Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 482: Success Stories From "One Week in November"

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Ep. 482: Success Stories From "One Week in November" · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
0:05
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:11
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
0:14
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today I'm joined by my pal Spencer
0:17
Speaker 1: new Hearth and Tony Peterson to break down there one
0:21
Speaker 1: Week in November hunts getting the best of the best
0:23
Speaker 1: of the decisions made, the mistakes along the way, and
0:27
Speaker 1: what led to their success. All right, welcome to the
0:40
Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light.
0:45
Speaker 1: And today in the show, we are talking about rut
0:48
Speaker 1: hunting success. Last week you got to hear about rut
0:52
Speaker 1: hunting failure. Today you get to hear about the successful
0:56
Speaker 1: side of things. You get to hear about the smiles
1:00
Speaker 1: and the cheers, and the high fives and the hugs
1:02
Speaker 1: and and all the good stuff that you hope to
1:05
Speaker 1: get at this time of year. And uh with me,
1:08
Speaker 1: I've got the rest of the cast from our new
1:11
Speaker 1: show coming out on the Meat Eater YouTube channel this
1:13
Speaker 1: week called One Week in November. So in addition to me,
1:18
Speaker 1: that is Clay Newcomb, Tony Peterson, and Spencer new Hearth.
1:23
Speaker 1: Clay is is standing us up at the moment for
1:26
Speaker 1: reasons undisclosed, So it's it's just Spencer, Tony and me,
1:30
Speaker 1: but maybe Clay will join us later. We're gonna cross
1:32
Speaker 1: our fingers. Uh, real quick, uh, Tony and or Spencer.
1:37
Speaker 1: How do we feel about Clay standing us up right now?
1:41
Speaker 1: He's such a diva man. Do you think it's because
1:44
Speaker 1: they're out enough? Yeah? Yeah, he better have a good reason.
1:48
Speaker 1: He better like have his Vortex minos right now on
1:53
Speaker 1: some big giant Nebraska buck. I hope that's the case.
1:57
Speaker 1: Although he already killed one, so I think he's taged out.
2:00
Speaker 1: Someone else in camp has not killable one, so I
2:03
Speaker 1: hope he's helping that person. Look, there you go, there
2:06
Speaker 1: you go. That's that's a good point. Uh. So, guys,
2:10
Speaker 1: here's what I want to do, and you tell me
2:13
Speaker 1: what you think about it. Um. I want to walk
2:16
Speaker 1: through basically. You know, anyone's listening now, maybe heard last
2:19
Speaker 1: week's episode in which I walked through my week in Iowa.
2:22
Speaker 1: But while I was out there having a struggle fest
2:24
Speaker 1: in Iowa, you guys in Clay were killing it across Minnesota, Wisconsin, Montana, Wyoming,
2:30
Speaker 1: and Oklahoma. So I want to walk through, day by
2:33
Speaker 1: day what you guys did what you were thinking about,
2:36
Speaker 1: the different kind of strategies that worked for you during
2:39
Speaker 1: the rut um. Anything like that I think would be helpful.
2:42
Speaker 1: And then we can kind of bounce around between each
2:44
Speaker 1: other and you know, see what kind of curiosities we
2:47
Speaker 1: have and dive into whatever wormholes present themselves. Um, but
2:50
Speaker 1: that's my high level you guys though, are you know?
2:54
Speaker 1: You guys host podcasts here and wired Hunt too, So
2:57
Speaker 1: if you have a better idea part way through, at
2:59
Speaker 1: any point, you're welcome to jump in and say this
3:02
Speaker 1: is stupid, let's do something else, and I'll entertain it. So, Spencer,
3:08
Speaker 1: do you want to kick us off with your game
3:10
Speaker 1: plan leading into this week? We haven't gotten to a
3:13
Speaker 1: lot of detail. You've kind of alluded to things throughout,
3:16
Speaker 1: and you talked a little bit about this letter deal.
3:18
Speaker 1: But do you want to set us up how your
3:20
Speaker 1: week was planned out, how you were feeling about things
3:23
Speaker 1: heading into it, what your game plan was. Yeah, my
3:26
Speaker 1: my plan was to try to fill a Montana General
3:30
Speaker 1: deer tag and a special draw white tail tag in Wyoming.
3:36
Speaker 1: And this this wasn't necessarily related to the series. I
3:40
Speaker 1: would have done this either way. But in the summer
3:43
Speaker 1: I sent out a hundred and twelve letters seeking deer
3:46
Speaker 1: hunting permission in Montana. UM. And I'll reveal those results
3:51
Speaker 1: more and talk about sort of what my strategy was
3:54
Speaker 1: and what worked and what didn't work and things like
3:57
Speaker 1: that in an article at some point, UM. But to
4:00
Speaker 1: give you a quick synopsis of it, I got like
4:04
Speaker 1: six yes is UM. I would identify like four of
4:07
Speaker 1: those as B minus properties that were either small or
4:11
Speaker 1: they had a lot of other shared permission UM, or
4:14
Speaker 1: they were like in the opposite corner of the state
4:17
Speaker 1: from me, so so not really ideal. So like four
4:20
Speaker 1: B minus properties and then one that I would say
4:23
Speaker 1: it was like a B plus but the landowner actually
4:25
Speaker 1: ended up selling it between the time me getting permission
4:28
Speaker 1: and the fall actually getting here and then the six
4:31
Speaker 1: property being a total A plus. It was over a
4:35
Speaker 1: thousand acres UM great habitat hadn't been hunted in a
4:38
Speaker 1: long time UM, and it was going to have a
4:42
Speaker 1: mix of white tails and mule deer, so that that
4:46
Speaker 1: I was thrilled about. And I had scouted a leading
4:49
Speaker 1: up to what was our opening day, which was November one,
4:52
Speaker 1: for the show UM, and there was a buck like
4:56
Speaker 1: a mature buck that I had identified on the property
4:59
Speaker 1: that was being pretty consistent, um who in in twice scouting.
5:02
Speaker 1: I had within two yards and could have killed with
5:05
Speaker 1: my rifle, but but chosen not to you for the
5:07
Speaker 1: sake of the show. And and that was my strategy
5:10
Speaker 1: for Montana. For Wyoming, it was sort of similar. I
5:14
Speaker 1: hunted there last year, UM and I end up getting
5:16
Speaker 1: a lot of door knocking permission. So as soon as
5:18
Speaker 1: I filled in Montana, I was going to drop down
5:20
Speaker 1: to Wyoming. In Montana on day one, it was pretty
5:24
Speaker 1: slow for me. I set up um with haunts that
5:29
Speaker 1: I thought were going to help me kill that buck,
5:31
Speaker 1: but I never saw him in the morning or the evening.
5:34
Speaker 1: I didn't see him at all the first two days,
5:37
Speaker 1: And so the first day had a lot of action
5:40
Speaker 1: for me in both the morning hunt and the evening hunt,
5:43
Speaker 1: but no mature bucks and not the buck that I
5:45
Speaker 1: was looking for. Can you can you elaborate a little
5:50
Speaker 1: bit on like what that setup looked like and why
5:52
Speaker 1: you were there on that first morning. You know it's
5:55
Speaker 1: river bottom stuff, right, yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot
5:59
Speaker 1: of hardwood trees and river bottom and CRP and slewy
6:05
Speaker 1: area yeah, and and the reason that I was there,
6:09
Speaker 1: and this is something that, UM, when the show comes out,
6:12
Speaker 1: my setups are gonna look very different than your guys.
6:15
Speaker 1: And I think one of the the biggest spots where
6:19
Speaker 1: where mine is different. Besides I'm on the ground and
6:21
Speaker 1: you guys are in a tree. Is that any wise
6:23
Speaker 1: bow hunter like you two know that you don't set
6:26
Speaker 1: up to see deer necessarily, you set up to kill
6:29
Speaker 1: a deer. And so I'm guessing, um, having not seen
6:33
Speaker 1: like the places you were in that a lot of
6:35
Speaker 1: times you guys were hunting areas that maybe had visibility
6:37
Speaker 1: of like thirty yards, maybe fifty yards in a good spot,
6:40
Speaker 1: but probably some spots that only had like twenty yard
6:43
Speaker 1: visibility areas. I was set up so I could see
6:46
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of yards um at a time, and
6:48
Speaker 1: I I did want to see deer so then I
6:50
Speaker 1: can then close the distance and make something happen. So
6:54
Speaker 1: the reason that I would set up on day one
6:56
Speaker 1: and day two where I did was to just get
6:58
Speaker 1: like maximum visibility of an area, and if there was
7:01
Speaker 1: a buck that I would identify that I wanted to
7:03
Speaker 1: go after, I would try to close the distance from
7:05
Speaker 1: there so that's I think couldna be one of the
7:07
Speaker 1: biggest like differences between my setup and the three setups
7:10
Speaker 1: that you guys have throughout the whole week. Yeah. You know,
7:14
Speaker 1: another thing that stood up to me when I was
7:16
Speaker 1: kind of hearing about what you're doing was how you
7:18
Speaker 1: kind of looked at your morning hunts is almost throwaways,
7:21
Speaker 1: like you didn't have much confidence at all. You kind
7:24
Speaker 1: of fell out, gonna be out there for an hour
7:25
Speaker 1: and then I'll be done, and you were really resting
7:27
Speaker 1: your hopes on evenings. Why why was that, I mean
7:31
Speaker 1: so much of so many other places when we talked
7:33
Speaker 1: about the rut, we always think the mornings are the best.
7:35
Speaker 1: Why was your situation unique? Part part of that reason
7:39
Speaker 1: is the property, UM didn't set up great to uh,
7:44
Speaker 1: like catch a lot of morning movement. You would you'd
7:46
Speaker 1: get a lot of movements sort of on the fringe
7:49
Speaker 1: of the property where they would spend a lot of
7:51
Speaker 1: like the their shooting light on the neighbor's ground or
7:55
Speaker 1: something like that. And then to have a good morning movement,
7:58
Speaker 1: you would ideally want to be in the tim or
8:00
Speaker 1: somewhere UM, which with a rifle isn't always ideal. UM,
8:04
Speaker 1: And and there wasn't a lot on like either any
8:08
Speaker 1: of the places that haunted in Montana or Wyoming that
8:11
Speaker 1: would really funnel movement, which is like something that you're
8:14
Speaker 1: sort of hoping for in the morning to to catch
8:17
Speaker 1: a cruising bucket like ten am, You're not gonna be
8:20
Speaker 1: on a field edge. Really, you're gonna be on some
8:22
Speaker 1: ridgeline or something like that. And these properties just didn't
8:24
Speaker 1: have a lot of stuff that would funnel movement that
8:26
Speaker 1: would make me confident that I'm gonna catch some buck
8:29
Speaker 1: going back to his bed. Okay, so morning one was slow.
8:33
Speaker 1: I mean, you saw a bunch of deer, but not
8:35
Speaker 1: a shooter. What about the evening? Did you go back
8:38
Speaker 1: to the same spot the evening I went back to
8:40
Speaker 1: a very similar spot, and uh, same thing again. I
8:43
Speaker 1: probably saw every single deer that I had seen that
8:46
Speaker 1: same morning and every single buck that I had seen
8:49
Speaker 1: in like my three or four days of scouting, except
8:52
Speaker 1: for the buck um, which sort of brought with it
8:56
Speaker 1: a little bit of that rutt anxiety, where like, did
9:00
Speaker 1: did some hot dough show up? Did this thing wander
9:03
Speaker 1: into the next county already? Like is is it already
9:06
Speaker 1: too late? Um? So so day one. I had seen
9:09
Speaker 1: many of the same year that I was familiar with
9:11
Speaker 1: for my short time scouting, except for that dear. Okay,
9:16
Speaker 1: so day one, you're feeling kind of a little apprehension
9:19
Speaker 1: they might have disappeared, but you weren't down in the dumps, right, No,
9:23
Speaker 1: not not down in the dumps. Mostly I was considered
9:25
Speaker 1: about I was concerned about my lack of like quality
9:31
Speaker 1: morning haunts that we're gonna be with me. I thought
9:34
Speaker 1: throughout the whole week, like, uh, if if my evening
9:37
Speaker 1: setups were like a nine out of ten, my mornings
9:39
Speaker 1: were like a six out of ten, And so I
9:42
Speaker 1: was mostly concerned about not ruining things in the morning
9:45
Speaker 1: for my evening haunts. So just like a tiny bit
9:48
Speaker 1: of pessimism. Um, but I wasn't. I wasn't concerned quite yet.
9:53
Speaker 1: After day one. Yeah, now, what about this whole lodging situation. Uh,
9:58
Speaker 1: this needs to be brought up because you were him
10:00
Speaker 1: this ship about staying in a hotel and Tony was
10:02
Speaker 1: an Airbnb and Clay was like a resort or something. Um,
10:06
Speaker 1: and You're like, I'm staying in a tent, but you
10:09
Speaker 1: were in a tent in the yard of an Airbnb
10:11
Speaker 1: that you got to use. So what what was this?
10:16
Speaker 1: So the airbnb was some rancher who had a sodhouse
10:21
Speaker 1: that he refinished. Um, and it only had one room,
10:25
Speaker 1: which the cameraman stayed in. So then I I pitched
10:28
Speaker 1: my tent in the yard. Now here's what what won't
10:31
Speaker 1: show up on the show. Um, we were sort of
10:34
Speaker 1: the first guests to stay there when it was ever
10:37
Speaker 1: cold out. And so what we learned and what we
10:40
Speaker 1: were the first to learn, was at the place was
10:43
Speaker 1: just littered with mice like that very first night when
10:47
Speaker 1: it got chili. Uh. The caraman said that he thought
10:50
Speaker 1: like he was in the movie Ratitui like it was.
10:53
Speaker 1: It was just wild. H He said he could hear
10:56
Speaker 1: mice in the ceiling, he could hear him on the floor. Um,
10:59
Speaker 1: he could see him through the cracks in the wall
11:03
Speaker 1: where like moonlight was coming through and they were scurry
11:05
Speaker 1: by real fast. Um. So even even the cameraman staying
11:10
Speaker 1: in some ranchers airbnb, soadthouse was not living in luxury.
11:14
Speaker 1: So I stayed to my tent. I was probably more
11:17
Speaker 1: comfortable than him even So So with that said, then
11:21
Speaker 1: let's let's pivot to Tony's day one. Uh, Tony, this
11:27
Speaker 1: will be a quick story and let's we really get
11:28
Speaker 1: a lot of backstory. So, um, give me, give me
11:31
Speaker 1: the lead up to the Minnesota hunt and why you
11:33
Speaker 1: were going to start in Minnesota and and how you
11:36
Speaker 1: were feeling about stuff leading into that first down. Oh man,
11:41
Speaker 1: so minute. I've talked on this podcast a lot about
11:43
Speaker 1: Minnesota's early, early gun season, and so I knew when
11:48
Speaker 1: when we were talking about filming for a week, like
11:51
Speaker 1: if I'm gonna kill in Minnesota for this project, it's
11:53
Speaker 1: going to be like, uh, maybe two days of my
11:56
Speaker 1: time and then I'm gonna go down to Wisconsin because
11:59
Speaker 1: I wasn't to push it any later because of the
12:01
Speaker 1: gun season opening up in Minnesota, and so I ended up.
12:04
Speaker 1: I've got a permission on a farm in southeastern Minnesota.
