Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 505: Behind the Scenes Big Buck Management and My Wisconsin Hunt with Tom Indrebo

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Ep. 505: Behind the Scenes Big Buck Management and My Wisconsin Hunt with Tom Indrebo · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today on the show we are exploring
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the history of the Midwestern white tail management culture and
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the story of how Tom Indurbo impacted that, along with
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: my recent hunt with him in Wisconsin. All right, welcome
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: First Light, and today we are here to wrap up
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: my deer hunting season. This is the final episode in
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: the series we've done this fall, recapping my travels um
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: doing this kind of of across the country adventure. If
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard those, you know I went to Washington,
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: d C. I went to Arkansas, I went to Alabama,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: I went to Nebraska, and I went to oh Maine. Yes,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: thank you, Dylan. I forgot about Maine. So those are
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: the places I've went. And that other voice you heard
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: was Dylan Lens one of my partners on those adventures.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: Dylan is one of the cameramen we've had joining me
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: because we're filming these hunts for a new show will
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: be launching next year for Meat Eater and the idea
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: here was to put me into brand new situations in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: different regions of the country and meet up with a
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: local legend of sorts to find out how these people
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: hunt learned about what they do, and then after that
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: go out on my own and try to kind of
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: guinea pig what it is that they taught me. So
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I just completed my last hunt of this series, and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: that last hunt was going to Wisconsin with Dylan and
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: another cameraman, and what I want to do today is
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: explain to you what this hunt was all about, why
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I wanted to go on this hunt in Wisconsin, what
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: some of my thoughts were going into it, and then
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: Dylan and I are going to recap what actually happened.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: This is a little bit different than some of the
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: past podcast we've done about this because I'm not actually
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: able to get my expert uh here with me right now,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: So it's gonna be me and Dylan talking first, and
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: then we'll be joined by our regional expert afterwards, and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: just me and him will speak, and that regional expert
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: is Tom Injurbo. I want to give you a little
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: bit of background on Tom right now, and then we'll
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: have a lot more into his story in his history
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: when he joins us. But here's the basic gist of
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: of what we're wanting to do with this hunt. As
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: you've heard in some of these past episodes, I've been
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: exploring all these different regions and subcultures of the white
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: tail hunting world. But up until this point, I'd ignored
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: one big elephant in the room, and that was the
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: mainstream white tail culture that most of us talk about
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: and are part of, which is kind of that Midwestern
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: white tail, big buck management, all that kind of stuff.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: Most of what you see on tv UM, we hadn't
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: touched anything like that. So we wanted to have at
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: least one of these episodes though, where we did explore
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: that main thing that gets talked about, but we wanted
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to explore it in a different way and kind of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: look at it from a different perspective. So my idea,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: and Dylan, you can tell me if you think this
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: is a stupid idea or not, But my idea in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the beginning was why don't we go find one of
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the O g s. Why don't we go and talk
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: to one of the people that started this culture of
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: these think you found the the guy, the man that
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: is synonymous with, you know, big Midwest white tails. Well
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you think so, because that's what I was
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: thinking too, because Tom and about, like you said, he
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: is that guy. Well you know what, rather me introduce him, Dilan,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: why don't you introduce him? Because when you found out
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: we were doing this hunt, you were very, very excited.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: My eyes perked up when I heard that we were
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: going to Tom's place, and it was I mean, Tom
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is just I mean, I'm gonna get a lot of
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: these facts wrong, I'm sure, but just hearing his name
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: all growing up. He is the guy that built Buffalo
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: County into what it is now as far as you know,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: people knowing that that's a big buck destination. He was,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I believe, the first outfitter in Buffalo County, and um,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: you know has been infatuated with big bucks, you know,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: for the past forty years and he started guiding uh
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: there back you know, I think it's the early nineties,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: and I don't think he's he said, he hasn't killed
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: a deer in those thirty years. He literally just lives
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: to grow and watch and see other people hunt big bucks.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So he's a guy that you know, me growing up
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, loving big deer. I knew his name,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: and I actually had the chance to meet him a
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: couple of times growing up, but just knowing how into
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: big deer he is was just something that I really admired. Yeah,
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: like you said, he he was probably the first, if not,
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: you know, very close to the first big time outfit
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: are like this. You really put Buffalo County on the map.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: And then in the subsequent years, you know, starting in
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: the late eighties early nineties, all these folks kind of
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: flocked to Tom to learn from him, to hunt with him,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: to see what he was doing, and a lot of
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: folks from TV and magazines and all that, and then
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: everything he was doing got shared and utilized by all
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: those people then kind of spread across the whole country. So,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you know, one of my theories come into this, based
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: on talking to a lot of folks, was that Tom
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: was one of the most influential people in really getting
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: us to where we are now with this you know,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: whitetail management, quality, deer management, big bucks. Uh. You know,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: everything that we hear about in the Midwest, a lot
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: of it comes from or was at least influenced by Tom.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: So my idea here was Let's go and meet with
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: Tom and let's get his perspective. Let's hear his story,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Let's hear what he thinks the history was, and if
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: he actually, you know, feels like he was involved in
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: this beginning of mainstream white tail culture, and then kind
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: of see how that actually started, where these things came from,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: what motivated Tom, what it looked like in the early days,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: and then actually find out how did he do it?
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to break down with him, you know,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: how he improved his properties and why is Buffalo County
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: so great? And why does he have so much success?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And what does he do on his properties to make
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: him so successful? Those are the things I wanted to
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: learn about. Rather than doing the same old, same old
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: midwestern white tail hunt where you to show up somewhere
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and you shoot a big buck. I thought, let's explore
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: this interesting story with this really interesting guy, and and
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: then yeah, learned something from him from a hunting person active.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: So that was the hope with this hunt and with
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: the story I was hoping we could tell That's why
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: I went to Tom. Now, I guess short short teaser here, Dylan,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: do you feel like with our trip there we just finished.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like we achieved that part of it?
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like, man, absolutely, you you grilled him
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: with all those questions that just mentioned in a good way.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, Tom absolutely loves talking about deer and management
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and you know, history of Buffalo County. So I think
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: you guys worked really well together when we were doing
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: these discussions, and so many of these you know, things
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: that I had been curious about, you know, historically from
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Buffalo County were answered and I learned so much more
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: about not only Buffalo County, but you know, just even
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: his theories on you know, how to kill Big Bucks.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: And to me, it was really eye opening and just
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: an absolute blast to be around for it. Yeah. Yeah,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: I think Gum, there was a lot of surprising things
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: that we'll get into here in a second. I think
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that you and I were
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: both like, really, um, it was different a lot of ways,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: which is which is pretty cool. It just kind of
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I love the fact that I'm constantly surprised
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: when I talked to different people that do this whole
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: white tail hounety thing. It's it's not gotten stale yet.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So that's been that's been encouraging, but what we're to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: do here One Tim does join me later, I'm gonna
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: ask him to explore some of these same topics. So
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: I want to hear from him again for for everybody
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: listening today, a little bit about that history, a little
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: bit about that story, um, and then break down some
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: of the tactical and management decisions he makes out there.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: But like I said before he joins us, you and
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: be Dylan need to kind of break down, you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the hunting side of it, and then some of the
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: stuff I was thinking about ahead of time. And and
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: here's here's where this hunt got kind of weird for me, um,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: and you you heard me kind of I know, you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: had a lot of inhibitions coming into this, and it
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: was kind of kind of interesting for me to see
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: that side because I mean me going into this the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: whole time, I was like this is awesome, Like I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: can't wait. Yeah. So so this was a weird one,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: like like I told you, and like we kind of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: reflected on throughout the hunt. Um, Tom, as you mentioned
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: your intro right, Tom is an outfitter. He runs Bluff
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Country Outfitters, which is this you know, famous operation brings
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: a bunch of hunters in every year. They target great
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: big bucks. They have a lot of success. Um. And
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: you know, most people within the white tailed world, especially
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: like within the media, go to outfitters all the time,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Like that's just kind of a normal thing that almost
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: everybody does. But I actually have not, uh and purposefully,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: I I kind of made it a personal Oh what
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: would you call it? It was just a thing like
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: a rule for me was I'm going to do all
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: this stuff on my own. I don't want to go
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: with an outfitter. I don't think that would be satisfying
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: to me. UM. I want to do this the quote
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: unquote hard way. So that was that was my thoughts
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: over the last decade plus. So I never went on
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: an outfitted hunt like this um for white tails, and
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I kind of thought I never would. But when we
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: started looking into like what do we how do we
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: explore this Midwest white culture? Who were going to go
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: talk to? And when when I kind of struck upon
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the Tom Injurwell idea, I had to kind of come
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: to terms with, well, do I want to change that?
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: Do I want to meet with him and do this
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: thing that we want to do? Um? Can I do that?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: In a way that's that's going to be interesting and
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: satisfying and challenging to me, even though it would be
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: an outfitted type experience. And so I kind of wrestled
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: with that, and I was uncomfortable with that, and I
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, I had a lot of
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: preconceived notions about outfitted hunts. But what I think finally
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: made me realize that I should do this was when
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: I got to thinking about, like what the whole premise
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: of this year was, which was go experience these things
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: that other folks do so that you aren't judging him
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: or making us sumptions about them from the outside, but
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: actually knowing what it entails firsthand. Right, Like, how can
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: I sit here on the podcast and talk about, well,
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: you should do this in the South when I've never
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: hunt in the South, Or how could I ever do
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: a podcast talking about, you know, track and doing the
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: snow with someone when I never had the context of
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: doing it myself to speak to. So the same thing
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: goes for outfited hunts, like thousands of folks going outfitted
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: hunts every year, and I have no idea what that's
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: actually like. Um, So I figured, you know, what I
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: can do double duty with this hunt. I can explore
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: this history and the story and learn from someone who's
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: managing a property really well, and then also see, you know,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: what is this outfit hunt like? Is it really what
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: I've always assumed this like? Is it harder than I realized?
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Is it less fun or more fun? Is it different? Um?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: Rather than judging it from the outside and figure maybe
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: you should give it a try, just like everything else,
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: and see what the reality is. So getting out of
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: outside of your comfort zone by getting pretty comfortable. Yeah,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: that's a good way of putting it. It. It definitely
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: was the most well in certain ways, it was the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: most comfortable hunt. In other ways less so. But we'll
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: get into that. Um. But yeah, that was I mean,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: that was where my head was at, um coming into it.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: What did you What did you think about that? Like
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: when you said you were a little surprised by my concerns.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: When when you kind of heard me explain all this,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: did you think I sounded like a I don't know,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: like A no, not at all, because I I'm pretty
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: much in the same boat. I've never hunted at an
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: outfitter before either for the same reason of I want
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: to do the work. I've filmed at a ton of
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: outfitters and every everyone you go to is a different experience.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of more hands on, a lot
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: more Here, here's what we got. You can figure it
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: out on your own. And um, before we got there,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: it was kind of not knowing what it was gonna be.
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: If we're gonna have our hands held the whole time,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: or if it's kind of, hey, you got the reins,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: go try and kill a deer. And I think that
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: this was a really good experience. Um, you know that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: was kind of on both ends of the spectrum there.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: It was what you wanted to make it, and um,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, coming into it not knowing what it was
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: going to be, I've open minded. I guess, yeah, yeah,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: I think that's I think that's a fair way to
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: describe it. Um, so let's let's let's walk let's walk
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: through it. Let's break down what happened day by day
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: and kind of what we experienced, what I thought about it,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: what you thought about how things went, what we learned. Um,
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I was really looking at this hunt as
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: a learning experience. This wasn't like I want to go
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and kill a big deer. This was Hey, we're here
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to explore something new, learn a bunch and and yeah,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: of course try to kill a deer. Um. But you know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: this was this is like a larger thing going on.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: And so that first day we got there and in
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the morning we met with Tom, you me, our other cameraman,
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: and how do we start that? Well, you know, I
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: guess we started at his house and it was just
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: kind of break down the history with him, you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: talking about that stuff that you and I kind of
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: teed up, learning about how he got started, learning a
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: little bit about um, his his story, his hopes and
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: dreams leading into this. And then we hit the woods
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and hopped in aside by side, and basically my ask was,
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: could just show me around? Could you show me some
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of the most important habitat improvements you make? Could you
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: show me some hunting setups? Could you kind of walk
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: me through how you do what you do and why
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: you do it? Um? This was this was gonna be
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: my opportunity to learn the how of how does somebody
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: manage a property like this and set up folks for
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: success in manage farmland. Um. So that was the plan
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: going into it. It was sorry, what we're gonna say,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious, you know, as we were out there,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, what were you kind of expecting? How did
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: it you know, how did it tee up to what
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you had preconceived, you know before we got there. Well,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: you know, I think the first thing I noticed at
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: the very beginning, like we we set off from his
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: like his lodge set up right, He's got a house.
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: His house is there, and there's a bunch of cabins
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: around it for for guests to stand, and then there's
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: kind of like a main dining area, um. And so
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: we set off from there in the side by side,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: and right away he did something that surprised me, which
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: was that we set off right from the house straight
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: up this big ridgeline, right into the middle of what
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: looked like some primo bedding cover. That was very surprised,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: right and as we're going I kind of kept glancing
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: at him, like, Uh, isn't this not the best isn't
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: this not the best idea? I sure hope we're not
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: going to hunt somewhere anywhere around this, because he just
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: drove right up into the middle of all this timber,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: heading straight up these hills, and very quickly, you know,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: I asked him about that, and he explained one of
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: the main things that ended up being a trend the
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: whole week was that, right, other than obsessing over minimizing
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: his presence on these properties, he does the opposite. And
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: this is this is like the theme of the whole
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: week maybe, which was instead of minimizing presence, which is
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: what I obsess over on most of the properties I hunt,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and what you know, you're always worried about when you're
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: hunting new places, and how to keep pressure low? How
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: do you get in here and out of here without
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: deer ever knowing you were there. He's the opposite. His
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: idea seems to be in what's proven to be successful
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for him is be there all the time, make your
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: presence known all the time, and the deer eventually come
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: to accept it, and they know what's normal and they'll
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: let you keep doing it. Now, if you do something
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: that's abnormal, then yeah, you're gonna get in trouble. But
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: if you stick to the normal and you do the
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: normal enough, you can get away with a lot more So,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: he drives around this property his his farms very very often.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: He goes and checks trail cameras very often. He checks
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of trail cameras. He is checking out
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: betting areas, checking out trans a scenario, is checking out ponds,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: checking out food sources. All the time. It was mind boggling.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It really was just to you know, it's almost like
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: he treats his farm like like a park, Like he's
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: all over the place, and the deer just kind of
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: do their thing, you know, they're used to it. Yeah,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: And I think what's interesting is that one of the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: coolest things about Tom that I picked up was just
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: like this childlike fascination with deer and being around them
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: and seeing them and watching them and studying them. You know,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: he is just in love with these critters. I mean,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I mean, really, really, really is fascinated interesting by them.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: I mean we we talked about this one night when
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: you and I were hunting. I recounted one of these
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: stories he told me, and I might get the details wrong,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: but he was telling me about this time when he
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: had been out just driving around or I think just
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: walking around. He was walking around somewhere in the middle
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of the summer, I think it was, and came into
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: some bedding areas walking through there, and he bumped a
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: deer out of his bed. I can't remember if he
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is a dough or fawn or young buck. Something like
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: that bumped this deer off his bed. The deer bounded
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: off like ten paces and then stopped and then just
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: stared at Tom. And Tom thought, huh, let's see off
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: close and get to him. So he just starts walking
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: towards that deer and then decides, I'm gonna walk right
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: to the deer's bed. So he walks right to where
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: that deer had been bedded. The whole time just kind
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of softly talking to the deer, just kind of saying, hey,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: little guy, how you doing it? Looks like a nice day.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: This is a great spot to bed. And he eventually
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: gets to the deer's bed. The deer meanwhile still standing
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: ten paces away, not moving, just standing in there watching Tom.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Tom then lays down into the bed and this great.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: He lays down into the bed, all the while still talking,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: still looking at the deer. Then he starts picking up
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: acorns or leaves and kind of starts pretending like he's
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: eating them and kind of dropping them. So he's kind
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: of bringing up to his mouth and dropping it, kind
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: of just acting like another animal. I think was what
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: he was trying to do here. Then he curled up
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: in that bed as if he was going to sleep.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: And then here's the really he said, he literally fell asleep.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: He fell asleep, took a cat nap in the deer's
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: bed while the deer was just standing there watching them
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: all the while, just to kind of see what would happen,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: what would the deer do, what would you think about this?
