Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 458: Secrets to Finding October Whitetails on Pressured Ground, with Zach Fleer

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Ep. 458: Secrets to Finding October Whitetails on Pressured Ground, with Zach Fleer · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to you by First Light. Today's episode is all about
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: zeroing in on early October white tails with public land
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: expert Zach Fleer. Hey, everyone, Tony Peterson here filling in
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: from Mark Kenyon. Once again, Mark mentioned he was headed
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: down to and I think I think I might have
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: got this wrong, but I'm not sure. The California Mermaid
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Convention in Sacramento. The connection was breaking up, so I'm
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: not sure if that's actually what he said, but it
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: is a real thing if you want to look it
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: up anyway. I hope he has down there, and I
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: hope you have as much fun listening to this episode
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: with Missouri big buck killers Zach Fleer as I had
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: recording it with him. You know how during conversations on
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: who's the best deer hunter, the usual suspects names get
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: dropped all the time, but then someone will always say,
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: none of those guys could hold a candle to such
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and such from my hometown or from my home state.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: That dude kills giant bucks on public land every year
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: but he isn't chasing hunting fame and glory. Well, those
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: experts actually do exist in so many different localities, and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Zach definitely qualifies. He dropped some real knowledge on October
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: white tail hunting on this episode and really breaks down
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: his strategy for getting on big bucks on pressured public
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: land during a time of the season when the hunting
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: is supposed to suck. Zach Fleer, Welcome to the podcast, buddy. Hey, Tony,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: thanks for having me on again. Dude, it is always
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: great to see your face. You are You're one of
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: my favorite people to chat with in the hunting space
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: because I know that you're always getting after it and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: you're you live down in Missouri and you hunt a
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: lot of public land, and so your advice is always
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: when when you speak, I listen. I appreciate that. Yeah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: definitely wasn't always that way, but out of necessarily started
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: hunting the public land, and uh, there's a learning curve,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: so starting to I feel like I'm starting to get
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: things figured out, and I actually really enjoy hunting the
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: public land more than I did the private farm. So yeah,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and you you're in a unique position because you, like
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people you had family land to hunt, right,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Is that was that right? Yeah? We still do yep.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: But so you have a private farm you could hunt,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: and yet you're down there in Missouri and you're like,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: you know what, screw that, it's too easy, I'm gonna
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: go hunt in public land? Or how how did that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: situation come to be? Um? When when we started having
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: kids and everything, it's not as easy to make that
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: two and a half hour drive to the farm, and
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: so it's a lot easier to run like ten miles
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: up the road there's public land. It's like I can
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: hunt that and be home tonight, or hunt it early
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: in the morning to come back. And so just out
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: of more convenience and necessity not have been able to
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: have the freedom to go to the farm every weekend.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: And uh just discovered I really liked the challenge. It
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: forced me to learn a lot more. Actually became a hunter.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: I would say, Um, whereas the farm, I still enjoy
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the farm. I love hunting with my family, my dad, Um,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: but it is more of we have stands. There's food plots,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: and you go sit those stands. It's there's not a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: lot of strategy or um my learning kind of capped
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: until I started hunting public land again. So I guess
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: that's it made it made it more fulfilling, more exciting
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: when I had to actually re engage and start learning.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I thought I knew about dear dear and dear behavior,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: but I did not until started hunting near the head
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: pressure on him. So yeah, and so I want to
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: ask you about that because I would probably say a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: majority of the white tail hunters who say I've got
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: my spot, and you know, for a lot of people,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that would be the family farm, and they would only
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: hunt if they could get there or they could they
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: would only hunt if they could get to the permission
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: based property or whatever situation they have. And people are
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: very generally yeah, kind of kind of averse to the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: idea of like, well I have private land I could hunt,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: why would I go hunt public land? Was it was
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: that a tough hurdle for you to get over? Were
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: you just like, man, I want to hunt, this is
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: my only option. I'm just gonna go do it. Uh?
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It was? It still was a very tough hurdle because like,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: I know my my farms, the family farms, I knew
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: them well, and it was just how I had always
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: done things, so it uh, it was familiar, it's comfortable.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: And so the public land, Uh, when I first got
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: started into it, like it was hard to even see dear,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I did not do it. And I hunted it, you know,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: hunting open fields, hunting the crop lands and stuff, which works,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: but it's not as consistently. You're not gonna see deer
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and the wide open on public land on a normal basis.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: They're just used to being hunted, they used to having
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that pressure, and so they react differently. And so it
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: took me probably two years, uh, three years to get
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: get that figured out. And so it was it was
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: definitely a big hurdle like those first couple of years, Like, man,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I would just rather go hunt the farm. I know
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: the farm, I know there'll be dear um. And so
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: after after getting a little bit better with my scouting,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: after learning a lot um those places that I originally
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: started hunting, you get get a little bit further off
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: the fields, get a little bit further into some cover
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: and actually start using the sign to kind of direct
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you where the deer are. Now. I see a lot
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: of deer on public land. There are plenty of deer there,
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and and also seen some really great bucks. So it's
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: you know that the first couple were definitely challenges. If
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: it weren't probably out of necessity to hunt public land,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: probably just went back to the farm. But but now
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: I said, it's it's fun to re engage and relearn
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: and um just more about hunting and dear behaviors. So
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: you know, well you fell into a very familiar trap.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: It sounds like that a lot of people. I mean,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: this afflicts all of us bow hunters and all of
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: us deer hunters, where we just default to where we
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: can see, We default to where we think that you
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: are going to go. And you know this is this
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: is something I just I've preached about for so long
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: because I believe it. It's like private land, dear, are
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: not public land, dear. There's a difference in most situations.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: There's a difference. And that easy field edge stand it
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: looks so dreamy on public land, probably isn't worth anything
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: after day two of the season, because that's that's where
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: all And so when you when you started that and
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: you're like looking, you go, Okay, if I was on
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the home farm, I'd sit here in this back corner.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Could you were you also seeing like, man, there's a
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: stand there. These guys walked in here where you just like,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: how long did it take you before You're like, man,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: the saturation point of this pressure probably means I shouldn't
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: be hunting, just like everybody else. Yeah, that was the
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: thing you would see stands um and now he was like, okay,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I'll move another thirty yards down. It wasn't like I'm
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: gonna try to find a new area, um, because there
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: was there was signed in those places. Deer used those
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: places in the middle of the night, so they're still
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: sign there, so that it was like the dear here somewhere,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: but they're just not doing it daylight. So yeah, after
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: a while, after seeing a lot of people walk under
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: your standard by your stand and seeing all those tree stands,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: like you eventually start to explore more places. That was
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: really when I've learned how to scout too, because on
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: the on the family farm, we don't do it really
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: a ton of scouting. Like I said, the food pots
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: are there, the stands there only is in the same
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: place every year, and so that's that's what you do.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: You put some cameras up and see what new are
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: coming in. Uh. But when that transition happened to the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: public land. I actually had to figure out, like where
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: are the deer. They don't just come out to these
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: same spots, and and they that changes throughout the season
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: with you know, food, food source changes, and also with
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: the pressure. Like you said, like the first couple of days,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they'll be more out and available during daytime, and once
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: they feel that pressure, they definitely change. You know, they're
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: not going to be out in the open for you
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to see them. So yeah, I think that that that
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: experience that you had sitting in the sitting in kind
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of the obvious spots right away, that really sours a
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: lot of people on public land because they go in
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: and they do what they think is gonna work, and
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna work. And you know, you can see
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the same thing happen on pressure private ground too. I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: mean it's not it's not exclusive to public land. It's
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: just very obvious a lot of times when you start
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: doing that, and like you said, when you start scouting,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: you realize you're missing something because you're you're like, you know,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: there's you know, people will say, oh, there's no bucks
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: left on this land or that land. Like man, if
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: you got decent cover. There's deer in there somewhere, and
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: you see that sign and you go, all right, there's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: a disconnect here because I'm doing everything I think I
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: should and I am not seeing them, and it just
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: forces you to rethink. Yeah, yeah, definitely was the case,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it's not. You don't always have to hike
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: three miles into a place. Sometimes it's just a secluded
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: litter area. Uh. I go back to the a few
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: years ago. There's a buck literally he was betted, you know,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: yards from the parking lot, but everybody left the opposite
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: direction going down the trail out of the parking lot,
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: and he was betted. He knew when people were there.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: So it's just those places you have to you have
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: to scout, you have to look around, you have to
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: find those places where the dr are because they observe
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and react to our behavior as much as we we do. There. So, yeah,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: there's a you know, you've you've mentioned this and kind
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of alluded to this, but this occurred to me last weekend.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I was down in southwestern Wisconsin and we were gonna
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: do some fish and we were hanging some tree stands
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and stuff too, but the river was coming up so
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: much and it just let's let's do our deer work
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: because we knew the fishing was gonna be very good.
