Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 319: Analyzing our 2019 Rut Successes and Failures

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Ep. 319: Analyzing our 2019 Rut Successes and Failures · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number three
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: nineteen in Today. In the show, Dan and I are
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: breaking down our two thousand nineteen rut hunts, my first
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: success on the back forty, our efforts to better balance
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: hunting and family, and are hard learned lessons from another
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: rut hunting grind. Okay, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: brought to you by on X. This is for me,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the episode where I breathe this big sigh of relief,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: like rut cation has passed. The grind for me has
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: come to an end. I've slept in an hour or
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: two later than I have been for most of the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: last three weeks. I finally don't feel like a zombie.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: I imagine you might be in the same place. Dan,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: I am exactly the opposite, my friend, Like you're waking
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: up earlier. No, I'm not waking up earlier. I'm just
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: getting more sleep on my rout vacation because the kids kids. Yes,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: when I was out hunting, you know, I'm spending time
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: at my mom's or at my my family home. That's
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: where my camp is, my you know, deer camp is.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: And so when you go to bed at nine ten
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: o'clock and then you wake up at four every morning, uh,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: you get seven to six hours of continuous sleep. Last night,
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: I went to bed at like ten and was woken
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: up multiple times and I had to wait. You know,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: it's just it's crazy. But I I am now back
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: into zombie mode here at my house. I guess I'm lucky.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: My son sleeps right through the night, and so I'll
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: be you usually get you know, he'll usual sleep till
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: seven in the morning, he'll go down to like eight,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: sleep till seven. So you don't ever say that to
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: me within striking distance, because I'll probably punch your right
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: in your mouth. I hate it when other parents are like,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: oh what your kids don't sleep to the night and
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: mind does it sounds like a parenting issue. That's gotta
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: be it, dude, I would doubt it. I wouldn't doubt it.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Uh So I will avoid making that comment anymore. But
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: the game plan for today, other than making you feel
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: really bad about not getting sleep, is uh talking about
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: what we've just been doing over the last two or
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: three weeks because we haven't gotten to check in since
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that whole rut period began. So I wanted to walk through,
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: you know, our rut, talk through what went right, what
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: went wrong, what we learned from it, UM, tell the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: stories of of the the exciting moments that you and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I had. UM. It's always fun for me to kind
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: of do this debrief, to take some time to really
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: kind of try to or process what happened, because, at
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: least for me, the rut is this like I don't know,
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: it's a marathon, but it's like a million miles of minutes,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: go go, go, go, go, go go. I always need
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: something like this where I can sit back, think it through,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: digest it, and and even appreciate it a little bit.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Sometimes just having a conversation like this helps me appreciate
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: what just happened. So that's what I'm thinking. If you're
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: up for it, I'm down, dude. So on a one
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: to ten scale, how would you rate your two thousand
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: nineteen rut cation. I'm telling you this right now. I
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: had so much fun it should be illegal, Like I
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: had such an absolute blast going Sure, your wife's not
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: listening to this. I don't want to want you to
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: get in trouble. No, we already had the argument about it,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: so oh, you know, just like, well, you know, I
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: hope you had fun, but I was here with the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: kids and blah blah blah blah blah. You know, I'm
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: just like, hey, whatever, Like you just at some point
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: you just stopped listening to him and you just say, hey,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: this is this is what I'm gonna do. So you
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: go back this trip, come back to the trip like, oh,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: it was horrible, honey, it was really awful. I'm I
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: can't do that though. It's I can't do that because
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I walk into the house and I'm like, hey, everybody,
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: how's it going. I'm refreshed, I'm being happy dad. You know,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: let's do this, let's be a parent, let's go play,
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: let's color and all this. Uh and then here she is,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you know, she while we were on the rut or
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: while I was hunting, she you know, got sick, so
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: she got like a sore throat and just felt really
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: crappy and and all this stuff. And here I am.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: You know, it's like I'm out ever my balls off,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: but I got I'm doing it with a big smile
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: on my face, you know, So I don't know. Well, yeah,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: that's a that's a tricky one. We'll have to talk
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: about that a little bit more later too, because I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: definitely had some of some of that same balance issue
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: that I had to think about too. But but sorry,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you were talking about how awesome it was and you
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: were at the time of your life. Dude. I needed
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a rut like this though, because the last three years
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: I went into, UM, I felt like I got off easy,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: you know, every the stars kind of a line the
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: last three years where see two thousand and sixteen. Um,
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I hunted one day and then a huge,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: like twenty four hour rain storm came through. I'm like, ah,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: I know what I need to do. I got some
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: trail out camera intel. I'm gonna pop into this fence row.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna climb up. Uh. I saw a buck stand
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: out of his bed, grunted, came in shot him right that.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: That was two thousand sixteen. Two thousand seventeen, went into
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a new farm that I had hunted one or two
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: times in early October. UH went into a run and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: gun I wanted to set up in this terrain feature
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that was leading to a really big crp field. As
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I'm walking in, see a ton of scrapes set up
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: inside the timber, you know, outside of this betting area.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Deer walks through. He's at a range one grunt rat.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: He turns around, comes in. I shoot him. Two thousand eighteen,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: set up in another terrain feature inside of basically this
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: pinch point slash corridor behind a standing cornfield, not on
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the food edge or not on the field edge. Um
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: it rained all day, waited for the rain to stop.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: The second the last rain drop hit the ground, I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: was already in the tree. But comes out shoot him.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Three years in a row, right, pretty much just you know,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I think, uh, three days, three days right, make us
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: sound really easy, And I wan, man, what I'm getting
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: at is, you know it's not. It's not easy, right.
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like I just walked into a
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: fresh property and killed these deer. You know, this is
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: this is seven eight nine years of knowing this property,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: knowing where the rain features are, scouting all this stuff,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and putting myself in the best possible position. This year
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was a little bit different. Not only was I going
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: into a rut where I had my mindset on just
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: a handful of deer or a certain caliber of deer. Um.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I also was fighting things, like I would say, within
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a half a mile of this farm, there was close
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: to a thousand acres of standing corn right, and close
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: to five acres of it were bordering the farm that
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: I hunt. So it was just I knew I had
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: some obstacles in front of me, but I knew I
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: also needed to fall into the routine like I always
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: do and and just get at it. It just took
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: longer this year, but that's what I needed. I didn't
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: want really an easy season. I wanted because there's something
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: happens to me anyway when you when you go and
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: you start to do you hunt that first week right
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, you know, I'm having fun. I'm
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: seeing some deer, not really what I want, but I'm
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: seeing them. And then there's a moment where the grind
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: kicks in and then some people bitch auld complain about it.
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: But for me, I really like to embrace it because
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I love it. I love that point where you're just
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the first week you don't want to sleep in,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: you're happy. The second week you're like, oh, man, I could,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: I would really love to teen more minutes. Or it's
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: the one day it was negative ten with wind chill
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and I'm walking in and I know I gotta, you know,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: climb up in this stand and sit there an hour
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: before the sun comes up and I'm freezing my balls off.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: But I loved it, you know what I mean. Like
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: you can bitch and complain or you can embrace it.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And I did a little bitch, and but I also
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: embraced it. And that's when you start to really For me,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I like, really enjoyed myself. So if I would have
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: tagged out in the first week of this season, it
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: would have just been, oh, I had fun. But I
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: hit that that grind point. I hit that the point
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: where you just you start to feel, I don't know,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: there's something different about me when I get to that point,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and I I just am able to enjoy everything that
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: much more. Hopefully that makes sense. Well, I can't claim
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: to ever really understand your Dan, but but I can't
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: say that I get what you're saying in this case,
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and and uh and and for me, I definitely appreciate
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and end result much more when there had to be
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: struggled to lead up to it, and so I've always said, like,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't want to have that hunt where
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I killed a buck on the first day. Of course,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you know, if it happens, it happens, that's great. But
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I always my favorite hunts are the ones where you
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: struggle for seven days or something like that and you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: think it's not gonna happen, and you've almost lost hope
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: and then boom it comes through. Or you had hike
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: and hike and hike and hike and hike and you
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: were miserable and tired and the grind was wearing you down,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: and then it finally pays off. Like that is the
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: payoff that's always the most meaningful. Um. So yeah, at
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: that point this year, yes, in a different kind of way. Um.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean absolutely, I definitely hit the grind
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: um and definitely was wearing and dogging down because my
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: kind of my marathon started earlier this year. Um because
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: basically it was basically from October, I think from October
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: until November fift I hunted all but four days. I think, um,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: because I did like that mentor hunt for a weekend
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: and then I was home for a day and then
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I left for the seven days of hunting in the
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Boundary waters, and then I was Then I immediately started
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: hunting for Tran for like three days, and then I
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: immediately started filming an episode of the Back forty for
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: three days. And then I got back and immediately started
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: hunting in that late October time period for Train again,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: and then went straight back to the Back forty for
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: a week and then straight back for Tran, and so
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't stop. I mean, it took just a couple
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: of days in between that whole basically a month long period.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: I hunted I think twenty five or twenty six days. So, um,
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: so you were just the hunter too, you were you
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: also had to play guide for a little bit. Yeah,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So I mean there was two days of me guiding
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a new hunter on that mentor hunt field the Hork event,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and then hunted myself in Minnesota, and then hunted for
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: a few days. And then on the Back forty I
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: hunted with Doug during and I hunted those days, but
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: also was was helping him get set up and giving
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: them the tour of the place and doing things like that,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: and we hunted together one day and then hunted it
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: again on my own for a while, and then later
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: in the back forty I took my dad out and
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: we'll talk about this in some more detail later, but
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: I kind of guided my dad for a few days
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: hunting and just sat with him um and and tried
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: to get him a buck too. So that was really cool.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: But yes, so it was. It was kind of a
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: mixture of me hunting and me taking other folks around,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: me showing other folks around, which was which is fun
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: for a change, but it definitely added up to a
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: lot of days in the field, which is which is great.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I can't complain about it, but I mean, if we're
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: being honest, it does wear you down too. So by
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: the time by the time the fourteenth, the evening of
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: the fourteenth came and I was I was ready to
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: sleep in and just kind of recenter myself, which is
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: what I was able to do this past weekend. So yeah, yeah,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: so there's a lot to cover. Though. In between all
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: that that we just talked about, I hit I hit
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: that point where it was like, oh man, I've been
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: at it a while, and I did take it. I
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: did take some time to go back home for you know,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: a more afternoon in a morning hunt just to kind
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: of help the wife out because she had some plans.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: But I started hitting that point within the grind where
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: it's just like, man, I'm a dad in a husband too.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I got I got things I probably should be doing.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: You know, you start to second guess where you actually
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: need to be. Is that in the tree stand? Where
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: is that back at home? So yeah, I'm definitely starting
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to get that more. There's definitely a change happening for
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: me with the family and everything. And you know, we've
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: got a toddler now he's almost two, and my wife's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: pregnant with our second and and so yes, that's absolutely
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: coming up. And and I took a couple I did
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: take a couple of days off that I normally wouldn't have.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: That I'm so glad I did. And that's kind of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: changing my thoughts on on the Rutton Marathon for me
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I think in the future I will
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: probably do. In the past, it was like, you have
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: to hunt every single day. This is it. You got
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to make ky when the sun shines, go go go
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: go go, don't be weak, be strong, go go, go
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: go go. This year, um, two things happened. Number One,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: I realized what you just said there are some things
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: more important than killing a deer, and I need to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: try to do better job of fulfilling those obligations to
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: so taking some time off another thing I did different
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: this year when I was hunting my closer to home spot. UM.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't hunt all day on most of those hunts.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Some of them I did, but I realized that I
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: could come in and help out with my son a
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: little bit and give my wife a little break. And
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: I decided to know what, Yeah, the midday hunt can
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: be good. I've had some encounters. I like to do
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it because it's you know, I like to always be
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: able to check that box which says I did everything
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I possibly could. Um. But this year I realized, sometimes
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you gotta make sure your priorities are right. So I
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: came in mid day and helped out more. I took
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: a few days off the middle to help out. And
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: I think that moving forward, I'm going to continue to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: do that and maybe do it a little more. UM.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Because you you always say it, and I've always given
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: you a hard time about it, but this is a
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: selfish thing we do, and I think there's an interesting
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: balance you have to find as a as a dad
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: between giving it your all. If this is something that
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: matters you, you want to give it your all and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: work hard, but at the same time balancing it with
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: your family and uh and so yeah, that was that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: was something for me. And I will tell you though,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: that taking that break. I took a couple of days
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: one weekend off and stayed home with the family. That
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: little break was a huge help with the grind, Like
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: giving myself a little break also revitalized me and maybe
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: maybe a more effective hunter over the final five six days, um,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: because I wasn't so tired. So there might be something
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: to you know, saying all right, it's okay to sleep
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: in today, because if you sleep in that one day,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: maybe it gives you that boost that gets you that
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: much more confident, that much stronger, that more more focused
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: for the rest of your trip. Um. I don't know.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: That's something I started to think more and more about.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I was usually like hunt all fourteen days NonStop. Maybe
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: I'm maybe I'm just getting old, or maybe I'm getting
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: smarter or something. I'm not sure, but there might be
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: something to keeping your edge um being more important than
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: just being there every spare second. I don't know, maybe
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: you could make there and the other way too. But yeah,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: these are things I've been thinking about. Yeah, I mean,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: it's it's just what part of life you're in, right
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Like for me, I got three kids and I got
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a wife, and um, their life doesn't stop when I
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: go and when I go away. So I did the
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: same thing, you know, I took a afternoon in a
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: morning off and during the snowstorm that happened, came back
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: up here. Um, let my wife go and do the
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: event that she needed to go do next morning, got
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: the kids ready for school, took you know, took the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: wife and the youngest son out for dinner or out
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: for breakfast. And then I came back and started up again.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: And I think not only did she appreciate it, but
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: I you know, you start you start talking about checking boxes.
