Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 380: Dad's First Bow Buck and the Back 40 Transformation

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Ep. 380: Dad's First Bow Buck and the Back 40 Transformation · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: eighty and today in the show, we're discussing year two
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of our efforts to transform the Meat eaterback forty into
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a wildlife paradise and the roller coaster first hunt on
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the property this year that led to my dad's very
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: first dear with the bow. All right, welcome to the
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. Today
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: is a good day. We've got a great podcast for
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you today, a story that I am just really really
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: excited to share. Um, we're coming off of one of
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the best most memorable hunts of my life and probably
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: at least to some degree, uh, our guests on the
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: podcast here as well, definitely one of them that the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: third member might think this is an oky story. I
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: don't know. Um, well, here's what we have with you
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: today in the show. We've got my father, David Kenyon
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: back on the show. Dad, thank you for being on
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: the podcast again. Dave Pleasure and then also, shoot, you
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: know what I was gonna try to check this with
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: you before we start our core. But we have Justin
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna pronounce your name wrong. Is it Michell? Michelle? Michelle?
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: Dang it Justin Michelle. Sorry, I bost your name Justin.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Everyone does. For years, like before we actually worked together
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: or did anything, I always pronounced it my cow and
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: then and then someone recently was like, no, that's very wrong,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and everything I had I think Spencer had to ask
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: three times. So so so for everyone listening. Justin Um
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: is one of the cameramen for the Back forty TV show.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: So Justin and my dad spent a lot of time
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and myself, all three of us spent a lot of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: time together last week hunting on the Back forty. It
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: was the first hunt of the year out there, and
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: we had a heck of a hunt. As as I
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: tease in the very beginning, you kind of get to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: hear the ending before you hear the beginning. But it
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: was a successful hunt. It was an awesome hunt. But
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I want you guys all to understand how we got here.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: So I want to tell two stories that eventually become
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: intertwined and lead us to the culmination of last week.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: One story is the story of the Back forty, how
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that started this project and where that's led us to
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: now in year two, all the things and hopes and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: goals and dreams we had in the beginning, all the
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: changes we had to make this year based off of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: what we learned last year and everything that that kind
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: of came to fruition for us um inter October. And
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: then the second story I want to explore a little
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: bit is my dad's story and what led him to
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: this hunt in this past week, because I think there's
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: some interesting things we can learn from both of those stories,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: and those stories come together in a really cool way,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: and we'll come together in a really cool way in
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: uh episode four of season two of The Back Forty,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: which for all of us listening now, that first episode
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: of the season will come out on November one, I believe,
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: or at least sometime in early November, and then Dad's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Hunt will be episode four, which will probably be towards
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: the end of November. So you're gonna get a sneak
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: peek as far as the story right now. So I
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: guess what I would like you two to do, if
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: you're willing, is jumping at any point I'm going to
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: kind of set the stage here with with a little
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: bit of a recap on the back forty. But if
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you guys have any questions, or if you guys need
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: to clarify something, or if you think I'm totally off
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: based on something and you want to call bs, you
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: can do jump in and say that. Um, you know, Dad,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: you got to see the farm last year a couple
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: of times. You got to hunt it last year, Justin,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: you weren't here last year, but obviously this summer you
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: got to be part of a lot of that work,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: um in August and now this hunt. So you guys
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: both have a different perspective and I think that can
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: help kind of color what I'm trying to share too.
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  Speaker 1: So that is the game plan. Dad, Are you on
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: board for that? Justin? Justin? Are you on board for that?
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  Speaker 1: For sure? Let's do it all right, So let's set
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the stage from the beginning. For anyone who's new about
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: what this whole back forty things. The back forty is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: a project that we started over at Meat Eater in
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: which we wanted to find and eventually purchase a small property,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: kind of unremarkable, nondescript property. Uh and see if we
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: could transform this little piece of ground into something really special.
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  Speaker 1: Could we take a small farm In this case, we
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  Speaker 1: found a sixty four acre farm that was about half
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: old fields, half timber and swamp. Could we change the
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: thing that had not been managed in the past. Can
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: we change this thing and transform it into a great
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: deer hunting property and a great general holistic ecosystem for everything?
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Can we manage not just for big deer, but can
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: we manage for bees and butterflies and birds and small
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: mammals and turkeys and native plant life and good soil.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Could we try to do the right thing for everything
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: and still have our cake to write, have our deer,
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: our big deer, our fun hunting. Can you do it all?
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: That was the question. That's what we've tried to do
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and tried to learn about what does that mean and
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: how you can be a good steward while also having
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: something that you can harvest from the land as well.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: And that led us to finding this little place last year,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: purchasing it, started to do some work. We did some
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: initial habitatent provements last year, but it was all very
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: last minute. Um. We just got started in August. Basically,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: we got to put in a few small food plots.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Um we got. I tried to plant some plot screens,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: basically some tall sorghum, which I hoped was going to
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: break up these wide open fields. But a lot of
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: that stuff did not work out very well. Um. To
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: further illustrate what we're working with here, just a little
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: bit in case you aren't familiar with all this, the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: sixty four acres, as it mentioned about half timber and
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: swamp half old fields. Uh, the old fields mostly last year,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: we're just this invasive mayor's tail weed and a little
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: bit of golden rod. Then you had this big swamp
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  Speaker 1: in the middle, and that was really the the hub
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: of the wheel of this property. That was the thing
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that I was most excited about and that I thought
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: would be, um, the saving grace of this property, because
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: at least in places like southern Michigan they have a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: lot of hunters. I've come to find that you really
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: need something like that, some kind of really great security
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: cover to keep at least the occasional older deer around.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: So whenever I find a deep swamp, I know there
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: was at least a chance that some good deer could
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: be in there. Um, while in otherwise open timber or
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: ad country, it's just it's just tougher to find him
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: around me at least. So that's what I thought we had.
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  Speaker 1: I had searched out a property that had that kind
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: of feature while also being in an area that generally,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: from everything I could find out from any research I did,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: from talking to neighbors that generally seemed to be in
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a good neighborhood, so surrounded by folks that we're thinking
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  Speaker 1: somewhat similarly to how we were, which was trying to
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: manage for wildlife, trying to manage for more deer or
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: older deer, or a better managed balanced deer her that's
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: what we're hoping to accomplish, and and I tried to
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: find a place where that seemed to be on the
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: minds of other people too. So that is what we
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: had last year. Um, you know, the hunting season did
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: not go the way I was hoping it would. Um.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: A lot of the habitat improvements that tried to make,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: as I just described, didn't come in. The food plots
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  Speaker 1: were you know, not as impactful as they thought they
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: might be. They came in pretty thin and sparse. Um.
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  Speaker 1: I think we probably I only had an acre and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a half of food total. Maybe the screens that I
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: tried to plant basically failed completely, and so these fields
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: were just wide open. That mayor's tale lost his leaves
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: once the fall arrived, and it was just just barren,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: kind of a desert for wildlife. And because of that,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: very little deer traffic in those things in those areas
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: during daylight, and it led to some relatively uneventful hunting. UM.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: I saw some deer the first couple of nights, and
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: then it quickly quickly decreased, had a bunch of dud hunts,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: hunted during the rut and saw very little deer activity.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Kind of got lucky on the fourth day of our
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: rut hunt and uh, there was a big mature buck
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  Speaker 1: in the area, not very big antler wise, but a
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: big bodied but sure deer the wide eight. I called
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: him and I did get a crack at him. But
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  Speaker 1: that was the only decent buck we saw a season,
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  Speaker 1: the only mature buck we saw season. UM, so at
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: a high level of frustrating, disappointing. And Dad, you came out,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: you got to have this hunt, and I know you
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: were really excited to come out on the back forty
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  Speaker 1: I've been kind of hyping up this property we had
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: and we were trying to improve, and I wanted to
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  Speaker 1: get you this great opportunity to to get a crack
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  Speaker 1: at a buck with your crossbow. And it didn't really
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: pan out the way or hoping, did it. No, no,
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  Speaker 1: what not, not as much as we had hoped, obviously,
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  Speaker 1: And because of all the work that you had done,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: even though I know it just started in August, um,
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  Speaker 1: you've still done an awful lot of work to prepare
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  Speaker 1: the property and all the working on the food plots, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: And then just just you know that the excitement of
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: being out there. I was looking forward to seeing a
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: lot of deer, and um just saw a couple and
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: passed on that five um, um, And that was pretty
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: much it from the time we wash. You know it
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: will elaborate on this more, but most of your hunting
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: has been up in northern Michigan, where we just don't
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: see very many deers. So I had these high hopes
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of bringing you down to the southern part of the state,
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: at least farther south than we traditionally do, and being
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in a higher deer density area, you'd you'd have an
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: exciting hunt and to didn't pan out, so it was
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: it was one of many disappointments last year. Um, justin
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: you watched the back forty I'm assuming maybe you didn't,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: but I'm assuming you watched the back forty uh last
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: year from from from what? Yeah, from Afar from Afar?
