Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #183: Dan Kills, Mark Chokes & Other Rut Stories

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #183: Dan Kills, Mark Chokes & Other Rut Stories · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number one three
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: anton the show. Dan and I are recounting the highs
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: and lows of our rut hunting vacations. One of us kills,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: one of us blows the best opportunity of the season,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and we both share a lot of stories about the
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: most exciting, stressful, maddening, thrilling, and ultimately marvelous times of year.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: to you by Sitka Gear and Um. I'm sitting in
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: a hotel room right now, and sitting next to me
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: in the other bed is uh Josh further Hillyard and U.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: We were trying to get him on the podcast with us,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: but he made things difficult, so it's just me and Dan. Um.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: But that will be the only disappointment in today's podcast episode,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: because otherwise, well that's not that's not true at all. Day. Actually,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have some amazing stories of good things and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: then some soul crushing stories of bad things. Today is
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: today is h RUT hunting stories, just you and me
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: recap on our RUT vacations and uh, I don't know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: does that sound like something you're happy to talk about today? Dude,
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I'm ready to talk. I'm good at talking. You know that.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: You know, we're just talking about how you're also the
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: brains of the operation too. Right now, A lot of
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: people look at me and go, that guy is good
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: at moving stuff or like loading trucks, and and what
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: they don't know is the brains, you know, more brains.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You're the You're the You're the guy. Yeah, you're you're
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the goat. What have you have you ever seen the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: show it's always studying Philadelphia? Oh yeah, I love it.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: I love it where they have the conversation about no
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: no, no no man, I'm the wild I want to be
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the wild card. You're definitely Charlie in our group. I'm
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the guy who goes into the basement. Yeah, you have
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: one job in the last beat rats, Yep, that's you.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Oh man. So um, we we're gonna talk about the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: dear rut. Yea dear dear. That's right. I forgot what
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this podcast was about first. That's that's usually we talked about.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: Um okay, so so yeah, today, since you know we
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: are everybody really is in the midst of marathon hunting
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: right now. UM. Figured, rather than try to bring some
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: guests on, we should just talk about what we've been doing,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: because I know both of us have been the woods
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a lot, um and we both have a lot of
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: news to share. Um. But I don't know, do we
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: want to start with the good news of the bad news? Dan? Well,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. I got a lot to say,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: So why don't why don't we start with you. I
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: want to find out about this slipping through the fingers
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: thing that you mentioned. And uh, let's let's talk about
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: holy Field and your journey right now. But before we
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: do that, let's take a quick break to thank our
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: partners at Sitka Gear and Today, rather than sharing a
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: sick story like we usually do, I actually just wanted
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to give you a heads up about a video I
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: recently produced all about my own sick of gear white
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: Tail system. I get dozens and dozens of emails and
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: questions about, you know, what kind of sick of gear
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: do you wear, which items do wear it, which times
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: of year? Why do you like this piece? But not
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: that piece, etcetera, etcetera. Um, so I finally put together
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: idea that details all of that. So go to the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt YouTube page and you're gonna see there.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Um within the Wired to Hunt weekly playlist, you're gonna
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: see a video there that's titled reviewing my two thousand
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: seventeen Sitka Gear white Tail system. And in that I
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: go through all the pieces of clothing that I wear,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: why I wear them, why I like them, at what
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: times of the year I wear what, and a bunch
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of stuff like that. So check out out to learn
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: some more about what I'm wearing as far as sick
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of gear. And if you'd like to learn more about
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: sick of gear for yourself, possibly try some yourself, you
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: can go to Sitka gear dot com. And now let's
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: get back to my story. So the story of holy
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Field and where I am right now. Um, last time
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: we sat on the podcast, it was after the holy
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: Field question mark incident. Remember that, ye yea, So I
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: had continued hunting, you know after that date. I think
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: that day was, um that was Halloween. I think that
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: time we had the question mark incident. A couple of
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: days later to three days later. Um, I've been I've
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: been hunting, hadn't been seeing much, had started to see
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: some younger bucks chasing around things like that. Um. But
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: fast forward to I think it was November three, maybe
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: the third, November four, and I went back to the
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: same stand for the first time since I had been
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: their Halloween to that stand again. And this is a
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: morning hunt though, And around like nine thirty in the morning,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I look across the food plot into this area of cover,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: the exact same place where I had seen holy Field
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: on Halloween, where I thought i'd seen holy Field, and
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: actually a tast step back. There's a longstanding joke with
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: me and a couple of my friends that whenever I
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: take a leak off the tree stand, it attracts deer.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: So you know the story of six Shooter. I was
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: peeing and then he showed up and I shot him. Um.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: And then a few years later, I was filming further
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: hunting in Ohio and he's just cracking up over here
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: every time I say his name. Um, We're I was
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: filming him and it was like the middle of the day.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, man, I gotta take a leak, so
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna probably gonna have a big buck show up,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: and as I'm taking a leak off the tree stand,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: a big like hundred forty class eight pointer shows up. Um, well,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: that happened again. I'm taking a leak and I happened
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to look over my left shoulder and I see movement
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: in the brush over there, and I'm like, holy crap,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that's holy Field. Pulled up my buyos and he was
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: basically in the same place he was Halloween, but this
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: time he was heading the other direction. Um, and kind
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: of I just got buyos on him confirmed, like yeah,
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for sure that's him. And then um, I'm reaching from
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: my bow and grabbing my stuff and then he slips
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: back in the cover. I tried grunt, I tried snort wee's,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: but I could never see him again. He just disappeared.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: So I've now seen him in the same spot twice
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: and two hunts from this little area. So at midday
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: I went back to my house. I got a tree
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: standing sticks, and I decided to go in there and
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: hang a stand, so it'd only be a move of
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: like sixty yards just to the other side of this
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: food plot. Um but um, but I went hung ay
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: stand in there, and this is right on like very
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: near the property line. So I just have a very
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: small sliver of of of woods. It's a big chunk
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of timber. But I my property only goes into like
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: very like twenty yards in the thirty yards in there. Um.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: But he had passed on my side of the line
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: when he came through this two times. So I set
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: up in there for the afternoon hunt. Um, it's gonna
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: be a rainy day. So it started pouring rain and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: I was just underneath my tree umbrella trying to stay dry.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And UM, long story short, on that sit, I noticed
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: a doe coming across the field and she had that
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: look about her, you know how that that is when
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: she's kind of looking back over his shoulder, her tails
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: flicking and stuff. And I gotta be a buck, Gotta
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: be a buck. And then I pulled my binoculars kind
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: of scanning from the dough back behind her, and then
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: bam out of the tall grass, big rack and there's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: holy field. Yeah. And he comes out of this brush
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: and then bounces towards her and then they run across
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the way into some more brush. So that was another
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: quick encounter. UM. At that point, probably a hundred hundred
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: yards maybe something like that, but again on the neighbors.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Um and then they disappeared. So I'd seen him that morning,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and then I saw him that night, but it was quick.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Now um My hunted the rest of the night, pouring
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: torrential rain. The next day was going to be like
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: the mid sixties and thunderstorms all day. So I actually
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: took that day off from hunting, the first day I
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: took off after twelve straight days of hunting. Took a
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: day off to deal with some stuff at home and
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: just get caught up on some things that I had
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: not been intending to figure if I have to take
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: off a day, a day of crazy torrential downpours and
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: thunder stores will be the day do it. So it
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: took the day off. I think that was November five.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: So then November six comes back and I said, all right,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go right back to that same stand. So
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I go back in that morning to the new standard
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: hung and I don't know, an hour or two into sit,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: after seeing some young bucks bumping around and stuff, the
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: same kind of thing happens. I see a doe coming
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: across this sort of grassy brushy clearing, watching the dough boom,
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: there's Holy Field again, but this time he's kind of
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hanging back. He's maybe fifty yards behind the dough, and
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: the dough moves off and heads into the brush, and
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: then he kind of just standing on the edge of
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: this kind of brushy opening, looking around, and then he
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: starts heading my direction. And this is the first time
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: I got footage of him all year, the first time
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: I actually had time to get the camera on him.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: So I got some pretty good footage of him coming
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: across this opening, and he gets to within maybe seventy
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: yards maybe um, and then he turns to head north.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He kind of had been angling like he was gonna
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: come my way, but he didn't. He turned and started
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: heading directly away from me, sort of back towards the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: general area that Doe went. At that point, I grunted
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: once to him. He stopped and looked right at me,
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: look for a couple of seconds, and then turn and
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: started walking and continue the way he went. So I'm like,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: all right, well, let me try snort weeds, and I
