Latest / The MeatEater Podcast / Ep. 583: BONUS DROP - Whitetail Induced Mental Turbulence
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: This is the Meat Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, severely,
- 0:13Speaker 1: bug bitten, and in my case, underwear listeningcast. You can't
- 0:18Speaker 1: predict anything. The Meat Eater Podcast is brought to you
- 0:22Speaker 1: by first Light. Whether you're checking trail cams, hanging deer stands,
- 0:25Speaker 1: or scouting for ELP, First Light has performance apparel to
- 0:28Speaker 1: support every hunter in every environment. Check it out at
- 0:32Speaker 1: first light dot com. F I R S T L
- 0:35Speaker 1: I T E dot com. All right, so I'm joined,
- 0:42Speaker 1: uh with Brent Reeves, I'm with Tony Peterson, I'm with
- 0:45Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon, and we're gonna we're doing a little white
- 0:48Speaker 1: tail tutorial here, a white tail bow hunting tutorial, and
- 0:51Speaker 1: we're gonna there's a lot of stuff we're gonna skip.
- 0:53Speaker 1: I'm just gonna warn everybody up top. We're not talking
- 0:55Speaker 1: about scouting. We're not talking about uh cooking, what else?
- 1:01Speaker 1: Are we not talking any of that stuff. We're not
- 1:04Speaker 1: talking about how to you know, what kind of camper
- 1:06Speaker 1: you want? You know, we're not counting about how to
- 1:10Speaker 1: get permissions, none of that stuff. I'm not talking about
- 1:14Speaker 1: food plots. I could go on all day about what
- 1:18Speaker 1: we're not talking about. Long least we're not talking about
- 1:21Speaker 1: the problem I'm currently having, which is black bears destroying
- 1:23Speaker 1: your cameras. What we're talking about is you're in the
- 1:27Speaker 1: you're in the you're in the white tail woods with
- 1:30Speaker 1: your bow. We're talking about how to make your arrow
- 1:33Speaker 1: go where it wants and what to do after you
- 1:35Speaker 1: let the arrow fly. So we're talking about everything that
- 1:39Speaker 1: happens between oh my god, here he comes or she
- 1:44Speaker 1: oh my god, here it comes to I found it,
- 1:49Speaker 1: and everything that fits between those two moments.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Okay, sounds good, a man.
- 1:54Speaker 1: Love it all right? Saddle up, white tail hunters at
- 2:00Speaker 1: that little joke.
- 2:01Speaker 3: Yep, we got it.
- 2:03Speaker 1: Get your spurs on this. This is a white tail special.
- 2:09Speaker 1: We've got a bunch of avid white tail hunters in
- 2:12Speaker 1: the room. And when you say white tail hunters that
- 2:14Speaker 1: I feel like it almost kind of means like you're
- 2:16Speaker 1: bow hunting white tails, right, That's the first impression I Geah,
- 2:19Speaker 1: if I say he's a big time whitetail hunter, you know,
- 2:24Speaker 1: I picture a bow hunter, right, because because that you
- 2:29Speaker 1: can hunt for such a long period of time.
- 2:31Speaker 2: Is there anyone you know of who would consider themselves
- 2:34Speaker 2: a diehard white tail hunter? But just do it with
- 2:36Speaker 2: a firearm.
- 2:37Speaker 1: I couldn't think of one. No, I think of Doug
- 2:41Speaker 1: duran as a Doug Durren is a very enthusiastic, dedicated
- 2:48Speaker 1: hunter of white tails.
- 2:51Speaker 2: Who's antagonistic to bow hunters.
- 2:54Speaker 1: Well he does, it's not these antagonistic buners. He's had
- 2:58Speaker 1: a lot of late nights, yeah, looking for he's had
- 3:01Speaker 1: a lot of late nights looking for people's deer. Yeah,
- 3:05Speaker 1: did they hit with a bow? And I don't think
- 3:08Speaker 1: he's had that many late nights looking for the ones
- 3:11Speaker 1: that he shot with his gun?
- 3:14Speaker 4: Coming through our family deer camp is ninety five percent
- 3:20Speaker 4: gun hunters like me and a nephew. There only two
- 3:24Speaker 4: out of However, that math figures out that the bow
- 3:29Speaker 4: hunt okay.
- 3:31Speaker 2: But I do feel like that, like that was my
- 3:32Speaker 2: family too, And I guess they would identify as like,
- 3:35Speaker 2: I love deer hunting. But the number of days they
- 3:38Speaker 2: actually did it, you know, it was four days a years.
- 3:40Speaker 4: Yeah, week.
- 3:42Speaker 2: So they're enthusiasts, but I don't know if they were practitioners.
- 3:45Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we still have the goalpost for what
- 3:47Speaker 3: an avid Yeah, we sort think an avid whitetail hunter.
- 3:51Speaker 1: Sure, this this this episode is meant to be full
- 3:53Speaker 1: of very practical information. But we're going to indulge this
- 3:56Speaker 1: for one more second, and I'll point out when I
- 4:01Speaker 1: was a boy, if you didn't hunt with a bow,
- 4:07Speaker 1: if you were a big time whitetail hunter, you had
- 4:10Speaker 1: ten days. So that'd be like saying, that'd be like
- 4:15Speaker 1: if you went on an annual vacation to Florida for
- 4:18Speaker 1: spring break week, you wouldn't say you're a big time
- 4:21Speaker 1: Floridian right, yeah, yeah, be like, dude, you go there
- 4:26Speaker 1: once a week. You go there for a week every year, right,
- 4:28Speaker 1: So if you didn't bow hunt, you couldn't be a
- 4:31Speaker 1: big time whitetail person because they'd be like, Okay, you
- 4:36Speaker 1: had a ten day season.
- 4:37Speaker 3: But I mean if you compared that to whitetail hunting,
- 4:40Speaker 3: that would be like if you put a sandbox in
- 4:41Speaker 3: your backyard and all summer long you pretended like you
- 4:44Speaker 3: were at the beach building sand castles, you know, and
- 4:47Speaker 3: like working on your beach umbrella.
- 4:49Speaker 1: No, that's true. You could be a big time Florida guy.
- 4:51Speaker 4: You could be a off season, off season.
- 4:52Speaker 3: Florida That's what I'm saying. That the reason I don't
- 4:56Speaker 3: think that the criteria for being an avid whitetail hunter
- 4:59Speaker 3: is the amount days in the field necessarily good.
- 5:01Speaker 1: Point Yep, it's where your head's at.
- 5:04Speaker 2: Yeah, you did speak about this whole sand castle thing
- 5:07Speaker 2: in the backyard.
- 5:07Speaker 3: With a lot of experience, Tony, I could see myself
- 5:11Speaker 3: just getting cold up. I'm maybe a couple of bad
- 5:14Speaker 3: decisions away from being a beach bum like saltwater fishing,
- 5:18Speaker 3: and I could see it.
- 5:20Speaker 2: All right, stay focused, white tails.
- 5:22Speaker 1: I have a piece of insulation lodged in my back
- 5:25Speaker 1: of my throat, so you have to pardon me for
- 5:27Speaker 1: my a lot.
- 5:29Speaker 3: Can we get more contact to that.
- 5:31Speaker 4: I went open my.
- 5:32Speaker 1: Head at crawlspace late last night trying to identify a
- 5:35Speaker 1: source of a leak, oh, and caused me to get
- 5:38Speaker 1: insulation lodged in my throat. Let me ask you this.
- 5:41Speaker 1: Let me ask you guys this. I'll go out on
- 5:44Speaker 1: a limb and say, most people wind up that they
- 5:47Speaker 1: don't shoot their bow as much as they thought they
- 5:49Speaker 1: were gonna before season starts.
- 5:51Speaker 3: For me, yeah, you know, almost everybody.
- 5:54Speaker 1: Snow melts, and I'm like, man, I'm gonna shoot this
- 5:56Speaker 1: bow every day, you know, and like and then August,
- 6:03Speaker 1: I'm like man, I really ought to be shooting.
- 6:04Speaker 3: That bow and the US.
- 6:08Speaker 1: It's not easy to how do you know an you're ready?
- 6:11Speaker 1: What's ready? I mean, how many people do you know?
- 6:14Speaker 1: This is a complicated question because do you have you
- 6:16Speaker 1: ever known anyone in the end said I better not hunt,
- 6:19Speaker 1: I'm not ready.
- 6:20Speaker 2: Oh we were just talking about this yesterday, and Tony,
- 6:23Speaker 2: we're just saying how we never feel like we are ready.
- 6:27Speaker 2: There's always more we could have should have done. But
- 6:31Speaker 2: you need to put yourself in as best a position
- 6:33Speaker 2: as possible so that even though you feel like you're
- 6:35Speaker 2: not ready, you are, you know, ten times more ready
- 6:38Speaker 2: than you were last year, at least, or more than
- 6:40Speaker 2: the average. And I think that might be a function
- 6:45Speaker 2: of us being we have very high standards for what
- 6:49Speaker 2: ready should look like, and the reason we're able to
- 6:51Speaker 2: do half decent.
- 6:52Speaker 1: Is because of that.
- 6:52Speaker 2: I think there's always more you could do, right.
- 6:54Speaker 4: That's what I was going to say. How much is
- 6:56Speaker 4: that is due to anxiety and fat in a hunt
- 7:01Speaker 4: getting ready for it? And is the time approaches you
- 7:03Speaker 4: just get more angst about getting out there and and
- 7:07Speaker 4: maybe checking the spot that you didn't get to check
- 7:10Speaker 4: too And oh, man, that's eating me alive because I
- 7:13Speaker 4: didn't get to go check that once.
- 7:14Speaker 1: Oh No, when I talk about ready, I'm trying right now.
- 7:16Speaker 1: Just talk specifically about how do you know when you're
- 7:18Speaker 1: ready as a marksman, just the marksman with a bow,
- 7:22Speaker 1: as an archer, arch archman. Yeah, there's no there's no word.
- 7:29Speaker 3: I can tell you my before the season, I will shoot.
- 7:34Speaker 3: I know, I have to shoot enough to where I
- 7:37Speaker 3: can walk back to forty or fifty yards and every
- 7:39Speaker 3: shot I take is gonna hit the vitals on a
- 7:41Speaker 3: three D deer target in my backyard. And then I
- 7:44Speaker 3: always when I hit that level where I can different distances,
- 7:48Speaker 3: you know, maybe shoot like I don't. I don't shoot
- 7:50Speaker 3: a lot, like twelve arrows a day, but where every
- 7:52Speaker 3: one of them I'm like, very confident that's going right
- 7:56Speaker 3: where I need it. And then I start shooting broadheads,
- 7:59Speaker 3: and if they're doing that, then I start to feel
- 8:01Speaker 3: like that.
- 8:02Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so mixed distances out to fifty yards every
- 8:09Speaker 1: arrow in the vitals on a three D target.
- 8:12Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 8:12Speaker 3: Like, I don't want to make this sound like I'm
- 8:14Speaker 3: super methodical, because I'm not. But I do a lot
- 8:17Speaker 3: of early summer not a lot. My early and midsummer
- 8:21Speaker 3: shooting is always like twenty yards. Just get back into
- 8:25Speaker 3: the groove, muscle memory kind of thing, get the bow
- 8:27Speaker 3: settled in, and then as I start to hit August,
- 8:31Speaker 3: I'll start to back out a little bit and just
- 8:34Speaker 3: start working in twenty five, thirty, thirty five, forty whatever,
- 8:37Speaker 3: and then walk back range twenty seven yard shoot And
- 8:40Speaker 3: I don't I don't do volume shooting, Like I go
- 8:43Speaker 3: out and I'm like, you know, let's say I'm shooting
- 8:45Speaker 3: four arrows, I'll just do three rounds, but I want
- 8:47Speaker 3: to get to the point where I never miss, Like
- 8:49Speaker 3: I'm never like, oh that one went in the shoulder,
- 8:51Speaker 3: that one went in the guts. And when you start
- 8:53Speaker 3: to get to that point out to like forty or
- 8:55Speaker 3: I can shoot to fifty in my yard, then it's
- 8:58Speaker 3: like okay, now now it's broadhead time. And if the
- 9:01Speaker 3: broadheads follow suit and I'm matching up arrows and everything's
- 9:04Speaker 3: going good, then I'm like, I feel really good because
- 9:05Speaker 3: I'm not going to shoot a white till fifty yards,
- 9:08Speaker 3: you know, Like I know when I'm at that point,
- 9:10Speaker 3: when I'm on my standing their twenty yards away, then
- 9:13Speaker 3: feeling pretty good.