12:08
Speaker 1: I've hunted since I was like fifteen years old. And
12:11
Speaker 1: then a buddy of mine, a really good buddy of mine. Uh,
12:14
Speaker 1: he's got permission on the land next to it, and
12:17
Speaker 1: so I've got him permission to hunt my side of things,
12:19
Speaker 1: and he this year gave me permission to hunt his side,
12:22
Speaker 1: or got me permission to hunt it. So like, let's
12:24
Speaker 1: just team up and hang some stands in the summer
12:27
Speaker 1: that we think are going to be like banging rut spots,
12:30
Speaker 1: and that's what we did. I I drove down there
12:32
Speaker 1: and I think it was maybe the end of July,
12:35
Speaker 1: and we picked a few areas where you know, from
12:38
Speaker 1: past observation and some winter scouting, and you know, we
12:42
Speaker 1: we knew that we'd probably be on top of bucks.
12:44
Speaker 1: But I really I had two stands, one on his place,
12:47
Speaker 1: one of my place that I was like, okay, these
12:50
Speaker 1: are kind of it, and the one on my place
12:52
Speaker 1: was it had me real excited for how it's set up,
12:56
Speaker 1: But the problem was none of the corn was picked
12:59
Speaker 1: on either property and the wind was dead wrong for
13:02
Speaker 1: that stand, and so I ended up having to go
13:05
Speaker 1: to a backup spot, which was the other spot that
13:07
Speaker 1: we set up together. And it was a good I
13:10
Speaker 1: knew it would be good. I didn't think it'd be
13:11
Speaker 1: as I didn't think it treat me as well as
13:13
Speaker 1: it did. But I was kind of bummed the first
13:16
Speaker 1: morning because I was I was desperate to make that
13:18
Speaker 1: other spot work, but I just knew, you know, bringing
13:21
Speaker 1: a cameraman along and having to hang a stand and
13:24
Speaker 1: having two people in a tree and a wind that's
13:26
Speaker 1: just there's no way around it. It was not going
13:28
Speaker 1: to work very well that you know, we're going to
13:31
Speaker 1: the backup spot. And I was thinking, you know, walking
13:33
Speaker 1: in there, we jumped some deer in the cornfield in
13:35
Speaker 1: the dark, and everybody's everybody's listening has probably had that
13:37
Speaker 1: experience at one point or another. And then to get
13:40
Speaker 1: on that stand set up super early, we kind of
13:42
Speaker 1: pulled a Mark Kenyon got out there way early. You know,
13:46
Speaker 1: by the time the sun was rising, I was watching
13:48
Speaker 1: coyotes chase a buck away from us, and it was cold.
13:52
Speaker 1: I'm sitting there going, I don't know how long we're
13:53
Speaker 1: gonna make this, Like I'm cold, and my cameraman was shivering,
13:57
Speaker 1: and it just ended up that we were in a
14:00
Speaker 1: we were on a woodline, uh kind of a little
14:02
Speaker 1: drainage through through this corn field that sort of forms
14:06
Speaker 1: like a almost a turkey foot pattern. There's there was
14:10
Speaker 1: just these little veins of cover through this unpicked corn
14:14
Speaker 1: field and it just feeds bucks from one spot to
14:18
Speaker 1: the next. And so even though I knew it was
14:20
Speaker 1: like you know, Spencer mentioned, you know these tight spots
14:23
Speaker 1: that we sit in when we bow hunt, this was
14:25
Speaker 1: as tight as it comes. Like, I knew they were
14:28
Speaker 1: going to show up fast and it was not going
14:30
Speaker 1: to be great TV, but it could be a spot
14:32
Speaker 1: to kill a good buck. And honestly, going into that
14:35
Speaker 1: part of my hunt, I was like, if in comes by,
14:37
Speaker 1: he's toast, Like I'm not. I'm not gonna be picky
14:40
Speaker 1: with two days to work with. And just so happens
14:43
Speaker 1: that the first buck that came in was out of
14:45
Speaker 1: his mind and he was a big one. So before
14:48
Speaker 1: you tell us what happened with the big one, I
14:50
Speaker 1: gotta know what the spot is that you really felt
14:52
Speaker 1: good about. Because this spot worked out pretty good. What
14:55
Speaker 1: was the setup that you were dying to be in
14:56
Speaker 1: instead of this one? Um? You know, it was only
15:00
Speaker 1: a couple hundred yards away from where I killed this buck,
15:02
Speaker 1: but it was It's got a creek bottom in it,
15:06
Speaker 1: so there's there's deer that feed in from the main
15:09
Speaker 1: part of the farm that I've been hunting forever. And
15:11
Speaker 1: then it's not very far away from this a d
15:14
Speaker 1: acres that's kind of a sanctuary. These guys own it
15:16
Speaker 1: and they they don't really hunt it much. They hunt
15:19
Speaker 1: it during gun season and they're they're big buck guys,
15:22
Speaker 1: and so the deer on the neighboring properties they tend
15:26
Speaker 1: to get pushed into that property. And this stand where
15:30
Speaker 1: that I hung is is not that far away, and
15:33
Speaker 1: the deer that naturally come and go from that property
15:35
Speaker 1: they go through this area and so it's just hard
15:39
Speaker 1: to access spot that you're kind of playing off the
15:42
Speaker 1: pressure from the neighboring properties for you know, at that
15:46
Speaker 1: point in the season, like six weeks of of bow pressure,
15:49
Speaker 1: and then because of the the gun season opening up
15:53
Speaker 1: on you know it was the six or seventh this year,
15:55
Speaker 1: you tend to get this sort of influx of guys
15:58
Speaker 1: who are going in to check their stands and you know,
16:01
Speaker 1: checking their trails in and out. So you just have
16:03
Speaker 1: this added pressure of people coming in and so that
16:06
Speaker 1: a d becomes just kind of this hub of activity
16:10
Speaker 1: because nobody's going in there to hunt, and so those
16:12
Speaker 1: deer come in and they go out, and you know,
16:15
Speaker 1: it played off a water, It played off a lot
16:17
Speaker 1: of that stuff, and so I was really excited. I
16:19
Speaker 1: sat there one day during the rut last year and
16:21
Speaker 1: I saw I can't remember fourteen or seventeen deer or something,
16:24
Speaker 1: and it was on and I wanted to get there
16:27
Speaker 1: in the worst way. It just you know, I couldn't
16:30
Speaker 1: justify it with that wind direction. Yeah. So back to
16:32
Speaker 1: the spot that you did sit, it's this turkey foot
16:35
Speaker 1: of timber in the middle of a standing cornfield. Uh.
16:39
Speaker 1: Other than it being just like that perfect tight kind
16:41
Speaker 1: of pinch, was there any other reason why it ended
16:44
Speaker 1: up working? Was there anything else to it that made
16:46
Speaker 1: it made it worthwhile for that buck to come cruising through?
16:50
Speaker 1: And how how tight was it? Tony? You said that
16:52
Speaker 1: this was like as tight as agains. How tight was
16:54
Speaker 1: it tight? I mean you asked the post production team
17:00
Speaker 1: happy they were with the footage, because I got asked
17:02
Speaker 1: about three times like okay, is this it? Like, is
17:05
Speaker 1: there there's no more footage? I'm like, no, No, what
17:07
Speaker 1: you see in this show? When this drops, it's like ah.
17:11
Speaker 1: The encounter with that buck was maybe five or six
17:15
Speaker 1: seconds to Matt Matt, Matt, Matt, Matt. This dude, Yeah,
17:22
Speaker 1: And this dude came in hot and he had he
17:25
Speaker 1: had some cornstocks and his antlers and he I think
17:27
Speaker 1: he had lost a dough. I think he'd been running
17:30
Speaker 1: hard and I think she gave him the slip and
17:33
Speaker 1: he was out of his mind, because we you know
17:36
Speaker 1: where he came in and where I shot him. A dear,
17:39
Speaker 1: that age in that area should be looking up going
17:42
Speaker 1: no way boys, and he should have been gone. But
17:44
Speaker 1: he couldn't get him to pick his head up. I
17:45
Speaker 1: couldn't get him to stop. And he was fifteen yards away.
17:48
Speaker 1: And so it was just one of those dreamy situations
17:50
Speaker 1: where you've got a buck that's just he's got one
17:53
Speaker 1: thing on his mind and he's not clued into anything else.
17:56
Speaker 1: And so that spot, it just it was that kind
17:59
Speaker 1: of thing like you weren't going to see him coming,
18:02
Speaker 1: you know, but they were going to cruise those wooded
18:04
Speaker 1: at those little woodlines. I think he was, you know,
18:07
Speaker 1: he was on the upwind side of a of kind
18:09
Speaker 1: of a nasty little thicket, so I think he was
18:11
Speaker 1: looking for does in there too. But I really think
18:13
Speaker 1: that that buck had just been covering ground, had been
18:16
Speaker 1: chasing lost the dough, and he's like, maybe she came
18:18
Speaker 1: down here, because he looked like a deer that was frantic.
18:22
Speaker 1: You know. It's kind of like if you have like
18:23
Speaker 1: a high drive bird dog and they can't find you know,
18:26
Speaker 1: you toss a bumper into the into the you know,
18:29
Speaker 1: waste high grass and they can't find it, but they're
18:31
Speaker 1: they're super excited like that kind of just like jittery
18:34
Speaker 1: body language, like where is it? Where is it? Where
18:36
Speaker 1: is it? Like he he was kind of projecting that
18:38
Speaker 1: it was wild man. That's awesome. So for people who
18:42
Speaker 1: haven't seen the pictures yet or haven't watched the episode,
18:45
Speaker 1: which by the time this is out, you should be
18:47
Speaker 1: able to watch it on the Mediator YouTube channel. But
18:49
Speaker 1: for those ofn't seen it, can you give us a
18:52
Speaker 1: visual picture of him? Uh, he's a bigger eight pointer
18:56
Speaker 1: than I ever thought i'd kill in my life. H he.
18:59
Speaker 1: I didn't know when he came running in. It was
19:02
Speaker 1: kind of one of those deals where you just the
19:03
Speaker 1: first glimpse you get, you're like, oh God, I gotta
19:05
Speaker 1: get my bull in my hand now. And he came
19:08
Speaker 1: in and I tried to murp him to stop him
19:10
Speaker 1: a bunch of times, and he just I think he
19:12
Speaker 1: just stopped naturally. I shot him and he ran off,
19:16
Speaker 1: and I knew that. I knew the shot was really good,
19:19
Speaker 1: but it was one of those encounters where I didn't,
19:21
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't have an adrenaline dump until after
19:24
Speaker 1: as soon as he ran away, it was like it
19:27
Speaker 1: was incredible. And you know, of course when you're filming,
19:30
Speaker 1: you gotta film some stuff after the shot, and so
19:33
Speaker 1: I'm like, I want to go see him so bad
19:34
Speaker 1: because I knew he was good when I was thinking
19:36
Speaker 1: like one forty when he ran off, and then walking
19:40
Speaker 1: up to him. You know, I killed a buck in Minnesota,
19:43
Speaker 1: I think two years ago, and a clean eight pointer
19:45
Speaker 1: that went one forty three. I didn't think I'd ever
19:48
Speaker 1: topped that. And this buck I started looking at him,
19:50
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, he seems like he's a lot bigger
19:53
Speaker 1: than that last buck. And you know, we got home
19:56
Speaker 1: and a sidebar to this is my buddy Eric, who
19:58
Speaker 1: was hunting with He had killed buck there the night before.
20:02
Speaker 1: There was an eight pointer that went one nineteen. It
20:04
Speaker 1: was a beautiful deer, and we we had both of
20:07
Speaker 1: those bucks in the back of his truck. And his
20:09
Speaker 1: look like a baby deer compared to this one. I mean,
20:11
Speaker 1: it was just incredible. The body size and the mass.
20:14
Speaker 1: It was just it was it was I was so lucky.
20:17
Speaker 1: I got so freaking lucky with that buck. After you
20:20
Speaker 1: killed that buck, you sent a text saying that you
20:23
Speaker 1: just killed a toad. Um. And had it been like
20:27
Speaker 1: me or Clay or Mark that said they killed the toad,
20:30
Speaker 1: I'd be like, okay, awesome, like at five by five.
20:34
Speaker 1: But when when you sat a toad, for some reason,
20:37
Speaker 1: I put greater stock into that. I was like, oh man,
20:40
Speaker 1: this this must like genuinely be a giant buck. And
20:43
Speaker 1: I was not disappointed when the photos came through. Yeah,
20:48
Speaker 1: he's he's a good one. I'm not sure to take
20:50
Speaker 1: that comment. Spencer. By the way, Hey, I'm I'm putting
20:54
Speaker 1: me in Clay in the same boat there. I'd be like, awesome,
20:57
Speaker 1: they kill like a five by five. But it it
21:01
Speaker 1: when when Tony said it, it felt like it carried
21:03
Speaker 1: a little more weight. I was like, all right, this
21:05
Speaker 1: this is a toad that he killed. And especially because
21:09
Speaker 1: Tony was talking about originally shooting like a little hundred
21:12
Speaker 1: in shape point or something, you know, that's right. I
21:18
Speaker 1: had a range on that part of the hunt for sure. Man,
21:20
Speaker 1: oh man, he pulled it. Officer, well done, well done,
21:24
Speaker 1: thank you. Um. So then for you, from there, Tony,
21:28
Speaker 1: you were just recovering the buck, processing the buck, putting
21:31
Speaker 1: things away, getting all set up, and then you're going
21:33
Speaker 1: to move to this other Wisconsin place for day two. Right, Yeah,
21:37
Speaker 1: so we you know, I killed him pretty early, but
21:40
Speaker 1: getting him out was a little bit of a process.
21:42
Speaker 1: And then because my buddy had killed, we had too
21:45
Speaker 1: deer to butcher, and so we started. I can't remember
21:48
Speaker 1: when we started on those dear it was like one
21:50
Speaker 1: o'clock and we didn't wrap up to like eight o'clock
21:54
Speaker 1: at night. I mean, it was, you know, just he
21:56
Speaker 1: and I too on those two big bucks. It took
21:58
Speaker 1: a long long time, but that was you know, I
22:01
Speaker 1: had to do that, you know, CWD regulations and all
22:03
Speaker 1: that stuff, and so, you know, it was a process.
22:07
Speaker 1: But then it was like, okay, well now we get
22:09
Speaker 1: a good night's sleep and tomorrow we're heading to southwestern Wisconsin.
22:12
Speaker 1: It was it was a great The way it worked
22:14
Speaker 1: out was amazing. I couldn't be happier with it, so
22:18
Speaker 1: real quick before we move on to the next day entirely,
22:21
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you guys what you thought about what
22:23
Speaker 1: I did on day one. I passed like a hundred
22:26
Speaker 1: and twenty something inch nine pointer that looked like a
22:28
Speaker 1: three and a half year old, and then another buck
22:31
Speaker 1: that probably was again I believe he was three and
22:33
Speaker 1: a half, but he was tall and tighted. I mean
22:35
Speaker 1: he was like one thirty something probably. Um when I
22:40
Speaker 1: did that within the first hour and a half of
22:42
Speaker 1: the first day, were you guys like on board, were
22:44
Speaker 1: like okay, Mark, good call. Or were you sitting there
22:46
Speaker 1: thinking I'm an idiot, Go ahead, Spencer. I told you
22:53
Speaker 1: guys this before, like there's there's not a hundred and
22:55
Speaker 1: thirty inch year around me. That's safe. But I've also
22:58
Speaker 1: never hunted a place like Iowa to sort of be
23:02
Speaker 1: put in, uh, that situation, to to know that like, oh, yeah,
23:07
Speaker 1: the there's much better bucks behind these trees. So I
23:12
Speaker 1: I don't blame you one bit. You were in Iowa,
23:14
Speaker 1: it was day one. I think you would have regretted
23:16
Speaker 1: it the rest of the day, the rest of the week,
23:19
Speaker 1: the rest of the fall. If you would have done it,
23:21
Speaker 1: you would have been wondering, um, and ultimately, you know,
23:24
Speaker 1: you get the opportunities later. So I think you, uh,
23:27
Speaker 1: you made a fine decision. And and Tony happened to
23:29
Speaker 1: kill one on day one, so I feel like, uh,
23:32
Speaker 1: like when one kill, we all kill. And uh that
23:34
Speaker 1: that's at least how I felt about it. So I was.
