Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 413: Aggressive On-the-Ground Tactics for Whitetails with Josh Ilderton

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Ep. 413: Aggressive On-the-Ground Tactics for Whitetails with Josh Ilderton · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four thirteen.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: In today's the show, I'm joined by West Virginia bow
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hunter Josh Ilderton to discuss his aggressive on the ground
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: tactics for hunting white tails. All right, welcome to the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: and today the show, I'm joined by Josh Ilderton, and
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: Josh is a southern West Virginia bow hunter most well
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: known across most of the country for his work on
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the Untamed YouTube series. On this video series, Josh and
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: a group of other avid hunters and houndsman chase bucks
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and bears across West Virginia and several other nearby states.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: But from a white tailed perspective, what I think sets
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Josh apart the most is his penchant for chasing bucks
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: on the ground. His self proclaimed favorite white hunt is
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: glassing up white tails from a distance and then putting
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: on a stalk until he can get into bow range.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: And he's doing this, and I mean, it's the big
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: rugged wooded mountains of West Virginia, and it is it's
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: really impressive what he's been able to pull off. Not
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: to mention it looks like a lot of fun. I've
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: I've followed a lot of what they're doing down there.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's crazy what he's pulling off. And it's got me,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: you know, personally, more and more intrigued by the possibilities
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: that white tail hunting from the ground offers. Um. You know,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: this is something that I think people are discovering is
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: more and more what's the right word I'm looking for, possible.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I guess you're seeing folks like Jarre with white tail
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a dread and winner, Zach with the hunting public, now
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Josh over here with the untamed people that are showing that, yeah,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you don't need to sit in a tree stand or
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: saddled killed deer. You can do it in really different
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: kinds of ways. And I love that. That's one of
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: my absolute most favorite things that has come out of
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: this entire podcast. The last however many years I've been
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: doing this has been getting to learn about the million
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: different ways you can do this thing. You can hunt
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: deer in so many different ways, and I'm just personally, uh,
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: just fascinated by the process of trying to figure out
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: all those different types of styles and strategies and each
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: different one just uh, I don't know. It gets me
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: really interested and curious. And today, for sure is an
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: example that Uh. Josh is someone who I think, you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I definitely learned a lot from I think that all
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: of you will be able to learn something from this,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: whether you're hunt in West Virginia or Wyoming or points
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: in between. I really think you're gonna get some ideas
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: here you can add to your own white till hunting
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: arsenal um. We talk about, you know, how to find
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: good country, how to glass, specific tips on glassing for
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: white tails. We talk about when to stalk in on
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: one and when not to stalk on them. We talk
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: about all sorts of advice for how to move on
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: the ground when trying to approach a deer in this
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: kind of situation. We talked about taking on the ground shots. Um, gosh,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know. This one went long. It was interesting.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: It kept me personally just just riveted the entire time.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: So I trust you'll feel the same way. I hope
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: you do. I hope you enjoy this, I'm gonna stop
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: blathering on. I'm just gonna let you get into it.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: So now, without further ado, my conversation with Josh Elderton.
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening. All right here with me now on
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: the line is Josh Elderton. Josh, welcome to the show. Hey, Mark,
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: how are you the Satan? I am really good and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: excited to talk to you. How about yourself? I'm doing great, buddy.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I'm an Alabama current turkey hunting this week for the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: opening week of spring turkey season. And uh, We've been
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: down here since last Thursday, Kirk and I have and
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: so anytime I'm in the woods, I'm pretty happy. You
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: can't beat that. How's the turkey hunting done? It has
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: been slow. You know that the birds aren't just they're
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: just not talking a whole lot. Um. We end up
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: I killed one this morning, but we even thank you.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: We've hunted hard dough and we hunted National fourth and
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are so many people up there, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: we've heard a couple of birds, but they're pretty tight
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: lipped and hind picked and um, just tough hunting. We
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: drove south four and a half hours yesterday. We we
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: broke our our tent camp down and said let's go
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: somewhere else. And uh, we drove four and a half
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: hours further south in Alabama and uh ran out to
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: some public excuse me last night, to roosts and birds,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and we were unsuccessful. And then we went on a
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Marine Corps buddy of mine has a lease and he said, man,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: and he said, we don't turkey, and he said all
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: the more and welcome. So and they're not turkey hunter.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: So you never do know what to expect when people
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: are giving you information. Uh. But we went out there
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this morning and didn't strike any birds. And about an
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: hour after day, like, I heard a couple of gobbles
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and running jumped on them and ended up killing one.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: So it's been tough hunting, but that's part of it.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: It's called hunting, not killing that. Uh. Sometimes that tougher,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: longer pricess makes it that much sweeter. Yeah, I mean,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and that's that's in every everything we do, I mean,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: and everything you do, the sacrifices you make in hunting
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: and and everything I do. I mean, when you when
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you have to sacrifice, it does make it feel better
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: when when you find that success. Yeah, do you find
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: that to be a little bit of what shifting deer
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: hunting is that a little bit of why you deer
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: hunt the way you do do you do you purposefully
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: kind of seek out that harder, more challenging process than
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: some other things you could do. Um Mark tell you truth,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I don't the way I hunt. I've hunted it. I've
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: hunted that way for so long. I don't find it hard.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I find it hard to for these guys. There are
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: so many hunters. There are just better hunters and deer
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: hunters than I am. And I see them. I mean
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: even in the area that we're from. I mean, uh,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: in southern West Virginia. These guys that sitting tree stands
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: day in day out. I think those guys are hardcore.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I really do. I mean I give them, I give
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: them out of boys, I'll give them round up, applause
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and everything. I'm just not gonna do it. I mean,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: I like being on the ground and chasing them and covering,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: covering terrain and using train and because once you, once
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: you find success in it, why don't you kill your
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: first year on the ground, you will be committed to
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: hunting on the ground for a long time, and you're
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: gonna fail way more than you're going to succeed. So
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: tell me this, Josh, tell me. Let's say I don't.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: Let's say you're at the bar and you bump into
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: some fellow hunters and they're talking to you, and you
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: get into I don't know if debating, but you end
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: up talking about their style of hunting versus your style
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: of hunting. And let's say that for whatever reason, you
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: had to convince them to give it a shot, to
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: give the ground hunting kind of spotting stock style you
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: use a shot. If you were going to pitch them
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: on why they should, what would your pitch be? My
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: pitch would be a couple of different selling points. One is,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: when you're on the ground hunting, you learn about everything
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: else in that area along with the deer. Um. That's
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: the that's the biggest advantage of ground huning for me,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: is is learning. I mean, and I know it sounds minute,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: but learning where the squirrels are cutting. I mean, if
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: the squirrels are cutting acrons, most likely the deer's eating
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: new acrons too, right there. Uh, squirrels ain't gonna eat
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: brought acrens. Um. You'll learn, You'll learn where the bears
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: are Uh, you'll learn the train. The train is is
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: so important. Uh, when when you're hunting on the ground
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: and when you you can learn everything and you're throwing
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: a whole wealth of information in there. Two better yourself
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: as a woodman, not just as a hunter. And that
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that's what's important to me. And and it's action packed.
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not always action pact. I'll take that back.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: I mean there might be days that you don't see
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: any deer, and now I've had plenty of them, but
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: most of the time, I at least see deer or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: see wildlife. It might be bare or wild hogs, h
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: or squirrels or turkey and stuff. And I'm not hunting.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: But um, you're always you always seem to be in
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: the wildlife. You always seem to be in the mix
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: with something. Uh. And you know I hang too. I
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: mean there's days that you know that I'm in a
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: saddle from daylight the dark. I've done it days in
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: a row. Um, it's just not my for third style.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: I me, hanging in a tree is not my preferred style.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, it just doesn't work for me because it's
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: not a it's a it's not an opportunity opportunistic approach,
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Yeah, you you'd rather go get
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: them than wait for them to to fall in your lap. Yeah.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I mean I've hunted one specific deer that I've actually
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: put time in my whole life, and that was this
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: past season. Um, that's the only deer that I've ever
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: gave up six weeks in my hunting season four and uh,
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: it got killed by somebody else, and congratulate him. I
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: mean it was you know, I think it grows. Two
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: hundred seventy four is eight point wow. Um. And I'm
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: usually an opportunity hunter. I mean, if if I'm hunting
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: it and it took us my fancies and I'm going
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to go after it, I don't care if it's a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: dred teen inch deer a hundred seventy Um. It's all
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: in personal preference on on what gets you excited when
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: you're out there in the woods. And I think that
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: me hunting on the ground gives me the best opportunities
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: for that then hanging in a tree. Yeah, now, am
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: I right? That? From from some of the things I've
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: I've seen and heard that big buck the year after
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: last year, you spent a lot of that time hanging
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: for him from a tree. Why why did you feel
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: like in this case with this buck, you had to
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: hang up in the tree, which is you're not preferred style. Well,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I've had that buck since sixteen, and I've talked about
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I've talked about this, dear a couple of times. Um,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: and I watched him and watched him and I und
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: anyone on the ground and it's nothing but timber up there.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And I don't know it if you've hunted white tail
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in the big timber mark on the ground, not on
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: the ground. Yeah, so you know it's extremely tough. I
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: mean I found success ah a couple of times, but
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: most of the time when I'm hunting in the timber,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm trying to educate myself and if an
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: opportunity to presents itself, then I'll take it. Um. And
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: I hunted him on the ground in two thousand. I
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: saw him twice in two thousand. No, no, that two
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. I'm sorry. So it's two years ago on
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: the ground. And then I had him about eighty yards
