speaker 4: So your shoulder shoot him and then he disappears for
Speaker 4: a long time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I did not think he would, like I
Speaker 2: really thought, like a few days later I was gonna
Speaker 2: get pictures of him again. I thought he was gonna
Speaker 2: be out there chasing doze like I watched that footage
Speaker 2: so many times, and it seems like that arrow was
Speaker 2: like bobbling, like I mean there's like thirty inches of
Speaker 2: arrow sticking out, it seems like, and you can see
Speaker 2: it go up and down, up and down. So I'm
Speaker 2: like thinking, there's hardly anything in there that's gonna pop out,
Speaker 2: and he's just gonna be off to the races again.
Speaker 2: So I take off. I have to go to the
Speaker 2: Braska Mark.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let me run this scenario by you, because you
Speaker 4: you had had a close encounter and he had winded
Speaker 4: you that morning too to some a little bit, a
Speaker 4: little bit bogogery, right, and then you hit him. Imagine
Speaker 4: if you went to a bar somewhere yea, and early
Speaker 4: in the night some dude was like you're that ware
Speaker 4: to hunt prick, aren't you, and you were like whatever,
Speaker 4: and he's like I'm gonna stab you, and you just
Speaker 4: walk away.
Speaker 3: You're like I don't want to get into this.
Speaker 4: And then later bar close, you're walking out the door
Speaker 4: and that dude runs up to you and he just
Speaker 4: I mean, it's not like a bad stab, but it's like,
Speaker 4: you know, you got stabbed. Would you be like, I'm
Speaker 4: definitely going back to that bar tomorrow night?
Speaker 2: Okay? Yeah, you make a good point, Tony.
Speaker 4: He do make a good I think we'll just find
Speaker 4: someplace else to go for a little while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suppose I shouldn't have been that surprised, I guess,
Speaker 2: but yeah, maybe I was a little too optimistic he'd
Speaker 2: be right back. But I got back from Nebraska and
Speaker 2: I kill a buck Nebraska, turn around, come right back
Speaker 2: and think, Okay, I'm gonna go back start hunting him
Speaker 2: and he'll be there, hopefully. But he wasn't. And what
Speaker 2: my plan was is that I would I brought in
Speaker 2: cameras and I was hunting in the interior of the
Speaker 2: interior again, because now we're in like November six, November
Speaker 2: sex of November eighth, like your best possible day is
Speaker 2: probably in pretty good weather and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: So I've hunted right in there and I wasn't seeing
Speaker 2: him and didn't have pictures anywhere. But I thought, you know,
Speaker 2: let's since I'm gonna be in this is the one
Speaker 2: hunt of the year, I'm gonna be in this stuff, like,
Speaker 2: let's hand camera. So I hung a couple of cameras
Speaker 2: right in the belly of the beast. And then after three,
Speaker 2: three or four days of hunting with no sightings, nothing,
Speaker 2: I started thinking I think I gotta just like pull
Speaker 2: out and wait because I'm just like putting a bunch
Speaker 2: of pressure on this place, and I'm not feeling like
Speaker 2: he's here right now. I don't know what's going on
Speaker 2: if he's like I had all the worries going through
Speaker 2: my mind, and I don't think I told you this story,
Speaker 2: but the first day back from Nebraska, and if I
Speaker 2: told you this, tell me, because I'm We've talked about
Speaker 2: all this stuff, like so many different little bits and
Speaker 2: pieces over the years. I don't know what's what. But
Speaker 2: my first hunt back after returning from Nebraska, we go
Speaker 2: to hunt and I'm slipping into a tree. I'm and
Speaker 2: go set up and hanging hunt and I see a
Speaker 2: white belly. They tell you about this, And I see
Speaker 2: a white belly and I'm like, oh no. And this
Speaker 2: isn't that far away from where we stop tracking. I'm
Speaker 2: within one hundred yards of where we finally gave up.
Speaker 2: And so I see a white belly and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh no. And so I'm like, we got to go
Speaker 2: see this. And we get closer and then I can
Speaker 2: see antlers. I'm like, holy shit, he's here dead. And
Speaker 2: we were one hundred yards away or eighty yards away
Speaker 2: from him, and he was right here. So I had,
Speaker 2: like my stomach fell to my knees, and I'm walking
Speaker 2: up and thinking like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: And then I get up to a close enough point
Speaker 2: I can see it. It's actually just a dead year
Speaker 2: and a half old. But for like a minute or two,
Speaker 2: there serious panic. So so all that happens, and eventually
Speaker 2: I just said, Okay, I just got to get out
Speaker 2: of here, and I don't know what's going on, but
Speaker 2: I'm not going to blow this place up if he's
Speaker 2: gone or if he's you know, so either One thing
Speaker 2: I thought was maybe the shot did kill him somehow.
Speaker 2: I start having, like, you know, all the worst case
Speaker 2: scenarios running through my mind. So is there any way
Speaker 2: this could have killed him? So you had, like I
Speaker 2: was texting you and we were talking on the podcast,
Speaker 2: like is there some way this deer did die and
Speaker 2: he's actually laying out there somewhere? Do I need to
Speaker 2: go and like search more of this place than I did?
Speaker 2: Do I need to like call off the season? And
Speaker 2: then the other thing was like is he somewhere else?
Speaker 2: Do I need to start? I don't know, try to
Speaker 2: get permission on other properties, or do I need to
Speaker 2: I don't know. I had all these thoughts he's gone,
Speaker 2: he's dead, or maybe he's injured and just like laying
Speaker 2: low and not moving very much. He's just like kind
Speaker 2: of hunkered down somewhere recuperating. Those are the three possibilities.
Speaker 2: And spent a lot of days thinking about which one
Speaker 2: of those it might be. But throughout November I just
Speaker 2: stayed out of there the rest of the time, kept
Speaker 2: checking cameras, wasn't seeing him, got out a couple times
Speaker 2: a glass, didn't see him. Hunted a bunch more on
Speaker 2: some other properties I had permission on, had some encounters
Speaker 2: with the other deer I'd be willing to shoot on
Speaker 2: that property, went up north to my family deer camp,
Speaker 2: did all that kind of stuff, and nothing. Three weeks
Speaker 2: go by, no sightings of the wide, no pictures of
Speaker 2: the Wide nine, and my hopes have seriously dwindled. Then
Speaker 2: we get to Thanksgiving week, and just before Thanksgiving, I
Speaker 2: wake up one morning and I get my pictures sent
Speaker 2: to me overnight, so I wake up, look at the camera,
Speaker 2: and then evening prior it's him. He's back. He's in
Speaker 2: he's on one of those cameras that I put like
Speaker 2: in the belly of the Beast, and he's I got
Speaker 2: six pictures of him, so it's two two three shot
Speaker 2: bursts of him going across this little grassy area. And uh,
Speaker 2: just that was the best feeling, like just the idea
Speaker 2: that he's not dead, he's still around, there's a chance
Speaker 2: for redemption. It felt like closure, Like at that point,
Speaker 2: like a huge monkey came off my back. Like the
Speaker 2: worst thing would have been that if I had never
Speaker 2: figured out what happened, like if he just disappeared and
Speaker 2: I never found him again, And like we were talking
Speaker 2: about last week, who knows, he could have got hit
Speaker 2: by a car, or he might have died somewhere and
Speaker 2: buried himself, you know, in a brush and you'll never
Speaker 2: find him. You'll never know, or you know, maybe someone
Speaker 2: else shot him later and you'll never know. And so
Speaker 2: just the not knowing was driving me crazy. So finally
Speaker 2: like just knowing that, Okay, he survived the shot, he's
Speaker 2: alive and doing his thing. Maybe you get another chance
Speaker 2: to him, maybe someone else kills him, maybe he gets
Speaker 2: hits by car. You know, I can't control what happens
Speaker 2: next but at least I know that he's not laying
Speaker 2: dead somewhere because of me, and I wasn't able to
Speaker 2: recover him. So that was like a big sense of
Speaker 2: relief to just have that. The next day, I was
Speaker 2: actually at actually called my camera and was planning on
Speaker 2: hunting that day regardless because we'd gotten past the first
Speaker 2: week of gunn season in Michigan, and last year, that
Speaker 2: whole time period when I took Everett out hunting him
Speaker 2: was that last week of November, right around Thanksgiving week
Speaker 2: was when he had gotten daylight active last year. So
Speaker 2: my plan was like, I'm going to stay out of
Speaker 2: that property all the way till the end of November,
Speaker 2: and then if I don't have pictures of him yet,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen him yet, I'm still going to try
Speaker 2: a few hunts at the end of November to hope
Speaker 2: that maybe he shows back up like he did last year.