- 9:14Speaker 2: So when I get to the point where I can,
- 9:17Speaker 2: I have that feeling, and then what I'll do is
- 9:19Speaker 2: start practicing specific situations like I'm beyond I have that
- 9:23Speaker 2: that threshold of confidence, and now I'm gonna actually get
- 9:27Speaker 2: the saddle out and start shooting in the saddle at
- 9:30Speaker 2: different distances, or I'll try kneeling and shoot, or I'll
- 9:33Speaker 2: get to all sorts of wonky angles and start guessing distances.
- 9:36Speaker 2: And when you're doing that and you're starting to have
- 9:39Speaker 2: confidence with that, then I'm like, Okay, I can handle
- 9:42Speaker 2: whatever might whatever the real world might throw at me.
- 9:46Speaker 1: I was gonna ask you guys about that, how much
- 9:48Speaker 1: time do you do you? Tony? Ever move up and
- 9:50Speaker 1: start shooting from an elevated position.
- 9:53Speaker 3: So I do. I can shoot from my deck, and
- 9:57Speaker 3: so it's pretty easy if I want to. I don't.
- 10:00Speaker 3: I've spent so much time bow hunting out of tree stands.
- 10:04Speaker 3: Like I know, I think I probably know where you're
- 10:06Speaker 3: going with this. No, I don't think about that, Like
- 10:10Speaker 3: I have a kind of just like I know where
- 10:11Speaker 3: I'm aiming on white tails, and I know what I'm
- 10:13Speaker 3: gonna do. Uh, It's pretty second nature to me. So
- 10:15Speaker 3: I don't really need to reinforce that with tons of
- 10:18Speaker 3: elevated shooting or sitting on you know, on my knees
- 10:22Speaker 3: or whatever. It's different. I actually go through a way
- 10:24Speaker 3: different process when I'm coming out west because that's just
- 10:27Speaker 3: a different deal. But it's I think for a lot
- 10:31Speaker 3: of newer hunters, that's like a crazy important element to
- 10:36Speaker 3: build in, like figure out how to shoot somehow set
- 10:39Speaker 3: up a stand, figure out how to shoot off a deck,
- 10:41Speaker 3: an elevated platform something, because it's just coming like you're
- 10:45Speaker 3: going to take that shot.
- 10:47Speaker 2: But I think just as important as the elevation thing,
- 10:50Speaker 2: and sometimes maybe more important, it's it's the the positions
- 10:55Speaker 2: you're shooting from that are different. Like how many times
- 10:58Speaker 2: the deer hunter have you stood perfectly upright and shot.
- 11:01Speaker 2: Usually you're sitting down, or you're leaning in a saddle,
- 11:04Speaker 2: or you're swung around and shooting behind you, and we
- 11:07Speaker 2: never most folks never practice that. And so doing that
- 11:11Speaker 2: so even though I don't have a tree, actually I
- 11:13Speaker 2: can actually get up into. I just have like a
- 11:16Speaker 2: support pole in the back of my barn that I
- 11:18Speaker 2: saddle into, so I'm not significantly higher on a little
- 11:21Speaker 2: bit of a hill, but The biggest thing I try
- 11:23Speaker 2: to do is practice shooting standing, leaning, turning, angled, high low,
- 11:28Speaker 2: just because that's so different. You have a different structure,
- 11:32Speaker 2: you have a different platform for your feet, you have
- 11:34Speaker 2: totally different muscles that are being activated in those different positions,
- 11:38Speaker 2: and that you know, you know, what's the first time
- 11:40Speaker 2: you do that to be with the deer.
- 11:41Speaker 4: And that was a big learning curve for me when
- 11:43Speaker 4: I both hunted forever and then my son got into
- 11:46Speaker 4: it in his early teens. He wanted to start hunting,
- 11:49Speaker 4: so we obviously were shooting in the backyard. So I
- 11:51Speaker 4: hung a stand up and showed in the difference between
- 11:55Speaker 4: shooting at a thirty yard target level and then thirty
- 11:58Speaker 4: yard an elev from elevated position, and the amount of
- 12:03Speaker 4: the technique of bending at the keeping the tea and
- 12:06Speaker 4: bending at the waist and all that was really reinforced
- 12:09Speaker 4: in me. It helped me a lot. When I was
- 12:12Speaker 4: supposedly teaching him what to do, he was really teaching
- 12:15Speaker 4: me seeing it, putting that practical application. It was so
- 12:19Speaker 4: I've I still got that that elevated stand back there,
- 12:22Speaker 4: and I still shoot. I know it.
- 12:24Speaker 1: Do you guys ever, do dress rehearsals.
- 12:26Speaker 4: So I'll shoot out of your hunting.
- 12:28Speaker 1: Suit, because man, I tell you, you shoot all summer and
- 12:31Speaker 1: your T shirt yep. And then all of a sudden
- 12:34Speaker 1: you got your freezing your ass. You now you got
- 12:37Speaker 1: a net gat around which you've never found. You've never
- 12:40Speaker 1: found your draw point. You know, you never found your
- 12:44Speaker 1: hand position with a net gate around. There's a big
- 12:47Speaker 1: old hood on that. All of a sudden you pull
- 12:50Speaker 1: back and you're like, what the hell is that? You
- 12:52Speaker 1: got binos? Maybe gloves? Yeah, you never thought about the
- 12:56Speaker 1: fact that now you got a gloved hand or not
- 12:58Speaker 1: a gloved hand. You realize the string is actually sort
- 13:02Speaker 1: of like pressed into and folded into a heavy jacket,
- 13:06Speaker 1: which surprises you.
- 13:08Speaker 3: I mean, I I just shot some photos for a
- 13:11Speaker 3: piece I did for for us shooting shooting like that,
- 13:16Speaker 3: and I had to set up and shoot out of
- 13:17Speaker 3: a saddle, and I you know, I'm still wearing shorts
- 13:20Speaker 3: and a T shirt, but I've got my bino harness on.
- 13:22Speaker 3: And no I didn't. I didn't do that because it
- 13:25Speaker 3: was so hot. But I was out of a saddle
- 13:28Speaker 3: like two feet off the ground.
- 13:29Speaker 4: Huh.
- 13:29Speaker 3: And even then, you know, so when when you're asking about,
- 13:33Speaker 3: you know, shooting at an angle or whatever. People will
- 13:35Speaker 3: hear that and go, I have to shoot at an
- 13:37Speaker 3: angle just to understand my like where I'm holding, point impact,
- 13:42Speaker 3: aero trajectory, all that stuff. But also it puts you
- 13:45Speaker 3: in a position to be like get used to the
- 13:48Speaker 3: safety harness, get used to the movement like Mark kind
- 13:51Speaker 3: of alluded to on a little platform, you know, because
- 13:54Speaker 3: a lot of people don't spend very much time in
- 13:56Speaker 3: a tree stand, you know, you think about it. You know,
- 14:00Speaker 3: even the avid hunters they spend a fair amount of time,
- 14:03Speaker 3: but your average hunter is not going to be in
- 14:05Speaker 3: a tree stand for that many hours in any given season.
- 14:09Speaker 3: And now you have to do this thing that takes
- 14:10Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of concentration, a lot of
- 14:13Speaker 3: form in a little tiny environment that you're just not
- 14:16Speaker 3: that used to. And so you're also you're not just
- 14:19Speaker 3: conditioning yourself for how to shoot, you know, like how
- 14:22Speaker 3: to hit something, but you're conditioning yourself like how to
- 14:24Speaker 3: work around these like parameters that you're gonna you're gonna
- 14:28Speaker 3: be in.
- 14:29Speaker 2: Maybe the most important dress rehearsal I go through, though,
- 14:33Speaker 2: is not at home before the hunt. It's actually when
- 14:36Speaker 2: I'm in the tree at the beginning of the hunt.
- 14:38Speaker 2: So every time I get up into the tree or
- 14:40Speaker 2: get into my blind or get into my position, I
- 14:43Speaker 2: get you unpacked settled. The very first thing I do
- 14:46Speaker 2: then at that point is I envision the scenarios that
- 14:50Speaker 2: might happen. I envisioned, Okay, deer I think could come
- 14:52Speaker 2: through here and I could have a shot there, and
- 14:54Speaker 2: a deer might come through and it might have a
- 14:55Speaker 2: shot there. And then I like role play that scenario.
- 14:59Speaker 2: So imagine, Okay, if a deer comes through here, like
- 15:01Speaker 2: I hope he does, how do I have to get
- 15:03Speaker 2: my bow? How will I move? What do I need
- 15:05Speaker 2: to And I'll literally do it. I'll practice doing the thing.
- 15:08Speaker 2: I'll practice drawing back as if I'm going to shoot
- 15:10Speaker 2: right there, and then I test. I'm testing to see,
- 15:11Speaker 2: like does my elbow hit a limb here? Am I
- 15:13Speaker 2: going to hit against my tree here?
- 15:15Speaker 4: Like?
- 15:15Speaker 2: Can I do that? Can I make that movement quietly, smoothly?
- 15:17Speaker 2: And I'll do that for every possible scenario, so that
- 15:20Speaker 2: I've I've done it all. I'm not surprised in any
- 15:23Speaker 2: kind of way from that perspective at least, And that's
- 15:25Speaker 2: That's been a very important thing for me.
- 15:28Speaker 3: Mark, when you're doing that heavier accidentally just hit the relief.
- 15:31Speaker 2: Not yet, but knock on wood.
- 15:33Speaker 1: The part of my dad's routine is he would, you know,
- 15:38Speaker 1: climb up, pull his gear up, get situated, pick a leaf,
- 15:41Speaker 1: shoot the leaf, and then start hunting.
- 15:43Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 15:43Speaker 1: Yeah, every time.
- 15:44Speaker 4: I don't know a lot of folks unless there was
- 15:46Speaker 4: a squirrel.
- 15:47Speaker 3: The squirrel. Yeah, well, I mean when we were growing up,
- 15:51Speaker 3: we had an era with a judo point in the
- 15:53Speaker 3: quiver every everywhere you went, and you might shoot at
- 15:57Speaker 3: a squirrel. Like when I was younger, I shot at
- 15:59Speaker 3: squirrels out of my sho you're staying a lot like
- 16:01Speaker 3: my dad. I drove my dad nuts. He would spend
- 16:03Speaker 3: all that time sharpening a broadhead, you know, like strapping
- 16:07Speaker 3: that bear razor head, and then I'd shooted at a
- 16:09Speaker 3: squirrel into the dirt and he'd have to start over. Ah.
- 16:12Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean that was that used to be
- 16:14Speaker 3: really common now. I mean, can you imagine if you
- 16:17Speaker 3: gave people that advice now, just leave that arrow with
- 16:20Speaker 3: all your scent on it.
- 16:22Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's a I think there's a difference in
- 16:26Speaker 1: approaches and Mark had brought this up. That Mark, you
- 16:29Speaker 1: spent a lot of time when you're bow hunting for
- 16:31Speaker 1: white tails. You spend a lot of time where you'll
- 16:34Speaker 1: have a particular deer in mind. Yeah, you'll know how
- 16:37Speaker 1: the deer moves. You know, you'll kind of have a plan.
- 16:41Speaker 1: You'll you'll have a couple of spots picked out where
- 16:43Speaker 1: you might get an opportunity on the deer. And then
- 16:47Speaker 1: with you Tony last fall, you don't know who's around
- 16:53Speaker 1: and you're kind of hunting on the fly in the
- 16:56Speaker 1: situation where you're in like on the fly on public
- 16:58Speaker 1: land place, going to some places you hadn't had experience
- 17:01Speaker 1: with before, and that approach necessitates unusual circumstances that can
- 17:12Speaker 1: happen in the tree, Like like you're saying, you get
- 17:15Speaker 1: up in the tree and you go like, okay, I
- 17:16Speaker 1: got this shot in that shot, in this shot. But
- 17:18Speaker 1: you can also probably plant it out a little bit
- 17:21Speaker 1: throughout the year sure where you'd want to set up
- 17:24Speaker 1: what it might look like as opposed to every night,
- 17:29Speaker 1: perhaps every night being in a new situation where you're
- 17:32Speaker 1: not able to put a lot of thought into it,
- 17:35Speaker 1: and you get up there and you might realize well
- 17:36Speaker 1: here I am. I'm not going to move again. But man, yep,
- 17:41Speaker 1: that tree is not where that particular tree over there
- 17:45Speaker 1: is blocking my best shooting lane.
