Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 597: Rut Hunting Lessons, Successes, and Sorrows

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Ep. 597: Rut Hunting Lessons, Successes, and Sorrows · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and this week on the show, we are
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: discussing the white tail rut and I'm breaking down my
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: first week in November hunt in two. All right, Welcome
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: First Light, and today we are deep in the white
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: tail rut. When you're listening to this, we are still
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: in the peak best of the year. Time to be
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: deer hunting. It should be great. And what I want
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: to do for you today is share some important lessons learned,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: some high level ideas and specific tactics and different things
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that you can do to have success over the coming
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: days and weeks. And the way I want to do
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that is by telling you the story of the hunt
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: that I just finished up. I just finished up hunting
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: one Week in November. This is UH as part of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a show that we film called One Week in November,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and basically, if you are not familiar with the show,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: it follows myself and this year, four other hunters as
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: we hunt different parts of the country for the first
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: seven days of November and you get to see what
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: each day of that month looks like as we go through,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: you know everything the RUT can throw at you. So
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: I want to tell you my story. I want to
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: break down how things went for me and use that
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: as as kind of a canvas to cover a number
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: of different deer hunting ideas, specifically for how to have
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: success at the time of the year. But before we
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: get into that, I want to, uh, I want to
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: kind of shine a spot let on something that you
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: might have missed last week. I just mentioned this is
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: the best time of year, right, you might say it's
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: the most wonderful time to kill deer. Now if you
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: miss this, at the end of last week's podcast, we
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: had a special little surprise for all of you, a
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: song that was produced by our two podcast producers, Phil
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: and Hayden, who put together an amazing original rendition of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: what we are now calling the most Wonderful time to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: kill deer. It is a riff on the most wonderful
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: time of the year, the Christmas Carol, which we talked
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: about uh last week. I guess in RUT Fresh Radio me,
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Casey and Tyler, we're talking about how somebody needs to
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: write a song about this, but a deer hunting version
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of it, you know, taking the Christmas carol and making
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: it a deer hunting song. Well, Hayden and Phil went
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: ahead and did that, and they included it at the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: end of last week. But I know some of you
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: may not have made it all the way to the
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: end of the show. So I want you to listen
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to it now, so to say, at the mood for
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: today's episode, to really get our spirits right, we're gonna
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: listen to this truly amazing Christmas slash run hunting song. Hayden,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: cue the music boys. Good to see you, Hayden. It's
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: been a while. Hey, sorry, I'm late. I crashed my
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: ponty at gast. I can do a light pool and
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: how to walk the rest of the way. But I'm
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: here now. That's what matters. Give me a glass of Scotch, please, Hayden.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Just two rocks in there. I don't like ice. We're
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: starting already, this is happening, Okay, just give me the
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: give me the glass, thank you. Okay, here we go.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: It's the most wonderful time to kill dear with the
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: run now, just starting and dashing and dotting and things
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: cutting clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: There's far too much ice in this glass. It's the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: half happyest season of all. There's gotta be at least
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: twelve with grunting and bleeding and called fronts AND's leading
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: the last weeks of fun. It's the half puppy seasing
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: of all. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: boasting and trunk beds with big bucks and tow there
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: will be narrow missed stories and tales of your glories
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: of booner bucks missed with our bows. It's the most
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: wonderful time to kill dear, not just one baby two.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: There will be no toos of blowing and loomennox blowing
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and blood trail so clean. It's the most wonderful time
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: to kill dean. Excuse me? Can I have a napkin? Please?
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: I just spilt some scotch on my loafers. I can't
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: have dirty loafers in the studio. Thank you, tail gay
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: fearsful drinking and big bucks of slinking and chasing and
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: sent checking dose. They'll be fighting and scraping and no
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: more escaping and arrow shot true hitting home key change.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: But no one told me it's the most wonderful time
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this. There
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: will be much morning sitting in cold fronts, hitting the dawn,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: crispin clean. It's the most s wonderful time. Oh, the
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: most swonderful time. Yes, the most wonderful time to kill dean.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks, now,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: come on, I mean that is uh, that's pretty legendary.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: I mean I when I first heard it, I was
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was shocked at how well it turned out. I
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: laughed a lot. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope you
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: did too. And now with that kind of set the mood,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: all right, your palette is cleansed. You're ready to discuss
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the rut. Let's talk about my week and what we
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: can all learn from it and what we can all
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: do better from it. Last week if you remember it,
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: not last week last year, if you remember, I did
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: one of these shows immediately after my week hunt, and
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: I kind of broke down everything that happened, the good,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the bad, the ugly, and uh. I wanted to kind
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: of do that same format because it's very different than
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: our usual show right, there's no guest, it's pretty raw.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: It's completely unplanned. I have no notes, I have no anything.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: I'm just going top of mind here. But sometimes that's
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: the best way to to kind of relive and learn
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: from something is to just immediately after it spill your guts.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: And so that's that's what I'm gonna do, and I
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: hope this is helpful. So let's set the stage. My
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: plan for this week was to have two states lined
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: up that I could hunt. I was going to first
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: go to Nebraska, and then if I filled my tag
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: in Nebraska, I was gonna go to Ohio. Now let's
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: talk about these two locations. Uh. The Nebraska location was
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: something that I came to last year. Well, actually several
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: years ago. I learned about this general region when me
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and my buddy Andy May went for a hunt in
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: Nebraska together. Had a lot of fun on that, really
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: enjoyed the country, saw some deer kill the nice buck.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: So I knew someday, you know, I'd be interested in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: going back. Well, last year, I was trying to plan
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: a great Plains hunt of some sort to uh foul
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: with Tony Treach and learn his method for decoying white
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: tails on the ground. So if you watched my show
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: Dear Country this year, you'll see that episode. And what
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I did is I found some public land out there
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: and set footing up for the first time and ended up,
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: you know, seeing some nice deer having a good time.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: But I bring all this up to say that at
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the end of that trip, we actually bumped into a
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: guy who owned some land in the same general region
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: and we asked for hunting permission there as well, and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: he was incredibly generous enough to let us do that.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So the last two evenings of that hunt was on
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: this private land and on those two nights, you know,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: it was very short. I just kind of went in
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: for like the last two hours of the night on
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: both evenings, and again we're just doing this on the
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: ground thing with the decourse. I basically was just kind
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of stalking my way across this property and glassing. But
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I ended up seeing some deer, including one nice buck,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: really nice buck. So that was, you know, on my
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: mind this year when thinking about where do I want
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to go from my November hunt, and I decided, you know,
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: as some of you might remember, in the you know,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: weeks and months I've led up to this. I've talked
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a lot about my goals this season, and one of
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: those main goals is to just get back to the
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: fun of it. Do you know, do things make decisions
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: um because it's fun, Because that's what hunting is supposed
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to be. And I at times have been guilty of
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: making it a mission and an obsession and losing the
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: fun because of that. So when I was planning out
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: wherever I want to spend my rut, I thought there
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: would be a lot of fun, and this Nebraska location
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: was that for me. I love these kind of wide
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: open terrain type locations. I like being able to see
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: long ways. I like to be in a spot where
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it's just beautiful and not a lot of people, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: that is what this location is. So I thought, hey,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: let's go out to the places gorgeous where I know
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: there's some decent deer where I think it would set
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: up well for the rut because this is kind of
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: wide open terrain with some creek bottoms and river bottom
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. And you know, typically in that kind
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of scenario, like you'll find in Nebraska, some of the Dakota's,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: uh Kansas, of course, parts of Oklahoma, probably eastern Colorado
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: in those types of areas, you know, dear funnel along
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: tight stretches of cover. There's not a lot of cover,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and so where there is, it funnels the deer movement
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: really nicely. So I thought, man, that would work great
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: for the rut out there. So, uh, that's what I
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: decided to do. I decided to head to Nebraska and
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: I would hunt it, you know, the way I would
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: normally hunt that being you know, from a saddle up
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: in a tree. But I'd also bring my decoy so
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: that if I wanted to try the thing I learned
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: last year with the heads up decoy, I could. And
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I was also going to bring my full body decoy
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: so that if I want to set up in the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: tree but put a duke kiy in the ground, I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: could do that too. Um And basically just you know,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: go back to a place I love a lot, but
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: hunting in a different way than I did last year.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: And also I would have, you know, hopefully be able
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: to hunt that public land as well if I needed
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to to. So that was you know, part one of
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: the plan, part two of the plan. If I were
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: to kill a buck in Nebraska, I needed somewhere else.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I could go for the rest of the week, and
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that location was going to be Ohio. Now there's like
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a long winding story of how I came to find
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a place to hunt in Ohio this year. Um, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: spent a lot of time this summer just talking to
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people, asking around, trying to trying to
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: get a spot, trying to get access to a good thing.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: And um, you know, I think I mentioned this already
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: with Dan the other day, but had a spot that
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: came together at the very beginning of October, and again,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: very last minute, nothing happened in the summer despite my efforts.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Finally something came together in early October, and then like
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: a week later that fell apart, and then found another
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: thing that kind of found my lap in mid October.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So all I was able to do to prepare this
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Ohio property was get down one day in October and
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: do a speed scout. I literally got to the property,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: ran around as much of it as I could, got
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: eyes on as much as I could, and put up
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: some trail cameras. And that's it. So let's discuss what
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: that Ohio property looks like this, you know, in comparison
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: to the Nebraska piece which is a very large ranch.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: This Ohio stuff was two very small parcels. I had
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: a thirty some acre piece and then a seventy acre piece,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and and that's what I was gonna have to work with. Now.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: When I got in step foot on those parcels, uh,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: they were a little bit different than I was expecting.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But I guess we can get into that. Um as
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: we move into this story. Let's let's start in Nebraska.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: All right. It is October. Me and my cameraman, justin
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: Michow hit the road and we drive west west on eighty,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: heading towards the promised land, heading towards all good things
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: tend to be in the west, and uh, we're really excited.
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I had very high hopes for the hunt, except for
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: one thing. There was one problem that was concerning me,
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: and that was the weather forecast. And if any of
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: you hunted over the last ten, twelve, thirteen days, you
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about here. We just had a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: very very warm November. So I saw that in the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: upcoming forecast, and uh, you know, was worried about it.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Even though and we'll talk about this more, even though
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I know you can have success in hot weather during
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: the rut. You know, none of us are looking forward
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: to that. No one wants that. Um. It almost always
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: does dampen things, sometimes a little bit, sometimes significantly when
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: it comes to deer movements. So that was staring me
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: in the hairy eyeball. But we're heading west anyways. And
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: we got to Nebraska the next day on Halloween, and
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: spent that first part of the day, you know, meeting
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: with the landowner, thanking him, uh, kind of getting situation,
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: setting up our spot. He actually had a little bunk
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: house on his property he let us stay at, so
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: we just got situated, and then that evening we decided
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: we were going to go out and glass. Um. The
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: way the plan for the show was was that we
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: were all going to hunt November one through seven, so
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: we weren't going to hunt the evening of October one,
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: but we could scout. So this property, this ranch is
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: mostly big wine up in grasslands except for um a
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: handful of little blocks of timber that some other folks
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: were hunting. And then there was the river corridor, which
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: was gonna be where we were going to focus our efforts.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: And basically I'm not exactly sure how long this corridor
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: is but very well might be I don't know, a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: half mile long, three cores of a mile long, maybe
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: maybe longer. It's a big stretch of river, and all
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: of the covers is tight along that river. So there
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: were two actually three four ish parts across this corridor
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: where when I had been studying the maps I've been interested. Um,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: when I had gone and hunted those two evenings last year,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I had literally only, like I said, glassed a tiny
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: chunk like a five seven acre nine acre chunk of
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: cover that I had watched. Um, there was a lot
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: more out there that I had no idea what was
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: going on there. So that first night, me and Justin
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: decided to split up. Justin was gonna go to the
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: far western corner of the property and glass this little
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: stretch of river that bumped up next to some pivot
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: fields on a neighboring property. And I was going to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: glass the far east corner of this property where it
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: bumped up to some more really big cover on a
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: neighboring property. And I was curious to see if dear
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: would be coming out of the big cover and pinching
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: down into the narrow stuff along where we could hunt.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: So both of us got up on hills. We both
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: had at least I had a spotting scope. I think
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Justin had binos in a tripod and we watched. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: I think this is an example of, you know, uh,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: an important thing to think about when you're heading out
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: for a hunting trip. If you are setting foot on
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: a property for the first time, which is basically what
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: we're doing. I, you know, spent two hours there the
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: previous year, I knew very very little about this property.