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: snort wheezed. Once he turned, I'm trying to remember what
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: he did. He either turned and looked at me for
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: a half second or maybe he didn't turn at all. Um.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: All I remembered for sure is he bounced away. He
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: bounded away from the snort. We's um, maybe like two
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: three bounds, stopped turn and look back in my direction,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: and then turned back and then walked kind of rock
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: slash jobs straight straightway into the cover and disappeared. So
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: that was that morning. Man kind of bummed about that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: because I you know now that he he didn't like
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: something that came from this direction. So I'm thinking of myself, well,
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: it's probably unlikely that he's gonna come this way now today. UM.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: You know, he obviously does not react well to calling.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: I hoped that this year he might be even more
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: you know, that type of grumpy old dominant buck that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: maybe would react to the right way to that, But
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: he didn't. Um. You know, I tried calling to him
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of days beforehand, and I couldn't see his
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: reaction because he disappeared in the brush. UM. So I
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: don't know how he reacted to it, but he definitely
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: didn't come in. UM. And now this time I saw
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: him kind of spook from him. And now when I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: look back to last year, UM, I tried calling to
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: him at different times and and never had success either.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: So now I've kind of seen him ahead. Okay, he's
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: just not he's been there's too many other hunters around it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: He's here, he's heard too many things, he's had too
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: many bad experiences. I think I just don't think that's
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: gonna work on him. So I'm sitting there thinking about Okay,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I got changing his up tonight, and then um, I
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: happened to catch a little flicker off the discs pullt
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: my buydose. There's a dough. I'm looking at the dough
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and she's like it's it's like eleven thirty or noon
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: by now, and she's just kind of standing on the
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: edge of this cover. And you know, I feel like
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: whenever I see a dough that's not doing something on purpose,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: Like she's just kind of standing there awkwardly. Um, kind
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: of just looking around but not moving, not feeding. It's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: just that look of that this kind of looks like
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: a dough that's you know, with a buck. So I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: just started like meticulously scanning all all the brush around her.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: She's kind of standing the edge of I'm not sure
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: what this is. It's maybe it's like a like a
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: what do you call it ah shoot, Russian olive bush
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: or something like that. Is that a thing could be
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: something like that sounds good, it sound professional. Um So,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: she's standing by bush and and I'm scanning, scanning, scanning that,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: always seeing to see a little flash of light, and
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: I focus in my eyes there and then I can
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: pick out what looks like a curving hine. And the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: more I look at, I see a glimmer of white,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: and I see a flicker of an ear and then
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like this, Like it's like you're
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: looking at like one of those remember those books as
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a kid, these three D books where you look at
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: this image and then if you stared at the right way,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, this three D image appeared out
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: of it. Oh yeah, that's kind of what this was like.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You couldn't see anything, but if you stared at it
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: long enough and you kind of start picking things out,
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the silhouette of this rack appeared.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Um and I realized that it was holy Field bettered
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: there with this dough. This was about a hundred and
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: fifty yards maybe, And um so he's bettered with his
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: dough on a hundred fifty yards away, and I watched
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: him for maybe two hours, um, there with the dough.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: Every once in a while, he'd stand up, he'd take
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: a leak, he'd make a rub, he'd bed back down,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: he'd get up, he walked around in the circle, he'd
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: bed back down. Um. It was just really cool to
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: get to watch him in that kind of you know, setting,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and see relaxed, completely relaxed, just better doing his thing. Um.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: And then I'm sitting there debating, Okay, what should I
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: do tonight. Um. My thought process was, Okay, he's he's
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I think he's with this dough. He's gonna go wherever
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: this dough takes him. Um. But based on the fact
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: that he heard something over here this morning that he
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: didn't like, I'm thinking it's pretty unlikely he's going to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: come this way. But I can see him right now,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: so I don't really want to leave when I can
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: see him. But at the same time, I don't feel
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: great about his chances of coming this way. Yeah. So
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there thinking about all this, and I'm thinking
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that most of the activity I've been seeing in the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: evenings had been moving off to the west. So man,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: I got the freaking hiccups. I always had the hiccups
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: when we recorded podcast for some reason. I think it's nerves.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: You're still not used to this, that might be it.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: This is this is very nerve wracking for me. Um.
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking in my head, I think I want
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to move up to the far western stand up there
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: where most of my encounters of them have been. But
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: is that stupid to leave while I got eyes on him?
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Will end up help him make that decision because maybe
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: one one thirty, um, he got up and walked away
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: and went out of sight. Yeah, so at that point, okay,
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: I can't see him anymore. I don't think there's a
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: good chance of him coming over here because something spooked him.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And I think there's a better chance that if that
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: dough is gonna head in any given direction, I think
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: she's going to head towards the west, because that seems
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: to be where most of these deer transitioning out towards.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So I sneak out of that stand, sneak up to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: the front of the property to get into the new
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: tree stand, and within an hour of being in the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: new tree stand, I spot holy Field man um ketting
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: this way, and now he's not with a dough though
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: he seems to be back on the hunt, so he
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: lost that dough or maybe maybe I don't know, maybe
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: he wasn't even better with that dough. Maybe he had
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: better down. I just happened to see her, and because
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I never saw her after, like I saw her and
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: then I found him, and then I can never see
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: her again. I just could see him for the to
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: our period. Um. So I don't know what happened, but
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: he was not with her anymore. Um. But now I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: see him chasing a dough and then this other really
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: nice buck, um, this three and a half year old
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that I've been calling survivor um because I'm trying to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: will him to survive this year, like I'm trying to
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: make it a self fulfilling prophecy. Um. He was chasing
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: does and all these young bucks and they're all bumping
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: around this cover. This is back in that same cover
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: where I saw him all the time last year. Again,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: this is on the neighbors um, and I'm watching this happened,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: and then they disappear, and then it's getting I don't know,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: maybe it's an hour and a half four daylight, and
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: some doughs are coming out, and I noticed three doughs
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: walking in towards my stand, which is in this food plot,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: on the edge of this bedding edge of this bedding cover.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm watching three doughs coming in and like pressing
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: myself again up against the tree, making sure that I'm
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: as tight as as I possibly can stay hidden and um,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and then I catch a glimpse behind him, and then
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: out of the bra steps Holy Field, like sixty five
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: yards away, heading right into the food plot. I'm like,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: holy crap, here he comes. There's there's does in front
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of him. He's gonna follow these doughs in and it's
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: going to be the easy shot I've been hoping for.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: So I grabbed my range finder, make sure that's handy.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: I pulled my ball off the hangar. I'm getting already,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: and he's walking like he's gonna come in. And then
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: just before he gets out of the cover, he stops
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and he turns like a hard right turn and cuts
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: back into the cover and disappears into it and he
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: ends up. I didn't know this at the time, but
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: he ends up paralleling the food plot through the cover
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: and it pops up. There's another opening. I saw him
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: pop out and then it walks behind me sort of,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: but this is all neighbors property still, And then I
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: watched him, you know, yards, kind of angling back and
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: behind me, then cuts into this timber again and disappears.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: But I thought like, wow, this was really close. I
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: got the pump. I was excited. Um. But again, he
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: I think that those does just I think he was
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: found his dose and then realized that they weren't in
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: heat um, and then he moved on to go look
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: for some others. Yeah, so you think, yeah, do you
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: think that on your tree stand where you've been hunting,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: because you have limited tree stand locations on this property, right, so,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: and you're hunting a lot, do you think he's coming
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: through your area after dark and he's he knows where
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: your tree stand locations are at, and he just he
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: avoids them, not necessarily avoids the whole property, but avoids
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: your tree stand locations because he's got a whiff and
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: he knows that something could be over there, so he's
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: not gonna go check it out in daylight. Yeah. I've
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: definitely thought that a lot and wondered about a lot um.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I have this theory, and it's there's no scientific fact
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: to back it up up. But I have this theory
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: that deer, especially like mature bucks, well, mature deer can
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: use their nose to tell time based off of the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: potency of the scent that they smell. And and that
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: means like if they walk through an area and they
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: get a real stiff you know, ship something's close, I
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: gotta get out of here. Or if they catch this
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: scent and they're like, Okay, well it's not very potent
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and I think it's been you know, two hours or whatever.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: They you know, they can't tell time, but you know
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it's not it's not a threat, you know what I mean? Yeah, exactly,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: so yeah, So do you I mean, do you think
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: he's coming through after dark in somewhere in those locations?