Speaker 2: So it just happened to be that the day I
Speaker 2: was gonna start hunting was also a day I got
Speaker 2: his picture. So we go out hunt two nights in
Speaker 2: a row, do not see him. Thanksgiving, do the whole
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving thing, and we're getting to the good stuff here, Tony,
Speaker 2: So thank you for bearing with me as I recount
Speaker 2: all of this, come back from Thanksgiving, head out for
Speaker 2: an evening hunt, and I'm thinking to myself, man, I'm
Speaker 2: getting this wrong. At the end of my time with
Speaker 2: my family, we were there at my family's house for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: and the day we were there, I was going to
Speaker 2: leave and head home late in the afternoon, but I
Speaker 2: keep looking at my phone. I'm looking at the weather
Speaker 2: for I'm looking at the barometric pressure, and I'm looking
Speaker 2: at all this kind of stuff and like, man, it's
Speaker 2: like super high barmetric pressure, and man, the temperature's cold
Speaker 2: and than I thought it was gonna be in Oh gosh,
Speaker 2: this is the only north wind we have and it's
Speaker 2: the only time I can hunt one of these spots.
Speaker 2: And I convinced myself, like over the course of forty
Speaker 2: five minutes that all of a sudden, like I have
Speaker 2: to go hunting tonight. So like in a thirty minute whirlwind,
Speaker 2: I'm like, guys, we gotta go. Everyone pack, we gotta go,
Speaker 2: we gotta go. Yeah. So I have like a chaos
Speaker 2: fire drill. At the end of our Thanksgiving visit, I
Speaker 2: go back and sell film hunt actually, and then the
Speaker 2: next time Charlie my camera I comes down. We hunt
Speaker 2: up in this front area where he'd been visible the
Speaker 2: night before. And the most important thing here is, now
Speaker 2: that we're in late November, I have gone back to
Speaker 2: my original plan for him, so I'm not punching into
Speaker 2: the belly of the beast anymore. I'm just hunting edges
Speaker 2: of the food on the edge of his core again,
Speaker 2: hoping that he's going to move back towards that late
Speaker 2: season type behavior. He's maybe still checking some but he's
Speaker 2: mostly gonna be focusing on food, especially if he's wounded
Speaker 2: how he was wounded. But I'm guessing, like, hey, he's
Speaker 2: gonna be trying to pack on some energy here. The
Speaker 2: temperatures are falling. They had just picked the cornfield, so
Speaker 2: the food was gonna be the game again for late
Speaker 2: November into December. So I'm hunting on the edge. This
Speaker 2: is the west edge of his core, on the edge
Speaker 2: of the corn and we end up seeing a deer
Speaker 2: out in this grassy swale again, the same area that
Speaker 2: I saw him once in October and the night before
Speaker 2: the opener, and I think one other time maybe, and
Speaker 2: I see a deer and then I see a frame
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking, holy crap, I think that's him. And
Speaker 2: he disappears, but I'm pretty certain I saw him in
Speaker 2: this grassy swale. I keep on like trying to glass
Speaker 2: over there the rest of the night. This is a
Speaker 2: couple hundred yards away, in the opposite direction from his core,
Speaker 2: So this is like way up by the road and
Speaker 2: can't see anything else. It gets dark. I start packing
Speaker 2: up and then I'm like looking down the creek and
Speaker 2: I can see a dough step out into the grass again,
Speaker 2: and I see a big body deer behind her, and
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, ooh, that looks like a big buck. I'm
Speaker 2: thinking that's him with a dough maybe. Then it's just
Speaker 2: too dark. I can't see. They kind of turn back
Speaker 2: go back in this timber. So the next morning we
Speaker 2: can't hunt, but I can get out in glass. So
Speaker 2: it's snowing. Another thing I should point out is it
Speaker 2: started snowing that night and it snowed all through the
Speaker 2: rest of the night. So this is our first snow
Speaker 2: of the year, and that next am it is you know,
Speaker 2: fresh blanket of snow everywhere. So I got out to
Speaker 2: glass from this hill and I can see like an
Speaker 2: hour half hour before daylight. I can see in my
Speaker 2: bio was like clearly pretty Darne, clearly across the field.
Speaker 2: And so I'm watching and I see a deer down
Speaker 2: at the edge of the grass and the cornfield all
Speaker 2: by itself. And then I see it limp, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 2: so I get my spotting scope set up, and with
Speaker 2: the spotting scope on my phone, I can actually see better.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've messed with a new these
Speaker 2: new iPhones, but the low light filming on the new,
Speaker 2: like I've got an iPhone fourteen Max or whatever it is,
Speaker 2: it's crazy, like I can film like it's like broad
Speaker 2: daylight almost. So I was able to film and see
Speaker 2: like him. I could see him on my phone better
Speaker 2: than I could even see him binoculars. And it's a
Speaker 2: half hour before daylight or something. And so I see
Speaker 2: him on the edge of this cornfield, in this grassy swale,
Speaker 2: and I watch him. He's got a bad limp, like bad,
Speaker 2: like he's way worse than I thought it would be,
Speaker 2: Like he looks rough and he limps his way into
Speaker 2: the grass. And then I watch him for a half
Speaker 2: hour as he kind of mills around and then I
Speaker 2: eventually see him bed about five minutes after daylight, see
Speaker 2: him bed down in this grassy swale. I then like
Speaker 2: did everything I could to try to find landmarks like
Speaker 2: pinpoint like where he was, Like I try to mark
Speaker 2: him on onyx like I thought it was. And then
Speaker 2: I just spend a lot time like trying to find
Speaker 2: like there's no good landmarks when it's just a cornfield
Speaker 2: and a grassy field. You know, it's not like there's
Speaker 2: a tree or something I can do. And then you know,
Speaker 2: I've got one perspective. I know that my perspective is
Speaker 2: gonna be different when I get to the other side
Speaker 2: of him. So I'm trying to find things in the grass,
Speaker 2: like a black looking bushy thing and like a snowy
Speaker 2: spot in the cornfield or whatever. I tried to like
Speaker 2: zero in exactly. I just spent a bunch of time
Speaker 2: staring at the spot where he was and trying to
Speaker 2: remember everything I could about everything around him so that
Speaker 2: I could find him again, because I knew that my
Speaker 2: plan would be, like I need to try to kill
Speaker 2: him in that bed, like this is my best chance,
Speaker 2: Like I know where he is, this is maybe my
Speaker 2: last best chance. You know you'll never know. I mean,
Speaker 2: who knows where he is gonna be tomorrow or what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen next, Like this is it? This is the chance?
