Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #185: Deer Camp, Ohio Rut Success, Holyfield Updates & Furter

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Wired To Hunt Podcast #185: Deer Camp, Ohio Rut Success, Holyfield Updates & Furter · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This is episode number one and
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: tay in the show, I'm joined by my good buddy,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Josh further Hilliard. I knew I was gonna make it.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: What I'm trying to say is that today on the show,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: I'm joined by my good buddy, Josh further Hilliard, and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: he's sitting right next to me, which is why I'm
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: having a hard time saying this. But we're discussing his
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: successful Ohio Rut hunt, the Quality Dear Management Association, the
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: latest of my hunt for holy Field, and our Northern
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Michigan deer camp. All right, welcome to the Wired to
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Hunt Podcast, brought to you by Sitco Gear. And this
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: is a little bit of a different episode. Uh. Dan
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Johnson is not with us, but I have another bearded
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: uh fill in. She's gonna handle Dan's role today. I
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: think my beer might give him a run for his
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: money right now. Right now. Yeah, it's going pretty good.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It is pretty good. Um with me today playing the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: role of Dan Johnson, is Josh further Hilliard. And we
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: had to give him a chance here because in last
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: week's episodes, you guys heard me and Dan were talking
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: while Josh was sitting on the sidelines in the hotel
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: listening to us talk smack about him. So we had
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to give you an opportunity now to actually be on
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the podcast and to actually, you know, speak your own
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: mind now. So I appreciate that. Yeah, so we got
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Josh here. Um. Have we told the story of why
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I call you Further on the podcast? I don't know.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think you have told it. Maybe once a
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: long time ago. You know what we did because you
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: are on the podcast a couple of years ago and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Dan asked if you had any like funny nicknames growing
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: up because I told you know, I told Dan that
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you grew up together. He asked if he had any nicknames,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, we call him Further. Um. It's
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. This has really gotten some momentum across the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: hunting community. Now everybody does refer to you as Further,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: which I'm so happy about it. I'm gonna be on
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: like a one name basis in the hunting community, right.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: You really the equivalent of like Kobe, well, I think
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I told you to say that a guy facebook frond
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: me and uh, I got a message from his like,
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: so how did you get the nickname Further? Just like
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: out of the first thing. Well, for those that are
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: new who aren't familiar with who Further is, the short
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: version of the story is that in high school, Um,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: we got the idea that we should call Josh Further
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: because his dad's name is Frank and we were like,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: his dad was just a funny guy and we would
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: see him a lot when we were hanging out, and um,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: well Josh was like a mini Frank, so he's a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Frank Further. So for sure we's called Further, but we
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: decided not to tell Josh why we were calling him Further.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So me and all my buddies for I don't know
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: how long it was, maybe a year, it was longer,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: it's like, not until it was finally, So for all
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: that time we called him Further and Joshua get pissed.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: He was like, why do you call me that? What
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: does that mean? I had no idea. Yeah, So so
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: that's where Further comes from. Um, so it's kind of
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: like anti climactic though, like it doesn't really make I
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: don't know right. That's what makes it so good in
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: my opinion, because you're right. It is not a clever,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: funny reason for the nickname. And that's why it's so good,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: because it's so stupid. So Josh and me are right
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: now sitting in a it's about maybe twenty yards long
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: by ten yards wide, um cabin. We are up at
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: my family deer camp in northern Chickin and right now
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it's just me and Josh. The rest of the crew
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: hasn't got up here yet, so we figured this would
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be a good opportunity to record a podcast. Um. And
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we've got a cold beer in her hands. We just
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: ate some venison stew after the evening hunt got the
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: wood burning stove piping hot. Here in between us, um
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: field stone kind of mantle piece above the stove, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: then along the wall the log cabin. And to our
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: to my right side is this wall of all these
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: racks from over the years that have been killed here. Um.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: And it's pretty cool and we can talk about about
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: this more later. You can't leave out like the leather chairs, Yeah,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: we get the really old leather chairs. Um. And then
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: if a couple of cots and um, there's a mouse
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: or two hanging around right now that are giving us
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: some company. Um. But but we're gonna talk about deer
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: camp here today. But there's a lot more talk about
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: other than that. So we'll kind of end with a
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: few thoughts on what we're doing here and why this
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: place is kind of special to me. Um. But I
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: want to hear a little bit more about what Further
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: does because he works in the hunting world these days
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: and he's doing some pretty cool things. I want to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: talk to you a little bit of that, Josh. Um.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: And then also, so last week on the podcast, when
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you were sitting listening to me and Dan talk. Um,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the very next day, I think you had a very
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: exciting day of hunting. I did, so I want to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: hear all about that because Further laid the smack down
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: on a big Ohio buck. So we're gonna we're gonna
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: talk about that. And then, UM, I'm gonna do something
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: that's gonna piss off my buddy Dan. But I want
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to talk about holy Field and my final week of
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: hunting him. Since we talked last time. UM, apologies Dan
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: for for not letting you be a part of this
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: but we have to talk about it. So Josh, you're
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: gonna have to play the Dan role there and questioned
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: me and badger me and tell me what. Okay, if
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: you were Dan, no matter what I do, you will
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: tell me, well you should have rattled, or you should
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: have grunt it, or to try decoying. UM. And then
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I'll say, well, this is Michigan, Dan, this isn't an Iowa. UM.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I gonna put myself in like I'm hunting Iowa. Yeah, jeez,
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: ones that be nice next year, right next maybe hopefully. UM.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the game plan. UM. Let's talk about
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: real quick what you're doing these days? Because you used
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: to come on the podcast and you were just my
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: friend who uh was just you know, this strange guy
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: that walks around and you call further UM and you
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: hunt with me. We share our property down in Ohio. UM.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: We've done a lot of hunting together. We went eltcutting
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: together recently, deer hunting together for a long long time. UM.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: But this year you actually got a little more involved
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: in the hunting world. Talked us about that what are
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: you doing these days? I got a lot more involved
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: in it, um. And may I started as a Regional
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: director UM with Quality Deer Management Association UM, covering Michigan,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: Indiana and western Ohio. UM. So I went from zero
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to a hundred real quick. And I was helping out
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: with you and wired to hunt on the side a
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: little bit from a day job, and UM, you know,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: just an opportunity arose and you know, everything worked out
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: and I've been having a lot of fun. It's been
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: a it's been a great what six months now I've
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: been doing it, so it's been it's gone really fast,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: but it's it was so cool to see, like because
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: we talked about you know, you had this passion to
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: try to do something like this, and we we brainstorm
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: different ideas and like you said, you start helping all
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: the wire to hunt and we've had we've had so
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: many long drives down to Ohio together where you would
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: talk about like your frustrations with your old you know,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: the things you were doing, and how you'd like to
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: get more involved in something you were passionate about. And
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: to see it all come together, to see to see you,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: UM take the deleape and put in the effort to
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: to not just settle for something that just got you by,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: but to actually Chase. You know, a dream to see
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you do that was was really cool for me. Yeah, no,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it's it's been. It's been great. And you know, I've
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: told a couple of people this. I go to my
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: old job. It was a good place to work it
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: you know, I've you would laughing a good time. There's
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: there's a terrific YouTube video. I should find this YouTube
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: video and uh post it for everybody. For his old
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for his old job, they created one of these. Um
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: it's like a marketing video. It's like a market kind
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: of and there's this great scene where where the camera
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: had been going to different people at the organization and
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: they were saying why they liked it or whatever, and
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: then the camera kind of follows down the hallway and
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: then turns into an office and then there's Josh sitting
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: at his desk and like a suit tie or something.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: He says, I would recommend X y Z Company to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: all my friends, and I would. It was it was
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a good place to work, but just not what you know,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: I just couldn't see myself doing that forever. I'd I'd
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: get to work and I'd sit in the parking lot
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and I'd just be like I don't want to go
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: in you know it was in It was in Metro Detroit,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: so I was battling traffic every day down there from
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know where I lived, like a forty five minute commute,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and I just think the whole way down there was like, man, this,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: There's gotta be more to life than this. And UM,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: I just kept an eye out for different things. And
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: UM I met a couple of the guys from q
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: d M a um down at the A T A
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: show last year that I went out went to with
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: you and Lo and behold, that's who I ended up
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: interviewing with UM a couple of months later there and uh,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: like I said, it all kind of just worked out
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: and I feel very fortunate to be where I'm at
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: right now. And um, so, so what does a regional
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: director of what is the regional director for the q
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: DUM A do? And UM tell me what? Yeah, tell
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: me about that? And then for people like actual member,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: as irregular people, how would they interact with you? Um,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: for those in your region especially? Yeah? So, so as
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: a regional director, my my main goal is to help
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: UM spread the mission of q d M a UM
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: SO by gaining new members. What is the mission of
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: cute Man quizy here can you can I guess before? So, yeah,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: let's take a step back before we get to what
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: you do as a regional director Quality Dear Management Association.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: One oh one. Just in case we've had a lot
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: of people from the Katy Man in the show, but
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: just in case they're not familiar, can you give me,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: like your one minute spiel of here's at a high
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: level what the Keatie may is about. Yeah, so so
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: kind of like the elevator, you know, the elevator speech.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: So our goal is to ensure UM are hunting heritage UM,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: conserving the white tail deer UM through a scientific approach,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: UM through hunting based activities. UM. You know. The main
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: goal is to uh to make sure we've got a
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: balanced heard um through sex ratios, age structure. UM. You know,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: we do a lot of research on the disease fronts. UM.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: So we're conserving the white tailed deer in our hunting
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: heritage is our is our main goal? Cool? All right,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: so you guys are doing that. There's a whole bunch
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: of different ways that I know from my own experience
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: with the organization that they are, you know, doing great
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: things for white tailed deer and white tailed deer hunters.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: But okay, now to you regional director, what do you do?
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: How do you help your people? Yeah? UM so a big,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a big chunk of my job is UM helping facilitate
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a lot of these, UM, you know, fundraising events like banquets. UM.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: My my region, there's there's about thirty branches, and I
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: think last year between the regional director who before me,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: who retired, and then when I took over, I believe
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: there's eighteen or nineteen banquets throughout the year that we
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: we put on. And that's that's one of the main goals.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Our main functions of my job is to help facilitate
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: these banquets UM raise money for the organization. UM. So
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: we put on a lot of those every year. UM.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: There's a lot of secondary events like educational events, UM,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: habitat days, UM, just different type of events that I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: will help a branch kind of organize, UM anything that
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: they need through the national office, they would go through me,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: UM to get UM helping them market different events. UM.