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I feel like I felt good then going back and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: saying I checked the box. I showed her that she
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: and the family are more important than hunting at that
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: time right there, right And now I can go back
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and I feel confident that she's not gonna be near
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: as upset with me when you know, for week number
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: two going into week number two, and I don't know,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: I felt I felt good about myself at that point. Yeah,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: I mean I think it's I think you mean you
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: hit the nail on the head. It's a new phase
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: in life for us. Um, I'm a little bit behind you,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: but getting getting there and starting to understand where you're
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: coming from more and more often. And um, it's a transition.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: It's something different, a whole new wrench that's thrown into
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: to RUT plans and RUT strategies and and all that.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: But it's for the best possible reason, right, I mean,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't like to have my rut hunt screwed up
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: for anything more than forgetting to see my family. So
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that's that's a pretty good reason to change the plans.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: But let's let's start back at the beginning. Let's break
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: down how the hunts actually went. Um, because you and
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I both found some success, but we both had some
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: struggles along the way. Uh. Let's talk through the highlights
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: of your rut caation first, maybe and uh and break
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: down some some things you have figured out along the
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: way that you learn some things that led to your
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: success and all that. Yeah, So it's kind of funny,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: remember me talking to you this summer and earlier in
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: the fall where I was like, man, I'm not even
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: gonna start hunting until week number two of November because
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: you're because of that buck, right, because of that buck. Yeah, well,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: I thought all that went out the window right November one,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: the evening of November one, I woke up, you know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: here at home, got ready left. November one was day
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: one of my rep vacation. And if anything, this year
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: solidified that next year. And I know there's a whole
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: bunch of different variables that go into this decision. But
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: next year, I I know for a fact that as
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: hard as it's gonna be, I I need to stay
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: out of the woods, like November one through the fourth
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and and and just I would rather have those four
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: days on the back end to try to catch one
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: of these giant zombies that are walking you know that,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: you know, walking through the timber, not even paying attention.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: Then have a fresh you know, just watch a two
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: year old praade basically like what I did this year. Interesting. Yeah,
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: So I really do think that next year it's probably
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: not even gonna start for me until my birthday November
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: and grind it out until Thanksgiving and and and go
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: put the time on the back end of the rut
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: instead of the front end. It's an interesting situation you
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: guys have there in Iowa because you don't have a
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: gun season opens until December, so you get to hunt
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: that whole rut um. I've always been really jealous of
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: that because here it ends September four for US gun
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: season opens, and then you know, you can of course
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: hunt through that. But it's very, very it's totally different.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: The normal dear behavior ends on the fifteenth and then
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: it just becomes deer reacting to seven thousand hunters or
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: whatever it is. So I've never got to experience that
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: kind of that period of the year hunting here in
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Michigan like you have. And I've heard and I've hunted
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: in Ohio a little bit during that time period and
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: seen that it can be pretty darn good. Um, So
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: it makes sense from that perspective what you're saying. Yeah,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but it was cool to go see, you know, to
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: to just have encounters because the very first evening I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: went into I had a perfect wind to go into
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the best possible what what I'm gonna call, you know,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: one A one B. It's it's the one A betting area.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: It's one of the best betting areas on the properties
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: that I hunt, and Um, I got what you would
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: call kind of down wind of it, UM, and just
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: wanted to see what was working in It's it's this
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: giant rectangle that sits on the top of a ridge
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: with a couple of other smaller, smaller ridges leading up
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: to it, right and Uh, that's where I wanted to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: start off, and instantly I got in that night. UM,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: and I just wanna reiterate how important and how much
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: focus I put on exit and entry stray. You know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: access was so key to the encounters that I had
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: this year and the success that I had this year.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: You know, having to go out of your way, taking
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: your time, really thinking through uh kind of led me
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: to put my stands in the right spot because I
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: had you know, I paid attention to the access. You've
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: got to go take that extra step and go around
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: or jay hook in or walk through some nasty creek
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: bottom or whatever just to get to these spots. I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: think that is one of the key factors into the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: success that I've had in the last four years, is
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: just access and not just blowing through the timber and
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: taking the long way if needed. You know what I mean. Yeah,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: so how do you How did you access this betting air? Yeah?
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: So this is kind of foreshadowing too, because eventually it's
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the tree that I shot the deer out of this year.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And so I park um in this little grass field,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: A walk a fence line in dropped down to the
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: lowest point um basically a drainage between two ridges, and
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I walk that drainage in and then take a hard
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: ninety degree basically left up and walk straight to my
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: tree stand. And it's a southwest wind, so my wind
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: is kind of blowing down into the drainage and I
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: have this I don't know if you follow my Instagram story,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: but uh, the title of that stand was kind of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: like risk verse reward. And as my scent would drop
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: down into this the lower spot of this drainage, the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: deer would kind of work that top third of the
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: ridge and come into this betting area from kind of
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: from both sides. So I was hunting the the I
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: guess the north side of it, the top side of
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: this betting area. And what's cool about this betting area,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's this giant rectangle, right, So I want you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: to take that rectangle and I want you to chop
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: it into you know, chop it into three equal pieces.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: The centerpiece of this betting area is almost hollow. There's
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: two big oak trees that canopy out, so there's not
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a lot of growth um on the forest floor there.
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: So it kind of opens up and it's it becomes
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: this staging area for the deer before they work their
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: way through the bottom part of the betting area and
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: head to uh, you know, out for the night. You know,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they go to an egg field. And once I found
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: this spot, I was just like, oh my god, now
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: it's just a waiting game, right. The deer are there.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: And the first night that I set up in this tree,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: I saw seven bucks ranging from one years old to
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: possibly a four year old. It was hard for me
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: to tell, but he was a big nine pointer and
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and there was you know, a handful of doze in there.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: And the first night is just a bunch of two
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: and three year old snort weeason at each other. It
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: was awesome way to kick off the rut. Uh and
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: the deer would just work through, you know, they'd work
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: through the area, they'd go to that staging area. They
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: mill around a little bit, leave some scent you know,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: they do some scrapes scent check. These does posture up
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: on each other and then as the evening starts to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: fade away, they work their way out, which was awesome
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: because then I didn't have to worry about staying in
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the tree stand longer because these deer were, um, you know,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: these deer were coming sticking around right. And that's why
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: I love hunting staging areas because if you're hunting a
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: field edge at dark, as you're getting down out of
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the tree, here comes the deer. Right, I'm off the
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: field edge into this, you know, through a betting area,
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: already into this staging area, like this staging area within
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: a betting area, and the deer are working their way.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: So all I have to do is drop down out
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: of my tree, go back to the bottom that I
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: walked in, walk the bottom all the way out to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: my truck, and it's just it's like it's just the
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: perfect access entry and exit, you know what I mean.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: So so that tree stand stayed there because I had
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: to take the sticks down, but that tree stands stayed
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: there because I was like, this is money. If they
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: come through. Uh, it's kind of fun. It kind of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: pinches in tight where this opening is under this big
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: canopy of this oak, and uh, my shot is going
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: to arrange anywhere from fifteen to thirty two yards. And
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: that's where I was like, okay, perfect, perfect, And I
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: hunted the backside of that a different angle on a
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: different wind of that betting area and saw some good
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: activity too, but not as good as that particular that
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: particular spot. So and then from there that first night
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: was awesome, and I had really high expectations going into
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: that the rest of the week. But what happened was
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: is then you realize how much of a factor that
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: standing grain played on the rest of it, and it
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: just became doze and two year olds. I mean, that's
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: all I saw. For I had a couple encounters with
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: some three year olds that I decided I didn't want
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to pass, but uh or that I that I did
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: want to pass because I had a long time to
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, there's a big buck. Okay, okay, cool?
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: What is he? What is he? Do I know him?
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: Do I recognize him? What is he? What is he doing? Okay? Man,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: he looks good. Okay, it looks like a three year old.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: His legs are long, legs look long. You know that
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: I had the opportunity to really observe some of these
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: deer um through the buyos. And then when they did
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: work their way through, I was like, Okay, well I
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: don't you know. You know, you know how we talked
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: about it. He didn't make me go whoa, Yeah, you
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? So um. Other than and other
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: than that, there was hardly any sign on the property.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't run into hardly any scrapes at
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: all on this property. I mean I did, but not
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: like previous years. Man. Uh on the bottom, this was
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: a corn ear on the farm, and on the farm
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the corn was gone. They combined it and I saw
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: a ton of deer in the picked corn fields. But
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, there was hardly any sign along
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: the the field edges this year, which blew my mind.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So another kind of man, what is going on? And
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of it had to do with
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: the deer were in the corn a lot, a lot.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe a lot of people had similar experiences
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: with that standing corn. We had the same issue here
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: still have it. Uh so much moisture, so wet, so
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: much rain that kept farmers from me get that corn out.
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I still have standing corn all around most of my
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: spots right now. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, based off
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: of people responding to my Instagram story, you nailed it.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: They especially here in Iowa, and I think at one
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: point they said only forty of the cry ops were
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: out or the corn was out in the state. And
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: I think that was last week, early last week. So
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I'm sure some some more's come out since then. But
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, it can really affect and I'm talking about
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: guys from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and northern Missouri, you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: saying saying this, and that's for the most part, similar
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: terrain throughout you know, throughout all that, so um a
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: lot of people were fighting standing crops and um. Other
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: than that, you know, I just I started a I
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: started my routine. Right I started. I had a truck
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: full of tree stands, and so when I would do
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: in my running guns, I would throw a tree stand
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: up and what I thought was a really good area,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: really good access, really good stand location, and then I
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: would leave it up, tear down the sticks, and move
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: to the next spot right and really try to hone
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: in on where the majority of the deer were moving,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: and and most of it was up high where my shooters,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: my quote unquote hitlisters had been historically moving last year, right.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: And so I go through this routine of checking trail
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: cameras and there is nothing on trail cameras, right. And
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: I hate to put a lot of weight on trail
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: camera data, but historically, if I'm catching, I got I
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: got some decent pinch points on the farm. So if
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: they're not on one of these trail cameras throughout a
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: four or five day period, they're not on the farm,
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: right now, that's just how I that's how I feel, right,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: And so it just wasn't So I decided to I
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: need to give this part of the farm a break.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: This was like three or four days into it. Five
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: days into it, and then I decided to go down
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: to a different part of the problem pretty just to
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: see what was moving. And it was another one of
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: the best betting areas on the farm, and just sat
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: up and kind of in it's a crick crossing, but
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: I can I can see a long ways on both sides.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: It's not a field edge set, but it's a it's
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: like a it's like a staging area on on top
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: of a betting area that I can see into one
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of the betting areas, And sure enough, this is where
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: all the deer we're at there, all in the in
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: the picked picked corn. This is where I passed to
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: three year olds. This is where I passed or um
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: a really small antword four year old. This is where
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I saw the first shooter of the year. But it
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: was like a thousand yards out and I only saw
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: him through my nose, and so I just, you know,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: decided I needed to give that, give that a shot
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: before I counted everything else, because you got to know
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: on the properties that you're hunting, you kind of you
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: got you gotta kind of know what is going on
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: on everything, right. But but I realized that the caliber
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: of the deer we're not really what I wanted. So
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: I had to then focus back on. So basically I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: hunted off. I hunted off of the east side of
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: the farm through some attention on the south side of
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: the farm, you know, a morning and afternoon another afternoon,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: just to see what the deer movement was doing. A
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: lot of does but also a lot of two year
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: olds and a couple of three year olds. Saw one
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: four year old out in the distance, not necessarily the
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: caliber that I was looking for, And then I could
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: then I knew, you know, okay, I'm doing the right
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: thing by staying on the east side of the farm
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: because the caliber of the deer that I want to
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: go after are not on the west side of the
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: farm either. So then it just kind of became it's
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it's time to just wait him out. Right. You've you've
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: kind of gone through your stand rotation. Uh, You've looked
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: for that deer movement, You've got your stands in the
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: best location. And then now I can chop my farm
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: in half and go into the east side of the
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: farm and only really pay attention. So now basically what
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: I've done is just cut the acreage in half almost
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and hold on. I want to make sure I got
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: this right. The side that you decided to focus on
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: was the side where the picked corn fields was nearest to,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: or the side of the standing corn, the side with
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the standing corn, right, So do you think that most
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: of the deer activity was over by the picked corn,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: but you we're seeing the mature bucks on the standing
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: corn because that was just better cover over there. They
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: felt more comfortable on that in that area. So I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: had at this point, I had yet to see any
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: mature bucks on the standing corn side, but the caliber
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of the deer that I saw on the picked corn
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: side were not what what I was going at, even
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: though they were a four year old. Like I passed
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the one four year old, and I think he was
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: like one. He had a really huge body, but just
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: not really what I was, you know. He didn't make
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: me go up right, you know. So so it all
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: kind of leads into this one moment where I I'm like,
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: all right, I need this. So I go through this
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: the six days and this is all kind of happen.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: You know. I'm telling this story and I'm not going
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: through it day by day because there are days where
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: there there there are mornings where I'm not seeing any deer.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Where there's an afternoon where I'm sitting and I didn't
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: see a deer. Maybe I saw a spike come through
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: or a two year old come through. But I'm I'm
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: starting to you know, I'm starting to hone in on
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: the deer movement on the where my headlisters have been
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: historically right, and I set up on the you know,
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I need an observation sit tonight. We
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: got some fresh you know, we got some snow coming
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: in tonight. Um, and I'm gonna get a tree stand
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: in here, because historically the snow comes knocks a ton
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of leaves off. And if there's snow on the ground,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: you can see forever in the timber, right, you can.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Movement is really easy to spot out when you have
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: a brown dot walking across the white background. Yeah, so
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: I set up a stand that Um, that evening, I am,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you know, watching you know, a couple two year olds chase,
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: a couple of young doughs around, probably weren't hot. Um,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: still seeing dough groups, you know, maybe one or two
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: individual uh, you know, stand alone does go back home,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: turn around, and and this is the coldest morning of everything.