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and two thousand twenty two nineteen, I'm sorry December, Um,
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: and he busted us. Was some doze busted us and
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: he took off. But I thought that year was like
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: his big potential year. Uh. And I had a lot
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: of pressure hunting on me that year in nineteen and
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: I only hunted that up there on it in that
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: section for like five days that year at it and
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I've seen him three times. Um. So coming into two
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: thousand twenty, I had put some uh cameras out and
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I and I get very few pictures anyway, because there's
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: just not a lot of deer in that area. And
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: I didn't get any pictures. And then August I wake
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: up and like I started, I mean like I jump
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: up into bed, and you know, it's like I had
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the dag on lottery. You know, my wife's going, what
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: is wrong with you? I was like, he's alive, you know,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: And I mean he was just a freak. And and
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: and I'll send you, I'll send you a couple of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: pictures at him, nowaday, I got your number. And yeah.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Uh So, once I got pictures of him, then I
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: piled in there and and ran a lot of game cameras.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: Um And the funny thing, Mark is that you know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of time into it, and I
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: was I never saw him this year on the hoof
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: and I was within I think four four or five
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: times I was within sixty yards of him and never
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: saw him because one of one of the way I
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: set my game cameras up, I would be hunting a
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: point and one of my game cameras on a on
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: a down trail would go off and I I use
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: cell cameras and regular cameras, but I'd get on there
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: and there he was walking past one of my cell
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: cameras on a trail. H See that happen. That happened
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: to me. I think it was four or five times
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: this year. And see I used when I used my
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: trail cameras more, I'll have a hub like I got
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: his picture on on this Uh. And you gotta you
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: gotta realize in southern West Virginia that you're gonna go
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: up and you're gonna come down just as fast. I mean,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: there real Steve, and you pick up and it's fifteen
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: ft wide at the top and you go straight back
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: down the other side to the drain. So just kind
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of imagine that. And then you got coal seams in
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: the mountain and from years and years ago, they all
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: they'll have prospect roads where they went around and checked
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: the coal seam. So you'll have flats at the coal
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: sea levels. Going down the mountain. It's either prospect roads
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: or old skid roads for your loggers. And so I
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: found him on one of those flats. So from that point,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I put cameras all the way around that flat, within
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: like maybe two hundred yards, on different trails. And when
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I say cameras, I had thirteen cameras on his deer. Uh.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: I put him on every trail, um, every place that
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I thought he would cross, even if it wasn't a
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: trail anything low gaps, I mean through tight little funnels,
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: through rocks maybe, and so on. Out of those thirteen
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: cameras I found him on, i'd get him on four
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: or five cameras. So then i'd go get the other
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: cameras and i'd move them around those four or five cameras. Um.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So it's a real process. But you know, it just
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: didn't work out for me. I mean I was close, uh,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and I lay at at prime time in West Virginia
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: is usually like the twelve through of November, and I
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: laugh to go to Missouri to bow hunt, and he
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: got killed the third or fourth day I was in Missouri,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: but already killed a deer. Um. I killed a deer
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: on the ground I think November one or second. So
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I've given up and I was hoping that he would
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: make it through the year. Do you do you feel
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: now having had all that happen. You put in a
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: lot of time, a lot of work, and then he
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: got killed by someone else. It didn't work out for you.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Do you have any regrets about doing this kind of
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: style this year in which you waited and focus on
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: one deer and really put a lot of time, or
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: or you okay with it that didn't turn out and
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: you're you're glad because it was a shot you were
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: willing to take even though you knew you might miss um. No,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: I mean I I don't have any regrets. I mean,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: do I which I'd have done? I mean, I don't
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: know if I could have done anything different. You know,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: when you kill a deer and then everybody starts going,
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: why had pictures of him? And I was doing this
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: and then I got I got these and they start sending,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: you know, pictures come out of the woodwork when deer
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: gets killed, and I was in his bedroom. I felt
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: like more. But come to find out, when some people
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: sent me pictures or they start posting pictures of him
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and then looking at time stamps and stuff. Man, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: was I was out of the hunt probably sixty percent
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of the time. Man that I was there, um and
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: didn't even realize it. And I and and the deer
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: was so nomadic that you know, I would get a
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: picture of him, you know, four five, six hours, and
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: I would know he would be in an area. But
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: then going back and looking at timestamps on other camera fagers,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I mean that there was gone. He was nowhere near me.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: When I was hunting, he was you know, eight d
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: nine hundred yards away in straight line. And so I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: don't have any regrets. I mean, I mean I laid
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: late on his deer in different areas, uh, trying to
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: figure him out. Uh. And I was unsuccessful at us.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: I mean that that that probably bothers me more than anything.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: That I didn't fail, but I mean I was just
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: unsuccessful after putting them that much time. I mean I
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: had in nine days in the ruin. Did said, dear
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: that you talked about mentally challenging that will challenge you. Um,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: So that that bothers me. But you know what it
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: is what it is. I'm and congratulate that boy who
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: killed him. Uh. I have it helped me that I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: will never um pinpoint one deer and go after I'm
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: all for the bow hunters that do that, and the
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: rifle hunters and any deer hunter that does that. They
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: want to go after a specific and one for it
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: may I'm I'm gonna go and I'm I'm gonna be
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be me and hunt my style. If I
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: see a deer I want to kill that, I'm gonna
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: go after it. Yeah, um for now on. Well, it's uh,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to go through experience like that. I've I've
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: had some somewhat similar situations and and I wrestled back
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and forth between you know, do I ever want to
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: do that again? There's there's certain things about it I love.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: There's certain things where I'm kicking myself about it afterwards,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and and I I've had a handful of times where
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: I've sworn it off. I'll never get obsessed with a
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: single buck again, and then the next year or two
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: years later, one of these suckers gets under my skin
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: in and there um again. So it me. But I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: feel like when you and it might just be me,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: but I feel like when you go all in on
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: that one, dear, it consumes you. I mean, it doesn't
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: only consume you in your outdoor life. It consumes you
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: in your personal life. It can affect and I mean
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I've seen it. I mean I know I've felt it. Uh.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't worried, uh if I wasn't gonna
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: make it home for dinner. I wasn't worried if I
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: was canceling the date night. You know, I'm I'm hunting,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: and that's not the That's not the right thing to do,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: um because it will consume you and affect stuff outside
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of hunting. And when it does that, then I think
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it's the wrong thing to do. And I'm just not
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: going to let it affect me like that anymore. Yeah,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: it could be a slippery slope, that's for sure. So
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: let's let's kind of pivot to your usual style, which
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: is what you turned to on November one and immediately
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: had success this past year, which I want to dive
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: into that specifically at some point, but let's rewind just
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a little bit and just kind of set the stage
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: a little bit more. You mentioned, you know, at the
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: top that you like to hunt on the ground, you
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: like to get get after those deer. You mentioned that
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: the terrain there in southern West Virginia is you know,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: steep up and down. But can you paint a little
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: bit more of a picture of the kind of terrain,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: um any other aspects of the terrain that you're hunting.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Can you just help us better understand that types of
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: places both specifically where you hunt and more generally the
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: kinds of places that you could hunt this style. Yeah,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: so I grew up hunting. We in West Virginia. We
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: call out to southern four and that's the the four
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: out of the fifty counties in West Virginia or bow
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: hunting only. Okay, I have been since I think it
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: was seventy nine, but right around that area that it's
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: been bow hunting only since then. Southern West Virginia, those
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: southern four counties is also for the top producing coal
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: counties in the state. And and with coal you have
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: surface mining. Well surface mining comes through. They take the
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: mountains off and they put the mountains back, but then
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: you have great vegetation once they put it back, and
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: it's not the big timber hardwoods. Yeah, it will come
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: back in years to come, but like when it's five
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: to ten years with of it shutting down, you have
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: and I've never I've never hunted in Kansas or i
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: or anything like that more. Um, but I've seen a
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: lot of videos and a lot of footage from out there,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and you have kind of the u in Nebraska. You
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: kind of it's not like open plains. But it's when
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: they reclaim these minds, uh, it comes back and you
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: know they're they're thick brush, there's high grasses, there's clover.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: It's kind of rolling hills. But then you get you
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: get away from the strip and that's what that's kind
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: of one terrain model is kind of it's your open
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: prayers are sitting up on top of these mountains, if
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. It's it's kind of you kind of
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: flip flop it because of coal mining. You know, usually
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: your bottom lands are rolling and grass and got your
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: thickets and stuff, and then you kind of go up
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: to your timber well. In southern West Virginia, it's kind
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: of flip flop because of mining and reclamation process. M
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: you when they reclaim you kind of have all that flat,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: rolling land up on top and then you moved down
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: to the hardwoods from there. Uh, that's that's some of
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: the biggest train that we hunt. And then the other
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: train is, like I was saying before, if you're hunting
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the timber in southern West Virginia and or southeast Ohio,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Southeast Ohio, you know, you're just hunting the big woods,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and you know where we're hunt in Ohio. It's the same.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: It's pretty much the same area and not quite the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: elevation as in southern West Virginia, but it's steep, it's nasty, um,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: and you know, it's it's not any fun to think
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: about it, but like when you're there, like you don't
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: want to be anywhere else, you know what I mean?
