Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 701: Top 4 Lessons Learned from Mark & Tony's First 2023 Kills

Transcript

Ep. 701: Top 4 Lessons Learned from Mark & Tony's First 2023 Kills · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: the show, we're breaking down the top four lessons you
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: can take away from me and Tony's early twenty twenty
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: three success in the stories of our big buck kills.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcasts, brought
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: in which a portion of every sale of our Whitetail
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: cameo goes back to support the National Dear Association, which
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: is pretty darn awesome in my opinion. And this week
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: on this podcast, I'm joined by my good buddy Tony Peterson,
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: and Tony and I have some good news to share
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: with you today, two pieces of good news. In fact,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: good news number one is that Tony and I both
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: killed buck bucks this past week. So we are coming
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: to you as successful deer hunters with insights a plenty.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: And Tony, if you think you are up for this,
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking both of us should share our story and
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: then break down some very specific lessons learned and some
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: ideas that folks can take from our success, take from
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: our experiences, and apply in their own seasons over the
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: next few weeks. Does that sound doable?
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: Sounds good to me, buddy?
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: All right? So that's good news number one, good news
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: number two, and you can jump in and add some
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: color to this, Tony. But the second piece of good
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: news is that if you are listening to this podcast
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: when it drops during the week of October second through
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: October eighth, the good news is that it is white
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: Tail Week at Meetator. So that means everything at Meetator
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: is white Tail focus this week. Not just what me
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: and TONI are doing, not just what our buddies Tyler
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: and Case are doing, not just what Clay sometimes says
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: he likes to do. We're talking like everybody at Meetatter
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: has been forced to pay attention to the best game
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: animal in the world, the white tail Deer. We've got
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: a new episode of one week in November coming out
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: on YouTube. There's all sorts of white Tail articles over
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: on themeeteater dot com. There's a new buck Truck episode
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: coming out with a white tail hunt. There's gonna be
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: white tail themed trivia.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: They've even got a meat Eater podcast that's gonna be
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: about white tails. If you can believe it, Tony. I
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: barely believe it, Mark and I know it's great. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: then there's also gonna be like a big buck scoring contest.
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: Every day you're gonna have to guess the score of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: different folks deer and you can win prizes. All sorts
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: of stuff going on across the first slight social media
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: FHF Meeta mine yours, there's I don't know. It just
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: seems like we're gonna have more white tail content, stories, tips,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: ideas stuff than like I've ever seen, which, as far
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: as I'm concerned, is pretty darn cool.
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we've been we've been trying to drag those Bozeman nights,
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: kicking in, screaming to the to the white tail side
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: of life. And it's like sort of finally starting to happen.
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I'm gonna call this a win. I'm gonna
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: call it a win man. Yeah. And there's also they're
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: gonna because of all this, they're gonna throw some nice
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: discounts and some of the white tail gear too, So
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: some of our white Tail camo, our favorite white tail
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: pieces will be on sale from like thirty to forty
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: percent off. So if you're trying to pick up any
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: last minute stuff, there is the sale to and I
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: think three hundred and fifty bucks. If you spend three
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: hundred and fifty dollars, you get a free Sanctuary muff.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: So there's that. That's the second part of my good
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: news Tony is Whitetail Week. So that all said, I
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: do want to rewind back to story number one, which
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: is you kill the big old buck. I killed the
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: big old buck. We kind of know what we're doing finally.
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Huh man, I'll tell you what. It just felt good
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: to get out there in September right away and just
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: get after them. Like I think that that window is
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: so good. I mean, like almost comparable to the rut
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, and people just don't believe it,
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: but man it, I don't know. It worked out for
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: us anyway. It was. It was fun.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: I love early season. I might I might almost like
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: it more than the rut. Sometimes I can convince myself
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: that I might like it better during the rut because
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: like you know, you and I We've been watching our
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: One Week in November episodes revealing them and stuff, and
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: like having to relive those seven days when you're like
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: in the tree for twelve hours and don't see a
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: deer or something like. Those days sometimes are brutal, But
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: I never have days like that in the early season,
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: like you know what the deer doing. You can pretty
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: well depend on certain things. You don't know if you're
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: going to see, like the deer, but if you've done
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: your scouting, if you've done your work, you can be
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: in them. And it's just something you can you can
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: operate with, like information that you can do smart hunts with.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: I just love the fact that I was talking about
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: this on this trip. I was just on I love
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: when you go learn something, whether you observe something or
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: see something while you're scouting or whatever. You get a
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: puzzle piece and you know like, oh man, I have
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: it now, Like now I just need to a couple
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: things got to fall in place. But like you're on
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: a hunt where you've got that feeling like this is
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: a serious hunt, like this is a kill set. Those
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: days are the best, and they're so like early seasons
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: like d time for those kinds of days.
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: I feel like, dude, I think you know, when we
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: talk about the rut, you're like, Okay, I got to
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: go find that pinch point, that terrain trap, and I
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: got to ride it out. And so, like you said,
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: with one week in November last year and just just
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: general rud hunting experiences, it's kind of across your fingers endeavor,
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: Like you know, it's just a different kind of thing,
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: and it might deliver unto you like an amazing hunt,
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: or you might get a lot of days in a row.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: They're just not good. And I just think the work
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: that you can do preseason and the decisions you can
• 6:14
  Speaker 3: make in the first you know, maybe four or five
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: six days of the season opener are like the work
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: just translates to success better. Like you can you can
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: set yourself up in a way that you know you
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: kind of can for the rut, but not as consistently.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: I think that early season, those that first window is
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: just amazing.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now tell me this. Would you agree that generally
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: the tactics that work when we just killed our deer.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: We killed our deer in September kind of midish mid
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: to late September. The general theme of the approaches we
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: took are basically applicable through most of October and then
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: even most of December, with with like the specifics of
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: the kind thing you're hunting changing a little bit, but
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: the general approach is pretty much the same, right.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you know, figure out those pieces of the
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: puzzle and get in there at the right conditions.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so I say that in that like what
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: we're going to talk about here in the next couple
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: of minutes. You know, anyone listening could take these ideas
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: and apply it to a hunt on October fifteenth, or
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: apply it to a hunt on October twenty second, or
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: apply it two hont December fifteenth, just you know, remove
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and insert whatever the appropriate food sources or whatever the
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: appropriate betting area is or whatever. But that's what I
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: want folks to keep in mind, like, use this as
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: a template for how you can apply this to your
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: own hunts. And I think with that said, Tony, do
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: you want to kick us off like by walking us
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: through you know, the whatever relevant parts of your story,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: help us understand how you killed this year and this
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: was this was Minnesota.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Right yep? Yeah, man, I you know, the last couple
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: of years I haven't had the chance to do a
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: lot of September hunting because we've been the filming schedule
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: and whatever. And this year I knew I was going
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: to film right out of the gate, and so, you know,
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: I worked with my buddy Eric, and we hang a
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: lot of stands and do a lot of scouting and
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: run a lot of cameras. And this summer was just
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: like we knew we had one farm that had no
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: beans on it. I had a little bit of hay,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: a lot of corn, a lot more hunters, and then
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: one farm that should be you know, kind of like
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: a sanctuary with with a bean field in there, which
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: was so we kind of played it two different ways.