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: What were what were your thoughts on the on the
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: whole idea, the gist of what we tried to do,
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and then what you saw after year one? Was it
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: was it surprising? Does it? Was it kind of what
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: you expected from a year one of this kind of thing.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, do you have any thoughts from that
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: first year? Yeah? I mean I I love the idea
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: of it because I thought that what it what it
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: did was, um created a situation that so many people have,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you know, like not everyone has the luxury of getting
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: three four pieces or leases and things like yeah, but um,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you know, sixty three acres is not out of the questions.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So and it's and it's not like you adopted even
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a piece that was already established well enough that you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: could sort of piggyback on it, you know. It was
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: like it really was super stripped down, which I guess
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: in a sense gave you, uh, you know, you could
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: do whatever you wanted. I never quite understood why. And
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I was going to ask you as you were going
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: through that, like what did you think failed as far
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: as like what what were the causes of the plots
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and everything just not taken off like it did this year. Okay,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: so there's a few things I can point to, and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: then there's still some unknowns. Um. I think you know,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: one thing that I knew going into is that these
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: old fields, I just didn't know if they would stay
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: thick into the hunting season, and and then if they
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: did not, you know, would it hold any wild life
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: at all? And so I tried to plant that screening cover.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I knew that getting some kind of visual barriers to
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: break up these fields, to have some structure, I knew
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: that was gonna be really important. So I tried to
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: plant those things. But I tried to plant them in
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: a no till way. And and this is because we've
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: been trying to adopt this regenerative agriculture practice when planting
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: food plots and crops on the farm, where you try
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: to avoid disturbing the soil um for a whole bunch
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: of different reasons. By not plowing the soil, you can
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: keep more nutrient uh mic microbial life going in the soils.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of things that you keep in the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: ground that you want in the ground by not plowing
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: it up. So early last year, I guess early summer
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: um when I knew I needed to plant the screening cover,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: I was trying to say, Okay, how do I plant
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: this stuff no till when I don't have a no
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: till drill. We didn't have a drill. We later got
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: a drill um, but I didn't have one at that point.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: So I had heard of approach called throwing mo Basically,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the idea was that you could um broadcast seed over
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: an area and then mow all the brush that was
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: there over top of it. And if you could do
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: that right around a rain, you would get the seed
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: on top of the soil, and then the grass and
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: brush would fall on top of the seed, and then
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: it would form a layer of mulch that would hold
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: moisture tight to that seed on the ground and get
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: you germination. That's the idea, and and this works. People
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: say this works, and it's a productive way to plant
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: no till food plots. If you don't have the equipment, Um,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: it just didn't work well for us. I it didn't work.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: So there were a few places we've got some grow,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: but there was a lot that simply didn't come up
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: at all. So because of that, I didn't have the
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: cover we wanted. I came in and actually tried to
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: plant screens again the first week of August, and I
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: actually did try to lightly work the soil and get
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: something planted there, and I had a little growth, but
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: it wasn't, you know, just enough time. So that gave
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: us no structure, no visual barriers across the fields. And then,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: as I described earlier, the cover that wasn't there, the
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Mayor's tail, it essentially becomes like a bean stock with
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: no leaves, no beans, nothing on it. So it was
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: it was the worst kind of old field you could
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: ask for. So you had just a wide open barren field,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: which I think was just a much more of a
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: detriment that I, you know, was imagining it would be.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't think it would be that bad, but it was.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: So that was a big thing. As far as the
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: food plots, I don't know what I did wrong last year,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: but it was my first time ever using a no
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: till drill. It was my first time using a mix
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: quite like that, and for some reason the crops didn't
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: come in as full as I thought they would have.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I think one thing I have learned. I've been using
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: uh A Genesis three by RTP Outdoors, which is a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: drill you can pull behind your UTV and it's it's great.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I love it. Um what I've learned, and I think
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: this is the privately the case with any drill that's
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: just the first time I've ever used a drill, is
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: that making one pass it's really easy. I thought I'll
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: just go over everything once and then that would cover
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: it all. But you kind of forget that it's easy
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: to miss a row, or it's easy to miss a spot,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: or even when you have these kind of evenly spaced rows,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of space in between. Still um, and
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: I probably should have done like almost like a checkerboard pattern.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Maybe should have done a bunch of runs up one
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: way and then come across and criss cross him or something,
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: just to completely fill it out better. I didn't do that.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: So in short, I underseated last year. So between underseating
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: and maybe not knowing exactly how to set the seed
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: right properly or different things. I was just sort of
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: figuring out. And then finally, UM, I just for some
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: reason did not get good germination of the Brassicas within
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: our plot mix. So I had a lot of oats
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: and wheat, but the Brassicas didn't take at all almost
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: so I had some good early early season attracting UH food,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: but then nothing for the rest of the season. And
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: so for all those reasons UH and the fact that
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I just didn't have a lot planted again last minute
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: trying to get something in the ground quick, I was
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: worried about also making the plots too big, because I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: was worried about being able to get in and out
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: of the farm without spooking deer. So I thought, if
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: I keep the plots really tiny, and you know, if
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I keep narrow and in these little low spots, we
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: might be able to sneak around without deer seeing us
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: and spooking all the time. UM. I thought that was
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: I thought that would be okay, And I have something little,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: these little ice cream shops right out around the property,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and there'd be enough deer in the area using the
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: swamp and traveling back and forth and I didn't need
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a ton of food in the farm. That's what my
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: thought was. But as the season progressed, I realized that
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: wasn't the case. Um. We just did not have a
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: lot of deer spending time in the farm, not a
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: lot of deer passing through. UM. Other than one or
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: two hunts, almost every set was like one deer, two dear,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: no dear. It was very very very slow um. Which
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: led me to this year the spring thinking, okay, probably
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: the two very most important things we need to do
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: are related to these old fields, and that is number one.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Thicken them ups, find some way to turn this waste
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: land into some place that wildlife actually want to spend
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: in daylight. So that was number one, and the number
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: two dramatically increase the quantity and quality of the food.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Those are the two very most important things I saw
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: that would be able to transform this to to at
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: least be a viable place to see, you know, see
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer in turkeys and other critters. So
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: that is that was where my head was at as
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: wrapped up UM, which leads we had a lot of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: high hopes. We had big plans, a lot of big products.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: When we wanted to try, and then COVID hit and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: all of our spring plans, all of our spring guests,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: all of our spring projects basically got canceled and put
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: on the back burner and just just really changed a
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: lot of what we're gonna do. So I kind of
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: just threw together a couple of little things I could
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: do by myself or with a couple local people that
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: could help me with things. Um but I was able
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: to do a couple of things that didn't make a difference.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: One thing I was able to do to address these
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: old fields was I wanted to get some new base
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of grassy cover out there, so we frosted switch grass.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: The way I did this is I first applied an
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: herbicide treatment too large swaths of these old fields that
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: would kill off the mayor's tail and stop anything else
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: like that from growing up and give the switch grass
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: a chance to grow. That worked, I frosted the switch grass.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: Frost seeding, for those that are familiar, is basically going
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: in and just broadcasting, so so spreading seed on top
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: of the ground during the early early spring when they're
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: still freezing and thawing happening, So when you're still gonna
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: get hard frost and then thaws and freeze and thoughts.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: When that happens, the ground expands and contracts, expands and contracts,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: and it slowly settles the seed down into the ground
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: by virtue of that effect. So that's what I did,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and this had to one expected benefit. One unexpected benefit
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: they expected was that the herbicide treatment knocked out the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: mayor's tale and it allowed the sum of the switch
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: grass to get to get going. The second thing, which
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: I guess I knew in theory but I wasn't thinking about,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: is that not only did it remove the mayor's tail
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: to help the switch grass, but even in places where
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the switch grass didn't come in great, what it did
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: do is it opened up possibilities for all the other
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: seeds that were already in the seed bank. So what
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: came up across all these old fields was a vastly
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: more diverse, thick, lush blanket of different types of vegetation.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: So we got all sorts of different types of grasses
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: as well as my switch grass. That planet, we got
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: a number of different big bushy everything from golden rod
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: to oh gosh, I'm blanking on some of the different
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: things I've seen out there now. But if you were
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: to go and look at what these old fields looked
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: like last summer versus the end of this summer, It's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: it's like the difference between looking at a monoculture soybean
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: field and looking at a wildflower garden where there's just
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: all these different types of things. Uh speaking. You know,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: it's funny, Mark because when you say that, I'm sorry
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: for interrupting, but yeah, you just really called out the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: way I felt about it this year. I couldn't believe
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: the difference. Um. And you know, I kind of forgot
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: about how mono culture everything was last year, but when
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: I saw it this year, it was just just um uh,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: so green and so full and so rich. Um. It
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: was hard for me to remember what it was like
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: last year. Just dramatically different. And what made me really
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: think about that was when you mentioned the golden rods.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: There's wildflowers everywhere throughout the property, just incredible. Yeah, a
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: lot of it's just a lot more vegetation at different heights,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: at different widths. Um. It's it's just we've seen a
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: tremendous amount of bird life, butterflies, bugs, um. We we
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: flushed a woodcock last week. Do you remember that justin Uh,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: that was pretty cool. Yeah, I was there with you too.
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's really hard for me to believe, hard for
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: me to believe that this change occurred in one year.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: It's just dramatic. And I remember I asked you that mark,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: you know, I said, it's hard for me to believe
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: that this could happen in one year and that the
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: change be so pervasive and so broad across the property. Um,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: it feels like you should have been worked on this
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: for three or four years to see that kind of result. Well,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I'd love to take credit for it all myself, but
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: but I also think that a lot of this, a
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: lot of this goes back to just the power of
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: mother nature. Right Sometimes if we just if we get
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: some of if we clear a few obstacles all the way,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: mother nature can do amazing things if we let it
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: do what it naturally wants to do. And I think
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, that's what we've tried to
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: do here. And so by removing one invasive species, which
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: is this mayor's tale that came in here and the
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: reason why it came in here because the farm used
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: to be you know, farmed over and over and over
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: and over and over and over and over again the
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: same way. And then when it stopped, when they stopped
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: farming it like that, the very first thing that's able
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: to take a foothold is this invasive weed May's tale
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: and a few other things like it. So so that's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: what took over this farm and took over these fields.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: But but naturally nature doesn't want that. Nature does not
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: want a monoculture. There's no monoculture in the real world
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: unless humans put it there or influenced it in some way.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Nature wants diversity. And so what I did is we
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: use a little human intervention to knock out that monoculture,
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: and then mother Nature came right back in and filled
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it in with all the good stuff that that she
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: wanted to and that ends up being great for all
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the deer and birds and and everything. Um So, a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: little bit of what I'm finding is that you can
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: press certain buttons, you can make an influence here or there,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: but it but it kind of comes down to finding
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: ways to not fight nature but kind of open up.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It's like, rather than trying to build a damn and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: damn up a river, I'd rather work with the river
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: and maybe put a put a log here that moves
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the current a little more to the left. Or maybe
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put a boulder in the river over here
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: so it flows a little more to the right. Or
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: maybe if there's a dam in the river over here,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I'm to open up a couple of holes in it
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: and and try to find ways to to do what
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: Mother Nature wants to do. But but maybe just influence
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it help us in certain ways. Um. But when it's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: when it's kind of like give and take and you
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: try to harness the power of what's already going on,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: that seems to be when you see the most success.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: And and maybe that's what's going on here. Um. And
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and that certainly has been the case with those old fields.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: I also did do a little bit of seating of
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: some pockets of wildflowers, so I did some of that myself,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: but a lot of it naturally seated all over the place.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: So that was the case where I tried to help
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: it along. But but nature did a whole lot more
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: than I did there. Mark, how much do you think
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: the resident depopulation that you put in made an impact
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: on just the diversity and the flowering plants in particular.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Obviously we're impacted by that to some extent. Did that
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: have any impact do you think or not? You know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I have no way to to be able to quantify that, because, yeah,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention we we brought in to honey
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: bee hives onto the property, which which they're definitely helping
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: with pollinating. There's something like a hundred thousand bees between
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: those two hives, so there's a lot of new pollinators
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: on the landscape. I just don't know how to put
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: any kind of figure behind that and tell you if
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: it makes a noticeable difference. But I do know that,
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, there are certainly farmers out there who bring
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: in honey bee hives at certain parts of the year
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: to make sure their crops get pollinated well enough. Um,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: And we do know across a large parts of the
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: country we're having significant reductions in pollinators species and honey
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: bees and other bugs like that. There's some real issues
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: with with bugs out there, very important bugs that are
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: doing important things for our crops and our plant life.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: So I think you certainly could say that they must
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: have helped some I just don't know. I don't know
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: how to how to put a value on it, but
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: some of it didn't certainly didn't hurt, that's for sure.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Well it's interesting you use that like that damn or
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that a river flow analogy. Um, but because I was thinking, man, uh,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I climbed and was like crawling through so
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: much of that stuff filming that. I mean, I saw
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know what was there last year. But it's
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: like when you go in and you do your part
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to get rid of that monoculture. Um, it's like everything
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: that should be there ended up there this year, you
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: know what I mean, It's like there. I mean, I
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: don't know how far ahead you want to get, but uh, man,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: so many deer, so many insects, tons of not to
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: want coyotes, but I mean, everything just seemed to be
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: in place this year, you know what I mean. Yeah, Yeah,
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it's a it's a jungle and uh and that's what
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: all these critters wanted. So it was cool to see
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that happen. And it was cool to see that some
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: of that switch grass did come in. So we've got
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: a base of grass us with this diversity of other
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: things around it. We planned some of those wildflowers. I
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: also did try planting those sorghum screens again. And what
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: I took from last year is that, you know what
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: I want to practice for gender culture in a lot
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: of ways. We want to experiment with it and learn
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: about it, but I don't know how to make it
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: work with these screens. I really need this screening cover
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: in these old fields. We needed that vertical visual barrier
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: to keep these things from being tennantcro open fields and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: instead be compartmentalized and have this diversity of of height
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and security for deer and other animals. So I decided
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: that we were going to lightly disk a few spots
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to get that in. It's a compromise I had to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: make um and I think for the greater the I
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: don't know what, but it worked. It made a big difference.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: It made a big difference. I mean you could just
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: see again, jumping ahead a little bit, when we fat
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: in that blind looking out over the food plot and
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: looking to the left and looking at the right, you
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: could see those screens on all four sides of us right,
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: and you could see why it made the deer feel comfortable.