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I mean like, uh, West Virginia is like one of them,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, one of the most underrated places to hunt. Now.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: It's hard as hell, but it could be very the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: rewards could be very very Hi. Yeah, so do you
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: do you so? It sounds like you hunt some places
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: that are relatively open, some places that are heavily wooded,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: But both of those types of areas have got some
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: significant terrain to them, some topography to them. Um, do
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: you think that's kind of a pre wreck to your
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: way of hunting. You needs some elevations, some up and down.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Or could someone listen to you today that lives in
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: flat country in Michigan maybe, or or Ohio, but not
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: in the hilly part of Ohio. Could they take some
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: of this stuff and apply it even in flat stuff? Absolutely.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I was in o How Jay and I were hunting
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. Um, I don't know, Mark five or six
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: years ago, and it was my first time out there
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: on this property. And we're hunting in uh western Ohio.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: We're a lot flatter. I mean, it's pretty much flat
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: as a pancake. And he said, where you gonna hunt
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: this evening? If you looked? And I said, I said yes,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: I said, I said, I'm going to just hunt on
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: the ground. He said, Josh, he took people in Ohio.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: You don't hunt on the ground in Ohio. And I said, well,
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: I hunt on the ground everywhere. And he said, well,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna do it here. You You're not gonna
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: do anything but bust everything out. And so we sat
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: there and talked about it, and I told me, I said,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: well here's what I'll do. I said, You're going to
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: over here to getting this stand. I said, I'll stay
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: completely away from you, but I'm gonna hunt the the
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: back block and the sideblock. I said, if I do
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: bump everything out like you said, I said, everything's gonna
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: feed up to you through through the through the spring.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: And he said, well, and he said, I just think
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: you're wasting your time. And this is what this is.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Before Jay started ground hunting. So I'm in Ohio flat nasty.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's dick it kind of vegetation. And
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I hunt that whole afternoon and the key uh, well,
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I hunt that whole afternoon. I ended up seeing I
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: don't know, twenty or deer. Uh. I saw two shooters
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and I end up bumping one to Jay and I
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and Jay he texted me says, hey, man, I just
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: shot it. I just shot a big eight point. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I was just looking at an
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: eight point, you know, ten minutes ago. And I said,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I said, I'll go ahead and and come out of here.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: I said, I'll just start working my way up through
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: the c RP and and I'll be up there in
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: an hour or so. And He's like, okay, So and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I'm in CRP now, and you know that stuff is
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: just grabbing hold of you and and it's just nasty.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: There's no lanes and I'm trying to work through it.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It's probably be waist high, but I'm still hunting now.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: And I look and there's there's a patch of and
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I have no idea why there's four second more treason.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Why the farmer left him in the middle of his
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: field in the middle of this this c RP. And
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I look and I catch a sunlight glimpse. You know,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: it's just one of those photographic memory type of things
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: when you look at something so much that you you know,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: you look for different things on the deer when you're
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: on the ground, and like, I catch a tip of
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: the tip of a glare and I stopped and I
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: was like, man, I think it's a deer when I looked,
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: and it was. And I finally saw him move after
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: looking at him for like fifteen minutes, and he was
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: a stud of a ten point. And so I started
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: sneaking on it there and and not within twenty yards
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and it was getting dark on me and when was
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: perfect and everything, and Jay was actually in the tree
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: stand on the hedgerow two fifty yards from me, watching
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: me and he's texting me, and this is after the
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: fact that I get his message. He's like, what are
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: you doing? And you know, he sees me sneaking towards
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: these sycamore trees. Well it starts getting I'm losing lights.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: So I I stand up and pulled back and whistled
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: at this deer and he still didn't hear me. I
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: had to win in my my advantage too, and he
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: still didn't he Mary and I ended up having to
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: holler an him and Howard Hay And when I did that,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: you know, typically white tells will stand up, check everything
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and then take off. You'll have a few seconds. But
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: this deer bound out like a mule deer, and you
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: know it didn't get a shot. But it was an
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: absolute great evening. And Jay and I were talking. He's like, dude,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: he said, let me dear you said, I told him,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and then he saw me stalk up on that ten
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: point and I said, when I seemed deer and signed,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: I learned where they were bedding and everything. And he said,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that's crazy. He said, he said, I've never never ground hunting,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: and now he ground hunts. Yeah, I mean that kind
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: of experience will will sell you on it, that's for sure. Yeah,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, and that's that's the greatest thing. And when
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: you're the biggest thing. When you're hunting the flat land,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you just have to adjust your speed. Um. For me,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: I look my glass more move less and oh, I
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: mean the flat land. You can only imagine how important
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: you all use it when you're in a tree stand,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: uh of how important it is on the ground. So
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you know I'm constant uh wind checking and and glassing.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: Is that, you know the biggest thing I do. I mean,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: I was sitting glass and area in the timber and
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: make sure that there is absolutely nothing there um and
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: then sometimes there always is. And no matter what you
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: you bump deer, but those there aren't going anywhere. They're
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: just going far enough away from you to quit running.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: You know they're not they're not running out of the county.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: Everybody gets on to him and said, well, you're just
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: gonna bump the deer out of the hunt area. Well
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna bump him. You're just gonna bump him
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: far enough to where he's just gonna get away from you. Now,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: if you go chasing and you're gonna you know, he's
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: gonna run from you. You know, so I slowed down
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: when I'm on flat ground, and like I said, I
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: take less steps or slower steps should I say? And
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: you know, constantly constantly glassing. Uh So those are the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: big things for UM for me when it comes to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: hunting those open areas. So let's go back home. Let's
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: go back to your local stuff, the rough country of
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: southern West Virginia, and that I'm guessing a lot of
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: people in different parts of Appalachia could probably apply some
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: of these things. UM talk talk me through from like
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning of of a day. Let's say let's say
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: you're heading out there to hunt. I'm imagining with that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: one of the first things you're trying to figure out
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: is where am I gonna start? How do you pick
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: where you're starting the day? What are you thinking about?
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: What's your game plan? Kind of thought process? Look like,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: you know, the more that morning, when you're getting ready
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: to go out or something like that, just just kind
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of filming on that first couple of steps of the process. Well,
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you that's the other big advantage of
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: ground hunting more is that you ain't gonna be out
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: ter until daylight. All right, I'm sold. That's all I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: had to hear. Yeah, you know, I do like I
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: do like the aspects of not have to get extremely early. Uh.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: You know I can stop and everybody rushing to get
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: to the tree stings. You know, I'm just starting having
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: me a cup of a cup of coffee and get
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: me a biscuit. So that's the that's the big advantage
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: to start the day off right. Uh. But no, I
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: mean a lot of places that I hunt, Um, I've
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: hunted them for years, so I have. I've gone through
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and I've picked out these glass and um points and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: they they could be anywhere from a glass and point.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: That gives me the advantage to look at you hundreds
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: of acres um or it could be just the glass
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: and point. It gives me the best advantage to look
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: at us a small scale. But I know there's a
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: lot of deer activity there. You know. I'm just not
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: glass in these open areas. More I'm glasting in the woods.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, uh, it's kind of like and I'm never
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: Western hunting, um, but I see those guys glassing all
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the time. I mean, I'm I'm behind a spot scope
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: and binoculars three or four or five hours. Uh some days, uh,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: you know, looking in the woods and trying to find
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: dear bedded down. At that point, we're seeing where they're going.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: But normal day, I will I will choose the area
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: to go in. Um I have already scouted that area,
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: so not scouted it for animals, scouted it for vantage
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: points to glass from. UM I don't really. Um, that's
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: the only thing that all like like truly scout for. Uh.
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: There's places where I can go sit and glass. And
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: that's literally just having gone out there at other points
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: of the year, walked around and drove around and found
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: a couple of good vantigh points. Yeah. I mean it's
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: it's going in and say, man, I wonder how much
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: I can see from there or uh you know, And
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: that's that's the It's very simple. You're finding, um, what
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: area that you can see the most rain and the
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: best train because there's bad train and there's good train.
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: You know, you can't be glassing. We're there's no deer.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: You know, you've gotta be It's just like you don't
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: want a honey where there's no deer, so you're not
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: going to glass there. But that's that's the first thing
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: that I do. I mean, I really don't you know, well,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: I just say, I really don't scout for deer mark
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: I don't go out and I don't I'm not a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: shed hunter because I got so much other stuff going on.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: I don't have time to shed hunt. Um. I will
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: look for trails and stuff and in the wintertime, but
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: I'm just not a big scout deer scouter because I
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: know that I'm gonna be learning stuff new every fall,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna be moving in glassing um hunting on
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: the ground. It's such a broad spectrum. Me. It's good
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: to know that you have deer in that area where
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you're glassing. But I don't have to commit all that
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: time to scouting. I'll commit it all the glass and
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: once the once, you know, once August rolls around, I'll
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: commit the time to just glass him. If that makes
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: any sense. Yeah, so you do you do summer glassing
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: to them, just tell if there's enough deer or bucks
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and that that. Yeah, uh, you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: once I find find the vantage vantage points that I'm
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: gonna blast from. I mean, that's kind of that's kind
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: of the day. I mean, I move around if I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: glass in the area and I feel like I glass
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: at uh to a point that you know, I don't
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: feel like there's anything in there I want to go after.
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: And that could be that could be thirty minutes, or
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: it could be two hours, three hours or whatever. Um.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: I might see deer that are acting a certain way
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and I said, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna hang in
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: here and see, you know, what they're acting weird about.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Or you know, if if I think that that it's
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: dose that might be coming into heat or a dough,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: then I might stay and watch and see if anything
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: comes in thereafter. Um. It's there's so many situations when
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: you when you're glass and that you can be put in.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And that's the other great thing about it is, and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: I always go back to, you learn so much when
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: you're hunting on the ground, and that's the reason because
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: you you might take off after a deer that's on
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: on its feet, you might take off after dear bedded uh.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: And if you're going after when they're on their feet,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: then you're making some decisions on where that there is
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: gonna where you think that there's gonna be. If you don't,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: if you're unable to keep eyes on. Then you're taking
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: some guesses and that's when you start learning on your
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: assumptions of what that dear what you know, what that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: deer is gonna do when you lose you know, line
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of sight. But so I pick a place out, Um.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I've got a chair that I carried and uh,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: you know, two or three sets of binoculars and spots cope.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: And I know it sounds crazy, but and I sit
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: during glass and um and like I said, it might
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: be there short time or a couple of hours and
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: I'll moved to another spot. There's days that I might
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: hit six or seven spots marking not see any deer.
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: Do you glass if you have the time, will you
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: glass all day? Or do you take the middle of
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the day off and go get lunch? Or what's that
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: look like? Most most of the time when once, um,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: once season hits, I'm gonna say about the third week
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: of September, first of October. UM, if I'm deer hunting
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and glass and I'm probably I'm probably committed to all
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: day unless the weather is just jacked up and and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: it's too hot. That's the only thing that will affect
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: me is if it gets hot, and I'm probably gonna
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: take mid day off and be back up that that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Sun said. Um but most of the time I stay
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: out all day long. That is you know when I
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: say that there are man there, there's people that that
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I I would love the podcast with because of their
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: knowledge of deer hunting in southern West Virginia. They're just
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: such good deer hunters and they killed deer and I
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: killed dear. But I think the biggest thing like for
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: me is I feel like nobody's gonna outwork me. Like
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: I get opportunities because I stay there. I get opportunities
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: because I go as much as I can, no wontter
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: what So I think that that that gets paid off
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: when you put your time in, you know what I mean?
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: Um So, what about time of year? Now? You you
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: may be kind of sort of answered it for me
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: already saying that you know, once you get to late
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: September or early October, you start spending most of the
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: day when you can. But does this ground spotting stock
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: style work for you early season all the way to
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: the late season or is there kind of a sweet
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: spot during the rut when most of the success is
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: happening or can this happen anytime of the year. Oh,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: they're they're definitely better times to be out there than
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: than others. But I mean I had on the ground
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: all season long. The thing that affects us, affects me
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: us is um is barre season there. There's a long
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: season there that comes in around Labor Day for two
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: or three weeks. So I really don't deer hunt a
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: whole lot during that time unless it's an evening hunt
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: after we've got done bear hunt. So I don't get
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: started until late September deer hunting Martle. But it doesn't
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: matter where. I mean, I hunted in Missouri. I had
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: it on the ground three days and I was in
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: nothing but Tember. Um. I didn't have any success, but
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot. I think I'll have success if
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: I go back to that area. Now, back to those
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: glass and knobs. Um, talk to me a little bit
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: about things you're I mean when you say glassing, I
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: mean I know simply that's gonna mean you're you're looking
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: at the country with your binoculars, with your spotting scope.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: But can you give us some details on you know,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: your glassing process. Is there any little tips or tricks
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: you've picked up over the years that you now used
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: to be better spotting deer behind buoculars or spine scope.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: Is there's certain prices you go through. Is there are
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: certain you know you go from left or right and
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: then move down the left or right and then down
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: or what what does that look like for you? The
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the best way to learn the glasses and we usually,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I mean usually there's two or three of us glass
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and and the best way to learn for us and
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: for me too when I started hunt on the ground
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: when I first got when I first got on the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Marine Corps, there was a guy there and logan um.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: His name was Keith Alfred and he hunted on the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: ground a lot. And you know, I don't even know
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: how we got buddied up, but we got buddied up.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: And uh, he's the one who got me into turkey hunting.
