Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 251: Heartland Bowhunter Rut Lessons Learned

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Ep. 251: Heartland Bowhunter Rut Lessons Learned · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired 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 Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two and
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: fifty one, and today on the show, we are recapping
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: my two thousand eighteen Michigan rut hunts and then we're
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: joined by Michael Hunt, Sucker and Skyler Worsake of Hartland
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: bow Hunter to chat through their rut success and lessons learned.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to you by Onyx and today to we kind of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: have like a two part podcast because we have our
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: usual intro that me and Dan like to do, but
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I feel like it's gonna be a longer intro than
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: usual because we got a lot to share. Um, we
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: haven't talked about my hunts at all for the past
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks. I want to spend a lot of
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: time there and catch up a little bit with some
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: stuff going on with Dan. But then we also do
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: have guests on the show too, So Part one is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Dan and Mark bs Extended version. Part two, we are
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: joined by Michael Hunt, Sucker and Skyler Worzig from Heartland
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: bow Hunter, and we're gonna talk about their recent rut
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: hunting success, a couple amazing hunts they had, and kind
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: of use those two stories to dive into their rut
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: hunting tactics, some of the things they've learned, some of
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: the things they recommend that we try as well as
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: we continue on through the month of November and uh
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and the second half of the white tail ruts. So
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: that is what we have in store. Um but Dan,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: part one, Part one is you and me. And the
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: first thing I gotta know is are you still kind
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of soaking and basking in the glory of having filled
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Riowa tag? Are you on that high still? Are you
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: back down to earth? Um? Well, it's kind of funny,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: right because tonight I got brought back down to earth
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: hard right I was and here. So if you're the
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: kind of person who hates uh hear the stories of
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: my my life and my kids, you might as well
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: just like fast forward a little bit. I was sitting
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: here in my office right and I had to give
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: my my youngest son and my my two my two
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: boys of bath. Tonight reality came crashing down when the
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: youngest one pooped in the bathtub. I tell you if
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you are like, he's in diapers R right, I mean
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he can't get he can't get out. He's like eighteen
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: months I think, or no, eight September, so he's he's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: only fourteen months old, so he can't he can't say dad,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I gotta go, I gotta dump. So he he ended
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: up just going right in the bathroom. And for for
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: any buddy out there who has kids whose kids have
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: pooped to the bathtub, you know, like you know that
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: it sucks cleaning up poop out of a bathroom because
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: because there's two ways to do it right. One there's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the stuff it down the drain, which you don't ever
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: want to do, and the other one is you gotta
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: pick it up right. You might and you don't really
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: want to use a drinking cup to like scoop it in.
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: I just go raw dog, pick it up, throwing the toilet,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: flush it down, wash the hands right. But then you
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: gotta clean out the toilet, Then you gotta clean out
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: then you got to clean out the bathtub. So vacation
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: over came to a screeching stuff. Wow, yikes. I have
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: not had to do anything like that. Quite yet. So, um,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: it's coming, Bud, It's coming. That's crazy, But I tell you,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what though. Man Uh, I've been staring,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: not necessarily at the rack itself, but I've been staring
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: at the part of the wall where he's gonna hang,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm just visualizing what he's gonna look like. That
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: is a good feeling right there, knowing you'll be able
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: to look up at that and and remember that moment. Yeah. Absolutely,
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So where is it's gonna be in your office? Or
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: is it in like the kids playroom that used to
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: be your man case? No way, dude, I got the
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: okay from the wife to move all my mounts out
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: into the living room. Whoa, yep, that's a big step. Yep.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: What have you been doing right? Nothing? I don't know.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Like maybe she's cheating on me. That explains it, that's right.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Oh dude, So you've been looking at the wall mount
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: or we're you're gonna put them ount? Have you been
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: looking at sheds at all? Oh? I'm glad you have
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: smart Kenyan. So I'm sitting here recording one of the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: nine things your podcast right and I'm closing it down,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: and as the guys kind of giving his final spiel.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I look up at my look up at my wall
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: of sheds, right, I have this bob wire drilled into
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the into my wall, and then I hang all my
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: sheds off of it. And I look up at this
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: one little shed that I found, and it has the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: characteristics of the buck I just shot, so I and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: it's part of a matching set. I pulled it down
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and I look over next to it, and there's another
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: shed that is from the same area. I like, I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: have this wall full of sheds, and I kind of
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: keep them all separated, so like one part of the
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: farms over here, one part of the farms over here,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: A completely different farms hanging over here. So I kind
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: of keep it separated, so I know that everything comes
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: from a specific area. And wouldn't you know when you
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and Mr Corey Fall came down on that shed hunt,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: I think it was like two thousand and fifteen. Yeah,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: me and him found a matching set in a cornfield
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: right in like buffer strips, Right, wasn't the buffer strips
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of the field. Yep, there's some some taller grass like yeah,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: buffer strip, erosion strips, whatever you want to call him.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: He found one on a terrace. I found one in
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: a buffer strip and he's like, you know what, dude,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: just keep this shed. Because we were split up, right,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: we didn't know who found it first. He just he
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: gave me the match set and I was like, okay,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: you know, put it hanging on the wall. It's cool.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Mat set. Next year I go out a couple of times,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: pull another a decent shed off of it, and then
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: that would have been sixteen, and then seventeen, the year
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of the seventeen um, which would have been a shed
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: hunting season. In March of eighteen, I found it his shed,
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: So I have two. Let's see, I'm pretty sure this
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is how how it goes. I have his two year
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: old match set. I have a right side from his
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: three year old. I have a four year old. His
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: the big side I found last year as a four
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: year old, and then I killed him as a five
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: year old. That's pretty cool. Yeah, that's so. That doesn't
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: happen very often have that many sheds off one tier,
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: especially not where I hunt, because you know, there's so
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: there's so much space for him to rome and they
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: go they go somewhere else, typically h during the winter,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: like other farms. Have lots of food, food plots and whatnot.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: But it's kind of cool. This is the first deer
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: that I've ever shot that I actually have shed anglers too.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, man, So how what are you gonna do?
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: Do you have some idea of how you're gonna Are
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you gonna somehow try to include the sheds with the
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: mount or like place them nearby, or you're like on
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: a table underneath or anything, or you're just gonna keep
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: them up on your barbed wire. Yeah, I'm not percent sure.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I would like to incorporate that into the mount somehow,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: And I think I need to, um go back to
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: my taxi or miss and ask him, you know, if
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: he's got any thoughts or ideas. But uh, yeah, I'd
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: love to have maybe like some kind of cool braided
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: rope or something hanging down off of the backside of
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the mount that I can slip at least the big
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: one in the one I found from the year before. Um,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, It's it's just I don't know.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I love shed hunting. Yeah, I'm right there with it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I was already. I can't remember what I was doing.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I think I was just driving and I found myself
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: daydreaming about shed hunting season, and you realize that you're
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: in a weird place if it's the middle of the
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: run and you're already daydreaming about hunting, right right, Yeah, Um,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: but no I did. I haven't. I haven't been out
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: hunting since. Um. I'm gonna try it that my my
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: wife wants to go uh shotgun hunting this year or
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: take part in the shotguns season. So depending on what
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the weather's like and how busy we are, if we
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: can find daycare, I think I'm gonna take her out.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But other than that, man, just back to the grind
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: and I sit back, and I always think, like, dude,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: hunting is hunting so much fun? Right? And and I
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: love killing deer, especially when it comes you know, it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: comes to truish and a couple of days into your ruccation.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I shot my dear. I shot my deer
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: on Sunday and I found him on Tuesday, and he
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: was in the taxi ter missed by what Tuesday? By
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Wednesday afternoon, and my season is over, right, especially for archery.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So I love watching the rut unfold. And it's just
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: one of those things where you I'm sitting back in
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a cubicle now wish and I I wasn't tagged out.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. This is why you need to start hunting
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: out of state dude. Trust me, I know, I know.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I couldn't even imagine what it would feel like fill
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: your tag on November three or whatever it was, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: then just be done for the year. That seems like
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: appalling to me. Right, So part of that lack of
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: preparation on my part, I I feel that next year
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a backup planned so that if I
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: do tag out early again, I'm gonna have someplace to
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: go so or I have a Oh, like, I don't
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: know whether it's gonna be out of state rut hunt
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: or if it's gonna be like a mid to late
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: October out of state hunt. Yeah, there's I mean, there's
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: so many good states in your neck of the woods
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: there you can get to relatively quickly. Um, it's not
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: like I'm forcing you to go to Michigan and hang
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: out with the peasants slip or something. Right. Oh, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: I got one more thing for you before, and I
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: definitely want to start hearing the story about your your rut.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: But Okay, So there's been reports, you know how I
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: said all the big deer kind of disappeared this year.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: There's been reports that we have had a big h
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: D outbreak in in the area. Now, typically, I've never
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: personally had any of that on my farms that I hunt,
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: like I've I've never gone out and found a ton
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: of dead deer. So when farmers and other guys start
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: talking about it this time of year, you know something's
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: up right, because I'm hearing a lot of things where hey,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: I got I had some big deer not show up,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and I've had our and or guys finding some dead
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: heads already. So I'm just kind of curious what shed
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: hunting is gonna bring, What what my trail cameras are
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: gonna show after the rut is over, when I go
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: back to check come again, you know, to see if
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: some of the big deer actually did show up or
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: if they didn't. So that's scary. Yeah, I know, I know.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: But let's hear about you, because I know that you're
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: chasing a a really good mature buck in Michigan that
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you've been playing cat and mouse with for it seems
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: it seems like it's the same story, right, You're it's
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: just not holy Field. Yeah this uh yeah, it just
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: seems to be what happens to me now is like
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: getting in with these bucks and getting these interesting back
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: and forth. But but yeah, man, I what's it is?
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: The fifteen in November, It's been fourteen straight days I've
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: been hunting, and then before that was a two day
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: break for meetings that I had to go to, and
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: then before that it was eight or nine days before
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: that straight. So what's that? Eight plus fourteen is twenty
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: two days out of the last twenty four I've been hunting,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: I think um or something like that. And I'm getting
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: a little worn down, my friend, I'm wearing down, wearing
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: thin um and some just some just crazy close calls.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: I I don't know, man, there have been some front
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: very exciting moments with a very frustrating moments. So I
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: guess let me, let me just give it to you,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: and you feel free to pry wherever you've got questions
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: or thoughts as I kind of run through this, um
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: but you know, having Nebraska hunt, great hunt out there,
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: came back, and um, I knew that I had that hunt,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: and then I knew that I had to go to
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Montana for two days of meetings, right in my typical
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: time frame that I'm starting my runt hunts. Um, I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: was gonna have to be gone on Halloween and November one,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: so I was kind of terrified about that. Um My
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: plan had been to start hunting on Halloween for Holy Field.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: So get back from Nebraska. Decided to start hunting a
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: couple of days right after that because I'm gonna miss
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Halloween November one, so I hunt. I think it was
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: like the maybe or something like that, kind of uneventful hunts.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Didn't see much Young Bucker two. Um, there's these two
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: bucks that I have been talking about in the past, Um, Survivor.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Do you remember were talking about Survivor in the past.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: He's this deer that I thought was a three year
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: old last year, and so I was passing him and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: hoping he'd make it to be a four year old
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: this year. But I started seeing him this year, and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: after getting a bunch of pictures and now a whole
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: lot of sightings of him, I actually realized that I
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: must have overestimated him last year. I'm pretty sure he
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: must have just been a nice looking two year old
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: last year, because this year, I just don't see any
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: way he's any older than three. Um, so survivors a
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: three year old this year, so he gets the pass again.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: And then there's this other buck um who I've started
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: called Tran, who is also a really nice three year old.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: Um so those two bucks are on the past list.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Uh So, coming in you know this time frame, I'm
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: seeing these dear bunch still waiting on holy Field, hoping
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: he's going to show up, hoping that yeah. Um, let
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: me think about this. I've had them like right on
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the edge of shooting range, like if I not like
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: a slam dunk shop. But I'm just sadly I don't
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: want to shoot him, right, I'm kind of at the
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: point where I it just a four year old is
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: what gets me excited now in this area. So I
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: would love to see these two deer make it. Um.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: But other than those two deer and a bunch of
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: like other two year olds and year and a half
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: olds and stuff, I hadn't been seeing anything mature at all.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: So I was coming into this rut thinking, man, if
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: holy Field doesn't show up, I might be hunting but nothing.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: There might not be a single deer I'm interested in hunting.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So I go to these meetings in Montana, and as
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: I'm in Montana, I get a tip from someone who
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: saw a really definitely a mature deer, a nice buck
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: that was out on this property that could hunt. I
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: get this tip and then I get a tip that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: they also saw this deer the next day too. So
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: the two days that I'm gone, this new mature deer
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: is on this farm I can hunt. So I'm finding
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: this out and I'm like stressing, not like of course,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: like the one time I have to be gone on
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Halloween November one, a shooter buck shows up. I finally
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: have a deer I could hunt. It's a nice deer
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm not there and this is a deer that
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: after I got to see him, turns out it's a deer.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I know. This is a buck that in two thousand sixteen,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I got one trial camera picture of him in December.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: He was a three and a half year old, nice
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: ten pointer. In the following spring, I found his shed.