Speaker 4: So why try to kill him in his bed instead
Speaker 4: of just posting up and waiting for him to stand up?
Speaker 2: Well, that's that's that's what I mean. I mean, like
Speaker 2: like standing up, I just made him like I know
Speaker 2: where he is right now, and so I need to
Speaker 2: find some way to kill him like there or very
Speaker 2: close to that, right, yep, right. So I originally thought, Okay,
Speaker 2: I've got a couple of things going for me. A
Speaker 2: big thing is that it's windy, so it's like fifteen
Speaker 2: to seventeen and mile an hour sustained winds, so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna be able to sneak around out there and he
Speaker 2: shouldn't be able to hear me. And second things going
Speaker 2: for me is that it is gun seasons, so I've
Speaker 2: got three fifty so I can I don't need to
Speaker 2: be thirty yards for him to get a shot. I
Speaker 2: can be sixty yards or eighty yards or whatever. So
Speaker 2: I originally thought I could just do a big wide
Speaker 2: half circle, get downwind of him, and then just work
Speaker 2: my way up the edge of the corn and the
Speaker 2: grass and get as close as I can possibly get
Speaker 2: and then just wait for him to stand up. But
Speaker 2: then I got to thinking, man, this grass is so tall,
Speaker 2: like you know, I could just see his head and
Speaker 2: shoulders when he went in there in some spots, and
Speaker 2: then some spots you can just see antlers, and then
Speaker 2: some spots you can see more. But I mean, the
Speaker 2: grass is anywhere from waist to shoulder high, probably am me.
Speaker 2: So I got to thinking, I'm gonna stand there, and
Speaker 2: even if he stands up, I won't be able to
Speaker 2: get a clear shot. So my next idea was that
Speaker 2: the cornfield rises up into a hill to the north
Speaker 2: of where he was beded, a decently substantial hill, maybe
Speaker 2: like fifty feet of elevation or something like that. I
Speaker 2: don't know, maybe not that much, but something like that.
Speaker 2: So I got to thinking, if I could somehow get
Speaker 2: to the backside of that hill without him seeing me,
Speaker 2: I could belly crawl over the crest and lay in
Speaker 2: the cut corn and get over top of him and
Speaker 2: then have a downward angle down into the grass and
Speaker 2: hopefully that would give me, you know, sight lines and
Speaker 2: a shooting lane into the grass to the vitals if
Speaker 2: he stands up. So eventually I decided, like that's the
Speaker 2: best option I've got here. So I get to the
Speaker 2: north propery line. I get my camera guy out there
Speaker 2: as soon as he can. It's like noon by the
Speaker 2: time he can get there. And we go to the
Speaker 2: north propery line. And I thought that the way the
Speaker 2: hill was that I would be able to walk or
Speaker 2: you know, crouch and kind of cover a lot of
Speaker 2: distance to get to where this hill was. But turns out,
Speaker 2: as soon as I started walking across the field, I
Speaker 2: very quickly saw it's way more exposed to the spot
Speaker 2: he was in than I realized, like right by the road.
Speaker 2: So again like he's bedded I don't know, one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty yards from the road maybe something like that,
Speaker 2: and within sight of a of a pretty busy road.
Speaker 2: So I realized, like, okay, I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: able to just walk to this hill and then crawl
Speaker 2: to the hill. I have to crawl the entire way
Speaker 2: right off of a road. So so me and my
Speaker 2: camera guy start crawling and then eventually belly crawling like
Speaker 2: snake slithering right and broadside of of a road. Cars
Speaker 2: driving by. I'm thinking, like, man, these people just think
Speaker 2: I'm an idiot. There's a guy crawling across a cut
Speaker 2: cornfield at noon?
Speaker 3: Was it Charlie with you?
Speaker 2: Yes, Charlie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a good choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Charlie did. Charlie did great.
Speaker 3: For that mission. He's a good guy to have with you.
Speaker 2: Yes. So so it was like a nightmare just doing that.
Speaker 2: It took us a very long time just to go
Speaker 2: to imagine, like the path I had to take is
Speaker 2: I had to go like two hundred or so yards
Speaker 2: from west to east along the corn edge and then
Speaker 2: once that that would get me just past where he was,
Speaker 2: and then I had to go south to get up
Speaker 2: the hill and then just over the crest to be
Speaker 2: able to see down to him. So imagine like an L,
Speaker 2: you know, with the flat the long part on the top,
Speaker 2: and then the L the short part of the L
Speaker 2: sticking straight down. That's the path I had to take.
Speaker 2: So the two of us belly crawl two hundred yards
Speaker 2: across the snowy cut cornfield to get down the two
Speaker 2: hundred yards, and then we have to do the part
Speaker 2: where we go down. And this was the really hard
Speaker 2: part because this was perpendicular to the corn rows. So
Speaker 2: now if if you can imagine having to belly crawl
Speaker 2: over twelve inch tall cornstalks that are frozen hard because
Speaker 2: it's like twenty degrees, so it's like little metal rebar
Speaker 2: rods every twelve inches. And that was a nightmare because
Speaker 2: We're trying to do it. And then I'm just feeling
Speaker 2: like we're more and more exposed as we're getting closer
Speaker 2: and closer, and I'm worried about getting seen. So then
Speaker 2: I'm like, Charlie, I'm sorry, but we got to take
Speaker 2: our packs off. Like our packs are sticking up too high.
Speaker 2: We got to take our packs off. So we now
Speaker 2: we take our packs off, and now we push our
Speaker 2: packs over a row, and then we crawl over the row.
Speaker 2: And then we push our packs over the row, and
Speaker 2: then we crawl over the row. And I'm holding my
Speaker 2: rifle in one hand. I'm holding a shooting stick in
Speaker 2: the other hand because it keeps falling on my backpack,
Speaker 2: and so I'm doing that and then moving the pack
Speaker 2: and then crawling, and then we get a little further
Speaker 2: and then I'm still like worried about getting seen. So
Speaker 2: then I bust out my secret weapon, which I had
Speaker 2: brought a old white bed sheet to cover us up
Speaker 2: when we were laying down there, because I thought like,
Speaker 2: we need some way to hide up there on this hilltop,
Speaker 2: so I brought an old sheet. But now I'm worried
Speaker 2: about being seen as we're crawling in there, so I
Speaker 2: take the bed sheet out of my backpack and tie
Speaker 2: it around my neck like like you know some people
Speaker 2: tie like their sweater around their shoulders, you know. So
Speaker 2: I did that with an old bed sheet so that
Speaker 2: I could maybe stay a little more hidden. So now
Speaker 2: I'm berey crawling with a white sheet over me, trying
Speaker 2: to get down the hill. And then we're getting closer
Speaker 2: and I'm still like, I'm like, God, we're gonna get
Speaker 2: picked off of here. We're still not hidden enough. So
Speaker 2: now I go to Charlie and like, buddy, you're gonna
Speaker 2: hate me. But we can't crawl anywhere. We need to
Speaker 2: just slide and roll. So what we would do is
Speaker 2: I would break I would roll. I literally I was
Speaker 2: laying down. I would push my pack so it'd break
Speaker 2: down the cornstalks, and then I would just roll. I'd
Speaker 2: roll over it, slide into that, push the bedding or
Speaker 2: push the backpack roll. So we did this for like
Speaker 2: an hour and a half, Like we just took two
Speaker 2: hours to get across this field covered in a bed sheet,
Speaker 2: and it was just ridiculous. Like me and Charlie just
Speaker 2: kept looking at the show like this is absurd, Like
Speaker 2: nobody does anything this dumb to try to kill a deer.