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: And when I started deer hunting with him, and he'd
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: hunted on the ground a little bit and spotting stalk
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and it just wasn't something you did there in that
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: area in the early nineties or no, no not the
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: early nights are of two thousands hells put an age
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: on me and so we started doing that well, he
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't very good at it. We would be
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: looking and he said, okay, he said, I see, I see,
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: you know, I see three does and uh, well he
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't find him, and then he'd give me a
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: couple of hints, and from the hints I would find them.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And then once you found him, you know you're looking
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: for that shiny black nose. You're looking for your ear
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: flickers or ear shapes. The white patch on their necks
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: is just a huge spotter. Um. You know, there are
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: times glare uh you know their eyes uh, tail flicker. Um.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: And he would do that every time that he would
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: spot a deer before me. He wouldn't say, well, there
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: there's a deer right there at two hundred yards under
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: that pine tree. We don't have a lot of pine trees.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I'm just using as an example. Um. He would always say,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: I see a buck um in this in this area.
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: And so so I started doing that. So now I'm
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: glassing and I'll have somebody with me, and I'll say, okay,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I see. You know, if i've deer, they're on the move.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: You know, they're moving east to west or south north,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: whatever it be. And the same thing will happen to me,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: is if somebody else is glassing with me, they will say, Okay,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I see a deer in this area, and
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: so you have to find the deer that he spotted.
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: And and I know it seems childish, but it helps
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: train your eye and your brain to spot those uh
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: different parts. You get to see what the guy glassing
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: beside you sees to make him find that dear, you
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Yeah, definitely, I can see it.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: I can see it. They'll be helpful. Yeah. So it's
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: it's like it's like a game. So you get in
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: there and you're like, I want to find the first
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: deer because I want to I don't want to have
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: to find his deer. I wanna find my own deer,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: and then then he has to find it. So like
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: you're looking real hard, um. But you know, most of
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: the time, I always I'll start with the binoculars and
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: the I scan when I scan, and I know it's
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: gonna sound crazy, I I scan it long ws UM,
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: so I go up and down across the hill. But
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: they're not like drastic w is. They're flatter w is.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: If that makes sense, mark Um. And that's how I
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I scam with my binoculars is that flat ws all
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: the way across, because in if you're if your wes
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: are flat enough, let me explain this. If your do
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: wes are flat enough, your field of view in your
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: binoculars should cover the gap in between your down w
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: Does that make sense? Yeah, you're you're you're gonna cover
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: everything even though your main focus is that's right, that's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: exactly right. You're gonna cover everything with without actually covering
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: everything that peripheral vision will will catch something on the edges. Yes, yeah,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: And then so my the way I scan as I
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: was scanned across, and then I dropped back down and
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: I come back, I don't go back over and start
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: left the right. I then I zig zag going down.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: Um is the way I scan, and and it works
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: for me. And then if I see an object that
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: I'm unsure of, then I'll get behind the spots coat.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And if I can't see it after that, then I
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: moved to make sure I'll have somebody. If I'm by myself,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: then I'll just have to pick it up. But I
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: usually leave somebody there just to keep me on line
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of sights so I can look at it from a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: different angle, whether it's you might only have to move
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: twenty yards and you know you can see see something different.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: But that's that's pretty much how I glass and I
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: carry I carry us at at twelve by fifties and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: I carry us at a timber forty two's binoculars. Uh
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: and uh. And then I had my spots coat and
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: then I have a small permon oculars that I use
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: actually when I'm on the go. Now do you run
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: your I knows on a tripod when you're glassing like that?
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: Or do you just hand hold them? I hand hold? Okay, well,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: I say a hand hold, but I'm I'm a bone
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: support person, so most of the time my elbows are
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: inside of my thighs. Uh. And sitting there is mainly
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: what I do. Um. But but I hand hold. I
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: do like him off. I like him off a monopod.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Um just I have used him off a monopod quite
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: a bit. But most of the time I'm just hand
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: holding my bios. And then you know, sponts coats on
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: tripod and I'm a big angle sportscope guy. What was that? Ah?
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Just comfort because you know, when I'm sitting there, I
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: can I can be looking over top with my bios
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: and instead of me. No matter if I'm if I'm
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: standing up, it doesn't matter. I'm always looking over top
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: of my spotting scope. And then if I want to
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: use my spotting scope, all I have to do is
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: it's already set to my height. Is I just have
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: to bend over and put my eye in the ipiece.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: If I am a straight spotting scat, you know, I
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: gotta put my bionos down. I've either got a squat
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: and and and that's fine if you're if you're only
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: doing if you're only looking at a at a you know,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: a crow every two hours, that's fine if you want
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: to squat down and look for me. But like if
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: you're doing it for hours of the day, it's just
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: easier for me to put my bonos on chest and
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: I just bend my neck down and I'm already there
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: in the I piece and I look. It's just more
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: comfortable long term for me. So uh, And that's tony
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: much my glass. I mean the and I recommend if
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: you're going to hunt on the ground, you get good glass.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: You sacrifice. It's it's like anything, you you get what
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: you pay for. Um and good glass will definitely contribute
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: to success hunting on the ground. How much of your
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: time hunting this way, if you had to make a
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: rough ballpark, what percentage of your time spent hunting is
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: glassing versus you know, stalking in and trying to make
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: a kill? Is it is that it's probably the vast
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: majority of your time, right, I should keep track of it.
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: But if I had to guess, mark, I'm I'm probably
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: glass in sixty seventy percent the time. Yeah, and I
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: mean and I mean I'm if i'm if I'm deer hunting,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: I'm glass in sixty percent of time, I'm hanging probably
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: sixty five percent time I'm glass and I'm hanging probably
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: ten percent or fifteen percent time. And then I'm hunting
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: on the ground twenty percent of time going after a deer.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about that part, going after one and
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: and the decision that happens between glassing and going after one.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: How do you make the decision of when to go?
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna I'm not talking about like do I
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: want to shoot that dear or not. Let's just say
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: like you've determined like, yeah, that's a shooter. But how
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: do you determine when's the right time to stop watching
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: him and start going after Do you do you always
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: wait for him to bed down, or do you always
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: wait until he's you know, either that or he's out
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: of sight or you know what are the things that
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: make you think, Oh, I need to sit and wait
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: and keep watching, or no, I gotta go right now.
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: Most of the time, I'm gonna go right now, guy, Okay,
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: there obviously sitting up there. Once I see it there,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I want to shoot that man, my my heart and everything.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: You'd be running like a time and chain on my
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: fronty car. You know, I'm ready to get after it,
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: all right. I started getting excited, Mark, I get that. Yeah,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: so what Out of all the deer I've killed on
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: the ground, two of them have been been deer that
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: have betted. One of them was a deer that was bedded,
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: and I went into his betting area because there was
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: no chance of me getting a shot at him otherwise,
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: so I got ultra aggressive and went into the betting area.
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: Actually bumped him at at twenty five yards um and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I was in waste the chest high thicket, and you
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: know I was moving slow. I know it sounds like well,
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: how the hell are you even moving? Um? But so
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: most of there I've killed. I go after him as
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: soon as I see him when they're on feet, okay,
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: and what I was what I was getting to. So
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: so you spot them and you're you're excited, so you're
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: going after him right away. What are the things that
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: you I'm sure that there's a couple of minutes or
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: some number of moments after you spot him when you're
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: thinking through a couple of key things. I'm betting that
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: you're trying to think about, Okay, where is he gonna go?
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: I'm betting that you're thinking about, like, you know, where
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: do I need to go? I'm betting you're thinking about
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: a couple other things. Can you just walk me through
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: your thought process immediately after seeing him, Like, what do
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: you need to check in your mental checklist before chasing him? Well,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: the absolute first thing that I check in once I
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: once a figure rut that I'm gonna go after deer
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: is I try to see what the wind is doing
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: in that area, because the wind might might be doing
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: the same thing over there, or that it is where
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I'm at. That's the you know, that's the joys of
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: hunting and the terrible train that we hunting is the
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: wind could be blowing north where I'm at, and a
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty yards where I see a deer, it
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: could be blowing hard east. And so I checked the
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: vegetation to see what the wind's doing where he's at
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: number one, Uh, number two, I'm getting what gear I'm
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: gonna do. You know, we we were gilly suits, our
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: gilly suit that I made most of the time. Sometimes
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: it's just too hot, too hot for him. Um. You know,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: we're getting our stuff up. There is time between the
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: time that you spot that you're going through and making
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: sure you have all everything you need for one before
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: you take off after him. And because once you commit
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: to a deer, you might be hell, you might be
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: four or five six hours on a deer um and
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: you're trying to figure out and there's you know, we
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: get into Mark so many different situations. If he's with
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the dough, if it's with bachelor, a bachelor group, if
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: it's early season, late season, if he's in the food,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: if he's not in the food, um, and so you're
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: running all these things in your head and trying to
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: figure out where he's gonna go and then you've got
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: to figure out one are you going to go into
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: a direct spot stalk or are you gonna try to
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: ambush him? And you know, if you're going to ambush him,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: then you're gonna try to figure out where he's coming
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: too or where he's going. Uh. Most of the time,
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I just try to stay right on him. Now I
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: might I might end up going into an ambush strategy
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: in the middle of a spot stock because something has changed. Uh.
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: But those are the things that I'm thinking about when
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I get ready, goes, am, I gonna go after him
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: where I'm am. I going to kind of take my
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: time and then try to ambush him here where I
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: think he's gonna go. And and when you say ambush,
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: you mean essentially loop ahead of him to get where
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: he's trying to go and be waiting there when he
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: covers the final hunter yards or something. Right, Yeah, that's right.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: And and it might not be this, and it don't
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: when you're thinking about this, mark, don't think about it
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: as like you're gonna throw this big half mile loop.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: You might only move fifty y'all had to day ambushing.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: You might be in your spot stalk and he's moving going, Oh,
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: he's gonna come up this drain over here. I just
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: need to I need to jump around here and fiit
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: the yards and then he's gonna come up. You know,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: it's just a situational based thing where on the ambush
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: he's coming to you. On the spot stalk, you're going
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: to him, is the way kind of I would explain it.