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: And if I remember the ending here, he woke up
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: like a couple of minutes later something or five minutes later,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and the deer was still there just watching him, thinking
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: what is this guy doing? Um? Yeah, I just feel
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: like like that's like the perfect like illustration of a mad,
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: curious scientist, right, like just that's how infatuated he is
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: with these animals, like he just wants to experiment with them.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool. I think that was like perfectly illustrated, Like
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: it was a perfect character portrait of Tom injerbo Um
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and so and so we got to kind of see
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that that first morning when we
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: drove up there. We went to this first big timber
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: point and he showed us like, hey, this is one
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: of these main betting years, these deer like to bet on.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I'd say it was like standard what you would expect
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: in hill country. Right, it's like big timber. This is
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: coming off of high fields and off of these points.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: There's doze better. There's bucks better down off of them
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Um. You know these bucks at these
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: deer in general could bet up there, they could seed
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: down the valley in front of them. They could smell
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: stuff coming up from behind him if the wind was
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: blowing down that direction. Pretty ideal stuff. Um. He's got
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: ponds put in, many different ponds, put into ideal locations
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: back on these betting knobs and ridges. Um. And then
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: he sets up you know, hunter setups off of these
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: betting areas. Um. It seems like he likes to put
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: these ponds back in the cover tight to the betting areas,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: off these like kind of edges where wind where your
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: wind could blow off the top if you wanted. Um.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of any other details of that
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: first specific setup we went to. We kind of grilled
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: him on how he makes these ponds, what he's thinking about,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but he's when he makes his ponds. Um. But more
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: than the specifics of that, one thing stood out to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: me at that first location. I'm wondering if it's the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: same thing that stood out to you, do you can
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: you guess what I'm thinking of? Um, there was a
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: lot that stood out to me, but I guess the
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: one thing that I was kind of shocked by was
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: the camera placement. I don't know if that's where you're
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: going with this, but yes, yes, okay, cameras man. This
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: is more of this mad scientist thing that I kind
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: of gathered from Tom throughout the week, But just an
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: overabundance of trail cameras, right, I don't know what what
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: scientists needs as much data. You know. Tom takes trail
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: cameras to a level I've never seen before. Absolutely, I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: mean unbelievable. And what's what's interesting is it's not just
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: that he has like a lot of cameras screwed out
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: across the property. Like if someone said, hey, I've got
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: a hundred cameras over my thousand acres or acres or something,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, that's a lot of cameras, but that's
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: not necessarily what makes Tom's trail camera strategy so unique. Yes,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: he has a lot of cameras, but he has a
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: lot of cameras in the exact same places. I mean
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this spot, this first location we drove up to to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: give you an example of this, there's this this point.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Imagine this point coming off of the ridge and there's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: a pond. The pond is like ten yards by ten
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: yards wide maybe give or take it's that size. And
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: then this little bedding area that this little flat point
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: on the top of the point is maybe an acre
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: ish acre and a half maybe something like that. Wouldn't
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: you say, like the reason we could just kind of
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: see from the pond and just from this spot that
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we could see from the pond, this little acre ishu
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: little flat spot. There were two cameras on the pond.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: There was two cameras about thirty yards down the hill
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: pointing at two different spots where deerhead bedded. And there
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: was I think three more cameras up the point within
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: the next fifty yards on different trails. So he had
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: I think seven cameras in an acre in one acre
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: in got you know, like within a seventy yard span
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of space. I think seven cameras. Just this wasn't unique
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: in this spot, I mean this was the property, yeah exactly,
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I mean that was like the thing is that you'd
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: find spots like this, these hot spots where he would
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: have it blanket coverage. There was a little turnip food
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: plot we eventually get to that we'll talk about later
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: where just in this little food plot within a thirty
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: yard wide circle, there was four of them and two
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: of them were three cameras. So they're cameras that take
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: pictures in all directions too. So I mean he double
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: triple quadruple, you know, checks every possible place hit hit.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And his whole point is when I asked him about
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: with this, was that you know, you miss a ton
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: when you have just one or two cameras out there,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: because deer don't always do what you think they go
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: in front of it, they go to the side of it,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: even if they pass in front of it. Cameras miss
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer sometimes, and he doesn't want to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: miss anything. So so the main thing I saw Allen
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: was first the situation we just described, whether they'd be
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: like this betting area or that food plot, where he'd
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: have these clusters of cameras, four or five, s eight
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: cameras all in a tiny little area um seemingly a
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: hotspot of sorts he had that this betting area. I
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: think there's another betting area we explored later that day
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: that had something kind of similar. The turnip plot stood
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: out to me. Um. He then also had individual cameras
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: on basically every trail. It seemed like almost every time
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you saw a trail somewhere there would be a camera
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: point on it. Any random location coming off of a ridge,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: coming down off a field, there was cameras hitting all
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of those major runways at least, and you could see
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you could very clearly see the major runways because there's
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: snow on the ground, so you know these are spots
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: I guess historically always get used. Tom knows that puts
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: cameras on them. Um. And then at least when I'm
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: thinking back on some of the fields that we drove around,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: UM he had a lot like lining field ed just
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like every I don't know, fifty two a hundred yards.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: On several of these fields we checked, there was cameras
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: along the edge. They're kind of on these like two
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: tracks that run around the outside edges. So here's a lot.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I can't remember what the total number of cameras was
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: that he runs. Do you remember I think I remember
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: him saying somewhere between a hundred and seventy and two
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: hundred for some reason, sounds familiar. I know he had
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: because I think he counts the degree cameras as three
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: cameras because they take three photos. Okay, so he's been
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: a lot in short um. So Yeah, that was that
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: was really interesting. That was one of those things that
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: stood out. And actually, you know, I could see myself
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: taking a little something from that and applying it to
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: some of the places I hunt. Not to the same
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: degree he does, but I mean there's there's basically nowhere
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: where I run multiple cameras in the same small area.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I think I've got one food plot where I've done
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: that before, But you know, it makes a lot of sense.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: He's probably right. And I actually sometimes many times have
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: cameras just sitting in my barn that I don't end
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: of using, you know, for one reason or another that
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: I've just kind of deployed him in various properties and
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I end up having more than I need for that
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: time of the season or whatever. I probably could better
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: utilize them by you know, double covering or triple covering
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: these very very very best spots. Yeah, that was really
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: eye opening and I know, you you know, you think
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: about it and a lot of times you are hunting
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: and you see a deer that skirts, you know, just
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: outside out of range or just behind a camera that
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you would have never known about. So that that really
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: did kind of open my eyes to the same kind
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: of thing of you know, maybe I am missing quite
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a bit of intel. Yeah, I think I think I'll
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: be trying to change that a little bit this year,
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: at least on the properties that I'm hunting, you know,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: frequently year every year. Kind of some of my local
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: spots that I'd like to know really really well and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that I can monitor, you know, all year long or
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: all season long. You know, it makes sense to really
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: really blanket covers those things just from just the learning perspective, right,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just fun to see what's out there.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: And I realized, you know, even checking cameras where there's
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: a like, for example, there's a spot on one of
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: my local farms where I do have two cameras on
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: either side of a field where there's there's a field
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: that narrows down into a little finger and it it's
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: at its narrowest point, it's probably eight yards across, maybe
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: a little less maybe seventy eight yards across, and at
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: that narrowest point, I have a camera on either side
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: pointing into the middle of the field, and I can
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: see many times where there's deer near. So let's say
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Camera A is on the north side and it is
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: taking a picture of what's closest to you, but it
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: can also you know, capture stuff that's on the other
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: side of the field just by luck, right, And there's
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of times where I will get pictures of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a big buck on this one just by luck. Like
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: it's actually taking a picture of a doll that's ten
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: yards in front of it. But then the far background
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: you can see, oh wow, there's a big deer over
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: there that's on the side where the other camera is.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: That that other camera never happens to pick up because
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: that deer popped out behind it or around it, or
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it was never quite close enough for you know, there's
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: all these different ways that can happen. So I mean,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I think that we miss out on a ton. So
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that's one change I'm I'm gonna make next year is
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: just pick that up a little bit in a few
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: spots um, And you know, I think outside of that,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: you know, we we we went around his property, about
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: half of the property his main property. That first day,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: we got to see two of those big betting knobs.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: You know. See how he implements these ponds, which is
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: a really big part of his strategy. It seems like
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: he puts in a pond like every one of these
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: good Um locations, almost every one of his main hunter setups,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that seems like in these high ridges and points has
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a pond near it. Um. He also I saw a
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: pretty somewhat frequent trend where he would have these very
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: best points that come off so there's a crowd field
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the very top, and and these points come off of
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: those tops into the timber, and then he would have
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: a little tiny food plot inside the timber waves like
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: a little staging plot. And then further behind that, so
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: farther down the point, he'd have a pond. And then
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: at the very end of that is just straight timber,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: good cover. That's where the betting is happening. And there
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: was several different places that we saw that looked just
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: like that, right, Yeah, And that was pretty cool because
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: that's replicable, right, I mean, you can have the setups
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: in several different locations as they're heading off to these
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: you know, bigger food sources. So it made complete sense
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to me. Um, you know for for hunting very smart
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: you know, um uh defined movements. Yeah, it was sort
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: of you know, there were certain things like that that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: were like Jeff stir just light like take some of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the things that you and Jeff do and applied in
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: like Tom's own way. Right, He's got He's creating a
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: line of movement there that's going to get deer moving
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: through a place that you can hunt but in daylight.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: So that was a cool thing to see. He also
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: made a point about how important those water holes are
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: during the rut. You know, deer aren't very well bucks
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: aren't very food focused during the rut, but when they're
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: cruising from betting area to betting area to betting area
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: looking for does, they're going to need that water. And
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: so he really finds that those ponds help suck deer
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: just a little bit closer to the stand locations and
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: stopped them along these routes. So Hunterson get a shop.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: Um So, so that was a big thing that stood out.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: So the the ponds, the kind of transition lines where
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: pat where kind of package those things altogether the trail cameras,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: those things stood out. And then the other big thing
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: was that, you know, there's a ton of food. I mean,
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: he had a lot of food out there. He rents
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: out his main farm fields to a farmer, but then
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: he's got spots where he leaves crops standing. So, for example,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: down the bottom of one of these areas, he had
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: a ton of standing beans, and on another area he
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: had some standing corn and he had turn up food
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: plot that we talked about. There are a couple other
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: turnip food plots like we discussed kind of in this cover.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: So food is another big part of what he's doing. Um.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: I think this main section that we were hunting or
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: kind of exploring was he's got like a three acre
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: farm of his own, and then he had access to
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: a neighboring property that was I don't know, something similar
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: to that. And so you know, across all that, I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: don't know. I mean, if you think about all the
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: standing food we saw between the corn on the top,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: the turnip plots, I can think of like three or
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: four food plots like that, then the standing beans in
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: the bottom, the standing corn and beans, and the second
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: valley that we hunted that first night, there was some
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: standing corn across the way. I mean, if I had
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: to make a very just like gut guess there's probably
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: five to ten acres of standing up food think something
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, so was another thing, right, I mean,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: and I think that's a pretty consistent thing anyone who's
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: managing property for deers, you know, dear live and breathe
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: with their stomachs, like their world revolves around their stomach.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: So making sure you've got that, um, and and that
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: was that was the stuff that really stood out from
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: what's he done to his property kind of perspective? Was
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: there anything else that you noticed outside of that? Now?
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of those things were you know,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: very significantly eye opening um to me, especially just the
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: way that he approaches his property and accesses it. But
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: other than that was you know, relatively straightforward. Yeah. So
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: I think it's a perfect segue then into like our hunt,
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: because that's when we got into like some of his
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: hunt setups and his access and exit kind of methodology. Um.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: You know, as I've tried to do in all these
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: hunts this year, I've I've really tried to take the
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: local experts, uh perspective and and trust it and try
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: it right and and try to do things the way
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: they do and you know, see if I can learn
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: from that and figure that out. And so that's where
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: some stuff in Tom's playbook kind of threw me for
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: a loop. Um. You know, after that first kind of
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: midday scouting around, driving around, seeing the place, picking his
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: brain about stuff, you know, we started looking into like, okay,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: we're some different spots that might make sense to start hunting.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: And of course, you know, hunting food sources in the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: late seasons is the name of the game. Let's find
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: where the best food sources are. Let's find out where
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: the most dear activity is. And then you know, let's
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: pick a spot where we can hunt without getting picked
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: off and blown out. And so I thought, you know,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: we'd be really thinking about win direction, we'd be really
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: thinking about Okay, let's find a spot we can access
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: without spook and deer um. And Tom had a couple
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of surprising perspectives on this. And when he gets on
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: here later, I'll press him on this a little bit
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: more and have him explained. Um. But in short, he
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: was not as worried about excess and exit as I was.