- 17:47Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, but.
- 17:48Speaker 3: That's that's why I love that. Okay. So when you
- 17:52Speaker 3: think about the hunt we did that first night that
- 17:54Speaker 3: Chris gil and I went out, I had a pond
- 17:56Speaker 3: that I had scouted out and there wasn't a tree
- 17:59Speaker 3: there that was more than like six inches in diameter.
- 18:02Speaker 3: So we were up there and it was super windy
- 18:03Speaker 3: that night, and then I think, what was it three
- 18:06Speaker 3: days later or two days later when we figured out
- 18:09Speaker 3: that little deal where you hit that spike And then
- 18:11Speaker 3: now you're sitting on the ground on an edge of
- 18:13Speaker 3: a you know, twenty foot drop down to a dry
- 18:16Speaker 3: river bed in a totally different kind of setup. And
- 18:20Speaker 3: that's that's that hunting makes you just like I have
- 18:24Speaker 3: to figure out what works here now because this is
- 18:25Speaker 3: the spot they're at. So I can't I can't like
- 18:28Speaker 3: choose that awesome, perfect tree with all these branches for
- 18:32Speaker 3: cover and then sort of curate a white tail spot
- 18:34Speaker 3: around it, which is like a pretty common thing. Now,
- 18:38Speaker 3: Like you go in there and you're like you're just
- 18:40Speaker 3: working with what it gives you.
- 18:42Speaker 4: I love that we had that same kind of thing
- 18:44Speaker 4: happened to Clay and I in Mississippi last year. We
- 18:47Speaker 4: got into we took we took the boat down there
- 18:50Speaker 4: was it was deer hunting down there. We went to
- 18:53Speaker 4: a spot that had only a few cameras on it,
- 18:57Speaker 4: but there's a lot of deer on it, but it
- 18:58Speaker 4: had been hunted z. So we went from day one
- 19:03Speaker 4: trying to figure out where we needed to go, and
- 19:06Speaker 4: we just kind of eased into each place. You know,
- 19:09Speaker 4: there was a lot of sign here in this in
- 19:11Speaker 4: this area right here, so we just stayed back a
- 19:14Speaker 4: little bit and on the third day we finally kept
- 19:16Speaker 4: moving up and moving up and moving.
- 19:18Speaker 1: Up, hanging stands all the time.
- 19:20Speaker 4: Yeah, rehanging hunting out of Sadad is going from tree
- 19:23Speaker 4: to tree to tree. And finally on the third day
- 19:25Speaker 4: we finally did it. You know, I killed that deer
- 19:28Speaker 4: like you U with a rifle, but.
- 19:31Speaker 1: You were you essentially stalked, you slowly stalked the spot.
- 19:35Speaker 4: You wanted to be in, yep, exactly. And it would
- 19:39Speaker 4: weather conditions prevented us from from continued to hunt with
- 19:43Speaker 4: a bow because it was twenty five miles an hour
- 19:46Speaker 4: of sustained winds gusting up to forty that day, and
- 19:49Speaker 4: it was just miserable and there was just no way
- 19:53Speaker 4: I could shoot a bow further than I don't know
- 19:56Speaker 4: that I would have trust myself to shoot further than
- 19:58Speaker 4: fifteen or twenty yards with the high wind. With the
- 20:01Speaker 4: high wind like that, Yeah, so we I switched to
- 20:03Speaker 4: a rifle and luckily we got it done there. So,
- 20:06Speaker 4: but we just incrementally worked our way closer and closer,
- 20:09Speaker 4: not because we had we had four days to do it,
- 20:12Speaker 4: and we started on the third day. We finally got
- 20:15Speaker 4: close enough to make it happen and where you wanted
- 20:17Speaker 4: to be.
- 20:20Speaker 1: What do you guys think is the number one reason
- 20:21Speaker 1: people miss deer don't hit them?
- 20:23Speaker 4: Right?
- 20:25Speaker 1: Missimer wound him. Let's talk physical first and then we'll
- 20:29Speaker 1: talk mental.
- 20:31Speaker 3: It's all mental. Yeah, there's no we can skip the
- 20:34Speaker 3: first part, buddy.
- 20:35Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a mental it's always mental and lack of
- 20:41Speaker 1: experience going through that mental turbulence.
- 20:44Speaker 2: Like so many hunters especially now get into hunting and
- 20:50Speaker 2: they see folks like the three the four of us
- 20:53Speaker 2: out there shooting deer or passing on younger bucks, and
- 20:56Speaker 2: we shoot big deer, and then they come in and
- 20:57Speaker 2: they're they're seventeen years old, and they think that they
- 20:59Speaker 2: should hold out for a big buck for their first
- 21:02Speaker 2: year or something like that, and so they never go
- 21:04Speaker 2: through what many of us did, where for years and
- 21:06Speaker 2: years and years we shot the first year we saw
- 21:09Speaker 2: and we got experience going through that incredibly wild ten
- 21:13Speaker 2: seconds right, And even after all of the experience that
- 21:17Speaker 2: I like, at least the two of us have talked
- 21:18Speaker 2: about this a lot, We've had a lot of experience
- 21:20Speaker 2: going through that, and we still screw it up mentally
- 21:24Speaker 2: sometimes in those moments. So how can someone who's done
- 21:26Speaker 2: it four times expect to get it just right?
- 21:29Speaker 4: And so just.
- 21:30Speaker 2: Going through that many, many, many times to try to
- 21:33Speaker 2: learn how to control yourself mentally in that moment is
- 21:36Speaker 2: the biggest thing that a lot of people just never
- 21:39Speaker 2: go through.
- 21:40Speaker 3: So I think the easiest way to frame this up
- 21:43Speaker 3: is like imagine you're just imagine you've shot enough right,
- 21:47Speaker 3: and you put out a full sized deer target at
- 21:50Speaker 3: twenty yards, climb into a tree whatever, shoot from the ground.
- 21:53Speaker 3: How many times do you think you'd have to shoot
- 21:55Speaker 3: at that before you missed it completely? Target practically. I mean,
- 21:59Speaker 3: you might go thousands and thousands of shots. Now that
- 22:05Speaker 3: thing has a heartbeat and it walks in and it's
- 22:09Speaker 3: not a physical thing. I mean everybody said, oh, I
- 22:13Speaker 3: misjudged the range, or I hit an unseen limb, or
- 22:16Speaker 3: he ducked the string or like the you know, the
- 22:19Speaker 3: greatest hits, right, but it's always between your ears and
- 22:22Speaker 3: you just didn't do the basic stuff to execute your shot.
- 22:28Speaker 3: You know, we run and it's all panic, right like
- 22:30Speaker 3: people I used to do. I suffered from buck fever
- 22:34Speaker 3: so bad for so long. I mean it forced me
- 22:36Speaker 3: to totally reinvent how I shot and everything because I
- 22:38Speaker 3: was like I have to quit or I have to
- 22:41Speaker 3: do something different because it was like ugly and so
- 22:46Speaker 3: once I kind of got my stuff figured out, and
- 22:48Speaker 3: I like how Mark talks about it, like training yourself,
- 22:52Speaker 3: you know, to go through your internal you know, here's
- 22:54Speaker 3: my checklist, bubble level whatever. I had to dumb down
- 22:59Speaker 3: my whole setup and work with how I just naturally shoot.
- 23:02Speaker 3: I naturally shoot really fast. I shot a lot of
- 23:04Speaker 3: traditional archy growing up, and I don't know if that's why,
- 23:07Speaker 3: but I'm like, I don't take a long time to
- 23:10Speaker 3: aim like, it's just I can't do it. It's the
- 23:13Speaker 3: same thing like people will ask me about wing shooting
- 23:14Speaker 3: like pheasants. I'm like, I can't give you any tips
- 23:16Speaker 3: because I can never remember what happens.
- 23:17Speaker 1: Count it down for me. So you hit full draw
- 23:20Speaker 1: on your hit in your punch and the trigger at
- 23:21Speaker 1: what full draw?
- 23:22Speaker 4: One too?
- 23:24Speaker 3: For sure? Very often really yeah, in like a two count. Yeah, yeah,
- 23:30Speaker 3: I mean it's quick, you know. I've even had camera
- 23:32Speaker 3: men say that, like Holy god, you know. But so
- 23:36Speaker 3: I had to dumb down my setup for that. But
- 23:39Speaker 3: I would do when I when I started to kind
- 23:41Speaker 3: of get my shit together a little bit, I started
- 23:43Speaker 3: doing seminars on how to beat buck fever because I
- 23:45Speaker 3: kept reading about like traditional advice and I was like,
- 23:48Speaker 3: my path was just vastly different. And you know, you'd
- 23:52Speaker 3: have a lot of people show up sometimes as I
- 23:55Speaker 3: would Dear Classic or wherever, and then I would say,
- 23:58Speaker 3: right at the beginning of the seminar, I'd say, hey,
- 23:59Speaker 3: how many of you guys and gals get buck fever?
- 24:02Speaker 3: And there'd be like three hands raised, and I'd be like, well,
- 24:05Speaker 3: why are the rest of you here? And you just
- 24:07Speaker 3: want to hear me talk, you know, So it's not
- 24:10Speaker 3: something it's just not something that people really want to
- 24:14Speaker 3: talk about. And I don't think they understand the depths
- 24:18Speaker 3: it goes, you know. And when you're talking a game
- 24:20Speaker 3: of variables like bow hunting, you just don't have to
- 24:24Speaker 3: be off by very much, like one little part falls
- 24:28Speaker 3: like that cascading failure thing, and now you're going to
- 24:31Speaker 3: miss that deer at twenty yards that you would never
- 24:34Speaker 3: miss in a thousand shots target shooting.
- 24:38Speaker 2: Now, I think there might be two different parts of
- 24:40Speaker 2: this equation, or two different versions of this. There's something
- 24:43Speaker 2: that I would think of as buck fever, and then
- 24:45Speaker 2: there's something that I would think of as like target panic,
- 24:47Speaker 2: and I think they're different. Oh okay, yeah, so so
- 24:49Speaker 2: I would I would define buck fever as breaking down,
- 24:54Speaker 2: as the animals approaching, like you are physically breaking down, shaking, nervous.
- 25:00Speaker 1: So I did I have target panic then?
- 25:01Speaker 2: So I used to have buck fever. I don't have
- 25:04Speaker 2: that anymore. Like when I see like I'm like in business,
- 25:08Speaker 2: it's like business time, like you just know what you're doing,
- 25:10Speaker 2: You're doing the thing.
- 25:10Speaker 3: It's fine.
- 25:11Speaker 1: But oh yeah, yeah, oh my god, oh my god.
- 25:13Speaker 2: Yeah that's here he goes.
- 25:15Speaker 3: That's me. That's me on the inside.
- 25:19Speaker 1: I remember having the feelings sometimes of like oh no.
- 25:25Speaker 3: Now, uhh yeah, when I a couple of years that
- 25:28Speaker 3: I hunted. That's how I knew I had to stop
- 25:30Speaker 3: hunting deer with a recurve because I started to be like,
- 25:34Speaker 3: oh ship, like here he comes, I come. Now, I
- 25:37Speaker 3: know I'm gonna have to shoot at him, and this
- 25:39Speaker 3: sucks because I'm probably gonna screw it up.
- 25:42Speaker 2: But target panic is more like what or at least
- 25:45Speaker 2: how I experienced. Target panic is how I think you
- 25:47Speaker 2: had in the past, where I would rush through that
- 25:51Speaker 2: final part of it. So as soon as I would
- 25:53Speaker 2: draw back, as soon as my pen at the vitals,
- 25:56Speaker 2: I didn't have conscious control of my release at that point.
- 25:58Speaker 2: It was as soon as the was on the vitals,
- 26:00Speaker 2: it was gone, like the arrow was sent surprise and
- 26:04Speaker 2: and and I've that led to a lot of rush shots,
- 26:08Speaker 2: like I hit. I mean, I was used. It was
- 26:09Speaker 2: usually usually fine, but sometimes it's a little back back,
- 26:13Speaker 2: it's a little bit forward, or when you're not fully
- 26:15Speaker 2: in control of that, there is this increased possibility for
- 26:19Speaker 2: things to go wrong in a situation where already so
- 26:22Speaker 2: many variables are out of your control, and that is
- 26:26Speaker 2: not acceptable.
- 26:27Speaker 3: Well, and there's a good lesson in there, right because
- 26:29Speaker 3: how how you miss tells you partially what you're doing wrong.