23:36
Speaker 1: I was stoked. Like when when Tony killed that buck,
23:38
Speaker 1: it felt like, for some stupid reason, I was part
23:42
Speaker 1: of it, despite being thousands of miles away. It hadn't
23:45
Speaker 1: having nothing to do with that, dear, um. So it
23:48
Speaker 1: wasn't like we were in like a real dry spell
23:51
Speaker 1: either where it was like, man, we need some action,
23:53
Speaker 1: and we we like, uh, she gets something on the ground.
23:56
Speaker 1: So I don't. I don't think you made the wrong
23:58
Speaker 1: decision at all. Um, But if if I were in
24:01
Speaker 1: that situation I had at twenty yards, I don't know
24:05
Speaker 1: that it would have survived. Yeah, I thought you should
24:10
Speaker 1: have let him up. Mark. Of course you did well
24:14
Speaker 1: for a couple of reasons. That's a great dear. First off,
24:18
Speaker 1: Iowa know Iowa whatever. That's like, that's no slouts, right,
24:22
Speaker 1: I get. I totally get why you passed him up.
24:24
Speaker 1: It was early. But when I when I look at
24:27
Speaker 1: that and I think about, you know, let me put
24:30
Speaker 1: it this way, the average person in the audience looks
24:32
Speaker 1: at that and they think, Okay, you got like a
24:34
Speaker 1: week in Iowa. You know, you're obviously onto something. If
24:37
Speaker 1: you have a first morning like that, that's that's a
24:39
Speaker 1: great start. I would look at that a little differently
24:42
Speaker 1: and be like, you know, you're gonna be towing a
24:44
Speaker 1: cameraman around for a week. You're gonna have a lot
24:47
Speaker 1: of different different types of encounters than if you were
24:50
Speaker 1: doing it just on your own, and man, that's that's
24:53
Speaker 1: a great dear to have that close and when you're
24:57
Speaker 1: doing a project like this. I was when you sent
24:59
Speaker 1: me that, I was like, I don't know, man, I
25:01
Speaker 1: think probably should have been flying, but you know, you
25:04
Speaker 1: make those decisions in the moment, and I get why
25:07
Speaker 1: you didn't, but that deer would have one percent got
25:10
Speaker 1: shot at if if I was there. Yeah. I definitely
25:14
Speaker 1: was waffling on it. I was. I mean in the video,
25:17
Speaker 1: like they didn't even show the second one. They only
25:19
Speaker 1: show one of them. But it's like I don't know, no, yeah,
25:23
Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, no, yeah, no. I go back
25:27
Speaker 1: and forth like fifteen times, and I just I just
25:30
Speaker 1: couldn't bring myself to It. Was more like I wasn't
25:34
Speaker 1: even thinking about the production. I was just thinking about
25:36
Speaker 1: I've waited six years to hunt Iowa. I want to
25:39
Speaker 1: enjoy the damn thing. You know. I would totally be
25:41
Speaker 1: bummed not knowing what might have been possible or what
25:44
Speaker 1: I might have seen, or like what the show might
25:46
Speaker 1: have been. You know, you go to Iowa and you
25:47
Speaker 1: see bucks fighting, and you see bucks chasing, and you
25:50
Speaker 1: see big deer and like I, you know, I just
25:51
Speaker 1: I wanted to see the thing. Um. So from that perspective,
25:56
Speaker 1: I feel good about the decision at the at the moment.
26:00
Speaker 1: What I have loved to have killed that deer on
26:02
Speaker 1: day six or seven. Yeah, um, but you know it
26:06
Speaker 1: is what it is, so that one, you know, I
26:09
Speaker 1: can't take that one back. So Spencer, what about day
26:13
Speaker 1: to move us today to what was your what was
26:15
Speaker 1: your setup going into that morning and your thought process?
26:18
Speaker 1: Day two, I decided to dive into the timber in
26:22
Speaker 1: the morning and just going in blind. From what I
26:25
Speaker 1: thought on on X looked like a good like funnel
26:29
Speaker 1: for deer movement. Um. I I went into in the
26:33
Speaker 1: dark and didn't see a single deer that morning, um,
26:36
Speaker 1: which which was a bummer. That was sort of that
26:41
Speaker 1: was sort of the beginning of my pessimism, Like damnit,
26:44
Speaker 1: um if if my morning hunts are going to be
26:47
Speaker 1: like this, and uh, you know I only have like
26:51
Speaker 1: seven of these evenings. In reality, I don't know that
26:53
Speaker 1: I talked about this on the show, But they're gonna
26:56
Speaker 1: be moving cattle on the property on November four. So
26:59
Speaker 1: I felt like I only had like three days I
27:00
Speaker 1: could have hunted beyond that. Um, but it was going
27:03
Speaker 1: to kind of shuffle the deck beyond that third day
27:06
Speaker 1: of hunting for me. And so in the morning was
27:09
Speaker 1: just like totally slow and saw zero deer. Um that
27:13
Speaker 1: that was a bummer for me that evening. Though I
27:16
Speaker 1: had the right wind to hunt what I considered like
27:19
Speaker 1: position A on the property. Um, I knew I would
27:22
Speaker 1: see deer. I knew I would see box. I knew
27:24
Speaker 1: it was a place where I would see a mix
27:26
Speaker 1: of white tails and Muley's. And despite me telling you otherwise, Mark,
27:30
Speaker 1: I was fully prepared to shoot a new deer if
27:33
Speaker 1: one shut up there. There was some dialogue before the
27:35
Speaker 1: show about like what what should I do if a
27:38
Speaker 1: mule deer shows up? And I think how I had
27:40
Speaker 1: left it was telling you Mark, like, yeah, I don't
27:43
Speaker 1: I don't think I will. I won't shoot one if
27:45
Speaker 1: one shows up. But I was fully ready to shoot one.
27:47
Speaker 1: It wouldn't even been like despite me being very clear
27:50
Speaker 1: that you shouldn't it wouldn't even been in like a
27:53
Speaker 1: decision to make. It had been like, yeah, I'm gonna
27:55
Speaker 1: shoot this thing there, there would have been no offering
27:57
Speaker 1: that would have happened if if a big mule deer
28:00
Speaker 1: showed up. So anyway, on on the the second night
28:03
Speaker 1: of the haunt, I was in position a UM and
28:06
Speaker 1: I had some good action. I think I probably saw
28:09
Speaker 1: twentysome deer that night, a mixed bag of mules and
28:12
Speaker 1: white tails um, a good like buck too doo ratio um.
28:17
Speaker 1: But I didn't see anything that like was beyond a
28:21
Speaker 1: basket rack, which was which was disappointing, and that was
28:25
Speaker 1: my day too. But something that sort of like turned
28:28
Speaker 1: the whole thing around was on the morning of day two,
28:32
Speaker 1: on my way out of the woods, I wanted to
28:34
Speaker 1: learn more about the place since I had sort of
28:36
Speaker 1: like accepted that, yeah, I'm gonna have to just like
28:38
Speaker 1: kind of blindly hunt this timber. In the mornings going forward,
28:42
Speaker 1: I found a scrape taking the scenic route from um
28:47
Speaker 1: where I was hunting that morning to the pickup, and
28:49
Speaker 1: I actually found a little cluster of scrapes there. And
28:52
Speaker 1: for me hunting in the West, I feel like I'm
28:54
Speaker 1: I'm rarely coming across like really good obvious sign um
29:00
Speaker 1: just because I feel like the deer like you sign
29:03
Speaker 1: making a little bit differently out here. I'm also hunting
29:06
Speaker 1: a lot of landscapes that are like very scarred by cattle,
29:10
Speaker 1: and so trails aren't always obvious. And even if you
29:13
Speaker 1: have like what you think is buck rob it could
29:15
Speaker 1: be a porcupine that's chew and on the tree, or
29:17
Speaker 1: it could be where cattle like to rub their backs.
29:20
Speaker 1: And uh, you don't just like find a lot of scrapes,
29:23
Speaker 1: even though for you guys, you probably could have started
29:26
Speaker 1: marking like uh, Sioux City, Iowa, and and taking a
29:30
Speaker 1: rock and throwing it from scrape to scrape and made
29:32
Speaker 1: it all the way to like Illinois. That's just like
29:35
Speaker 1: how common scrapes are in your area from either not
29:37
Speaker 1: And so when I saw that scrape, I dropped a
29:39
Speaker 1: pin on on X. It was also only about fifty
29:42
Speaker 1: yards from a water crossing, which you've written about before
29:45
Speaker 1: and mark in articles mark how like water crossings are
29:48
Speaker 1: sort of a terrain feature you can hunt from Maine
29:51
Speaker 1: to Montana. It's just something that works, and any idiot
29:54
Speaker 1: can go somewhere and identify like a spot where deer
29:57
Speaker 1: crossing a creek or a ditch or or some water
30:00
Speaker 1: feature like that. So what I had found that morning
30:02
Speaker 1: was a water crossing as well as a clusterer scrapes
30:05
Speaker 1: and then like fifty yards of each other, and that
30:07
Speaker 1: was sort of what informed my hunt four day three,
30:10
Speaker 1: which ended up being successful. Alright, So then what about you,
30:25
Speaker 1: Tony for day two? Did you end up getting to
30:28
Speaker 1: Wisconsin ready to hunt? I can't remember if you did
30:30
Speaker 1: hunt that day or if you were still kind of
30:32
Speaker 1: in transit. No, No No, we got We got down there
30:36
Speaker 1: and I had a couple of stands. You know. This
30:39
Speaker 1: was this this property them hunting. My buddy bought it,
30:42
Speaker 1: uh last winter, actually last spring, and so I had
30:46
Speaker 1: spent a little bit of time turkey hunting, a little
30:48
Speaker 1: bit time scouting at this summer, and then we did
30:51
Speaker 1: one big stand hanging mission in preparation for this, and
30:54
Speaker 1: one of the places that we hung a stand was this. Uh.
30:58
Speaker 1: It looked like just an amazing crossing at the point
31:01
Speaker 1: of this valley where um, you know, the deer kind
31:04
Speaker 1: of had to go around some of these really deep
31:07
Speaker 1: washouts and there was a series of them. There's actually
31:09
Speaker 1: three of them in a row. And so when you're
31:11
Speaker 1: talking like a rut spot, I just I've been thinking
31:15
Speaker 1: about this spot since we found it in Turkey season,
31:18
Speaker 1: since we set up a stand there this summer. And
31:20
Speaker 1: so on the second day after driving down there, UH
31:24
Speaker 1: went into that spot, got set up, and literally like
31:29
Speaker 1: two minutes after I got in stand, two doors ran
31:33
Speaker 1: up and a buck chased him right through the crossing,
31:35
Speaker 1: a little guy, and I was like, oh my god,
31:37
Speaker 1: this is this is it, this is gonna be on
31:40
Speaker 1: And that place just proved to be a scrapper fest.
31:44
Speaker 1: And for some reason I couldn't buy a sighting of
31:46
Speaker 1: a deer bigger than a year and a half old.
31:48
Speaker 1: But that's that's where I ended up the first, i
31:51
Speaker 1: should say, the second night of this hunt, the first
31:53
Speaker 1: night of my Wisconsin part of the hunt. And and
31:57
Speaker 1: this was the farm where you actually thought you'd have
32:00
Speaker 1: a chance that the big one right Minnesota was where
32:02
Speaker 1: you thought you shoot the scrapper in Wisconsin was where
32:04
Speaker 1: you thought the big boys would be. Right. Yeah, I
32:07
Speaker 1: had pretty high hopes for this property. You know, it's
32:10
Speaker 1: it's bluffy stuff real close to the Mississippi River. It's
32:14
Speaker 1: the kind of stuff that I grew up hunting, and
32:16
Speaker 1: I just I love it so much. And because of
32:19
Speaker 1: those you know that that serious up and down along
32:22
Speaker 1: the river, I just don't think. I think you get
32:25
Speaker 1: a really good age class there because it's impossible to
32:29
Speaker 1: just drive out There's there's there's too many places, too
32:32
Speaker 1: many big valleys and stuff that the deer can hide on.
32:35
Speaker 1: And from my summer scouting and then some of my
32:37
Speaker 1: my trail camera work, you know, I knew they were
32:40
Speaker 1: really good deer down there. So what's like the name
32:43
Speaker 1: of the game for you when it comes to rut
32:45
Speaker 1: hunting that bluffy terrain? Uh? Is it? Is it just
32:49
Speaker 1: really using those terrain features to funnel movement and just
32:52
Speaker 1: counting on that to eventually bring one by you? Or
32:55
Speaker 1: if you had to oversimplify your general thought process going
32:58
Speaker 1: into that portion of the hunt, what was it so
33:02
Speaker 1: and and that stuff? It's always terrain. I mean, I
33:05
Speaker 1: think you know, because I I hunt, If you were
33:07
Speaker 1: to look at where I hunt in northern Wisconsin, a
33:09
Speaker 1: lot of times it's really flat and it's so much
33:12
Speaker 1: more difficult to find a good pinch point or a funnel.
33:17
Speaker 1: And then you start getting into those hills, those bluffs
33:19
Speaker 1: along the river, and they're just tailor made for, you know,
33:23
Speaker 1: pushing deer travel a certain way. And so I probably
33:27
Speaker 1: went into that too cocky because I found those spots
33:30
Speaker 1: this this summer with my buddy and I was like,
33:32
Speaker 1: oh man, this is it's over. And what I didn't
33:36
Speaker 1: factor in was, you know, it's the first year on
33:37
Speaker 1: this this ground. You're gonna learn a bunch of stuff.
33:40
Speaker 1: And so that spot and another spot which we'll get
33:43
Speaker 1: into later, where I spent a bunch of time on
33:44
Speaker 1: this pond, I kind of thought, looking at him and
33:47
Speaker 1: reading the sign, I'm like, okay, I know how the
33:49
Speaker 1: deer use this well, you guys know how it is.