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: And he was not as worried about the wind direction
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: many times as I was in both cases because of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: kind of going back to the original original kind of
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: thing he does, which is make his presence known all
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the time. And so his idea was, Man, I wouldn't
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: worry about your wind too much here, because the wind's
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: gonna do crazy things. With all these hills, there's not
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: a lot you can do to get away with it.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But these deer in many cases will forgive that. Um.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: Same thing with access and exit. I was worried about
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: coming into For example, one of these fields we ended
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: up hunting was in the bottom, and then there was
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: timber on these ridges all around it, and I thought, man,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be deer betting off these points and these ridges,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: and if we go walking into this bottom, they're gonna
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: see us and they're never gonna come down and feed. Yeah,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of it, like the access really just felt
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: kind of like taboo, like you know, you're getting in, like, man,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: this this can't be right, This can't be how this
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: is done, you know, and go and behold. It ended
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: up working out, yeah, exactly. And so that first night,
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you know, we decide, okay, let's just hunt an easy
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: spot for the first night, and just kind of it
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: was kind of I don't want to say it was
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: a throwaway hunt, but it was, let's just get a
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: good intro for the show, let's kind of observe, let's
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: bring both cameraman along someone. We can bring both guys
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: along and film a bunch of different kind of discussions
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and stuff like that. So we hunted one of these
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: bottom fields. This setup I just described, there was a
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: narrow valley, the headed you know, off of the main valley,
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: and in there was a strip of standing corn and
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: a strip of standing beans, and Tom had a kind
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: of elevated box blind of sorts. Um it was like
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: one of those cloth sided box blinds that's on like
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: a five ft tower. Then would be a spot that you,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: me and Tyler could all fit in and we could
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: film and do a bunch of stuff like that. And then,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: like I said, there's kind of this this v almost right,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: there's this v of two points and timber on all
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: those and thick bedding cover and stuff, and you know,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to make a long story short, on that night's hunt,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: the idea was hopefully deer would come off of those ridges,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: dropped down and feed into our field. Uh, some did
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: not as many as that we thought there would be,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: but this was a warmer day and I think we
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: saw like five does come down started feeding, and then
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: a coyote ran through and spooked everything. So, you know,
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: who knows what impact that coyote had another deer that
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: might have been coming our direction, but they were definitely
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: on edge by that yoke. I mean they bugged out
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: of their heart. So that was the first day. That was,
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: you know, just let's learn the lay of the land
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: kind of day. Now the second day we you know,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: as is the case with most late season hunts, usually
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: it's a evening focus. Right. Typically morning hunts are very
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: low odds because a lot of these deer, especially if
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: you're trying to kill the mature buck, they get back
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to bed very early, and so it's hard to get
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: into these places without spooking deer off the food sources
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: or spooking deer that have already come into the betting
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: areas um. And so why a lot of people don't
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: hunt mornings is that, man, you might have like a
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: chance of spooking those deer in the morning if you're
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: trying to hunt them, but have a very low chance
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: of killing anything. And so what you're doing is you're
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: educating your deer and then screwing up your chances for
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: an evening success when these deer do seem to move
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: a lot more during daylight in late season. So you know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: that's been my typical experience most places. I asked Tom,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: and you know these guys, if that's what they see
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: here too. They said that, yes, that is usually the case.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: So we decided at the beginning of the trip at
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: least we would focus just on trying to have like
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: some really great evening hunts and then if it, you know,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: if we got desperate towards the end, we might switch
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: things up. Um. So that second day it was another
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: scouting day and then we're gonna hunt that evening. So
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: what do we do. We filmed more stuff with Tom,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and then midday we've hopped on the side by side
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: again and then had him kind of give us a
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: tour of the other half of the farm that we
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen yet. Yeah, and that was awesome area. I mean,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: after seeing you know, the area on the first day
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and then going to this other area and just the
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: amount of sign uh you know, tracks and you know,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: just obvious sign that hey, there's a heck of a
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: lot of deer hanging out here during the daylight. You know.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: It was kind of cool to see all that, and
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: that that was the big thing. Was like, okay, for
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: this kind of hunt in this kind of place, it's
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: just a matter of like, figure out what's the food
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: source the deer keying in on it right now. And
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: pretty quickly when we drove up to that other half
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: of the farm and went to the top fields there,
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: we realized like, oh wow, this is where all the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: deer are. You know, compared to everything else, there was
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: way more activity, way more tracks. Um, And it was
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: just very clearly spelled out in the snow. You can
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: see him just tearing up this turnip plot in the top.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: You can see lots of tracks in the cut corn. Um.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: We we did another one of those drive up through
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: the bedding areas kind of things, so we saw tons
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of trails through there. We saw tons of beds. You
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: could just see like, okay, there's a lot of deer
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: in here. Pretty quickly I realized, all right, this is
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: this is the region I want to hunt tonight. Um.
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: This seems like where most of the food action is
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: and so this is another thing that surprised me. We
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: get up there and we're looking at stuff and there's
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: a little turnip food plot I don't know, like a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: half acre something like that, and just ripped up. So
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: I was thinking, man, this looks great. Um. Then I
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: was talking through like, okay, what's the wind gonna do today?
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: And was you know, I thought, oh, this is due,
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: this would be just fine. And again Tom was like, man,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: don't don't worry about the wind too much. Appear. I
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: was like okay, um, but it seemed it could be okay.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: But the big thing that surprised me, um, you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I asked him if he had pop up blinds and
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: if we could use one. He said, yeah, definitely, he said,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: but don't try to hide it. And I said what
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: he said, Yeah, don't don't try to hide the blind,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: just pop it out in the open um. And that
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: one really surprised me too, because you know, if ever
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I'm going to use a ground blind, I either want it,
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: you know, set up way way ahead of the season
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: so it's just there forever and the deer get used
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to it, or if I have to pop it up
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: and hunt it soon I'm gonna try to brush it
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: in and hide it as best as possible so that
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: the deer just can't notice it. And that was not
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Tom's program, again, just against every instinct that we had
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: coming into it, right. His his explanation was that if
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: you try to hide it, they're still going to see it,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: and that's actually gonna surprise them more because they won't
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: notice it until they get closer, until they like kind
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: of see something a little bit off, and then they
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: study it for a while and then they'll freak out
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: because it was it was jarring. His his recommendation was
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: to instead put it out in the open and they'll
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: notice it from afar and they'll kind of examine it
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: and then they'll be okay with it. Um And I think,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: you know, he didn't exactly say this, but after I
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: thought about it and watch what happened, you know, I
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: think pop up blinds like this and big new pieces
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: of farm equipment or new blinds or new vehicles. I
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: think those kinds of things just kind of show up
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: all over his farm at different times of the year
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: and are there, and the deer see that and they're
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: used to it. So a big block showing up in
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the middle of nowhere is like, that's just another day
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: and day in the life around here for these deers,
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: and they don't have negative consequences. I think that's probably
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: the big things. Like, you know, most of the year,
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: all the stuff's going on, and people aren't shooting these deer. Right, Um,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: the vast majority of the bucks aren't getting shot at,
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: a lot of the does aren't getting shot at. So
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: ninety probably of the deer that live in these hundreds
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of acres are never having a negative consequence to a
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: blind popping up brand new. So they're just used to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: seeing these things pop up and there's nothing bad to happen,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: so they just carry on. And so I think they're
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: just conditioned to, you know, seeing intrusion and being okay
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: with it. Yeah, And so you know, even though you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and I are both like, man, this feels like it's
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: not gonna work, we we decided to try it anyway.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: So we went back up to that turnip plot later
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: that night and set up a pop up blind right
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: on the edge of this plot, basically right out in
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: the open, I mean, very visible. Did not put anything
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: around it, did not try to brush it in at all,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: and you know, basically two make a cliff notes version
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: of this hunt. Had a bunch of deer come out
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: towards the end of the night, and these deer come
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: came right into that food plot, right around it, and
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: pretty much didn't give that blind care in the world. Yeah. Yeah,
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: that was shocking. And if a few deer were like
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: stopped and looked at it for a little bit, but
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: then they just kept on feeding. We had deer that
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: fed within five yards of it, ten yards of it
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: um this brand new blind that had been sitting there
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: no more than a couple of hours, and they were
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: just like, yeah, let's eat. So I think it helps.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: When it was you know, what was the temperature that day,
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: I think zero degrees or four degrees or something like
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: that with a wind chill, so yeah, so much you know,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: harsher windfields. So yes, that's got very good point. That
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: second day, the the temperature dropped out of the bottom
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: and we got to you know, negative temperatures and these
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: deer obviously we're really key done the food then. And
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: that was another thing Tom set both about the wind
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: and like intrusion. He basically said, these deer are going
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: to be so food crazy right now. They're just not
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: going to care about a whole lot else. And you know,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: we saw it that night. But the big thing that
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: stood out to us was that while we had a
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: decent number deer that came into our location, um I
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, you know, there was like maybe
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: six seven eight deer that came out to feed in daylight,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and then after shooting light, another group of deer started
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: working in. But that whole time, about a hundred and
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: fifty yards or so down the field was where this
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: patch of standing corn was, and we saw just a
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: boatload of deer hitting that all night. It just seemed
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: like every time we looked down there, there's another deer
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: popping out, another deer popping out, another deer popping out.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: So the big take way for us then after that
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: night was I think we really need to be down there.
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: They seem to be keying in on that corn more
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: than the turnips. So that was a big aha. Night
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: number two got really really cold and they hit up
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: on the corn. They really want those grains, I guess, right,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: getting the carbs, getting the energy, kind of recouping from
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the Arctic tundra temperatures. So that was day two. So
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: then day three, you know, same deal. Weren't gonna hunt
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: the morning, We're going to hunt the evening. And I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: knew that we wanted to be on that standing corn,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: and there was another box blind set up on that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: standing corn that seemed like, hey, you know there's a
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: location there where we want to be. It is abolished,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: these deer should be used to it. That probably makes sense.
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: But we had this wind that was kind of blowing
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: from the timber out towards the field, and I remember
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: talking to Tom and saying, hey, you know, I'm gonna
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: want to go towards that standing corn, that groundbl or
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: that box blind is there. The wind's gonna kind of
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: blow out to the edge. Though, Um, you know, I'm
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: a little unsure if I want to hunt there because
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: if deer dew come out on the far left of us,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: they might wind us. So once again Tom said, no,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: don't worry about that, hunt that spot. If you like it, Um,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: you'll be okay. And again I decided to trust him
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: on it because he proved to be true the night before.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: And so this is this is the this is an
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: interesting part of the night because we go get into
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: this box blind this box blind is very tight. It's
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: tighter than what we're expecting. So sure. Yeah, so we're worried, like,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: how in the world are we both gonna fit in
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: here and have room for you to film and me
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: be able to shoot. We ended up taking there was
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: two chairs in there. We took one of the chairs
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: out and hit it underneath the blind and that gave
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: us just barely enough for him to operate. You had
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: to sit on your knees while I was in this
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: little tiny chair thingy um. Yeah. It was not ideal
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: at all, but we made it work. Yeah, And and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: we kind of had to choose a side that I
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: would shoot out of. And you know, we we based
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: which direction I faced based on what we saw the
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: night before. It seemed like most of the deer had
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: come out on the north side, so I positioned my
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: shot myself to be able to shoot to that side.
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: And we said, well, if something comes out to the south, fish,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: we'll have to do like a little fire drill and
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: switch positions. So let's not do that unless we absolutely
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: have to. Um, and we kind of practice what are
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: we gonna do in this situation? What are we gonna
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: do in this situation. We got the windows set and situated,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: and as I don't know, within an hour ish deer
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: star coming out, and yeah, the parade really took off
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: from there. Yeah. It was you know, dough dough, dough,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: little dough, little buck dough dough, and pretty quickly deer
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: were coming out on our down wind side and giving us,
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you know, a free pass, not not winding us. So
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: that was encouraging. I remember thinking to myself, all right,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you know this could work. And it was super duper cold.
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: This was you know, I don't I can't remember what
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: the temperature was that day, but again in the negative
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I think negative ten or something windshill probably
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: something like that. I think the real temperature was like
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: zero or negative one, something like that. And you know,
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: these deer one of that corn. So the highlights of
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: this evening came I think the last hour hour fifteen
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: probably when we looked across the way and in the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: way to envision this is we're on this this box
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: blind is on the edge of the timber and a
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: cut corn field. But the top of the center of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: this field is high, like the center of the field
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: is the ice point of this hill. This ridge and
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: then the field drops down towards us in the timber,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: so we are lower on the hill looking acrossed, you know,
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: at the side the hill slope kind of And like
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: I said, most of us cut corn except for this
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: patch just right in front of us. That the patch
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: of standing corn was maybe I don't know, maybe half
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: acre standing corn around the um, and it's cut for
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: the first like fifteen yards or so in front of us,
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: and then the standing corn begins. And then they're standing
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: corn to the left and to the right of us,
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: about forty five yards or so down give or take
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: maybe a fifty and and that's the setup. And with
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: about an hour and fifty minutes left in daylight, I
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: camera if it's you or me who spotted him first,
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: But a buck came over the top of that hill
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: off to our south, coming in our direction, and then
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: another buck behind it. The first buck was what ended
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: up being what looked like a two year old, like
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: I don't eight year eight point or something like that.
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I think it had a split on one side, so
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: he was first, and then behind it was a big
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: buck and this deer was like I think it was
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: a nine point right um, tight and tall, like imagine
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: like a fifteen maybe fifty inches wide, sixty inches wide
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: something like that. Um, and then like really tall twos
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: and threes, And right away I'm like, Okay, that's that's
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: a shooter buck. And something we didn't talk about at
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: the beginning, which we probably should have, was what qualifies
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the shooter buck out here? And this is a brand
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: new thing for me, So so this is something we
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: should explain. Um, I've never hunted a place where I
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: couldn't shoot whatever I wanted. Um, but here on on,
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you know Tom's place, because he has you know, clients
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: coming in and wanted to hunt with him that are
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: coming here and wanting to get a crack at a
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: good deer, at a big buck. You know, he's set
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: kind of minimum size guidelines to try to, you know,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: get people to pass on younger bucks so there can
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: be more older, bigger deer for future people. So basically,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: what he told us was that a hundred and forty
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: is the minimum size for a buck that you can
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: shoot unless it is like an obviously big mature buck
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: that has like poor antler genetics. And I think that's
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: something that he was kind of telling us because you know,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I demonstrate to him that I know what a mature
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: buck is and I could tell, like, what would qualifies that.
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: So I think when he was talking with us, he
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: was basically saying, hey, you know, if it's a deer
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: like this, so he obviously knows a big old buck
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: that doesn't have potential from an antler perspective, that would
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: be a good one to shoot. And I guess but
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: he says, nobody else really wants to shoot those deer,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: but I would be happy to shoot those deers. So
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: I told him, man, yeah, I'd happily take one of those,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: you know, those bully bucks that no one else wants.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: But other than that, you know, you had to make
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: a quick judgment on you know, what's a one forty
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: plus buck or not. And this buck that came out,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: you know, right away I thought, man, that's definitely a
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: one forty plus buck, but it did look like a
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: possible three year old. Um, you know, there could be
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: tricks being playing of this time of year because this
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: is very very late in the year. They've been run
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: down from the rut, so this is definitely the smallest
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: these deer will look at this time of year. So
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: that's you know, if he was four, it wouldn't shock
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: me either. Um. But the one thing I did know
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: is like, man, he definitely meets the antler size minimum. Um,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: that's that's a buck you gotta take. Ye. So you know,
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: we all got we were super excited, we got into position,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: we're getting ready, and his running buddy comes. He walks
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: right to the corner of the corn and then comes
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: into the cut part in front of it and starts
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: walking down the edge in front. And I'm thinking, my goodness,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: these deer are gonna walk right in. They're gonna walk
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: right in the edge of the standing in the cut corn,
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: and they're coming across. And I thought, wow, these bucks
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: are gonna come right across, and I'm gonna have a
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: fifteen yard shop broadside shot hopefully at this buck. Um.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: And I just remember thinking, as this buck was approaching,
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: like all right, man, just like this is business time.