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: UM in this kind of situation where you're brand new
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: and you've got a weak hunt, you might want to
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: consider that first evening or that first day, or some
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: portion of the beginning of your property, putting yourself in
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: learned mode, putting yourself in scout mode, even during the rut.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Getting good intel is incredibly valuable. Really good intel and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: fewer hunts is almost always more valuable than more hunts
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: that are blind. Right. I think if you've taken one
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: thing from a lot of the great deer hunts we
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: talked to, they all scout a lot. They all prioritize scouting, glassing,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: walking trail cameras, studying sign whatever it is that's so important.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: Just randomly sitting in a place is almost never a
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: good idea, even during the rut, even at this time
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of year when stuff can be kind of crazy, when
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: anything is possible, even now, you need that intel. And
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: so in this case, I spent that first evening trying
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: to gather some intel, trying to either confirm or disprove
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: my assumptions about how deer might be using this terrain
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: in this November time period. So here's what we saw
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: justin glasses area down there. And he saw maybe ten
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: or twelve does and two pretty nice possible shooter bucks
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: come out of this kind of bushy brushy stuff. I
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: don't even know what it's called. Um, just some bushes,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: thick nasty bramble bushes that are down on these river bends, um,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: kind of the oxbow, like the inside corner of the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: s curve of a river. There's all that thick nasty
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: stuff down by the river. And then they were scattered
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: cottonwoods and some cedars and stuff like that. And these
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: deer were bedding down by the river, popping out, walking
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: into the grass and slowly kind of working their way
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: towards those pivot fields. Um, you know, towards the end
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: of the evening, now I should point out it's hot.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: It was a seventy five degree day here on our
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: first night there, and these deer did move still, but
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: they're moving late, all right. This is Halloween night and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: one of the best days of the rout right, everybody's
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: excited for the kickoff of the route being Halloween. But
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: there was no movement until that last like forty five
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: minutes thirty minutes of daylight. But when that arrived, bam,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: here comes the deer and they start working their way out.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And what he noticed was all these deer were still
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: kind of in feed mode. There was no chasing, there
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: was no bumping, there was none of that hard rut
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff. Now on the other side of the
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: property where I was, same kind of deal, nothing, nothing, nothing.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: And then forty five minutes before dark, I see a dough,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: and then about forty minutes before dark, I see another
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: dough and offer another on a corner, another dough, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: same kind of deal. Where there's these s bends in
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: the river. So imagine like drawing s river right, a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: river that's making these s is up and down or
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: left or right, left or right, left or right, and
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: on the insides of each of those bends, there's thick cover,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: there's some trees, there's bushes. On the outside corner of
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: each of those ses, there's not as much cover. There
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: might be just a few scattered cotton woods, the little
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: strips of timber, So you've got these bedding areas on
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: the insides, and then you've got these little pinches of
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: timber on the outsides of the s bend. So that's
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: important because this terrain really dictated things that I did.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Once we start hunting. So I see these doughs starting
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: to pop out from these little inside corn or betting arears.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: I'm watching, and I've got my spotting scope on him,
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: and I look over onto the other property which I
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: can see in the distance, and I see antlers, and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I pull up my binos and look at it, and
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: it's a really nice buck. It's a definite solid shooter buck.
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: And then a little bit later, I see another deer
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: pop out back on the other side of the property
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: line our side, and I can see a bigger body
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: deer and it's a buck. And I can't tell how
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: big this deer is. He definitely was as big as
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the first one, but I can see him kind of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: nosing around the does, and over the course of the
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: next minutes, I ended up seeing two bucks cruise along
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: one of those little pinch points I was talking about
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: on the outside bend of the river in between the
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: two betting years. And then I saw that big, big
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: buck on the neighbor's property. And at last light, another
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: nice buck popped out all of this betting area where
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: he had been, and these dey are all kind of
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: slowly worked their way out from the river cover out
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: towards the hut, towards the grass, heading to parts unknown.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: So that's when I saw this first night, very encouraging
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: first night sign. All right, So that was how that,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: you know, early first night scouting went. But I gotta
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: tell you, guys, we have a guest appearance now out
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: of nowhere. Cameraman Justin Michelle is on the show. Well hello,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: thanks for hopping on the podcast. Man. It was getting
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: a little bit tough just myself recapping, and when you
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: happen to show up at my truck, I thought, why
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: not have you contribute? So I don't know. So so
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing, man, is just recapping our trip and
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: using it hopefully as a as a kind of a
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: platform to talk about different lessons learned and ideas for
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: hunting the rup. Okay, so I just recapped the scouting
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: on a first night in the ASCA. I talked about
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: what you saw. I talked about what I saw, um,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: and coming out of that that evening, basically what I
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: was trying to do is trying to figure out where
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: we should start our hunt, which side of the property
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: we should start, um, and then use that as a
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: you know, an observation and a just kind of strategy
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: from there right. Um, Like we talked about, you know,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: when we started, I wanted to have a decent place
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: to begin and then we would just watch what happens
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and uh and go from there. So based on what
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I saw what you saw both good. But in my corner,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: I saw some bigger deer than what you had seen.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: So decided to you know, start on the east side.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And I think that evening we basically just prepared our bags,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: got our gear ready, UM, and we're gonna head it
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: in the dark and set up a step you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: stepping foot in that corner for the first time. UM.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: So day one, November one, Basically, all I'm going on
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: here was what I saw that evening while glassing, and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: then the map and I described already to folks what
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the terrain looks like. There's basically the river and the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: s bends. The bedding is on the inside of these
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: river bends. Then there's these little strips of timber on
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: the outside. And we had a south wind that was
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: basically blowing from our side of the river to the
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: other side of the river. And so what I wanted
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to do was set up in a pinch point between
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: these two bedding areas right along the river, so that
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: my wind would blow across the river and not you know,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: over any terrain where deer could be. Um. So basically,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: imagine this river that we're making, but have the river
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of run horizontally from left or right,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: and there's these s bends going up and down. And
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I am on the outside bend of one of these
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: river curves with an inside curve on either side that
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: has this thick, brushy, nasty stuff. Um. So we got
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in there early that morning. I think we headed in
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: like right around two hours before daylight to give us
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: enough time to drive out there, to hike out to
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: this region and then to you know, in the dark,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: look for a tree that would work. Um, it was
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: a little harder to find the perfect tree than I
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: thought it was going to be. There. Yeah, it was
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: a bit surprising because even in the dark, they seem
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: deceiving you and you and you don't want to leave
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: sent everywhere, so you're like, oh, there's a good one,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and you go twenty thirty yards and it ends up
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: being a little bit too small and yeah, and then
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: every one of them had branches all the way to
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: the ground, so so many little tiny junkie branches everywhere. Um.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So yeah, eventually we found what we thought was the best,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: you know, given what we were trying to do. And
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: the main things I was trying to do is I
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: want to be in the pinch, but I also wanted
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to be tight enough to the river that I could
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: have the wind blow while also being kind of close
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: to one of the betting ears, so at least we
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: can kind of be seeing what's going on in there
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit. So basically I was looking where that
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: piece of timber pinched down to the narrowest at the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: very beginning of that pinch, and then trying to get
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: my wind blowing over the river. And and we eventually
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: found a tree that that did that. Um. Took a
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: while head to trim a bunch of those branches off
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: as we were climbing up there to get situated and
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: make a room for both of us. But we got
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: in there daylight arrives, and do we see. I think
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: the first dear was a dope and she came from
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: the grassy stuff, headed into our river corridor and head
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: into the bedding area. Um. And then I think the
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: second deer was a buck, right, I think that was
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: when we saw that nice. I think it was a
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: ten pointer, but a couple of busted times on one side.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: And he came from the grassy plain stuff as well,
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and then headed to this little patch of like three
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: little scrubby trees out in the middle of nowhere and
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: just walked straight to them and then just started working them,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: made a couple of scrapes, rubbed up on some bushes,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: just put on a show. Um. I mean it was beautiful,
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: isn't the sun hitting the back of it his sunlight
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: hitting the back of his breath, and it was just
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: picture perfect. Yeah, everything you could ask for. He was.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately though, he he just did that and then turned
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and headed straight uh north. I guess it would have
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: been headed straight down to one of the betting areas,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but on the other side of the property line. We
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: were about a hundred hundred twenty yards or something from
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: the edge of the property and he was on the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: other side and heading into a betting area over there. Um.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I tried grunting and I tried rattling, and neither one
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: of those things really turned him at all. Um did
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: he did he even look? I can't remember. I do
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: think he looked, but I think he had a mission. Yeah,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: he was. He was determined to do something different. So
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: he went off that way and disappeared. And from there
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: we saw I think four more white tail does and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: then four mui does actually um, and then that was
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: it for the morning. Yeah, And it was just very
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: interesting to observe. Um. You know this group of trees
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: which is maybe two three out in the middle of
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: nowhere along a fence line, and that's that was the hub.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: You know, those white tails. The does that came in
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: after him went to that same scrape, and I mean
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: that tree had to have been you know, a hunt
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a couple of hundred yards hundred fifty yards from even
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: the river corridor that we were on. So it was
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: just so unique to watch how these deer using this terrain,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and you and I are so like eastern
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: focus for the most part that it's just really cool
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: to train and wrap our heads around, like what the
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: heck these things are doing? And you know, coming out
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: of that, like seeing what that buck did and where
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: he had going back into that betting are in the neighbors,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and then you know, not seeing any cruising bucks working
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: the river the way I thought they would. Um. You know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I was a little disappointed and concerned with that, um
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: enough that I was thinking, like, man, do we need
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to push down closer to that betting area on the
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: neighbors Do we need to move over there somehow? Are
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: all the deer coming in and out of there? You know?
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: Two of the good bucks I saw the night before
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: had come out of there. Um, So I was a
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: little worried about this spot I picked, but unsure, So
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I ended up getting out of the tree, leaving everything
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: in the tree, but getting out and just signed just
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: like scout down a little bit and just see like
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: is there another tree that would still work for our
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: wind and still work at this pinch? Point, but give
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: us a view at least into the neighboring bedding area. UM.