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: This was that year I was looking for holy fields,
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: looking for holy Field shed and I found this really
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: nice one. Was my best Michigan shed ever. Um And
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: it turns out though it wasn't holy Field. It was
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: another buck. So that's that nice Michigan shed I found
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: in spring of seventeen. And then in last December, this
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: mystery buck shows up on the property I can hunt.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: One day in late December, ME and further are hunting
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and this buck goes running across the property and I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: see him, like, WHOA, that's a nice buck. Never seen
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: that deer before. Um, I saw him then. And then
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: fast forward to January. See this buck once more. Um
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: on a different property, neighboring property out there feeding in
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: a bean field, missing one of the sides, so he shed.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: So then this spring I went over to that property
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: at permission to shed hunt and I shed hunted the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: scoured at trying to find this deer's antlers couldn't find
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: him this year. But never really expected to actually be
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: a hunt this deer. He only she was on the
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: I saw him once during the London season last year once,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: got pictures of him once the year before that. Um,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: never a deer that's consistently on the farm I can hunt,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: But now here he is on October thirty one. In
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: November one, my wife decided to call this buck Frankenstein
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: because the fact, he was first sighted on Halloween, so
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: I'm calling Frank. Call him Frank, Big Frank for short,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: or Frank for short Big Frank if you want to
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: give his full name. Uh So, Halloween he's seen, November one,
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: he's seen. I get home, I fly like a red eye.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: I get home at like, God, what time is it,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I got to bet at
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: like one thirty or two am when I got home.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: That would be at the morning November two. And then
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I'm back up at five am or four third am
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to go get in the tree. That morning, I hunt
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: up in the area of this property where he had
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: been seen that day November two, but I don't see
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: him at all. I think I saw a survivor, and
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: I saw a bunch of other young bucks and does
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: but nothing. So my assumption was well, kind of like
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: what I expected. This buck probably just got on a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: hot dough, came over from whatever farm he usually lives on,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: happened to spend two days with this dough locked on
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the proper diamond, and then he booker back to his
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: home range. I missed my opportunity back to square one.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Still don't have pictures of Holy Field those segings of
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: holy Field. I think by this day, like November two,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I might shared on Instagram that I kind of mentally
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: turned the page and the fact that I just don't
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: think that Holy Fields around anymore. Um yeah, I mean
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: at this point I should have had something. I should
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: have seen him, I should have had a picture. Um.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I know there's still a chance, but I think it's
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: a very very slim chance, given he used to be
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: such a home body and so visible and always on
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: cameras and now nothing I've had dear that just like
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: what you described, they went away for a year, came back. Yeah,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: so don't ever count them out until you know, yeah,
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: that's true. And so I'm holding on to hope. But
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: at least seems like this year it's not happening. Um.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And then that has continued to be the case since
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: that point. So November two, nothing great happens. But UM,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I kind of decide, all right, I'm basically going to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: be hunting for a random buck unless this frank deer
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: happens to show up again. Um, or maybe I'm just
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: gonna start hunting does here earlier because because I just
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: don't want to shoot in these three year olds Well,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: November three, I'm hunting back in one of the main
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: betting years. It's gonna hunt. Nothing happened. So for the
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: evening I decided to move up to the front of
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the property again to that same area where Frank had
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: been seen, to just try one more time. And about
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: an hour and a half before dark, a dope pops
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: out into the food plot, and with the wind direction
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I had, I couldn't hunt this front. You've heard me
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: talking about a thousand times before. It's the same little
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: front food plot section where hunted. Holy feel a bunch
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: um and that just historically it's it's been a pretty
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: good spot for having Bucks followed does out. It's one
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of the main spots that does come out in two
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: and this time you hear this. Bucks sometimes chase him
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: out there. So I couldn't hunt right in the plot
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and get shots into the plot because of the wind.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: I kind of had a hunt the very southern tier
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: of it, or the southern edge of the timber just
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: beneath it, so I could at least see into there,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: but I didn't want to blow my wind and tell
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: us all this betting. So about an hour before dark,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: like I said, dope pops out, and then I just
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: see times come out of tall grass and it's frank
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and he's a nice buck. And um, I watched him
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: go out into the food plot following this dough. He
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: walks right in front of my tree stand and my
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: bail blind that I have set up on this thing.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I'm just sitting like, oh gosh, how far how far
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: is he from you? At this point? Probably eighty yards? Um?
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: And he's he gets to within five yards of my
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: bail blind, and he probably is like fifty yards from
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: the tree stand. Um. But I just I could not
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: have hunted either one of those spots because of the wind.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: It was blowing straight from them into the bedding where
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: I assumed that if this buck was here, he'd be
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: back in there, and I knew I could hunt it.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: So long story this is, I'm watching follow the dough.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking my head, Okay, he's out of range. I
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: could try calling, but I just kind of see what
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: he's gonna do where this dough is gonna take him.
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: And if it gets to the point where I know
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna come my way, then maybe I'll throw
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: a hell Mary like challenge him with a snort, weeze
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: or something. I don't I didn't have very high high
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: hopes of pulling him off the dough. But sometimes maybe
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: you get him a storm over forty yards and stare
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: you down, and maybe I get a shot. So I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: watched him for a long time. He's locked on this dough.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I actually watched him breed this dough right in the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: middle of my food plot, um, right in front of
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: my blind and I'm wanting sitting, you know, sitting in
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the saddle yards away watching that. So that's the first
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: time I've ever seen I think that might be the
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: only time I've ever seen a buck brad of dough.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Definitely the only time I've seen him mature buck like
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: this bred of dough. UM. So very very cool to
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: get to see that. I mean, just like an incredible encounter. Um.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But the the story ends sadly and that she finally
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: takes him away, takes him off into the thick stuff.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I tried snort reason at him. He looked at me.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: He took a few steps, puffed up. I mean he
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: looked like he he looks like that kind of buck
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: that beat you up. Um. But he did not end
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: up coming my way. And he just filed the dough
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: went up into this thick, brushy grassy junk that um
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that he'd been seen in in the past. So the
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: next morning, my thought process was, all right, he's been
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: in this thicket the last two mornings, I think, or
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: something like that. Last two days he was in the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: thicket with a dough. I thought, all right, there's a
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: good chance he's gonna be over there again. And if
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: that dough transitions back through here, maybe if she'll stop
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: in the food plot in her way back to the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: bedding cover. So with the wind direction I had, I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: had to take a really big, long roundabout way around
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the whole north side of the property and sneaking from behind,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: crossed the creek and then to get up into this
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: bail blind. And while crossing the creek, it was it
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: been raining in the past. I don't know if if
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: when was this. I guess this is November four or something.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Been raining a lot in the days before. So the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: creek was really high. I wore hip hip waiters in
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: and it still went over my boot. It kind of
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: slipped and it filled my boot so soaked my socks
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and leg. Before the hunt, so I get into the
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: bail blund. Yeah, it wasn't a good start getting the
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: bail blund. I'm wet. I just take off my ak,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: I take off my boot. It's a disaster. But I
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: still feel like he might be up in the sticket.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: If he's up in the stick, and he might come by.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: And I was really excited about that. So I can't
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: remember half an hour hour after daylight something like that. Um,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: I see this dough in the tall brushy thicket stuff
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: working our way back towards the cover, back towards me,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and I'm just watching behind or watching behind or watching behind,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: and then bam, there he is. They're back in there again.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: So they start coming down. But I see that they
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: instead of coming back on the north side, which is
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: where I was, now, they they're coming back on the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: south side, which is where I was the night before. Now,
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the wind that I had is what made me think
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: I should go to the north side and stead of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: sitting in the sand spot I was act So I
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: kept having to make these adjustments because of the changing
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: wind directions. I wanted to be in this little area
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: but just make sure I wasn't gonna get winded. So unfortunately,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: he switched sides on me. And while this is happening,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I'm watching the dough and watching the He's maybe a
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: hundred yards way now, just they're taking their sweet time,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: kind of just slowly. She's kind of feeding on maple
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: leaves and stuff. He's just standing behind her, occasionally rubbing
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: on a tree and stuff. Um. At this point, I'm
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: going to share a story, Dan, that that you will
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: never hear Marjuri share. You will never hear John Eberhart
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: share a story like this. You will never hear Don
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Kisski or Steve Ronnella or anyone respectable in the hunting world.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: They will not share this story. I'm gonna I'm gonna
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: share this story because I know that people need laughter
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: in their lives, and I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: ask you all to reserve judgment. Don't don't judge me.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: Fast forward if you want to, if you want to
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: continue thinking of me as a respectable adult. Um, because
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: what happened in the next moment is the most catastrophic
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: moment of my entire hunting career. Dan, Okay, I'm watching
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: this big mature buck following a dole kind of slowly
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: making their way towards me, but not quite. And I
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: have the most devastating rumbling stomach, like bad, and are
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: you in the You're in the blind. I'm in the blind. Okay, good,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: I'm in the blind. And I have a bad situation
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: coming together. And I know this, and I'm thinking like, Okay,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: hold together, you are not gonna have an emergency while
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: this buck is coming towards you. Hold together, Hold together,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Hold together. And my body keeps telling me Mark, this
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: is happening, This is happening, this is happening. And I
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: keep on trying to think. I'm like, I mean, this
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is full blown, like contorting my body in any way
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: I possibly can to try to maintain control of what's happening.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: But eventually I realized I have lost control of the situation.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: This is an hour never moment you. This is fight
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: or flight, adrenalinism pumping. Every part of my body is
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: on edge. I'm trying to figure out how do I
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: handle this situation without scaring away this deer that's walking
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: near you. So, in a moment of pure panic and sheer,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I found my hands off. I dug
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: a hole in the bottom of the blind with my
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: hands while tearing off my jacket. I ripped off my
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: bibs so fast that I broke the buckle of the bibbs,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: and I was in a backwards crab position over a
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: hole inside of my bail behind while watching the mature
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: buck out the window and dealing with my situation in
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: what I now call the poop blind. Yes, yes, I'm glad.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you did that. I know because I would
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: have got mad at you if you went outside and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: spooked the deer. Oh no, I would have done the
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: exact same thing, Mark, So no hate, no judgment. But yeah, man,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: you got you can't spook the deer. I mean, I'm
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: notorious for sky dumping, so it's not like I'm gonna
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: like judge a guy who poops in in his own blind. Yeah. Man,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: we're now, We're now two peas in a pod. That's right.
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: So I took care of my business. I buried that stuff,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: put my chair back over top of it. I'm hunting again.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: So you have to cut a sleeve off the shirt?
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Oh no, fortunately have. I always keep TP in my
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: backpack just in case the situation like this arises. But
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I was down. I wasn't down one bib buckle because
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: of it. Um. And then I'm just thinking, oh my gosh,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I sure hope nothing comes down winto me, because even
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: though it's buried, you know, I just didn't know what
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the situation was going to be. And like, did I
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: just burn out this blind for the rest of the season.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: I just didn't know. And I'm texted. I text my
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: buddies afterwards, and they're just dying. And but I kept
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: eyes on the buck. I kept eyes on the buck
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: the whole time. He didn't spook, he didn't hear anything,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and didn't smell anything. Um. I kept all the movement
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: below the windows. So it was really about as stealthy
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and as on point with white Tail best practices as
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you can get when you have to make an emergency
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: in the blind movement. UM. So I handled that situation.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: But unfortunately the dough led him away from me, kind
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: of went near the trio's hunting in the night before,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: so that gave me a hernia um seeing him go
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: so close to where I was at again. Um, but
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: passes passes through heads into the east. And now I'm like, Okay,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna leave the poop blind because I don't necessarily
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: like the idea of being in that any longer than
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: I have to be, and he went. They transitioned into
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: the bedding on the south side. So I now have
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: this wind direction that does allow me to hunt the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: bail blind, which I hunt in the morning, or could
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: go to the tree which is in the middle of
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: the system, which allows shots to the north and the south.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: So my thought process was, all right, I'm gonna I'm
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: gonna leave the poop blind. I'm gonna move to the
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: middle tree stand for the evening because that gives me
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: shots to the north and south. And based off where
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: this dough took him, there's a chance, here's a I
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: thought a better chance that he might be on the
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: south side of the bedding versus the north um. So
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: I'd like to have the options there and the wind
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: would allow it. So move to that stand, gets set up,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I see some does some young bucks, blah blah. The
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: evening progresses, it gets towards last light. I still hadn't
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: seen Frank or the dough yet. But last light I
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: see this dough pop out right along the creek, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: right behind the dough is Frank and they go walking
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: right by the stupid poop blind, and I can't shoot him.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: He goes on the north side of the poop blind
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: this time goes directly down wind of the poop blind
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and never flinches, never stops, never bothered by it at all.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: So I thought to myself, Man, I I keep my
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: scent control program even in effect when going number two
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: in the blind. So it's proud of myself for that, um.
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: But that was frustrating to see him walk right by
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: where I was hunting the morning before that morning, So
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I now I had seen him the night before, I
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: saw him the morning, and I saw him in that evening.
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: So I looked back then that that night, I get
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: back to the house, I'm thinking through what am I
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: gonna tomorrow? What's the wind doing? What do I do?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And I kept on thinking about every almost every morning
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: though past like five days. He had been sighted in
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: this thicket up at the front. He'd had a dough.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: And now it's been like five days since he was
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: first seen, and he'd been in this area like four
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: of the last five days. And I didn't think he'd
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: be with the same dough, but he kept on being
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: in this one spot in the morning. So I thought
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I need to try to get tighter to that spot.