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: Just focus on what you gotta do. You focus on
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: you know, getting a good you know, get get your
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: anchor points right, tak your time. You know. I just
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: was kind of like coaching myself through that moment because
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: it seemed like this is going to happen. And then
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: that big one got to the same corner as the
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: younger buck did and stopped there and I'm not thinking, okay,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: you know, he's gonna turn, and he turned, but instead
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: of turning walking down the edge, he slipped into the
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: standing corn, and from there we progressed. I don't know
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: how this how long this was, Dylan, It seemed like forever.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was ten minutes, maybe it was a half hour.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I don't know how long it actually was. But for
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: a long time I sat there, clipped on holding my boat,
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: waiting as this buck kind of worked his way into
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: the standing corn, and then he'd work his way down
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to the edge of the standing corn, but not quite
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: come out, and then he'd go back up for lear
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: in the standing corn, all the while like slowly working
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: his way down closer to us, but never coming all
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: the way out. Yeah, extremely frustrating, you know, especially for
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of the position that we were in
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and that small blind and trying to hold still this
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: whole time. Was it was difficult, super difficult, And I
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: just needed him to come down a little further and
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: step out of the corn, and he just wouldn't do it.
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: He he just kitt he kind of get really close,
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: he'd angle that way and then up, angle that way,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: up and slowly working his way down across. He eventually
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: made it to the point that if that standing corn
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't there. Um, you don't trying to remember if he
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: ever was shootable through the front window, I think he
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: would have been shootable through the front window. And yeah,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: um but again corn in the way couldn't do it. Yeah,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: but it just seemed like any moment he was going
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: to and his his running buddy was right in front
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: of us in range easy shot at him. So I
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: just thought like, eventually, this guy is gonna work with
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: it down there. But these deer, who had been given
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: us the free pass on so much else, finally kind
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: of gave us a hard time. When one of these
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: doughes got close to our blind and noticed that chair
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: that we had hidden underneath the blind, and she just
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: got spooked by it was something out of place, but
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I guess different enough from what they usually see, and
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: she couldn't pin it. She couldn't figure out what it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: was or something enough that she freaked out and she
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: blew at it and bounded off. And one thing I
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: will say about these deer, while they gave us a
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: lot of grace and a lot of other places. They
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: definitely have like a a mass. They act like a swarm,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: like if you ever watched each other, they do trust
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: each other. And if you've ever seen like a video
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: of bait fish in the ocean, when like if one
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: fish goes one direction, the entire school of fish all
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: goes with it, right, like a big, huge bait fish ball.
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: That's kind of how these deer worked. There was probably
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: like twenty maybe more deer in the standing corn by
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: this point, and when that one deer spooked, everything went
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: running like the whole school of bait. It's just like
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: just like a bomb exploding. This like half acre patch
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: of corn exploded in in dear and they all go
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: running out of there, including the shooter buck. They all
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: go running off. They stopped like they all run like
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: fifty yards sixty yards something like that and stop and
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: then look back and kind of I this situation. And
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: then of the deer just slowly worked their way back
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: to the corn. But the one deer that didn't was
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: the shooter and he just kind of slowly worked his
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: way away. Yeah, of course, so he slowly walked away
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: walked back in the woods. It seemed like that was
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: going to be the end of it. Was super exciting
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: to see a good one. Disappointed that it worked out.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: And then like ten fifty minutes later, look over that
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: same hill that the bucks came from the first time,
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: here comes another big buck, like big buck coming and
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking, kind of looked at the first dear
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: first glance, and I thought, man, like, how did he
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: get all the way over there? And then it pulled
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: him a binoculars and I realized it was a different deer.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: This one was like just a standard kind of heavy
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: ish eight pointer, you know, maybe like the one twenties,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: But pretty quickly you could just see like a bigger,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: heftier body like this was a dear deer, no doubt,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: definitely a mature bucks. So I thought, okay, this is
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: one of those bucks that Tom would really like, misshoot um.
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: So that I got re excited, and we again got repositioned,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: got all set. He came into the exact same thing
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: that that first buck did. He worked his way down
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to the front corner of the corn, stopped there, kind
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: of looked around, and then instead of working along the
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: front edge, he stepped into the standing corner again, yep,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: and the exact same thing played out. He kind of
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: slowly fed his way through, sometimes very close to the front,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: but never all the way out, working his way across,
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: closer and closer and closer to us, and eventually was
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: right in front of us. I mean, the most perfect,
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: beautiful broadside twenty yard shot you could ever ask for,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: except it was blocked by you know, six rows of
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: standing corn. There's just no way you could shoot through.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: And that's what happened all the way until dark. That
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: buck stayed there, every once in a while, angling like
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: he might come a little closer and step up, but
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: never doing it. And we were just stuck there, freezing
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: our hands off, ready for it, hoping he would come,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: but never would, and she didn't ended, and we were
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: never able to get a crack at either one of
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: those deer. That was a very sombry ride back, Yes
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: it was. It was. It was a fun hunt. I
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: mean I really thought, for you know, for an hour
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and fifteen minutes or an hour and a half or
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: an hour whatever that time period ended up being, from
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: the time that first buck showed up, I mean that
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: entire time, it basically felt like we're going to get
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: a shot, like we're in it on edge, and you know,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: every little thing you do has you worried because there's
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: a ba jillion deer around you. I mean there was
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: thirty forty plus deer around the whole time, so so
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: many eyeballs, so many noses, so much potential for something
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: to go wrong. That was just you know, trying to
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: make sure you don't make any off move make sure
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: you don't make any low click or clank or movement
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: or I mean it was it was very tense, tense
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: hunt exciting, but tense um And I know you were
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: struggling because you were kind of like on your knees
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: and just not having a chair, and you know, with
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: how cold the temperatures were, I couldn't have a tripod,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: so I was holding the cameras and fingers were freezing
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: and blood was getting cut off too my toes because
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I was sitting funny and having to try and Readjust
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: it was just I was very relieved when we finally
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: got out, if that makes sense. As for as much
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: fun as it was, it was kind of like who
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: we made it? Yeah, for sure, And uh, the one
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: of the thing of note that happened that night were
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: you know, we we drove in a side by side
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: up there, and we had parked it on the other
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: side of the hill and walked down and so we
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: had to walk out again. And so I'm thinking, man,
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: there's no way this is gonna work, or not that
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna work. But I remember stressing about this
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: access thing too. This is another deal where I thought, man,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: how are we ever going to get out of these
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: field setups without spooking deer again? Tom told me, don't
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: worry about it. You could just walk out, hop on
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: the side by side, drive out. They're not really gonna care. Um.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: And I guess the I guess this happened the night before.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know what night this happened, but it
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: was either that the first night that we hunted the
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: turnips or the second night when we hunted that standing corn.
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: We we I use a coyote howl to scare the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: deer away out of sight, and then we worked our
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: way down. I remember walking though to the canam or
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: to the side by side whatever. I don't know. Brandon's
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: so used to saying that, uh, walking to the side
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: by side, and we got to it, and you could
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: see all these deer on the other side of the
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: hill just standing and watching you, and they don't care
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: in the world. Hey, just get out here so we
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: can go back to eat, please exactly. They wouldn't spook.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: And I just remember kind of looking at you and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: laughing and shaking my head, and we hopped in the
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: side by started and started driving away, and the whole
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: rest of the drive, going down the side of the
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: field and the woods, I was just kind of looking
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: around for deer and like just kind of marveling to myself, Man,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: this is crazy out here, while also thinking, man, my
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: fingers are so cold, and I've got these two competing thoughts. Man,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: these deer crazy, and man, my fingers are cold. And
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: I'm just kind of scanning this way and that, and
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, behind me, you say, Mark,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: and I spin kind of I looked towards you, thinking like, oh,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: there must be a big box somewhere. The very first
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: thing I thought was like, he sees a big giant buck.
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: And as I kind of turned to look towards you,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I kind of turned the steering wheel a little bit
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: more too, and then then just smash You're telling this story,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: and I actually I smashed right into one of his
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: trail cameras that he had on, like a trail camera
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: steak on the edge of the field. I'm like, oh,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: and You're like, oh, man, you just you just shattered
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: that thing into a million pieces. And then by the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: time I kind of registered what had happened, I had
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: already driven like forty yards past it. I was like, oh,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: come back get it tomorrow. And so so that was
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: a little embarrassing, but um but that was that was
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: that night. I mean, that was a heck of a hunt,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: super close call. Um well, that was fun. And I
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: remember at this point in the hunt, I had a
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: couple of thoughts about the whole outfited hunt experience. I
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: remember thinking, like, it's weird. I did feel like just
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable still playing Like it was like it's like when
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: you go to an Airbnb or something, you go and
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: you realize, like, I'm in somebody's else, I'm in somebody
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: else's house. That's a good way to think about it.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting, interesting perspective. But yeah, I could totally
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: see that. Yeah, So I mean I felt like, hey,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: it's a nice house, it's a very nice house, and
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: I'm glad they're letting me use it. Um. It's very
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: conveniently located. It's well stocked with food in the pantry.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: But the whole time I just felt kind of like,
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: like it just felt a little uncomfortable. I didn't feel
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: quite at home because like I hadn't set these places
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: up and I wasn't doing it quite the way I
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: do it usually, and uh, like I didn't have control
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: over the situation, and that still made me feel uncomfortable. Um.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: At the same time, though, I was like recognizing, like
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: I get why people like to go to Airbnb's. You know,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: I can see that it's nice to have a place
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: like this that you wouldn't have access to otherwise. And
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: it's nice to be able to go somewhere and see
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer, and it's nice to have a
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: chance to experience these things that you hear about. Um.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: And I recognized that most people don't have as much
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: time as I have to put into doing all this
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff myself. UM, So so I could I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: could see why, you know, it's an appealing thing and
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: why you know, Tom brings a lot of value to
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: a lot of people because of that. So that was
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: kind of like my midway through the hunt. I was
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: starting to see that side of things too. Now I'm
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: going to kind of fast forward through the next two hunts,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: two days worth the hunts, because I hate to say it,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: but we kind of peaked on night number three. I'll
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: just kind of I'll just give you the give you
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: the headline right there. We peaked shooters at twenty yards
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and don't get a shot off. It's kind of hard
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: to top that again because that is that's a feed
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: in itself, especially as late in the season as we
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: had it. It really is. And I remember thinking, like
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to say it out loud, but you know,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: you usually don't get more chances than that. You usually,
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: if you if you do everything right at a place,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: you know, on a hunt, on a trip, if you
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: get a shooter buck in range, it's usually like your
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: best chance, and it's gonna be hard to repeat it again.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: You get two of them in the same night, Like gosh,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: just gonna be hard to have that happen again so perfectly.
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: Now this is a special place. These are different kinds
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: of deer. So I remember telling myself, man, maybe this
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: is the kind of spot that magic can happen twice. Um.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: And so we had two more days to hunt, and
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: it was time to pull out all the stops. So
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: we decided to start hunting mornings. So we found some
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: different betting locations that were farther away from this food
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: source than I thought. Man, if we hunt these spots,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: we might be hunting different deer and we might you know,
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: not mess up our evening location. Temperatures got real cold again. Um.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: The first morning it was like negative for something. It
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't as bad. I didn't see hardly anything. Saw one
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: little buck in one dope before shooting light. That next
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: night or that night, we tried to adjust our set
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: up on the standing corn further down so that we
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: could intercept these deer when they came to the corner
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: before they went into the standing corn. But we tried
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: the pop up blind trick there, and that day the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: deer weren't buying it. For whatever reason. The pop up blind,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: they're kind of got deer uncomfortable. And then when they
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: eventually did get down wind in certain locations, those deer
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: got wiggy. And so several times throughout the night we
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: had Dear Good uncome infortable and kind of bust up
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: the bait fish pile. Um, the bait fish ball what
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to say. So then day five we go
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: hunt another bedding year in the morning. It's like negative
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: twenty that day, very cold day on stand and that
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: was a cold one. Got in there super early too,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: because this is a spot like I really wanted to
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: get into. This seemed like an absolute dynamite betting point
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: way back in there. Um we got in there an
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: hour and a half before daylight, and I thought, man,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go for it, and we did, and we
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: froze our tails off and just saw some does. So
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: then it's the last hunt last night. I'm knowing these
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: bucks are coming to the standing corn, but like, how
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: can we get to a spot where we can intercept
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: these deer when they come from the other side, Because
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: it seemed like all the bucks we saw were coming
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: from the other side of the hill, coming over the field,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: then dropping down to us. And so I knew I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: wanted to be down on the south uh southwest corner,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: but you know, doing what the pop up blind wasn't working,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: and so I thought, Okay, let's get rid of everything
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: that has made deer uncomfortable. So let's go Let's get
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: that office chair that we put underneath that one blind,
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: Let's hide that again. Let's tear down the pop up
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: blind again. Let's take that out of here. Let's remove everything,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: and let's set up with my sticks and saddles in
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: a tree down in this corner and see if we
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: can hunt this location without the deer wigging out. The
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: night before and when you told me this plan, I
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: was like, you really thought of everything here here, You're
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: covering all your basis. Well, I just really wanted to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: work out I really, I really thought, man, there was
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: still a ton of deer hitting this food source. They
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: were all focusing in this little area. Um. You know.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: We did consider like should we go to the other
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: side of the field and try to guess where they're
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: popping out? Like should we set up closer to the
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: bedding and try to guess where they're coming out of that?
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: But it just seemed like, man, there's a million places
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: they could bet over there. We don't have any intelligence
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: on that specifically, we didn't have more days to observe
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and then make an adjustment. I just I felt like
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: there was a great chance we'd go over there and
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: see the bucks come out, but you know, we'd have
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: like a one and ten chance of picking the right
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: trail that they come out on. So I just felt
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: more comfortable having seen what the deer were doing at
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: the food with my own eyes, that I could pick
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: the right location. And so there was one tree we
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: could get in that spot. It was a bitch of
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: a tree to get in. We had a heav time,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: but we got up in it, and uh, the story
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: of that night was that it worked mostly in that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: tons of deer came out and the deer didn't spot
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: us up in that tree because we picked a tree
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: that had good cover. We got up high, we were
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: well positioned. So we we beat their eyes that night
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: like we did not do the day before, and we
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: beat their noses like we couldn't the night before. We
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: you know, we got super high. So I thought, was okay,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: the winds a little better today, we'll hopefully blow over
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: some of these deer. I use a lot of it
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: was jammer, and I used the ozonics machine that night too,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: and I think between all those things we were able
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: to get away with it. So we beat him. We
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: beat their noses, We beat their eyes. We were in
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: the right position. The temperature was super duper cold, it's
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: really high bare metric pressure. It just seemed like this
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: is it. And you know, as the deer were filing out,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: I mean they started early. It was, you know, two
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: hours at least two hours before daylight, and deer were
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: the dear prey was going on. Um. But unfortunately shooter
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: bucks never showed up by us. We did see in
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: the last like twenty minutes or something, two decent bucks
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: did come over that came out on the other side
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: of the field, and one of them was a buck
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: that we knew for sure we couldn't shoot because he
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: had a busted main beam on one side, and they
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: knew that was a buck that Tom had specifically shown
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: us pictures of him, said that that's when he wants
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to make it. And the other one, you know, I
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: don't know if that was a shooter or not. It was, Yeah,
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: it was like it would have been a tough one
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: to pass on the last night of the season, right, Yeah,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: I think he he would have been one of those
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: deer that was like, he's an eight pointer that probably
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a whole lot going on from an antler perspective, Um,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: that was probably mature, and so I think that was
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: one thing we'd be okay taking. So if you would
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: have come out in our direction, I probably you know,
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: if I could have got a better eye on him
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: and confirmed my thoughts. He was when I was thinking
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: that I'd take a crack app but they came out
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: on the other side and he end up chasing some
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: does over there and running way off the other direction,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: and then you know, that was that was basically the night.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: We saw tons of deer, but yeah, they didn't quite
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: do what we needed the right buck didn't quite do
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: what we needed him. That was a hunt man, Yeah,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: and that was I mean, that was a blast. It
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: was a great way to wrap things up to to actually,
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: you know, at least be in deer the last night
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and feel like you were in the game till the
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: very end. Yeah, exactly. And you know, I felt good
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: about the fact that, you know, we tried a couple
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: of different variations on hunting this little patch, we figured
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: out the spot that would work really well, and you know,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: they didn't show up that night, but it was it
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: was still like a small, a little, tiny, small victory.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: Um and you know, it showed to me that you know,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: these things aren't guaranteed outfitted hunts, you know, are not
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: a shoeing that it's it's still hunting in a lot
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: of ways. You know. Um I I would tell you that,
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: like Tom, a lot of my enjoyment comes from everything
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: that leads up to the hunt. You know, he talked
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: about the fact that he doesn't shoot deer himself anymore,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: but he's still studying the trail cameras and hanging the
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: cameras and putting up sets and putting food plots and
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: doing all the you know, all the different work throughout
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: the year. Like that's his fun and and that's definitely
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: for me a lot of it too. And so I
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: missed that, Like I missed what I love so much
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: about hunting some of the farmland stuff and hunt in
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: the Midwest is the fact that I got to have,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: you know, the summer and the scouting and the trail
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: camera work, and I got to maybe do some habitat improvement,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: or I got to set up trees, or I got
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: to pick out these things. Like all that puzzle work
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: is is really my favorite thing. So I missed that.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: I missed not being able to do that. But you know,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: from like a simple type one fun of going somewhere
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: and getting to see a lot of deer and you know,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: learning some stuff about how people do it in different places.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Like it was. It was super fun from that perspective.