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: So I snuck over there, and long story short, I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: just couldn't find anything that would check all the boxes.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: I really, um, I really didn't want to blow my
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: wind into one of these inside corners where there's likely
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: deer bedded and if I went any further than basically
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: where we were, you were going to have that. And
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: I just didn't in the end think that whatever we
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: would get in a little bit better view would be
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: worth you know, possibly spooking deer coming through there. Um.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: And this brings me to another kind of rut foundational question,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: like a thing I constantly debating with myself when I'm hunting,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and that is do you move to new spots when
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: you're not seeing what you want to see? Or do
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: you stick it out in a location and give it
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: time because it's the rut And if you're in a
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: feature or terrain feature or funnel, or if you're in
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a bedding area, eventually, if you picked your spots right,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: if you pick something that should have deer during the rut,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you just have to give it time and eventually a
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: buck will come through. Um. And so in this case,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: that's what I was debating. I felt like this was
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: a rock solid set up as far as a pinch
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: point with my wind blowing over the water and bedding
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: on either side of the river. Cort or there should
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: be bucks cruising up and down eventually, but we didn't
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: see him that morning. UM. So I had, you know,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: little questions like do I need to bounce somewhere new,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: but decide no, trust the feature, give us some more time. UM.
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: That said, we did want to try to learn more
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: about the area. And this goes back to what I
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: talked about the very beginning, this idea of scouting early
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: in a trip like this. You gotta learn, you gotta
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: figure out what's going on so you can have well,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you know, you need data to make good decisions. So
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: I did climb out of the tree, and I think
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: New Nish noon or one o'clock or something like that. Um,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: we went and kind of lightly scouted to other spots.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: We UM did like a speed scout on the outside
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of some of this kind of cover along the river,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and I hung two different cell cameras, um in two
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: different regions, so that you know, we could basically have
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: eyes into you know, well dispersed areas to get a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: sense of where the most bucks were, where these bucks
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: were cruising, where they're doing what we thought they were
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: gonna be doing. UM, basically just trying to figure out, like,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: where's the hot spot along this river we need to
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: focus on. UM. So that's how we spent the midday
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: hours that day. UM. Hot weather again, super hot day.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: It end up being like eighty degrees I think that day,
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: or close to it at least. UM. But I thought
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: that was a good use of those midday hours when
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: we didn't think that there was gonna be daylight activity
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the day like you sometimes hope
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: poor in the rut. UM. But I thought, hey, this
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: is a good way to still, you know, in a
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: way be hunting, where we're doing something that's gonna help us. UM.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: We ended up then heading back out to the tree
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: at like three thirty or four something like that, climb
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: back in, got settled and just kind of crossed all
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: our fingers and toes that there would be more buck
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: activity than there was in the morning. UM. Now from
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: here things take a turn. UM. We oh, I have
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: a pretty slow start to the evening hunt. But the
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: last hour arrives. I think we got to like six fifteen.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I think it's right, And it was just about the
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: same time I saw the first year the night before,
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and you would be made a bet when we thought
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: we could see the first year two minutes you were
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: really close, so you you won the bat And um,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: that first dear is a dough shot up at six fifteen,
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: coming out of one of those betting areas that could
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: see off the distance, probably a hundred and fifty yards
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: away or something. And then here comes another dough a
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: little bit later, there's another dough in a few minutes later. Yep,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: there's another one. And I think that continued for maybe
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes, something like that. Fifteen twenty minutes and then bam,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: I see antlers and right on the good buck, good
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: buck at buck right along the edge of that river,
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: following one of these inside bends of the river. Coming
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: out of that bed and cover, here's a nice ten
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: point buck. Um, like a really slid like three or
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: four year old nice deer. And um, he's just slowly
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: working his way along the river. He's not chasing does
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: he's not even like hard cruising. He's just kind of
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: slowly working his way, kind of like nibbling grass as
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: he goes. And he does that for I don't know,
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: ten minutes as we're trying to get in position and
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: you're trying to find him. Yeah, it was not ideal.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: From that, he's just always behind trees of something light.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: He eventually comes out of that river bend and gets
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: into our pinch point and starts walking right towards us.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: But there's actually a little barbed wire fence that the
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: rancher has out there along this edge, and he worked
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: that fence, which runs right beneath us eventually, so I've
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: got I've got my bow, and I'm getting all set
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: and you are turned around trying to find him, and
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: he ends up turning and walking like straight at us,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and there's branches along this line, and he ends up
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: walking to maybe forty yards, you know, something like that,
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: and then freezes and just kind of stands and he's
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: looking around, and I think at this point you finally
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: kind of sawing right. Yeah, I can see him. I
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: can see him through the tree at that point. But
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking to myself, this is amazing that we've got
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: a shooter buck almost in range right now. But he's
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: on this line that you know, I'm not gonna get
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: a shot. I can't shoot him right now. He's kind
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: of nervous, he's he's he's just kind of checking things out.
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he was nervous, but he was
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: just checking things out. And I'm thinking to myself, if
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: he continues as he is, he's gonna walk right to
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: the base of our tree and I will never have
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: an opportunity in this whole way. Um. So I'm concerned
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: about the whole situation. But just prior to that, I
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: guess I forgot. Just prior to him getting there, I
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: spotted another buck coming behind him, and my first words
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: were giant a pointer. So another buck had come out
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: behind him out of that same betting area, and he
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: kind of slowly follows behind the ten pointer. And this
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: buck looks like an eight point of me, really tall,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: really heavy, bigger deer. Um. So now back to where
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: I was, that eight point kind of disappears in the cover.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: The ten pointer had turned the corner and walked right
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: to our edge, and he's now, you know, right in
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: front of us, but we can't shoot now. Next thing
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: that happens, I hear coming from behind me. And as
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: I told you guys, there's this river, and I had
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: set up so that we would be blowing our wind
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: off into the river, but we weren't able to get
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: a tree that was right on the edge of the water.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: We had like a twenty thirty yards strip of grass
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: that kind of fell down the hill from us to
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: the water, and that, you know, was the best we
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: could get. Well. Of course, as there's two shooter bucks
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: coming our way. Of course, the one little place in
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: any direction that you could possibly get our wind. This
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: dough goes and then a second dough, So we've got
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: two doughs slowly coming up behind us downwind. We've got
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: this nice ten point buck forty yards away, just kind
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of standing looking around, trying to figure out why something
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: is a little bit off. He's behind branches, and then
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: the big eight steps out and he walks out of
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: the bedding cover into this little kind of meadowy opening,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: walks across, he's maybe eighty yards away, starts rubbing on
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: a bush, and at this point I don't think you
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: saw him, yeah, because yeah, I he was tucked into
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: that bush still and kind of behind some limbs, and
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: you were so focused on that other buck. Um. I
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: just remember being like, justin, do you see the eight now?
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: And no, I'm like, he's right there, He's right in
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: the open, Like you stupid idiot, what are you looking
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: at something like that? And then after that it just
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: got worse. But we didn't catch anything, and you you
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: vent yourself because it was right out there and they
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: open and what was your first reaction when you saw
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: that here? How tall? I was just blown away by
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: how tall he was, and I knew like he was
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: like the next caliber. You know. I could see the
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: tin pointer enough to figure out like he he's a shooter.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: But then this this other deer was just kind of
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: like so unique, just had such sweet character and um,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: yeah I thought he was a big eight as well.
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I was just like all you could see
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: was his his antlers were half, you know, as tall
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: as his body. So um. At that point, I was
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: like still just trying not to get busted by this
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: tin pointer because I knew if we screw up, um,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: then he's gonna blow this eight out and a week
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: and just like hold it together that you know, the
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: tin was like standing there for you know, what seemed
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: like forever but that eight was making his way in
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: just kind of doing like pre ruddy kind of stuff,
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, I wasn't at first. I was
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: thinking like this, this tin pointer has us pegged. But
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: then you know, after the fact, I think I realized
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: that he was probably like could see those doughs before
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: we could, So he must have been like either. I'm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: not saying he wasn't onto us, but I it did
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: make sense after that he was just like trying to
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: figure out what was going on. Yeah, he he never
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: he never fully spooted. But what did happen is as
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that big eight kind of turns and starts angling our
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: way a little bit, he starts making scrapes and stuff
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: like that, and those does, as I mentioned, were coming
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: up behind us, and eventually they headed right to the
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: base of our tree, and they did get down wind
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: of us, and they they never fully blew out, but
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: they knew something wasn't quite right, and one of them
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: eventually did like a little bound bound you know, like
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: the jump jump off of it way, and then kind
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of flagged her tail and started walking away. At that point,
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: the ten pointer then crossed the fence and started heading
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: towards those doughs, and then another dough kind of bounded off,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: so they got kind of spooky, and I don't think
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: they blew. I can't remember, but I don't think they blew,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: but they kind of bounded off nervous, and that ten
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: points kind of jogged off their direction, and you know,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: ran within twenty yards of me in the open for
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: a brief second. But I, you know, I don't see
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: any way I can spin and move without that other
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: bucks seeing us, because he's now looking over us, and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: you know that that first buck freaking out too, So
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I just held still, let the ten pointer bounce off
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: away from us, with hopes that the big eight would
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: continue working our way. And I was like, I was,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that's the dilemma of the cameraman, is not knowing what
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the shooter is gonna do, and all the times. So
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: I kept whispering to you, like what are you gonna do?
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: What are you gonna do? And I thought you were
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: gonna pull this, you know, spin three sixty uh shot
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: on this tin, and I'm like tucked into uh my
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: little cubby hole, trying not to get seen. And there
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: was no way I was gonna be able to do it.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna have to do like this team spin
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: if we were going to do that. So I was
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: glad you decided not to shoot. I was sitting there
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: debating back and forth, back and forth in the moments,
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: and I just I saw no way that we could
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: pull that off. And I did see a way, like
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: if the eight keeps coming, I do see a way
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: we can pull that off. So so that's what I
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that's what I leaned towards. And uh so the buck
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: of the two doughs kind of bounce off behind us.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: The big eight is just staring in our general direction
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: at these deer, wondering why did that buck kind of
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: bounce off? Why did those dos go the other direction?
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: And he just stood there for a very long time.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: I mean I don't know how long it was, but
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: it was a long time. He's still there, um and
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: then I'm just in my head just praying like please,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: please don't freak out, Please don't freak out, Please don't
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: freak out. And this is one of those things where
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: the rut helped us out a little bit. Maybe, you know,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: because at this time of year, I think deer are
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: used to seeing does running off in different directions. There
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: used to seeing bucks go run after doughs, and they're
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: used to kind of even some dear blowing and doing
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: funky things like that kind of stuff does happen now?