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: And I'm I'm I walk into the tree stand. It's
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: already set up, and I'm literally I get there an
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: hour before daylight. I'm bundled up with all of my gear,
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I was wearing everything. Uh, and it's so cold that
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: I pulled my stocking cap over my face. And I'm
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: not even looking at this point. Yeah, the sun's just
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: coming up, and I'm I peek out every once in
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: a while, I'm looking around, and I was I started
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: to shiver. So I'm like, this is typically what happens
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: in in uh other years, where if I rattle, I'll
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: warm up a little bit. So I did this. So
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: I did this blind rattling sequence just to just to
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: kind of warm up, get the blood moving again, stood up,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: cracked the antlers together, and um this like two year
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: old one class comes in and he just kind of
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: mills around a little bit and hangs out, and then
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: he works his way up the ridge. And this is
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: here's the cool part. You know. For every time that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: me and you talk about how dear you terrain, we
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: talk about how dear um you know, use the wind
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: to their advantage and all this stuff. For every time
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: that we say that, I can show you an example
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: like this, in an example like what I'm about to
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: say of deer having the wind to their back, you
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. So, yes, it's it's good to
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: know that. You know, hey, deer like to quarter into
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: the wind, or they walk to the top third of
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a of a ridge, or they do all these different things.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: And that's a good start. It's a tendency. It's a tendency, right,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: not right, exactly exactly. And these the deer, we're working
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: these ridges with the wind to their back, so as
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: they're going up there, they're relying on their eyes to
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: see what's in front of them. But there so I'm
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: sitting on the on a south on a let's see
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: a north facing ridge at this point with a north wind.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: So I'm looking at my topple map right here, and
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: it's blowing into a drainage right So at some point
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: this deer is gonna cross my sense stream, but it's
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: gonna be so far down that, you know, hopefully, you know,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: with help from the osonics and with help from him
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: just being a long ways away. If he does catch
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: my set, he's not gonna go bananas. He's just gonna,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: you know, trot off or whatever. And the reason I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: sat in this particular ridge was they logged the tops.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: That has been a couple of years ago, three years ago,
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: I think it was. And now we have this growth
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in here. It's about head high, six ft high of
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: just thorns, and and what it's done is it's created edge,
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: this giant edge on the top of this ridge, and
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: the deer all stay down because they don't want to
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: walk on the top and they don't want to walk
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: through this thickness. It's created, created this edge where it's
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: almost just like a hallway that they walk through. And
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: that's what this two year old did, and that's what
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping that as they're coming out of the north
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: side to check this south side of the farm where
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: all the standing corns at, I'm hoping that they use this,
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: this ridge and this travel system. Well this and you've
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: been on the farm before. It's just a bunch of ridges, big,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: just big timber and big timber yep. And so I'm
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: hoping that this is where a majority of the movement
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: has gone. I'm or has been over the years, and
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and this year I'm gonna sit on this ridge. So
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: I'm bundled up. That deer works by, and all of
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: a sudden I hear something raking, a tree like not
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: a squirrel jumping around. And it's about seven thirty in
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: the morning. Sun's coming up, shining right, it's bright day,
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: you know, one of those no cloud mornings. And I
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: hear raking, and I stand up and I make my
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: way around and put the binos up, and the there's
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: gnarly Charlie on on the second ridge, and I got
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: a about a thirty second look at him before he
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: started walking up the ridge towards uh, towards the standing cornfield.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: And this is a morning hunt, right, so you're you're
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: thinking that maybe, and my my thought was that hopefully
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna catch these deer coming out of the cornfield
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: down back to a betting area. And that's why I'm
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: hunting the north wind. So the they're gonna come, they're
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: gonna come at a different angle and still have still
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: have the wind to their advantage, but they're coming the
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: opposite way. All the deer were coming from the north
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: to the south on a morning hunt. And Gnarlie, Charlie
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: is working his way up that the next ridge to me,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and he's working his way. Um, let's see here working
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: his way up up this ridge, which is he's walking
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: south with the north wind. And I got binos on him,
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: so I'm like, Okay, that puts a dot on a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: map that's a physical location. Now I can't go in there.
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, hold on. Before you go any further,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: you need to tell me about this moment because you've
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: been talking about Narlie Charlie for two years now you've
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: been looking at these pictures of this pretty darn cool. Dear.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: You talked about this year even last year for a
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: moment you said it might be this kind of year,
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: and then this year you said it's gonna be hard
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to you know, maybe I'm gonna have a year or
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I really chase this one buck um to a degree.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: At least now you finally see him in person. Yeah,
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: that's the first time you've seen in person, right, yep,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: first time I've ever seen that, dear. And what was
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: that like? It was? I'll be honest, I was so
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: cold that my brain. My brain wasn't thinking like yippie,
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: I got him. My brain my brain was just like
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: strategy mode. Right. I think I texted you and I
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: said I saw him, right, And then I think I
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: was more excited you were than maybe because I was
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: exclamation points. Yes, yeah, dude, it was fun. I mean,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: it was awesome seeing a deer of that caliber um.
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: And of course I couldn't rattle at him or I
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: couldn't call to him because he was he was down
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: WINDO me. If he would have came, if I would
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: have done that, he would have came all the way
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: around you know he would have had to come all
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the way around and eventually would have crossed through my
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: um my sent stream, and I didn't want to risk it.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to risk blowing him out of the farm, right,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: So I watched him disappear, and I stand there for
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: another five minutes basically just eg lying my ridge, hoping,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: hoping he circles around the drainage and comes back down,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: maybe just on a cruise, or to see if he
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: pops up on the second, the third ridge over and
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm just trying to just trying to observe everything
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: to see if he's kicking a dough up, if he's
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: following a dough whatever. But it looked like he was alone, right,
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: So my mind goes to strategy mode. And now I'm
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: accents and I'm thinking, I'm looking on my phone. Um
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking at on X about Okay, where
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: can I set every Every little ridge top or spur
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: ridge in this area is now getting uh, basically a
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: test run on it. Okay, tomorrow's too. This afternoon's wind
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: is going to be here Tomorrow. Tomorrow's wind is gonna
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: be here. And so what I did, just like I
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: did last year, I was like, Okay, I found his
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: shed here, I had a sighting of him here, I
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: got trail camera pictures of him here, and I basically
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: drew a line between where the last trail camera pictures
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: that I've had of him, which was November thirty one
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: or excuse me, uh October thirty one, in the middle
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: of the night, and to where he was, and looked
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: at these travel like the travel patterns between there, and
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: instead of decide, you know, instead of deciding, hey, I
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: want to hunt right here where he's at currently, I
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: kind of thought, I'm gonna sloop all the way around
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hunt now the south facing ridge in
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: hopes that I'll see him on the north side again.
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: And not necessarily, you know, potentially I could kill him
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: in the in a spot like this, but I just
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: want to get a secondary sighting of him and know
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: where these other little travel corridors are and and um
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and and in having this, uh what am I trying
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: to say here? Uh? Where my buck was traveling last year,
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: predict where he was going to be exactly trying to
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: write And as we all know, that doesn't work so
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: uh every time. So I'm just trying to think of
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: where this is moving, because um, there's another little farm
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: on top of this ridge, um, in between these standing
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: corn fields. And I thought to myself, Man, I don't
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: think he's gonna go out there in the morning in
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: broad daylight and expose himself, right, I think he's just
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: gonna hug these ridges on on these the edge of
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: the timber where it meets the standing corn in this
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: egg fields, and he's just gonna cruise around looking for
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: a dough to come back to, you know, to go
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: or come back or whatever. So I stayed in there
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: for quite a while, and then finally I got down,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: went back to my truck, went back home, and just
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: studied the area. And then basically the next uh that afternoon,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: I dropped down in on the opposite side of the ridge,
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: further east on a really main travel corridor, hoping to
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: get him, you know, get a sighting of him, or
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: have him work where all these doughs were coming through
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: on on a different set that I saw oh three
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: days previous. Right, I didn't see him, but I you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: all these do as we're working through, And I said, okay,
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get in shooting lane with all these shooting
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: range of where all these does are at. And basically
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: I dropped down off the south facing ridge and caught
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: them coming out of the corn field working their way through.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Well that worked. A whole bunch of does came through.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: A couple of bucks came through that night going to food.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: And then the next morning I hunted that again and
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: they were coming away from food and no other sightings.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: So that time of year, anything could happen, right, he
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: could hook up with a dough. He just was cruising
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: in that area and he decided to go. You know,
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: he zigged when I zagged, and and now it just becomes,
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: you know, hunt that location again. Well now we're talking.
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: Now we're going back to that uh, that betting area
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: that we discussed earlier where I left the tree stand
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: at right A one A, right betting area one A.
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: So now I'm just like, Okay, I saw him. Now
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: I can even chop more area off this farm because
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: historically he doesn't go through the main pinch on the farm.
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: So now I'm just chopping hundred more acres off the farm.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, now I'm I can really focus
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: on this. I want to say acres and really focus
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: on it, check trail cameras, bring more. I brought more
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: trail cameras in, and hopefully get to a point where, um,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: I'm just you know, uh, Bill Winkie talks about casting
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: a net with trail cameras and then bringing all these
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: other trail cameras in and and and basically just tightening
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: down on this bucks area and hopefully you start, even
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: though it's the rut, you can still see a pattern
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: of where these deer moving and that that's kind of
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: what I was hoping to do. And I think, I
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: know we've talked about this in the past, but studies
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: have shown that that is true that tip of these
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: bucks will have a handful of hot spots, usually doe
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: betting areas or doe feating areas that they will kind
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: of rotate through as they're checking for hot doughs during
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: the rut. So it might not be as clear as
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: an early season bed defeating pattern where they're going from
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: A to B, A to B, but during the rut
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: they do kind of circle, sometimes in varying ways, but
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: they'll go to A to B, two C, two D
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: too E, then from A to B two C, D
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: to E and they'll kind of slowly work in that
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: kind of way. At least I've I've come to see that, right, Yeah,
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely, they go through this, you know, they it's
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: almost like they they're doing the same thing that I'm
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: doing there, except their locations are the betting areas within
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: or the dough groups within this range. So they're walking
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: in a big circle basically until they find a dough
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and they decide to chase the dough reader, come offer,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: and then go back into that rotation again until they
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: find the next one. And that that's what I was
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: hoping that he was gonna start to do because last year, um,
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: I got him on a handful of trail cameras in
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: somewhat of a circle. Right, He hits a trail camera,
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: and then a couple of days later he it's another one,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: and then maybe a day later it's another one. It's
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: all all within there. And so that was that triangle
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: that I talked about, right, Uh, Remember I said I
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: had this triangle that I feel I'm gonna kill him.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: He's gonna be within there. And now I'm in this triangle, right,
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: And so I just really wanted to focus on the ridges,
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the travel corridors, the staging areas, the betting areas within
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: this triangle, the zone zone YEP so on betting Area
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: one A, I hunted the south side one morning and
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: one afternoon and within this time frame, and he didn't
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: show up. A couple other deer came through, and then
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: I'd see it was November, and I'm just like, Okay,
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: maybe he's gonna I had had a big wind shift.
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: We had like two days of uh northwest winds which
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: prevented me from hunting the north side of this betting area,
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: betting Area one A that I talked about, right, and
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: it had been and it had been like five or
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: six days since I had hunted that stand because I
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: had other winds or I decided to check out different
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: parts of the farm. And now this wind shifted to
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: a south southwest, which opened the door for betting the
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: north side of betting Area one A. And I'm like,
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: I got I'm going in there. I gotta see if
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: he's working in there. And so same part my truck,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: same access route in and I get and get to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: the base of my stand. I only put three sticks high,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: so I'm sitting at about twelve or thirteen feet right,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: But I had an awesome back cover with this pine tree,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: and I get too sticks up, getting ready to hang
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: the third one, and there's a dough staring right at me,
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: like right at me, and so I had to creep
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: down back to the ground and she had to win.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: So she really couldn't tell what I was. She's, you know,
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out what I am. And all of
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: a sudden, this like one thirty class four year old
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: just brap brab brap like starts chasing her around this
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: betting area and and this is ground level within twenty
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: yards of me, and kicks up another dough and they
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: kind of work their way away, which thank god, because
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: I was thinking I was gonna have to shoot this
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: dough just so she wouldn't bust out like low at me.