Speaker 2: And if anyone was like sitting on the side of
Speaker 2: the road, they could have watched a lot of this
Speaker 2: and just watched a couple of knuckleheads, like I don't know,
Speaker 2: snuggle up in a sheet rolling around. But we eventually,
Speaker 2: we eventually get over the hill Tony, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: all right, we're actually here. Oh my gosh, we finally
Speaker 2: made it. I'm sweating and covered in snow from head
Speaker 2: to toe, and Charlie wants to quit like never has before.
Speaker 2: He's never gonna work for me to again and get
Speaker 2: into position. I put the backpack in front of me
Speaker 2: and just try to like get everything cleared around and
Speaker 2: get my gun in positioned and just try to get situated.
Speaker 2: And then I start losing like control of my body,
Speaker 2: Like I just had to keep peeing all the time,
Speaker 2: so I had to peel like two different times because
Speaker 2: I think I'm nervous now or something, so I can't
Speaker 2: stand up to peace, so I just have to like
Speaker 2: roll over to my side and pee from a laying
Speaker 2: down position. So all this is happening, Okay, finally we
Speaker 2: we're situated. We're good. We're glassing down in there. I'm
Speaker 2: trying to like make sure that this is the right spot.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure we're looking at the right zone, but
Speaker 2: you know, it's always different from this position. But we
Speaker 2: sit there for an hour and fifteen minutes watching glassing,
Speaker 2: watching glassing, and I was having like lower back pain
Speaker 2: because I'm on my belly up on my elbows though
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, so I can see. And so
Speaker 2: I remember one point I had to kind of roll
Speaker 2: over on my side to just relieve my back for
Speaker 2: a second. And just as I do that, Charlie's like, oh, oh,
Speaker 2: he's up and right then, so I'm on my side
Speaker 2: and he's up, and I like, can I turn? I
Speaker 2: turned my head just a little bit, and he's like
Speaker 2: looking right at us. I'm like, oh no, like all
Speaker 2: of this, and somehow he stands up right as I
Speaker 2: have to like roll a little bit, and he's staring
Speaker 2: at us. So we're frozen, frozen, frozen, and I'm not
Speaker 2: like at first I wanted to start trying moving things
Speaker 2: in a position, but no, it's just just freaking wait. Mark,
Speaker 2: just be patient, and so I just freeze. And then
Speaker 2: you see like he's he's normal, Like he wasn't actually
Speaker 2: on us, he was just happened to be looking in
Speaker 2: that direction that he kind of turns his head and
Speaker 2: kind of looks down, like starts licking himself. And so
Speaker 2: every time he kind of did a little movement, I've
Speaker 2: shifted my gun up. I got up on my elbows.
Speaker 2: I've got up high enough so I could see over
Speaker 2: the corn stubble. And then he's in position, guns up
Speaker 2: scopes on him, but he's facing right at us, And
Speaker 2: I thought about the fact that we're gonna have tough
Speaker 2: sight lines into there, and I thought to myself, Man,
Speaker 2: do you need to like, do you need to think
Speaker 2: about next shot? Like I don't know if I'm gonna
Speaker 2: be able to see to the vitals. Is a next
Speaker 2: shot something that I want to do. I remember thinking
Speaker 2: about that that morning, and I actually I just was
Speaker 2: thinking about all this that morning before Charlie got there.
Speaker 2: I remember pulling up the anatomy of a deer and
Speaker 2: just like looking again, like let me see, Like, I
Speaker 2: know people take next shots. I've never taken a next
Speaker 2: shot before and it's never been something I would do,
Speaker 2: but I'm like, people do it all the time, and
Speaker 2: they drop deer. So I look at the anatomy again,
Speaker 2: I'm like, man, that's crazy, Like I'm not gonna take
Speaker 2: that shot. There's not a lot there that's actually gonna
Speaker 2: work for you. So I had had that thought leading
Speaker 2: into it, but but thankfully I didn't do it, because
Speaker 2: he stood up and gave me a next shot, and no,
Speaker 2: not taking that shot to our early earlier conversation like
Speaker 2: this has got to be just right. So I'm just
Speaker 2: on him and waiting and waiting. He just stands like
Speaker 2: that forever, and then I'm just waiting and waiting and
Speaker 2: waiting and thinking. I just remember telling myself like just
Speaker 2: take your time, like this is it, this is this
Speaker 2: is your opportunity. Everything has worked out to a tea
Speaker 2: like this is exactly how you drew it up. I
Speaker 2: mean I didn't necessarily draw up the whole rolling down
Speaker 2: a hill in a bed sheet thing, but everything else
Speaker 2: had lined up just like I thought, Like my hope
Speaker 2: had been like get out there early, get out there
Speaker 2: as soon as you possibly can, because my big question mark,
Speaker 2: like the big warrior, was like will he stand up
Speaker 2: before dark? Like I know where he is if I
Speaker 2: can get in there without him seeing me. The only
Speaker 2: question mark is will he stand up in daylight? And
Speaker 2: will there be a shot through the grass or not?
Speaker 2: So I I you know, what I was telling Charlie
Speaker 2: Headstone was like, we got to get there early, like
Speaker 2: midday if we can, because a lot of times the
Speaker 2: deer will stand up a time or two during the
Speaker 2: middle of day and just reposition, so we might get
Speaker 2: a chance midday or early where he just stands up,
Speaker 2: turns around, and then beds back down and if we're
Speaker 2: not there, there goes your chance. So we got to
Speaker 2: be there, so thank goodness we were out there early
Speaker 2: because it took us two hours of crawling just to
Speaker 2: get in a position. So it's still like late by
Speaker 2: the time we got there, but or later, but so
Speaker 2: we he's up. He got up at four ish, I
Speaker 2: think is when he stood up, so almost two hours
Speaker 2: were dark. So he stood up to do like his
Speaker 2: little reposition and stands up. He's facing us forward and
Speaker 2: then finally starts turning and turns and gives me a
Speaker 2: broadside and it takes a couple of steps, and there's
Speaker 2: a hole in the grass and I can see to
Speaker 2: the top of his shoulder and just off to the
Speaker 2: side and uh, put it there behind the shoulder, pull
Speaker 2: a trigger. He bounded off and stopped. He took took
Speaker 2: two leaps and stopped. And then I immediately am trying
Speaker 2: to reload. And this is a single shot rifle, so
Speaker 2: I'm trying to get a break action, so I'm trying
Speaker 2: to get the spence shell out. My fingers are so
Speaker 2: numb i can't pull it out. So I'm sitting there
Speaker 2: like trying to pull out the shell, trying to pull
Speaker 2: the shell, and I can kind of see out the
Speaker 2: corner of my eye, like I saw he bounced, bounced
Speaker 2: and stopped, and I'm like shall shell shell, trying to
Speaker 2: get reloaded. And then I look back and I can't
Speaker 2: see him anymore, and then trys like he dropped right
Speaker 2: there and that was it. He was down and ended
Speaker 2: up being like an eighty yard shot or something, maybe
Speaker 2: some seventy yards eighty yards something like that and just
Speaker 2: an incredible sense of relief to close the close the
Speaker 2: circle on that whole thing, you know, getting a second
Speaker 2: shot at him and getting to finish it. And man,
Speaker 2: I mean it's it's the wildest hunt I think I've
Speaker 2: ever had for a specific deer like this, Like all
Speaker 2: the encounters all, I mean, I had a lot over
Speaker 2: the years, but this one, you know, took it to
Speaker 2: a different level.