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: So working with all these volunteers that are out there
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: trying to spread our mission at a grassroots level. UM,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of their go to to help them UM
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: with whatever they need from the qd m A. So,
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: so there's the national QUDUM A organization and there's you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: tens and tens of thousands of members and then within
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: different states than there are these local kind of subgroups
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: of of the QTUMO, right, and you guys call them branches.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: And then each one of those branches has like local
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: events that you just talked about. They do different things
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: to help deer hunters out. Like he said, there's just
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: habitat days. I've been to a number of these habitat
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: days as are really cool educational events. UM. I know
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: there's events where like they helped take new new kids
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: out hunting. There's mentor things, we've got our Share your
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Hunt program UM. So a bunch of stuff like that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: going on and the so like you said, then you
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: are like the go to person for all those branches
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: to help make that happen right, and then you know
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of the behind the scenes things like making
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: sure we've got insurance for those UM events and all
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: our eyes are dotted and teas are crossed, um raffle
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: license things like that kind of making sure we're kind
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: of doing everything by the book and and also we
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: help facilitate you know, we've got a core like banquet
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: package that we get through our UM sponsors and things
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: like that from q d m A that help raise
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: money at them the banquets UM. So that's kind of
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a high level overview of what I do well. And
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: then you're taking those those fundraising the results of those fundraisers,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: I imagine are going back to you know a lot
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: of these different really cool events like what just did
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: last night Opening Day in Michigan. UH one of your
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: branches sponsored and hosted a buck pull event right yet
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: we had a buck pole that Eaton County branch of
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: of q d m A had a buck poll um
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: in Vermontville yesterday and that was a lot of fun.
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: We have like thirty two deer that that came and
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: got checked in and we pulled some job bones on
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: on some of the deer and we filled out a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: lot of information UM that will provide then to the
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Michigan DNR UM for for reporting reasons and and so
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: they can have some data and then they'll also mail
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: all those hunters their successful deer patches for seen and UM.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It was it was a lot of fun. There's a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: big turnout for a pretty crappy night of weather. I
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: mean it was rainy, and UM we had a great turnout.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And you know, like you said, UM, at those fundraising events,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: a portion of that money goes to the national office
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: to help UM the mission spread the mission at the
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: national level, and then also a portion of those funds
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: stay with that local branch to help do UM community
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: of events that helped drive our mission as well. Yeah,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. Well, I can say from my own personal
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: experience UM the cut UM as a national organization and
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: the different things they do, the the work they do
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: to make sure that good things are happening across the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: crunch happening across the country UM, and the educational resources
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: they put out. I mean those things are amazing. But
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the local level, even there's so many cool things going on,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Like you know, these different events we talked about, UM,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the you know, bringing in really great people to come
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and share their experiences, talk about whether it be habitat
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: improvement or hunting or management strategies, different things along those lines. UM.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: For someone you know that maybe is a member or
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: isn't what has been looking for a way to just
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: get more involved with like other deer hunters in their
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: area or people that are that care about white tailed
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: deer and conservation. How does someone go about actually like
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: getting involved with the branch, meeting other people like that.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: How do you get kind of synked into that? Yeah,
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of different ways. I mean, you know
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of people asking what do I get out
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: of being out of What do I get out of
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: being a q d M a member? And the answer
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: is really, you know, you get out of it whatever
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: you want to put into it. If you want to
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: be super involved, you can do that. If you just
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: want to get the magazine and read some great articles,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you can do that. UM. You know, if someone wants
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: to get involved, they can. They can go to our
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: website and they have we have a list of all
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the different branches in their state. UM. They can click
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: on the state and it pops up the list. UM.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: So you can reach directly out to the contact listed
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: for that branch, which is typically the president. UM. You
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: can also reach out to me and let me know
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: where you live, and I can let you know the
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: closest branch to you, UM and get you involved that
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: way and get you connected I've had, I've had I've
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: had past guests that have given their cell phone numbers
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: of the podcast. Are you willing to take that risk? Yeah?
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: I mean it's all out serious. Yeah, I don't care.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: It's all on the website. Well, but you're welcome to
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: give it now, or you can just send the website.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: You go to the website, my email addresses there, my
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: phone numbers there. UM contact me anytime. UM I can
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: get you hooked up with where you need to go. UM.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: We're always looking for volunteers to help out UM at
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: a branch level, and we've got some amazing volunteers. There's
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: just a lot of people that have poured their you know,
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: their life into helping UM Q D m A and
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the White Tailed Deer and it's it's it's really cool
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to go around to these different branches and just see
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: how passionate these volunteers are about UM, you know, the
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: organization and hunting and making sure that you know, hunting
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: and the White Tailed Deer are going to be there
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: for their kids and their kids and their kids. UM.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So that's that's it's really cool to see. I mean,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: it's branch to branch brand. They're all just die herds. Um. Well,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: speaking of that, you know, I get lots of I
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: want to say lots, but I get a decent number
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of emails or messages um, from people who are like, Hey,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: love the podcast, love we're doing blah blah. I live
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: in Michigan or I live in this town or that town. Um,
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I don't have many like hunting buddies. Do you want
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: to get a beer sometime or do you want to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: get whatever coffee sometime or whatever? And I unfortunately just
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: simply can't you know, get beers with all these different people.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: But if you're looking to meet more hunters, like if
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: you live in an area and you don't have some
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: hunting buddies nearby, or you're you're new to a spot
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and you want to meet some people, I can't think
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: of a better way to instantly get plugged in to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: a great local deer hunting community. Then find out about
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: your local cutie may branch, get involved, and then bam,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: you've just now got a whole bunch of die hard
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: new deer hunting buddies right there. Um. I mean that
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: is from from a purely selfish standpoint. If you just
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: want some hunting buddies nearby get involved that one, yeah
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: for sure. And all these all these branches, of the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: majority of them have Facebook pages. I mean you can
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: get on and search them on Facebook. And they've got
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: a list of their events coming up, Like, uh, the
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Northwest Michigan branch, since we're kind of up in the
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: up this way, Um, they've got a aging and scoring
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: night coming up. I think it's December. Um. So that's
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a great bring even if you don't have a deer,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: go and hang out and you know, meet people. Um.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: You know, we're looking to grow co ops. If you
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: own land or if you're a landowner, um, and you
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: want to start practicing q DM q d M on
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: your property. But you think, um, you know, my neighbor
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: shoots all the young bucks. Go talk to them. You know,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: maybe you might you might find out that they've got
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: similar aspirations that you do. But they think you're shooting
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: all that you don't have. So, you know, co ops
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is a great way to meet people and meet your
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: neighbors and and get on the same page with people.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Getting involved in a branch is a great way to
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: meet other hunters and like minded people and go have
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: fun at events. With them. Um, getting involved at a
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: in a leadership capacity and a branch is a great
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: way or if you don't have a branch around you
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: start one. You know, it's it's it's a great way
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: to meet people. And I've met a ton of great
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: people in my short time I'm here. That's well. I UM,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: I have been fortunate to be able to, you know,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: participate in a number of those different events and things.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And while I haven't been able to take a leadership position,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: We've got a couple of buddies of ours. That Coco
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: we're talking talking about you work. We need to work.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: We need these guys to step up. So UM, speaking
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: of Coco Um, what we'll use his code name, our
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: buddy code name coco Um. He was hunting in Ohio
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: with me and further and uh so we were in
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: Ohio last week. That was where we recorded the last episode.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: And UM, I think, well, we never talked about your hunt.
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: So let's go back to Ohio. But before we get
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to that, let's take a quick break for our Sitka story.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And here's Spencer new Hearth for this week's Sitky story.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: We're joined by SITCA Ambassador Chad Stearns. Who tells us
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: about a memorable white tail hunt in Michigan where he
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: wasn't even behind the trigger. Okay, last fall, um, I
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: was hunting a buck that we had deemed the name Dozer,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: three year old buck in central Michigan, and I had
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: been after him for a couple of years. Just a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: unique rack, and it was interesting. My son was the
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: one who actually gave him his nickname. So I had
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: had a couple of long distance encountered during archery season,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: been trying to hunt some primary scrape areas and could
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: never seem to connect. And one evening late in our
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Michigan rifle season here my son was with me running
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the video camera and we had kind of change tactics,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: started hunting some food sources, hoping the deer would come out,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and he appeared at about two hundred and fifty yards
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: following a dough out into a picked cornfield. So you know,
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: between he and I trying to coordinate our efforts and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: in Guineamon video and and finally got an open shot.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: We were able to take this deer. And it was
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: special to me because I've spent a lot of time
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: trying to guide my son and a lot of my
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: time recently has been taking him sort of share that moment. Buck.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: We've been after had countless trail camera pictures. I was
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: really kind of special to share that with him. I
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: think he was more excited than I was. So, you know,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: anytime you can take kids out and introduce him to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the outdoors and have some success, that's just ultra special
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to me. So that one stands out to me as
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a sick moment on Chad's hunt. He was wearing Sita's
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: fanatic system. If you'd like to create a sick of
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: story of your own, or to learn more about Sitka's
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: technical hunting apparel, visit sick of Year dot com. So
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: let's go back to Ohio. You got down to Ohio
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: a day or two before I did because I was
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: still chasing the Holy Field and I kept pushing my
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Ohio trip back because I want to try to kill him. Um,
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: so you got down here like as a day or
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: two beforehand. Talk to me. Let's walk through Ohio. Hunt
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: you out there? First day was pretty boring, right, Yeah,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I gotta think about this for a second. First day
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: where I set my first dad, you set the grassy
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: field stand, right, I don't think I saw a thing.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I don't say a thing that night, but I got
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: down there just for the afternoon hunt. Um, and this
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: this stand has been all right, It's never been great.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think we've ever I don't think either one
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: of us has killed anything out of that stand. But
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the weekend before, let's let's mention this, because I think
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: I talked about a little bit with Dan. But the
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: weekend before I hunted that stand, I went down for
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: two days and a really nice buck came by and
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I passed on him. Um, because it was still early,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: and I had decided this year. You know, I talked
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: kind of jokingly. I had said, booner or bust this
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: year in Ohio because our friend Coco said that he
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: wanted to challenge me to shoot a boon or by
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the time I was thirty, because that's when he shot
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: his booner. Um, it's obviously not gonna happen because I'm
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: probably not gonna shoot anything this year. But I thought,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll try to be a little bit more
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: piggy this year. UM. So I passed that buck. Then
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: you hunt it again. Didn't see anything there. But let's
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: back up again, because when you sent a picture to
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: the group, text like, oh I just passed this one. Yeah,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I said, if I see that buck, he's not getting
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: pass Maybe a little foreshadowing there, yes, And I said,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: absolutely right, you should shoot that buck him, um, because
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: I don't want to shoot the booner because yeah, I'm
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: not on the booner or bus train. Okay, So day
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: one boring Day two? You said, did two? I came right, yep,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: did two? You got there? Well, you got there late
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: that night. Late was that Tuesday night you got in?
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but okay, Yeah, basically, let's let's fast
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: forward to your next exciting hunt. So that would have
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: been Wednesday afternoon. The morning it was slow, um. And
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: then I don't even think I saw anything that morning.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Maybe like one or two does filtered through. Um. The
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: afternoon came and it was getting close to dark, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I turned behind me and looked up on the ridge
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and there's a nice buck coming right down towards me.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And you were hunting the stand that I killed len
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: from up three two or three years ago. Now, that
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: really nice buck that we were chasing for a few years.