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And what was so cool about that is like, I mean,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: from the moment that buck popped out of that brush, uh,
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: he just like took his time and put on a show.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was hitting any branch that he could
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: lick between that spot and where he ended up. He
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: was starting a new screen and uh, you know, licking
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and just like he was really I mean some of
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: the best footage I feel like I've ever captured of
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: uh dear doing dear things. You know. It was so cool.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: And I remember at one point thinking to myself, like
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: just kind of I stepped out of the situation for
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: a brief second, I think when he was just frozen there,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: or maybe when he was making a scrape, and I
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: just remember thinking to myself, this is so cool, no
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: matter what happens, this is so cool, um because it
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: really was spectacular. I mean, seeing an absolute specimen of
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: a buck doing that stuff, um man, that was awesome. Yeah,
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: And I think it kind of I don't know about you,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: but it kind of put me at ease that like, Okay,
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: he you know, he's curious about what's going on with
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: these other dear, but he's not distracted enough that he's
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: not just gonna do what he was gonna do. Yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: as soon as he started making another scrape, like my
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: worries disappeared and I'm like, okay, We're in the game again,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: Like this is this is possible. And then my next
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: thing was like, where's he get go? Is he going to?
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Basically he was in kind of a low spot, and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: this timber pinched down towards us, but I didn't know
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: if he was going to go straight across out towards
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the grass or if he was going to turn left
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: and come down through our pinch, and he he had
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: begun coming our way, but there was still like an
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: option he could possibly pop up to the top and leave,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: but he kept angling our direction. And there was a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: trail that I remember ranging that came by and pinched
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: right in towards us at thirty yards, and he kept
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: angling that direction as he made these scrapes, and I'm
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: just thinking, please please take that trail, Please take that trail,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Please take that trail. And sure enough, I mean over
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: a long process. There was another point where he got
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: to like maybe forty two yards I think he got
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: but he's behind branches, and he did another stop and
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: just look and just like kind of staring, looking around,
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: looking around, looking around for a long time, another like
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know, five minutes or something, and I'm just,
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: you know, praying that he's going to eventually keep walking
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: and get to that trail. And then he turns and
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: takes a step and then takes another step. Now he's,
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you know, thirty eight yards still behind branches. Takes another step,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: thirty five years behind branches, thirty three yards still behind branches,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: and then he turns. I remember thinking this, remember this
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: specifically because he turned in instead of heading right across,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: which would have given me a broadside shop. He took
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: a step hard to the right, as if he was
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: almost going to turn and start going directly away from me,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: and I had a moment of panic. I'm like, no, please, no,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: like you're so close to stepping up behind these limbs
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: and give me a perfect thirty yard bread side shot.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Please do not turn directly away and start walking away
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: from me. I remember having a moment of like, no,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: don't do that, and he took that one step and
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: then turned again and came out broadside and stepped out
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: from the branches. And now at this moment I drawn back,
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: drawing back, he steps into that lane. And here's what's
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: going through my head at this moment, I just come
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: off of the panic of him walking directly away for
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: a half second. And now he had taken like a
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: step and stopped and then took a step, and they
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: stopped like for the last few seconds. That was the pattern.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Step stop for half a second, step stop for half
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a second. And so he steps and pauses. I'm not drawn.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: I get my pin on him and remember thinking, don't
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: let him like, I don't want him to step like
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: I'm worried he's going to take a step just as
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: I'm shooting the bow, and so on impulse, I go, Matt,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: And I did it very quietly and subtly. I must
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: have had like enough thought in my brain. I remember thinking, like,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: you don't want to freak him out. So I just
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: as a very light man. It was. It was as
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: light as I could do it. I just wanted him
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: to pause. I just didn't want him to take that step. Well,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: when I did that sound. He I mean he spun
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: and mediately and right at that moment I released the arrow.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: M so the arrows in the air. And the next
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: thing I remember was just thinking, Hi. I think it
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: seemed like it's hard for me to remember exactly what
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: came first, But my first gut reaction was a hit
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: high or I missed. I just remember thinking like, oh shit,
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: I screwed up. Something went wrong. Did he duck the arrow?
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: Did I shoot over its back? Did it hit the
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: top of his back? Day Rick chet off? It's back.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: Something didn't look right, And I think I'd like to
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: go back and look at the footage. I still haven't
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: seen it, but I feel like the first thing I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: said to you was what happened? Or did I miss
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: or something like that. I can't remember exactly is it
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: did I miss? Yeah? And I couldn't answer you because
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: it was the lighting was just bad enough. All I
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: could do is use like that you know that audio sound,
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: which is we listened for that pop and I didn't
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: hear the pop and so that was like my gut
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: And then the way he ran excuse me, the way
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: he ran off At the same time you were saying
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I missed or something like that. I think I missed,
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: and so I had immediately thought, Okay, well you must
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: have missed because I didn't hear what I should have heard,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: and then you immediately had doubt. And then we're watching
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: him just run like a racehorse. Um often in no
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: man's land. Yeah, I mean, he ran like a bat
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: out of hell. And I remember thinking, first, didn't miss
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: And then I remember seeing him running away, and the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: one visual I remember seeing clearly was he hit this
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: patch of dirt and it seemed like his feet were
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: going a million miles an hour and there's a dust everyone.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: I thought, he's like crashing into the ground. I thought,
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: for secondly to hit him. Did I actually get him?
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: He's gonna die right there? But then he kept going
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: and just like just like a race car flying out
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: of there. Um. But then that's when I thought, well,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: maybe I did hit him. And then the next moments
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: were just like a whole lot of like self loathing, like,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, what did you do wrong? What happened?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: How could this happen again? Um? Because if you'll remember
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: last year, on one week in November, I missed a
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: giant eight pointer on the last day of the hunt
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: and then this whole off season, and this has been
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: well documented. I've talked about before this whole offseason, I've
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: worked really really, really really hard to try to rebuild
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: my shot process, trying to better handle and control my shots,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and then to have this that this situation that seemed
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: like I either missed or hit this deer at the
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: top of his back or something. I was just really upset,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and so everything in my head was you know, assuming
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: worst case, and like you said, with it being as
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: dark as it was, um, I could not clearly see
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: where the hit was either. And I think it was
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: you know, within a few minutes of legal shooting, like
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: five minutes of legal shooting lights or something like that,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: when I end up getting the shot. So you know,
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: I couldn't see where the arrow hit. I just remember
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: thinking high or did I hit bad? I don't know,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: but just a lot of unsure and I think, you know,
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: I asked you what you saw, and you didn't know.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: And then I was like, well, can we see the footage?
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: And I don't think like we looked at it, but
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: that screen, yeah, we couldn't tell in the screen. So
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: then I just said, okay, well let's go check the arrow,
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: figure out what's what, what's what? And get down go
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: to the arrow, and the arrow was fully covered. Blood
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: like good. Blood look like good. And so now all
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, now I don't know what to think.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: I still feel like in my mind's eye could like
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: I did not see a perfect hit where it should
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: have been. Um, so I'm trying to like figure out
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: what what does this mean? Then I was very confused
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and like, okay, so I hit it, So I must
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: have hit really high. Um, but I didn't spine him.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: So where where is this hit? Daego? Just underneath the spine,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: Togo just over the spine. I just get a meat
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: hit on the top. I don't know, but the arrow
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: looks pretty good. We start looking for blood, don't find
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: anything for a long time. No blood, no blood, no blood.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And I'm close to worthless when it comes to blood
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: trailing after dark. So I'm counting on you to to
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: find it. You know, I have to really go slow
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: and focus to see the right after dark like that. Um.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: But thankfully we circled further and further and further, and
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: finally we got to the spot where there was this
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: dust this dusty patch that's talking about. I think that's
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I think what we said is eventually said, Okay, we
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: couldn't find blood, Let's go to the last place I
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: saw him. I know he hit this dust bowl. Let's
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: go check out the dust bowl. We get to the
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: dust bowl and like right away, like, here's blood up
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: and down this tree trunk right up, gonna have feet
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: off the ground. Yeah. So now I'm thinking, man, this
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: is this is a different animal than we originally thought,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: because when we couldn't find blood for a long time.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: Now I'm thinking, okay, meat hit. He's hardly wounded. He's
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: gonna survive. I screwed up. Now we see the sprayed
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: blood up under the tree, and like pretty good blood.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, I'm thinking, well, what
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: in the world could this be? How could this be?
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: How do you get up a spray shot with a
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: high hit like that? Right? I don't think I've ever
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: processed as much of a hit as we did that one,
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: because we kept going back there like the air looks good,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: but it didn't pop, and there's not a lot of blood,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: so it must be like some kind of muscle. And
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: then we get to the spray and it's like muscle
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: doesn't spray. So and then I was like, okay, well
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: maybe we hit an artery up there, and so we
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: see this spread. And then I remember thinking, okay, let's
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: you know, let's pull in somebody, let's pull another opinion.
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: And we even wanted to connect with the other guys
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: on the show, so I thought this would be a
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: great opportunity. Let's face time with Tony, talk to him
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: what he thinks about the shots. We talked to Tony
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: and he's like pretty pessimistic about it. He's like, well,
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't know those high shots. You could
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: be a backstrap. I've seen those like meat shots sometimes
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: bled good for a little bit and then it dries up. Um.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: He basically brought me down, down, down, mostly. And then
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: he said, but but you know, you could go follow
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: blood for ways, but maybe you know, if it goes
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: anymore like a hundred yards, maybe back out. I'm thinking, okay, yeah,
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: but I still don't like make I can't make sense
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: of like the blood being like three and a half
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: feet up the up the tree and all the way
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: down and all over the place, Like, um, how is
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: that not? I mean, it's got to be lungs or
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: an artery. Um. But we keep going and there's no
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: blood for a while, and then we come over this
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: little hill and then there's a bunch of sprayed blood
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: across this log. Again looks really good. I'm thinking, well,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: let's keep going. But I constantly have this voice in
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the back of my head, which is, you're gonna push
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: it too far. You want to like I so desperately
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: we all have this right, you so desperately want to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: find it. I couldn't imagine backing out and waiting until
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: the next day. And I I just wanted the crappy
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: feeling to go away, the crappy feeling being I mess
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: this up somehow. Um. So we keep going, and there's blood.
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: There's a little blood. There's a little blood. There's not
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: a lot like after that jump over the log where
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: we found some spray, and now it's like drip, drip, drip,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: little stuff, little stuff. And we follow something like that
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: for like fifty six seventy yards stuff like that, and
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: then we go down a little hill and then at
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: the bottom of this hill, all of a sudden, another
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: spray and then like a splash and a splash, splash,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: and then We're like, oh man, he's dead. And then
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: there's no blood. No blood for five yards, no blood
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: for ten yards, none for fifteen twenty, and now all
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, like, oh man, the blood's gone. Now,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I I go back to the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: paint cans and like that blood looks really fresh, doesn't it?
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: And like, did we just bump him? Was he just
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: standing here somewhere? Did he bed down somewhere? And now
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: because we pushed too far, we bumped him? And so
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: now all of a sudden, I'm getting all worried again
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: and pessimistic, and Tony's voices in my head saying I'm
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: not feeling good about man. I don't feel I don't.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: He kept on saying things like I don't have the
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: good feelings for you right now. Like you know, most
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: of your friends are always like, oh man, it's gonna
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: be alright, You're gonna find him. No, the whole time,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: Tony was like, Nope, don't feel good about this. Yeah,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: not sounding good. What I knew though, was like Tony
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: only had what we were describing to him, and you
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: and I were like seeing this blood, and now he's
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: like I hear what Tony is saying, but this blood
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: is telling me something different. So I was with you.