- 26:33Speaker 3: So my my failure starting out, even the twelve years
- 26:37Speaker 3: old bow hunting, I started right out of the gate
- 26:40Speaker 3: where I would draw and come down on my target
- 26:42Speaker 3: and I would get some part of deer in my
- 26:45Speaker 3: site window I'm punching that trigger. So I never shot
- 26:48Speaker 3: under a deer. Literally, it was every time I would
- 26:51Speaker 3: miss him high, and if I got one, it would
- 26:55Speaker 3: be because I miss misjudged the artisan. He was a
- 26:58Speaker 3: lot farther than I thought. And so when that nailed right,
- 27:05Speaker 3: I had a little buck come in once I'm one
- 27:06Speaker 3: of the first bucks I killed. I had he started
- 27:11Speaker 3: coming in a little six pointer and I drew and
- 27:14Speaker 3: I shot square into a little tiny sapling about six
- 27:17Speaker 3: feet in front of my tree stand, just bong, and
- 27:20Speaker 3: he spooped out and just in like desperation mode, I
- 27:23Speaker 3: knocked another arrow, and you know we didn't I didn't
- 27:26Speaker 3: have a rangefinder then I was like fifteen, and I
- 27:30Speaker 3: drew and shot and that arrow just went right into
- 27:32Speaker 3: his heart and he ran up the hill and fell
- 27:34Speaker 3: all the way back down, and I was like, oh
- 27:36Speaker 3: my god, looking back on it, now, all that was
- 27:40Speaker 3: was that deer picked a horrible spot to run to
- 27:43Speaker 3: when I just panicked, and didn't you know, I shot
- 27:47Speaker 3: exactly like I always do. I just had an extra
- 27:49Speaker 3: fifteen yards for that old alumina marrow to fall into
- 27:52Speaker 3: his heart, into his pocket.
- 27:54Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like there's a magnet in their paunch
- 27:58Speaker 1: that pulls arrows in that.
- 28:00Speaker 2: Yeah, that does seem common.
- 28:02Speaker 4: Yeah.
- 28:03Speaker 1: Uh with the target panic, how did like I understand
- 28:08Speaker 1: overcoming it through repetition, but then I feel like there's
- 28:12Speaker 1: like a thing that needs to be refreshed. I Uh.
- 28:16Speaker 1: When I was at Tony last year, I hit a
- 28:19Speaker 1: spike that I lost, and then reviewing it in my mind.
- 28:25Speaker 1: In reviewing it in my mind, I'm like, I knew
- 28:26Speaker 1: exactly what happened, and it reminds me of that you
- 28:29Speaker 1: might go to bed last night, or like you might
- 28:33Speaker 1: go to bed at night like I did last night, thinking, Okay,
- 28:35Speaker 1: next time I get really annoyed at my kids, I'm
- 28:37Speaker 1: gonna handle it more professionally. Right today, I'll get annoyed
- 28:43Speaker 1: at one of them about something and I'll handle it unprofessionally,
- 28:46Speaker 1: and then the minute, a couple of seconds after I
- 28:48Speaker 1: handle it unprofessionally, i'd be like, so the gun I
- 28:52Speaker 1: just said last night, I wasn't gonna do that. And
- 28:55Speaker 1: so with shooting, you're like, there's no way I do
- 28:57Speaker 1: that anymore. I'm never gonna let an arrow fly. I'm
- 29:01Speaker 1: gonna have the hair picked out. And even when you're like, oh,
- 29:05Speaker 1: here comes a deer. When he gets here, I'm going
- 29:07Speaker 1: to pick out a hair and shoot that hair, and
- 29:12Speaker 1: then all of a sudden you're you're drawing your bow
- 29:14Speaker 1: back and whatever commitments you made yourself. It's just something
- 29:18Speaker 1: so powerful.
- 29:20Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but part of it is just the repetition
- 29:22Speaker 3: and the mechanics. Like for me, you know when Mark
- 29:25Speaker 3: talks about like target panic, what I did was started well.
- 29:30Speaker 3: I went to a single pin site, which was huge
- 29:32Speaker 3: for me because I couldn't in the moment of truth.
- 29:35Speaker 3: I couldn't gap. I couldn't like, I couldn't keep it
- 29:39Speaker 3: together enough to put the yellow pin high or the
- 29:41Speaker 3: red pin low. I had to just dumb it down.
- 29:43Speaker 3: But also I specifically taught myself to draw at the
- 29:48Speaker 3: target so instead of coming down even if you come
- 29:51Speaker 3: down just a little bit. That was the death of me.
- 29:53Speaker 3: So I would draw at the target and what that
- 29:55Speaker 3: actually did for target, right, And then what that did
- 29:59Speaker 3: for me was I off and drew and had to
- 30:01Speaker 3: come up. And that was that's a different thing for
- 30:05Speaker 3: me because when I get that target acquisition, when I'm
- 30:07Speaker 3: coming up, the pin finds its spot for me. And
- 30:10Speaker 3: it was just like a you know, enough arrows gets
- 30:13Speaker 3: you sort of like where you're going to take to
- 30:15Speaker 3: that to the woods. But there's still so many times
- 30:17Speaker 3: where you don't do that.
- 30:20Speaker 1: Like still when I pull back my pin when I
- 30:26Speaker 1: come to arrest right pre shot, my pin is always
- 30:29Speaker 1: to the left or where it needs to be, and
- 30:31Speaker 1: I always need to consciously move it to the right,
- 30:35Speaker 1: like I like, I don't like to, like there's something
- 30:37Speaker 1: in my head that doesn't want to obscure the area.
- 30:39Speaker 1: So and so I'm looking and the pin's always to
- 30:42Speaker 1: the left, and I always got to like then like
- 30:44Speaker 1: hop it over to where it belongs.
- 30:46Speaker 4: Regardless of which way of the animal's face.
- 30:48Speaker 1: Because you're a left handed shooter, yeah, and you're totally regardless,
- 30:51Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, always.
- 30:52Speaker 4: Left, just left.
- 30:52Speaker 3: You're shooting multipin sight, right. Yeah, so you're looking around
- 30:56Speaker 3: that rack of pins. So if you did a if
- 30:58Speaker 3: you did vertical pins and had that had equal spacing
- 31:01Speaker 3: on both sides through your aperture where your pins are
- 31:04Speaker 3: perfectly centered in the middle coming from the bottom, you
- 31:07Speaker 3: wouldn't do that, I bet.
- 31:08Speaker 4: You think so.
- 31:08Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something about obscure in the thing.
- 31:11Speaker 4: You went to it this year? Yeah, single pin this
- 31:14Speaker 4: year and that what do you say? And worked from me?
- 31:17Speaker 3: You see this with a lot of new hunters. A
- 31:20Speaker 3: lot of new hunters hit too far left, too far right, shoulders,
- 31:24Speaker 3: guts right, And it's because they will. I mean, imagine
- 31:28Speaker 3: how little you have to move your head to get
- 31:31Speaker 3: just a slightly different view through your site window. So
- 31:33Speaker 3: you're already looking through your peep you're already looking through
- 31:35Speaker 3: your aperture to that deer, and if your just natural
- 31:38Speaker 3: inclination is to see just a little bit more of
- 31:40Speaker 3: that deer, you've changed your point of impact by six inches.
- 31:44Speaker 3: And it's you would never know. You would never do
- 31:47Speaker 3: that on a target because you don't care. It would
- 31:49Speaker 3: never your brain would never take over and do that.
- 31:51Speaker 3: But on a deer people do it a lot and
- 31:53Speaker 3: So that's like back to our earlier point. If you're
- 31:56Speaker 3: a chronic shoulder or a gut shooter, that's that could
- 32:00Speaker 3: be very well.
- 32:01Speaker 1: The reason why Yeah, well, I'll point out the buck
- 32:04Speaker 1: eye just referenced. Uh, the buck eye just referenced.
- 32:08Speaker 4: It was to the left. Yep.
- 32:09Speaker 1: It was the left where it belonged.
- 32:11Speaker 4: Yep.
- 32:12Speaker 1: And I bet you had he been the other had
- 32:14Speaker 1: he come from the other direction, it probably would have
- 32:16Speaker 1: probably hit him.
- 32:17Speaker 3: In the shoulder.
- 32:18Speaker 4: Yep.
- 32:19Speaker 3: And you know what, I'll bet that maybe this is
- 32:21Speaker 3: totally this is just speculation on my part. But you've
- 32:23Speaker 3: shot a lot of stuff through a rifle scope with
- 32:27Speaker 3: like a perfect view, you know what I mean. So
- 32:30Speaker 3: your brain is used to in that moment, which mirrors
- 32:34Speaker 3: a lot of stuff you've shot, you know, the same emotions,
- 32:36Speaker 3: the same kind of like adrenaline rush, whatever that you've
- 32:39Speaker 3: shot with a rifle. But you've had a very clear
- 32:41Speaker 3: sight window. Yeah, and when you pull out a bow,
- 32:44Speaker 3: you're you're kind of obscuring half of that sight window,
- 32:47Speaker 3: and your brain is used to seeing the whole thing.
- 32:50Speaker 2: Well, go ahead, Mark, I was just gonna say just
- 32:52Speaker 2: to kind of rewind us to half a step to
- 32:55Speaker 2: your your issue or your question around actually dealing with
- 32:59Speaker 2: target panic in the idea, like we know what we
- 33:00Speaker 2: should do, but then when it actually happens, you don't
- 33:02Speaker 2: do it. You mentioned mechanics being one thing that can help.
- 33:06Speaker 2: I had to introduce a new mental mechanic of sorts
- 33:11Speaker 2: to force me into actually executing on the right thing,
- 33:17Speaker 2: because again, my issue has always been it's like a
- 33:20Speaker 2: roller coaster, and like, as soon as I draw back,
- 33:22Speaker 2: I'm at the top of a roller coaster, and then
- 33:24Speaker 2: I'm flying down that hill. And so what I had
- 33:27Speaker 2: to do was introduce speed bumps into it. And so
- 33:30Speaker 2: I followed this the shot iq program. That's kind of
- 33:33Speaker 2: the model that I turned to and helped me. And
- 33:36Speaker 2: the way that I've done it, and the way this
- 33:39Speaker 2: program recommends you do it is by tying in actual
- 33:43Speaker 2: verbal cues to physical actions, and you drill that into
- 33:46Speaker 2: your psyche through repetition over and over and over again
- 33:50Speaker 2: until you have a certain degree of conscious control of
- 33:54Speaker 2: each step in the process. So instead of being at
- 33:56Speaker 2: the top of the roller coaster and then just it's gone,
- 33:59Speaker 2: I'm at the top of the roller coaster and then
- 34:00Speaker 2: I'm three cords of the way and there's a pause.
- 34:02Speaker 2: And then I'm halfway down, there's a pause, and I'm
- 34:05Speaker 2: making when I'm doing this right, I'm making a conscious
- 34:08Speaker 2: decision to take each step down the roller coaster, keeping
- 34:11Speaker 2: me from pins on, shot off. So it's when I
- 34:14Speaker 2: draw back, no matter what, I'm going to do this right,
- 34:16Speaker 2: and I'm literally saying this, and then I have to
- 34:18Speaker 2: address the target. So that's just dropping the pin right
- 34:20Speaker 2: in the bo Tell me what you're saying. That's what
- 34:22Speaker 2: I'm saying, start, start from the scratch. I draw back.
- 34:25Speaker 1: I'm a big buck. Also, Nick there, I am, Hey Mark,
- 34:28Speaker 1: but I don't see you. You don't see me.
- 34:30Speaker 2: As literally as I'm drawing back, I'm saying, no matter what,
- 34:33Speaker 2: I'm going to do this right. So that's that's like
- 34:36Speaker 2: locking in, so trying to like take a degree of
- 34:39Speaker 2: conscious control, no matter what, I'm going to do this right.
- 34:43Speaker 2: Then it's address the target. So that means drop the
- 34:45Speaker 2: pin on the vitals. Now address the trigger. So that's
- 34:48Speaker 2: me locking on my finger around the release and then
- 34:53Speaker 2: here we go. And when I see here we go,
- 34:55Speaker 2: that's when I can begin my pull. And each one
- 34:58Speaker 2: of those verbal cues triggers the physical.
- 35:01Speaker 1: Direction you copyright there.