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I kind of looked at it like I have one
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: farm that's almost like public land, but there's good deer there,
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: so you're gonna have to get in right away and
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: hope it doesn't blow up and wait for those conditions
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: to get right on the other property that had the
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: beans and people probably wouldn't be in there. And I
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: ended up playing that program and I literally saw I
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: ran into four bow hunters opening day out there, you know,
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: and this is a private farm, and you know, so
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: you're like Okay, this is this is going to die
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: real fast. And I had big deal on camera and
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: the whole kind of summer deal, but I knew and
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: then I actually had a really good encounter. I think
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: it was the second morning of the season, you know,
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: like one thirty type eight pointer and then another pretty
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: good ten pointer with him coming through. They got to
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: like sixty and so it it. It was one of
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: those deals where I was like, man, you can set
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: yourself up so well and learn something like you said
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: and get close. But that part of my hunt just died,
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: like with those people coming in there and going in
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: the way they did. Like I'll give you an example.
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: So we kind of called an audible opening night because
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: the night before I was glass and and I saw
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of deer in the corner of this
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: alfalfa field, and I thought, if we don't go in there,
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: those deer will be blown out by whenever, you know.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: So I go in and sneak in on this fence
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: row to get all the way back there and really
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: take my time and go quiet, pay attention to the
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: wind and everything. Get in there, don't spook any deer.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: Setting up a natural groundblind because this spot doesn't have
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: much for trees, and I look and two guys come
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: walking straight through the field that we avoided, you know
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: what I mean. And so you're just like, you play
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that game and go okay. If I was only hunting
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: that farm the by day three, I would have been
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: into the cover hunting those deer staging. But I had
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: this backup spot that I could go to, and the
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: wind wasn't right for the first couple of days, so
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: it kind of worked out for me. And then the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: wind got right and I got to move in there,
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: and I went in right for the biggest deer. There's
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: a there's like a one sixty that's like somewhat consistent
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: in there, and it was things were set up well,
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: but I had a dough and two fonds come in
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: right away, and then I had a house cat come
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: in and those deer would not. I don't know if
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: you've ever had this experience. I've never had a positive
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: experience where a cat walked in where the deer were.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: And the worst part about it is, you know, if
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: a coyote runs in, they're gone, right, They're like, I'm
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: not a cat. They're like, I think I can take
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: a cat, but I don't want to like it. Yeah,
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: so they sit and snort and stop, and this cat
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: spent a lot of time right in front of my stand,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: and these deer were on, you know, on edge, and
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: then finally everybody kind of spooked and the cat walked
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: down the field and later you could just hear deer
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: snorting at the cat like it was just working its
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: way down and so you know just still like, well,
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: it's what you realize is you know, like you said
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: that the early season stuff, you have so much confidence.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: So when you go out and you know, you run
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: into those dudes walking through the field or you have
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: a cat come in and screw up your hunt, you're
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: still like, I just need to reset and you can
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: still like you still want to go and you still
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: believe you have a chance, and you're like, but you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: your options start to dwindle a little bit, but you
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: like that confidence if you've put in the work is
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: so huge, Like it just it keeps you in the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: game in a way, like you know that you can
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: you should have during a rout hunt, like you should
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: have that during ratcation because it can happen at any moment.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: But you know how it is like you go do
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: an all days sit and you blank. It is hard
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: to believe that tomorrow is your day.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: He gets in your head real quick.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's like it's like over the counter
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: el hunting, Like when you have three days of that,
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: you're like, why am I not fly fishing or doing
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: something else?
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, yeah, but.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: You stick with it.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: So I got to ask you to rewind this a
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: little bit and give me a little bit more context
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: as far as the scouting, Like what pieces of the
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: puzzle did you bring into this? You mentioned you glassed
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: the night before, but what else had you figured out
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: leading to the hunt that gave you all these different
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: ideas of where to hunt? What were you working with first? Stuff?
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: And then I'd like to hear like where you saw
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: those big bucks that second morning or whatever. I'd love
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: to hear like what that setup looked like? That almost worked?
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So the farm that I was hunting where I
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: killed my buck that has the beans on it has
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: very limited cover. You know, you've got I think it's
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the whole thing's two hundred and forty some acres and
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: it's you know, you might have forty acres of cover
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: everything else's field, and so it was a lot of
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: trail cameras in the summer and a lot of glass thing.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: And what my buddy and I found out was most
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: of the places we put trail cameras and most of
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: the places we could see where we could safely set
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: up in glass, we didn't see any good bucks, but
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: we knew they were in there, and so we ended
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: up having a camera in one spot we couldn't see,
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: and when we checked that camera, that's where they were.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: And so it was kind of like you know, pre
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: fish in a tournament, you're like, okay, we're eliminating dead water.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Even if I check this and I check that and
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: I don't catch fish, I know I don't need to
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: come back there. That's done. And when you're dealing with
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: a mid September opener and you have a bean field,
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: even if it's you know, it was in three stages, right,
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: it was brown, yellow, and green depending on where it
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: was or you know, how low high, whatever, you know,
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: there's a group in there somewhere, like there just has
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: to be. And so we were like, why aren't they
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: on this camera? Why can't when when we sit here
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: and we glass, why is it scrappers and does. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: then you find that location and you go, okay, well
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: this is like tucked away, it's close to water, and
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: it's just got the right stuff. You know. I had
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: a bunch of acorns falling, and so it was really
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: like kind of frustrating scouting and checking cameras until that
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: and then you're like, okay, now we know. And then
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: you think those deer in velve it, they're they're hanging
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: tight there. When they go hard antlered, some of those
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: deer are going to move to these secondary spots. Some
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: of these deer are going to spread out, but they're
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: going to be on the farm. So you're like, as
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: long as I know they're there and I can hunt
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: them right there and then and just over the field,
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: you know, over the ridge in the field to this
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: spot and this spot. It just it just gave me
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: a chance to go, okay, I have plan ABCD whatever
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: as long as is you know, the wind does this
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: or the wind does that. So that was kind of
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: the setup to it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Okay, And most of the stuff was like, is that
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: big alfalfa field the central food source? Is that right?
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: Soybeans?
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: Sorry? Yeah, for sure, big bean field? And then there's
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: cover around it, and you're trying to figure you were
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: trying to fare where this deer coming into it, and
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: that's going to tell you where you think they're betted?
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Were you able? Was there an access way to get out,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: you know, without spooking out that bean field? Like how
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: are you dealing with the whole exit situation?
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: It was, so there's not a good way to get out,
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: So you go, my first sit here is the best.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: Then I leave and I can go to the other
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: side and it's like a first sit again where you
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: probably didn't blow those deer out. So it was kind
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: of strategic, right you go. When the wind got right,
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: I go into the spot I think has the biggest
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: deer in the most dear that blows up on me.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: Then I go, Okay, now I got to move to
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: the other side, and I'm going to have one to
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: two first sits there depending on what the wind does.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: And you know, I mean the wild card to that
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: property and to most of my hunt. I don't know
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: if yours was the same way. It probably was was
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: the acorns. I mean, the amount of deer that we
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: had that were kind of giving up on the beans
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: and staying in the woods eating acorns, or even when
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: they get to the edge, they were eating acorns in
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: the field. Was it was a bigger factor than I
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: planned for, and it it became obvious real fast.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, so you were hunting mornings. You do that.
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: I know you hunt mornings on these trips, especially even
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: September October. Can you tell me about that morning setup
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: when you saw those two good ones.