Speaker 4: I mean when you saw him beddown like that and
Speaker 4: you knew you would get a chance, Like, how happy
Speaker 4: were you that it was gun season?
Speaker 2: Very happy was gun season?
Speaker 4: Very even having to you know, slither your way across
Speaker 4: that cornfield the way you guys did. Just the just
Speaker 4: the ability to you know, or the option to stay
Speaker 4: back at football field away or eighty yards away or
Speaker 4: whatever is like just a game changer in that situation.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, big time. And uh yeah, very thankful for that.
Speaker 2: And I know some people are you know, some people
Speaker 2: are purest and just want to use the archery tackle.
Speaker 2: And I love bow hoating and I prefer it most
Speaker 2: of the time. And like we were talking about before
Speaker 2: we start recording, like when I do traveling trips and
Speaker 2: stuff like, I like to use the bow because the
Speaker 2: gun almost feels too easy in those situations sometimes. But
Speaker 2: like here, when I've hunted for a deer for years
Speaker 2: or for months on end, and they had all this stuff,
Speaker 2: Like by the time gun season comes around, I feel like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I put in my sweat and and I paid my dues.
Speaker 2: Now I'll take an eighty R shot and be very
Speaker 2: very thankful for it. So I don't feel bad at
Speaker 2: all for taking it with a gun.
Speaker 4: I know, I know you've been on this kick the
Speaker 4: last couple of years or maybe the last two whatever
Speaker 4: to just enjoy yourself more, isn't it? Isn't that situation
Speaker 4: because you would never do something like that with a bowl,
Speaker 4: Like you wouldn't even be if you saw em betted there.
Speaker 4: You would have a completely different plan and strategy to
Speaker 4: be just totally different. But isn't it when you do
Speaker 4: something like that? Wasn't that so fun? Like wasn't it
Speaker 4: so fun to crawl out there knowing like, if you
Speaker 4: do it right, you're gonna get a good shot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like at least there was a very
Speaker 2: good chance. And yeah, I mean the whole time like
Speaker 2: it was it was like that. It was type two fun,
Speaker 2: like the whole time we're crawling out there. It's like miserable,
Speaker 2: but like fun miserable. Me and Charlie Wuld look at
Speaker 2: each like this is nuts, Like we're such idiots and
Speaker 2: we're like sweating and rolling around the corn and like
Speaker 2: this is so stupid, but also like this is awesome,
Speaker 2: Like if this works out, like this is one of
Speaker 2: the wilder things I've ever done for a deer. And
Speaker 2: to have that all come together, like man, really like
Speaker 2: a fitting ending to a wild set of experiences. And
Speaker 2: you know, like that day October for thirtieth when I
Speaker 2: have the you know, the debacle in the morning and
Speaker 2: then get another shot him later in the day, like
Speaker 2: that's a first. I've never had two opportunities at a
Speaker 2: deer in the same day like that. And then you know,
Speaker 2: then the horrible situation hitting him bad, and then this
Speaker 2: whole thing coming back together after like three weeks of
Speaker 2: thinking it's all done. Just huge set of ups and
Speaker 2: downs and a wild roller coaster and you know, so
Speaker 2: cool to have had my son involved in it. You know,
Speaker 2: last year he so he had like a personal attachment
Speaker 2: to the deer too, So he was always really excited
Speaker 2: because he kind of felt like he, you know, had
Speaker 2: helped hunt for the deer too, So yeah, it was
Speaker 2: it was something. And and so let me tell you
Speaker 2: this back to kind of our one of our main
Speaker 2: themes of this whole conversation. I go and recover that deer,
Speaker 2: and my arrow shot if it had been like a
Speaker 2: half an inch different, it would have smoked him, Like
Speaker 2: I'm half an inch away from the edge of that
Speaker 2: bone and it would have been right through double lung.
Speaker 2: Half an inch difference made this last month what it was.
Speaker 2: So it just goes back to like, this is a
Speaker 2: game of inches. This is a game of the tiniest
Speaker 2: little things, and anything you can do to account for
Speaker 2: those little little margins, you gotta do it. So yeah,
Speaker 2: it's crazy, it's crazy.
Speaker 4: So that's a pretty that's a pretty sweet ending though,
Speaker 4: to actually get to see how close you were the
Speaker 4: first time, and just to I mean, those kind of
Speaker 4: seasons or that that kind of long run with that
Speaker 4: deer changes how you look at all deer going forward. Yeah,
Speaker 4: like not having the answer to when you hit him
Speaker 4: and he's gone and whether you're going to see him
Speaker 4: again or what happened and then all of a sudden
Speaker 4: he shows back up eventually and you know, puts himself
Speaker 4: in another position where you got a chance like there's
Speaker 4: you know that doesn't happen that, Like you don't get
Speaker 4: to live that very often.
Speaker 2: No, this felt like a like a once in a
Speaker 2: lifetime kind of experience. Yeah, it definitely feels like this
Speaker 2: was this was unique. And yeah, I think again like
Speaker 2: there's there's I don't just just so much respect and
Speaker 2: admiration and and like just like ah, I kind of
Speaker 2: feel for these critters too, like I'm always surprised, I
Speaker 2: always learned something new. They're always tougher or savvier or
Speaker 2: or something like. This is like a very very difficult
Speaker 2: thing to try to pull off that we do, and
Speaker 2: and the deer always they always have a few hands
Speaker 2: up on us, you know, like we are operating from
Speaker 2: a sit and that shot. Interestingly, when we caped it out,
Speaker 2: my first shot did break his shoulder blade, so it
Speaker 2: shattered some of that bone so it actually did punch
Speaker 2: through a little bit and just didn't get through all
Speaker 2: the way. But massive infection like bad, like I mean
Speaker 2: like like cups of stuff coming out. So so yeah, bad,
Speaker 2: bad situation. So it goes back to again like what
Speaker 2: I can learn from this is continuing to work harder
Speaker 2: at you know, continue to get better with the archery,
Speaker 2: but also be even more conservative and careful with my shots.