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: It was funny because when we're up on the tree stand,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I can see them across there, but It
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: wasn't until I got on the ground again and looked
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: around me after you know, the next day and that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: sort of thing, and then realized just how tall those were.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Those had to be eight ten ft tass screens. Um.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: It provided a lot of cover and protection for the deer. Yeah,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: So for people at home, try to envision this. Imagine
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: you had six fields that last year. Essentially we're like
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: dried soybean fields. If you've ever been in soybean field
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: after the leaves fall off, they're just those little gray stocks, um,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: And that's that's it. That's kind of what the fields
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: are like last year. Now this year, imagine those six
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: old fields, which total about thirty two acres of our property,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: so about half. Now imagine those fields. Now have you know,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: hip to chest height, to shoulder height in some case
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: tall weeds and bushes and grasses and all this different
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: stuff that's everywhere. And then in each one of these fields,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: some of them more, some of them less. We have
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: long strips. Sometimes it was a straight line. Sometimes it's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: a half circle of this crop sorghum, which essentially it
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: looks like corn, but it's grown to twelve fourteen foot tall.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: So you have these walls and these half circles of
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: what looks like corn, which is totally creating these big barriers. Essentially,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: it's like a jungle of trees in this area that
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: now is spread out in different pockets across these fields.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: So instead of being a why don't get right open
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: bean field? Essentially, now you almost have a crp field
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: mixed with forest kind of created in a haphazard way
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: in one year, um you get that kind of effect
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: at least, so all of a sudden, deer can walk
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: out there instead of feeling they're in the open ten acres,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: they can be in a little area of a half
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: acre and they don't realize that there's all this other
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: stuff around them because they're enclosed, and they feel a
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: lot more comfortable. That the ideas that hypothetically they feel
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: a lot more comfortable coming out there. That was the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: hope coming into this hunting season. So we did the screens,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: we did the herbicide treatment, we planned the switch grass,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: we planted the wildflowers. In August, we came in and
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: we planted trees. We planted pockets of trees across the property,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: across all these old fields. We mowed out little areas,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: maybe I don't know, ten yards by ten yards wide,
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: little circles, and we would plant three or four or
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: five evergreen trees in each one of these pockets. And
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I tried to choose areas where there's little rises in
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: the topography that might be the kind of spot that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: someday a few deer might want to bed where this
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: winter I did see some deer beds um places where
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: where wildlife would naturally want to be if they had
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: the cover they needed there. And that's where I planted
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: these pockets of evergreens. We planned some white pines, some
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: white cedar, some spruce um, a few things like that.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: So the idea here is that these grasses that we planted,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: the sorghum we planted, the all the native stuff that
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: came up. That all helps right now, but a long
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: term solution to get more, you know, long term cover
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: and structure out there that we don't need to continuously
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: be replanting like we will with the sorghum trees. Eventually,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: in year one, year, two year, three down the road,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: those are gonna grow out, They're gonna fill out, they're
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: gonna become these little islands of a different type of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: cover out there, where deer can bed, where rabbits can hide,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: where birds can nest. You again have a different type
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of cover out there. So we keep adding diversity. So
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: we went from this same blank canvas too, now a
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: canvas that has splotches of all these different things all
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: over the place. And that's what nature wants. That's what
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: deer one, that's what turkeys want. They want edge, they
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: want diversity, they want security. With the trees, we add
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: a new bit of that. And this year it's not
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: gonna do a ton for us because they're young trees,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: the three ft four foot tall trees, they're spaced out.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: But a couple of years from now, whoever's hunting and
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: enjoying this place, I think it's going to see a
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: lot of activity going from tree pocket to tree pocket
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and little bedding areas, a couple of does here and there,
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: bucks checking these spots, um sign posting on these spots.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: I think it's goll be very cool down the road.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: So that's another thing we did. We then went on
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: and worked on version two of the food plots. Version
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: two of the food plots was trying to address all
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: those issues. I listened out to you earlier. So I
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: tried to plant um a little thicker than I did
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: last year. I tried to um not only UM make
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: sure I am a mixed right, but also I wanted
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: to cover off and kind of give myself a safety
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: valve on that so that even if I underseated with
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: the drill too much, I was gonna go over top
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: of it and broadcast a mix of brassicas as well.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: So basically that that late season food source that we
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: didn't get last year. I was a little worried that
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: by drilling it in there with the oats and wheat
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff, maybe it was it was wasn't
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: getting the right soil depth or for whatever reason wasn't
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: coming up well within that mix. So I I drilled
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in a mix from drop time seed. It was it
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: was called the fall reload, which was a mixture of
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: brassicas and oats and clovers and triggic ically and I
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: don't know all all sorts of different things rape and turnips.
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: Drilled that in and then we went over top of
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: it all and just broadcast more brassica's to spread out
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: all over to fill in any gaps we might have
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: had UM just to cover off on any mistakes when
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: it came to my seating. So I did that, and
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: maybe most importantly, I significantly increased the size of these
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: food plots. We went from about an acre and a
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: half of plots last year to somewhere around three three
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and a half acres this year, so essentially three x
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: or close to three x the quantity of food on
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: the property. And we also changed the design of the
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: food plots a little bit. Last year, I kind of
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: plopped them down a few places, and I was worried
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: about them being too big. And this year I kind
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: of learned after seeing how some deer used the property
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: last year, I learned how the deer wanted to travel,
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and I discovered that there are some some spots that
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: I wanted to hunt last year, but the wind would
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: be blowing to where deer want to go too, and
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: so they come into our food plots. But because of
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: where I put those plots, when they did come into them,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: they'd eventually get into my wind. Uh. This year I
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: rechanged that. I changed the directions and these plots moved.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I went more from like a square shape for those
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: plots too long linear shaped plots um kind of like
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: a highway of green stretching across a couple of different places.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: This is an idea that Jeff Sturg just really pounded
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: home with me and with a lot of people took
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: his idea and implemented that here. Um. So that's what
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: we did from the food plot perspective. The last thing
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: we did, and this was done in the spring. I
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: forgot to mention this, but we did some improvements to
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the area we called the honey Hoole. This honey hole
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: is this ridge that runs along one part of the
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: property that last year we found out had a native
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: prairie remnant native prairie ecosystem in there. So it's a
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: part of the property where there is still the native
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: grassland species that we had a hundred years ago, two
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: years ago before we farmed everything down. We have a
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: little pocket of this stuff. It's big blue stump grass,
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: little blue stump grass, a bunch of other species that
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I can't remember the names of. But we had in
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: the colleges come out and he told us that this
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: was a really special, rare place that we we should
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: really try to nurture. Um. He recommended to do that
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: we should cut down all the trees and the brush
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: in there, and we should burn it. Now. That kind
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: of concerned me though, because this area was full of
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: cedar trees and automolive and buck thorn and just thick,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: nasty bushes and great looking deer habitat. So one of
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: the big questions last year is can we do the
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: thing that that our ecologist Dan is recommending we do
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: to to nurture this native prairie while still keeping the
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: good deer habitat in there. That was the question. The
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: way I tried to answer this year was to do
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of both. I tried to remove some
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: of the autumn olive and buck thorne by going in
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: there early this spring and cutting down a bunch of
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: that and then applying an herbicide to the trunk of
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: those cut trees to keep them from coming back. So
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: I cut out pockets of it. I didn't cut it
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: all out, but I cut out pockets. So instead of
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a big wine open ridge of just grass, it was
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: coves and little bays and some strips and some openings.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: But then other ompenings or other spots where there's still
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: were cedars, there still were bushes, so again diversity. And
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: then we did go in there and do a prescribed fire.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: In May April April, I guess April or May somewhere
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: in there, we did a prescribed burn with the help
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: of Dan and burned it, which essentially takes all the
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: old stuff, the dead thatch that was out there, removes
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: any leaf, litter, dead grass, anything was on top of
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: the soil. So it opens up everything to new sunlight.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: It that heat kind of reinvigorates the soil and the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: nutrient life in there and kind of makes everything more fertile.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: It brings in a thicker, more diverse growth the next
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: summer after the burn. And and that's what we saw
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: when we came back in later in the year and
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: took a look at the honey Hoole after the burn.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: You know, justin you were there with me when we
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: walked in there. Not only was there tons of grass
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: and flowers and all sorts of different things in there now,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: but there was still deer beds everywhere, dear turds everywhere.
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, the place was littered with deer sign So
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: we we improved and helped nurture along that native prairie,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: but we made it maybe even better for deer um,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: which was again a really nice um illustration or example
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: of something that we're trying to do, trying to do
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: both of these things, you know, So that was what
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: we did from a habitate perspective. Do you feel like
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: I missed anything justin that you saw or that's worth
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: bringing it up? Well, I it was interesting to me
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: that as we were going through that after the burn
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: and after the regrowth that I mean that that big
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: blue stem was chest and head high. I mean, it
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: looked so rich. And you know what we noticed too,
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: was like that was definitely something that you wanted to
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: kind of nurture back you know, from a state that
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: you know, like you said, when the farm came through
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: a kind of like jarred everything backwards. But you know,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: we noticed when we were sitting in that blind the
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: first night that that big blue stem now has like
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: started to seat itself outside of the honey hole where
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: it was originally burned. Yeah, exactly, which is awesome to see.
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: It's it's going to continue to expand its footprint. And
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: that's another example of just kind of help my other
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: nature along and let her do her thing. And uh,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I think we're starting to see that too. So from
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: a habitat perspective. That's what we did. Um. We also
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: made some hunting changes. Primarily the biggest things we did
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: UM in August was trying to better set up the
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: property for our guest hunters last year. Um, everything came
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: together kind of last minute. So I did some scouting.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: I kind of prepped some trees to hunt with a saddle,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: but I didn't really have anything very well set up
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: for our guests, people that weren't going to hunt from
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: a saddle or portable trees. Damn. So like for my
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: hunt with you, Dad, I just have some ground blends
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: that had to pop up at the last minute. UM,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think for both of us it
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: was hard to see from those it was bad not
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: great positioning. Um. Would you agree that those ground blinds
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: setups were okay but certainly not nearly as ideal as
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: the setup we had this time around? Oh no, comparison, Yeah,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: absolutely great. What we had this time was phenomenal. Yeah.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: So so what we had this time was we decided
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to get three big tower blinds. UM. The ones we
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: got are called Landmark blinds. They're from a company called
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: River's Edge, and basically it's it's like a box blind
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: up on a tower, but instead of being made from
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: wood or fiberglass or anything like that, this is just
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: like a metal frame with waterproof canvas exterior. Um which
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: was relatively easy. I mean, it was the challenge to
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: put together a little bit. And I gotta tell you
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: that we had some guys from the company come and
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: help us, a guy in particular, Jake your Godsend, thank
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you for your help. He came and helped us put
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: together some of these um uh. But what they're not
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: crazy heavy, they're not crazy hard to move around. It
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: ended up being a pretty cool thing that we were
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: able to do with myself and Tony Peterson. We were
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: put up one of them by ourselves, and then Justin
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: and Charlie other cameraman helped us with a couple more. So.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: We have these three ten foot tall towers with a
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: box blind on top that we set up in three
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: different fields overlooking some of these food plots. Each one
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: of these I put next to a betting area. So
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: every one of these setups is next to a food
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: plot that's right on the edge of one of our
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: best betting airs in the farm. And one of them
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: was set up just outside the honey hoole as you
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: alluded to justin. One of them was set up in
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: field number four, right by where you and I hunted
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: last year dead and then one of them was in
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: field three on the west side of the property, so
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: we have one east wind spot. Um and yeah, I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: was hoping for something to give people a better view
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: as far as distance, that would give people better shot opportunities,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: that would, um, you know, just just be much better
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: position for for you, Dad, or for our hunt winners
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: coming out later this year, or a new hunter that's
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: coming out this year. Um, I'm hoping for more comfortable,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: more productive sets for those people. And uh. And and
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: that led us to the first hunt to to test
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: on all these things, which just happened last week. UM.