33:52
Speaker 1: Then you get in there and you actually observe deer
33:54
Speaker 1: and they cross a bunch of different ways, and they
33:56
Speaker 1: travel and they don't come from the same spots you
33:59
Speaker 1: think they will, and it's just a crash course on
34:02
Speaker 1: how the deer used the land. And so my my
34:04
Speaker 1: setup was those you know, those specific terrain features. But
34:09
Speaker 1: I got a really good education in the six days
34:12
Speaker 1: I spent on that farm because they didn't use it
34:14
Speaker 1: the way I thought I had it figured out. I
34:17
Speaker 1: didn't so walk me through them. What you found out
34:21
Speaker 1: on day three? You sat there that first day, next
34:24
Speaker 1: day you get in there to go back to the
34:26
Speaker 1: same place, or do you scout to final the location
34:28
Speaker 1: or what? I went right back to the same stand
34:31
Speaker 1: I had a I had that pond standing. You know,
34:34
Speaker 1: the forecast for that week where I was started out
34:38
Speaker 1: pretty cold and was just progressively supposed to get warmer
34:41
Speaker 1: throughout the week, and the winds were gonna shift, and
34:44
Speaker 1: so I knew I was going to be dealing with
34:45
Speaker 1: some different winds and some some temperatures getting up into
34:48
Speaker 1: the sixties by the end of the week. And so
34:50
Speaker 1: even though I really wanted to go to the bottom
34:52
Speaker 1: of this valley where I had to stand along this pond,
34:55
Speaker 1: I just I knew every day that I put it
34:57
Speaker 1: off would be better. And so I went right back
34:59
Speaker 1: to the crossing stuff for the second day. And it
35:01
Speaker 1: was kind of a repeat of the first afternoon. It
35:04
Speaker 1: was a lot of not a lot. It was. It
35:07
Speaker 1: was some young bucks cruising through in some doze, but
35:11
Speaker 1: just nothing nothing where I was like, man, I feel
35:14
Speaker 1: like I'm on him now. It just it felt just okay,
35:18
Speaker 1: what was the corn situation for you there? Tony, I
35:20
Speaker 1: know you said it wasn't ideal in Minnesota. What about
35:23
Speaker 1: around that spot in Wisconsin? Um, I didn't have any
35:26
Speaker 1: corn anywhere near me. I had corn about three quarters
35:30
Speaker 1: of a mile away, and I do think, I actually
35:32
Speaker 1: do think that soaked up some of the deer. Um.
35:35
Speaker 1: But it was really a non factor for my my
35:38
Speaker 1: Wisconsin hunt. And what about you, Mark, I know you
35:41
Speaker 1: had said at one point that there was some corn
35:43
Speaker 1: being cut. Um, But was that like at the end
35:46
Speaker 1: of harvest? Was at the beginning of harvest there? What
35:48
Speaker 1: was going on in Iowa? Yeah? It was actually standing
35:51
Speaker 1: corn almost everywhere I hunted. Um and Um, I would
35:56
Speaker 1: bet you like four out of the seven days, maybe
36:00
Speaker 1: five out of the seven days, there was corn being
36:02
Speaker 1: picked somewhere around me. Um. So I hunted to properties
36:07
Speaker 1: one that I had got knock on door permission on
36:09
Speaker 1: another one I got permission through a buddy, and um golly,
36:13
Speaker 1: the first one they picked like a small subsidiary field
36:17
Speaker 1: next to where I hunted on the first day. But
36:19
Speaker 1: then there was like five acres of corn and they
36:21
Speaker 1: covered all the rest of the property all the way
36:23
Speaker 1: until I was done there. That never got taken out
36:26
Speaker 1: by the time I was out and then the other
36:28
Speaker 1: farm I was hunting, they had picked like kind of
36:31
Speaker 1: an outside row and then left everything else until day three,
36:36
Speaker 1: and then on day three they picked a bunch of
36:38
Speaker 1: the rest. And that was that one day tony where
36:40
Speaker 1: I texted you guys and like, I meditated, and I'm
36:42
Speaker 1: moving to the cut corn. There's gotta be does out there,
36:45
Speaker 1: and they end up not being shipped. Um so there
36:49
Speaker 1: was there was just there was a lot of corn.
36:51
Speaker 1: And then the fact their last day I had a
36:54
Speaker 1: excuse me, a little standing corn field behind me and
36:57
Speaker 1: that was standing all day and then the last like
36:59
Speaker 1: two hours of daylight, the farmer came in and picked
37:03
Speaker 1: that and ended up picking you know, all the way
37:05
Speaker 1: combine all the way till the very end of the day,
37:07
Speaker 1: like and wrapped up like the last five minutes of daylight.
37:10
Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, I guess that's a long wind of way.
37:14
Speaker 1: And say, there was a lot of standing corn. There
37:15
Speaker 1: was a lot of combining. Uh didn't end up helping
37:18
Speaker 1: me in the ways I thought. I thought I'd be
37:20
Speaker 1: like get on some of that fresh combine corn and
37:23
Speaker 1: have a flood of doos come out there and be hot.
37:26
Speaker 1: That never happened for me. Um, it certainly could have
37:30
Speaker 1: when there was corn standing in those locations. It certainly
37:32
Speaker 1: could have, like Tony said, it could have soaked up
37:34
Speaker 1: some of those deer and hidden some of those deer
37:36
Speaker 1: out of mat view. I'm sure it did, um how much.
37:39
Speaker 1: I don't know. Question for you, Tony Um flipping it
37:42
Speaker 1: around here one of the things that I found myself,
37:45
Speaker 1: and like every year during the rut, I have this
37:48
Speaker 1: debate internally. I'm sure most of us do in some way.
37:51
Speaker 1: I'm just curious how you how you think about this
37:53
Speaker 1: after this past week, there's this there's these two options
37:57
Speaker 1: I feel like we often have during the rut. One
38:00
Speaker 1: thing is like this temptation to want to find the
38:02
Speaker 1: hot sign, find the action, like where are they right now?
38:05
Speaker 1: Where's the hot right now? If if you're sitting out
38:07
Speaker 1: there somewhere it's not happening, there's a temptation like you
38:09
Speaker 1: gotta go find it, you gotta get out there. So
38:11
Speaker 1: part of me was saying, I gotta scout more, I
38:13
Speaker 1: need to search more. I've got to go get on
38:15
Speaker 1: these deer where they are now, Because as you guys know,
38:18
Speaker 1: I had a long spell there in the middle of
38:19
Speaker 1: my tripport is really really definitely slow. Um. But then
38:23
Speaker 1: I had this other temptation or other thought, which was, man,
38:26
Speaker 1: if you have confidence in a feature in a spot,
38:29
Speaker 1: because it has certain things that just do work like
38:34
Speaker 1: they they're timeless when it comes to the rut. If
38:36
Speaker 1: you have a spot like that, sometimes you have to
38:38
Speaker 1: give it time. You have to silk in that spot
38:41
Speaker 1: to let the good thing finally happen. Right if I
38:44
Speaker 1: hunt the best funnel in the world and doesn't happen
38:47
Speaker 1: the first morning, you know, big Buck might come through
38:49
Speaker 1: the next morning just fine, never know, you know, it
38:53
Speaker 1: would have never known. I was there the whole day prior.
38:55
Speaker 1: But the next day, here he comes. And if I
38:57
Speaker 1: had moved on to the next spot because I was
38:58
Speaker 1: impatient and ever wanna you know, enjoyed that opportunity. So
39:02
Speaker 1: the whole week I was balancing between those two things,
39:05
Speaker 1: like sit in the spot, give it time because I
39:07
Speaker 1: believe in it, or search out the new place. And
39:10
Speaker 1: I was constantly going back and forth and back and forth.
39:13
Speaker 1: And so there's a couple of places where I did
39:15
Speaker 1: give time, and then there was a couple of times
39:17
Speaker 1: when I was like, I gotta pull out, I gotta
39:18
Speaker 1: find something new and scouting all that. But that was
39:21
Speaker 1: like the theme of my week was that tension um
39:24
Speaker 1: Tony with the spots you described, How are you thinking
39:27
Speaker 1: through that? Oh man, I think that I think you
39:34
Speaker 1: just touched on something that we don't really acknowledge during
39:37
Speaker 1: the rut very much. But how much downtime you can
39:40
Speaker 1: have and how much like the second guessing can creep in.
39:43
Speaker 1: And I I kind of think I feel a little
39:47
Speaker 1: different when I'm on public land somewhere. But if I'm
39:50
Speaker 1: on private land and I have confidence in my spots
39:52
Speaker 1: and I'm not I'm not getting busted by does or
39:54
Speaker 1: blowing a lot of deer out. I tend to go
39:57
Speaker 1: to volume hunt route and just try to believe in
39:59
Speaker 1: it just until I've really sort of exhausted a spot.
40:04
Speaker 1: And so I did that, you know where I was
40:07
Speaker 1: hunting the first spot specifically in Wisconsin. I rolled that
40:12
Speaker 1: out I think an afternoon and all day and then
40:17
Speaker 1: and then a morning and it was just like, it's
40:19
Speaker 1: just not this is just not happening here. I've got
40:22
Speaker 1: to go somewhere else. But I think there's a really
40:25
Speaker 1: fine line between just jumping around because you're like, oh,
40:28
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a big buck on this sit yet,
40:31
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, I don't know, man. You have
40:33
Speaker 1: days where you only see a couple of scrappers. You
40:35
Speaker 1: have days where it's just slow, and you have days
40:37
Speaker 1: where it just pops off. And if you're on a really,
40:41
Speaker 1: really good funnel, you want to be there that day
40:44
Speaker 1: it pops off, even if the day before it was
40:46
Speaker 1: just a couple of four keys and some doze or something.
40:50
Speaker 1: And so I kind of think more and more now
40:52
Speaker 1: that just discipline kills deer during the rut. And and
40:56
Speaker 1: unless you've just been given a clear reason to go
40:58
Speaker 1: find that new sign, like I, I know that you were,
41:01
Speaker 1: you were in that position where you're like I I
41:03
Speaker 1: feel like I have to go find them now. Sometimes
41:05
Speaker 1: you hit that and you just have to listen to
41:07
Speaker 1: it because it's the right call. But other times it's
41:09
Speaker 1: like that patience is is what's going to kill that? Dear? Yeah,
41:13
Speaker 1: it's it's like you said, though, it's hard when you've got,
41:16
Speaker 1: you know, twelve hours of nothing happening in and all
41:19
Speaker 1: the little voices whispering in your head. You think through
41:21
Speaker 1: every different possible option. At least I do I think
41:24
Speaker 1: through everything. Like the entire time out there, I'm just
41:26
Speaker 1: thinking through should I do this, should I do this?
41:27
Speaker 1: What's this situation, what's the circumstance, what's this factor? And
41:31
Speaker 1: I just sit there like doing an algebra problem for
41:33
Speaker 1: twelve hours, trying to think through this and that and whatnot.
41:36
Speaker 1: And it definitely, uh, it can definitely just you know,
41:41
Speaker 1: you can go in a direction, that's for sure, Um Spencer.
41:45
Speaker 1: What about you when you were there in Montana? Were
41:47
Speaker 1: you did you have that kind of tension between like
41:50
Speaker 1: it kind of sounds like you did because you had
41:51
Speaker 1: a spot you liked and then you were going to
41:53
Speaker 1: blind o the next morning because you didn't see stuff
41:55
Speaker 1: that night before and you were a little worried about
41:57
Speaker 1: the morning hunts Um, where you just ride in a
41:59
Speaker 1: couple of spots you believed in, or did you have
42:01
Speaker 1: that temptation to yeah it it? What what made less
42:07
Speaker 1: of that for me in my situation was that I
42:09
Speaker 1: had no history with this property. Um, Like I I
42:12
Speaker 1: had scouted a little bit in October, but I didn't have, like, um,
42:15
Speaker 1: some historical perspective like man like November four, this is
42:20
Speaker 1: the best spot you can be on the property UM
42:22
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So I I was, you know,
42:25
Speaker 1: going a little bit off of what I had thought
42:27
Speaker 1: I had learned in October and what I had thought
42:30
Speaker 1: I had learned through aerial UM. But also when you're
42:34
Speaker 1: hunting with a rifle, it feels like, um, you're not
42:37
Speaker 1: selecting like a specific trail to hunt, like you guys
42:42
Speaker 1: have to sort of make those decisions. I'm selecting like
42:46
Speaker 1: a region of the property. Um. So there's certainly like
42:50
Speaker 1: a lot less of that that comes into play when
42:52
Speaker 1: I'm holding the gun and you guys have bows. Yeah,
42:55
Speaker 1: that's a good point. So then what about you that day?
42:58
Speaker 1: Day three? You said, Day two, this gray setting kind
43:00
Speaker 1: of set you up for success the next day. How
43:02
Speaker 1: that how that pan out? Yes? So so day three, um,
43:07
Speaker 1: and I had sort of like made the decision that
43:09
Speaker 1: morning about exactly where I was gonna sit, And it
43:11
Speaker 1: was just sort of like triangulating a spot on on
43:15
Speaker 1: X where like, okay, two hondred yards from this spot
43:20
Speaker 1: in the timber I've seen this book exit multiple times
43:23
Speaker 1: in October, and fifty yards from this spot there is
43:27
Speaker 1: a cluster of scrapes, which I would say as good
43:30
Speaker 1: a chance as any of that are his, and then
43:32
Speaker 1: fifty yards from that there is a water crossing that
43:35
Speaker 1: probably most of the deer in this little herd are using,
43:39
Speaker 1: and so using sort of those like three things. I
43:42
Speaker 1: had picked a spot on on X that it looked
43:44
Speaker 1: like there was gonna be a little lane of visibility
43:46
Speaker 1: for me in there, um, which again it's something I'm
43:48
Speaker 1: really concerned about when I have a rifle. And and
43:51
Speaker 1: that was where I wound up at. And I even
43:54
Speaker 1: told the cameraman like when the sun like when you're
43:56
Speaker 1: starting to get some light, I was like, dude, I
43:57
Speaker 1: have no idea if this is where I want to be.
43:59
Speaker 1: Like my changed my mind, um, you know, as soon
44:02
Speaker 1: as like five minutes into shooting light, because I think
44:04
Speaker 1: we should be fifty yards over or I can get
44:06
Speaker 1: better visibility if we're looking at it from the other
44:08
Speaker 1: angle instead of over here. But we ended up staying
44:11
Speaker 1: there and it really felt like a turkey hunt. I
44:13
Speaker 1: was sitting on the ground with my back up against
44:15
Speaker 1: a tree. Um. I had my face mask pulled off
44:17
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I don't know where the deer are
44:19
Speaker 1: going to funnel through here. There's like nothing that would
44:22
Speaker 1: really like cause an obstruction for them to move through
44:25
Speaker 1: the timber in a specific way. UM. So I was
44:28
Speaker 1: just guessing. And about twenty minutes into shooting light, I
44:31
Speaker 1: see the first dough and she's just in like a
44:33
Speaker 1: perfect spot. She's like a hundred and twenty yards away. Um,
44:37
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, I nailed it. This, this
44:39
Speaker 1: is great if all the deer can do this, And
44:41
Speaker 1: there happened to be a shooter with that's exactly where
44:44
Speaker 1: I'd want them. And after that dough comes through, then
44:48
Speaker 1: another dought like a hundred and sixty yards, and another
44:50
Speaker 1: dough at like eighty yards, and then I started to
44:52
Speaker 1: see some of that randomness of like, yeah, there's nothing
44:55
Speaker 1: to funnel the movement in here. And all of a
44:57
Speaker 1: sudden I had does everywhere from like sixty yards out
45:00
Speaker 1: to a hundred and sixty yards. And as that's kind
45:03
Speaker 1: of happening to my left, I catch movement behind the cameraman. Again.
45:08
Speaker 1: We're sitting on the ground and I look over and
45:11
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm whispering the caraman. I'm like, hey, like
45:15
Speaker 1: chill out, um, there's a something right behind you. I
45:18
Speaker 1: can't tell what it is, but it's like looking at us.