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: That was the second or third year we're hunting him. Um,
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: so that stand has a little history too. So you
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you're sitting there and you see a nice buck come downhill,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: see it coming down the hill. It's coming right to me.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: So I'm scrambling. I grabbed my bow, try to get
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: my camera turned back around there and turned background. He's
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: still coming. He's still coming, And you spouted pretty far away, right, Yeah,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: he's pretty far away. He's a couple hundred yards away.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: But I had like a like a perfect lane that
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I can see all the way to the back corner
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of our property. Um, and it's just it's almost like
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a perfect like haircut right through there where I can
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: see up to the top of this ridge. And he's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: just coming on a string right to me. I don't
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: know what's worse when you see a buck and he's
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: like right there on top of you, like you just
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: turn there's a bucket twenty yards or like. And when
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I say worse, I mean, like how you get over
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: excited right when he's just right there and then all
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, bam, you gotta go or don't have
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: any time to think about it? Yeah, or you see
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: him four hundred yards away, excuse me, you watch him
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: come for ten minutes and you're like, oh my gosh,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: she's actually coming, has actually happened like that can be?
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Did you get pretty ampt? Yeah? I got pretty ampt
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: because it is like the first good buck I've seen
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: all year, because you've been I've been a bunch of
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: public land in Michigan that's pretty heavily pressured, and I've
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: seen a handful of year and a half olds, but
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen anything that's really been like, oh, man, here,
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: so described this buck coming your way as he or
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: what you see at least as he's coming. Yeah. So
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I see him, and I, you know, I media identified
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that he was a shooter and a big body, and
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: he starts getting a little closer. Maco, Man, that looks
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: a lot like the buck that Mark passed, and I
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: put my bindos up on him one more time ago
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: that is guy saw the big curve like bladed, kind
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: of tall brow ton on what his left side? Uh yeah, yeah,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: it's left side deer left yep, yep. And so he's
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: coming to me, and he's coming, drops down in this
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: little creek and he comes right back up and all
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of a sudden he's like on me like that. I
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: mean it's felt like forever. But then he was Boomi's
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: right there, and he gets to this point and he's
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: behind some thick stuff, a couple of trees and some
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: branches and a couple of bushes, and he's like twenty
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: yards and but he's right on the He's right on
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: the property line and where you clipped on. Yeah, yeah,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I was ready to go at the camera aimed where
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: I wanted him to go to, um, because I had
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: cell phone filming myself, and um, he just needed to
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: take a right or keep going straight, and I had
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: a shot at him, but he jumps the fence into
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the neighbors and I on and atom and he just
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: didn't want anything to do with it. You just dropped
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: into the drainage. Again. I never saw him come out
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: of there, so I was I was bummed. I the
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: one spot he couldn't go. He want It just seems
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: pretty typical how that usually goes, as you know, really
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: excited and then I go, all right, that that sucks.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: That's it wasn't It wasn't. And that was pretty much
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: that we had maybe a little bit of daylight left side.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I hope that he'd come back out, but um, didn't
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: happen that night, and I don't think I saw anything.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: I saw a few does that night and not any bucks. Um.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: So that was that night. We went back to our hotel.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about our hotel real quickly. UM. We we
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: usually stay so we are cheap, and we are like
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: dirt bags. And so when we started hunting down in Ohio,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I don't I've been hunting in Ohio for I don't know,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: seven years now or something like that. Um, because I
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: started hunting down there a year or two before you did. Um,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: me and Coco did. Um. So when we started going
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to this area, the first thing we do is find
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: the very cheapest hotel we can possibly find. And it
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: happens to be on the outskirts of a somewhat large
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: city and unfortunately, is the closest hotel we can get
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to where we hunt. It's like a forty minute drive. Yeah,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: it's like thirty six to forty minutes, um, depending on
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: who's driving. UM, I'll say that I'd take I get
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: there in thirty six. Um, you know you're there. I
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: used to much more. I used to be the Gramma driver. UM.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: I've come a long way. I'd like to think. Uh,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: but so we we found the very cheapest hotel and
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: at the time we were like twenty four when we
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: started hunting there or something. Um, And I mean it's
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it's pretty rough. It's the kind of spot that before
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I ever opened up the door, I always peek out
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the window and like look and just see is there
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: anyone out here? Could I get jumped? Um? Like there's
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: weird things going on a lot of the time, like
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: last year or two years ago. So like in the
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: middle of the night, I don't even remember what he
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: was saying, but there's a guy like standing outside of
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: the room just screaming. Well that happened, crazy thing when
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: you were and you were down there by yourself that night, right,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: And I got there the next night. The first night
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: was by myself, and there's someone outside my door like
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: like like Tourette's but maybe on drugs or drunk or
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: something going on ladder yeah, um, and just yelling like
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: cuss words and like screaming. And I woke up and
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: like this guy come into my room. Um he didn't,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: but then he did the next night when you were there,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I think, Um, so like that kind of stuff happened
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: or even this year we went there. I went there,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I guess this was by myself, and I went up
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: to the front desk and I had to wait like
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes before the receptionist came to the desk. Um,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and like there was a group of like six people
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: all waiting like there's no one here. I was calling,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: no one's showing up. The guy comes in, he was like,
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, there was a nine one one call back
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: on the back block. So you know, it's just like
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: stuff so always has pretty sketch, it's a little sketchy. Um. Now,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: our buddy Coco code named Coco Um went there last
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: year that he had his incident that made his wife.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So last year he went and he got into his
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: room and he found bed bugs in his room and um,
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: and then he had to request another room. And then
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: the next room he went to have bed bugs too,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: or something something like that. And then so they went
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: to a different hotel. So then this year we're all
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: going down there for vacation and Coco's wife said, hey,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: you're not going to the dunghole motel. You gotta go
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: somewhere better. Now, I don't want you to bring bed bugs. Hum.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So Corey finds it. We really went up a lot
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: of notes there. So so Coco goes to this other
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: hotel and m he gets in there, he gets the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: room and so but now he's paranoid about bed bugs.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: So he checks the room, checks out aneth the bed
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: and doesn't. He find bad bugs in that the first room.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So he finds bad bugs in the first one there.
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: So he goes back to the front desk and they
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: give him a new room. He goes into that room
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and it smells like cigarette smoke and there's like ashes
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: on the ground and stuff, and like you have to
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: sign like a two waiver like that you will not
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: smoke in these rooms and if you don't or if
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: you do smoke in then you get paid bucks. So
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: now he well, someone smoked in here, so let's go
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: back to the desk. Tells the guy, Hey, someone's been
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: smoking here. I need a different room. They put him
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: in another room. He goes in there, checks the bed.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: There's not bed bugs, but there's I guess, like the
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: sign of past bed bugs, like dark spots all over something.
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: Somehow he ended up on four different rooms. Yeah, so
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: we he finally did get a different room that was
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: bed bug free, smoke free, signs of bed bug free. UM.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And so now we're at the new place and m
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: the next day. Now I got there and we're like,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: you know what we are, we are thirty years old,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: Like we have real adult jobs. Now, maybe we don't
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: need to be at the Dandia's worst hotel. And it's
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: not like we moved that far. This this hotel is
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: like five dollars more night or like ten dollars a night.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: And I was not like a big upgrade here, right,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit nicer. We were ringing our
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: hands about the money. We're like, oh, man, I don't know,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: should we really spend this much more? But you know,
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: I'm happy we did it. I think it's a little better.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I'm really happy we did. I think I changed my
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: luck down there. Yeah yeah, okay, So back to that,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: enough about the hotel. UM. So you had that really
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: close call. We go back to the hotel room. It
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: was pizza night. We had our Marcos pizza and we
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: watched Bucks on DVD. UM and I record a podcast.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I listened to you listened to us record of the
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: podcast and talk about you and Uh. Next day I
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: headed to UM this stand at the very back of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the property up on this ridge. How many times have
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: we hunted that one time? I've only I've hunted it
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: one other time, and you've never I've never hunted it.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: So it's only been hunted twice ever in the history
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of us hunting this property. And this is like our
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: fifth year hunt. I don't think I could find it
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: in the dark. No, you do not have that sense
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: of navigation. One time Josh got lost on a tech
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: acre property and he thought he would be we had
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: to go here. He thought he'd be smart by putting
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: up that orange surveyor's tape as he went along to
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: like map his route. Yeah, it's gonna just mark it
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: for the way in in the morning on my way out,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I'd be I'd be perfect of the morning the flags in. Well,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: he got lost and he was only you know, like
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: it's a tech acre property and then his his his
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: family in laws, his in laws cabin, little cottage is there,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: and um, so he got lost. He finally finds his
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: way out of there after how did you find your
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: way as you like walk up to the wrong house.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Eventually I like ended up at something like little cabin
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: like on the other way I don't know what I
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: was doing. This is this is a this is a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: while ago, like six months ago. So then the next
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: day he takes his wife out of your girl, and
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: then she sees, why is there this big circle of
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: So I don't think I'll ever live that one down
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: from right, she she still gives me a crap about that. So, so, yeah,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you're right, you could not make it to the backstand. Okay,
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm on the back ridge and you were on
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the main ridge stand, right, my favorite stand. Yeah, because
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: what four years ago you killed a really nice buck.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: There is to the day. I mean that morning I
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: sent you like a you know, I get those Facebook
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Then and it was the buck I shot
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: four years ago from that stand on the same day
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: that I sent that to them. Repeat right, because November
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: is that right? Ninth nine? Okay, Um, so let me
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: let me tell about my starting the morning because I'm
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: sitting this backstand and I've been watching some doughs filter
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: through down the bottom. I'm kind of up on a
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: high ridge and then there's a pasture, high pasture behind me,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and then there's a low valley where there's another sort
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: of pasture there, and um, I've been seeing a good
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: number of doughs moving through. Um, we don't see many
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: deer on this property. I've talked about this in the past.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: It's uh, it's a property. It's kind of frustrating to
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: hunt a lot of times because you'll you'll hunt for
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: days and days and you won't see more than like
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: a dough a day or two deer a day or something.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: But if you are willing to put it in enough time,
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: and if you are in the right spot and get
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: a little bit lucky, you know, the one deer you
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: do see could be a really nice mature buck. So
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting the back ridge and um, I've been seeing
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: this deer and then I hear little crashed to my left,
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: and I turned my head and I see a big
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: buck coming like he's like fifteen yards away. Like, oh
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: my gosh, I'm seeded. I'm not prepared. And I've immediately
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: flashed to what happened to me with Holy Field, like
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: two days beforehand, where Holy Feel surprised me. And then
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: he's booted. So I'm like, oh my god, this is
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: not happening to me again. I wasn't even messing around
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: my phone. I think I was just looking the other direction.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: But he had come over a little rise and he
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: dropped over the rise. And then once he gets over
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: that rise withinside of me, he's like thirty yards away wherever.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And he was like coming on a trot right at me.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: And I'm stuck seated in this tree. And what I
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: realized is that this tree we we we didn't have
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of great tree options on there, but
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: this tree did not have very much cover. So we
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: were high in the tree. It's it's a pretty high
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: tree stand um, but there's not much for cover. Um.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: So I was like, oh god, he's gonna spot me
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: up here. I'm gonna get busted um and a big
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: shooter is going to get away. Um. But so I
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: just stayed froze. Usually in this tree, I would have
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: thought to try to stand up. If I saw a
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: big buck coming, I try to stand up. So I
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: just seemed to blend in a little more and be
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: tight to that tree. Um. But I knew I I
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: couldn't move at all. But then I look at this
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: deer a little more. I'm like, oh, I know that, dear,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: that's the deer that passed last week. Uh, really nice puck.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: He's coming. But now I'm a little bit less nerve,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: Like I'm not as stressed because I didn't shoot him
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: last weekend. I'm not gonna shoot this weekend. But he
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: comes in and he walks right to like ten yards
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: and then he kind of looks around like he's gonna
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: spot me any second. He's gonna spot me any second.