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So this, I'll try to explain this so people
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: don't fall asleep. But there's one hundred acre field on
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: this property. It's fifty acres on one side, fifty acres
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: on the other side, and there's a waterway between them.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: The whole thing is corn. And on the neighboring property
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: is a soybean field. And so I know a certain
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: amount of deer are going to feed in that those soybeans,
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: and they're going to come back onto my farm to bed.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: I also know I can park three quarters of a
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: mile away from that soybean field, walk down a county
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: road and then cut through that waterway and get in
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: there and nobody's gonna know you. Now, opening morning, I
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: got caught getting in somebody was already back and I'm
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: assuming it was a buck and then you know that's
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: just the day. That's like the risk you take in
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a morning hunt. But generally my idea was they're going
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: to just pick their way along the soybeans and or sorry,
• 17:26
  Speaker 3: along the corn and then cross that waterway in front
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: of my stand because there's a few cottonwoods in there
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: and it's money. I mean, the whole thing that makes
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: that spot hum is the access, which is you know,
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: early season mornings are like that's so important. So it
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: wasn't like I was like, I'm going to kill a
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: booner here. It was like, I have a very safe
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: way to keep hunting multiple times as long as the
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: wind doesn't really switch bad for me. And those bucks
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: came through. I actually watched a couple other deer go through,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: and then those two big bucks came through together and
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: where they went off to, I assume to bed. I
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: went after him that night, thinking they might come out
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: where h where I had a spot on top where
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I had a blind. They didn't come out. I also
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: found out there was a kid in there still hunting
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: all over, which really didn't didn't help my cause any
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: But that that's set up because of the access and
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: because of where you know, where they should have been feeding,
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: which is where they were. It allowed me to hunt
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: mornings very safely.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I love that kind of setup, that standing
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: corn with a waterway through it, Like they love that
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: grassy stuff in between standing corn, or like a even
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: with like some sparse timber kind of in that any
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: kind of finger that goes through standing corn that's kind
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of brushy or something.
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Sign me up, like well, yeah man, And you you know,
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: you think, okay, well they're eating the beans, they're picking
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: some soybean, or sorry, they're picking some acorns up. You know,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: they might be pulling down some of the corn because
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: it's kind of at the milky stage. But really, when
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: you look at those situations, the amount of browse pressure
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: in there is wild and that's you know, it reminds
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: me of like a soft edge in the big woods
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: where you're just like, it's not like a definitive thing
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: that they're feeding on or that I could name, But
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: they do come back there and they will kill time
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: in daylight just nibbling here and there. For sure.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: For sure, a setup like that factors very strongly into
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: my hunt as well.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: But didn't didn't you fill that tag in the morning.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah I did. I did, so, so tell me about
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: how you filled your tag. Let's let's fast forward to that.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: Tell me about what the setup ended up being, Like,
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: how did you have killing this deer? So you had
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to move to the other property?
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: Right? Yep? So that morning, that was the fourth morning
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: of the hunt, and I actually went in and sat
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: that water waist a stand again because the wind had
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: switched almost one hundred and eighty degrees, so I thought,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: I thought it was still going to be safe, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I thought I might pick something up. It was not
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: good for me. I blew it out, I'm sure, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: it was it was my last chance whatever, So I
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: didn't see That was the only time I blanked, didn't
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: see anything. And then that night I was going into
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: that property with the beans on it. I had two
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: stand options, and I was going to go to a
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: stand that I hung pretty close to where I killed
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: that first deer on one week in November in the
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: first season, because it's pretty isolated and it's just like,
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: I'm like, there's going to be a big deer there,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: right just it just the odds are But I had
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: a stand I had to go past on the way
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: there that's in one of those kind of a waterway
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: deal again with some trees on it, where you only
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: have about an acre to hunt on this property and
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: the rest is this wooded acreage that I can't hunt,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: but they feed up through there, And so I thought,
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: my idea is, I'm gonna go to the farther stand
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: unless I see something that convinces me to sit that
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: waterway stand the closer stand. And as I'm walking in,
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: it's just the amount of acorns they had been eating
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: on that edge, and every overhanging tree had a scrape
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: under it, and then you know, you know how it
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: is where you get into bluff country. The top of
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: that field is totally dry, on the opener, totally brown.
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: Then it transitions into yellow beans, and then in the
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: low spots it's green still and lush. And I looked
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: at the little bowl that that waterway comes out of,
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: and it was green and like vibrant summertime green, and
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: I thought, I can't, I can't walk past this. There's
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: it's just there's too much going on here. And so
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: I had a decision to make where I could have
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: just followed the edge of the woods around to this stand,
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: but my scent would have blown into that woods. And
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: so the trade off was go straight through the beans,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: where I'm gonna leave a lot more ground sent but
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: probably not get winded by anything bedded in there. And
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I kind of hemmed and hot on it, and I'm like,
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna go straight down through the beans because at
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: least if they get there and they win the you know,
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: they pick up my central, I can shoot them, shoot them,
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: and so go in, get into this stand. It's nice.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's like you're looking around, You're going this
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: is set up. Well, I'm not gonna get busted. The
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: wind's real good for me. And I'm sitting there and
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not seeing anything like and it's getting later and later,
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: and I'm looking out on this gorgeous green bean field
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: and finally a deer comes out in the corner that
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: I can see maybe seventy eighty yards away. I pull
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: up my binos and I see this rack come up,
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: and I told, you know, we're filming. I told the Max.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I was like, that's a good buck. Get ready. And
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: so I can't see past him because he's standing up
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: to film. So I'm like dying trying to look around
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: this tree I'm in, and I see this deer getting
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: closer and there, you know how it is like when
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: you look when you're above a beanfield they've been feeding in.
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: They'll be rows that they just use, like they looked
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: like a highway through there. And there was two of
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: those parallel and going through my shooting window and I
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: look in a little like four to six pointer is
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: coming in and he's filming it and I'm like, yeah,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: that makes sense, and I see the bigger buck behind,
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: and so I'm like, okay, I got to watch this
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: buck to see when he hits my centrail and what
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: he does, because he's gonna get there first. And he
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: hits this centrail and like a lot of young bucks,
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: you know, you see him kind of working it out,
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: and then he follows it right into our tree and
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: I'm like, this is not good like this this is
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: this is gonna be real heartbreaking because now this buck's
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: like forty thirty five and I can't shoot. But he's
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: getting he's following this lane that's going to take him
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: to twenty nine and I'm watching him and he's he
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: hits my centrail and stops, and I'm like, I can
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: shoot right here, but it's tight. And I look over
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: and the canvas pointed down at the four ky and
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: I'm like, Max, you got to get on the big one.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: He didn't even know it was there. He did, He
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: had no clue it was there, and so he switches
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: gears and then by then I'm just melting down, you know,
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: And I'm watching this buck and I go, Okay, if
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: he turns in this spot, I can kill him. Right,
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: he's twenty nine yards, he'll be broadside. I can kill him.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: And I'm I'm starting to talk myself into it because
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: I'm like, he's not going to walk past that centrail
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: the way that little buck did. Like he's he's thinking
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: about it differently, and I kind of talked myself into it.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Well he's spun around and I'm like, okay, now he's
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: gonna leave. And so I drew and I had a
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: kind of like crouch shoot, and I mean, you know
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: how it is like when you when you're aiming at
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: a deer after you've been watching it a long time,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: Like I have this thought process in my head because
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: I'm watching my pin go from like his nose to
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: his ass and back and forth, and I'm like, you
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: gotta you gotta get your act together, buddy, And I
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: got that pin settled and shot and it cracked into
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: him and that deer took off like a freaking rocket like,
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: and I was like, I think it went right into
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: the pocket, you know, right into his heart. And it
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: ended up actually hitting him through the front shoulder a
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: little bit and busting through to the It didn't go
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: through the backside, but it got close. It broke a
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: rib on the far side, so he ended up only
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: going like one hundred yards. But you know how it
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: is like when you have enough experience shooting deer, Like
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: for me, when I hit him like that, if I
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: don't see him fall, I immediately start to second guess
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: and go negative and like, oh my god, I screwed
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: it up, Like yeah, I didn't get the penetration I
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: wanted or whatever, And it actually just worked out really well.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: So it was pretty freaking sweet.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Man, beautiful, beautiful sight when that all comes together. So
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: what are the what are the two big takeaways or
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: lessons learned that we can pull out of that.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: One man again? Like I know I say this a lot,
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: but options, like you know, we've I've been hunting you know,
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: I've hunt like ten days this season, and I've had
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: east winds like four or five days, you know, like
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: I've had things that I don't typically plan for. I
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: plan for a little bit, but not a lot. And
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: it just reminded me the same thing with the morning sits,
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: where I'm like, I know I'm gonna sit mornings when
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: I'm doing these hunts. I didn't give myself as many options,
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: and I kind of tried, but I needed to give
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: myself more options. And I'm always reminded of that, Like
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: you you're gonna build a plan and you're gonna say
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: I'm killing this book here on the beans opening night,
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: and then the wind sucks or it's pouring rain or something,
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: and you're like, Okay, what am I gonna do to
• 26:38
  Speaker 3: make the most of it? And so for me, it's
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: always I don't ever give myself enough options, Like I
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: don't think I could even when I feel like I'm
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: super prepared. So that that was like a big takeaway
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: for me, like you've got to do better, especially if
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: you have the time and you you know like you
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: can do it, like if it's if it's like a
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: traveling public land hunt or something it's a different deal.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: But this wasn't and I didn't. I didn't set myself
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: up as as well as I should have, basically, and
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of us do that. We kind
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: of settle for good enough and do the other thing
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: that I'm just I get reminded of this, I don't
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: know every three, four, five seasons is do not walk
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: past really good sign like do.