- 35:02Speaker 2: No, that's this all Joel Turner from Shot. I Q
- 35:05Speaker 2: the actual words, even the words. Yeah, he helped me
- 35:07Speaker 2: with us and and I do not get a one
- 35:11Speaker 2: hundred percent all the time, but it has definitely helped
- 35:14Speaker 2: me regain a level of control and has improved things
- 35:19Speaker 2: and against it's the speed bumps. Just getting a little
- 35:22Speaker 2: bit of a stop gap in there from that free
- 35:25Speaker 2: fall can help.
- 35:28Speaker 1: I'm gonna take this through the approach of I come
- 35:30Speaker 1: home and I see a bunch of my tools are
- 35:35Speaker 1: like out in the road and out in the yard.
- 35:39Speaker 1: I'm going to say to myself, I'm gonna get this right.
- 35:43Speaker 4: Yep.
- 35:43Speaker 1: Then I call my kids all into the grange and
- 35:45Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, here we go. Please, all right, let's
- 35:56Speaker 1: move post shot.
- 35:58Speaker 4: Okay, that's the longest twenty minutes ever. Here we're gonna do.
- 36:04Speaker 1: We're gonna break up post shot until you guys are
- 36:08Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna give you each an assignment. You can
- 36:10Speaker 1: pick who gets what assignment.
- 36:12Speaker 3: Dude, I feel like you gave me a couple of
- 36:13Speaker 3: assignments last fall. Okay.
- 36:16Speaker 1: Assignment number one is like it just looks perfect and
- 36:19Speaker 1: you hear a crash. Okay, someone can have that. Okay,
- 36:24Speaker 1: someone can have man, I don't even know if I
- 36:26Speaker 1: hit that thing. Okay, and someone can have that wasn't good.
- 36:33Speaker 1: You guys can fight amongst yoursel I'll take whatever's lived.
- 36:38Speaker 3: I'll take the I don't know if you hit it one.
- 36:41Speaker 1: I don't even know if I hit it.
- 36:42Speaker 3: Yeah, because I my dad was he patented that shit.
- 36:48Speaker 3: There's a copyright on it. It's my dad.
- 36:50Speaker 2: Well, based on some phone calls I've gotten from you,
- 36:52Speaker 2: you've done a few of those.
- 36:55Speaker 3: I've been there. But it was like there was a
- 36:58Speaker 3: time period and so.
- 37:00Speaker 1: This is like a so you're taking out you know
- 37:02Speaker 1: if I hit it?
- 37:03Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, yeah, you want me to go.
- 37:05Speaker 1: And well, here's an added dimension. It's dusk.
- 37:09Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's not neon. It's never noon, you know. Yeah,
- 37:15Speaker 3: I've been on. I've went on one of those last year.
- 37:19Speaker 3: Not with a buddy of mine who's just kind of
- 37:23Speaker 3: getting into it. Although, to be like, to be totally
- 37:26Speaker 3: fair to that situation, he was like, I smoked it,
- 37:28Speaker 3: oh okay, and then it became after some questioning, it
- 37:32Speaker 3: became I'm not sure. And then it became a total miss.
- 37:36Speaker 3: When we went out und the arrow.
- 37:38Speaker 2: It's amazing how not uncommon that is.
- 37:41Speaker 3: Right, I mean, I'm sure I'm sure there's some white
- 37:43Speaker 3: tail guides listening to this, and there's some people who've
- 37:45Speaker 3: been around the block with this stuff who are like,
- 37:48Speaker 3: who can just totally understand the post shot thing of
- 37:54Speaker 3: just total confusion, like it just the brain happened, no idea,
- 38:02Speaker 3: felt like I did everything right, like deer ran off
- 38:05Speaker 3: reaction was this no clue?
- 38:07Speaker 4: You know?
- 38:08Speaker 3: And so often with that, you know, like it doesn't
- 38:12Speaker 3: do you any good typically until you just go find
- 38:15Speaker 3: that arrow, like you know, because you can be like,
- 38:18Speaker 3: where was he standing? All you standing right by that
- 38:21Speaker 3: birch tree or whatever, and then you go over there
- 38:23Speaker 3: there's no tracks, and then fifteen yards away there's big
- 38:27Speaker 3: digging tracks, you know what I mean, Like it's just
- 38:30Speaker 3: or what did he run by? When he left? Right
- 38:32Speaker 3: by brush that teeter tree out there, and you go
- 38:35Speaker 3: over there and the blood trail is, you know, ninety
- 38:39Speaker 3: degrees in a different direction.
- 38:40Speaker 1: In literary criticism, that's called an unreliable narrator.
- 38:44Speaker 3: Yeah, well, there's some unreliable narrators in the deer Woods. Buddy,
- 38:48Speaker 3: let me tell you I'm and I came from some
- 38:50Speaker 3: of them, man. But it's always just kind of just
- 38:56Speaker 3: like feeling out, trying to get every detail because you
- 38:59Speaker 3: know the Poe shot thing, and we've been we've all
- 39:02Speaker 3: been through this a million times. You have to trust
- 39:05Speaker 3: your initial instinct like did he kick his did he
- 39:08Speaker 3: meal kick? Did he not? Did he wheel this way
- 39:10Speaker 3: or that way? Like what did your brain register right away?
- 39:14Speaker 3: And that will be right like forty percent of the time.
- 39:17Speaker 1: Not what you think happened forty five minutes later, but
- 39:19Speaker 1: what you initially.
- 39:20Speaker 3: Thought happened, not what you talked yourself into because you
- 39:23Speaker 3: heard that crash or all the squirrels started barking down
- 39:26Speaker 3: the ridge, or you know, the full moon came out. Whatever.
- 39:29Speaker 3: Like however, you know black magic, you want to introduce
- 39:33Speaker 3: into it, you have to go what did it feel like?
- 39:36Speaker 3: And then like what were the initial reactions? But it
- 39:39Speaker 3: doesn't it really doesn't matter till you go try to
- 39:43Speaker 3: find that arrow. And what really sucks is when you
- 39:46Speaker 3: can't find the arrow and then you're.
- 39:48Speaker 1: Like, do you wait it all on a I don't
- 39:50Speaker 1: even know if I hit that thing. It's getting dark?
- 39:53Speaker 4: Are you?
- 39:54Speaker 1: Are you cool? Just climbing down and going looking for
- 39:56Speaker 1: the arrow. Yeah okay, oh yeah, I wouldn't so that personally.
- 39:59Speaker 3: Oh really okay, every everything Marks, but Mark's got his
- 40:03Speaker 3: own assignment, Mark Mart.
- 40:06Speaker 1: That ain't good.
- 40:07Speaker 2: Yeah, So I'll give my thought on this. When we
- 40:09Speaker 2: get to my piece.
- 40:14Speaker 3: I'll go right away. Now, I will say this. I
- 40:17Speaker 3: will be real stealthy, and I will not push it
- 40:22Speaker 3: in any way. So if my in my head or
- 40:24Speaker 3: if somebody one of my buddies is like, I know
- 40:27Speaker 3: you was standing there and we like, I'll go investigate that.
- 40:31Speaker 3: And if I start getting vibes like this is going
- 40:33Speaker 3: to turn into something we got to do some real
- 40:35Speaker 3: detective work on, then typically I'll pull out because there's
- 40:40Speaker 3: no that's only like a net game.
- 40:43Speaker 1: Can you quickly explain what we're talking about? The people
- 40:46Speaker 1: pull out for what reason?
- 40:48Speaker 3: Oh, because we don't want to push it, right, because
- 40:50Speaker 3: you you just don't know. You know, Yanni hit that
- 40:53Speaker 3: buck last year in Wisconsin, that sucker ran off a
- 40:55Speaker 3: little ways better down he thought it was over, got
- 40:58Speaker 3: up like they're that stuff happens, yeah.
- 41:01Speaker 1: And like he might have would have otherwise probably just died,
- 41:04Speaker 1: but you spooked it, right, And then it ran another
- 41:06Speaker 1: three hundred yards and now you can't find themn thing right,
- 41:09Speaker 1: and there's just nothing.
- 41:11Speaker 3: The thing, the hardest thing to do with people is
- 41:16Speaker 3: to blood trail with impatient people.
- 41:19Speaker 2: It's almost everyone right.
- 41:22Speaker 3: It's like a you know, when you like when we
- 41:24Speaker 3: were looking for your buck, the good one you shot
- 41:26Speaker 3: in Oklahoma, you like fall into that cadence where there's
- 41:29Speaker 3: like a leader a follower, a leader a follower, but
- 41:31Speaker 3: the pace is kind of dictated by like it's it's
- 41:36Speaker 3: always like way slower and more methodical than you think.
- 41:40Speaker 3: Even when you're on like there's blood here, blood here,
- 41:42Speaker 3: blood here, you're kind of like there's like a little
- 41:44Speaker 3: governor on people who know what they're doing, just because
- 41:47Speaker 3: you might come up. You might you know, like the
- 41:50Speaker 3: potential fifteen yards down that you might run out of blood,
- 41:54Speaker 3: you know, so you're just like you just fall into
- 41:58Speaker 3: this sort of cadence where you're like, there's nothing good
- 42:02Speaker 3: that comes from us. We're running down this or all
- 42:03Speaker 3: of a sudden just starting to grid search or go
- 42:05Speaker 3: look ahead, like you just got to dial it back.
- 42:08Speaker 3: In a lot of people and this is just probably
- 42:10Speaker 3: mostly because they don't get to do it very much,
- 42:12Speaker 3: and they haven't been through all those different scenarios where
- 42:15Speaker 3: you've had that those real late nights, the Doug Durn
- 42:18Speaker 3: thing where it's like you've been on another nightmare, one
- 42:21Speaker 3: that didn't turn out, or the coyotes got it the
- 42:23Speaker 3: next morning. And so when I say go look for
- 42:26Speaker 3: that arrow, and then if you don't get it right away,
- 42:30Speaker 3: or it's like you feel that poll to just go
- 42:32Speaker 3: a little bit farther down the trail, that's when you
- 42:36Speaker 3: got to just check yourself and go, I'm gonna get out.
- 42:37Speaker 3: We're gonna go get a sandwich, We're gonna go get
- 42:39Speaker 3: like good lights, batteries, we're gonna set up for this,
- 42:43Speaker 3: and we're gonna have a discussion outside of that zone
- 42:45Speaker 3: where that deer might still be, and just figure this
- 42:48Speaker 3: plan out. And then cause there's you might you might
- 42:52Speaker 3: go back, your buddy might relax, or you might just
- 42:54Speaker 3: be like man kind of felt like maybe it was
- 42:56Speaker 3: too far back or just like something, or if it's
- 42:59Speaker 3: just something you usually do, like we talked about, if
- 43:02Speaker 3: you're a lot of times too far left, too far right,
- 43:05Speaker 3: you could go if even though I can't remember, I
- 43:08Speaker 3: don't know that if I did screw up and hit him.
- 43:12Speaker 3: That's probably or what did it sound like? It's kind
- 43:15Speaker 3: of like the sound of that arrow is kind of
- 43:17Speaker 3: jiving with the mistake I make a lot, God, so
- 43:20Speaker 3: did I got shoot him? And so you just always
- 43:22Speaker 3: err on that side of don't go push it, you know, like,
- 43:26Speaker 3: just do not do that. And I know, I mean
- 43:28Speaker 3: we talk about that all the time, but it really
- 43:31Speaker 3: hits home when you're on one of those or you know,
- 43:33Speaker 3: you're like, it's probably you talk yourself into it, and
- 43:37Speaker 3: then you jump that sucker and now he's on the
- 43:40Speaker 3: neighbors across the neighbor's fence, and now it's like it's
- 43:43Speaker 3: become a thing that it didn't have to become. And
- 43:46Speaker 3: it never almost never becomes a better thing by accident,
- 43:50Speaker 3: you know what I mean. You never like, well, I'm
- 43:52Speaker 3: gonna look for the arrow. Oh there he is.
- 43:53Speaker 1: You know, it's like, yeah, oh, it's much more common
- 43:57Speaker 1: to go look and I'd be like, oh, right, right.
- 44:02Speaker 4: I guess I got the crash and you.
- 44:04Speaker 1: You got the man that looked perfect and I heard
- 44:06Speaker 1: a crash.
- 44:07Speaker 4: It's the hardest twenty minutes ever. That's what you do.
- 44:10Speaker 4: Twenty minute twenty minutes is what I shoot for. Thirty
- 44:13Speaker 4: is what I shoot for. Twenty I think.
- 44:16Speaker 1: That's where you come from.