45:21
Speaker 1: And uh so this This goes on for a few minutes,
45:24
Speaker 1: and it was close enough that it didn't had its
45:26
Speaker 1: head like alert towards us, but I couldn't bring up
45:29
Speaker 1: my bios. I couldn't tell what it was because the
45:31
Speaker 1: backdrop was just like some really crowded timber um and
45:35
Speaker 1: branches and stuff. And so it ended up being the buck.
45:38
Speaker 1: But I had no idea when it was looking at
45:40
Speaker 1: us from thirty yards that it was the buck um
45:43
Speaker 1: that I was after. And so finally the buck kind
45:45
Speaker 1: of chills out after I don't move, the cameraman doesn't move,
45:48
Speaker 1: and I'm able to pull my bios and uh, I'm like, oh,
45:50
Speaker 1: that's this is a shooter. This is a shooter. And
45:54
Speaker 1: uh the cameraman did his best to like swing the
45:57
Speaker 1: camera around, and I'm like, can I shoot? Can I?
46:00
Speaker 1: Can I shoot? I haven't seen the footage yet, but
46:01
Speaker 1: I bet I asked him like six times, um if
46:05
Speaker 1: if I can shoot? And uh if even if he
46:08
Speaker 1: hadn't said yes, going into the seventh I probably would
46:11
Speaker 1: have shot because it it felt like the seconds were
46:14
Speaker 1: ticking away. This thing had already been like a two
46:16
Speaker 1: or three minute encounter, and it locked onto us and
46:19
Speaker 1: it was aware of us a little bit, and it
46:20
Speaker 1: had just like given us enough of window where I
46:22
Speaker 1: could pull my binos and and move my rifle over
46:25
Speaker 1: and uh, he gave me a green light to shoot,
46:27
Speaker 1: and I shot, And at that point it was just
46:30
Speaker 1: like uh, an explosion of white tails in the timber,
46:33
Speaker 1: Like there were deer there in other spots that I
46:36
Speaker 1: didn't realize at the moment. Plus I had like those
46:38
Speaker 1: seven doughs that I had watched funnel through and in
46:41
Speaker 1: the perfect spot. Um, and he only ran about I
46:44
Speaker 1: don't know, probably eighty yards and died. But it was
46:48
Speaker 1: it was not ideal like thirty yards like oh great,
46:51
Speaker 1: Like I picked the perfect spot, but it was far
46:53
Speaker 1: from the perfect spot. I would love for those deer
46:56
Speaker 1: to be like at a hundred yards, that's just as
46:58
Speaker 1: easy of a shot as thirty yards with a rifle,
47:01
Speaker 1: even if they were like a hundred and fifty yards
47:03
Speaker 1: And I didn't have my like scope dial to the
47:06
Speaker 1: ideal spot. If if I had known that I was
47:08
Speaker 1: going to shoot something at thirty yards, that's not like
47:11
Speaker 1: a shot that you practice either. Like when I go
47:13
Speaker 1: out to the range and I'm prepping for a haunt,
47:16
Speaker 1: I'll started like two d and then I go out
47:17
Speaker 1: to three and then four and then five and then
47:20
Speaker 1: back down to two hundred. No one has ever like
47:22
Speaker 1: gone out and given themselves a scenario like all right,
47:26
Speaker 1: it's a morning hunt and it's a half hour into
47:28
Speaker 1: the CITs, and uh, there's the bucket thirty yards what
47:31
Speaker 1: do you do? And and so the shot was just
47:33
Speaker 1: fine and it was clean kill through his lungs um,
47:37
Speaker 1: But there was some anxiety before the shot and after
47:40
Speaker 1: the shot, like did that work out? I don't know.
47:42
Speaker 1: I've never fired my rifle at something at thirty yards before. Um,
47:46
Speaker 1: But it was just like finding that scrape and that
47:48
Speaker 1: water crossing. Like I said, any idiot can go out
47:51
Speaker 1: and identify or deer crossing a stream or a creek
47:54
Speaker 1: or whatever and then knowing where they were coming out
47:56
Speaker 1: of the timber. That put me in that spot, which
47:58
Speaker 1: I ended up being just thirty yards from where that
48:00
Speaker 1: buck wanted. To be mean, I'll tell you what. You
48:04
Speaker 1: should have grew up deer hunting with a gun in
48:06
Speaker 1: northern Michigan. We're lucky, Like thirty yards is a long
48:09
Speaker 1: shot for us out there. I was like, man, I
48:12
Speaker 1: really got some range on this one. Thick, thick stuff.
48:17
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about, Tony A big time many.
48:33
Speaker 1: So that's awesome. So day three you killed that buck.
48:37
Speaker 1: The scouting ended up helping you out. Um, other than
48:40
Speaker 1: those two things you identify, the scrape and the creek crossing,
48:43
Speaker 1: was there anything else about that region that spot that
48:46
Speaker 1: you think you know lad to him being there, Like
48:49
Speaker 1: if you had to sit and try to analyze, Okay,
48:51
Speaker 1: why was this the right spot? Is there anything else
48:53
Speaker 1: that you didn't mention to color that more? Yeah? I
48:57
Speaker 1: mean I knew like where there were some unholy thick
49:01
Speaker 1: timber and brush at the very back of the property
49:04
Speaker 1: where I would I would guess like, okay, they're they're
49:06
Speaker 1: probably betting there. That would be a very if I
49:08
Speaker 1: were a white tail, That's where I'd want to bed.
49:10
Speaker 1: And I had seen where they were exiting to feed,
49:12
Speaker 1: and so it was just like picking some spot between
49:14
Speaker 1: those two areas, um. And And it was like I said,
49:17
Speaker 1: the scrape and the water crossing that put me there,
49:20
Speaker 1: and uh, you gave me hell for it. Like the
49:23
Speaker 1: day before when I was sending pictures like hey look
49:25
Speaker 1: at this cool petrified would I found? And Uh, it
49:28
Speaker 1: ended up being only like fifty yards from where I
49:31
Speaker 1: also found that scrape, So I was I was very
49:33
Speaker 1: pleased that I took the scenic rout through the woods
49:35
Speaker 1: that helped me find some petrified wood and a scrape
49:38
Speaker 1: and then put me there the next morning. Do you
49:40
Speaker 1: look at those fancy rocks as like a sign to
49:43
Speaker 1: make you like when that happens and you're out walking
49:45
Speaker 1: in the woods, do you now tend to gravitate gravitate
49:48
Speaker 1: to that kind of spot for dear, No, not at all.
49:51
Speaker 1: It Actually it makes me a worse hunter. Like I'll
49:53
Speaker 1: pick a glassing spot where there's like some exposed gravel
49:57
Speaker 1: or something, or like, uh, I'll have my eyes on
49:59
Speaker 1: the ground and I'm like walking somewhere and they should
50:01
Speaker 1: be up looking for other stuff. So it, uh, it
50:04
Speaker 1: makes me a worse hunter. I'm aware of it. Yeah, Tony,
50:10
Speaker 1: I guess question number one is how do you feel
50:11
Speaker 1: about Spencer's rock hunting? And question number two is question
50:15
Speaker 1: number two is was there anything else of interest on
50:18
Speaker 1: day three for you? Worth cover Listen. I love my
50:23
Speaker 1: me and my little girls. We do a lot of
50:24
Speaker 1: eggit hunting and a lot of shed hunting. So I
50:26
Speaker 1: get where Spencer's coming from. I just think there's a
50:28
Speaker 1: time and a place for it. And I think I
50:31
Speaker 1: think Spencer gets a little uh, he gets a little
50:34
Speaker 1: distracted once in a while when he's out there, but
50:36
Speaker 1: it's okay, I get why he's doing it. Uh. And
50:39
Speaker 1: as far as my day three, it was just a
50:41
Speaker 1: scrapp per fest. Man, it was it felt, you know.
50:46
Speaker 1: And I my buddy Adam was hunting the place with
50:48
Speaker 1: us too, so he was out in different spots on
50:50
Speaker 1: the same farm, and we kind of just had this
50:53
Speaker 1: had similar experiences. It was if you saw a buck
50:56
Speaker 1: coming or you heard a grunt, you looked up and
50:57
Speaker 1: it was a little fork or a little six or
50:59
Speaker 1: a little you know, eight point or whatever, and it
51:02
Speaker 1: just was like we're both kind of sitting there going
51:04
Speaker 1: it just feels like it hasn't broke loose yet, Like
51:07
Speaker 1: even though I had already killed a great buck earlier
51:08
Speaker 1: in the week, it just we're just, you know, like
51:11
Speaker 1: you're waiting for that time when it's like it shifts
51:14
Speaker 1: from just being scrappers running all over the countryside to
51:17
Speaker 1: deer of all ages. And by the third day it
51:21
Speaker 1: had that had not happened for me down in Wisconsin.
51:24
Speaker 1: So so let me ask you this. I'm pulling this
51:28
Speaker 1: purely from anecdotal sources of like a sample size of
51:32
Speaker 1: like eight guys that were all hunting around Iowa where
51:36
Speaker 1: I was at UM leading into the week I started
51:39
Speaker 1: hunting and hunting during the week I was there, and
51:42
Speaker 1: the consensus was that there was a lot of running
51:45
Speaker 1: activity the week prior to November, like that last week
51:49
Speaker 1: of October. Everyone was like, man, it was on fire.
51:51
Speaker 1: A couple of people I know got shots, and that
51:53
Speaker 1: first day or two was pretty good, and then there
51:56
Speaker 1: was basically the majority of that first week was really
52:00
Speaker 1: least slow at least around us, like multiple people, a
52:02
Speaker 1: bunch of different people. Basically all the people I was
52:04
Speaker 1: talking to down there, we're all saying, man, it's dead slow.
52:07
Speaker 1: The only good bucks they were seeing were locked on does.
52:11
Speaker 1: And and there was one well, one day that I
52:14
Speaker 1: was driving from one proper to another, and then that
52:16
Speaker 1: one drive of like a fifteen minute drive from one
52:19
Speaker 1: spot to the next, at midday I saw three different
52:22
Speaker 1: big mature bucks locked on does in the middle of
52:24
Speaker 1: the day, off the side of the road or back
52:26
Speaker 1: in the field, that kind of thing. And then two
52:28
Speaker 1: of my other friends had already tagged out, just spent
52:31
Speaker 1: a lot of time just driving around, puts around, looking
52:33
Speaker 1: for deer and just having fun. And they were seeing
52:35
Speaker 1: the same thing that first week. A lot of mature
52:38
Speaker 1: bucks locked on does um, which I would think the
52:41
Speaker 1: first few days in November is not out of the question,
52:44
Speaker 1: of course, like that happens, but to see so many
52:47
Speaker 1: of them locked down felt like a weird, earlier than
52:50
Speaker 1: usual kind of phenomena. Um, did you see her hear
52:53
Speaker 1: anything about that kind of thing happening between the two
52:55
Speaker 1: of you guys, or anyone else you've talked to? I did,
52:59
Speaker 1: for sure to know about you, Spence. But I kind
53:01
Speaker 1: of think that that happens way more than we think
53:04
Speaker 1: you here. I mean a lot of times the last
53:06
Speaker 1: week October is on fire, and then it seems like
53:09
Speaker 1: there's just this little down period then it kicks in again.
53:11
Speaker 1: But I think your experience, Mark, I think that was
53:14
Speaker 1: what we had going on to an extent. And I
53:16
Speaker 1: don't you know, like this is totally speculation, but when
53:19
Speaker 1: you've got a ton of doze around, the odds of
53:22
Speaker 1: one of them going into astris are way higher, right,
53:24
Speaker 1: It's just a numbers game, and I kind of feel
53:27
Speaker 1: like the places I see that happen where you might
53:30
Speaker 1: get bucks that feel like they're really locked down earlier
53:33
Speaker 1: than you traditionally guess a lot of times it feels
53:36
Speaker 1: like that happens in places where you just have a
53:37
Speaker 1: ton of doze to work with. And I don't know
53:39
Speaker 1: if that's what it is or not, but it sure
53:42
Speaker 1: felt that way for us in in Wisconsin as well. Yeah, Spencer,
53:46
Speaker 1: did you get to talk to anyone? I haven't. I
53:48
Speaker 1: haven't heard radio it all last week because I was
53:50
Speaker 1: gone the whole time. Did anybody else share any any
53:54
Speaker 1: experience like that or anyone else talked to you mention
53:56
Speaker 1: something in those lines? Not not that specific typically, Um,
54:01
Speaker 1: Nor did I happen to witness it in Montana or
54:04
Speaker 1: Wyoming either, But that also just feels like a very
54:08
Speaker 1: Midwest scenario that you're describing to Like you're driving around
54:11
Speaker 1: and they're like, happened be a caught cornfield and now
54:14
Speaker 1: there's like a big buck in a big dough betted
54:16
Speaker 1: down out there. Um, I feel like that's a that's
54:19
Speaker 1: less likely to happen in my neck of the woods
54:21
Speaker 1: out here, And I don't feel like I saw that
54:24
Speaker 1: happening either, But I also don't think I'm in a
54:27
Speaker 1: lot of situations to witness that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah,
54:30
Speaker 1: I hear you. Okay, So day four, I'm trying to
54:34
Speaker 1: remember now what happened on day four with you guys, Spencer.
54:37
Speaker 1: You were moving to Wyoming, and uh, if I recall
54:43
Speaker 1: didn't start out, well, do you want to give me
54:45
Speaker 1: like the day four cliff notes on what's on what
54:48
Speaker 1: happened here, because it was it was kind of a
54:49
Speaker 1: transitionary period for you, right, Yes, So day Day three
54:53
Speaker 1: I killed in the morning, so I was able to
54:55
Speaker 1: make the drive to Wyoming yet that night and be
54:58
Speaker 1: hunting on the morning on day four. Um, it started
55:03
Speaker 1: off tough. Um. I had hunted this area one other
55:07
Speaker 1: time last year in October, and I had came down
55:11
Speaker 1: to it again in this last September to hang a
55:14
Speaker 1: few trail camps. But other than that, I have I
55:16
Speaker 1: have no like history with this place, and so my
55:20
Speaker 1: assumed knowledge about things like, oh, there's gonna be cattle
55:23
Speaker 1: in this pasture, and there's gonna be horses over here,
55:25
Speaker 1: and this field is going to be corn, and this
55:28
Speaker 1: one's gonna be beans, and this one's gonna be harvested
55:30
Speaker 1: because it's been so dry. I was wrong on so
55:33
Speaker 1: much of it. I had a ton of wrong And
55:35
Speaker 1: I even told the caraman is like, yeah, you know,
55:37
Speaker 1: we're gonna learn a lot when the sun starts to
55:39
Speaker 1: come up here about like what's corn and where are
55:42
Speaker 1: their livestock at and stuff like that. And I happen
55:44
Speaker 1: to pick like a really poor spot that first morning,
55:48
Speaker 1: and it felt like when they show it there should
55:51
Speaker 1: be like Benny Hill music playing, because I ended up
55:53
Speaker 1: in like a horse pasture with like every horse couldn't
55:57
Speaker 1: have been more curious about what I was or what
55:59
Speaker 1: I was doing. All They're all like walking up to
56:01
Speaker 1: me and like trying to figure it out. It looked
56:03
Speaker 1: like they're like solving a math problem standing there looking
56:05
Speaker 1: at me because they weren't quite sure what I was
56:08
Speaker 1: or what I was doing. There. There happened to be
56:10
Speaker 1: some deer onto I wasn't terrible for deer movement, but
56:13
Speaker 1: I just I don't want to be by horses. Is
56:14
Speaker 1: an extra thing to think about, and I'm pulling the trigger.