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: Not so hard not to want to see like what's
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: around the next corner though, or if you had like
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: a plan to get to point A, you know, it's like,
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: well I was gonna go to point AH.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it's hard, and it's because we fall
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: in love with our ideas. But the reality is you
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: have to have like a loose framework of a plan
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: and you have to have options, but you also have
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: to be like smart enough to go I'm looking at
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: this right now and I should not walk past this.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: And I you know, I did this probably like five
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: years ago in Oklahoma and killed a buck one time.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Like I just on this one, I was like, do
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: not go beyond this, just stay here and give this
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: a sit because everything is telling you that this will
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: be a good spot tonight.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Now. Remind me I remember you said, like at the
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: bottom of this low spot there was the really green
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: beans and there was acorns dropping two right, yep. What
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: else was making that spot? Was it just those two
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: things happening at the same place that made it so
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: dynamite or was there something with like was it really
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: tight to where you thought they were bedded too, or
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: anything else that made that like the spot?
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so. The way that this this side of the
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: field is positioned, the sun is setting, you know, beyond you,
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: so you're not in the sun all night like you're
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: you're in We were in shadows and it was hot.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I mean it was mid seventies, I'm sure, and the
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: sun was blazing away. But when I walked in, the
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: difference in temperature between being in the sun on the
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: top of that field and just dropping into that hole,
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: it was like relieving. And so you're sitting there going, man,
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: if you're a deer out there, even summer coat deer
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: that are going to be bedded close, they're going to
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: pop out here earlier and probably be it wasn't the
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: first day of warm weather, right, so they they were
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: probably like this is the place to be where it's
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: just more comfortable and so that that was a factor too,
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: Like where we were set up wasn't that far away
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: from a trout stream in the bottom of the valley,
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: so it was like a little micro climate. It was
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: just cooler than the other side of the field.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Man, sounds pretty that's pretty nice. I get it.
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was. It just it worked out well.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: It's a good feeling. It's a very good feeling. So
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: how would I walk through mine? Then? And then you
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: pressed me on some questions as I go through this,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and then I've got a couple of thoughts kind of
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: takeaways that I've thought through on this deer too. So
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I was in Wisconsin, as you know, and had some
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: like weird changes in travel things that I had to
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: do that I kind of found out late this summer
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: early fall in which led to me having to change
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: my hunt plans this fall a little bit. I was
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: going to do a different thing Wisconsin, and then as
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: you know, we had some work stuff and all of
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: a sudden, I was like, WHOA, I need to rethink this,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: which led me to try to find like what other
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: options I had in Wisconsin where I could hunt someplace
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: with a very short amount of time and maybe have
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: a chance to kill a dough or a little buck
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: or anything like that. And I thought, man, Doug Duran
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: has always said I could come hunt around him someday.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: I know there's deer around there. I'd love to spend
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: some time with him. I want to get McAll and
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: see see what he you know, what he thinks. So
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: long story short, I gave Doug a call, and I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: couldn't hunt his farm because he has other people to
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: bow hunt that. But he does have another farm in
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood that he helps manage, and he has this
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: program called Sharing the Land, which is very cool for
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: folks if you're interested in trying to find access to hunt.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: He's got this program that connects landowners that want help
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: on their property with access seekers like hunters who are
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: looking for somewhere to hunt, and basically connects them and
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: in exchange for doing some work on the farm, doing
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: some conservation work, you can get access to hunt. And
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: that was basically the program I was going to go through.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: So in exchange for me doing some chores in the
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: farm at Doug's place, I was going to get permission
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: to hunt this other property in the area. But that
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: said I'd never been there. I'd never seen it before
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: going in cold, so just did a bunch of e
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: scouting leading up to it. It looked like a good spot.
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: It was. Imagine like a two tiered property. There's a
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: large plateau that had a bean field on top, and
• 31:44
  Speaker 2: then there's the surrounding ridge that runs around like imagine
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: like a half circle. Imagine so the top of the
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: half circle like a double decker cake, like a double
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: decker wedding cake is what it kind of looks like. Right,
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: So you've got that top part of the wedding cake
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: that's smaller bean fill up top, and then on the
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: side of that, you've got a wooded ridge line with
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: points extending off of that, which on on next showed
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: like there's a bunch of oak trees and stuff in
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: there and all these points that come off something and
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: oh man, there's definitely got to be deer beded off
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: of these points leading up to that standing beanfield and
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: at the bottom there's standing corn and so that's what
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: the property has.
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: So hold on this. This is like a very typical
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: kind of bluff land set up right where top and
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: bottoms of egg and anything that they can't run a
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: tractor on is going to have the cover in it?
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, And it's it's something where I've not really
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: hunted that kind of bluffy stuff before. My stuff in
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Iowa has some topography like that, but not quite like this.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And then I hunted, you know that one other time
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: I hunted Wisconsin with Tom Inderbout it was a little
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: bit like this, but this definitely felt a little bit different.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: I got there was like it was bigger than I
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: had hunted in the past. So one of my questions
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: coming into it was thermals, Like how much are thermals
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: going to play into this? I assume they would play
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: into it, but like throughout the whole week, I was
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: constantly thinking to myself, Okay, is the wind gonna win
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: out here or is the thermal gonna win out here?