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: He's gonna spot mammy second. But he didn't. And he
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: walked by, and I'm looking at him like, oh, man,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: like he looks a lot, he looks nice, and he's
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: right here. I could shoot him. And I came like,
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: I was like, grab my boat, don't grab my boat,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: grab my boat, don't grab my bow. Grab my boat,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: don't grab my bow. And he's I mean, he's wide,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: he's got nice tie in length, he's got that mega
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: browts on on the one side, good solid body, um
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: and just beautiful. And I got really cool footage of him.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: Awesome encounter. But I was like, no, I mean, you
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: passed him once, you know, just stick with your gut. Um.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: You made the right decision. I made the right decision
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: because he bounced off and he went down the hill
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: and I was like, man, that was a cool encounter.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: Um and uh so so that happened. He disappeared, He
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: went down that valley, and um, he went out the
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: other side because there was some noises on that other side. Um.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Now those dos I've been watching had been down that
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: valley and then they went to the creek, and they
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: followed the creek across the way, and then they went
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: up to the opposite ridge from me, which is the
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: ridge of Josh for sitting on. And these does went
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: out that ridge and I'd watched them go up that
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: ridge and go past Josh, so I knew what those
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: doughs had done. So now that buck goes that direction
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: down towards that valley, I'm like, if he goes down,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: if he makes it to that creek, I wonder if
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: he'll hit that trail of all his doughs, I wonderful
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: go up that way. So I'm watching for him. But
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: he had disappeared. Now fast forward like five minutes, ten minutes,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden I spot that buck again. Um,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: but now he's at the creek, and then a few
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: seconds there he's on the ridge and I'm like, holy crap,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: he's gonna go right up towards Josh, and like before
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: when I'm like seeing this in my binoculars and I'm like, okay,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: he's gonna go up the ridge. Now he's on the ridge,
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh man, he's like right there by Josh.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm watching all this unfolding, and in my head,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just like it's like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Like this is actually happening. Tell me
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: what happens from there from your perspective. So those those
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: does that you saw come up the ridge, I saw him.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: They So this this ridge is it's basically a ridge
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: that runs out into it like a finger into the
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: corn field. Corn is still standing down here, and this
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: this ridge has like a grassy top and it's like
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: a shape of a funnel. So there's like a big
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: scrape down at one end that we've got a camera on,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: and then it kind of just funnels down to the
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: edge of this the end of this finger. And so
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: those doughs and I think there's a spike. I think
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: there's a little spike horn with them. Um. They kind
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: of cut across the top of that ridge down into
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: this ditch and up into the corner at the far
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: end um of that funnel. Um. It's like, that's cool,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: you know. And I had a couple of dolls that
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: had come down all the way past me that I
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: could have had a shot out of. Um. So I
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: had a couple of dos that had worked through the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: couple of different dough groups. So that buck can I
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: see him come up, get to the top of the
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: ridge and he's he's right there. He's on that same
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: trail that those doughs were on. And he came a
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: little bit farther down that ridge, but quite close enough
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: for me to get a shot, and he dropped down
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: into that ditch. I was like, son of a he's
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: doing the same thing that he did the night before.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: He's not gonna give me a shot. So I grunted
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: at him again, and this time I saw him stop.
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: He kind of turned his head and he looked back
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: at the corn and I grunted again. He did the
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: old circle and comes right back around. I go, oh,
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: here we go. And he came back up out of
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: this ditch and he was right on the edge of
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: about thirty yards and he just needed to take a
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: couple of steps and he got there and then he stopped.
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: He like on the footage, you can see like he
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: knew something. I wonder what, because your wind wasn't blowing there, No,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: it could have been your wind, but well we had
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: the way the sun was my shadow and the tree
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: shadows were going right to him. So I don't know
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: if he caught my shadow when I when I drew
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: my bow back. Um, I'm not sure what it was,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: but there was something. I mean, you can you can
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: see in the can all normal and then's like he
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: hit a wak. He hit something and just like boom,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: and he just like held one leg up and then
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: put it down, kind of looking He never looked up
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: at me, but he kind of looked over. And I
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: wanted him to take another step or two to have
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: more because he was a little quartering to me just
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the hair. Um. I would have liked to take another
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: step or two. I could have a perfect broadside shot.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: But I didn't think he was gonna I wasn't gonna
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: take that chance. I thought he was gonna bolt. So
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I had it settled in right behind his shoulder and
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: touched off. He's right at thirty yards and you know
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: it hit hit good, sounded good. But man, I didn't
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: think I got much penetration. And he turned around and
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: um I could see blood coming out the other side, though,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: says like, all right, it was a good hit, and
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: um he he died within fifty yards where I shot him.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: I mean he never made it off the top of
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: that ridge. I mean it was quick within seconds. And
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: what's cool is that when I watched the entire thing
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: happened to my been acutor, like even oh, I was like,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you know, hundreds of yards away, because all the leaves
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: are down off the trees, I could watch the strege.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: So I just had my bianos up and I saw
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: him on the ridge and like, oh my gosh, he's
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: gonna be with a range of josh and he second
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: and then he disappeared. And that must have been when
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: he dropped into that dish. And then I'm like, where
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: is he? Where is he? Where is it? So badly
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to see you get a shot at him. Something
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: like panic came like how did I miss him? How
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: did I lose him? And I'm looking, looking, looking, and
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, this one little spot where I thought
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I was seeing him, and he just had blended in
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: with a tree. Maybe he's somewhere different now. So that
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: I made started making like long pans and my binoculus
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: farther down and then made a longer pan to the left,
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I was like, oh wow,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: there he is, and he's like right next to your
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: stand then, and that I got to see the shot,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: like I actually saw. I saw him get hit and
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: run and go down. I mean that was so cool.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: A really quick yeah, really fast. So the time where
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: I first saw him and time he presented a shot
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to the time he died. Quick, walk me through your
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: mental state. Man, it's been the last time I killed
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: a buck. It was four years ago in that same stance.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, it had been a while and a huntred,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty hard the last several years trying to
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I had a couple of opportunities that slipped
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: through my fingers. Um but man, it just felt it
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: felt good to kind of get that confidence back. I
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, I can do this, um and
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: uh made a good shot. Is really great to see
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: him go down, not having that worry of to hit
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: him bad, to hit him back, to hit him forward. UM.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: So just a kind of a huge um confidence booster,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: just to kind of remind myself that I know what
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: I'm doing and I could use one of those. I
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: could use one of those right now. Yeah yeah, so
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I know that feeling. Guy, there's no better feeling. Yeah yeah,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: that was awesome. And then he gave me the phone
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: call and we get to sell right and I was like, dude,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: I saw it. I saw it happened. It was so
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: awesome to get a pack hunt a little bit longer,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: just you know. And then I called you, I think
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: like a half really alright, you told you told me
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: all right, huntill eleven and then we'll get down. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: then like ten thirty, You're like, do you want to
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: get down now? Because I could see him that I could.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: I was just looking at him, stands like all right,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: I can't take it anymore. So that was that was awesome.
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: It was It was so cool. That was part of
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: that and get to see that all happened, and it happened,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: you know the second day, well, third third day down there.
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: It happens that. It usually doesn't happen like that. Usually
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: it doesn't tail end of our trip or doesn't happen
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: at all for me. So it was nice and he's
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: a nice a nice nice but yeah, if we pulled this,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: we got him back to the back to the truck,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: and I pulled his job bone on him and he
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: was three and a half nice three and a half
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: year old. Um that was my goal coming into the years,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: try to try to kill a three and a half
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: year old, no matter where I was, either Michigan or Ohio.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Um so I was. I was very happy with that. Yeah,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: he should be awesome. Bucks. So now the pressures on me,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: pressures on last time you killed the buck down there
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: was the last time I didn't kill buck down. So
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: I hope that's not what happens. We need a year
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: where we both kill. No, we haven't, and it's kind
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of I've kind of screwed myself because I've not hunted
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: down there at all, but hardly at this year because
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: I've been so focused on Holy Field. So I've missed,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you know, all, most of the best times of the rut.
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: But I'm gonna try to get some maybe a little
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: couple of days in late November, I don't have to
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: squeeze in like a little two day trips, and then
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: if that doesn't work out, then late season. But we've
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: seen I mean, we've seen deer down there in late season.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: We've had opportunities at at nice mature bucks in the
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: late season down there. I mean you had You've had
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: a couple of opportunities. There's a buck that we were
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: chasing JJ that I had a chance down there, and
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: I yeah, I saw a jawbreaker and Glenn both in
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: late November one year, and I saw Glenn the next year,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: Um in January, like the last day of the season
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: or not that woululdn't be the last day of Ohio
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: seas and last day of Michigan season. Um, so yeah,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: they definitely still and I think this year we've got
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: corn on that property. Um, that will help us a
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: little bit because there should be more late season food there.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: So the dream is still alive for me. But man,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: I was so stoked that you got done. And um,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: it feels good to be tagged out. Yeah, that's a
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: good feeling because I have not had that feeling and
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: four years down there, so you've tagged out. We celebrated
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: that night and then we got talking about Okay, well
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: what are we gonna do next? And then I in
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: my head, I was ruminating on what I should be doing. Like,
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I decided I wanted to go down to
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Ohio because you know, we we had played on going
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: down the High and You're gonna be down there, Coco
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: was gonna be down there. Um. And that's just like fun,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: the camaraderie aspect of it, and of course, like the
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: best chance to get a buck down there is during
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: those that first two weeks in November. UM. So I
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: wanted to get down there, but like I mentioned earlier,
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: been pushing it back, pushing it back, pushing back because
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: I was trying to kill holy Field. But then the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: cell phone incident happened with holy Field, and I was frustrated.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: And I've been hunting that property really hard. I hunted
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: it like ten days in a row or something. Um,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and I was like just stressing so much about everything
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: going on. I finally was like, you know what, I
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: need to just kind of clear my head a little bit.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I need to step away from this holy Field thing
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days and you know, enjoy a
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: little bit of time with my friends down there. Um,
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: hunt there a little bit, you know, just have fun
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days. In the end, that's what
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: it's all about having exactly. So I cannot tell you
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: how happy I am that I did that either, like
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: it was such a good decision. Um, And who knows,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: maybe I would have killed holy Field if I had
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: stayed at home those two days, but probably not, And
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I don't care because it was it was so cool
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: to be there for that experience of you. You probably
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: would have been right in front of you when I
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: called you to tell you I shot a buck down
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: something like that would have happened. So but after you killed,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: now I knew Alre you killed. Coco already went home
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: because I don't remember what he went home, but he
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: went home early. So that was, well, do I want
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to keep hunting Ohio or you know? Or should I
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: go back chase holy Field? So I was thinking that
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: in my head and then like we're sitting there, and
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: so do you want to go hunt on Holyfield? Now,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well maybe I should. Yeah, So we decided
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: that yeah I should. Well, and you know, historically the
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: last three years anyway you had shot deer down there
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: first and the next day or two after that has
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: been kind of dead um from after tracking on tracking
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: and all that stuff. So um, and it was supposed
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: to be cold at home, like record loads or something.