Speaker 2: As we talked about, not only am I can move
Speaker 2: to a thirty pin and only, but I'm also changing
Speaker 2: my bow set up to a quieter bow. I'm also
Speaker 2: changing my site set up. I'm gonna go to a
Speaker 2: single pin set, and I think that's going to simplify
Speaker 2: my site picture and in what I'm doing, because if I, like,
Speaker 2: anytime I've made mistakes when I've rushed has been like
Speaker 2: I will that those pins hit the vitals, and I'm
Speaker 2: not always like in the past, I've had times when
Speaker 2: like the pins hit the vitals and then I'm going
Speaker 2: through and pulling if i only have one pin, Like
Speaker 2: I'm trying to find ways to dumb it down, knowing
Speaker 2: that I am, like I'm an imperfect human and trying
Speaker 2: to find ways to account for that.
Speaker 3: Honestly, I think you've had somebody in your life who's
Speaker 3: been preaching that message for a long time.
Speaker 2: If it's who I think it is, I do my
Speaker 2: very best not to take advice from him.
Speaker 4: But uh, you might've been a guy who fourteen years
Speaker 4: ago made that switch for the very same reason.
Speaker 3: Buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I guess I'm just following. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: about right. How old are you? You're like ten years
Speaker 2: older than me, fourteen years older than me, something like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm just along the same learning path.
Speaker 4: Just I'm not that much more older than you. I'm
Speaker 4: just a lot more experienced.
Speaker 2: Well it's better late than never, so dude.
Speaker 4: Honestly, that that switch I've written about that's a ton,
Speaker 4: and I've talked about it a ton, But that switch
Speaker 4: from even a three pin site to a one pin site,
Speaker 4: if you give it the requisite amount of practice and
Speaker 4: you get used to it, almost nobody goes back. The
Speaker 4: people who say I tried it and didn't work didn't
Speaker 4: give it enough time. Mostly like it's it is a
Speaker 4: big difference maker for an awful lot of people, especially
Speaker 4: if you don't get a ton of encounters to shoot deer,
Speaker 4: like you don't have a lot of experience. When you
Speaker 4: dumb that part down, you are giving yourself a real advantage.
Speaker 4: And it's it's hard to realize until you put it
Speaker 4: to like put it to use for a few years,
Speaker 4: but for a lot of people.
Speaker 3: It's a huge difference maker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I just I there's nothing worse
Speaker 2: than what happened, right. I do not want a wound
Speaker 2: to do. I don't want to have a situation like
Speaker 2: this where I have to shoot a deer again a
Speaker 2: month later. I feel awful about that. I hope I've
Speaker 2: made that clear. So I'm trying to you know, over
Speaker 2: the years, I've talked about my ups and downs and
Speaker 2: all these ways I've tried to learn and try to
Speaker 2: get better. And I think this is a continued, you know,
Speaker 2: evolution of that. And and so I think, yeah, just
Speaker 2: that's the thing about hunting is it is a constant process,
Speaker 2: is a constant evolution. It's constant, like none of us,
Speaker 2: not even the very best keyboard warrior out there who
Speaker 2: likes to comment on everything about how everybody else is done, Like,
Speaker 2: not even that guy gets it right all the time.
Speaker 2: So I think the trick to all this, Tony, and
Speaker 2: I think your good example of this too is like
Speaker 2: just never stop learning, Like, never stop that process. Like
Speaker 2: we don't ever have it all figured out, So just
Speaker 2: keep on growing, keep on fine tuning. I think it's
Speaker 2: long even on like a year where everything goes right,
Speaker 2: You should not look at that as everything went right.
Speaker 2: I think we should be looking, Okay, what could have
Speaker 2: been better? What could I do a little better? What
Speaker 2: did I kind of get away with this year? What
Speaker 2: mistake did I actually make that I got away with?
Speaker 2: But deep down in my heart, I know, like that
Speaker 2: wasn't quite right. There's always something we can do better,
Speaker 2: and this deer was a great illustration of that for me,
Speaker 2: and I am very thankful for that.
Speaker 4: Well any you know on that point too. I think
Speaker 4: the natural inclination for people who go out and make mistakes,
Speaker 4: which is everybody, is to actually sort of be like,
Speaker 4: play it safer, keep sitting in that box, blind, keep
Speaker 4: doing like the easy kind of formulaic hunts that you've
Speaker 4: done a lot. And I think I think the remedy
Speaker 4: to getting better is to go do stuff outside of
Speaker 4: your comfort zone a little bit and try stuff like that,
Speaker 4: like when you see that buck betted there like that,
Speaker 4: and granted it's gun season, but there there's a move
Speaker 4: that's going to kill that deer, and a lot of
Speaker 4: people are going to not try it. And I think
Speaker 4: that that's you know, I think we've been conditioned so
Speaker 4: much from people who have really really good hunting, who
Speaker 4: can play it safe and they can stay out and
Speaker 4: they don't have to go in, and they have to
Speaker 4: worry about anybody bumping their deer or change in anything.
Speaker 4: And it's like very sort of a contrived situation, and
Speaker 4: we get that message just beat into us over and over.
Speaker 4: It's like, play it safe, play it smart, play it safe.
Speaker 4: I think you level up as a hunter by putting
Speaker 4: yourself in a little bit uncomfortable situations and trying things
Speaker 4: just sort of out of out of your routine. I
Speaker 4: think that's where you get you really get better.
Speaker 2: Well, if you were to look at, like, in this
Speaker 2: this general area where this all happened, I've hunted this
Speaker 2: general area now for like twelve or thirteen years I've
Speaker 2: been in this zone. And if you were to look
Speaker 2: at the first six years versus the last six years,
Speaker 2: dramatically different level of success in the last six to
Speaker 2: seven years out there, And a large part of that
Speaker 2: I would attribute to the fact that over the course
Speaker 2: of that first six years and the years after that,
Speaker 2: I've traveled a lot more. I've hunted so many more locations,
Speaker 2: so many more states, so many different styles, you know,
Speaker 2: that year when I filmed deer country and I had to,
Speaker 2: you know, learn from all these different guys who have
Speaker 2: very very specific skill sets and they hunt all these
Speaker 2: different ways. Like after that year, coming back and hunting
Speaker 2: my own places I used to hunt forever, all of
Speaker 2: a sudden, I've got all these new tools in my toolbox,
Speaker 2: all these new ideas, all these different things that all
Speaker 2: of a sudden I feel more comfortable trying. I would
Speaker 2: have never tried the you know, hunting without a tree
Speaker 2: on the ground that led to me killing that buck
Speaker 2: in Nebraska this year, or this situation where I killed
Speaker 2: this one sneaking in and belly crawling in on one,
Speaker 2: or last year when I saw that other buck in
Speaker 2: Michigan and had to climb on out of my tree
Speaker 2: stand after I saw him bedded and sneak up on
Speaker 2: him to get a shot at him. Or I mean,
Speaker 2: I could point back to so many different things where
Speaker 2: the only reason why I thought of these ideas or
Speaker 2: had the confidence to try them was because I'd gone
Speaker 2: to new places and been forced to do new things,
Speaker 2: forced to learn new ideas, forced to get outside of
Speaker 2: that comfort zone. And then all of that comes back
Speaker 2: and helps me even in the local spots too. So
Speaker 2: it's it's a very it's it's a process that comes
Speaker 2: back to what I think you've preached a lot, which is,
Speaker 2: you know, getting out of your getting outside of your
Speaker 2: comfort zone. And there's many different ways you can do that.