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: And which do I trust more when trying to make
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: a decision. So all that said, coming into it, I
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: thought to myself, well, the beans should still be green.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing that's going to be a top food source still,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: So I imagine some evenings around those beans will be a
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: good starting point. Hopefully I'll be able to see something,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: see where they're bedded, where they're coming out and make
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: some moves. And then I thought, I'll hunt some mornings,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: but I'll hunt down on the standing corn side. There
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: was like a waterway that comes through that standing cornfield
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: and then goes up into like a wooded brushy look
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: and draw, and there's a creek that runs through there,
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: and then that kind of extends up to the side
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: of the cake, the wedding cake, and then extends up
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: to the top of the cake. So like this is
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: the connection point from the bottom of the wedding cake
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: up to the top of a wedding cake. So I thought, like, man,
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: if there's going to be a dynamite like morning location,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: I bet you deer transition through there in the mornings
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: and you could safely get to it because I could
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: come through that standing corn or through the waterway and
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: get set up. So I pinned a spot along that
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: brushy waterway for a possible morning location, and I pinned
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: a couple of different ideas up on top along the
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: beans for some evening starting points, and that's all I
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: had to work with that first night. We got there
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: kind of late because I had been in Minnesota doing
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: a fishing camping thing leading into this, and so we
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: got there like already too late, some kind of rushing.
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: And so the short version of what happened that first
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: night is I thought, with the wind and with the map,
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: that I could hunt this northeast corner of that bean
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: field and see to where I thought the two best
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: betting points might be. I thought i'd be able to
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: see deer come out of that, so I headed that direction.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: And then what I've discovered was that this field is
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: one of those fields where it's like high in the middle,
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: but then it drops off, you know, steeply on either side,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: so you actually can't see most of the field. And
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: so it was one of those nights where it got
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: very still as I'm walking out there, and so by
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: the time I kind of realized, oh crap, Like when
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: I got to the area, I was interested, when I'm
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: like realizing I can't see very much at all. I
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: also am realizing it's late. Everything silent, like every step
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: I take is making a ton of noise, and we're
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: already running out of time. And I've got a cameraman
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: with me, who you know, isn't used to setting up
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: in the saddle. I'm like, this is already feeling like
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: a disaster. I can't I'm stuck. I just felt stuck.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: So I felt like I just needed to get in
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: a tree here and cut my losses and you know,
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: maybe see something to learn something. But I was not
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: happy with the situation and it didn't pan out well.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: I saw a few doughs, had a few doughs whin
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: me that came behind me, and that was it. It
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: was like a lost night. So the next morning, I'm like, well,
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Then that evening, I'm like, Okay, you made a mistake.
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: You I got too far into a situation and you
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: did not learn Like I realized. I need to step
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: back and get back into learning mode because that situation
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: did not at all play out the way. So I
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: needed to reassess. I need to figure some stuff out.
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: I gotta get some eyes on things. So I'm gonna
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: do two things today to reset myself. I want to
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: have a couple really really smart hunts versus like a
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: bunch of these blind hunts where I'm not, you know,
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: knowing what I'm getting into and they're not well set up.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: So the first thing I decided it was that I
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: was not gonna hunt. That first morning, I wasn't gonna
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: go and blind to a spot and set up in
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: the dark, like I originally thought I might. Instead, I
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: was going to figure out a way too smartly scout
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: and locate a good betting located or a good morning
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: hunt location, and set something up that I'll have ready
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: for the next days hunt. The second thing I was
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: gonna do is that I was going to find an actual,
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: really good observation stand and hunt in a spot that
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: I don't think I'll actually kill a deer that night,
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: but where I can see stuff and really learn. And
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: I would rather sacrifice that night's hunt to have two
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: really good smart hunts after that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: So how many days did you have to hunt this place?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: I had four evenings and three mornings, Okay, so that
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: which ended up being four more, which ended up being
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: four evenings and two mornings.
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you but that's a there's a good lesson
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: there in that even with a very very short amount
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: of time, you still go. I'd rather scout and set
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: myself up correctly then take a gamble just to be hunting.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: And I think a lot of people don't like I
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: think that's very hard for a lot of people.
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And it was I mean it was even hard
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: for me, like and I, but I realized like after
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: that first I was like, you got too you got
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: too greedy, Like I pushed in it. I thought like
• 37:41
  Speaker 2: I want to get into where I thought that good
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: stuff wasn't. Yeah, I was able that night, Like laying
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: in bed, I was thinking this through and I had
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: this whole debate with myself. It's just not worth it,
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: like I would rather sacrifice all of tomorrow if I
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: can learn the right things, you know, yep. And so
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: I was sitting and trying to think, like how do
• 37:58
  Speaker 2: I figure out where I could hunt morning without screwing
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: it up? And I got to thinking Doug drives around
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: his farm all the time on his side by side,
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: drives around his farm, likely drives around this other farm
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: because he helps manage it. So I got in touch
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: with Doug and I said, hey, Doug, do you drive
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: around all the time on your side by side doing
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: farm stuff? And He's like yeah. I was like, all right, Well,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: would you be willing to drive around doing your farm
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: stuff like you usually do today? And can I ride
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: with you? And if I ask you to stop somewhere,
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: will you just stop and sit there parked with a
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: cannam riding or still running, and let me set up
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: a tree, and he said, yeah, let's do it. So
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: this was like the secret to my success. I knew
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: that that draw looked awesome. It was thick and brushy
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: and there's all sorts of betting all around it. But
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: if I were to walk through that on foot, every
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: dang deer around there would see me, smell me, hear
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: me something. But I decided to take a calculated risk
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: and drive in there on this path that Doug has
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: that he goes riding around and often, and we ride
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: in there. And one other thing I learned. As I'm
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: telling him about how I'm interest in this draw, he
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: mentions that there's apple trees in the area. So I
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: asked them where are these apple trees? I said, well,
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: there's one right here, right next to this pathway that
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: I was interested in checking out. So right away, I'm like,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: that sounds great. We definitely have to check that out.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: So we go do that. We drive over to this place.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: I have all my stuff. I've got sticks in my
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: saw and platforms and stuff to go and prepar tree.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: We drive in. We get to that apple tree right away,
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: I see it's loaded with apples. They've been hammering it,
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: and I look around. I'm thinking about what the wind
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: in thermals are going to do, and there's one tree
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: that seems like you could be in range and the
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: wind would work. And you're kind of downhill, so if
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: the thermals are dropping in the morning, it would drop
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: into the standing corn and I could probably get away
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: with it. So he stays in the canam running. I
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: hop out, sneak over to that tree, hang a set,
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: trum out a couple shooting lanes, slip back down to
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the rig. We drive out. That's all set for the
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: next morning hunting this spot where this apple tree is
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: in that waterway connecting to like a thick alder thicket
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: that leads up that creek bottom and up into like
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: an amphitheater on the side of that cake. So that's
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: the morning plan. Feeling good evening, I go back to
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: that bean field, but I find the one high spot
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: where I can actually get up top, and I can
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: from this This is the only place in the whole
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: field where you could actually seed down to the points.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: So get up in a tree. Six something o'clock. All
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: of a sudden, deer start coming off of those points.