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: And I tend to mostly fish one lake now in
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: my life because that's where we have a place, and
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: so I mean, I go to other places, but like
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: that's kind of my default. Like I'm there a lot,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: I know it, and I go to the same place
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: as the small as are gonna be on this rock
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: pile or that rock pile, or they're gonna eat this
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: or that, you know. And then when I go to
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: fish the Mississippi River, it's always different. It's always changing,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, okay, maybe in this backwater
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: slew there were a bunch of large mouth eating frogs
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: two weeks ago, but now the water dropped a foot
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: or came up two ft. It's like, you know they're
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: here somewhere. But it's it's always It just forces you
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to just think, like what are the conditions right now,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and what would they do? What? What what potentially would
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: they do in reaction to those conditions. And it reminded me,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I'm like, this is just like freaking hunting deer on
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: public land, Like it's never consistent, you know, like you think,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: you think, I do this every year. I go, I'm
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: going back to this spot and they're gonna cross the
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: river here or they're gonna be feeding here, and I
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: show up, and it's always different. A lot of times
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you're like in the right neighborhood, but you're just you
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: get it wrong, and it just forces you to think
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: on your feet. And you know what you mentioned there
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: about the home farm. When you get those stands up,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: this this is the This is what a lot of
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: people do. They get their ambush sites right, Like I
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: gotta stand on this food plot, I gotta stand in
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: this crossing in this corner. And then when it's time
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: to hunt, you look at the wind direction you go, well,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: the winds out of the northwest. I guess I'm going
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: to the old faithful here in the corner. But you're
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: not really thinking, like why would the deer be there
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: right now? And there's a and and and that stuff
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: can be fun and like I don't I don't want
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to knock it. But the the experience of hunting pressure
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: deer forces you just a factor in so much different stuff. Yeah,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: it really does. And uh, I said, not not even dear,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: like shifting from year year, even from day to day.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Somebody may you may find like a really good spot
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and come back the next day and they're just stay
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: in there. You're like, well, I got to readjust to that,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: because it's like it happens. It happens all the time,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and I used to get frustrated by it, and now
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: it's like it's it's public land. I'm glad there are
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: people out here, and you do have to react. You
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: kind of have to scout why you're hunting, which was
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: a new concept and not I used to think if
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: you scouted, like why you were hunting, it's like you're
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: gonna spook deer and they're not gonna come back. And
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: while they they usually come back, that's their home, like
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: they're gonna be there somewhere. And so I think last
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: year was was really the first year I actually followed
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: through on that. Actually I would hunting area and if
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: there weren't deer, like get down and slowly move until
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: you started finding signed and you would bump a couple
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: of deer. But I go back in there the next
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: weekend or something and they're we're moving free lease through there,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: and so it's it's constantly kind of readjusting as you go. Um,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: there are maybe a good a few good like old
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: faithful spots on publicly in where you can go set
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: up and see here. Um, but if somebody pops a
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: stand up in there and they're hunting on a regular basis, yeah,
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it may not be that way that year. So it's yeah,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: there's always things changing. Yeah, in my experience, it's a
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: really good idea to not count on that, maybe check
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: them from year to year. But I just I never see, like,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever killed a deer on
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the same tree on public land ever, you know, I
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: mean it's always but I've you know, I've killed deer
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: in this spot where I can see the tree that
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I killed him on last time, or see where I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: tucked into the ground line. But it's it is always
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: just just different. And you know what you're talking about
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: there too, where you know that in season scouting people
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: get real they get real nervous about covering ground and
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: just finding those deer concentrations. But if you're not on them,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: like what are you gonna do? You're just gonna you're
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: just gonna wait it out, or you're gonna sit it out,
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And that to me, especially when you're talking about a
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: time of the season like early October where it's not
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: supposed to be good, Like what are you gonna do.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: You can sit there and not hunt. Are you gonna
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: sit there and not look for those concentrations? Like you
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: gotta go and find them, and you know, be smart
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: about it. But they will let you get away with
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: some stuff if you know, especially if you're in the
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: cover where they feel secure. Yeah. Yeah, And early October,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: I mean you would you heard forever growing up that
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: that's the like the October loll was the big thing,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah, oftentimes I would, I wouldn't hunt as much.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: And then when you have less and less time to hunt,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: when you're available to hunt, that's when you hunt. And
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: so some of that time fell in October. It's like, well,
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna just sit here and thank you. Back.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Two years ago I killed a great buck October I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: think it was six, and then the last year I
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: had occurious to even blew that. But um, October is
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a great time to hunt deer. It is a transition
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: time there, like things are changing day, let's getting shorter,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: the you know green stuff that they have been eating
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: on as maturing and it's not as great a food source.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Acorns are falling around here, um bucks are you know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: they're kind of changing moods a little bit, so they're
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: all transitioning. They're not just laying there not doing anything though,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: So if you can find where they are, find a
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: like free tours, I find a good white oak and
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: a currently not all white oaks are the same. I
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: don't know what makes one white oak better than another one,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: but do youer always have a specific tree or like
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: a ridge they prefer to feed on, and that changes
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: year to year. Um, But just finding those places, find
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the food source that they're currently using, and neither set
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: up in between the betting and that food source or
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: right on the food source. And so that's kind of
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: my October strategy there. They're definitely still moving in daylight,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: They're definitely still out there. It's just just finding them.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So yeah, that that October Liwle thing. You know, people
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: get all fired up about that, and you know, I
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: look at that and I'm like, okay, if you're gonna
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: sit that, you know, soybean field edge for the first
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks of September, then the first couple of
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: weeks October. Yeah, you probably believe the Lola is real
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: because you you maybe have that burned out already. But
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I I realized something earlier. I guess it
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: was late summer. I was over in northern Wisconsin with
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: one of my daughters and we had set up a
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: couple of blinds because they're hunting over there, and then
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: we'd gone trout fishing and the place that I liked
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: the trout fish it's a it's a decent drive back
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: to where we stay at my buddy's cabin, but you
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: see so many deer, so we just love it, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: we might see a couple of bears, you know, depending
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: on the conditions. And we were driving back, and you know,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: I always had my camera ready because I do a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: lot of photography, and we saw this just doe standing
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: in the road. We're on a gravel road, you know,
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: and she was standing in the road, and so we
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: drove up there and I got the camera ready, rolled
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: down the window and she bounded down through the ditch
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: and got into the edge of the woods and stopped
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: and looked at me. And so I'm taking pictures over
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: And like this happens all the time. Where they're on
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: the open, they spook and then as soon as they
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: get into the cover they stop to check you out.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Bears don't do that. Usually when I have a bear,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: they're just freaking gone. You're crashing. But it's such a simple,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: stupid lesson. They like how they feel in the open firstance,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: how they feel in the cover is real and I've
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: got you know, it took me like fourteen years to
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: come to that realization from photography, but it's true. And
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: then you think about this transition time like you're you're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: talking about, Yeah, you you might have that white oak
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: playing in there, or some destination food source getting getting picked,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: or you know, like that's a part of it. But
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: you also have the leaves fall them and you have
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you know, the pressure has been hitting them. You know,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: depending on what state you're in, the pressure might be
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: on for a month or a couple of weeks, or
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: you might have just dealt with opening weekend pressure. But
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: that changes things too, and so often it's a matter
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of just kind of forgetting what you think you know
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: about the lull and just getting in and seeing you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: where where did they go? Where are they moving? When
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: it's when it's daylight out and there's always a spot. Yeah, yeah,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: there definitely is. Um. Yeah, like I said, you just
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: kind of have to to get in there and find it.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: And that's where um and even in early October bucks
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: are starting to make some rubs. You can find some
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: fresh rubs. Um, there's there always, there's always dear scouts
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: to look for and uh in beds. Beds are harder
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: to find, um if you're kind of just scouting quickly,
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: but you can find some. But but yeah, just being
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: in there and I've you know, you're gonna spook a
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: few deer doing that, but like you said, they'll they'll
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: run all the ways and they'll stop or uh, if
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I'm scouting quickly just moving through an area, it's actually
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: surprising how tight deer a hold because I'll spook hear
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: that that herbs like not that far from me and
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: take off going behind me like he walked past them.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: And so they know what they're doing. They know how
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: to survive. So but yeah, nothing beats just getting in
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the woods, getting in the in the cover and finding
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: where the deer holding out and when you usually when
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: you start seeing signed there will be you'll find quite
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: a few deer because they they tend to congregate until
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: they get busted out of certain areas. Like you send
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: team tend to find several deer in that spot. So yeah,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you'll you'll get that concentration and that that you know
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: what you're talking about there when you when you get
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: in and you have to accept the fact that you're
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: gonna bump some deer because you probably will. But it's
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: you can view it sort of either as a negative,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: which it could certainly be, or a positive, like, man,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you just saw a buck get up out of his
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: bed and run away. There's a lot of intel there.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I mean that that that happened to us last weekend
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: when we went into this spot to just look at
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: this this kind of where this draw fed up to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: some of these fields. And we walked in there, I
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: don't know, probably a hundred yards off the field edge
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and just kind of looking around talking, not being quiet
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: at all. And this was on a private place, but
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: just like totally not being sneaky. And we were there
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: for probably five minutes and I walked, you know, ten
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: yards down this trail and looked over to my right
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and a buck. It looked he looked. I didn't get
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: a real good look at him. It was like a
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: one time one twenty type of deer, A decent deer
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: gets up out of his bed and runs away, and
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: like that's son of a bitch, laid there, listened to us.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: We were and we were close, and so we walk
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: over there and realize, you know, like where he betted was,
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: it was a good spot, like he had a lot
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: of advantages. We started looking around and it's just like
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: kind of hit us, like this is the thickest spot
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: we've been to so far, and you've got some you know,
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: some up and down to the terrain right there in
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: a little bench, and it was like just such so valuable.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And yeah, we bumped a buck out there. I don't care.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: Just seeing how he used that and where he was
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: and how tidy held he believed in that spot, like
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: that's important stuff. Yeah, yeah, and they come back. It's uh,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: if you don't consistently bump them out of their beds
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: in the same spots, like they will come back. It's like, yeah,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: if something weird happens in your house, you're not I
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe you'll sell your house, but you're probably
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: gonna come back to your house that's where you live. Like,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: but yeah, those those tight cover spots are are great.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: And like I like the open timber for the some
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: reason I like field edges because you can see. But
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: but the tighter you get into some spots, the more
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: often you're gonna see deer moving. And if you can
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: bump a deer out of its bed or just find
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a bed while you're scouting and try to set up
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: somewhere between where you think the deer is gonna go feed, uh,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: that's really good information. And it's you know, like you said,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: it's even better when you actually see the deer get
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: up out of the bed, because then you know exactly
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: where the beds at and they don't always bed in
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: that exact spot, but somewhere within that small area. Um,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: they'll come back to it. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of going back to what what you
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: said about finding a concentration a deer, you know, even
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: jumping some dose out of a spot or just getting
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: in where the sign starts to get real heavy, you know,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: whether that's just tracks and and beat down trails or
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: you're talking actual buck sign. You're just you're just getting
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: a glimpse into a place that they either really want
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: to be because they're they're eating there, or they're going
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to be they're going to stick around there because it's
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's offering them some kind of safety advantage. And so yeah,
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: you you could bumble through there and people get worried
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: about that. But like when you're on public land, that's
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: one of the benefits of hunting pressure deer is you
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: kind of can go a little cavalier because you're like,
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: well even if I, if I don't bust them, you know,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: somebody else is going to probably write like some some
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: small game hunter, some woodcock hunter, somebody's coming through there.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: They're gonna spook them anyway. These deer, you know, they're used.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: It's not like it's any of its sanctuary stuff, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: so it's it's worth more to just get in there
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: and look around. Yeah, is And uh last year I
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: found a spot. Um it was a pretty tight series
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of ridges and there was a little pond at the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: bottom of it and just nasty, nasty, thick cover and uh,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I had actually been working my way towards it and
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: hunting and saw several nice bucks go into it one morning,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and so I was like, I gotta check this place out.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: And so I was trying to figure out how to
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: how to like quietly hunt my way through it. Um
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and it it took took longer that way than if
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I would have just actually like got down and walked
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: through it and found where they were betting. Because eventually
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: did get on a really nice buck in that spot. Um,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and I blew the shot, but well, we'll talk about
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that later. Wait, what what were you sitting on when
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: you were you sitting on some oaks or something when
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: you saw those deer heading down into that spot. So
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: I was there was a an oak ridge that I
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: was sitting on, and they actually it was three bucks
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: what almost really big actually went down at the bottom
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of the hill. I thought they would cross the hill
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: about three quarters away heading into the real thick area,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: but they actually were all the way down at the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: bottom when they went in. Um. I don't know if
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: they had already smelled me or saw me and did something,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: but they were definitely uh moving a moving past me
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: farther out of range there about sixty six five yards.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: But um, I was sitting on on an oak ridge
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: and it was a real narrow ridge. Um so I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: thought that would have funnel them down. But um so
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: that's why I was sitting where we're sitting. And then
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: when I saw what they were doing, there wasn't a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: really good place to hunt them at the bottom of
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: this ravine because the wind's always swirling, probably why they
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: went through down there. They can smell everything from the
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: bottom and the top, and so instead of trying to
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: hunt them there, And that was when I went into
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the more thick area and eventually found pretty much where
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: that buck was bedded, And there was a significant amount
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of rubs and scrapes and everything in a really really
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: small area right where he was betted, and he had
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: the advantage of the pond was protecting him on one side,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and then the top of the ridge that he was
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: better all was fairly open, and then it got really
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: thick and he was right on that edge, so he
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: could see, see and smell anything above him, and that
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: pond protected him below anything because you really can't get
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: to him from that side. So it makes a lot
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: of sense as to why all of those bucks are
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: in that same spot. Is that a pond that it
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: wasn't a seasonal pond. It's a pond. It's probably there
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: every year. Yeah, that's probably two acre two and a
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: half acre pond. It's not real big, but it's there
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: all years. So he was not only was he water
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: in there, he was using probably some kind of edge
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: cover around that wetter stuff and then the ter aim
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: to bed there and he had he had lots of
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: advantages he did. There was no no good way to
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: access that because if you you just can't get to
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: him unless you like have a canoe and come up
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: out of the pond, or because if you come over
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: top the rids, they're gonna know what you're gonna see
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: you you're coming from the side, and you can't get
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: to it. So he was he was in that spot,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and uh yeah, both spots like that that they feel
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: very safe in and then they're going to return back
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: to several times. So it's so how did how did
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: you approach that then? Because Mark and I argue about
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: this all the time because he's he's he'll be like,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you can't hunt that bottom because the wind's gonna squirl.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I don't know. I wouldn't know that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: until I hunted it, Like I never I never make
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: that proclamation unless I get in there and blow a
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: bunch of yeer out and then I go, yeah, that
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: displace sucked. This was a bad idea. But we we
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: act like that's a guarantee all the time, and it's
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: not in in some situations. And when you're talking about
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a pond that's you know, two acre or something like that,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: there there maybe situation to play that where the winds
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: blowing out over it. Like it's not a it's not
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a guarantee. People think that if I just get into
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: a bottom, I know what's gonna swirl and I know
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get busted. It's not always the case, but
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it is, so like how did
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: you how did you know that, and how did you
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: react to it? Um, there's three secondary ridges that came
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: down off that pain ridge, and he was on the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: farthest to what would have been my left if I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: was facing the face and the ridge. So the first
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: time I hunted it, I snuck in and hunted the
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: first ridge and I saw some deer, but they were
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: all small bucks and does, and so it's like, I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: know I need to get further in, but if I
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: tried to hunt it in the morning or the evening.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: I was like, I feel like I'm just gonna bust deer,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: and so the idea came to not I was using
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on a tree saddle. I was like, I'm gonna get
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: on the ground. And my original plan was to try
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: and steal hunt. So I went all the way around
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: the pond, and there was a ditch that ran um
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: up the ridge is the water cut out a little creek,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: and so I actually use that creek, which had really
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: tall creek banks at the bottom, to get about two
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: thirds of the way up the ridge, and then I
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: could see kind of where I figured he was betting,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: and he either had to come down to go to
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: the pollen pass me or had to go up around
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: the ditch I was sitting in that it came to
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: a point, you know, about eight yards in front of me,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: or like go around that. And that was my strategy
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: was to sit there and either like hope he came
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: by me. So I was actually just sitting in the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: creek bed and I could just see over the lip
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of the creek creek bed on the bank, so I
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: was pretty well hidden and my scent actually so the
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: wind would have been blowing. I'm trying to think of
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: what direction was blowing. It should have been blowing from
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: my back towards the actual deer. But when I was
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: sitting down in the creek bed, the coolest actually drew
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: my scent down the creek and away from him. So
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: it made no sense if you were in a tree
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: stand it had been blown right to him. But the
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: creek bed that I was in and the cool air
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: flowing down that allowed me to get that close to him,
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: even on what most people would consider it the wrong wind.
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: And uh, he came came out of there, uh, relatively
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: early in the day, and he was about eighty yards
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: and I um, I should have scouted more because I
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: should have been farther up the creek than I was,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: because it comes to a point and there was a
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: heavier trail where they walk around so they don't have
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: to jump the creek, and I should have been really
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: close to that because that was right where he's headed.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: And so I actually snuck up the creek and I
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: got within twenty five yards of him, and when I
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: tried to take a shot, it was a little bit
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: too brushy, and I thought I could get it through
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and I didn't that arrow deflected. But uh, I learned.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: I learned a lot on that hunt. One you can
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: hunt him from the ground, and I was actually able
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: to move up the creek. That gave me a lot
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: of cover and safety to to make that move without
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: spooking that deer. Um. But yeah, the creek bed played
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: a big part of that, like being able to hunt
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it on a on a wrong wind and being able
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to sneak in and out of there without without that
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: deer know when I was there. So how big was he? Will?
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: I will say he's he wasn't that big. There was
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: probably close to one sixty. I saw him twice, and uh,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: I was a surprisingly big dear. For that's a piece
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: of property that's not that big. It gets hunted hard,
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: especially during rifles season, so it was kind of shocking
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: to see a deer that size. When he came out,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: he was pretty impressive. But and you had no idea
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: who was in there when you started hunting there. I
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: assumed he was in there just because of the previous
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: time that I was No, no no, no, but I mean
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: like that season, you didn't prior to that season, No,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I had no idea, So yeah, it's this is something.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: This is a weird thing to talk about because you
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: don't want to push the idea that there's big bucks
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: everywhere out on public land like which is kind of
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: a common thing to do right now. But man, when
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: you hunt public land enough, you would encounter big, big
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: deer like I. There's no different I actually, I mean
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: it's it's weighted more heavily towards public land because I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: hunt that a lot more. But I see and I'm talking,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm not talking like one. I'm talking like
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: you're saying, like one sixties those type of deer. I've
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: seen them in on public land in a bunch of
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: different states, where you're just like, I can't I can't
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: see this on my best private ground ever. And then
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: you get in there and you get into place like
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: that and you go, I know, just gets piss pounded
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: during the gun season. I know there's lots of bow
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: hunters in here, and yet a bucket that calibers living
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: there and gave you an opportunity to get in on
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: him and almost kill him. That's incredible. Yeah, Yeah, that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: experience was. It was eye opening because there are there
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: are people that you know, I tell us story too,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: and like there was no way it's won sixty and
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: it's like I have a really good at judging gear.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: It's like and there it was legit close to one sixty.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: He was he'd been up for fifties. Um, but yeah,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: I would have you know, five six years ago. Uh,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: if you have said you can go kill like good
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: quality bucks like that on public land, it's like, yeah,
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: maybe on occasion. H But like the last few years,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: I've been able to see dore like that, just big,
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: mature dear and it's it's kind of exciting. And you
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: talk to a few other guys that are are pretty
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: serious about hunting public land and they said, uh, you
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: have talked to him for a while, because they first
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: won't admit to you that there's any big here on
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: public land. But after they kind of gauged that you're
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: in there, you're already in there and you are seeing here,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: they'll tell your stories of like, yeah, there's some big
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: deer in this area where I hunted. So it's not
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: not uncommon that there are that caliber of here on
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: public land. I mean, they're they're definitely out there. They
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: figure out how to survive. So I was out in uh,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: South Dakota hunting public land, I think it was. And
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I shot a buck opening night, and I had a
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: buddy with me who so I did I was done.
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I'll just scout and work for you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: and be the camp cook because you know, I'm out,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: like I don't have any tags left. And so he
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: was hunting, and I think we hunted for five or
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: six days, but the farm. So I killed my buck
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: on a walking ranch out there, and he was hunting
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: other walking ranches, and so I I went into glass
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that ranch in the morning a couple of days after
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I killed my buck, and I saw a few deer
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: coming off some private fields back down into there, and
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of like, okay, I got I got one
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: good spot here for him that we can we can
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: set up on. And I actually I put him in
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there and he actually almost killed like a one thirty
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: there the next morning, which was really cool. He's it
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: was like it was like one of those deals like
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: every time that year stopped, he couldn't get a shot.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: But it was a you know, a great encounter for
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: public land. But after I saw those bucks and some
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: of those deer go through this one spot I just
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: went looking and there was an old homestead on that
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: that walking ranch visible from I guess you probably would
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: it's probably a county road and you wouldn't call it
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a highway, but clearly visible from a pretty busy road.
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: But it just looked bucky, you know, Mike, and I
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: had nothing to lose. I'm like, I'm just gonna go
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: walk through there and look at it, you know, because
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: you almost always find sign and rubs in those kind
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: of places, and those little pockets are real cover because
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: this this ranch, like most of them that I've hunted
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: out there and a lot of other states, it's covered
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: in cattle. You know, they get rotated through the past years.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: But you know, like a lot of the undergrowth is
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: just freaking gonzo. So you're like, where, where's anything thicker?
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And I walked into that sucker, and you know, it
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: was it had been grazed down some, but there was
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: grown up grass and it was kind of cool, but
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: it wasn't like you know, it was it was okay.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: And I'm just like standing there and I don't know
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: what they made when they built that farm. That farm
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: was old. I mean it looked like it had been
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: abandoned for decades, right, you know, everything's wore out and
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: wore down. But there was a like a ditch they
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: had dug out, So I don't know what they built
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: at one time or what if there was a tank
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: or something in there. But I was standing on one
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: side of it, just kind of like looking around, and
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I just walked to where I could see down the
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: shoot of this little ditch, and this buck that was
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: like one eighties got up betted there. I mean it
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: was the biggest buck I've ever seen for sure in
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: my life, stood up twenty yards away and ran down
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that shoot down into this valley. And I was like,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: holely sh it because I was standing And so I
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: walked down there and there's like horse size beds and
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: this little freaking it looked like like a uh you
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: know the Olympic snowboarding where they go down the pipe
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and they're like back and forth or skateboarding, and it's
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: just like it just had a little bit better grass.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, this dear is freaking visible from or
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: he would he would have been if he was moving
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: visible from that highway there in a Legit monster just
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: a monster, And I'm like, this has got to be
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: like a one in a billion shot, and I tried
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: to pick that deer up again for my buddy, and
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I never you know, it was over the moment I
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: busted him. But the next year I went back out
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: there and I I killed uh, like a ten point
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: or three days into it, and the morning I killed
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: my butckis I shouldn't say. The next morning, same kind
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: of deal. I'm driving around helping my buddies out and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I look out in the field on a walk in
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: ranch and there's a nine pointer standing there that's like
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: a one eighty, like a legit, And I'm like, these
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: are these are on freaking public land? You know in
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: salth Dakota is really good. But you can find that
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: And people will say, well, we don't you know, I
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: don't have the deer that you have in salth Daqota.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'll bet you whatever is a really big
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: deer to you, whether it's that's a one twenty or
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: a one forty or a one sixty in your state,
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: probably within five or fifty miles at your house, there's
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: public land with those deer on it. Oh, yeah, there
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: probably is. It is crazy how they will find a
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: spot like that, and like you said, it could be
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: fully visible to everybody, but a little depression or a
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: little tough tall grass something that they can hide in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: because nobody looks there, like like you randomly thought about
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: it and went out there. But most of the time
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: people drive by that it's like, yeah, there's a cattle pasture,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: We're not going to hunt that. Um. And I I
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: don't have a lot of open ground. Like my stuff
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: we hunt is like super thick timber and so um.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: You kind of think dear bed everywhere, but even inside
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: the timber, there are much thicker areas and you know,
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the old clearcuts or edges anything, and that's where you
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: find dear. And some of them are, like I said previously,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: sixty yards off the parking lot or off a gravel
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: road and people just walk past them. They don't don't
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: really pay attention. So dear find these little pockets. Uh.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: And that's how they survived, how they get to be monsters,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: is they just they figure it out. Do you do
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: you find that? Because what you're talking about, I mean,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: when you think about Missouri, it's pretty diverse state, right,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: You've got you know, you get down into southern Missouri,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: you've got huge tracks of timber, and throughout the state
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: you've got you know, egg mixed in various parts, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: it it's pretty varied. Again, it's kind of like Minnesota.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Minnesota has a lot of you might be in the
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: big woods in northeastern Minnesota and you'll be in prairie
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: in southwestern Minnesota. But what I find hunting big woods
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: because this this is what people ask all the time, like, well,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: how do I find a concentration deer in the big woods?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: How do I hunt the big woods? Because it's harder, right, Like,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: there's so much more cover. And this goes for everybody
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: down in you know, the deep South and out the northeast. Again,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: this is a common problem for deer hunters. But one
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: thing that I see, and I'm curious about your take
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: on in Missouri is when I'm on big woods deer
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: on public land, there's always two tracks, and there's always
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: logging roads or some kind of access routes. And I
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: really feel in the big woods, like when you've got
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: miles and miles of unbroken timber, those easy access spots
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: concentrate probably I don't know, like of the pressure, like
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you can kind of just go Okay, that two track,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a couple hundred yards on each side of
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: it's probably worthless because that's where everybody's gonna come from,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: and so it does give you those chances to go, well,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: the parking areas here, the main trail goes this way,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: here's this steep hillside, or this this swamp or something
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: right next to the the access. Probably most people just
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: do walk right past that, do you. I mean you
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: must see that a lot. Yeah, and yeah, that's definitely
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: something I've started observing because I used to be the
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: guy that walked down the trails and like hung my
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: stand on the side of the logging road or whatever,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: just because it is easier, and it's like, yeah, there's
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: a few deer tracks going across it. Why not try it? Um,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: But yeah you can. I've actually on some areas, the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: first thing I do if I'm looking at a new
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: spot is this highlight all the parking lots and all
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: the trails, because I will genuinely not scout them, because
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: if you're past the first few days the season, if
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: they're like, they're going to avoid those because it's they
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: know that when season starts there's more people. They just
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: avoid them, so um, I will generally skip those areas
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: and look or more so like either either you go
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: in deep or you don't always have to go in
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: super deep off the trails, but just areas that get
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: overlooked like we talked about. But but yeah, there's there's
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: definitely a difference when you're when you go to a
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: new spot, you can see all the people traffic on
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the trails, like you can see a lot of tree
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: stands from the trails and everything, and deer like they're
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: well aware of that. So concentrating on other areas making
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: an effort to do that is is usually what I
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: try to do. But what's the closest to a parking
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: area you've killed a buck? Um should have killed one
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and I I couldn't have
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: been more than probably hundred twenty yards from the parking lot.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: He was the one that was betted, probably eight yards
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: or so from the parking lot. And uh I actually
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: walked down the gravel road to get around him for
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: when he came out, and uh, yeah I made I
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: was the one that hit in the liver and never
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: found that was actually a big deer. So how was
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: that one? Uh? He would have been one fifties. He
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: had a he had a really big frame, but he
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: wasn't super tall, like big massive frame. But I just
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: I clearly remember the size of his body, probably one
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: of the bigger body, dear I've ever shot at, just
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: just giant body gear when he came through and I
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: he actually uh, when I took the shot, he wheeled
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: towards me and so I hit him part of the
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: back then I wanted, and then we had three inches
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: of rain And I never found that dear, so he
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I know he died. I just never found him. So
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: you never heard about anybody finding anem either, No I asked,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: but about anybody would freely give that up. So yeah,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a rough one, man, And it's it's uh,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: if you deer hunt long enough, you will shoot one
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: and have a massive rainstorm come in before you find it.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: And it is just it just changes the psychology of
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. It's it makes it it's so hard
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: to keep your your optimism high when that happened. Yeah,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: it's it's tough, and it does, unfortunately happen. It's still
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: hard to get it still hard to get past. And
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: that uh, but it makes you take a little bit
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: more time and effort to make good shots when you
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: have them. And uh, I said last year, I also
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: made of probably a not of wise decision than taking
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: a shot. I had a little breash, but I was
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: convinced that I had a whole big enough but luckily
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: that that deer didn't get hit at all. So yeah, well,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: I mean again, it's just there are just times. It's
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: it's dangerous times, but there are times where you get
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: into that I'm taking this shot moment, you know, And
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: like everybody talks a big game about being super discipline
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and stuff, but we all make mistakes and y'all have
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: everybody has flaws, and it's easy to make a mistake
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: on a big one in the in the moment when
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: you know, and this is you know, I've I've talked
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: to my buddies about this because though I don't really
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: watch the hunting shows a whole lot, like just not
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: you know, we don't have we don't have cable. It's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: not my jam, but and my buddies will be like, man,
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: I watched this twelve year old kid on this farm,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: you know, just laser this one seven deer or whatever.
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: And it's like I can't keep it together on a
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: hundred inches And I was like, well, yeah, they don't
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: probably know any different. You know, those kids probably think
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: if this one doesn't, if I don't shoot this, when
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: the next one's coming down the trail, like you know,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: when you when you're on certain properties, that's like absolutely
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: the case. And if you work your ass off there
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: out there in public private, I don't care. And you
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: know this is a once a season or a once
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: every five seasons, dear. Keeping your ship together is tough,
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and it's it's really easy to you know, just just
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: not fully factor in the angle or fully factor in
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: those little obstructions in the way or something like that
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: and screw it up and it just happens. Yeah, yeah,
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: and unfortunately does yeah, And like yeah, I'll never I'll
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: probably never master that ability to main columnist situation. There
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: are guys that can do it, even you know, in
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: huge deer and stuff and even h like public land
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: and stuff, and they somehow have nerves of Steelaw I'm
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: not that guy. But uh I thought I kept it
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: relatively calm. I just didn't. My sites were clear, my
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: arrow was not. Like after I replayed it, and looked
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: where he was Like if I would have looked down
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: in front of my arrow, there was a branch and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: it deflected it. But yeah, stuff you think about after
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: things happen, that's how that's how you get better. And yeah,
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: I know people who claim to have ice in their
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: veins and you know, don't screw up those shots very
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: often and don't get buck fever and all that stuff.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm not buying this ship. I can't believe
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: it to be actually hot with him. Well, I mean,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: I know I've talked about this a billion times and
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: when I was when I was younger, for a lot
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: of my deer hunting career, I would fall Apart from
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: buck fever, I have missed a time. You cannot screw
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: up more than I have. Like, trust me, if you
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: can screw it up, I've been there and I've done that,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: and it took me a long time to get that
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: somewhat under control. And now I feel like, you know,
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: it took me a lot of different things. I had
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: to go to the single pin site, I had to
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: shoot a lot. I had to really go listen, dude,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: do not draw your bowl unless you're like I'm killing this, dear,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and I still make mistakes like it happens, believe me.
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: But even then, you know, like I still know, like
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I feel that old buck fever creeping in, like it
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: takes a lot. And I mean, when you're talking, I
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: don't know, I don't know how many big game animals
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: I've killed with a bowl, well over a hundred at
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: this point, Like I still fall apart. And I hear
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: people who are like, oh, you know, I've I've killed
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: five bucks and it's never happened to me. I'm like,
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe maybe you're just a psychopath. I don't know
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: they've killed by, but they probably missed a lot more
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: they don't tell about. Well, that's what I wonder too,
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: is I've seen and I don't want I don't know
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: almost shouldn't even say this, but I've seen in the
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: hunting industry where people will hide their misses and they
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: will just hide, you know, like on TV shows and
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: stuff like or you know, hide the hits and losses.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: And so I think we always kind of try to
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: portray ourselves as these badass killers, right, and it sucks
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: to go out there and be like I totally screwed
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: the pooch on this one. I am bad at this.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I was very bad at this last night. I shouldn't
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: have been out there. I should have taken this shot.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: It's very it's hard to do that, and so you
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: see people portraying this image like I just get it
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: done out there, and it's like, Okay, did you tell
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: us about all the shots you took last year? Like
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: did you have you are you telling us about you know,
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: the good and the bad, the ugly or whatever, like
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: you don't know, like all you know about them is
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: what they sold you. And maybe it's yeah, yeah, maybe
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: there are those ice vein killers. I'm telling you the
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: full story. Yeah, yeah, you know. I mean I think
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: there's there. I think there's real benefit in those situations,
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: Like it sucks to hit a big one in the
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: liver around public land and lose it. That's a horrible thing.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: But you'll be looking at that forecast for the rest
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: of your life going like, is this the shot I
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: should take? There's a freaking front blowing in here tonight,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Like do I want to do this or not? Like
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: that that stuff changes you as a hunter, Yeah, it
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: definitely did. And now now that's do you pay a
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: lot more at tension to that if if it's gonna rain,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: if it's a questionable shot, I'm like, I'm not going
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: to do that to myself again, just because it's it
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: sucks when it happens. And so last year it wasn't
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: on Bucks. There was a couple of times I could
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: have shot Dose and it's like it's brinkling right now,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: it's like there's more rain coming. U it's not worth
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: taking that risk on unless it's an absolutely like perfect
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: shot opportunity and so and I have the it's actually
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: worse on does if if there's a no end range um,
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: it's really pretty hard not to shoot shoot Dose, like
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: small Bucks and stuff, even nice Bucks. If i'm I
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: know I'm not gonna shoot it, I'm like, I'm good,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna shoot that. But if a doe stands there,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: it's like I don't know if something happens where my
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: bow ends up in my hand and I'm like, how
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: did I get there? But I definitely hap an opening
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: day last year, I went out told my wife, I
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm not shooting the dough because in this spot,
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: it's a pain to get to, it's pain to get
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: out of. There is a chance that there's a big
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: buck there. Um had a dough walked out and like, literally,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's my unconscious mind. I was
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: released the arrow and as an arrow left, I was like,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: I thought I was supposed to shoot dose and like
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: I've made a good shot on that one. So it
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: went down right there. But yeah, you know what that is.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: It's it's easy to talk a big game when you're
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: not in the moment. I mean, it's the same thing
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: I I've seen these people who are you know, they'll
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, I had this little you know, this
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: little dw inch or that I I go, and then
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: you start getting the whole story. It's like, yeah, he
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: was fifty three yards away in the brush and all
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: you could see was the tips of his antlers. I'm like,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: he didn't pass anything like that. Dear's at twenty yards.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: You're killing it every time. And I do the same thing.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: There's I try with does I like shooting does? I
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: love eating does? And so I'm kind of like you like, man,
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I'm there are a lot of times I'm picking up
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: my bow, but I try to try to stick to
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: that where if I'm like I'm deep in this spot
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and it's an evening hunt, like it's it's bucks only,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: and you know, if I hunt tomorrow morning and a
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: dough comes in. But I know, like, no matter how
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: much I rationalized that stuff in my head, if she
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: walks into fifteen yards and her heads down, she's quartered
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: slightly away, like you better zip tie my bowstring to
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: my cables because at suckers coming back. We'll cross that
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: bridge later like I'm shooting. Yeah, that's that's where I fall.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I don't make promises anymore else, like I'm just gonna
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: go ahead and whatever happens happens. You know, you you
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: know this is a is a married fella and a
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: father of little kids. It's almost the same thing when
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: it's like Monday and you've got Thursday night free and
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: you tell your wife like I'm not I'm not hunting Thursday.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: I got too much stuff to do. You know, I'm
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: gonna clean the garage and imnic and you know, do whatever.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: And then it's Thursday morning and it's like the son
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: of a bit, like how do I tell her? Because
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go I'm believing. Yeah, yeah, you know how
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I told you it wasn't Yeah that happens. Yeah, my
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: wife is as learned kind of graciously accept that that.
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I you know, like cold frunt comes in. I'm like, uh,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: it's time for me to go ahead. I do try
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: to have a date night with my wife weekly, so
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: that helps a little bit. You can have a date
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: night after dark though. That's right, our date night can
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: consist of helping me drag dear out too. I guess
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: she doesn't appreciate that was quite as much now, U.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: That's and that's understandable. So speaking of uh screwing up
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: shots and just blowing amazing opportunities that deer, you said
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: sometime in the last year that hunting with a compound
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: was just too goddamn easy, the deer too easy to kill,
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: and you decided you're gonna hunt with a long boat.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: Where did that come from? Uh? I have always wanted
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: uh to hunt with a longboat to both freaker, I've
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: just never invested the time in it, and it it's
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: much easier just to pick up the compound boat and
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: go out. Um. But actually this this year, uh medical reasoning,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: I guess I would say, so my diet has changed
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: significantly and I cannot eat as much red meat anymore,
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: which is kind of terrible. But anyway, so that actually
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: kind of changed my mentality this year where I was like,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: I don't need to feel the freezer like I did. Um,
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: and so I was like, it seems like a good
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: time at least try the long bow, because if there's
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a guaranteed, really good way to not to put a
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: lot of deer in the freezer, it's to take a
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: long bow. Unless you've been we're not talking uh Alpha Gael,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: are we from the ticks? No? I actually was was
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: diagnosed with stage for kidney disease uh and may and
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: so they've significantly changed my diet to try to prolong
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: what used to have left in my kidney. So oh man,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: it's uh yeah, it's interesting. I'll have to have a
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: transplant and then I can go back to eat kind
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: of eating a little bit for a regular diet again.
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: But they're gonna be a phase here where so I
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: was like, let's let's try out this long bow thing.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: Give a shot that. So I did not see that coming, Buddy,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: you might have the best reason if anyone in the
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: world to pick up a traditional bone. Now. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: it'll definitely be Uh. I've been practiced a lot. I've
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: been shooting, working on form and stuff. But if they're
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: not under fifteen yards, there's a they get a free
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: pass because I I can. I can hit targets out
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: to twenty, but in like in the moment, when you
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: get in those moments, I mean I can't. I can't
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: make myself take a shot over twenty because it's it'll
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: be way too risky for having some pretty wounded deer.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: So there, I think it's definitely doable. Uh, last year,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: I mean two of the year I shot last year
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: or under fifteen yards, So I was like, there's there's
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: a chair that could actually happen. But it definitely added
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: another layer of challenge. So do you do you do
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: you have any history of hunting with the tread bow?
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Did you did you grow up with one at all?
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Or did you both fish with one or anything? No? Uh,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: actually both fish was an old compound. I shoot it instinctively,
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: but um it's still compound. So just always the desire.
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: I've always there's always been some kind of recurve or
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: longbow in my house probably for the last fifteen years.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: I just never spent the time actually investing in practicing
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: with it and kind of working on more of a
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: form thing than even more so than a compound, Like
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: you have to have your formed out and then um yeah,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: and you start working on actually being able to hit
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: what you're aiming at. So, yeah, it's a whenever I
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: feel I've I've hunted with recurves, I've killed a few
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: deer with re curves over the years, And whenever i
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: feel like I'm getting a little wonky with a compound
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and you know, like there might be some target panic
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: issues or something, I just go shoot a recurve for
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: a week. And I mean, this sounds like a joke,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: but it's not. When you when you spend some time
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: shooting instinctively with a traditional bow and then you go
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: back to that compound, it feels like you picked up
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: a high power rifle. I mean, they are different things.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing. Like my little girls are shooting
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: a cross bow and that is like such a step
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: up from a compound. You know, people who are they're
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: saying that that's the same thing as a compound, they're
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: off the rocker. Yeah, definitely not. But no, it's not.
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, just as a pure uh example of that,
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: my nine year olds couldn't hit a freaking elephant with
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: a vertical bowl and they can sit there and they
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: can laser a target with a cross bowl. Is they're
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: they're different things. Uh, but that that reality of shooting
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: a traditional bowl just teaches you that like you are
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: you know, people are gonna listen to this to go, man,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: he's only gonna shoot fifteen yards, like you know, like
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: that's your effective range, Like there's not a there's not
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: like just hold the pin a little high. If he
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: comes out at fifth year, it's just like responsibly that
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is a tight quarters deal. Mhmm. Yeah, and it it
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: will make me uh an even better hunter coming out
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: of this. Like I don't know if I'll stick to
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: the to the long goo after I can return to
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: a normal diet or not. But um, there's something really
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: cool about that challenge. It's like I literally have to
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: be within fifteen yards of a deer, and uh, I
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: think just the general experience, even if I don't get
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: to kill something, like it's like last year, I didn't
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: kill that buck, I'm missed him, but being that close
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: to the deer that caliber in publicly and just that experience,
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: it's like that's that's well worth the price of admission.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: So um, and that's kind of my attitude going into this.
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: I'm not fully expecting to lay down a bunch of deer,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: but it's like just being able to still be able
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to hunt and uh trying that much harder to get
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: within that fifteen yard range of deer, and um, that's
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: gonna be It'll be a lot of fun. So do
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: do you envision uh, this this new reality for you?
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: Do you envision a change in hunting styles and methods?
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: Because I know when I when I hunted with a
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: with a re curve and which is not as long
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: as a long bow. Obviously, the thing that hit home
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: with me was my stand My options from shooting from
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: a stand end were so much more limited. You not
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: not just not just distance, of course, but like you know,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: with a compound you turn around shooting behind you with
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: a treadbo you freaking don't. And so it actually made me.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: I still hunted more and I did different It kind
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: of changed how I approached things. I did different things
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: like sitting on the ground. You do you envision that
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: for yourself? Oh? Yeah, yeah, I've thought about that a lot.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: So I've I've been the last couple of years haunting
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: out of saddle. I need to practice. Let's see if
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I can actually shoot along that of a saddle. Um.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: So I feel like I'll be hunting from the ground
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: more this year, trying to I'm really terrible. It's still hunting,
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: So this might be a year where I learned to
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: practice on that. I'm I'm patient, weirdly patient enough to
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: sit in the stand all day, but when you put
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: me on the ground like that slow movement is like
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: I can do it for about twenty minutes and then
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm gonna start walking fast again or
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: something like. I'm so learning how to be patient with
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: the steel hunting. Uh. I am going to try it
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: at some point, but a lot of just honey from
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: the ground, like using using those creep banks like I
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: talked about it did last year, a lot more um
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: brush piles and stuff. It'll be definitely a new new
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: challenge and it will limit where I can set up.
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: But I'm actually weirdly looking forward to There's something, uh,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure even how to describe it, but there's
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: something like really natural about just holding a longbow or
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: recurve in your hand, like no sites, there's nothing there.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: It's just like this simplicity of it. And so it's
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: what's that's what our ancestors did. So you know, just
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: going back a little bit, it's it's fun. I mean,
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: I find myself. I know when either when I just
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: kind of give this stuff up by this stuff, I
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: mean like the industry stuff, or they just kick me
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: out for some reason, I'm going and I don't have
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: to kill big deer and you know, like I don't
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: have such a limited time. I'm going back to traditional
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: archery because I just there is something different about that.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Just carrying that around and just have that lightbow, simple
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: and just kind of feeling like you have a free
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: pass to not not necessarily like not take it seriously,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: but take it a different way, Like you don't you
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: just you can go sneak around. Like when when you're
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: talking about still hunting. You know, when I was growing up,
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: everybody wrote articles about still hunting. You read about still hunting.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: It's like you can only cover a hundred yards every
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: three hours or something like that, and you know, like
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: always move at a glacial pace. And I was like,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: who nobody does this? This is bullshit? Like this is
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: people writing something they want people to read and think
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: they're cool, but nobody actually does that, and you don't.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: You don't really have to. Like you you can kind
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: of try to go at that speed if you're like
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: right in the thick of it, but if you if
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: you start sneaking around, I mean, like you know, watch
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: those hunting public videos, like those guys, yeah in in
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the red Zone, they're crawling, right, but most of the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: time they're not. You don't have to. And if you
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: give yourself, like you're talking about a creek bank to
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: work with or something that hides you, man, that can
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: be some of the most fun hunting out there. It's
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: a blast. Yeah, And that's what I'm I'm looking forward
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: to is just just having fun again. I think, um,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: you know, hunting is supposed to be fun. It's supposed
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: to be enjoyable, and I think we put a lot
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: of pressure in ourselves. You're a different situation because it's
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: you know, part of your job is to shoot big deer.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: And for me it was it was more of just
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: trying to be cool and and fit into the big,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: big hunting crowd and um, so kind of letting all
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: that go and and just making this as simple as possible.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: And uh, my neighbor who's hunted with the recurb for
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: quite a while, he he put it really well. He said,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: don't think of that bow as a handicapped and he said,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: and you'll be fine. And so that's kind of my strategy.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: It's like, I can I know I can shoot this well,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: I just can't shoot it pass a pniards um. But
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: that's I'm not looking at. There's a handicap, and it
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: would just be more of a fun experience getting that
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: close to deer, turkeys, whatever whatever is aufter this fall.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a for me. When when I did it,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: it was really it kind of it kind of exposed
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: me to something that I think is just a natural
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: tendency for myself when I shoot. So I grew up
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: hunting pheasants and gross and I can swing a shotgun
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: pretty well. Like I'm a real comfortable wing shooting. It's
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite things in the world to do.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: And when it came to shooting a compound, the more
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: pins you gave me and the more things you gave
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: me to think about, the easier it was for me.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Just a totally ship the bed right like it was
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: just like if I got a gap or I got
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: to choose a second or third, I'm toast it's over.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Which took me a long time to figure out about
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: why I went to single pin and why I like
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: I had to structure my shooting style with a compound
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: to be closer to instinctive, you know like quick target acquisition,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: quick shot sequence. And then when I hunted with a recurve,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I realized like, oh, this is just kind of how
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: you're wired, dude, because like I'll never forget I had
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: I killed two dear So I killed a buck and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: I killed a dill the first year that I had
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of a recurve. And the buck when he came in,
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: it was it was like an early October random staging area,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: kind of oak flat thing like you're talking about. And
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: I looked up, but I don't know if somebody had
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: spooked them or what, but three dos in this buck
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: came running him and I drew on that buck when
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: he was close like six seven eight yards away, and
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: I must have been gripping that string so hard that
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: that that arrow came off the shelf and hit like
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: two ft in front of his front feet, like you know,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I missed my target at like eight yards by like
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: five ft. I mean, it was just a colossal meltdown.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: It just and but it was a recurve. They didn't
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: really know what was going on. I got another era
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: on and he bounded just a little ways back and
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: stopped quartering away, and it was just it was one
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: of those situations where I rushed it, but I was
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: shooting an instinctive bow, so you know, like with a compound,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: you'd i'd really felt it with that. It was just
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: like get it back, pick your spot, and shoot. And
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: that arrow just sucked right into that void behind his
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: shoulder and it was like holy balls. And then I
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: was you know, I killed a buck, right, so I'm
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: out of my buck tag. And later that season, I
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: was sitting in a kind of deep in this valley
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: and I looked up and this dough came down the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: trail and she was just trotten close and it was
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: like I didn't even think about it, just drawback follower
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and shoot and just smoked her. And to me, like
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: that was that moment where I was like, this is
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: kind of just how you shoot. If you get too
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: much time to think about it, you're screwed buddy, like
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: you just need this kind of fluid type of thing.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: And I realized, like, man, this is freaking fun. Like
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: it's a different kind of hunting and it's hard, but
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: it's so cool to do. Yeah. Yeah, And I think
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: you hit it on the head there with the shooting.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: If you shoot instinctively with a repair of lobo, it
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: is a very good thing. It's like a whereas like
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: compound it's very it's not you have all your anchors
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: and your pins and you have to do everything, whereas
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: instinctive shooting is it's a fluid motion. You can't you
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: don't ever really stop it. And I think, um, I
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: used to be really good at baseball, so like throwing
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: a baseball, I'm hoping that that comes into play with
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: the instinct team shooting. I was like, I used to
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: have really good hand out coordination and so kind of
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: getting back to that because with a compound, I definitely
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: went through like the target painting phase, and um, I
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: had to change a bunch of stuff, and so I'm
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: kind of looking forward to not not having to deal
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: with all that stuff and just just having fun again.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: And um yeah, hopefully so far, the fluid motion of
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: just shooting is working well, and you know, I don't
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: know what will happen when you put something further on
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: it in front of me, but boom, targets are in
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: danger right now. So you you've got a weird situation
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: going on, uh medically that I'm I'm sure everybody listening
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: to this and myself as well, hope it really works
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: out for you and it's you get through this just fine, buddy,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: But you you've also got it. So it's it's got
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: in a position where you're like, I just can't go
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: whack every day that comes out, or I shouldn't write
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: you could, but you won't. And now you're like, okay.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like putting you in this a weird
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: trophy hunting category right like where you're like, okay, well,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: if if the right buck comes out, but now you're
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: hunting with a weapon, that's going to be more difficult.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: So what is the right buck? Oh, if it's legal
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: this year and in range, if it's under fifteen yards
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: and legal, it's that's the right buck. But uh, what
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: do you mean by legal? Like do you have a
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: PRS down there or something? Yeah, it's gotta have four
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: points on one side. So yes, that's my only requirements
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: for this year. Uh. And I would like to say
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: that I'm gonna hold out for something, you know, a
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: certain age class or anything, but the reality of in
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: the moment, if it's legal and then under fifteen yards
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: there's gonna be arrows flung at it. So God, I
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: love that. I love hearing that. That is. That is
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: sort of the the great intangible of challenging yourself. You know,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: whether you whether you go from a compound to a
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: recurver longbow, or you go from your home farm to
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: public land, is you have that, you feel like you
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: have more license to go. It doesn't need to be
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a giant like and and I always preach this, and
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I think some people listen. I think some people think
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: I'm an idiot, But like I always talk about hunting Oklahoma.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: I love hunting Oklahoma because you get a bunch of tags,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: you know, two bucks bour Dose, and there's a lot
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: of deer down there. And you forget when you when
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you live in the world that a lot of us
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: do dear wise, whether you've got that family farm or
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: you've been hunt in twenty years and you're you're at
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: the trophy hunters at US or whatever. You forget what
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: it's like to go hunt for deer and how much
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: freaking fun that can be, and how much fun it
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: is to just be like it's you know, like you say,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: when you're when you're gonna if it's legal and it's
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: within that radius, it's in trouble. It's the same thing
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: when you go elk hunting on like over the counter
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: unit and it's like calf cow legable, Just don't get
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: close to me because I'm flinging. And I think I
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: think we forget that sometimes and it's it can be
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: really fun to go hunt that way. Yeah, yeah, and
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and it is and that and I definitely went through
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: that trophy hunting phase um, and I'm thankful it didn't
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: last too long where I was only after. You know,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: you watch watch some TV shows and it's like, oh,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: they gotta be five and a half or something and
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: or certain you know, hundred fifty plus and shoes and
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: like that's I mean, if you have the big private
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: farm and you have deer like that every year, that
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: ball means go for it if that's what makes you
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: be happy. But like in my my situation, I have
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: limited amount of time to hunt. Um, I've definitely handicapped
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: myself now with a with a lombo, I won't I
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: won't call the handcap. I'm not supposed to think that way,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: but I've I've limited myself fifteen yards and under. So
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: it's it's just a different challenge. And I like the
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: transition when I went from hunting the family farm to
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: public lands, like this is kind of just a new
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: transition to where I have to be that much more,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: you know. I don't I want to call it skilled,
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: but I have to pay more attention and be be
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: closer to deer, and uh, I'm just looking forward to that.
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: It's it's a lot of fun and I'm even over
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: the last few years, I've definitely enjoyed seeing these really
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: big deer. But if if a nice buck came within
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: range first before these giant deer, I would have I
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: would have definitely shot it. So I'm not not holding
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: that for any trophies or anything. If that that's the
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: first year that walks by, hey, I'll take it. But yeah,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: well that's what you're talking about there. I think is
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: a really important distinction that a lot of hunters don't make,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: where you you're out there hunting and you're hunting concentrations
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: of deer, and you might narrow that down depending on
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: the situation to concentrations of bucks. But we we talk
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: about scouting, and we talked about hunting in sort of
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: this like narrow lane where it's like, I'm only looking
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: for big buck sign or I'm only hunting big bucks,
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: and it's sort of it's a disservice because it kind
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: of sells this this thought process that that's that's it,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: that's all you gotta do. But really what you find
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: out like when you when you go to that public land,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: if you're not hunting deer first, you're not going to
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: find the big bucks. And if you find that concentration,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: sometimes you get narrowed in on them and you get
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: exposed to something that gives you something to work with
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: on a really big one. But it doesn't start that
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: way typically, like you don't you don't start out and
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: be like I walk in there in the first year
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: I saw was the one sixty. It's like usually you
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: start out and you're like, I don't know where's the
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: where's the oak tree that hot? And then it's like, okay,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: you sit there and you get on some deer and
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: you're like, Okay, they're telling me something. And it's a
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: process of of figuring out all the deer and in
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: all of the deer are some of those big ones.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: But without that, you don't usually don't get to the
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: to the big ones without starting on the deer. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: and there are a few times where you can get
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: lucky and that's the first tear that comes by might
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: be the big one. But but yeah, definitely, um, you
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: definitely have to find the deer first, and then um
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: this October time frame that the bucks and does in
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: the early part October anyway, are normally not in the
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: same exact spot they're They're usually close, but so you
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: kind of figure out where the those are and then
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: you transition kind of find where the bucks are, or
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: if you find the bucks first. But but yeah, uh,
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: last year it was that's how I found that that
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: real good betting area where the bigger bucks were. Is
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: I've started seeing more more Bucks and the smaller bucks
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: at first, and then the closer I moved in, then
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: I started seeing some of the bigger ones. So it
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: is it is that you know, find the deer and
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: then find what you're looking for, I guess whatever that
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: is if you're trophy hunting, or if you're going to
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: settle for the first legal deer that comes by. Do
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: do you see? Because I I spend a lot of
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: time looking for deer on acorns and looking for deer
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: in early October. Where I don't, I wouldn't. I would
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: agree with you, and I would say they aren't necessarily
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: living in the same spots A lot of times, like
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: I'll see bucks come in from one way and dolls
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: come in from another. But I still see this, this
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: kind of crossover stuff all the time. So yeah, I
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: think about just as an example, I was hunting in
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: northern Wisconsin, I don't know, five or six years ago.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: I moved into this spot that had a creek bottom
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: going through it. It's all big wood stuff. You can
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: go for miles there on public land. It's all big woods.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: And the first night I was in there, I saw
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: I think I saw a loan fawn and one other
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: doll kind of moving through. The next night I said it,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: I saw like a eight pointer, really nice for up there,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: and he crossed the creek in a certain spot. I
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: moved in there a little bit on him. The next night.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: He didn't come back, but some does did, and they
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: came from different directions. They used the same crossing and
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: they were kind of heading they were heading to the
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: same clear cut. And then I ended up the following
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: weekend coming back and killing a buck in the morning
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: in that clear cut, like seventy five yards down from
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: that crossing. And it was one of those deals where
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: it just reminds you like, yeah, those bucks are probably
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: bedding in like the most advantageous spot and they might
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: be browsing that soft edge in a different way. But
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: there's still these these crossover things where you're like, man,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: if you see a deer doing something like if if
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: those deer coming into that white oak, and like you
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: said earlier, you know you see bucks and little bucks,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: and does you know those big ones are around somewhere,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: Like it's not like they're on the next property over.
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: It's just they might have a little bit different program on.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: But there's an awful lot to be learned by seeing
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: those other deer. Yeah, definitely is. And it it varies
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: from area to area too. I've I've found this out
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the section I was hunting last year. Uh, it was
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: weirdly like segregated. There's a hunted the like several ridges
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: and it was just doz doz does dose and then
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: it was like switched. And then I started seeing the
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: bucks as I as I moved to different areas, And
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if it's always that way or
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: if that was just just happened to be the deer
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: that I saw when I was hunting those places. Um,
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: But there's another spot of hunt and even this time
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of year, you'll see does come through, and then you'll
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: see bucks come through, um, and you know they're betting
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: in different areas, but they do use the same trails.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: But yeah, like you said, there's always either the food
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: source or a certain crossing or something um there at
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: some point in time, the bucks does are gonna be
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: using the same food source, So how they get there,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: and if there's limiting factors like a crossing or a
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: real tight ridge that they're gonna have to use to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: get where they want to go, there's always those places.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: So when you see deer doing something consistently kind of
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: a pattern, you know it's probably something that eventually you'll
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: you'll find a bigger deer doing that as well. So
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: do you do you think that that situation there you're
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: describing where the doughs were on some ridges and the
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: bucks were in a certain spot. Do you think that
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: is just a testament to the pressure in there and
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: those bucks are kind of pushed all into the one
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: area or an area where they're like, people just aren't
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: coming here, and you know, the doughs are probably in
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: a place that maybe they get messed with a little more,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: but those bucks are like, this is we're taking the
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: best spot. Yeah, I think it was. And I didn't
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: realize how hard that place got hunted, um because I
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: had previously only hunted in September October and there was
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: nobody there. But I got brave and went in there
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: once during rifles season last year, and there were people everywhere,
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Like there was no square into that place that you
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: could have was not covered by somebody in orange that
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: you could see, And so I didn't. I didn't. Actually
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I've never been there during raffles scene. I didn't realize
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: how much pressure that place got. So that makes it
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: makes more sense. The heaviest dentist cover that's the hardest
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: to get to is where those bucks were, where the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: big bucks were and where most of the bucks were.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: But um, the other places that were a little more
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: open um is where I saw all the dough. So
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: I think that makes a lot of sense. In the pressure,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: they those were betting where they could and the bucks
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: had the had the tight cover taken over, so they
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: just got the prime real estate. I I've got a
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: spot on a dairy farm that I've had permission to
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: hunt forever down in southeastern Minnesota, and it's one of
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: my favorite places to go hunt early season because I
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: can a lot of times I can shoot a door
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: in there, so I like it. But it changes over
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: when you know, when you get closer to Halloween and
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: you started getting closer to the rut. It's it's one
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: of the best places I have to see a big
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: buck on that farm. And they come from they seem
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: to come from different spots on the ridge, and that
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: might partially because the bucks are using the wind a
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: little bit more that time of year for certain things.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: But it always surprises me that you've got this, you know,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: this one area that you know, at any given time,
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: you could go in there and not believe there's hardly
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: any buck surround other than you see some sign and
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: then the conditions get right and those bucks are there,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: and you're like, man, they were never that far away.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: They were in there, they just weren't, you know, like
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: they just weren't ready to get up on their feet
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: in daylight and come there while the does were. And
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: it's just it's crazy how you see those differences. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: there's definitely differences. And I'll never fully understand why why
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: bucks act that way. I guess it's just kind of
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: self preservation mode and um, but yeah, it does seem
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: to be a kind of scattered out everywhere on the landscape,
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I guess, which is weird because there's there's studies that
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: say that a dough with a bond's like the most
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: territorial deer and a herd um. But it seems like
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: they'll kind of take up residents and and cover that's
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: not as ideal where it's like the big bucks are
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: always in the thickest, nastiest place, or the place with
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: them that gives them the most advantages to escape from,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: and so they only only during the rut do you
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: see them really on a move out of those places
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: on a on a pretty consistent basis. So that early
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: season time frame, you just have to fine where they're
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: hold up at. So I think we get a I
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: think we get a skewed view of of dear herd
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: dynamics by where we mostly see our deer. Like if
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: you're talking about sitting on the edge of a soybean
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: field or something, you see a bunch of deer pour
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: out there, and you go out there. All the doors
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: are together. But when you when like you said, when
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: you look at those studies on home ground and then
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: fawning grounds and like the best places to drop a
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: fawn and stash them, or you spend enough time hunting
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: and watching the same dose, and you realize how they're nasty,
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: like they're they are real territorial, and I think you
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: just don't. I don't. I think we just get such
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: an unclear picture of their the entirety of their existence
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: and how how they're really using the landscape. So when
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: you talk about you know, on this ridge there are
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: some dough and that ridge there are some doughs, and
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, there's there's probably having a half year
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: old doze out there who pull off two fawns every
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: year that have spots that are damn near as good
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: as those bucks. But you're seeing that year and a
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: half two and a half year old dough out there,
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: and she's like, well, I can't cool. I can't go
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: over there because she kicks my ass every time. So
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna lay here in this this ridge
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: with my fawns and until she croaks and then we
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: can move up, h you know, move up a spot.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: But I think I think that stuff happens more than
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: we even we could even possibly imagine. Yeah, yeah, it's uh,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's cool to think about. Like I said, well,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: I'll never fully understand all of it, but um, I
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: didn't realize until I'm trying to think that was quite
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: a while ago. If I were six years ago, Uh,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: I had a bunch of doughs hunting on a family
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: farm that came into the same food pot. They all
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: came from different directions, and you don't really think about that.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: There's like, oh, there's a much steer in food pot now.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: But the two biggest knows actually kind of met in
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: the middle and they were on their hind legs just
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: fighting each other. And how loud that was, like their
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: homes hitting each other, like they were going at it hard,
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: and then uh, the smaller that ended up, you know,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: getting pushed off and she went to another place on
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: the farm. And so it's uh that happens probably more often,
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: like I said, than we know about um. And until
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: that point, I never really thought about it, because like
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: if you see a big bean field and there's a
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: bunch of deer in it, you just assumed that they
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: were together the whole time. It's like, no, they're coming
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: from all kinds of different areas and they're congregating there.
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: So yeah, there's like a truce on a big enough
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: food source where they kind of just they keep their
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: comfortable distance. But you see that like I I saw
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: that I had I owned a little property here in
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: the cities that I sold a couple of years ago,
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: but I had like one little kill plot I put
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: in there, and there was one great, big old doll
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: that kind of claimed it, and she would you know,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: I get pictures of her like pushing little bucks and
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: stuff off there. And one year I'm like, I'm gonna
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: kill that, like this is getting personal now, and she
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: busted me stands blinds. It didn't matter. I couldn't kill her.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: Like I'd go in there it was. It was. It
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: was actually really fun because it was like I have
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: a hit list of one freaking dough. There's no box
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: in there, hardly, you know. And I couldn't kill her,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: but I would get pictures of her, and I saw
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: her at times push other dos off, and I think,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: you know, and you hear this, and I've seen this
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: down in Texas, like when you sit over a feeder,
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: when you have a little, tiny, concentrated food source, then
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden you see that nastiness come out,
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: because it's just like the urge to get getting under
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: each other's guard is way bigger. There's there's more at stake,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: and so you see that play out. But they're freaking
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: nasty man, and they they are territorial, Yeah, those old
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: those are And and we have that that dough that
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: that beat up that younger dough. I assume it's the
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: same dear. But we have drunk cab of pictures of
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: her throughout the years, and I have no idea how
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: old that dear is. We've we've kind of not shot her.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: I don't know why. My my dad said one year
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: that things like this just not sure because she always
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: dropped two ponds and so like let her go, but yeah,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: she definitely had full rein over that section of the farm.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: So um, it's it's just kind of cool, and it's
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: it's weird how those those aren't afraid to come out
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: like in a food pot like that during the day
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: of that stuff. But how quickly, uh they can pick
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: off when like you're there in a true standing grab
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: bline something that's crazy to me. How easy that they
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: pick up on stuff like that. Well, I I honestly
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: think we we talk about bucks like they're supernatural. I'm like, man,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: give me an old dough with a couple of fonds
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: and she's gonna kick your ass like she's she's on
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: her a game. And when the thing about big Bucks
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: and a lot of times when you see them is
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: they're just cruising through like their king of the world
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: and they're not that cag A lot of times, even
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: on public land, they just don't put themselves in a
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: position where they're moving in daylight a ton. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: I would agree with that, and some people will, so
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: you're crazy for saying that, But I have noticed that
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: out if if they're not pressured like some of the
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: bigger bucks, that I've taken shots off and killed. Yeah,
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: they're just mozing through the whether they're not moving quietly,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: like you can hear of coming and it's like, yeah,
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: I know that's going to be a buck, and it's
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: like they don't care, Like the does will sneak up
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: on your like, oh, I don't know where she came from,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: but that buck will be dragging his feet, making all
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: kinds of noise, like like if they're unpressured that I
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: don't know if it's I don't know if it's this
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: their attitude or mentality, but yeah, they feel like they
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: can do whatever they want and they're kind of mozying along,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: and uh, that's that's useful. There our advantage for in
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the right spot. So well, I that's one of the
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: reasons why it drives me absolutely nuts when people will
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: be like, oh, you know, why would you shoot a
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: dough in October? Just go kill one on a you know,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: in December, And I'm like, you do realize that everybody's
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: hunting situations different. Yeah, not everybody has a food plot
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: to go kill you know, a bunch of doughs in
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: December easily, Like I have situations. I mean, one of
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: the biggest hunting challenges I've run into is killing big
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: woods does like in northern Wisconsin. I and I've talked
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: about this a whole bunch, but I get busted on
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: those deer every time I draw them, Like they are
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: just on me. It doesn't matter how high I am
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: in the tree, if I'm hiding on the ground, It's
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: like I just count on that because they are on
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: their A games so much. And I'll have times where
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: I'll be like, any deer that gets within rain, any
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: dough that gets within range in the next month is
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: in trouble, and I will struggle to get a shot,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is freaking nuts, Like it shouldn't
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: be this hard. But we sort of undersell that because
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: we every dough is kind of the same to us,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: and we've we've really pushed this message that there's not
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: much challenge in that, and I'm like, man, this is
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: entirely dependent on your experience level and the places you're
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: hunting these deer. Yeah, it definitely is. That would be
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: a fun new challenge go out and try to shoot
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: like the biggest dough off of property, because I bet
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: that would people were challenging the biggest buck on the property.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: They're they're pretty kg. Uh and especially like you said,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: the big woods, I get busted drawing of time. Last year,
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: I got smart and tried to set up more with
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: the sun at my back where I thought I would
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: get a shot, which was actually turned out to be
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: really well because they can't see anything except for bright sun,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: so that worked out. Or I'll let them walk past
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: me now, because there's no way on a mature do
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: like that you can get drawn. If she's like even
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: a head down anything, it's like she will pick you
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: up immediately. So she let him get past you a
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: little bit, you can get away a little more. But uh,
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: but yeah there they're pretty kg. Yeah they I had.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I think it was probably like I was hunted over
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: in northern Wisconsin a lot, and I was hunting for bucks,
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: and I was hunting for one dough and I was
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: I was over there during the rut, or you know,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: like first week in November, after hunting a whole bunch
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: in September and October and hadn't killed a thing, and
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: I finally killed a doe over there. I was set
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: up in this spot on this chunk of public land,
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: and I heard him coming up out of this valley
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: below me. And it was the earliest I've ever drawn.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: You know, people are always like cool. It was a
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: full draw for like three minutes. It wasn't that long,
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: but it was as long as I've ever been drawn
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: on anything. Because I heard the track. I knew where
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: they were going to come out. I heard a trail
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: she was on, and I could hear it was sounded
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: like two of them. And I'm like, if this is
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: a buck, I'm shooting him. If it's a dough, I'm
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: shooting him. So I'm just getting drawn. And that deer
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: walked out and she cleared that tree in front of
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: me and looked right up at me. But I was
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: already drawn, and I thumped her. But it was like
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, can you guys like not give me a
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: break here? And you know, when you when you do
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, I think I think it's the same
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: thing as you know, picking up that long bow or
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: going from the private farm to the public farm. Like
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: what you think you know and what you actually know
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: about deer are different. And the more you do stuff
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: like that, or you're just like you know, if you
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: if you're kind of dismissive about doze because you could
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: kill them all day long on your food plot on
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: your farm. Go down the road and try to kill
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: one on public land. Like you'll learn a lot about
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: yourself and a lot about deer. It's not easy, yeah,
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: not easy. It's it's a fun challenge. Check any any
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: deer on publicly and that I always tell people that
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: it's like it's it's a great accomplishment because with with
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: archer gear the rifle, you can get more lucky. But
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: um yeah, it's it's a different ballgame. They're they're used
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: to being hunted. They're used to having that pressure, and
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: they learned how to how to react to it, how
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: to survive, and it makes them more wary. They're walking
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: around looking for danger more often than like on the
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: private farms. We make a really big deal about not
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: pressuring our deal dear. So it's like they're not pressured,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: so they're not not constantly looking for dinner until you know,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: later on in the season and they get that way.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: But um yeah, those those publicly and deer go through
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: a lot to survive each year, if you think about it,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: and so it's like they're definitely they're definitely more in
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: the game. I guess it seems like yeah, and it's
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, the pressure thing is everything. I
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: mean it the way that we figured out how to
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: hack the deer herd and not pressure them is it
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: is a game changer, like managing a property in that
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: pressure and it's it's the best route, too easy deer hunting,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: like we've we know that, like and it's people love
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: it and it's fun and whatever, go nuts for doughnuts.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: But when you go hunt where you know not only
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: The one thing that I've noticed is when you get
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: on really pressured deer, it's bad enough. Then if you
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: get around a bunch of predators, and not just us,
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: but the four legged predators, it just feels like it
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: gets that much harder and you just realize, like this
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: is the thing, this is the driving force, Like there
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: their awareness that at any second something can kill them
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: is the thing that makes it really difficult. And when
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: you trick them into thinking nothing's gonna kill me, because
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: I've walked out here for the last five and a
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: half years and it's all been peachy keen, and I
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: could eat these brassicas in this clover without getting shot.
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: Then you get them in a different position. But when
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: those deer are you know, three and a half, four
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: and a half, five and a half, and they're like,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: not only do I have all these assholes up in
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: these tree saddles and these stands, I got bears eating
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: fawns when they're little, and I've got bobcats, I got coyotes,
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: and i got wolves like you're talking about deer that
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: are hard to kill. Yeah, yeah, and um, actually thankful
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: I don't live up where you do, so I don't
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: have We occasionally have black bears around here, but like
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: very rarely and definitely don't have wolves. So it's it's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: kind of cats, but they they do some damage on fonds.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: So um, I'm thankful I don't have the extra added
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: challenge to extra predators putting pressure on my dear as well.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: That's that's gotta be hard with the black bears and
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: the wolves now here. So it's it just changes it.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, most of it is like a fawn recruitment issue, right,
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: Like when you talk about black bears, they're phenomenal at
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: finding fonts and eating them. So there's a short window
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: where black bears are they there? You know, seriously, bad
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: predators on deer, but it's like fawns of you know,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: from when they dropped to however, you know, two months
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: old or whatever it is. It's not very long, but
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: they do a ton of damage in that time frame.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: And then you know, now with like bobcats, you can
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: see videos of bobcats killing full sized deer in places,
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: which is crazy because they're not that big, but they're
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: not cats. Yeah, those videos are crazy. Yeah. Uh. And
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: I had a cameras and when I used to work
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: with Bush now had cameras in Kansas and we actually
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: had pictures of bobcat running down an adult dough And
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: then the next spring we had pictures accident. I think
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: it might have been in the same creek bit, but
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: a bobcat that ran up and grabbed a pawn in
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: the The dough actually was like stomping on the bobcat
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: and the pawn both, but the vodio the video cut out,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: so I don't know what actually ended up happening there.
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: But yeah, bobcats are I think they get a little
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: bit dismissed as bond killers, but they'll take down a
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: full deer if they need to. Yeah, I've got we
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: we have a healthy population of bobcats over where I
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: hunt Wisconsin, and I've seen a few. Uh. I actually
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: had one walk right up on me last year when
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: I was on the ground. I actually heard him purring
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: or her, I know it was her, uh before I
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: saw it was that close. It was like six ft
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: away from me. And I'm sitting there and like, you know,
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: in your reptile brain, you hear this noise and you're like, God,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: that sounded like a cat purring, you know, but You're like,
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: there's no cats around me. This is stupid. And then
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: this sucker walked out right in front of me, and
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: she was actually I think she was so surprised that
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: I was that close that she did spook right away,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: because I've had other ones walk out and you know,
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: like way far away, and they'll sit down and look
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: up at you like I know you're there, I see you,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: and you're like, man, I've had deer walk by me
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: here like crazy. It's their incredible animals. And then you know,
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: when you get when you get into the wolf situation, uh,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: they those suckers swing through and it's just not much
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: fun for a while. Usually there's like no way around that. Yeah, No,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: they do do some damage whether they're there. It's I
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: don't know how big a territory they have it is.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: It's kind of nice that they don't like stay in
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: the same place all the time. They do kind of move.
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: But yeah, they they do some damage when they come here.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: They just at least in my experience and I've been
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: around him quite a bit, it's yes, they're freaking taking
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: deer and elk and everything off the landscape, but they
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: also just change the behavior of the deer. It feels
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: like a lot like if you have a pack swing through,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: it just feels like a UFO came down and sucked
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: up all your deer and took them somewhere else because
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: they're just like screw this, like whatever whatever they're doing
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: in response to those predators and anybody listening to this
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: who's hunted elk where the wolves that really take hold
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: nose like it freaking sucks, Like it's just it it
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: makes it changes the game in a way that's just
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: it's not much fun. Yeah, and it's it's not even
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: just the deer and elk that they kill, but that
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: I'm out of stress they put on the herd because
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: deer aren't gonna come out and in the open. They're
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: gonna stay in the cover, like they're not gonna go feed.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: They're gonna stay or they know they're not gonna get eaten,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: and so they're it's just so much stress and stuff
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: on the deer herd. But when you have a pack
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: of wolves comes here. But yeah, it's it's definitely an
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: added challenge for you there. Yeah, it's just more pressure.
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: It's just more hunting pressure of a different variety. Um, Zach,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: this this has been so much fun, buddy. It's always
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: it's always great to chat with you. Um. I can't
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: wait to hear about all of your longbow successes fall
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: and and see what you kill on public land there.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: But honestly, buddy, thank you so much for coming on. Man. Yeah,
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: thanks Tony for having me. And that's always good being
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: on with you. A good seeing you and best of
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: luck to you this fall as well. Hopefully one of
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: us has some good stories coming out of this ball
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: so well we will, buddy. Thanks man. All right, Thanks Tony.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week, my white tail loving friends.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: I'm Tony Peterson and this has been wired to hunt
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: for more white tail info check out my Foundations podcast,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: which is available right where you got this one, and
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: check out our wire to Hunt YouTube channel. If you
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: still want more, and I hope you do, visit the
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: mediator dot com slash wired and check out articles from
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: yours truly, from Mark and a whole host of white
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: tail killers.