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: I felt like, you kind of want to keep going.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: You kind of want to keep going, until like that
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: last time where we just about totally lost blood, I
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: was like, this just not makes sense. I mean that
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: like we had just seen a log that had been
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: sprayed three or four feet wide and then no no drops.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: So I still couldn't wrap my head around that. But yeah,
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: when we got to the paint can, we thought, dang,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: this buck has bedded down, and then we just bumped
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: it and it popped up. And so we've had both
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: like good feelings and bad feelings. I think we're back.
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: We're debating, Okay, you know, if this deer is bleeding,
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: but it's not like a mortal wound, like if he's
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: ran this fart, it's not an arterial shot. And if
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: it was a double long shot, he should have been
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: dead by now. And now we're worried. We just bumped him.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: And then I was debating, well do you back out
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: or do you keep following him and you try to
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: make sure he bleeds out. So I debated a thousand
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: different things, but in the end we we walked a
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: little bit further, like twenty yards from the paint cans
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: still couldn't find in blood. And then we heard like
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: a deer moving in front of us, like off in
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: the woods, like kind of just like a step here,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: step there. And then I'm like, oh my gosh, what
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: if this deer if we did bump the deer um
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: and I lost all confidences. I was like, all right,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: we we're gonna back out. I don't know if that's
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: our dear ahead or not, but we've gone way further
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: than I thought I was originally gonna go. We've gone
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: more than two yards now, according to the app, and
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: I just thought, I'm gonna push too far, like I
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: so badly wanted. I know what I'm going to be
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: tempted to do, don't do it. So I said, we're
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: pulling the plug. I put my hat down and last
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Blood marked it and went home, and I just felt horrible,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: Like it was a very quiet car drive back to
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the bunk house that night. Well, I was trying to
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: process the shot and the feelings of failure and knowing
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: too that I mean, this place is littered with coyotes,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: just littered, so we're like, well, if we leave it,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: we don't find it, chances are it is gonna just
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: be gone by morning, because I'll find it. And then
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: we were like probably fifty yards from the river, so
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: we're like, if we bump it and try a cross
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: this river, then we're gonna have a heck with time
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: on the other the other side trying to find blood.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: So there was just yeah, it was a rough, rough moment. Yeah.
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: So I was also thinking, if they're like, what did
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I do wrong in the shop, And so one thing
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: we did is we went and looked at the footage,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and while we could not for the life of us
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: see where the arrow hit, we could see that deer
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: ducked seriously on the shot, like significantly jumped the string.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: So I felt partly better because the high hit was
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: not because I pulled it in some kind of horror way.
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: That the high hit was because the deer reacted to
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: the shot in a significant way. But I made two
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: mistakes still. Number one A big mistake was that I
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: had put him on alert by going Matt. I didn't.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: I probably didn't have to do that. I did it
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: out of an abundance of caution because I didn't want
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: a moving shot. But maybe if I had been able
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: to wait another second more, he would have stayed fully
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: still and I could have gotten that shot just the same.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: But my impulse paranoia of him moving caused me to
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: make a sound to keep him still, even though I
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: could have instead fired right then and probably would have
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: been fine. That was a mistake, big mistake, And I
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: think if I had not made that sound, I think
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: he would have not react to the shot at all,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: and I probably would have got him perfect. But I didn't.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: I made that rookie move in that kind of heat
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: of the moment situation. Secondly, I've talked about this like
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: shot process that I've been working on. I did not
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: use my shot process all the way I rushed it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: I wish I could tell you that I did it
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: all perfect, but I didn't. I did not make it
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: through all the steps. Again, I made it through like
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: two steps in my first bucket killed this year. Same
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: thing with the dough I killed a week and a
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: half ago, and still same with this one. Like I'm
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: I'm still I'm still not a hundred percent there. I
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: wish I could tell you I was um. I wish
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: I could tell you that I perfectly said, every step
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: of my mantra just the way it was and was
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: fully slowed down. Mhm. I'm still fighting it, and in
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: this case I was. I was able to be burning
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: that pin and him, but I did not get to
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: that next step and the arrow was on its way.
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: Now I feel pretty strongly that why. I'm sure that
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: if that buck had not jumped the string, it would
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: have been a great double long hit. Is a little
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: bit farther back than perfect, but I air a little
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: bit back from the shoulder anyways. Um, so if he
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: had not jumped the string, I'd be sitting here very
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: happy with a shot, while also knowing I didn't follow
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: my process perfectly and still need to work on that.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: That said, my two mistakes compounded, made the noise when
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: I shouldn't have, and then still rushed that shot a
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: little bit, leading to being a little bit a little
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: bit back up perfect and very high because of the
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: jumped string. So that's where that's where things did that night,
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: And so I'm beating myself up about all that, beating
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: myself up, beating myself up. You've you're not going to
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: find this deer. It's probably a meat hit or something.
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: You wounded a deer. Now, not what you're gonna do
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: for the rest of the week. Are you gonna punch
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: your tag and be done in Nebraska and go to Ohio?
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: Do you keep hunting? Do you quit your job and
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: become a salesman? Used car lot um? I mean I
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: was low that night, very low. The next morning I
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: went to bed, like as soon as we got home,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: I went right to bed. You stayed up and we're
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: doing stuff in your computer. But I just like lay
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: it in bed and just like wallowed and self pity
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: until I fell asleep. The next morning, I wake up
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: and I asked you, hey, did you get to look
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: at that photogen a computer? Could you see any better?
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: Could you see the hit? And you said no, not really.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: I looked at and stuff, and I said, well, do
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: you have any photo of him running away at all?
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: And he said, well, yeah, I do. So then I
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: watched that, and I watched him go running over the
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: dirt pile where I had seen him last. And then
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: I see him keep going and keep going and keep
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: going way way around, running full bore all the way out,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: and I realized he was running like a bat out
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: of hell all the way until he went down that
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: last little hill, which is basically right where we stopped.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: So he never stopped and stood around for us to
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: bump him. He never bedded down for us to bump him.
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: He was running full out. We could actually see on
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: the footage all the way to almost where we stopped.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: And so that's when I started thinking, Man, there's no
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: way this the situation I was worried about happened now.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: Like he was run and run and run, and he
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: very well could be dead right out there somewhere still
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: having died less than thirty seconds from the shot. Um.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was the artery shot, maybe it was something better.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't catch the top of a long um.
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: So I had renewed hope a little bit after that.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: And and maybe I'm getting too long winded with this
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: whole process, but this whole thing was was a huge, huge,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: um highlight of the trip, both starting airs low and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: then later something more because we get out there at
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: first light that next day. After I reviewed that photo,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little bit better. We jammed to Fred
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: Bearer by Ted Nugent on the drive out there, and um,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: we hike out to this rise. We're coming down to
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: that river bottom and I can just finally see this um,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: this little s bend where the betting was and when
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: we left the blood at and I'm about like fifty
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: six yards away, and I'm just come over the hill
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: and I see down there, and right away I see
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: white belly, and I pull up my bios and I
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: look and I'm like, oh my gosh, and I just
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: spun around you as a turn on the camera, and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: that buck was dead fifteen yards from where we had
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: stopped the night before. He was right there, right there
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: the whole time, dead as a door knumb right in
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: front of us, and even closer to where I stopped
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: because I I had you stand on blood and then
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: I moved out ten yards further, and I mean I
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: could have I could have probably you touched him if
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I jumped, But yeah, I mean we were just didn't
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: know what to feel that night, you know. So our
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: guy was telling us that we had we're doing the
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: right thing, and we actually were, you know, but you
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: know such a relief too, ma'am. And you went over
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: that hill and you picked up the buyers and you
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: turned around and kind of shook your head. I was like,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: all that stuff just fell off and I was like,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: we got him. We got him. The best feeling in
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: the world. It was amazing, and the coyotes did not
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: get to him, zero coyote damage, which was wonderful, and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was the happiest camper in the world.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: It was just an unbelievable buck. I mean a gorgeous
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: he's a seven point. He is a tiny g three
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: on one side, almost just like a big six um
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and heavy, like just big old baseball bat beams and
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: basses and just a really cool slob of a buck,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: huge body, big, super sure um, just really cool. Dear.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Um looked at the hit. The hit was high, like
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: I thought, but it ended up getting both lungs. He
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: got the top of one long and then through the
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: second lung. Um, so it was a double long shot
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: is what killed it. I think he was dead within
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: you know, seconds of running across over there, and we
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: you know, the biggest thing was just not being able
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to see that hit well and just not knowing that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: threw so much uncertainty into it. Um. But I'm I'm
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I think most cases, if you're unsure, if
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: you're uncomfortable, giving it more time is usually a safer
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: about and so I'm glad I did that. My big
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: takeaways as far as rooms for room for improving here
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: is again, you know, knowing when to stop a deer
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: verbal and when not to. And that's a thing like
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I intellectually know, I know not to make that noise
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: unless the deer absolutely needs to be stopped, But in
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: that moment it's I'm also arey paranoid about taking a
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: moving shot, and so in the moment, like it was
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: an impulse thing, and my my body knew too. My
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: body I knew, like my my reptile brain knew enough
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: to be like very subtle with it. I was, like
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: I was, it was a very subtle, little one. So
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: I was I was aware of that this was like
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: treading on thin ice um, But I still had to
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: do it because I was so worried he was gonna
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: take another step. Yeah, but I mean he had told
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: us though that he may take another step. So it
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: was tough because I when you did it, I was like, man,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: the deer was stopped. Why did you do that? But
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: I noticed that you did it very quietly, and you know,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: I think if that deer wouldn't have been on edge
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: because of those other deer, you know, probably would have
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: been an issue, but man, you don't know that that
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: deer might have taken another step and then you'd have
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: been even further back. So it's it's hard to say
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: a you know, I definitely it's something to process, But
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you that I know that you did
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: the wrong thing because we had just watched that you're
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: kindn't do that same thing for fifteen yards and every
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: time he moved, so it is I don't. Yeah, this
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: stuff is always so so subjective, and you know, right
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: or wrong can be the tiniest little thing. So that
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: was the thing, and then you know, continued, you know,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: work on my process. I still gotta keep working. I
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: just need to go home and keep shooting doughs and
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: just keep working through because I can do this a
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: million times in the backyard perfectly, but it's still just
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: always different in the moment, especially when there's a buck
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: in front of you moving acrossed. Um. So I feel
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: like I'm making progress. I feel like my first buck
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: was great, my second dough was okay, and this one
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: was okay. So you know, I'm a work in progress
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: on this new shop process. I'm gonna keep going with it,
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: but big things that happened you're outside of that. With
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: this kill, I think the real key to success was location.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: Um finding a spot that was just like a best
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: of both world's kind of runt location was what killed
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: this deer, and then trusting the features despite not seeing
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: the movement that morning. So again, if you are hunting
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: in the rut, the pillars of run hunting success are