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: So imagine like the edge of that top tier of
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: the wedding cake. There's these points that extend out, and
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: so each one of these there's two big fingers of
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: beans that extend out to those points, and groups of
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: deer started popping out into those two points. Last thirty
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: minutes of daylight, a group of bachelor or a group
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: of bucks comes off of one of them, several young bucks,
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: and one of them is like a big giant, and
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: the big giant comes working this way down the edge
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: of the timber and right towards the last light gets almost,
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: you know, within like one hundred some yards of me,
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: and then it ends up being too dark. I wait
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: till they leave, slip out of there, and then my
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: plan the next day is to hunt the apple tree
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: in the morning and then make a move on those
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: bucks that next night. So in the morning, I was
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: gonna hunt the apple trees, and I was gonna shoot
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: the first door I saw, because the one thing Doug
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: did really want was that, in addition to farm chorices,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: he really wanted me to shoot a dough. They're trying
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: to manage the deer population out there because of CWD concerns,
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: so that was also part of my duty. And so yeah,
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: got in there early that morning, was able to get
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: you great access along that waterway to get up into
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: this tree. Didn't spook any deer. Got up half hour
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: after daylight or something. Here comes a dough smoker. The
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: weird situation with this was that, you know, I shot
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: the dough double lung. She ran off from the thicket.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: I could hear a crash. Seemed like all right, great,
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: I figured why I sit here a little while longer
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: in case of buck comes along, and then I'll pick
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: up the trail. So, you know, maybe an hour hour
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: and a half after that, I get down the tree
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: pick up the blood trail. I'm a slow blood trailer,
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: as you know, because I've got the red green color
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: deficiency issue. So it probably took me a half hour
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: forty five minutes, maybe more than that to get to
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: the end of the blood trail. But the blood trail
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: kind of petered out right around where I thought that
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: she should be dead. So I'm standing around looking for
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: don't understand why I can't find the blood, and I
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: kind of take a few steps back and then I
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: see a dead deer in the grass, but it's like destroyed,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: like it's all eaten up. And I say, like, man,
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: that's weird. It's a dead deer. It's not mine, though.
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: I walk over, yeah, and I'm looking at it and
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: I'm like, that can't be my deer. But it looks
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: fresh and like the meat looks really fresh. But I mean,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: like the rim meat is gone, the whole one half
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: is completely opened up. The stomach's out, the intestines are out,
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: the front cores in the back corse eating, the backstraps eating.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: And it's only been like two some hours since I
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: shot the deer, and I still am like, there's no
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: way this is my deer. And then I flip her
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: over and I see the exit wound right behind the shoulder.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: And then I walk back. I'm like, oh, here's the
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: blood trail leading right to her. And I'm realizing, like
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: holy smokes, like within like two ish hours, this deer got.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Devoured so that you didn't hear the oats on there.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: I didn't hear a thing, and I was less than
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: one hundred yards away, Tony. Wow, that crazy, yep. I
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: mean you saw the picture, I think. And then they
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: really got to her, So that was bad luck. But
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: I felt good that the setup worked. Good good shot,
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: great dough. I felt good at least Doug it has
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: one less dough in his property, and we were able
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: to submit the head for CWD testing all that kind
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: of stuff. But that was like a big day. When
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: did my farm chores mid day that day to to
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: take care of that part of my obligation. That evening
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: made a move on those bucks. The wind was like
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: I couldn't have asked for a harder wind to try
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: to make a move on them, So I was kind
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: of limited what I could do. But I made a move,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: got as close as I could and hoped that the
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: thermals would suck my wind down this draw behind me.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: And the long story short on that is that just
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: didn't see him. I saw a few dos, but the
• 44:32
  Speaker 2: bucks didn't show that night. Whether that's because I screwed
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: up in some way or just they weren't there, I'm
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: not sure.
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: Do you think they knew you were there?
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: I don't. If I had to put money in, I
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: don't think so. Like my wind for most of the time,
• 44:46
  Speaker 2: not that an airant little swirl couldn't have done it.
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: It's possible. They definitely did not hear me or see me.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: The only question is if the wind, because the wind
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: was like it was very it was like a light
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: and variable wind was basically what I had, and so
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: I wanted to get tight, tight to where they came in,
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: but because of that wind, I just didn't think I
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: could safely do that, so I stayed back. I was
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: maybe still like one hundred ish yards or so away
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: from where they came out from the field, but I
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: was right at the top of like a little draw
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: that was right behind me. So my hope was that
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: this light and variable wind would drop my wind down
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: beneath me and then they would be coming from the
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: side and they wouldn't smell me. And just didn't happen.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm not sure why, but uh, that was that night.
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: So my game plan was there's a big rainstorm coming
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: through overnight and into the next morning, and I thought was, well,
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna make another move on these bucks tomorrow night.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I've got a slightly different wind. I'll get really aggressive
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: because my last night, but let's go hunt that apple
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: tree set one more time. It's dynamite. The rain came
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: through all through overnight HOPEU that washes away any scent
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: that we left, and when we were in there getting
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: our deer, it just seemed like a really really good
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: location was worth a shot again. Next morning, thunderstorm, pouring rain,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: get all suited up, walk out in there, just kind
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: of in the trench, downpour, hike into the tree, and
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: my thoughts are supposed to die off about half hour
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: forty five minutes after daylight, the rain's supposed to stop,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: and then you know, hopefully get lucky and something will
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: be moving up.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: When that rain passes through.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: Half hour after daylight or whatever it was, the rain stops.
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: I look up and there's a big giant buck walking
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: right up that water right towards the apple tree, and
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: my winds dropping down perfect just like still dropping down
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: the thermals kind of cutting off to the side of
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: where he's coming, dropping into the standing corn, and he's
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: paralleling where that wind's going up that waterway heads right
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: to the apple trees, and he's got another buck with
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: him and kind does the same thing that dough does,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: except for the dough moved up to the front side
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: of the apple tree, but he was on the backside.
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: So it's a forty yard shot, took it and got him.
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: Shot was a little back. He went off. Then some
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: rain came in after the shot. So then I started
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: getting really paranoid because I'm like, man, the SHOT's back
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: plus rain, it's gonna be a hard one to find.
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: But fortunate Doug had a front with a dog with
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: a dog said yeah, I love too. If you have
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: any questions and you can use a dog, I always
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: bring a dog to be safe. And so that was right,
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: that was the right call. We waited, you know, the
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: necessary time on a on a hit back and came
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: in that evening. The dog led us write to him.
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: How far was he?
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: How far are you run?
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: I think one hundred and twenty yards as the crow flies,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: but I think as like the track took it like
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: he took kind of a he went. He dropped in
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: that same creek bottom and then did one loop and
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: then died in the creek. And I think the track
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: was like one fifty or one sixty or something like that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: How much did it weigh in your mind knowing that
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: you'd shot that dough just before and she got eaten
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: up real fast to take a shot, you know, forties
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: of polk and you know you've got rain, and like,
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: was it in the back of your mind, like you better,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: you better get this right.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: So I'll tell you in the moment, I wasn't thinking
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: about any of those things. In the moment, I was thinking,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: holy smokes, here's a buck and it had stopped raining
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: and it was supposed to be done raining. So at
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: that point I thought we were safe from a rain perspective,
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: like it was zero percent from there now. So what
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: I was in that moment when that buck came in
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: he came to the back of the apple tree, and
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: his running buddy didn't go to the apple tree. The
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: running buddies start heading into bed. His heart headed into
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: his cover. And so when I saw that, I'm like,
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: he's gonna follow his buddy any second now, Like this
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: is gonna be my shot. I I just remember thinking,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: like I don't think he's coming closer, and so forty
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: is my max range, Like I don't like to shoot
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: past that on a deer, and uh, but he's a
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: big body deer, and I'm just thinking I can do that,
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: And you know I didn't. I didn't twelve ring. He
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: kind of did a little you know, he started to
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: turn a little bit, and I pulled a little bit,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: and those two things combined put it. I thought the
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: hit might be the back of the liver or just
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: behind it, and that's what ended up being. So when
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: I really got stress was after the shot, because after
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: the shot then like then this extra rain came through.
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: I'm like, ah, I hit the deer back, and now
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: there's this rain, and then there's those coyotes, Like I can't.