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: We had a big cold front hit at home as
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: we really cold. We had mucked up the Ohio property,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: walking all over the place right through the core area
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: to get your deer out. So decided, yeah, time to
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: go home. So I drove home that morning. The next
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: story the next morning, drove home, got home in time
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: for the evening hunt. So now I want to talk
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: about the next five of days, the final days of
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the Michigan bow season. But before we do that, let's
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: take a quick break for a word from our partners
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: at White Tailed Properties. This week, with White Tailed Properties,
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: we are joined by Steve Purviance, a land specialists out
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: of northwestern Oklahoma, and Steve is going to be telling
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: us about what steps to take once you've decided to
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: sell a piece of land. The first they need to
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: come up with an idea of exactly what category it
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: falls in. You know, a lot of the sellers seems
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: to be um that I get. Really, I would say
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: a good half of them anyway, come from out the state.
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: Maybe um airs the property that they really don't have
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: lots to do with, or not on a lot um
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe they got it in a you know,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: in a wheel, and they really need to know a
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: little about it. You know. Of course, once they call me,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: I can look, I can do some research on the
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: computer on area photos and then of course I look
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: at it. But they really need to know what it is.
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: I mean, is it agg is it good grass that's
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: really just gonna cater to to you know, local ranchers,
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: or is it going to be a recreational piece with
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: good hunting potentially fishing that would cater to a big wide,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: you know scale of people, you know, out of status,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: non residents, people looking for um for property to enjoy
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and invest in. So that's that's one of the first
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: things they need to do. And then they need to
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: find an agent UM, somebody local that really specializes in that.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: You know. Of course we specialize in the recreational land
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: hunting UM. We can sell any of it and do
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: you know every month, but we we actually specialize in
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: the hunting land UM. But that's that that would be
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: the first steps, UM to coming up with an idea
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: of really what they've got to begin with. If you'd
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: like to learn more and to see the properties that
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Steve currently has listed for sale visit white Tail Properties
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: dot com backslash purviance. That's p U R B I
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: n C. So now I want to talk about the
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: next five days, the final days of the Michigan Bose,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: And this is where I need to play Dan. Now, yeah,
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: now you're gonna play. So what Dan usually does is
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: he'll say I got a question. I got a question.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: He'll say that, um or he'll say he'll he'll recommend
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: doing Iowa tactics in Michigan. Alright, um he what else
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: did he do? He'd um, He'd throw in a curse
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: word or two. I'll try to keep it clear. You
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: can you keep playing if you want. Um Or, he
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: talked about his kids. I don't have you get a
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: dog who he ate a whole whole corn con something
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: a part of a corn cob. Today he's not the brightest. No,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: that's probably something one who Dan's kids would do too,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: So I think I think Mac would do that. So
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: all right, so now you know your role, play your part.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: All right, So we're back in Michigan. I get back
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: in time for the evening hunt. And one of the
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: things me and Dan had discussed on last week's podcast
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: was the fact that I felt like I've been doing
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: like the same things for Holy Field and over to
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: a degree and again. And I apologize that I've been
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: telling this story for years and years. You you all
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: have heard it so many times. So, um, I'll try
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: not to repeat things too much. But I'm pretty limited
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: on this property because of the fact that of it
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: is like just the edge of the field, and then
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: all the good covers on the neighbors that he typically
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: is that where I see him, it's on this neighboring property,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and then I just hunt the edges hoping it's going
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: to come out. Um, but that hasn't been working. I've
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: been seeing him, but who cares that you can see
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: him if you can't shoot him. At this point, I
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: don't want to get any video footage of them anymore.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: I want to get pictures of him anymore. I want
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: to get an arrow on him. So I decided that
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: these final four and a half days the season or
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: five days or whatever it was, I'm just gonna do
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: different things. I'm just gonna do things I haven't done
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: the past. Um, and maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe that
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: will throw him off, because maybe he kind of has
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: got me pegged a little bit. Maybe he does know
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: that I've been hunting in from some of these same locations,
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: um more so than not. So Oh that first night,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: I UM, I had this idea that maybe I could
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: hunt um the south side of this property because a
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: few nights beforehand, when I had hunted their last, I
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: had seen him coming towards the food plot, and I
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: thought he was going to come into my food plot stand.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: But instead of coming in, like forty yards before coming in,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: he turned paralleled it and then walked straight south back
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: behind me through this little tiny chunk of timber and
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: then into the south cornfield. And I don't know what
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: he did at for that point, but with that wind direction,
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: what he could have been doing is he could have
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: went down and then circled down wind of me down
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: into that food plot. So I I hypothesized that maybe
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: he was, you know, entering that way and checking to
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: see if I was in there. So is he going
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: into the south cornfield more times than I'm realizing and
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: going down there and and and seeing if there's someone
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: hunting him? So I thought, I don't know, I've never
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: hunted down there in the south south cornfield because it's
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: it's just like that little this this knob of timber's
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: wide open timber. It's up towards the road. Um. I've
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: never seen mature bucks in there, So I never hunt
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the cornfield there. I always hunt farther back in the property. UM.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, well, might as well just trying. So
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I grab a tree stand and um, hanging news tree
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: stand there and it's um, it's downwind of my food,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: down wind of this timber. That's down wind of the
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: food plot. Um. Long story, short hangingstand hunted. See a
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: lot of doughs come out at last light. Holy Field
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: shows up with a dough and they step out of
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: the step out of the timber. It's just a little
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: finger of timber. It's like a like a ten fifteen
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: yard wide strip of timber. Really, they stepped out of um.
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: But they were about a hundred yards down from me,
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: and they stepped out and they were just feeding. UM.
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: And it's like really close to last light. Now, I'm like, oh, man,
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: if they if they follow the edge down, they're heading
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: my directions. I said, they keep following the edge down,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: they gonna come right by me. But instead of staying
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: close to the edge, they went out about sixty yards
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: into the field and then came down maybe sixty seventy yards.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: So the final five minutes of shooting light or whatever
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: it was past and they come walking all the way
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: past me, right in front of me, but at like
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: yards um, and by the time they got there it
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: was too dark to shoot anyway. So UM, So I
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: saw him. I saw where he came out, UM, and
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: had another close call. That was exciting to see that
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: what I thought might happen, it kind of did happen.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: At he he wasn't sent checking it like I thought
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: maybe he would. Um. He was with a dough um
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: coming out and she was just come out to feed.
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: But they still kind of panned out, and it told
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: me that, hey, maybe he does use this southern portion
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: more than I thought. Um, because in the evenings I
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: had only ever seen him during the evenings in the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: past couple of years up at the front front, the
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: front and north part of the property. So that was Um,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: that was that first day. I'm trying remember what I
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: did the next morning. Um. Shoot, when I do the
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: next morning, I can't keep you straight with where you're
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: You've been bouncing around. Yeah, I'm trying to keep, okay,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: I think I know it. So next morning I was
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt a betting area off that edge of that
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: corn field is at the back of the property. Back
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: and south of the property there's a big swamp and
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: then there was a little bit high ground on the
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: back side of where there's a great betting area in there.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I was going to hunt a new stand I hung
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: this year for the first time right there on the
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: edge of this betting aar. Is that where you did
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: some hinge cutting and stuff? Is it that area? I
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: had done a little hinge cutting in the past down there, Um,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: And I hung a new stand there this summer. Kylie
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: helped me hang it, actually, so she as a helper
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: that day. Um. So getting that tree stand and someone
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: speaking of this stand I had someone sent me an
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: Instagram message saying like, it's crazy how many times you've
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: seen this buck um your egress and ingress. I'm really
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: curious to hear, like how you're getting in and out
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: of these stands without spooking this deer or other deer enough,
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Because I've hunted so many times, I I think if
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: I remember right, I think I've hunted twenty four out
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: of the last twenty five days or something like that.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: I think sixteen of those have been all days since now,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: and all but three or four of those days have
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: been hunting this small property for holy Field. And of
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: that property, it's it's ninety acres, but more than half
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: of it is open field. So I'm actually only hunting
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: like forty acres of like huntable timbered or covered acres um.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: And I've hunted it, you know, like twenty days since October.
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: Hunted a ton, I mean, way more than I would
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: ever typically do it, like usually you know, we talked
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: about a lot i'd like to do this drone strike approach, um.
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: But I hunted October one and then waited all the
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: way to because I thought that is when he historically
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: starts moving, and that's that pre run. I gotta be
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: hunting him well. And what's interesting too, you don't have
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: a bunch of different ways to access this place. It's
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: a tough property to access because on the roadside is
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: all open field, so you have to somehow get across
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: open field um to to agree. So what I've started
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: to do though is so first off, I didn't hunt
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: any mornings all through October. Basically I didn't start hunting
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: mornings till November, so that allowed me not to have
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: to worry about that morning situation where you have to
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: come in the morning and go across these fields and
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: spook a bunch of deer. People probably have heard this,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: But my evening solution has been that I have convinced
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: my wife by begging, pleading, and doing lots of dishes,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: to drive my truck or an a TV out to
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: this property and pick me up for my evening stand locations.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: So she spokes the deer off the fields, picks me up,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: drives me back home, and that I think has made
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: a huge difference. Like I never could have gotten away
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: with what I've done without that. UM. So that's my key,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: my little secret to success on this property for my
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: evenings for the mornings. Like I said, I just didn't
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: hunt any mornings for a month because I knew would
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: be risky. And then once November arrived. UM, for most
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: of my morning stands I've been hunting have been these
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: betting areas that are on the back of the property.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: Like I said, on my property, it's mostly field on
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: the front. But I have a neighbor whose um property
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: is not fields it's just timber that runs along the
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: southern edge of the farm that I can hunt, and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: I can hunt my neighbors to um. It's a small
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: property there, but she's given me permission there and also
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: permission to to hunt it or to you know, go
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: through it. So what I've been doing to get to
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: these morning locations. And instead of going across the wide
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: open field, I go into the neighbor's timber and I
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: walk all the way through her property all the way
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: to the back of it, staying in that thick timber
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: swampy stuff all the way the back of my property.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: And by that time now I'm in my cover. And
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: then I do a big j hook all the way
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: around the backs of the property to get to us.
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: So I'm taking a very long roundabout way, and I'm
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: doing this too to two and a half hours before daylight.