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: So do you think, like looking forward, would it have
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: to be a kind of a similar situation to this
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: to do another outfitted hunt or you know, is this
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: something that you're just gonna kind of, you know, maybe
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: pass on in the future. You know. I I don't
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: want to say never, because who knows, maybe there'll be
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: something like this where there's a person or a story
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: or an experience I want to explore. Um. But I
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: don't see me doing an outfit hunt again. Um. And
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: and I say that in no way because of like
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: my experience there with Tom, because like the setup he
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: has it is incredible, really really nice people, I mean,
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: great experience, and I can I'd recommend you know, this
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: place to anyone who wants to try hunt like this.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: My my dad was saying like maybe I want to
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: do something like that when I was explaining to him,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, this would be perfect for you. Um,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: you love it. Um. So this is in no way
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: a negative comment about Tom's outfit there. It's just that
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: I think that I really get a lot of my
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: enjoyment out of like the type two stuff that leads
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: to the fun eventually, and and I think that's more
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: of what I want to keep going for. So I'm
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: glad I did it, though, like I'm glad I experienced it.
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I got to meet Tom and see how
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: he does does things and pick his brain, and UM,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: super glad that I got to see that and experience it.
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: And UM, you know, I think coming out of it,
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: two big things stand out other than like all the
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: tactical stuff we talked about, but more experientially, two things
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: stand out. Number One, you know, Tom's just we we
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: mentioned this already, but just his his love, like his
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: deep seated passion for this stuff just comes through so clearly.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: He is just obsessed with these critters. And I think
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: what makes it so cool to me is that he's
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: not shooting these deer himself. Ever, He's not spending hundreds
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: of hours studying trail cameras, and I mean he studies
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: them NonStop. It seems like every single time you go
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: into there, he's in there. Looking at pictures. He just
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: loves it so much. And he's out there watching these deer,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: filming them at nights in the summer, scouting shed hunting,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: doing all this work and he's not doing it to
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: post a picture on Instagram and tell people the great hunter.
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: That was also, you know, just crazy for me because
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, there's so many names in this industry
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: that it's so ego driven, and people want to do
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of this research and stuff just so they
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: can almost like put their patent on it. Right, I
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: figured this out. This is the way it works, this
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: is what you have to do. And Tom comes at
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: it from just such a stance of curiosity that he
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: literally just wants to figure them out for it for
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: his own amusement, you know, his own enjoyment. And he's
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: not trying to put a spin on and of hey,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: this is the way it has to be done. This,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I figured this out. It's he just enjoys it. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: And that was just like that was so impressive to
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: me and refreshing and and it just it just came
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: out of this thinking so highly of Tom because of that.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: The second thing that really stood up to me and
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: this is an aspect of like this kind of outfitted
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: hunting experience that I did not expect or wasn't thinking
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: of at all. But you know, we got to meet
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of other people there camp. There was other
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: hunters in camp. There was guys like we're just like
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: coming in to help out um, and everyone we talked
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: to talked about the fact that it's it's such a
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: community that's been built there. Like everyone that hunts there
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: now is buddies. Everyone there like is almost like family.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: It's a very very you know, very community based kind
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: of experience, which is pretty cool considering you know, he
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: was one of the first outfitters to do it, and
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: you know, so many other places don't have that feel
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: of you know, returning guests every year and everybody being
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: a family. So for this place to be one of
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: the first and still be this way where it's not
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: just profit driven it's about you know, a community and
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: a sense of family, is pretty darn cool. I think, Yeah,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's the big thing is you know,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: he said, mostly everyone that comes now is a long
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: time repeat guests. They don't advertise, they don't try to
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: get new people. It's just basically the people have been
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: coming forever that keep coming. They just keep coming. So
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: now it's it's like a group of hunting buddies that
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: just gets together at different points in the season and
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: they all come together and they eat, you know, lunch together,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and they eat dinner together, and they tell stories and
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: they look at pictures and they watch videos, and they
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: go down there and shoot pool and and it's it's
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: really about that for a lot of these guys. I
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: think a lot of people love to go there and hunt,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: and they know that Tom's got a great area and
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: there's great deer um. But there's numerous people they told
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: us about, including a guy there, Dave, who was there
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: for a few days, who you know, he's technically a
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: paying customer, but he comes down in the spring, in
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: the summer, in the fall just to help. He's out
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: there like blowing off the driveway, he's out there helping
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: hang stands, he's doing all these things because because this
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: community of folks that started out as outfitted paying clients
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: have now become a part of this extended family um.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: And and that's something that I just thought was really interesting.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: It was cool to see and I can kind of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: understand the appeal of that for for people that maybe
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: don't have a tight group of hunting buddies already, or
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: that don't come from like a family who did this
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: or community that does this. Like I can very much
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: see how being able to go to one of these
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: camps like this right away can give you a headstart
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: on on you know, emerging yourself in a community of
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: like minded people that have a passion for this that
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: can teach you things that. Um, I could really like that.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: That surprised me. That was interesting to me. And and
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: I can just see the love for this place and
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: in each other that you know is in this camp,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: So that that was a big thing for me too.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, man, that was That's where I
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: was at coming out of this. I thought, I thought,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: Tom obviously knows what he's doing. He's super passionate about it.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: Was was very interesting and surprising how we did some
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: of it. I thought it was a cool property. I
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: enjoyed seeing the deer. Was really impressed with that community aspect. UM.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: I like the fact that Tom really just kind of
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: he gave us the tools, but and he give us
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: the access, but then he kind of just let us
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: do what ever wanted. I appreciated that. That was surprising me,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: and I was very very thankful of that too. It
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't here's where you're gonna sit, here's the way you
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: gotta do it. It was kind of, hey, this is
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: what you make it. Yeah, I was. I was very
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: worried about that too leading into it, like are they
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: gonna hand hold us or not? Let us kind of
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: do our own thing, And so I thought that was
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: super cool, and um, you know, overall, a really positive
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: experience him. We didn't kill anything. But as I've learned
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: on this this whole season, it's it's it's a lot
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: more about the process than it is about the end result.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: And while this was a different process, this wasn't the
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: kind of process I've had in other places. It was
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: still a cool learning experience and it was still a
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: great peek behind the curtains of a really interesting way
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: of doing things, an interesting person, and um, in short,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: you know, just another expression of the crazy things we
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: do because we love white tails. That's right. So any
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: final thoughts from you, Dylan or should we uh should
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: we wrap this segment up and then get Tom on here? Um?
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: I think get Tom on here get his expertise. I mean,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just I just want to express how grateful I
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: was to be along for this, because this is a
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: dream come true. It's a very full circle trip for me,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: so it was awesome to be along for it. Well,
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: I'm glad you were. You've been a great addition to
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: the team, my friend. I've always felt really confident when
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: you were out there with me. I knew you'd be
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: able to handle yourself well, get some great footage and
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: and not screw up the hunt. So kudus, kudos to you, buddy.
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: Right on. Man, all right, let's take a break here
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: and then I'll go Tom on to uh discuss some
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: of these things in more detail. Okay, Now with me
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: is the man himself, Tom Injurbro. Tom, thank you so
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: much for being here with me. Oh it's a pleasure. Yeah,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I really, I really enjoyed our time down there with you. Uh,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: I guess so we can have two weeks ago and uh,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: you know, Dylan and I just finished a conversation in
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: which I kind of talked through day by day, what
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: we did, what we saw, you know, some of the
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: things we were asking you about. But I wan to
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: get you on here to give me the real story
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: straight from straight from you, rather than me trying to
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: recount everything. So, um, I guess if you're up for it, Tim,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I want to rewind the tape way back to the beginning,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: because you know, one of the things that both Dylan
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: and I agreed on, and really why I was so
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: excited to come down there and meet with you this
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: year was your early impact on deer and deer hunting
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: and really where we're at now, so much of that,
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: A lot of that began with you know, some of
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the work and some of the videos and some of
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: the influence you had back in the eighties and nineties.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: So can you just can you tell me that story again?
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: Can you tell me how you ended up in Buffalo County,
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: how you ended up filming deer and and then eventually
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: managing and helping other people hunt them. Where did that begin? Oh? Well,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: I guess it was love of actually guess after uh
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: in the sixties, getting out of the navy. Of them
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: in the navy for four years, and they came back,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: went back to college for a while, and I kind
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: of got lost in the hills down here knowing that
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: big boxers showing up and coming out about can here.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: But we were kind of the first bowl hunters in here.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: Back at that time, there wasn't not much written on
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: whitetail deer, and so we kind of had to just
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: learning on our own. We I just couldn't get enough
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: in the hills and hunting in the fall, so I
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: tried to spend as much time down here as I could.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: And as time progressed, h you know, other people caught
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: onto the the potential in the area here and and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: it took off from there and we ended up years
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: later started losing at that. When we started out, we
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: could hunt on any farm, all farmers that welcome you there.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: They were eating up their crops and they wanted to,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: you know, get rid of them as they could. So anyway,
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: we we uh had kind of the run of the
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: place for years. And then and then I started catching
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: on and what was here for bucks? And and we
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: started filming deer and we were trying to shoot big ones,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: and it got to be kind of a passionate when
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: the partner of hunting was who could get the biggest
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: one on film every year? If we weren't true and
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: then we always we didn't want it. We loved our
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: time in the woods so much that, uh, we didn't
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: want to use our tag up. So even if we'd
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: probably been counter hundering for the ends deer, I still
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: had a day left the hunt. We'd probably passed them
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: in film because I said I still had one more day. Yeah.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: It was this love of love of hunting and you know,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: they're enjoying nature. And that's why I started filming dere
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: and that just kind of grew from there. As years
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: went by, we started losing land, the leasing and stuff,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: and and I realized that if we if I didn't
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: buy a farm or something down here in place to
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: hunt out, what's going to have a place to hunt.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: So I ended up buying this, I said tonox and
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: was the intention of hunting. And now I've been in
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: there thirty years. And the first year I was here,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: I was trying to figure out how to pay for it,
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: because I I wouldn't know what money I was spending
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: most of my time money and uh anyway, I was
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: asked by a local taxi river uh shot, that if
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: I take some guys hunting that year, and which I did,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: and I enjoyed it. A company and stuff and and
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: it took off on me, and I just think it
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: was kind of by accident that I got it. No outfitting,
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: but it was it was the fun of it allowed
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: me the time to be in the woods every day
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: and in film deer and studied deer, and that's just
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: kind of part right from there and grew and I
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: got to spend full time hunting deer year round, getting
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: set up for hunters to come. And I as what
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: enjoyed was you know, the studying deer and trying to
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: figure them out. And it was the challenge of it,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: I think that And if I could put a hunter
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: on a good buck, it was just a feather in
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: my hat, you know. It was exciting for me, you know,
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: as if I was going to shoot it. So I didn't.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: That's all it all came about. And ended up buying
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: a farm here, and the outfit anything took all off
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: on me, and it just allowed me, h time, more
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: time to spend you know, studying deer, hunting deer and
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: film them in the summers, you know, and when they're
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: on their summer feed. And and I actually started with
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: when I first started hunting down here, video cameras just
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: came out and uh my my brother in law bought
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: a VHS camera at the time and were just all
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: new one the market to take that downer and fill
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: some of the big bucks, and which I did, and
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: at the end of the year, I had a lot
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: of photos of hours and hours of it, and I
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: kind of so I'm always going to sit and watch
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: all this, So I kind of took the highlights and
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: copied them over onto the tape, and and the tape ax.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: I gave it to the neighbors that which were basically,
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: you know, the meat hunters are like we used to
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: hunt the earth back in the day, and and they
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: only hunted the farmers only hunted opening weekend usually with
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: their relatives and stuff. So I gave them a copy
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: of this tape. But it was boxed in there that
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: we were grunting in and and bucks that they were
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: shooting that year, and they were pretty excited about seeing that,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: and it was a whole new aspect of hunting kind
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: of form. So they showed it to their all the
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: relatives are hunting, you know, they're hunting gang, and they
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: showed it to their friends and they all started calling
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: me and wanted a copy of this tape and and
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: ended up I had six hundred calls on the wanted
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: wanting this copy of this table. At the time, uh,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: you know, editing and stuff was kind of an infancy,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: and I ended up I tried, couldn't find a place to,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: you know, at the time, to get him copied over.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: So I ended up buying six at old VHS players
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: copying them over, and at home did five at a time,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: and and then from there I got a call from
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: Robert Manning, which was q d M was just kind
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: of getting started at the time, and their advisory board
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: was the thirteen biologists and the different universities that had
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: dear study programs. It was James Crowle from Texas and
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: Harry Jacobson's Mississippi, David Gwen from Clemson, and the Robert
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: Manning was the chairman of the board for the new
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: organizations started up. And they asked me if I could
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: send a copy of this tape to those thirteen biologists.