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: You know, if you're in true spot stalk, then you're
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: getting aggressive and you're going to the deer. If you're
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: going to ambush him the deer, you're gonna let him
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: come to you. Now, is there ever a set of
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: conditions that would keep you from going after a buck?
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Like if his perfectly still and no when, no sound, anything,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: will that keep you from doing it? Or no matter what,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: you're gonna try it most most of the time, if
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: I have time, I'm gonna I'm gonna try it. Yeah, okay,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: I mean I just think that I just think that
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: there are very few opportunities once once you're out there.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: And I think that no matter what, and and and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: we go back and forth all the time talking about it,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: whether you it's okay to bump deer? Uh? Do you?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: And I've been on so many deer in in the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: past fifteen years, Um that I've bumped that day, and
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: I've watched him run mark across the top of this
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: strip mine six seven yards out of sight and be
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: right back on that deer next day, you know, So
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: you know, bumping them out, I mean, I'm not so
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: worried about it because it could be another deer in
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: there next day. I'm not. You know, when you're hunting
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: on the ground, you're not You're being an opportunist. So
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I don't worry about bumping them. I mean, And the
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: only thing that keeps me from going after a deer
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: is if the wind is bad. If if if the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: wind's bad, I probably ain't gonna go after him. But
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: there's always a different direction to go after him just
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: because of the wind. So yeah, Now, on the topic
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: of bumping deer, this was something I wondered about and
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: and would always be something that I'd be concerned about,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: even though I get what you're saying that a lot
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: of times these buck bucks will come right back the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: next day. What happens when you hunt, you know, day
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: after day after day, do you ever find that you
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: burn out a specific area or do you move around
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: and hunt so many different areas in this big country
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: that you never end up hunting the same you know,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: sixty acres over and over and over. You're you're kind
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: of spreading out that pressure. Have you ever seen anything
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: like that or you're able to account for just been moving? Yeah,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: I mean I moved quite a bit, but I mean
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I've laid in areas um for a few days on
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: end hunting on the ground, Dear, I killed three years ago.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: I think it was three years ago. I think it
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: was in two thousand seventeen or eight teen, Mark. I
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: killed a big eight point on the ground and I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: was on that deer I think three days in a row,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: and in this I mean I'm talking about within the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: same same five yards. I was all over that deer.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: And I'm not talking about when I was on that deer.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I was on him and he got away from me
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: in fifteen minutes. I mean I was hours playing cat
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: and mouse um with him, and and and two other
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: bucks that was with him. They were in a bachelor
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: group in early season, and it never affected those dear.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: I mean I'd be in there in the daytime chasing
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: him and they come right back there. You know, that
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: night feeding in that area and then I'd spot him
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: again in the same grass that I crawled through the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: day before. H and it it never did bother him. Um.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: I mean I ended up killing it during and he
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: got fourteen steps from me, and you know I shot
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: him in the chest. Yeah, I saw that one. That
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: was that was something. Yeah, so that dear, and he
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: was with two other bucks And I'm tell you never
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: affected and and I and Jay and I laid in
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: a very small area mark for for three days chasing
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: those deer. Uh and it never affected him. I mean,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: now the wind wind swirls bad up there, but I
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: mean we had laid down, seeing I'm not I'm not
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: the most sink and sink control guy. Uh So, I mean,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I know we laid sent down, but it didn't seem
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: to bother them. And but I've been in areas that
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: we go and you might stay two days and you're
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: not gonna see him deer in there for four or
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: five days. Um, it could be because of our sin
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: and we've laid it down and it's spoked him, or
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: it could just be that they're just not in that
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: area in these four or five days. So how much
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: what kind of what kind of ground do you have
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: in your back pocket? I mean, do you think that
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: coming into a season, are you working with a couple
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of thousand acres worth the different chunks of public here
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: and here and here that you've got to work with
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: it you'll be bouncing around, or or do you focus
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: on a couple of little hundred acre zones that you
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: know are awesome, or do you have twenty different places
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: and twenty thousand acres worth of different general areas that
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: you could picking picking pick from across the course of
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: the season. I'm just kind of curious that someone I
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: would know what they should be thinking about. Well. I mean,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: say that Mark Kenyon want comes to southern West Virginia
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: spotty stock, and let's say he does because he does
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: you know, Say so you come down there and you
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: don't know me, Okay, so you're coming down just off
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: looking at the area and looking off mapping. I mean,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: we've got some We don't have a lot of public land,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: but the public land I got it. Man, It's it's
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: it's hot. I mean, and I don't care to tell
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: your listeners that, uh, we hunted public land big time
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: there for a long time and we still hunt some
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: public in Southwest Virginia. But one of the disadvantages of
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: having a YouTube channel is that people find out where
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: you're hunting, you know, and it is what it is.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: I'm glad more people are out there. I am, uh,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: but I don't hunt a lot of public in West
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Virginia anymore because of it. But I hunt public in Ohio,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of it, hunt all public in Ohio. UM.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: But in West Virginia. UM, we've been successful in in
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: leasing land. It's in in so down and down in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the southern four Most of your land is owned by
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: land companies, and the land companies lease out to coal companies. UM.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: So I've been successful in and getting a couple of
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: tracks of land leased in the last couple of years. UM.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: And you know when I go into the season, I mean,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: and I have a couple of permissions to hunt out
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: some other coal mining land. I mean, if I had
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: to guess, Mark, I mean, I'm looking at going into
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: hunting season, you know, with eight to ten thousand acres
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: of land that I can glass on. Um. But there's
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: thirty two thousand acres in the w m A down
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: there that is hot, you know. And we've seen we've
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: seen monsters and I mean trace in eighteen, I mean
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: we video a hymnspot stalking of Boone and Crockett in
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: the way it ended up getting posched. Uh that there
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: was was on the virgin making it through that year
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: and he ended up getting poached. Ah. But after that year,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: you know, the crowdedness of hunters because of videos. You know,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: it got highly populated, if you know what I mean. Um,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: But it's still good hunting. You just have to you
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: just have to work harder. Yeah, And there's I don't know,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: I think there's a half a dozen w mays throughout,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: um the southern four. I mean there's been people come
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: down a hunter with me the last couple of years. More.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: And everybody always talks about swamp hunting being tough, but
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: if you can imagine how big the area is in
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: southern West Virginia and the habitats all the same, I mean,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: the deer there's next to impossible to um put any
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: sort of pattern on them. Most of your your big
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: trophy bucks are nomadic and they might come through where
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you got them on the pattern. They might come through
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: there every three or four days, where they might come
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: through every day. Uh, but it's very tough because of
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: the habitat hell because it's all the same. Um, they
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: can they could stop and just lay down anywhere and
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be the same as they were the same
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: type of trainings. If they moved two miles lay down
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: to mar just extremely it. It's very tough white tail hunting. Um,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: but it would teach you a lot. Yeah. But speaking
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: of that in in that kind of steep country, Uh,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: if you had to generalize where they typically bet, could
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: you is there any kind of typical thing you could say, Well,
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: they're usually are betting off on these points, are usually
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: on these benches or whatever. Is there anything like that
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: that you can kind of count as a as a
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: usual Yeah, I mean, and and taking both types of trains,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: you know, on the on the strip jobs they all
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: reclaimed mind lands. Uh. If it has grown up enough
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: up on top, they're gonna nestle in in the in
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: the high brush and the thick brush and stay up
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: high to where the food source is. But now if
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the acorns hit, they're they're gonna probably be down off
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: the woods. They're not gonna stay up on the strip,
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: So they're gonna they're gonna be in the woods. So,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: and that's when you change strategies, and they can't go
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: to the big timberance that hunting on the reclamation land. Uh.
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: But if you're hunting in a big timber, I mean
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: most of these most of these bucks are bedded on
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: these points. Uh. And and these finger the spines is
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: what we call them. Because when you got a point
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: that's going straight up and down, it's not much of
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: a point here, mark um. So, and then they're probably uh,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: I find most of your dear better than the that
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: for two thirds of the hillside. Okay, But now if
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: they if they can, if these reclaimed minds are grown
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: up enough, they're gonna they're gonna stay up pine bed
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: in that in that high brush. And and and that's
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: where that's where I find most of them is bedded
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: down in that reclaimed area. Then let's talk. Let's let's
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: get them back to the stock. Then, so we we
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: kind of covered the things you're thinking about when deciding
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: to stock or not. But let's say you're you're you're going,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: you've got eyes on one and you're making your move. Now,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: can you talk me through a few of the things
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: that you're doing or a few of the things you're
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: thinking about when actually on the move. Um, you know,
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: whether that's you know, some things you've learned to help
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: you be a quiet right or more stealthy stalker, or
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: some thing's uh that you have to be constantly monitoring
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: on the move. Kind of walk me through what you're
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: doing now that you've become so experienced at this when
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you're actually trying to close the distance. UM. My biggest
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: thing is I'm I'm I bet you I don't know
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: how many bottles I carry that up and smoke wind checker. Uh.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: And that's non non affiliated with me, but that's just
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: something I use. But I'll bet you I'll go through
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: four or five bottles a season. Uh. I squeeze it.
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: I might take ten steps and squeeze it. Might take
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: a step and squeeze it, you know. Um, So I'm
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: constantly doing that, and then I'm constantly trying to keep
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: eyes on. Um. That's that is the biggest advantage of
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: hunting the and is if you keep eyes on, you
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: can't keep eyes on, then you don't know if you
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: move or not. And so then you're just you know
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: you I don't know, and then you if you have
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: a spotter that has eyes on and um, I'm always constable.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking if I stop and i'm glass and I'm
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: stopping an area that I'm able to shoot in no
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: matter what. And what I mean by that mark is
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: is every place that I say that I'm gonna get to,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: where I'm gonna move to. When I get to that area,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I want to make sure that I can
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: swing my bow and what my shots are at that
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: point because everything can happen on the ground in a
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: in an instant um. So I'm always thinking about can
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: I shoot here or you know, I've got my right
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: and find her swing and I'm always checking yard and
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: just because I shoot, I shoot a one pen and
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: I know a lot of people don't like that, uh,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: but i shoot a one pen archery site. So I'm
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: constantly uh. And I pretty much range until I hit
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: thirty yards and my range finder and that's what I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: range for it because I leave my sight on thirty yards. Um.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: But I practice with it thirty and shoot down to
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: ten and out to fifty with it. UM. So I'm
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: constantly ranging, constantly sent checking, and then I'm constantly moving.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm pretty aggressive hunter when it comes to
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: moving on the deer. If I'm bumping, then I'm just
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: giving him and myself. I give myself a time, you know,
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: take a breath, but I'm giving that there just a
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: minute to cool down, and then I'm going right back
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: after him if I can. You know, I'm I'm not
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: going I'm not gonna if I bump a deer, I'm
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: not gonna give up on him and say, Okay, well
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: let's go find another one. Um, I stay on that
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: deer until so I know he's I ain't gonna have
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: a chance at him, you know. Um. So that's kind
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: of the thing that I'm that's going through my head is, Um,
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: I don't a lot of people take their shoes off
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: and have thick socks. I've never done that. Um. You know,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not much on thorns and rocks and stuff hitting
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: my feet. Um So I just I keep my boots on.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I word fair like Tennessee type boots. Um and Uh.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: A lot of time I'm running, and a lot of
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: time I'm depending on what If I'm I'm trying to
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: catch up with him or not. I mean, but if
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I bump him, I just keep on staying on him,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: and it's worked out sometimes and sometimes it doesn't work out.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: It's it's a funny thing when you're when you're hunting
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: on the ground because you're anticipating so much to happen
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: at every stop, but then none of those things happen.