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna operate off the assumption that he's
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: back in there again. And if he's back in there again,
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: three out of the four times he was there, he
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: transitioned back to the member. This thin little strip of timber.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: He transitioned back through that like he did that morning.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I just described, so I sorry, I'm gonna do a
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: hanging hunt. I'm gonna get in there like an hour
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: and a half before daylight, hang a new set tight
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: to the thicket. But because of the wind, again, I
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: couldn't go straight to it from the road because that
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: would walk right past where I think he is with
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: the dough. So I went to the far south side
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: of the property, went way down the road to a
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: different access point of this property, way in the south,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: walked the far southern border now in a big circle
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: to circle around down wind and out, and about came
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: in from behind, snuck in from the back side. Now
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: slipped in there, hung a new set, got into my saddle,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, man, I'm I'm in it. I'm in
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: this area. If he's here, he's gonna come by me
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: with her. If he's at the dough. So first light arrives,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty excited. I feel like I'm in the right spot.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: And I look up in like seventy five yards away,
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: there's a tree just getting shook, and here is this
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: son of a gun buck in there again, and he
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: starts walking right towards him. He's like eighty yards and
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: he's a seventy five yards, he's a seventy yards, and
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: I'm like, holy smokes, this is I actually did it.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna pull off this running guns set more, you know,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: in the dark, got set up in this spot. I
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: thought I could get aggressive and moving tight to the thicket.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: Here he is coming right in my way on a string.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: He's ripped. He stopped, starts ripping up another tree. Grass
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: is like flinging up into his antlers and over on
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: his back. He's like trailing all these long grass strands
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: through his antlers and his ears and stuff. Was really cool.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I'm grabbing my bow. I'm kind of swung into position,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: waiting for him, and then just you know, as he's
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: kind of entering that next I don't know, I don't
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: know how this is for you, but I feel like
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: when you see a deer at like, you know, yards,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: like he's close, but he's kind of out there. But
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: then you get within like sixty and then all of
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: a sudden, like he's in the zone. So I felt
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: like he was hearts really going. So he's just about
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: to enter the zone and I'm right about to like
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: this is happening mode, And then this dang doll pops
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: out of thicket next to him and goes running off
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: to the north, and he turns and he follows her
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: off that way, and I had to watch this dough
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and that stupid buck go walking right by the poop
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: blind again at five yards, he stands in front of
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: that blind, munching on brassicas, and she's there and they
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: go back and forth, back and forth, and several times
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: she angles like she's gonna come my way, and I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: get excited again, and she goes back the other way
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: and and it's gone, and he does it again, and
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: then he goes back and it's very stressful, high intensity, um,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: but frustrating because eventually she takes him back into the
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: cover and they disappear, and and that was it for
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: that morning. Um. So that was November five or six.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: I can't remember which day it was, and I hunt
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: that night, Um, don't see them. And now this is
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: where my memory is getting fuzzy. Basically, that is my
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: last encounter with him as I'd seen him four days
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: in a row or three days in a row, back
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and forth, back and forth, back and forth, had the
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: poop blind. Here he is again, goes by the bail
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: blind twice. I'm not there. Then I hunt the bail
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: blind and he doesn't show up, and then I have
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: to leave, which is really painful for me. But I
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: had to leave because I had this meat eater hunt
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that um, you know, I couldn't get out of. So
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I kind of happened to me like this meat eat
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: or thing is actually causing you more harm than good
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: at this point, at least for the hunt for this buck.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Kind of timing for everything was really bad. Um, but
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: after looking at cameras, maybe it wasn't so bad. But
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the long story that is that I was hunting with
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Steve on this new West Michigan property that I permission
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and I've talked about. Um, Steve was coming down with
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: the crew when we're gonna film it for the show,
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: So I had to that. So we go to this property.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: I I the main thing I'll share from that whole.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: That was like five or six days we were hunting there,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: and it was relatively slow for a lot of the hunt. Um,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: things just didn't go the way I wanted. There was
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: more activity, and I thought there was gonna be you know,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: we had we had Steven a cameraman in one spot,
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: we had me and a cameraman in another spot. Uh,
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Janice was hunting in another spot. And then they had
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: a fourth guy who was filming b roll from another spot.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: So it was just like people all over the place.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: And that was kind of hard for me, being a
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: guy that really likes to keep impact low and I'm
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: seeing like four spots getting blown up every morning, every
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: evening for five six days, and in my head, I'm
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: just thinking, oh gosh, this is a disaster. UM. So
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: it just it did not panning out. Me and Steve
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: neither one of us killed a deer. UM. We each
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: did have one close call with a nice buck. He
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: had a really big one UM come into ten yards,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't get a shot because of um some
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: tree limbs. And then I had um an encounter the
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: heck of an encounter. We were sitting all day. It
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: was about twelve thirty, and um, we've been seeing some
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: bucks chasing dose and stuff that morning, so I was
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: feeling pretty good about it. Was We're deep in this
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: timber along this ridge system. There's kind of a bench
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: that connected to big ridges and bedding, and I assumed
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: it would be bucks cruising this ridge system. And twelve
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: thirty I see a buck cruising, pull up my binos.
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, that might be that might be a
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: good one. Like we hadn't seen a single mature buck yet,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: and I'm like thinking, like that looks better than everything
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: we've seen so far. And he comes over the next
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: rise and I look at him again. I'm like, oh, man, yeah,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: that's a shooter. So I'm like telling my caram like,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I'm shooting this buck. And he starts coming in on
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: a string. So I'm excited. Do you remember the picture
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: that I shared earlier this year of that one buck
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: with a huge brow time really just one one big one, yeah,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: one side, really really tall, a twelve inch brow t r. Yeah,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: that's this buck. He's the biggest buck that out on camera.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: And here he is coming right in. Now I need
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: to rewind the clock thirty minutes or so, because it
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: was a really cold morning and I had brought an
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: extra vest with me in my backpack in case I
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: got cold. So around noon, I was like, all right,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I'm cold. I need this extra vest on. But it's
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: not an outer layer, it's like an iter layer. So
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I had to take off my harness. I had to
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: take off my outer jacket. I take off my release,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: and I put on my vest and I put all
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: that stuff again. No, Now this buck's coming in thirty
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: mins layer the bucks coming in. He's approaching, he's approaching.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: He pops over the rise and now he's in the zone.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: He's like forty yards and I'm like, okay, this has happening.
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: He's coming right in. This is the moment where I
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: grabbed my bow, and at this point I usually clip on, right,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: you clip on your bow and get ready. So I
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: go to clip on and I can't. I reached from
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: my release on my hand and there's no release. I
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: don't have my release on. When I had changed all
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: my gear, I put my release in my pocket while
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: I was putting on the jackets, and then I never
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: put back on. Now I've got this giant deer at
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: forty yards walking right into me, and I don't have
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: a release, so I panic, and the editor, the TV
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: editor is going to have a fun line edit out
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: because in this moment, I say, uh, I don't even
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: know if I whispered. I think I almost like said it.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, I beeped up. I just said it, like,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: oh I beeped up. And so I've scrambled trying find release.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I find out my pocket, I grab it and I
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: don't even know how it did this. I must have
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: been holding onto the ball with my left hand and
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: like somehow, like I don't even know how I did it,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: now that I think about it, but somehow, I'm trying
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: to get this release onto my right hand and I
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: cannot get it on, like I can't get the strap
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: through the buck I'm like starting to shake because I'm
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: so like it was. It wasn't freaking out about the
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: buck it was like this buck's gonna walk right through
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in front of me, and I can't get a shot
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: because I can't get my release on. So I'm freaking out.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I can't get the buckle through the belt or the
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: strap through the buckle, and I just remember thinking Okay, Mark,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: slow it down, like, just focus on, just like I can't.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to describe to you why this
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: is so tough. But it was really difficult in the
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: moment to get this release on. But I got it on,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: and I was so worried that when I looked up
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that buck would be gone. But I looked up and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: there he is at twenty yards broadside, right there, but
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: branches all over the place, like not a single hole anywhere,
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: like nowhere I could thread it through. And he's he's there.
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: He's huge. I mean, this is the best Michigan buck
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: this if I would if I were to have killed
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: this buck, he would be my biggest Michigan buck by far. Okay, Um,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you know, he's definitely mature, five and a half years old,
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: probably pushing like one fifty, which is a mega giant
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. And he's right there twenty yards. I've never
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: been that close to a Michigan buck that big, and
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: there's nowhere I can get a shot. But ten yards
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: ahead of him, I see an opening. So I positioned myself, Alright, fine,
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: this is great. I'm ready. I'm clipped on. He's just
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: gotta go ten more yards and he starts walking that way.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: I'm about to drawback, and then he hits a wall
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of scent. Wind had shifted back just a little angle,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and he hit that thing like he ran into a
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: concrete wall. And he just spun around and bounced off
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: and that was it. And then I like melted down
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: after that. I was like shaking like a leaf that
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: at that point. So here's the question I have for you.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Did you have any shot at him before he was
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: broadside at twenty yards let's say, if you did have
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: your release on. Yeah, that was the big question. And
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: so after the encounter I looked and looked on like
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: could I have shot if I had my release and
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I was prepared, could I have shot him? And there
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: was zero opportunities, not a single place I could have
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: shot him until he got past the wind um. Unfortunately,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: this that this is the one spot, like this is
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: the down wind side of the stand, that it was
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: the one spot we don't want dear to go. And
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: so we you know, hadn't cleared anything there in retrospect,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: should have had something, but everything was in a rush.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: Nothing had been cleared that we had shots everwhere else,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: but not to that spot, and so I felt better
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: about the scenario because of that. If if he had
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: if I could have had shots and I missed on
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: those shots because of the release, I would have wanted
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: to jump out of the tree. UM. So I felt
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit better about that. The only thing that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: maybe I would have done different if I had had
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: my release on and I wasn't scrambling for five or
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: ten seconds to do that. Maybe what I could have
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: done is if I've been thinking about it and in
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: the moment, maybe I would have thought, oh, wow, he's
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: approaching where our down one side is I need to
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: try to turn him. Maybe I could have done a
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: light grunt pointing the other direction and maybe could have
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: convinced him to change his angle of travel a little bit,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: maybe and pulled him in the other way. UM. I
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: don't know if that would have worked or not, But
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: that's the only other thing I guess I could have
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: done differently if I hadn't had the release debacle. Um.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: But more than likely probably would have just continued on
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the path he wanted to be on and they would
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: have still winted us UM. But that was that was
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: the closest call I've had with the buck like that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: in Michigan. So to have it be right there after,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: you know, at that point, I've been like ten or
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: eleven days straight of hunting and all these close calls
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: of Frank and so afterwards I was shaken, and all
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: it was like adrenaline. I kept like I was just
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: like I kept saying, gosh, dang it for suwhere I
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: kept like gosh, dang it, Gosh dang it, And the
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: cameraman must have thought I sounded a complete idiot. And
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: then he looks at me. He's like, he's like, are
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: you shaking because of the cold or what's going on?
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, man, do you realize that just happened,
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: Like that's my one opportunity of the year. I'm not
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: going to have another opportunity dear like that this year.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: And it's gone. And it was there and gone. It
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: was so close, like to have that deer at twenty
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: yards and not be able to get a shop. Oh
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: and and that was basically it. You know. I had
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a few more days to hunt, saw some young bucks,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: um nothing came together, went back to the home property
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: to play place closer to where I live. I have
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: been hunting the past few days, no more signs of
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: Frank Um, no sightings. Yeah, and now the Orange Army
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: comes out, right, the Orange Army came out today. Uh yeah,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: And I haunted today. I usually don't hunt here during
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: guns season, but I did just because it's hoping maybe
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: this deer you know, might be around. Still didn't see him,
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: but a lot of gun shots. Every gun shot I heard,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking my head, Oh no, he's dead. He's dead.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: That was it. Um, But you just don't know. So
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: um Man, it's been fourteen or fifteen days straight. I'm tired. Um,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I got brownie. The Brownie points, amazingly are still in effect. Like,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: my wife has been total champ. She's she's gotten to
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: a new level this here. Man, I don't even understand.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I don't deserve it. Um. She like when I got
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: back from Nebraska, was gone for like six or seven
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: days in Nebraska, you know, on that hunt. And when
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: I came home, she went and bought a bunch of
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: groceries for my rut hunts, like for my all day
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: sits and everything. So she had like all my like
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: rut hunting snack and stuff I'll prepared for me. Um.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: She made a bunch of like frozen breakfast burritos, so
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that each morning I could wake up and pop one
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of those in the in the microwave and have a
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: nice breakfast each morning for our head out for the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: all day sit. Um. You know she's she's constantly keeping
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: tabs on like she's able. You know, she drives by
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: and see some of the properties that can hunt, just
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: kind of checking them out, seeing if there's a deer
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: out in the field. Let me know what's happening. Um.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: She Today she went there's this website called Michigan buck
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: Pool UM. It's basically a Facebook page where they share
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: like everyone's buck pictures from Michigan and UM. Today I
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: went to a local buck pool, UM, and like a
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: meat market here, there are a bunch of people show up.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: I don't they don't do buck poles and I would
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: do that. No. So for those who don't know, it's
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: a thing that I think it's like in the Upper
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes region. This is a thing where people like
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: gas stations or butcher shops or um. Even at your
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: deer camp and stuff, you have like a buck pool
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: where you ever, but he brings their bucks and you
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: hang them up and then you see them and people
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: mill around and talk about them, and there's big buck
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: contests and different things like that. So there's a local
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: um butcher shop here that does us has a great
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: big buck pole deal, and so I went there tonight
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: and we're there scolpting it out, trying to see if
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Frank had been shot by someone else. We didn't see him.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And as I'm driving home, my wife calls me. She says,
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I looked all through Michigan buck Poole, looked at all
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: the pictures. I don't see Frank on there, like she
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: was scouring to see if Frank got killed by someone
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: else on Facebook. I mean, um, she's really Uh, she's
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: one of the kind. I got lucky. So I got
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: back from my rutcation and my wife left town. Joke.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: She was just she was done with it. Yep, She's like, okay,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: I'm out of here and went went it's all one
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: of her friends in a different town, and uh came
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: back refreshed. That's good. I'm glad she's back on on
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: even ground and everything's everything's good in the Johnson household,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: right right, as good as it could be can be,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: because it can be. Yeah. At least you get a
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: short roccation. Yeah, well, I mean kind of you know,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: it's a good and it's bad all at the same time. Yeah, well,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: it is what it is. Is what it is, man,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: and that's and that's kind of the story of my
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Michigan season too, Man, it is what it is. I
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like my opportunities are waning. There's always
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: a chance for late season buck, but this, Frank, Dear,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think he lives on the property
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: can hunt. So I think that he was in the
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: area for that spell. Chasing does and locked Onto does,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: and he's probably back to wherever his home turf is
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: again and I might not see him again. I'm holding
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: out a little bit of hope. You know. He spent
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: more time than I would have expected, so who knows.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe he'll swing back through during late season again, like
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: he has been there once a year the last two years,
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: So maybe he'll hang out a little bit late season
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: and I'll have a chance. But if not, if not,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: there's no bucks for me to hunt at all on
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: that property at least um, So I'll probably earned a
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: dope patrol soon and hopefully get back to the West
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Michigan property a little bit because there are bucks to
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: hunt there. Um, and that's going to be kind of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the story of my season. It was it kind of
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: put all my eggs for the Rut into Michigan, into
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: the Michigan basket. I usually don't do that, right, I
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: usually go to Ohio or iiO or something, and um,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: this is the first year and like ten years I
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: think that I just hunted Michigan during the rut and
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: um didn't come together. But I did have close calls
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: with two with two mature bucks, which is which is
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: pretty good for this state. So I can't complain too much.