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: So I'm sure he does. I mean, I get I
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: get pictures of him in these places. Um. And I
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: definitely have thought many times like this buck knows that
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting him, he knows where I hunt him at,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: and he's avoiding these araces. So I've tried to change
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: things up more and more. Um, but I'm just very
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: limited because I can't ever get eyes on him or
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: see him except four on the edge of this bedding cover.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: And the only places I can hunt him are like
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of trees. Literally, it's not even because again, um,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: the two spots up towards the front, there's literally only
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: three trees I can hunt from there. Um, I've got trees,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: and I've got stands in two of them, and then
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: the one of them is right smack down in the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: middle of those two. And um, would be tough to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: hunt with a given wind, because I can hunt one
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of these trees with a southerly wind, I can hunt
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: one of these trees of the northerly wind. The other
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: ones right in the middle. It kind of isn't good
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: for any wind because too many deer come out above
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and below it. Um. So so I've yeah, I don't
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: have a good solution at this point. You know. My
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: my hope coming to the season was that I would
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: stay out. You know, I didn't hunt it at all
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: all October, um, And I my hope was that, Okay,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: if I don't hunt this area at all until I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: going for the kill, you know, late October, then he
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: hopefully won't avoid it, and the does won't avoid it,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and I'll get the you know, he'll come in and
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: that just didn't work out. He didn't he didn't come
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: in at all, you know, during all of that period.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: But it doesn't sound like the deer are avoiding are
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: avoiding it, right, So do you feel that the the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: your access is good, the and and that you're the
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: pressure that you're putting on this property is uh, is
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: still what you would consider low? Not after, not after
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: what I've been doing here, not after this rup period.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I mean I've just been going. I mean I kept
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: as low as it possibly could until October, and at
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that point it was okay, now it's time to kill
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: this buck. And so I was hunting. Ever, you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it's go time. I told myself, I got to kill
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: him at this time period, otherwise I probably won't get
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a chance. So I've been hunting him hard and trying
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: to get in out as best as possible. But it's
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a tough place to hunt, it's tough ways to access
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: because of how it's set up with all these fields
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and the out side. Um So, so now I know
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I've made an impact, um but I'm still I'm minimizing
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: as much as possible. You know, I've I've created a
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: path that I can get into sort of in the
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: mornings to stay away from the fields. I get picked
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: up in the evenings by my wife on a four
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: wheeler or my pickup truck so that I'm not walking
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: out instead she spooks them off. I think those things
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: help me. Um. I mean it's it's definitely not as
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: bad as it would be if I was walking in
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and out on my own. But I'm sure you know,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: after hunting, you know, what is it? Today's November eight
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: or ninth, and I started hunting that property October, and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I hunted it almost every day since. Um, trying to
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: kill this stupid buck. Yeah, um, yeah, so so I've
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: been trying to change things up though. So you know
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I hunted. I hung this new stand this summer to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: hunt with southerly winds, so I've never hunted there before. Um.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen him from that stand this year yet,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: but I saw him from it last year when I
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: hung a hanging hunt there once. Um. And then, like
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I told you, after seeing him a couple of times, UM,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I hung a new stand and then I saw him
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: there a couple of times. From that. You know, I
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: saw him when he betted and all that that was
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: a new stand. Um. So where does it take us
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: to take us to? So we were talking about there
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: was the food plot night. He looked like he was
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: coming in, but he didn't. He paralleled and then went
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: to this other section that takes me to the next morning.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: So I've now seen him, um, two days in a row,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: morning and evening both UM. And now I'm thinking, okay,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I've seen him five times in three sits. It's all
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: in the same little tight area like a ten acre
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a little block. UM. But I didn't have a good
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: wind direction to hunt. Well, basically there's no good morning
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: stands around there either, um, because it's all field edge
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: source of or not all a dudge but relatively open.
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: But I had hung a new stand this summer UM,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: just for this kind of situation. Again, like I told you,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I've got a little bit of timber on the far
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: back side of this little core era of his. Um.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I usually don't see him in there this time of year, UM,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: but I knew it was in that basic neck of
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: the woods. Now this year I had been seeing him more.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: It's most of my encounters had been towards the back
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: this year, unied compared to every other one. So I
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: had this new stand hung back there. I thought, all right,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go back in there, even though he's been
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: up in the front, you know, last night, in the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: last two nights, I'm going to try here in the back.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll cruise through here in the morning. Um. It's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: tucked in back behind this food plot, maybe like sixty
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: yards into the timber from this food plot. And I've
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: got dough betting areas on either side of me, one
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: to the northeast, one to the southwest. Um, and I'm
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: back in the timber there. I thought there's a decent
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: chance I've seen something happen there. So this is uh,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Tuesday morning, I think, Um, and I get in there.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Good start in the morning, I see a survivor, my
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: three and a half year old chasing? Does I see
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: some two year olds chasing? Does year and a half
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: holds all over the place? Does running around? It's going
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: good until about nine o'clock. Um, and then nine o'clock
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: it just shut off. Yeah, from nine to ten. From
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: nine and ten it was really quiet, nothing going on. Um.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: From ten to eleven, really quiet, nothing going on. Um,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: But I'm sitting all day, and I should say that
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: all these days I've been I've been hunting all day. Um,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: so it's like eleven o'clock and as any of us
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: would do the middle of the day. Um, you know,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at my phone ever once in a while,
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, I hadn't seen anything in two hours.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I got my phone pulled up. I was reading a
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: book actually, and you know, I look at my phone,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: look up, skin around, looked down at the phone for
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a few seconds, look up, scan around. Um. But I
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: had stood up because you know, I've been sitting all
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: morning and my legs need to stretch, so I was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: standing up. It's kind of light breeze. And then my
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: head was right next to my ozonics unit because I
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: was standing, so I'm facing one direction and because of that,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: I can't hear very much looking at my phone. Look up,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: look at my phone, look up, and I hear a
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: twig snap behind me. I spin my head around to look,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and there's a deer at twenty yards away. But right
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: as I spin he turns and bounds away and starts
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: running away. Yeah, he saw me move. When I spun around.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: He was at twenty yards And I look at this
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: deer and I realized it was Holy Field, Holy sh it.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: I had holy feeled that twenty yards at eleven o'clock
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon, beautiful, perfect shooting lane, wide open, and
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: I was looking at my stupid phone and uh and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: he ran off and then he stopped like seventy yards away,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: turn and looked back at me and then started blowing
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: and then just slowly walking away below in the whole way.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: And yeah, I I was just like crushed in that moment.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Like he called further and said let's go to Ohio
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: pretty close to it. Um. Yeah, man, I was so
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: so so upset. You shouldn't be upset, because if you
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: were sitting down and had your head up and was
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: paying attention, dude, I have had dear literally make no
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: noise in certain scenarios. I take it the ground was
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: soft because it's been raining up there, and these deer
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: can come up underneath your stand and you you can't
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: even hear him. So it's not like you did anything wrong. No,
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, well, I mean if I keep I mean,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: you know, I try not to play the what if game.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: But if I hadn't been on my phone and if
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I was just scanning like I'm usually doing, I would
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: have seen him pop out of this cover behind me.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I would have seen him just walking across this wide
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: open timber, I mean, walking right towards me. Me. It's
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: you know, yes, it was a little bit unlucky that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that it happened to be the one time that I
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: was standing up, not being able to hear anything with
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the unit next to my head and kind of soft
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: ground and all these different things led to a situation
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, but it was it was just that feeling.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: And I had already been, you know, how I've been,
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: how I was last year, and how I am this year.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: This deer is kind of consumed everything. Um, I'm constantly
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: thinking about I was telling further the other day, UM
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that I'm waking up in the middle of the night,
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: like two or three in the morning, and I just
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: wake up and it's like it's like, where am I
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt? With a southeast wind? And then I'm like
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: and then I'm just sitting there literally like I wake
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: up out of nowhere. My alarm her wasn't going off,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: and it's not like cane at the phone and see
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: what time it is. It's just wake up. What am
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: I gonna do? Toda? Where am I gonna go what's
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: he doing. I mean, it's become like, um, just kind
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of and so I've put in so much work, so
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: much energy, so much time over these last few years,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and there it was like I had my opportunity. It
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: was right there. And because I'm an idiot and I
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: was looking at my phone and not focusing, I let
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: slip through my fingers and you know, I probably will
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: never get another. I don't know about this, but you
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: don't get very many second chances on a buck like
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: that where I'm at um. So I had a mental
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: breakdown at that moment. I kind of broke down, was
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: really really upset, and then um and then you know,
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: after like a half hour an hour of feeling sorry
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: for myself and being piste off of the world, then
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: I said, all right, well it is what it is.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: This is where you gotta, you know, show that this
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: is where you got to kind of take that mental
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: toughness and grit it out and pushed forward and move
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: on and keep at it. So I knew he wasn't
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: coming back to that tree stand that day, so I
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: pulled down, moved back to another spot again, the same
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: couple of spots I have that I can hunt up
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: towards the front of the property, and um, not too
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: long after there he is spotted at him again. Um,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and he's chasing does running around and then eventually it
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: looked like he locked onto a dough. And then for
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the rest of the evening, for another hour and a
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: half two hours, I'd watched him just like stand next
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: to a bush and then slowly walk around the bush
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: and then stand by the bush and then walk then
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: the dough would squirt out of there, and then he'd
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: followed the dough another ten yards over. And that's what
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: happened all night. He stayed back in that cover with
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that dough. Um, and that was that. That was That
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: was yesterday and um and meanwhile my buddies further and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: Corey had gone down to Ohio and down. I was
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: supposed to go down to Ohio with him, but I've
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: been pushing it off, pushing it off, trying to kill
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: holy Field, and I don't know, I just have been stressing.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: And then this happened and everything, and I was like,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: you know what, I just need to change of scenery.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I've been hunting this spot too much, even though I'm
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: seeing holy Field. I kind of just need to get
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: away from it for a little bit. UM. So after
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the evening hunt last night, I drove down to Ohio
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and uh hunting here today and just kinda recentering myself. Yeah, dude,
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you want to hear this or not,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: but I think you need to throw that buck a curveball.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: And I mean I mean something that is you don't
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: plan it, you just do it. And I'm talking about
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: sitting in a fence row on the ground or like
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: where he is all the time that's not in your
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: stand And it's one of those things where it's almost
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: like you have to have a conversation with yourself that's
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: am I am I willing to bust this buck off
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: my property with such an aggressive move or I could?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: You know, I call these you know, I call him
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: like hunts. Sometimes I go in and there's a chance
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: it works, or there's a chance I get busted based
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: off the wind, you know, a real hard quartering wind
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: or an access route or you know, all these things
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that we try to be so fragile with um that
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: go into the strategy of hunting these deer. It's you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it's time to take a risk on on one of
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: those factors and throw a curveball at him and make
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: him like I didn't expect that at all, because I think,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I think this buck has with the one up on
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: you right now from where where you are sitting on
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: your farm. I mean definitely at the front of the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: food or the front of the property. Yes, like I
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: basically and I basically know that. I'm just leaning on
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: the fact that one of these days, maybe I'll get
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: lucky enough that he's with a hot dough that he
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: just can't leave like he did that one time last year. Um.