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: So then you then you take another mental note and
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: go okay, and I need to move now. And then
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: you stop again. You take a mental note, I need
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: to okay, check your shot, check your win. You know,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: everything good. You know, we filmed too, so you're you know,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: I've got an extra man with me the whole time
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: over my shoulder, which makes it just a different level.
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: So I'm happy to make sure that he's good too,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: because he's rolling right along with me. And uh so
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: they're just a multiple things running through your head. So
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a constant mental battle of saying, Okay,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen here, and then something, you know,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: some quirk or something prinsent it doesn't happen. Well, then
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: you've got to change modes and say, okay, take a breath,
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: you know, take a step back, and then go go again. Um.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: And I like that part of it. I think that
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: that's a challenging part of it is they are you
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: Are you just going to tucktail and run or are
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: you going to see if you close the deal? Yeah? Um,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: And like I said before, most of the time I'm unsuccessful,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: but I tend to connect all the dots sometimes try
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: it long enough and it comes together, right. Yeah, I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: mean it. I mean everybody around around there knows our
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: ground hunt. I mean I love it, and I have
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: I have found success in it. Uh. I've learned a
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: lot from it. I've had a lot of of failures
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: in it too, but they're not failures really because you're
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: always learning from them. But you know that there I
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: killed last year. I think I was on that there
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: four and a half hours more and I bumped that deer.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Wom I bumped that deer five to seven times? Uh,
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: And he was with the dough so that made it.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: That made it better for me, better for the hunter. Uh.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: And then he ran completely out of sight and Jake
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: Cameraman he was like, man, he said, man, that sucks.
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: He said, we had a lot of time in that there,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, we're not done. He said,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: it's a long way away. And I said, well, we'll
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: we're going for a long walk, you know, and and
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: it just so happened that I went, I walked that,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: we went all the way down there, and I watched
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: that though in that buck bed down you know, a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty yards blow me, you know. Just just sorry,
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: sorry interrupt, but before you go any further. Yeah, I
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: think this story maybe it is worth telling from the
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: beginning because I think it illustrates a lot of stuff
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: we talked about and it might be helpful. Can you
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: just start from the beginning and kind of tell the story,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: but maybe point out some of the how to stuff
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: that we've been covering throughout, um, and kind of walk
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: us through how that began all the way up to this,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: because I when I watched this, I was kind of
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: floored how it all came together and how many times
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: you kept finding him despite him running off and all that.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: It was pretty interesting. So I'd love to maybe let's
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: dive deep into that. Okay, So you know, that morning,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: we're glassing and I'm glassing from from you know, probably
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: six or seven hundred yards way, and I see it, dear,
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: and I can't tell really his size. Um, So we
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: we take off in the truck and we swing around
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: and then I get out of the truck when I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: think I get to an area where I think I
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: can see him, but I'm not a sure because I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: lost I lost sight of him. Well, we crawl over
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: this berm and we spot the deer and um and
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: he bust us. You know, we're two hundred yards from him,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: and he sees me. I tried to get up on
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: my knees on the berm, and he sees me, and
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: he bust us with the dough and he starts chasing
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: the dough across this bottom. Well, from that point on,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: he knows that we're there, he knows that something's up,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: but he also is chasing tail, you know, so he
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: has to figure out what's best for him. Well, so
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: we we take off running, and this deer's out of
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: sight at this point, and I get up above him
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: because the wind is you know, it's early in the morning,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: so the wind I can have a cross wind with
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: the thermals are coming up out of the holler. They're
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: rising because it got warm that day fast. So I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: get up above him and I'm I'm glass and again
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: trying to find him, just trying to find a horn
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and all of a sudden, he pops up
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: sixty yards from us. Uh, and I'm like, oh my god,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: there he is, Jake, and and I'm thinking, hey, we're
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: done for here. And we're sitting there looking at this
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: deer and we're in a we're in a stair down
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: for eight or ten minutes that we we don't move,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: and uh, he's looking at the dough, looking at us,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: looking at the dough, looking at us. And I'm telling Jake,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: I said, something's gonna happen here. You know, we're going
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: So then the deer takes off the dough. Well, some
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: other bucks get involved and they're chasing the deer around. Well,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: they start chasing deer, and I was like, well, this
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: is time for us to move. Well, I watched him chase.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: They chase this dough around probably a hundred fifty yards
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: and it gets in the real CRPS. It's not CRP
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia, but it's that type of vegetation. Um,
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: we don't cut people in some way it's CRP. But
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: people in West Virginia considered they don't caught c RP.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: They just called a briar thicket, you know. And so
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: we're waist deep in this. When I run, I take
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: off running, and I'm gonna i'mnna interject one thing here,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna I'm gonna do this throughout. I'm gonna
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: kind of try to pick on little things. And this
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: is one of the more general questions I had, but
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: it applies here. And and so when you're deciding when
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: to go fast versus when to go slow, what how
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: do you make that decision, like when you're gonna run
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: or try to cover a bunch of ground, or when
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: you gotta sneak, I mean, is it? Is it simply?
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's some obvious things like there's obviously he's
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: gonna see you or hear you better. The simplest thing
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: mark is and and people don't need overthinking. The simplest
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: thing in your speed is distance between you and the deer.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: If you can walk to the deer and you're and
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna leave, and the time constraints aren't going
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: to make him leave, and hey, walk by all means um.
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: But if if you know that that you need to
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: move on that deer and get to him, that then
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: you need to pick up the place. That's the it's
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: it it. Don't overthink it. I mean, and you're foul
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: it up. You'll think you need to run sometimes and
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: you run heading eyes on them five yards you'll put
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: You'll be running and go over the hill and then
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, there he is, and then then it's over with.
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: But then there's times that you might think you need
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: to walk, and then by time you walk over, there
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: be long gone. Uh So, if you if you have
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: distance between you and the animal you're going after, my
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: opinion is is you need to close that distance so
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: you can get eyes on the deer because in the end,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: having eyes on is the most important thing that will
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: tell you what you're gonna do and what you're gonna
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: do next. How much, sorry, how much do you worry
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: about other deer? So you know you gotta cover a
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: bunch of ground, let's say, but what if there's a
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: dole in between you and him or or are you
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: little buck or something and you know that buck's getting
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: further and further away, But now you've got a little
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: buck standing in the way. Do you just blow that
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: deer out because you want to keep moving, or do
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: you stop and try not to spook any deer? Because
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: he might spook your big buck. No, if it if
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: it's if it's a shooter. If a shooter comes into
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: range while I'm in the middle of a chase, then
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: I then I shoot that deer. If it's any other deer,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: I could care less about him. I'm going I'm going
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: to the deer I'm after. So you're not worried about
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: those deer spooking on the target. No, I don't. If
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: if they do spooking, mark you know, like I said,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: he's just gonna go into another area and then I'm
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: just gonna go into that area and finding Yeah, okay,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: I mean I know that sounds bad, but these dear.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: So many people have a misconception that these deer are
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: running a thousand yards from you when you if you
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: bump them, and and they might, but a majority of
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: there that I've bumped. If I give them a few
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: minutes and I look at the train, and I can
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: probably go in that area and find it dear in
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: the next thirty minutes. If I give myself enough time
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: to to the glass and look, I'm probably gonna find
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: that dear again. And you'd be surprising. I mean, I mean,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: people would give up at that point because they think
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: that there's gonna they're not running, they're running just because
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: you scared them. It'd be like you you running, if
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: you got scared of of something, You're gonna stop once
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: you once you get away from it, unless it keeps
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: on running after you. You know. It's the same thing
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: on us, dear. I mean, um so, I say, if
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: to decide your pace is how much distance you gotta
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: get to keep eyes on the on the animal, And
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: you might screw that up, but having eyes on is
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: the number one thing, because that's gonna that's gonna tell
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: you your next move. Yeah. Uh. And and so when
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: that dear took off and I lost, I lost a
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: line of sight with him, you know. And part of
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: that was because of terrain I chose to. I chose
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: to lose line of sight because I said that there,
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: if he comes around this knob, then I'm gonna be good.
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: If he doesn't, then I can use the knob as
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: cover and I'll go up and over the knob and
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: I'll be on top of the deer. Uh. Well, in
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: that instance when I used that knobs train, the me
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: and the deer actually met up on the knob and
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: I bumped him again. Um, and I thought at that time,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: I did think that it was over at that point, um,
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: and I watched the dear run. I don't know, he
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: probably run two or three hundred yards. And as soon
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: as he went over the hill, I took off running
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: after him. I didn't worry about how much noise I
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: was making in that brush. I just wanted to get
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: eyes back on him. But when I got like fifty
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: yards from the edge, I went to a crawl, not
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: like a on fours on all fours crawled, but I
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: started sneaking. Uh. And there was a couple of trees,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: if I remember right, there was a couple of pine
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: trees right under on the edge where he had gone over.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: And I used those as cover walking up to the edge.
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: And this is the edge of what this is the
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: edge of a steep hill that he went over. Uh,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: it's grassy, train reclaimed brushy, it's just a slope, um
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: and lo and behold. I got there, and you know
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: you're you're just kind of going to the edge as
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: you can see a little bit at a time, and
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like seventy yards away, I see
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: his times and I put my binners up, and I
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: told think, I said, I said, man, I said, we're
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: back in it. Man, I said, he's right here, and
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: all that dear did. He ran like two hundred yards
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: and went over that slope and he felt safe and
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: he stopped um because the dough was back up there
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: with us. Now, the dove eventually went down there with him,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: and so I at that point, I'm just watching him
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: and so and this is when I got I kind
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: of got aggressive because he was getting close to the
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: timber and there was the major thicket between me in
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: the woods, and then he was in the middle of us,
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: and he was getting ready to get in that thicketing.