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: So my my from what I can see from a
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: lot of these deers that they feed out into my fields,
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: that they cross the road, and they feed on fields
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: across the road. So if I get in there early
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: enough in the morning, like two hours before day most
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: of these deer are still on other farms. They're not
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: back on my farm. So I can do this long,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: roundabout way so I don't spook too many deer, and
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: even if I do spook a deer or two, probably
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: most of the deer still are in the area. So
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: that's how I've been getting into these morning stands. So
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: that's why I did this day. It took me a
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: long time. I got to the stand, got set up,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: um maybe about an hour after daylight. And here man,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: maybe in that half hour after daylight, I hear a crack,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: like a loud branch cracking in this thick bedding cover
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: in front of me. And this bedding area is thick,
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: like really really really thick, impenetrably thick almost in areas.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: So what we had to do this summer when I
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: hung the stand is I literally had to like I
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: don't know how you describe it, um, like there's no
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: student lanes through it at all into the stick stuff,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Like it's just like a wall. So I had to
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: go and just cut like a swath. I cut like
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: fifty branches and trees. And did you cut it or
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: did Kylie? No? I I did it. She's notoriously more
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: andy than me, I will admit, um, but I am
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: better at cutting tree limbs and branches and bushes and stuff.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: So I had to clear this like strip. So I
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: cleared like a three foot wide maybe maybe four ft
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: wide like hallway through this thick brushy stuff into the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: cover to this big trail that leads to there. There's
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: just um, this trail that has got a bunch of
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: rubs on it from the past, and there's scrapes along
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: in the past that kind of runs right to the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: middle of this little bedding area. UM, so I knew that,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: you know, if there's about coming through, he's probably gonna
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: be coming through this, um you know, a little bits
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: on the down wind section of it sort of but
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: inside the cover. So I had that student lane and
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: then and then um to my left and right though
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: that was directly ahead of me, but to my left
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: and the right was more open because now we're on
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the edge of the outside edge of it. So I
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: hear this crack inside the thick stuff, and I'm like, man,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a deer, and I'm waiting and like
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna grab my ball yet. I'm waiting, and
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: then I hear and I was like, oh, I grabbed
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: my bow. I get pumped and I'm like, all right,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: there's about coming. But this property has so many deer,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of deer. There's a lot of bucks
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: on there, but them are young bucks. So I've had
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: this happened many times in the past, heard a lot
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: of bucks grinding over a few days beforehand, that the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: ten days beforehand. Um, it always been like a two
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: year old or something like that. But he grabbed the
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: bow just in case, and then I see white, and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: then it was just like instantly, as soon as I
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: saw the white and the frame materialized, it was like, oh,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: holy Field, no way, Like he's right here. He's the
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: first time I've ever seen him on the southern part
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of the property like this. Well, that's not that's a lie.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: That's a mistake because I'm sort of on the southern
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: part where I had the cell phone incident, actually about
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: eighty nine maybe a hundred yards away from more the
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: cellphone incident was, so a holy Field materializes. He's in
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: the thick stuff though, he's grunting making noise in there,
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, he's but he's heading right my way
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: on the holy up, He's heading right to my opening.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get a shot at holy Field thirty
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: yards and he's come my way, and then at forty
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: he stops and he's he's just kind of looking around,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, man, come on, keep coming closer.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: And I'm um, for the first time this year, I'm
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: holding my boat and I'm clipped onto the bow, just waiting.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: He needs to come like ten yards closer my way
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: to get into this opening, and clipped on. I'm ready.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: I got the camera rolling pointed at the thing. My
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: heart's beating a million miles a minute. I'm like locked in.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: But instead of basically where he was at, he could
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: have turned right or kind of angled to the right
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: onto my trail and into my shooting let, where he
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: could angle to the left and kind of go the
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: other direction, not quite the other direction, but a little
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: bit farther away. And of course he chose the path
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: that angles to the left a little bit and stayed
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: at like forty yards. But because he stayed instead of
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: going into my lane, he was behind all us really
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: thick stuff, so we went across in front of me.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: At forty yards, I couldn't shoot him at all. He
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: got right to the edge of the bedding cover and
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: stopped and then the way my wind was rolling that day,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: if he went out of that bedding and into this opening,
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: he would have went into my wind zone. And so
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: I was like, please, don't go any further. So he stopped,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: and then another buck came running in like I don't
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: know if it was a year and a half old
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: or two and a half. Yield came running like sprinting
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: past me, and he must have heard holy Field grunting
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: or something. So he comes running in. Holy Field stops
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and stairs that buck, and that buck comes running by,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: and the holy Fields right about to step out of
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: the cover. But I wouldn't be able to shoot him
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: still because of where he's at. So I grabbed my
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: bleat my can com like all rights, maybe if I
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: can give him a come back my way. So I
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: try the can call once, try, I can't call twice.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: He finally hears it, turns his head, looks at me
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: and the stairs and stairs and stairs, and that buck
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: comes running back, comes back past him, um runs past him,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: and holy Field looks at him, and he starts following
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: that buck back, and so starts walking back that direction.
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: And then this other buck that ran past and as
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: holy Fields walking away now back the other way. He
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: came sort of that second buck starts blowing. Um, he
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: wasn't in my wind. I don't know what he was doing,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: but he started like freaking up, making all sorts of noise,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: and then holy Field just kept going that direction and
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: they disappeared. And I don't know what what happened, but
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like bummed out, like, well, that sucked.
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: It was so close. If he'd been ten yards closer,
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: would have been a great shot. And then this boot,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: this Bucks books or something the worst noise. Oh, it
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: is the worst noise in the world. Um. So I
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: don't know what happened, but I sat there saw another
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: like four or five more bucks come cruising through, um,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: including um, well, let me try to think about all
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: these days are mixing together. I talked about this on
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: on the rut Rail episode that came out earlier this week.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: I am not like with it. I even talked about
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: this last episode Dan like I've just because of how
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: much I've been the tree and like getting up with
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: three every day, I've just found like I can't talk straight.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like having conversations with my wife and she like
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: just like, why are you talking about like nothing I'm
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: saying is making sense, so my mind is just not
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: at so forgive me. Um. It's like the man's version
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: of like pregnancy brainin yeah, yeah, I definitely have rut brain. Um.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: So yeah, A bunch of other bucks come through, including
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: a buck that they thought might have been holy Field
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: coming back, but it ended up being his mini me. Um,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: he's got a buckets a two year old that someday
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: might look like him. Um, he's got these tall Nate
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: pointer with tall times. So when you see him like
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: real quick, you're like, oh, that could be him him,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: and then you realize it's not him, but just enough
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: to get you excited. Um. Fast forward through the day.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: One o'clock, I hear a crashing noise out of the bedding.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: Here again I pulled the buyoes. I see a little
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: dough squirt out of there. At one in the afternoon,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, like, please pull him out of there,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: pull him out there. And every time I see a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: dough like by herself, I always imagine, Okay, holy Field
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: is gonna behind her, but it's never him. But this
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: dough squirts out of there, I'm like, holy Field is
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: gonna behind there, and then there he was, and he
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: comes blasting out there after I'm like, oh, ship, grabbed
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: my bow, spin around, turned the camera. She's coming like
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: my direction. She's kind of trotting away with her little
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: tail flicking, flapping, and they come just busting through though
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: at like sixty sixty five yards and then like at
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: that point, like sixty sixty five yards, she went from
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: like that little trot to them like then she took
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: off and she barrels off and then he barrels off
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: behind and they go running off into the timber to
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: my north and then that disappeared. What time is that?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: Like one o'clock one? Man, I can't believe how much
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: action you've been seeing mid day my mid days, Like
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: it's been crazy like every day, like like in our group,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: she was like, oh, I've nothing this morning, but man,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: this afternoon was crazy like midday with nuts. Yeah, this
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: has been Um, I've had better action in the middle
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: of the day during this run than I've had in
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the mornings. Um. Yeah, that day I saw like six
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: bucks during the middle of the day. I mean the
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: cell phone day. I had holy feel at a love
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: clock in the afternoon and had like three or four
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: other bucks cruising midday that day. Um, the next day
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: I had five bucks come at midday. So yeah, I
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: mean it's it's a true thing box that really has
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: this increased midday movement. Um, so you know, let me
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: take a let me make sure our fire is not
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: gonna go down here little uh. There's some logs in
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: here because I don't want to get cold. So what
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: am I talking about here? We're talking about midday. Yeah,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: So mid day holy Field butts out of there and
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: um disappears. A couple of hours later. I decided to
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: move to a evening stand location because he had moved.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: I saw him runoff way off north in the timber,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: and if he was going to come back out, he'd
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: be coming up towards a food source with that dough
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're a dome. So I moved to a stand
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: that I had hung many years ago, but I hadn't
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: hunted the last couple of years ago. That was right
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: by where holy Field had come out the night before
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: hunt that stand. Long story short, don't see him, see
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: a bunch of doughs. Some young bucks don't see holy
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: Field that night. Next day, I want to hunt that
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: same betting are again, but I want to be on
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: the down one side of it. But because we've had
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of these funky east winds that we don't
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: get most years, I don't have a stand on the
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: east side of or the start on the west side
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: of that betting area. So I got another portable set
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: and I snuck in like three hours before daylight and
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: hung a new stand in the dark downwind of this
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: betting area. Hunted it that was this is one of
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: those days that the morning was loudsy didn't see anything.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: But in the middle of the day I saw five
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: or six different bucks, but all um one or two
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: year olds. And then I'm like, all right, I'm just
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: gonna stay hunting this stand for the evening because I
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: was only like, you know, fifty yards from the very tiny,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: smallest finger of corn that heads back, so I'm still
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: close to food type to this bedding area. Maybe holy
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Field will come and kind of check this section between
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: the bedding and the corn and then transitioned out into
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: the corn. So I'm hunting there. He hadn't been seeing anything.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: It was raining all that day, and I said, all
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: day through it, and about an hour before daylight, I've
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: been watching some does about two yards down the corn
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: field that had been come out to feed. And about
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: hour before daylight, I see a big body out there
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: pulled the buyos. There's holy Field, and holy Field goes
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: walking across the field with these doughs and then goes
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: walking right in front of the tree stand that I
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: was hunting the night before. He's a mess. Yeah, So
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: he walked in front of that tree stand twice out
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: of the last three nights. UM, So that was frustrating
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: to see him go right there where I've been the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: night before. Next morning hunt another tree stand near that
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: bedding area, but again it was a third stand there.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: So all these three times i've hundred first sit in
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: that stand, but all different sides of this betting year
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that now I've seen him around. UM, didn't see him
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: that morning, so decided, well, I'm gonna go to that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: stand where he's been to out the last three nights.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: So I transitioned to that stand, um, and that night
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: I see him. UM. What I see this was the
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: he's all blurred together. UM. I guess this would have
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: been the last night of bow season. This would have
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: been November, and I'm sitting that stand and maybe an
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: hour before daylight. I see movement in the CRP stuff
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: behind me, glimpse back there, there he is. He's about
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: nine nine yards away in the CRP, right in the
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: edge of my property in the neighbors. You mean an
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: hour before dark? Yeah, what I say, hour before daylight dark? Um,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: he goes, but he's kind of angling away and he's
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: kind of bouncing. He's definitely like on a doz trail
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: because he was like bounce, bounce, running with his nose down, bounce, bounce,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: then disappears in the timber. Um. So now I'm paying
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: attention over here. I'm like, oh, man, at least I
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: know he's in the general area. There's still lots of
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: time left, and hopefully these doughs are gonna filter out
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: past me and then he'll come. Um. Half hour later
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: I've been watching. Half hour later, I see a body
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: pop out into the corn, but he's like a yards
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: down the field for me. Now the other direction, pulledland binoculars.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: And even even before pulling my binoculars, I knew it
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: was him just from like his body, because I've seen
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: that so many times, like, oh, there he is, pulled
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: the boculars. Sure as there he was at like ninety
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: yards trotting across the Cornfiel went straight across the open
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: corn field, seeing if there's any doughs out there. There
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: weren't any doughs, went all the way across, entered in
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: the swamp and disappeared. And then that was. That was
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: basically the end of the night, last night of both season.