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: So that's the story in the habitat stuff. Dad, Do
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: you have any questions as far as habitat or anything
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: else you want to bring up as far as what
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: you saw or things you were curious about, Um, anything
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: as far as the farm and the changes we made
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: or things like that. Well, you know, all I would
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: say is just reiterating the things that you've already brought up.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I was really surprised at the difference. And I didn't
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time um at the farm you
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: know last year, a couple of days, but just the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: just the difference in the on the cover, particularly the
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: star gum and you know, the food plot layouts. I
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: mean it was it was like being on a I
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: guess it was frontant purposes. I was hunting on a
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: completely different property, um, and just the difference was so
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: dramatic to me. I was really surprised. Um. And back
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: to those uh, those uh elevated minds. The other thing
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: I really liked about those is the flexibility had in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the windows, right setting those up and opening and closing.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: And we had a couple of several times where we
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: just had a you know, an inch inch and a
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: half crack basically in the back around the side, just
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: enough that you be kind of looking through it and
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: get an idea for dear coming through. I think it's
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: just the whole setup was a lot more um conducive
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: to really being stealth and really having not just a
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: comfortable set, but also being well positioned when you did
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: see there. Yeah. Yeah, the windows, I really do like those.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: You essentially have sliding canvas. I don't know it means
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: it's just the canvas exterior, but they're almost like how
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you can slide curtains, But these curtains could go either
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: horizontally or vertically, so you can slide them left and right,
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: or you could slide them up and down and essentially
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: customize whatever size or shape opening you want. If you
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: want vertical windows, you can make them. If you want
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: horizontal windows, you can make them. I really like that. Um. Okay,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: So that brings us to the beginning of hunting season. Um.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: This hunt was exciting for me for two reasons. Particularly
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: exciting for me for two reasons. One was on the
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: selfish side, and that was I wanted to see the
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: results of everything we did. As I just described. You know,
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of work, and we all put
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: in a lot of work this spring and summer, whether
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: it be the camera guys like you justin, whether it
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: be the guests that came out and helped me. Um.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: You know, there was a lot of time and sweat
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: and energy putting this. So big thank you to people
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: like Doug During, Dan j Jo, Tony Peterson, Dan's a Um,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: Rob Hobby, Nick George, all the various folks over the
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: course of the year that have lended a hand, thank you. UM.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: So all of that just had me so interested and
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: excited to to see, Okay, can you actually change something
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: in a year and see a big difference the way
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: I was hoping you could. So the first hunt obviously
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: is the real litmus test of that. So I was
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: excited for that. But number two, I was really excited
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: because I was trying to I wanted to fulfill a
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: promise or fulfill a hope that I had that we
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: started last year, which is helping you Dad have a
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: really special hunt. UM. And you know, as some folks
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: have heard and some of our prior podcasts um last
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: year's episode. UM, you know, you've dealt with a variety
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: of challenges over the course of your hunting life that
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: have made things tougher than some other people. And you
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: haven't one or be some stuff you've dealt with or
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the places you've hunted. You know, our deer camp up north,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: you wan't say a lot, dear. There's a number of
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: things that have just kind of made it tougher for
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: you to have a good chance at a buck or
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: a deer of any kind with your bow. And I thought, man,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get my dad down here in the back
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: forty and we're gonna get him that first dear with
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the bow. We're gonna get you your biggest buck ever.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: And last year was just a flop. So I thought,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: maybe this is the year we could do it. Uh.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: And so many of the changes I made, I was
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: actually thinking specifically about this hunt, so really setting up
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: these blinds and food plots and locations, thinking about, okay,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: on October five, where do I need to have this
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: tower blind? So my dad's gonna get a good crack
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: in a buck. Um. So all that was leading up
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: to this point. Um, So that's where my head was
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a dead. Would you be willing at all to talk
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: to me a little bit about or talk to us
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit about where your head was a leading
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: up to this um and kind of talk about some
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: of the challenges you dealt woods leading up to this
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: um with getting into archery and bow hunting. Um. I
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: think getting a little history there would be helpful to
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: kind of color color this whole week. Sure. Sure, yeah, So, Um,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: you know, as you know, Mark, we've hunted for a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: long time as a family, right Grandpa had me out
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: in the woods hunting when I was four or five
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: years old. Like I had you out in the woods
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: when we were four or five years old. The difference
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: was we always rifle hunted, so we really did very
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: little bow hunting when I grew up, very low. Grandpa
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: had a straight bow, but I don't think I ever
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: saw him shoot it. For us, it was just and
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: and we we were for us November fift through was
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: hunting Seasan. That's when we went up and when we
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: got the cabin, and you know, we had the you know,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: it was it was a religious right. We went up there,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: you know, the day before maybe two days before opening day,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: and we stayed an entire week if we could, or
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: came up the following weekend and and Thanksgiving weekend and
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: um as you know, um, you know our cabin up north.
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: Uh we had a lot of deer for a number
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: of deer, never big deer years ago, but that kind
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: of for whatever reason, um, the number of deer leveled
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: off quite a bit ten fifteen years ago. And uh
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: so you know, we still went up as a family,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: we still did our hunt, but we had really low
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: expectations about you know, the number of deer. We're gonna
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: see and the number of antlers we're gonna see, and
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: everyone's you know, occasionally every year or two we'd get
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: a deer between the four or five of us that
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: went up, but just not not the numbers and the quantity.
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: So you know, that's part of what I was so
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: excited about. And and not that I don't love to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: hunt it up at the cabin, because I really do,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: but it's for to some extent, its for different reasons.
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: You know, I'd love to see a big buck of
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: mature deer walk out in front of me, but I
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: don't typically expect that. Um So, yeah, back to your
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: your point about you know some of the challenges. Um So,
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: I've always rifle hunted my entire life, and as as
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you know, and we've talked about before. Um you know,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: I I have a low vision, visually paired. So for me,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: basically what my vision is without correction is what you
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: can see at two hundred feet I see at twenty um.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And you know, I have a telescope, a small telescope
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of my glasses that gives me a magnified vision of
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: whatever is I'm looking at. But it's really hard to
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: use something like that in the woods. Right, it just
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: doesn't work well at all. And as you and I
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: talked about Mark, you know, you asked me sometime over
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: the week, you said, what, Dad, why do you why
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: do you why aren't you wearing your glasses with the
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: telescope when we go out in the woods. And what
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: I explained was, Um, I used to do that. It
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: used to build out all the time. And I've spooked
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer because of this, because there's a
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you know, going between the glasses, um, the binoculars and
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: then ultimately your scope on your for on a cross bow. Uh,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: there's this too much movement. It's too difficult to do
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: all that, be able to see the deer, see the movement,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: see the you know, whatever it is you're you're trying
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: to determine as a deer or not, and um, and
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: just not spook. So UM, I tried something different the
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: last couple of hunts where I just have left the
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: classes behind. And uh so I'm particularly blind in that case.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: But the advantage is it minimizes the amount of movement
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: and the blind so that I'm basically working between the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: binoculars and the scope and use the binoculars for the
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: most part, because that gives me the ability to be
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: able to see the deer. So you know, those are
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: some challenges that I've had. I guess the other thing
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: is because you and I, UM, and I can't recall
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: whether it's your idea or my idea or both. You know,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: we got into bow hunting back in the early two thousand's,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: right and one, and bought a couple of compound bows
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know you took to that right away,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and that was that was really your passion pretty quickly. UM.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: And I was always kind of a casual hunter with
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the bowl, Um, go out behind the house or up
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: a ken roban or whatever. But you know, I'm honest
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and it would say that I've never had the certainly
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the level of proficiency and the level of skill that
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: you have. UM. And you know that's kind of compounded
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: by for me, it's quite honestly, UM, it's really difficult
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: for me to see target. So UM, that's why ten
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: years ago or so, maybe eight years ago, I moved
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: over to a crossbow, not so much because of the
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: cross bow itself, but because you could use the scope.
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: For me, that gives me the ability to be able
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: to you know, see the animal and make sure that
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: I can get a good bearing on it. So you know,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: those are some of the things that uh uh, you know.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: I just say in general, everybody has something. Some of
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: us have physical elements, some of us have other kinds
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: of challenges that we work with in life. And um,
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: so I don't consider that to be any different than
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: anybody else. I just have to work on them in
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: different ways. And that's how I did it did hunting.
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Has has you make it sound really easy when you
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: say all that I think I'm getting it. You make
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: it sound really easy. Um, but I don't think it
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: has been. Has it been tough? Have you had times
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: when you thought why am I doing this? Or can
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: I do this? Or have you done things and thought,
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: you know, this is never gonna come together? Because because
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I know that the vision I We've said this a
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: thousand times. I never can really know what it is
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: that you're seeing and experiencing, but I can I know
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: it can't be easy. Um, how have you How is
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: that I'm having a horrible time coming up with the
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: right question. You're dad, but maybe you're you're my dad
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and you get me. Do you do you get what
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to say, how how have you dealt with that? Yeah, well,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: you know, quite honestly, I was quite a bit of time,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: a good part of that period of time, where I
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: went hunting fully expecting that I wasn't gonna see a deer,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: expecting I wasn't gonna shoot anything. And that does you know,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: at first, you kind of work your way through that,
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: and but after a while that does get a little discouraging.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: So I think you know when um uh all that
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: really began to change four or five, six years ago,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: and a lot of that was because of humor. I mean,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I think you've certainly taught me a lot, But I
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: think also we've had the opportunity to do a lot
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: of these things together, right, and uh, I think I
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: think the just being able to get out of the
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: woods have the opportunity to really, um uh sit and
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: have the opportunity and I guess maybe just not take it.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: So when I say not take it so seriously, I
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: don't mean I don't mean not trying to be the
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: best hunter you can be, but not not take it
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: as a personal affront. If you don't see a deer
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: or shoot a deer in the woods, Um, I had
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: to kind of get over that, is what I'm saying,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: because that was definitely a challenge because the number of deer.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, how many times have you been You and
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: I have been in the woods together and we tell
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: the story about you know, the two or three deer
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: out of ahead of us yards you see them clear
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: as day and I can't see them. I mean, I
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: have a lot of stories like that, and uh, but
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: to some extent, I just had to get over it,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: right and say, if I don't see him, fine, Um.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: You know, the biggest challenge is not that you don't
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: see the deer. It's it's knowing that there's probably dear
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: that I should have seen or could have seen but
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: didn't and then lost the opportunity to take a shot.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: That's actually I think a little more um frustrating from
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: me than the ladder. And I've kind of adapted over
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: the years, and like I said, that's why I hunt
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: um entirely with binoculars now and I scan much more
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: than I ever did before, which I know is a
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: little frustrating for you sometimes, Mark, because you know that's
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: that's certainly a risk that I'm going to be spotted
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and there's more movement than normally would you would have
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: on the woods. But for me, if I can't see them,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: it kind of doesn't matter whether it's dare in front
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: of me, right, So that's kind of the technique that
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: I that I use. Yeah, Like I tell you, there's
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: There's been a lot of things throughout life, UM, that
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: I've noticed growing up with you, and in a consistent
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: thing is that that you have always taken the situation
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: head on and never complained about things. You never said
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: woe was me, or you never would let it really
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: get to you or make you give up. You would
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: simply adapt and make the best of situations and then
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: learn how to to enjoy whatever it was. And I
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: think that's something that you've illustrated in a really clear
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: way with hunting. For me, growing up, I I had
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: the tendency, as anyone listening to the show knows too,
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: to get overly wrapped up in the results and to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: get so mission focused. I'm very achievement oriented, as you know, UM,
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and you're a great example of you are that way
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: too in many cases. But there are also other parts
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: of your life where you've gotten really good at enjoying
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: things just for the process or just for the activity itself.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: Results be damned. And and that's a really important reminder
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: for a lot of us to not give up, to
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: not uh quit something just because it doesn't come easy
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: for you, but but to to to push through, to persevere,
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: to to find the joy in it. Still. Um, yeah,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: that's go ahead say something. Yeah, well I was going
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: to say that. I think I think you can also
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: overcome an awful lot if you just um, focus and
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: and try not to get frustrated. I think that's uh um.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: And as you say to persevere, um, there's we're we
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: are capable of as human beings of much more than
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: we sometimes give ourselves credit for. And um, and you
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: can overcome lots of different disabilities and challenges and issues
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: m through sheer force of will and hum. And there's
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: some things you can write. I mean, if you deer's
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: out ahead of me fifty yards or a hundred years,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: you know, and I can't see it. I can't see it.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: But as as we tell the story about the hunt,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: you know, there's there's some things that happened in that
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: that you know, if if it had been five years ago,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: ten years ago, Um, I don't think I would have
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: had a chance to to shoot or kill that deer. Um,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: But because of strategies and techniques and then the uh,
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: what I've learned over the years is you know, by darn,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: I'm going to do whatever it takes to to accomplish
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: this task. And if I don't, I'm not going to
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: kick myself. I mean, this is not about about me
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: being um less than or not capable of it's it's
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: it's life and we all have those challenges. But that
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean I'm gonna let up, and it doesn't mean
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: that I'm not going to strive and right to be
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: better at whatever I'm doing and do my best to
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: be the very best that I can be at whatever
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the task is. And that's that's kind of the and
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: that's the way we've lived our lives, Mark, and I
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: think you certainly do too. And I think that's a
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: perfect setup then to move into this hunt. So we
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: did all these things, we did this work. Um, we
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: had this history that kind of was leading us to
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: this hunt, Dad, where you and I had hunted together
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: and we've had our challenges and you've had your challenges,
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: and I've wanted to, you know, be able to share
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: some hunts with you again in a place where we
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: could see some deer and where you might have a
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: different kind of opportunity. All brings us to here, to
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: season two of the back Ford. The first ton of
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the year, we made all these changes, put a bunch
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: of trail cameras out, and at the end of the
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: summer I started checking them, and I start checking them
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: through September, and so prior to our first day of hunting,
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: I pulled up all the trail camera pictures and I
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: showed you all the bucks that have been showing up
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: on the back Fording and people that last year, you'll
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: know that for the first couple of months, like August
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: and September, there was hardly any bucks at all, hardly
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: any deer at all that the hunting season. There was
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: a couple. There was the wide eight that I killed,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: but there was not a lot of action. Basically one
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: mature buck, two mature bucks storry, but one that just
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: so a couple of times dead. What did you think
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: when I started taking you through the one, two, three, four,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: or five, six, seven, eight, nine different possible mature bucks
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: that had been moving in and out of the property.