- 44:17Speaker 4: Okay, twenty will be good enough. And then at fifteen
- 44:21Speaker 4: I'm standing at the bottom of the tree and go
- 44:25Speaker 4: find and go find the arrow and it's just absolutely
- 44:28Speaker 4: painted and it looks just like you want it to look.
- 44:31Speaker 4: But what I will do, regardless of my excitement level,
- 44:34Speaker 4: I have taught myself in the story office. And to
- 44:37Speaker 4: tell you, it was the day that I did it.
- 44:40Speaker 4: When I heard that crash took I had my compass
- 44:44Speaker 4: in my hand and I shot an as with to
- 44:46Speaker 4: it from where I was sitting in that tree, so
- 44:49Speaker 4: I knew the direction because it's the world is a
- 44:52Speaker 4: different place when you're fifteen feet closer to the planet
- 44:55Speaker 4: and you get down there, and which tree was was
- 44:59Speaker 4: I am? You know, once you get out there and
- 45:01Speaker 4: you can't see the sand. But I get out there
- 45:05Speaker 4: and I find the arrow. If I'm finally waiting twenty minutes,
- 45:09Speaker 4: and it's just blood, blood, blood, blood, and you and
- 45:12Speaker 4: like to Tony, like what Tony's talking about, you just
- 45:15Speaker 4: start walking faster and faster. Oh, I can see it,
- 45:17Speaker 4: I can see it. And if you ain't careful if
- 45:19Speaker 4: it stops, if that hole plugs up, or if it
- 45:23Speaker 4: rubs up against a tree and it doesn't drip on
- 45:25Speaker 4: the ground that you don't see when it goes by,
- 45:28Speaker 4: and all of a sudden there's no blood and you
- 45:31Speaker 4: turn around looking, you've already walked five yards past it,
- 45:35Speaker 4: and then you got to go all the way back.
- 45:37Speaker 4: If you can find it again.
- 45:38Speaker 1: Then you gotta wonder if you didn't step on what
- 45:40Speaker 1: was there exactly?
- 45:41Speaker 4: Now I've ruined it. So this blood trail on this
- 45:47Speaker 4: deer went, it's like a sling shot straight away from
- 45:51Speaker 4: where I shot it. And then it started very kind
- 45:53Speaker 4: of back to the left. And in my mind, I'm
- 45:56Speaker 4: thinking I heard him, heard him crash over here, But
- 45:59Speaker 4: maybe maybe that's not Maybe that was just excitement, because
- 46:03Speaker 4: the blood's going here. Well, the blood starts, it gets
- 46:06Speaker 4: sixty yards away from the tree now in the bottoms
- 46:09Speaker 4: there where there's thickets, and I can't see the tree
- 46:11Speaker 4: I'm in now, So I'm in my mind I'm assuming
- 46:14Speaker 4: I have got this bloodline is straight, but I've actually
- 46:18Speaker 4: made a big curve to the left, and the blood
- 46:21Speaker 4: trail starts going up this bluff and it stops. But
- 46:24Speaker 4: where I missed where and I get to the top
- 46:26Speaker 4: of the bluff, I can't find blood anywhere, I can't
- 46:28Speaker 4: find a deer, I can't find anything. But where I
- 46:31Speaker 4: missed was when that deer got to the edge of
- 46:34Speaker 4: that bluff, he fell and rolled down the other side.
- 46:38Speaker 4: And where I heard him crash was where I heard
- 46:41Speaker 4: him crash, But it was eighty yards difference from where
- 46:44Speaker 4: I lost That blood trailed right there and was actually
- 46:46Speaker 4: back closer to the deer standing from where I shot
- 46:50Speaker 4: him at I got you. So when I and how
- 46:52Speaker 4: I found him was I walked back to the base
- 46:55Speaker 4: of that tree and took asthmus, and I walked that
- 46:57Speaker 4: asthmus that I shot out there and walked right up
- 47:00Speaker 4: to that sound you heard and to the sound I heard,
- 47:02Speaker 4: and that was him because I thought maybe if if
- 47:05Speaker 4: that was him, maybe he bedded, you know, and I
- 47:07Speaker 4: would jump him up at least know which way he
- 47:09Speaker 4: was going. But I mean, but he was dead as
- 47:11Speaker 4: a hammer.
- 47:12Speaker 1: That's a good idea on that compass deal.
- 47:14Speaker 4: Yeah, it cats come in handy a lot.
- 47:17Speaker 1: I remember being kids and it would be a big thing.
- 47:24Speaker 1: It was the old man that sends you back up
- 47:26Speaker 1: in the tree yep, yep, and you'd have a surveyor's
- 47:29Speaker 1: tape yep. And he wanted to where did you first
- 47:31Speaker 1: see it?
- 47:32Speaker 3: Yep?
- 47:33Speaker 1: Where was it when you shot? Okay, where do you
- 47:36Speaker 1: think it last saw it was? And mark all this stuff,
- 47:39Speaker 1: you know, and start laying out like a crime scene,
- 47:42Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because he's trying to pry
- 47:44Speaker 1: as much out of an unreliable narrator as he could,
- 47:47Speaker 1: you know, like visually on the ground.
- 47:49Speaker 4: You know what I mean. Well, it became painfully obvious
- 47:52Speaker 4: how they're not. They may leave in a straight line,
- 47:56Speaker 4: but that don't mean they're going to stay in one,
- 47:58Speaker 4: you know. And I'm gonna believe that there would have
- 48:01Speaker 4: went on top of that bluff and lay and fell
- 48:03Speaker 4: over dead. But he fell over before you got the
- 48:05Speaker 4: top and rolled down to that other spot over there.
- 48:08Speaker 4: You know. If I hadn't done that, you know, we
- 48:11Speaker 4: could still be out there looking for it.
- 48:13Speaker 3: You're like fighting, you're fighting this this dual thing where
- 48:18Speaker 3: you have real information, which is like the spore, and
- 48:22Speaker 3: then like this information you're making up, like you're filling
- 48:26Speaker 3: in the blanks. And so I think that's like the
- 48:28Speaker 3: the most dangerous stuff on blood trails is always and
- 48:31Speaker 3: never stuff and then talking yourself into like, we got
- 48:34Speaker 3: to go because there's a whole lot of coyotes around here,
- 48:36Speaker 3: or we got to go because it's kind of warm,
- 48:38Speaker 3: and maybe you know, like when you're when you're when
- 48:42Speaker 3: you're talking yourself into going and you're filling in the
- 48:45Speaker 3: blanks instead of working off the actual information that tends
- 48:49Speaker 3: to break bad a lot.
- 48:50Speaker 4: Well, the only reason you're coming up with those things
- 48:53Speaker 4: to do is because you want to get there and
- 48:54Speaker 4: put your hands on right right, so.
- 48:58Speaker 1: You're gonna take over on your thing about this Ian
- 49:00Speaker 1: to tell you a funny story. One time we were
- 49:02Speaker 1: out and hit a bowl elk and then drew back
- 49:09Speaker 1: and kind of like went off to a rock area
- 49:12Speaker 1: just to lay.
- 49:13Speaker 4: Down and wait.
- 49:14Speaker 1: And the whole time we're I can't wait forty five minutes.
- 49:16Speaker 1: The whole time, I'm like kinda smell elk, I can
- 49:21Speaker 1: smell elk, and in are going back wound up like
- 49:24Speaker 1: setting up like right next to that thing. No waited
- 49:27Speaker 1: forty five minutes.
- 49:28Speaker 5: Oh my god, that I pointed that out, because that's
- 49:35Speaker 5: usually not how that goes, all right, So Mark take
- 49:39Speaker 5: it where it's just like that ain't good.
- 49:41Speaker 2: Yeah, So in that scenario, everything that we've talked about
- 49:44Speaker 2: so far is even more important. So the very first
- 49:48Speaker 2: thing I'm going to do in that situation is try
- 49:51Speaker 2: to collect as much information as I possibly can to
- 49:54Speaker 2: ensure that the narrator is as useful as possible, at least.
- 49:58Speaker 1: Even if it's you.
- 49:58Speaker 2: Yeah, even if let's put it the it is me, which, hey,
- 50:01Speaker 2: this has happened. So so in a situation where like
- 50:05Speaker 2: I saw the hit, I knew it wasn't great. Now
- 50:07Speaker 2: I know, man, my job from here on out is
- 50:09Speaker 2: going to be extra difficult.
- 50:10Speaker 1: Let's put a finer point to it. It's way back, yeah,
- 50:13Speaker 1: way back. Not in the hip, it's in that narrowest
- 50:16Speaker 1: little waste part.
- 50:18Speaker 4: Yeah when it sounds like yeah.
- 50:21Speaker 2: So So in that scenario number one, I see that happen.
- 50:27Speaker 2: Then I'm watching that deer and very very carefully trying
- 50:30Speaker 2: to see where's the last place I saw, like marking
- 50:33Speaker 2: any possible visual waypoint in my mind. And then I
- 50:36Speaker 2: try to take it a step further two ways. One
- 50:39Speaker 2: I will oftentimes like after the deer disappears out of you,
- 50:42Speaker 2: the first thing I'm thinking about is in my mind
- 50:44Speaker 2: trying to think through okay, what did I hear? What
- 50:46Speaker 2: I see and trying to like have an internal dialogue
- 50:49Speaker 2: and very clearly like okay, he went that way, saw
- 50:53Speaker 2: him by that big oa. Try last, and something I
- 50:55Speaker 2: haven't done but I should do and would recommend is
- 50:57Speaker 2: actually pull out your notes app in your phone and
- 51:00Speaker 2: actually write this down right then in the moment, write
- 51:02Speaker 2: down everything you can remember while it's fresh, before your
- 51:04Speaker 2: mind starts playing tricks on you. Another thing I have done,
- 51:08Speaker 2: I will take a picture from the tree stand of
- 51:11Speaker 2: where I shot it, so I know what the view
- 51:13Speaker 2: looks like from up there with my phone, and then
- 51:15Speaker 2: I will take a picture of the last place I
- 51:17Speaker 2: saw him, and then like even like circle in the photo,
- 51:20Speaker 2: like there's where he was. In my mind's eye, it's fresh,
- 51:22Speaker 2: it just happened. I can see what it looks like
- 51:25Speaker 2: right now, I'll zoom in and get a picture of
- 51:26Speaker 2: that that way. You know, just like you said, when
- 51:29Speaker 2: you're down there on the ground, it's like you know
- 51:30Speaker 2: your dad in the surveyor's tape, similar thing, But you
- 51:32Speaker 2: can do this on your own right, so then when
- 51:34Speaker 2: you're on the ground, you can be like Okay, is
- 51:36Speaker 2: this the tree? Look at the picture. Oh yeah, this
- 51:38Speaker 2: is the oak tree. Here's that little sapling he was
- 51:40Speaker 2: standing by. This is that sapling. You can orient yourself
- 51:42Speaker 2: on the ground. Cause again, I know that my job
- 51:45Speaker 2: is going to be extra challenging. I need every single
- 51:47Speaker 2: possible data point. So I'm doing these things, collecting all
- 51:52Speaker 2: that data that I can from the tree already. If
- 51:55Speaker 2: I know it's a far back hit right away, I know, hey,
- 51:58Speaker 2: this steer is going to need time. I will with
- 52:02Speaker 2: any shot. And maybe I'm overly conservative here, but even
- 52:06Speaker 2: if I heard it crash, I always will wait an hour.
- 52:10Speaker 4: The only.
- 52:12Speaker 2: Time that would not be the case would be if
- 52:14Speaker 2: I can literally see the deer dead. But if I
- 52:16Speaker 2: can't see it dead, I just think it's off there somewhere.
- 52:19Speaker 2: I'll at least wait an hour. God, that's a lot
- 52:22Speaker 2: of discipline, try to It just seems like there's so
- 52:27Speaker 2: many ways that can go wrong. There's no way it
- 52:29Speaker 2: can get more right. Like, if he's dead, he's not
- 52:32Speaker 2: going to be more dead if I get down there
- 52:34Speaker 2: at thirty minutes. If he's dead, he's dead. As long
- 52:36Speaker 2: as it's not crazy hot and I'm not worried about
- 52:38Speaker 2: the meat going bad, Like that would be the only
- 52:39Speaker 2: time I'd like rush down there if that was case.
- 52:41Speaker 2: But like, assuming that's not a concern, the only thing
- 52:45Speaker 2: that could happen is it could be worse. Maybe he crashed,
- 52:47Speaker 2: but he's actually not dead and I spook him. So
- 52:50Speaker 2: when it goes out, it comes down to checking the arrow.
