Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 494: My Face to Face Whitetail Experience with a Decoy with Tony Trietch

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Ep. 494: My Face to Face Whitetail Experience with a Decoy with Tony Trietch · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the
0:05
Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host,
0:14
Speaker 1: Mark Kenyan, and today in the show, I am recounting
0:16
Speaker 1: the wild, wild adventures I had chasing white tails across
0:21
Speaker 1: the plains of Nebraska on the ground, trying to decoy
0:25
Speaker 1: them in at ground level with my buddy Tony treech
0:38
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
0:41
Speaker 1: to you by First Light. We are continuing our series
0:45
Speaker 1: here recounting my trips this past fall um where I
0:51
Speaker 1: have been meeting up with different regional experts or subject experts,
0:56
Speaker 1: or different style of hunting experts, and you know, spending
1:01
Speaker 1: a few days learning how they do what they do
1:03
Speaker 1: in this specific area and then trying it out myself.
1:07
Speaker 1: So I told the story in last week's episode about
1:09
Speaker 1: what I did in Washington, d C. Learning how to
1:12
Speaker 1: hunt in the suburbs. Today, I want to tell you
1:15
Speaker 1: about another one of my hunts in which I went
1:17
Speaker 1: to Nebraska and met up with Tony Treach, who's a
1:20
Speaker 1: nomad of sorts. This is a guy who works during
1:23
Speaker 1: the winter, spring and summer so he can take off
1:26
Speaker 1: all fall and hunt across the country, hunting, public land hunting,
1:30
Speaker 1: knock on door stuff hunting, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana. I mean,
1:35
Speaker 1: wyoming all over the place Kansas, um chasing white tails, elk, mule, deer, everything.
1:41
Speaker 1: But when it comes to white tails, he not only
1:44
Speaker 1: spends all this time living out in the land chasing
1:47
Speaker 1: deer forever, but he does this on the ground decoying
1:50
Speaker 1: thing where he's holding or using a bow attached decoy
1:54
Speaker 1: and getting a buck to come right in and try
1:56
Speaker 1: to kick his ass and then he shoots him before
1:58
Speaker 1: they do. That is what I wanted to learned about.
2:01
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to try doing, and Tony Trich
2:03
Speaker 1: was the man to teach me. So in the second
2:07
Speaker 1: week in November, I traveled out there in Nebraska, met
2:09
Speaker 1: up with Tony and did it. Spend a day and
2:13
Speaker 1: a half of him picking his brain about how he
2:15
Speaker 1: goes about this kind of hunt, watching as he does
2:18
Speaker 1: it himself, and then I went off on my own
2:20
Speaker 1: and tried for three three and a half days on
2:23
Speaker 1: my own. Um, so, Tony's gonna hop on here with
2:25
Speaker 1: me in a minute and we're gonna walk through kind
2:28
Speaker 1: of how he got into the style of hunting. We're
2:30
Speaker 1: gonna talk about some of the high level strategy elements,
2:33
Speaker 1: the things that you need to be thinking about when
2:34
Speaker 1: trying to pull off a hunt like this, and then
2:37
Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk through what I did day by day,
2:39
Speaker 1: decision by decision and counter by encounter, and detail how
2:43
Speaker 1: things went, what I did, and then have Tony kind
2:46
Speaker 1: of examined my decisions and what I tried to do
2:48
Speaker 1: and tell me if I did anything wrong, if there's
2:50
Speaker 1: things I could have done differently, um, et cetera, see
2:53
Speaker 1: if we can learn some stuff from this super crazy experience.
2:57
Speaker 1: I mean, this was some of the most fun I've
2:58
Speaker 1: ever had deer hunting. It it was and um also
3:01
Speaker 1: with me on the podcast here in caled minutes will
3:03
Speaker 1: be Bobby Jared. He was one of the cameramen that
3:06
Speaker 1: was with me for this hunt, so he's going to
3:08
Speaker 1: give a second perspective and in fact checking me on
3:10
Speaker 1: stuff if necessary, and kind of talk about the different
3:13
Speaker 1: things he saw too. So that's today's episode. A lot
3:16
Speaker 1: of fun. Um. This is something I will definitely be
3:19
Speaker 1: doing again, and I can't wait for you to hear
3:21
Speaker 1: the story and watch the episode next year. So without
3:24
Speaker 1: further ado, let's get to my chat with Tony and Bobby.
3:27
Speaker 1: All right, so joining me now on the line to
3:30
Speaker 1: continue this story is Tony Treach and Bobby Jerreed. Thank
3:35
Speaker 1: you both for making the time to get back together
3:38
Speaker 1: again and relive our Nebraska adventures. Yeah, thanks for having me, Yeah,
3:45
Speaker 1: scided thanks. Yeah. So here's where I want to start.
3:49
Speaker 1: You know, when we when we began this trip, we
3:53
Speaker 1: met up at a campground in the middle of nowhere
3:55
Speaker 1: in Nebraska, and I remember one of the first things
3:58
Speaker 1: I asked you, Tony is how long have you been
4:01
Speaker 1: on the road for? Like, how how long have you
4:03
Speaker 1: been traveling so far this year? And it was just
4:05
Speaker 1: a ridiculous answer, Tony, how long had you been? I
4:09
Speaker 1: know there was kind of back and forth, but how
4:11
Speaker 1: many days were you on the road this late summer
4:14
Speaker 1: and fall? And where all did you hear it? Leading
4:16
Speaker 1: up to our trip? Wow? Uh? Started? I left Michigan,
4:21
Speaker 1: went to Nebraska. That would have been in August, early August.
4:27
Speaker 1: I spent about a month there. Exactly what I say.