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: I got pumped. I really got pumped. I really got excited,
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: just the sheer number and the size, and then just
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: the beautiful deer um and what was the count mark
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: fifteen I think at one count of relatively mature deer
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: that we've seen very irregularly across all the the sell
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: cams and and tro cams that you had around property.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was I couldn't believe what I saw. Yeah,
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: and I don't. I don't remember what the exact numbers,
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: but there's at least eight that I showed you in
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: the beginning, and that was three or four year old
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: bucks I thought were three or four year old bucks.
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: So they're three or sorry, three or older. So there
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: was a handful of two year olds and stuff on
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: there that I don't think I did show you at all. So, yes,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: at a high level, a night and day difference as
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: far as the number of deer, both bucks and dozes,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: and the property, a night and day difference, as far
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: as how many bucks in the quality of bucks that
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: are hanging out and hanging around consistently. It wasn't like
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: it was a one time showing. We are seeing these
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: deer show up on camera over and over and over again.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: That's what I was, just a resident population, a big
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: mature duct box. I mean that was surprising to me. Yeah,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: so that I'll lead us to hunt number one. I
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: was very excited. You were very excited, justin where you excited.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: What were you thinking at this point? I was excited.
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: I I mean, your dad, I'm gonna back up here, um, man, Like, uh,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: he is amazing because you know, despite the fact that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: he was you know, we've addressed the issue that you
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: know of his vision, but man, I feel like he
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: had such a refreshing way of seeing things that I
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: might be doing in a mundane way that was super
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: inspiring to me. So even even going through those trail
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: camp pictures, you know, like, I mean like I've been
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: to ken Rove and now and I've heard the stories
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: and I've seen the buck wall, and I mean he,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: like Dave was just so dang pumped to see deer
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and that was super fresh for me, you know. So,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I mean he is like Christmas morning. Every time you
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: flipped to a new deer. It was amazing because I
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: kind of knew what was coming and you were like,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: what is that the last one? You want to see another?
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: And Yeah, he was. He was just riding the roller coaster.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: It was amazing. Yeah. Well, and you know, some of
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: it was just the contrast from last year too. Just
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: it was so neat to to see the fruits of
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: your labor, mark and the labor of everybody else that
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: went into this. I mean, yes, I was really excited
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: to see all these really big year but I was
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: just really excited that that you've been so successful. And
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: again I think you mentioned at a minument a good mark,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: But I guess to me, these weren't passing through deer.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: They were residents on the property. You saw him in
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: the mornings, you saw him at night, you saw him
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: a week later. They were staying in that area, which
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: I think to me indicated that there's a lot they
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: want in that property. They aren't just passing through. So yeah,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: it was I was really excited, I admit it, and
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: that probably set me up a little bit for the
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: first time in a good and a bad way. All right.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: So it's night number one. We're very excited. We saw
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: a bunch of bucks on trail camera. Um, all this
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: work had been put into the property, were set up
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: in this tower blind that is right on the edge
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: of the honey hole. So we have like the best
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: betting air and the property with a beautiful little green
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: food plot right next to it, and then our tower
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: blind on the down wind side of all that, there's
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: a oak tree just on the edge of the honey hoole.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: It's trapping acorns. Um. I have a camera in their
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: cell camera that was telling us that deer had been
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: in there a lot and coming out. I had another
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: camera about a hundred yards behind us down wind of us.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: Were not quite down within us, but but down into
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: the south of us that have been getting a lot
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: of bucks going that way. So a new we were
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: in between the two, and all that told me that
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: this should be a really really good spot. This should
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: be a good night. We got all settled in there.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: Um it looked beautiful. I mean it really. It looked
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: like the way things are supposed to look when you're
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: gonna have a hunt. Right Like you're sitting there like, oh, yeah,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: this looks this looks good, right, just said what just
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: add deer exactly? And uh, and dad, you wanna you
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: want to walk us through the the rest of the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: hunt in the deer setings because justin madding, justin made
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: a great point. You were like a kid in the
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: candy store every time we saw something. Yeah, so I
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: was really excited, obviously, and I was overlooking this this
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: food pot. The other thing I don't think you mentioned it, Mark,
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: is that there was another food plot a little bit
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: to the it would have been the north right, um
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: that we kind of overlooked him. We were watching the
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: main food plot. Going back to the elevator blinds and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: the way these these windows work and stuff. The visibility,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: the ability to be able to see across this food
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: plot was just incredible. It was amazing. And we thought
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: we'd see deer coming out of the hunting hole into
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: the food plot. Um, maybe from the left from the
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: field or to the left that might come in, or
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: as Mark indicated, from the back. I don't think Mark,
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: that we expected the deer to come from where they
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: came from, did we? Did? You? I knew that some
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: would you know? Last year I saw some deer were
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: going to that plot. Um, I didn't. I didn't expect
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: the vast or all of the deer to come out
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: there though. That didn't set that Yeah, yeah, that to me,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: I was just really surprised by that. But anyway, so
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: we went through the night really excited. Um the sun.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: So we're facing west pretty much due west, maybe a
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: little bit um northwest, but so we were seeing the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: sunset as it came down. It was just a beautiful day.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: And uh, we get to maybe six o'clock or so,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: you know, the long shadows were forming across kind of
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: the witching hour and uh um and you know, I
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: think it was you Mark that saw it first. There
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: was a deer that came from to this food plot
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to the north. It's just adjacent to the one we
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: were really overlooking, and came from the left from the
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: west out into this food plot, just feeding. Um. And
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: I can't remember Mark, that was a that was a dough.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: The first year I think we saw was justin first
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: of it was the year and a half? All bluck,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: that was the year and a half? Was that the one? Oh,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: that's probably the one. Wasn't that one? Wasn't It wasn't
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: It was a spike um And you know, let's let's uh,
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: let's hit pause here because there's one thing that happened
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: before the deer showed up that's important to point out.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: Before the deer came out, we had a little conversation.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: We said, okay, Dad, what are what are the what
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: are the goals or standards for the hunt tonight? What
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: do you want to shoot? And so walk me through
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: what you decide you wanted to do for night number
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: one and through the rest of the hunt. Because right
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: for me, right I target mature bucks. That's like my thing.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: But given everything we talked about, that's not necessarily your thing.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: What was your plan? Yeah, so as I thought, it
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: was perfectly logical, right, a very logical approach. We have
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: um five nights to hunt at that point, and I said, well,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: you know, since we have so much time, we've got
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: this all planned out. We've got to three different places
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: we can hunt throughout the property. You know, I'm going
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: to go after a two or three year old deer
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: tonight and and go after a mature buck for me anyway,
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: typically mature buck, and um, you know, I'm gonna be
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: a little pick here and then maybe it'll be a
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: little less picky tomorrow and then the last couple of
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: days of the hunt. But I hadn't shot anything by then,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: then I'll know I'll break my standards down and shoot
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: anything that's legal at that point. And so that's especially
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: what I said, right, Mark. Yeah, and I think you
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: said you even more specifically said you wanted to shoot
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: one of those targed buck the first night. Um, that's
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: one of those those big eight ones. Um. Yeah, I
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: think you called up the heavy eight. That was the
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: one that was trying. Well, he was the one you
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: really wanted, was the heavy eight. But then there was
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: another like six or seven other like nice three year
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: old or older bucks that have been shown up. Yeah,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: I believe me, I was going to be a real picky.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't taken any of them. Yeah, they're all they're
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: all nice, dear. Um, that felt really doable that first
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: night as well. It did. It did, especially after seeing
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: all the trail camp pictures. Yeah. So okay, So as
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: you stated, that first deer stepped out in the neighboring field,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: it was a year and a half old spike or
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: four or something in You're excited, we're seeing deer. And
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: you could see it well too, right with your ban
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: oculars on that Yeah, I could see it well from
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: the boculars. Right. It was still probably seventy five hundred
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: yards away. It was ways away, but I could see
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: it Um, the lighting was good, you know, he was
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: down feeding. Um, he walked a little bit. And then
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: a few minutes later Mark said, oh, there's another or
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: another deer coming again. I can't remember if that was
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: you know. Um. By the time we're done, we saw
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: so many deer. It was, I mean, it was. It
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: was one of the most exciting hunts of my life.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: Even though even though ultimately, uh you know, it didn't
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: work out. It was the most exciting hunt of my life.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: I think I'm short of the other night. So just
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: because of the number of deer we saw. Yeah. So eventually,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: at one point there was four different Bucks in the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: food plot, which had you ever seen four Bucks at
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: once ever before? No, I haven't, so four Bucks, and
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: they were both all they were fighting. So it's two
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: pairs of two sparring with each other in the food plot,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: which which is really cool. You've never seen a dear
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: fight before? No, I had it. Um, So there was
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of first happening that was it was
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: so it was I had leading into this hunt anxiety around.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to give you a show, like a
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: really good time. I wanted this to be like what
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: you dreamed it would be. So when those bucks. For
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: when the first buck came out in the second buck,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and I saw how excited you were, and then a
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: third one and the fourth one. You're saying, I've never
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: seen this, and you were so excited right there. I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: was like, yes, I did it, Like we did it.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: This is this is it, this is awesome. They were
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: deering the property. You were really excited about doing something,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: seeing something you've never seen before. It was it was
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: that was a super cool moment. Um. So the bucks
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: are fighting, some does come out. It's awesome. And I'm
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: telling you all a long kid. That's a year and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: a half old spike. That's a year and a half old.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Four pointer. That's a year and a half old. Six pointer.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: That's a year and a half old seven pointer. Um.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: But they're all just year and a half and they're
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: doing the thing. They're doing the thing. And then eventually
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: some of them start kind of walking our way, so
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: going from field five towards us in field six. Um,
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: and how about so this is all happening, we're watching it.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: We're excited. Um. But they then start coming into our
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: plot and I'm gonna let you take it from here.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: Dead the four pointer and the seven pointer. Two year
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: and a half olds step into our side of the
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: fence row. So there's a tree line between these two
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: food plots. They step on to our side. Um, take
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: it from there. Yeah, So the southern pointer came in
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: and he's probably would just say thirty five years mark years.