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: But towards the back, I mean, yeah, I've got a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: little a few more options. He just doesn't come back
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: there very often. Um. But you know where I had
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: my shot opportunity was from a stand that I had
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: never hunted. Well, I hunted it one other time this year.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So the second time I hunted that stand and he
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: passed by, and then he passed by another spot on
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: my property twice that I had never hunted. It was
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: about sixty yards away from a stand ahead, but not
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: shootable from there. Um. So when I get back from Ohio,
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna stay down here for another day or two. Um,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: So I'll be back to Michigan here soon and I'll
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: have a handful of days before gun season. I am
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: going to just try some different stuff because at this point,
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I've seen him a half million times. I
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: know where I can sit and I can see him probably,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: but I don't really care about seeing him anymore. I
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: just want to shoot him now, UM, So the point
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: might as well try something that. Like you said, it's
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: either gonna not work at all, I'm not gonna see
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: him at all, or I could spook dear, or maybe
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: it could be the switch up that that will work.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna focus a little more on the back
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: of the property in the mornings. Um. I've got two
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: other stands in the back of these betting ears that
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: I have not hunted at all this year. I haven't
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: had a wind that I could hunt him with, um,
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: but I think I will have those winds coming up,
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna try Here's a here's a random question
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: for you. Are there other bow hunters in your area
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: right now? Yes? How close to you? Ah, I don't know.
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: I know there's one other property that has a crossbow
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: hunter that's uh probably hunting weekends right now. That's I mean,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: it's right next to the property, but from like the
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: core area that I see holy Field all the time,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of hundred three hundred yards from there,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: there's another small property that butts up to his little
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: core area that I think has two different guys. The
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: bow hunted, and I think that they might be hunting now. Um.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: And then there's do you do you think that you know,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: you've mentioned this before, You've mentioned that rattling doesn't work
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, right, Um, And you try, you know, you
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: do your grunning and your snore wheezing, but you don't
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: rattle because it just I don't know whether it's a
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: negative it has a negative connotation to these bucks, it
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: scares him or whatever. But I think if you next
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: time you see him alone by himself, I think it'd
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: be worth a try. Dude, I don't know. I mean,
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: at this point, do you really think it's camp? Uh?
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: What we're gonna say, sir, I was gonna say, do
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: you really think I mean, he just busted you in
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the tree stand? Yeah? Right, and he's still in the area.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: That's like he saw you visually and he potentially busted
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you sent wise, maybe right, he didn't. He didn't win me.
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: He just saw me. He did he did win you,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: but he did see you. Okay, that's good. So just
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: rattling in general. I don't think if you have the
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: wind right, I don't think it's going to hurt anything.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: I think I tend to agree. Now, it's at least
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: at this point, like I've already I've already made an impact, like, yeah,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: there's not much to lose now. So I rattled to
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: him once last year and he ran away from it.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: So that's why I've been so hesitant to do it. Um,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: but did see the dominant buck on the property? He
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: has to be. I mean I've never I haven't seen
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: any other buck that's anything older than three and a half. Um,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: there's one three and a half year old, there's a
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: couple two and a half year olds, there's seventeen thousand
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: year and a half olds, um, and there's him. So
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: you would think he's the dominant buck. But he does not.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: I mean, he has not shown any kind of positive
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: reaction to any kind of call. Um so decoy, question mark,
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: same kind of thing. There's just there's so many doughs.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: I'll see thirty thirty doughs a night. You know, I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: just think that it would just be them blowing at
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: it all night. Yeah, but you know, who knows, Maybe
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: maybe it's worth trying something crazy because you know gun
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: season is coming up soon and at that point all
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: bets are off. Um. Now here's Here's the other thing. Though,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: if he can make it through guns season, I feel
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: like I have a very very good chance of killing
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: him in these usual places that I hunt him. Because
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: despite the fact that I hunt him in these places often,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: like more than I wish I would. Um. Now, I
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: haven't done it as much this year. Like last year,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: I hunted these couple stands a bunch because I kept
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: seeing him, so I kept hunting him. But this year
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: I've I've had more stands hung for different situations. So
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I've only hunted the front stand um three times, which
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: is you know, you don't want hunt much more in that,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And I hunted the back plot stand twice. Um, So
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I've still kept it, you know, a lot less than past.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: But um, what I'm trying to say is that in
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the late season, he throws caution to the wind when
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: going to these food sources that I've got planted there. Um,
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: both years two thousand fifteen and two thousand sixteen, I
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: have like ten to fifteen days during the month of
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: December that he visits those locations during daylight hours. Um,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: So if I can make him, if I can, if
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: he can make it through guns season, and if I
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: don't spook him at all during that time period, I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: could let him you know, established re established a sanctuary there.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I do think I've got a very good chance of
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: killing him once we get into December, and I can
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: do like get back to that drone strike approach and
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: just wait till the right conditions go in there once
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: and hopefully kill him. Um. But but I also at
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: this point, you know, you just don't know if I'll
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: make it through gun season. So I'm kind of throwing
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: caution to the wind right now because I need to
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: try to kill him before you know, there's sixty guys
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in my little neck of the woods versus you know,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen or whatever. So yeah, yeah, so I
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: don't know. Man, it was, um it was very disheartening
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: to have had that opportunity right there and screw it up.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: But I'm going to keep at it and we'll just
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: see what happens. So absolutely absolutely, man, that's a that's
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that's like the most frustrating part. Right. I've had a
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: couple bucks in my lifetime that I've chased like you're chasing. Uh,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And it is, man, it can be frustrated when you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: think you're doing everything right and then it's like you
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: miss an opportunity or you feel like you're one step
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: behind the entire time. Yeah, that's hunting, all right, that's
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: absolutely hunting. So the good thing is though every once
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: in a while, all the hard work and time and energy,
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: it pays off. And I hear, did that happen for you? Yeah?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: I tell you what man, I I told me about
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: your cation. But before that, real quick note, we're going
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: to hear from our partners at White Tailed Properties this week.