Speaker 2: The better, that's all.
Speaker 3: It's all going to help for sure. So I very
Speaker 3: recently did that and it was a blast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do want to hear about that. Do we
Speaker 2: look before I hear about that. I want to make sure.
Speaker 2: I want to make sure that I think through if
Speaker 2: there's any other major point that's worth pulling out of
Speaker 2: this story really quick. And I think, you know, big
Speaker 2: picture things that I take away. We talked through the
Speaker 2: whole shooting. We talked through you know, getting comfortable with
Speaker 2: discomfort and try new things and the aggressive styles. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, the thing with this deer didn't necessarily help
Speaker 2: me kill him in the end, but it did help
Speaker 2: me have these opportunities over the years is just you know, scouting.
Speaker 2: Take that back, It did help me kill this deer
Speaker 2: because I have put a huge emphasis on scouting and
Speaker 2: glassing and keeping tabs of information, like you know, if
Speaker 2: you have the luxury and I know, it's a luxury
Speaker 2: that not everybody has. Not everybody lives close enough to
Speaker 2: their properties that they can get out and scout, or
Speaker 2: not everybody has a property where they can see deer
Speaker 2: year after year. So I recognize that I'm very fortunate
Speaker 2: to have permission on some pieces like that where I can.
Speaker 2: But the fact that I have put a premium on
Speaker 2: getting out to glass as many times as they can,
Speaker 2: the fact that I have kept track of every siding
Speaker 2: I have of these deer, all those little things have
Speaker 2: helped me be in the right zones. And finally, in
Speaker 2: this case, it helped me spot the deer that morning.
Speaker 2: I couldn't hunt, but I was gonna be, you know, watching,
Speaker 2: and I saw him and that huge difference, and so
Speaker 2: scout sut scout, scout learn, learn, learn. I mean that
Speaker 2: goes back to our very first episode we did this season, Tony,
Speaker 2: after you killed that buck in Minnesota and I killed
Speaker 2: mine in Wisconsin. Both of those we had stories about
Speaker 2: how taking the extra time to scout, prioritizing scouting more
Speaker 2: versus hunting more, you know, in a certain way, that's
Speaker 2: what actually helped me kill this year too, because I
Speaker 2: had a couple of nights a couple of different times
Speaker 2: of glassing. I saw him in this grassy swale. Gave
Speaker 2: me the confidence to watch it again and then sure enough,
Speaker 2: there he is. So that informed nature of things is critical.
Speaker 2: So I think that's I think that's probably it on
Speaker 2: my story. Glad to be able to tie a bow
Speaker 2: on the wide nine story and excited to share that
Speaker 2: in technicolor in a film. We filmed this whole thing too,
Speaker 2: so it should be a wild ride to put on
Speaker 2: the On the YouTube.
Speaker 3: You sound like a nineteen thirties drifter.
Speaker 2: There, technic color. I've been watching I've been watching the
Speaker 2: Marvel Missus Maisel. Have you ever seen that show?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 2: So it's got me talking like an old timer. Okay,
Speaker 2: give me five minutes, give me five minutes on your
Speaker 2: recent hunt, and then I've got to actually run. But
Speaker 2: you had a fun gun hunt too, right, Tony.
Speaker 4: I did, Man, You know I got the chance to go.
Speaker 4: The buck that I killed earlier this year was in
Speaker 4: the CWD zone, so I killed it with my bow,
Speaker 4: so that year doesn't count against my statewide total. So
Speaker 4: I could hunt outside of that zone for a buck
Speaker 4: somewhere else, and I haven't really had the chance to
Speaker 4: do that. Ever since, they've really instituted a lot of
Speaker 4: the CWD rules down there, just because I haven't had
Speaker 4: much time, but this Western Minnesota stuff has gotten under
Speaker 4: my skin. I hunted there last year one week in November.
Speaker 4: I got my ass kicked. I can't handle it, you know,
Speaker 4: I needed to go back and try it. I just
Speaker 4: had the chance for muzzleloader opener to go, and dude,
Speaker 4: I got up at three o'clock. It's a three and
Speaker 4: a half hour drive down there. Almost I was like,
Speaker 4: this is so dumb. I'm going into public land that
Speaker 4: I know. I know there's going to be people in there,
Speaker 4: and I'm kind of like, where can I go to
Speaker 4: have the best chance to see something go bed down
Speaker 4: kind of like you were talking about, and then maybe
Speaker 4: get in there cause it's pretty wide open stuff. You know,
Speaker 4: it's CRP and cattails and not much real cover. Drive
Speaker 4: all the way down there and I call an audible
Speaker 4: like and two hours into my drive, I'm like, I
Speaker 4: got to go to this property that I know a
Speaker 4: lot of deer winter on. And so I went in
Speaker 4: a totally different direction from my plan when I left
Speaker 4: my house. I get there, you know, maybe twenty minutes
Speaker 4: before first light, and there's a truck parked in the
Speaker 4: parking area that I was thinking about parking at. So
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, I'll go to where I know I
Speaker 4: probably should go, which is a lot harder to get
Speaker 4: into this property. It's a lot longer walk. But I'm like,
Speaker 4: these guys are probably going to push deer my way.
Speaker 4: So I go park, get in. There see a guy
Speaker 4: in a box blind on this private fence line looking
Speaker 4: into the public. So I'm like, okay, I got guys
Speaker 4: hunting below me. I got that guy there, and I
Speaker 4: go just get into this property a little ways and
Speaker 4: it's just getting light, and I'm like, I better glass
Speaker 4: this grass before I go because I can see a lot.
Speaker 4: Look down there's a nice buck walking through this public
Speaker 4: creek bottom. Like first year, I see, you know, like
Speaker 4: one twenty type deer, great buck for there. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 4: there's That's what I'm focused on. And then I start
Speaker 4: picking out deer. It was like a Western hunt because
Speaker 4: I just had some elevation and I'm like, okay, there's
Speaker 4: dont two fonds that looks like another buck, But I didn't.
Speaker 4: I only had my binos. I didn't have a spot
Speaker 4: er with me, so anyway, I have to wait for
Speaker 4: all these deer to go through to get beyond this
Speaker 4: little hillside so I can move up to where I
Speaker 4: really wanted to be to see them go into the
Speaker 4: bedding stuff. And they filter through and I finally get
Speaker 4: a chance to go up there, and I pick them
Speaker 4: all up again. You know, I'm four hundred yards closer
Speaker 4: this time, and they're all milling through this willows and
Speaker 4: dogwood to go to this big cat tail slough. So
Speaker 4: just randomly, I hear a shot and I look over
Speaker 4: and there's a kid and his dad and a couple
Speaker 4: other people in this parking area. They shot a buck
Speaker 4: in the ditch from their truck. You know, he was
Speaker 4: standing outside. So anyway, I'm kind of like watching my
Speaker 4: deer and watching this unfold, like come on, guys, whatever,
Speaker 4: so they you know this is happening. And I watch
Speaker 4: these deer get into this cover where I lose them,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, they're gonna go in there and bed down.
Speaker 4: It's cattails. You're not going to get in on them, right,
Speaker 4: So I'm like, okay, but I know where they went through.
Speaker 4: I know where they're going to go back, probably tonight.