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: And then I'm thinking, man, I was getting your head
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: up to go to a deer camp tomorrow for opening day.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: Do you have a question? Yeah, I can't stop real quick,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: but usually what you should say I got. I got
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: a question for you. I'm not doing a very good
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: job being down. He's gonna listen to this. How So,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: in your kind of rut cation marathon on your Michigan property,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: have you tallied up how many times you've seen him
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: since X State when he started doing this. No, I
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: need to, Um, but I can, I can, I can
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: if you can help me here. I saw him the
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: night of October thirty one. I saw him the morning
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: of November four. I saw him the afternoon of number four. Um.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: I saw him the next day, November five, in the
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: morning and the evening, then the then um so this
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: is where it starts getting weird and then it was
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: like the seventh or eighth is when I had the
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: cell phone incident. But I mean, you've seen him seventy
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: percent of the days that you've been out or for
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: talking days. I mean, I wouldn't go that far because
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: I started hunting so between the two and the fifteen, um,
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: But I mean you're consistently. Maybe I've seen him a
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: lot since since Halloween. So I saw him the first
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: time on Halloween and then the last time I saw
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: him was I just can't believe how visible he's been
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: as a probably a five. I mean, yeah, I think
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: he's I do think he's a five and a half
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: year old, and yeah, I mean he's incredibly visible, and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: he's I think it's because he stays tight rough knock
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: on wood, you know. I mean, he's the stupidest smart
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: deer I've ever met my life, because he's so killable,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: but he stays just out of yeah range, just late
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: enough for there's always something that's just a little bit
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: that he is a step ahead of it. It's either
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: it's either he is the the most unkillable, killable buck
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: ever or he's just being hunted by the worst deer hunt. Ever,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: like I'm the one guy that can't kill this dear.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: Anyone else would be like, oh that's easy, let me
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: come out there one day. I've managed to make it
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: a significant challenge. Um. But yeah, but I don't know man,
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: but you know you're good. Um. I decided, um to
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: change my plans and to go out for opening a
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: day a gun season, because if I had had a
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: gun any one of these encounters, I would have killed him.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: And I've been just I've been debating inside of myself, UM,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: debating internally, do I want to only try to kill
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: him with a gun or with a with a bow
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: or with a shoot him with a gun and um.
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: I went back and forth on it for a while,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: and then I kind of realized, you know, I'm not
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: a I'm not a purist. I have nothing against hunting
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: with a gun. I prefer bow hunting. I love bow hunting.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: You know, just bohunting is awesome. I being close to
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: deer and all that, But I've shot deer withly gone
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: and I have nothing against I like it and with
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: his deer. Now, I mean I have hunted. I've never
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: hunted a deer so hard. I've never worked so hard
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: for deer. I've never I know without a doubt that
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: I have given it like everything I have. I mean, um,
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I feel very much at peace with myself at least,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: and that like I have done everything I can. I've
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: I've I've struggled, like I've wanted to sleep in, I've
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: wanted not to walk the long way. I've wanted to
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: not hang a news stand, and every time that's happened,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: I've told myself, Nope, you gotta do it. And so
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: like if any tiny small solace I can take out
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: of this, I can at least say that I know
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: I did it the very best I could. So because
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: of that, at this point, I want to finish the job.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: I want to kill this deer, and whether I kill
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: him with a bow or muzzload or a shotgun will
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: not change that for me personally be satisfied. I think
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: part of why I was worried about out doing that
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: using a firearms because I know that people would give
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: me crap about it, um, And at first I was
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: like that it's going to be a pain in the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: butt to deal with. But you know what, with all
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: due respect to everybody out there, I don't care like
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: that I have. You gotta hunt your own hunt. You
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: need to do what makes you happy. You need to
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: do what satisfies you and helps you achieve your own
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: personal goals. And for me, with this dear, I will
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: be just as happy and satisfy it and proud, and
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: I will be probably like breaking down crying in happiness
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: if I kill this buck with a bow or with
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: a muzzleloader or whatever, um, and that will be just
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: fine for me. Maybe that's not what you would do,
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: and that's totally fine, but this is my hunt and
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to hunt him the way I want to
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: hunt him. So I decided that I will use a
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: firearm if I can. Um, Well, the goal is to
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: kill him, and it shouldn't matter what you use along
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: the legal ethic goal whatever, you know, the goal is
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: to kill that dear. And you know, um, a few
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: years ago, remember the buck six shooter that was hunting
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: right Um. So I've been hunting him with a bow
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: for a couple of years. The first year I was
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: hunting him, second yar he disappeared. Third year and hunted
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: all season for with the bow, couldn't kill him. And
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: then mid December I've been hunting all the way through
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: hunting my tail off, grinding and out during Muzzloer season,
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: I killed him at forty yards with the Mussloder And UM,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: I had someone email me who like was blasting me
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: about it, like I can't believe you would do that.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: I can't believe. Um, you know, I don't know. He
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: emailed me, like repeatedly, Like he emailed me, and I
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: ignored it. And then like a week or two later
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: he emailed again like how it had been rubbing him
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: the wrong way and he was thinking about it more. Um.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: And I've got nothing against the guy, Like I appreciate
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: the guy fouling wird hunt. I appreciated him being a fan,
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: but it really pissed me off, Like I'm like, who
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: are you to tell me, like what I should or
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be doing, etcetera, etcetera. Um, and it bothered me.
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: So this time around, you know, I just I'm not
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: gonna worry about other people. Think it is my experience.
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: It is my hunt. Um, and I appreciate people falling
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: along with it. I'm trying to share the true experience
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: of my hunt, what it is for me and what
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: I'm learning from it. And um, you know you can
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: feel free to make different choices even your hunts, in
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: your own hunts. This is what I'm doing in mind.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: So I had to go out there for gun season.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: Maybe I could get lucky in day one. Um, it
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: ended up being a miserable day. I said, all day again,
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: And starting like nine o'clock, it started raining and it
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: was like I don't know, high thirties or something like that,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and then raining, but it was a blowing rain. Even
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: with even with my tree umbrella and my rain gear
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: and everything. Um, I forgot, I wanted to forget. I
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: didn't wear my rain pants. I just wore my rain
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: jacket because I wanted access to all my pockets and
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: stuff on my bibs. And I thought, what with my
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: tree umbrella in a rain jacket on un zipped, I'll
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: be able to stay dry enough. But I didn't think
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: about the blowing wind, and so all the rain blew
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: in underneath the umbrella and so just like everything got wet.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: My hands are wet, my hand warmer pocket was wet.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: So it was it was like the most miserable day
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: of my season so far. It was long, cold, wet,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: didn't seem any deer didn't see holy field, and um,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: and that's it. So now I'm just crossing my fingers
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: and toes that he can survive um handful more days
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: and and I might make a couple targeted hunts during
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: gun season. I'm not sure if I will or won't,
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: depends on the conditions in the situation. UM, I might
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: go in there after him again, UM, or I might
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: wait until after gun season and then get back after
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: him hard in the late season, um with the bow
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: or muzzleloader, depending on the season. UM. But he just
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: you know, that's all dependent on whether or not he
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: is alive. So there's nothing I can do about now.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: I just gotta hope pity. Well, you know, if he
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: stays alive, this track record is good, that'll stick around there. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: it's really good. Like my the last two years. By far,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: he's the most active all year during December on my
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: property because those late season food plots. UM. So I
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's going to happen. UM, I can
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: tell you that I have stressed more about it than anything.
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: UM that last night of both season, I just sat
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: in the tree and just like I don't know if
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: you ever have you ever had this feeling, but like
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: you just sit there and like you start like looking
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: back on the season and thinking through everything and could
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: I have done anything differently? And you know, all this
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: work gone for nothing or blah blah blah blah blah blah.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: For the last four years, I haven't killed Okay, so yeah, um,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: but you know by the end of the night, you know,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: and I have to do this a lot personally. Um,
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: And I've talked about this before. I have a tendency
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: to to get really personally invested in like this kind
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: of stuff. In myn It's a nice I get, you know,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: my wife always kids. Like every year, I'm like, I'm
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: not gonna get stressed out this season. I'm just gonna
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: have fun. But it never fails. I'm pretty sure you're
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: saying that in September. Yeah, for sure, I'm just gonna
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: have a good time. I'm not gonna get worked up
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: about that. But every year I do like I'm very
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: goal oriented, I'm very um, I'm very focused. So UM,
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: I tend to to to to go all in and
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: then um, I let it eat away at me if
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: things aren't going well. And I think every year I
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: get better at it and I deal with a little
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: bit better. Um. But this year, you know, that happened
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: to a degree. But I've had to have a couple
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: like a little mini um what's the word, uh, interventions,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: Like a self intervention. So like after the cell phone incident,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: I had a self intervention. I said, you know what,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: you need to just get step away because you're about
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: to jump off the tree stand Um, so step away,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: get back to the on of it. I did that.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: It was a great decision, came back, had a bunch
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: of really close calls and encounters with holy Field. It
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: was great. It didn't work out. Um, and then after
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: that last day of both season, you know, I was like,
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: you know, all right, it hasn't worked out. You've given it.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: You're all though. So you know, like I said earlier, Um,
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: the odds are probably that he will get killed over
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks because there's a lot of
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: hunters out there. Um, he's been very daylight active. Um,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: he's probably gonna be killed. And that will be like
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking for me. Like it's gonna be a very big bummer.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: If I get the neighbor sends me a picture or something,
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: I find out, Um, but that's in the end. That's
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: not what it's that's not what it's all about. I mean,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: I have to take, um, take like it's been such
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: a cool three years getting to watch this deer and
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: hunt this deer and live out this experience, and um,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: it has like tested me and pushed me farther than
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: anything before. And um, I've learned a lot, I mean
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: and and never I mean, gosh, I mean, if you
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: take all the encounters I've had this past couple of weeks,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: it's maybe like a dozen. Maybe. Um. Last year I
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: saw him twenty seven times in my own eyes. This year,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: maybe it's like twelve so far this year. The year
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: before it was like five. Um, so what do is
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: like twenty seven plus let's say thirteen, that's um forty
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: plus another five. I've seen this here forty five times. Maybe,
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: Um it's nuts. And I will probably because I don't
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: own property, I don't have anything like that. I don't
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: know if I will ever have an opportunity to have
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: like this kind of thing with a deer again. Right, Well,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: you said it a couple of minutes ago. You you've
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: done everything that you can do to try to kill
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: this deer. And I think you even if he does
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: get killed, you can lick yourself in the mirror and say,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: you know what, I gave it one heck of a shot.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, I don't think there's really anything that
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: you could second guess that you did that. Man, if
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: I would have done this, you know, you've been out
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: there every day when the conditions have been poor, when
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: it's been a struggle. So I mean, I think you
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: can look yourself in the mirror and say, you know,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: I gave it my best shot and it works out awesome.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: If it doesn't, you know, there's not a whole lot
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: you can do about it. That's a that's hunting, right,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: So live and learn. And I certainly haven't maybe made
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: all the right decisions, are done all the right things,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: but um, I never I always did everything to the
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: best of my ability and thought process at the time.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I always had a thought process, I always
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: had a plan. I always was, um, you know, being
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: mindful and thoughtful about how I was approaching things and
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: trying to take every little thing into account everything I've
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: learned over the years, trying to be smart about exit
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: and access, trying to be smart about when trying to
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: be smart about what this dear is doing, how he's
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: doing it, and you know, it's it's kind of been
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: like like your master what's called. Um, I don't know,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: like you've got to write your thesis at the end
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: of your like PhD program or whatever. Like this has
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: been like the culmination of the last decade of my
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: growth as a hunter has been this challenge and I've
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: had to take everything I've learned to try to put
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: it all together. Um. And I have not passed the
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: test yet. UM, but I've swung the very best I could.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a swing in the mist or maybe I
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: will connect and hit my home run. But UM, I
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: know that I did what I could. So that's that's it. Well,
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: I'm pulling fund out. I've told you that before. I'm
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: pulling for you. I appreciate it, man, hope it works
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: out for you. I do appreciate it. And I gotta
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: I gotta say thank you to everyone out there listening
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: to again, just man. Like I've been posting like daily
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: Instagram stories like updates throughout every day's hunt, and I'm
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: getting like, I don't know, dozens, if not hundreds of
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: messages like over the over the week or two, just
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: people wishing me luck or sharing the thoughts or different things.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: And then all the emails and Facebook messages and all
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: that stuff, just just tons and tons of support. I
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: appreciate every following along, and I appreciate all of you
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: that are so sick and tired of hearing me talk
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: about this deer, but that you've stuck with me and
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: you've still listened. UM. I promise, probably one way or another,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: within the next month, either someone else is going to
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: kill him or I will, and you will never have
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: to hear about holy Field again. So that's that. Um.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: We won't talk about holy Field again until next week.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: So I want to wrap it up real quick with
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: talking about where we're at. Um. We're at deer camp.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: So that's where I took off after opening day of
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: gun season. That was yesterday. Today it is the second
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: day gun season. We're up here at our cabin um,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and this place is where it all started from me.