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: With White Tail Properties, we are joined by Gabe A. Dare,
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: a land specialist out of southern Iowa, and Gabe is
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: gonna be telling us about what the primary factors are
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: that make for quality hunting ground. You know, there's a
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: couple that stick out, I guess the most. Um, I
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: want to be neighborhood. I think you gotta have You've
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: got to have the structure around you. Um, I've even seen,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you know, in my line of work, I've seen any
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: enormous farms struggle, you know, And I say enormous, I'm
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: talking thousand, fifteen hundred, two thousand makers farms struggle. If
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: you don't have structure around you, like mind, neighbors, you know,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: on the same program or at least close to the
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: same program. Everybody's gonna have their differences, of course, but
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you know, um, I think you've got to have, you know,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: the right people around you to really get deer to
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: that up or age class. And so I think that's
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: first and foremost, and then that kind of lead into
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: the second one, where you know, depending on what you're after, Um,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: you've got to be in the right area as far
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: as genetics, you've gotta be weren't big deer at you know,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: if if if you're an area where your your your
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: goal is to shoot hundred fifty five year old buck,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: obviously there's a lot more places that a guy can
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: get into something like that. But you know, definitely the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: second one be if you're after top top end. If
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: you know, if everybody's wanting to shoot bunting Crockett type
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: animals or even that that new pinnacle that I deal
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: with more and more every day is two hunder. You know,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I hear about it, deal with it, and see it
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: way more. Um, you know, you've got to be where
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: of those animals even have a chance to be. And
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: so you know the two things I would say, and
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: obviously neighborhood structure around your property, and then your property
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: has gotta be in an area where it's gonna where
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: it's gonna produce or have at least have a chance
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: to produce what you're wanting to harvest. If you'd like
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: to learn more and to see the properties that Gabe
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: currently has listed for sale, visit white tail properties dot com.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Backslash A dare that's a d A I R dude.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: I've had an amazing rutcation. Um. I got into town
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: Friday night. Uh after Uh let see, I packed my
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: stuff up, I got into town, and um, the family
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: was in town. I mean they came for Friday night,
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: which was cool, and uh Saturday morning. Uh see. Like
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: so I just I'll just kind of run you through
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: these last five days or whatever, however many days day
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: one Friday night, you know, and man, we've been having
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: a ton of east winds and I never planned for
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: east winds this time of year, right, so I had
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: no stands hung for an east And so I'm just like, Okay,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: if I can't get into this betting area that I
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: want to get into, I'm going to set up down
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: from it. Um, and this this feel that this would
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: have been the closest I hunted to a field edge
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: all year, right. I was like fifty yards off this
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: field edge, and so I could see into it. So
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I run a gun down in here. My wind is
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: blowing almost straight east down into this creek, and I'm
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: just set up in a good spot ready to start
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: seeing movement, you know like this, Uh, make the observation
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: and then possibly move in. And so that night I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: get in getting this, you know, get stand set up,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: and instantly I start seeing does you know and young
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: bucks running around chasing each other. You know, you know
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the young bucks are chasing. Had a really good eight
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: pointer come up, I'd say, like, oh he was. He
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: was a two year old with a good rack eight pointer.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: I'd I'd put him at about one eight pointer and
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Um, he walked by a couple of does,
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: walked by some button bucks, walked by, you know, I
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: was like, well, maybe this isn't gonna turn out to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: be an observation set. You know, they're coming off the
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: bottom of this creek and they're working my way. You know,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: my wind was blown into the creek, but they were
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: coming up the creek, you know, like paralleling my wind,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: which was awesome. And I thought, well, geez man, something.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: You know a lot of these deer bet in these
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: creek right, you know, the these timber thickets right on
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: on there. And I got the food source here, so
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: maybe I'm actually in a good spot. Well, I see
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: a handful of deer, and then all all of a sudden,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I see this big buck in the field with his
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: nose to the ground, and I pick up the horns
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: because he was traveling like he was going somewhere right
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: nose to the ground. Sniff and sniff, and I cracked
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the antler. I wait for him to get into the timber.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I put the antlers together, crack him hard, do this
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: like one minute rattling sequence, throw it out and he
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: is dead sprinting. I mean, he is hauling ass right
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: to me. And he comes to the corner fifty yards
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: away and there's no shot there. Uh, And I but
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: what that does. It gives me an opportunity to put
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: my binoculars on him and check to see if he's mature.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: He's a three year old, I'd say, I'd say one
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: fifty give or take five inches on each side. Okay,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: So he ends up coming through and he's twelve yards
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: in front of me for I even I don't even
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: know how for how many minutes. Uh, he just was
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: milling around looking for this fight A couple a couple
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: of does we're coming up? So then he ended up
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: turning around chasing him. So I ended up passing this
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: fifty in ten pointer really good. It was just a
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: combination of I got the opportunity and the reason I'm
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: saying this is kind of foreshadowing for the ending of
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: this my rutcation. But I got the opportunity to observe him.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: I got the opportunity to look at, you know, his body.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: The body said, he's three years old. He's not a
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: shooter in that department. He's got a great rack, but
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: he's just not what I'm looking for. On day one
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: of my of my vacation, So had that encounter, you know,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: more deer come in and out, and then some coyotes
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: come up behind me and they blow the field out,
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: which was great because it was right at last light,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: and it gave me the opportunity to walk in through
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: the middle of the field back to my truck. Saturday morning,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: I decided, you know what, my family's here. I'm gonna
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: sleep in and I'm gonna hang with the family until
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: they leave, and then I'm gonna go out for that
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: evening hunt on Saturday night. So Saturday night, uh so
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I played with the kids for a while, play with
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: the family. Um, they leave, I get ready. So I
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: go to the timber pretty early, and for some reason,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: I said, I got this northeast wind, and I said,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna give this wind a shot
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: in my best area, and I need basically a straight
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: west wind. For typically I hunted on a straight west wind. Um,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: And I said, you know what, I think I've never
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: tested this before, but I think that I'm gonna go
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: in to this this tree stand that I have in there,
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna let the wind and I'm gonna check
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: the wind to see what it does. I have a
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: feeling that it's gonna go down the timber line just
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: a bit where these deer come from. But I think
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: as this creek kind of curves away, that that crick
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: is gonna suck all the wind in and blow the
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: wind down the creek. And sure enough I was dropping those,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I got into my tree stand, got set up,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I had my access route. Was a little risky getting
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: in because if there was deer bedded in this thicket
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: along the creek, my wind walking in would have went
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: through it. You know. I spray myself down with nose jammer,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: you know, So I feel that if they're exposed to
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: that scent, whether it's the no nose jammer or me
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: or a combination of it, for a very short period
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: of time, they tolerate it, as opposed to you know,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: if I was just standing there all night and let
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: my wind blow in there, you know what I mean.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: So I think they tolerated it for very short periods
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: of time. I ended up bumping two doughs on the
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: this point across the creek from me on a different farm,
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: but you know, it's real close. The property borders the creek,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: and so my wind does exactly what I thought it
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: was gonna do. It went down just the ways. But
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: then it dropped hard into the creek and it just
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: blew out the back of the creek down to the property.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: So none of my wind was going anywhere where deer
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: were walking unless down wind they crossed the creek somewhere,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I'm sitting there, I
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: see a you know, like a couple small tens come through,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: a couple of small eights, you know, some two year
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: olds basically or walking through. Um it's getting oh man,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: it's getting like four o'clock. Now, this is before, you
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: don't know, Yeah, this is before the time changed. Saturday
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: night would have been the time changed, so maybe it
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: was five. But I'm sitting there and I hear a
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: a branch crack behind me, and I turned around and
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: it's another big buck. I got trail camera pictures of him.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: He's a ten with split brows. He's gonna probably be
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: in the low one fifties as well. Uh, just out
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to his ears, ten pointer, decent mass, and he comes
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: within eight yards in my stand. And the third day,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: third big plus buck. This is second day, second yeah,
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: second day, And because I hunted, my first day was Friday, right,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: and so I'm I'm just going, oh man, I don't like,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: I don't want my season to be over right now.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I don't want it to be over. And I think
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: he's a three year old, you know, and you have
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: these moments where if you like, if you have to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: question it or talk yourself into something, then I don't
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: think it's a a good idea to shoot it, right.
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I want to shoot it because I want to shoot it,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: not because I'm talking myself into it to it. So
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: all these things were running through my head. I was like,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna let him go. So I
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: let him go, right I I'll let him go. And
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: so I'm saying in there and I look, and this
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: is probably ten fifty minutes after this buck leaves. I
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: turn and I look in the field and it's one
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: of my hitlisters at about a hundred and fifty yards
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: giver take and he he's in the field, head down,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: and I put my bindoes up. I'm like, who is that?
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: Who is that? He puts his head up, kind of
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: looks scans the area, and I instantly know what bucket is.
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I picked the antlers up and I just go boom
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: as loud as I could. I mean, you rattle so
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: hard that you can smell the antlers, you know, those
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: kind of those kind of rattling sequences where you can
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: smell the heat coming off from the friction. And he
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: turns his body and he starts walking real slow right
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: towards me. And I'm like, holy sh it, this is
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm going to rattle in a mature buck like
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: that was the thought that crossed my mind. So he
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: just a hears behind some trees. I can't see him.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: This is thirty like thirty minutes goes by, and he's closer,
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: but he's taking his time and feeding, right. So he
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: gets to the corner of this field and he starts
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: to basically eat. So I throw out a snort wheeze
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: at him, you know, and he pops his head up
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: and he looks in and he like his ears don't
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: go back, but he kind of it's almost like he's
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: throwing his shoulders up, like he's getting piste, and like,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: who is in who's in there? I know, I beat
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: everybody's ass in there. I who's trying to, you know,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: challenge me? He he like kind of walks in this
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: big circle, but he I don't know. You ever see
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: him moose, You know they they walk with that big
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: you know, that big antler's way. Yeah, yeah, he's doing
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: he's doing that out in the field to some other
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: little bucks, like showing him his antlers. It almost looked
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: like he's showing him talking about yeah yeah, yeah yeah.
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: So this buck is doing that out there, and the
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: other bucks are kind of working their way away from
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: like Okay, this guy means business. And then I do
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: this g running sequence like another bucks tending a grunt,
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: you know, tending a dough, and they're like brack brack,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you know yea, And he he looks in almost like
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: he knows he's gonna go in there and do whatever
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: he wants to anyway, So he's going to continue eating
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: ten minutes past of him eating at Oh, I'm gonna say,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: inside a hundred yards somewhere between eighty and a hundred yards.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: And he drops into this real thick stuff. I'm I'm
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: hunting some edge, uh, and it kind of opens up
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: in front of me. This is that's where all the
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: sign is. But it gets real thick. Remember we talked
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: about my property that they logged it a couple of
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: years ago, and now it's just thick and nasty back there.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful, and so he goes in there and disappears,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, where the hell did he go? Well,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: out of there pops another dough and a young buck
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: chasing her right, and he pops out again in the
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: field right, and he's running down, or he's not running.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: He just steps out. The other butt chases this dough away.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: The dough is running away, and he lets this young
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: buck like he knew she wasn't ready to breed yet.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Maybe that that was my assumption. Well, this big buck
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: comes back into the timber right where he left and
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: then disappears for fifteen minutes. I hear a branch break
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: in the creek behind me and there's a dough and
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: I look further down the creek and there he is,
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: and he's coming right at me with this dough. And
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: we go through this the dough. I'm speeding this up,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: but the dough walks into the shooting lane, walks by
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: it down into the creek, and he does the same thing.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: And he stops to smell where she's at and I
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: draw back anchor pin on, let the pull the trigger.