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: Well you're really you're really, you're really fast forward it here.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: I was going to give a little more in between. So, um,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: so they're all over in the tree line and oh man,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: they're coming in. They're coming in. Him like, yeah, he's
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: at seventy yards. Um, just that year and a half old, though,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: and then he keeps walking closer and and then I
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: see you pull your crossbow up, and I'm like, all right, uh,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: well he's coming in. It's your hunting daddy. Do whatever
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: you want, but just just a year and a half old, um.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: And then uh, and then I'll let you take a
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: fair Things progressed so quickly there they did. And of
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: course I didn't know appropriate deer hunting etiquette with my son,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: so you know, I brought up the brought up the crossbow,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: and of course all the conversation we had had at
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the night, I just totally forgot quite honestly,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I got pumped. I got popped. Steer coming across the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: field and I brought up a crossbow and uh, you know,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: put the scope on that that southern point right now.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: He was moving, not not real fast, but he was
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: moving a bit. And um, he came across the field
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: and or the food pot, and I think, you know,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I definitely had a case of deer fever fever going
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: and as he was coming across, he turned a little
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: bit towards us, and I think at that point so
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: I neither one of you anything noticed if I turned
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: or I took my safety off. But at that point
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: I decided. I didn't verbalize it, apparently, but I decided
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: I was going to take this deer. There was a
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: lot of chatter going on in Dave's Yeah, there's a
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: lot of oh shoot, uh should I do? Oh shoot?
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: You know, trusting, a whole lot of chatter. It was
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: just I just whatever reason, when I saw that deer,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I got to that point, I just said I'm gonna
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: do it. I just did share. It wasn't my inside voice,
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: it was my outside voice. I was like, oh crap,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know what he's about to do, but I
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: gotta try and do this camera. Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: about that, buddy. Well anyway, you know, um, I think
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: at that point it was shaking pretty good and excited
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: and just determined to take this deer and put it
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: put it on the deer um Again. I don't think
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Mark had any idea I was going to shoot. I
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: did the c you know, I wasn't. The deer just
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: jumped in the air and ran back towards the towards
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: the woodline at the far end of the food plot.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: And and quite honestly, I didn't know if I'd hit
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: him or not. I think get a good view as
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: the as the bolt came out of the cross bowl
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: and didn't know. Mark almost immediately said, Dad, I think
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: it went over his back. You know, I think you
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: think you missed it, sure that we probably missed it.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: And I'm kind of thinking my back when how do
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: you know you didn't shoot it? Uh? You know? Then
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know, you probably right and I'm probably wrong.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: But and then of course the adrenaline starts winding down
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: and thinking, oh crap. Now, the good news is I'd
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: much rather miss a deer than wounded deer. Um. So
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: on the one hand, um, you know, I'm feeling really
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: disappointed that I probably missed the steer. But the other
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: part of me is saying, well, yeah, but you know,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: I'd rather do that than take a bad shot and
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: have an animal that's eventually going to die out in
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: the woods, etcetera, etcetera. Um, and so you know, kind
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: of did the adrenaline crash, right, So this is this
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: is the proverbial roller coaster, you know, the adrenaline Russia
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and the adrenaline crash. And as we're sitting there talking
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: about it, etcetera, and I'm thinking about the events that occurred, etcetera.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: Now it's getting closer to what would you guys say,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: six you know, maybe twenty minutes before, maybe a little
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: bit more than that, maybe half an hour before last night.
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: And suddenly Mark says, our deer. And sure enough, here
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: comes another deer coming from that same food pot to
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: the to the north, um and the same path that
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: the other deer took. And uh again, um again Mark,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: I don't remember if that was the one of the dope,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: because we did see a couple of dough in that batch.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: But but there are another four bucks that came across
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: with that too, right. Yeah, this was right at last light,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: with like ten minutes left a daylight or fifteen minutes
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: of daylight. And yeah, another four bucks came across the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: way heading towards us. And then two of these bucks
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: were shooters. Um. One was like a tight and tall
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: I think eight or nine pointer, and the other one
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: was the buck we're calling little dropping, a beautiful ten
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: pointer with a kind of a drop time coming off
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: of his main beam. Uh, real nice buck. And they
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: they were coming in but kind of hung up at
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: about eighty yards, just on the edge of the kind
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: of connecting point between the two plots, and they hung
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: up there. It's kind of looking around and weren't really
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: happy of the situation. Um, And it should be pointing
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: out that after you shot at that buck, it spooked
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of does and other young bucks. And
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: then he does behind us. So for like a half
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: hour forty minutes we had does blowing behind us and
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: all sorts of crap. So there was some commotion there.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: So I don't know what, but those bucks came and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: just didn't quite like the situation, but they didn't spook.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: They just stopped and then fed right there until dark
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: and that was and that was the night. Just going
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: back to emotionally, for me, it was one of the
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: neatest experiences of the best hunt I've ever had, just
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: because of the ups and downs on the number of
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: deer we saw right and just the way they came in,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: and I mean, it was just really exciting. So I
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: had a ball, even though I shot Mr Deer, I
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: had a ball. And it's just amazing to me that
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: those uh, you know, four or five six deer that
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: came in after the shot still came in and even
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: though they didn't come quite into our food pot. Um.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: You know, they didn't seem like they were terribly bothered.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: They didn't seem spooked at all. I like your optimism. Um,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: they were a little bothered. They were definitely they were
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: definitely on edge, um, but not so much that they
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: didn't leave. But they were head up staring at direction
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: for a while, and just you know, they were something
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: was off, but not so much that they left. So
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: you're very happy and you're very upbeat right now because
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: of how it all ended. But we need to talk
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: about how you felt that night, because when the night ended,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: and we filmed all the crap way to film, and
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: we went and we looked for your bolt, and we
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: double checked, and we watched the footage to make sure
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: we didn't see a hit. And we went and searched
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: and search for any blood, made sure there was no blood,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: made sure all that stuff. So it took a long time.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: We finally got back to the truck, Um, and you
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: and I were driving home. Um, you weren't all fuzzy,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: smiley happy. Best hunt in my life that night. And
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: I think it's worth talking about this because a lot
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: of people have missed dear, A lot of people will
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: miss dear. This is something that we all kind of
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: have to deal with at one point or another. UM,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: talk to me about that. How how are we processing?
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: How are you thinking about it? You were You're pretty
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: low at the moment. Yeah, you know, UM, I think
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: it was really when Justin went back and went through
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: frame by frame and saw the boat go over the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: deer's back. That's when I realized, because you know, uh,
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: that was still holding out some hope that maybe, you know,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: we had gotten a good hit, and and that he
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: just you know, he's back behind the food plot and
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: that back in the hunting hole right waiting for us
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: to pick him up. So once once I heard that
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: from from Justin again, you know, I'm kind of looking
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: at the bright side. I'm glad I didn't wound the deer.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: I'd rather miss him than wound him. But yeah, Mark,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, um, you know, shoot especially with all
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: the talk, especially with all the preparation. Um, you know,
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: I still missed the deer. Now, I know some of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: that was was a little bit of buck fever, but
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: you know, I take that very seriously, and I'm not frivolous,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: and uh you know, I don't shoot wild. I'm very
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: intentional about shooting any animal right because we were taught
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: that as kids. You know, you respect nature and respect
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: the animals. You're if you're going to shoot them, you
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: shoot to kill. And uh so, yeah, I was discouraged
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: Monday night, and you know, thinking about so I had
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: to tell you this, Mark. I actually you know I
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: told Mom later on, I said, when you know, so,
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: you're seriously Monday night, I was almost thinking about saying, hey, Mark,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe maybe we ought to call it and
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: you know, you can go hunt for the next three
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: or four days and um, then you have a chance
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: of getting one of these big deer. I don't want
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: to miss another deer out there, and I don't want
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: to you know, uh, you know, provide a bad perspective
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: for you and the group. But as we talked about
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: it in the way back and as I thought about
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: it more that night and then on Tuesday, of course, well,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: I guess a couple of things. One is, we did
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: a lot of shooting on Tuesday, and um, that was
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: really helpful for me. Not that I hadn't practiced quite
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: a bit before, but but there was just I think
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: just m taking that time in the in the in
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: the having had that experience on Monday night with the hunt,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: um really forced me, I think to do a couple
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: of things. One was to to really look at my technique.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: We did sit in the crossbow and we I think
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: we found that the sighting wasn't quite right. Whether that
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: I can't blame the miss on that, but um, it's
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: certainly impacted my confidence. Um when I saw that, you
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: know that the that the wasn't cited in properly to
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: the extent that it should have been either. So I think,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: you know, doing what we did on Tuesday to to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: practice and and sit it in again and do some
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: of the other things we did. And I I also
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: kind of stepped back and looked at my technique and
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: evaluating my technique a little bit more and came up
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: with some little small things that I think, um improved
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: my confidence and improved the you know, my grouping as well.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: And um, and I just I think decided on Tuesday
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: that I'm going to be a lot more deliberate when
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: I shoot a deer next. And secondly, I'm going to
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: apply some of these uh these uh things that that
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: we've talked about and that I was trying to practice
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: on Tuesday. So yeah, And then but having said that,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: I think, um, I was so excited about the number
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: of deer that we had seen and the fact that
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: even after the misshot, we had a large number, including
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: a couple of more mature deer come into into the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: shooting area, that I wanted to go back to the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: honey hall. And when we debated back and forth, and
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, UM, so I let's you take it from
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: their mark because you can provide your perspective. Yeah, I
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: want to I want to talk a little bit more
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: about what's going on here um, because again it was
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: a real inflection point in the whole hunt. UM, and
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: I think maybe even for your future hunts to some degree. UM.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: A lot of new hunters get it into this and
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: they right away think that, you know, they can. They're
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: watching people on TV shoot big mature bucks or shoot deer,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: and they think they should be able to go out
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: there right away and do it just like they washed,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: or just like they heard on the podcast, or just
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: like they've seen the magazines. And you can learn a
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: lot from listening to a podcast or watching a show,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: or you know, having a buddy walking through the woods
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: and talk to you about stuff. But there's some things
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: you can only truly learn and grow from by way
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: of experience. And one of those things is shots at deer.
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: And I think that this is something where you were
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: put in a position that you haven't been in very often,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: and that every time you have this experience, you're gonna
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: get a little better at. And there was a lot
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: of stuff that happened that you know, you hadn't lined
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: up on a deer with the crossbow and ever, or
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: who knows when, I don't know when you've been able
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: to line up on a dealer with a cross. But
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: this is something you have not been able to do
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: very often, So it shouldn't have been a surprise to
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: you at anyone that a lot of things would happen
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: that would be new or surprising, buck fever or whatever. Um.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: So that was something we talked about that night. Another
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: thing we talked about is something that I've had to
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: do when I've missed here, and I've missed plenty over
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: the years, and that is after it happens that night,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna feel the pain. I'm gonna kick myself,
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna beat myself up, I'm gonna feel how crappy
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: it feels to have missed a deer and to have
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: let myself down in that way. And I'm gonna let
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: myself have that. But the next day, when I wake up,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: now it's done. What happened, happened, The water's under the bridge.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: I can't change that. All I can change. All I
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: have control over now is what I do next, how
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: I grow from it, how I learned from it, how
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I move forward. And so everything from day two on
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: is all about growing from it. How do we make
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: sure that doesn't happen again. And so I basically said,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: all right, tonight, it's shitty, It's okay. You can be mad,
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: go to sleep, lose a little sleep, whatever it is.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: Feel it fully experienced that emotion right now. But tomorrow
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: it's done and over with. We're gonna make sure that
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: thing is started in amazing and you're gonna shoot and
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: shoot and shoot and shoot until you feel confident again.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: We're gonna double check all your equipment to make sure
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: everything's consistent, everything's the same. We ended up changing your broadheads.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: We did a few other things to make sure that
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: everything was as dialed as we possibly could and get
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: you to a place where you felt confident with both
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: your gear and just your mental state, which I think
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: is is is important to do both of those things.
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: And so and so that's what we did. And we
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: decided to go back to the same place the next
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: night because we did see a lot of dear. Uh,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: we did spook some dear, but other deer still came back,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: and there was a lot of other deer on camera
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: that weren't there that night that maybe could move through um.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't the best place of anywhere in the farm.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: I think that was our best spot in general, as
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: far as cameras and historical data could tell us. And
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: so I went back in on day two. In my head,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you, Dad, Um, you were you had all
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: your emotions going on from night number one. I had
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: a sort of a different set of emotions. Um, you
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: really threw me off when you shot that deer. I'll
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: tell you that first. Uh, you scared the crap on
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: of me. Literally, I haven't seen the footage, but I
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: have a good verbal I go or something. I made
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: some kind of verbal noise when you shot because it
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: scared me so much because I didn't know you're gonna
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: do that. Um, but then you know it just it.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: I saw my plan coming together exactly how I thought
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: it was gonna come together, and then this changed it,
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: and my all, like my specific some dreams for what
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: I thought was gonna happen in the big box coming
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: for you, all that like kind of shattered down around me.