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: I knew I wouldn't get a shot if he got
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: in there. So I rounded the knob and I'm sneaking
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: at this point because I don't know where he's at,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: don't know where the dough is at. And I go
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: around the point and I told Jake, I said stop,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: I said, I said, dag on, I said, the does
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: right here, and he was gonna wear and I was
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: like like seven or eight steps in front of us,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: and and I'm thinking, man, this could be over, and
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't see him and but I
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: hear him come, and I said, old old tar left.
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: And I look and I see his horns and I
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: see his face. I mean, he he pops up at
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: nine yards from me, and I'm not even pointing, like
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: I'm pointing at twelve. He pops up at ten and
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: I can't move. All I'm doing is looking at him.
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: And so we and it was crazy. And I don't
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: know if we were in the shadows at that point,
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: I can't have to go back and kind of look.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: But like that dear, I didn't see he saw us,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: and he knew something was wrong, but like they didn't
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: blow out there or nothing to do, kind of just
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: trotted off and he went right with her. Uh. And
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I kind of turned and ran back the way I
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: came from, and I moved, and at that point I
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: had moved too fast. I ran back around, and because
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: I thought they kind of busted out there faster than
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: they did. Well, then when I came back around, I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: actually they had come back down already. And this is
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: only thirty seconds. All they did was just jump out
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: of my line of sight. And I came back around
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the knob and and they weren't even they were alert
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: but I bumped them again, and that's when they took
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: off and ran a long way, and I was like,
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, uh, because I have them so close.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean nine, archy mean you thump them,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean uh? And then you know it
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: had been exhausting. I mean I think I've been on
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: it there three or three nap hours at that time.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: Um bumping him and put his paint cat and mouse,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: and and Jake was like man. I was like, no, man,
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: I said. He said it got hot, and he did
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: get hot that day. And I said, well, did you
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: bear strip your clothes off? We ain't stopping now. So
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: we run down there, h and we got into a
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: valley field and that's a that's an area that the
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: strip mine throw they dump all the over burden and
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: then they reclaiming it's really nice area, but it just
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: lo and behold, Mark, I got down there. Something told
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: me to go after him. And why did you, sorry,
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: why did you After they ran off way off and disappeared,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: that what they got out to say right after the
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: big long run. So just help me understand what why
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: you went to that valley field? Was it simply because
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: like that's the direction they're headed or how did you
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: how did you pick him back up again? I guess
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: in that well, my thought was, as I had been
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: on it there for so long that they couldn't they
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: couldn't stand it no more. I mean it was getting hot,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: They're going to have to stop. I mean they had
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: been He had been running this dobefending, defending the dough
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: from other sucks. He mounted that though at one point.
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: Uh and and you know, did his thing there, So
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: you know he's tired. I knew he was tired. Uh
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: she's you know, he's done wore her out. Uh So
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: what made me go after was like, man, you know
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: what if they just got over to Valley Hill and
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: they're just chilling out, you know, they just want to
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: get away from everybody. Uh it's it's just like people.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: Uh So when I did, I decided to go after him,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: and and man, uh got over there, and I mean
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: got to watch him bed down with her. I mean
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh. So then we was able.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: I was able to kind of sit down and take
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: a breath. I checked the wind and the wind was
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: still coming straight up out of the holler, and I said, man,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: I said I'm gonna get a shot on this deer
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: for sure, And so to the game plan together, and um,
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: I went way around to get down on a level
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: above him. Uh, and I started crossing it. Um. You know.
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: It took about an hour or so to stalk in
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: there and and got in above him. And I got
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: in above him, and he stood up a couple of
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: times and I thought I was gonna get a shot,
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: and he just beed back down and I was like,
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: oh man. And then it's just mentally draining because you're
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: sitting there arranging him, and you range him one time
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: and you know that's it, But then you start questioning yourself.
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: Did I arrange him? He said? Is that the right
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: range I catch? Did I catch grass? You know? And
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: these are things that place in my mind, you know,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: because you start to get exhausted. And then uh, at
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: the moment he stood up and and I pulled back
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: when he stood up because I figured that would be
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: my time to shoot. And you know, I sit there
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: and held for probably thirty or forty five and before
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: he gave me an angle because he was too steep.
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: I don't like shooting that steep of an angle. But
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: they're going away from you. But he turned perfect man
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: and uh, I was ready to shoot, and and I
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: put it through the boiler room, I mean and the
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: and it was just a I got super pumped. And
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: it wasn't the biggest deer I've ever killed, uh, but
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: it was one of the most successful hunts that I've
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: that I've done. Um. And you know, when you're on
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: a deer like that, it's not always Uh. I don't know, well,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: I've never considered size of a measuring factor of how
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: successful Huney is. But um, that was a good hunt.
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: It was a good successful hunt, and there was a
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff that went on during a hunt that
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: that made me a better hunter. Um. And I think
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: that's a big, big take on it. Two questions when
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: it comes to you know, all of those you had
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: a bunch of different moments where you're kind of stalking
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: it on them, and you were closing the distance and
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: getting close, and you mentioned how you're you're always puffing
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: your bottle checking that wind. Uh. And you mentioned a
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: couple of times thermals. Can you just walk me through
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: anything else when it comes to wind, Like one of
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: the things that some guys out west will typically try
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: to do. Is is they like to stalk in with
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: maybe a quartering two wind or across wind or or
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: some people will always say, well I want the wind
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: directly in my face. Like, well, they'll adjust their approach
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: based on wind directions. Sometimes, Um, do you ever factor
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: and wind above and beyond simply making sure it's not
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: blowing to them? Or is it just as simple just
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: make sure my wind is not blown to them, and
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: then you don't care. Other factors are more important after that.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: What's what's your take there? I mean, I think wind
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: is the most you know, besides the line of side
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: is the most important factor, because sometimes I think that
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: the winds wereld so bad down there where we hunt. Uh.
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: I mean you you see that hunting um in that
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: big eight point I was talking about earlier. Um, that
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: wind was blowing directly at that deer for half of
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: that hunt. And then you can see when I get
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: down on the same level with him and he starts
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: coming to us. At that wind, it's just rolling in circles.
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: You can see it high grass, and you watch the
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: wind go through that high grass and it's just blowing.
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: It's just blowing in circles up or on top of
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: that flat it's got there. No thermal's gonna knock it
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: down or raise it up because you're you're so flat
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: up there on top. But you can watch the wind
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: in the video and it's just running round and round,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: and that deer it's just watching me. But for the
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: first that evening when I killed that deer, I'm telling you,
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: for the first forty five minutes at a hunt, that
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: wind was blowing dead at him. I mean, you can
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: hear me in the video. I said, when I bumped
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: bumped him out of the bed, I said, don't go
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: that way. And I said, oh, I said, I said,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: it's over, jay, I said, he's going, I said, and
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: I counted down from five or three to one. I said,
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: here he goes, and he stops, and he looks, and
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: then he just goes about his business. And I mean,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: it's blowing right to him. And you know, I mean,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: I said, a heck. I said, if anyone borrow you
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: angle ball me, I tell him coming. I'm coming after you.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: But because I want to thump him, How did you
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: how do you figure you were able to get away
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: with that? Why did why? Why did that work? Uh?
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: Number one, that's set up that evening for that situation.
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: Why it worked? And Uh one, I think I had
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: the son uh at my back and I stayed in
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: the shadows. And I don't think that dear I think
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: that Dearre just he knew something was there, but like
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: he didn't he didn't know what was going on or
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: what it wasn't. He just wanted to get closer to
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: figure out what I was. Um. But I stayed in
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: the shadows so well that evening. And you know, if
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: you stay in the shadows and you use the sun,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: I mean you you can you can blend in where
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: nothing can see you pretty damn good. You know that
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: was gonna be the next question I was gonna ask
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: about two was was how often are you thinking about
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: sun direction? Is that something that? Yeah? I mean concealment um,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: concealments you know, top three UM on the on the chart.
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: For me, when I'm on the ground, it's you know,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: pretty much, I like to keep side of them. I
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: checked my wind and then I tried to stay concealed. Um.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: But they're sometimes like they know you're there, so you
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: might as well just get after it. You know, who
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: cares if they see you? You know? Um? But I
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: like to staying concealed, and I hate I hate, you know,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: looking like I'm a solar panel. You know, it's the
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: worst feeling in the world when you're in that situation.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: And I and I was in this in this past fall.
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think I even talked about it on
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: that video. It was like, this is just terrible setup.
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: This is a terrible situation right at that moment, not
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: the whole stock, but like where I went to in
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: the stock, Like it just wasn't a good situation at
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: that moment. And I even mentioned it in the video.
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: It's like, this just isn't good. I mean, we're shipping
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: down here, We're like a big thing on Christmas tree
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: lit up and it's just not good. Um. So you
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: hate to put yourself there, but that's just the direction
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: that that stock went and we end up getting out
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: of that and getting back you know, tire advantage. But yeah,
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: you don't want to light yourself up. That's in any
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: type of hunt. And I think that that you do. Yeah,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: but yeah, it's that's definitely a you gotta consider all that.
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, in every situation, mark is different, every hunt's different, um.
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: And that's the greatest things. Probably the greatest thing about
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: hunt on the ground is you might cover the same train,
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: but it ain't gonna be the same hunt. How about shots?
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: I know on that two thousand seventeen or eighteen hunt,
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: when that buck came walking right up on you, you
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: had to take a frontal shot. I know on that
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: other the most recent season, you had that buck that
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: was standing up and laying down and standing up for
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: a long time, and it took a while. You know,
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: what are some of the unique things you need to
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: think about when hunting and shooting at ground level? Um?
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: And maybe some unique shots like that frontal shot versus
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: will you ever shoot at a bedded deer or do
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: you always wait from the stand up? I'd be curious
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: on your just your take on all that. Well, Uh,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: frontal shots, I'll take them every day as long as
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: it's within twenty five yards, um. I And I caught
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: I caught hale for taking that frontal shot. Um. But
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: that deer didn't go any yards and he piled up
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: like a sack of potatus, you know, um, and I
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: feel comfortable taking that frontal shot. I ain't gonna take
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: it out thirty thirty five yards because I'm not comfortable
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: with that, but I'm gonna take it every day that
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: one walks at me, or if I catch one, uh
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: from probably yards and I'm taking it um then but
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: then totally office that that deer this past fall was
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: forty nine yards uh, and I could have slung an
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: arrow at him when he was betted down. But that's
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: not a good shot. That's not a good it's not.
