Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 309: What Happens When You Kill the World Record Whitetail?

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Ep. 309: What Happens When You Kill the World Record Whitetail? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: and nine, and today's show, we're chatting with a Wired
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: to Hunt listener named Luke Brewster, who just so happened
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: to kill the largest deer ever killed by a hunter
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: last year, and we find out what happens when everyday
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: average hunter gets struck by whitetail lightning. While I got
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you here, before we start the main show, I just
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: want to give you a little heads up. We've got
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: a long introduction today. It's almost a two part podcast.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Part two is with Luke Brewster and we're talking about
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: this experience he had. Part one is getting a chat
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: with my co was Dan about his South Dakota meal
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: there hunt and a little bit about an upcoming hunt
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: of mine. So if you want to get just to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the Luke Brewster portion, you can fast forward about an hour,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: But if you want to hear our stories, stick around.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It's a good one, but a long one, all right.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: on X and I'm here with my good buddy, my
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: brother from another mother, the man with a bigger beard
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: than me and one less finger, Dan Johnson. I just
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: trimmed my beard too. Does it look sharp? It looks good.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: My wife actually walked by me and said, you don't
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: look so disgusting anymore. That's good. I had a big one,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you know, like the the upper lip. The mustache part
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: of it was coming way down over top of the
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: over my lips, so I was getting food in it
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: all the time, you know, just like the It was
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: a man's beard. It was awesome, but I had to trim.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I understand that when are you when are you gonna
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: drop your hammer? Yeah? Oh, I totally understand that. Dan,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: I got a man's beard. What are you talking about?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: When you when are you dropping the hammer? Though? Um?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Are you going to drop the hammer? I don't know.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I didn't drop the hammer last year, for those that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: For those that don't know, Dan drops the hammer usually
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: right around the rut each year by by by trimming
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: his beard into a food man shoe of sorts, right right.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: So I don't know. I don't know if I'm gonna
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: drop it or not this year. I usually drop it
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: once a year, and I can't remember if I already
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: dropped it this year. I think I did I drop
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: it on my old cunt. I can't even remember. I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: don't think, So Okay, no you didn't. Someone someone I'll
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: drop it on November one. Yeah, someone told me I
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: should drop the hammer this year. Do you want to
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: do matching foom hand shoes for the right? Um? Maybe
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: it depends on uh, Like, I don't know. I like it,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: but now I'm starting to get old. Right, so I
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: have white hair in just one side of the hammer,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: so it just looks really it just looks really weird.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Well guarantee, if I did it, the whole thing will
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: look really weird. So you don't need to feel bad. Yeah,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: so Dan today, Um, I want to do a bunch
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of stuff today. Um, we are gonna talk about a
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: little bit about your South Dcota meal, their hunt. We're
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: gonna talk a little bit about my Boundary waters back
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: country white to Hunt, which I'm leaving for tomorrow. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: we also have like a main guest on the show too.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And that part is it's a different kind of show
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: than we've done the past. Typically, Um, we usually don't
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: ever talk about like world record deer. We're usually not
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: like chasing interviews with people who killed some huge high
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: scoring deer, like we've never never done that on the
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: wire and Huntbot guest um. And so this show is
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: different because we're not typically talking about that kind of thing,
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: but today we we sort of are. Um. You know,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: in a lot of past episodes, we talked with people
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: who maybe have you know, they've got pursuits for certain
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: sized deer, and like you and Idean, of course, we
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: enjoy chasing big Old Bucks, and we talked about that,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and we've got our own goals sometimes and sometimes we
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: talk about size of deer. Sometimes we talk age of deer.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we're talking about just the circumstances of the situation. UM.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: But we've never really gotten to the whole scoring hysteria
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: other than talking about sometimes the concerns around it, potentially negative,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: referencing negative aspects of that um and how it can
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: all go too far, you know. UM. So that said, though, right,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's nothing wrong with big Bucks. They're exciting,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: they're cool. We would we get geeked out about it.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You get a big Buck on trail camera, you're excited.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: I'm excited. Um, that's just not what we've been mostly
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: focused on here. But last year, a hunter a guy
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: in him, Luke Brewster, he killed a giant buck out
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: in Illinois and the pictures were going all over the internet.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: I remember seeing it and thinking, wow, that is a
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: crazy looking deer. Um. Well, in January, news broke that
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: this deer was the new world record, the highest scoring
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: biggest deer ever killed by deer hunter ever in the world. Yes,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: he killed it with a bow, but this is bigger
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: than any buck even killed with the gun too. Um
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: non typical. And I remember hearing that story and someone like,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I can't remember it might have been I was going
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: to Mexico for that cou'se deer hunt and one of
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: my buddies like the news came through. It was like
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: the day the news went live at the A T
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: A show or something something like, oh man, you gotta
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: get that guy in the Wired Hunt podcast and I
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: was like, man, that's not really our thing. Um. But
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: like a week or two later, Spencer new Hearth got
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: in touch with me and said, hey, I ran into
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Luke at the show and he came up and talked
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: to me and said like he's a huge Wired Hunt
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: podcast listener and basically learned in part how to hunt
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: from listening to this podcast, And so that got me
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: interest is like, wow, that's that's really interesting. So I
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: reached out to the guy and just like just kind
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of like, Hey, what's what's the deal? I heard that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: you've been finding you know, the podcast helpful and everything,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: And he basically explained that, yeah, he's a new hunter
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and he kind of figured it out by checking out
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: resources like this, listening to you and me talk about
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: deer and all of our guests and stuff. And then
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: he kind of got struck by lightning and ended up
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: killing this once in a lifetime dear. So that got
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: me intrigued. You know what happens in that situation? What
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: happens when a normal unsuspecting hunter, a new hunter, uh,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: a member of the wire hunt community, someone just like
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: you or me or listeners. What happens when that person
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: heads into the woods one day and ended up killing
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: the biggest deer of all time? You know, how does
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: that change your next week? How does that change your
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: next hunting season? How does that change your life? Um?
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is that a cool thing? Is that
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: awesome or does that become a negative thing. I mean,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I can imagine all sorts of scenarios. Um. I mean,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: all that attention, all the social media hysteria, is that
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: overwhelming or is that fun? Is killing the biggest deer
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: of all time? And that is that like an uplifting
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: experience or is that toxic? Um? Especially Yeah, so especially
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: in today's society where on social media people are only
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: reading headlines. Right, so you come across the world's largest
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: buck killed in Illinois, then automatically people go high fence.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, right, you know, they're like poached whatever, must
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: be nice to be rich or whatever, and they're not.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: They don't they don't want to hear the story. Yeah. Yeah,
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: it's it's very easy for that stuff to get nasty.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: And I mean I think you and I have even
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: experienced some of that on a on a micro level,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you know, with our own things going on in the
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: negativity around it. Um So, I was just that's what
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: I've always wondered, like, what what happens when your buddy
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to this dear, when the normal guy next door has
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: this thing happened gets struck by white tail lightning? Um
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: So that's what we're gonna talk about with him. You
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: know this isn't gonna be about glorifying a lawrenches Um.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: You know we say it all time, Dan, This we're
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: all about hunting your own hunt, having a great experience,
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: chasing your own personal goals. Um. But what happens with
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: something crazy like this walks into your life. That's that's
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: what I want to get into with Luke. But before that, though,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I do want to talk about what happens when crazy
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: things happen in your life or my life, like our
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: recent hunts. Um. So before setting the stage from my
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: boundary waters hunt, I guess you just got back from
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: South Dakota. Um. I enjoyed your Instagram stories. I like
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: to following along and seeing what was going on there.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: From the outside looking in, it looked like it was
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: like an action packed hunt. Um. And I know you've
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: got a podcast it's either out right now, I think
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it's out or coming out soon that goes into all
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: sorts of detail on this. But but can you give
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: us at least like a cliff note scoop on on
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: how it Yeah, So, if you want to check out
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the full story of uh, let's see part one launched Monday.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Part two launched Wednesday, So if you want the long version,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: go to nine Finger Chronicles podcast and it's called Sodak
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: Mule Deer Hunt. Right, it's pretty pretty simple. But here's
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: what I will say that I was looking forward to
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: my elk hunting trip, but I was really really looking
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: forward to the South Dakota trip. Um. I don't know
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: what it is about that type of terrain and me
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: and you, we've discussed this before. Right, You're a mountain guy.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm this prairie guy with a rolling hill Like.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know what it is. Yeah, well, yeah, I
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: wish I could say that, but it's there was a
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: lot of up and down on this hunt. Um. But man,
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: we we went out there. My buddy drove from New York.
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: He spent the night at my house. We got up
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: at four ray am on what this was two weekends
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: ago now, and UH got in the car on a
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: on a Saturday morning, drove out to South Dakota. Uh
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: hopped out of the truck, pitched a tent and uh
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: that's you know, that's that's how we got there. And
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: just the drive in. I don't know, whenever you go
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: to a new place mark. It was probably unsafe for
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: both of us to be in a vehicle at that
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: point because we're not even paying attention to the road.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: We're just looking out the window, you know, like, oh,
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: there's an antalope, Oh there's a deer. Oh, you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: and just watching the terrain change. Once you get a
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: little closer to like the Missouri River. I love it.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: Once you start crossing that, you can see the habitat
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: transition right absolutely, and like just the terrain coming down
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: into the into the valley of the river and then
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: coming back up and it's all these flat tops with
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: these big dugout drainages and and um, and it's just amazing.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: So I was I was so amped. I I just
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: could not even relax. I was just boom boom boom,
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you know, like fired up, beating the internal drums, so
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: to speak. And we get out there, and uh, we
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: get to the parking spot at the at this thirty
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: three thousand acre public land spot, and sure enough, there's
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: two more vehicles there, and I'm just like, oh man,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: we have all the places we decided to park. We park.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: But as we're as we're getting ready and packing up
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: our packs to hike in and set up camp. Four
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: people came out of there and they were just these
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: day hikers. I guess they're just up there taking pictures.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: So we hike up. Um. We hike in about a
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: mile and a half, set up camp, and by that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: time it's getting dark, so we eat and go to bed.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: Now here comes one of the most spectacular parts of
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: this in tire trip, and it is the fact that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I saw I woke We woke up Sunday morning, and
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: not really knowing what to expect, we were gonna hike
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: to the top of this mountain or this uh this
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: it's not a mountain, but it's the highest point in
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: the area, right, but yeah, kind of um, just a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: big hill, right, So just take the rockies and shrink
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: them down is kind of what it felt like, you know,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a different scale. So we climb up about a hundred
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: feet and that's where we're gonna glass for the morning.
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: As we're getting ready, I see a little shooting star
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: go across the sky and I'm just like, oh man,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: this is this is awesome. I just saw a shooting star.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: Kind of a good luck that'sting around a little bit.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Look back up in the sky. Just because the stars
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: were so brilliant. And I don't know if you've ever
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: seen one of these types of shooting stars, but it was.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It must have been closer to the ground. It looked
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: like a missile going through the air. It was like
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: you could see not just a white streak, but the
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: color of the shooting star. I could see it. I
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: could see the bright white upfront, I could see the
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: smoke trail, and I could see the illumination like orange
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: and red of the fire that was coming off behind it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: And it just went across the entire sky. It was
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: like it was like a gigantic firework that just went
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: and I swear for a second I could have I
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: heard it. That's how it was. It was bananas. I
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I literally geeked out and lost my mind. Was like,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: oh my god, did you see that? Oh my god?