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: So thank god that buck came through. And I'd say,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: is one thirty class? I think it was a nine
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: or ten or a A. I really couldn't tell. Um.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: I think I think city was an eight, but um,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: he could have been something different. And so I get
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: up set up and instantly there's deer moving. I can
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: see deer moving through through this these betting areas in
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: the staging area. Button buck comes through, spike buck comes through,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: another like hundred ten point two year old starts coming,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: you know, coming through. They're all working their way. Dough
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: comes through. Eventually these two doughs that this one four
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: year old had chased out of there come back and
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: they begin to feed under this big oak tree for
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: an hour or so. They've just kind of playing in
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: their flag there and and have made this home. And
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I'm just sitting there watching watching these doughs, uh come through.
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: And now it's starting to get to somewhere around four o'clock,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: so I stand up, and the doughs are still sitting there.
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: I feel, you know, every everything is relaxed. Another spike
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: buck or young buck comes through and walks right in
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: front of me, and he goes into the betting area
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: and set checks them. He's pushing these doughs around a
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: little bit. Eventually he leaves, and somewhere around four fifty
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: four o'clock fift this dough on the opposite ridge just sprints.
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: She's sprinting right at me and she jumps up onto
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: my on the ridge that I was hunting, comes into
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: about thirty yards and just chills and she's looking over
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: her shoulder and looking over her shoulder and looking over
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: her shoulder eventually exactly, and I'm just like, oh, something
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: is right behind her. Something is right behind her. And
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: nothing came, and I was like, what's going on here?
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: Like that is the that is the sign of a
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: dog getting chased. And so I she and feeds with
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: these other two does and she's her body language changes,
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: she calms down, she just goes into feed mode, and
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: then she stops looking behind her. Then I hear something
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: behind me, and so I turned around, thinking, okay, maybe
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: this a different buck is looped and checking this, you know,
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: this part of the betting area behind me, and I'm
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: looking and I'm looking, and so I'm turned around in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the stand at this point and it's a I think
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: it was like a spike buck, just kind of milling
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: around doing something behind me. And all of a sudden
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: it's b and I hear something running in towards me,
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: and sure enough it's this, it's the buck. I you know,
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: I get a shot at but she's coming in and
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: the first thing that went through my head is dork.
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: It's dork, Like are you kidding me? Finally, like the
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: first ever encounter I'm gonna have with this deer, and
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: so I grabbed my bow and I then get like
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: a one second look at him. I'm like, okay, his
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: brows are too short. He's not dork, but he's a shooter.
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: And drew back and he's trotting, and you know, this
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: all happens within like a thirty second window. I drew
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: back and he bul rushes into where the does were.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Luckily he stopped right where there a little bit behind him,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: but right where they were at. And he stops, puts
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: his head down, and I let the arrow go and
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: I smoked him and just a hair back, but I
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: knew I hit. I hit long. You know, you get
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: some of these shots. We are just like, dude, that
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: dear is gonna die like very You're very confident. Unlike
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: last year where I didn't see the impact. Um I
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't have to. I was low in the stand whatever.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: This was a standing, perfect form anchor. Everything took my breath,
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: pulled the trigger, hit him, mule kicked, and and this
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: was at about four thirty, so it's starting to get
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: dark in the timber and he does the mule kick.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: He doesn't run and he starts walking away into this
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: thick thickness, right, and then you have you know, why
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: isn't he running right? And you're like, oh Jesus man,
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I didn't really gut shoot him. But I was
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: confident in it, right, So I'm I'm scanning, I'm scanning,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: I'm scanning, and I can't see him. So wait until
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: a little bit before dark, right, and I get out
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: of my tree. I don't even go looking for him.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: I just go back to the house, get dressed, get
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: my stepdad, and I'm like, dude, this is I feel
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: very confident. I feel I got I got double double
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: lunged him, just back of hair, but I double lunged
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: him and grab my stepdad. We get ready, come back out,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: and we start scanning and there's no blooded impact, which
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: is kind of to be expected at this point unless
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: you just like smoke a heart, you know, you give
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: him a couple of jumps before they start, and we
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: weren't finding a ton of blood within the first ten
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: yards of this and um, and then by this time
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: it's pitch black. So we got like five big flashlights.
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: We're trying to scan everything, and eventually we run up
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: on some blood and it's dark, and I'm like, maybe
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: it was further back than I thought, and I hit liver,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: but still, and that might explain why he didn't take
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: off running because historically for me, uh, if you hit liver,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: they just hunch up and they just creep away. Right,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: they don't. They don't run unless you you double on them,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: or you you spook them somehow. And and I mean,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: here's the short of it. And in another fifteen yards
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: there he was laying dead and I had this huge
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: mile on my face. And long story short, the way
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: he came in, he was just a hair quartering towards me.
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: So I hit front side long backside liver. But and
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: then he started to open up and he was he
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: was dead from in twenty yards from where I shot him,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: and um, I really didn't know what he was at
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: the time. And as I walk up to him, I'm like, ah,
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I shot a three year old. And that's what even
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, if even if you look at the pictures,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: you're like, dude, that that looks like a three year
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: old deer. But this was here's what was amazing of this.
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: Um he didn't look like he had a huge body.
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: And then I walk up on him you know, picked
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: the head up and I started to observe the animal,
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and he was so worn down. I don't know if
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: this deer was sick or if he had just already
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: been through a hard rut. But his back end was
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: bones like, his spine was sticking out, his hips were
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: sticking out um his front, his front shoulders were kind
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: of scooped in. His his neck was big, and he
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: had an absolutely huge head, but it was thin like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, It just looked like someone
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: deflated a deer a little bit. And so but you
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: know what, I'm just sucked there was when we cleaned him,
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: there was no fat on his body at all. So
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he was stick or or there's
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: no like big bruise on him to get hit by
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: a car. It was another puncture wound on his side,
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't a broadhead. It was maybe from it
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: was probably from fighting, if I had to guess, because
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: he he had a broken time and then he knocked
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: another time off when he ran into a tree. It
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: looked like when he fell, so uh, never seen this
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: deer before. He was a beautiful like if he had
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: all his alders on him. He would have been like
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: a main frame nine. He has uh split brows and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: then one split G two and he has a ton
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of mass around his main beams. He has a lot
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: of mass on that buck has a lot of mass
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: and uh he made me go, uh so I shot
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: him and uh so there's a chance he's a three
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: year old, but I honestly think he's a four year old.
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: Um And I could not be happier with this outcome
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: from the pure fact that you know, you get into
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: a routine. Now it's like, this is my fourth this
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: is the first time in my entire life that I've
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: gone on a run this long, right four years in
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: a row, shot four different bucks using my kind of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: my own personal philosophy and my own personal strategy on
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: how I approach hunting this season, and I've been observing,
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I've been learning, I've been changing when I need to,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: and I've got found success out of that and that
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: on you know that the deer is always the cherry
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: on top. But my strategy worked again, even though it
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: took longer than you know, longer than what it has
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: in the past. I just I'm very happy with the
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: outcome of this season. And I don't know. I'm just
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: I'm Jackman. It's a good feeling. That's a great feeling.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: So so what was your biggest takeaway, your your number
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: one lesson or something that really hit home for you
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: after this whole thing came together. Yeah, So the lesson
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: I would, I would say, would be when I started
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: hitting the obstacles like no mature deer on trail camera,
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: no mature deer sightings. Um. You know. Now I had
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: a hard stop of the seventeen. I had five days
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: left to hunt. You know, I was going through a
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: couple of these sits without seeing any deer. I started
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: to realize that, hey, I might need to change what
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: I want the outcome to be, right. I I may
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: not be holding out for Narley Charlie anymore. Because although
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: I did see him, I think it was like three
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: days previous. I I knew that I had a freezer
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: to fill, and I knew saw, to be honest with you,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: I was I was possibly gonna start shooting does on
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: some of my sets if they offered me really good
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: shots and if if it was slow, and if they
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: weren't getting chased. So I still wanted to fill my freezer,
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: but I still wanted to shoot a mature buck, and
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: I I felt like I did the right thing by
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: changing my goal based off of what I was seeing
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: from the timber, and still continuing to go with my
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: game plan and change my game plan as needed, and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: not just get into a woe is me, I'm not
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: seeing anything, boo hoo. You just keep grinding, and you
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: keep grinding, and you you look at your maps and
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: you think about all the data and intel that you've had,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: not from that year, but through all the years, and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: that helps me put my tree stands in the position
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to. I had the encounters that I
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: wanted to, and eventually that routine led me to this
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: encounter and the harvest of a great deer. Do you
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: do anything different next year? Is there anything that happened
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: that you now will say, you know what, Okay, this
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: is something that even though it worked out this year,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: this is something that has to change next time around,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: at the time frame, the time frames shifting it later
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: a week later. I want to hunt up until Thanksgiving,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: um and I want I think that just like we've
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: already talked about, I think if it's not hot, go
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: away for a day, come back I've I've found now
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: through these because I think a lot of people what
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: what they what they do is they sit in a
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: tree stand and they look at things in blind with blinders.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: They're like they're in a tree stand and they say, Okay,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: this is what's happening today when you need to think
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: not only about last year, but next year as well.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: So now I know, like, hopefully Narie Charlie makes it
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: through the season, right, that would be awesome if he does.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: If he does, he does, if he doesn't, If he doesn't,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: he doesn't, But if he does, I got intel on
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: him on this spur ridge. I got intel, more intel
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: from him on trail cameras. So now I got a
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: straight line now between point A and point B that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: I'm really going to focus on next year. I'm gonna
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: bring more trail cameras in, I'm gonna bring more tree
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: stands in. I'm gonna be scouting more in the within
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: this line late season, and hopefully I can set up
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: so I got him trapped next year. If that makes sense. Yeah,
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: So it's it's basically now, dude, It's so crazy. I
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: celebrated this harvest, but my mind is already going it's
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: just how I operate. The end is also the beginning, man,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: And it's just you'd never for me. I never stop.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: I can't stop. I'm already thinking about like right now,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: I'm looking on a map on this top of map
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: of where I want to have a tree stand next year,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'm thinking about crop rotation, and I'm
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: thinking about what I want to do next year to
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: hopefully put all the odds of my favor for another
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: successful season. So well, we talked about all the time.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's really the process. Yeah, that absolutely gets us.
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: It's the end result, of course is important, and we
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: strive for it, but it's everything that leads us to
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: that moment that makes this thing so damn addicting. Um
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: and that I've been talking a long time, but I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: just want to I really want to reiterate how much
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: fun I had this year because I didn't get stressed out.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: I went in with low expectations. I knew I had
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: to put my process in, like you said, and once
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I do that, it's almost like it becomes autopilot. And
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: I had Once it becomes autopilot, you can take the
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: time to not just worry about deer hunting. But man,
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I saw three bobcats this year. One of them was
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: hunting while I was in the stand. I gotta watch
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: him hunt. That was sweet. I saw a badger, I
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: saw birds, I saw you know. It's just you can.
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: You can be a sponge and just absorbed nature. And
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: that's what I do this all for anyway. And uh man,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: and the fact that now I have meat in the
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: like I got meat in the freezer because of this too,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: that's just a win. It's like I had so many
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: wins this season that, um, I don't know. I just
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: I had an absolute asked and it just it reminded
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: me why I love doing it so much. So are
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: you done? Are you gonna shoot some doughs? Are you're
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: gonna go out of stage and keep it rolling? Like,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: if I get the opportunity to go maybe shoot a dough,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I'll do it. Um. I'm gonna check trail cameras before
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: late season maybe. But as you know, and as everybody
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: else with family knows, there comes a time where the
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: brownie points are done right there, they are used up,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: and I want to maybe go out and shoot a
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: dough because I got three more dough tags left, but
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: I also don't want to burn any bridges, And honestly,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: I just want to hang with a fam for a
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: while and uh, enjoy what I have, and then maybe
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I'll get out. Maybe I won't. But I've already had
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: so much fun and success as a selfish bow hunter
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: this year that I think I need to turn some
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: attention back towards the family for a little bit. And
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: after a week or two, maybe I'll it out again,
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: or maybe I'll get out late season. But now it's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: time to focus on the family and back to business.