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: And basically all it was was my year of hunting
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: and what I saw, and they all looked at the tape.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: They were having a meeting in Atlanta for the organization
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and and they were in the process of doing a
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: video tape to promote their organization, and after the meeting
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: invited me down there. I didn't actually go on, but
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: they after the meeting they called me and asked me
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: if they could use my tape and and they would
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: fly up here and do a three minute blurk about
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: their organization at the end of the tape, and that
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: you could do this anywhere and that, and that's kind
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: of how it all took off on me. And uh,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: you know, one thing, I do another and the first
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: so I had this tape anyway I they had. I
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: had to go in and re edit it because back
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: in the day, every time you copied it over you
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: lost the generation and quality, and so I had to
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: get all the original footage and redo it. So they
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: paid me to go. I went to a public TV
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: station it goes down to ten at night and opened
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: a date in the morning. I'd work all night, and
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: I worked about a month on it and put it
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: all back together again and put there in their little
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: burp in it about their organization. And then they sent
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: it out to all their members that would join them.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: So that kind of was took off. And and uh
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: back the first you know, at the time, there was
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: really nothing out there. There wasn't no Old Door Channel
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: or any other hunting. The first shows that were on
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: on hunting and white tails was Jackie Bushman was on
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: TNN and he came and hunted with me here and
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: he held up the tape. And that's what I really
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: realized what national advertising was because my phone ranking off
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: the hawk steady for three days straight until you know,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: from five in the morning until midnight, and it was
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: it was crazy. So it took off on me. But
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: it was all by accident. It wasn't that I planned
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: on making a tape or doing anything. And the same
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: as my own plating business. So when I got this place,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: I I thought, well, I know what I liked in
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: a white tail hunt, and every year I would make
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: a list of what would make the hunting better for
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: all clients that came in and make my life easier,
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: basically make it more efficient. So we would we would
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: make a list and prioritizes and have the do the
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: every year. I had to do the things that would
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: were the biggest issues that would make it easier and
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: more efficient than and then all took off from there.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: I I thought at the time too, that maybe you know,
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: how am I going to get poping young bucks for
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: these hunters? And it's hard enough for me to try
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: to shoot one myself. And uh so anyway, but I
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: didn't realize the time, but by having hunters and when
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: I had in the follow during the rut, but if
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: I had twelve guys in the woods on stands, I
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: set up an approach. You get them into a certain
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: approaches and stuff. I was learning it, you know, twelve
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: friends as fast as if I was just doing it
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: on my own, because I'd be sitting in one spot
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: versus twelve, you know. And it really taught me, you
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: know past I mean it was like you you saw
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: trends and things and and that's how it kind of
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: all began. And so here we are down the road,
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm loving it as much as ever around cameras now.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: And you know, of course, everybody you know over the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: years has progressed to a point where it's it's uh,
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: it's still a real fun for me. But was and
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: I don't think i'd be doing it. But the challenge
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: of hunting older bucks is this fun because they're a
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: different animal than you know, two or three year old deer.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: So once they get AIDS on them, they they live
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: a different lifestyle, which is it is the fun part
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: about trying to figure them out. So I love, I
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: love that you still have that same genuine passion for
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: I mean that came through so clearly to me spending
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: that time down there with you that you are just
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: as eight up with this stuff now as you were
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: thirty five years ago or whatever it was when these
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: things began. Um, But I'm curious, Tom, you know you
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: you you had this videotape that you just were trying
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: to share the neighbors, and then it ended up exploding
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: and spreading around the country. All these people watched these videos, um,
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: seeing what you're doing, seeing the deer you were passing on,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: seeing what was possible. Then you started improving your own property,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: and you had clients coming down, and like you said,
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: there was folks and TV shows and folks and magazines
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: and all these different guys came down a hunted with you,
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: and they saw what you were doing and how you
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: were doing it. And so you had this massive network
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: of people that were either watching you or learning from
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: people that hunted with you and learned from you. And
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: all these folks now are picking up on the things
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: that you in many ways started or popularized. How does
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: it How does it make you feel when you hear
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: about that impact that you had and how many people
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: have come to hunting or learned about hunting from you
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: in some way? What does that bring to mind for you?
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: How do you feel about that? You know, it isn't
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I guess it. I guess
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: I don't look at it as any big deal. Really,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: it's that It's just I just feel pretty humble about
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, it was just a passion of trying to
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: learn about something that then I still have, I guess
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: because you never really mastered on a white tailor or
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: the hardest big game animal or is to uh, you
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: know that we ever achieved any now. And I realized
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: that over what I learned from my hunters too was
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: good because there's some good hunters that have come through here,
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: and just about everybody in the industry hunted here, you know,
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: sometimes one time or another. But the people you met,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: and and I don't really feel like it's it was
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: just something I enjoyed doing, and and it this is
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: what it is that is that all developed, you know,
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: it's likely. I guess if you spend enough time at anything,
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: I guess I feel blessed that I was a lot
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: of the time to spend that at which I still do.
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: You know something right now after season here and I
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: I've spent the last month to running cameras, getting a
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: new inventory of what there are left out there. And
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: as they say, final shid yesterday, if I saw the deer,
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: I saw him out of the house, commanu was once
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I gone, and knowing the deer very well. And when
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: I'm checked my cameras and there's orm light there yesterday,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: so he I know, I knew was the day he
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: said last year, and I know the day said this year.
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: He's about two weeks earlier this year. A lot of
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: times they said just about the same day every year.
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: But to be able to have the time to do that,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I've been. You know, if you
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: really feel blessed about that, that it's all evolved into that.
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: So it is your own job for me kind of
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: that I enjoy doing. Now, what about what about the
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: impact you felt? So so tell me if this is
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: true or not. But my reading of the situation is
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: that you know, in the years after that videotape caught fire,
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: and in the years after you started outfitting, you know,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: more and more people in Buffalo County started practicing some
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: form of deer management, some kind of habitat management. And
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: the same thing happened across the Midwest right to the
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: point where we are today, where it's one of the
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: main ways that people participating hunting is managing the property
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: for deer quality. Deer management pretty prevalent in one form
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: or another. So this thing that was kind of a
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: little idea thirty years ago is now almost everywhere. What
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: have been the would have been the pros and cons
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: of that for you personally in your little neck of
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: the woods. Have you seen things change? Have you seen
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: the neighborhood change? Has been good? Has it been bad?
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: What's what's that looked like in your experience? Well, I
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: you know, looking at the whole picture of it, I
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: mean back when we started hunting, and back high school
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: and back where everybody went up north funning because it
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: was the North Woods had been logged off, and back
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: in the fifties and sixties and even before that that
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: was where over there were the Midwest here, Um, you know,
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: hunting was basically family groups that did your drives and
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: and shot there for meat. And I guess the enjoying
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: the hunting tool, and there was the hunting camps up
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: north and stuff do management. I think a lot of
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: people had the wrong I had the wrong idea on it.
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: As far as all people on big horns or something,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: it isn't really about the horns at all for me
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: at all. It's just it's about a mature animal that
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: is wiser, and it's just a challenge of going after
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: and not just seeing something run across the field shooting it,
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: you know, it was like following him and watching him
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: from your year what and learning about his lifestyle kind of.
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: I think overall impact, I mean a lot of people
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: were really against you them because they they basically enjoyed
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: what they were doing and shooting any deer or whatever,
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: you know. And of course they only spent Most people
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: were busy with their jobs and their lifestyles which they
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: only had a weekend or two to get out there
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: in the year. They did couldn't have the time to
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: spend in the woods to you know, so what if
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: they weren't used to seeing a lot of deer, just
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: that one or two days year maybe you know. And
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: and the impact I mean not that there. People nobody
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: likes to change. People are big creatures I have, but
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: in a way too so they don't like to change
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: any thing in their life style. But you know, as
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: far as how much it caught on around all over
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: the country, you can really see that and what's harvested
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: every year now for age class deer or what people
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: are doing that, I mean, it's they must of them
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: come through here. All the big ones shot around Canada
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: or the US every year come here. My son works
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: with the closely brack and they you know, and paints
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: hand oil, paints these antlers off the original they do,
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: you know, replicas of especially the world class deer that
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: are shot every year around the country. So I get
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 1: to see all those and stuff. But I mean the
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: amounted deer. There was never any numbers of deer shot
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: years ago like there is now that are you know,
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: all are huge deer two hundred deer plus and you
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: never saw that years ago. Too much one here and there,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: you know. No, I don't know impact on you know,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: it's just up to people what they what they get
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: out of it or what they like They what they
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: like out of their hunting or whatever. It's important for
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: me and has been for years for young hunters to
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: shoot their first deer, that's probably the most memorable hunt
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: they'll ever have in their lifetime. And I had too
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: young twin girls shoot their first deer here this year
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: the Cross Bowl and they're they're nine years old and
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: they the satisfaction I got as watson them was just tremendous.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: And so it is all about, you know, big handler
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: dear for everybody's I hunted over the years or thirty years,
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: most you know, we shot just whatever. I uh, first
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: time hunters. I've probably had a hundred of them in
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: here the shot their first here that that was probably
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: the most exciting thing they'll ever have in their life,
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: you know. So I guess, I guess impact on the
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: area here and stuff it It definitely is a big
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: impact because land prices one out of site. It's that's
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: a I guess that I don't know if that's good
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: or bad or whatever. They came in and brought up
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: land for honey. It did allow you know, landowners or
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: farmers and stuff to sell off these of Atlanta and
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: it really increased the value of their properties for them.
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: But then then also taxes go up because of that.
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: It's you know, there's it's a catch twenty two kind
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: of all the way around when you look at it,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: for as that aspect that a lot of people can't
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: afford to you know, by land, especially for you know
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: in certain areas where it has gone on a site
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: like that. Um and I say, taxes go up as
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: land prices go up. Also, so the people who are
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: forced to sell off pieces of the small problem of farmers,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: especially sell off of woodland or something that they didn't
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: really use anyway, you know, they to be able to
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: keep their family farms stuff. And it's everywhere you go.
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, when when it gets more people in the world,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: there's more in demand for things, and and there's so
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: many things that cost that even crop prices or anything.
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: You know, you can see that in a in Iowa
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: if you look at over the years where land prices
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: have gone, the price of corn goes off, the price
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: of land coach away up and everything. So it's a
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of ways to look at it, but
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: it's I don't know, it's been just a fun time
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: for me for really being able to spend the time
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: at it, you know, and follow these deer and learn
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: about them. And and I've been here thirty years and
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: I have not shot a deer in my offen thirty
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: year or so. That's pretty that's pretty crazy when they
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: think about it. So why why is that? I wondered
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: about that? That shocks me. You've been in arguably the
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: best place to hunt deer in the world, quite possibly,
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: or one of the very best at least, and you
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: love this thing more than almost anyone. You're ate up
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: by it. But you've chosen not to kill a deer
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: in thirty some years. Why, well, I get, I guess
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: was the hunters I have in here? You know, Uh,
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: this year we got we shot fourteen pop and young
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: bucks that were twelve or more. And uh, for me
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: to get a mature deer like that. And once you
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: get over get over the hump of getting age on
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: deer in your area, you can shoot you know, big
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: deer like that every year. It basically common sense to say, well,
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: if I don't shoot him at one or two or
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: three years old, he's going to be there at four
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: or a great percentage of them will be. So we'll
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: just shoot the four year olds, and but if you
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: shoot them all off every year before they get to
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: that age and never have there like that, Um I
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: I I get my satisfaction out of being able to
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: learn from every year. And it just kind of cast
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: my too, because I follow some of these bucks. I
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: follow some of them up over ten years old every year,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: and and every time I see him and learn a
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: little bit more about him, I realized that, you know,
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: such a small percentage ever get that age, because there's
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: there's so many ways that they die from infections or
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: hit by cars or you know, fight and they get it. Uh,
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: there's just a small percentage that ever get that old.
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: But when they when they do get shot, it's like, well,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a anticlimatic for me because you know,
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: you get you've in so much time with idea for
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: many years, and you know where he lived, what he
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: does or whatever. But realizing that they're at the end
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: of their their lifestyle. And that's why I realized that
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: there they're they're gonna be dead anyway in a year
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: or so. So it isn't it isn't. It doesn't affect
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: me so too much. Like some people ask me that, oh,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: what do you feel about that when he gets out, Well,
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: it isn't there. They're a commodity like raising the crop,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: you know, and it's like a farmer raising cattle or
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: beef cattle or butcher in them for the you know,
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: the meat and whatever. You know that. I mean, it's
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: it's really no different. You're almost just you're raising I
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: look at it like this raising cattle in a way.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: You know, you're you just kind of target certain ones.
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: And there's there's I would say eight percent of the
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: deer out there never are trophy potential. They may may
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: get one fifty and at the tops and stay there
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: with this beautiful box, but there they're never going to be,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: you know, a monster buck or whatever. So probably should
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: be shot at a younger age. For the genetics, you
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: do what you look at these game farms that are
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: raised deer and they got two deer their first reacts
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: and all, and there's it's all genetics and less stress
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: and whatever. We're there in the wild, they're stressed all
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: the time. Basically we have we have a lot of
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: predators here, basically kyles and and bobcasts and there's like
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: they're wolf on once in a while in this area.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: But I mean in certain areas that they're they're constantly
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: stressed for their life, so they don't they never have.
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: That's a big as far as growth wise on a
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: deer that keeps them, you know, not like these deer
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: that are not stressed on game farms and the genetic
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: lines on them. But the genetics are here and there
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: are in a lot of areas that I I've seen
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: over the years or around the country, it's producing big
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: deer and all once they started doing you know, q
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: d M and getting some age on them, there there's
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: a good genetics most all over, you know. So this
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: this kind of brings to mind one of the a
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: popular critique on deer management, which is when when some
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: people hear stuff like, you know, managing deer like like
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: a hearticle, it's like you're managing cattle. You're harvesting these deer,
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: you're selectively kind of choosing which ones make it to
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: older age classes. You're kind of nurturing them along. Some
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: people look at this and they say, well, you're taking
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: the wildness out of hunting, You're taking the difficulty out
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: of hunting. You know, this isn't really quote unquote hunting anymore.
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: That is that's a critique that sometimes gets thrown at
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: this style a way of experiencing deer hunting. What do
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: you what's your take on that? Is that rubbish? Do you?
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: What do you think on that? Well, you know, I
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: don't think you know, I guess I guess the probably
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: is how you look at it. I mean, it's to me,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: it's it's just more of a challenge. Is the harder
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: thing to to achieve to get uh a deer with
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: age on it there, they're much more there there. It
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: Actually it's a harder hunt because you you there's so
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: many things that there are different animal and they have
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: learned over the years that that's how they survived. So
• 1:46:35
  Speaker 1: um it it's fun. I mean, and it doesn't I
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: guess if you look at it's not for everybody. Probably
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: that once they're culture. If they want to go on
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: on a weekend and shoot a deer, that's you know,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: especially you know, that's up to it's an each individual
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: and if they don't have time to spend out there,
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: you know and really see nature how it is all
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: these Uh that was the thing with archery hunting versus
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: gun hunting, where uh it allows you that you have
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: to be close to it there, you know, and get
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: you get to watch them more and and see the reaction,
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: and you you have to make your reactions in close range.