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: And I'm just like, you know, it's like when these
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: guys shoot the three pointers and they know it's in.
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: They just turned around and walk away. That's how I felt.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Did you turn around and walk away mid shot? Yeah?
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: I looked. I looked back at the camera that wasn't there,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: and I was like, like, nailed it, you know, like
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I was. Yeah, I was that confident that that this
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: buck was gonna get hit by my arrow like I was.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I was just I knew it. How far was it?
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: It was twenty eight yards yards completely broadside down in
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: a creek. And and then in that moment, it's I
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: mean we're talking. In the matter of a second, I'm
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: I go from confident to what the hell just happened?
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: Because not now I don't see my knock leaving, I
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: see my broad head, and then my arrow turned sideways.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: I glanced a very very small branch that was in
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: the way that I couldn't even see until I'm like,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: what the hell happened? So I picked up binoculars up
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: and I see this. I mean, it's the tiniest, littlest
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: branch there, and my arrow hit it and just like
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: started tail spinning, and this buck pops up on top
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: of the creek. And now he's at forty and I'm
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: just like, you know, what the hell, and I launched
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: I launched another arrow, and I rushed the shot and everything,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: and uh it was not I should have never taken it,
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: but it was a complete miss right shanked shanked that shot, um.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: And I kind of went through in that in that
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: twenty four hours, I went through what you went through, like,
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I just missed the biggest buck in
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: my life, or you know, like it wasn't necessarily my fault,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: but it was my fault because I didn't you know,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I didn't see the twig. I should have seen the twig.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: I didn't see the twig. The twig affected the shot,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: you know. And I got a hundred fifty hundred sixty
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: class five year old eight pointer that is gone right.
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: And he showed up on trail cameras the next couple
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: of days. But I mean I was let's say, the
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: next day he showed up, I was back in that
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: same tree stand to the south because I had a
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: like it was a southeast wind, so the wind was
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: blowing right into where he would have been coming from.
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: So I couldn't. I can't hunt that, you know, that's
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: just that's just dumb you can't take a risk like that.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: So I bounced that that. You see, that was Saturday night.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning. I get up and I go to a
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: completely different part of the farm and I sit there.
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: See today is Tuesday, right, we're recording this on a
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: Tuesday Wednesday. Today's Wednesday. So I'm trying to think of
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: what I did. But for Friday, see Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: I saw shooters the entire time. Um uh. Let see
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning, I get into the timber. Is it Sunday morning, Yeah,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Sunday morning. I get into the timber, and it is perfect.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: You know. I set this tree stand up in a
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: pinch point, money winds blown exactly. It's doing exactly what
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I wanted it to do. And the deer are starting
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: to move through this pinch point like a couple of does,
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: two young bucks. And all of a sudden, I catch
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: some movement out of my left eye and there is
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: another shooter. Oh my god, man, a nine pointer. I'm
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: gonna say, one sixty nine point wide, huge eight nine
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: point And I'm just like, where where are you hunting?
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Are you hunting an aisle or something. Yeah, I don't know,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: like the farm was just loaded this year. You know,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: every once in a while you'll get that in here
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: here where I live, and I guess anyway, but uh,
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: you know, like I turned around and he's got his
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: nose to the ground. He's looking so I'm like, okay, braraprap,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: and he keeps walking rap and he puts his head
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: up looks my way. But he must have been on
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: a dough that I didn't see. I throw the antlers
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: together and rattle it. I'm like, he's just gonna come over.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: I just know it. And then boom in the timbers
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: gun goes off. Somebody shot a single shot in that,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like, oh my god ruined. You know,
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: Like then the movement just shut off. Right. This is
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: one of those stands that you know, you wanted me
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: to sit all day long to try to try to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: see what movement was coming in between ten and two o'clock.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: And I wanted to do it, but you know, I
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: can't do that when guns are going on? Can I can?
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I positive story here? Really quick? Okay? Go for just
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: a brief interlude about that very topic. I just want
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: to mention my holy field shot opportunity eleven o'clock. Our buddy,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: our mutual friend, Dustin, he killed a bucket to twenty
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: in the afternoon a couple of days ago, and we
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: just pulled trail camera cards in Ohio and two different
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: shooters on trail camera at twelve thirty in the afternoon
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: and one thirty in the afternoon. So just to reminder
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: for everyone out there, midday six can be really good
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: this time of year. That's all. Sorry, continue, No, no,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: you're good man, You're good. That's a great point. Great point,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: except I hunt eight. Hunting mid day, yeah, I can't
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: say I enjoy it either. But so so then Saturday
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: I went, or let's see, Sunday night, after I've seen
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that shooter had the wrong wind, you know, I wanted
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: to get back down where I was getting all these
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures of the other bigger bucks, you know,
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to try to get in on him again. Sat in
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the same two stands, and I think that the my
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: my access and hunting there was starting to affect the uh,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: maybe some of the deer movement a little bit. I mean,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: I still saw some great deer. The dos were still
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: there on Sunday evening, uh. And then Monday, Monday morning,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: I went back down there. And then uh, Tuesday or
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: Monday night, I went back down there, and I bumped
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: walking in to this one stand. I bumped literally thirteen
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: doughs out of their beds walking to the stand. And
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, well, the bucks don't have any reason
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: to be here, now, you know what I mean, like
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: unless they're cruising, you know, I and I don't. I
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: didn't even see what blew out of the back end
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: of this this betting area. But you know, so Monday
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: was over. Tuesday morning, I was back in that same spot,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: hoping that, you know, that they had filtered in. Sure enough,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: they came in. You know, I had a hot hot
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: dog getting chased by um two two year olds pretty heavily,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: and they were all over the place, right, So I had,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: you know, like three or four bucks came through before
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: seven o'clock and then boom, neighboring property gun goes off.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I just like, are you kidding me? Like, I just
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: want to know what what these guys were killing? You
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: know what they're killing with these guns? Yeah, exactly, raccoon
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: was in the barn, you know, like whatever, But okay,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: So anyway, Uh, you know, so I'm having one hell
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: of a rut already. I'm seeing great deer movement, I'm
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: seeing great sign My trail cameras are consistently showing these
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: deer um. But I think I would think I'm putting
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: too much pressure on the property. So I thought to myself,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: you know what, what the hell I want to go
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: to this new piece of property that I acquired. I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: didn't hunt any of it, you know, I didn't hunt.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: I've been hunting on it twice. But it was like
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: on the very north end of the farm and just
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: easy access. And it was in early October when I
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: when I hunted those and I think, I told you
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: I saw like a decent a decent buck at dark.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I really couldn't tell what he was. I was assuming
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: I was, you know, I really couldn't tell what he was.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: So I said, you know what, And long story short,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: here's another interlude to that story. I was told I
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: was the only bow hunter on there, all right. I
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: go down in there on my second hunt and I
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: see a trail camera in a tree stand, so I,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: you know, I obviously report that back to the Lando
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: and I said, hey, man, I there's another tree stand.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: He's like, I'm calling the d n R. They're gonna
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: get this guy for truspassing whatever whatever. So he goes,
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to go down there, take that tree
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: stand down, and take that camer down and bring it
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: back to the tree or to the house. I'm just like, oh, man,
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: I don't want to get involved in this, but if
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: the land owner wants me to do it, I guess
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: I'll do it. I go down there and there's a
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: guy sitting in the tree stand, so I go, come here.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: I say, come here. So he gets down and I
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: and he I go. I go. I don't want to
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: get into any drama, but who are you? And he's like,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: my name is so and so and I've been hunting
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: here nine years, And I go nine years. This guy
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't even know who you are. That's awesome. So so
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: he's like, well, so the guy that I communicate with
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: is the son in law to the property owner. The
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: property owner is in a hospital because he broke his
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: hip right and he's getting rehabbed out. So so he's, uh,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: he's telling me that he's been hunting here for nine years,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: Like okay, I don't care, Like I I got shipped
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: to do. I'll just go hunt on the different part
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: of the farm. Whatever. It's good. It's a decent farm.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: So so that that happened so last night, you know,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: I'm like, screw it. I don't have any I have
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: nothing to go on other than what I've learned over
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the years. Right read sign, play the wind, play terrain. Right.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: So I part my truck. I'm loaded up running gun style,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you know, we've done it a hundred times. And I'm
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: walking in facing the you know, face to the wind,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: and the property lays kind of like a upside down
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: l with a thick part of the bottom l um,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: you know how it's there's so there's a corner in there.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: Right in that corner is a very narrow logging trail
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: or like just enough for an a TV. And then
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: two it drops down into a ravine and that ravine
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: is just very thick, you know, like one of those
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: things that if someone you get, you let the new
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: guy shed hunt that part of the farm because he's
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: gonna be on his hands and knees, you know. So
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: I'm walking in. I'm following these fence lines, you know,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: and every overhanging tree and I'm not exaggerating here. Every
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: overhanging tree on this field had a scrape in it,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and it looked like they were fresh, right, I mean,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: just like it's tore up from scrapes, you know, not
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: huge rubs, but you know, there was little rubs all
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: along the field. So I'm like, man, something's working in here.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: You know, who knows what it is. So I gotta
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: find a way that my wind is not going to
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: blow into this logging trail, but I can still hunt
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: the top of this ridge. Because my goal was to
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: set up in a tree to where I was close
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: enough to the thick stuff, you know, hunting that edge.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: At the same time, I wanted to be looking into
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: the valley to observe any motion on the opposite side
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: of the ridge. You know. That was that was because
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: this ridge ran the entire length of the farm, so
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: I wanted to make it an observation set. But I
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to do it in a way that if a
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: deer did come by through this stick stuff, because you know,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: deer don't typically work their way. You know, they're not
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: walking on the top of the ridge right there, down
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: off the edge, you know, so they can smell everything.