Speaker 4: So as I'm sitting there, the guy who's in the
Speaker 4: box blind shoots. I'm like Jesus, like everybody's on deer
Speaker 4: but me, And anyway, I get out watch them bed
Speaker 4: down or watch them get into that cover and sneak
Speaker 4: down there to look for a spot to set up
Speaker 4: to catch them coming out, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 4: it's brush and grass, there's like nothing. You know, you're
Speaker 4: not getting into a tree. But I find a spot
Speaker 4: with the wind, and I'm like, if they pass through here,
Speaker 4: they're going to be within one hundred and fifty yards
Speaker 4: of me somewhere and probably close set up that night.
Speaker 4: Six dos come through at different times, all easy in range,
Speaker 4: no bucks. Like okay, well, I got a plan for
Speaker 4: tomorrow morning because I know the cut cornfield they're probably
Speaker 4: going to and coming back from. So I get up
Speaker 4: so early because I have to walk across this. Like
Speaker 4: I thought about you, I'm like this is like a
Speaker 4: Mark Kenyon approved thing because it's like two hours before
Speaker 4: first light because I have to cross that opening. And
Speaker 4: then I pull a spencer New Hearts because I have
Speaker 4: nowhere to sit, so I'm like hiding behind a fence
Speaker 4: post that has some like public land signs on it,
Speaker 4: and like forty five minutes before first light, the first
Speaker 4: dose starts blowing in the dark and then it's just
Speaker 4: like on and off they're blowing and it gets light.
Speaker 4: I'm like, well, maybe because it was super windy. I'm like,
Speaker 4: maybe something else will come through. Nothing comes through. I
Speaker 4: don't see a deer, so I'm like, okay, I get up.
Speaker 4: I'm like, I don't want to hunt here tonight. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna go somewhere else. So I'm gonna go look at
Speaker 4: this betting area because I've got a little bit of
Speaker 4: fresh snow, like an inch of it, maybe maybe not
Speaker 4: even an inch. And I go get into that betting
Speaker 4: area because I'm like where did these deer go? Like
Speaker 4: why didn't any of them come back in here? And
Speaker 4: I get to the edge of the cattails and I
Speaker 4: see a dough track going in there fresh and I'm like,
Speaker 4: I wonder if I could just follow it kick one up,
Speaker 4: And so I just followed it a little ways and
Speaker 4: this dough gets out of her bed like ten yards
Speaker 4: away from me and just bounds off and I was like, well,
Speaker 4: now I know what I'm gonna do for the next
Speaker 4: couple hours. And I'm telling you, dude, I walked a
Speaker 4: little ways and I cut a buck track and I'm
Speaker 4: just looking at it, like a loan buck track, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, this is a decent deer. And he I
Speaker 4: follow him, and he's through every patch of better cover.
Speaker 4: You can imagine like he took this windy route and
Speaker 4: never went out anywhere he would expose himself. And I
Speaker 4: got to this part of the cattails, where as soon
Speaker 4: as I got in there, I'm like, oh man, there's
Speaker 4: like not really very much wind here, like it was
Speaker 4: like this little micro climate. And this like one hundred
Speaker 4: and twenty hundred and twenty five inch buck gets up
Speaker 4: right next to me. I mean just and you know,
Speaker 4: I got the hammer back, but there's like no shot
Speaker 4: right like he's just running full board through the cattails.
Speaker 3: I'm like, this is so fun. And so then I
Speaker 3: tried to follow him.
Speaker 4: I lost his tracks, got on another buck track, another
Speaker 4: eight pointer, gets up a smaller deer.
Speaker 3: He runs off.
Speaker 4: I got on seven tracks in there and put up
Speaker 4: seven deer close to me. Wow, And you know three
Speaker 4: of them were bucks. One of the last one I
Speaker 4: didn't get a very good look at, but I was like, okay,
Speaker 4: So then I followed it out because I'm like, how
Speaker 4: did they get here? And they had come in from
Speaker 4: a different direction a field on top that was private
Speaker 4: that I just didn't even kind of factor in because
Speaker 4: of what I had seen in the morning before. But
Speaker 4: I'm telling you, dude, I had so much fun because
Speaker 4: I knew that that snow had only been.
Speaker 3: There like two hours.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so when you cut that track, You're like, they're
Speaker 4: gonna be here, and I knew, you know, the odds
Speaker 4: of getting a good shot were really low. But I
Speaker 4: was like I learned so much looking at their beds
Speaker 4: and seeing those deer run out of them, and then
Speaker 4: backtracking that and going, Okay, this is how they got
Speaker 4: here this morning. They didn't go anywhere near me, like
Speaker 4: I never even considered it, And then you look, okay,
Speaker 4: they're all positioned this way because of the wind, and
Speaker 4: this is where they're at. How they traveled. It was, dude,
Speaker 4: it was like a the whole time. I was like,
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm learning so much about hunting this
Speaker 4: environment that I'm just not that familiar with.
Speaker 2: Goes right back to what we were talking about ten
Speaker 2: minutes ago going to these new places like you started
Speaker 2: doing last year on the spot, and it took you
Speaker 2: a little time to kind of figure it out, explore
Speaker 2: different spots, and now you're learning new things that won't
Speaker 2: just help you there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I know you got to go. Let me
Speaker 3: wrap this up with one lesson.
Speaker 4: I saw twenty people hunting that property on Saturday, between pheasants.
Speaker 4: There was one group of eleven pheasant hunters, other random
Speaker 4: pheasant hunters, other muscle order hunters. There ended up being
Speaker 4: like six muzzleloader hunters in there. I never saw a
Speaker 4: single hunter pheasant or deer hunter get more than two
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty yards from the road. And this is
Speaker 4: a place that's probably it's big, it's probably I don't know,
Speaker 4: pushing a thousand acres between the different parts of it.
Speaker 4: Everybody who hunted in there stayed close to the parking
Speaker 4: areas in the roads, and those deer were smack dab
Speaker 4: in the middle. And not not to mention the billion
Speaker 4: roosters I kicked up while I was, you know, tracking
Speaker 4: deer in there. I mean, it was just like such
Speaker 4: a lesson on, like getting to see, okay, the people
Speaker 4: stay there, the animals go here.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 2: There you go. Not rocket science sometimes, no, although I
Speaker 2: know you would like it to be rocket science and
Speaker 2: all that space stuff you enjoy.
Speaker 3: I do love rocket science.
Speaker 2: You do love some rocket science. And on that note,
Speaker 2: I do need to wrap this sucker up, Tony. So
Speaker 2: thanks man for coming on here and hear my story
Speaker 2: and and uh talking through some ideas and some questions
Speaker 2: and lessons learned from that one. It was. It's a
Speaker 2: good feeling to close that hunt out and to have
Speaker 2: that memory that never makes so so.
Speaker 3: Yeah, buddy, congratulations on that deer dude.
Speaker 2: Thank you sir. All Right, my friend, let's shut this down.
Speaker 2: Let's touch base again soon, and thank you to everyone listening.
Speaker 2: Appreciate you being here with us through the month of November.
Speaker 2: This episode is coming out, I think on the last
Speaker 2: day of November. So next episode we will be truly
Speaker 2: kicking off late season and it can be a great season,
Speaker 2: they say. And that being said, don't give up, hope,
Speaker 2: keep on getting out there, have some fun, and until
Speaker 2: next time, stay wired to Hunt.