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: And so my selfish side in my head was thinking, oh, ship,
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: this is screwing everything up. Uh, what are we gonna do?
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: This could blow up the whole area. How are we
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: going to make up for this? Tomorrow is tomorrow gonna
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: be horrible. Um. You know I got I got negative
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: in my head too, and so I kind of had
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: to go through a similar mental talk kind of situation
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: as you had to do your own thing. I had
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: my own thing where I had to say, Okay, that happened,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: what happened, happened, that's hunting things happen. How do we
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: carry on the next day and so and so. Eventually
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: we made the decision we made, and I think we
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: can move through hunt number two pretty quick because we
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: went in there and I was moderately optimistic. It was
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: mostly just hopeful. Um, you seem to be very optimistic. Um.
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: But in the back of my head I was thinking, well,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: we did. We did spook some deer. We did have
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: to walk all over the food plot looking for the
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: bolt and everything and for blood. Um. We certainly made
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: an impact. My hope was just that there was enough
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: other targets in the area and you weren't quite as
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: picky that night that we could get away with it. Um.
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: But in short, it was a rough night. We only
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: saw three deer total, um one day and two year
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: and a half old bucks and um very slow and
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: definitely had that feeling like, oh no, um, look how
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: different it was from night number one to number night
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: number two. Dramatic difference. And uh, the weather was changing,
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Weather was looking bad.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: The deer settings were looking bad. And by the end
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: of night number two, which is technically night number three
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: of the trip because we also hunted one day up
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: at ken Raven Um, so we're now fifty done with
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: our trip down to the last three days, and um,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: now I'm starting to think, oh boy, are we in
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: trouble here a little bit? Um? What do you think
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: in justin or dead? Any thoughts after night number two
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: different than that? Well, I wasn't going to be picked
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: about the deer. I think I mentioned that to you too,
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: So I was gonna if there was a legal um
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: three on a side, I was going to take it
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: that night number two, No number two. You said you're
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: holding for two year old. Yeah, I'm talking about number three.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: So by the time we went to night number three,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna be picky. Okay, so you're fast forward
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit, but I was. I wanted to get
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: justice thoughts or your thoughts still just night number two,
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: any thoughts after that, justin anything or your where was
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: your head? I had? I still had high hopes. I know,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: I knew that we had buggered things a bit on
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: night one. Uh, I was like you though, I know,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: we were like fifty fifty on what we should do.
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: We had a fresh blind that seems like it would produce,
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: but um, you know, I think we calculated that that
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: that was the best setting night number two and uh,
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: I mean I was glad to see dear and we
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: saw you know, that first dough popped out pretty early,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: and so I was like, oh, man, like this really
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: could this really could go well still? And uh yeah,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: as as it got darker, more and more air, we're
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: out of my balloon. As I'm sure it did both
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: you guys too. But man, I like, just knowing the
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: property now and seeing the activity, I still had I
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: still had high hopes that like we could pull it off.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: And obviously establishing that Dave's standards aren't uh that it's
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: a moving target. Like I knew that we would come
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: across something that it would make him happy. Yes, Um,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: I think that I think that I still felt my
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: mind told me what you're telling me, justin that we
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: would have an opportunity, and that things that happened. But
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit of my gut, a little bit my
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: soul was starting to see little reminders of last year,
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: and I was like that. I was like, oh, please,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: don't let night number one just being anomaly. Don't let
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: it have been this like crazy, amazing fluke of a night.
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: And then very quickly or the other thing I thought,
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: Especially by part way through hunt number three, I'm thinking,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: my gosh, these are the most on edge deer I've
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: ever seen. I mean, Michigan deer in general are very
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: very affected by hunting pressure, and they're very, very edgy,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: and there I feel like you can't make many mistakes
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: at all with them. But from night number one to
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: nine number two and part of three, I was thinking,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: my goodness, this thing went from full of deer to
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: empty in twenty four hours. These guys are just on eggshells.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: If that's the case. Um, So I had this little
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: whisper of negativity in the back of my mind that
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: was like back all over again. And yeah, well, and
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: and like you said before, Mark, I mean, it kept
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: getting warmer, right, So each day we were five degrees
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: warmer than the previous day and uh, yeah, I mean
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: that's true. Yeah, which brings us all to the last
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: to nine number three. Um, we decide to go back
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: to the area that you and I had hunted last year,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: So this is field number four. But now instead of
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: being a ground blind down at the bottom of the
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: hill on the edge of the timber looking out, now
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: we're on a hill looking back towards the timber up high,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: and we have the betting areas in front of us,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: and to the side of us. We have tall sorghum
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: on three sides, and we have this beautiful lush green
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: food plot that runs along our west and south. Uh right, yeah,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: west and south and uh again, great view from up there, right,
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: and uh certainly seemed like there should be deer coming
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: out of this neighboring timber, which historically had Um. So
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: I think we had decent hopes. And you had said
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: that night, right, you were readjusting your expectations again, right.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: I think I think what you said was a nice
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: year in Affle. They'll take him now, right, right, exactly,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: you know. Mark. The other thing I would say is
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: I think that was the best example of kind of
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: bringing together all the different habitat improvements and and things
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: that you had done are really set up that that
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: space kind of came all together at that location. From
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: what I could see, you know, I had four plantings
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: of sorghum almost on each side of us. That provided
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: that that that that barrier and that protection. The food
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: plot was beautiful, I mean, that came in so well.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: It was just lush and um. And then as you said,
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: you know, we're looking back towards the woods where the
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: blind was that we sat in last year, and that
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: also was really thick and looked like an ideal place
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: for gear to come out of their beds and into
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: the field and an ultimately into the food plot, and
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: looked a perfect setup. And we had a strong wind
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: coming from the west, but we had the strong wind,
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: I think even on the first night we had a
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: pretty strong wind. Um. But it was again perfect direction. Um.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: It seemed like a beautiful setup, and and it kind
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: of the culmination of all the work that you guys
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: have done in the and the on the property from
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: what I could tell, looked like it all came together
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: at that location. And so you know, maybe I'm the
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: eternal optimist, but I was really excited about Wednesday night too,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: um with a little you know, a little bit of
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: humility coming out of Tuesday night, you know, unlike um.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: You know, I guess I could have really been discouraged
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: about Tuesday night and only seeing three deer. But one
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: thing that I was really encouraged about coming out of that,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: the silver lining was we didn't blow out one of
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: these other really good locations other one of the you know,
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: the other two elevated blinds. And you had told me that,
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: you know, next we probably go after the location that
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: we had seen the deer last year at. So I
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: was pretty excited about that. And then the first hour
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: passed and we saw zero deer. Yeah. And then the
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: second hour and we saw zero deer. In the third
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: hour past and we saw zero deer. And uh. And
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: this is when my my whisper really became a loud whisper.
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: This became like a Dave Kenny in the blind whisper
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: that's more of like, hey, what about that one thing
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: we did or yeah, this is the um but all
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: the things you shouldn't do in the blind. It's so
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: funny being an adult and sitting with your dad again
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: after you used to sit with him when you were
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: a little kid, and like all those things come rushing
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: back to you when you're an adult and you're sitting
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: in the blind. Why did I ever listen to him?
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put together a collage after this projects done,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: of all your facial expressions of very noise that your
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: dad made in the blind. You have no idea how
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: hard justin. I was trying to be nice during those moments,
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: so bad that it started to wear off on me,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: and I would have the same expression that you would.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: You were so appalled at everything. The good news is
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: I was oblivious to it all. That was the perk
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: with growing up with dad. You never you never knew
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: the bad looks I was giving him. Oh God. The
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: problem here is that I am so and we we
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: wouldn't joke that night because we're sitting there and I'm
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: so focused. I'm glassing NonStop. I'm really trying to see
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: a deer. I'm thinking in my head. Dad keeps lifting
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: his binoculars up and down all the time, and the
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: sun shining, and if a deer side, he's going to
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: see us right away. And I want this hunt to
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: come together so badly, and so I'm like, I have
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: to be watching the woods. I need to see these
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: deer when they're fifteen yards in the wood still and
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: tell everyone to stop moving because if those if these
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: deer pop out there and spot us. So I'm thinking
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: that glassing the whole town doing that YouTube, are laughing
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: and telling recipe stories and talking about different different food
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: you want to make. I'm finally like, what are you
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: guys doing over here? You're like a couple of housewives
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: exchanging the latest fish fry. Were we were making the
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: best out of a dud hunting situation. You're walking away
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: with something, you know. Finally we get to the point
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: where Mark's about ready to do clothes right, Yeah, and
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: and yes, And I want to finish my thought thro though,
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: which is that I get too intent sometimes and I
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: need to relax a little bit. And Dad, you do
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: a great job of the opposite that stay nice and
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: relaxed and happy and so at times. At times it
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: wears on me, but I'm very glad that you do it,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad that you are your own person out
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: there and having a good time. And I'm glad that
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: Justin got to document that interesting father son dynamic. I
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: almost brought a bought a pressure cooker today. Dude, I
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: don't want to buy Mark for Christmas set of earplugs.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: Better at it. Hey. Now, we eventually got you two
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: uh children focused and dialed in on what we're trying
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: to do. And it does get to an hour until
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: dark and we still haven't seen a deer, and we
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: do a little, uh, a little dialogue session where we're
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: on time at our left and this has gonna be
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: what it's gonna happen, and still no dear. And then
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: it gets to thirty minutes of daylight left and still
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: no dear. And I remember staying at that point, I
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: was feeling pretty down in my head, um, thinking man,
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: zero dear tonight, um, and there was gonna degrees the
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: next day or something, and I was feeling pretty bummed.
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: But then I was kept on reminding myself and then
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: I said it out loud to you. Did I don't
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: know if you remember, but I said, I've had so
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: many hunts like this where it looks horrible and it's
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: seeming like it's going to be a complete Remember that, Mark,
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: I remember that, and it can all change. It all
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: changes in a second, just in a flip of a switch.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: It happens, and it might have been thirty seconds. Yeah,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't know how long was after saying that,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: but very soon after saying that, Um, what happened. So
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: you said that, Dad, there's a bucket coming out of
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: the woods, and that deer came out. And again I
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: didn't see it, so you have to fill in that
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: gap markers. I didn't see it come out of the woods.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't see it come across the field. Well, I
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: didn't see it till it came into the food pot.
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: So justin, yeah, I'd like to mention I stopped talking
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: about recipes long enough to point out that there was
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: a hitting a scrape on the edge of the woodline. Yes, oh,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: you saw first up. Yeah. I thought it was smart.
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: Oh no, I forgot that. Justin. Justin got two gold
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: stars for doing this. He got the spot there. Uh,
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 1: and so he spotted it. I pull up and see
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: him right away there and it was his antlers are
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: up in the tree working a scrape. And right away
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: I said, nice year and a half a seven pointer,
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: that is what I thought. And um, and basically seeing
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: him and thinking myself, man, that's that's that's a dear
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: you shoot basically, that's that's a shooter dead. Um. And
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: so the deer then starts walking our way. I mean,
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: he came out of the timber in front of us
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: and just a little bit to the west, and then
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: he you know, you tell exactly where he was when
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: he was coming right to that food plot, straight up
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: wind of us, right to where you're beautiful clear shot
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: into the food plot would be. And I'm just thinking,
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is exactly like we wanted to
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: write it up. And actually I think I told you.
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: I told you this, but I told you just before
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: the hunt and after the hunt. But when I was
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 1: setting up this blind with Tony in the summer, I
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: even said, I bet you this is gonna be where
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: my dad kills one. We're gonna go right back to
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: the same place we went last year. He's gonna come
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: out of this timber, he's gonna walk across up towards
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: his food plot, and he's going to get a shot.