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: My opinion is it's not a good decision to shoot
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: at any any deer to betted down. It's just a
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: very hard shot. Uh. You might have you know odds
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: that a deer is laying perfect for you to take
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: a shot betted down. You know most of the time
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: their their garden, their vitals when they're laying down. Um,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: from what I've experienced, So I don't take you, I don't.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: I don't think I have very I don't know if
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: I shot at any better deer. Um. Oh I did,
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: I did? H I shot at a better deer. Um.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: It was probably in tuoth day I was in or
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: two thousand one, and it was in the big woods,
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: uh that I that I spot and stalked on this
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: big deer. I was chasing another big buck in the
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: woods and then saw him with the dough and and
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: turn my attention to him. And when I got over there,
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: he was bedded down, and I shot at him bedded down. Uh,
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: And it ended up being a mistake. I missed that deer.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: And but I think that's the only dear that I've
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: shot at bettered down. I don't take that shot a lot,
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: just because I don't like it. Um. But when you're
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: when you're on the ground, you gotta be ready to shoot.
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: And that's why I say you always check. You can't
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: stop somewhere where you can't shoot, because if you do
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: that enough times, you're gonna get caught with your bridges down. Uh.
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: It's simple as that. So you gotta take what mistakes
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: that could possibly happen out of the equation. You've gotta
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: put everything in your odds that you can. And that's
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: a simple thing. If you stop, that's the first thing
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: that you're thinking about, is can I shoot right here?
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: If you think about that every time, then that that
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: that part of the equation is out. So now the
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 1: odds are in your favor again. You know what I mean.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: You're trying to eliminate stuff that I'll screw you up?
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: Uh that and it's perfect example Mark is Uh. I
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: was in Ohio two days after I killed it dere
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: in West Virginia this year. It was November three or fourth,
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: I can't remember. And I got on the ground with
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: a with a with a nice tin point. And do
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: you know why that I didn't kill that dear Because
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 1: when I tucked in it was a I mean, it's
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 1: thinking perfect setup. When was perfect, I had perfect cover.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: Dere come forty yards a broadside. And the reason I
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: didn't kill it there is because when I went to
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: pull my bow back, the top half of my limb
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: on my top limb on my bow teamed on an
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: autumoblive branch and that dear blue and took off. That
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: was not That was my mistake. It should not have happened.
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: I beat myself for probably a good three or four
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: days on that um because I normally don't. I mean,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: I make a lot of mistakes, but I normally don't
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: make that mistake. I'm usually very in tune with my
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: immediate surroundings, if that makes sense. Uh. You gotta be
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: able to shoot to kill something, and I wasn't. And
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: that's why I didn't get a shot at that dear
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: and it was a puke. Um. And you gotta be
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: ready for any shot. I mean, I think every every
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: person uh has to find their comfort level on what
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: they can shoot. There's been years Mark that I've told myself,
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: a I'm not shooting. I'm not shooting past thirty five
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: yards um. And I wouldn't because I didn't practice enough.
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't uh put the reps in. This past year,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: I would have shot out to sixty yards and felt
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: comfortable because I shot a lot. I practiced a lot,
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of time in. So I think
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: that that every person, to every every hunter, uh, they
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: have to figure that out on themselves. Uh. Comfort live
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: on shots. I mean, I don't shoot it better deer.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: If if you feel comfortable shooting a better deer more
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: they have at it. Um. But I'll take a frontal
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: shot and a lot of people won't take those. Um.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: But it's devastating when you hit him. Yeah, the you
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: don't want that worst case scenario, well devastating if you
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: hit him right and kill him. You're right, I was gonna.
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: I was thinking of it as it would be devastating
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: to hit and wound one though um, and not find
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: it on the flip side. So it's like you said,
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: you gotta be comfortable. It's got to be within your
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: within your skill range, and in my time you put
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: in and making sure you know how to handle those
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: specific situations. So it's uh, it's all um, it's all
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: situational and it's all within a within a person's skill set.
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: So so what about this, Josh. We've kept you a
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 1: long time, and it's because we've had a lot of
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: really good stuff to cover. I've enjoyed it. Body me too.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: I could probably talk deer and hunt on the ground
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: for six hours. Be careful what you what you pitch
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: out there, because I might just to make you prove it.
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: I left talking deer and on the ground stuff too.
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: Uh Well, let me let me ask one last question
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: and I'll let you get going because I know you've
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: got to. You might have an early more in turkey
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: hunting probably tomorrow. Um. For I'm just thinking of folks
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: that are listening who have typically hunted from a tree
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: stand or a saddle or whatever. They're typically elevated ambush hunters.
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: But they've seen you doing this, They've seen Kirk doing this,
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: they've seen Zach do this from th HP that they're
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: seeing this more and more and they're thinking, man, I
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: gotta give it a shot. Um. And I know you
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: there's some people within your circle, some of your friends
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: who have been stand hunters, who you've kind of converted
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: to hunting the ground. What would you say the biggest
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: mistake is that you've seen stand hunters making when they
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: try to transition to this ground style. What's the biggest
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: thing that folks need to avoid that And and this
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: this is gonna sound uh corny, but it's it's the
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: not wanting to make a mistake, if that makes any sense.
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: M H. Stand hunters they don't want to get out
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: of their comfort zone because they don't want to make mistakes.
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: And that's I can tell you right now. You're hunting
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: on the ground. Ain't nothing gonna be perfect. It ain't
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: it ain't you know, double dips of ice cream in chocolate.
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: It's Uh, you're gonna make mistakes, but the mistakes you
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: gotta learn from him. It's it's it's like, the only
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: dumb question is the one you don't ask. Yeah. Uh,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: that's the same thing for hunters that have never grounded.
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: Hell I think everybody how to get up there and try. Now,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: they might not like it. The thing to do is
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: to uh is to go at your pace, but go
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: at a deliberate pace. I know what your plan is,
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: your mindset, get your mind right, and and be deliberate
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: on how you hunt. Um and be focused is what
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Um, that'd be my biggest advice.
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're going to make mistakes. But there's
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: so much information out there that now on so many
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: different levels and forms that I didn't have there you
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: know at that age that you'd uh, you know when
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: I started ground hunting, it was when I first got
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: on rinkorn. Heck, we just cut out there and it
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: was trial and everybody, gosh, Um, now you can you
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: can get good information off a lot of these forms
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: that will help you that we increase your opportunities right
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: out of the right out of the gate. H. You
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: just gotta get out there and trying. Yeah, yeah, that
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: right there. I think you you you hit the nail
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: on the head. As far as one of the things
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: that I know that you know, the little that I
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: have dabbled in this um has been something that that
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sure I've been guilty of, which is just that
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: very thing, afraid, like being afraid of failure, so much
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: of stand hunting, so much of you know, your typical
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: deer hunting advice these days, and I'm guilty of having
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: like preached this, which which is don't bump deer, don't
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: overpressure deer, don't blow up your spot, um and and
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: this and this style is like the opposite of all
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: those things. So m I don't know if this style
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: is opposite. It might just be me. I don't. I
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: don't put a lot of emphasis on those things. But
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: but your your track record shows that it works. You know,
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of ways this can work. And
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: and I think that's what makes this so cool is
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: that your way works and my way works, and everyone's different.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I've talked to hundreds of different people now
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: who are doing this stuff consistently and killing deer and
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: putting mature bucks down or whatever it is they're trying
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: to do, and and there's been several hundred different ways
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: of doing it. So I love that. I love that
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: you can skin this cat in so many different kind
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: of ways. You just kind of kind of find out
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: what's the right thing for you. I mean, we didn't
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: get into it. I mean, but most of the time
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: now because I've kind of converted to a saddle hunter. Uh,
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: but you know, I'm carrying my saddle with me if
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: I'm on the ground. There have been times now it
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: hadn't worked out for me since I've been saddle hunting,
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: but there have been times and that they would open
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: in a whole another can mark. You know, I'll be
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: on the ground hunting, but I'll run across this sign
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: and I'll get the tree right then, you know, i
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: won't ground hunt anymore that day. I'll climb and get
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: get in the tree. Um. So it's all, you know,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: you just gotta give yourself the right tools, um for
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: you know, any possible situation you run into. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 1: having a lot of arrows and a lot of different
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: arrows in your quiver can be it's a good place
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: to be. Yeah. Well, uh, at the risk of I
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: don't want to keep you until the morning and those
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: birds are gobbling off the roost already and you're still
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: here talking to me, So I'm gonna let you go, Josh.
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: But for people that want to watch your hunts, who
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: want to follow along with what you guys have got
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: going on. Where would you tell people to find you
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: and connect online? Yeah, check us out on YouTube at
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: the intamed. Uh work on Facebook and Instagram at the Untamed,
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: and uh check us out. I mean we're doing law.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: We're pretty diverse in uh, in the stuff we do.
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's cool stuff. I've enjoyed. I've enjoyed the
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: videos and and seeing how you're putting all this into
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: action is is uh is really interesting to see. So
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: highly recommended, and I appreciate you having me on. I
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: was really excited, Mark, and uh, uh, I appreciate it. Hey,
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: you're You're welcome, and I appreciate you taking the time.
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: So let's stay in touch, Josh, and uh. I hope
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: we can circle back and have another one of these
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: chats and I can prior open that worm or that
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: can of worms about saddle hunting and and all that
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: stuff next time. Sounds good, buddy, All right, thanks Josh,
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: all right, and that is a rap. Thanks for tuning in.
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: Head on over to the meat Eater dot com and
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: make sure you're signed up for our Whitetail weekly newsletter.
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: Got a lot of interesting, exciting new things dropping this week.
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: In fact, if the plan goes as it supposed to,
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: will be announcing some of the cool new things come
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: me up this week, so I hope you are subscribed
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: to that newsletter so you can hear about it. Also,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: stay tuned over on this podcast of course, as well
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: as Instagram and the Wired Hunt Facebook page for all
• 1:57:11
  Speaker 1: those things coming down the pipe. And uh, I think
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: with that we can wrap it up, So thanks for
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: tuning in, Thanks for hanging out with me this week. Um,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: I know it's just April, but before you know it,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be summer and then you're gonna blink your eyes.
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: The next thing you know, it's gonna be autumn and
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: we'll be hunting again. So check off those boxes on
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: the two lists. Keep working, keep shooting that bowl, keep
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: on scouting, keep listening to this podcast. Until next time,
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: stay Wired to Hunt,