56:17
Speaker 1: It's also like not ideal for deer movement. It's not
56:20
Speaker 1: like the deer gonna you know, hate horses or something
56:23
Speaker 1: like that. But if they have the choice to to
56:25
Speaker 1: move through like the landscape in the past year next
56:29
Speaker 1: door that doesn't have horses or the one that does
56:31
Speaker 1: have horses, they'll they'll just pick the one that doesn't
56:33
Speaker 1: have horses. Um. And so Day two in the morning
56:37
Speaker 1: wasn't great. Uh. That evening I had found a cut
56:41
Speaker 1: corn field in the area, which I was I was
56:44
Speaker 1: really concerned about. And I only saw a couple of
56:48
Speaker 1: doughs that night. And that was when I had realized, like, man,
56:51
Speaker 1: I really don't know jack about this place, all the
56:53
Speaker 1: stuff that I thought anyway, I don't because I thought
56:56
Speaker 1: I was on like the best food source in the
56:58
Speaker 1: neighborhood with you know, one of the best betting areas nearby,
57:02
Speaker 1: and just happened to see nothing. And I was trying
57:04
Speaker 1: to diagnose, like, what's going on here? Why Why am
57:07
Speaker 1: I not seeing as many deer as I think? Um,
57:10
Speaker 1: which I learned more about on day five. I think
57:13
Speaker 1: on day five I figured out why my haunting was
57:15
Speaker 1: so slow in that spot. But day four was not great. Okay, Tony,
57:22
Speaker 1: what about your situation? Uh? My Day four was the
57:28
Speaker 1: last sit on that crossing that I just couldn't get
57:31
Speaker 1: it going on. And then I moved to the pond
57:33
Speaker 1: for at the bottom of the valley for an afternoon
57:36
Speaker 1: sit and it was still more of the same. Uh
57:40
Speaker 1: So I saw a lot of deer and I started
57:42
Speaker 1: to get to figure out how they were using the
57:43
Speaker 1: valley around that pond finally when I got to go
57:46
Speaker 1: in there, but it was a scrapper fest once again.
57:49
Speaker 1: And you know it was it was slated to get hotter,
57:53
Speaker 1: and so you're sitting there thinking, Okay, is that gonna
57:55
Speaker 1: affect the situation at all? But you're sitting on water
57:58
Speaker 1: and it's going from you know, November four to November five,
58:01
Speaker 1: and you just think, at one of these times it's
58:03
Speaker 1: gotta bust open. And so, you know, the fourth day
58:06
Speaker 1: was kind of a kind of a wash for me.
58:09
Speaker 1: It was fun, but I didn't you know, it wasn't
58:11
Speaker 1: that great. But the fifth day turned on for me,
58:13
Speaker 1: and they're in a in a major way. But I
58:16
Speaker 1: didn't have I didn't have much going on until that
58:19
Speaker 1: fourth day ended, let me put it that way, And
58:21
Speaker 1: and day five was the day for both you guys, right,
58:25
Speaker 1: I didn't kill on Day five. I did I did,
58:28
Speaker 1: but it was a big day for you. It was
58:30
Speaker 1: a big day. It was a big frustrating day. And Spencer,
58:33
Speaker 1: was day five or six, your your next big excitement.
58:36
Speaker 1: Day five is when I killed Okay, So let's let's
58:39
Speaker 1: go with you, Spencer Phillison, on how you were able
58:42
Speaker 1: to figure out what the problem was on day five
58:44
Speaker 1: and how you fixed it, um, and then we'll let
58:47
Speaker 1: Tony ride it out from there. Day five, I thought
58:51
Speaker 1: I identified what would be a good spot for my
58:54
Speaker 1: morning haunted Wyoming, and I get there plenty early, and
58:58
Speaker 1: I'm having a unique gas where I'm crossing two pieces
59:02
Speaker 1: of private ground to get to a piece of public,
59:04
Speaker 1: both of which I had permission for um. And if
59:07
Speaker 1: you didn't have a way to come in via the private,
59:10
Speaker 1: it would be almost impossible to haunt otherwise. And I'm
59:14
Speaker 1: coming into where I want to be in the morning,
59:16
Speaker 1: and there's a headlamp like fifty yards from where I
59:18
Speaker 1: have my on xpain dropped of where I'm headed to,
59:21
Speaker 1: and so I go over and and I talked to
59:23
Speaker 1: the dude, and it turned out we had both gotten
59:26
Speaker 1: permission from the same folks and had the same game plan,
59:29
Speaker 1: and he had beat me there, so I moved out.
59:30
Speaker 1: But in talking to him, I had learned um that
59:34
Speaker 1: he had permission as well as a handful of other guys.
59:37
Speaker 1: He said that the neighboring properties also get a bit
59:41
Speaker 1: of pressure this time of year. And where I was
59:44
Speaker 1: ignorant coming into this is that when I was in
59:47
Speaker 1: Wyoming in haunting in October, I was hunting in the
59:50
Speaker 1: middle of the week, um, and I had talked to
59:53
Speaker 1: you a handful of landowners at one point when like
59:57
Speaker 1: five or five getting permission to haunt, like nobody tell
1:00:00
Speaker 1: me now, and it was it was amazing, But that
1:00:02
Speaker 1: generosity didn't end with me. That had turned out that
1:00:05
Speaker 1: they didn't really tell anybody now. And uh So the
1:00:08
Speaker 1: difference being there during the middle of the week in
1:00:10
Speaker 1: October versus on a weekend in November made an enormous difference.
1:00:16
Speaker 1: So we had that guy where I wanted to be.
1:00:18
Speaker 1: I started ahead to my Plan B spot. On my
1:00:20
Speaker 1: way over there, I see a ranger pulling up like
1:00:23
Speaker 1: like a side by side. Um. So then I go
1:00:25
Speaker 1: to like a Plan F. And as I'm at Plan
1:00:28
Speaker 1: F twenty minutes into the haunt, a different ranger comes
1:00:31
Speaker 1: driving by. Within a hundred yards of me, and uh
1:00:34
Speaker 1: like twenty minutes after that, long ways away on a
1:00:38
Speaker 1: different property I can haunt. I see a pickup driving
1:00:40
Speaker 1: across like a pasture, and he stops and gets out,
1:00:44
Speaker 1: and he rattles off six shots at something that I
1:00:47
Speaker 1: couldn't even see what it was he was shooting at,
1:00:49
Speaker 1: whether it was deer, coyote, or whatever. But I had
1:00:52
Speaker 1: quickly learned that there were many many folks that were
1:00:56
Speaker 1: sort of doing the same thing as me, and these
1:00:58
Speaker 1: places you just do not hunt big enough for that
1:01:01
Speaker 1: sort of high impact pressure where guys are driving rangers
1:01:03
Speaker 1: around or getting out of their pickups and rattling off
1:01:07
Speaker 1: shots like that. Um. And there's also like not that
1:01:10
Speaker 1: many mature bucks to go around. Even if we all
1:01:13
Speaker 1: sort of had the same idea to kill something three
1:01:17
Speaker 1: and a half years old or older, it just like
1:01:20
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna happen. So day five I didn't see a
1:01:22
Speaker 1: single deer, but I also encountered a ton of hunting pressure, um,
1:01:27
Speaker 1: which was sort of like the lowest point of of
1:01:29
Speaker 1: my whole week so far. And so then coming off
1:01:32
Speaker 1: the morning on day five, like, all right, I gotta
1:01:34
Speaker 1: figure something else out. I need to go like knock
1:01:36
Speaker 1: on other doors or find some other public to haunt
1:01:39
Speaker 1: or whatever. And uh, I probably put a hundred miles
1:01:42
Speaker 1: on my pickup that afternoon, driving basically the whole unit.
1:01:46
Speaker 1: My tag was good for looking at pieces of public
1:01:48
Speaker 1: and talking to different landowners and stuff like that. And
1:01:52
Speaker 1: I ended up getting three permissions off of about on
1:01:54
Speaker 1: a ten or twelve doors I knocked on UM. One person, though,
1:01:58
Speaker 1: wanted a trespass fee, which I wasn't really interested in.
1:02:02
Speaker 1: The other person UM had said I was welcome hunt,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: but they hadn't seen a deer they're like all fall.
1:02:08
Speaker 1: And then the other person where I ended up deer hunting,
1:02:11
Speaker 1: said that they would get somewhere between like ten and
1:02:13
Speaker 1: thirty deer in their field of night UM and that
1:02:17
Speaker 1: I was I was welcome to go out there. So
1:02:19
Speaker 1: that was when I settled in for night or for
1:02:22
Speaker 1: the for the evening of night five UM. And it
1:02:25
Speaker 1: was sort of the same thing that I had experienced
1:02:27
Speaker 1: many times over, Like I go in there based on
1:02:29
Speaker 1: what I thought I knew about the place and on
1:02:31
Speaker 1: X and I sit down, I'm like, I have no
1:02:33
Speaker 1: idea if this is right, Like I might change my mind.
1:02:35
Speaker 1: I may be way way off about where I'm sitting
1:02:38
Speaker 1: on this property. And the first deer that we see,
1:02:41
Speaker 1: I watched him come all the way from like six
1:02:43
Speaker 1: hundred yards to crossing the fence in front of me
1:02:45
Speaker 1: at like twenty yards. So yet again I was like
1:02:48
Speaker 1: far too close for a rifle for for where I
1:02:51
Speaker 1: should be. Um. But that evening there were some other
1:02:54
Speaker 1: deals that fed out. I don't know. They were probably
1:02:57
Speaker 1: seven yards away from me at the time, and all
1:03:00
Speaker 1: I could see where do was at that point, but
1:03:03
Speaker 1: I thought that's where I should be. Anyway, if there's
1:03:05
Speaker 1: doughs there, maybe a buck's gonna show up at laft
1:03:07
Speaker 1: last light. So we cut the distance from probably like
1:03:10
Speaker 1: seven yards to I don't know, about two hundred yards
1:03:13
Speaker 1: to where I see all these doughs are at. And
1:03:16
Speaker 1: at that time a buck comes rolling out into the
1:03:18
Speaker 1: field and it was just like a perfectly ruddy scene
1:03:22
Speaker 1: where he is chasing these doughs all over hell and
1:03:25
Speaker 1: he gets on one dough and he he chases her
1:03:27
Speaker 1: to what happens to be within like two d yards
1:03:29
Speaker 1: of me, and he was so hot on her at
1:03:31
Speaker 1: the time that like I couldn't tell what was really
1:03:33
Speaker 1: going on in this rat because he had like some
1:03:35
Speaker 1: sage hanging down and stuff, because he was cutting through
1:03:38
Speaker 1: the vegetation so hard, and I'm trying to stop him,
1:03:43
Speaker 1: going matt man man, and I probably do that like
1:03:46
Speaker 1: four times. Finally I whistle at him and uh, do
1:03:49
Speaker 1: another like marit, and at that point he stops at
1:03:53
Speaker 1: like two hundred yards the dough was gone, and uh,
1:03:56
Speaker 1: I shoot him. And the being a four by four
1:04:00
Speaker 1: um not very big, probably like a two and a
1:04:01
Speaker 1: half or maybe a three and a half year old
1:04:03
Speaker 1: since there's not great nutrition here. But I was stoked
1:04:06
Speaker 1: on it. I felt like I solved a puzzle. I
1:04:08
Speaker 1: felt like I saw a puzzle. Um. I had gained
1:04:11
Speaker 1: access a few hours prior, and you know, within an
1:04:13
Speaker 1: hour after that, I was hanging the deer and the
1:04:15
Speaker 1: guy's shed. Um. And then that morning, like it, it
1:04:19
Speaker 1: felt like I wasn't even back at square one. I
1:04:21
Speaker 1: was like square zero. Because of all this knowledge I
1:04:24
Speaker 1: thought I had, I didn't have, and all this access
1:04:27
Speaker 1: I thought I had, I didn't have to myself. UM.
1:04:30
Speaker 1: So to like figure that out in the afternoon and
1:04:32
Speaker 1: find a new place to haunt using on X and
1:04:35
Speaker 1: then like finding a place that I wanted to haunt
1:04:38
Speaker 1: on the property and closing the distance. Uh, man, it
1:04:41
Speaker 1: felt good. It was like so satisfying. It's one of
1:04:43
Speaker 1: the smaller box that I've killed and in a few years. Um,
1:04:47
Speaker 1: but damn it, I was. I was real stoked with
1:04:49
Speaker 1: how it happened. Yeah. I love the resiliency and the
1:04:51
Speaker 1: way you're able able to pivot. I mean that was
1:04:54
Speaker 1: that was good stuff right there. Do you do you
1:04:57
Speaker 1: have any thoughts you can share on just your trick
1:05:00
Speaker 1: to talking his landowners? I mean how you approach them,
1:05:02
Speaker 1: how you how you went about asking them for permission,
1:05:06
Speaker 1: anything you've learned because you've done it's a bunch. Now,
1:05:09
Speaker 1: Um what what led to your success on that front?
1:05:11
Speaker 1: Because that was kind of the key to this whole thing. Yeah. Yeah,
1:05:15
Speaker 1: I try to put myself in like high success scenarios, Um,
1:05:19
Speaker 1: where if I'm going to knock on someone's door or
1:05:22
Speaker 1: like writing a letter, Um, I'm not going for like
1:05:25
Speaker 1: usually the A plus property that probably already has like
1:05:28
Speaker 1: deer stands on it, and then they've been asked a
1:05:30
Speaker 1: hundred times and you can see that they've like manicured
1:05:33
Speaker 1: the property in a certain way for like hunting it
1:05:36
Speaker 1: or something like that. Those aren't the place I'm going after.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: I'm going after like B minus property, something that's like
1:05:41
Speaker 1: worth my time and probably still holds like some good deer. Um.
1:05:47
Speaker 1: But also these spokes like don't really value it themselves
1:05:51
Speaker 1: because it's it's not so obvious like what the deer
1:05:55
Speaker 1: doing or where the deer at. They're not getting bogged
1:05:57
Speaker 1: all the time from neighbors to hunt it. Um. And
1:06:00
Speaker 1: then it also helps to be in a state like
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Wyoming where a lot of the folks there within fifty
1:06:06
Speaker 1: miles of where I killed my white tail. You can
1:06:08
Speaker 1: be in like some world class lk hunting and big
1:06:11
Speaker 1: horn sheep and and antelope and uh giant mule deer
1:06:14
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, white tails become like such an
1:06:17
Speaker 1: afterthought even for the folks that live there and like
1:06:20
Speaker 1: hunting themselves. Um. It's almost like I'm asking permission to
1:06:24
Speaker 1: coyot hunt with some of these people. That's how like
1:06:26
Speaker 1: low they think of a white tail. Um. So I
1:06:30
Speaker 1: think one of the best things that I do, though, is,
1:06:32
Speaker 1: like I said, seeking out what I would identify as
1:06:34
Speaker 1: like a B minus property, rather than only spending my
1:06:37
Speaker 1: time trying to get permission on something that's an A plus.
1:06:41
Speaker 1: I think that's great advice, especially if you're trying to
1:06:44
Speaker 1: get last minute permission like this, like in season, that's
1:06:47
Speaker 1: such a hard ask in a lot of places that
1:06:49
Speaker 1: those overlooked spots. That's that's a really really good idea. Um,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: well well done man, nicely nicely pulled off spin move there.