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: dough betting areas or hotspots or funnels if you can
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: somehow combine those two hunting a funnel next to a
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: betting area, or a funnel that is adjacent or funnels
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: into or out of a betting are those are perfect
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: situations where you can concentrate dear movement where bucks want
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: to be going this time of year, which is checking
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: doe betting airs or leaving doe betting airs to go
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: to a dough food store or something like that. And
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: so in this situation, this is a tiny pinch point
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: in between tube do betting areas, and these bucks were
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: just gonna cruise right between them along that river. And
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: then I had the wind in a bulletproof location going
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: out over that water. And even though in that morning situation.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I was tempted to move, tempted to look for something else.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: I said, no, I believe in this terrain. I believe
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: in this idea here, like you have to. Like deer
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: hunting is all about, you know, making predictions or making
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: assumptions about some future outcome, and sometimes you need to
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: look in the situation like this. And you said, all right,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: I believe in this set up enough that I believe,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: you know, it will happen. I trust in the location,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: I trust in these features. I have confidence that there
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: are deer here that we'll use that. And then you
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: need to give a time to actually come to fruition.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: And so in this case I made the right call,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: trusted the location, and sure enough that evening the deer
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: did the thing we need them to do. So that's
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: what killed that buck on November one. Um, he wasn't
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: chasing a doll. He wasn't, you know, really do anything
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: crazy ruddy. He was simply leaving a bedding area, kind
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: of cruising over to the next one, laying down sign
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: and we were in a sweet little pinch point with
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: good wind. And that's what did it. The next day, well, no,
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: that day we finished up all the projects we had
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: to do with that deer. We skinned him out, cord him,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: deboned him, put him in the cooler, um, cleaned up
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: our place, packed up, headed out and started driving to
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: my next destination, which was Ohio. And now we're riding high.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, we killed a buck on the very we're
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: shout a buck on the very first day. On the
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: second day of the trip, we recovered him. We're feeling great.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: We were covered all the meat. We've got a beautiful
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: buck in the truck. Um. And now we're heading to
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: the next day, which is Ohio where there's supposed to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: be a big giant bucks everywhere. You really talked that
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: spot up. So I was like, man, like, how much
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: higher can we get here? This is gonna be incredible,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna have I'm gonna have time to really
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: hunt it. Uh. So we drive that night for a
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: few hours, get a hotel room the next day, to
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: drive the entire day to get there. Finally we got
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: to a hotel room late on day three and we're
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: gonna start hunting day four. So, as I mentioned, um,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: this Ohio stuff I have, there's a small third acre
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: piece and there's like a seven y acre piece. Both
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: of these are in the general region of where I
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: used to hunt in southern Ohio ME and further had
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: a place back in the day, so I knew the neighborhood,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: and I knew the neighborhood was really good, Like we'd
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: killed some really nice bucks when I had driven around
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: the summers and when we scouted and shut hunting and
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: stuff like, we knew there was really good deer in
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the area. So I felt confident that anywhere in this
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: neighborhood it should be pretty darn decent um. So that
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: gave me confidence coming to this week. Despite the fact
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: that all I had done is one day of speed
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: scouting in mid October, the trail cameras were not terribly encouraging.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: On the seventy acre piece, I had not gotten a
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: single shooter buck, not a single mature buck. From mid
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: October on, I had only one cell camera, though it's working.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: On the thirty five acre piece, I had um to
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: cell cameras, and I had gotten two possible shooters. One
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: was like a not a very large antler deer like
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: a hundred pointer, but big body, mature deer, and then
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: one was a giant eight pointer but he's only shown
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: up two nights. Um. And then there was a third
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: buck that was probably four, but he busted off his
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: entire left side already, so he was dear. I was like, gosh,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: I don't want to shoot him. Um, he would have
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: been a nice deer. So I was kind of surprised
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: that the cameras weren't showing me that much. I thought
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: it would have been, you know, a lot more, especially
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: on the property, the bigger one. Um. But I thought, well,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: you know, cameras can only tell you so much. Once
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: you get there, you're gonna start seeing deer and you
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: make adjustments and you'll figure out what's been, you know,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: avoiding the cameras. So the first morning, again, I have
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: nothing set up. I have no experience in these properties.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: What I didn't know and when I had tried to
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: find when I did the scouting was like where's the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: dough betting? Where the bedding areas at? And I found
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: what looked like some bedding on a property neighboring our piece,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: on the seventy acre piece. Basically, what I did find
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: on my scouting trip was that the property is cut
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: in half by a fenced in area. Half the property
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: is fenced in with like a five foot tall barbed
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: wire fence, and inside that fence is cattle. So I've
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: pretty bummed about that when I saw there was a
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: bunch of cattle in there, because you know, I've hundred
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: places that have cattle, and bucks will sometimes still use it.
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: Deer will still sometimes use it, but they definitely don't
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: like to be around the cattle. And so I just
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: didn't know how frequently they were in there, and especially
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: with it being entirely fenced in and like tight new
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: tall fence where they go out of their way to
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: jump over a five foot tall fence to go into
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: a cattle pasture with nothing else in there, I didn't know.
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: So I put two cameras and these fingers of timber
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: there and put mox scrapes under them. And this is
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: all back in October, and I thought, well, this will
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: tell me whether or not, you know, when I come
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: back here. This will tell me if these deer are
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: in here, because there should be deer working these fingers,
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: There should be deer working along these um If there
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: are not pictures of bucks on here, that means they
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: are not using this area because the kettle. So that's
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: half the property. The other half the property is like
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: a twenty ten acre maybe bean field cut being field,
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: and then all that's left is like a five acre
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: little wood lot which is mostly kind of open hardwoods.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: So after the scouting trip in October, I'm thinking, well,
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: this is not too promising, especially if they're not using
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: the cattle pastuts. But there was some thick cover on
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the neighbors. So morning number one, this is November four,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: I decide, all right, let's hunt with this wind. We
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: can hunt downwind of that thick stuff on the neighbors,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: so we can be on our side with the wind
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: blowing from the thick stuff in the neighbors down to ours. Hypothetically,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: bucks should be traveling that down one side and would
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: probably be on our edge and we might be able
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to get a shot. This is an area that's close
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: to some properties that aren't allowed to be hunted, kind
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: of sanctuary kind of stuff. So I felt like, gosh,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: there's gotta be something good cruising out of there. Um
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: during the rut, they'll be bucks moving through. That morning,
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: we sneak in before daylight, well ahead of time, find
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: a tree. I had marked a tree on my scouting
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: trip in October that I thought would be good for
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: this wind in that location, and I got set up
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: in there. There's poison ivy in the tree. Um. Yeah,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: and uh, we see just one dough nothing else. It
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't too keen on that, no, and it looked pretty
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: promising too. Once the sun came up, I was like, yeah,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: well there could be something that's going on here, and yeah,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: we just had that one come through. And then as
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: some dogs run through that betting area, we saw dogs
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: run through. So at midday I decided, all right, I'm
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: gonna get out of here, and I want to go
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: check the trail cameras and that'll give you a much
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: better sense of what's going on with here. I had
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: the two cameras and the fingers and the cattle pasture,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: and then I had one cell camera on the edge
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: of the field on a big scrape that had not
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: been sending to me. So we pull all those cards,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: check all the cards, and there's nothing, just that million
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: and a half pictures at cows. Yeah, Like we got
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: I think one dough in the cattle pasture over the
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: course of three weeks, and then on the scrape that
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: wasn't in the cattle pasture. There was one three year
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: old buck and a few doughs here and there, and
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: lots of raccoons and dogs too, and that was it
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: for like three and a half weeks or something. And
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: we're kind of banking on that too. So that was
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: like a bit of a yeah, let the air out
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: of the balloon. Huge, huge, So with that I kind
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: of felt like writing that essentially wrote off the entire property,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: that seventy acre piece, which you know, if I if
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: I write off the whole, you know, forty cell makers
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: that's the cattle pasture. And then you see that there's
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: nothing visiting those two cameras on the outside at all.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: And we sat there saw nothing. I said, all right,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: let's sit one more time this evening and see this
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: field somehow and see, you know, see what's coming out
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: to feet if maybe there's does here. There was some
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: winter wheat growing up in the field now, so I
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: had a little bit of hope, Well maybe this is
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: like a draw, maybe there'll be some does out here,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and if those does, we got a chance. We ended
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: up because of the wind being a direction, it's tough
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: to hunt over there. I decided let's throw the decoy
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: out in the field and hunt on the ground, tucked
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: in a fence row. So we end up doing that.
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: We tucked into a back corner of this fence row,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: put out the decoy about twenty yards out in front
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: of us. We've got a good view of the field
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: and then we can see back into a neighbor's field
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit too. I can see into the cattle
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: pasture as well. Um. And we sat there for the
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: evening and hoping, all right, we'll see some does, maybe
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: some young bucks. Maybe we'll see a big boy roll
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: through off from the distance or something. And what do
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: we see? Saw a decoy? How many times did you
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: like see a buck out of the corner of your eye,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: like jolt, And then all of a sudden realized, well,
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: that's just my decoy. That happened to bunch. We did
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: see a single deer that night. Um, that was this
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: is the start of the downhill. Yeah, I know. Again
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: it was hot though, right, so I put some of
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: this on this hot weather is not helping us. But
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: you'd still think something would come out, you know, last
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: light or something, but nothing. So now I feel really
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: negative about this piece. And I just said, all right,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: that thirty five acre pieces probably where we need to focus,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: because I had gotten those good bucks on camera there,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: and I had found some really really good betting cover
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: inside there, so I knew from that scouting trip there's
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: like an epic betting area in there. There's this big
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: point that extends out into the middle of the timber
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: and there was like an old cut or something on
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: top of it that is now overgrown and brambles and
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: cedar trees and grass and just awesome thick stuff about
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: two acres of really really good looking bedding, and the
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: rest of the timor is pretty good and thick, and
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: there's these nice ridges, and had found these benches on
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: the side of the ridge where there was just scrapes
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: littered up and down this bench um And as I mentioned,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: I had gotten several nice bucks on camera over there,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: so I felt at least there, I know there's some shooters.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: It's got great habitat, it's got great dough bedding. If
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: we get in there into the interior, which would be
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: a plunge, but if we get in there and set
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: it out, there's gonna be bucks cruising. So that's gonna
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: be the plan for the next day. So the next morning,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: with the wind direction we had, I had to hunt
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: the outside edge of that betting area. What was cool
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: about that though, and I knew this from when I
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: walked it. On the outside of that bedding are there's
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: like a steep drop off on the property line and
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: it drops down to a creek and then a corn
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: field on the neighbors. And so I found a spot
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: where you could sit and you'd be on the downwind
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: edge of this thicket and you would blow your wind
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: off that cliff for that like you know, steve embankment
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: and blow your window over this creek and field up
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: behind you. Um, you know, nothing would be able to
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: wind you. Um you know, anything that did come down
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: one of you would be within twenty yards and then
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: otherwise to be off that steep drop off. So I
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: was excited about that. This looked like a dynamite cruising spot. Um.