- 52:51Speaker 2: I like to wait to check the arrow because again,
- 52:55Speaker 2: worst case scenario, what if he crashed but it's not dead.
- 52:58Speaker 2: You go walk thirty yards out, it's crunchy, You go
- 53:01Speaker 2: check that arrow, and all of a sudden he's up
- 53:03Speaker 2: and running. I just don't want that to happen. I
- 53:05Speaker 2: don't I want zero chance of that happening. So I wait.
- 53:08Speaker 2: If I know I hit this deer back, I might
- 53:11Speaker 2: not even go check the arrow at all.
- 53:13Speaker 4: So this is.
- 53:17Speaker 2: This is exactly. This is very close to a scenario
- 53:21Speaker 2: I had last fall at Doug's place. So speaking to
- 53:23Speaker 2: Doug with guys with archery shots and not hitting getting
- 53:26Speaker 2: perfect hits. So I had a shot at a buck
- 53:31Speaker 2: and I probably rushed the shot a little bit and
- 53:33Speaker 2: he spun on the shot and the shot hit back.
- 53:36Speaker 2: And so wait at an hour, thought about going to
- 53:40Speaker 2: check the arrow, and I'm having a hard time remembering
- 53:42Speaker 2: if I did. I'm pretty sure that I did not
- 53:44Speaker 2: go to the tree to check the arrow at all.
- 53:46Speaker 2: I remember we talked on the phone afterwards, but I
- 53:48Speaker 2: went back and immediately knew you hit a deer back.
- 53:51Speaker 2: My view is like a ten to twelve hour wait,
- 53:53Speaker 2: no matter what. Again, it goes back to what's the
- 53:59Speaker 2: worst come out come.
- 54:00Speaker 1: Like any shot is an hour a punt shot. You're
- 54:03Speaker 1: going to give it ten.
- 54:05Speaker 2: Yeah, just because that deer is going to die like
- 54:09Speaker 2: that deer. A deer does not survive a shot in
- 54:11Speaker 2: that region. But unfortunately, the reality is that is not
- 54:15Speaker 2: a fast thing. It might, you might get lucky, but
- 54:20Speaker 2: most of the time it is not a fast thing.
- 54:21Speaker 2: But what you can count on usually is that that
- 54:24Speaker 2: deer does not want to travel far. That deer wants
- 54:27Speaker 2: to get to its first point of safety and it
- 54:29Speaker 2: wants to lay down and it does not want to
- 54:30Speaker 2: move again. And so the only silver lining here is
- 54:33Speaker 2: that that's the case. So you hit a deer back,
- 54:35Speaker 2: there's a pretty darn good chance he's going to bed
- 54:38Speaker 2: down quickly and he's not going to leave that bed
- 54:41Speaker 2: unless you bump him. So that's why it's it's almost
- 54:45Speaker 2: always better to give that deer a good amount of time,
- 54:48Speaker 2: at least ten to twelve hours, and then you can
- 54:52Speaker 2: know with relatives certaintly certainty that deer is going to
- 54:56Speaker 2: be somewhere kind of close. Just don't screw it up.
- 54:58Speaker 1: Give it to me. Let's say we're not out in
- 55:02Speaker 1: like prairie country, but we're in mixed egg land, and
- 55:05Speaker 1: you're we're in mixed egg land with a lot of
- 55:07Speaker 1: betting covers scattered around how many yards away?
- 55:10Speaker 2: One to two hundred yards, you think? So first good
- 55:12Speaker 2: security cover. Usually they'll they'll bed down. And so I
- 55:17Speaker 2: was on the edge of really thick cover, and I
- 55:19Speaker 2: knew that he could be within seventy yards. Got it like,
- 55:21Speaker 2: I don't think he went far, And so I knew he.
- 55:24Speaker 1: Might go seventy yards from that point of like feeling
- 55:27Speaker 1: that scared and feeling that hurt, he might go seventy
- 55:30Speaker 1: yards and feel safe enough to lay down.
- 55:32Speaker 2: Like I've seen deer get hitting that paunch, they bound
- 55:34Speaker 2: off like one or two bounds, stop, kind of hunch up,
- 55:37Speaker 2: and then just slowly walk away, And as soon as
- 55:39Speaker 2: they hit cover, they bed down.
- 55:40Speaker 3: Yep.
- 55:41Speaker 2: Yeah, and so many people though have this pull like
- 55:46Speaker 2: I just need to see, I just need to know.
- 55:48Speaker 2: I just want to find it and it'll go. It's
- 55:50Speaker 2: the worst, but nothing good comes of that. So I
- 55:55Speaker 2: am I am going to if if I feel very
- 55:58Speaker 2: confident because of the terrain and the habit, that I
- 56:00Speaker 2: can get to the arrow site without spooking it, then yes,
- 56:03Speaker 2: I will go there and collect all the information that
- 56:05Speaker 2: you talked about, get as much information as I possibly
- 56:08Speaker 2: can to arm me with, you know, the ability to
- 56:11Speaker 2: make as good of a decision as possible. So wanting
- 56:14Speaker 2: to see, like trying to confirm if maybe you're not
- 56:17Speaker 2: sure if it was liver or stomach or something, then
- 56:19Speaker 2: I'm looking at the arrow, I'm looking at the blood.
- 56:20Speaker 2: I'm looking at that kind of thing. But if I
- 56:22Speaker 2: saw far back like we know that's what it is,
- 56:25Speaker 2: then I'm backing out and I'm doing two things, waiting
- 56:29Speaker 2: three things. I'm waiting that long predetermined time. Number two,
- 56:34Speaker 2: I'm trying to get some help. And number three, if
- 56:37Speaker 2: it's legal in your state and you have someone who
- 56:39Speaker 2: has a dog, get the dog. There's no downside of
- 56:42Speaker 2: getting a dog. They are like magic. They are an
- 56:45Speaker 2: incredible asset and tool, and if you can do it,
- 56:49Speaker 2: there's no reason not to do it right. Twelve hours passes.
- 56:54Speaker 2: Now I'm going to return to the site of the
- 56:57Speaker 2: where the shot was. I have all of this information.
- 56:59Speaker 2: I have my photo of the last place that saw him.
- 57:01Speaker 2: I have the photo of the shot site, I have
- 57:03Speaker 2: my arrow, I have the blood at the sight of impact.
- 57:07Speaker 2: And now doing everything Tony talked about, and you know,
- 57:11Speaker 2: Brent talked about slowly trying to follow that blood if
- 57:13Speaker 2: at all possible, if you have the dog, staying out
- 57:15Speaker 2: of the dog's way. A big thing is like a
- 57:18Speaker 2: mistake many people make with a subpar shot, is that
- 57:23Speaker 2: maybe they thought, well, maybe it was liver, maybe back
- 57:27Speaker 2: a lungs, and they want to believe the best case scenario,
- 57:30Speaker 2: and then they start walking around and looking and they
- 57:33Speaker 2: mess up the whole area. And then six hours later like, well,
- 57:36Speaker 2: now I got to call a dog, and they call
- 57:37Speaker 2: the dog, but you messed up the first four hundred
- 57:39Speaker 2: yards of circumference around the area of impact. What I've
- 57:43Speaker 2: learned with a I've got one of my best buddies
- 57:45Speaker 2: as a dog, and so he's done this hundreds of times.
- 57:48Speaker 2: And now he comes out with me just for practice,
- 57:50Speaker 2: and so I've gotten to see this many times myself.
- 57:52Speaker 2: The best thing you can do is that the first
- 57:54Speaker 2: hint of eh, I'm not like I've lost blood, not
- 57:57Speaker 2: feeling good about this. If you have that tool in
- 58:00Speaker 2: your toolbox, grab it because it can. It can cure
- 58:04Speaker 2: so many woes. If you have that tool, Yeah, there
- 58:06Speaker 2: are a lot.
- 58:07Speaker 3: Those dogs are a lot better at it.
- 58:08Speaker 4: Than we are.
- 58:08Speaker 2: Yeah, So of course, like if you can follow blood, absolutely,
- 58:11Speaker 2: but if you're reaching that question mark point and you're
- 58:14Speaker 2: thinking dog, no dog, dog, no dog, I would always
- 58:16Speaker 2: lean towards dog. So now we've waited, we have the information,
- 58:20Speaker 2: we're on the trail. Now it's just slow. Do not
- 58:24Speaker 2: be impatient, Do not rush ahead mark last blood. Always,
- 58:28Speaker 2: don't rush into the well. Let's just start around the corner.
- 58:32Speaker 2: Just follow all those protocols that force you to go slow,
- 58:35Speaker 2: that force you to be methodical about it, and more
- 58:38Speaker 2: often than not, with that far back hit deer, if
- 58:40Speaker 2: you do all of that within one hundred and two
- 58:43Speaker 2: hundred yards, you're gonna find it. Bet it up not
- 58:46Speaker 2: that far away, and you have your happy endingg And
- 58:49Speaker 2: it worked out as best as it can out of
- 58:51Speaker 2: a bad outcome good because I was nervous forer me
- 58:53Speaker 2: there as we all are, and that that that thing
- 58:58Speaker 2: that's that process is exactly the process we followed, and
- 59:01Speaker 2: we found a great, big giant buck on Missus Duran's farm.
- 59:04Speaker 2: And it was a happy ending and a little stressful
- 59:06Speaker 2: in between. But you never want that situation to be
- 59:10Speaker 2: the situation you're in. But once you find yourself there,
- 59:14Speaker 2: you have to just do everything you possibly can to
- 59:18Speaker 2: end it well. And that's easier than done.
- 59:21Speaker 1: We're gonna be one last thing, now, go ahead, you
- 59:24Speaker 1: had something.
- 59:24Speaker 3: Well, I was just going to weigh in on like
- 59:25Speaker 3: a couple quick things there. The thing that we do
- 59:29Speaker 3: a lot of times, especially if you're talking about shooting
- 59:31Speaker 3: one in the evening right as it's getting dark, is
- 59:33Speaker 3: you've got your head lamp with you, and it's easy
- 59:36Speaker 3: to just start down that trail with like the wrong stuff.
- 59:40Speaker 3: You know, you've got what you have with you. So
- 59:43Speaker 3: I started keeping like a blood trailing box in my truck.
- 59:46Speaker 3: It forces me to leave go back, like no matter
- 59:49Speaker 3: what if I'm not like I smoked him and he's
- 59:51Speaker 3: seventy yards away. It forces me to take that moment
- 59:54Speaker 3: to get out of the woods. And at the very least,
- 59:57Speaker 3: I'm like, I got to go arm up with the
- 59:59Speaker 3: right lights batteries. And then the other thing. I think
- 1:00:04Speaker 3: a big mistake people make on a blood trail as
- 1:00:08Speaker 3: they think they need a lot of help. And I
- 1:00:11Speaker 3: kind of equate it to pheasant hunting with a young dog.
- 1:00:14Speaker 3: If you go out into the cattails and there's just
- 1:00:17Speaker 3: you and you have a dog, that dog will set
- 1:00:19Speaker 3: the pace because it knows how to work the cover
- 1:00:22Speaker 3: and it's figuring things out. So you're pacing yourself to
- 1:00:25Speaker 3: that dog. But you get one more person in there,
- 1:00:28Speaker 3: or two more people in that slew, Now everybody wants
- 1:00:31Speaker 3: to be in front because everybody wants to shoot that rooster. Yeah,
- 1:00:34Speaker 3: so then that dog is like shit, they're walking up
- 1:00:36Speaker 3: on me. They're forcing that dog to go faster. So
- 1:00:39Speaker 3: then you get that stuff where that dog gets out
- 1:00:41Speaker 3: works back because they're moving past them, and it changes
- 1:00:44Speaker 3: the entire dynamic of the process. Now you think about
- 1:00:48Speaker 3: a blood trail, now, grid searching is different. Like if
- 1:00:50Speaker 3: you run out of blood and every eyeball you even
- 1:00:52Speaker 3: gets better. But when you get just two people on
- 1:00:56Speaker 3: a blood trail, a real blood trail where you're following
- 1:00:58Speaker 3: actual spore you just fall into. Uh, I found this,
- 1:01:03Speaker 3: he found this time to do circles. He found this.
- 1:01:07Speaker 3: But if you have three, where's that third guy go?
- 1:01:10Speaker 3: He starts walking.
- 1:01:11Speaker 1: Ahead, going and checking at one spot right, and then.
- 1:01:14Speaker 3: You're like, you're like, well, this guy doesn't know the
- 1:01:16Speaker 3: bloodshair like I do, so I want to get ahead
- 1:01:18Speaker 3: of him. And now it becomes a pacing issue where
- 1:01:21Speaker 3: it's just no, boy, no.
- 1:01:23Speaker 4: And everybody wants to everybody wants to be the guy
- 1:01:26Speaker 4: that finds it right here, here's your deal.
- 1:01:28Speaker 3: Well, there's just like a It just changes the pace,
- 1:01:31Speaker 3: and not in a in a good way.
- 1:01:33Speaker 2: The exception is when you're color blind. Yeah, they didn't
- 1:01:36Speaker 2: need a little more help.
- 1:01:37Speaker 3: No, well, right, which is like you fall over the
- 1:01:39Speaker 3: back and.
- 1:01:42Speaker 1: Right, we're gonna do one last thing. Uh. The focus
- 1:01:47Speaker 1: is on making the shot, and then the moments after
- 1:01:50Speaker 1: the shot, we're skipping all that other beautiful white tail stuff.
- 1:01:54Speaker 1: I want a hot tip from each of you. Take
- 1:01:58Speaker 1: your pick on post shot. What everything leading up to
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: everything beginning with you pulling your bow back and ending
- 1:02:05Speaker 1: with you saying like, oh my god, there he is
- 1:02:08Speaker 1: meaning he's dead, found him, any kind of hot tip
- 1:02:11Speaker 1: within that area. Just be prepared.
- 1:02:14Speaker 4: Have the stuff you need to take care of that animal,
- 1:02:17Speaker 4: regardless of the situation that happens between climbing up the
- 1:02:21Speaker 4: tree and finding him at the end. Take this stuff
- 1:02:25Speaker 4: with you that you need to take care to get
- 1:02:27Speaker 4: you to get the animal taken care of, and get
- 1:02:29Speaker 4: you both to the back to the truck. Would be mine.
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: So load it in there, have it be ready. No surprises,
- 1:02:36Speaker 1: no surprises, No damn. I should have brought my knife.
- 1:02:39Speaker 4: I wish I had brought my knife. Should have brought
- 1:02:41Speaker 4: some where's my flashlight? Man?
- 1:02:48Speaker 3: I want to do a pre shot one? Yeah, this
- 1:02:50Speaker 3: has changed, so we're we're a in the white tail
- 1:02:53Speaker 3: space right now. The primary scouting methodist trail cameras very
- 1:02:57Speaker 3: effective in a lot of different ways. Not a substitute
- 1:03:01Speaker 3: for watching deer and so are. The reason that we
- 1:03:06Speaker 3: get buck fever and fall apart bad is there's something
- 1:03:08Speaker 3: we really really want. It means a lot to us,
- 1:03:11Speaker 3: and we are not comfortable around there. Like I always,
- 1:03:14Speaker 3: I always kind of like equate this to like if
- 1:03:16Speaker 3: missus Peterson got hit by a train tomorrow and I
- 1:03:18Speaker 3: had to go into the dating world and Margot Robbie
- 1:03:21Speaker 3: showed up next to me at the buck, I would
- 1:03:24Speaker 3: not be that smooth, Like, I think my odds would
- 1:03:27Speaker 3: be pretty low to begin with, but I don't think
- 1:03:29Speaker 3: i'd help my case in.
- 1:03:30Speaker 1: And then then the next day you'd be sitting there
- 1:03:32Speaker 1: being like, I can't even remember why I said what
- 1:03:35Speaker 1: I said.
- 1:03:36Speaker 3: Right, I just know it didn't work. But so watching deer,
- 1:03:43Speaker 3: that's why I love the long rain scouting thing. Just
- 1:03:46Speaker 3: seeing bucks, it like demystifies what they do. But also
- 1:03:50Speaker 3: when you're sitting in a tree stand and we're we're
- 1:03:52Speaker 3: in this like kind of hit lister mentality, where like
- 1:03:55Speaker 3: I know the bucks that I'm like, I'm gonna shoot
- 1:03:57Speaker 3: because they're worth my tag and this is the effort
- 1:03:59Speaker 3: I put in.
- 1:03:59Speaker 4: Whatever.
- 1:04:01Speaker 3: When you have deer around you and you look at
- 1:04:04Speaker 3: them from a perspective of you were going to shoot them.
- 1:04:07Speaker 3: So that little foky comes in, you'd never kill, but
- 1:04:09Speaker 3: you watch him and he walks in and he turns
- 1:04:11Speaker 3: this way, and where where did your point of impact go?
- 1:04:15Speaker 3: Because he scratched his nose with his back hook? Yep,
- 1:04:18Speaker 3: where did your point of impact go? When he kind
- 1:04:20Speaker 3: of he heard that squirrel behind you and he just
- 1:04:22Speaker 3: made that kind of half body turn.
- 1:04:25Speaker 1: Understood. Yeah, so you're sort of like like, let's play
- 1:04:27Speaker 1: this game, dude. Let's say I did want this buck,
- 1:04:29Speaker 1: So did I really have a shot opportunity?
- 1:04:32Speaker 4: Right? You know what I mean?
- 1:04:32Speaker 3: Yeah, all I think about when a deer's coming in
- 1:04:35Speaker 3: that I know I want to shoot as I'm looking
- 1:04:38Speaker 3: at where my point of impact is. And that's like
- 1:04:41Speaker 3: my little internal computer is always going now it's here, now,
- 1:04:44Speaker 3: it's there, here it is. Stop. He try to stop
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: him and he jumps six feet Like thinking about that
- 1:04:50Speaker 3: because we get so conditioned to just well we aim
- 1:04:54Speaker 3: three inches behind the shoulder, halfway up whatever. But they're
- 1:04:58Speaker 3: three d anim and you're you know, like your aerow trajectory,
- 1:05:04Speaker 3: that wound channel is everything. And if you're thinking about
- 1:05:07Speaker 3: that all the time when you're looking at deer, it
- 1:05:10Speaker 3: just gets you into that mindset of when that big
- 1:05:13Speaker 3: boy starts coming down the trail during the root, You're
- 1:05:15Speaker 3: you're not looking at his antlers. You're not like I
- 1:05:17Speaker 3: gotta get this over with. You're like, where would I
- 1:05:19Speaker 3: shoot him? Like when he hits this window, you're already
- 1:05:22Speaker 3: your eyes are like there's my point of impact and
- 1:05:25Speaker 3: it's rarely, not rarely, but often not three inches behind
- 1:05:29Speaker 3: the shoulder and halfway up, you know what I mean,
- 1:05:31Speaker 3: Like where do I need to run that arrow through?
- 1:05:34Speaker 3: And that's that's something that has really helped me because
- 1:05:39Speaker 3: I look at deer that way. You know, I don't.
- 1:05:41Speaker 3: I'm not drawing and aiming at the dough with a
- 1:05:43Speaker 3: fawn walking by, but I'm looking at her. And then
- 1:05:47Speaker 3: when you do that, because you know, most people probably
- 1:05:50Speaker 3: listening to this aren't doing the they're not hunting out
- 1:05:53Speaker 3: of a saddle in a new spot every night, right,
- 1:05:55Speaker 3: They're going to that ladder stand on the food plot.
- 1:05:57Speaker 3: And so when that foky comes down the trail and
- 1:06:00Speaker 3: you know you're on Instagram because you don't care, and
- 1:06:02Speaker 3: he walks through and you don't pay attention to it, Well,
- 1:06:05Speaker 3: when one hundred and forty incher comes down there, he's
- 1:06:06Speaker 3: doing the same thing that Forky did. Like he's on
- 1:06:09Speaker 3: the same trail and he jumps through the crossing the
- 1:06:11Speaker 3: same way, you know what I mean, And like you're
- 1:06:13Speaker 3: learning that like the minutia of like deer behavior in
- 1:06:17Speaker 3: that spot, and it just changes how you view like
- 1:06:21Speaker 3: the setup to your shot.
- 1:06:23Speaker 4: Yep.
- 1:06:23Speaker 3: And I just think I think we don't spend enough
- 1:06:25Speaker 3: time watching actual deer do actual deer things.
- 1:06:29Speaker 4: God, there's a science behind that, and we used it
- 1:06:32Speaker 4: in law enforcement when we would be clear in the house,
- 1:06:35Speaker 4: just practicing going from stress shooting, and the more you practice,
- 1:06:41Speaker 4: when it becomes second nature in stress level, you always
- 1:06:45Speaker 4: result in stress. In times of stress, you will always
- 1:06:48Speaker 4: resort back to your level of training, whether it's low
- 1:06:52Speaker 4: or whether it's very high. And that's what makes you know,
- 1:06:57Speaker 4: special forces so good because they constantly train, train, training, training,
- 1:07:00Speaker 4: train about different scenarios, but they constantly train about them
- 1:07:04Speaker 4: all the time. And what Tony is saying is is
- 1:07:07Speaker 4: really the same concept. He's looking and watching, looking and watching,
- 1:07:12Speaker 4: looking and watching, and then there's that guy. Then he's
- 1:07:15Speaker 4: looking and watching doing it subconsciously just because he's he's
- 1:07:19Speaker 4: amped up, but he's going back to that level of
- 1:07:23Speaker 4: the stress is taking him back to the highest level
- 1:07:25Speaker 4: of training that he's put hisself through. That's that's a
- 1:07:27Speaker 4: really good deal.
- 1:07:29Speaker 2: So my tip would be something that I say to
- 1:07:34Speaker 2: myself often, like all the time during a hunt or
- 1:07:38Speaker 2: during the hunting season, and that is slow as smooth
- 1:07:41Speaker 2: smooth as fast. I'm constantly trying to remind myself to
- 1:07:44Speaker 2: slow down. For example, when I'm about to head out
- 1:07:47Speaker 2: for hunt, my my uh, my usual default mode is
- 1:07:52Speaker 2: like I'm rushing to get out there, rushing, rushing, rushing.
- 1:07:55Speaker 2: And then you do that and you realize I walked
- 1:07:56Speaker 2: out to the tree and didn't put my saddle on
- 1:07:59Speaker 2: all right, left my release back of the truck or whatever.
- 1:08:02Speaker 2: So I'm always slow down, be smooth. Same thing when
- 1:08:05Speaker 2: you're walking to the tree, slow down, be smooth. Same
- 1:08:07Speaker 2: thing when I'm setting up sticks in the saddle going
- 1:08:09Speaker 2: out of the tree. I'm always wanting to rush. I'm
- 1:08:10Speaker 2: always worried, Oh God, a deer is gonna come up
- 1:08:12Speaker 2: while I'm getting ready. And then as soon as you
- 1:08:14Speaker 2: start trying to rush it, you make mistakes, you make
- 1:08:16Speaker 2: a noise, you end up screwing things up. That slows
- 1:08:19Speaker 2: you down more in the long run. You get into
- 1:08:21Speaker 2: the tree, you want to rush into glassing whatever, or
- 1:08:25Speaker 2: rushing into your phone and doing something on Instagram. But again,
- 1:08:28Speaker 2: slow down, do the visualization, practice everything like I talked about,
- 1:08:33Speaker 2: when the shot comes right, again, slow down, slow down.
- 1:08:37Speaker 2: That's the most important thing for me in the shot
- 1:08:39Speaker 2: processes is slow down, do your thing, don't fly down
- 1:08:42Speaker 2: the roller coaster. After the shot, same thing. The instinct is,
- 1:08:46Speaker 2: I want to go. I want to see the arrow,
- 1:08:47Speaker 2: I want to go find the deer.
- 1:08:48Speaker 3: I want to hold them.
- 1:08:49Speaker 2: Slow as smooth, smooth as fast, slow it down. If
- 1:08:52Speaker 2: you don't rush, you've got a much better chance of
- 1:08:55Speaker 2: the happy ending in the end versus rushing down there
- 1:08:58Speaker 2: and then having a nightmare in your hands. So constantly
- 1:09:01Speaker 2: trying and tell myself that.
- 1:09:02Speaker 3: What and slowest is quiet too and quite important.
- 1:09:07Speaker 1: You need to add that and do the same well,
- 1:09:10Speaker 1: Mark Canyon, Brent Reeves, Tony Peterson. Thanks for the advice.
- 1:09:15Speaker 1: I'm sure people at home will appreciate it. And when
- 1:09:17Speaker 1: everybody gets up in that gets up in that tree
- 1:09:20Speaker 1: or up in that box blind this white tail season,
- 1:09:23Speaker 1: a couple of things to keep in mind. Thanks guys,