1:07:00
Speaker 1: Then thank you, thank you. And so that was that
1:07:03
Speaker 1: was my day five and happened in the evening and
1:07:05
Speaker 1: then uh, I mean that was basically then the main
1:07:08
Speaker 1: gist of year week. You filled your second tag showing
1:07:13
Speaker 1: us all how it's done, Tony. Tony, you were still
1:07:16
Speaker 1: going close us out here with the story of your
1:07:20
Speaker 1: two days of of chaos or whatever ended up being
1:07:23
Speaker 1: there in Wisconsin to close things out. How how did
1:07:26
Speaker 1: you how do you adjust on day five? And what happened? Well,
1:07:30
Speaker 1: on day five, I just about put rocks into my
1:07:33
Speaker 1: pockets and jumped into the Mississippi after the morning hunt.
1:07:37
Speaker 1: So I went back into that pond stand and had
1:07:42
Speaker 1: it was it was supposed to get I think in
1:07:43
Speaker 1: the fifties that day, so it was supposed to get
1:07:45
Speaker 1: pretty warm, but it was clear from the sits in
1:07:48
Speaker 1: there that they were there were there was extra stuff
1:07:51
Speaker 1: going on there besides just the water. There was a
1:07:54
Speaker 1: really good funnel that I could shoot too, and I knew,
1:07:58
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew that was there. I had a
1:07:59
Speaker 1: camera on it. But there was also a knob on
1:08:03
Speaker 1: the hill above us that the does seem to go
1:08:05
Speaker 1: in there, and bed I've never been in there. I'm
1:08:08
Speaker 1: going to be this winner. But a lot of the
1:08:11
Speaker 1: action kind of it went to there, and it originated
1:08:15
Speaker 1: from there, and so it was sort of like I
1:08:17
Speaker 1: felt like I was sitting below one of the best
1:08:19
Speaker 1: betting areas doe betting areas on the property, kind of
1:08:21
Speaker 1: by accident. But anyway, the fifth morning of the hunt
1:08:27
Speaker 1: starts out when a little scrapper comes down, gets the drink,
1:08:30
Speaker 1: goes back up the hill and like perfect, you know,
1:08:31
Speaker 1: he didn't win to us anything. And then at like
1:08:35
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the morning, like a hundred and fifty
1:08:37
Speaker 1: inch comes running down the hill and I stand up,
1:08:41
Speaker 1: you know, get clipped on my cameraman scrambling, and that
1:08:44
Speaker 1: buck stops. He walks by at fifteen yards. I can't
1:08:47
Speaker 1: shoot him yet because I'm waiting for the cameraman, and
1:08:51
Speaker 1: then he stops at the pond twenty one yards below me,
1:08:53
Speaker 1: and this is a beautiful book, like all of and
1:08:57
Speaker 1: so I'm just waiting. He's he's got to turn like
1:09:00
Speaker 1: a foot and a half and I've got a twenty
1:09:03
Speaker 1: one yard shot, wide open opportunity. And he drinks and
1:09:06
Speaker 1: he walks into the pond. He drinks some more. And
1:09:09
Speaker 1: every deer to that point has gone there and then
1:09:11
Speaker 1: walked right back up through that shooting lane. So this
1:09:14
Speaker 1: buck starts to turn and I draw, and he walks
1:09:17
Speaker 1: right below me in all this brush. So now he's
1:09:19
Speaker 1: like ten yards away. I have no shot, so I
1:09:21
Speaker 1: let down, and instead of doing what every other deer did,
1:09:25
Speaker 1: this deer decides to go up along the dike where
1:09:28
Speaker 1: I can't shoot, and he's walking out of my life.
1:09:31
Speaker 1: And so he ends up cutting through this brush at
1:09:33
Speaker 1: like thirty yards walking away. So I grabbed my grunt
1:09:37
Speaker 1: tube and I grunt at him, and he stops and turns,
1:09:41
Speaker 1: and then he's kind of thinking about it, and then
1:09:43
Speaker 1: he turns to walk away and ground again turns around.
1:09:46
Speaker 1: This happens like I think three times. He starts making
1:09:49
Speaker 1: a scrape and and working his antlers in the tree,
1:09:52
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at him like I got a perfect
1:09:53
Speaker 1: hole to his vitals, and so I range him. It's
1:09:56
Speaker 1: thirty four yards, and so I dial into thirty four
1:10:00
Speaker 1: and just get ready to draw. He turns starts walking
1:10:04
Speaker 1: right at me. So I dial back down to twenty.
1:10:06
Speaker 1: I'm like, this deer's toast, and he starts getting closer,
1:10:09
Speaker 1: and instead of going under this log across the trail,
1:10:12
Speaker 1: he cuts down into this brush. And so this buck
1:10:15
Speaker 1: is like he's like bulletproof, Like every move he's made
1:10:18
Speaker 1: has kept him just like with enough stuff on his vitals.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: And now he's like maybe twenty yards away, standing in
1:10:26
Speaker 1: the brush, and I've got a shot at every part
1:10:27
Speaker 1: of this deer but his lungs, Like I could shoot
1:10:29
Speaker 1: him in the head, I coul shoot him in the butt,
1:10:31
Speaker 1: everywhere that you don't want to shoot a deer. And
1:10:34
Speaker 1: he stands there, stands there, and finally moves a little bit,
1:10:37
Speaker 1: gets down wind of us, and takes off, and it
1:10:39
Speaker 1: was like, I don't know, I don't know if my
1:10:44
Speaker 1: camera guy was filmed. And after that deer ran away
1:10:46
Speaker 1: or not, I threw a pitty party. I was so
1:10:48
Speaker 1: bummed to have that deer. I I felt like it
1:10:51
Speaker 1: was like five minutes, I have aft within you know,
1:10:54
Speaker 1: thirty four yards of me. It ended up being a
1:10:56
Speaker 1: seven and a half minute encounter and I never killed
1:10:59
Speaker 1: that deer, and I booked him out of there. He
1:11:00
Speaker 1: got he winded us, and I was like, how you
1:11:04
Speaker 1: know I had already killed one in the one fifties
1:11:07
Speaker 1: on Monday. I'm like, how how long am I gonna
1:11:10
Speaker 1: have to wait for? I have another week where I
1:11:12
Speaker 1: get two really good opportunities at hundred fifty bucks And
1:11:16
Speaker 1: it was just a downer. So we set that out
1:11:20
Speaker 1: and I ended up I had fully gone into this
1:11:24
Speaker 1: this project. I'm like, I'm going home with a bunch
1:11:26
Speaker 1: of meat. I got a bunch of dough tags, I
1:11:27
Speaker 1: got two buck tags, I got a fall turkey tag,
1:11:29
Speaker 1: and I hadn't had a really good opportunity at a
1:11:31
Speaker 1: dough yet. And I wanted to rest that pond spot
1:11:34
Speaker 1: because I knew, uh, we were going to get progressively warmer.
1:11:38
Speaker 1: So I knew I was gonna pull all days sits
1:11:40
Speaker 1: from there on out there because it was gonna get
1:11:42
Speaker 1: into the sixties. And so my buddy had put in
1:11:44
Speaker 1: this clover plot and I was like, I'm gonna go
1:11:48
Speaker 1: put a blind up on there, just try to try
1:11:50
Speaker 1: to get a dough and you know, maybe a doll
1:11:52
Speaker 1: bring in a buck, you know. But I literally went
1:11:54
Speaker 1: into it thinking I'm gonna maybe shoot a doll or
1:11:56
Speaker 1: calling a turkey that afternoon and sitting there, you know,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: it's getting a little bit later, and all of a sudden,
1:12:03
Speaker 1: I thought I heard a grunt. I'm like, yeah, man,
1:12:05
Speaker 1: that sounded close. Six doughs run by the blind and
1:12:07
Speaker 1: I look up and here comes this nice three and
1:12:09
Speaker 1: a half year old type eight pointer and he stops
1:12:12
Speaker 1: twenty nine yards quartered away, and I'm on the ground.
1:12:15
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my god, he's toast. Well. My cameraman
1:12:17
Speaker 1: can't get on him because the side of the blind.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: So I start panicking because I know this buck's going
1:12:22
Speaker 1: to chase those doughs like he's I had already stopped
1:12:24
Speaker 1: him once, and so I knew I had to let
1:12:26
Speaker 1: him walk, stop him when he got on film, and
1:12:30
Speaker 1: then try to shoot him. And by then my brain
1:12:32
Speaker 1: was sludge, and that deer walked out. I stopped him,
1:12:35
Speaker 1: I guessed, I can't remember what I guess now, thirty
1:12:38
Speaker 1: thirty something, and I stopped him, wide open, nothing between
1:12:44
Speaker 1: me and him, but air an opportunity, and I shot
1:12:46
Speaker 1: right over his back and he ran off, and I
1:12:49
Speaker 1: was like, I cannot believe I just blew that shot.
1:12:52
Speaker 1: Nobody's fault on my own. So like now I've had
1:12:55
Speaker 1: two amazing opportunities today after struggling for three days. And
1:12:59
Speaker 1: that deer he kind of he got a little wiggy.
1:13:01
Speaker 1: Obviously he left those doughs stayed out there. And as
1:13:05
Speaker 1: it got later, you know, we run, you run out
1:13:07
Speaker 1: of camera light earlier than you run out of shooting light.
1:13:10
Speaker 1: And it was getting to that point where you're like,
1:13:11
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty much time to call it. But there's
1:13:13
Speaker 1: a bunch of does out in front of us and
1:13:17
Speaker 1: my camera and starts kind of packing up, and I'm like, dude,
1:13:19
Speaker 1: let's just let's hang tight for a little bit. Let's
1:13:21
Speaker 1: hease dear clear out. I don't want to spook him.
1:13:23
Speaker 1: And I said, I think a big one is going
1:13:25
Speaker 1: to come out. And no, sooner had I said that
1:13:28
Speaker 1: than I looked out and this monster body deer comes
1:13:31
Speaker 1: out and I bring up my binos and my first
1:13:34
Speaker 1: impression is one eight, like it's it's one of the
1:13:37
Speaker 1: biggest bucks I've ever laid eyes on. Ever, and he
1:13:39
Speaker 1: starts chasing a dough and I'm looking at him and
1:13:41
Speaker 1: it's getting darker, but it's still legal shooting light. But
1:13:45
Speaker 1: I'm like, I have that like conundrum going on where
1:13:47
Speaker 1: You're like, Okay, I gotta film this project, but if
1:13:49
Speaker 1: that deer comes close enough, I really want to kill him.
1:13:51
Speaker 1: He ended up starting to chase a dough at me,
1:13:53
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I don't know if any of
1:13:54
Speaker 1: this footage turned out or not, but he got to
1:13:57
Speaker 1: thirty nine yards, turned and stopped, turnaround, ran away, And
1:14:01
Speaker 1: by the time that deer was out of my life,
1:14:04
Speaker 1: I had settled on like I think he's a just
1:14:08
Speaker 1: unbelievable And so I was sitting there thinking I legitimately
1:14:13
Speaker 1: had three amazing bucks within shooting range and I'm going
1:14:19
Speaker 1: back to the cabin with no filled tags, nothing but
1:14:23
Speaker 1: like a whole lot of self doubt and a whole
1:14:25
Speaker 1: lot of stupid moves. And it was just a wild
1:14:29
Speaker 1: It was a wild day for me, Like I was.
1:14:31
Speaker 1: I was spent by the end of that day. When
1:14:33
Speaker 1: the last time that either one of you missed a deer,
1:14:41
Speaker 1: I think I missed one every year. I don't know. Um,
1:14:44
Speaker 1: I hadn't missed one this year, but probably last year
1:14:47
Speaker 1: or two years ago. Yeah, I missed. I missed my
1:14:50
Speaker 1: target buck in Michigan last year. Try to slip into
1:14:53
Speaker 1: the hole that I shouldn't have. So we have a pattern, Tony,
1:15:01
Speaker 1: That's what we're trying to saying. I think I think
1:15:03
Speaker 1: we have Spencer giving us a little bit too much
1:15:05
Speaker 1: credit here. But you're good for the rest of the season.
1:15:12
Speaker 1: Then that means no, uh no more missed encounters or
1:15:15
Speaker 1: or miss shots. Then for that must be it. I
1:15:19
Speaker 1: like that. I like that. So Tony, you were spent,
1:15:22
Speaker 1: you were frustrated. So it sounds like coming out of
1:15:25
Speaker 1: that day, it wasn't like, oh man, I'm right in
1:15:27
Speaker 1: the action. I had three close calls, this is gonna happen.
1:15:30
Speaker 1: It was probably more like, oh man, I had three
1:15:32
Speaker 1: close calls and I couldn't capitalize. I suck? Was it? That?
1:15:35
Speaker 1: Was that where you were at? By the time day
1:15:36
Speaker 1: six rolled around, I was a little bit of both.
1:15:40
Speaker 1: I knew, you know that big one I spooked in
1:15:42
Speaker 1: the morning. He wasn't coming back unless unless a dope
1:15:44
Speaker 1: brought him in, and then you know, you miss one year,
1:15:47
Speaker 1: Like I'm probably not gonna have a chance at that
1:15:49
Speaker 1: dear again. And so I had a ton of confidence
1:15:52
Speaker 1: in that pond spot, with the way it laid out
1:15:55
Speaker 1: and the way that the weather was going to break
1:15:57
Speaker 1: for me. But you also sit there and you go,
1:16:00
Speaker 1: you know, you don't get that many days like that
1:16:02
Speaker 1: as a bowl hunter. I mean, it's just you know
1:16:05
Speaker 1: when it when it when it breaks like that, and
1:16:07
Speaker 1: you don't you don't capitalize, you know, I mean, it
1:16:10
Speaker 1: might be years before something like that happens again. And
1:16:13
Speaker 1: so I had that in the back of my mind.
1:16:15
Speaker 1: But I was also like, I know, I've got a
1:16:18
Speaker 1: couple of days left. I'm going all day on that water,
1:16:22
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hope those sixty degree temperatures bring a
1:16:24
Speaker 1: buck to me. All right, bring us home. Then give
1:16:29
Speaker 1: me a little bit more on why you're still confident
1:16:31
Speaker 1: with this water thing, because if people haven't been following you,
1:16:35
Speaker 1: maybe they aren't as familiar with the water game at
1:16:37
Speaker 1: this time of year. Now, Hopefully people have been listening
1:16:40
Speaker 1: to foundations, Hopefully people know this perspective, but just in
1:16:43
Speaker 1: case they don't, give us a little bit more detail
1:16:45
Speaker 1: on why this was something you were really willing to
1:16:47
Speaker 1: bet the rest of your trip on Uh, you know,
1:16:51
Speaker 1: when you're when you're looking at November six, then it's
1:16:53
Speaker 1: gonna be sixty two, sixty three degrees. I mean, the ruts,
1:16:57
Speaker 1: the ruts gonna happen, like those deer are gonna chase uh,
1:17:00
Speaker 1: those doors are gonna get thirsty, the bucks are gonna
1:17:02
Speaker 1: get thirsty. And I just felt like, you know, obviously
1:17:05
Speaker 1: we had we had somewhat of a limited water source.
1:17:08
Speaker 1: I think there was more water around than I originally thought,
1:17:10
Speaker 1: but it was it was a good tucked into the
1:17:13
Speaker 1: cover pond, which I love, and we just had a
1:17:17
Speaker 1: lot of good timber and a lot of good cover
1:17:19
Speaker 1: around it, and really good winds and really good access.