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: I've been kind of bumming about it. I've been kind
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: of hard on myself because it was like, felt so
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: close and it didn't happen. Um, And now you know,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: I'd say it probably won't happen now the gun seasons here.
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: But I'm trying to trying to focus on the silver
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: line that I had some really really cool counters that
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: most people probably don't have, so UM, trying to trying
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: to stay positive. It is what it is. Yeah, So
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: that's it. That's my long Michigan story. Um, And that's
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: our part one of this episode. I suppose unless you
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: have anything else you want to add. Nope, it's uh.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I can hear my kids starting to fall apart in
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: the other room, so that's my sign anyway, all right,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: good good timing. Then then that we're gonna we're gonna
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: hit pause for part one. We're gonna then shift to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: part two with Mike and Skyler from Hartland bow Hunter
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about their rud hunts after this
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: quick break. And we want to thank our partners now
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: at White Tailed Properties for the support of this podcast.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: And I want to give a quick plug for one
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: of their recent videos over on the White Tailed Properties
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel, and this is a quick one they did
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: about how to score a buck. And you know, this
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: is something we've talked about a lot in the past,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: me and Dan on the podcast that sometimes the scores
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: of deer's antlers gets overblown. We we spend too much
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: time and attention on it, um, glorifying the antlers too
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: much above everything else. And and that's something I think
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: we don't want to do, right, There's so much more
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: to a deer than his antlers. But I do think
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: as long as it's something you're not you know, at
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: least for me personally. I'm not gonna say what you
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: should do, but for me personally, as long as I'm
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: not focusing too much on it, it still can be
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: kind of a fun thing to see, just to help
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: you kind of get perspective about how this deer might
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: match up to others. You know, how to quantify, you know,
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: how unique or interesting or or or or special these
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: antlers might be. YadA, YadA, YadA. I'd like to score
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: on my bucks sometimes just for me to see. And
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: that's why this video is helpful if you want to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: score your deer and see how they actually do measure up.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: This video very quickly and easily walks you through how
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: to do that. So it's over on the white Tail
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Properties YouTube channel. The title is simply how to score
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: a buck and they do a very nice job of
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: explaining it and easy to follow fashion, so check that
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: one out. UM. Like I said, antlers score is definitely
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: not everything, but it can be a fun little of
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: the pie that you even take a look at, and
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: um helps kind of flesh out the story of your
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: dear So check that on and if you want to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: learn more about white Tail Properties, you can also visit
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: white Tail Properties dot com. All right, and here on
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: the line with me, I've got Mike Hunn Sucker and
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: Skylar worst Sake from Heartland bow Hunter. Guys, thanks for
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: hopping on the podcast with me. Thanks, thanks for having us. Yeah, yeah,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: no doubt. And I wanted to get you guys on here. Mike,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: it's been a couple of years since you've been on
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: the show, and I don't think Skyler, we've ever been
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: able to pull you on, so so I'm glad to
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: do it finally. And um, I know that you guys
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: have had some exciting hunts here recently. I've been seeing
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: what's happened on Instagram. I kind of wanted to get
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: the full store and that, and I thought since it
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: happened here during the rut, we might have a good
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: excuse to to dive into the house and the what's
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and the wives and use those stories you guys have
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: to share as far as your rut success here recently.
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: So that's kind of where I wanted to go with
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: chat today. But but before that, I want to throw
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: kind of a high level theory or observation that I'm
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: getting from a lot of people right now, and I
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: want to see if you guys are seeing the same thing.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I've heard from a lot of folks that the last
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: week or so, when we're typically thinking that the ruts
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: gonna be popping, that it's gonna be really great. A
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: lot of people I've been chatting with and getting messages
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: from have been saying that has been one of the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: slowest rutting peak of typical rutting activity that they can remember,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: and that instead of it being so great right now,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: they were seeing the best running activity in late October.
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: Is that something you guys have seen or have you
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: had the lights out rutting and chasing and seeking that
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: you expect over the last seven to ten days or so.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's I think it's been pretty pretty good overall. Um.
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because you always have people saying, oh, yeah,
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: like oh it's on or oh it's lockdown, or you know,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: day to day changes, and um, honestly, for for you know,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: for me personally, I feel like it's you know, did
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: you pick the right spot? Are you in you in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the right spot at the right time, like you know, yeah,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: one day, yeah, you might have a buck lockdown on
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: the door, or they might be you know, locked down,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: but like you know, you go to a different farm
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: the next day, different area and see some completely different.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: So I think it all depends on obviously the area,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: the region that you're hunting in, or even even farm
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: the farm. So um. I always I always laugh when
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: people like, oh, yeah it's lockdown, like it's lockdown across
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: the country. Every buck's lockdown the door, like you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I think it just really depends on on on where
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you're at and and uh, there you're hunting. Yeah, that's
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: that's very true, Skyler. Have you see anything different? Yeah,
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more than what Mike just said there.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: Like for me personally this year, it's been super slow,
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: like abnormally slow. That's just my personal observation. But I've
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: had people that have been right in them, you know,
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: and it's chaos and it's buck after buck chasing dough
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: and doing loops and round to all kinds of stuff.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: But but for me, what I saw personally, it was
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: it was real slow. But I know better. I mean
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: it could be one ridge over and and one hillside
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: over and not be in them, and that's where they're at,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: one property over, one farm over, just like Mike just said,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: so you know you're in them or you're not. That's
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: kind of what I feel about it. Yeah. Now, now
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I know you just said Mike that. Of course you
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: can't say it's one phase happening right now where we're
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: at and it's gonna be the same thing everywhere else.
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: But if you had to kind of this is the
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: typical time frame that most people think that we're entering
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: quote unquote lockdown. Do you feel like are you seeing
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: anything like that where you're at yet? Are you are
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: you seeing Bucks locked on? Does is it starting to
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: slow down? Let people typically think of at that time period? Um? Yeah,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: I mean I think I think so. I'm sure you know,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: we're near in kind of the peak of the rut
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm actually out in like northwest Kansas right now,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: which is an area that, um, not super high density
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: but really open. Until you get a lot, you can
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: really see a lot and you get to see a
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: lot of what's going on. Um, you know between the
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: several groups of people that we have in camp, Um,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: I mean people are seeing Bucks, Um, several are lockdown
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: with those But like I saw big mature buck tonight
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: um kind of by himself and all by himself and
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: he didn't have a dough and um, he wasn't able
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: to get him get him in bow range. But um,
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: you know we're seeing a little bit of everything. So uh,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's so situational and so you know, you know,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: farm to farm and just just you never know. But um,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: you know Sean, like Sean's been hunting and uh, past
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: couple of days and he's been hunting this specific area.
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: It's like tight to a betting area and he's having
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: a crazy intense right action, like he's rut on the
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: edge of the betting area. They're they're moving all day.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I mean they're not you know, they're not hardly slowing
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: down at all. But if you know, if you're off
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: that betting areaf you're hunting you know, further away by
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: food sources or um just further away from the core
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: you know, core areas, and you're not gonna see an
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: expert that kind of redactivity. So um, but yeah, I
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: mean I think, you know, yeah, it's definitely the time
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: when than when most of the bucks you know that
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: most of those are in heat and they they tend
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: to get with them. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I think
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: I think more of them going to be locked down
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: right now this time you're just like you said Martha
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: started off with, but there's no way all of them
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: are locked down, and so you better still be out
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: there trying if you can. But but certainly that's probably
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: why it is a little slower right now because of that.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: But we gotta keep trying if you can. Do you guys,
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: do anything different during quote unquote or if again, we
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: can't just say this is lockdown, but mid November when
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: it's kind of peak of breeding, more bucks are gonna
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: be locked than aren't. Um, Do you change at all
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: what you're doing from a hunting perspective any different than
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: what you might have been doing seven days ago or
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: tend to go ten days ago when we're kind of
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: assuming that most of the bucks are cruising around chasing
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: trying to find that first though, Are you sitting anywhere
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: different or thinking through anything different? Skyler? Uh? For me,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: not any different. I try to focus on the just
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: the rut funnels, you know, where they got to get
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: around a certain terrain to get by your stand or
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: kind of on the edge of a betting area that's
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: real thick or even maybe even right in it and
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: kind of kind of dive in there and get pretty
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: aggressive because I think Bucks potentially could have been locked down,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: you know with the first dose, even just a couple
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: of weeks ago. So um, not really changing anything this
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: week versus last week. I'm still try trying to focus
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: on those those betting areas and those thick areas where
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: they're going to push them into or be cruising through
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: some funnels to get for me to be So, yeah, Mike,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: same thing for you, or do you have anything different
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: twists you throw on there? Well? Yeah, I mean I
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: think I think you know, when when the Bucks do
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: get locked down, you know, there's stick contact to these
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: areas and they're not letting the doe leave. And so
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: I think being closer to you know, some of the
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: some of the better betting areas or even like this
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: time of year can be it's really weird with with
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: some areas we hunt that have like higher deer numbers.
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: It's crazy to where you'll see these big Bucks isolate
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: these dose. They'll literally get them away and these really
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: weird spots try to get them far far away from
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: all the other deer because they're tired of fighting off
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: little bucks and try tired of getting harass and and
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: they wanted to keep her you know, to themselves until
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: they'll run them up into these weirdest little areas and
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: so um, you know, it's the time of year when
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: you can kind of key on some some non traditional
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: areas where um you know that maybe off like in
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: Kansas where we're at now, it's it's it's really open
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: train and like a lot of the deer just run
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: the creeks in the in the in the river system
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: and then the draws. But there's little fingers that come
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: off fee of these draws, and like this time of year,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: it's when those bucks will get that dough and they'll
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: get her far away as possible from the creek and
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: from the river system just to keep her out of
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: the out of the high traffic areas. And so um,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: if we're seeing some of that, will definitely like move
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: in a hand some sets um you know, closer to
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: that area. So yeah, that's seen. And thing actually just recently,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: earlier this month, I had a buck that was locked
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: on a dough and he was taking her up until
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: this little tiny finger timmer that led out towards the
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: road kind of and then there were some tall kind
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: of CRP type native grasses, and there's there's never buck
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: activity there typically. Um. But for four days in a row,
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I think every morning he was in there with a
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: dough and moving in and out of there in the evenings,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: and so I just kept on Kenana. Every day I
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: was all right, I'm gonna assume he's back in there again,
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: and every day he just about was. Um. So that
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: as if you if you see that kind of activity,
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: it does make a lot of sense to to assume
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be some consistency and try to get tight
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: to it. It. It didn't worry out for me, but
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: almost did. Um. But speaking of speaking of going in
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: tight though to to like betting areas and things like that, Mike, Um,
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I just know a tiny bit about your hunt that
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: came together for you. I don't know, it's about a
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: week he goo maybe in Missouri, and I know I
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: had to do a little bit with you making a
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: move tight to some cover. So I kind of want
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: to hear the story of this buck that you call
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: bovis right, he's at six and a half year old,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: ZERI is that right? Yeah? Yeah, I come to find
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: out six and a half year old. It's kind of funny.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: We um we thought maybe this is all estimation, of course,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: but uh, you know, we had we had estimated him
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: to be five and a half, um, you know, based
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: on the cheff hand photos in the history we had
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: with him. And then once I got to dig it
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: into like old photos from the first year that we
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: had our our property, I end up finding some photos
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: of him from when he was uh look what we
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: thought was too So we we uh we kind of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: underestimated his age and actually passed him up last year,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: the five and a half year old. So but he
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: did get a little bit bigger. But um, yeah, I
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: mean I Sean and I were having a discussion talking
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: about how, you know, with Missouri, with you know, with
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: with the rival season being right in the middle of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: of the rut, and this year was a little bit earlier.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: I think it was the twelve. It was last Saturday
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: when I've opened, and um, you know, we always try
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: to be cautious on how we hunt and how we
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: approach things, and um, you know, we don't want to
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: blow deer out, we don't want to run them off,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: you know, off our property. And having the shot with
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: a gun and so you know, we're always pretty cautious,
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: but I felt like, you know, I'm talking to Sean,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I feel like we are a little
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: bit too cautious, Like we need some a little more
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: aggressive you know sets that that are sets that we're
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: only gonna hunt, you know, once twice, three times a year,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: maybe this time of year. And uh so, you know,
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: we we kind of started like keying in on on
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: looking at the on the maps and kind of finding where,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: you know, areas where we thought would be would be
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: good and based on prior like ship hunting one and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and um, you know, we've been we
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: we've been seeing this deer for for years. We kind
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: of knew his core area, and uh so I I
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: kind of I basically hung a new set specifically for
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: for this deer or one other deer there's too too.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: You know, mature deer are kind of in this area.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: And it's a timber you know timber set, and it's
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: in tight on the betting area and it's it's it's
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: a big draw that the bucks just kind of cruise
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: and they check all these little these little coves in
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: this in this draw, and um, I basically just wanted
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: to get somewhere where we were, you know, in tight
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: close to a betting area, that we had pretty good
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: visibility and that we could actually you know, call to
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: the year. Like where we put the stand. It wasn't
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: a stand that like, yeah, we have deer walk by
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: and bow range, but it's it's we're off the edge
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: a little bit to where we could really observe it
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: and if we see the buck to call to him
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: and and make the move. So that's what we kind
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: of did, and um, and that panned out. It worked
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: worked like a charm, I guess. So so rewind a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: little bit for me though you you saw this buck
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: for four years or five years wherever was what kind
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: of encounters were you having him in these past years?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: Were paying attention to them early on or was it
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: kind of a deer that maybe last year or the
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: year before year kind of like oh wow, this is
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: a funky, cool buck. You know, tell me a little
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: bit more about the history that led up to this
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: and if you know any that helped you get the
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: kind of final pieces together now yeah, oh yeah, it's um,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: it's amazing that that the way that we start logging
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: our trail camp photos and keeping track of all our
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: photos like and Skyler can touch on this too with
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: his buck here and in a little bit. But it's
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: amazing to see the patterns year after year and and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: and in the areas that they spend time in October
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: versus the area they spend time in in November and um. Yeah,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: So we have been watching this bucket for years and
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: had several encounters with them, actually this year in particular. Um,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of encounters with him early season
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: on a clover plot in October. UM, and then a
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: few days before I shot him, Shawn's dad had a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: close call with him, Um, just off that clover plot.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: He was coming to the uh this this corn mode
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: corn plot that check you know, check for dose. And
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: so we had a lot of encounters with them, we
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: you know, over the years and kind of put the
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: pieces of the pubble together, and it's it's interesting to see,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: you know, what cameras he's on year after year and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: what camera heat cameras he isn't on, and you can
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: really quickly narrowed down his his core area and uh,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: he was you know, had a fairly small core area.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I mean I would say, you know, three hundred acres
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: ish um, and so you know, we we we knew
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: that he was using that area, fruining that area, and
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: during the rut, you know, that's we have a lot
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: of those, a lot of high deer density, and so
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: they don't really have to leave and and chase and
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: run around too much to to find those. So we
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: need he'd be in that in that area pretty tight.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: How how are you hunting differently before the rut? You
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you're pretty conservatives. Is it mostly field edge,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: food plot, food source type of things? And then right
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: about in the last you know, ten twelve days or so,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: you start diving to the cover. Is that typically how
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you approach things or do you have a different way
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: to go about them? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I would say, yeah,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: September October, we're hunting, you know, mainly evenings hunting. You know,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: food plots, field edges. I'm not really getting under the
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: timber much. It's just it's tough, you know, our on
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: our on our particular property. You know a lot of
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: oak trees, a lot of acorns and so um. You know,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: if they're just scattered, they're they're not really concentrated and
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: it's tough to hunt in the morning without blowing deer out,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: and so um, we we would like to be conservative,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: and they get they get pretty regular, you know, in
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: the evenings on the food sources and so um, that's
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: typically what we're doing until you know, mid three week
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: of October UM, and then we'll start hunting some mornings
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: in Noptember um and and getting a little little more aggressive.
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: So so in this situation, you said, Um, you had
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: Shawn's dad had a close call a couple of days beforehand,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: you decide that you want to sneak in here is tighter. No,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: did I remember Did they remember this right that you
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: hung a new set like just before the day you
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: hunted it, or was this back in the summer when
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: you hung that set specifically for this year? Then no, no, yeah,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: we hung Yeah, we hung the set the day before
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I kill him. Um. So we went in midday and
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: on the set it was it was I knew it
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: was gonna be ah all right, anticipated at being in
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: more of a morning set. Um, but we decided we're
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: gonna hang it and just hunted that evening, leave all
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: our stuff in the tree and come back in the morning.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: We're gonna have the right wind, you know, both times,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, wanted to be pretty stealthy in
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: the morning and as you know, for you know, just
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: the filming side of things. I mean, we got a
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: lot of crap in the tree takes every set up
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: and cloud and and so uh it's there's nothing better
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: than literally leaving everything the three like my I left
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: my bow in the tree. Everything. They're like in the morning,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: climb right up and it's like I was like, oh,
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: I remember what this is. Like. This was like when
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I first started hunting, Like you just climb up with
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: your bow on your back and you're ready to go.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: H But yeah, so we hung the stand. We hunted
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: that evening and actually had a pretty slow set, which
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I kind of expected. H it was a little bit warmer,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: and um, you know we saw a few deer you
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: know later in the evening and then in the buck
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: chasing a dough. But um, that next morning, uh it
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: cool off quite a bit and um was perfect. Really
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: we got in there. We we did bump. You know,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: I was afraid of bumping deer because it's a more
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: aggressive stand. Like I said, you gotta eat it. A
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: little bit of walk several hundred yards kind of through Withtember,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: and it's loud, you know, all oak leaves are all
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: over the ground, and uh so I was like, yeah,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we're gonna bump deer, like you gotta just
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: expect that and and and be okay with that. And
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: it's hard for me to be okay with that ever,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: but uh you know, we we we we pushed in.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: We bumped one or two deer maybe on the way in,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: and got climbed in and had deer on us, you know,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: right away. First light had a little fun come by,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and then actually it was probably a little bit of
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: a lull, probably thirty forty five minutes, which is what
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: I was hoping. I was hoping the deer weren't gonna
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: be in there very much, you know, until later in
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: the morning, and later in the morning here like commonly
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: start kind of filtering through. And we had a had
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: a pretty steady morning from about you know, probably an
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: hour after our thirty minutes after sunrise until until I
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: shot him, which was actually like I believe so so
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: the situation you just describe there, that loud waking I
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: just had this morning myself, I was heading into a
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: stand and it was it was like fourteen degrees this morning.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: Everything was frozen and crunchy and there was no wind.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: As I got I walked across into the timber and
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: it's like that first step in there, I was like,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: oh God, like this is going to be a disaster.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: And so I'm always faced with this dilemma in that
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: situation where I'm thinking of my head. Do I just
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: so slowly creep along and try to minimize the sound
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: and make and just take forever to get to my
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: stand and try to be a little more quiet even
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: though it's not that quiet, or do you say, screw it,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna make noise. I might as well just get
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: to the stand as quickly as possible and get in
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: it so that the length of time and making noise
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: is shorter. Yeah, So I never know what to do.
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: I bounced in between the two. It seems like, what
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: do you do? Do you think that either one of
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: those is better? Get it over? That morning getting Yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: the morning that the morning I shot Bob, Joel and
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I were like creeping. We just creeped in. I was like, yeah,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: it's kind of loud, but I was like, what kind
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: of sound? Like raccoons or whatever, and like the year
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: like ran off in blue and I was like, come on,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: and I was like it was up pointing. I was like,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: you didn't sell us. We could have just been raccoons.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: Like you're not blowing it us no way, But yeah,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I know what you're saying. It was the same thing
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: this morning here in Kansa's like dead calm. It was
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: literally I said the brand and I go, yeah, I go, uh,
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: if there's any deer in the vicinity, like they're gone.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: So we're just gonna get in the stand and hope
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: that bucks come cruising. Like it's it seems it seems
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: it's so contradictory to what we normally do. But it's
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: is that time of year where it's like you gotta,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: you gotta, you gotta try stuff and you gotta do
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: it and you gotta get into the right spots. So
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: it's just I don't know, you just you kind of
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: risk it and hope, I hope you don't bump the
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: right deer. Yeah yeah, I feel like I feel you.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: After today, I might be moving to the just get
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: in there and get over it. Because it was just
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: so painfully slow. And then I still spo deer, and
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: it just felt like it was a waste of time. Um,
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: I might be in your boat, Skyler. I think I
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: like that idea. That's the right call for sure. Um
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: give me anxiety every every step, like I just get
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: I'm so anxious. I'm like, this is so loud. I
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: hate it. And then you hear that bounding away or
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: a dear blow, and just like your soul starts to
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: slowly crumble away. It's the worst feeling in the world.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: And you're like, well, maybe it was a high pitch.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: It was a high pitch blow. It must in the door.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: Or you hear like a really deep blow and you're like,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: oh great, it was a big buck. That was That
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: was the only buck around here. A good hunt. Whole
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: hunts ruined. What am I doing walking in there? Anyways? Now, yeah,
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: I know that feeling too well, the unknown, the unknown
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: killed you. But you know it's full of the deals
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: you'll never know. So yeah, So this this set you
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: were and you said it was a draw, that there
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: was a lot of dear bedded in. Can you describe though,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: like how you actually placed the stand within the draw,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: like where you up high on the ridge or right
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: down near the bottom or and how is the wind
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: and all that I'm kind of curious about, like the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: real details of that set up. Um. Yeah, so it
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: was it was up top like uh basically where it
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: was an old logging road that ran down the top
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: of this ridge and went all the way down to
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: where the basically of the ridge ran out. And um,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: the ridge basically shot straight northwest, so we hung it
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: for a northwest wind, north wind, west wind, you know,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: any any northwest wind, and uh, it kind of the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: draw ran out, and so we're kind of overlooking the
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: main draw and like it's it's it's a big deep
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: cut into like the deer. It's like you got these
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: little fingers and coves and like the deer, I've seen
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: them to do it, you know, over and over and over,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: and all the trails you can just see when you
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: shut hunt and uh you see all that. They they
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: they kind of just circle the down one side of
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: all these these draws and they kind of just basically run,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: you know, run these these little coves, and so, um,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be up high to where you know
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: we kind of see, you know, be at a pretty
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: good vantage point. Um. But also be entied enough to
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: where you know, we'd be able to to get a
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: shot off or call and have the deer deer come
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: to us. So, um, we were up high, like we
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: were kind of the tree was kind of off the
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: ridge and so the set is probably really really high
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: set because of the ridge is a little bit above us.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: But um, but it's a really good vantage point and um,
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: and kind of see what's going on all across there.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: And so then did you end up seeing the buck
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: and calling him in or were you doing blind calling
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: and then he came into that? How did that all work? So, yeah,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: we have too much deer. I actually like we're above
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: this huge like off to our north or our right side,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: there's this huge bowl um that drops off below the tree.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: And so it's a big, big, thick kind of you
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: know the area where it's kind of overgrown. We've done
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: some timber stand improvement and then we've done a lot
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: of prescribed fires in the area, so a lot of
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: under undergrowth and thick and you know, the deer better
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: than quite a bit. And I had seen some deer
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: back that way and I was I was giving Joel trouble.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: I was like, hey, you know I spot a deer
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: a couple of times back. I'm like, hey, that's your
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: side of the tree. You gotta keep an eye over there, man.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: And uh, I look back and there's like this one.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: I just one like lane where I could see for
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: like a hunt a couple of hundred, like a hundred
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: and twenty yards hunt, thirty yards probably, And I see
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: a glimpse of a deer go through there. I threw
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: my bonos up on him, and I see it's a
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: good buck. I have no idea what buck it is,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: or it's the you know, I'm sure buck whatever. I
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: just saw the solid buck and he just vanishes, and
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, look, look, look, look, and don't ever get
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: another shot at him. Like well, I'm gonna call could
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: be straight up wind of us. I was like, I'm
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: gonna come, gonna do some grunning and and see. So
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I grunt ground a few times, and I'm scanning, scanning, scanning,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: looking over the area, looking over the area, and nothing.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: I was like, dag it, man, I was like, I
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: know that deer, like I know it was a good deer.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know what which one it was. And so
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do a little some quick rattle. So I've
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: other antlers and like not real hard or aggressive, but
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: like because you know, he the deal wasn't very far.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: So I just you know, rattled lightly and um, you know,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: not too long by thirty seconds and then set the
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: antler down, and glass and glass and local looks and
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: is expecting him to come and nothing, and so I look,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: dang man. I was like, I don't know, I don't
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: know what to do. That was whatever, and just sitting
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: there and it's probably I would say like probably two
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: minutes went by, maybe and uh, maybe three minutes, and
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I looked down below us in
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: this bowl, and it's kind of funny because we're so high.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: We're like up and this bowl drops way down, so
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: it's like we're probably like fifty six above this deer.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: And I looked down and there he is. He's like
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: forty five yards but just way down low, and he's coming.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: He's just coming, and he's just like not like not
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: like when you rattle in a bucket's mad and hot
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: and like coming in like charging, but he's just like
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: zig zagging through all this brush and coming. And I
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: put my bottles on him. I instantly recognized you know
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: who it was. He just as heavy and as the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: flyer off as you do. And and uh he's kind
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: of exact him through this brush, like not on a
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: trail at all. If I come and right to our treat.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: And so I knew he had he was coming to
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: the call. And uh, so I turned around, got my boat,
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: you know, and everything I'm and I'm he's coming on
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: the back side of the tree. And so I'm like, man,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: we hung this set. It was it was a hanging
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: hunt kind of deal. You know. We didn't want to
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: trim too much. It wanna be too loud, and so
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: we didn't trim a ton on the backside down when
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: of course, and uh, here he comes up the hill
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: and and I see this a little a little clearing
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: like forty yards that range and draw back, and he
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: steps into it. And and when he steps into I
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: see there's there's some branches and there no way on
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: my shooting. So but he's still coming up the up
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: the valley and he's getting closer to where our wind
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: is blown. Someone getting got nervous. I had to spin
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: all the way around the tree, and so I let
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: down spin all the way around the tree and he's
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: coming closer. He gets real close to the tree, and uh,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: I draw back again. There's like some branches and treating
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: the way, of course, and so I had to get
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: down to kneel down. And so he's like twenty yards
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I'm like, not kneeling down, but squatting
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: down twenty yards, you know, on these branches. And I
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: asked Joel. I'm like, Joel, are you on him? And
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: He's like, no, I'm not on him. There's the tree
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: in the way, and so I was like, oh gosh.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: And so like I was like, all right, I look
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: kind of look ahead of the trail where he's walking
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: and he's gonna clear that he's going to clear the
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: brush and about ten more yards or whatever. And he
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: gets about halfway there and he smells the trail where
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: we walked in, and he's like put his nose on
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: some branches, starts like smelling around how they do. And
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh no. And then he all of
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: a sudden just looks our way and looks right up
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: at us in the tree, and I'm a full yer
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: all and I'm like, oh man, I was like this
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: is over. Like he was dead dead the right at
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: at like twenty yards and I was like it's done,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: and you're you know, you're full draw and you're kind
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: of squatting done too and stuck. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: squatting at full draw and just like yeah, just like
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: this is this is done and so over, and you know,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: you just know when it was a big deer, it
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: was an old mature deer, like they just don't they
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: just they just have the six sense about him and
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: whatever reason. He just like looks at us for like
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: twenty seconds and just turns and keeps on walking. I
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: was like, no way, and like he takes about five
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: or six more steps, and at this point we crossed
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: our trail. We walked in and he's like I gotta
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: be like three or four steps from being down win
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: and he finally cleared the branches. I stopped him and
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: joeld on him and I released, and like he stops,
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I settle in and like he starts to walk in,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: which I don't see because I'm like honed into the
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: peep and everything, and he takes a step as I
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: as as I'm releasing, which so I hit him a
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: little further back. But it's still this perfect shot high,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: you know, high double long, and uh, he took off
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: and I knew instantly the blood just started, you know,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: shooting out. And I knew instantly we we'd got him.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: But it was just I was a wreck, man. It
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: was just it was it cooled awful bunch that morning.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: I was underdressed because it was like super Wendy. So
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: I was just like I lost that. I was shaking
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: so bad, and and just the adrenaline rush and all
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: that you kind of hitting me, hitting me at once,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: but and if getting drawn back like its stakes to
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: face stare down like it was just a u. I
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: was like literally fall out the tree, shaking up heads.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: It was pretty pretty cool. Oh man, it sounds like
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: that would take a year off my life. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: that's why I got gray hair, gray hair my beard now. Man. Yeah.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: That's uh, just about everything that could possibly happen in
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: like a close encounter like that that makes it stressful,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: all happen in one for you. That's that's insane. Um. Yeah,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you you get you only get
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: so many chances, you know, And like I was talking
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: to to Joel, literally I think like right before this
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: thought was like, you know, like the the difference between
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: having like and a great year, like your best year
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: ever and a bad year is literally capitalizing on the opportunities.
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: You know, you only get we hunt you know, we
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: get to hunt a ton. You know, we're really fortunately
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: get out, you know, more than more than most people.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: But like at the end of the day, you only
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: get a handful of opportunities. And so you know, if
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: you miss you know, two of those four opportunities, that's
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: the difference between you know, a great year and in
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: a slower year. And so, um, I just I just
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: saw that opportunity like slipping between my fingertips. Whenever he
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: like stared us down, I was like, no, it's over,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: you know. And uh, but luckily it worked out the
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: right place right time, Like I said, it's nice when
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: it does all come together. Um, back to your calling
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: and you're rattling there. Um, you said you kind of
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: rattled for thirty seconds maybe a short rattling sequence. Is
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: that your typical rattling or what does your like usual
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: rattling or calling kind of deal usually work or look
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: at during the run? Um, yeah, I mean that that
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: particular time I rattled pretty short and concisually that he
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: was close. I didn't want to be caught moving. That's fine,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: that's fine. Number one worst fear is like being caught
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: like rattling. Um, but like you don't normally I'll rattle
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: for a little while longer, um, and I like to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: I usually like to rattle and then stop for a
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: little bit and listen, you know, for a few seconds,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: and then rattles some more. Kind of deal because like
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: if you know you have a deer coming in and
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: charging in on you, Um, you don't want to be
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: caught moving. So UM. I love I love calling. I
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: love rattle. I love being a in in a you know,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: a position to where you can see dear and observe
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: their behavior and call to him. Like that's the best obviously. Um,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: when you can you can kind of judge their their
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: body language and the base you're calling off that. But um,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: but yeah, I mean it's it's been you know, rattling.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: It's it's really hit or miss. You know, it's not
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: like turkeys and decoys and you know, just catching them
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: in the right move at the right time, and um,
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: you know it's kind of hit or miss. But but
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's a fun way to do it,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: and it's it's the best time of year for it. Yeah,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: So what about with the grunning and calling? Do you
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: do you usually start with like a light grunt and
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: then get more aggressive or do you like to be
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: aggressive all the time, or what kind of calls do
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: you typically throw at him? I usually don't like blind
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: grunt really, Like I feel like, you know, like a
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: deer has to be pretty close to hear you grunting,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: and unless he was just like standing still and happened
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: to hear. But so I usually don't you know, brought
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: blunt or all right, grunt blindly. Um. But but yeah,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: like I said, it's it's like tonight, I was like
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: the buck that we saw. I had a decoy out
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: tonight and so I saw you got guys got eyes
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: on the buck and saw him, and uh, I was
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: trying to, you know, see what he was doing. I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: was kind of observing his behavior see if he seen
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: the decoy yet, and he hadn't, and so I was
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: trying to get an attention until like I'm grunting, grunting,
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: and he's like a hundred fifty yards wouldn't that Wendy
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: like pretty calm and uh, I'm gonna have my my vine.
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: I was up with my right hand and the grunt
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: tabe of my left hand like because I I have
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: to like just see him when I when I do
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: ground and see he hears me. I grounded, grunted, grounded, grounded,
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: and he like didn't hear anything. I like, okay, I'm
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: gonna have to wait till he like stops speeding and
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: wrestling around so he doesn't grind and he finally heard me.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: So I stopped see if he saw the decoy. And
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: so I think the key to a lot of the
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: key to calling a lot of times it's like it's
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: watching the behavior of the deer and seeing how they react. Um,
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: because you don't want to overcall, you know what I mean.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: It depends obviously what you know areas you're hunting in
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: f the dear pressured him and called to a lot
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: and um and all that, but you have observing the
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: behavior and being able to adapt, I think is the
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: is the key for for calling in the dear. Yeah,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: I agree with that. I feel like for me so
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: many times it's if if you want to see them
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: show sign that they heard it right. You want to
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: know at least they heard the grunt, and then that's
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: like step one. If they know that there's something going on,
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: and then maybe I'll give him like one more chance.
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: And if they don't, if they show a negative reaction
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: and it's not if it's not the reaction I'm looking for,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: at that point, I usually just cann't. But I do
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: find sometimes where you get you get their attention, maybe
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: with a basic grunt and they're looking and they're kind
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: of interested, maybe take a step or two towards you,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: but then stop and then turn back and maybe make
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: a scrape or just keep standing and look in the
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: other direction. Though that's when I might throw like a
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: more aggressive snort weez or something. If it's a mature buck,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: then I think might respond to that. Um. But but yeah,
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: the body language reading that, I mean, that's that's the
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: whole game right there. I think more than more important
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: than the noises you're making is just knowing when to
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: make them and whatnot to. I think, yeah, yeah, and
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: all it all depends. Like I said, it's literally the
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: mood like the buck tonight. You know, I called to him,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: he heard it, he looked. I felt like he should
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: have been able to see the decoy, but he must
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: not have been able to and he just didn't care.
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: I watched him flick his tail looked either way, kind
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: of start feed off, and like in my head, I
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: was like, man like, all right, I'm just I'm done.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna let him walk. Uh, this is the this
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: is my first day today, uh where I'm at in Kansas.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: So like, you know, I don't want to get a
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: grass and I don't want to educate him. I don't
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: want to you know, push it. So I just let
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: him walk and I said, well, you know, we'll make
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: an adjustment moving on him tomorrow when the wind switches
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: and and try something different. So um, you know, all
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: depend on the situation. But I'm trying to think if
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: I've ever had a time where I got real desperate
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: and like like called a bunch like more than you
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: probably should have and at work, And I don't think
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: I've had that ever happened. So yeah, I definitely I've
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: definitely had sometimes where I call it too much because
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: I was desperate and had it not worked though, Oh yeah, yeah,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: that yeah, that's exactly that'sought A few circumstances or that
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: has happened. But it's easy to do that though too,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: Like you so badly want that buck to come in,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: like you can see him, he's right there, Like the
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: opportunity feels like it's so close, and you're like, well,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: maybe just one more we'll do it and he'll be
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: right here and I'll know when dreams will come true.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: But it usually doesn't go that way. Yeah, yeah, you
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: never know. Never, you never know you miss it, you
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: miss it. How the percent of the shots that you
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: don't take mark that that's true? That is true? You
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: so with with that kind of sage wisdom, Like when
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: you're when you're looking back at this hunt for both
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: of vice, is there anything that stood out to you?
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you've had any time to reflect
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: on it yet to think through the hunt in all
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: the years even hunting him, But is there anything that
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: stands out like as the moment or as like you know,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: this thing I did or this decision I made was
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: really like the crux of it that really was the
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: key to it all coming together. Is there anything that
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: stands out is like your big aha moment or or
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: something you could point to you like that. Yeah, I
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: mean it was. It was literally just quit being so
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: cautious and and and it's make a move and do it.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: And um, it's hard. It's hard because, like like I said,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: we just I just I hate the thought of bumping deer,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: spooking the deer. I hate the thought of you know,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: messing stuff up. When we can sit back, you know,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: hunt smart, play the wind, do everything right and be successful. Um,
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: but during the rut, like it's just it's it's it's
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: there's so much it's out of your control. Like the
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: deer are on a pattern. They're not regularly that you know,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: they may be in a certain area, but like they
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: literally if they don't have a dough they're just cruising,
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: just looking and so like you know, it's it's it's
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: weird because everything it's not with it's not within your
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: control like it is early mate season. It's literally there
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: you have to be lucky. Like early late season, you
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: can just be good and understand how deer move and
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: understand what they're doing, and you can kill deer in
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: the rut, it doesn't matter. You have to be lucky.
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: You have to be in the right spot at the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: right time. And so it's easy for people to get frustrated.
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: And you and I talked about that not too long ago,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: and then just all of us, you know, we were
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: Scott and I were talking about the other day like
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a grind. It's it's the rut grind.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: Like we're not sleeping much, we're you know, living in
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: a tree, spending time out there. And it's great. You know,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: it's exciting, it's a fun time of year, but it
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: can you can get so frustrating because it's just like, man,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: like you just you know, you're doing everything you can
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: and you just have to get lucky. So I don't like,
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: I don't like relying on luck. Yeah, but you're happy, yeah,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and just putting yourself in a position to get lucky, right,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: just putting in the time and being in those places
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: where it might just happen to work out. And that
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: is the name of the game at this time of year.
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: So yeah, man, Skyler, you uh, I don't know if
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: it's luck or not, but whatever you had going for you,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: something certainly went right for you recently too. Um. Holy shit,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: that was that is a buck. That was Skylar's. That
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: was Skylar's first in the true Buck siding of November. Right,
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure this season, the whole season, maybe it's
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: it's been pretty bad man. So so what was your
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: what what was the plan and thought process then? As
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: the rut was kicking off for you? If if you've
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: been struggling that much not seeing mature deer, what were
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: things like leading up to this hunt? Well, yeah, we'd
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: hunted so hard since basically just right there prior to Halloween.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: A few days we had some nice cooler weather and
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: just still never saw any mature bucks on their feet.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: Love trying to get one early like that, whenever you
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: get to weather, fronts come in and I just didn't
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: see it happen. And then November one rolls around and
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: Clayton and I were playing on hitting it pretty hard
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: between Kansas and Missouri. We tried Kansas first for a
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: few days and it just wasn't happening. We were seeing deer,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: but never the right one. UM. A couple of three
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: year olds um that we were wanting to pass. Never
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: even had a chance to pass them. They weren't bow
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: range but off in the distance, and even tried some
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: calling and just like you guys touched on they they
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: kind of and interested, and I wasn't going to throw
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: the kitchen sink at them anyway because I didn't want
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: to shoot him. But um, we ended up having like
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: a three day window where we want to switch things
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: up headed northern Missouri and drive a few hours and
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: get up there. And we had north winds, which is
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: which are the best winds for the two spots that
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: we have up there, And really was just planning on
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: sitting in this one funnel in particular, have this place
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: for about teen years now and have to stand there
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: about seven years now, I think, um, and just know
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: that it's it's just a good rut funnel. There's a
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: north and south ditch. It's super deep, and the deer
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: do not want to cross it like it would it's terrible.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: They want to go around it. And we're sitting at
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: the top of a ridge, um, and then looking across another.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: Then down at the bottom is where they kind of
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: crossed and get around it. So it's forty yards down
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: to the bottom and bow range whether or not they
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: just decided to go north and south, but if they
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: crossed it and kind of go east and west movement,
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: then they're coming by the stand pretty close and so UM,
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: we ended up just kind of going off of you
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: know where it's the rut. Let's just put our time
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: into this funnel and see what happens. The first morning,
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: we saw one dough in the stand, the same stand
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: I end up killing out of just two days later
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: saw one dough. That evening we tried another farm and
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: saw nothing. So we're sitting there and saw one deer.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: Uh you know, first week in November, and just like
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, come on seriously. And so the next day, UM,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: we sat in the stand I ended up killing in. UM.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: The morning and the evening we saw some decent rut
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: activities from small box chasing. Does We actually kind of
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: got into some It was felt kind of good and uh.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: And then that evening we only saw I think one
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: small buck in the dough and so it was kind
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: of slow that evening and we debating about going home
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: because we're kind of have like a Northeast twin and
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: we had a couple of spots down in Kansas. We
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: were just going to drive a couple of hours and
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: possibly hunt in Kansas. UM, just one more day before
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: I had to go to family deer camp in Missouri,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: and I was like, man, we're already up here in
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: we're in the tree. It's getting dark because we're gonna
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: leave our stuff in the tree and hunt the next morning.
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: We're trying to make a call, and uh, we're already
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: up here. Let's try one more time tomorrow morning. And
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: you know, we gave it our best shot. So we
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: ended up leaving our stuff in the tree. And then
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: later that night I was going through trail camera photos
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: and I had done this prior UM and I knew
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: based on last year, that every couple of days in
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: November there was a sheer buck in the daylight um
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes more often than that even and so I was like, man,
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: if we can just get in there, and so this
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: would be our third straight morning in that set, and
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: I would think within that time frame we would see
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: a shooter, maybe not get a shot, but at least
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: see one across the ridge and call or something. And uh,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: so we go back in the next morning. But I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: skipped this part. I should mention it. That night I
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: was looking at it UM and I saw pictures of
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: this year that the number one buck up there that
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: I had in he was there the morning of November eight,
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: and that would be one year to the day the
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: next morning, and I checked these guys on the HB
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: group text and said, like, I gotta I gotta breakfast
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: reservation with have a long tomorrow morning. And so just
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: kind of joking, of course, what they odds. He does
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: it again. And so we get into that same stand
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: and we had some decent movement and saw a couple
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: of small cruisers go bias with the bow range right
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: off the bat. So I'm like feeling good. And then
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: two different groups of those filtered through maybe within thirty
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: forty minutes of each other, and then it got pretty
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: quiet and went from the deer I'm guessing maybe at
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: least an hour, maybe in an hour and a half.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: I was getting late in the morning. We were talking
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: about going home and how depressed we were going to
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: be because it's November eight. We found an eight days
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: straight and haven't seen the shooter buck, and I said,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: we gotta go by ten. It's ninety five, and I
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: look up and I catch a flash across the ridge
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: like eye level, like kind of a miracle even saw
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: it really just caught my eye and put the buyos
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: up on him. And to see this rack, you know,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: pick his rack up, and I knew it was him
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: right away, and just from that point on I and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: I knew right where he was. He was coming down
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: this trail that was going to come down to the
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: bottom or sides head earlier. So I immediately reached from
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: my bow and a minute or two ended up passing.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: After I got my bow, I couldn't find him again,
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: and I started thinking maybe he left and turned around
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: and went the other way or something. But then I
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: finally caught a glimpse of him. As soon as he
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: gets down to the bottom, he'd say he's probably fifty
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: or sixty. He's not quite down to the bottom. I
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: I get the full draw because I know this is
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: a really big buck, and I'm going to get the
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: first chance to add him, like the first shot opportunity.
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna shoot. I'm I'm comfortable shooting, you know, forty
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: plus if I have to. And so I'm at full drags,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: and and he's coming down to the bottom. He stops
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: before he's down there, maybe fifty, kind of looks around, licks,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: licks his nose, trying to decide which way he goes,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: comes five yards closer, does it all again, but this
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: time like if he goes right, I'm kind of in jail,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking ahead. Some does have gone that way,
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: Like if he decides to go that way, I'm gonna
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: thread the needle. Um. And then about that time he
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: decided to just pick his head up and he gets
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: down to the bottom. This time he's the wide wide open,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: and he just flipped a switch and starts at a
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: full jog and starts coming up the trail that's gonna
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: come ten yards by the stand towards the top of
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: the ridge where we're at, And I ended up stopping
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: at thirteen yards. And uh, at this point it was
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: exactly ninety seconds at full draw, which I think was
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: a blessing in the end, because I wasn't focused on
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: his rack at all, just a hundred percent of the
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: shot um and looking back and seeing the video now,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: it's he's he almost looks fake. It's it's crazy. Yeah.
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: If I hadn't drawn so early, I think I maybe
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: would have lost it, and uh, it might not have
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: ended out so well. But at thirteen yards I got
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: him real good and and ended up seeing him go
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: down in sight, and it was just pretty much madness.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: After that, I knew it was the biggest buck I've
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: ever shot, and so we were celebrating, and I called
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: my papa all right after that, maybe maybe not even
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: a minute two after I shot him. I just he
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: shot a deer years ago when I was a kid
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: in the one sevenies, and I always dreamed of shoot
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: one like that ever since. And uh I dialed the
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: line and got him on there and shared that moment
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: with him. And I'm looking back at Clayton and I've
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: been known to cry one time when I called my
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: dad after I shot a buck, and he is literally
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: bawling in the stand behind the camera, and uh, I
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: wish I had a camera on him. I'll never forget it.
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: It it's making me get, you know, super emotional. And
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: so it was a cool moment to share with with
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: my papa Al and then Clayton, you know, getting so
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: worked up over it, and then eventually walking up to him, Uh,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: I could hardly believe my eyes. He's he is a
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: whopper of an eight poinyer. So yeah, that's crazy. Like
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: it's like we like Scott has had pictures of him,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: had you know, had pictures of them last year and
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: this year, like we all knew, you know, you can
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: see in the pictures like it's a big deer, but
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: you never it was weird. He's a weird deer. Like
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: it's like he looks almost cartoon and it's it's like,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: you know, he looked like he had a you know,
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: really nice rack and a tiny body, but in reality
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: he had a big body and a giant rack. Like
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: it's just really proportionate, and like the mass, the time, length,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: the beams, it's really all proportionate. And so it's like
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: one of those deals where it's just like you you
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: just you can't really appreciate it until you see it
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: kind of in person. Instance. M Lou Yeah, I mean
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: you see like a ten point or eleven or twelve
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: point Boon and Crockett ba can those things have huge
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: frames on them, but then you put those kind of
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: inches on an eight point frame and I just I
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: can't even imagine. I can't even imagine. I mean, just
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: does the frame of this steers dwarf anything else you
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: guys have seen before? Uh? Yeah, yeah. I had a
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: buddy over last night who saw it for the first time,
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: and then we had a fish for I actually with
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: our taxidermists Bruce and and he saw it too, and
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: just he had school plated it for me and we
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: had it there at his house and just eyeball on
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: it and just the people that see it for the
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: first time can hardly believe their eyes that it really is.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: Like I had to use that line before to Mike,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: just like a cartoon character, like you drew them up
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: and it's like this fake out of this world deer
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: like it's really bizarre. It still hardly feels real, Like
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: he's just a monster frame with this time length and
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: mass that carries alway to the end of his times.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: It's and you don't get any credit for that in
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: the score, which uh, I've never really cared too much about.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: But um man, he's he's special. He's one of the
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: kind of once in a lifetime for sure. Yeah, what
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: was what was the score? I missed that. What the
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: growth score was? Um I got a gross score around
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: one three, and then my buddy last got one a
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: D two, so we were within one inch of each other,
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: a little less than an inch when you consider the
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: eighth I haven't had anyone like of officially score, and
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: I've been in the talks with the guy about that
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: he's going to do that soon, just just a rough
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: score because there's a sixty day drying period. But I
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: think I'm pretty close, especially since my buddy, who's pretty
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: good about it. Uh, we got within an inch of
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: each other, so he he definitely grosses over. I can
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: say that confidently. And then the net scores decently less.
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: He's got a couple of kickers that are really cool
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: kickers actually below his brawd times UM that add up
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: to be five inches, which really hurts his net score UM,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: which is flirting with around one seventy one seventies. And
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: uh but a book, you know, and and that and
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: net booner eight pointers almost unheard of, so um to me,
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: to me, so I can't hardly believe that the same
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, no, Its like I think we're all
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: on the same page, like like we don't nobody really
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: cares that much about the score of a the year,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: so to speak. But it just kind of helps put
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: things into perspective, and like it's unreal, like I mean
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: that that's a giant, Like I mean, I don't even
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: know if you looked up like like we we were
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: looking at like eight point record, like the the biggest
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: eight points in the world. And then I think they're
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: all gun kills. I don't even know what the biggest
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: bok kill eight pointer is, so it could be the biggest.
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: It could be the biggest Bok point in the in
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: the books. Man. I just I just imagined my my
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: vision of what the tree stay it looked like after
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: that shot was just you and Clinton screaming at the
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: top of your lungs back and forth to together do
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: when you're here we go thing, here we go, just
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: doing that over and over. That's funny. Hey, you know,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: it's America. It's a miracle that Scott I was in
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: the stand past nine, say that is that right? Yeah? Yeah?
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: I usually get back in front of computer and get
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: work done from home, so yeah, you know, yeah, I
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: was struggle. It was it was our last last sit
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: of the trip. Like we were literally just soon there,
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: like this trip home is gonna be the worst, Like
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: eight days and no shooters on this trip in Kansas
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: or Missouri and like not even all see either, like it.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: And we put in the time in October and I
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: kind an out of state trip in North Dakota, like
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: come on, what's going on? And then just like that,
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: I mean and we talked about it too in our
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: group text like you can't you can't get too down
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: and discourage because it could change in the matter seconds.
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: And you know the right though to come by Either
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: you're in in him or you're not. It's chaos or
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: it's not. We just we're hanging our hats on that
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: and just be in the right funnel and putting our
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: time in and hoping it would pay off. And he
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: he came by all by himself, just just cruising. I
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: never called, I never never did anything, just you know,
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: just got lucky and stay a little later than normal.
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: Like Mike said, I'm glad that worked out. Um. I
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: thought it was really interesting though that he was there
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: exactly one year to the day beforehand. Um, exactly that
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: annual that annual pattern. It's something that so many people
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: I talked to now point to is something that they're
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: seeing more and more and keying in on that and knowing,
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: like if I got a picture of this buck in
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: this area on November eighth last year, I'm specifically going
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: to be in that area again the seventh, eighth, ninth,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: somewhere around there, if the conditions are right. Is that
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: something you guys have seen in other instances, I've I've
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: heard the same thing. Um actually watching the Jury show,
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: they've touched on that and stuff. And I started kind
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: of painting a little more attention to it afterwards, and
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: even just this year, like I was like, man, we
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: got that north win for three days. Let's go up
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: there and setting those two funnels, like and I remember
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: going through the folder. Mike was up there. He was
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: with me in January. We pulled the card last year
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: because I didn't even hunt the farm last year, like
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: I put him up in July. We pulled. We shot
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: a dough in January. Mike and I out there and
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: we're looking at the pictures on the drive home, like, um,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: there was just incredible movement in that area in November,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: and let's just try it. And sure enough one year
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: to the day this in particular that you know, I
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: would have shot other deer, of course, but he did
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: it again. I'm glad he did. Mike. Have you seen
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: any of those annual patterns? Yeah, absolutely, it's crazy, like, uh,
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: probably not as much, like I don't know, like in
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: November and stuff, like it's funny, like we have deer
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: that that every year, like will show up on our
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: property like around October or like like like Deptember, like
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: they said their raiment kind of deal. They move and
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: almost to the day. Like we had a deer pretty
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: like a really cool deer. Were called flat Top because
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: the first time I ever got pictures of him, it
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: was like the middle of October. He showed up, was
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: I think he was like a three year old maybe,
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: and showed up and had nothing of the main beams,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: like his G two and three were broke off on
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: both sides of an eight wire. The next year showed
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: up and think he was the main frame ten and
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: had like half of his times broke off on the
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: left side and all of them on his right side.
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: Like he must have like a calcium deficiency or something.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: But we called him flat Top because he was just
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: always busted up and and uh we had him every
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: year and it was within three or four days that
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: he would show up on our property and uh for
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: for three three to four different years. So um, it's
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: funny how they just like they just know when the
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: time of year that the you know, the the amount
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: of daylight changes and stuff gets shifting around. They just
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: they know and they move around and go to the
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: different areas, and then you have bucks that are you know,
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: they're all different personalities. You've got the bucks that are
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: like homebodies that are living a tiny core area and
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: they don't really leave there all year long, and so
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: it's it's really interesting to see, um, you know, how
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: different deer move and and and then shift around differently
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: during that throughout the year. I'm glad. I'm glad you
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: said that Mike like this buck in particular. I had
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: pictures of him last year for the first time in
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: late October, and when you know October, I think October
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: it was like the first time you shoot up this year.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe maybe they anywhere, you know, late October, within a
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: few days of each other. And we've talked about that too,
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: Like we know, I've had numerous Bucks, and I know
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: numerous people who have had the same scenario where the
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: deer shows up within the same week time time frame,
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: like basically every year. And so he was already kind
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: of reading the script from last year, which led me
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: to believe if we could get a few days in
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: the stand, we might see him, you know. So I
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: think there's a lot to that for sure. Yeah, So
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: would you point to, well, would you point to this
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: whole idea, that this being taking advantage of annual patterns
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: or something else if you had to, kind of to
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: the point that I asked, I asked Mike about his hunt,
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: if you could point to any element of this hunt
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: or this season, or some decision you made or something
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: that was was the most important thing that led to
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: this all coming together for you? What would you point to?
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: I'd say two things. Number One that looking back into
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: seeing the movement through a particular area based on your
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: cameras and even observations when you hint them there. Um,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: I was definitely leaning on that when we made the
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: trip before even you know, that was one of the
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: deciding factors, Like we've got north winds for three days,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: let's go up there and put in the time. And
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: even though we didn't see but one year the first day,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: and then pretty decent of the second day and then
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: the third day, it all came together. Um. And then
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: the fact that just in general the first eight days
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: and then even before that in October with some cold fronts,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: like we just had not seen a shooter and let
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: alone in bow range, like just nothing, and so um,
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: just trying your best not to get discouraged and just
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: to put in the time when you can, because it's
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: it could all change in the matter of seconds. We
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: talked about it in our group text. I know I
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: already said this, but like, it can all change so quickly.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of having the right jo in
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: your area. And the next thing you know, you've got
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: a a parade of bucks. You know, you've got ten
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: bucks coming through there in an hour or two time frame,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: like because they caught her scent. And it's just chaos
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden right in front of you. So
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: either you're in them or not. And we were not
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: in them for a week straight and then bam, you know,
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: a buck of a lifetime shows up. So yeah, yeah,
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: I agree with that, and I'm always trying to remind
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: myself of that too. It's it's more than anything else
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: this time of year. I feel it's almost just the
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: mental side of things. You know, Can you just just
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: mentally tough a out? Yeah, it's it's it's you definitely
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: play play mental games. I mean you just I mean
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: you sit You're sitting in a stand I doll like
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: for hours and hours and hours on end, and you
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: get exhausted, you're your mentally physically lost, you're tired. Um.
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: You know, contrary to what everybody thinks, none of us
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: hunt for a living necessarily. You know, we all still
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: have obligations outside of hunting. So um, you know, it's
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: it's just the stress of everything kind of coming down
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: in So it's easy to get down and and and
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: discourage and worn out and um. But literally you look
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: over your shoulders one minute and the next minute you
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: look over and here comes a big buck. So you
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: just never know. Yeah, I'm hoping for some of that
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: because I've had a tough run and coming market coming buddy. Tomorrow,
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: Tomorrow I'll be my fifteenth day in a row without
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: getting my running buck yet, So hoping it's gonna happen.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: You're even, You're even in the playing field, right, Yes,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: that's true. Tomorrow I will be extending my range by
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: a significant market. So yeah, that's a big difference to there.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: That will help you. Yeah. Usually I usually I stick
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: to the sticking stream, but today or this year, I'm
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: screw it. I need something's gotta hit the Yeah, so
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: smart will be interesting. Um, I got one final question.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, I guarantee if you shoot
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: one tomorrow with you gun, you'll be just as pumped
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: as you would be if you shot out with the bow. Yeah,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: I'll be after all the time you put it, I
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: will be a happy camper, that's for sure. Um. So
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: I got one final question for you guys. You're one
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: best piece of advice for hunting the second half of November,
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: because I feel like a lot of people when they
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: think about the rut, they're thinking just the first couple
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: of weeks, but there is a whole lot going on
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: in the second half. Um, some people they'll start to
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: fizzle out. They get tired out, worn out, or holidays
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: and different things like that. Um, what would what would
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: your words of encouragement or advice be? Uh? I guess, Mike,
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: if you want to kick it off first for these
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: next couple of weeks, Uh, my piece of advice would
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: be to go to Texas because that's what I'm doing.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: I'm getting I really, I really am. But uh no, Yeah,
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: it's tough because like, yeah, especially as states like Missouri,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: Nebraska states to have their gun season in the middle
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: of November, and man, it makes it tough. Like you know,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: the ruts should be really really strong on the on
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: the tail end when you know, when there's less does
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: and heat and there's more competition again and uh, in
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: Missouri it's just so subdued because the deer are just
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: so pressured, you know, from the gun season and so um,
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: it can be difficult. But I've definitely had some good hunts, uh,
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: you know past you know, the middle of November, the
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: third week in November and so um. But like you said,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it touches on people being
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: worn out and you know mentally, and it's hard to
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: get get into it. And um, but back to the
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: whole the whole rough thing is like you just gotta
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: put in your time and and eventually it's gonna work out.
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: So um, I just you know, you just got to
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: be in the right place at the right time because
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: it's the right buck cruising for a dough or the
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: right buck on a hot dough, and that that happens
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 1: and the compass should be getting you know, picking back
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: up after the after the peak. What would you say, Scotling,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: I'd say a couple of things. Um, definitely don't overlook that.
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: The end of November. I like it just as as much,
• 1:50:34
  Speaker 1: or maybe even better. I think they start to get
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: desperate at that time. There's only a few doughs maybe left,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: and they're walking in the daylight more and more trying
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: to find them. And uh, you know, I'm fortunate to
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: be able to hunt Kansas and the gun season hasn't
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: started yet, so there's not quite that pressure that Mike
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: just touched on in Missouri, and so we get a
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: lot of activity in our show cameras and have had
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: some good luck in late November. So don't get too
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: discouraged and maybe even save some days right now when
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: it's brutally cold cold out like it is right now.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: We're hunting in the single temp digits in the fields
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: like with the windshield, and it's just it's just brutal
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 1: out there. Like I've questioned our sanity. Um, you know,
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: just just maybe we shouldn't hunt now and try a
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: little harder a couple of days next week that we
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: weren't planning on trying that sort of thing. So definitely
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: don't overlook the end of the month. I it's it
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: could be really good. And then I actually like hunting
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: a little more back on the food plots almost like
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: it's early season or late season, like the does tend
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: to go there. They're trying to refuel from everything that's
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: gone out with the rut, and uh, they're gonna come
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: in there and check the dose out they're eating or
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: even fill up themselves from everything that's that's been going on.
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: So we've had some good luck over back over cover
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: plots or the turnip plants and stuff. So um, that's
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: what I would say, Well, you guys have You've revitalized
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 1: me by hearing about out two guys who did get
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: it done. I feel like I now have like some
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: good vibes back on my side, So I appreciate it much.
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: It was much needed. I've been pretty warned out. So yeah,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: discut between the two of us, I think we found it.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: Basically every day, I'm November and we've had two opportunities,
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: three opportunities, three opportunities totals, So they just you know,
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: they don't. It doesn't happen every day. I just gotta right,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: I wait for the right Now. I'm with my dad
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 1: in Kansas right now filming him, and it's been a
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: rough couple of days. I mean pretty pretty slow actually,
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: just kind of right back to it. I I's gonna
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: attack that. But the guys is like, well, back back
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: to the rock grind, you know, same, all same, I'll
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: not have any luck. And Sean's like, dude, be quiet,
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: you shot a world class buck and I'm like, I know,
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: but so like, uh, I know this feeling all too much.
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, well, I, UM, I want to make
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: sure that folks listening know where they can go to
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: see some of you guys stuff. Um, what would you
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: guys point to as far as where folks can watch
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: some of your your episodes, whether it be online or
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: on TV. We're uh, we're everywhere man. Uh Facebook, Hartland
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: bow Hunter, Instagram, Hartland bow Hunter. Uh, that's where you know.
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: We post a lot of this as it happens kind
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: of stuff. And um, right now we're filming for kind
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: of Hard to Believe It film for our twelve the
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: twelfth season of our show. So the new season will
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: be coming out um July of next year, and uh
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: so that will be one of all of our stuff
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: that we're filming now. We will air on Outdoor channel
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: and um, we're releasing right now content on Behind the
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: Draw on our YouTube channel, which is our mini series
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: just uh, just basically short abbreviated versions of uh of
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: the TV episodes or different content though deer hunting stuff
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: and big game stuff. So we're releasing those weekly on
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: our YouTube channel. So um or we're trying to get
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: it as much much content out there as possible everywhere
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: we can. And um, definitely though I think you know,
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: if you want to follow, you know, in the field
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: type stuff, um, you know, follow our on our Instagram
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: pages and uh, we're always trying to update that and
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: keep keep as much information out there as possible. So yeah,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: what about your Do you share your personal instagrams to
• 1:54:26
  Speaker 1: the world or is that trick? I feel like you
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: love stories? Yeah, so I mean yeah, actually, um, we
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: do more stories on our personal pages than we do
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: on the on the HP page, um, on Instagram, So
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: mind that. Michael Hunsucker, I think, and uh, Scott is
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: HB Skillet nicknames Scott got Scotta got involved in the
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: Instagram game like a couple of years later than everybody else,
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: and so he's like, I gotta come up with a
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: really good name. And I don't even know how skill
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: it came about, uh, but oh I know, but know
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: how Okay, well, let's let's hear it. Oh Joel, remember
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: Joel and the group text He had a little something,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: a little a little extra drink or two and he
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: couldn't type Skyler. He typed skillet. And that's funny because
• 1:55:20
  Speaker 1: like my Yeah, so my nickname in our in our
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: group texes Moke instead of Mike because yeah, he he
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: fat fingered Mike and then said moke one time and
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: then it's stuck. I guess, so that should I'm gonna
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: change my my Instagram handle that h B Moke. There
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: you go, get with the get with the times. It's
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: all about the HP then your nickname. Yeah, yeah, but anyway, Yeah,
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: we're all you know, all of our guys you know,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: are on the on Instagram, and yeah, we do a
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: lot more stories on our on our personal Instagram stuff,
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: and um, it's cool. It's fun to you know, kind
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: of do the behind the scenes type stuff. So yeah,
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: I always enjoy getting to see that stuff. So you
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: guys have been putting out some of the very best
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: content in the hunting world for a long time now,
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it's kind of crazy. It's been twelve years, um,
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: and you continue to do it. So I can't I
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: cannot recommend to anyone listening. I can't recommend enough checking
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: out what what Mike and Skyler and Sean the whole
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: crew are doing over HB. You guys are top notch.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: So thank you for spending some time with you to night.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah man, good good to get caught up in the
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: best of luck to you, uh close out the season, buddy.
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: Thanks man, I'm gonna do my best. Good luck to
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: you guys too. Thank you so much, thanks for having
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: so much And that is a rap, but real quick
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: before I shut this thing down, and want to let
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: everybody know that for the first time in like six months,
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: we have Wired to Hunt merchandise back and available for sale.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: We've got the wired to Hunt uh flex fit hats.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: We've got Wired Hunt trucker cats with the Wired Dunt
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: logo on the front, kind of a camo front of
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: that hat. We have two different Wired Hunt t shirts
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: available and you can get these if you go to
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: the Meat Eater dot Com go to the shop page,
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: and then within that you're see Wired Hunt gear is
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: going to be there in the apparel section. There's also
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: a Wired Hunt collection. You can see it all in
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: that spot too. So make sure check out hats and
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: shirts are available. I had a lot of people asking
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: questions about where those went. UM took a little bit
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: of time to get things back up and running since
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: we made the transition over to the meat Eater, but
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: it is there now, so heading over to the meat
• 1:57:35
  Speaker 1: eater dot com shop. I really appreciate your support. Thanks
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: for wearing that swag, and otherwise, best of luck in
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: the woods. I hope you guys have been having a
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: great rut so far, but there's still good stuff to
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: come in the future, so be out there in the
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: tree having a good time, shoot straight, and stay wired
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: to hunt. Atta