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: That's changed a little bit now with cross bowls and stuff,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: where they're more like rifles where you can just shoot
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: it when you see it out there somewhere. Used to
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: be they got to be within like twenty yards or
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: last or thirty yards, you know, to get close, and
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: you've got to see a lot of interaction and in
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: deer and family groups and bucks and you know, and
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: and then to make your move when they're close to you.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: Where I'd say probably of uh, you know, hunts that
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: went bad because they couldn't get away with any movement
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: or anything, whether they're that close to them because they
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: are so alert. But I don't know, you know, it's
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: something it's each individual what they want out of hunting,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: I guess, you know, And and I don't know if
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: there's a you know what quite The answer is there,
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: I guess is it's a personal thing to everybody that
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: does hunt, I guess, and all they want to or
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: what they want out of it, and what you put
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: into it is really what you get out of it,
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: you know, I guess that's oh, I guess that's sort
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: of Oh. I look at the more you put into something,
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: the more effort it is, and the more work you
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: do at it, the more meaning it has to you
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: in the end. You know. Yeah, Well, it's it's evident
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: watching you, the the investment you put into these these
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: places and animals that you hunt or help other people hunt.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's it's pretty apparent you you live for
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: this stuff. So why why don't shift a little bit
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: into that side of things and how you do that,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: what you're actually doing out there on the land. Um.
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I got the chance to right around with
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: you and do some scouting to check out the property,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: to see different parts of your farm. Um, I noticed
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: there were handful things that stood out to me. Is
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: is something that seemingly you find really valuable? But I'm curious.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: Rather than me putting my assumptions on you, I would
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: just like to know from your perspective, what do you
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: think have been the very most important habitat improvements you've
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: made over the years to make this property, this farm
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: what it is now. Well, I looked at it, but
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: he's agree logically and say, well, Okay, you're hunting an
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: animal that lives. He has his senses and he has
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: that's how he stays alive. Basically with this is sight, smell,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: and and and then there it's all about feed for
• 1:49:51
  Speaker 1: animals and and habitat of of where you know, security
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: where they can live and not get bothered basically and exists.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: And so I think, what I looked at that and
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: some of that stuff you when you you just you
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: observed sign and what deer were doing, and then you said,
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 1: well what could I do to make that better or whatever?
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: And one thing I noticed was like, uh, watering holes
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: or like I remember hunting area years ago and I'd
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: walk in on a log and road and there was
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: spots where the skids and top of skitters and you know,
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: dug holes, and and there were mud holes when it rained,
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: and there was peppered with deer tracks around them. I thought,
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: you know, water is a key, especially in country like
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: this where there's these high ridges and there's no water
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: on top. They gotta go all the way down the
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: bottom of the water. And I thought, well, if you
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: put in a little pond or a little watering hole,
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: even just a mud hole, Uh, they could hold water.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: So we ended up putting in ponds and at little
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: ponds that were there with a small cat. We probably
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: dig them, push the top dirt off and then dig
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: the clay out, dig a little deeper and then just
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: making a you know, impression there and push the clay
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: back in, drive over with a cat, and and where
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: the spots we put them in, we learned quick that
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: you don't want to put them in any kind of
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: a drainage or wash or anything. You want to almost
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: put them in on a flat or just off the
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: hillside a little bit. And the other thing was were
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: the deer for their senses would be that they could
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: see around. They if they put them in down in
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: the hole or something, they were always literally going there
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: because they're down in the hole and for predators to
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: you know, come in on them or whatever. So they
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: like to be more open when they can see out.
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: And the other thing was putting them in and where
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: you have good oaks or good trees for shades, so
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: they didn't it was just rain water, so vote would
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: evaporate out. It was out in the middle of a
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: field or something musically hot spells, it all evaporated out
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: pretty fast. Where and then we just probably bulows in
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: a little fly above the pond to just to run
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: water into it when they did rain. So they're all
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: just you know, rainfill pond and most have been very
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: good and they worked out put them in um you know,
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: and then thinking well during the rout these bucks are
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: they're not feeding or anything, they're not interested in feed,
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: so they that they got a water so they'd end
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: up we put them in on these ridges where there
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: was big betting areas for those and put them in
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: just off the sides of them where they travels in
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: and out. For these bucks that come in during the
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: rout to get in there looking for a doll. But
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: invariably they go to that pond of water because and
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: we have a pond up on a hill area. We've
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: shot over off that pond when well it isn't we've
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: got a couple of years, we've got three off there
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: in in in a week. You know, there's different bucks
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: coming in there looking for those. So there's different bucks
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: there every day from maybe off the ways. They're not
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: not even a resident box that would come in there
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: trying to push out some those that are coming into
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: heat or check it out and they go to the pond.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: So that's why probably one of the big things feed is.
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: You know in this country, you know there there to
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: get used at certain things, like people adapt for food. Uh,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: you have likes and dislikes. And I noticed that we
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: used to go to Canada. I was to a Saskatchewan
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: shed hunt, and every year got up there and they
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: didn't have much feed anywhere in the winter. If there
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: were a stand in the wheatfield or whatever you're in
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: the area, was there, or they were all in the
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: feed lots at the at the ranchers. So they all
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: bunched up wherever there was feed. Well, they said, oh,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: you gotta plant sunflowers. They god, they just demolish those things.
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: And well I did, and it was all birds and
• 1:54:02
  Speaker 1: there was no dear because here they had so many
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: other good you know, much other good food to eat
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: like alfalfa, clover, acorns and and apples, and they got
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: everything else that they didn't touch. The sunflowers. The only
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: reason they ate them up there was the only feed
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: they had to eat, you know, So they that's why
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: they ended up there. But I'd look at things like
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: that and said, well, what what is the most important
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: thing and food is one which I'd leave soybeans. Every
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: year I leave fields so soybeans and and corn to corn.
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: I noticed it's more of a filler. I don't know
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: how they'll eat. They like grazing it off the ground,
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: but versus on the stock. The only reason I at
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: least standing fields around here and there Sometimes if we
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: get deep snow and ice storms, or they can still
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: get at it. It's a little harder for them to
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: eat the office of a cob hanging there. But the
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: beans are good year around. They eat the leaves off,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: and I film, you know, fashion groups of boxed in them,
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: and in July and August, and then they eat the
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: leaves off, and they'll eat every leaf off the whole field,
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: and the beans are still on there. And then in
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: the fall and now at the time, right now I
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: can look out there and poundered order under the bean
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: fields I haven't around my house. I'll have a hundred
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: deer in here wintering in the beans, and they'll usually
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: eat them out if you've got depending on how big
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: you heard is or how many jeer, and they'll come
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: from several miles away. The fine feet if it gets
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: you know, Spiarce in the winter if it like a
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: lot of farms take all the crops off so there
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: is nothing to eat. But uh and and and even
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: in winters. I found out that if you have a
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: mile winter here with these steep slopes and buffalo here,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: they melt off fairly easy. But it's twenty degrees they
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: saw slopes melt off and they get at you know, acorns.
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: If you had a good acorn cropper, they got browlers
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: they can eat. They'd rather eat that than standing corn
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: or something or ah. Even beans that they will be
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: on beans at night, but I mean during the day
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: they're browsing on and they'll they'll lose the natural browls
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: if they can get out of us sold I try
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: to fill in those gaps. You know what what is important?
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: Water is the key. Even one one interesting thing I
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: figured always on our ponds when we put them in,
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: thinking that yeah, there they're gonna use them during the
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: rut when they're dehydrated, their run steady, and they they
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: got a drink that they come in. But early in
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: the year in September October sometimes we'd have like a
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: long dry feller drought kind of and the ponds ithology
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: that there should be on those ponds steady, you know,
• 1:56:48
  Speaker 1: and they weren't. I'd sit those ponds and when't see nothing.
• 1:56:51
  Speaker 1: You finally figured out that early in September and October
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: it's usually at nine it gets real foggy at night
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: and and there's so much uh really didn't do on
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: on the plants on it. So they're getting there h
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: helf water off the plants. So it came down to
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: if it was windy or not. So if it was windy,
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: it would dry out the fell fulfill tos standing crops
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: and they wouldn't get any moisture off them, so they'd
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: have to go to the ponds. But if they didn't
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: if it was windy, it wasn't windy and it was
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: a real heavy do they get plenty of moisture just eating,
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: you know, with thelfelf our clover or something, and they
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: didn't have to go to the pond. So, uh, that
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: was kind of an eye opener for me. But I
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: started to watch the wind and and you could tell
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: when they were going to be on the ponds or not.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: So real quick on the pond topic, before going further,
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: can you can you give me a little bit more
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: detail on how to do those right, because I think
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: that was really one of the things thattood out to
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: me is just how many ponds you put in and
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: the care you put into those. You mentioned that you
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: like to put them on the ridges, You like to
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: use a you know, a doze or to carve out
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: a hole. You mentioned that you like to put them
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: back there, you know, near oaks off those points. But
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: can you give me any more specifics on how big,
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: how deep, what you use to line them, any mistakes
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: people used to make? Okay, so you first thing we
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: do I have we ended up actually is I had
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: die with a small cat that put in all my ponds,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: and I actually only guys call me and we go
• 1:58:34
  Speaker 1: and look at other areas and layout ponds for them
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: or to put them. The key to orders I look
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: at a like a ridge system or something, or where
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 1: there's big bedding areas off these you know, tops of
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: these ridges off just off the sides, and trying to
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: look at travel routes in and out of the ridge
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 1: is just all over the edges, a little bit off
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: the tops and not like I said, if there's a drainage,
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: if it's a valley or anything that drops you get
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: a heavy rain, it's gonna wash your pondo. So all
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: we put them in it would be taking place out
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: of the drainage, just upper ways on the side a
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: little bit and uh, you know, travel cord or in
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: and auto origin and then take a small cat, probably
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: dig him down. I say, you push off the Usually
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: this area has a lot of clay in it, and
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: usually we push off all of the like the leaves
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: and black dirt on top and which would be just loose,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: you know, fairly loose dirt and push that off. So
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: you hit the clay and push the clay out and
• 1:59:43
  Speaker 1: then probably dig that thing. You're probably done, i'd say,
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: probably end up down about six seven eight ft and
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: then you and then you don't don't have to be
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: a very big area. You just wanted big enough so
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 1: when you get rain in it, it's not can evaporate
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: out over the summer if you get a dry spell,
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: so you probably just probably then you push the clay
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: back in it and then drive over with a cat.
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: You just make like a bowl. Um and it's probably
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 1: only it's probably I don't know, at across maybe and
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: then my own maybe or however you are a put
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: it then it don't make any difference. Just those holes
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: enough water that it won't evaporate out in a dry spell,
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: you know, so they always have water, even if it
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: gets down to you know, an insu or two water
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: mud and stuff. They they'll be in their use. And
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: you know, then it gets to be like a gathering
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: spot form, you know where they always hang around those
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: spots because family groups are there all the time and
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: and there's always there at those spots. That's just I
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: As far as putting those ponds in there, I don't,
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: like I said, they're not, the only reason with the
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: trees around it is to keep it from evaporated and
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: to have a you are hunting that you want to get.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: I always look at the predominant wind on no things,
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: because yeah, that's always an issue. If it's always it's
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: the predominant winds are usually in the fall or north
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 1: northwest here, so we'd probably put them in over on
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: there on the leeward side of the ridge, you know,
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: on the south southeast side of the ridge, you know,
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: where the wind would come over the top and and
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: it would be more out of the window there too,
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: and there would be the reason that there would be
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: there he could send the whole ridge from there for
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: the north or north it's wind. The trees you look
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: at the I was looking at me where I got
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of fairly good, nice trees around it, maybe
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: on you know, the down wind side of the of
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: the pond when you put it in. So you gotta
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: play a good place, put a tree, stand in there,
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: and get hid in there where you can shoot the pond.
• 2:01:53
  Speaker 1: That's that's basically what I look for. And then put
• 2:01:57
  Speaker 1: the pond in accordingly to so you you said, and
• 2:02:01
  Speaker 1: the wind you know or you yep, that makes that
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense, uh, you speak of your ponds.
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: One of the things that I thought about as you're
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: discussing this was that first pond that you and me
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: went and looked at together. And I remember, you know,
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: kind of asking you some of these similar questions and
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: taking a look at that pond. But what stood out
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: around the pond was the fact that you had two
• 2:02:28
  Speaker 1: trail cameras point at the pond. You had two trail
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: cameras just thirty yards down the hill pointing at some beds,
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: and then another two trail cameras up the point on
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: different trails, and and I remember being just very surprised,
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: and Dylan and I were talking about this earlier. Just
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 1: at your your comprehensiveness when it comes to putting trail
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: cameras in you know, areas like this and covering a
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: lot of different angles and different spots. Can you give
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 1: me your take on on why you do that, on
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: how you think about placing cameras, like like, why was
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: that the spot that you wanted six or seven cameras?
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: And how do you go about thinking through that when
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: you set up other locations. Uh, what I first thing
• 2:03:10
  Speaker 1: I do is look at, uh what the deer doing
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: at what time of year? Those cameras we saw there
• 2:03:18
  Speaker 1: were basically put in there for late season in the snow.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: Uh And um, when I when I look at this
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: in cocate, So when I start out the year, I'll
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: put ah in the summer. They're in the bassard groups
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: on summer feet. So I'll place my cameras um along
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: a corner. I'll drive along the cornfield with the LFL
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: far or clover next to it, and I'll look at
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: where they're eating along the side of the cornfield, and
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: where I see some sign of where they're eating, I'll
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: stick a camera right in the lf off on the
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: edge of the corn, facing kind of down along the
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: corn edge. And and then I'll or I'll put it
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: out in the middle of the alfalfa field. If it's
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: got I have some three sixty cameras, it'll swing and
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: take a picture six different directions with whatever sensor is
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: triggered and put them out in the field. So you
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: because all those they are in groups and baschard groups
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: at that time, you can get just about every buck
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: it's using that on that camera in a week, and
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: so you know what's they're kind of UH as the
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: season for granted, I move those cameras once they leave
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: they make a transition, you know, from UH grazing into browsing,
• 2:04:39
  Speaker 1: and they'll go when once the acorns fall in the
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: apples fallen in the fall, and on October they move
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: their feed food source from what they eat in the summer,
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: they'll move back into UH browsing more. And then I
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: moved my cameras that they those big box relocate, they
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: leave their bachelord groups and they become more nurse name
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: back into the security spots and rubs show up. I'll
• 2:05:04
  Speaker 1: put my cameras on rubs in and scrapes that show
• 2:05:07
  Speaker 1: up and run them on that a while. And so
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: when we were when you were here late season, I'll
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: move them out there. Those ponds freeze over. I'll try
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: to keep them open as much as I can. Uh,
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: that one when to start freezing. But there that's still
• 2:05:26
  Speaker 1: that's a betting point and that's where they spend the winners.
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: And that that the point that it was right above
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: the pond there we went all to Jackson was dear
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: there when we drove up there, that ran off. Uh,
• 2:05:36
  Speaker 1: And I had cameras there right, so I have them,
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: um go, I faced some of the cameras towards each
• 2:05:45
  Speaker 1: other because I get there behind cameras that never get
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: in front of them. So I just learned that over
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: the years that h and the trails coming in and out,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: and there's certain dear use certain trails so they don't.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: I might have it on a trail twenty yards over
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: and not get them on and then they're using the
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: next trail over. So uh, that's why I have a
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: lot of cameras in certain spots like that. I put
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: them in bedding points and which was there where they
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: all the beds there and snow when we're up there.
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: And then so that time of the year, I moved
• 2:06:20
  Speaker 1: the other ones out to the food sources that I've left,
• 2:06:22
  Speaker 1: like the bean fields, and I up on top on
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: the other side there where you guys were hunting to
• 2:06:27
  Speaker 1: those turn ups up there, and they were pretty much
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: pounding those things. Uh, the crops themselves. Those turn ups especially,
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: you want to plant them late so they don't get
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: real big because you plan them. I always plan them
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: towards the end of August. Uh. If you put them
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: into early, they get big and they get sour and
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: they don't hit them as much as they would younger.