4:32
Speaker 1: You said, Nebraska, but I think you met Nevada, Nevada. Yeah,
4:36
Speaker 1: I'm sorry Nevada and uh spent a month there, got
4:40
Speaker 1: a bowl with Colorado uh there almost two weeks, got
4:43
Speaker 1: a bowl at home, did some work, actually spent some
4:46
Speaker 1: time at home in some months in September, which was rarity,
4:50
Speaker 1: and then back on the road in October to Wyoming
4:53
Speaker 1: for deer help a buddy with a bison tag mom
4:57
Speaker 1: mom at a moose tag. Did those and then headed
5:00
Speaker 1: down two planes to meet you guys. And I also
5:04
Speaker 1: had a a buddy who had a Kansas tag that
5:07
Speaker 1: I helped with with, and I had a Colorado Eastern
5:12
Speaker 1: Plains Dear tag. So all in all, it's probably just
5:16
Speaker 1: over treat months on the road. Yeah, that's a like
5:21
Speaker 1: I was telling you, I felt like I had been
5:23
Speaker 1: like a traveling vagabond this fault. But when I hear
5:26
Speaker 1: about what you do, it makes my makes my travel
5:30
Speaker 1: seem amateur. So I've got I've got nothing on you.
5:33
Speaker 1: That's a I don't know. Every time we we talked
5:37
Speaker 1: about I found myself having two equal feelings. Number one
5:41
Speaker 1: was a certain sense of jealousy, just like the freedom
5:44
Speaker 1: and adventure you have when you get to go all
5:46
Speaker 1: these different places and spend that much time on the road,
5:49
Speaker 1: but then also dread like, I can't imagine being gone
5:53
Speaker 1: that long and spending that much time on the road
5:55
Speaker 1: and how exhausting that must must be in certain ways. Um,
5:59
Speaker 1: so you've got a really interesting, really interesting worlds are
6:03
Speaker 1: living in there. Man. Yeah, it's uh, it does it does.
6:07
Speaker 1: It does burn me after a while. I mean, if
6:09
Speaker 1: if every hunt goes great, uh, and you know you're
6:12
Speaker 1: just riding the high from hunt to hunt, then it's
6:15
Speaker 1: it goes a lot faster and smoother. Um. But you
6:20
Speaker 1: throw in a couple of hard hunts here or there,
6:22
Speaker 1: and or you know, bad weather, hot weather, whatever, things
6:24
Speaker 1: aren't going your way, and it could become a drag. Um.
6:28
Speaker 1: I just got to make sure to everything's uh in
6:31
Speaker 1: line and functioning on the home front, because the wife's
6:36
Speaker 1: not happy. Uh, it wouldn't you know, it wouldn't happen.
6:40
Speaker 1: And it works. It works. If there's trouble at work,
6:43
Speaker 1: you know, it can enter into a disaster. But knock
6:48
Speaker 1: on wood, it's everything's good. And as as as of
6:52
Speaker 1: right now, I'll still be allowed from the wife to
6:54
Speaker 1: don't do it again. You know something that I don't
6:59
Speaker 1: think I actually asked you about back in November that
7:04
Speaker 1: I meant to was quite simply, why why do you
7:14
Speaker 1: why have you taken this to such a just to
7:17
Speaker 1: this degree. I mean, there's a lot of guys that
7:19
Speaker 1: take a week, maybe two weeks of vacation go hunting.
7:22
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people that like to travel to hunt.
7:24
Speaker 1: There's a lot of people to hunt a whole lot
7:26
Speaker 1: around home. Um, but there are not many people that
7:29
Speaker 1: have gone as far as you have and and have
7:31
Speaker 1: really crafted your lifestyle to to do this to the
7:34
Speaker 1: extent that you have. I mean, that's a pretty unique thing. Um,
7:38
Speaker 1: When did you When did you realize you wanted to
7:41
Speaker 1: go this far with it? And and why? What was
7:43
Speaker 1: the impetus for really taking things to this very very
7:47
Speaker 1: different level than most It kind of it kind of
7:51
Speaker 1: built up slowly, and it didn't start by going out
7:54
Speaker 1: west and you know, to the mountains and then to
7:56
Speaker 1: the plains. It started traveling to Illinois and been in
8:00
Speaker 1: a farmer's barn for two weeks and then three weeks.
8:02
Speaker 1: Then we got permission to hunt in Ohio, Buddy and
8:06
Speaker 1: I and we know, we spent a couple of weeks there,
8:08
Speaker 1: and then we drew Iowa and we spent a couple
8:11
Speaker 1: of weeks there. And then I got invited to Kansas
8:13
Speaker 1: the first year, and all of a sudden, now we're
8:14
Speaker 1: spending two weeks down there, and you know, I side,
8:16
Speaker 1: I mean, did the several trips or you know, the
8:20
Speaker 1: basically you know, from a last third week of October
8:23
Speaker 1: all the way through November travel in the Midwest before
8:27
Speaker 1: I got the bug from seeing all the mule here
8:29
Speaker 1: in Kansas that I couldn't hunt, um because at first
8:33
Speaker 1: we were using rifles there. Non resident can hunt you
8:36
Speaker 1: know there in Kansas rifles. So it kind of gat
8:39
Speaker 1: me the bugs like I need to go further west
8:41
Speaker 1: where I can hunt from you there, and and then
8:45
Speaker 1: the elk bug bit me in. It's just a I
8:49
Speaker 1: had already had my business kind of you know, I'm
8:51
Speaker 1: a self employee carpenter. They have a handful of employees,
8:54
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, but the customers that we work
8:57
Speaker 1: for know that we you know, we we basically fried
9:00
Speaker 1: carpetry labor. And when the fall is gone or the
9:03
Speaker 1: fault the fall comes, we're gonna be one guy short
9:06
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna be gone. And uh, you know, we
9:09
Speaker 1: do good enough work that I can kind of, yeah,
9:12
Speaker 1: get what I want, uh per sely with that, because
9:16
Speaker 1: uh yeah, the guys are really good and get stuff done.
9:20
Speaker 1: But it just it grew into what it is now slowly,
9:27
Speaker 1: and it's you know, there's some areas that I can
9:30
Speaker 1: hunt every year, and I love to hunt, and I
9:32
Speaker 1: don't want to give him up, and I just keep
9:34
Speaker 1: adding those types of hunts to the list and then
9:36
Speaker 1: occasionally throw on a great tank you come across, and
9:40
Speaker 1: so it just, you know, about a better hunter, I'd
9:43
Speaker 1: probably get done earlier, and I just shoot him on
9:44
Speaker 1: the first or second day, and I feel to go
9:46
Speaker 1: home once in a while, but it seems like I
9:47
Speaker 1: drag him out to the end of the season every time.
9:52
Speaker 1: Oh I feel like those times when you do kill
9:54
Speaker 1: on the first day, you have like a certain sense
9:57
Speaker 1: of of loss that the hunts already done. You know.
10:00
Speaker 1: That's like, that's the weird catch twenty two. I've been
10:03
Speaker 1: in that position. So so then what about the decoy
10:08
Speaker 1: part of what you do? So so, if I were
10:10
Speaker 1: to oversimplify what I think about when I think about
10:13
Speaker 1: Tony Treach, you, I think about this public land traveling nomad,
10:18
Speaker 1: and I think at least from the white tail side
10:20
Speaker 1: of things, which is, you know, my particular interests. I
10:23
Speaker 1: think about how you're doing this on the ground, handheld
10:26
Speaker 1: decoy thing. You know, that was what I was really
10:28
Speaker 1: interested in picking your brain about. UM. Now, a couple
10:31
Speaker 1: of years ago we did podcast where we talked about
10:33
Speaker 1: this pretty extensively, so we're I don't want to cover
10:35
Speaker 1: every single a little bit, but but how did that
10:38
Speaker 1: come about for you? I remember you telling us a
10:39
Speaker 1: story back there in Nebraska that I thought was, um
10:42
Speaker 1: was eye opening. Can you can you get us up
10:45
Speaker 1: to speed on that, like how this style of hunting
10:47
Speaker 1: became your style? Now moving forward? Yeah, so it was
10:54
Speaker 1: a necessity when I first started out in Kansas. I
10:56
Speaker 1: mean I was typical Midwestern you know, yeah, hunted. You know,
11:00
Speaker 1: grew up in Michigan hunting and it's thicker and snot
11:02
Speaker 1: up here in northern Michigan. And you know, I went
11:04
Speaker 1: to Illinois where it was thick, and I you know,
11:06
Speaker 1: where it's you're hitting the hunting the river bottoms where
11:09
Speaker 1: it's thick. And I went to Kansas. The first time
11:13
Speaker 1: we met the rancher, uh, he wanted to give us
11:15
Speaker 1: a tour kind of like, you know, well, there's the
11:17
Speaker 1: properties that I've either own or rent and you can
11:20
Speaker 1: can hunt these. And I mean we stopped in the
11:22
Speaker 1: first place, intersection of four you know, four county roads
11:26
Speaker 1: and you can't okay't see a tree. I can't see
11:29
Speaker 1: a bush, like I don't know how jack rabbit could
11:31
Speaker 1: have hit out there. And I just remember doing a
11:33
Speaker 1: three sixty looking around like I thought, I don't know
11:35
Speaker 1: what we're doing here. This is gonna be a waste time.
11:38
Speaker 1: And by the end of that week, Uh, we figured
11:42
Speaker 1: out that it's not as it's not as flat and
11:45
Speaker 1: as it looks, it's not as empty as it looks.
11:47
Speaker 1: There's a lot of animals out there. Uh. And it's
11:50
Speaker 1: but but we had to hunt them differently and that
11:53
Speaker 1: grew into you know, traditional spot and stock is pretty
11:57
Speaker 1: tough in the plane because vision you can't see very well.
12:01
Speaker 1: If you can get past that and stand enough on
12:04
Speaker 1: your trucks, if you can climb on top of buildings,
12:07
Speaker 1: you know, find what little high spots there are, you
12:09
Speaker 1: can get on them. And and it's it's not it's
12:12
Speaker 1: not the easiest spot in stock hunting. It's a lot
12:15
Speaker 1: of crawling and it's I mean, at the end of
12:17
Speaker 1: the day, you're just covered in dust and birds, and
12:20
Speaker 1: but what was happening was I was getting close to
12:23
Speaker 1: these bucks and then you know, they're bedding in these
12:27
Speaker 1: grassy draws and these leady draws, and when they stand up,
12:31
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes in order to have a shot when
12:33
Speaker 1: they do stand up, you gotta be pretty dang close.
12:36
Speaker 1: And sometimes it doesn't even matter. I mean ten fifteen
12:39
Speaker 1: yards away. I think I told you for about the
12:41
Speaker 1: biggest book I've ever hundred in Kansas, I just didn't
12:44
Speaker 1: have a shot. I was fifteen yards from him three
12:46
Speaker 1: different times, and I really didn't have a great shot
12:50
Speaker 1: window any one of those times. So I got me
12:54
Speaker 1: thinking I needed something to hold them or you know,
12:58
Speaker 1: bring them to me even better, you know, uh, once
13:01
Speaker 1: they did stand up, So I brought I had an
13:03
Speaker 1: old Montana decoy that I you know, like the full
13:06
Speaker 1: body silhouette, uh, that I brought out one year, and
13:10
Speaker 1: I was trying to use that, and I I brought
13:12
Speaker 1: the wrong legs. I also had the elk version, and
13:15
Speaker 1: I brought the elk legs, which you know, so I
13:16
Speaker 1: got a Joe decoy that's like standing three ft off
13:18
Speaker 1: the ground and fourth front of the ground was pretty funny.
13:21
Speaker 1: So I thought I was funny, and I put up
13:22
Speaker 1: a post on social media with that, and Garrett Rowe,
13:25
Speaker 1: the owner heads up Decoy, actually called her message me
13:29
Speaker 1: and said, hey, uh, we're based out of Western Kansas,
13:32
Speaker 1: briget and converse a little bit and he's like, well, here,
13:35
Speaker 1: let's meet somewhere tomorrow and I'll set you up with
13:38
Speaker 1: my products and consue what you think. I met him
13:41
Speaker 1: at a you know, undisclosed intersection and we he all.
13:45
Speaker 1: He helped me install the bracket on on my bow
13:47
Speaker 1: in front other behind my uh stabilizer and give me
13:51
Speaker 1: a ground steak and uh brushed clamp and off I went.
13:56
Speaker 1: And the very next day I killed five inch white
14:01
Speaker 1: deal with it. And that deer was coming at me.
14:05
Speaker 1: Basically his eyes rolled in the back of its head,
14:07
Speaker 1: and if I hadn't shot it, it might have taken
14:11
Speaker 1: the decoy in the bow right out of my hands.
14:13
Speaker 1: It was, I mean, it was coming for a fight,
14:17
Speaker 1: and it basically it basically solved the prop in my head.
14:23
Speaker 1: Um when I was able to sneak in now to
14:26
Speaker 1: to where they're at mess the key you gotta find
14:28
Speaker 1: them bedded, Yeah, step with their ben gotta get in
14:31
Speaker 1: tight and then just this way you can call him
14:34
Speaker 1: into and and and that's actually how that worked with
14:37
Speaker 1: that that book that a shot that day. But um,
14:40
Speaker 1: the perfect situation that really is kind of pool group
14:43
Speaker 1: is just getting in tight, show them the decoy, and
14:46
Speaker 1: let them do their thing. But it was out a
14:49
Speaker 1: necessity basically. Now, what's like the pre wreck for this
14:55
Speaker 1: kind of hunt as far as what kind of area,
14:57
Speaker 1: what kind of habitat do you think you need? And
15:01
Speaker 1: I guess there's a time of year pre ruck as well,
15:03
Speaker 1: Like what what are the things that are absolute musts
15:06
Speaker 1: for someone to be in a situation to try this
15:08
Speaker 1: from your perspective, Yeah, well this isn't honestly just my opinion. Um,
15:13
Speaker 1: but I've never tried outside of the rut, so I
15:16
Speaker 1: don't know how it worked. But you know, in the rut,
15:20
Speaker 1: the white tails if the bucket ratios is at at
15:24
Speaker 1: a healthy level and they're not just getting hammered by
15:27
Speaker 1: people and you know, always on edge, they see another
15:30
Speaker 1: buck they're gonna come check it out. Uh So the
15:33
Speaker 1: rut is a must in my opinion. But maybe the
15:36
Speaker 1: most important thing is you've got to be able to
15:38
Speaker 1: see where they're sleeping. If you don't know where they're at.
15:42
Speaker 1: You're basically just still hunting with a decoy, and you know,
15:46
Speaker 1: we all know how that's gonna go. You know the best?
15:50
Speaker 1: Have you seen them before they see you as you're
15:53
Speaker 1: creeping through where they're bedded, So being able to see
15:57
Speaker 1: them in their beds, uh is absolutely the most important thing.
16:01
Speaker 1: And then you can put together a plan how to
16:03
Speaker 1: get close as close as you can. Do you want
16:06
Speaker 1: to try to call them or get their attention to
16:08
Speaker 1: see the decoy or do you want to let them
16:10
Speaker 1: see on their own? You know, you get once you
16:12
Speaker 1: once you have them betted in a spot that you
16:15
Speaker 1: can hunt, you know, it's uh, it's over really unless
16:22
Speaker 1: you mess up, you know something. But there you're going
16:24
Speaker 1: to have a great opportunity if you can find a
16:27
Speaker 1: betted Yeah, I um ah, it's interesting. That was like
16:33
Speaker 1: the ideal scenario you kept telling us about. And unfortunately
16:38
Speaker 1: I was only able to get that specific scenario one time,
16:42
Speaker 1: which I'll get to describe that too and a little
16:44
Speaker 1: bit here in the story. But um, but even though
16:47
Speaker 1: I didn't have that specific thing work out, it was
16:51
Speaker 1: wild how many different almost occurred still without that um,
16:58
Speaker 1: I haven't even told you all these stories yet, and
17:00
Speaker 1: I'm excited for you to hear how specifically some of
17:02
Speaker 1: this went, because, Um, what you told me was that
17:07
Speaker 1: this would be some of the most intense fun hunting
17:10
Speaker 1: I've ever experienced, And even though I didn't have an
17:12
Speaker 1: ideal scenario in a lot of ways, I still think
17:15
Speaker 1: that proved to be true. I mean, Bobby, from your
17:19
Speaker 1: perspective watching what we're about to talk about, I mean,
17:24
Speaker 1: this is some wild stuff, wasn't it. Yeah, Man, it
17:27
Speaker 1: was exciting. It was just when the action was happening.
17:30
Speaker 1: It was just bucks everywhere running around, and I kind
17:34
Speaker 1: of had a unique position watching sort of up above
17:37
Speaker 1: you from most of it. So it's just just like
17:41
Speaker 1: my heart was beating just just watching it from the bar. Yeah.
17:44
Speaker 1: I can't can't imagine what you're feeling. Yeah, I mean
17:48
Speaker 1: it's nuts being at ground level getting in close to
17:52
Speaker 1: one of these deer like this. Um, but it starts
17:54
Speaker 1: with the spotting one, and I guess that's maybe where
17:57
Speaker 1: we should pick it up, which was that first night
17:59
Speaker 1: we got together. And we're gonna go find a high
18:02
Speaker 1: spot and do some glass and try to get eyes
18:04
Speaker 1: on something. Um, we're hunting some public land in Nebraska. Uh,
18:09
Speaker 1: you had got their day earlier or yeah, I think
18:12
Speaker 1: the day before and had done something last thing. Yeah. Um,
18:15
Speaker 1: And then we got together and got up high and
18:17
Speaker 1: looked around. What from your perspective, when you're beginning to
18:21
Speaker 1: hunt like this, you're just trying to get eyes on
18:24
Speaker 1: something at that point in the hunt, in the very beginning,
18:27
Speaker 1: what was it that you were really trying to do.
18:28
Speaker 1: Were you trying to find a buck to actually stock
18:30
Speaker 1: that night or was it just let's see if there's
18:32
Speaker 1: anything worth hunting here at all, like an inventory type thing?
18:34
Speaker 1: Was that more so what you were doing? Yeah? No,
18:38
Speaker 1: I think we needed to find out where real they
18:41
Speaker 1: are moving through and there because that was a little
18:42
Speaker 1: bit thicker than than what we you know, what the
18:45
Speaker 1: ideal terrain would probably be that with the river bottoms
18:48
Speaker 1: and the six featers in the bottoms. My idea was
18:52
Speaker 1: that probably if they had that available to them, a
18:54
Speaker 1: lot of times they will use it. So, you know,
18:57
Speaker 1: a lot of the spots I look for they don't
18:58
Speaker 1: have those options. So they had they were forced to
19:02
Speaker 1: be in the open. Uh. So yeah, I figured if
19:05
Speaker 1: we could figure out where they're moving through and there, um,
19:09
Speaker 1: and at least get an idea of you know, what
19:11
Speaker 1: the what the daily patterns are, we can maybe intercept
19:14
Speaker 1: them or call them in or just getting their way.
19:17
Speaker 1: And uh, and again they were running. I mean we
19:19
Speaker 1: saw bucks that were that we're ready and trusing, and
19:23
Speaker 1: I think if we had gotten in the right situation
19:25
Speaker 1: it would have worked. Uh. But yeah, just trying to
19:27
Speaker 1: just trying to basically figure out what's going on there,
19:30
Speaker 1: take the kind of the the poles of that that area. Yeah,
19:34
Speaker 1: so we watched that night and saw quite a few
19:36
Speaker 1: dos on the public land, but didn't see any good bucks.
19:39
Speaker 1: So we did see two bucks that we thought might
19:41
Speaker 1: be mature across the valley on private land. Um. But
19:46
Speaker 1: that was essentially the extent of nine number one is
19:48
Speaker 1: just an hour something the hour and a half maybe
19:52
Speaker 1: glassing up there and just kind of got the land
19:55
Speaker 1: of the land a little bit. And then we decided
19:57
Speaker 1: to go out the next morning. And you know, goal
20:00
Speaker 1: with this was just to follow you and see what
20:02
Speaker 1: you do and how you do it and and pick
20:04
Speaker 1: your brain on on all things when it comes to
20:07
Speaker 1: the style of hunting. Um. So I don't know, I mean,
20:10
Speaker 1: we we did a bunch of hiking around and we
20:13
Speaker 1: saw a bunch of dos and probably the highlight was
20:18
Speaker 1: we came up this ridge. We're working our way up
20:21
Speaker 1: a hill, and just as we approached the crest, I
20:25
Speaker 1: saw a deer silhouetted on another ridge line across the valley,
20:29
Speaker 1: and it was a decent buck. Um. Do you want
20:33
Speaker 1: to walk through, Tony? What what your thought process once
20:37
Speaker 1: we spotted that buck was, and how you thought we
20:39
Speaker 1: could maybe make a play on him. Yeah, Well the
20:42
Speaker 1: wind was when it was ninety degrees at best, so
20:45
Speaker 1: we it kind of depend on which way he turned.
20:47
Speaker 1: But when he disappeared over that, you know, coming our
20:50
Speaker 1: way over that ridge, shap and went down to the valley.
20:52
Speaker 1: I thought, if we could set up on the on
20:53
Speaker 1: the top edge, get a decoy up in front of us,
20:57
Speaker 1: it might just sucking radio and if you know it,
21:00
Speaker 1: he's going to circle around, you know, just to see
21:03
Speaker 1: to see what we are. Because they asked differently, if
21:05
Speaker 1: they have a door or they don't have a dough.
21:07
Speaker 1: If he's got a dough, he's coming at yet, he's
21:09
Speaker 1: gonna he's defending that dough. He's gonna try to fight.
21:12
Speaker 1: But if he doesn't have the dough, He's not just
21:14
Speaker 1: gonna go stumble one in there. He wants to check
21:16
Speaker 1: and swing around and get a kind of a pulsive
21:18
Speaker 1: to what's going on. He wants to figure out before
21:21
Speaker 1: he gets just flies in there and gets his his
21:23
Speaker 1: But what uh what he's what he's dealing with. So
21:26
Speaker 1: I was hoping he would when you see that decoy
21:29
Speaker 1: silhouette on our ridge, he would just come right to
21:32
Speaker 1: us or that worst like that down wind quartering towards
21:35
Speaker 1: the wind, down wind side. So ended just disappearing though
21:39
Speaker 1: he never did do that. We are never did seeing him. Um,
21:43
Speaker 1: and you know for a second that I thought, you know,
21:46
Speaker 1: this actually might work. I think we did a little rattling.
21:48
Speaker 1: Did you rattle on that one? Oh? I think I did, yeah, um, yeah,
21:53
Speaker 1: because he wanted to. Yeah. I wasn't sure if he
21:55
Speaker 1: was gonna hang out down there, lay down, and I
21:57
Speaker 1: just wanted to. I wanted to look up there. So
22:00
Speaker 1: uh So in that situation where you're getting eyes on
22:03
Speaker 1: a cruising buck, you said, it's you know, it's different
22:05
Speaker 1: than a buck with a dough. It's not necessarily defending
22:07
Speaker 1: the dough. He's gonna try to skip about the situation.
22:10
Speaker 1: Do you do anything different in that scenario when it's
22:14
Speaker 1: a cruising buck on his zone, as far as when
22:17
Speaker 1: you want to deploy the decoy, as far as how
22:19
Speaker 1: close you try to get to him, anything else. I mean,
22:22
Speaker 1: like you said, they're more apt to circle down wind. Um,
22:25
Speaker 1: what else factors in when you've got that scenari Because
22:27
Speaker 1: I ended up being the scenario that I had a
22:29
Speaker 1: lot um more so than bucks of the does yep, well,
22:34
Speaker 1: it's it usually doesn't happen. I can say that right
22:36
Speaker 1: now because I usually don't. Uh. In the books I'm
22:39
Speaker 1: I'm I'm trying to hunt and kill. Are are going
22:42
Speaker 1: to be the most mature in dominant bucks in areas.
22:45
Speaker 1: So in November, there's always gonna be a hot dough somewhere.
22:49
Speaker 1: He's going to be the one with her, so I
22:51
Speaker 1: heard they ever, I mean, I've had all all kinds
22:53
Speaker 1: of bucks that I don't want to kill. Uh, As
22:56
Speaker 1: I'm moving in, come and see me, and I usually
22:59
Speaker 1: that see me and hopefully run the other way. It
23:01
Speaker 1: depends on I guess on which side of me they
23:03
Speaker 1: are compared to the buck that I'm trying to move
23:04
Speaker 1: in on. But I don't. I can't think of any
23:08
Speaker 1: maybe one situation where I've had a really big book. Uh,
23:12
Speaker 1: as I'm moving, you know, like you know, basically in
23:16
Speaker 1: or still hunting an area, I saw him and was
23:20
Speaker 1: able to kind of move in and use a decoy.
23:22
Speaker 1: You typically, uh, it's not happening, and I'm waiting until
23:27
Speaker 1: he's better with her. But I but from the experience
23:31
Speaker 1: I've had, but those those subordinate books that are just
23:33
Speaker 1: trusing around, Um, it's kind of a craft shoot because again,
23:38
Speaker 1: you're moving and there's you. It's a shot at best
23:40
Speaker 1: that you're gonna see them before they see you. Uh,
23:43
Speaker 1: And you don't want to just be walking around the decoy,
23:45
Speaker 1: you know, stuck to each shoulder and in front of
23:48
Speaker 1: and behind you see you look like a deer from
23:50
Speaker 1: all four sides. I mean, someone's bad. Bad things are
23:52
Speaker 1: gonna happen. So I just don't know how. There's a
23:56
Speaker 1: lot of things that could go wrong with that. I
23:58
Speaker 1: just don't I I wouldn't have I wouldn't advise. I'd
24:02
Speaker 1: say a deal last case scenario where you're moving and
24:05
Speaker 1: trying to pick up other moving bucks too. But uh,
24:09
Speaker 1: but I think you know, in that case, it does
24:13
Speaker 1: allow you a little bit more of a little bit
24:16
Speaker 1: more time because you know, you know, even if they
24:18
Speaker 1: see you. And I've had this happened at Bucks and os,
24:22
Speaker 1: they here I'm walking in and or walking even to
24:24
Speaker 1: a glassing point and Drupada has picked me off, and
24:28
Speaker 1: I you know, like I hunger down real quick and
24:30
Speaker 1: pick up and just pull up the decoy, and they might.
24:33
Speaker 1: You know, I've had him just blow out. I've had
24:35
Speaker 1: him standing there and stop and then go back to feeding.
24:37
Speaker 1: I've had him try to walk right to me. I've
24:39
Speaker 1: had a little bit of everything. So it does sometimes
24:41
Speaker 1: allow you a little bit more you know, I can
24:44
Speaker 1: get out of jail free card. Uh if if if
24:47
Speaker 1: something does see you. But again it's you're not putting
24:50
Speaker 1: the odds in your favor by by by using it
24:52
Speaker 1: that way. In my opinion, um So then what about
24:57
Speaker 1: the the whole situation with calling, because sometimes I know
25:02
Speaker 1: you talked about that's a way that you can kind
25:03
Speaker 1: of when things aren't perfectly working out in your favor.
25:06
Speaker 1: You can't go quite close enough, or you know, maybe
25:08
Speaker 1: you haven't spotted a buck with a dope, but you
25:10
Speaker 1: find a brushing, nasty looking area, you'll try some stuff
25:12
Speaker 1: like that could you elaborate a little bit off how
25:15
Speaker 1: calling might fit into some of these circumstances that you
25:18
Speaker 1: you'll sometimes try. Sure, it's not it's not much any
25:22
Speaker 1: different really than than any other time you're gonna be
25:25
Speaker 1: brattling or calling, you know, trying to treat a scenario
25:28
Speaker 1: to too lure a buck in. But what you're what
25:30
Speaker 1: you're giving him as a a visual uh to add
25:34
Speaker 1: to the the lure. And the one thing that the
25:38
Speaker 1: handheld decoys I think offers you over like a stationary.
25:42
Speaker 1: And don't get me wrong, I've used them together to
25:44
Speaker 1: like I've used My dad last year killed his biggest
25:47
Speaker 1: white tail in Kansas, and he had both. He had
25:50
Speaker 1: to hands up, you know, heads up, decoly in his
25:53
Speaker 1: hand that he could slash the bug and give that
25:56
Speaker 1: motion to that motion sometime is key. And then he
25:59
Speaker 1: also had a stage nary a little buck out in
26:00
Speaker 1: front of him. But having that ability to to just
26:06
Speaker 1: you know, raise the raise the book, decoy, lower the books,
26:08
Speaker 1: decoy um sometimes all they need. Because you know we've
26:12
Speaker 1: all seen the white tail buck you know this season
26:15
Speaker 1: comes in, you're rattling, he stops a hundred yards, he
26:18
Speaker 1: just stares stares at you it just does not move
26:20
Speaker 1: for you know, you know, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, just
26:23
Speaker 1: just does not move. If he given that last little
26:27
Speaker 1: piece in the pie, like there's stuff going on over here,
26:30
Speaker 1: you know he can hear it. He can you know,
26:32
Speaker 1: we'll hopefully can't still it, but he if he can
26:35
Speaker 1: just see it something that makes them think, I gotta
26:38
Speaker 1: get over there and check that out. Ye, it's happening.
26:41
Speaker 1: I think it's helped me a lot. In no way,
26:55
Speaker 1: let's fast forward from that first morning we spent together.
27:00
Speaker 1: You know, it was a lot of glass and hiking.
27:02
Speaker 1: We saw that buck, sawesome dough so a couple other
27:05
Speaker 1: bucks way off in the distance on some private land. Um.
27:08
Speaker 1: But basically coming out of that day, we decided, you
27:10
Speaker 1: know what, you know, probably want to move on to
27:13
Speaker 1: something different. UM. Now, I had thought we we one
27:16
Speaker 1: of the guys in our crew had been able to
27:19
Speaker 1: chat with a neighbor on some of that private lane
27:21
Speaker 1: and it sounded like we might be able to get
27:22
Speaker 1: permission to hunt those fields where we saw the good
27:25
Speaker 1: bucks the night before. But that ended up falling through.
27:28
Speaker 1: So you were going to head to Colorado and we
27:30
Speaker 1: were gonna keep hunting. I wasn'tna keep hunting on my own,
27:33
Speaker 1: and so I decided to pull the plug on this
27:36
Speaker 1: first spot and go check out this other piece of
27:38
Speaker 1: public land that I thought had potential. Um you had
27:42
Speaker 1: talked in the past about, you know, how you move
27:46
Speaker 1: around a lot when you're hunting like this, this way,
27:48
Speaker 1: you have a lot of different locations. Can you speak
27:50
Speaker 1: to just a little bit about your perspective on how
27:52
Speaker 1: long you'll give a zone or a piece of property
27:55
Speaker 1: or a public parcel before you decide now it's not
27:58
Speaker 1: for me and move on. Because because we basically gave this,
28:01
Speaker 1: you know, a night in the morning plus the evening
28:04
Speaker 1: before scotting that you did, and you know, within that
28:06
Speaker 1: day and a half of not seeing what we're looking for,
28:09
Speaker 1: I decided to get out of Dodge. But what else
28:11
Speaker 1: are you thinking about when making those kinds of decisions. Well,
28:17
Speaker 1: first off, you gotta find terrain. That's if you can't,
28:21
Speaker 1: if you can't see them where they're sleeping, you're you're
28:23
Speaker 1: behind nate ball already. It's going to be tough to
28:27
Speaker 1: to to put the scenario together. You know it make
28:31
Speaker 1: it work if you if you if you can't bed them,
28:35
Speaker 1: if if you're not able to find where they're sleeping,
28:37
Speaker 1: where they're bed it, it's going to be tough. Um.
28:39
Speaker 1: So I look for those areas. I you know, I
28:41
Speaker 1: want to be able to get to high points, uh
28:45
Speaker 1: and be able to find deer in their beds. They're
28:48
Speaker 1: going to their beds, and then you know that's that's
28:52
Speaker 1: really everything. So after two you know, a night, I
28:56
Speaker 1: guess I was there the day before, So I had
28:58
Speaker 1: two nights and two evenings in that area. H I
29:00
Speaker 1: mean I think you would ask me one time what
29:03
Speaker 1: would I do? And it was very I mean, it
29:04
Speaker 1: wasn't no hesitations, like I'm out, this is this areas? Well?
29:08
Speaker 1: There are bucks there, I mean in decent you know,
29:11
Speaker 1: uh Nebraska public land bucks. But I you know, you're
29:18
Speaker 1: you're better off. You'd have been better off hanging a
29:21
Speaker 1: set or or using your saddle whatever, your little hutting
29:26
Speaker 1: them in a different way in one of those little
29:29
Speaker 1: bottoms there. So to do what we wanted to do, yeah,
29:32
Speaker 1: I was all about moving in that you know, the
29:34
Speaker 1: area you had described to the north little bit there
29:37
Speaker 1: sounded promising. Yeah, yeah, and so that's what I decided
29:42
Speaker 1: to do. Um, me and Bobby and tyler load of
29:45
Speaker 1: the truck and just high tailed it to get out
29:49
Speaker 1: of there and try to get to this new spot
29:51
Speaker 1: while we'd still have a little bit of daylight so
29:53
Speaker 1: we could glass this area. And this this new area
29:55
Speaker 1: is going to head to was big open prairie hills,
30:01
Speaker 1: and then there was a river bottom that went down
30:03
Speaker 1: through the middle of all this prairie and and I
30:06
Speaker 1: knew that they would probably be a good amount of
30:08
Speaker 1: white tail action in that river bottom. And I thought
30:10
Speaker 1: they might come up into the grassy hills too, And
30:13
Speaker 1: I figured between those two things, we would, you know,
30:16
Speaker 1: be able to have some degree of visibility and be
30:19
Speaker 1: able to use the decoy. That was my hope. Um. Now,
30:22
Speaker 1: the one limiting factor was was that I wasn't sure
30:25
Speaker 1: if they would use the hills and the grassy areas
30:27
Speaker 1: much I knew they would use the river bottom. Now,
30:30
Speaker 1: the thing about this piece of public was that it
30:33
Speaker 1: was only a little knob that went into the river
30:36
Speaker 1: that was actually public. Probably I don't know, less than
30:40
Speaker 1: forty acres might have been are or something like that
30:44
Speaker 1: that was in the river bottom. Now, there was thousands
30:46
Speaker 1: and thousands of the prairie stuff around it, though, so
30:51
Speaker 1: that was what I was working with, and my plan
30:52
Speaker 1: was to high tail it. We drove way down these
30:55
Speaker 1: back road to track things to get to this little
30:57
Speaker 1: area that I thought would have white tails. Me, Bobby,
31:01
Speaker 1: and Tyler went it was, And then uh, well we hiked.
31:05
Speaker 1: We had to leave our vehicle in place and then
31:07
Speaker 1: hike in like a mile or so to get to
31:09
Speaker 1: the river from the farthest we could get with the truck. Um, Bobby,
31:14
Speaker 1: how how do you feel about my hight my walking?
31:19
Speaker 1: You guys had some opinions on my walking to our
31:21
Speaker 1: punt location. Man. Yeah, me and Tyler the other camera guy.
31:26
Speaker 1: We we definitely kept up, but we were like jogging
31:30
Speaker 1: at Mark's walking stride. I think we had both commented
31:34
Speaker 1: on how he should look into competitive speed walking. Um.
31:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was like a long sandy double track
31:43
Speaker 1: and we were moving. We were cruising, trying to get
31:46
Speaker 1: there before we got dark. And to make a long
31:48
Speaker 1: story short, that first night, we got there in time
31:50
Speaker 1: to probably sit for what would you say, Bob, like
31:52
Speaker 1: an hour four or five minutes something like that of daylight. Yeah,
31:56
Speaker 1: no more than an hour, I wouldn't think. And so
31:59
Speaker 1: we got on this hill that overlooked the river bottom,
32:02
Speaker 1: and from this ridge you could see a long distance.
32:06
Speaker 1: I mean you could see a lot of the hills
32:08
Speaker 1: on the opposite side, which was private land, and then
32:11
Speaker 1: you could see the river bottom right beneath us that
32:14
Speaker 1: was public, and then more river on either side or
32:17
Speaker 1: more bottom that was private as well. So that was
32:19
Speaker 1: the The good thing is it was a lot of
32:21
Speaker 1: good looking country. The bad thing was that there was
32:23
Speaker 1: just a small part that we could actually hunt. Um.