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: But did you consider certain whether or not that was
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: a UFO. Yeah, I don't know. It could have been
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: a UFO. It could have been, but man, uh it was.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: It was one of the most amazing things I've ever
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: seen out in nature. So I don't know why I'm
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: geeking out about it so much. It's just I can't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: even explain to you what what I don't know. It
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: just it just got me geeked for that that entire trip,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: it was like the starting start. It's a very good start.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: So we climb up and we started glassing that morning. Um,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: both of us are pretty jacked up, and you know,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: we start were glassing a little bit. Um, we see
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of mule deer does way off in the distance. Um,
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: we saw some white tail does way off in the distance.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And we were in a kind of an area where
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: the it was next to a big like a river
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: system that kind of lad there are some cricks that
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: led up into these big drainages and valleys, and so
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: we were seeing a mixture of white tails and mule deer,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So that that was kind of cool. And and just
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: to talk about our expectations real quick, Um, we went
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: into this trip just for the experience, right. We we
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: had this talk like what are your expectations, Like what
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: do you want to do? And both me and the
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: guy went with her like if I get a shot
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: at a dough, I'm taking it. And uh, that's the
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: same with me. You know, I go on this elk
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: hunting trip, walk away with nothing. I wanted to walk
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: away with something on this trip, whether it was a buck,
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: a dough anything. But we we both realized that this
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: is a completely different environment and a completely different strategy
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: for hunting. Uh So we kinda we were like, you
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: know what if we can learn something, takeaway and then
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: come back next year and capitalize, that would be awesome.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: But we're here to have fun. We're here for the
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: new experience and um. So that we we didn't really
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: have any expectations going into this hunt other than to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: learn and have fun and uh um. But we were
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: seeing dear that first morning, so it was like, okay,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: we have five days left, let's let's get the you know,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: this is a good start. At least we know where
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: they're at and we know where we need to be,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: you know, at some point throughout throughout this trip. So
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: we're glassing for a couple of hours. Nothing, nothing real close.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Everything was like a mile out. Uh you know, we'd
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: notice it through the binoculars and then we would set
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: up the spotting scope to identify a little closer and um,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: let's say, okay, well let's wait for him to bed down.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: That was our that was our thing, find them, try
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: to locate where they were bedded down and then go
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: make a move on them. Right, So we saw these
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: doughs way in the distance, and I said, well, let's
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: go around um, this big hill and get to another
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: big hill that's blocking off another part of this valley
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and see if we can't see if we can't see
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of this this big, big drainage.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So we're walking and this is a lot of the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the terrain out there is this this waist high grass.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: It's almost like tumbleweed that you're walking through. So it's
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: real dry, it's real brittle. Um, there's some there's some
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: green grass, but it's about waist high. And then what's
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: not grass is this imagine putting drywall plaster over top
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: of popcorn, and that is what you're trying to walk
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: on to go up and down some of these hills.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And it got to a point where we we kind
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: of had to have a talk with each other and say,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: we can't walk up this stuff anymore because we're slipping
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: and sliding and falling down. And uh, we had to
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: learn how to take the long way, the long route
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: sometimes just because some of this, uh, this this ground
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: was unsafe to walk on. Yeah, just really really weird.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I've never experienced anything like that before. Uh. And even
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: though the drop wasn't like falling off a mountain mountain Colorado,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: it would have been significant and you would have slid
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: all the way down, And like we slid a couple
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: of times to where we were gaining speed and we
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: couldn't really stop ourselves on our butts, right, and so
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: we had to kind of lay our packs down and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: put our arms out, and we each had a trekking
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: poll that we were digging into the ground. So we
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: kind of let's, uh, let's stay away from that. So
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: we look up there, um, and then we started we
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: start hearing voices, so we we watched two hunters come
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: out of one part of this valley, so we just
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: kind of assumed that that part of the valley is
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: trashed for the day. We stay in. We glass a
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: couple of a couple more mule doughs, We wait for
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: them to walk by, and then we dropped down and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: walk another mile and a half into this big plateau.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: Basically that's in the middle of these two drainages and uh,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: it's high points that we had identified on on X
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: say Okay, well, these look like two high points that
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: we can go and glass you know, these drainages. So
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: we long story short, we walk in. We identified a
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: water source like a seat in the uh in the ground,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: which was good because we used that multiple times throughout
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: this trip to get water. That way, we didn't have
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: to go back to the truck. Yeah. Uh that's big
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: because if we didn't find that, we were going to
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: have to spend a lot of time walking back to camp,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: then back to the truck, then back out for evening
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: uh for evening hunts. And uh that that actually played
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a huge role in allowing us to do what we
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: did because there was a day where I took my
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: pack off, I laid it down and you kind of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: you know, you lean on your pack while you're glassing,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: and my uh port, my water port got pressed against
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: the ground and all my water in my bladder leaked out.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, I did not drink three liters of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: water today. And uh it was long story, stort, just
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: glad that we we've found that water so we could
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: pump it up and treat it. Almost stepped on a rattlesnake,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: uh I was. We walked up to one of these
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: classing points. Walk up to the edge. There's like this
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: rock configuration, this rock formation. Put my boot down on
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: it and I hear. I looked down and about a
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: foot from my boot is a rattlesnake. And it was.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It was intense because it was a big rattlesnake. But
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's um. It's rattle was longer
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: than my pinky finger. It was. It was a big
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: fat one and uh, but it didn't want anything to
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: do with us. It rattle a couple of times and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: went back down into this uh into this uh crack.
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: We sat there, took a little nap, uh, glass, walked
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: across the plateau, did some more glassing. Uh, and I'm
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: accelerating this of course. Uh these glass Every time we
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: stopped to glass, we were glassing. Oh, I would say
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: two hours at a time, if not more. Just relaxing,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: you know, getting a lay of the terrain. Which we
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: we found out in the long run is there's so
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: many cracks and um, the terrain is so there's so
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: many variations in it that if you go a hundred
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: yards a different direction and look at the same area,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: you're finding more cracks. So you're it's awesome to have
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: on X and I and I'll say this and this
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: is a good plug for one of your partners here.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know what we would have done without it,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: because it allowed us to mark what we saw. It
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: allowed us to take, you know, mark trails in and out.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: It allowed us to and this is the big one,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: look at a map and identify, you know, here's camp.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: We need to get here, but we need to do
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: it in the dark, right, So I'm I'm basically instead
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: of looking at the ground, I'm looking at the ground
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: in the dark, but I'm also got my phone out
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: trying to take the path at least resistance to the
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: morning scout, you know, the next scouting point in the dark,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: and it is. It was one of the biggest helps
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: for the entire trip, hands down. So yeah, it comes
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: very handy for that kind of strip, absolutely so. And
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: then we get back and here's this is this is
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: a cool part. You know, we're we're all focused on
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: on mule deer on the right out, but then we
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: learned you know, hey, there's white tails here too, and
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: they're down in this river bottom. There are a handful
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: of crop circles and we pop up over this ridge
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to glass to see if we could see any meal
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: they're coming off these hills into the fields below. But
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: we get there and there's already like white tails in
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: this crop circle when we get there. But we're still
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: a long ways away, right there's we didn't have enough
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: time to make a stock uh to go to go there.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: And we were like, well, we can shoot a white
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: tailed deer at home. Maybe we'll just wait a couple
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of days and you know, and see. But then a
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: big white tail buck popped out of the river bottom
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: and it was too it would have been too late
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: to go stock. And he was on private ground when
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: we saw him, but it was right on that line,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: just kind of like your uh, your hunt. Yeah, So
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: he was right on the line, and we're like, hey man,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: maybe the next day will uh well, we'll set up
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: tomorrow evening and go check him out. Well, I would,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: I would put him. He was a mile away. I
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: could see him through the spotting scope, but I would do.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: He had a big body. His body was bigger than
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: every other deer in the field, you know, rightfully so
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: as a buck. But his his rack was noticeable in
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: the spotting scope like big I would I would have
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: if he was If he was an eight pointer, he
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: would have been one forty. If he was a ten pointer,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: he probably would have been closer to one. So yeah,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a really good, a really good white tail that got
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: got us both excited. Sun went down, We walked back
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: to camp, got put the game playing together, and said, okay,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: well we're gonna go back to that big plateau where
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: we were, you know, where we were the next day.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: And so, like I said, got out the put put
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: a path together on on X, got out of camp,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: walked all the way in the dark a mile and
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: a half to this glassing point and uh got there
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: just you know, right before gray light. It was perfect.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: We dropped down off the hill a little way so
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: we weren't skylined, and just kind of waited for the
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: sun to come up. And right away we started seeing
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: white tail does. And what they were doing is they
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: were coming off the tops and then going back down
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: into these drainages to bed throughout the day. And so
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: here's a white tail, a mule deer do over here.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Oh man, there's four mule deer dough over there. Okay, cool.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: So I turned around, I started making some coffee and uh.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: My guy was with like, hey man, that that that
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: one looks like a buck. Put the buy nose up.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Sure enough, it was a really wide, big two by two,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: just a really cool deer. And we're like, well, let's
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: follow him, right, So we we watch him grays for
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: a little bit up top, drops down out of the um,
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: you know, off the top down end. We lose him,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and now we start putting a game playing together. Right.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm finishing up coffee. We're still seeing some doze
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: up there, you know. Okay, here's how we're gonna do this.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go here, We're gonna do this, blah blah blah.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Put an approach. And as I'm turning around to hand
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: him his coffee, he's he's got his buyos up. He's like,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: hey man, there's there's four more. There's four more uh
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: deer coming off the top. Look it up, put up,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: pull up the spotting scope and it was four mule
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: deer bucks altogether. Still yeah, and there was a i
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: want to say, a three by three, a real young one,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and then two four by four's that were medium range.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: And granted, I'm just I'm telling you this their size
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: and their age, because just as a reference, we were
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: going to shoot whatever was available right away. I mean,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: if if a dough popped up at you know, twenty yards,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: we were going to shoot a dough at twenty yards, right.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: So we watched these four bucks and they were they
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: were hustling down because this was about eight o'clock in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the morning, so they were it was almost like they
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: were coming off later than all the other animals. Maybe
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: they were bumped, maybe they don't whatever, or maybe they
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: just to eight too long. And you know, I decided, hey,
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we gotta we gotta hustle down. Watched them drop into
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: this drainage. Uh and uh. The last one that came through,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: who was noticeably bigger in size and antlers than all
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: of the other ones. So we're just like, hell, if
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: we're gonna go do a stock on something, let's do
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: it on this big one, right. So he drops down, um,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: goes behind a couple of rock formations, are like, okay,
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: we lost him. This is this is what really impressed
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: me about these animals. They are they're smart. This buck
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: pops out around a rock formation, walks closer to us.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And when I mean closer to us, we're I mean
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: he's still a mile away, right, but he's walking out
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: around this rock formation and he's it's like he's checking
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: out the area before he goes to bed. He goes
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: back down the trail that he came out in, comes
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: up another rock formation. He's looking all around, taking his time.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: Then he goes disappears again, walks around backtracks where he came,
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: then drops down into another cut, and then he disappears.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: So it told me that they're thinking differently than what
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: how you think, right, You think of a deer, and
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: you think or an animal. They can't think like us.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: When they're hungry, they eat, when they're tired, they bed down.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: When they're scared, they run away, right. But this guy
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: was saying, I need to check out my surroundings before
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: I go to bed down because I want to make
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: sure that there's nothing there. So that that thought process
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: kind of intrigued me. Yeah. So, um so this big
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: buck drops down and um I'm like, okay, let's do this.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: So we talked about how we're going to do this.
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: We identified certain parts, certain terrain features between us and
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: where he was betting, so that we could creep up
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: behind him without any of these other deer seeing us,
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: because they eventually all laid down or they all disappeared
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: behind things too. We identified the cut, We identified a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: certain is to hide behind or glassing points. Um, we
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: identified what we you know, the path that we needed
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: to take before we headed over there. We needed to
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: drop down, we needed some more water, we needed to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: use the restroom and then make our make our stock
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: up into this area. So we get to it. We
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: dropped down off the side of the valley that we
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: were on, across the creek, come back up the other side,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: hit hit all those identifiable points so we could glass
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: going into it. But what we found out was that
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: he's deep in this cut, or or so we thought
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: he was deep in this cut. And it started getting
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: warmer that day. You know, it was like thirty degrees
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in the morning, but it slowly starts to warm up
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: to about seventy you know, seventy degrees. We saw him
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: at eight o'clock. Now just remember that we saw him
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: at eight o'clock, come down, disappear about eight thirty. We
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: get to a point, uh this rock for nation where
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it's like, okay, let's this is where we need to
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: drop our bags. And I said I'm going to go
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: up and I'm going to, um, I'm gonna do some glassing.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: He needed to treat some of his water. Um, so
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: he's treating his water. I'm doing some glass and I'm like, hey,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: look at this. I said, grab your boat, let's go.
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: So I just you know, we were going to do
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: paper rock scissors for um to see who was gonna
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: shoot first. But it just kind of worked out that
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: that I said, dude, let's grab your boat, let's go.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: And then he was going to be the shooter on
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: this and I was gonna take lead as far as
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: creeping around the corners. I was going to be working
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the binoculars. He was going to be the shooter, you know.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And and also one thing that I really found out
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: about this particular hunt was the teamwork aspect. I really,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: I really, UM, it's it's awesome to see a guy
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: go out and do it all by themselves, but it's
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: it's so awesome to have another guy to bounce ide
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: he is off of. And two for you know, like
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: as a shooter, you got a guy running the kind
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: of running the uh buyos for you Okay, I don't
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: see him. I don't see him. And then as the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: buyo guy, you know that you're you're not a shooter.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: So it's like we each had these roles going into
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: it and into the stock that it was like, okay,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: here we are, Um, this is this is my role,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: this is your role. And so I would go up
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and take the lead. I would creep around corners and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: I would use the buyos and whatever, and he would
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: then I would gesture him and he would come behind me,
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: and we'd get behind rock formations or trees, work our
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: way closer up in these cuts, and uh, you know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: take a look at what's you know, Okay, I can
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: see the shade. Let's look at where he potentially could
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: be betting right, and you know all this stuff. Well,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: as we're working our way up the cut that he
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: disappeared and we're getting even now with where he dropped
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: where we saw him drop down off of this rock formation,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden we're here boom boom boom,
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and it sounded like something got up and ran. Well
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: what happened was he was actually down lower, bedded under
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: a tree, not up in the cut. Oh and but
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the cool thing was that he our wind was in
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: our favor. We were higher than him, and it was
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: blowing down the drainage, so he never did catch our wind,
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: which I think was our saving grace because I can't
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: see him at this point. And Dan, the other guy
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: that was with me, he said, there he is, there,
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: he is. I'm like, how far is he? He gets
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: his range finder out, ranges range, range, range, can't get
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: a range, stands up a little bit, gets a range
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: fifty eight yards, fifty eight yards, perfectly broadside, and he's
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: just staring at us, and we're head to toe camo
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: right Hoodi's on masks up over our face and he's
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: just looking at us like or he's looking the other
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: guy like I said, I'm between a tree, so I
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: can't see any of this go down. And so he
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: gets his err already draws back and and he lets
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: it go, and I hear the arrow go and then
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: the sound disappears for a split second. And at this
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: point I'm like, oh, dude, he missed him, but it
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: was and you could hear it just drill him, and
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: he's Dan starts to lose his mind. He's like, oh
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: my god, like hit right where I was aiming. I
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: hit right where I was aiming and I pop out
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: around this tree and I'm watching him jump and it
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: just you know, you know, when a deer is dead,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: right like just gosh and blood coming out of his nose.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: He tries to go back up the same incline, pretty
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: steep incline that he came out, and uh, and he
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: didn't make it. Gravity was his worst enemy at that point.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Back legs got wide and he just tumbled off off
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: the back and it was the big buck that we
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: watched drop off that the top and we were both
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: in shock, like I can't believe that just happened. This
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: was my first ever spot in stock and his first
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: ever spot in Stock. Un really any animal, right, we're
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: tree stand hunters, and you know, I've done it in
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Nebraska before, but not at you know, it's just different terrain,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: different scenarios, and you know, yeah, we we put a
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: plan together, but we also got lucky. Right this this
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: deer popped up and stood and decided to watch us
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: and sit and run away. And he waited around too
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: long and the guy drilled him at fifty eight yards
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: and um, you walk up on this animal and it's
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: it's it's between three fifty and four hundred pounds. It
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: is a absolute gigantic bodied animal. Uh, ridiculous um. And
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: he's walking up on it and the guy, this is
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: why I like this dude. He goes, He goes, I'm
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: gonna get so much meat out of this deer. Like
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: he was so jacked that he's gonna be able to
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: get a lot of meat off of this off this animal,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: and then he commented on its antlers. But it was
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: real cool because it was about the experience. It was
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: about the meat he was getting off of this um.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And then you fast forward man, and we're we clean
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it and we pack it out. Uh. It was I'm
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: still in shock over how how it all went down.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It was amazing. It's a gorgeous buck. Oh yeah, it's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: a it's a it's a gorgeous buck. Taxidermis. Taxidermist did
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: a tooth tooth analysis or not like a full analysis,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: but did a tooth comparison on it. Said it was
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: a six and a half year old buck and it
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: scored like one fifty one something. We're a meal there, yeah,
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: and first ever pack out three and a half miles
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: And granted this isn't the Rocky Mountains. Each of us
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: had over a hundred pounds in our pack, and uh,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: I don't. I got to we were walking, you know,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: we dropped down off this drainage hit the creeks, had
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: to go up and down a couple you know. For
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the most part it was flat once we got out
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: of the hills. But we followed this old rancher rancher
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: trail back to the truck three and a half miles
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: and I got to the end and I was so
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: physically drained that I was getting emotional. It sounds like
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: our first cutting down. I know, I know it was.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: It was. It's like every step I took, I could
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: feel more energy draining out of my body. It was.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: It was crazy. It was crazy that that emotion. I
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: take the pack off of me and I could not
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: I couldn't stand up. I had to lay down because
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: you're you're you have so much weight on for that
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: long time in that distance that your body is now
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: compensating for that way. And I had to lay down
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: and like re establish new balance out of out of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: it all. And I want to say that that it
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: We didn't really celebrate. We didn't celebrate the hunt until
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: we got the meat back into the cooler in the truck,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: and that is when we celebrated. I mean when he
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: when he walked up. You know, we had this big
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: old bro hug. We gave each other high fives. But
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: then we instantly knew we got to get this meat
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: out because we got a lot of work to do.
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: And uh we did it. We did it all in
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: one trip. And uh because we were debating going back
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: and making two trips, you know, for some additional equipment
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: like just our bows and a spotting scope and a
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: couple other things. But we're like, dude, we have to
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: do it because I don't want to come back in
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: the middle of the night for this stuff, come back
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: and potentially ruin this area again for anything. So we
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: uh made it one trip man, And Uh, I want
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: to say it is probably one of the most rewarding
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: hunting experiences that I've had to date. Just just adding
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: that pack out alone, I think the entire experience would
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: have been different if we were able to load it
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: on a four wheel or a truck. It's that much
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: that as the is the best type too fun you
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: can ask for. It's so painful in the moment when
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: you're done, it's such a great feeling to know you
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: did that, and that meat tastes real good after all
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that work. Oh man, I've already I made child with
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: it already. And because he gave me, He's like, dude,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: you helped me pack this out. You help me on
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: this trip we did. We did this together. He gave
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: me almost half of the meat, and I was like, dude,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you know, like, hey, I don't need all the meat
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: or half of meat. Just give me what you want.
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: He wanted to give me half, so I'm not gonna
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: turn it down. So we I did. I made one
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: of the best pots of chili I ever made U yesterday. Uh, dude,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm just geeked. I'm geeked about this trip.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: And uh and I really haven't even shared my experience
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: with my buck. I mean, I Okay. So we went
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: into town. We needed ice. We stayed in a hotel
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: that night. UM, so the first thing in the morning,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: we could uh, you know, the first thing in the morning,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: we're gonna take it to the processor and then take
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: the head to the taxidermist. So we did all those things.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: UM came back out to we had to go back
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: to camp, and we made the decision that we're we're
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: gonna try to cut these deer off. And the reason
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: that we're gonna go back to camp, tear it down,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: come back to the truck, drive around the entire thirty
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: three acre, and hit it from the back side is
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: because the weather forecast changed on us while we were
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: out there, and we're talking this gigantic cold front coming
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: through that was gonna dump eight inches of snow, sixty
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: mile winds and a um, the real temperature was like
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: twenty eight and the wind show would have been below zero,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and we did not have the proper equipment for those
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: kind of conditions. So I said, man, we have to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: we have to make a game plan on how we're
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: going to adjust to this. And the game plan was
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: we're gonna stick this out as long as we possibly can,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and then we're gonna leave because we these are dirt
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: roads to get back into some of this stuff. We
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: identified where the deer were at, and walking up some
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of this terrain in snow or rain or whatever just
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: really wasn't an option. And you know, we we each
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: have family leans and I don't want to hear that
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: story about a guy who necessarily gets lost, but you know,
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: tries to tries to do something and be tough but
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: then loses the toe because of frost bite or you know,
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: we just how fitting though, would that be? That'd be
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a kick ass story, though, wouldn't it? Would you? Would
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: you feel like more on balance if you had nine
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: fingers and nine toes. If I lost let's see, it
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: would have to be on my left foot. If I
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: lost the toe on my left foot, it might balance
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: me out a little bit. Oh maybe you should have
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: done it, dude. That could have been. That could have
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: been really what major career, right, but you know what
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, Like, we don't know if you've ever had
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to back out because of weather, but it was it
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: was a fifty it was it was gonna be a
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: fifty plus degree temperature shift. It was a huge storm
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: pushing through there. Right Montana got smoked, Coda got smoked,
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: and uh, Western m Western South Dakota where we were
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: at got smoked, and and we just were like, Okay,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: we're gonna hunt as long as we possibly can. And
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: uh sure enough where you know, uh we when we
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: ended up having to back out, but so later that night,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: uh for the day that we dropped all the stuff
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: off at the taxidermists, and you know, loaded up on
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: some more water, took down camp to move. We're like, okay,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: let's just sleep in the back of the truck tonight.
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: So we drive in uh to the back side of
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: this uh, this public ground, find the spot to where
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: we could drive the furthest and then we were gonna
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: walk up to where these deer were coming off. And
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: it was a warm day two days in a row,
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: so and this front was moving in overnight, and we said, okay,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: let's see, let's get in there a ways and find
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: a way to where or find a spot to glass
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: to see maybe we can see these deer coming out
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: of these drainages to feed at night, and then maybe
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: back doorm find a way to get in between them
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: and the drainage for for the morning hunt, so that
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: way I can shoot one coming down back into bed. Well,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: we start, we pack up, you know, I shoot my
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: bow a couple of times, start walking towards the hills,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: get up in the hills a little bit. We bump
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: a couple meal your dough. We coup bump a couple
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: of white tail dough and UH go about another half
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: a mile in and out of the corner of my eye,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I see like just this white flicker like a deer
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: a bug landing on a deer's ear, and it just
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: flipped his ear. That's it. And I look over in
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: the shadows of one of these hills, which was about
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: a hundred yards away, and I just I knew. I
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: just had this gut feeling. I knew what it was.
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, that's a meal there. I didn't know what
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: it was, you know there, And I just said to
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: the guy, keep walking, just keep walking. And what we
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: found out is that if if these deer see you
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: and you top, they'll run, but if they see you
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: and you keep walking, they will stay there. As you know,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: they feel that if they're still, you're not gonna identify them.
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: And so what we did was I just quick put
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: the buyos up while I was walking, and it was
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: a muletor buck sitting right there, and I said, just
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: keep walking, keep walking. So we walked out of his
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: line of sight, and then I started my spot or
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: my stock. I had him kind of in a position
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: to where he could see the hill that he was
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: betted on the top of it, and uh he was,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and he could see if I like, if he was
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: going to run away. He would be able to see
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: that uh if I if I did something wrong in
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: the stock. Uh. So so we get we get there, uh,
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: and I'm just like, I need to loop all the
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: way around to the back side because the wind was
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: coming over top of this hill to where he could
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: smell anything coming over the top up the hill. So
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: I had approach approach it from this at an angle
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: and not come at the tippy top of the hill,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: but come at an angle. And I walked all the
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: way around. I started ranging like bushes and the side
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: of the hills and just breaking the entire stock down
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: into like ten thirty yard increments, like okay, I need
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: to take my time. I need to go ten yards,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: start walking real close. And the closer I got, the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: more um, the more careful I was with every step,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: to the point where I was just slowly setting my
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: foot down, not taking a step, but just basically balancing
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: on one leg and just slowly putting all the pressure
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: down on my foot, just like, not all at one time,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: just slow. And that grass was still really dry and
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the wind was blowing pretty good. And I get within
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I get to the op where I'm just about able
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: to peek over, and the wind just stops, stops, and
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: I could start hearing and it was this buck breathing.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I could hear him panting almost. It was like seventy
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: five degrees. And I'm just like, no, what what is
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: that noise? And then as I'm creeping up over the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: top I had, I dropped my binose, I dropped my
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: The only thing I had was my range finder and
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: my bow. So I was and I'm creeping over just
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: like an inch at a time, inch at a time,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: coming up over top of this ridge. And I see
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: his antlers right, and he's he's facing he's kind of
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: at an angle, but I'm above him. Probably I ranged
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: his head at thirty seven yards, okay, And I get
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: up and I get to the top, and now I
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: take a little bit more of a step, and now
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I can start. I can see his neck and take
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of a step. Now I can
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: see his body right, he's bedded down still, and he's
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: looking away and his ears are pinned straight back. He's
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: looking forward. He has no clue I'm there. So I'm
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: adjusting my feet ever so slightly, just so I get
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: a good base so I can draw my bow right
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: and as I adjust my feet, there's this little crack
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: or two rocks clicking together, and he kind of perks up.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: He doesn't stand yet, but he's perked up, so it's
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: like something got his attention. And I'm like, I am
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: so screwed now, right, I'm gonna have to make this
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: happen now, So I draw back and I um he
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: said like I said, his head was at thirty seven
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: yards stood up right. So he stands up and he's
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: kind of glassen, but his body goes back to relax. Right.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I draw back and at that angle you can't get
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: a double lung shot, right because I'm straight above him, right,
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: So my goal is to blow out one lung. That's
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: that was what I was. That's what I'm thinking. So
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: at this angle, you're aiming higher on the body, but
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: you're imagining that the arrow is gonna come out right
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: between his two front legs, you know what I mean.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: So at that angle, I'm drawn back and it's like
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: behind the shoulder, but up higher on the body. And
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: as I'm going through my shot process, hold hold, squeeze,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: And as I squeezed the trigger, he takes a backwards
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: step I watched his whole body shift in my sight casing,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and I drill him complete passed through, not where I
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: was aiming, but a little bit up higher on the boddie,
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: and and he drops down. He drops pops back up
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: on the other side of the drainage. Complete passed through,
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: and I see blood start to pump out of his
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: of his of his shoulder. It's like up on the shoulder,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: and um, let's see up if if you're looking at
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: a deer shoulder broadside, it would have been if you
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: took the leg kind of right up. But the at
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: that angle, I thought, dude, I got one lung. And
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: he was bleeding really good. So I run up to
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: the and then he disappears. I run up to the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: top of the hill and I'm glass at him and uh.
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: The other guy gets his binos and grabs the spotting scope,
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: runs to a different point and we're watching him run away,
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: and he runs a really long way, and I'm like, dude,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: I got I feel like I got one lung on
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: this buck. I feel like I got one lung. And
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: so he drops down into this coolie. I guess you
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: would call it or this this another little drainage. We
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: see him. Oh he's probably he's not. He's probably not
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: quite a mile half a mile uh away, and his
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: tails flipper in his back legs are getting wide. I'm
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: just like, he's gonna bed down right there. He's gonna
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: he's gonna lay down right there, and we're not gonna move.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: And then it was almost like he was shaking it off,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: like he starts to shake his head, and then he
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: takes he trots up a little ways and he starts
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: to get wobbly, shakes his head, wobbles, gets up on
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: the flats again, the plateaus again, and he starts trotting away.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: I'm like, what the hell, you know, Like I feel
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: like I got a really good shot. And by this
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: time he's a good chunk away. But his entire body
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: is red, like from the blood, Like his whole side
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: is red. And you don't need to it's not you
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: don't need a rocket scientists to say he's hurt. And
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: while he's on this flat, you know, his tail he's
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: taking these wider, like left right, wider steps, and his
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: back ends seems to be going down. His head's going down,
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: and then he shakes his head and he's like it's
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: almost like he's get pumping himself up to make it further,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: and make it further, make it further. And uh, he
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: goes across this flat top, drops back down into another
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: drainage and that's where we lose sight at him. And
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: what we then me and Dan meet back up and
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: he's like, dude, you got good blood. Man, he's he's
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: you know, dropping. But what you have to realize is
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: it's hard to follow a blood trail in this this
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: waist high grass. Right, you've probably killed a deer before
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: in CRP or something like that, and it's it's I
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: don't care unless you smoke him, and it's just spraying
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: out like a super soaker. It's hard to find blood
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: in this And and I shot him high so so
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you know it was coming up and then draining down
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: his side. But I and I wasn't a percent sure
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: of where the exit wound was at, but I was assuming,
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: oh ship man, you know I passed through. He's gonna bleed,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: he's gonna leak. And uh, the last thing I remember
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: is him wobbling going down into a drainage. I said,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: that's where we're gonna find him. Man, he's gonna go
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: lay down right in there and we're gonna find him. Well,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: it's starting to get dark at this point, and so
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, let's hustle up. Let's go to this drainage. So, um,
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: I want to get a good idea. He stopped in
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: this one area. That's just this one area where there
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: was hardly any grass, real low grass. So we make
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: it to that point, I find a big pile of
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: blood and uh. And then we you know, through through
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: marking a uh, I guess a location through my blocies.
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, we gotta make it to that tree. Well,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: in Iowa, if you shoot an animal and it jumps
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: on to private ground, you have the right to go
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: do that. In South Dakota, you do not have the
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: right to do that. You have to have landowner permission
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: to hop the fence and go find this animal. Well,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: this buck ends up crossing a fence and that's where
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: the track job stopped. And so from this point I
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: started to get freaked out. I'm I'm like, okay, I
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: gotta find landowners. We're looking at our phones. Landowner, landowner, landowner, uh,
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: landowner camp you know, and and obviously nobody lives around
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: the where these ranches are at right, all they are
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: is crop ground or like these circles, but there's nobody
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: that lives on them. So I'm texting. We're looking looking
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: for phone numbers, and it's hard to find a phone number.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: So we're like, okay, let's go back to the truck.
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: Let's wait overnight and then start up. First thing the morning,
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: we go back. Um, the first thing we do when
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: we wake up is knock on a couple of doors.
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: Nobody's home. It's like it's almost like there's summer houses
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: for people when they're doing when they're working cattle. And
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: so then we go down this another couple of miles.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: Finally we get ahold of a guy and he's like, yeah, okay,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: well that's not my property, but I have his phone number.
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: I will call him and I will let him know
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna be on his property looking for the deer.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: If you run into anybody, you tell him. I I
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: said it was cool. I'm like, hey man, that's good
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: enough for me, okay. And because this dude's property bordered
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: another guy's property, he said he was gonna make a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: phone call for us. So we go back to the
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: drainage that we saw him in. Start the very top
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: and we're each on both sides. We can't find blood
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: because it's that waist tie, tumbleweed grass. Again, hop the
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: fence and there's some blood and we're following his tracks,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: fresh tracks, following his blood and come to a point
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: where we see it looks like his knee went down
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: into the dirt like he was getting ready to lay down.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: All right. One thing I did not tell you is
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: at as we're cooking supper at the truck, coyotes start
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: going off and they're going off close to where we
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: left the blood trail. They were going off. I bet
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: you there was one yards from the truck going off
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: and they were going off for a while and we
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: could hear him move, um go back there. And then
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you know, long story short, we started grid searching lots
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: and setting up in binoculars. We we did that for
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: seven over seven hours looking for this thing. Could not
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: find him. And I just was like, are you kidding me?
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Like I felt like I drilled this animal and I
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: should find him. You know, did the did we go
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: into aggressive to this drainage? And even though he was
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: on public or private ground, he saw us coming, or
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: did the coyotes bump him? You know, you start having
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: that doubt and like, what did I did I screw
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: up my shot? What what happened? And I don't I
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: still honestly don't know what kind of what what went
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: wrong in this whole scenario. I think it was just
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: a kind of a combination of everything not being able
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: to track him right away, coyotes came through. Um maybe
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: when he shifted his body weight backwards he took It's like,
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: so he stood up, but he was still in abedded stance,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: so that so to get more of a comfortable stance
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: he took a backwards to I don't know, And it
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: all kind of happened while I was pulling the trigger.
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I shot maybe higher up on the body, but I
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: felt like, dude, that's still lung, one lung I got.
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: You know, deer can die on one lung, and you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and then here we are with no meal there just
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: absolute you know, and then you're just in doubt the
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: whole You think about it over and over and over
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and over and over and over, like every day. I
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: still think about it. The entire ride home, I was
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: thinking about it and just it sucks, man, because it
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: was a really good buck. I mean it was not.
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: It wasn't as big as the other guys, but it
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: was a four by four really big body from what
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: I could tell. And I was completely calm. And I'll
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: tell you why. In the stock is because in a
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: stock like this, it's not like in a tree stand
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: where a deer comes by and you have to draw
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: and shoot it. I'm not even thinking about I'm not
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: even thinking about the the the shooting the deer at
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: this point because my mind is and you can't even
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: shoot the deer until you get to it, until you
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: can see it. So I'm thinking about every step, I'm
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: cognizant of my wind direction, right, You're all these other
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: things you're thinking about except the shot until you need
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: to make the shot. So you know, I drew back
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't even nervous. It was like I was practicing,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you know. I wasn't even thinking that this was the
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: very first buck meal here I was ever gonna shoot.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I wasn't even thinking about that. I was thinking about
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: like the steps, and it was like I was practicing.
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: That's how calm I was. So I don't want to
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't even have buck fever. And I don't know,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I just I don't know, just ship. So so would
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: you do anything different? No, Like that's what I'm saying, Like,
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking back at this, you know, I said,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: I was looking back at this, and I was saying, Okay,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: so I put a I put a marginal shot on
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: my white till last year, right, but eventually I found him. Right.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: I did not want that to happen to this year.
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: So I was and I was, I was practicing good.
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: You know, my boat was tuned in. I think, if anything,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: I may have took a little bit of a higher
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: angle try to get up the hill just a little
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: bit more on him to where I to where I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: was even shooting more straight down on him and not
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know. There was an angle, but not like
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: a straight down angle. So if I would have hit
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: the same place that I hit with this deer, it
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: just would have went almost straight down into his body,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So I was like shooting
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: straight down. So you think back at that, and I
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: don't think I did anything wrong. I honestly don't think
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: I did anything wrong other than that buck shifting while
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I was pulling while I was going through my my
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: trigger squeeze process. Animals, wild animals you can never you
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: can never know for sure what they're gonna do, how
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: they react to things. I mean, that is the always
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: unknown variable that can that can screw up the best
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: leag plans. It really sucks because I've had some critics
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: in the past, you know what. I know we talked
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: about it once about you know that someone when you
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: asked me on my white tail hunt, Dan, would you
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: take that shot again? I said, yeah, dude, I'd take
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: that shot again on a on a hard quartering away shot.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: And I had some critics, you know, leave comments about that,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: and I didn't. I don't want to think about it,
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: but it made me think about, like, Jesus, I'm gonna
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: get shipped on for this because there it's a deer
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't find and I shouldn't have taken the shot.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: But I'm just like, I don't think I did anything wrong. Uh,
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: you know, this is my first ever spot in stock
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: so this is a completely new experience for me. I
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: felt I did everything that I was supposed to do.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe at the moment of truth, I should have just
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: chilled for one more second. But with that, with that
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: the rock making a noise and he perked up. I thought,
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: oh my in he's he's tense, but he's kind of
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: body language kind of calmed down a little bit. Again.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: I just don't want him to bolt out of there
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: and and lose an opportunity. So it's right here in
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: front of me and I took it. What do you
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: take from this moving forward? Then? For your next hunt?
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Do you is there anything different that you're Are you
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: gonna practice in any kind of way differently? Are you
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: gonna think about things differently? Or or is it you
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: know what like you just said, you know, like I
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: did everything I could have, I'm just going to try
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: to get better in all facets and try again. Yeah,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: I will definitely be practicing different between now and next year,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: because I'm definitely going on the sun again. Um, I'm
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm going to practice shooting out of my treehouse
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: straight down on targets or on my deck or even
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: out of a tree stand or something to simulate these
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: really steep, awkward angles that you know you put yourself in.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Not every not everything's broadside I mean, And to be
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: honest with you, uh, I think that that's how most
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: of the deer are shot out there, or or you know, yeah,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: locate them, let them get to bed, and then shoot
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: them in their beds. Yeah, get above them and shoot
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: them in their beds. So I guess just more practice
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: in that type of scenario, right, Yeah, that's as a
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: unique kind of shot compared to you know what you
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: typically plan on for elk obviously not elk, and for
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: deer white tailed there too. So yeah, that's a good
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: thing to be thinking about. So what about this next year?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Let's say you don't rack up enough Brownie points or
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: works busy, or you've got a sixth kid or something
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: like that, and you only can pick one Western hunt
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: for next year? Do you go elk hunting again? Or
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: are you gonna do this meal their hunt again? That's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: a tough one, man, Um, I'm not getting any younger,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: so I should probably do an elk hunt just from
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: physical from a physical standpoint, but there's better odds I
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: feel going after meal here. Now, I honestly think that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: we had an exceptional trip out there. Uh. You know,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: I've had a lot of guys reach out to me
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: and say, hey, dude, congratulations on your trip. It sounds
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: like you guys got into them. It doesn't happen like
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: that every year, so be thankful for that. And I
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and I kind of put it all into perspective where
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: you know, you're right, we ran into it, so we
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: shouldn't be expecting the same thing to happen next year. Um.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: But what I will say is this was a very
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: fun hunt. And I if I had to, if you
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: were to ask me right now and then ask me again,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: I think this summer it would probably change. But as
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: of right now I'd probably go on this mule of
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: your hunt again. Yeah. Well, I'm glad you had a
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: good experience. I am sorry that the the end moments
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: did not go as we would all want them to.
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: But I trust that you will. You'll you'll come out
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: of it learn something and on the next year. Yeah yeah, buddy, Hi, Uh,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I don't know, man, I'm I'm jacked up. Uh Like
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: now now I just turned the page to white tails
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: onward upward. Uh. I will keep I will keep my
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: update real short. Um, because you gave you can't you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: give me more than I was expecting on the cliff notes.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: But it's good stuff, so I will take it. Um
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: as a hell of a hunt. Um, I will simply
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: just set the stage then and then our next episode
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: you'll get to hear from us after the hunt how
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: the whole thing goes. But but yeah, tomorrow night, me
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: and Further and our buddy Andy are taken off for
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: northern northern northern northern Minnesota, right there on the Canadian border,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: into the Boundary Waters Willerness area, and we're driving through
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: the night Tuesday night. We're gonna get there Wednesday morning,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: get our rental canoes and our wall tent and our
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: wood burning stove and a few other pieces of equipment,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: and then driving to our entry point. We're gonna load
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: up the canoes all of our gear for a week,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna paddle a river for something like four
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: to five miles, and then we're gonna get to a lake,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: and then there's a chain of lakes from there that
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: we can either set up camp on the first one,
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: hunt around there, or portage to another lake. Explore that
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: portage to another lake, check that out, and um, and
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: we're gonna see if we can survive it. We're gonna
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: see if we can find dead deer. Um. Anything legal
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: is our goal. So I think it's gonna be tough
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: to find any deer, So we're gonna have realistic expectations
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: on that front. Have you talked or looked at any
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: information about success rates in this area with archer equipment.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: Basically it's relatively unheard of. Like anyone we've talked to
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: is like, oh, you're gonna go in bow season. Um,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: it's a very low success rate during gun season and UM.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: But the only people we've found that actually do this
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: often they do it during rifle. UM. So we're expecting
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: zero pressure with the bow. Um. But you know it's
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: it's something like three to four deer per square mile
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: or something like that. Four or five deer square mile
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: is like the estimated deer density, So very low deer numbers. Um,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Andy May you're going with no, Andy Bradley. UM. So
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: you know we're gonna try and find anything, and we're
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: gonna fish in the morning and try to try to
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: feed ourselves with walleye for dinner or whatever we can catch,
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: and uh, scouting hunt in the afternoons and maybe even
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: shoot a grouse or two or your a small game
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: license and kind of do a a cast blast and
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: white tail hunt. So it is going to be a
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: full sweet experience, that's for sure. So how many acres
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: are you gonna be tooling around in? Oh? Man? I
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: mean it's like a I think it's a. It's a
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: one point one million acre wilderness area and like wilderness
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: with the capital W. So it's like an official wilderness,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: which means no mechanized travel, So you can't take motorized boats,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: you can't drive into it, you can't even take a
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: mountain bike into it. Um, you gotta go by foot
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: or canoe and um so rugged terrain. It's it's you know,
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: deep deep big woods and rocky kind of terrain. It's
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: this Precambrian Canadian shield rock features down in that area.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: So you've got these rocky islands and rocky shorelines and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: beautiful glacial lakes, lots of fish and uh a few
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: deer strolling around inside of it all. There's lots of
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: moose and bears and wolves. Um. So we'll be right
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: in the middle of it and just trying to just
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: trying to figure it out as we go. So big, big,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: big cold front snow and stuff came through over the weekend,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: and I think it's gonna be petering out just about
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: the time we get there. So we're not sure if
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be really wet and nasty or if we'll
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: be able to get out of there just afterwards and
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: it'll clear up and be nice. But it's gonna be cold,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: I know that. So we got a wall tent and
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: wood burning stove that will be all set up in
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: there and try to try to stay warm and try
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: to stay dry. We gotta be careful getting in and
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: out of our canoes, and if you shoot something loading
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: up the canoe with all your hunting gear and a deer,
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: that'll be different. Um, So it's gonna be Trev, be
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: safe and um get out of there in one piece
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: and withal ton of our toes. Yeah, absolutely, Man, is
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: this uh? Is there any uh cell coverage out there
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: or it's all going to be like in the dark.
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe a satellite phone. Well I think pretty sure there's
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: no cell service, so it's just gonna be with our UM.
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: I've got one of those in reach explorers so I
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: can like send out a text message to just let
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: my wife know I'm safe. And then I've got has
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: one of s O S button and stuff. The ship
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: really hits the fan and we need some kind of
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: emergency help. We can we can radio for that essentially,
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: but pretty much on our own. So we let me
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: give you some advice. This is you probably already have
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: thought about this, but if you need to transfer something
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: from one canoe to it next, take the extra time
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: and go to the shore to do it, even if
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: it's something simple, because I've been on a lot of
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: canoe trips in the day, not for hunting, but you know,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: just for recreation, and even something as simple as handing
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: somebody something could drop and then you lose that. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna be safe. I think we're not
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: gonna try to take any chances of that because the
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: temperatures we're gonna have. You know, if you get wet
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: and then it's degrees or thirty degrees or whatever, it's
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: gonna be. Um, that's not a good situation. You build fires. Yeah,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna we can build a fire and we
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: can have that wood burning stove piping in our in
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: our wall time, so we'll bill get dry. Um. But
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: you just you don't want to put yourself in that
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: position either way. So we'll do the full scoop. Um
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: In the next podcast, we'll explain the research we've done,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: all the work that went into putting this together, and
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: our game plan and our strategy and how we're doing it.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: We'll cover all that. Um, I'll get a shout out
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: right now to further he did a wonderful job. I
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: kinda with all the other things I got going on,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: I kind of asked him if he would be willing
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: to play point on on doing a lot of research
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: and talking to people and lining up our gear and everything,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: and did a wonderful job. So kudos to my buddy Josh,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: and UM, hopefully have a really good story for you
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in a week. And I'm jack for you. Man. These
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: are the kind of trips that I really like you're
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: because you're essentially disappearing. It's gonna be good just to
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: get back into nature and not have to worry about
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: the phone, not have to worry about social media, just
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: gonna very fully experienced this play in these animals and uh,
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: in our pursuit for him. So it's gonna be a
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: very Oh it's Ted Nugent likes to say it will
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: cleanse the soul, So that's the game plan. Good job, man. Well,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: I'm Jack for you. Thank you, sir, and I think
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: this might be our longest intro ever, so thanks for
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: sticking with us, folks. This is a long podcast here,
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: but it's a good one, we gotta really it's almost
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: a two part you can almost split it up in
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: two podcasts, really, but um, I'm gonna stick them together.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: We'll get that great meal dere store in the front.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: We're gonna get a really interesting kind of almost a
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: human interest piece here on the back half as we
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: hear how Luke dealt with this once in a lifetime
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: experience and um, and then we'll get back at you
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: next week. So let's shut this down here. Let's jump
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: over to my chat with Luke Brewster and uh I'll
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: chat with you all soon on the Boundary Waters front.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: All right with me on the line now is Luke Brewster.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Luke, Hey, thanks for having me on. Hey,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: I'm glad that we can have this chat. Um. It's
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: it's a unique chat for me even today because what
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: I'm most when I don't know if i'm most excited,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: but what makes you such an interesting guest to me
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: is what you just told me a couple of minutes
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: ago before we started recording this whole thing, which was
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: that you listened to Wired to Hunt as one of
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: the first things that helped you figure out how to
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: how to get into bow hunting and stuff, and and
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: that is like the coolest thing I can hear. Anytime
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: I get to meet someone who can point to Wired
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: to Hunt as something that's helped them or that kept
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: them excited through the through the season or whatever, that
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: is like the best thing for me. So I'm just
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: stoked that this has been a helpful thing for you
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: in the past. And uh, and glad that now it's
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: kind of led to you having some cool hunting experiences.
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: That's that's awesome. So thank you for for doing that,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: for listening and for kind of following along with what
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: I've got going on. Yeah, definitely, I mean, I gotta
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: thank you for putting all the information and doing everything
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: you do, uh for us, Uh, some of the newer
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: guys that are looking to get into it. I mean, uh,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: So it started when I got out of the marine
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: corps um it was getting too cold to fish. I'm
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: an avid fisherman, so uh, I started hunting with the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: buddy and I was looking for more information you know,
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: after I picked up a bow, um kind of gather
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: more information on on how to really get into it,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: and it stumbled up across your podcast, and uh, I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: just listened to as moon as I could head out
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: to uh Illinois, and uh I started un out there.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: So the rest is history. Huh Um. So you were
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: were messaging on Instagram at one point and you said
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: that you were you were even following along with my
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: whole holy field saga. Uh's familiar with that? Anything I
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: did wrong? Do you have any advice for me? Because
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: you obviously have figured out how to get it done
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: with a buck after multiple years? What did I do
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: wrong on that one? So? Man, to be honest, I
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: pretty much just got lucky. I mean I had you know,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: I did everything right there best to do. But in
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: terms of kind of patterning him, honestly, I just got
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: kind of lucky. And he wasn't He wasn't close to
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: where I mean, it was pretty close, but probably like
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: a mile away from where we had pictures overnight. So
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: that's amazing. Let's let's get into Let's set the stage
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: for this whole thing first. So, so you you got
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: into bow hunting after the marine corps. So you're an
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: adult kind of onset bow hunter, right, and you're picking
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: up stuff from podcasts and learning things as you go. Um,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: when did you when did you decide to start traveling
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: out of state to go to Illinois because you you're
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: you're from for in your right, right right, and so
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: you start heading the Illinois just looking for a different experience.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: You're hoping to see more mature bucks or what's what
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: led to you starting to make that trip? Okay, So, um,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: the first year I went hunting, my dad used to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: when I was a kid. Um, I never went with them.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: Kind of too young, I guess, but so my dad
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: kind of helped me out. Uh. We we have a
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: farm land out in Illinois, and I have about forty
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: acres of wooden and then uh, the family that does
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: my dad's farming, he has about a hundred and sixty
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: acres wooded and it's the agriculture country out you know,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: in Illinois where I hunt. So it's pretty much hunting
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of wind breaks and stuff out there. But
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: after the question, Um, I hunted here in Virginia like
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: late season with my dad's rifle and kind of trying
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to figure out you know, ways I can hunt other
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: places and uh plays of access more and more places
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: to hunt, so I can go out and try to
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: figure things out, you know, less pressured. And so I
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: started looking at the archery and I went to a
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: few shops and picked up a few bows and shot
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: a shot a bunch and kind of got some tips
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: from the archery shop on you know, for him and everything.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: And uh so I ended up buying one late season
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: that year, and then the next year, you know, the
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: old summer leading up to the next season, UM, I
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: had been talking to my dad about wanting to go
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: up to Illinois to hunt the family land, and so
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: I started playing that out and talked to the farmer's
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: family and uh set that up to go out there
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: for um for that season. And ended up going out
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: there and meeting the guys that at home with out
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: there now, and we just hit it off and really
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: quick right off the bat. And they say kind of
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: took me under their wing because my dad had given
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: them permission to to hunt our land way back in
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: a little so they it was right too, kind of
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: invite me in and and uh let me hump hump
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: with him. That's great. So was the How many years
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: did you go to Illinois before you killed this buck?
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: Or was it is it that first year you got
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: to go down there? Um? It was actually I've been
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: there twice before, h this previous season. So the first
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: year I went out there, I ended up getting a
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: good lesson on U on archery and you know your
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: angle through your shot. Um. I had a nice buck
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: coming in on me. I got, uh, got a little
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: bit of buck fever going on when he came in
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: and the way that uh he came in, he kind
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: of came like a right under the stand pretty much,
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: and I didn't think about the exit of the arrow,
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: and I ended up one longing um. And uh so
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: that was my first bad experience, uh with bow hunting,
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: which taught me a valuable lesson and one that I
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: think about every time, you know, I go back on
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: a on a deer. Yeah. So what did you do
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: from that point on? Then? I kind of looking into
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: a little bit of your background and stuff. It seems
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: like you take archery pretty serious now, a lot of practice.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: I saw you talking about practicing even out to a
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: hundred yards. Um. It sounds like you really put a
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: lot of work into into figuring that all out, Is
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: that right? Yeah? So another you know, another outlet that
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: I really got into was John Dudley has not gone
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: t d um. He's like, you know, he's the guru
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: of archery real world. I feel like, um, so, yeah,
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: I'd paid a lot of sense to him and watched
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of his stuff, and uh, me and my
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: buddies a big challenging ourselves out, you know, shooting at
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: different distances, just having fun and and that's where I
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: got no kind of longer range shooting and and uh
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: and just having fun with it, honestly. Yeah, gotta believe, right,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: I've I've always imagined and thought from my experience that
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: if you get competent shooting extremely long ranges while just practicing,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: it makes those closer thirty forty yard shots or even
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: twenty yard shots, makes those so easy or easier at
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: least in the moment when you know you can stretch
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: it out in practice, right, it just prepares you even
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: That's that's my whole philosophy is you know, you shoot
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: out father, I feel a lot easier about the other shots. Yeah.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: So you you start heading to Illinois, You've got some
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: new friends now that they are hunting that farm with you,
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: and this massive buck shows up on trail camera and
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: as I don't understand it, it was for several years
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: they were getting some pictures. He was a giant, so
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: you knew this this giant buck was out there. He's
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: back and he's obviously next level. What we're thinking, what
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: were you and your buddies thinking when you saw this
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: buck on trail camera and you knew that you might
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: be hunting him. Was this something that was exciting? Was
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: it stressful? I'm wondering because like just for me, you know,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: in Michigan, I had the biggest buck I've ever been
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: able to hunt in Michigan showed up last year and
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: it was really exciting. But at the same time, I
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: was like, oh my gosh, it was like a whole
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: new level of pressure. This like kind of once in
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a lifetime opportunity for me here in Michigan. And that
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: was a very different experience for me. Did that feel
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: and you know, different at all for you when you're
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: have that kind of buck around? Yeah, so I'm more excited,
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like almost I thought that
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: about it, like kind of winning the lottery, Like all
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: these thoughts run through my head like what if I
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: did this? You know what, you know, what would happen? Like,
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: you know it would it be life changing or whatever.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: I wasn't really nervous because honestly, I didn't really think
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: i'd ever see him pretty much. Uh stayed nocturnal of
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: the previous years, and my buddy justin yet a shot
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: at him the previous year, but there deflected off the
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: branch and he didn't he didn't sell up anymore. But yeah,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: I was honestly just more excited and just the thought
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: of you know, being able to put a tag on
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: him um kept me up quite a few nights, Yeah,
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: I bet especially the days leading too. But it wasn't
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: really too nervous because you know, I just it's one
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: of those things that if he comes around, he comes around.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: If he doesn't, and you know, I'm still enjoying the outdoors,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: that's a good attitude to have. Well, then it happens,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: right the two eighteen seasons there. Let's start, like, you
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: make your trip out there. Walk me through what happened
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: once you arrived in Illinois for trip um, walk me
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: through the story? All right? So I headed out there
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: is November one and Uh, it was pretty much right
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: in the whole entire drive out there. It's about an
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: hour drive from where I'm at in Virginia too to
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: eastern Illinois, and uh, so it's right in the whole time.
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: And I was thinking, in my head, I'll actually listen
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: to your podcast US on the way out there, like
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: I do every year. And then UM, I get Uh,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking in my head, you know you're talking to
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: I forget what podcasts you're um, but uh, what guests
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: you had on what was going on? But I just remember,
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, there's gonna be a lot of
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: deer coming around restening scrapes, so uh, you know, after
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: the frame, and so I was hoping it would continue
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: raining up until the next day when I could actually
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: get out on and uh, I get to Illinois, it's
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: still like kind of drizzling. Um. I meet up with
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: Justin he got off of work, and we right around
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: uh and uh pulled some cards from the cameras and
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: just talked about a lot of things, mainly about my
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: fassa and and how the weather is going to be
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: um for the next week or so. And then we
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: were talking about stand locations and everything and we head
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: back to the house he went, He went to his house.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: I stayed at the off his uh his father the
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: law's house. So later on that evening, UM he checked
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: some of the He checked some of the cameras. UM.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: I believe he had some more pictures to move faster
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: on them from the last time he checked. When we
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: first got pictures of them were picking up stands. That night,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: I chose to stay on my forty acres. They sat
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: closer to where they had pictures of them. Justin Ron,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: there's the two uh sun and laws of the farmer.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: They chose to sit pretty close to where they had
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: pictures of them. Um. I decided to say on my
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: forty acres just because they had been you know, I
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: didn't want to put any pressure on them, but you know,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: so like their spots, like they've been the ones running
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: the cameras and hanging stands and cutting steed and lanes
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: and everything, you know, while I'm here in Virginia. So
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: I just thought it was right that uh, you know,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I don't try to intrude, you know that makes sense. Um,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: But I out on my forty acres and I was
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: I had a few days come in that morning. What
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: was that spot? Like, by the way, what was the
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: spot you picked? What was the setup? So the morning
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: I shot him in the evening, but the morning where
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: I sat, it was just um. It was actually um,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: pretty quarly a dough bed, um pretty much almost I
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: don't know, maybe thirty yards from a big dough bed,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: a bought over of a grown drafs and um kind
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: of some immature trees. I had a few days, about
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: like four or five days, come in that morning, coming
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: coming to bed, and no box was trailing them. So
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: it's a nice spot. It's like it's gotten nice to
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: creak that run through. It makes the uge shape and um,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of fear will cross the creek and come
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: over and come up this embankment and come in check
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: the dough bed. So quite addistance from where you know M.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: Fassa his area was. But yeah, I I just figured
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: i'd sit there. You know, if good sized buck came to,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: like I had in my head that you know, I
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: wouldn't I wouldn't be able to. I didn't think I
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: was gonna be putting eyes on my fasta. I was
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: just gonna shoot the first mixture buck I saw. And
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: uh so that morning. I didn't you know, I just
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: saw the days, Um about four or five days come
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: into the bedding area and and uh uh settle in
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: in there, and about like ten o'clock in the morning's
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: in thirty we decided to get down and and uh,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: we'll get some breakfast and discuss some more stands and
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: meet up with Ron and and uh talk with him
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: and Justin. So we go. We go to breakfast. Um,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: then at a cafe it's kind of about like twenty
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: minutes away, and uh, I forget what Ron and uh
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: and uh and Justin how to do? I think that
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: would be something out their houses or something, and so, um,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: well we'll go back to at breakfast. So we're discussing
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: FADI locations and um, Justin had pointed one out to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: me on the map that I didn't have marked on
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: my on my GPS, and uh he said, the stand
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: has been there for about five years, and uh, they
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: haven't moved it and they're talking about taking it down,
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: but nobody stating about five years or so. So um
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: that one kind of stuck out to me. Had good
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: win for that day or that evening sit. Um. I
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: kept that in the back of my mind. So after that,
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: after breakfast, um I headed back to uh back back
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: to the farmer's house and was getting ready for the
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: evenings it and we're all techning each other with which
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: stands we're gonna go to. Believe, Ron says, first he
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: wanted to sit push to where we had pictures of them,
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: like camera where move faster was moving. Then UM I
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: picked next, and I would pick the same standard Ron
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: pick because I was confused on what Standy was talking about,
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: and Justin said, hey, uh Ron, you know Ron it
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: says that one. So I I was thinking about what
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: my next move was, and I told the guys, ay,
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go sitting that standard had been sat in
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: in five years, and it's like a mile south of
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: where they are at. They had good wind. It was
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: like a northwest wind, kind of a creek bottom, perfect
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: wind for for movement golden uh west to east, east
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: to west. Yeah, I told him I was gonna sit
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: in that stand there. They're fine with that, Justin says
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: another stand that was kind of close to where Ron
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: was sitting. I get out there a little bit earlier
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: than them, like about an hour hour hour and a
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: half or so, so I pull up the access road.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: I parked my truck, I get dressed, start making my
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: way towards the kind of across the corn field, making
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: a bee line straight for the woods. And uh, because
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: I hadn't been to that stand before, I was kind
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: of confused as the way it was at. And I'm
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: looking at my GPS. I'm looking up in the trees
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: and there was actually hit and in this beautiful offsade
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: orange tree that was just wicked. It had vines everywhere's
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: awesome concealment. And uh. I actually walked across the tail
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: at n Fossil came in on um quite a few times,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: just looking for the stand and uh so, so I
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: found the stand. I get up in there and I'm
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: getting saddled and I ain't my bow up and just
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: getting saddles, and I started range and everything around me,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: trying to get an idea of like, uh, you know,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: the just different ranges so that I keep that in
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: the back of my head. And while I'm doing that,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: I noticed a scrape um like right off the deer
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: trail um and I ranged that at twenty six yards.
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: I kept that in the back of my head and
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: started ranging other things and um, so I got an
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: idea of you know, what what yard is? M be
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: seeing that from that in that chief stand, and so
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: uh sit there for about, um probably about three or
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: four hours, and I started catching some movement off to
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: the east. And it's about two days. They're coming in
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: and they're acting a little weird. Um. I thought maybe
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: either wind was swirling a little bit down. Then maybe
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: they caught wind to me, and that's why they're kind
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: of high stepping and bobbing their heads, you know, kind
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: of cautiously walking, you know, towards me from from east
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: to west. And then uh, so I lose them in
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: the thicket. I'm watching them through my binders. I'm loving
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: I lost them in the thicket. Um, so I bring
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: down my binders. I look all. I catch some more
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: movement to my left. It's like, I don't know, thirty
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: yards from me, and it's New Fasila. He's coming in
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: and he's walking on the trail that just trudged all over,
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: um get looking for the stand and he's making his
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: way over to the scrape that I ranged that twenty
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: six yards and I'm like in my head, I'm like,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: oh my god, it's him, and I'm like I just
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: kind of frozen. I snapped out of it, and I
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, I gotta do something. I gotta
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: do something. And I look at his rack and I
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: was like, all right, I can't look at his rack anymore.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: I got to focus on his body. I picked a point.
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: I picked a spot on this body that I wanted
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: to shoot at, and I just focused on that. So
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: by then he by the time he gets to this
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: great if I've already hugged up my bindings. I grabbed um,
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: grabbed my bow, and I'm being really smooth and you know,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: very cautious about every movement I make. And uh so
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: he bought up that there at about a couple of times,
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: three or four times. And by then I get the
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: full draw and I'm still going I'm going through all
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: everything my checklist in my head of how I need
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: to make the shot, um, you know, everything that I
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: need to do to make a good shot. And uh
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: so I get the full jaw and I've got my
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: pen settled on him. You know, my bubbles is good,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: I got my anchor points. Everything's perfect. I've looked at
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: uh made sure my hair is gonna clear. Anybody answers
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: or any limbs that made the fleck my arrow and
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: he starts splinking the branch above him and that's when
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: I I squeezed my release and some similarity, and uh
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: it hit him and it made a pretty loud noise. Um.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: I thought I had actually hit his shoulder blade, and uh,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: it looked like a good stop. But that noise is
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: kind of got in the back of my mind, like
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: because I shoot an expandable mechanical and I I was
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: just nervous. I was nervous about it, but at the
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: same time, the shot looked good. It felt good, so
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: it was in the back of my mind. He takes
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: off and uh crosses this creek and I hear uh.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: He runs through the thicket, past the thicket and hear
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: loud trash. And I didn't know if he had run into,
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: you know, a log or something made it, maybe fell
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: all got up, walked off whatever. So I sit there
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: and I'm, you know, thinking about everything in my head
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: that just happened, trying to calm myself down, and I'm
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: texting the guys telling him what happened, you know, and
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: just shot me fasta. UM. Everyone's in disbelief, and like,
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: are you serious. Are you sure? So I'm open to tree.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: I just shot me fasta Um. I pulled up my
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: binders and I'm like second for blood, looking for blood
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: anywhere around that scrape that he was just that and
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not seeing anything. Um when he took Oh yeah,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: when he took off, the air was pin wheeling. Um.
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: And that actually the air penetrated penetrated all the way
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: through him. But when he took off, he snapped the
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: arrow in half in front of him, and the broad
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: headside went flying somewhere. And I saw the knock into
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: the air spinning doing a pin wheel as he took off,
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: And so that kind of made me a little uneasy,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: um seeing that. So what a few things just before
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: you go any further? Yeah, how how did you keep
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: so dang collected when he was coming in like that?
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: And you were able to stay focused and like think
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: through your checklist and making sure those things are all
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: spot on before taking the shot. Um. I mean that's
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: that's a hard thing to do with any buck, let
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: alone this buck. Did you have to We're doing a
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: lot of self talk. Did you have to ever like
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: control your breathing? I mean, I don't know what could
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: be going on physically, But I gotta believe maybe some
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: shakes or some seriously fast heart pumping. Was that a
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: thing or were you just like, for whatever reason, you
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: were in that zen mode and just worked out perfectly. Yeah,
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: it's uh the thing, I didn't have to watch him
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: come in. If I had to watch him come in,
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: my arrow would probably be in the next cop. So
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: when I first saw him, here was that thirty yards
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: So I didn't really have time to watch him. You know,
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: I didn't have time for all that nervousness. It's a
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: good point, you know, just kind of cloud my mind.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: Um so yeah, I just kind of went in autopilot mode,
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: just focused on his body, and uh, I pull myself.
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: I have to make this happen. I have to make
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: this happen. That's great, man. I wish I could be
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: that cool. I'm still trying to figure out how to
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: get better at that myself. So so you get the shot,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: you're a little nervous about it. Um, you text your buddies.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: What's your mental state at this point? Did you now
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: lose it? Did you lose your cool, con collectedness and
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: freak out or were you just nervous or how at
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: this point, Like, are you allowing yourself to be happy?
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: What are you thinking? Yeah? Yeah, So I did a
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: few fish pumps, you know, I still have that nervousness
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: it And there'd a few fish pumps, and uh I
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: texted the buddy my buddies and kind of asked him,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: you know, what what next step should I do? Should
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: I I'm getting down in half an hour and kind
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: of checking out the scene like where I saw him,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: Or should I go to the truck and come back
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: in like an hour or two, you know, give him
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: some time. Um Hey, they said they're gonna come down
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: to me here shortly. So I was just like, all right,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: we'll just oh waiting the tree for a half an
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: hour and get down head of the truck and maybe
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: meet them there and get down from the the tree.
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: I couldn't take it. I had to go and check
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: them out and check out the area. Yeah. So I
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: snuck up over there and I'm looking for blood. I'm
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: not seeing anything, and uh it made me just feel
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: back to the same sick feel and I have when
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: after I saw my arrow been wheeling, you know, been
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: wheeling around him. I'm like, all right, well, let me
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: at least find the area. I'm watch about like ten
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: yards from where I saw him directtionally went and I
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: find the aero It snapped in half. I was missing
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: a good I don't know, nine inches ten inches of
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: the arrow, and uh he's got about twelve inches of
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: blood on it on the arrow and I'm seeing a
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: little bit of blood um on the on the folly,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: on the on the ground, and uh, I started following
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: that a little bit. Um. It wasn't very big, wasn't
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: wasn't too much. I walked about another I don't know
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: five yards to the creek they jumped across, and I
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: see his hoopprint there and uh I picked my head
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: up and I'm just kind of glass and left the right,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: and uh, I see a big rack sticking up and
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: I'm like, there's no way, there's no way that's him.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: And I was just like infantly pulled out my phone
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: text of the guys. I got eyes on them and
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: they're all told me congratulations and everything. And uh, I
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: put my phone back in my pocket and I knocked
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: another arrow and I started creeping my way over to him, um,
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: being as quiet as I can. Uh, then if he
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: was you know, if he was just bedded down because
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: he was injured or something, I didn't want to they
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to jump him, or if if I did,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: I'd wanna follow up stide. So I did, uh start
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: making my way over to him and and confirmed he
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: was down for good, and did my celebration and and
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: sat down with him and just check them out and
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: thank them for for everything good you know, done for
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: me and the guy is only excitement over the two years,
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: and you know the me well, it was provided to
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: my me and my family. So what was that like?
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: Was that was it Was it any different than any
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: other deer you killed? Or was it the same? Like
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: you described the gratitude, um, excitement, I'm sure, but what
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: all was going through your mind at that point? I
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: was honestly in disbelief. I was just I don't know,
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: it was just it was it was weird. It was
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: it was kind of a weird feeling. It was, um
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: it was who's something else? Um? Yeah, trying to describe
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: it was it was kind of sad. You know, my
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: buddies have been chasing too. I kind of felt bad
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: for them. Uh Uh. I was kind of sad that
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: you know, this kind of this mythical creature that you know,
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: it's been so hard to to put a tag on. Um,
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna be chasing him more. And I was pumped,
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: you know, I was excited. Though you know I was excited,
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: I kind of felt a little drunk right after I
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: walked upon him. I was thinking when I picked up,
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: as when I was checking him out, looking at the
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: rack and everything, and there's a fresh break and um,
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: so I was kind of thinking about that as well, like,
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: all right, well I noticed this and I'm pretty sure
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: he had something right here and it was it was
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: pretty fresh. So I decided to retrace my steps and
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: by by the time he jumped over the creek is
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: uh the inshurts and next when really opened up and
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: it was just like a huge red carpet all the
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: way to him, from the creek to him. So he
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: started uh backtracking and following his trail um about like
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: I don't know, five yards ten yards from him was
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: a tree that he ran into. That was a loud
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: crash I heard, and he had broken off that that
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: it was that big club jop time. Uh, he had
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: snapped that off when he crashed. So I ended up
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: finding that at the base of the tree, and it
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: matched up perfectly with the fresh break, and so I
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: was able to keep that and poping you on as
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: able to count that on the score, which definitely benefited. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: I mean it's for anyone who's not seen pictures of
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: the deer, it is. It's a wildly unique animal. I mean,
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: how do you even try to how do you even
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: try to describe that to someone and into someone like
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: what it looked like, Yeah, it looked like a tree
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: roots system. Yeah, yeah, a root ball. Um. It's just, uh,
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: it's unreal. He put on over a hundred inches this year.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it's because they switched from in
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: the theater from corn to beans, because there has been
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: from corn to beans because there's been corn like the
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: previous two years, or something like that. I don't know
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: what it was, but he obviously he had the genetics.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: He was showing the potential last year. He had some
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: non typical um points coming off. But I mean he
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: just blew up. Yeah, crazy, crazy, unique animal and beautiful,
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, just a really really special creature. Yeah, what
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: happens after this? That's something that like I I understand
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: what it feels like to see a big animal come
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: in that you've been thinking about for years or weeks
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: and weeks and weeks. I know what that excitement is like.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 1: I know what it's like to walk up on a
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: deer and put your hand on his chest and have
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: that gratitude and that sorrow and that excitement. I know
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: what that feels like. Um, what I don't know about
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: is what happens after you have an experience like that
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: with such a rare, like a world class animal that
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: no one has ever seen before, killed before like this?
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: What starts happening next? I mean, do people show up
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: at your door that night where there were there? I mean,
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: what what happened over the next day or the next
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: couple of hours described to me the what I'm guessing
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: was maybe some hysteria of some kind. Did that happen? Yeah,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: like the first of media outrage and yeah, what what
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: goes on? Yeah? So I don't have Facebook kind of
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: deleted that like a year two years before, um this
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: had all happened. It's just been on Instagram. Really, So
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: I sent the pictures to my buddy after it happened,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: um here in Virginia, and he presented on the page
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: and it's just made its round. So pretty much every
• 1:44:16
  Speaker 1: archery or you know, every hunting page or a lot
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: of the hunting pages, and um, I guess the game
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: warden was getting a lot of emails, uh saying you
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: need to get to check the deer. I'll check this out.
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: So bad night I went to bed. Well, one of
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: my Justin's buddies, you know, he'd been telling Justin, hey,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: you guys need to keep that deal locked up and
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: keep it secured. Uh. It's kind of like there's a
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: few crazy people out there and you just don't want
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: something you you know, like that getting you know, stolen
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: or or destroyed or something because of jus like that.
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: So we ended up blocking them up and I went bed.
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: I went to bed that night, well tried too, probably
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: only slept about like maybe two hours. Um, just so
• 1:45:05
  Speaker 1: excitement everything that had just happened, and just kept replay
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: and everything over in my head. Um. So the next
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: day or next morning, um, just when I asked me
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: if I wanted to have one of his uh his
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: buddies come out, his dad, his dad buddy come out
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: and play some good photos with his with his camera.
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: And I said, yeah, let's do that let's go ahead
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: and uh get that plan. Um, so we put some
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: pictures around like nine o'clock and we're getting, uh getting
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: some good field pictures or the make some good hero pictures.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: Some of the field pictures. I guess there's a lot
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: of people complaining about being too much blood and stuff
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: like that. So I got some good uh good hero picks,
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: and um, uh the next thing I know, the game
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: warns pull him down the driveway and uh, I just
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: got done taking some pixtures with them and started talking
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: to the game board and he's checking everything out and
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: makes everything is you know, I'm the up and up
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: and everything was and uh make sure everything was good.
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: And after that, uh, I started trying to figure out,
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: you know, where are I getting next? To get a
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: taxi bar miss and get them takes and and ready
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: for that and get them to the processor. Was this
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: throughout that process? Was that? Was it still fun or
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: did it start getting stressful? Like when the game? Was
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: that a stressful situation? Yeah? Even though you're you know,
• 1:46:43
  Speaker 1: you know, you're you did everything expressed to and you're
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: all cleared. He checked on everything. You know, Um, you're
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: still nervous. I mean, you know, It's just one of
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: those things that, uh, no matter if you're in the right,
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: still gonna feel like there's something that you can do wrong,
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: you know. Oh yeah, yeah. You hear all these horror
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: stories about people and you know things that you know,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: some game warrings, games that they might play or something.
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: But oh no, I had a great experience with the
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: game warnings out there. They're all nice and they're they're fair,
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: they're good, good guys. So you got you got all
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: checked out of the game war and everything's clear. Yeah,
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: that was That was probably the best thing matter happened,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: because you know, everyone on social media, not everyone, but
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: there's a handful of people on social media saying he's
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: a highpense dere and this and that, and the game
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: warring came by and took pictures of them and got
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: the story and took pictures of his ears because if
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: there's a you know, if there's a hole in his ear,
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: then that would mean he get attack and he's you know,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: highpense came from a high sense place, so he got
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: his person that he needed to form to put it
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: out a statement to the public saying, hey, it's a
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: free range beer. That's great. That's great. It must have
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: been just a nice relief so that you didn't have
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: to have that criticism. And I gotta believe your situation
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 1: is so interesting to me, um because just in doing
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: what I do, like just sharing my stories and my
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: pictures and everything through social media for Weird Hunt, and
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: telling stories on the podcast and everything, just putting myself
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: out there to that degree, I get so much flak
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: for stuff. There's so many comments for people nitpick what
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: I did or disagree with what I did, or question
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 1: what I did. And a big thing for me over
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: the last few years that happens more and more is
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: I've had to learn how to deal with like public critique.
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: And I've had to in some cases like just stop
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: listening to stuff, Like there's certain places I know if
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: someone shares my video on I don't know, certain places
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: I know, there's gonna be people in that audience who
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: don't like me as much or whatever, and they're gonna
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: critique me for this thing or that thing. And I've
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: I've had to just start to not look at stuff
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: because because it impacts me, like it negatively influences my
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: mood for a couple of hours, it ruins my night
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: and I don't need that, so I've had to try
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: to find ways to avoid that. Did you have to
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: deal with that at all? Did did the social media
• 1:49:23
  Speaker 1: stress and comments and public opinion? Did that ever get
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: to a point that it was negatively impacting you? Stressing
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: you out? Like? How do you deal with that? Because
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe there's a whole lot of talk going
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: on around this, right Yeah, So at first I was like,
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: I didn't care at all. I was like, whatever this
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: means I did something good and people are jealous and hating.
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: You know, people are gonna hate or you know, try
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: to downplay, you know, something awesome that happened. I get.
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 1: I mean I get the people questioning things because if I,
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: if I was in there of shoes, I would have
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: been like that probably would have been the first I
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 1: thought that had popped into my head without reading or
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: hearing the story or anything or knowing anything about it.
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 1: It's like, is that a hyphenser So I get that
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: some people, But I mean even after the story is out,
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: you know the game one David, you know his thumbs
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: up and and everything that, you know, all the proof
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: that's out there, you know, I figured it would sut
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: shut a lot of people up. But you know, you
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: still get it, or I still get it every now
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: and then. But I guess it's just one of those things.
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: And yeah, at first it didn't bother me at all,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: but then after a little while, and kept hearing it
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 1: and kept getting this, and there's been a lot of
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: people that have had my back and you know, pretty
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 1: much vouched for me and shouts for the deer and everything.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: So it's nice to have that that support. But yeah,
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: it kind of it kind of bothered me a little bit.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: But now it's just like whatever, I just keep on
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: scrolling passes, keep on keeping Yeah, I think they're pretty
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: much this one um one attention or something. I don't know. Yeah,
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Now, what about the regular media,
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: not social media, but actual reporters magazines, I don't know,
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: I mean podcasters like me. Did that start happening right
• 1:51:27
  Speaker 1: away where people reaching out to you or what? What's
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: that look like? What happens in that kind of situation.
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 1: So I guess like the first few weeks is kind
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: of heavy, a little bit um people wanted to get
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: ahold of me from magazines and stuff like that. Different publications. U, um,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: just a you know, a handful of people and get
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: a hold of me about everything, and uh kind of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: put it on hold for a little bit because it's
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: wanted to kind of settle in and figured things out,
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: put a lot of it on pause, just figure I'd
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: just take it slow. I don't really do want to
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: do too much until after the score. Um. So yeah,
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: it wasn't as bad as I thought it was gonna be.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: I figured it is, you know, I would have everyone
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: and their mother coming out after me for something or other.
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: But it really wasn't too bad. I guess that a
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: lot of people that I've been talking to me recently,
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: they kind of said they wanted to wait until the
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: dust settled to get a hold of me. So I
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: kind of got like a second wave, like quite a
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: few months later. It was just like, okay, here's another
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: wave of coming in of of uh, you know, people
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: that want to get some information or do a story
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: or or whatever. Yeah, So did you did you find
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: out pretty quickly that hey, this is probably the largest,
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: the highest scoring deer ever killed. Like, was that something
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: that you knew pretty quickly when someone scored it? And
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: did that? Did that sink into you? What did that
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: mean to you? Did that? Was that like a thing like, oh, well,
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: that's cool. But either way it's a massive, like amazing
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: experience and deer or was it like did that change
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: things somehow in your head? And this became like a
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: holy ship moment? Like what was that? Like? Yeah? So
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: I think because I'm you know, I'm fairly new to hunting. Um,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, I grew up around it, but I didn't
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: really get into hunting until like, I don't know, five
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: or six years ago, so I'm still kind of new
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: to it. And it didn't really think in like, you know,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: benches didn't really matter to me. I guess it was
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: more about like the majority of the deer by the
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: time I shot him. So, I mean I was just
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: happy to put like a buck of that caliber down.
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I didn't really care about benches or if
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: he was a world rectord or anything. And and so
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't really, I don't know, I wasn't too hung
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: up on that that whole thing. Um, I was just
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: pumped to have you know, a good material. Buck Down
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 1: is my second honestly, my second book, Buck with a Bow,
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: Believe it or not. So It's a great way to
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: get started. Yeah. Yeah. Where do I go from now? Though? Yeah?
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: Well that is that is the question, like how how
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: did this? So you you kill this once in a
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 1: lifetime for all of us buck? Where do you go
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: from now? Did you? Like? What are your where's your
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: head at? For two thousand nineties? I've got a bunch
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: of more questions that I want to still get tackled
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: about what happened right after the buck? But since you
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: brought that up, where's your head at? Leading into this season? Um,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know how do you follow that up? What
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: are you trying? What do you do? You want to
• 1:54:46
  Speaker 1: shoot a mature buck? Do you want to shoot a
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: big buck? Do you? I don't know. I have no idea.
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: What's got to be going through your mind? So pretty much?
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, I gotta fill the frazer first and foremost. Um,
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: I don't really buy meat at the store ever, really,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: I just need you know what I what I get
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: from the field. Um, So first as still a fraser
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: um tag A few days, Um, go out to Illinois
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: and uh try to put it my sure back down. Um,
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: I got a few good ones on camera now, I mean,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: if it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen, but I plan
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: on kind of. I want to go out west, you know,
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 1: not this year because I pretty much um used up
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 1: all my vacation from work, you know, doing things with
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: my fasta, going on a few shots and whatnot, so
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: getting scored. I've just been back and forth across the
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: country so much this year, probably put about twenty miles
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: on my truck so far, and burned burned through a
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: lot of vacations. So my plan for you know, next year,
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: after this season, the following season is I want to
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: go to Idaho and you know, go go hunting out west,
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: get that experience, because to me, hunting is more about
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: like the experience, um uh than me. I love Sason
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: White Shills, but there's there's so much more, you know,
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: I want to experience. I love it. I love it.
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 1: I think you're I think you're right on, and I'm
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: really glad that someone with that perspective is who killed
• 1:56:24
  Speaker 1: a buck like like the one you did. Um, that's
• 1:56:27
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. How do you how is this this inside
• 1:56:32
  Speaker 1: look that you've gotten to get at the at the
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: you've heard if you've listened to podcast you first talked
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: about this, like the kind of big buck media frenzy
• 1:56:43
  Speaker 1: around high scoring antlers. Right, Sometimes you talk about like
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: does it go overboard? Is there a negative side to
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: this at all? You have now gotten thrust right into
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 1: the middle of that as a relatively new bow hunter.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you kill the highest scoring deer
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: that's ever been killed by hunter. You're surrounded by media.
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: People are wanting your picture, people are wanting your interviews,
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: They're doing stories about you. People. I'm sure they want,
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: you know, shooting their ball or using this thing or
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: using that thing. What Now that you've lived in how
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: do you feel about it? Do you feel like it's
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: is it cool? Do you feel like there's a negative
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: side to it? Do you feel like it's just a
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: great positive thing. I'm just kind of curious about coming
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: out of this how it feels to you. Oh, there's
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: several things. It's it's kind of like picking up a
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: second job. So I'm kind of kind of a little
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: bit overwhelmed with the everything right now. Um. But on
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: another thing is it's awesome to be able to share
• 1:57:44
  Speaker 1: this beer with so many other people. I love going
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: to shows and just talking to you know, regular people,
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: regular hunters that just like to get out there, and
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: you know, I love conversating with them and meeting new people.
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: That's That's probably one of the most positive things I've
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: gotten out of the experience, you know, since since putting
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: the tag on him, is going out and just talking
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: to people and and uh just staring the experience and
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: let them enjoy, you know, what God has put on
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: this earth for us to enjoy. You know, God's great.
• 1:58:20
  Speaker 1: So oh yeah, that's awesome. Probably big positive right there
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: is just being able to be the guy that gets
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: to share such a So it's an awesome, awesome creature.
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: That's a that's amazing privilege. Now, has there been any
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 1: downsides to it other than it just taking up a
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: lot of your time? Um, anything that you experienced, like man,
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: that that was kind of icky anything like that. Um No,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: not really. Um, just it picks up a lot of time.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: Um yeah, just so yeah, it's pretty much. This sucks
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of time time away from family and and
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: uh might put a little bit of short in my
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: hunting season this year, but I mean it's worth it.
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: Yea plenty more years to come, So that's true. I
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: guess you this is this probably isn't gonna happen again,
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: so you might as well, uh soak it all in
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: and really cherish this whole experience. I gotta believe. Yeah,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: but you know, you never know, I mean I thought
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: you never thought. Nobody thought, you know, the beaty bug
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: is gonna get broken so or even the talk about so.
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, it could happen to anybody, you know. Yeah
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: that's the truth. Do you feel like do you feel
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: like you've changed it all coming out of this? Did
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: this force you to change to grow to I mean
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: maybe in hunting or maybe even outside of that. I
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: just gotta believe this is this is probably a life
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: changing experience. I'm just curious it has changed your life. Um.
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: I learned that I need to get more comfortable with
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: being on the camera or just I don't know, just
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: um dealing with media type things. I don't know, kind
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: of a little bit overwhelming effort because I'm just some
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: you know, some nobody you know from Virginia, and then
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: I get thrust it into the big limelight and cameras
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: pointing at me everywhere and doing all this other stuff.
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah overwhelming, Um yeah, I mean more more time, you know,
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: I'm around it the more comfortable I'll get. But it
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: was one of those things I learned that you know,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 1: I needed that that I need to grow to, uh
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: to deal with. I guess do you feel like this
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: is something now? Having gotten all this attention? I guess
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: around this year and this experience, do you are you? Are? You?
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 1: Do you want more of that? Like do you hope that, hey,
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna get another big buck, I'll get
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: to share that story and like you you you express
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: that you enjoy getting to share that experience and share
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: that buck with other people, Like that was a cool
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 1: thing for you? So excited for more of that? Or
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: are you feeling like, you know what, I'm kind of
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: looking forward to eventually, just like fading back in the
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: shadows and getting my privacy back, Like where are you
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: on that one? Yeah? I mean I think about that
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: from time to time, just like kind of flying back
• 2:01:33
  Speaker 1: into the satus and just going out and hunting, you know,
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: just provide, you know, my own piece and I'm just
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: doing my own thing. But at the same time, I'm like, whoa,
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: you know, if I thought about maybe filming some hunts
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: in the teachers just for if not, you know, to
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: share on with other people or just to have for myself,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: you know, just to share with buddies and and stuff
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: like that. So I don't know, it's kind of up
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: in the air, like where what I want to do now?
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, it's a good position to be
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: and you can try new things, and I gotta believe
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: some cool opportunities have come out of this too, um,
• 2:02:14
  Speaker 1: which which has gotta be fun. Yeah. So what about
• 2:02:19
  Speaker 1: from a hunting standpoint? Um, Like you said, kind of
• 2:02:23
  Speaker 1: lightning struck and this crazy thing happened to you, But
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: you obviously made some right decisions along the way to
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: someone's luck. Someone's being prepared for that luck to arrive. Um.
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: But now when you look back on the hunt itself
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: and you look back on the situation in a couple
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: of years you've been going out there, did you learn
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: anything from this experience from a hunting standpoint that now
• 2:02:45
  Speaker 1: in two thousand nineteen you're going to be putting into
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: action in some kind of way with your future hunts. Um.
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: I haven't really thought about that. Um Uh, do you
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: ever think about why? Do you ever think about why
• 2:03:04
  Speaker 1: he was there? Like what what led him to want
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: to be there? Because I'm always kind of interested, Like
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: I'll shoot a buck and then I'll sit back and
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: say okay, and it doesn't happen till long afterwards, because
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: then when it just happens, I'm just excited and happy
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: it happened. But long afterwards I'll sit back and say,
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: why did that happen? You know, I set my stand there,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: I decided to hunt there because I thought something would happen,
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: but what actually ended up being the case? And then
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: I'll kinda sit there and bs with myself and try
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: to think, well, he was coming from this direction. I
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: bet you he was trying to do this or that
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: Bill walked in and that's why he was there. Did
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: you ever get a couple of quiet minutes to think
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: back on that and kind of say, you know, I
• 2:03:39
  Speaker 1: think he ended up coming in here because he was
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: moving here to I don't know, wind Betting area, or
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: do you think he was just on scrapeline or what
• 2:03:48
  Speaker 1: do you think? So he Um, he doesn't ever so up.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: We don't have any summer pictures of him. He doesn't.
• 2:03:56
  Speaker 1: We don't know where he summers at. Um. He always
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: say is up late. It starts up late October, and
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: that's when we start getting pictures of him on camera. Um,
• 2:04:09
  Speaker 1: so this shows up pretty much for the rut, and
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: then after the fever he disappears and you know, we
• 2:04:17
  Speaker 1: don't see him again until next next next, uh next season,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: right before the rut. So it's kind of, uh, one
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: of those things. He's just he lives somewhere else and
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: comes over to stay some days around on the property
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: and and gets out of there. So I think what
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: he was doing is he was betted down. We actually
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: got pictures of him the morning that I, um, the
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: morning of the day I saw him. So he's headed
• 2:04:45
  Speaker 1: down from where the guys were sitting. Um, they passed
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: a few cameras. He was actually walking the field edge,
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: um outing the open around like eight or nine in
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: the morning. Eight He's like right below where the guys
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 1: were at. And uh, he was headed down towards well,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: headed towards me where I sat that evening, and uh,
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: I guess he was going down to going somewhere he
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: felt safe to bed down. It was close to where
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: you know, some other days were at and so I
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: think he betted down on this point kind of close
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: to where I was sitting. I must have passed passed
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 1: them on the way to the stand. And when I
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: got to the stand, Um, a few hours went by.
• 2:05:30
  Speaker 1: He got up and started making his rounds two different scrapes,
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: and and uh, just freshening things up, freshen and is
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: getting thiss sent back out there? And then there you were. Man,
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: what uh what a hunt? What I just I just
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: can't amend. What What an interesting experience must have been
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: for you. Now, now you're almost a year out from it.
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: You've experienced the hunt itself, You've experienced the media hysteria
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: around it, You've experienced all these additional events and things
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: you've been going to and travel in the country and
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: sharing the story with people. Um, it sounds like there
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: was some good stuff. There were some things that were
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: stressful at moments too. Looking back on that part of things,
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: is there anything you wish you'd done differently? Is there
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: anything you wish you could go back and change or
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: redo or anything, or did it all go the way
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: you kind of hoped? Um, it's all pretty much gone
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: with that I hoped. I mean, yeah, I really can't complain. Um,
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: that's great. Working with the deer companies or the you know,
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: some of the products that I've used. Um, yeah, I
• 2:06:46
  Speaker 1: mean there's a luckily you know some of the the companies,
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the products that I use, they have been
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: pretty awesome me helped me out with the few things
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 1: so help mail for the future of season. So that's great,
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 1: that's terrific. Definitely burn to it. Oh yeah. So so
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: then my last question for you, it's probably an easy one,
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 1: but I don't know, maybe not. If you are sitting
• 2:07:15
  Speaker 1: in a tree. Let's say you're in a double ladder stand,
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: and just just just roll with this with me. Let's
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: say you're in a double ladder stand. You and your
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: best friend are sitting in that ladder stand together. Your
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: buddy he's hunting, he's got the bow. You don't have
• 2:07:32
  Speaker 1: a bow, you're not gonna shoot. You're just sitting with
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: him for the night. And a buck shows up half
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: an hour before the end of shooting. Light comes walking
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: in and he stands in front of your buddy at
• 2:07:44
  Speaker 1: twenty yards and this buck is obviously the largest white
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: tail that's ever been seen in the wild before. It's
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 1: bigger than the buck you killed. And your buddy turns
• 2:07:55
  Speaker 1: to you and he says, hey, Luke, should I shoot him?
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 1: What would you say would you say no, all the craziness,
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 1: the stress, all the time, it's gonna take away from
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 1: your family and friends, it's not worth it. Or will
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: you say yes, this is gonna be the coolest thing
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: that ever happened. Shoot, hell yeah, shoot that yeah nice?
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: All right, definitely don't don't turn down that opportunity. Very cool, awesome. Well, uh, Luke,
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you taking the time to to share this
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: whole experience. It's it's really cool that that someone who
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: just loves to be out there hunting, wants to meet,
• 2:08:34
  Speaker 1: wants to have a great experience, wants to, you know,
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: every once while get a mature buck, that that someone
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: like that was able to capture lightning in a bottle
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: and and have a have a life changing experience like
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 1: this and and share that store with people. So so
• 2:08:48
  Speaker 1: thanks for doing that, Luke, and for sharing it with us. Yeah,
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: thank you, Mark, thanks for having me on. And I
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 1: guess the only thing I want to know is, uh,
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: next time you've got one of these mega Bucks in Illinois,
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: you just let me know about it so I can
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 1: come down and check it out. Alright, look, good luck
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: this season. I hope you have just as much fun
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: in the coming weeks as you did last year. Thank you,
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: good luck to you this season. I appreciate it and
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: that is a rap. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this one
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: long episode, two different unique topics, but we covered a
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: whole suite of different things that hopefully can be helpful,
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: maybe insightful, and definitely interesting. Good luck to all of
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: you out there hunting. Stay tuned to the Media YouTube
• 2:09:34
  Speaker 1: channel for another episode of the Back Forward coming soon,
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: and over on the wire one Instagram, I'll have lots
• 2:09:39
  Speaker 1: of updates from my Boundary waters hunt and all the
• 2:09:42
  Speaker 1: other good stuff we got going on, so check it
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: out and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.