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: They like younger shoots on all their feet, even even
• 2:06:55
  Speaker 1: you know, off of clover or anything. It's if clover
• 2:06:58
  Speaker 1: gets olden stems. Oh, they don't like. They like the
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: new shoots as they come up and more tender food.
• 2:07:05
  Speaker 1: I guess more better easy. Uh. We certainly, like you said,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: we certainly saw the deer hammer and those turn ups
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: that you had there no doubt about that. Um. And
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: that was another spot where, like you said, you had
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: multiple cameras set up all around that plot to catch
• 2:07:23
  Speaker 1: deer and all the different places they might be. One
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: of the things that always kind of not always, but
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: one of the things that perplexed me or that I
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: wondered about with all those cameras that you have, I
• 2:07:35
  Speaker 1: mean hundreds of cameras that you're running in different places
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 1: at different times, it seems like, what's what's your process
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: for organizing and studying those photos that you can actually
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: get actionable data out of them. I know you spend
• 2:07:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of time at your computer studying those pictures.
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: What's what's like the strategy there. How do you go
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: about doing it in a way that you can keep
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: track of deer and and learn stuff from those pictures
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: to act done. Yeah, what what I do is if
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: you know there's the different age class there. You know
• 2:08:08
  Speaker 1: they're a year and a half, two and a half, three,
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 1: four or five h I have a folder on every year,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: so when I get it on a camera, I'll put
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: it in a folder, and then I put them in
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: there by month because different times of the year there
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: do different things, and they live in different areas, like
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: in the summer and summer feed some of these older bucks,
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 1: they may be a mile or two or they where
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 1: they where their home security spot is where they will
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: spend a month of October. Then during the rut there
• 2:08:38
  Speaker 1: wandering all over. But so I put them by a month,
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: and then I keep them from year to year. So
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: if I, if we if I get a buck on
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: it is a notable buck, I'll go back and find
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: him the year before, the year before, the year before,
• 2:08:52
  Speaker 1: and I'll look at one month where he's at, and
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: then I can tell from year to year they kind
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: of repeat that we've been able to shoot box from
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: one year to the next. On the on the day
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: they show up in a new spot that they haven't
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: been all summer, I'll have cameras are year round on
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: the spot, and the deer will show up maybe maybe
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 1: be the first of October, maybe via in November. And
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: a year later, right to the day he shows up
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: there again and he hasn't been there all year. And
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: we're able to harvard some good bucks that way. So
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: I try to keep a full and what what what
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: else it teaches me is growth patterns on deer. If
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: I've been interesting to see, you know, dear following from
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: one year to the next and see what they develop
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: into and to see that, you know, what the hell
• 2:09:50
  Speaker 1: why did they go there? I've noticed on some deer
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: that I by accident, just by finding the sheds and realizing, hey,
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: this is the sheds off this deer. And they have
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: some notable features about them. But they gone from a
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: real nice, you know, realized buck or maybe a hundred
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: and fifty sixties deer and dropped down to something you
• 2:10:14
  Speaker 1: see out there, and hope, I thought it was a
• 2:10:16
  Speaker 1: two year old deer, you know the rack size. He
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: went down enough, but he got wounded and and this
• 2:10:21
  Speaker 1: this health wasn't there, and he just didn't grow in
• 2:10:23
  Speaker 1: the act the next year. And then once he got
• 2:10:25
  Speaker 1: his health back, it's following here, he came back. So
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: those cameras showed me a lot of different things on there.
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: What they what they how they develop, what they can
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: you know, what the injuries due to him, what you
• 2:10:38
  Speaker 1: can just see so much many things on him. So
• 2:10:41
  Speaker 1: maybe being able to have each deer and have five
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: sixty years of folders and growth on him and a
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: lot of pictures of them each year. Uh, it's interesting
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: to follow that and see what what they what they
• 2:10:56
  Speaker 1: do or what affects him. And oh yeah, and the
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: weather has a lot to do with a lot of things.
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: And that was something was an eye opener on me too,
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: as we had a real early sprained one year, and
• 2:11:08
  Speaker 1: I thought, boy, that they are are gonna be good
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: on them. And then it was in the seventies and
• 2:11:14
  Speaker 1: eighties in March and April and all my tree but
• 2:11:16
  Speaker 1: it all. And then we had an ice storm, hailstorm
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: and a florado and it shredded all the buds off
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: all the trees. It actually destroyed all the nut crops,
• 2:11:31
  Speaker 1: the acorns, and all all the apples, and we had
• 2:11:36
  Speaker 1: nothing in the fall, and there went into the winter
• 2:11:38
  Speaker 1: with nothing to eat. It just what was ever in
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 1: the in the spring with that, I mean when we
• 2:11:47
  Speaker 1: had the ice storm and the hailstorm and stuff, stuff,
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: the fields were so wet and stuff of farmers, we
• 2:11:54
  Speaker 1: had rain all of me and they couldn't get in
• 2:11:55
  Speaker 1: the plant crops or nothing got planted. And they went
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: into the winter here. So the only times probably two
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: hundred your under your thing where they had absolutely no
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: feed and they were eating bark off the trees. And
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: I never ever saw that, especially in Buffalo here that year.
• 2:12:13
  Speaker 1: It was in two thousand and twelve. In two thousands,
• 2:12:17
  Speaker 1: that winter involved in thirteen state severity index winner was
• 2:12:21
  Speaker 1: the worst one in over a hundred years for cold
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: and deep snow and stuff. They came off in the
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 1: spring and they looked at their exca on the camera.
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: They were just getting boning and they had nothing to
• 2:12:33
  Speaker 1: eat in the spring, and so they they when they
• 2:12:38
  Speaker 1: actually when they got the feed in the fall, when
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: we because of all the rain, had main and stuff
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: they had they had all the feed. The farmers planted.
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: They had to plant a crop and they had to
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 1: put it in after August. First they couldn't couldn't harvest it.
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 1: And they basically planted brassicas with his radishes and turn
• 2:13:00
  Speaker 1: ups and stuff to break up the soil. And because
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: of all the rain and may, we had a bumper
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: crop of acorns and apples and everything. So once they
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: got that feed, they put this weight on and they
• 2:13:13
  Speaker 1: put it on in a matter of two months. And
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: and uh, my son's wife shot her first bucket was
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: a six year old buck. We've been following for several
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: years and had the sheds up and they actually lost
• 2:13:26
  Speaker 1: twenty inches on hornboath to scored one two. We waited
• 2:13:30
  Speaker 1: live weight. It was three thirteen and he put that
• 2:13:34
  Speaker 1: weight on in two months. But he was already hard
• 2:13:37
  Speaker 1: horn when he got the feed, so he sprung back
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: so fast and put all that weight on. But the
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: rats all dropped that year and I looked into been
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: in the record book, there was only a couple of
• 2:13:48
  Speaker 1: bucks over on fifty register that you're in the bucking
• 2:13:51
  Speaker 1: Bar in Wisconsin. And it was all to do with
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: that that winter and that spring was all to do
• 2:13:58
  Speaker 1: with the feed and losing all those crops in the
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 1: spring or all the acorns and stuff. So that showed
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: me home important acorns, war toolma and apples, but mostly acorns,
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 1: I think really is a key, you know, for developing
• 2:14:14
  Speaker 1: good growth on there stuff. I remember you showing me
• 2:14:18
  Speaker 1: some of these pictures of these bucks that you know
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 1: lived through that and and seeing exactly what you're talking about.
• 2:14:24
  Speaker 1: But I also just it stands out to me just
• 2:14:28
  Speaker 1: how good of records you keep, you know, and the
• 2:14:30
  Speaker 1: fact that, like you said, you've got these files for
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: every single buck and then you go back in there
• 2:14:35
  Speaker 1: and you you seem to study them and think about
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 1: what's going on and connect it, like you said, to
• 2:14:40
  Speaker 1: weather patterns or food or all these different things going on.
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know that that that goes above
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: and beyond what most people do. And obviously that's something
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: that's been helping you, you know, have years like this.
• 2:14:53
  Speaker 1: We're would you say, seventeen or sixteen or how many
• 2:14:56
  Speaker 1: how many bucks did you guys kill this year? Fourteen
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: just a ton of and fourteen you know, we're pping
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: younger head. Those two young girls shuit, those two younger
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: deer their first deer and the one one of them
• 2:15:10
  Speaker 1: was the open young actually scored one thirty. But uh, yeah,
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: it was. It was Yeah, it was a great year.
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: I mean it. And we had they were like I said,
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: we had I think we had twelves that were from
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: over the average the hundred and fifty two inches, which
• 2:15:26
  Speaker 1: was they were up the pool went down to you
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 1: one fifty right in there. It's incredible. Well, Tom, I
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 1: want to I want to be respectfu for your time
• 2:15:34
  Speaker 1: here and start to wrap this one up, but I
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: do want to ask you one last kind of wide
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: arranging question here. Um. You know, I see I see
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 1: you in your story as as one about legacy. You know,
• 2:15:52
  Speaker 1: you seem to have had this far reaching impact, whether
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: or not you meant to, whether or not that's something
• 2:15:57
  Speaker 1: that you even pay attention to. Um. You know, the
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: people you've influenced, the people you've taught, the things you've
• 2:16:05
  Speaker 1: done have have trickled out of Buffalo County all across
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: the country, and you you really in a way shaped
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: a whole generation of of folks within the hunting world. Um.
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: And just being there, you know, in person with you
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: and talking to other people in camp, you could just
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: see how you know, everyone everybody that was there. Tom
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 1: was there because they had developed really close relationships with
• 2:16:29
  Speaker 1: you and other hunters there, and it really felt like
• 2:16:31
  Speaker 1: a family. There was guys coming in, you know that
• 2:16:34
  Speaker 1: have been coming in for years and years and years.
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 1: There was you know, Matt was there, who had his
• 2:16:38
  Speaker 1: own farm in the past, and he said, you know,
• 2:16:40
  Speaker 1: I'd rather not have my own farm and get to
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: go to Tom's more often because of the people there,
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: because of the stories and the camaraderie and and everything
• 2:16:49
  Speaker 1: else that you've built there, Which is which is all
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 1: tied into what I want to ask you about, Tom,
• 2:16:54
  Speaker 1: which is this Now that you know you are, you're
• 2:17:00
  Speaker 1: you're one of the godfathers of the hunting world. Now
• 2:17:04
  Speaker 1: you you've you've seen it all, You've shaped a lot
• 2:17:06
  Speaker 1: of it. When you look into the future, and you
• 2:17:11
  Speaker 1: think about the next generation of hunters, those folks that
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: are teenagers now or in their twenties or thirties like me,
• 2:17:18
  Speaker 1: who are going to be the folks that shape the
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: next next generation. What's the message you want to leave
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: with them? If you could tell those people now something
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 1: that you hope they can do, or hope they think about,
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: or or anything you would pass on to them, now,
• 2:17:33
  Speaker 1: what would that message be. I would think the key
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: there is trying to get them an opportunity to just
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: get out there and sit in the tree and and
• 2:17:45
  Speaker 1: see nature. And I think it would if that would
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: spur them into not being able to get enough of it,
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: I would think that that would be the key to Uh.
• 2:17:59
  Speaker 1: They've got to experience it too to want to, you know,
• 2:18:04
  Speaker 1: get the passion for it. And I think they you
• 2:18:07
  Speaker 1: need to do that at a young age. I think
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: you know this usually you know, his life goes on
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: and myself too, and being able to grow up as
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: a kid and do that is the key, because things
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 1: in life take your other directions, you know, for years
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: and the naybe and stuff and and and you get
• 2:18:29
  Speaker 1: that age. The teenagers you're chasing girls whatever, and you
• 2:18:33
  Speaker 1: get away from it, but you always go back to it.
• 2:18:35
  Speaker 1: Once you get that passion, you don't lose it, you know.
• 2:18:39
  Speaker 1: And I think the key is is trying to create
• 2:18:44
  Speaker 1: opportunities to get you know, the opportunity for people to
• 2:18:48
  Speaker 1: get get out there and do that. A lot of
• 2:18:50
  Speaker 1: the trouble is so great populations in the cities and
• 2:18:53
  Speaker 1: suburbs and they don't have the opportunity to be able
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: to experience that, you know, and it uh. I think
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: it would be important for some ideas to you know,
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: start maybe they maybe they could fund something like that,
• 2:19:07
  Speaker 1: would you know, even pheasants on the Limited or Maimon Foundation,
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: but to have areas where you could they could bring
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: kids in and just to get them to experience that.
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: And I think they get they get hooked theirselfs on
• 2:19:22
  Speaker 1: it once they once they were able to experience it. Yeah. Yeah,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: I think that that message of of sharing this hunting
• 2:19:33
  Speaker 1: lifestyle that we have and helping more people get out there,
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: I think that that definitely resonates. And something you told
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: me last week and we're together that you know, it
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: was interesting to me. You talked about the fact that
• 2:19:44
  Speaker 1: if this farm that you own right now, if that
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: had been owned by by a single individual who just
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: hunted themselves. You know, maybe there'll be one or two
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: or three people to hunt this farm every year, but
• 2:19:55
  Speaker 1: in your case, by running the operation you do, you know,
• 2:19:58
  Speaker 1: dozens of different people get to experience it. And and
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: you've been able to do that year after year after year,
• 2:20:04
  Speaker 1: introducing or helping dozens and dozens of other folks learn
• 2:20:07
  Speaker 1: about hunting, experience hunting, sharing that passion you have, um,
• 2:20:12
  Speaker 1: And I think that's more than anything. I think that's
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: the legacy when I when I from the outside looking in, uh,
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of examine what you've done. That's what
• 2:20:21
  Speaker 1: stands out to me. And that's what ah, yeah, what
• 2:20:25
  Speaker 1: makes me admire you. Ton. So, thank you for for
• 2:20:27
  Speaker 1: being such a great teacher an introducer to the woods
• 2:20:31
  Speaker 1: for so many folks. And I'm certainly inspired by that,
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: and I hope a lot of other folks are too.
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: I've been a place you're talking with you and I
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: always enjoy talking hunting. Yes, me too, Tom, So, thank
• 2:20:44
  Speaker 1: you for taking this time. All right, Thank you all right,
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: and that's gonna be it. Thank you for tuning in.
• 2:20:51
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you following along with this series of stories
• 2:20:55
  Speaker 1: as I travel the country, hunted in different places, with
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: different people and trying different styles. It has been eye opening,
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: it has been challenging, it has been fun and interesting.
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: It's it's been kind of everything, and eventually I'm gonna
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: be able to unpack all that makes sense of it,
• 2:21:11
  Speaker 1: see what I can learn from it, see how I'm
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: going to change things or do things more like it
• 2:21:17
  Speaker 1: in the future. UM been a heck of a year,
• 2:21:19
  Speaker 1: so appreciate you coming along with that journey and hopefully
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: you've learned something along the way. So that said, let's
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: wrap this sucker up. Thanks for tuning in, have a
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: great rest of your week, and stay wired to hunt.