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: So the plan was to sneak in there early, find
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: a tree, gets set up, and then sit there all
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: day because there's no way to get out from there
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: without having to walk back through all that bedding. And
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: so that's what we did. We had a dough betting area.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: We were downwind of it. We were in thick cover.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: There was tons of big rubs and scrapes and sign
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: in the area fromhen I scouted, and then again when
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: we came in there now during the rut, we could
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: see it again too. There's a big old cedar tree
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: like six seven inches around there was all shredded up.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: Um it looked great. And we sat all day and
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: we saw zero deer on the property. The only thing
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: we saw was a guy walking on the edge of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: the betting area with his Jeremy shepherd. Yes, so we
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: did see that, and then it lasts light. In that
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: cornfield way down on the neighbors a dode did pop out,
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: but that was it for the day. Um. So that
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: was day two in Ohio. Day three in Ohio. I decided, well,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: let's let's hunt. Let's give that spot a little more time.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I just believe like it seems such a great area,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: had a great wind situation. We're down one of this
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: amazing betting tons of signing there. Um, we just gotta
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: give a time. I know that from previous history this
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: is a relatively low deer density kind of area. Um,
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: we had days like this one we hunted down Ohio
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: where you only see like three or four deer or something,
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: and you just have to push the slow days because
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: eventually a big one would come through. So I decided
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: to go back there that morning. We sit it all morning,
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: the guy comes walking by again with his dog, and
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: we again see no dear. So now is one of
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: those rut conundrums that I'm always faced with where you're
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: torn between and I talked about this earlier. You're torn
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: between the idea of staying or going. Do you stick
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: with something, do you trust a plan, do you trust
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: a feature, do you trust history? Or do you bounce
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: around trying to find fresh sign or trying to find
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: something that makes you feel good or trying to see
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: dear or whatever it is um And in this case,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: I knew that we had a windshift coming up the
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: next day, going from the south wind to a north wind,
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: and I knew that with that north wind, I could
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: hunt the interior of the Betting Air, which was the
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: number one spot I've found, And I thought, well, that's
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: where I want to be. And now I've sat a
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: day and a half in this location and we still
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: haven't seen what I want to see. Maybe we do
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: need to move. Maybe there's more stuff going on, and
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: I forgot to mention the night prior, we got a
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: trail camera picture of a giant buck stepping into that
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: edge of the interior bedding, uh like fifteen minutes before dark,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: so he'd been in there, and then we exited, you know,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: kind of past wherever he went. Um, so I knew
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: there had been a big buck in that general era
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: of the night prior, so now I want to get
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: in there. So at midday we pulled on our set
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: and we kind of waited till the wind rose up
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: to give us a little bit of sound cover, and
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: then we just really really really slowly worked our way
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: down wind of the bedding area as far out as
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: I could get circled around it. Did a really big
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: like half moon shaped to work around the bedding are
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: to get to the other side where now with the
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: west southwest wind we are now getting, we could blow
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: along the edge of the bedding, which is a little risky,
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: but at this point I'm trying to make moves. And
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: the next day when that wind blows north, you know,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: blows straight back behind us down into this creek bottom.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: So the new set up, the new tree we're in
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: we're on the opposite side of that two acre bedding thicket.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: We're on the lee side of this ridge, so the
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: wind will be blowing from the ridge past us and
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: then down to a creek at the bottom of the hill.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: And there's a bench that runs along the side of
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: this ridge that is littered with scrapes, and I had
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: a camera on that bench and they had gotten me
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: pictures of some of those bucks that mentioned. So that
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: is what we set up on for our day three
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: in Ohio. Middle of the day set up. And so
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: again the tactic I'm using here is being on the
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: edge of bedding cover and being on the downward side
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: of it. And then also now we're in an interior
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: location where we can see across this creek bottom and
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: we can see the other side and a couple of
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: different spots and maybe possibly call to something if it's
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: out of range thick cover. We're on a bedding area
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: and there's tons of fresh hot sign in here and
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: I can see the call. That was basically what we're
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: doing here for this rout hunt. And I believed, you know,
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: be in that best betting and something will come through.
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: That was what I was leaning on when hunted that night,
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: I saw nothing. Nothing At last, like we did, hear
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: buck grunt on the other side of the valley. Um
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: and that was it. All that takes us to day seven,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: that's today, And now again I'm trusting this feature. I
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: believed in this location. I believed in the habitat, the
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: way that thick cover in that terrain would funnel deer
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: through there. And so we're going right back to that
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: same tree, and we're setting out for the day and
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: we get into early this morning. I'm feeling good about it.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: And before daylight we hear there's a buck running or
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: deer running towards us. And then it stops and then
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: takes a few steps and stops and takes a few
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: more steps, and I realized that creates right down wind
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: of us. It was dark. I can't see anything, I
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: can't think of anything in the binoculars. Stands there for
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: I don't know, five minutes, ten mins, I don't It
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: felt like a long time. It did feel like a
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: long time, and I just thinking, Man, he just hangs
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: out there and the sun comes up, He's going to
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: be in trouble. But he decided to move off. He
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: eventually turned went back the way it came. Didn't like
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: freak out at all, didn't blow, but just turned and
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: just walked back the way it came. And daylight came
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: and I thought, for sure, all right, it's a colder morning.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: It was like ten degrees colder than it was the
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: morning before, thick betting, this seemed like a great morning location.
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: And uh, man, there's a cedar tree like tenants diameter
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: cedar tree now about twenty yards from the tree just
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: tore to shreds you later pointed out like a pile,
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: like a huge pile of uh barked what would you
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: call shavings that came off the tree, and they were
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: piled at the bottom and very very impressive. Um. And
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: we sat all morning and how many did it was
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: to zero? Zero deer? Sat all the way through the
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: middle of the day. How many dear did we see
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: the middle of the day? Zero one coyote, turkeys, a
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: million and a half squirrels, zero deer. Then we sat
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: the rest of the evening. How many deer do we
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: see that evening? Zero? We sat four days in Ohio,
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: so one dough within the first hour on that first property,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: and then three days on the other property on which
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: we saw zero deer on that property, We saw just
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: the one dough for one minute on the neighbors, and
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: we put in you know, three full all days sits
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: there at the end, and then that other day we
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: were scouting most of the middle of the day. So essentially, yeah,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: essentially you've got full for four full days there um
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: with not a single buck to show for him. It
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: was the worst four days of hunting in the rut
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: I think I've ever had. Um, I've never sat for
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: so long and seen so few dear and not a
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: single buck. So that then raises a lot of questions
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: for me. It raised a lot of questions like what
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: did I do wrong? What do we do wrong here
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: these last four days, or what was going on that
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: led to this being so bad. So this is something
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: I've been thinking about and curious what your thoughts are
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: justin but I think we made a few things go
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: On one, the warm weather absolutely is not helping. I know,
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I proved it on day one. You can
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: kill deer on hot weather days during the ruts still possible.
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: It just uses more tight time firms. Right this this
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: movement earlier in the morning, there's movement late in the day,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: but not as much in the middle of the day.
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: But it's still possible. All that said, it's it doesn't help.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: It certainly dampens things. It certainly makes things worse. You
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: do not get that that, you know, intense daylight activity,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: you might otherwise. So I think the fact that we
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: had seven straight days of seventy plus gregree weather absolutely
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: slowed things down and kept us from seeing the kind
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: of activity we could have. Um. I think another thing
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: that hurt us was that, you know, these areas were
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: even lower deer density than I realized, and I had
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: almost no preparation or knowledge about these properties ahead of time.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: And that's on me. Um. You know, I was trying
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: to find something throughout the summer, nothing came together, and
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: when it finally did, it was, you know, mid season,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: and I was excited to have anything, so I jumped
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: on it. My lesson here is that you know, this
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: time we have is so um precious that I'm just
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: wasting my time hunting stuff that I have not adequately
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: prepared for. Can you show up at a brand new
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: proper and figure it out? Yes? Have I done it? Yes?
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: Is it a lot of fun? Yes? In Nebraska. We
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: did in Nebraska. Um. But at the same time, if
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: there's any way to avoid that by being able to
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: get started in the winter spring, why not do it.
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: So I I'm going to rededicate myself in this off
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: season to try to nail down my Ohio or whatever.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: My out of state option is going to be like
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: a really find a really good spot and know it
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: well and arrived comes season dialed in and knowing that, Okay,
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: there are deer here. I know what's going on, I
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: know what to expect. I hated the fact that we
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: came here with like cameras aren't showing very much, but
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: I hope it's good. I know that the areas should
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: be decent. And then we get here and it's like
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: a ghost town. I mean, the most ghost town of
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: a property I've ever spent time on, and I'm just like, well,
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm trusting the feature in the sign.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: I know there are deer here. There should be deer here,
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: but maybe not many. Um And and so the rut
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: can cover up a lot of um inadequacies. The rut
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: can make up for a lack of knowledge. You can
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: make up for a lack of um, scouting and preparation,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff sometimes, but you don't want
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: to depend on that. You want to have everything lined
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: up as best as you possibly can, and then if
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: the rut gives you a little extra luck, great, take
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: advantage of it. But I think in this case, you know,
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: due to the weird set of circumstances, I was just
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: forced in this issue where I had so little planning,
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: and I think that hurt us. Yeah, while excuse me,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: While it can help you with the unpreparedness because you
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: never know what might happen, it can also be uh,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: you know, amplified if you and the fact that if
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: you're not in the right place, you haven't done that
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: preseason or spent time, because then you're dedicating yourself to
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: a spot that is they can be completely dead and
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: and you know, I don't know, I still don't know
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: why this spot wasn't a hot spot. It's sure screen
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: about the ship for three days they're still and so
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: so here's the possibilities. One possibility could have been that
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: we just were unlucky and that there was a situation
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: where there was a hot dough somewhere with our big
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: buck locked onto her and all the other satellite bucks
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: hanging out around it, and that was just in a
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: different corner than we were, And you know, that's something
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: that's not out of the question. That's something like that
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: could happen for two or three days, and we were
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: only there for three days, so that could have been
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: what happened. Another possibility, maybe this thick betting area that
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: I thought was so awesome, maybe mostly bucks are just
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: using that. Maybe that's a buck betting area and the
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: does are betting somewhere else. Maybe I pinned all my
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: hopes on a place thinking that's a dough hot spot,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: when instead all the bucks were down in some other
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: corner where the does like to hang out more often.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: That's a possibility. This place was littered with buck sign
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: but we never saw a dough, never bumped a dough.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have tons of pictures of dos in there.
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: I do have buck pick is in there. Um, So
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: I might have dedicated our three days to a buckbed
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: and um a buck bedroom like a buck palace, um
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: at a time when you don't want to be hunting
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: a buck bedroom. So that's possibility. It was still the
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: best option for this property. Yeah, I mean I I
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: think you gotta gree so credit because while you may
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: not have done the preseason or had you know, the
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: opportunity to go in ahead of season and figure all
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: that out, it's still you made the best decision based
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: on the time allotment that you had, M so and
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: and sometimes we have to do that, which is essentially
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: what we did in Nebraska. But um, yeah, I mean
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: even even if you were like, Okay, this is buck bedding,
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: that's still the property we were dedicated to. So we
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: still I think made the best decision based on the
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: sign and what should have been happening during the ruck. Yeah.
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: So then that brings me to the third question, which is,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: you know, I dedicated myself to this betting are hunting
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: a day and a half on one side of it
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: and a day and a half on the other side
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: of it, when you know, was it simply happening somewhere else?
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: And I guess I kind of are one of these options,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: was like, there could possibly be buck locked on a
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: door somewhere else, But maybe I was just wrong, and
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: maybe actually the hot betting area was over on the
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: far other corner, on the neighbors that we didn't know about,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: over where there was a cornfield or something or some
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: other draw that all the doors were hanging out over there,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: and I never even explored those spots. Right now, I mean,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: maybe something I should have done or could have done
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: midday is like, all right, we're gonna walk about and
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: just walk around til we start bumping deer or till
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: we figure out what's happening right now. Um, some people
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: would do that. I instead trusted in that location. So
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: I believe in this betting air, eventually something has to
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: cruise by. And nothing ever did um right, wrong or
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: and different. That's what we did. Um, But I I
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: do not know what the right call was. I don't
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: know if there's I guess I'm still just scratching my head.