1:17:22
Speaker 1: And so it's set up. It's honestly one of the
1:17:25
Speaker 1: coolest stands I've ever hung in my life. You sit
1:17:27
Speaker 1: there and you look around, You're like it could happen
1:17:30
Speaker 1: from anywhere here at any time. And so I knew,
1:17:33
Speaker 1: you know, pulling an all day sit when by one
1:17:36
Speaker 1: or two o'clock in the afternoon we were going to
1:17:37
Speaker 1: be bumping into kind of beach weather that you know,
1:17:40
Speaker 1: there was a good chance somebody that I was interested
1:17:42
Speaker 1: in was going to come in and I'll tell you
1:17:44
Speaker 1: what you know. I went in there the next morning
1:17:49
Speaker 1: and parked parked by truck in a spot where I
1:17:51
Speaker 1: was like, no deer is ever going to know you're here.
1:17:54
Speaker 1: And I got out of my truck, out my stuff. Friday,
1:17:56
Speaker 1: walking up the road with the cameraman, jumped a deer
1:17:58
Speaker 1: in the ditch. I heard it running and I was like, man,
1:18:00
Speaker 1: that did not sound like a little dough. Got a
1:18:03
Speaker 1: little farther in, jumped that deer again, and I'm like, well,
1:18:06
Speaker 1: there's one deer we'll never see, and climbed into the stand.
1:18:10
Speaker 1: Even before it was first light, I could hear a
1:18:12
Speaker 1: buck chasing and grunting. And then as soon as it
1:18:15
Speaker 1: got light out, I looked up on the hill. Here
1:18:16
Speaker 1: comes this great buck walking out. I thought it was
1:18:18
Speaker 1: the eight point where I missed the night before, but
1:18:20
Speaker 1: when I actually saw the footage, it was a different
1:18:22
Speaker 1: bucket was a ten pointer, and he came in and
1:18:25
Speaker 1: stopped at thirty three yards, and I tried to call
1:18:29
Speaker 1: him down the hill because he looked like he wasn't
1:18:30
Speaker 1: gonna come down the hill. I didn't know he was
1:18:32
Speaker 1: that close until he sat there for a long time,
1:18:34
Speaker 1: and then I arranged him. I'm like, I just need
1:18:36
Speaker 1: to shoot him now, but I was already pinned down,
1:18:38
Speaker 1: and it was It was not my finest moment, but
1:18:41
Speaker 1: that deer ended up walking off and coming into water
1:18:44
Speaker 1: in a different way. But I mean, we started the
1:18:46
Speaker 1: morning right away covered in action, and then it was
1:18:50
Speaker 1: little bucks and started getting hotter, and we had a
1:18:54
Speaker 1: weird situation there where right away early morning was good,
1:18:58
Speaker 1: what you'd expect. I saw one buck chase up on
1:19:01
Speaker 1: the hill and then it got it died for a
1:19:05
Speaker 1: couple hours, and had a random doing a fawn come
1:19:07
Speaker 1: into water. And then at like noon, when you know,
1:19:11
Speaker 1: you kind of think, like this is not gonna happen.
1:19:13
Speaker 1: I had never killed a buck in the mid day
1:19:15
Speaker 1: of my life, Like I've killed him up until about
1:19:17
Speaker 1: maybe eleven in the morning and then maybe starting at
1:19:19
Speaker 1: like two in the afternoon. But I'm like, I've never
1:19:21
Speaker 1: killed that lunch shift buck. But we started seeing deer
1:19:25
Speaker 1: movement around us and had some fawns loan fawns come
1:19:29
Speaker 1: in and drank. At like twelve thirty, I looked up
1:19:32
Speaker 1: on the hill and way up toward that betting knob
1:19:35
Speaker 1: as far as I could see in the woods. I
1:19:37
Speaker 1: saw a nice buck cruising and I said, if that
1:19:40
Speaker 1: deer comes down and gives me a shot, I'm gonna
1:19:42
Speaker 1: shoot that deer. And he ended up working his way
1:19:45
Speaker 1: all the way down and going instead of going to
1:19:47
Speaker 1: water where I thought he was, he saw those fawns
1:19:50
Speaker 1: and switched and ended up I just stopped him just
1:19:54
Speaker 1: before he got out of my life and ended up
1:19:56
Speaker 1: getting a shot in him. And it worked out. And
1:19:58
Speaker 1: that was one o'clock in the af for noon. So
1:20:01
Speaker 1: the confidence in that spot paid off. It just took
1:20:03
Speaker 1: a lot. It took a while. So so what's the
1:20:07
Speaker 1: takeaway there when you when you look back at that hunt?
1:20:11
Speaker 1: Was it what was the key? Do you think? Was
1:20:14
Speaker 1: it that you just had the faith and stuck it
1:20:15
Speaker 1: out all day? Was it something else? I mean it's
1:20:19
Speaker 1: partially that, but it's partially just given yourself as much
1:20:22
Speaker 1: to work with as possible. You know, you think about
1:20:26
Speaker 1: we kind of distill the rut hunting down into like
1:20:28
Speaker 1: get on a funnel and it's gonna be amazing, or
1:20:31
Speaker 1: get down windo that dough betting area and it's gonna
1:20:33
Speaker 1: be amazing. And I look at it and go, sure,
1:20:35
Speaker 1: like that's a good starting point. But what if you
1:20:37
Speaker 1: have a funnel next to water within you know, seeing distance,
1:20:41
Speaker 1: hearing distance of the best betting area on the property.
1:20:44
Speaker 1: But if you start building those things in there, it's
1:20:47
Speaker 1: easier to sit when you believe like there's multiple reasons
1:20:50
Speaker 1: for a deer to come here, you know, and a
1:20:52
Speaker 1: lot and a lot of times we do you know,
1:20:53
Speaker 1: the destination food source thing or the betting area thing,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: and those are good. But if you can tack a
1:20:59
Speaker 1: few more things that are work going on in your favor,
1:21:00
Speaker 1: like that that spot I killed that Minnesota buck. If
1:21:04
Speaker 1: that was just one waterway going through, that would be
1:21:06
Speaker 1: a good spot during the rut. But because it splits
1:21:09
Speaker 1: and it and it attaches that property to other properties,
1:21:12
Speaker 1: we can't hunt and other places where you know, people
1:21:16
Speaker 1: are they're trying to kill big bucks, and like it's
1:21:18
Speaker 1: feeding that one little hub that you're sitting in. Now
1:21:22
Speaker 1: you've just increased your odds instead of just maybe they'll
1:21:24
Speaker 1: come from this way, maybe they'll come from that way.
1:21:26
Speaker 1: Now you're like, well, or they could come from down there,
1:21:28
Speaker 1: or they could come from behind me. And this pond
1:21:30
Speaker 1: was like that, like it had it had all of
1:21:33
Speaker 1: those things going forward as far as terrain, it had
1:21:36
Speaker 1: water and it had bedding, and it was all lumped
1:21:38
Speaker 1: into one spot. And when you know that and you
1:21:41
Speaker 1: believe that, it's so much easier to put in those
1:21:43
Speaker 1: hours because it's just like somebody's coming, you know. Yeah.
1:21:48
Speaker 1: I love those spots where you can stack, where you
1:21:50
Speaker 1: stack all the different features and all the other attractive
1:21:53
Speaker 1: points and you get those those ven diagram spots where
1:21:56
Speaker 1: they all meet and and they skyrockets are offense. Makes
1:22:00
Speaker 1: it makes such a difference just the mental side of things. Um,
1:22:06
Speaker 1: big time spencer, what about you when you look back
1:22:09
Speaker 1: at your success and your rut? Uh, what were your
1:22:13
Speaker 1: big takeaway is? Was there anything that stood out for
1:22:15
Speaker 1: you that you're gonna take with you from here until
1:22:16
Speaker 1: next year and you're always gonna keep in your back
1:22:18
Speaker 1: pocket as a lesson or something you can point to. Yeah,
1:22:22
Speaker 1: I think, Uh, the big thing, Like both of my
1:22:25
Speaker 1: successes happened on private property where I was a total
1:22:29
Speaker 1: stranger to the landowner and either like wrote them a
1:22:32
Speaker 1: letter or might knocked on their door and talk to
1:22:34
Speaker 1: him and ended up getting permission. Um. And it's just
1:22:37
Speaker 1: like a thing that's so much easier said than done.
1:22:40
Speaker 1: Though there's this sort of thing that's happening right now
1:22:44
Speaker 1: with gen Z that they've they've made sexy over the
1:22:48
Speaker 1: last couple of years where they do like rejection therapy,
1:22:51
Speaker 1: where they put themselves through something that is like a
1:22:55
Speaker 1: really uncomfortable situation where they're most likely going to get
1:22:58
Speaker 1: told no, and they do it like every day, and
1:23:01
Speaker 1: then it makes the more mundane things seem a lot easier.
1:23:04
Speaker 1: So an example might be like they would go into
1:23:06
Speaker 1: uh A grocery store and they ask somebody if they
1:23:10
Speaker 1: can speak over the intercom or something like that. Of
1:23:12
Speaker 1: course they're gonna get told now. But if you do
1:23:14
Speaker 1: that or some variation of that a lot, then it
1:23:18
Speaker 1: makes the more mundane things like um, asking for a
1:23:22
Speaker 1: day off at work, or asking someone you're attracted to
1:23:25
Speaker 1: if they want to get a drink, It makes that
1:23:26
Speaker 1: kind of thing seem way easier, right, And so it
1:23:31
Speaker 1: used to take like every bit of courage I had
1:23:33
Speaker 1: to go ask a landowner for hunting permission in college,
1:23:35
Speaker 1: I'd like have to psych myself out to just go
1:23:38
Speaker 1: knock on a couple doors, and then I would I
1:23:40
Speaker 1: would get told. Though now at this point I've done
1:23:42
Speaker 1: it hundreds of times over and I've I've learned, just
1:23:45
Speaker 1: like this real simple thing that the worst thing that's
1:23:47
Speaker 1: gonna happen is I get told now, and and that's
1:23:49
Speaker 1: not a big deal. Um. So I've I've just gotten
1:23:52
Speaker 1: used to like getting rejection through asking landowners for hunting permission.
1:23:56
Speaker 1: But it makes it so much easier. So someone who's
1:23:59
Speaker 1: like not stoked on the properties they have access to
1:24:02
Speaker 1: or thrilled about, you know, the public land in their area.
1:24:05
Speaker 1: And of course it is the thing that's easier said
1:24:07
Speaker 1: than done in a place where white tails are an afterthought.
1:24:10
Speaker 1: In the West, where I'm at, it's probably is gonna
1:24:13
Speaker 1: have the same success and to stay like Michigan or Indiana. Um,
1:24:17
Speaker 1: but like, just just go seek out permissions, like write
1:24:19
Speaker 1: some letters, knock on doors. The worst thing that's gonna
1:24:22
Speaker 1: happen is now. And the more you do it, the
1:24:24
Speaker 1: easier it's gonna get to the point where I have
1:24:26
Speaker 1: an unreasonable confidence that I can roll into a state
1:24:29
Speaker 1: like Wyoming and and find some permission at two pm
1:24:32
Speaker 1: and then kill a deer at five pm. Yeah, I
1:24:37
Speaker 1: love that. I just have to disagree with one thing
1:24:39
Speaker 1: I always used to agree with you, and I used
1:24:42
Speaker 1: to say the same thing, that that the worst thing
1:24:44
Speaker 1: that can happen is that you'll get a no. That
1:24:46
Speaker 1: was always that was always the line I told myself,
1:24:48
Speaker 1: The worst thing it can happen is that it will
1:24:49
Speaker 1: stay in because it's already a note to start with, right,
1:24:52
Speaker 1: But that all changed this year when I had knocked
1:24:54
Speaker 1: on the door for permission and got the caught the
1:24:56
Speaker 1: cops called on me, So you know it could be
1:24:58
Speaker 1: a little bit worse. Man. Yeah, that's that's an extreme
1:25:03
Speaker 1: I haven't experienced quite yet. Yeah, that'll that'll be a
1:25:06
Speaker 1: podcast for a future episode down the road. And that
1:25:09
Speaker 1: was that wasn't This is technically a little different because
1:25:11
Speaker 1: I wasn't asking for hunting permission. I was asking for
1:25:13
Speaker 1: tracking permission. Um so, slightly different, although seemingly a smaller request.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: Um So, I gotta love those suburbs of Washington, d c.
1:25:22
Speaker 1: Um different kind of different. I think points still remains
1:25:26
Speaker 1: just like, put yourself out there. Um, I think you'll
1:25:29
Speaker 1: be surprised at how many folks just like don't get
1:25:33
Speaker 1: asked for hunting permission on their property. And you may
1:25:35
Speaker 1: be not the first, but the first person in a
1:25:38
Speaker 1: couple of years and Uh, there's there's some amount of
1:25:40
Speaker 1: charisma you had that the last four people that asked didn't.
1:25:44
Speaker 1: And now you got a new five acre spot to hunt,
1:25:46
Speaker 1: and it'll be like a thing that you, you know,
1:25:49
Speaker 1: may have relationship now for the next decade and in
1:25:52
Speaker 1: a new place to go look for white tails. Yeah,
1:25:54
Speaker 1: totally totally worth taking the shot for sure. Uh. Well, guys,
1:25:58
Speaker 1: I appreciate taking the time to recap this to share,
1:26:01
Speaker 1: you know, your thoughts and your lessons learned. And I'm
1:26:04
Speaker 1: glad you guys did well. You carried the show. Thank
1:26:06
Speaker 1: you for getting four kills for our week in November.
1:26:09
Speaker 1: Uh Clay managed one there at the end that I'm
1:26:12
Speaker 1: sure we'll get to discuss at some point. And uh,
1:26:15
Speaker 1: you know you're your friendly host the Wired Hunt podcast
1:26:17
Speaker 1: here I blanked. So glad you guys supported me and
1:26:21
Speaker 1: carried me through. Uh. Any last thoughts, any last things
1:26:26
Speaker 1: you want to make sure people look for. Make sure
1:26:28
Speaker 1: check out the Mediator YouTube channel. Folks should be out
1:26:31
Speaker 1: this week. Uh it's either out today or was out
1:26:34
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago. There's I'm a little confused
1:26:36
Speaker 1: about when it's launching. It's gonna be out there this week.
1:26:39
Speaker 1: At some point. The first episode of the show will
1:26:42
Speaker 1: be November six, and then because we hunted for seven
1:26:46
Speaker 1: days or seven episodes, so seven weeks of content every Tuesday,
1:26:50
Speaker 1: they's gonna be coming out and by the series should
1:26:53
Speaker 1: be wrapped. I'm glad you know what's going on. I
1:26:55
Speaker 1: thought it was coming out Thursday. So either way, by
1:26:58
Speaker 1: the time this episode drops, the show will be available. Yeah,
1:27:01
Speaker 1: that's all that matters. Well, it's gonna be good stuff, guys.
1:27:03
Speaker 1: I've seen the first episode. It's strong, it's fun, and uh,
1:27:07
Speaker 1: I think people are gonna enjoy it. So thank you Tony,
1:27:09
Speaker 1: thank you Spencer, and let's put a bowl on this one,
1:27:14
Speaker 1: all right, and that's a rap. Thanks for listening. Appreciate
1:27:18
Speaker 1: you joining on this one. Like Spencer said, be sure
1:27:20
Speaker 1: to check out episode one of one weekend November on
1:27:23
Speaker 1: the Meat Eater YouTube channel. I hope you enjoy it,
1:27:26
Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired.