Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 479: Day-After Analysis of a Whitetail Rut-cation

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Ep. 479: Day-After Analysis of a Whitetail Rut-cation · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and today in the show, I am breaking
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: down seven days of epic white tail hunting during the
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: rut I'm breaking down the decisions, the outcomes, and everything
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: that happened on this recent rutcation. All right, welcome to
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the wire Dunt podcast, brought to you by First Light.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: We got a different kind of episode for you today
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: because this one's just me, just me, your host, Mark Kenyan.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I am going to break down the hunt that I
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: just finished up last night. Right now, I am on
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: the road driving from Iowa to Nebraska for another hunt,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: and I don't have anyone with me. I don't have
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: the ability to get ahold of anyone right now. It's
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: just me and I thought, you know what, I am
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: fresh off this trip, it is in my mind. I've
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: been sitting here in the car kind of running through
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: events in my mind and thinking through what happened, what
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: what right? What right and wrong? What can I learn
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: from this? Breaking it all down, thinking through my decisions.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And as I'm kind of doing that, I'm thinking about jeez,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: I should talk about this stuff. I shouldn't just think
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: this to myself. Maybe I should just share this with
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: everybody out there, the good and the bad and the ugly.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: So that's what I'm gonna do. And this could be ugly.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a glimpse into my mind unfiltered, with
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: nobody here to check me, or nobody here to call
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: me out, nobody here to tell me I'm crazy. I
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: don't know. You might not like what you here, but
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: that's I might not look it here. That's what I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: want to try to do, give you the real raw
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: scoop um from beginning to end. So I just finished up,
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: like I said, a seven day hunt in Iowa from
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: November one through November seven, and we were filming this
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: for a new show coming out in the Mediator YouTube
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: channel here in just a couple of weeks. It's called
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: One Week in November, and we've talked about this a
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: little bit on the podcast leading up to this point.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: But if you missed those earlier episodes, this show is
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: gonna follow me Tony Peterson, Spencer new Heart, and Clay
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Newcombe as we each hunt those seven days. But we're
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: each in different places. So I was in Iowa, Clay
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: was in Arkansas and Oklahoma, Spencer was in Montana and Wyoming,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and Tony was in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So we're each
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: experiencing the rut, but in wildly different ways. So that's
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: what we're doing. Uh. I wanna start from the very
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: beginning of how this hunt all came together for me
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: and and really try to give you the nitty gritty
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: detail more than maybe I've ever done as far as
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: all the steps to go into this. I want to
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: break down each location that I hunted. I want to
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: break down how I decided to go there, why I
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: decided to go there, how I picked the tree, what happened,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: what I learned from it, UM, my emotional state, my
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: mental state, all that. That's the level of detail I'm
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: going to try to get to today. Uh and hopefully
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: that'll that will be helpful to some of you. So
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: let's see, this story begins, I suppose, with getting access
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to the places that I hunted during this trip. Uh.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: It began back in the spring of when I decided, Okay,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: this is the year I'm gonna draw Iowa. I'm gonna
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: do this hunt for one weekend November. So where am
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I going to hunt? That's what I gotta figure out. Now.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I had hunted Iowa back in twenty so six years
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: ago as the last time I hunted Iowa, and I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: had gotten some permission in a couple of spots, but
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: there's been a lot of hunting pressure, and I like
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: every hunt, I was dealing with people and and it
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: just wasn't a whole lot of fun because of that.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: So I thought, you know, I want to try to
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: get some new spots this year. And so I was
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: talking to a couple of local friends of mine that
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: live in Iowa, and one buddy had a spot that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: he actually had picked up a small lease, and he said, hey, man,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be plenty of room for both of us.
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: You could hunt here with me a little bit. I thought, wow,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that would be great. Um, I would love to have
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: like a nice spot where we could do this hunt
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: and and not be kind of bouncing around between people
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: all the time. So that was a great thing. But
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: at the same time, I didn't want to be totally
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: dependent on that, uh, just because I don't want to
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: be stepping on my buddy's toes. So I kept looking
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: for stuff, and another friend of mine out there ended
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: up having a farmer who was giving them access to
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: another farm that was kind of an addition to what
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: they usually hunt, so they don't really need this spot.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: They weren't depending on it, and so my pals said, hey, man,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: this is this would be a good spot for you
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: to hunt too. We probably won't be hardly out there
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: at all. Check it out. So with those two I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: DEAs in mind, I headed out there in I guess
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: late March early April and was able to uh. I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: was able to get out to do hopefully scouting and
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: maybe pick up a late ship. It must have been April,
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: because I remember thinking that it was too late to
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: really expect to find a ship. My buddies property. Did
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a quick lap of that and then this other farmers land.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: There was actually two parcels that that guy was giving
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: us access to, so I did a quick lap of both.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: My basic idea with this was just get a lay
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: of the land of everything. I looked at everything on
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Onyx and I basically want to just get eyeballs on
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: it physically, to try to match up the things that
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: looked good in the map to what actually was there.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: In person. So I didn't pick trees, I didn't prep trees.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I wasn't able to do any of that kind of stuff.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: I was literally there for a day and a half. Uh,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: just did not have a lot of time to work with.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I was gonna try to get the lay of the land,
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: was the main goal. I did that, uh kind of
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: way pointed a bunch of different bedding areas, waypointing some
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: little funnels, picked out a few things that I liked. Um,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and that was it had to hit the road, had
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: to go home. Fast forward now too late summer. It
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: is August, and I had time now to go back
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: to Iowa for a summer trip. Summer trip. I wanted
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to put out some trail cameras. I wanted to glass
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: some fields at night, and I wanted to hopefully pick
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: some trees now after I had had a little time
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: to study the maps some more and actually have a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: few places prepped, not necessarily prepped physically. I wasn't hanging
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: pre hung stands or anything like that. This was just
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to pick some locations that I could go to with
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: my climbing sticks and my saddle and set up to
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: hunt once November came around. So like three days before
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go out there, one of my buddies
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: called and he said, hey, you know, this landowner that
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: was going to give us access to these two parcels
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, got cold feet, and now he doesn't
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: want us out there. This is three days before I'm
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: supposed to show up and start to scouting prep. So
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: now I'm out two thirds of what I thought would
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: be my hunting access just before I'm supposed to go
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: out there and do this final work. So that led
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: me to have to get creative and thinking, Okay, all
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: I have is the one piece now that it's really
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: my buddy spot, and I don't want to be all
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: over it. So I go back and I start thinking
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: about the places that I hunted back in two thousand fifteen,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: and one of those spots was a two parcel property,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and this property I actually got permission on and by
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: putting together a I went out there one summer in
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: two and I looked at you know, gosh, at that point,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I don't remember if I was using on X or
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: if there was actually just plat maps I was using.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Was that for long ago? But I figured out all
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: the property owners that had properties in this little zone
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  Speaker 1: I was interested in. They had the best looking land,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: got their addresses, and then spent a day going and
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: going to each one of these house. I went to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: fourteen different homes and knocked on their doors and just
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: asked for permission, and I ended up getting permission on
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: this piece. It's actually two pieces owned by the same family.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: One of them was this farm that just screamed out
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: like amazing. Imagine, uh, lots of timber with these fingered
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: crop fields going and almost like you're holding maybe three
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: fingers in your hands. Is the palm in your hand
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and three fingers and a thumb that extend into a
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: big chunk of timber, and then the same kind of
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: thing coming down, and there's a big creek drainage that
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: runs through the middle of it, and crop fields up
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: on top, crop fields in the bottom, and just great,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: great cover. I mean, this thing looked at dynamite and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: it was big, maybe five acres or something like that. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: The second parcel was smaller, maybe like two hundred seventy
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: acres something like that, but it was mostly it was
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: imagine it's a rectangle, it's just a big crop field,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: but in the middle of it run and several creek
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: drainages thin thin I'm talking you know, eight yards wide
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: to fifty yards wide to maybe a hundred yards wide
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  Speaker 1: at the wide is something like that, just thin lines.
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  Speaker 1: Several of these thin drainages that that kind of run
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: through the middle of it, making a couple of wide
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: junctions in several places, just a long line across the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: middle of the rectangle. But you know, it's crop field
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: did not look you know, nearly as enticing as the
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: big one. So I focused almost all my time on
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the big one. And there were some good deer there.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I had some good hunts, but there was also a
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: lot of other hunters. Like I alluded to, there was
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: guys there. Every time I had a hunt, there was
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: someone driving past me in a four wheeler, there was
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: someone bumping into me, or there's someone spooking deer. It
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: was just kind of a mess. So this time around,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I thought, Okay, I wonder if I could get permission
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: hunt there again, but try the other parcel. That just
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: didn't look as good. Maybe other guys thought the same thing.
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: So I get a hold of these landowners again and said, hey,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm coming back out. Uh, and I've actually stopped by
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: their house a number of times over the years during
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: shed hunting season, even though I wasn't hunting there, I
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: would just stop by it, say hi and chat with them,
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: and you know, keep up. So I asked him if
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I could come hunt this year. I finally had a
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: tag and I'm back, and they said sure, we're happy
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: to have you come back out. They've always appreciated me
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: stopping in and chatting and all that, and we have
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: a nice relationship. So here's what I was gonna do.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I I lost access to these two parcels, but now
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I have permission again to hunt this old spot. And
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: my new idea was, let's focus on the lesser looking parcel,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: because that's probably what everyone is overlooking. All the other
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: hunters a hunt here, probably see this one. I think, Nah,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: not that great. I'm gonna hunt the big sexy one.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And actually, maybe these little draws that run through the
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: middle of the fields during the rut that actually could
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: be pretty decent, pretty predictable movement. There's gotta be bucks
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: cruising those draws, is what I was thinking to myself
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: this summer. Let's try that and maybe we can avoid
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure that way. So August six or whatever. That's
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: my idea. I'm gonna go look at my buddies property
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: real quick, do another walk through, and then go and
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: spend most of my time trying to relearn this spot.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: And really learned this spot because I hunted the other parcel.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I hadn't hunted this overlooked parcel except for one afternoon.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I went and set the edge of it, sat the
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: edge of it. Didn't see a thing. So basically have
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: zero experience on this one August sevent rolls around. I
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: go out there, do some glassing, don't really see much,
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: walk these properties, don't see a whole lot. Um I put.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Let's see, we had a handful of cameras on my
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: buddies property. Then I hung one cell camera and two
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: traditional cameras on the overlooked farm. We'll call that the
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: overlooked farm. We'll call the other one my buddies farm.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: Just to keep these two things straight, so they overlooked farm.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I got three cameras up my Buddies farm. I gave
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: him a couple of cameras. He had a couple of
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: camera was like three cell cameras, and we had those
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: all situated by the end of that weekend, and I've
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: gotten a dude. Basically, I'll walk through. I re learned
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the Overlooked Farm, gotta walk through, picked out a couple
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: of spots that looked pretty good, and that was all
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: I had because I had like a day and a
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: half again for that trip. That was basically the extent
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of my scouting going into this November hunt. I had
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: done a few walk throughs, but was mostly going to
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: be dependent on, you know, figuring out as I went.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: That brings us to October one, basically November one, Right,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: I drive out the night of Halloween and arrive here
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: in Iowa with a week to hunt. I got a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: cameraman with me, and I've got some climbing sticks, and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I've got my saddle and my bow and that's it.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: I have some trout camera information because my buddy's property,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you know, he's been getting pictures and we had cell
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: cameras that we were both getting pictures to our phones from.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: So we're keeping tabs and what was happening through that, uh,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the overlooked farm. I had that one cell camera, but
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: within like fifteen days of it going, it was dead
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: and wasn't sending me pictures anymore. So I had zero
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: intell on what was going on on the overlooked farm.
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: So arriving in the night of the thirty one, looking
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: at the weather, looking at everything that's going on, we
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: had a good cold conditions coming in for the beginning
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: of the week. It's gonna be November one. I'm thinking
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: they should be cruising, they should be starting to do
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: ready stuff. What I decided I wanted to do was
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: try to get an assessment of what was going on
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: on the overlooked property. Because I had a basic idea
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of what was happening on my buddies because he'd hunted
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a few times and we had trail cameras out there
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: that we're giving us, you know, consistent updates. Had zero
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: idea what was on the overlooked farm. If there was
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: hunters on the overlooked farm, Uh, nothing. So I thought,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: all right, let's start there and then I will adjust
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: from there if I need to. That brings us to
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the first mooring hunt. I had found a spot while
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: I was scouting in the summer, while I did my
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: quick speed walk of this property that really jumped out
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: to me as a great rut set. It just jumped
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: out as being the kind of spot was that was
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: a no brainer rut location, and it had a tree.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: I actually remember finding a tree and pinning it, thinking, man,
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: this would be a great tree for a western northwest wind.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: Easy to get into overlooked. This location was set up
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: decent with a cameraman. It was one of the few
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: spots I found like that. That was it was obvious,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: So I pinned that. I thought to myself, now, hey,
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: that would be a great location. It would get me
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: back and kind of in the back corner of this
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: property for day one, and then I could pull trail
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: cameras on the way out that night. So morning one
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: was gonna be like a west northwest wind. This is
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the location I wanted to go to. Now, let me
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: describe this location to you as I As I mentioned
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the overlooked property, It's mostly just these rows that run
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: through this rectangular field. So imagine you've got this rectangle.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: The rectangle is mostly corn except for these draws. And
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: if I were to paint the picture for you, imagine
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: drawing a line from the bottom left corner of the
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: rectangle up to the top right corner. That's the main
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: line of the creek, and then take two more lines
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: off of that and extend it from that middle line,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that diagonal line, make a y from one of those
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: down to a corner, and then take another one and
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: go down from the corner. So we've got this diagonal
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: line with two draws that dropped down from it, going down,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: making a couple of ye junctions. That is the farm.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: The bottom left corner where one of these wide junctions
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: happens is the location that I had picked out as
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: being dynamite. You've got these three lines of a draw
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: coming together, so we've got a three way junction of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: timbered draws. In the middle of this there's this little
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: brushy bottom kind of a low spot. There's great big
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: scrape in the middle of it. And just to the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: left in one of these draws, in one of these
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: little timbered fingers, is a pond about sixty yards away
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: from this tree. And then, oh, by the way, look
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: at the other timber draw So this is the third
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of these timber draws that's ahead of me, and it
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: is thick, thick, nasty, best bedding cover I found on
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: this farm, opening up to a chunk of timber. So
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: I've got dough bedding in front of me. I've got
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: three pinches all coming down and converging right here in
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: the middle, and I have a pond. That is what
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: this location had. Those are things that scream rut success. Right.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: The rut, as we've talked about over the years, is
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: about the does so being close to dough bedding, ding
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: ding ding, great thing, pinch points ding ding ding. I've
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: got a pinch. I've got three different pinches all converging
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: in one hub. And then hey, let's get the added
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: bonus of a great big hub scrape in the middle
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: of it, added bonus of a pond right now next
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: to it. And oh, by the way, in the field
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: behind me created by two of these timbered ridges coming
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: out is actually CRP. They took this one field out
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: of corn and put it into CRP. So my backside
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: now has great tall grass that I figured does must
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: be betting in. So I got dough betting on two
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: sides of me, pinch points on either side, pond, a scrape.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: It looks great. I get another day. One got set
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: in the tree. We go in very early. I was
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: trying to get to the property almost two hours before daylight,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: because it takes a long time to get camera gear
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: together and get your all your stuff takes It was
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a twenty plus minute walking to get to the tree,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: and then we have to set up climbing sticks, my
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: platform and saddle my cameraman's platform and saddle all of
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: our gear. So we were, you know, upright and early
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: at it, bright and early getting in there. We get
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: climbed up in the tree, we get settled. That took
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a while. Daylight breaks and it is November first, first
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: shooting light. Iowa, everything you dream of, everything you hope for,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: this is it right, This is the pinnacle of white
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: tail hunting. And I'm thinking this is gonna be a
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: heck of a week and not shoot. I don't know. Well, actually,
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: at first light I forgot about this. At first light,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I look out and I see a betted deer, like
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: seventy yards away. There's a buck betted seventy yards away,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: laying down, facing away from us. It's a little year
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: and a half old, but that was a great sign
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: of thought. Then, probably ten minutes after light, I see
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: some movement in the crp behind us. Here comes a
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: dough and a buck, and right away I'm like, oh
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: my gosh, that's that might be a shooter buck. This
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: is a nice framed deer and he's coming my way
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, oh no, it's day one. I've hunted
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: for ten minutes in Iowa and here's this buck coming.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: And I start looking at him and like, ah, I
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: don't know, he's what looks like an eight Eventually, really
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: he's a nine pointer, maybe like to his ears, maybe
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: just outside of his ears, and maybe like eight inch
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: time length, that kind of thing, Just like a nice
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: boxy eight pointer, nice like like a nice buck. A
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: buck in Michigan that would be one of the better
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: bucks around in most places I hunt in Michigan. But
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: here in Iowa, where you know the sky is the limit,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: where you've waited years and years to draw a tag.
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I've applied in the lottery for three years to get
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: enough points to get this tag. It's been six years
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: since i've been back. When you go to Iowa, there's
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: a certain set of standards or hopes or expectations that
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: you have. And this buck's coming in and I'm thinking,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: goshtro I want to end my Iowa right hunt ten
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: minutes in on this buck. He's probably one twenty five
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: ish three year old, probably he keeps coming in and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, I mean, I had this back and forth,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: back and forth, like I can't shoot that now. I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: can't shoot that kind of deer here in the first
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: time in Iowa, even though it would be a pretty
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: darn great buck back at home. Ah, I can't shoot
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that buck on the first morning. And he ends up
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: coming into thirty yards, stands broadside, looking around, makes the scrape,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and I sit there and say, you know what, not
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: doing it. I can't shoot this buck right now. Pass
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: great encounter, though, got me very excited. I was fired
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: up sitting there a while longer, a little buck curses through.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Another little buck comes through. Then I looked to my
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: left and stepping out of that pond big tall times,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, holy crap, big buck, big buck. Here
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: comes a deer. But as he gets up over the
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: hill coming out of the pond, and again had the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: same feeling, Ah, he's kind of tight, he's kind of tall.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: But he was another one of those in between her bucks.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: He was bigger than the last one, I thought, but
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: again not a really big body. And at first my
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: cameraman he's like he's one fifty, and I'm like, oh,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: my gosh, he is he one fifty? In my head,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: he wasn't that big, and I think he was just
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: over excited as I'm looking at like maybe he's like
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: one thirties. Uh tight and tall, like eight pointer, nice
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: brow times. But again, We're only a half hour into
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the day of the first day and he's coming out,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, should I do this? Should I shoot
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: this buck? We've only just started. It seems like it's
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: absolutely popping. I know there's gotta be big mature box
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: around here this year. I don't think so. I think
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: he's probably a three and a half year old. He
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: comes walking by, like forty one yard something like that,
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: and I just let him walk. I don't even try
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to get him closer. He gets out to ninety yards
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm back and forth, back and forth, like should
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: I try to get another look at him? Like oh,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that's grunting him in have him coming close and let
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: me look at him again and give him a little grunt.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: He turns and looks kind of starts walking back my
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: way never quite comes in the rain. But as he's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: coming by, I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: shoot that buck. On day one, I gotta give this
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: time a ride out out. I gotta I gotta enjoy
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the ride, right you wait all this time to hunt Iowa.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: You gotta enjoy it. You gotta see it. You don't
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: want to stop it right away. So I passed that buck.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: The rest of the day come, you know, carries on.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: I was very like hyped out, so pumped. It's everything
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I dreamed of suck to like really nice bucks that
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: would have shot in a lot of places already. Um,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be the week of all weeks. The
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: day moves on, a few more bucks cruise through. It's
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: looking good. I decide that I'm gonna change my plans.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: My original plan was to hunt that morning see what
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: was going on, and then at midday I was gonna
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: bail out, pull trail cameras, and scout my way out
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: of the property. So that now I'd have a morning
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: hunt and trail camera intel and a midday scout to
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: assess what's happening on the overlooked farm, and then I
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: would go hunt my buddies farm in the evening to
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: do the same thing, to scout my way in, to
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: get set up and to pull another camera and to
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: learn what's going on? But after all that hot and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: heavy action that morning, and I forgot to mention I
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all so saw one more buck, just for a couple
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: of seconds, running on a neighboring field that looked like
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a big frame, so maybe a third good buck. So
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: all that action stopped. Made me think, man, it's on
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and here. You don't leave fish to find fish, as
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: they say. So I decided I need to stick it
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: out here all day and see what happens the rest
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: of this, you know, afternoon. So I ended up sitting
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: through midday, sat the entire day there, and we saw
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a few more young bucks, but no other shooters came
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: out that day. But we you know, we felt good
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: about it. We put in the time, had good opportunities,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: just not quite what I was waiting for. Um, so
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know what great day one. On the
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: way out, I pulled a couple of cameras. One of
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: them had not taken pictures since September ten. That was disappointing.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: The other one that had taken pictures all the way
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: up until that point. So that night I checked the
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: cameras and what the cameras showed me was kind of disappointing.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: What that And it's only one camera, so you can
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: only take so much from it. But it basically showed
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: me that there was only one mature buck that was
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: hitting that camera. There was a bunch of young bucks,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: there was the bucks that I passed on um and
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: a number of others, but there was only one deer
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that was definitely four or older. He was a stud.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: He was definitely a four plus year old buck, big
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: like main frame ten with an inside tying on one
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of them, so technically at eleven points, I mean, a slammer.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: But he was the only one, and that was a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: little disappointing because this is Iowa, right, Yeah, you kind
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: of go into this, at least as an out of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: state or you go into Iowa thinking, man, they're behind
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: every corner. There should be big bucks or at least
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: mature bucks all over the place. This property seemed to
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: only have one or at least hitting that camera. So
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: I thought, all right, I'm gonna go back in and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: hunt that same spot in the morning, because this just
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: seems like such a screaming rut spot and the activity
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: was pretty darn good yesterday. Let's go back and sit
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: it in the morning, So I go back the next day.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: We get in there well ahead of daylight. We get
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: back into that same location we left everything up in
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: the tree and we sit it out, and pretty close
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to first light, here comes that same nice, tight and tall,
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: like one thirty something buck comes in and this time
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: he comes into ten yards and I'm like, oh man,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: it's the only day two. He's really nice. But I
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: even grabbed the bow this time, and I'm holding like,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: don't come closer, don't come closer. If he gives me
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: just a screaming shot, I wonder if I should shoot it,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Like is this stupid not to shoot this deer? Not
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: only because you know he's a nice buck in most places, Um,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: I'm also filming this show and there's definitely a certain
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: set of pressures that come with that that you know,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: just being honest with you guys, like that is something
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: that's on my mind, and it's something that I think
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: about and concerned about, and gosh, I want to make
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: sure that you know, we have something that people want
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: to watch. This Should I be shooting this deer? But
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I decide no, if I have to question it, if
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: I'm not certain on it, if I'm not dead set.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: This is the buck I want. I'm not gonna do it.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not just gonna shoot a buck because you gotta
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: kill something. Um. I want to enjoy this trip. I
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: want to see what it has to offer. I wanna
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: see what's gonna happen. So far, so good, so there's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: got to be better stuff ahead, all right. So I
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: don't even try to shoot that deer that time, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the day carries on, and that's basically all we see
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that morning, slow his way down, and we get to
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: around noon ish, and I remember sitting there and thinking
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: through all this and thinking, man, between what I've seen here,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: now we've sat you know, for a morning and evening
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and another morning, and we check those trail cameras and
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that yet to see a buck that, you know, I
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: think is definitely mature. Meanwhile, on my buddy's property, we've
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: been getting camera pictures of a number of bucks that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: are at least four years old. I think there's at
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: least like, I don't know, four five maybe like that
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that had been rolling through on a decently consistent basis.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And I'm just sitting there thinking, man, there's all these
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: bucks on this other property. My wasting my time here
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: midday decide, you know what, all right, I did my
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: assessment of the overlooked farm, It's time to go assess
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: my buddies farm. So midday we pulled on everything and
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: we drive to this other farm and we decided where
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to go in and get set up in this spot. Now,
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: this farm, my buddies farm is How would I describe this.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Let's imagine you were to have two big valleys. One
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: of these big valleys runs east to west. Imagine it's
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: a big line of timber with a creek at the
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: bottom of it, running east to west, so very low
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: at the bottom, with steve ridges that rise up to
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: the top of either side. On either side to the
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: north and south of this big big line our crop
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: fields corn fields on the top. You then have another
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: valley that comes in running north and south in the bottom,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: so you're effectively creating a tea. There's a big t
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: My buddy's property has part of that tea. Imagine you're
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: looking at the te he has the center line and
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the top line, and then it runs off to the right.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: To the left side of that tea is the neighbors.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: To the right side of the tea is the property
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: I can hunt, and then there's a couple of little
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: fingers that dropped down off the top of the tea
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: that we can also hunt. But the main, the main
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: meat and potatoes of this farm is that center post
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of the tea, and then the top right line of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the te timber draw big ridges, and the creek bottom.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: So that's what this property is offered. And there were
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: a couple of camera locations that have been getting bucks
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: on them over the past couple of weeks, and one
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: of them in particular had been like red Hot. We
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: were getting several mature bucks almost daily rolling through this spot,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: and I knew in my head that, man, this spot
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: has been on fire, and looking at the maps, I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: think there's a reason why that is. I think that
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: there's this terrain feature. This spot is at the junction
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: of the teeth. So if you were to envision this
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: tea again, the left side of the tea and the
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: left how am I describing this, So if if you're
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: looking at the t and if you were looking at
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: the top left side, that valley, like I mentioned, was
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: on the neighbors, but we have the junction point, so
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: basically it's like an upside down l and at that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: junction point there's a field in the back to the left,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and then there's the timbered ridge that I'm on and
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: the top valley all coming together here. So I thought,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: all right, let's slip into this spot near where that
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: camera is. Let's scout it out. See exactly like what
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: it looks like on the ground, and why these bucks
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: are cruising through here. But my idea was that these
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: deer must be cruising this ridge looking for does it
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: must be dough bedding along the top. So these ridges
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and these bucks are cruising the ridge. And then at
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: this corner right there's this field that pinches into the ridge,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: right at the junction of the two posts of the
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: tea of the of the timber, and there's a knob
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: off of that, and I thought to myself, maybe there's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: some kind of feature here. I knew it was cliffy.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I knew that these valleys were very steep, and that
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: there's only a couple of places where deer can go
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: up and down them. In my quick speed scout in
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: the spring and summer, I had noticed that, but I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: hadn't actually climbed up into this corner. So November two,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: midday I slip into their scout my way in and
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: find what I think is why these deer passing through there.
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: As I mentioned, basically, this whole timbered ridge side is
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: is cliffed out, Like I'm talking fifty eighty foot tall
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: rock cliffs that deer just can't even get up and down,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: and there's just a couple of places where it softens up,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: and there's gaps that lead down to the bottom. So
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I go around this ridge and I try to find
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: a spot where I can see the east west valley
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: while also being able to cover the north south ridge
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: that I'm sitting on. And I find an old logging
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: road that cuts the corner of this ridge and goes
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: above the cliff and creates basically the one easy access
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: gap along this knob as it turns to head east
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: and west. And what it looks like to me is that, Okay,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: any deer that was running east to west that wants
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to go north south has to go around this knob
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: because they're not gonna go down the cliff, and they're
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: not gonna want to go into the field. They're gonna
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: take the one opportunity, the one decent easy access to
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: get around this corner. So I'm thinking, man, this is
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: a great pinch. And I saw there was some thick
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: brushy stuff. There must be some does betting right here,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and probably on the neighbors over there. It looks good too.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Take all that, add to the fact that we had
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures of bucks coming through here on a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: relative the consistent basis look good to me. I got
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: set up in the tree that night, sat down, waded
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: it out, and nothing. I think I saw a little
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: dink and a couple of dos. And it was going
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: pretty slow and pretty disappointing until last light. The hunt's done.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Me and the cameraman start packing up, and I look
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: out at the horizon and you can see the field edge.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: You know, we were probably a hundred some I don't
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards in from the field edge, maybe, but
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: you could see up there above us the kind of skyline.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: And I see antlers come running down off of the
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: field edge into the timber towards me, and I pull
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: up my binoculars and then i'm it's dark in the timber.
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: I can hear grunting, and then I hear crashing. Then
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: I hear grunting and crashing, and long story short. A
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: dope comes walking right underneath us, and then in my
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: binoculars it's too dark to see it with my eyes,
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: but with my binoculars I see a big buck come
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: walking right towards us. This buck walks to ten yards
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and hangs out around the tree for probably ten minutes,
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: just at the door, looking around, nibbling, making a scrape,
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: just doing buck stuff. He's probably like a hundred and
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: fifty inch type ten pointer, just a stud. Hangs out
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: there and eventually walks off. But great encounter. I mean,
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: even though it's after dark and I couldn't shoot him,
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it was encouraging that there's a big buck in here.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: He came right within range. If it had been daylight,
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: he could have shot him. Super encouraging, very excited. And
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: then I look at my phone and then I see
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: that my buddy Josh Ford or Hilliard killed the buck
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: that night on the same property. He also was given
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: access to the same spot, and he had killed a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: buck across the road into another section. It's it's just
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: an open cut corn field next to a really good
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: neighboring property. I'll save this story for another day, but
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: lone both he shot a buck that night. We were
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: very excited about that. So I saw this buck after dark.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: He shot this bucket nearby. We're on cloud nine day
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: to the h looking good hasn't come together for me yet,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: but it seems like, you know, things are whether you
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: want to be. So that said, with what I've seen
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that day, I decided, okay, we have this kind of
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: rut location that has trained features working for us, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: and a lot of this trip I was I was
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: trying to I was trying to balance two things. There's
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: one side of you that wants to learn about new places,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: see new spots, find the action, find the sign. And
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: then there's another part of you, another part of hunting
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the rut, which is find something that works, find a feature,
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: find up pinch point, find a dough betting air that works,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and then ride it out. You gotta give it time
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: because if it's a thing that will work and write
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: dough betting areas and funnels or pinch points, those are
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: things that do work during the rut. If you give
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: it time, eventually a buck's going to roll through. If
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: you judge it just based on one sit, you know,
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you might have randomly not been there the right day
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of things going on the rut.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: The rut is very much a here but not their
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: type of deal, or today but not tomorrow. If any
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: of you've spent time in the woods during November, you
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: know that's the case. There will be days where it's dead,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: but yards away it might be absolutely on fire, and
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: then there might be a spot that seems horrible today,
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: but tomorrow it could be the best place to be.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: So there's this constant tension between do I need to
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: move or do I just need to wait it out
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and give this place more time. I think sometimes during
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: the rut there's there's the temptation to move around too
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: much because you're trying to find the hot spot, and
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you never give a spot enough time to actually produce.
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: So that was what I was thinking in my head
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: that night, even though I had a slow sit up
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: until after dark. I thought, you know what, it's definitely
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: deserves another set and maybe all day like this has
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: got the pinch, it's got the dough betting area. There's
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: a terrain feature is going to bring any buck the
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: cruises through here within twenty yards. I need to give
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: this time so I get out there the next morning
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: set it out, and I'm trying to think this through.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that morning I saw a couple of those.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: I think was it. I mean, it was very slow,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: so it was kind of disappointed when I kind of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I was very disappointed. I thought for sure that was
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: gonna be you know, that was gonna be a good
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: promising day. But so it goes midday arrives and one
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: of my friends sends me a text message. He says, hey,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: you know, they are picking all the corn on the
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: rest of the property. Corns coming down, And in my head,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the first thing I think is, man, fresh cut corn
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: is a dough magnet. Those first couple of days after
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: a fields combined, there's so much waste grain available on
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: the ground that deer seemed to just flock to it.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It seems to, at least in my experience. It's it's
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: an instant draw. It is the top draw. It becomes
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: like the number one food source overnight. Well that in mind,
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, fresh cut corn on the ground, that's
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: where all the doughs are gonna want to be. And
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: if that's where all the doughs want to be in
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: the evening, that's where the bucks are gonna be I
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: gotta get over there. So midday I decided to bail
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: out of this spot and go back to my truck,
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: get my decoy, drive around to the other side of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: this property, and find a way to access what was
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: I thought probably the best area where this fresh cut
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: corn was. To take advantage of this situation I was
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: hoping would be the case. Now, I described to you
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: earlier how this t that this property kind of looks
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: like this timber tea with fields on the you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: the outside of the tea had a couple of little
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: finger ridges sticking out of it. Well, one of these
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: little finger ridges that dropped off of the top east
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: west post of the t um created a little cove
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: like just imagine like a little half circle cove of
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: corn that pokes into that timber, pokes into all this stuff.
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Well up there there's From my one walk through, I
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: remember seeing like there's some good prairie grass. There was
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: some good brushy, nasty kind of like multiflora rosie type
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: stuff up on here and in the neighbors, so good
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: good bedding, and then this little cove of what is
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: now freshly cut corn poking into that. As I'm thinking about, man,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: where would be the spot that does that feel comfortable
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: coming on feeding in daylight? And where Bucks would kind
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: of funnel out into their check Does this spot kind
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: of was the um one of the obvious options that
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I thought would work well. So me and the cameraman
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: we just all right, we're gonna go in there. We're
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: gonna set the decoy up on the edge, and there
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: will be a bunch of doughs that come out here
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: at night, and there'll be bucks. Bucks will come out
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: looking for the doughs. We'll see this decoy and maybe
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: one will pull on to us. We slipped down in there,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and it is kind of a debacle as far as access.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: I had forgotten how hard to get through this um
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: backside of the property was. It was actually thicker and
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: brushier than I realized. I I should have just coming
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: from the corn field. But I remember thinking to myself,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: all right, if I come in from the cornfield, I
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: will have to walk out the corn field, and I
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to walk out the cornfield um and have
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer out there that I had to
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: spook to get out. I'd much rather walk out the backside.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: But if I didn't have my truck on the back side,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: I would have like a two and a half mile
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: walk to get all the way back to my truck
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: what was originally parked. But if I came from the
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: back side, parked over there, and then walked in this
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: back hill, I could kind of do a back door
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: entry and then I would have an exit route after
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: the hunt where I would hopefully not spook all the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: deer in the cornfield. That was the thought process going
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: into this well ended up being much more difficult to
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: get in, and as I'm doing I'm thinking, jeez, this
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: looks way better than I thought. This probably dear bed
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: in here. I've probably educated some deer as I'm slipping
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: in it. So I was kind of pissed as I
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: was just getting in with myself. We got set up,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: got the decoy out, and and it up either because
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: of my access or because of whatever was going on
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: another very very dead set. We saw a couple of
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: dolls and a forky and that was it. And I'm thinking, man,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: what is going on? Like what kind of situation in
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Iowa where you've got a fresh cut corn field? And
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and that's it. And we walked, like I said, we
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: walked through a decent bit, but there was this whole
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: other eight percent of the cover was untouched that I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: wasn't inside of that that should have had deer in it,
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: that should have been piling out to this corn field
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: super slow. I couldn't understand it. So we now had
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: had like a very dead day. I mean all day
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: we've seen just a few dos and a forky uh,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: and the whole yesterday, the whole day before that, other
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: than like that one like maybe back in the morning
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and then seeing the back after dark, the whole rest
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: of the day, like most of the sitting hours had
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: been very dead. No cruising, no chasing, no nothing. So
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: two days of that and I'm wondering what is going on,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: Like this is way slower than it should be on
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: November two. In November three in Iowa with good cold conditions.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: I mean we're talking these are twenty five degree mornings,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: forty degree afternoons, the kind of conditions you're really hoping for.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: So now it's day three and we're almost halfway through
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: my week, and it's looking a little glum. I remember
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: feeling like, yeah, I'm getting a little nervous. So day four, though,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I'm back to this debate. Do I keep on boxing
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: around trying to find something fresh, or do I trust
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: my terrain feature, trust my rut pillars and ride it
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: out and let one of these spots produce. I ended
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: up airing in that way. I end up saying, you
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: know what, this ridge betting slash kind of pinch around
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: this cliffy area, it's got to produce, Like there have
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: to be cruising bucks, they have to come through here.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: It's gonna work. Now. I did notice the first day
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: I hunted there that there were a number of There
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: was like to two bucks, I guess, two young bucks
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: that had skirted the edge of us. There ends up
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: being a little draw, a little like I don't know
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: if it's like a like a ditch kind of in
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: that ridge that does dip through the cliff, and these
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: bucks came straight up to that. So I actually moved
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: our spot sixty yards maybe less than maybe fifty yards,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: so that we would be able to shoot the cliff
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: pinch that I described to you already right at the corner.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: But then also this little shoot that came up. So
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: now I can cover the two places that I think
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: deer have to come through while also still being range
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: of where that camera was getting us dear not shooting range,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: but visible range, and with Doe betting up on these tops,
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: I get into that morning and I say, you know
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: what we're gonna We're gonna let this thing marinade. We're
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: gonna let this spot have the time to produce. Because
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: a buck has to cruise through here, and there's good
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: mature bucks in the area. Something's gonna cruise through. We
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: just need to be here and give a time. So
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: this is day four and I'm in this spot, very early,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: settled in. We're believing in the spot. We sit there
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: all morning, nothing like a couple of dolls and a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: year and a half old buck. We sit there all midday, nothing,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: nothing cruised. We sit there all evening. Nothing, no shooters,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: no three year olds, no two year olds. I mean,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: it is dead. I'm talking to some of my buddies
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: and everyone's saying, man, it is dead as a door knob.
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: No one's seeing bucks. It's November four, it's cold, it's great,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: this is what we had been hoping for, and no
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: one's seeing anything. Um, what's going on? Was what I
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: was thinking in my head, like, what is going on
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: what's happening? You know, these are spots that should be producing. Uh.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: So now we're more than halfway through the week, and
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: very quickly I went from being super stoked on morning
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: one tonw after day four being ah kind of panicked,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: like what what's gonna happen? You know, Uh, this is
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: not going the way I hoped it would. So now
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: I am reconsidering what I think about the Buddy property
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: because while it did have more bucks on camera leading
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: into the hunt, uh, nothing's been on camera recently. I'd
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: sat several really good looking spots and put in serious hours.
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: I've hunted four all day sets, um and I've yet
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: to you know, get eyes on one during daylight. Down
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: to my last three days, less than half the trips left,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: I decided, you know what, the set from the very
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: first morning on the overlooked farm, you know what, is
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: looking a little better, because, yeah, those two bucks on
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: day one weren't what I want on day one, But
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: on day five, the way things are looking as slow
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: as all this is, maybe I should just go back
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: there and try to kill one of them, right they
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: were moving through there. There seems to be a number
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: of bucks like that around Um, yeah, there's only the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: one big shooter. But maybe at this point I can't
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: be so picky. I've tried to ride this thing out.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I've tried to see what Iowa has to offer, and
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: it kind of looks like we're in a lockdown type
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: situation even though it's early. Um, I'm seeing that kind
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: of thing, like all my buddies are experiencing that kind
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: of thing, like nothing's moving around, nothing's chasing maybe these
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: bucks around doors. So my ideas, Okay, I'm gonna go
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: in there and I'm going to sit the ultimate hub
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: pinch point betting year zone again and we're gonna ride
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: that thing out and something is going to come through there.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: So Day five A head in and that's the game plan.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I slipping there early. We get up in the set,
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: we're settled in, we're feeling good, nice cold morning, and nothing.
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: We're not seeing cruising bucks, We're not seeing chasing bucks.
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: I've got three little pinch points all converging in a
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: hub in the middle. I've got a mega scrape, I've
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: got a pond, and I've got a CRP field at
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: my backside and a dynamite betting area in front of me.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: And my winds blowing off across section, not into any
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: of that good stuff, and nothing is coming through. And
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: I will definitely admit to a lot of frustration. Um,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you wait all year, you wait six years in this case,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: to come hunt Iowa in the rut, and it's it's
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: a dud. I mean, it is absolutely worse than hunting
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Michigan to this point, is what I was telling myself. Um.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: And then I'm also thinking, man, I'm i gonna get
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: a buck killed. And already some of the other guys
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: in the crew had been killing bucks, and I'm thinking, gosh,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: am I the only one that doesn't kill one. Um.
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Like those kinds of thoughts were slipping in the back
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: of my mind, and uh, you know, definitely stressed now
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: and wasn't Um. I hate to say it, but I
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't enjoying it. I was just letting the pressure of
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: it get to me. You know, we've been We've done five,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: well four and a half days of hunting so far,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah, that whole morning, I guess was
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: just uneventful. So mid day I'm wrestling with all this,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: thinking about all this and trying to think of, Okay,
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: what have I done. How have I How have I
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: made these decisions? What am I doing wrong? And I'm
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: thinking to myself, Okay, I tried to trust the ridge
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: pinch I gave that time didn't pan out. I had
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: now come back to the ultimate hub location. I hunted
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: that that first morning and night the second morning, now
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: I'll come back and hunted the second morning. That's two
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: full days worth of sitting in this hub location. Hadn't
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: had a single mature buck roll through. I couldn't even
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: get one of those nice three and a half to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: roll back through. So I'd originally planned on sitting there
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: all day. But now at like noon or one, I
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: get this idea that you know what, you gotta go
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: find it. Like it's not happening here. You need to
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: go try to find something different. There's there's something happening somewhere,
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Go find it. So I decided to pull up steaks,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: slip out of there that night, and go scout some
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: stuff on this farm that I hadn't been to yet,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: and see if I could find something worth setting up on.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: See if I could get lucky and spot a buck
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: locked on a door somewhere, See if I could bump something,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: See if I can make something happen. So we slipped
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: out like one or two, and they've been starting to
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: combine the field. This is a corn field, and there
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: was a set of timbered fingers running along the top
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: edge of this property. So I told you how Now
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: bear with me. Here is I try to describe this
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: farm again. Remember, this is the rectangle that's all field
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: except for the diagonal line from bottom left corner to
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: the top right corner and then a couple of spurs
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: off of that right well, there's also a finger that
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: kind of runs right along the top of the rectangle,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: and that's coming off of a neighbors, but some of
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: it's on our at our side. So I thought, you
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: know what, I want to go up there. I've never
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: been up there. Let's go check that out. Maybe that's
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: where it's going on, and we'll still hunt and slip
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: our way through there and try to learn something. So
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: I do that. I get out, I walk up there.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of still hunting my way through. They're scouting
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: and I'm just not finding much sign. It's like a scrape.
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: I think I saw a little tiny rub. There's some tracks.
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as thick and nasty in there, as I
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: was hoping it might be. UM. I basically walked the
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: up wind edge of that whole thing, just slowly going
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: through stopping glassing, stopping glassing, walking and maybe across the
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: entire finger with nothing. That screamed to me like you
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: absolutely need to be here. So I follow it all
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: the way down almost to the far east side of
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: this rectangle. Now, so we're almost down to the far
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: right hand side of the rectangle where that main draw
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: extends up to the top right corner of our rectangle.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: Now upward that top right corner of the draw reaches
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: that corner, there is a pond and there's also one
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: of those spur draws that comes into it, creating a y.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: This is a very tight why though. This isn't like
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: a big wide one. This is like a fifty yard
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: why brushy strip connecting in with another fifty yard why
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: brushy strip, and then you've got this pond in the
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: inside corner of that, and then a finger of the
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: corn extending down into there. This is a location where
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: I put a camera and I pulled that camera earlier
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: in the week when I pulled cameras that first day,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: and this spot I placed in this gap between the
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: pond and the timbered ridges, this little brushy ridge not
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: even originally a draw um, because again this spot screamed
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: to me like a little tiny out of the way
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: convergence of pinch points. You've got three little draws timbered
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: lines all coming together with a pond. And then there's
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: actually crp on a little side here too, So this
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: is another one of those spots that circled as a
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: potential location. When I checked the camera, there was a
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: decent amount not tons, but there's a decent number of
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: bucks coming through this little gap, including the one shooter buck.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: Now he was coming through the decent number of times.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: One daylight picture. I can't remember the date of it.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: It was in the late twenties, but there was one
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: daylight picture at last light he'd passed through here. So
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, all right, this is total opposite side of
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: the farm. I haven't hunted, so it's been untouched. There
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: might be something going on down here. Hasn't been going
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: on up in the bottom left corner, but now we're
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: in the upper right corner. Maybe this is where it's at.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: And I've got another one of these three way hubs
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: it's a tighter one, it's a smaller one, but this
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: could work. Uh Now, remember I'm slipping in here by foot.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: I'd left my gear are sticks and saddles and stuff
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: up in the tree at the original location. So we've
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: got a southerly wind. It's starting to get warmer now
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: by the way the weather it's turned starting to get warmer.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: We're getting down on to the final couple of days
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: of the hunt, and I decided, you know what, we'ren't
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: to just make a natural ground blind type situation work here.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I got up on a dike the pond. On one
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: side of the pond, there's a there's a dike like
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: a tall uh ridge. I'm blanking on the right word
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: here that would describe this um but imagine like a
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: tall hillside, and then it drops down like maybe fifteen
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: yards is down to the bottom where these two draws
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: come together, where the little finger of corn comes together,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: and where this gap is between the dike and between
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the draw where the camera was was getting pictures of
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: these bucks. So I just tucked into this tall grass
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: right there, and my cameraman's listening underneath me, and we
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: lay down and we start kind of mapping out all
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: the different things that might happen and how we'll react. Okay,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: so if a buck comes from the northwest corner, he's
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: gonna be kind of angling towards us, so we're gonna
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: have to stay laying down in the grass all the
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: way till he's past us. And then right when he
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: angles past us and turns, I'm gonna slowly rise up,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: draw and get a shot. If he comes from the
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: left side, you know, we'll be able to get in
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: position better because we'll have a little ridge, a little
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: hillside in the way, and taller grass so I can
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: actually get on my knees and draw back before he
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: steps out into the open. So I basically like mapped
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: out all these different things like this and practiced it.
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: Practice drawing back, practice what the cameraman should do, practice
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: what I should do, um and and just really sets
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: up nice. I forgot to mention, like, because we're on
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the edge of this pond, we're able to have their
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: wind blow across the pond, so we're almost completely safe
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: from wind perspective with this really nice pinch point convergence
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: of hubs in front of me in the water rail
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: by the way, which could be a drafted deer. And
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: then finally, about hundred yards away above us is where
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: there's this another cut corn field on the neighbors. So
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: if there are deer beded in these brushy draws, they're
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: gonna head that way and probably funnel past us. So again,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: pillars of rut hunting. Right this whole week, I been
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: trying to make sure everything I do revolves around one
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: of these pillars. Am I close to doe betting or
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: dope food? In this case, there's a cut cornfield past me,
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: and there's these really thick, really nice looking brushy draws
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: that just has to be deering end. Second pillar of
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: run hunting funnels, any kind of feature that will concentrate
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: dear movement a tight area. Well, I've got two of
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: those coming together. So I've got two tight pinches that
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: come together right next to me, and I'm set up
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: in this location with water, which is a nice bonus.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: This has gotta be it. There's gonna be something to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: roll through here. There's gotta be something rolling through here.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: This is gonna be it. It's what me and my
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: camera and Chase kept saying. We sit there, we sit there,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: we sit there, and then we start hearing to combine
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: getting closer and closer. It's getting closer prime time, the
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: combines getting closer, closer and closer. We're down to the
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: last twenty minutes. The combine comes over, the hill, comes down, starts.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I'm bining right next to us. Now, if you, if
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: you guys hunt, you know farm country, you know as
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I described that, when the combines are in the field,
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: when they're picking the corn. You know that fresh cut
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: corn can be a drop and can be a drive.
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: Right dear, you're gonna want to feed in that fresh
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: combine corn. But from my experience, they're not gonna want
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: to be like right next to the combine. Like if
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: the combines doing the edge row, like, they're not gonna
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: be standing on the edge. I know there's exceptions, there's
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: all sorts of farmers out there. We will say, well,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I'm in combine, the deer standing right next to me.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I know that happens sometimes, but I also know that
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: they usually aren't gonna be right there. Like I don't
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: want to have a combine forty yards away from me
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: and expect a buck to come out at thirty yards
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: and let that happen. Well, that's basically what's happening to us.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: At the end of this night. We've got the combine
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: work in the field right next to us, and a
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: little forky comes through and that's it. Another one of
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: these picture perfect rut locations and nothing's rolling through it all.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And that's the end of day five. Down to two
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: days left. I have yet to see a mature buck
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: during daylight. I've hunted what I think are really good locations,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: and I've I've tried to balance the need to go
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: find stuff with the balance to give a location time.
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: Is at least the debate I kept having, and and
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: really the the story of this trip is trying to
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: walk those two walk that balancing act between the two.
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: That's the end of the day five. And I'm definitely
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: disappointed now, definitely concerned about what's happening. But I gotta
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: keep going. I mean, that was my mantra all week
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: was you gotta keep on grinding, you gotta keep going.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: And these are the things we've talked about, I mean
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a thousand times on this show. Right, Uh, this is
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a story you've heard some version of before from me. Right,
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: how many times have I hunted during the rut and
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: been concerned about how things are going. How many times
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: has this happen to you where you've been hunting during
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: the rut and it's been super slow and you're just thinking, man,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: this isn't gonna happen. Why is everybody else killing deer
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and I'm not. And then like in a snap, all
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, bam, there's the buck, there's your shot.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: It's all changed. You just had the season in your
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: life for the day of the year or whatever. I mean,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: the rut can change things so so so quickly. So
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: this entire time, I'm just trying to remind myself it
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: can all change in the second. They can all change
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: in the second. It can all change in the second.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Just keep going, Just keep going. So that's what I did.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Day six rolls around and I'm debating what I want
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: to do. I decide, you know what, the ultimate Hub
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: needs one more try. I'm gonna double down on the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: Ultimate Hub. And I just believe that that spot just
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: seems so good. It just seems so good. And at
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: this point I lowered my standards. I'd be shooting any
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: decent like three and a half ro buck. Something had
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: to roll through there, and the way we've been operating
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: with the wind. I just thought we can get away
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: with hunting this thing. You know, this would be the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: We'd hunted it three mornings in an evening, and I
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: thought one more morning. That's a lot to ride in
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: one spot. But I also thought it could it could
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: do it. It just had to do it. So we
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: go in there morning of number six high hopes I
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: had actually gotten I had a camera. I put a camera.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention this. On day one, after that
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: evening hunt, I went and put a cell camera on
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: that hubscrape, and that hub scrape camera had actually got
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: a picture of two like nice three year olds. One
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: is the one I passed, that tight tall one, and
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: one was another tight tall one. And I didn't recognize
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: that it had come by that in daylight while I
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: was gone. So I'm thinking, all right, they've been coming through,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure if if these bucks were on the hubscrape,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there's other bucks that have been around it
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: that didn't make it on camera, it's gonna produce. I
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: go back in there. This is day six, morning six,
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: it's a Saturday. Now the weekend has arrived and we
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: slip in there really good and early. We've got like
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes sitting in the tree before dark, perfectly,
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: still making sure nothing's you know, being s booked on
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: our way in. Um. You know, we've been grinding and UM,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: I'm tired, but I'm trying to stay positive, trying to believe,
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: all right, it's gonna happen today. And the light comes up.
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: We see two doughs underneath the tree. Stand. First thing,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, live like live bait right there. That's
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: what the bucks want. They want those doughs. It's gonna happen.
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: It's gonna happen. And then I hear crack crack crack
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: crack crack crack crack crack crack crack, and me and
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Chase my caraman look at each other. Is that dear fighting?
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Crack crack crack crack crack. And then I get this
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: little whisper in my head like that doesn't sound right.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: That sounds that sounds like me when I'm rattling a
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: rattling bag. We look at each I'm like, man, I
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: sure hope that's not a hunter. Well it stops. We
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: keep sitting there, nothing, nothing, nothing. Twenty minutes later crack
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: And instantly when I heard it at the second time
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: within twenty minutes in the same location, I knew, damn it.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: There's another hunter and he's like a hundred yards away,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifty yards away something like that, on the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: other side of the property line on the neighbors and
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: he's in that big brushy doe betting era that I'm
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: just down wind of that. I'm like counting on the
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: reason that buckstert me coming in and out of this hub.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: That's the draw. He's right smacked down in the middle
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: of that, cracking his rattling bag together every twenty minutes.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: So there it is my ultimate hub, the spot that
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: I dreaming of having a big buck rolling out of
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: that had to produce. Well, now I know there's another
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: guy sitting in the middle of it, blowing his wind
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: through crash Nantler's to get every twenty minutes. Uh, you
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: know it's shot now, I know. Like I kept I
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: kept telling myself, well, he'd come from these other different directions.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: There's these other legs of the draw that come into
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: my hub. But I absolutely was disheartened by that and disappointed,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, I kind of lost my conference
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: in my in that spot after this. So that was
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the morning number six, and you know, at this point
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: it's it's the end. I mean, I'm desperate. Absolutely was
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: feeling feelings of desperation. Um, I decided, Okay, it's time
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: to it's time to lose any of inhibitions. It's time
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: to go ball to the wall. It's time to do
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: whatever it takes to get something killed. There was two
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: ideas I had. There was one location on my buddies
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: farm that I knew had deer and good deer and opportunities,
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: and I had purposely chose not to hunt despite that this,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: I had mentioned that my buddy Josh had killed the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: buck earlier in the week. Well, this is where he
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: killed his buck. This is a corn field. This this
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: part of property is nothing but a corn field. There's
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: zero trees on it, there's zero grassy anything. I mean,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: it's just the corn field. And then on the neighbor's
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: property is is basically land that's not allowed to be hunted.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: They don't let people hunt there. It kind of acts
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: as a sanctuary and over the years historically, like just
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: driving around the area, like you see a lot of
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: good deer in there. We we just know that they're
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: a good deal in the deer in that zone. They
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: know they're not hunting in there, and they stay in there.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: But with this cut corn field, the belief is that
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: the deer would be coming off of that little sanctuary
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: area and feeding in the corn field that we can hunt.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: So when the corn was cut earlier, I guess it
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: was late October, one of my buddies buddies brought in
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: a box blind, brought in a trailer, put it down here,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and we had this idea that you know, you could
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: you could pull a deer in off that field. Something
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: would I'm in the field, if you were sitting that
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: box blind with a decoy, you might be able to
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: get a buck to come in there. And that's what
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: Josh ended up having happened to him earlier in the week.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: I had told him leading up to I don't want
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: to hunt the box blne like, I just want to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: do it on my own. I want to hang my
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: own stuff, I want to go saddle haunt, I want
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: to find him somewhere else. Um, I just like that
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: wasn't what I was dreaming of when it came to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: this hunt. It wasn't a box blind that someone else
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: had pulled in there and kill him that kind of way.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: That's how I was feeling day one. So I was like, yeah,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: have at him, Josh Killy, great buck, awesome hunt. Really
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: excited about it. For him, it was amazing. We'll tell
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: that full story another day. Great great hunt. But still
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: in my mind, I'm like, no, I'm not going there,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: especially now like it's been pressured. I'm not going there.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: I'm not going there. I'm not going there. Um. But
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: now it's day six, I still haven't killed anything, and
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting there thinking, man, I just want to kill something.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: I just want to kill something. Nothing's moving anywhere. Haven't
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: seen a mature buck in daylight once this entire week
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: in Iowa. Uh, I know there's mature bucks in they're
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: moving around. We'd actually drove by, well, it was that day.
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I guess that day. So I bail out of the
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: Ultimate Hub and we decide we're gona go do something different,
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: And as we're driving by this property that's not allowed
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: to be hunted, we see a big buck locked on
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: a dough in there, and my buddies who had been
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: in the area have been driving around earlier in the
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: day and they'd seen a different big buck locked on
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: a different dough in the same general era. So I
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: know what's on in there. I know what's happening. I decided,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: you know what, screw it, there's nothing wrong with hunting
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: the box blind using a decoy. Uh. At this point,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: I would be stoked to get anything killed. Um, I'll
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: go hunt. Why not? Like I'm I'm frustrated, haven't seen anything?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: At least I wanna have a fun hunting seasoned darned
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: deer like I haven't had a time. I've seen more
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: than a couple of day at a time. Um, I
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: haven't seen any running activity. This might be it. I
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: don't care how we do it. So my idea is this.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: We left the Ultimate Hub at midday. I was gonna
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: hunt the box blind that evening with a decoy on
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: the corn field, but I wanted to set up a
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: new location for the morning. Now, there's one area on
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: my buddy's property that I had not been in. I
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: had only walked it one time when I was there
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: in the summer. I did like a ten minute walk
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: through it. I was we were late. I didn't have
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: a lot of time. As the end of our little
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: day and a halftime I had there, I was like,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: I gotta walk this really quick. So I just ran
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: through it. Just got a very very basic idea of
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: what was going on. But now I'm realizing, Okay, this
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: is the one part of the property I haven't been to.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: We did have one camera up there that was getting
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: some bucks on it, and I recalled, I don't know
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: why I hadn't thought about this sooner with all the
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: other things I was thinking about. I guess it just
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: overlooked it. But I do remember that there had been
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: some cutting up there, and I remember thinking, man, it's
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: some good but she's stuff up there. There's tree tops
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: on the ground and new growth and and good bedding
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: up there too. So I got to thinking, all right,
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: midday day six, I'm gonna go in there with a set,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: scout at mid day and hang a set to hunt
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: on the last day. So that's what I go do.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go scout it out. I get there to
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: the property, I slip in the backside and where this
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: is is remember my buddy's property, Like the T. Right,
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: we've got the top right of the T, and we've
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: got the middle post of the T, and there's timber
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: inside that upside on L and there's fields. Well, this
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: area that I'm talking about is the top post of
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: the T. So like the east west ridge, the north
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: side of that ridge, there's a valley in the bottom
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: timber on the top ridge of it for the very
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: top of the tea here the north ridge, And as
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: I described, there's a bunch of cutting in there, and
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: actually it looked a lot better than I remembered from
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the summer. As I'm walking in the edge of the
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: feet field, I see a scrape, then another scrape, then
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: another scrape, then another scrape, literally ten twelve scrapes, all fresh,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: lining the edge of the standing corn field and the timber.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I slip into the timber. Here's a rub. There's a rub.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: There's another scrape. There's another scrape. There's a rub. I mean,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: it's blown up in here. Right away I realized, whoa,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: there's some stuff going on in here, And whoa, this
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: cover looks better than I realized compared to everything else, um,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: you know, better than anything else I've been in yet,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: this this week. So I go in there and start
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: walking around, and I'm thinking, all right, I definitely want
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: to be here tomorrow morning, and what's the what's the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: best way to take advantage of this? So I'm gonna
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: try to describe this to you in a way that
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: makes sense. Remember, we've got this east and west running
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: line of timber, and there's the creek bottom. We're on
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: the north edge of it, right, so the corn fields
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and the top behind me. This ridge has got basically
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: a bench running along the top. It's maybe seventy yards
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: from the top where the field is down to the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: end of the bench, and the bottom of the bench
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: it cliffs out again. So I described you how this
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: is a really steep country, but there's cliffs that no
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: deer is coming up and down. There's just two spots,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: and this I had marked from the summer. There are
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: two spots where you could come up or down from
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: this ridge to get to the bottom. So I thought, okay,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I want to get set up in a position where
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: I am along the left to right movement right, because
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: there's bucks are going to run the line of the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: ridge going east to west or west to east. But
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: I also want to be where the convergence of any
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: of the up and down movement comes into that. So
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: I found a spot where the one gap in the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: cliffs is that allows these deer to come from the
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: bottom to the top, or from deer that are up
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the top to want to go to the bottom, where
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: that intersects with the left or right movement. And I
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: found that there was a ditch, like a steep ditch
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: that ran down the ridge that created like a really
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: hard thing for deer to get across if they if
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: they were running east to west, there was tree tops
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: in the bottom. It was pretty steep, and you could
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: see that there was two trails. One was like an
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: old logging road and one was just a easy spot
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: in the ditch where this deer we're running. So basically
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: I found a spot where the up and down movement
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: came up the ridge and then where there was these
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: two obvious or at least the most obvious easiest trails
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: for deer to be traveling left to right across. So
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: basically I'm intersecting three lines of movement with all of
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: this tree top cover, all this brushing new growth, just
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: screaming bedding cover, so reitering the same damn thing I've
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: said over and over again, pillars of rut success. I've
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: got dough bedding all around me, and then I've got
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: these terrain features that are funnily movement, the ridge top bench,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: the ditch funnel that's keeping deer moving, just two trails
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: across west to east, and then the one up and
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: down access coming up the cliff face. I hang a
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: saddle set there. Looks really good. Feeling good about that
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: for the morning. Leave there fast and get going to
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: the box blind. Me and Chase get to the box blind,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: get settled in there, put the decoy out in front
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: of us. Behind us is this property that doesn't allow hunting.
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: It's thick tall grass, it's cedar trees, it's it's what
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: you imagine when you imagine hunting. Iowa. Nothing else that
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: I have access to looks like this, um, and so
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: like this is the one spot that when you look
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: at it, like, oh gosh, like this is the stuff
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: that Mark Drury hunts. Um. It just looks cool. It
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: just gets you excited to look at that and to
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: know that, you know, four hours ago or two hours
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: ago or whatever it was, when I was driving around
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the other road, I saw a big giant buck in
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: that stuff with a doll, and I knew there was
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: more in there. So I set a decoy on front,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: and I'll describe the decoy set up. Uh, Basically, we
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: set up this decoy, I take one antler off of it.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: This is a thing that I think it was John
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: Dudley years ago was writing about and that I've just
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: kind of stuck to you ever since. You've take an
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: antler off, so it seems slightly less imposing, look a
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: more approachable beat up a ble buck. Because the idea
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: here is you're putting this decoy out there and hoping
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: that a buck's going to see it and then want
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: to come in and and tango with it. So I
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: set that decoy with one antler off, and then I
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: set him quartering towards, kind of quartering off either one
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: of your shoulders from left or right, or off your
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: right shoulder, recording off your left shoulder, looking kind of
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: past you. Because what you want to set up is
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: you want this buck to come in to the decoy
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: and give you a broadside shot. And bucks usually almost
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: always want to approach a decoy head on like there,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: you know, try to approach antler to antler will kind
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: of circle around it and head to the down wind side.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: Usually so in a perfect world, you'd like the wind
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: blowing from the decoy to you. So he has to
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: circle in closer to you, but he'll be looking at
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: the decoy and not at you, and then give you
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: that quartering away your broadside shot. So and with Tim
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: looking over my right shoulder and into the stuff behind me,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: got set up in the box blind and and yeah,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: I mean it was cushy. It was. I was thinking, man,
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: this is really nice after after spending all day every
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: day hanging in the saddle um night number six, sitting
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: in a box blind was was just the luxurious break
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: we needed. At this point. I didn't care. I was
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: fine doing that. We've been working our tails off, I
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: mean working our tails off. I was ready to enjoy
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: myself finally. And uh, we actually sat on our knees
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: because we were worried about we We went through the
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: whole um practice, every scenario, kind of thing that I
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: talked about sometimes like we did. We did this when
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: I described that sitting on the pond dike in the
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: grass situation, well, in this situation, I was like, Okay,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: How are we gonna get the window open and get
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: in position if a buck comes from this way? How
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: are we going to get into position and film and
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: be in shop position if they come this way? So
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: we worked out each situation, we practiced it. We you know,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: went through all the motions, drawing back the boa, having
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: the cameraman move around where it needs to go, everything,
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: And we realized it was really hard to do it
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: quietly if we were trying to use the chairs in there.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: So we just push these chairs in the back corner
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: and we both just stayed on our knees on the
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: floor of the box blind so we could be as
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: silent as possible and move as little as possible if
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: a buck were to come through. And you know, like
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: an hour and a half four day, like here comes
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: a dough, Here comes another dough, and another dough. All
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: these deers start piling out into the field, and and
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm like, wow, this is the best set
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: of the whole durn week we've had. Um Like we're
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: seeing a bunch of deer, seeing a bunch of doughs.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: And as these doughs start piling out, I start realizing like, hey,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: you know, this could actually work. You know, Having all
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: these doughs out here all of a sudden gave me
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of confidence, because that's that's all you need,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: was does. We were counting on the fact that if
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: these doughs would come out to that field, like bucks
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: would have to be checking it, because they were definitely
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: bucks in this brushy cover behind me. And if the
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: does that come out to be in the cornfield, the
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: bucks will come to and maybe we get lucky with
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: the bucks seeing that deco, so does start piling out,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: and then a little buck and then a little buck,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: and I'm jacked, like, finally I'm having that exciting Iowa anticipation,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: like it's gonna happen. We're seeing the deer, I know,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: those big buck in here. And then I see a
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: dough run over the hill towards us, and the antlers
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: come behind her, and right away, like big buck. Here
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: comes a big, big shooter deer I think he was
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a ten point runs over the hill and I'm like,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: chase shooter. Finally we've seen a mature buck during daylight.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: There's our second to last night and very excited, we
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: start moving like a right here is coming from the right,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: getting a position, move my rep I taking my range
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: finder off, put it in the right spot, put my
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: binoculars down, have my grunt to within range. Reposition myself
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: so I could open this window. And now I'm just
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: waiting for it to happen. And he comes over the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: hill following that dough, and he stops and looks at
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: the decoy. And this is like the moment of truth,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: like he's gonna see the decoy and be interested in
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: it or he's not. It looks at the decoy and
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: the doe starts moving off, and he turns back to
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: the door and starts following down. I'm like, oh no,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna leave that dough. But you never know.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: I slowly opened the window and it's all right. I'm
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: gonna try to call him. I'm gonna try to give
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: him a grunt, snort, wheeze. See if I can piss
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: him off. So I give him a grunt. He doesn't hear.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: Give him another grunt, doesn't hear, give him a snort weez.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: He stops, his head, swings around and just glares at me.
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: He's probably ninety yards away something like that. Maybe you know,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: give or take glares at me, ears kind of pin back.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: He turns and starts walking right at us. It's gonna happen.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: This is happening right now, This son of a buck
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: is gonna come into the decoy. We're gonna get a
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: crack at him. I mean, I was pumped, get in position,
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: got the window ready to get turned open. He rung.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: He walks about ten yards and then stops stairs, stairs,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: turns around, goes back to the doll, keeps walking, folling
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: dough keeps walking, following dough. And I'm no, I know
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: in the back of my head, like this isn't gonna happen,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: But I try one more time, give him one more snort.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: He stops stairs, turns, takes a couple of steps towards me.
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, all right, yes, yes, yes, yes, And then
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: he turns back to the dough, chases the door over
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: the hill. And that's all she wrote. Buck walked out
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: of our lives, wouldn't leave his dough night closed. And
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: that was it. But it was exciting. It's disappointed it
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: come together. But finally we had an encounter. Finally had
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: I got to see mature buck. Finally I thought we're
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: kind of in it. Um so at this point is that, Okay,
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: we're gonna be back here tomorrow. Like there's mature bucks
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: in here. This almost worked out. This buck wasn't willing
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: to do it, but maybe another on the cruise through
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, be willing to be aggressive and come after.
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: So that said, the next morning, though I had that set,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: i'd hung at midday. So we're today seven. This is
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: the last day of the hunt. I am tired. I
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: am worn out. We've been up at three thirty four
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is every day, hunted all day, every
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: day other than and we we moved locations a couple
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: of times, but we've not once like we never went
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: to the house. We never went to lunch. We never
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: We're going the entire time, hanging new sets, moving new spots, uh,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: sitting the hold armed time. All my buddies felt bad
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: for my camera guy. They thought he was gonna either
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: murder me or quit or something because I was putting
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: him through hell. But he was a trooper and uh
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: and just went with it. Um. So I was trying,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I was feeling a little bit of optimism
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: now though like that that mid day's that mid week
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: stretch from day three through through that night of day six. Um,
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: you know, we're just pretty much dead, you know, nothing
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: but like a couple of does and or adnker here
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: and there for three and a half days when it's
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: supposed to be, you know, the best of the best.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: That was a tough stretch where I just was bumming out.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of us can relate to that.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: With the white Tail rut, you have so much expectation.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's why the the slow periods are harder
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: during the rut is because you have such high expectations.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: You know, if it's slow on October fifteen, things kind
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: of I was expecting. If it's slow on septem you know,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: it's just how it is sometimes. But when it's November four,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: especially if you're in somewhere like Iowa or Illinois or
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: Kansas summer, you dream of Um, it's supposed to be amazing.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be it's supposed to be the best
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: of the best, and so when it doesn't happen, I
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: think it hurts more. So That's where I was at
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: and Um, as I mentioned, was was was bumming about it.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: Finally we saw Buck. Now I'm re energized and I'm like,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: you know what, damn it, Final day Magic, We're gonna
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: do it. Like I'm not quitting, I'm not giving up.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: This is gonna happen. We have worked for the universe
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: will reward us. So the final morning, I remember in
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: the car, I put on the final countdown you know,
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: classic rock song by Europe, and we're jamming out down No,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: not there, and just like jamming like this is it?
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: Hell Yeah, last day. We get to the property. We
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: slip in their way before daylight so we're not spooking
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: anything at gray light, and we get set up. We're
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: feeling great, We're feeling confident, and I'm excited, like I'm
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: gonna pull this thing out in the end. Somehow it's
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: gonna happen. This spot looks good, feels good. Um, it
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: follows the rules of the rut that I preach all
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the time. Um. And it's fresh, and the sign was hot,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: and daylight breaks and the woods comes alive. Here's a
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: little buck. There's a little buck. And they're all doing
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: just what I was hoping they would do. Their cruising
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: east to west, the cruising across the top of the tea.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: Try and check these betting areas, and because of that
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: steep ditch along our side, they have to cross these
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: two places that are both within range of me. So
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: these box are cruising past, and everything that's coming past
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: is within shooting range. And now it's I don't know,
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: oh somewhere around the first hour of daylight um, and
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: we are sitting there quiet, scanning, scanning, and I see
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: times come out of the brush approaching that ditch to
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: my left, and I remember saying buck coming, and I
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: pulled out my buyos and as a shooter buck. Immediately
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: you can see like this is a big, big shooter
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: buck coming in. So I start swinging into position, swinging
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: and go grab my bow. And he's coming fast, like
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: he's cruising on a very fast walk, not stopping, not loafing, nothing,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: and he's heading. If you can envision me hanging on
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: my saddle, let's let's say I'm like, like, I'm sitting
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: in my truck right now, driving right so I'm here
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: holding the steering wheel, and the trees directly in front
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: of me, if we're talking about them, the hunting snare,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: So imagine the trees directly in front of me, I'm
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: hanging off of the rope back off of that tree.
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: This deer is approaching from kind of where you're left
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: rear view mirror would be, so my left front side,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: he's approaching, and he's gonna head across in front of me.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: As if you were, you know, gonna walk from my
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: left across to directly in front of me, my shot
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: would be just off the just left side of the tree.
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: So I need to lean out around the tree just
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit and then shoot directly in front of me.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: As I lean to get into position to shoot, I've
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: got several thoughts going through my mind. I had ranged
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: this area earlier, and there was this old logging road
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: that this ditch crossing follows, and I had ranged it
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: like the back was somehre on like thirty six yards ish,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: in the front of this log arns around thirty yards,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: So I knew he was gonna be, you know, somewhere
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: in that like thirty something yard range. And I remember
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: thinking to myself, I want to range him, but he's
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: come so fast, like there's no I don't have time
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: to arrange him. The second thing I remember thinking is
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: that this freaking backpacks in my way. The freaking backpack
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: is my cameraman's bag. And this has been a thing
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: like all week is that, uh, my cameraman has got
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of gear with him. He's carrying three different
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: cameras because he's got one camera that's pointed at me
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: to try to get my reactions and my stuff, and
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: then he has a handheld camera that he's using to
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: film the deer coming in, and then he has a
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: third camera that's for still photography, and he's got a
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: camera arm and all this kind of thing. So he's
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: got a big, huge backpack and then like extra bags
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: that were attached to that. So in the tree, every
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: time we were unning, it was a challenge to try
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: to find a way like position his bags somewhere that
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: they'd be out of my way, but also you know, hidden.
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: We're always trying to find ways to stay hidden because
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: like with two guys and two sets of gear and
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: and all this crab, it was very hard to ever
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: stay hidden. So it was like a point of concern
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: at all times to try to find this middle ground
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: where I'm able to get him hidden in a way
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: um that also allows us to get shots. And that
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: morning he set up and I remember thinking that this
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: backpack is in the way if a deer comes right
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: here to my front left. So I told him, like,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: do we gotta do something all that backpack. So he
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: tried to raise it up a little bit, and then
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: we tucked the straps that were hanging off and we
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: hadnt really straps, so take the straps. I remember putting
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: the straps into the water ball pockets, and I practice like,
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: can I get a shot around here? It's still dark out,
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: this is really early in the morning. Can I get
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: a shot around? Like, damn, it's still kind of like
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: in the way. But I had been I've been on
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: him so much to like move these things and do
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: this stuff. I felt ad like I was. I was worried.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: I'm being like that annoying nag, like always talent move
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: this stuff or this stuff is in the way, or
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: it's like I'm not gonna ask him to move it again,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: Like he's he's got a thousand things to do. It
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: takes a long time for him to get set up
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: with all this different gear and all these cameras, and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I was approaching daylight and all that. So
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: I'm like, it's good enough. What I'll do is if
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: a buck's coming I can just lower myself down. You know,
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: if you know on a satellite, you'm hanging from a rope,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: So I can either like kneel down and get lower,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: or I could even release the ropeman that's running me
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: on the rope. I can actually lower myself on the
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: rope even more so, so I remember thinking it'll be
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: good enough. I can just lower myself or kneel down
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: and shoot underneath that backpack. Probably just fine. I'm not
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: gonna bug chase anymore. So that was that morning. Well,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: now this big buck's coming through, and this big buck
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: is is running walking from left to right very quickly,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: coming down this logging road trail, and he's gonna give
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: me one opening. There's one opening in the brush, and
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: it's right where that backpack is. Let me tell you
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: about this buck. This buck is like a horse body.
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, he's like a Clydesdale body buck. And he
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: is big, heavy, wide, tall eight pointer. He's like a
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty in eight pointer, biggest eight point buck
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: I've ever had within shooting range. Slammer, and I get
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: my bow up into position, and I remember thinking I
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: can't get underneath this freaking backpack. I need to lower myself,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: but that bus coming so fast. He's almost to my
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: shooting lane, and I realized I can't. I don't have time.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: I'm like reaching from my rope man like I can't
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: do it. So all of this happens in the matter
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: of like this is like an eight second time period.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: Probably I don't know how long. It was, maybe maybe
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: twenties seconds from the time we out the buck to
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: the time he gets into my shooting lane. Like he
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: came out on an oor in the thick cover, and
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: then bam, he's crossing the ditch. He's approaching the shooting lane.
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: All I have time to grab the bow, swing down,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: and then I have the two thoughts. One thought is God,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: I wish I could a range on him. Second, not
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: enough time. The second thing is gotta getta get lower
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: and it's backpack. I can't do it. So I am
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: trying to crouch. I'm trying to angle my bow. I'm
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: trying to find some way to get under this thing.
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: But my top limb of my bow is bumping up
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: against the top of this backpack that's still hanging down
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: too low. The buck enters the shooting lane, I have
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: to get a shot I remember drawing back and knee
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like kneeling down and like hanging out and trying
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: to keep my bow underneath the backpack. I remember the
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: moments I can remember. I remember once like hitting it.
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: I remember being canted to the side, and then I
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: remember just trying to hack. I don't know. All I
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: remember is trying to navigate around this thing. And then
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: I remember member seeing my third yard paint on that
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: buck and being like this is it, and the shot
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: went off, And the moment the shot went off, I cursed,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: like I knew instantly I missed. I mean instantly. Um,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: the poor editors are gonna have to edit it out
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: because like the shot and then immediately instantly, and that
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: buck ran off so probably like sixty yards and stopped
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: just looking around, and I'm just like, no freaking way.
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: And I grabbed another arrow and I get the new
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: arrow on there, and where he's positioned, I don't have
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: a good shot, but maybe if I could lower myself
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: on the rope and swing around this stupid backpack all
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: the way the backside, there might be a clear lane.
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to fumble with my rope and my
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: rope man, which is like the This is like the ascend.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: It's like this little mechanism that holds you on the
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: rope at whatever level you want to be at. I'm
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: trying to open that up so I can lower myself
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: down the rope and swing around either side. And as
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: I do that, like it makes a clicking noise, it pops,
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: and that buck just bolts, blow in and barrels out
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: of there. And uh, I had just missed one of
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: the biggest bucks in my life. Um. Definitely the biggest
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: eight point in my life. Uh. And uh, you know,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: first mature buckhead within shooting range. Definitely the biggest buck
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: I saw that week. Um, And that was my opportunity.
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: I busted my balls all seven days for that. I
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: passed on those really nice bucks the first couple of
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: days for an opportunity like that, and then there he
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: is and I blew it, and um, you know, I
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: decided to sit there the rest of the day because
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: after that, I saw a number of other young bucks
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: come cruising through, and I knew there's other maturity deer
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: on camera, so I knew, like, all right, he's out
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: of here, but maybe another one of these big boys
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: all roll through because obviously this spot is the spot
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: they want to come through. So I sat out the
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: rest of the day. Then around like two o'clock that
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: wind um I was getting stronger, and I realized that
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: more of these deer were taking the top trail like
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: that big buck had done. And in the morning he
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: couldn't win me because my thermals were dropping. But now
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: the air warmed up and the wind was blowing towards
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: that trail now and more deer we're using that top
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: trail than I was expecting. So I got to think of, man,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: you know what, we really need to be in a
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: position so that if another deer comes on the top
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: trail doesn't wind us, Like, what's the point of sitting
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: here all day and trying to do this if another
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: buck does what that one does and then he wins
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: me before I can get a shot. So at like
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: two o'clock or to thirty or something, I tell Chase, Man,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I know you're worn out. I'm worn out.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: I don't want to do this, but we need to
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: make a little adjustment because I'm not gonna have gone
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: through all this and then miss this book to just
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: have a final opportunity to the last night for magic,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: and then we get winded. So with a couple hours
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: left in the day, we pulled on our set, move
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: forty yards to another tree that's better for the wind
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: and gives us another shooting angle. Put another step back
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: up like our seven seemed like our seventh setup of
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: the trip, got up in the tree. And I should
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: point out that they started combining this field now and
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: we're sitting up there and like, oh man, please stop,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: or please work on the opposite side of the field
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: or something, or please get done before daylight, I mean
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: before dark. But as the evening progresses now we're sitting
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: there and of course, just like that other night, the
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: last half hour daylight, he's picking the field right next
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: to us and literally doing the last row right next
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: to the timber that we're close to now during the
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: last ten fifty minutes of the night, and nothing but
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: a single dough comes through and there's two one little buck,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: and the night ended like that. That was this was
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: last night. That was how I hunt added and I
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: did not kill a buck in Iowa. And I blew
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: my opportunity at my opportunity, blew mine, blew my shot
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: um and you know, I replayed that moment over and
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: over and over again, thinking about what what happened? You know,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: what did you do wrong? What could have you done different?
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a whole lot of self loathing. I
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: mean I was busted up about it, of course. Um,
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: and you know I I couldn't get around that back
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was a horrible shooting situation. It was
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: just a horrible I mean it was awful. And UM,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess I blame myself. I do. I
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: blame myself for that because I should have known to
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: not settle for that backpack being anywhere in the way. Um,
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: because you know, I should have known that I wouldn't
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: be able to easily adjust to get around it in
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the heat of the moment when there's a buck barreling
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: down on you. Um. I thought it was good enough,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: but it was not good enough. And uh, you know,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: if I had moved that backpack, it might have been
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: a different story. Um. I shot low in a little
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: It's hard to tell exactly watching the footage, but it
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: looks like the arrow hits beneath him and a little
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: bit back. Um. So what did I do wrong? I
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: had that backpack there, that I should have moved even
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: more than I already moved it. That backpack made it
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: really hard for me to shoot around it, and I
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: was just in a very augard position, bending down low,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: kind of leaning out. I might even had to have
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: the bow canted out to left a little bit. Um,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't want to shoot like that, can
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: lee That buck might have been a little further than
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: I thought. Um, you know, I was using my thirty
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: yard pin, but he was probably more like thirty four
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: yards when I you know, watching the footage and trying
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: to range exactly where he was and all that kind
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: of stuff. So not only was that in a horribly
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: awkward position trying to shoot wonky, but also I'm shooting
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: with a thirty yard pin when he's you know, thirty
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: four yards away. Let's say, so there's another reason why
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: the shot could have been lower than it should have been. Um,
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: you know, ah uh yeah, I I guess. I don't
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: know what to say. I've thought through this thing so
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: many times. I beat myself over it so many times.
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: Definitely like a confidence I don't want to say I'm
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: having a crisis of confidence, but this definitely like shook me,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Um, even though there's all these extenuating circumstances
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: that made this awful. Um, it's also kind of thing. Man,
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: you missed a big buck last year, Now this happens again.
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: You don't you don't want to get into a thing
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: like that where that starts happening. And all that is
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: to say, um, man, just not a good feeling, really
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: really disheartening feeling, very discouraging. Um. As you all know.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, those those those moments of the lowest of lows,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: and it comes to hunting, and I'm still working through it. Um,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: this is this is raw. This just happened yesterday morning,
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: and now it's that that the following day in the
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: morning when I'm recording this, and it's a bitter pill
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: of swallow. It is a really really bitter pilla swallow. Um.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: And I know that's something that a lots you can
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: relate to. Um, this is not something you need to me.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: A lot of us have worked really hard and not
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: gotten paid off for a lot of us have practice
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: a ton and try to very best and still missed
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: or still didn't get to see one or still has
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: something going wrong. So there's no use to me sitting here. Um.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Playing my fiddle and feeling sorry for myself because I
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: know that plenty of other people have dealt with it,
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: and plenty of other people have to deal with worse. UM.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to do what I've said here on
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: the podcast in the past, which is number one. I'm
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: trying to remember that there's a lot bigger things in
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: life than this. And I've still got great I don't need. Um,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: i don't even feel that bad because I've got a
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: great family. I've got the best kids in the world.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: I've got a home, I've got a way to pay
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: the bills, I've got great family and friends. I'm healthy. Um.
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to put things in context and and
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: remember this isn't life or death. UM. And I'm also,
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: you know, trying to do the other thing which I
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: preach a lot, which is trying to remember the process. Right. Um,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: I didn't get the results I wanted. But the one
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: thing I can hang my head on, and then one
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: thing I can say, probably I'm honestly I'll go back
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: and say I'm embarrassed, like I'll tell you, like just honestly,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: just being brutally honest with you. This is embarrassing. It's
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: embarrassing that I missed a buck. It's embarrassing that I
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: didn't kill a deer. It's embarrassing I spent seven days
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: in the best place in the world and couldn't get
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: it done. It's embarrassing that, you know, me, Clay, Tony,
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: and Spencer were all on this hunt for the show,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: and Tony killed, Spencer killed, Clay killed. Who's the one
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: guy I didn't kill? The son of a gun that
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: hosts the Wired Dunt podcast, this this great big white
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: tailed podcast. I'm supposed to be the guy is supposed
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: to get this done, and then I don't. Um So
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: all of those things have been in my brain, and
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: uh man, it sucks. But the one thing, when I
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: climbed out of the tree last night, I just said,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: I freaking gave it my all. I mean, I just
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: did everything I could. I did not take a break.
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: I did not take an easy route. Every time I thought, man,
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: I got to make an adjustment, every time I thought
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: I gotta take a long way, every time I thought
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: I gotta go harder, longer. Whatever I did it, I
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: gave every damn little bit of myself. And I am
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: whooped and Um, tired, and uh, you know, that's just
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: how it goes sometimes. So I I'm gonna try to
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: sleep easy tonight in some kind of way, knowing that
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: I left it on the court, left it all on
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: the field, and that that is just how it goes sometimes.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: That's all right, that's life. Right. You're gonna work really
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: hard for things, and you're not gonna get what you want.
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you're gonna have tough times. You have good times
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 1: and you have tough times, and you get learn how
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: to weather both. And you gotta learn how to stay
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: even killed. And you've gotta learn to stay positive through
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: it and make the most situations. And you gotta know
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: how to take your lumps. And so I'll get through
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: this one. I've gotten through all the others. I'll get
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: through this one. I'll learn from it. I'll grow. And um,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: you know, if any of you followed Wired to Hunt
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: for any period of time, you know that I have
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: been through these things before. And this is just this
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: is this is what wird Hunt is. I guess right.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: This is a process, this is a learning process. You've
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: gotten to ride along with me since two thousand nine,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: when I first decided to try to start killing mature bucks.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: When when more like, well, yeah, I guess he's nine. Um,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: when I said, all right, I'm gonna try to kill
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: them a sure buck, And you've got to follow along
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: with me as I have tried to learn how to
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: do that and started being able to do that, and
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: started to do that consistently. But you've also seen me
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: fail a whole lot along the way. You've seen me struggle,
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: and you've seen me learn from it. You've seem to
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: get better, You've seen me revert back and do bad again.
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: You've see me get better again. And damn it, what
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: we're gonna keep on doing. I'm gonna bounce back from
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: this one. I'm gonna learn from it. This whole little
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: breakdown I just did with you guys, I don't know
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: if this is interesting in any kind of way. I
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: don't know if you just listen to me prattle on
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: for an hour and forty minutes with with nothing to it,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I hope that there's something valuable here,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: But I hope that by trying to break things down
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: like this, um for myself, it can serve as an
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: illustration of how you might be able to do the
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: same both you know, how to work through a week
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: of tough hunting and make adjustments. And you know, I
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: feel like one of the things that I I think
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: I did an okay job of. I think it did
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: a good job of was trying to balance this um
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: tension between searching out new spots and hot sign versus
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: finding a good spot and giving a time. I you know,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of spots I really found h the
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: deserved time, and I gave them a good bit. I
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: didn't pan out, but um, I tried to kind of
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: let a couple of spots soak the way they should.
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: And at the same time, I also said, all right,
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: there's times and you get a bail out and you
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: gotta seek out new spots. So I I bailed out
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: and scouted new areas and I hunted new spots, and
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple of those plays lead to opportunities,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: are close to opportunities or sightings, and um, I think
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: those are those were good moves. So you know, I
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: can look back at my process, and I can look
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: back at those decisions and and and and see some
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: good things. I can see some good things. I can
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: see some things I wish I would have done differently.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: I wish I had scouted out that north Ridge sooner.
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: I wish that I'd gotten there sooner because if I
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: had more time, I wonder if I would have had
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: another opportunity. Um because it definitely was the best looking
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: signed by far um that I found. And um, I
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: didn't get there till the last day or second to
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: last days when I scouted it and didn't hunt it
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: till the last day. Um So tho's those those types
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: of things too. And of course then the shot, I mean,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I can look at that and tell you, I mean,
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: I already did the things I wish I had done differently.
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: Um So that's where I'm at, Guys. It was a
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: heck of a week. I'm not happy with how it
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: turned out. I wish I had a successful story to
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: share with you right now. I wish I had a
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty and shape pointer five year old buck
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: in the back of my truck right now, But I don't.
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: And that's life. Sometimes you drive home with an empty
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: truck bed, and what makes the man, I think is
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: what you do the next morning when you wake up.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: You're gonna hang your ahead and are you gonna bitch
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: about it, and are you gonna let that define you
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: or are you gonna hit the road and keep on trying.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: And I guess, literally and figuratively, I am hitting the
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: road and going to keep on trying, as I'm actually
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: in my truck driving to Nebraska, and I will be
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: starting to hunt again tonight, filming an another show and
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: hopefully gonna put something together a very different hunt. We'll
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: talk about this at a later day, but um, I'm
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: gonna keep on keeping on then, keep grinding. And I
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: hope that if you guys are out there, if any
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: of you are out there and you've had something like this,
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: if you had a tough hunt, if you had a
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: tough week, if you had a tough moment, if you
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: missed a buck or wounded a buck, or if you
• 1:42:22
  Speaker 1: can't seem to get on a deer or whatever it is, Um,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: I hope that you will keep on grinding too. I
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: hope you will do what it takes to keep the
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: fun in it. Don't let this stuff get miserable, don't
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: put so much pressure on yourself that you aren't enjoying
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: it anymore. But also remember that you know hard work,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: hard work is good for you, and Um, it does.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: It does pay off in the end in one way
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: or another. So keep after it, keep the faith. I'm
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: pulling for all of you. I'm I'm stoked that so
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: many of you have had success. I love all the
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: messages and pictures and notes I get sent when you
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: guys do fill a tag and uh and I'm just
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: wishing the best for all the rest of you too.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: So that is it for today. I appreciate you listening
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: to me kind of do my post hunt therapy session here. Um,
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if this is I don't I don't
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: know anything right, what do I know? But uh, I
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed it. I hope that the next time
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: we chat, I've got a better story for you. And
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: until then, thank you for listening, and stay wired to Hunt.