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: But It was hard for me to hunt hunt that
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: because I wanted to. I wanted my wind to not
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: blow right down that edge. So if something did decide
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: to um hunt on the two you know, walk on
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: the two track, that my wind really wasn't um I'm
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: gonna blow down there. So I came off just a
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: bit and it was one of those fifty hunts where
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I felt if something was gonna come and the wind
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: shifted just a bit, I was screwed. But luckily it
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: held true and it blew out into this field, into
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: the CRP field, and um uh stayed there the entire night,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: so I was cut. It was it was literally like
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: a forty ft difference where my uh, you know, my
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: wind trackers went when I was, you know, testing my wind.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: And sure enough, man, I stood up in this tree
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: and immediately start seeing deer. It was like as soon
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: as I clamped in, brought my bow up and hung
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: it up, deer started moving. I saw before the buck
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: that I ended up shooting, I saw five bucks, all
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: within shooting range, working this ridge, and I'm just like, wow,
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: this and this is what I'm really proud of. I'm
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: proud of the fact that I read sign I read terrain,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: and I played the wind aggressively, and it allowed me
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to set up to catch deer movement and not get busted.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: That's an accomplishment for anybody. I don't care how season
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: do you are or inexperienced you are. If you can
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: do those three things and get close to deer, you're
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: doing something right as far as far as a strategy standpoint.
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: You know, now, shooting a deer is a whole different
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: story if you but if you can do those things,
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: you're gonna get close to two deer. Well after these
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: bucks work through two doughs out of nowhere, there's no
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: there's no real egg. This is all timber like there's
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: I think on the neighboring farm there might be some
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: food plots, but I couldn't see any through my binoculars.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: It looked like they just had a huge disk up field,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: like they harvested it and then overturned it. Overturned it,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: so there's nothing for them to eat. So but there's plenty,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: you know, there's plenty of stuff in the timber to eat.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: And two does come out of this bottom ridge or
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: where the ridge kind of keeps going comes up over top.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: Did exactly what I thought they were gonna do, drop
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: off the ridge just a little bit as to not
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: like skyline themselves else. And they were working the thick
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: stuff through, and they worked by me, and they were
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: just like they were in front of me eating on
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: a bush for like, man ten minutes, fifteen minutes, and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the dope popped her head up
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: and looks down the ridge, and I couldn't see what
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: she was looking at right away, and she she puts
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: her head up, and then all of a sudden, I
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: hear like a like some heavy movement coming through the timber,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: and she kind of notices something was coming at her
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: and drops down. And I'm like, okay, there's a buck coming.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: And the three of those bucks had worked their way
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: up that way, and I thought, well, maybe one of
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: them is coming back. So I put my binos up
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: and I see movement, but I could only see from
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: half of the deer up, so I can't see its legs.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: I can't see its whole body. Um, I can see
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: part of its head and ant or something like, because
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: it's real thick, right. I look up and I'm like,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: oh my god, that and it's all I never saw
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: this deer head on. I saw him broadside only, and
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that is a big buck like the mass
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: on his ties, and he just looked huge. And then
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: he starts working his way. I kind of lost him,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: but I knew he was coming. And then he intercepted
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: those dos and those does went up the ridge and
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: he turned around. He followed those does up the ridge
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, well, I have no idea what this buckets.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: I need to get a better look at him. So
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: I I literally did this rap. That was it, and
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: he stopped and I could see his antlers swing around
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: and look back at me in in my general direction,
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: and I saw him lick his lips like, you know,
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: like you know how these deers get excited and they're
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: drooling and they're just like, he licks his lips and
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: he turns around, he comes to investigate, and he is
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: he just I can't get a good look on him,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: you know, like the other two dear I passed this week.
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: I was able to put my binoculars on him. I
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: was able to get a good look at him, and
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: I was able to say, you know what that is
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: a that is not a shooter. I'm going to pass right.
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I couldn't do this with this book because he was
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: in such thick cover. And then he's getting close, so
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: I'm just like, oh man, I got I gotta, I
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: gotta make a decision here, and I couldn't. I couldn't tell,
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: so I, you know, I picked my bow up. I
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: got ready to draw back. He's coming into an opening
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: that's about twenty yards away. But that opening is just
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: it's like a stretch where I just got lucky, I guess,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: And and there was a shooting lane kind of naturally there,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: and it was thick. It was thick, and it's kind
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: of antlers popped out, and I'm like, okay, that's a
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: that's a big buck. I draw back, and all of
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: a sudden he steps out and he's our my my
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: anchor point. I didn't really check his body like I
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: probably should. He the massive broadside from you know, in
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: the Antler department. And you know, it was one of
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: these decisions that I had to make in that one
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: small opening that I had, and it was shoot him
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: or lose him right. And I shot him right, and
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: I drilled him and he he takes like he go.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: I hear the I hear the and I hear this,
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: all this air come out of him, like he just
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: got punched in the gut. And I'm just like, son
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: of a bitch, like I just got shot him. And
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: it was a little back, but it wasn't it didn't
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: seem too far back. And and I'm just like, oh
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: my god, I got shot him. But he didn't run,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: so he he he kind of walked off very slow,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: about fifteen twenty yards and he stood there all haunched up,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: and I put my bot my like, I put my
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: binos back on him and not really like judging his
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: body because of my adrenaline was pumping. But I was
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: looking at his rack, like, dude, that's a decent rack.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: That's a good rack. Um, you know that is a
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: good rack. And you know, I just was like I
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: was happy, right, I'm just like, oh my god, I
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: just did it. You know, I got that. I got
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: that post shot pump, I was like, and I started
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: freaking out. You know, I'm that guy who gets emotional
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: when when I harvest an animal. But I wasn't like
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: a sure yet. And because he's sitting there and he's
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: going and I didn't see any blood coming out of him, right,
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: because I didn't hit long, I didn't hit heart. I
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: was back behind the diaphragm on the shot um and
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: he was kind of stretched out when I shot him.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: So when I shot him and he started walking, that
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: skin came back from what it looked like over the
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: whole in his in his ribs, and he he wasn't
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: bleeding very well because that it was so far back,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and that's what made me think I guts. So he walks,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: he starts to make this half loop, and so I
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: get another air already. I'm like, oh, home, he might
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: come back around and I'm gonna shoot him again. He's
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: kind of coming up from behind me now, and then
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: he gets that wide his tail starts going. I'm like, oh,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: that's not a good sign to him, right, And then
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: he starts getting wide legs right when they're they're laid
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: where he's trying to get a bigger basse under him,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: and then he starts taking Then he then he starts
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: losing his balance and I'm like, dude, he is toast.
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: He's toast, and he starts then he gets back up
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: again and I'm like, oh, what happened? Like he's getting
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: like then he postures up and he's he looks fine.
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: And then that was it. He he took this, he
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: took these three wobbly steps, he laid down, put his
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: head down, and then from the time I shot him
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to the time he expired was probably three minutes, uh
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: three or four minutes. And I'm just like, oh my god,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: I just shot the one of like the biggest buck
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: of my life, right, and I was pumped. I called
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: my called my wife, I called my stepdad, I called
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: my buddy Ben, and I was just like, oh, you know,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: I was texting people. I was like, oh, ship, this
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: is awesome. This is awesome, you know, like I'm happy,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: I'm excited, and I'm dude, I'm still excited. And I
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: feel that there's a butt coming though. What a but well,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: you're building this all up like I was. I was,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: I was, but and I am I am, I am
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: so and I'm sure this has happened to a lot
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: of people. I get down out of my tree stand
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: and I walk over to the deer and I look
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: at it and I'm like, mm hmm. You know that
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: people used the term ground shrinkage, right, this deer was
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: not what I thought it was. Now, don't confuse that
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: for me being unhappy with this. Don't confuse that with
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: me being um like, oh, you know, like I don't know,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I only shoot big bucks, you know, like that kind
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: of ship. Don't get, don't get. Don't get a negative
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: kind of connotation with that. This buck was not what
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: I thought it was. But I am happy. I am thankful.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: I am like, I'm pumped. I'm still pumped that I
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: shot this, dear. It's just not it's just not what
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: I thought it was when it was coming through the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: thick timber. Right, I'm not trying to make excuses for it.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I'm jacked. I'm happy. You know, I gotta I gotta
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: buck at the taxidermist. I have a you know, a
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: freezer full of meat coming. Everything that I did and
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: this is and like I said to you, I'm very
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: proud of this fact. I was able to run and gun,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: read sign and and be successful on a first time
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: in and I've never done that before. Right, that's awesome.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: And this buck, this buck is awesome. Awesome characteristics his
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: his dude, I I honestly think, in my opinion, he
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: is a three year old. He could possibly be a
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: two year old. I'm not joking. Yes, dude, his body
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: is very small really yeah, yep, yep. But he had
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: a very deceiving rat coming through the timber, and I
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: think that played a role in me shooting him thinking
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: because his body was so small and I was comparing
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: him to a dough you know, that's the only thing
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: that really was around at the time the last year
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: I saw. You know, I'm not. I'm not. I don't
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: want to make excuses because the buck does not deserve that,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: but well, I just want to I just it was
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: not what I thought I shot. I thought I shot
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: something bigger. It looked bigger coming through the timber. That
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean ship. I mean, yeah, that's a good little awesome.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: It's a really good looking and the antlers don't mean shit.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: The memory I have will have of this is will
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: last forever. Yeah. And the knowledge that I gained through
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: how do your travel through the timber on this farm
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: and how I set up on it will be something
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to do again next season when I
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: go to hunt this farm. It sounds like an awesome hunt.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: It was. It was money and it's it's always good.