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: But what I came down to is like I'm thinking
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: about all these things that I'm thinking. I'm worried about
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: coyotes getting on him, but I just you can't push
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: a deer like that that's hit in that place. Like
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: if I go in there now, there's a very good
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: chance I push him and I'll never find him. If
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: I wait the appropriate amount of time, I should find him,
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: and hopefully I'll find all of them. Maybe I won't,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: but at least I know, like I didn't push him
• 49:48
  Speaker 2: away that that seemed to me like the only way
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: to guarantee i'd find him. The other way would be like,
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: very likely I can mess it up. And so that
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: was the judgment call I made, And unfortunately he was
• 50:00
  Speaker 2: in perfect condition. No coyotes got on him. He died
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: in the creek, and so the creek you know, kept
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: him like perfectly cold and cool and great, like the
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: meat was with one hundred percent great. So so yeah,
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: all of that worked out. Awesome, He's got dropt time,
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: he's got a sticker off of G two, very cool
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: deer two. So just awesome.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's a neat buck man. So what did you learn?
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'd say the two things are this number one.
• 50:31
  Speaker 2: You kind of address this early on the value of
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: scouting more than hunting, Like that was the key to
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: my success was taking that day too and saying, you
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: know what, I just need to learn. I just need
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: to figure this out right now because right now I'm
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: working with zero pieces of the puzzle. I need to
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: sacrifice the day of hunting to get some puzzle pieces
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: and to prep something and make sure I've got, you know,
• 50:55
  Speaker 2: something that's well planned. That's that's uh. I just blind hunts,
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: uninformed hunts are worthless. You're just counting on luck and
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: most of the times you're not going to get that.
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: So I'd much rather sacrifice a day like that to
• 51:11
  Speaker 2: get two or even one. Just good days. And so
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: that was the key I was going in there that
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: day and and doing that midday scout and prep prepping
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: that location in there, and and then even you know,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: even if I didn't kill that buck that morning, I
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: think that the work, the things that I learned through
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: the evening probably would have led me eventually to killing
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: a buck up on top, maybe two if I had
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: a few more days, because I feel like I was,
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: you know, learn a couple of key things that I
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: needed to with that observation set as well. So that
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: was that was the most important thing, I think, glassing, observing,
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: doing little prep work, doing that scouting work. That's the ticket.
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: Was that buck, the one you saw on the beans.
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: So I haven't seen the footage, so I don't I
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: can't stay it with one certainty, but I'm ninety six
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: percent sure like it matches up usually as I remember them,
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: Like the frame is the same for sure. I feel
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: like I remember seeing like a funky thing off the
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: main beam on that evening buck, which would match up
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: with the little drop time on the buck I shot.
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: So I would say ninety six to ninety seven percent sure.
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: I just haven't got to confirm it with a view yet.
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: It was just it was low light, you know, in
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: the evening hunt, so when he got close enough, so
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: I just didn't see him well enough to be certain certain.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: The second thing is just the importance of never being
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: so set in your ways that you're not willing to
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: break your own rules. So, as you know, I'm usually
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: not an early season morning guy. At least I used
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: to be like a never. And then over the last
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: ten years, I've gradually you know, fifteen years ago, when
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: I was basing most of my hunting off of what
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: other people said and what I learned from other people,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: that was like a rule I wrote down because so
• 52:54
  Speaker 2: and so said it, and so and so and said it,
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: and so and so said so said, Okay, you can't
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: hunt early season mornings because they're too risky and it's
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: not worth it. And then over the last fifteen years,
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: as I've gotten more and more and more experience of
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: my own, I've slowly learned that, you know, there is
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: a reason why those are risky and maybe not always
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: a great call, and maybe some places it doesn't set up.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: But at the same time, there are other situations where
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: it's worth that risk, or where there is the right access,
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: or where there's the right situation that it can work.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: And so in this kind of scenario where you don't
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: have a lot of time and you had something you
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: could access, like, heck, yeah, hunt it. There's no reason
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: not to try, especially when you had good in and
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: out access the way I did, and not a lot
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: of times. You've got to take advantage of the opportunities
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: that you do have. So so thank goodness for my
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: evolution over the last five to eight years on that one,
• 53:43
  Speaker 2: because I would have missed out on a great opportunity
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: if I had.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it's you know, I mean there are
• 53:49
  Speaker 3: situations obviously where people can't do it or you shouldn't
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: do it, but to go into a new property or
• 53:56
  Speaker 3: even to take some of the properties we think we
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: know and just be like there's no way. I mean,
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: with the way things change and crop rotations change and
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: logging and whatever else, like, there there are opportunities out
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: there that you should be looking for. Maybe you won't
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: find it, like maybe it just doesn't exist on your farm,
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: but it probably does, or like there's there's maybe a
• 54:15
  Speaker 3: better chance than you think. And when you find it
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: like that, I mean, that's like, that's a great opportunity.
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: And that's that's one of those setups like you're talking
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: about that might be good every day of the season
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: like that, that might be that good of a setup
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: where you could hunt that from opener until close every morning.
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to, but there are
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: situations like that out there.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. And you know that's another thing going back
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: to like not assuming something just because of like what
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: it should be. You know, I think I might have
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: ten years ago I might have said, well, there's no
• 54:51
  Speaker 2: way I'm gonna hunt that apple tree again, because I
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: was in there yesterday, I shot a deer, I walked
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: through it. It's gonna be all mucked up every and
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: the nation knows about it. I shouldn't hunt that spot again.
• 55:04
  Speaker 2: But I took a calculator risk, and I said, well,
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: I really liked the spot and I had rain. I've
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: also seen enough times where like one time one time
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: in Ken screw it all up. Yes, Also it doesn't
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: always you know, the buck the year after might have
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: been a mile away, or he might have never been
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: through here. And so I did think about them, like
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: is this stupid to go in here and try this again?
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: And I said you know what, I've trust in the
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: spot so much and I think the rain will cover me.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: I think it's worth it. Ten years ago, maybe I
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: would have said, oh no, it's write it off, move
• 55:37
  Speaker 2: on somewhere, do something different. So that's another one where
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: like you got, you gotta be willing to sometimes go
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: outside of what the pros tell you.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: I guess you know, well, and when you're when you're
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: in a situation. Man, I've been running a camera on
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: this new property by my house here on an apple tree.
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: And I don't I don't hunt apple trees hardly ever,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: Like I just don't really have the opportunity. But this
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: has been an eye open and you know, you think
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: about you go in there and you shoot that dough
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: and there's coyotes in there, and you guys are in
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: there and the whole thing, and then you get that
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: rain and you go, okay, well, I've got kind of
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: a blank slate to start over here. You also have
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: the reality that those deer absolutely know that that rain
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: is knocking down apples, and if you have a downpour,
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: you typically have some kind of frontal wind with it
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: at some point that might help you knock down some
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: more food. For them anyway, and so it's it's not
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: just as there might be more going on than just like, Okay,
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: our scent's probably gone. So we kind of get a
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: redo on this spot, which is a gift. But you
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: also have the reality that those deer live out there
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: every day and they know certain kind of weather conditions
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: come through, and there's a whole bunch more acorns or
• 56:42
  Speaker 3: apples on the ground, and that can work in your favor.
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but there's definitely
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: some truth to that. And yeah, I don't have apples
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: anywhere else at Hunt, but you know, it seems like
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: any the couple of other times I've been on other
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: propers where they did have them. If you happen to
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: catch it on a year where like you have the
• 57:00
  Speaker 2: apples and it's it's like an isolated apple tree, it
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: just seems like they have a really hard time resisting that.
• 57:06
  Speaker 2: Like ice cream, stand back and cover.
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: If you have it, you're just gonna check it, I mean,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: they just I mean how to check it?
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: This just I mean, I couldn't have written up a
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: much better kind of location for a morning kind of
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: transition spot. It just right away jumped out like everything
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: you want. You've got the safe access and you've got
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: it on the edge of this betting. You've got the
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: apple tree isolated back that were far back in there.