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: And I kind of acted it all out, um, And
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: it didn't come exactly the route I thought he would take.
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: But he comes walking in and I just remember thinking,
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: we can't screw this up. So the deer's walking and
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm whispering, tell you gotta get turned dead,
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: shoot out the window and trying to ask, just like,
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: are you on him? Can you see him? And the
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: deer stops at like fifty yards and kind of stares
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: in our direction. And this was that moment where it's like, Okay,
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: is this happening or not? That was the moment of truth.
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: And I was just heart running a million miles a minute.
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: And then he put his head down and kept walking
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: and the brush and grass is so tall all you
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: can see was the tips of his antlers almost over
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: most of that stuff. Um, but he's coming right in
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: and basically from there it was from there it was
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: all on you. Um. So, now walk me through what
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: you were thinking when when you heard there was a
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: buck and I said, that's a it's a nice year
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: and a half old seven pointer. Now walking me through
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: your mind, is this is all happening? So you know
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: it's funny. I I unlike Monday night, I was very
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: calm that night on Wednesday night, so I didn't I
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: know buck favor. What adrenaline I had was apparently not
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: so much that you know the big thing that happened, though, Mark,
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: because you said that's coming in the food pot. You now,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: by this time, we're probably ten minutes from from last life, right,
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's getting dark. We're still ten minutes from
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: shooting light. But I'm looking out in the food pot.
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: I can't see it. It's and it's mostly I think,
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: because it's so it's you know that everything's looking kind
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: of the same color of of gray and um, and
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, oh crap, you know here that
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: this nice dare finally come out. It's coming to the
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: food pot. It's right in front of me. You arranged it,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: I think at three or four yards, um, and I
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: can't see it. And so I brought up my crossbow, uh,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: scoped in the general area where I thought the deer was,
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: and thank god, I can see the deer through the
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: skull and uh, um, you know, I and I did
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: the obligatory market I think to take a shot. Justin
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: got out of and I, uh, you know, brought the
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: crossbow up and used a couple of the techniques that
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: that I had kind of uh learned and perfected a
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: little bit on Tuesday and the shooting that we did,
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: and it just went one to three. I mean, I
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: didn't have any any of them Buck Favor that I
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: had on Monday night, just put right behind his shoulder
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: and pulled the trigger and he immediately I think you immediately, Mark,
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: and I knew that I had him because you could
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously hear the sound and but you knew
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: right away, Mark, right you said, you got a good shot.
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: And he ran eight yards right in the middle of
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: the food pot and dropped and we could see him
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: at the top of the hill. What do you think
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: about that? You know, it's It's the funniest thing. It
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: was just such it was so surreal, I think, I
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: think that, well, I was so excited to see that
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: he came in when he did, but I was so intentional,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: intentionally focused on making sure I didn't miss this deer
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: that you know, it was surreal to pull the pull
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: the triggers, see the bolt go through him and then
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: have him run up and drop that it was kind
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: of like, oh, I just shot a deer. It wasn't
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: until you know, a few minutes later that it just
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: just hit me hard that that it actually, you know,
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: got it done, and he's there and he's not you know,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: he's not running into the woods with a bolt, you know,
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: over his back. So yeah, it was great, and we
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: ended up had a bunch of deer pile out in
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: the next five minutes after that. Yeah, that was the
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: other thing. That's funny, just like Monday night, right, So
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: shoot the deer and that seems to be the trigger
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: that brings a bunch of other deer out. I guess
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: we gotta learned that for next time. Yeah. Yeah, so
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer and even saw the deer you
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: missed on nine number one. He came back. It was
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: twenty yards behind us. Um. But but yeah, it was amazing.
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was so so excited for you and
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: thrill that it all worked out and it was it
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: was super cool. The only thing, the only thing I
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: regret a little bit, not regret, but it just is
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: the nature of the beast of what we were doing
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: is that I felt like you never really got to
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: celebrate it fully because we had to film this thing
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: that we had to go and walk over here and
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: film this thing that we had to go walk over there,
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: and there was just so much work around it to
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: film this show that I don't think you ever I
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: mean I know you eventually did, but there was a
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: lot of rigamar role that had to be layered into
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: it for you to just get to enjoy your moment.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: So from I don't know, do you did you get
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: to enjoy the moments? Did you get to soak it
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: in enough? Oh? Yeah, you know, I think when I
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: really did, because again I don't quite know how to
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: describe the emotions that I was feeling at the time
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: because it was in stark contrast to Sunday night or
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: Monday night. Um, it was I was unbelievable, I guess
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: it would be the best way to describe it. It
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: was almost like somebody needed to pinch me and say,
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: you really did shoot the deer. Um. It wasn't until
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: Justin did his you know, uh uh portrait pictures with
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: me and the deer that I really kind of sank in.
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: And then when you and I got it, uh, you know,
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: it was a surreal experience. And seeing how the sausages
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: made Is us really that thing that the filming of
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: the show. Yeah, yeah, the whole filming of the show
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: and all the process you guys go through, and you
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: know that the retakes and you know, all the other
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: things Um, it was. It was really quite the experience
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: and I just yeah, I mean I that was kind
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: of this in interesting again. I think it kind of
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: had the long the long boil with the celebration of
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: shooting the deer. Um, you know, when I talked to
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: mom on the way home, that was part of it.
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: Talking to my friends on on Thursday about it, going
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: back out there on Thursday and maybe to some extent,
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 1: just seeing where we shot the deer, seeing the blind
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: walking through it all again, was it really got me
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: pumped again and and really excited about what happened. So yeah,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: it was. It was phenomenal. The whole thing was just great.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Any thoughts for you just know how that all went down. Yeah,
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: Dave went from being like giddy on night one to
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: like being stone stone cold, and he shot shot that deer,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: and I thought you and I were gonna lose it,
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: like we were. We were both shaken, and Dave's just
• 1:47:13
  Speaker 1: putting his crossbow away like just say the sandwich, like yeah,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: I I you know, I felt like I mean, we
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: all rode the roller coaster together, you know, like seeing
• 1:47:28
  Speaker 1: what happened on Monday and having high hopes and obviously
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: like I know you had plans, your plans for your dad. Um,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: but it was cool to see Um. I mean, I
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: don't think he could have been happier. Man. And like
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: he said, like it as much as a process it
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: is to film this stuff and whatnot, it in a
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: way he did get to relive it so many times.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: I mean it does get to be stretched out. I mean,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: you know, the next day at your house and and
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know it it's kind of you know
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: when I shoot a deer, it's like I go, I
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: get you know, thirty minutes and then go drop it
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: off process or whatever and like it. So it did
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: have a cool sense, I mean for the story and
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: the way it went down, and and hearing the history
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: that you guys have at Ken Rovan and Man, it
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: was just like the perfect culmination to to those two
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: that week. Yeah, it was. It was awesome. It was
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: It was really cool to see how much just to
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: see you having a good time out their dad, to
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: be all the after everything that you've you know, to
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: to be a son for a moment here, for after
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: everything that you've done for me and all the things
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: you introduced me to and and and and how you
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: raised me to be the person I am now and
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: to give me these opportunities that I have now and
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: to hunt and to do the things I love. Um,
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: But knowing that you know you hadn't been able to
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: have some of these experiences that I now get to
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: have a lot, I just so badly wanted you to
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: get that reward that I knew you deserved, and to
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: see you get your first deer with a bow and
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: your biggest buck yet, and and to have these kinds
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: of fun sightings and see a bunch of deer and
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: see a bunch of bucks and sea bucks fighting, and
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: see your biggest buck and all that stuff. It was
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: it was like a dream come true for me too.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: So UM, I just no one deserves it more. And
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: I was just really really happy for you. And um,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: you have all my life inspired me with how you
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: push through tough things and and achieve incredible things despite
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: whatever obstacle might be in the in front of you.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: This is just another perfect example of that, UM, where
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: a credit thing happened and you dealt with it, and
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: you pushed through it and you kept a good attitude
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: and a smile on your face. And here we are
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: a couple of day years later and you're cool as
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: a cucumber. You learned, you adapted, you push through, and
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: you uh, you did a great thing. So it was
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: just a terrific moment. As a son, it was a
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: terrific learning experience. Um, you continue to inspire me and
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: many others, I think too. And uh put a hell
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: of a shot in that buck too. So it was
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: just really cool all the way around. And I don't know, Dad,
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: I think it used to Let you wrap it up
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: here if you have any final thoughts on the experience
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: or any final takeaways from what you learned or I
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: don't know anything this whole journey you've been on as
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: a as a bow hunter, in the ups and downs
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: and where all this has taken you, um, or any
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: thoughts for other people that have struggled as new hunters
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: or hunters who have dealt with anything. Um, I don't know.
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: What's What are your parting words for folks listening to
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: this story? Well, you know, I guess what I would say. Work.
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: First of all, thank you, and it was an amazing
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: trip and I really just just incredible. It was the
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: best hunting experience of my entire life. And thank you
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: justin for being a part of that as well, and
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: just being a really good uh comrade in arms. And
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: you know all the times you're probably back there giggling
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: at the old man with the cross ball. But you know,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: I think Mark, for me personally, this has had such
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: a big personal impact in that UM. And I've always
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: loved to deer hunt, but for all the things we
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: talked about before, I've never been very good at it.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: I've always had a sense of, you know, I'm kind
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: of I'm just going through the motions, right, I'm not
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: going to see a deer even if it walks right
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: out in front of me. Um. You know, over the
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: last four or five six years, UM, that's changed a bit,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: um to a great extent because of you and UM
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: and that really is neat. Thank you. You You've you've
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 1: real ignited, um my passion for bow hunting in particular,
• 1:51:54
  Speaker 1: but just hunting in general at a level that it
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: hasn't been in a long time. And that's really neat.
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: It's exciting. I mean, I bow hunted and I've been
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: out in the woods every year for I don't know,
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: forty five years whatever, but uh, but i haven't had
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: so much fun. And I'm not nearly. Have never been
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: as excited as I am about the sport right now.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Well, I see more exciting hunts like this
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: in your future, Dad. I know we were already spit
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: Ball must some new ideas for next year. So hopefully
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 1: we can keep keep them coming, and we'll have more
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: podcasts like this next year and the year after that,
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: and before we know it, you're gonna be yelling at
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: me for making too much noise in the blind that
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: will be Remember, remember there's only one prophecy that always
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: comes true, Mark and ask me your children treat you
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: the same way. Everett will be out in the woods
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: one of these days and he'll be saying, Dad, don't
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: make me too much noise. Dad, let me go first. Dad,
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: Can I have your ball? I need to shoot that dear. Yeah,
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: I don't think you're too far off. He was already
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: sneaking around today with his little pretend deer hunting rifle
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: and I was trying to work, and he was trying
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: to hunt, and he was sneaking up when he was
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: grunting at a buck and I was, I think, talking
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: to his mom, and he turned at me and he
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: literally goes there's a deer buck, so he's he's well
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: on his way. That he's well on his and uh,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: I guess with that, guys, thank you both for not
• 1:53:24
  Speaker 1: only being a part of awesome hunt, but for now
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: sticking around here tonight talking all about it and reliving it.
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: It was an awesome experience, an awesome hunt. I can't
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: wait for all of you listening to get to see it. Uh.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: The episode is going to be on season two of
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: the Back forty, which should be airing this November. UM,
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: so take a look over on the meat Either YouTube
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: channel keeping that out here in the coming weeks. We'll
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: have the first episode coming out very soon, and you
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: can also watch season one. They're in the Mediator YouTube
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: channel right now, which has that first hunt with my
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: dad and I and the hunt when I killed the
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: Wide eight and that background I talked about in the beginning.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: You can watch them that too. So with that, I
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: guess we'll wrap it up. Thank you all for listening,
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being a part of this community, for tuning in.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: Best of luck on your hunts. Get your family members
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: out there, whether it's your son or daughter, wife, father, mother,
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. Uh. These kinds of things that my
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: dad and I got to share our um. You know,
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: you just you can't put a price tag on it.
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: It's it's special stuff. Go out there and create those
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: memories of your own, and until next time, stay wired
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: to Hunts.