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: You know. I don't know how you are, but do
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: you ever, I find myself questioning everything I do. I overthink,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I overthink, I overthink what if should I hunt this
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: dand now should I hunt this Dand yep, I know
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: you're guilty of it too. And it was good to
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: go in and basically driving down to my main farm,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: I was like, you know, what's screwed. I'm going to
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: this new farm tonight. I'm gonna run and gun. I
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: don't I don't care, I'm gonna I'm gonna go. I'm
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: gonna do what we all want to do. Just read
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: the sign, play the wind, play the terrain. And I
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: did it and it worked, and I'm I was so happy,
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: like I'm happy that, you know, and I'm happy that
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: now I gotta go hang with my kids for a while, right.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: So it just this was an absolutely awesome vocation. Man,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: just the deer that I saw, the deer that I
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: you know, passed. I mean a lot of it also
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: had to do with on my other farm. I had
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures of all these deer. I knew who
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: these deer were, right, I said, oh, well, yeah, I
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: know him. I know he's a three year old because
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: I've looked at a thousand pictures of him on this
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: other on this other farm. I didn't have any trail
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: camera intel, so I didn't know anybody, right, So you
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: mix that with what all happened, and it's just like, uh, oh,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: well it's not what I thought it was. But that's okay,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: you know something. These things happen for a reason. And
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: um again, I just want to reiterate, I'm not disappointed
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: in any way with uh, with the outcome of this.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: I'm very happy, very happy. I'm happy for you, dude.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: It sounds like just a really a really incredible week.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: And to have an end like that, even though maybe
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: it wasn't quite as older as big as you thought,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: I think to your point, you put together an awesome hunt.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: You you you achieved you know, the goal of that night,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: which was to do all those things you mentioned, going
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: to a new spot, figure it out, be within range
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: of deer, and I'll tell you what or some of
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: the people out there would probably give their left arm
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: to ever shoot a deer like that. So you're doing
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: all right, I'd say, you are doing all I can
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: tell you that there's at least one person here in
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: this hotel room. His name rhymes with burder and he
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: would shoot that buck all day. So so now now here,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: here's something you gotta think about. Okay. Is I I
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: ate Chinese tonight? Okay, okay, the fortune cookie in my
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: Chinese food tonight says a secret adventure is in store
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: for you. Okay, that's exciting. Yeah. So here's here's what
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: I think needs to happen. I think on your way
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: to North Dakota, you need to pick me up. If
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: I know when you're texting me that, I wish we
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: could do that. I hope we could do that. But
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: this dear holy Field has got me locked down. Oh buddy,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: but buddy, kill him and then let's go. Man if
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: I can, if I can make it there still, I
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: would love to swing through. I want to pick you up.
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: I'm right on the way, man, I'm right on the way.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: You are too, man, It would be awesome. Yeah, it's
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: a bummer the way things are going. I don't I
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: don't know if I'm gonna get to use that tag
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: at all. I wasted two hours or whatever it was,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: not even get to hunt the state once. But that
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: was kind of you roll the dice when you when
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: you playing all these things like that, right, yep, you do.
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: And especially when you go into a season focus so
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: much on one single deer yea and uh and yeah,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: live and learn and you've got to roll the punches
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: and play the cards even dealt right, right. So I
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: just I just want to say one more thing to
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: everybody who's listening out there. You know, we get on
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: we got on Instagram, we get on Facebook, and we
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: see all these giant deer getting killed and it's hard
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: not to say, oh, man, I really wish I had that.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: I really I want to do that. I want to
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to kill a big buck. Ignore that.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: You have to hunt your hunt, and you have to
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: hunt whatever however style you see fit um, whether that's
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: don't know. There's so many different ways to hunt. But
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: what I'm getting at is, don't compare this your style
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: and your dear to anybody else's because they don't hunt
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: the same as you. You don't hunt the same as them. Uh,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: different states, different rules, different you know, there's so many
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: other things that are out there, and it takes away
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: from the true meaning of the hunt and actually in
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: honoring the animal as well. So don't get caught up
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: in the bullshit. I guess is what I'm getting at it.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I think you need to shoot dear more often, Dan,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: because like you are on your game, You're in your
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: a game tonight. You've got a level of energy and
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: you've got some great points tonight. Like you are, You're
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: you're in it tonight, Dan. I like it. I feel
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: like i feel like I'm out of it. I feel
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: like I'm not like you've brought. You brought the energy tonight.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: So thank you for doing that. Dan. You're you're keeping
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: the podcast to float today. You've got some good stuff.
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: I'm here just barely keeping my eyes open and thinking
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: where am I going to sit tomorrow? But yeah, I
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: think you make a really a really good point. I
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: think it's really easy to get. And heck, I'm guilty
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: but sometimes too, even though I tell myself in the moment,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: don't do this, don't let it affect you. But sometimes
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: when when things aren't going your way and you pull
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: it Facebook and see ten people you know all killed
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: Giant Bucks, it can be a little bit demoralizing at times,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: and you just gotta fight that and you gotta to
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: your point, enjoy it, focus on your hunt, what you're doing,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: and that's what I've been trying to do, especially after
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: what happened the other day when I blew my opportunity
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: and I was kind of beating myself up. Right after that,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: I kind of realized, you know what, this whole year,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: you've been so focused on just killing this deer. Which yes,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: I'm very goal oriented. I like to achieve my goals.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: I like to work towards challenging goals. That's great and good.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: But when that starts to just cause you endless stress
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: and take the fun out of it and all that
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff, and I tend to have it I am.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I am susceptible to this a lot because of how
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: goal oriented I'm I can every year I'm getting too
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: stressed about something and I always have to end up
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: reminding myself to like chill out, enjoy it, you know,
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: and just take a deep breath. This isn't life or death, um.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: And so that's kind of what I'm trying to do now,
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: you know. That's why I decided to go to Ohio.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: I want to, you know, go to go to a
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: new spot for a little bit of hang out with
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: my buddies down here, just have a little fun for
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit because to be honest, I don't know
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: how much fun I was having the last week and
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: a half. Um, I was more just it was more like,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I was just caught up in like
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: the mission of it, and I was like focused on
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: every little thing I did wrong or every little thing
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: I needed to do. And um, sometimes you gets to say,
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm hunting because I enjoy hunting. Let's
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: enjoy it. So so I think that's that's something we
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: can all try to do this year. This time of
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: year can get stressful because you know, everyone, you know,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: we kind of think that the rut is when you
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: get I get done. If I don't get it done now,
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: if I don't kill buck now, I'm not going to
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: kill one, and um, you know what, just enjoy it.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: It's a great time of year. Enjoy that time. Don't
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: let it be all about if you kill or not.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: Actually enjoy the experience in the process. So that's what
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to do these next few days. We'll
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: see what happens lately. Absolutely, because you're gonna blank and
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: it's over. That's true. It's very true, and we wait
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: all year for it, so I might as well have
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: fun while it's here. So absolutely well, I think on
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: that note, man, we should shut it down because it's
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: ten third at night and I gotta wake up in
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: like four hours to head back to a tree stand.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: My question real quick before we leave is are you
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: in a hotel with one bet or two beds? For
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: you guys, We're in a hotel with two beds, okay,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: we do. We do have some separation. You guys put
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: all your gear on one bed and then you share,
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: you too, share. Of course, I thought that goes up.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: That goes up being said, Oh man, Josh further Hilliard
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: is is very much a part of this podcast episode,
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: even though we didn't let him actually talk. I'll tell
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: you what if if there's one person I would ever
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: want to spoon with in a hotel bedroom, it would
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: be old Josh Further I could. He's just over here
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: just shaking his head. And that is how we ended,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: and that is how we ended. So let's shut this
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: one down. All you guys out there hunting, good luck,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: and so with that we will wrap this episode up
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: before we go. The big thank you to our partners
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: at Sitka Gear. Yetie Cooler's Matthew's Archery, Mayven Optics, the
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: white Tail Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: ter maps, and finally, of course, thank you all for listening,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: thanks for being here with us. Like I said a
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: second ago, good luck in the tree and until next time,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: stay wired to hunt the County Group of brother Both
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: to Pat Tota,