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: Some mean, it's just it was sweet, and you know,
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: it worked out.
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: Well, and you have the benefit of the crop rotation,
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: having beans on top to send those deer down to you,
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: because a fair amount of them are going to be
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: up there at night and you know where they're going
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: to start. That would have been a different hunt for
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: you if it had been corn on the top and
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: the bottom. Probably yeah, I mean it still might have
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: been good, but maybe not that good.
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it would have would have made my axis a
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: whole lot harder, that's for sure. I would have had
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: to figure out a way to come from the top
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: somehow and work my way through all the bedding down
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: to the edge of it would been a much trickier
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah it worked out, and yeah I learned
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: some stuff from it, and it's fun to see it
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: coming here.
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: So let me ask you this about that the post
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: shot deal with that buck. Are you are you to
• 58:18
  Speaker 3: the point now? Because I remember, like when I was
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: growing up, Maybe it's different for you being having red
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: green color blindness. But like when I was growing up,
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: like I'm like I love blood trailing, like it's so exciting,
• 58:28
  Speaker 3: like my dad would shoot one or I'd shoot one,
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: like I loved it. Now I'm to the point where
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: I'm like, if I don't see him fall, I almost
• 58:36
  Speaker 3: hate it. Like we had a situation. I was just
• 58:39
  Speaker 3: in Wisconsin with my daughter and she shot a little
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: buck and that I actually saw it hit, Like we
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: watched the footage. I was like, this deer is toast
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: and that deer did stuff on that blood trail that
• 58:52
  Speaker 3: I was so frustrated and it took me like two
• 58:56
  Speaker 3: hours to find him and he was maybe maybe made
• 58:59
  Speaker 3: it like one hundred and twenty five yards, But I
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: remember just being like I don't like blood trailing anymore.
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: Like I'm not I'm not enjoying this at all, Like
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: I hate the uncertainty and the second guest thing. I'm like,
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: I just want them to freaking I want to watch
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: them tip over from here on out.
• 59:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm almost to the point where I'm only gonna
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: take twenty yard shots where I guarantee like a hard shot,
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: just because of that very reason, Like i just want
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: to see them go down because to your point, like
• 59:25
  Speaker 2: it's so stressful and in the tiniest like the margin
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: for error is so tiny. I mean, I kept thinking
• 59:32
  Speaker 2: about on this book, if I had just been like
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: when I looked to the shop, you give me two
• 59:36
  Speaker 2: and a half inches, and it would have been double
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: lung shot, and that deer, like no questions asked, is dead.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: But I mean just that it's not much. It's like
• 59:45
  Speaker 2: a finger length and that is gonna make the difference
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: between me having a good, miserable day of stress or
• 59:51
  Speaker 2: right away high five and and stoked. And so it's
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: just I mean, the tiniest little thing. It can be
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: a little mistake on your own, or you could do
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: everything perfect and the deer move, or a little gust
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 2: to win, or a little I mean, all these little
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 2: The fact that we ever kill any dear tony, I
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: think is a freaking miracle. Dude. You know, there's so
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 2: many things can go wrong.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: It's so true. And the thing that I mean, this
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: happened to me twice. It happened to me on my
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 3: buck and happened to me on my daughter's buck. Where
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: I thought the hit was was like four inches from
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: where it was, and that that didn't it didn't really
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: change anything on my buck, but on hers, it changed everything.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: Like I wouldn't have just went out there to go
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: find it, Like I walked out there way too cocky,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: and I was like that deer is toast and I
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: brought one headlamp, you know, just dumb, like he's gonna
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: he's gonna be right here, like I watched it, He's
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: gonna be right here. And then you know, an hour
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: into it, you're like time to go back to the
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: truck and get real lights and think this through. And
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: I just remember thinking, like God, why is this so
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: freaking stressful? But it is?
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, If that's there's a huge takeaway right there
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: for this episode too, like always always be cautious and
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: conservative with these blood trails, because yeah, I've had so
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: many that I've been over confident with too, and they're
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: just always tougher than you think they're gonna be. And
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I'm just lucky in this case, like with this deer.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: You know, we had footage and the luminac showed me
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: very clearly where I hit. But if I hadn't waited,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: like if I did not do what I did, yep,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: I think it would have been a really hard dear
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: to find. So very glad that I waited. Very glad
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: I didn't go walking around and mucking stuff up, because
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: like the dog with zero interference was able to go
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 2: right to them easiest pie. But if I had tried
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: to go walking around, I don't see blood well, so
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have seen the little blood that there was,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: and I would have messed up any cent trail for
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: that dog later in the day.
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: So how long did it take that dog to find it?
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: Hmmm? I think probably was twenty minutes, thirty minutes, But
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: it was like the only reason why it took even
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: that long was because we were like literally crawling on
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: all fours. It was so thick, so we had to
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: crawl through like this hell hole to get into where
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: this deer was running around or walking around. But I
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: mean the deer, like I mean, the dog never once
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: had to be pulled onto a different trail and never
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: once had to be led somewhere different, Like he just
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: got on it and walked it right and we could
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: see blood here and there along the way that he
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: was on this trail the entire time. So I bet
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: you could have found the deer in five minutes if
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 2: we hadn't had to be like crawling around. Yeah, the
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: oh man, I mean so incredible, and I'm just glad.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: Like one of my best buddies has a tracking dog,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 2: and so we would just often, like, no matter what
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: the shot on a deer was, we would have him
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: come out to train his dog. And that has just
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: gotten me to the point where, like I'm not stigmatized
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: by like having a dog out there. So now I'm like, hey,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: if I have a question at all about the blood trailer,
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: if I didn't see him go down, and I've got
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: a buddy with a dog around or something, I'm gonna
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: get him out there because why not. And like it
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: was so the right call in this case just gives
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 2: you so much more confidence too.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: My eyes, dude, they're just so much better at it. Yeah,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: like orders of magnitude better at it.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 2: Night and day. Although I do love like when there's
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: a you know, like a paint can spray it all
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: over the ground kind of blood trail, I do like
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: following one of those, but uh, those seem to be
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 2: less frequent than we wish.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: They don't happen every.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Time, No, they don't that dough that I killed. I mean, like,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: great shot on her and her blood trails crap. Even
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: though it was, like, you know, almost as good of
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: a shot as I could ask for. I'm just like,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: why why isn't there more blood? You just don't mean
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: they're just weird, You just never know. So well, buddy,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 2: I uh, I'm gonna say we wrap this one up.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: I think we've got some good stories we will share,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 2: We've got some good lessons learned, We've got some good
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 2: things for you and me to keep in mind for
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 2: the rest of the season. And I've got another opening
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: day hunt coming up here. Well, when people listen to this,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: my hunt will have already happened. But from us recording it,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: we're like five days out from opening Day in Michigan,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: which I'm very excited about. So let's do another one
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: of these soon. How about that?
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: Definitely? Well, good luck there in Michigan, buddy.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you YouTube man, thanks man. All right, and that's
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: a wrap, folks, thank you for tuning in. As I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: mentioned at the top, if you're listening to this between
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: October two and eight of twenty twenty three, make sure
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: you head on over to the Mediator dot com or
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: first light dot com to check out Whitetail Week, all
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: sorts of new content, all sorts of good deals, all
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: sorts of love for our favorite big game animal, the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: white tail deer. So that all said, appreciate you being here,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks for being a part of this community. We are
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: in it. This is the best time of year. Get
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: out there, folks, have some fun hunts. Best of luck
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: to you, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.