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know it. I'm perplexed. I'm very perplexed. We
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: could see a decent area tonight, we could hear long ways.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: I mean nothing came through. Yeah, there was nothing going
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: through there without I was seeing it. I mean thirteen
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: hours today and one deer came through before daylight and
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: that was it. And it was a big area covered. Yeah,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I think what you were saying is a
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: good point where you started with, like what could have
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: been the issue. I think. You know, with the rut,
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: you know, these deer are used to having a day
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: or to pop up right where it's sixty seventy degrees
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: and they they they're like in pre rot rot mode.
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: But day four, day five, like at some point that
• 1:32:59
  Speaker 1: hot weather, I feel like it's going to hit them
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: and they're gonna be like, I'm not sure what's going on,
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: but like we're not doing this so and I think
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: that's probably what happened. Is like like you said, like
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: I can't remember a prolonged like hot spell like this
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: during the rut. It's usually like again, you get a
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: day or two and I think they just keep rolling.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: But with the combination of that and um, the possibility
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: that those books that we had that where you're targeting
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: could have been, you know, just on the very next
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: property over lockdown and there's just nothing you can do,
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: just never know, except put time in the stand time
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: in the stand. And we did that. I mean, we
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: gave it everything we could. We We sat from dark
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: to dark all three days there and then that one
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: day we just scouted midday and had lunch. Um, So
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: we certainly gave it an a effort. We gave it
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: an a effort, Nebraska pulled it off, gave an effort
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: in Ohio and got blanked. And I think that's an
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: important lesson to take from this as well, is that
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the white tail rut, you can
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: do everything right and still not get a buck. You
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: can also make mistakes sometimes and get your buck. The rut.
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: It can shine a spotlight on inadequacies. It can also
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: put duct tape over a big old hole. It can
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: do crazy things, and you simply need to go out there,
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: put together the best possible plan you have, work, put
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: in the time, and see where the chips fall, and
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: appreciate it for what it is like somehow embrace whatever
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: it is. This is a hard one to embrace the
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: last four days because I mean zero bucks for four
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: days and just two tiny dough settings across all those
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: hours in the tree. That was tough. But I kept
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: on thinking back to the November or November one, thinking
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: break to great that moment was, how great that day
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: and a half two days was. And so I think
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the rut, when the good times
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: are good, like soak them in, really really enjoy it,
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: because you got to know that the bad times are
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: gonna come. Like I was talking about this earlier this week,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: I think one of the best things we could do
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: as deer hunters during the rut is reset our expectations
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: right now. If you are listening right now, this might
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: be the very most important thing you get out this
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: entire podcast. Right now. I want you to reset your
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: expectations for your upcoming rut hunts. They will not all
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: be like a Drewary Outdoors video. They are not all
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: going to be chasing, fighting, grunting, mating bucks NonStop. You
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: are not going to have the super Bowl of the
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: white tail rut dream scenario your entire trip or your
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: entire hunt. In fact, most of your hunt will not
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: be that. You should assume that of your hunt will
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: be slow, monotonous, and boring. It will not be what
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: you're dreaming of. You might get lucky and have a
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: few of those special moments or one of those special days,
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: or a couple of those special days. Set your expectations
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: there and be okay with that, and be prepared to
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: have fun with that, make the most of that, enjoy
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: that for what it is. If you can go into
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: the game with that expectation, I think, then whatever reality
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: dishes out, you will then enjoy more. But when we
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: go into it, and I do it every year every year,
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, the what's gonna be amazing,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be magical. It's gonna be fourteen days of
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: NonStop grunting and chasing. And it never lives up to
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: that standard ever. If I just better prepared myself for
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: it and just new like, all right, man, this is
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be a grind and we're gonna have a couple
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: of good times and then the rest is gonna be
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: like but you weather that and you enjoy it for
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: what it is, and then you're there and ready and
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: able to take it offer tunity when it does present itself.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: So reset for reality. No, it's gonna be tough, and
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: then you want me disappointed what it is and you
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: will be super stoked when you do have those special
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: days which are possible, and they do happen, and then
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 1: what we live for, but they don't come by that often. Man.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: We had one special day out of seven and it
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: was awesome. When we look back on this week, you know,
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: next year and we look back on it, and that
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: was great. We won't even remember the four days of misery.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: We'll think back to that one special day and I
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: think that's you know, there's the we keep on hearing
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: this analogy, but there's like the analogy of like a pregnancy.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: Like my wife right after giving birth to our firstborn
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: child was like, no way am I ever doing that again,
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: But then like six months later she's like, oh my gosh,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to have another child. Um, you gloss
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: over the tough stuff with a little bit of time,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: and you just remember the good. And I think that's
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: the case of the rut. So be prepared for some
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: tough times and some slow times, and uh you'll be
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: You'll be that much more excited and ready to take
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: advantage of the good ones when they do come. That
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: was a big takeaway from me and reminder out of
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: this hunt. Um, were there any other main big things
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: that stood to you as far as things either mistakes
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: I made or lesson as we learned observations. That's a
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: different podcast. No, man, I think, Um, I think what
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: you're saying is good. I think it's a good time
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: to like to if if something's not working, like make
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: a change, like if you have the option to if
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: you're you sit a morning or two mornings, or you know,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: a full day sit and it's just not happening, and
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: you have the flexibility to find where it's happening, do it.
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I felt like that movie we made mid
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: Day was great, even we only went hundred d twenty yards,
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: but that really could have put us in the game.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: Um So it could be that small but I think,
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: you know, you have to you're not on like a
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: bed to food pattern necessarily during this time of year.
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: So it's it's a good time to think outside the box.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: And also, you know the night where we were like,
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: we don't have that great of a wind, what's the
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: used to climb in a tree? You know, get the decoy, yot.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: It's a great time to decoy and um, you know
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: it also, especially for us on a property we've never
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: been on, gave us an opportunity to learn more because
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: if for some reason that night we saw a deer
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: coming out of that's the you know jump in the
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: fence where the cows were, saw a deer coming across
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: one corner, it could have made a you know, a
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: lot of our just Asians for the next day or
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: the next couple of days. So I would encourage uh
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: to you use that time to grow as a hunter,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: just in general, like you don't have to PLoP yourself,
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: you know, the peg in the hole. Just put your
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: head on a swivel and if it's not working, find him. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: just observing the just observing the just that's the tricks.
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: So I think big things here, even during the rut,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: gather until at the beginning of your hunt. Well that's
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: scouting preseason, or scouting the first day or scouting midday.
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: The last thing. Doing observations says if you don't know
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: what the heck you're doing, figure something out. Don't commit
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: before you know something. That's a big one. I think
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: what you said is another big lesson. Continue to pivot,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: observe a just pivot. Observe a just pivot. Don't lock
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: yourself into something unless you have confidence. When you do
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: have confidence in the terrain feature or a habitat type,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: give it some time to produce. But you need this
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: part comes out to experience. I think you need to
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: know from experience or gut when it's time to pull
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: the plug, Like for me, you know, giving it a
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: day and a half in that first spot was like, Okay,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: that's enough I get. I got two morning sits in
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: which where I was really really expecting something, and then
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: an evening sit that was enough where I was like, okay,
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: I really love this feature. I love this spot. But
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: pulling the plug on it um that is something though,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: that is always easier so than done knowing when the
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: right move is and that should That's a sliding scale too,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: based on deer density. You know, if we're in a
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: very high deer deer density area, you might be able
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: to make a decision more quickly when you see like
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: all the deer do something different. But in a low
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: deer density area, you do need to sit a longer
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: period of time sometimes to ever have a chance for
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: something to come through, because good deer movement in a
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: low deer density area might be too dear coming through
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: your you know, ten acres in a day, and you
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: gotta know for that or be prepared for that. So
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: it was a weird rut. It was a weird trip,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: Like I'm still processing, I'm still thinking through I don't
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: know what to make of this second half in Ohio.
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: I loved what we did in Nebraska. I've got work
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: still do with my shooting, but I'm making progress. The
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: ruts amazing, the ruts brutal. Um. I feel a heck
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: of a lot better on this episode than I did
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: in the episode I recorded after my one we Can
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: November trip last year. I'll tell you that missing that
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: buck last year was devastating. Killing this buck this year
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: was an incredible relief and so gratifying. Um. And maybe
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: the final thing I should mention is that I'm having
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: a great hunting season and I'm doing it while having fun.
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: I've removed a lot of the pressure I used to
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: put on myself. I'm spending more time with my family,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: spend some time with some buddies. I'm getting out and
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: doing stuff when I'm excited about. Given time to mentoring
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: new hunters. I'm not traveling to ten thou states. Instead,
• 1:43:05
  Speaker 1: I'm close to home, but still doing a future trips,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: trying to find balance, and I'm just not trying to
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: do it for anyone else but me now. And I'm
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: having a great time. And I think everyone's got to
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: find their own way to do that in their own hunts,
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: finding the fun, find how to fulfill your own goals
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: and not do it for anybody else, and enjoy this stuff.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: The rut we always talk about, you got to grind
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: it out. It's a marathon. You gotta put in the time.
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: You gotta work, work, work, work, work. It's all true,
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: But at what expense if you are not having fun.
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: You're out there hunting during the rut because it's fun.
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: So don't make it like a tactical battle plan that
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: you have to suffer through. Enjoy it. There's a lot
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: of stuff in life that sucks. There's a lot of
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: stuff in life that's hard. We're all gonna face tough challenges.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: There's gonna be tough, disappointing, tragic things happen in our lives.
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: We don't need to add any more nasty, bummer kind
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: of situations to her life. If we're gonna add deer
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 1: hunting as is a part of our lifestyle, make sure
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: it's a positive. Make sure it's a fun thing. Make
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: sure you're not going hunting because you feel obligated to
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: go hunting, but go because you actually want to go.
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: Don't sit all day because you feel obligated. Because if
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: you don't kill a big buck your you think your
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: buddy is gonna look at you differently. No sit all
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: day because you're stoked about it. If you're not stoked
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: about it, spend time with your family, or go do
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: something with your kids, or go do some of some friends.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: Don't do it to impress anyone. Don't do it because
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: I tell you should do it, or because someone on
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: TV told you should do it. Have fun. And I
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: think that's my final message for for our little recap
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 1: podcast here Justin I can agree with that. Any other thoughts, Nope,
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: And I need to get home to Hunt. I know
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: you've been working on as a cameraman. Now it's trying
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: to be the shooter. All right, Well we'll we'll wrap
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: this one up. Thanks for tuning in for this long
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: winding discussion post Hunt recap episode. Hopefully learned a few
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: things you enjoyed the story. I'm still reveling in the
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: glory of that Nebraska buck. You can check out pictures
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: of it over on my Instagram account at wired to
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: Hunt and UH. You'll get to see the hunt on
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: one week in November season two, which will come out
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: in UH, and Justin nailed some sweet footage of that
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: of that deer. We unfortunately has zero buck footage for
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: the rest of the trip, but it was really good
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: at the beginning. Um So that said, thank you for
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: tuning in, appreciate you being a part of this community.
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: Best of luck out there in the woods. Enjoy the rut,
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.