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: I've been coming up here since I was like two. UM,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: but Josh, you are newer. You started coming up here
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: like four years ago or five years ago or something. UM,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: so as an outside perspective or newer perspective, how would
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: you describe this place, Like why is it cool for you?
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: Or do is this play cool? Like it's supero it's
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: like what like when Yeah, it's like when when you
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: hear about people talking about Deer Camp for stupid songs
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: like the second Week of Deer came, you know, this
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: is like, this is like what you think about. It's
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: like a cabin with no electricity, totally off the grid
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: out in the middle of the woods, like northern Michigan,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: like swamp, cedars, pine tree. I mean, it's just like
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: the whole package. And it's just like everything that you
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: would think of Deer Campus. This is it. It's been awesome.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: It's it's been a great time coming up here. But
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's five years now. It's been five years
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: and coming up here now, um, and thank you for
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: having me. It's it's been it's been so much fun,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: hang on with you, hang on with your dad and
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: your uncle and just it's been a lot of fun. Yeah,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: it's a it's one of my absolute favorite places in
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: the world. And um, lots and lots and lots of
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: good memories. There's I mean between between the wall here
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: with all these racks, I mean, I can point to
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: a dozen of these and tell you stories like there's
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: a that setting antlers just above your head, Josh. The
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: top left rack is the first deer I can remember
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: being killed up here. When I was coming up here,
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: I was probably six or seven, and I remember this
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: buck It was an eight pointer that my uncle's shop.
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: And what I remember, I'm so young that I don't
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: remember much about it. All I remember is that this
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: one moment, the guys, all the all the men had
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: the deer hung off from the buck pole and they've
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: skinned it out. And usually we don't skin them out here.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: Usually it's just hung on the buck pole and then whoever,
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: you know, they take it home and they do whatever
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: with it. But for some reason they decided to skin
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: it out, and I guess maybe they butchered the deer.
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: I don't remember that. All I remembered is that the
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: hide was laying down on the in the yard. The
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: hide was laying down with with the hair down towards
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: the grass, and then the inside of the hide pointing up.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: And what I remember is that I must I was
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: drinking an orange high sea juice box and I was
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: standing over it looking at it, Like I said, six
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: or seven or something like that, and I remember I
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: spilled a squirted orange high sea all over the inside
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: of the hide, and I just remember being like petrified
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: that I was going to get in trouble and I
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: don't nobody must have been there, so I just remember
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: squirting orange high sea all over it and like panicking.
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: I don't remember what I did though. I don't remember
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: like how I tried to resolve the situation. All I
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: remember was spilling orange high sea. Um. So that was
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: that memory. And then my uncle many years later gave
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: me that hide that's now the that's the one is
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: hanging on the wall in my house. I don't know that. Yeah, um,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: that big seven pointer there is probably my most memorable
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: night ever. Um. I just remember the snowy night and
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: my grandpa shot that buck. And I was again maybe
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: like nine or ten or something like that, and I
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: remember that was the first year that I remember they
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: brought me along for a track job. It's like me
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: and my dad had been hunting and we came back
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: into the house or back into the cabin and we'd
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: heard gp grandpa had we heard the gunshot come from
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: where he hunts. So I was so excited, Like whenever
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: you heard a gunshot, I'd always look at my dad like, Dad,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: was that one of our guys? That one of our guys, Like,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: Oh no, Mark, that was too far away. It's too
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: far away. Then you hear another guns my dad, was
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: that one? Was that one? He's like, oh no, when
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: you hear one, that's when you hear what. You'll know what.
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: You'll know it's close enough. And then maybe in our
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: letter when you jump out of your chair like that
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: was one, wasn't He's like, yeah, that was one of
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: our guys for sure. And I remember running back to
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: the swamp to get back to the cab and we
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: get in here and GP comes in and he's like, oh,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: I got one Mark, And we had like this is
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: you know, this is like seven or something. Um So
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: we had like big kerosene like Coleman lanterns or whatever,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: um like, not even like flashlets. We had the lanterns
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: like that. And it was snowing. I don't remember exactly
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: how much snow. It was fully coated snow. Remember walking
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: across the fields and get to this creek and you
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: get to the edge of the creek and my grandpad
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: dragged him up to the edge of the creek on
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: the other side though, and I just remember we got
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: there and then he held up the lantern high enough
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: that then the light shone across the creek and you
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: could just see this big rack across the way and
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: that was whoa, that is a big bug um. And
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: then um, our friend Terry had shot a nice eight
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: point that morning, so we had this big seven point
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: and big and I mean these are big, big Northern
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: Michigan bucks um at least three and a half year old,
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: maybe four and a half year old bucks um. You know,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: impressive racks for this area. And I just remember those
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: two deer sitting on the on the buck pole, and
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: I just stood out next to the deer hanging there
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: for hours during the middle of the day. I would
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: just stand out there and walk circles around it and
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: look at it and touch it. And yeah, just a
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: lot of cool memories up here. It's an awesome play. Um.
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: We haven't seen tons of deer the last like ten
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: fifteen years. The deer population is plummeted. But I think
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: it's getting better this last few years. Things are improving.
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: We've been seeing some more deer. We're getting some bucks
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: on trail. Camera just pulled the cards here today and
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: there's at least one mature buck, um, which is cool.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: There's at least one nice one here in camera that
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: he was here in daylight on the eleven and the
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: tenth I think, so that was only five six days ago,
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: so there's a chance we might see him hopefully. I
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: don't know. We'll give it a shot. We got a
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: couple of days and um, I'm just excited to be
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: out there and to be here. It's the hunting, it's
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: it's nice now that we've got, you know, the chance
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: of seeing a shooter buck. That's cool, and it's nice
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: to see some deer. And we've been doing some work
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: the last few years of trying to make it better,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: doing some food plots and trying to figure things out
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit better. But it's more so just the
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: camaraderie and being up here with friends and family and
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: eating lots of junk food. Yeah, oreos and milk and
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: milk beer. I think the best part about up here though,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: is like you can sleep in like a touch longer. Yeah,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: But then like the coffee, Like your dad's always got
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: that coffee going in the morning, and man, it's the
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: best part. Yeah. I think my big old like big
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: mugs yea. And the fire has been restoked by you
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: know once once we get up, because Dad gets up first,
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: he's up real early. So by the time we're up
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: and out of our sleeping bag, and that's probably about
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: the fifth or six time he's been up. We won't
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: talk about why, oh but uh, but yeah. I think
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite moments is every day when you
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: come in from the hunt. It's cold out and then
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: you step in here and just that just like like
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: a like a blanket of warmth gets wrapped around you
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: here and that like the golden glow of the of
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: the propane lights. There's like Josh, Sai, there's no electricity.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: It's just had these propane um lantern deal lights out
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: to call them um. And then the wood burning stove
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: and he was just some country music playing on the radio,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: and and then you just have some good food and
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: play cards and you know, it's just good stuff. So
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: I think on that note, we will wrap it up. UM.
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know, Josh, any final final things you want
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: to share, Um, yeah, I'll take advantage real quick. I
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: would just say, you know, if if you know anybody
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: out there that's expressed any interest in hunting or anything
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: like that, take them along, get him out there in
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: the woods. That's that's how I got into I mean, Mark,
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: you took me when you know, we went a couple
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: of times in high school, and then I really got
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: into it, um after college. And I mean I'm sitting
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: here today doing what I'm doing now a lot of
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: it because you showed an I showed an interest in
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: You took me out and got me involved in it.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: So I would just say, you know, be a mentor
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: to somebody, take a take a new hunter out in
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: the woods and and um, you know who knows where
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: it will lead him. But UM, i'd encourage everybody to
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: do that. UM. And if you're interested in in starting
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: a branch or getting involved um in Indiana, Michigan, Ohio
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: or even if you're not in that area, get it.
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: Get get a hold of me and I can get
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: you in touch with the right people. And um, and
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I'd love to talk to you. And if you do
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: get in touch with him, please do not refer to
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: him as Mr Hilliard. Please don't refer to him as
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: Josh or Josh Hilliard or j h q dum, which
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: is his Instagram handle. No, none of those things are
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: the appropriate title to refer to him. You can just
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: say what's going on in further further. All right, well
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna shut this one down and um
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: hopefully we'll have some more good stories for next time.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: And that is going to do it for us today.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: I'm going to wrap it up without any of my
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: occasional end of the podcast rambling. So that said, let's
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: just give a big thank you to our partners at
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: Sick of Gear Yetie Cooler's, Matthew's Archery, Maven Optics, the
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: White Tailed Institute of North America, Trophy Ridge and hunt
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: ra Maps, And finally, big thanks to all of you
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: who have been listening today. I appreciate it. If you're
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: going out in the woods soon do some hunting, I
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: wish you all the luck in the world. Be safe
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: out there, have a great time, and stay wired to hunt.