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: And uh, dude, yeah, I hear you. I hear you. So, dude,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: I talked way too much. You're right, that's right here
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: to do. We're here to talk, and I want to
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: hear about your rut. But I have to ask you
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: a question because I saw you in a ground blind
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: with your dad, right, Yeah, I do not come from
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: a quote unquote hunting family, Like I learned all this,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: all this stuff on my own kind of, and I don't.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't really have I've had somewhat of a mentor.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: But like, what's it like hunting with your dad? It's
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: really cool, man, It's uh, it was a really fun
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: thing to get to do because I grew up hunting
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: with my dad. We were we've got a really interesting
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: kind of hunting dynamic though, um And it was fun
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: to be able to do this, and I've got to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: do a few times over the last handful of years
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: because growing up with my dad, right we'd go out,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: We've got this family deer camp up in northern Michigan.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: We didn't see him any deer ever, but we always
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: had a great time just sitting out there together, telling stories. Um,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: just being up there. That was a really fun thing
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: for me to do. For the I don't know, from
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: the time I was four till the time I was
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: I don't know, ten, eleven, twelve. At some point around
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: there is when I started hunting on my own. Um.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: But the unique thing with my dad is that he
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: is significantly visually impaired. UM. So he's got a just
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: a real challenge when it comes to hunting as far
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: as seeing things. Um. So because of that, he had
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: only killed one deer his whole life. When he was
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: sixteen he killed a buck, and then all the way
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: through the whole time we hunted together, he never shot
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: a buck all the way until I became an adult,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: he never shot a deer of any kind, um, except
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: for that very first one. UM. I remember there's a
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: story back when I was a little kid, and I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: might have told us before, but I was eight or
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: nine and we were hunting together and I saw buck.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: Me and my dad are sitting together. I see a buck,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: and I tell him there's a buck. There's a buck,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: and he can't see it. And as a kid, not
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: being very sensitive to the issue, I got mad at him, like,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Daddy's right there, he's right there. Just just give me
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the gun. I'll shoot him. Just give me the gun. UM.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: So we joke about it today, but you know, it was.
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: It was something that um My dad has been a
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: hell of a trooper to keep on hunting all these years,
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: given the fact that, um, it's a lot more difficult
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: for him than a lot of people. So over the
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: last decade or so, I've been able to try to
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: give back to him a little bit and take him
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: out and hunt some of the places that I can hunt. UM.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: And so, I don't know, five or six years ago,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: I know we told this story back then, but I
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: set him up on one of my main Michigan spots
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and he killed a little buck with me and him
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: sitting together in a ground in a box blind, and
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: that was awesome. First buck he killed, the first deer
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: he killed since he was sixteen, um. And then we
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: he shot one a few years after that on his own,
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: when I was hunting up at deer camp with him.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: So that was really cool thing. But now I wanted
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: to try to get him a shot at his first
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: buck older than a year and a half, because it's
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: three bucks he killed up to that point, we're all
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: year and a half olds. Um. I'm not even sure
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: he's even seen a buck older than a year and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: a half, um, because right up north we almost never
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: see anything other than year and a half old bucks.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: And then the only other place he'd ever hunted other
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: than when he came with me was our three acre
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: property behind the house that I grew up him, so
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: he would bow hunt back there sometimes and and he's
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: seen a few bucks back there. Uh. So this year
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: we thought, let's bring him out to the back forty
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: for a few days. He could get a couple of
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: days off work during the rut and get his first
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: bow hunting rut. You know, the peak of the rut
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: hopefully on this property is hopefully gonna be really good
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and get him a shot at his first like two
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: year old or older buck. I really thought like, oh gosh,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: it should be easy to get a shot at a
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: you know, nice two ye old eight point that he
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: would think is the biggest buck in the world, and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: it'd be such a cool way to give back to him. Um.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: So we're kind of skipping towards like the middle end
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: of my rutcation. But but I'll finish off this portion
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: of it. Then I'll rewind back to the beginning because
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: it was kind of this this story is sort of
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: a microcosm for my whole rut um. The process was
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: the fun part. The end result wasn't there. Um. It
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: was great to get to spend a couple of days
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: with my dad out there hunting. We took him out.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: I had set up a handful of ground blinds in
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: the summer, knowing that he was going to come out. Um,
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: but things just did not pan out on the This
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: was in the back forty we took him so that
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: new farm. Um, things in the back forty did not
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: pan out at all how I thought they would. As
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: far as deer numbers dear activity, the way they used
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: the property. Um, it was just very, very very different
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: than I expected. I've it's as a stands right now,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: it's the slowest I've ever seen a property in southern
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: Michigan that I've ever hunted. I found a lot of
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: spots in Michigan. In southern Michigan, you always see deer,
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: you always see young bucks at least. Um, we had
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: a hard time seeing anything on the back forty this, this,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: you're in total they were They were a handful of
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: good hunts and I had a brief moment that I'll
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: talk about of of some things coming together. But overall
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: it was pretty tough sledding, and unfortunately for my dad
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: that continued. We had a couple of fun days sitting
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: in the blind together, just telling stories, reminiscent, laughing, giving
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: each other a hard time. And that was one of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: the best parts of my entire rut. You know, three
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: weeks that was that was tops right there. Um, he
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: had an opportunity at a year and a half old buck.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: We had a one buck come in and it's a
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: little five pointer, and my dad got excited about it.
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: I said, Hey, if you wanna if you wanna take cracking,
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: take crack at it. He's never killed a deal with
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: his bow and this he's using a crossbow. Um. He's
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: never killed a buck with any kind of deer with
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: the archer equipment, so that would be awesome if he did.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: But he decided to pass on it because you know,
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: we had these high hopes and I've shown him pictures
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: of some of the deer that we had gotten on
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: camera and that we're hopefully somewhere around. Um, So we
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: decided pass on it, which I think is the first
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: time he's ever passed on a buck, which is cool. Um. Unfortunately,
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: we just didn't get any more opportunities. That was it.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: We had. We had some fun times out there, some
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: good stories, but just the deer did not cooperate. So
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: that was that was the hunt with him. UM. Overall though,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: it was about the quality time and a great reminder
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: for me of of what matters most. And I think
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: that came back time and time again throughout this whole rut,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: is reminding myself of what really matters. Yes, I want
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: to kill the mature buck, Yes I want to have
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: this end result in the end, does that really matter?
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: Not that much? So spending that time with my dad,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: That's what really mattered. Taking a few days off to
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: help out my wife and be there for my son,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: that's what really matters. Taking some time midday when I
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: usually tell myself I should be hunting, taking some of
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: that time off to to help out. That probably is
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: what really matters. Um, when you put in, you know,
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: three weeks of hunting really really hard, and you try
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: so much for one year and it doesn't come together,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: and he's probably gonna get shot by somebody else, and
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: that's frustrating. Ah, And then you have to take a
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: step back and realize, you know what, it's just a deer.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: You've got a healthy family, You've got a roof over
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: your head. Um. Those are the things I kept coming
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: back to time and time again over the course of
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: the last three weeks. So that's the ending of my story,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: is that those worthy sentiments that I was left with
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: after my two thousand nineteen rutation. Now, let me take
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: you back to the beginning and explain how it got there. Right. So,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: you know, we talked last somewhere in I don't know,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: middle or late October. Basically I had that Minnesota hunt,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: awesome experience but we didn't see any deer. Um. I
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: had that really cool mentor hunt experience that was fun.
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: But once I got back from Minnesota and we got
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: to the pre rut time periods like late twenties in October,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: started to shift my focus to try and to kill
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: this buck tram, that one deer that I knew for sure,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: it's four and a half years old on my main
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: Chigan property. I'd seen him a bunch of last year.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: I passed on him. Coming into this year, it was, Hey,
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: it's all about tran And you know me, I get
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: really excited about these one target, that one deer and
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: I've got this one main farm where I've been really
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: lucky to have an opportunity where these deer have a
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: chance of making it back. So it seems like almost
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: every year there's at least one deer that I had
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: history with in past years, and um, that just is
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: the funnest. The most fun for me is when I
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: get to know a deer like we talked about, You
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: get to know a deer, get to put together those pieces, uh,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: figure out the chess moves. That's that is just so cool.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: So I get hung up on that and really excited
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: about it, and Tran was the one deer I knew
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: for sure fit that bill, so he was my target
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: buck this year. Um. Now, there was two other really
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: nice deer that I had been seeing through the summer.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: There's one deer I just kind of called him the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: big nine, really nice big nine pointer, um, probably one
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: thirty class in that ballpark, and I saw him quite
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: a bit during the summer when I'm glass in the
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: soybean fields and he ends up. Though, after looking at
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: him and looking at trail camera pictures, I'm really pretty
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: darn certain. I'm certain he can't be older than three.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: So I decided I'm gonna pass on him. And so
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: I think we talked about this. I saw him on
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: October two and I passed on him. I had a
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: shot at him, like a ten yard shot, and I
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: passed on him on October two. First time I'd ever
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: passed on a buck of that caliber in Michigan. So
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: that was cool. Um, But then I also feel like, man,
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: am I crazy? Like people in Michigan don't pass on
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: bucks like that and my nuts, but I really want
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: to get a shot Tram. So I did it. Now
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: fast forward, it's late October UM, I hunted the back
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: Ford with Doug during for a couple of days. I
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: thought we'd be having some activity. I had. I was
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: starting to get some more pictures of this buck I
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: was calling the wide eight on that farm, so I
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: thought we were gonna be getting into it. But it
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: was just dead. We saw just like a button buck
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: in the year and a half old buck, and I
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: think a doe. You know. That's of course the three
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: days of hunting out there. So it was really disappointed
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: in that. I'm wanna ask you a quick question, why
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: did you think why? Why do you feel that farm
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: was dead? Because you had this moment of excitement about
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: the back forty that you started having some good deer
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: show up on camera, and you felt that the closer
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: you get to the rut late October time frame, you
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: felt it was going to start getting better and pick up.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: What changed? So I still don't know if I know
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: for sure, I can only theorize right um, but my
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: thoughts are this. I think that there's a ton of
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: activity in the summer. We were there all over the place,
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: filming all these things, having all these people see it.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: We were all over the place, so there was there
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: was a whole lot of action there during the summer
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: because of that. Then September comes, we get one mature
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: buck that starts showing up on trail camera. That's the
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: wide eight big body. Definitely an older deer, just a
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: wide apart, not very much going from an antler girth standpoint,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: but I was stoked because it was definitely a mature
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: deer and that's what I was shooting for. So we
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: had tried to do one basic improvement, basically weren't able
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: to and we talked about this already, but UM, just
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: to recap, just did not have time to do any
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: really significant changes to the property because of the filming
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: schedule and the logistics of everything. So all we basically
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: got to do. We're plant some food plots, and the
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: food plots were supposed to be a blend of a
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: variety of different things UM that would provide a lot
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: of attraction over the course of the whole hunting season
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: and beyond UM. But I was trying a new way
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: of planting. I was trying to do everything no till
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: this year. So without diving too deep into that, it
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: just it just amounted to a very different way of planning.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: Stuff that's better for the soil, better for the environment,
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: better hopefully in a lot of different ways. But what
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: ended up happening is that it didn't turn out very
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: good for me. In the back fort you most most
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: of the blend that I planted did not come up.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: I basically just got some cereal grains like oats came up, um,
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: and that was kind of it. And oats are attractive
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: earlier in the year, they're typically not very track div
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: later in the year. Now that can be different based
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: on where you're at. But for me, um, that's it's
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: just not a home run once you get into November later. Well,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: that's all we had though so early in the season,
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: Early in October, there was a decent number of does
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: feeding in those fields. I got some trail camera pictures
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: of the Wide eight feeding in those fields. I thought
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: it was gonna be good. Like you said, I was feeling, okay,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: we're coming along. Stuff is only going to get better
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: as we get into the rut. But as we got
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: towards the rut, as the pre rud arrived, and once
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: the rut got cranking, fewer and fewer and fewer deer
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: being sighted. UM just did not seem any deer at all. Now,
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: we never saw a ton of deer out there. Um,
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: But I think here's the things that could be to blame.
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: Number One, we just didn't have enough good food on
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: the farm. We had that basically those oats, we didn't
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: have a lot of implanted, and they very quickly went
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: from like a decent food source to a food source
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: that deer weren't really hitting very much at all. I'm
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: used to hunting spots with, you know, food source that
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have a good umber of deer, a good
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: number of dos passing through every day in the morning,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: every day and the evening, coming in and out, coming
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: in and out. Um. Something here you would hunt what
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: looks like a terrific food source and you see one
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: dear day or something like that, and and we're I'm
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: hunting it as much as I possibly can. Notice is
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: this is a new thing for me. It's hard because
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: it's not just me hunting. It's me and a cameraman.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: And on all of our hunts so far, there's also
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: been a guest and a cameraman every time. So you've
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: got four guys going in and out of this property
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: every time you hunt. Um, which made an impact. I'm
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: sure we did everything I possibly could to reduce the impact,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: but I'm sure it made an impact. So that's happening.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: And then we're just not seeing these deer like I
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: thought we would. And I think it's number one. The
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: food source we have was not very attractive compared to
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: what was around us. Around me is a lot of
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: good properties with a lot of guys that are managing
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: deer I've come to find, and a lot of people
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: with great food plots. And then secondly, just like you
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: have thought, thousands of acres of standing corn all around us,
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: so on three different sides are standing corn fields just
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: off of the neighboring property sort of, so I can't
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: hunt the edge of the standing corn where you might
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: be able to take advantage of something, um, but it's there,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: so there's not much betting on our farm. Our farm
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: secondly has these big open fields that I was hoping
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: would grow in and be thick and hopefully still get
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: used by deer even this year before we get to
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: improve them. Turns out there pretty much deer deserts right now. Um,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: no deer betting in them. Very few deer passed through them,
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: so more than fifty the farm is this desert. All
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: we had is this swamp, um And and so I
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: could hunt the swamp some and I did, and that's
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: where I ultimately had some success. But I couldn't take
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: the guests in there because all the guests had to
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: hunt from ground blinds. Um. You can't see anything in
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: there from a ground blind. So there was different challenges
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: like that as I was trying to balance all the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: different things going on. But I think the standing corner
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: was a was a big factor. I think not having
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: quality food on the farm was a factor, because there's
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: so much of it everywhere else. Um, the old fields
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: being a desert were a factor. Having this increased amount
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: of impact compared to what I typically do was probably
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: a factor. And then I don't know, maybe it's just
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: I honestly don't know. I honestly don't know what else
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: it could be. But those are the theories I have
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: so far. Um. That led me to the point where October,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: which are historically pretty darn good days around here, at
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: least for seeing young bucks bumping around and doing things,
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: we saw almost nothing. Yeah. That was very disappointing. Yeah,
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: so that whole thing was frustrating. But then so that happened.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: But I said, okay, that's all right. It's back to
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: my other main Michigan property, which in late October it's
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: usually the very best time of year on this farm.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: I've had all sorts of good encounters with mature bucks
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: at that time of year on this farm. Feeling good,
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: I just said, okay, it's time to get serious about
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: trying to kill Tran. I basically left him alone the
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: whole month of October other than the very the very
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: very beginning. Now it's time to get after him. Um,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: and I will fast forward through the whole last week
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: of October and basically tell you that nothing worked out.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: I didn't see him, wasn't seeing him, wasn't seeing any
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: of the mature bucks, wasn't seeing any kind of pre
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: rep behavior. UM. I wasn't diving into betting years or anything.
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: I was still playing it safer. Um. But that was
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: disappointing as well. Just wasn't happening for me. Around the
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: same time, I also started looking at some more pictures
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: of this other buck I was seeing on the farm.
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: So I told you about that big nine point I
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: passed on. I know about Tran He's the four and
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: a half year old that I definitely want to shoot.
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: He's a four year old, big eight porn er, two
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: years of history. But then there's a third deer, and
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: this third deer showed up a lot during the summer.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: He was the first buck I got on trail camera
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: in the summer, may probably the most consistent on camera,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: most consistent to see out in the fields. And we
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: started calling him r B, which is short for risky business,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: because he was going to be he was gonna be
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: a buck that came in and you'd really want to
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: shoot him, but he's probably just a three year old,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: and I really wanted to try to hold out for
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: four year old this year, specifically Tran. If not Tran,
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: then a buck that's like a no brainer. Yes, he's
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: a mature four year older buck. Um in this buck
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: in the summer, I'm thinking, Okay, he's three. But then
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at trail camera pictures in middle and late October,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: and now I'm thinking, man, he looks like he's got
• 1:25:23
  Speaker 1: a bigger body. Maybe he is four. And I'm thinking
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: I'm back and forth, back and forth, and basically this
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: whole last week of October, I keep on looking at pictures.
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: I'm like, if he shows up and if he looks
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: like a tank, I might have to shoot him, um,
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: because he might be I don't know. And then I
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: go back and I look at other trail camera pictures
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: from last year, and I see a buck last year
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: that really looks like it could be this dear, But
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: he was definitely two year old last year. There's no
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: way he could be a three year old last year.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: So now I'm thinking, Okay, no, he's got to be three.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: But then you know the next day that I'm like,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: but maybe it's not him, And so I just had
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: this whole thing going on in my head. Halloween arrives,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: snow storm hits. I see Tran for the first time
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: during hunting season. Basically, he's on the neighbors. He chases
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: a dough towards me. The dough turns runs out into
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: a field across the way. He follows her. Very exciting. Uh,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: finally got to see the buck I'm after, But you know,
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: it wasn't really in the thread of actually shooting him.
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: November one arrives. Now it's time to get serious about
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: getting into those betting areas. And I will say one
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: of the nice things for me, um over the last
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: year or two, definitely this year, sort of like you said,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: that good feeling you get when you start to realize,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: like my strategy works, things are clicking, I'm figuring things out. Um.
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: So this property I've talked about, I talked about a
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: lot over the years, but it's it's an eighties seven
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: acre farm, of which about half of it is the
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: big open fields. So I've got like forty acres of
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: like huntable stuff that's either some swamp or edges of
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: the little of the edges of the field that I
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: can hunt, or some grassy stuff or some kind of
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: thin strips of timber that poke out into that field.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: That's what this farm looks like. Um. The early years
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: I hunted here, I hunted a lot of field edge,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: some of the food plots, and you know, it had
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: some sightings, has some encounters, but wasn't getting a lot
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: of shot opportunities at the old buck or two that
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: might be out there. Finally I started realizing where these
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: best dough betting areas are on the back of the farm.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: And now every year for the past few years, I've
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: been putting my time in back there. In the mornings
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: and I'm having encounters and getting shots at better deer.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: And so that's what happened on the morning November one.
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: I sat back at the down one side of one
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: of these doe betting ears, kind of where a whole
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: lot of movement pinches in where there's kind of a
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: chunk of timber and swamp on the south side, and
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: then a thin strip of timber in the middle with
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: its some dough betting in it, and then a bigger
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: chunk of timber to the north. And so it's it's
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: down wine of a doe betting ear and a pinch,
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: and it's it's dynamite because of that. So I see
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: a lot of young bucks coming through. Everything that passes
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: through this area comes within range. I mean, it's perfect.
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: And I see a big set of antlers coming through
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: the timber towards me, but kind of angling away. I
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: fire off a grunt, and that deer turns and starts
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: walking right at me and look back. Best feeling that
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: is the best feeling where that contact grunt and they're
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: just like that over there, crap here we go. Um.
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: And so that's exactly what happened. I pull a buy
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: nose to get a better looking like, oh, it's RB.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: And then the next thought I have is, oh, ship,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? And he's coming on a string,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, ah, what am I doing right now?
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: Should I shoot him? Should I pass him? Shuld I
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: shoot him? Shory to pass him? I grabbed my bow.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: He's getting closer. I get set, I get lined up.
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: Should I shoot him? Should I pass him? Should shoot him?
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: Should I pass him? He's at thirty yards, he's at
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: twenty five yards. He steps into my shooting lane. At
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: twenty yards. I draw back. I put the pin behind
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: his shoulder. Should I shoot him? Should I pass him?
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: And I just couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: because if I pull the trigger, I'm done. I'm not.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: I don't ever want to take two bucks off this farm,
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: and I know I wanted to save a tag for
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: the back forty still, so I was basically, I've got
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: one buck on this property, and if I shoot RB,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: that means the hunt for trains done. And I just
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: in that moment, I just couldn't. I didn't want that
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: to be case. So I let him go and he
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: walks through, and man does he looked good. Though. As
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: he walks away, I'm like, oh my gosh, you know
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: he he's He's got a pretty good sized body on him.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: He's a really nice ten pointer. He might be like
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: mid one thirties ten pointer in Michigan. He'd be one
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: of my biggest bucks in Michigan ever, a buck that
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: pretty much anyone in this state would you know, their
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: draw dropped for most guys. Um. And So I'm sitting
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: there thinking, am I the stupidest person in the world?
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: I just do that? But at the same time, you know,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: I just I wanted to still hunt Tram. So that happened. Um.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: I will fast forward from there. That great encounter happened,
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: still chasing Ran. Next day, have an encounter with Tran.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: This was my best encounter with Trand up to that point,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: and really for the rest of the season. I move
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: about a hundred yards from that location to the down
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: one side of another betting area that's kind of there's
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: a sort of a line of dough betting ears on
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: this property and I just hunt on the downwind side
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: of this line, and in various points you're gonna get
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: bucks to come cruising through there. And there's a few
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: kind of pinches where the travel gets narrowed down a
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: little bit more. I hunted one where I had that
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: RB encounter. I moved up to the next one for
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: the next day. And first thing in the morning, I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: hear some noise behind me. I look. I see Tran
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: like forty yards away in this really thick stuff. I
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: can't shoot into it, it's not even shooting like yet,
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: but I see him on the Colie crab. Um. The
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: basic gist of this, I think I think I mentioned
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: this story already to Spencer on a rut Fresh radio episode. Um.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: Basically gist of it is that he ended up being
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: in this thick, nasty stuff just behind me with a oh,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: and he popped out eventually, maybe twenty minutes later, and
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: I can see him now. Finally he's at like forty
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: five or fifty yards and he's locked on a doll
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: and nothing I could do was going to get him
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: to come the next ten fifty yards to get closer
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: to me. And he followed that dough off into the
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: neighbors and then he circled back and chased, surprisingly, chased
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: a group of four doughs towards me. Got to like
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: forty five forty and but no shot opportunity and then
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: stopped and turned and went back towards that original doll
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: and and that was that was this one really close
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: and call with tray and I thought, man, it's gonna happen.
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: When he came in that second time, he looks amazing.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, just a huge mainframe eight pointer um at
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: least for around here. And it was really exciting. Not
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: click close enough and uh and then you know I
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: re positioned. Was this a like that was the closest
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: that you got to him? That was the closest I
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: ever did end up getting to him. So like yards
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: is probably about where he was at um at forty
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: five yards at all? Did he have an opening? Oh
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: could have shot him at forty five years? No, because
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: he came he came running in facing me and then
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: immediately spun away and went the other way. Um because
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: he was chasing those four doors and so ran behind
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: the doors, stopped turning, ran right back towards the original
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: though he was with UM. So no, I think the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: only time I really could taken a shot, and I
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: would never shoot this far. But he like he was
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: broadside at sixty just standing there with the dough for
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: a long time, um, but never presented a real shot
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: um within my range. So I moved that next day.
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: That day, I got down from the tree, ran back,
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: got went to my house, got a got a saddle
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: and sticks, came back in there and repositioned thirty yards
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: to get to where those deer had been coming in
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: and out. I hoped that that same dough would start
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: cycle back in and give me a shot. This time
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: didn't happen. Um. Then I had to leave the next day.
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: I think it was because that was when we were
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: gonna start filming on the back forty um. So that
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: was a bummer. But I'll skip what happened in the
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: back for you to continue the trans story. Um. So
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: I took a seven day break in the middle because
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: we had a scheduled time with the camera crew to
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: be at the back forty um. So I told you
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: what happened with my dad. Had that happened, I had
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: four or five days. I got to hunt myself and
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: another guy that O'Brien was there hunting too, So that
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 1: all happens I come back. It's maybe the I don't know. Um. Well, no,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: this is when I took two days off to get
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: back with the family. Took two days, tried to you know,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: help our around the house, just get the family feeling good.
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: And one of those nights I was of course there
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: were the family, but I had to at least try
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: to glass one of the fields one night. So I
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: get out there in glass of field and Tran comes
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: out on the night of the tenth bumping does around.
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, ah, he's there, and I was exciting of
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: one of your stands. Let me think about this, Nah,
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: not really. Um, if I had sat that infamous hay
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: bail blind, I probably could have maybe kind of if
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: I shot, if I sat in the poop blind and
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: maybe would have had a long shot at him. Um,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: but not like a gimme shot. But he was definitely
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: in the zone. UM. So then I get back out
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: there the next day and I have now four days
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: left before guns season, and I go back in the
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: next morning to one of his betting areas and I
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: see this dough behind me, and there's a whole bunch
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: of different box kind of young bucks passing through and
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: dos passing through. I'm down wind of this bedding dough
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: betting here again, and I see this one dough behind me,
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: and she's maybe forty five yards away, and I noticed her.
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: She's just standing there, still kind of looking around, and
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: so I looked a glass around or try to see
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: is there is there buck falling behind hers? There buck there? Nothing? Nothing? Nothing, Okay,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: keep looking, there's other activity in front of me. I'm
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: watching this. I'm watching this. I look back that dough
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: still standing there. What's she doing? Look around, look around,
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: can't see anything. Okay, Now I gotta focus back on
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: the front again. Another young buck passes through. Well, I
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: don't know how long this went on for maybe forty
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: five minutes, an hour. Um. I look back there and
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: that damn dough is still there, and I think, golly,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: that dough is acting like a locked down dough. She's
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: acting like she's just standing here. The only time I
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: ever see a dough just stand kind of in the open.
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: She was right in the edge of the thicket. Um,
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: is if she's you know, if a bucket the door
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: locked down and she's just standing there, and I keep thinking, man,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: is there a buck standing with her? And I just
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: can't see her. And as I have this thought, I
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: pulled my binos again to look one more time, and
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: there's a buck right behind her and it's tran and like,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: holy crap, there he is right there. But they're directly
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: down wind of me. This is like the one area.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: Why not directly downwinded me, I guess it would be,
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: but sort of downwind of me. And he she's been
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: standing as whole time he is. I don't know if
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: I don't What I don't know is if he had
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: been there, was he standing with her but just inside
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: the thick stuff this whole time and I never knew it,
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: or was he just cruising through? And I happened to
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: look that time that he passed through. I don't know
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: which it was, but he I see him there for
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: a second and he's walking straight away into the next
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: betting area down and I can't grunt, h or do
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: anything because just like you said, he's down winded me
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: or very close to being down winto me. I don't
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: want to encourage him to get spooped anymore. He disappears,
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: um I continue to try to take stabs at him.
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: I hunt these betting areas in the mornings in the evenings.
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: There's two main food sources. There's a cut bean field
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: on one side, of the farm. There's a standing corn
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: field on the other side. I kind of bounced back
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: and forth. If I saw him like those days, I
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: saw him up in the north betting area, I would say, Okay,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: best chances he's gonna be with a do on the
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: north side, they'll go to bean field. If I saw
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: him in the south betting area, there's a slightly better
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: chance he might come out with her to the south
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: field there in the corn fields to try to hunt
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: closer to that. I ended up seeing him one more night,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: um off the north field in the neighbor's betting area
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: and nothing that I could possibly take a shot at.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: I actually saw him on the neighbor's betting area game
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: a grunt and he circled several hundred yards, and I
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: can I can see him multiple different times because he's
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: passing through brushes and uh autumnile bushes and different crap
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: like that. So he disappears and he shows up, the disappears,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: shows up, and you could see him go all the
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: way from almost due north of me to all the
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: way almost due south to get down wind, so he
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: passes towards last time I saw him, he was heading
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: towards my down one side. I couldn't see my down
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: one side, um because there's some thick stuff there and uh,
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: he probably went down windo me. I don't know. UM,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: So that was disappointing. And this takes me to my
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: last morning, my last day, I think, and maybe I
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: can't remember if the encounter I'm about to tell you
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: what happened on the morning of the thirteenth, of the
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: morning of the fourteen. But um, there's basically two more
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: encounters worth mentioning. This one is back down window that
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: doughe betting year that I first talked about, um, where
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: I passed on RB on November one. I go back
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: there again. It's I think, probably my best spot because
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: it's down one of the Doe betting year and it's
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: the best little pinch I have their sorts. So I've
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: kind of came to see this year that there's if
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: if it's gonna happen, that's one of the very best
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: chances of where it might happen. So I'm sitting there
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: again and I look behind me and I see a
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: big rack coming my way. I get excited, pulled the
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: buyos it's r B again and sure as ship, here
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: he comes. And now I'm thinking, uh, should I shoot him?
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: Should I pass him? Should I shoot him? It's now,
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: you know, almost both seasons almost done. Uh ah, he's
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: a pretty nice buck. I still don't know. I still
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: hadn't made a decision up to this point. Even over
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: this whole time, I kept thinking about it, and still
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: was like I would go. I would say, no, you
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: passed on him once. You want to kill tran, just
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: stick with it. And then a day later though, I'd
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: be like, man, your wife's pregnant and tired, your son's
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: you know, would love to see his dad. If you
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: shot this buck, you'd be done. You wouldn't you wouldn't
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: feel the pressure to keep hunting anymore. And maybe it's
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: just end the season, just get it done with it.
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: And then I go back and I say, man, if
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: you shoot this buck, you're gonna feel a little let down.
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: You're gonna you're gonna walk up to and be like, ah,
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: he's a nice buck. Um. But in the back of
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: your mind, you know you're gonna be bummed that you're
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: not chasing train. You'll be bummed that you gave in
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: or that you settled. Um. So this whole thing has
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: been playing on my head over and over and over again.
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: So he passes by like twenty yards and I don't
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: even grab my bow at this time. I just film
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: him with my phone and say, you know what, you
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: made your decision. You're not gonna settle, You're not gonna
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: change your goal. He's an awesome buck hopefully makes it
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: to next year. You really want to keep killed trans
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: stick with it, and so I let to watch him go.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: He passes by easy, chip shot goes on through. Now
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: I have the same feelings. I'm like, gosh, are you
• 1:40:09
  Speaker 1: an idiot? Mark? What are you doing? Go through the
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: whole thing. Twenty minutes later, I hear snap Curious again
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: walking right through, and this time I grabbed my bow,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: like damn it, damnit, Mark, just get it done with
• 1:40:23
  Speaker 1: so not grabbed my bow, and I start to get
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: in position like maybe I should just shoot him. I'm
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: about to draw back, and then a dope pops and
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: he jogs off after and I didn't have to I
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: didn't have to make the decision again. So that was
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: that I was there this year too, with that three
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: year old, at that eleven point three year old that
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: I passed probably a low one fifties. I passed him
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: like high one furtiest one fifties. I passed him three
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: different times this year, and I mean like at ten
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: yards three different times. And the first time was like, okay,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: we're not gonna pass. The second time was like, well
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: the rut is kind of we're in the middle of
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the rout. And then the last time was like it
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: could be over right now. It could all be over
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: right now. Man, It's it's a tough one. I don't know.
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: I still have been debating back and forth, you know,
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: what's the right thing. So there's all these different things
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: going through your mind, Like I just mentioned a whole
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: bunch of them. I had this original goal I want
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: to shoot for sure, mature buck now and trans really
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: really the one I want to shoot. But if if
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: a mystery buck came through that I saw there was
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: no dat about a tanker, I would have taken a
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: cracking into probably at this point. But I still just
• 1:41:33
  Speaker 1: so unsure about him, Like I could convince myself one
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: day maybe he's four, and then the next day like, no,
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: he's probably three, and and I just didn't want to
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: do that. But on the other hand, you know, I
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: posted on social media, and then you got all these guys,
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: oh my god, why would you shot? Why would shoot?
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: What are you doing? And then for a half second
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: you let that influence you. You're like, should I have shot?
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: Am I an idiot? And like, no, you can't. You
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: can't listen to people. And then your buddies text you,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: and your buddies say, dude, what do you think? And
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna see another buck like that in Michigan.
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: That'd be your, you know, second biggest archery buck in Mischigan.
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: You gotta shoot that deer. And then's that No, No,
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: I gotta stick with what you want to do. Um.
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: And then this other weird side of you says, man,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: you know you you work in the hunting industry. People
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: are wanting to see that you know what you're talking about.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: You never shoot anything because you're passed on these deer.
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: And then I said, no, you can't let that influence you.
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: But like that debate, all these different voices, the angel
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: and the devil on your shoulder saying do this, do that,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: do this? Do that? Um? That was very much the
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: story for my rut with this deer, um, having those opportunities,
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: having another big nine I passed on. I passed on
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: a really nice eight pointer or my first day in
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: North Dakota. I passed on more bucks this year of
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: like nice nice bucks for me than I ever have.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: I've never done that. I had four shot opportunities this
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: year in Michigan at a three and a half year
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: old buck in Michigan, um with my bow, which is
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: a big deal around here. Um, and I passed on
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: them all. You know, just a few years ago a
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: three and a half year old was my target around here.
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: So it's part of me is like, what are you doing?
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: And part of me says, hey, that's pretty damn cool,
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: mark that you can pass that. You don't need to
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: shoot that deer anymore. Keep it going, keep keep pushing yourself. Um,
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: that's fun. So that all said, though, I had this
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: like roller coaster of emotions of like, wow, this is
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: awesome seeing really nice deer and passing it too. Then
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 1: are you making a mistake? Are you just out here
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: and you know that buck's gonna be killed as soon
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: as gun season comes in, and trans probably gonna be
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: killed by someone in gun season, and you have nothing
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: to hunt and nothing to show for all the time
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: you put in and so where where I settled on
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: was the fact that you know, I'm gonna hunt for
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: why I really want to hunt. I'm not going to
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: shoot a deer unless it's really, really, really going to
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: be the deer that, um, that I'm excited about and
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: that I've worked for, And in this case, I had
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: those goals, and I want to stick to those goals,
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: and it's gonna be tran or you know, if a
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: surprise four or five year old bucks shows up, um,
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: that's a mzing um. But I'm not going to settle
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: because someone else says I should shoot. So that's where
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: I ended up. And the last night of the hunting season,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: I decided to hunt a spot I haven't hunted yet
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: all year. Um, it's it's a weird spot. It's right
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: in the edge of the best betting area around, but
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: I can't hunt the betting area, it's the neighbors, So
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: I have to hunt the edge of a cut bean field. Um.
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: That said, I've seen this buck go out in that
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: field multiple times, several of the sidings he crossed along
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: through there, and many bucks in the past I've hunted
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: have passed within range of the shooting of this tree. Stand.
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: So I sat there with a risky wind I knew
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: as a risky wind, but as the last night before
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: gunn season, and said, screw it, I'm gonna throw a
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: hail Mary and you know, basically blowing out the top
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: quarter of this betting are hoping that my buck would
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: come out in the bottom three quarters. And uh, Tran
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: came out. But he came out in the top quarter,
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: stepped out right down wind to me two d yards away,
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: and I could see him on the neighbors and he
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: just stood there, looked in my direction for a few
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: seconds and then just kept on going. UM. So I'm
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: sure he got a smell of something and that was that.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: That was the end of the boat season. I do
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: not know if Tran has made it through the last
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: few days a gun season or not. I don't know
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: if RB has made it. I don't know if the
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: Big Nines made it. Um. But that was my That
• 1:45:19
  Speaker 1: was my boat season on the main Michigan farm. It's
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: just a lot of question marks around shot decisions and
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: holding out for one deer and the excitement of that
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: versus the stress of that. Um. That's kind of where
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: my head has been. UM. But that I I've totally
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: skipped over the one really good thing that happened during
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: the run, which was surprisingly in the place where I
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: saw the least activity. So one second in regards to Trana,
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: not only Tran, but you've had I mean you've played
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: cat mouse on your your property before with holy Field,
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: right and then yeah and Frank, So it's not like
• 1:45:56
  Speaker 1: it's anything new six before that. Yeah, yeah, So deer
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: do become do get old in your area around that area.
• 1:46:05
  Speaker 1: They there's there's a chance they can make it. The
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: cool thing is passing this buck just solidifies that you're
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: now potentially going to have a another shooter should chase
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: next year, right, not just one, but too. That's the hope.
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: You just never know. Um and I keep on, I
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: keep on waiting for the other shoot to drop, right,
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, I keep on. I've been lucky to have
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: some of these bucks make it year after year. That
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: is really unique. You know. You know a bunch of
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: my hunting buddies, um, Andy and Dustin and Josh and
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: Ross and Peter and those guys and Corey, and they're
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: constantly giving me crap about how nobody else in Michigan
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: gets a chance to see these bucks year after year,
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: Like I'm in some little weird microcosm or some weird
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: sphere that's protecting these bucks because all my buddies, all
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: their deer get killed every year once hits. Like that's
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: the group text message through I going on right now.
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: Everyone's sharing pictures of the buck because the hunt it
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: all both season that are now dead. They have shown
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: up on somebody else's buck pole or Facebook page. And
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: I've been lucky that I have been able to get
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: at least one buck that I've seen previously is back
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: every year, um for the last I don't know, seven
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: eight years now. But I just keep on, you know,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: worrying that next year is going to change. And there's
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: more people coming into the area I've I've met. There's
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: some new hunters. Someone just bought a farm one property
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: away from me who's really into hunting. Found out there's
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: some two guys leasing a neighboring farm now that are
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: really into hunting. There's a guy that usually didn't hunt
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 1: his property. He just moved back, so he's gonna be
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: hunting more. Um. Had a person come in trespassing from
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: somewhere else that I spotted one day, so there's like
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: people are there's more and more people. There's always been
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of people. But I keep on feeling like,
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: is this going to change things? I don't know. So
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: there's worries, but there's hope because yes, there have been
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: deer that make it through and it's possible, so we'll see. Yeah,
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: but you killed something, dude, I did kill something. Um
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: So in the middle of all these things, I did
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: have that week on the back forty um, of which
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: four days were meet mine to hunt. I got to
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: hunt four days, a few days there my dad, but
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: the four days prior to that, I was hunting on
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: my own. And uh. And the long story short of
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: it is, went in on November, starting November three, went
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: and hunting the best spots I had. The spot was
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: calling the honey Hoole. I had saved it all season,
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: haven't touched it. It's it's native blue native big blue
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: stem grass and cedars and all this thick shrubby, autumn
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: ales and different things on this ridge next to the swamp.
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: Super cool little area. I knew there's dear bedding in there.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: I've been getting pictures of the wide eight coming in
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: and out of it. I had a camera near the
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: edge of this thing. So I went in there and
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: hunted the first day, expecting to see all sorts of
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: bucks cruising this ridge, and nothing like. We saw a
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: couple of dolls in the year and a half old,
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: and then that night, uh, a two and a half
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: year old bluck came out, but much much slower than
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: I was expecting. And the next two days was the
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: same kind of thing, just a few doughs a year
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: and a half old. Um Like we talked about earlier,
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: the whole thing about why this property has been much
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: slower than I expected? If that that's what I just
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: sat and thought about for three days, why is this
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: like this? Um, it's November, you know, it's November three,
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: four five, It should be great. Um. But the third
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: day was the third fourth day, I decided, all right,
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: we gotta switched up to new spots. So I had
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: another spot that I prepped that was at the inside
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: corner of where one of our old fields came down
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: the ridge and pushed into the edge of the swamp.
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: So there's an inside corner of this field that juts
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: into the swamp, and that ridge with the honey hoole
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: that thick ridge drops down at the same point too,
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: so the ridge pinches to the edge of the swamp
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: and the field pinches to the edge of the swamp.
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, gosh, if anything is cruising
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: the edge of the swamp or cruising the ridge, and
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: if they want to stay in the cover but not
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: being the really wet stuff, they've got to come right
• 1:50:08
  Speaker 1: through this edge set up there, hunted it not seeing
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: much at all. Could hear a buck chasing a dough
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: in the thick swamp, but could never see them. And
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: it's nine thirty in the morning. Not a single buck
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: has come cruising through. I'm just having these same thoughts
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: in my mind, like what is going on? Why are
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: there not a few bucks cruising through? Why am I
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: not seeing some two year olds? Like this is a
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: good area. I know it's a good area, and know
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: who's around here. I've talked to the neighbors. Now I
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: know that there's deer in the zone. Um, it's it's
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: a It's got a lot of good things going for
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: this property. Does we should be seeing something? And hits
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, all right, I'm getting a snack, So
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: I bust out a bag of checks mix. I'm eating
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: some checks makes and I look over my shoulder on
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: the hill behind me, and I see a buck running
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: across this old brushy field and me and like, that's
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: a good buck. Put my buyd knows and I realized
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 1: that's the wide eight and he's running across this field
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: behind me. Graham a grunt tube. Do the exact same
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: thing we talked about earlier. Just let off a rack
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: and he stops on a dime. He looks right at
• 1:51:12
  Speaker 1: me and then starts coming in and I'm like, holy
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: sh it, he's coming right to me. And that's like, man,
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: that is so satisfying. I don't, like, I know I've
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 1: already said this, but like it's like boner worthy. When
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: you can do that, it's like I am in control
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: of you from this point on, you know what I mean.
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: It is one of the absolute coolest things. Yes, Like
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 1: that's one of the very best moments as a hunter
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: when you hit that grunt and they spin and that
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: the moment is when you when you know what's happening, like,
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: oh it worked here he comes did they stop? And
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: they just turn and they look back in your way
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: and you're like got your mother comes that's all right.
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: We're very excited. Um and and so yeah, he he
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: comes in and basically he's coming in a rope, and
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: then he starts to angle south again, and then I
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 1: think in my head, oh crap, he's heading right towards
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: my wind and he's going right down wind. And now
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, jeez, it's game over. And he stops, puts
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: his nose up in the air. Sniff sniff, sniff, sniff,
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 1: keeps looking. Sniff sniff, sniff sniff, keeps looking, and like
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: this is the moment of truth. Like it's gonna either
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: he's gonna bust out of here or it's gonna happen.
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: I'm waiting and waiting and waiting, assuming any second now
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: he's gonna kick up his white flag and tear out
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: of there. And my scent control worked and he's kept.
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: He puts his head back down and keeps coming right in,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh my gosh, yes, it's happening. And
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: he walks straight in on like dead to me, head
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: on to like fifteen yards, but he's facing me a
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: fifteen yards and he stops right in my shooting lane
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: and he's doing the head scan. Now he's like we're
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: the buck. Where's the buck? He's looking looking, looking, and
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 1: I can't shoot, And now I'm thinking, oh no, like
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: what's gonna happen here? But I'm ready, I'm locked in.
• 1:53:10
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm using my silver back back tension release for
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: the first time. Um, not for the first time, but
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: I'm going to get a shot for the first time, hopefully.
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: And then he turns and starts to jog, and I
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: have a tree because he's out of my shooting. And
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: now there's a true a bunch of like vines on
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: a grape vines or something, and there's one little hole
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: in the vines, and so he kind of starts to
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: jog that direction and he gets to that one hole
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 1: and I just rat and he stops, and I pull
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: back and let her rip and double lunged him and
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: you just see him mule kick and run up the
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: hill and run towards this fencer over there and crashes
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: into the woods there and you can just see all
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: the trees like shaken, shake and shake and shaken, and
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: then stopped and um, and then it was just yeah,
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: it's like that's the perfect thing. It's the perfect it's
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: almost like the perfect hunt. Yeah, it was. I made
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: it was and what was what was unique about this
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: And I haven't spent a whole lot of time talking
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: about the build up to this because I spent so
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: much time talking about tran Um. But there was a
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on behind the scenes on this
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: hunt that made that moment really special for me, um,
• 1:54:22
  Speaker 1: Because you know, I hunted it in the early season,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: then we hunted again with Doug late October, and then
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: we hunted it for this period during the rut Um.
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 1: But then there's also been all this time in the
• 1:54:33
  Speaker 1: spring and summer that I've been trying to get this
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: project off the ground and then trying to get this
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: property set up, and then trying to get people out
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: here to see it and share their thoughts. Um. But
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: really there was this whole other side of things that
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: we don't have to get into. But this is like
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: a very different kind of project for me, right, I
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: mean kind of like filling my first TV show, And
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: there's all these a lot of people involved, and a
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: lot of stuff going on and a lot of a
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: lot of doubts and questions and criticisms and UM, for me,
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 1: it was just a very stressful summer and fall, trying
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: to make this thing work. Um, a lot of late
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: nights on the phone, rewriting things, changing things, trying to
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: change plans, trying to make it work, um, and all
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: of that. Then I shoot this buck, and up to
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: this point where I had taken this buck, I'm thinking, Man,
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: this thing is a bust. I mean, this is horrible.
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: Everything's gone wrong. Uh, I'm a horrible host. No one's
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: gonna be interested in this. I can't even see a
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 1: half decent buck. Um. And then this thing happens in
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: a split second and all changes, and you know, the
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: buck that I've been hoping to see and that I
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: talked about the most, and that we thought we might
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 1: have a chance to see, All of a sudden he's
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: there and I get a shot and he's down, and
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: all of these ten thousand things added up too, We're
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: added to all the regular hunting excitement all built up.
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: And then like over float out of me and I
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: had the most emotion filled moment I think I've ever
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: had a hunter. I just kind of broke down. I've
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: never had that happened before. Um, but I just kinda
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 1: was overwhelmed by everything and I kind of just lost it.
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: For five minutes, and uh, it was a really it
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: was a really uh I don't even know what the
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: right words are, but it was one of those moments
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: that as a hunter, it's so much more than just
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: shooting a deer, you know, Like that was that was
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: the actual physical action that took place, but what it
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: represented and what it culminated was so so so much
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: more and and and it's probably not fair to the
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: deer to put all that on that deer. You know,
• 1:56:44
  Speaker 1: all these other emotions, all these other things that were
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: building up inside of me, but it all got put
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: on this moment and um led to a really just
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: I don't know, I was very very thankful, really really excited,
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: very very happy. Just like you said, a whole lot
• 1:57:01
  Speaker 1: of stuff came together there in that moment and reminds
• 1:57:05
  Speaker 1: you while you hunt, because because you can have that
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: kind of emotional experience out there in the woods and
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: uh and like you said, get some great meat out
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: of it, have some great memories. Uh. You know, got
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 1: to share with my dad because he showed up a
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: couple of days later and got to see the deer,
• 1:57:19
  Speaker 1: and I got to show my son the buck, and uh,
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: you know, he got a thrill out of that and
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: the buck. Because of the cold weather, I've just hung
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: the buck up behind the barn and so still hanging there,
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 1: just letting it hang. And so every day my some
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 1: months to go out there and see the buck and
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: touch it and uh just say buck buck buck over
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: another chain and uh, that's what's all about. So it
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: was a really cool way to uh to see a
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: lot of work come to fruition. That's awesome, dude. I'm glad.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: I'm glad he had that moment and those moments like
• 1:57:53
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't like to like focus so hard
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: on the cherry on top, which is the kill I feel.
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: But when you can have that moment, that's so just
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: feel so right Like me, I was just so overjoyed
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: and you got you got a little emotional and um.
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: And I think that when you can stop putting, if
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: you can, you can relieve the pressure. Like there. For me,
• 1:58:21
  Speaker 1: one thing I've I feel like I've learned how to
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: do over the last several years, ever since I stopped
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 1: filming my hunts, and not saying that I'm not ever
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: going to do it again, but taking everybody out of
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: the equation that's not you, and that's not the animal
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: and and and taking out all the things that don't matter,
• 1:58:43
  Speaker 1: then I think you can enjoy hunting that much more. Yeah. Yeah,
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: that's definitely something that I'm constantly battling with. UM And
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: I've gotten to a point where I handle it much better,
• 1:58:53
  Speaker 1: but I still have those back and forth in my mind.
• 1:58:57
  Speaker 1: I end up in the right place, but sometimes it
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: takes me, you know, some sitting there and like but
• 1:59:02
  Speaker 1: what about this? What about this? And then no, you know,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: it's about you and your experience and this hunt, and
• 1:59:08
  Speaker 1: that's all that matters. UM. So getting there, I can't
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: say I still don't have some stress in between. UM.
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: But yes, that is the way to that is the
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 1: way to enjoy this stuff the most is to shut
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 1: out all the outside noise and just hunt. Hunt your hunt,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: enjoy it, enjoy the process. Don't be so I mean,
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: I'm always I'm an interesting I have I have an
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 1: interesting conundrum because I always I like to talk the
• 1:59:34
  Speaker 1: big game to myself and and externally, which is give
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 1: it your all, put it all in their field, work,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: work work, don't give up, be strong, push through the
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: tough times. Um. And that's what I'm always telling myself
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: because you know that's what leads you to success. Um.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: But then I also have this other side of me
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: that's telling myself, you don't need to take it so
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: seriously too. Remember to enjoy it, Remember to enjoy the process,
• 2:00:03
  Speaker 1: Remember to have fun, Remember to you know, take some
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: time off during the rut to sit with your dad
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: and tell stories, because that means a whole lot more
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: than sitting in a tree and trying to shoot a
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: deer in the big scammy things. So I think that
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 1: that family and balancing your drive with bigger things and
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: priorities and all that is like when I take away
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: from this hunting season. I don't know if I if
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I can wrap it up in
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: like a sustinct way, but I think over the course
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: of the the last two hours between your story and mine,
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the moral of our story
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, I don't know, man, I just I
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: love this and every year I say, I say, I
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: just love it so much, and I'm glad I have
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: a wife who you know, I'm not gonna say, lets
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: me go, because I feel like that's unfair to say,
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: like someone's letting you do something but works with me
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: and you know, gives me the opportunity and the freedom
• 2:01:07
  Speaker 1: and understands is starting to understand a little more every
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: year how this all comes together for you know, for
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: me and the passion that's there. And I don't know,
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: I just feel like want when a person can focus
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: on themselves and the animal and their scenarios, that there's
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: a cloud that's lifted off and they just get so
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: much more enjoyment out of it. And um like, for me,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: I don't even think about anybody else. I want other
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: hunters to be successful, but I'm going to celebrate what
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: they've done regardless of how big the antlers are. I
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: give zero about the antlers, un dear like, I just
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: like when people measure their success on the antlers. You
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: you are losing your you are losing. You're losing. I
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: don't that's my opinion. I hear you that. I'll start
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: getting fired up if we keep talking about that. Dude,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: congrats on such an awesome season. I mean, that's what
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: it's all about, right, It was. It was a really
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: cool it was a really cool hunt. And uh and
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: the season is not done for me. I'm gonna keep
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: at it. Um I still want to hopefully have a
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: shot of tran, But I will say that maybe maybe
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: what I got from this season so far is to
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: control which you can control. There are certain things you
• 2:02:33
  Speaker 1: can control, like your effort, like your priorities, like when
• 2:02:37
  Speaker 1: you decide to shoot, when you don't shoot, when you hunt,
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: when you don't hunt, where you go. Control those things
• 2:02:42
  Speaker 1: and do the best you can with that. But when
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: it comes to what you can't control, recognize what you
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: can't control, and stop giving and stop giving ships about it,
• 2:02:51
  Speaker 1: because if you can't control it, let it go. Whether
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: that be what somebody else thinks about your decision, whether
• 2:02:57
  Speaker 1: that be if someone else shoots your target buck, to
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: that be if the deer just aren't there in your
• 2:03:02
  Speaker 1: farm and and and you're having really slow sits. If
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: you can't control it, there's no point in stressing about
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: it and worrying about it and letting it ruin your
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: hunting experience. Yeah, that's a fact, Jack, That is a fact.
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: And I think maybe with that we should shut down
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: this marathon uh story type podcast. That's a fact. I
• 2:03:24
  Speaker 1: gotta pee you really bad. Well, then get out of here,
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: go go drain the tank and uh, well we'll talk
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: against him, and that's gonna do it first Today, just
• 2:03:34
  Speaker 1: a couple of quick reminders. If you haven't checked out
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: my new book, That Wild Country, would highly recommended and
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: appreciate it. If you'd be willing to pick up a copy,
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: you can find it on Amazon from now through the
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: beginning of December, and then from December one on you'll
• 2:03:50
  Speaker 1: be able to pick it up just about anywhere you
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: can find books. A lot more to come on that soon. Otherwise,
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: follow me on the Wired Hunt Instagram account for more
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: updates on recent trips, upcoming hunts and all that good stuff,
• 2:04:03
  Speaker 1: and otherwise, thank you all for tuning in. I appreciate
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 1: your support, and until next time, good luck hunting and
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: stay wired to Hunt.