32:26
Speaker 1: So I when I got there and was kind of
32:28
Speaker 1: looking at what we could see, and I was thinking, Okay,
32:30
Speaker 1: this could maybe worked. But the big thing is like,
32:33
Speaker 1: will these bucks come on the public side? Um? All
32:36
Speaker 1: the private stuff looked great, there was just this one
32:38
Speaker 1: little kind of peninsula that was actually accessible by us.
32:41
Speaker 1: Would they would they be in there and or would
32:44
Speaker 1: they be up in the prairie hills behind us? That
32:46
Speaker 1: would give us lots of options. And long story short
32:50
Speaker 1: is that that that hour of glass and that night
32:52
Speaker 1: we had two things confirmed. Number One, we saw bucks.
32:55
Speaker 1: We saw a really nice, tight and tall a pointer
32:58
Speaker 1: on the private land across the river, like definite mature,
33:02
Speaker 1: really nice buck like very very tall. Um Like I
33:05
Speaker 1: don't know twelve thirteen inch g three's and two's um
33:10
Speaker 1: but tight maybe twelve inches wide. Um, but a super
33:14
Speaker 1: cool buck. And um then it lasts light like right
33:18
Speaker 1: at dark, I saw buck directly underneath us on the
33:21
Speaker 1: public land. He popped out of some cedars. It was
33:25
Speaker 1: walking directly underneath us. But it was like shooting light
33:27
Speaker 1: ended like right as I was seeing this buck, or
33:30
Speaker 1: what's gonna end in just like a minute or two
33:31
Speaker 1: and so I remember looking at him. I was like, gosh,
33:34
Speaker 1: is there any chance that we could make a play
33:36
Speaker 1: on him? And like the next sixty seconds to two
33:38
Speaker 1: minutes and just there there wasn't a way it would work. Um.
33:42
Speaker 1: But seeing a good shooter buck, like a hundred thirty
33:46
Speaker 1: class buck maybe you know somewhere in that ballpark, um,
33:50
Speaker 1: that moved on the public land made me think, Okay,
33:53
Speaker 1: we have a chance here. And basically my idea once
33:57
Speaker 1: I saw this landscape in person, and then the next
34:00
Speaker 1: morning when we returned, it seemed like this was the
34:02
Speaker 1: situation we would have. It was gonna be a little
34:04
Speaker 1: bit different than what you do, Tony. Um. Just by
34:08
Speaker 1: necessity of what we had to work with. We just
34:09
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of ground where these white tails were.
34:12
Speaker 1: But I could see like there was a lot of
34:14
Speaker 1: white tails using this river bottom, and by staying up
34:17
Speaker 1: high on these you know, on the side of the valley,
34:20
Speaker 1: you could look down and see quite a bit of country.
34:22
Speaker 1: There was these scattered pockets cedars and then meadows and
34:25
Speaker 1: open grassy stuff. So my thought was, if we sit
34:30
Speaker 1: up on these kind of glassing knobs and wait, if
34:34
Speaker 1: we spot a buck come onto the public, I bet
34:37
Speaker 1: I'd have time to drop down the side of the ridge,
34:40
Speaker 1: get into the bottom, and get into position to intercept.
34:44
Speaker 1: And so I was gonna kind of, you know, hope
34:46
Speaker 1: for a situation where I saw buck, lock down the
34:48
Speaker 1: dough and watch them bed um. But if not, maybe
34:51
Speaker 1: I could intercept a buck like when I saw that
34:53
Speaker 1: first night. Um. And so that's what we decided to
34:56
Speaker 1: try on the next day when I went back to
34:58
Speaker 1: actually hunt, Um hiked in there, you know before first light,
35:02
Speaker 1: got to that glassing knob overlooking the valley. Um, and
35:07
Speaker 1: and just figure we'd post up and watch, And we
35:09
Speaker 1: ended up shifting our glassing location. I don't know, Bobby,
35:13
Speaker 1: what do you think maybe hundred fifty yards down maybe, Yeah,
35:20
Speaker 1: we found this spot where basically had the best visibility
35:23
Speaker 1: of the entire peninsula that was public, while also being
35:27
Speaker 1: able to see a lot on the private And um,
35:30
Speaker 1: today you forgot your stuff. I don't know, there's been
35:35
Speaker 1: so many times that's had. Yeah, I think that was it.
35:38
Speaker 1: I got all the way so the mile hike to
35:42
Speaker 1: the river bottom. I get there, it's almost daylight, and
35:45
Speaker 1: then I realized I didn't have my range finder or
35:47
Speaker 1: my binoculars and something else I can't remember what it was.
35:50
Speaker 1: And I just thought, man, I don't I don't want
35:52
Speaker 1: to be here all day without my range finder, without binos,
35:55
Speaker 1: like we're just doing glassing all day. Um, so I
35:58
Speaker 1: literally ran. In this case, I ran a mile back
36:02
Speaker 1: to the truck to get my stuff and then ran
36:04
Speaker 1: all the way back to try to get to the
36:05
Speaker 1: glass and night before shooting Lay, Um, I forgot about
36:09
Speaker 1: that about it was mr. I think I think I
36:13
Speaker 1: made it like just a little after shooting Lay. I
36:15
Speaker 1: didn't missed too much. Um yeah, it wasn't bad, but
36:19
Speaker 1: it was a suffer fest of a of a trail
36:21
Speaker 1: run in my hunting gear and all that stuff. But uh,
36:26
Speaker 1: but you know that first day it was still like
36:30
Speaker 1: questionable if it was gonna work. Like we could see
36:33
Speaker 1: a good area and we were seeing deer, but most
36:36
Speaker 1: of them were in the private I mean, I think,
36:38
Speaker 1: if I recall, right, Bobby, that first morning we did
36:42
Speaker 1: see one like decent buck. And I should add here
36:45
Speaker 1: that given the fact that I only really had three
36:48
Speaker 1: days to hunt, um, my standards were much lower than
36:52
Speaker 1: you know, what I would use on what I would
36:54
Speaker 1: be shooting for most hunts, and you know, very different
36:56
Speaker 1: than yours, Tony. So in this case, I was thinking,
36:58
Speaker 1: you know what, I love to shoot him ature buck
37:00
Speaker 1: like a three or four plus year old, dear, but
37:04
Speaker 1: to pull it off on any deer, you know, like
37:06
Speaker 1: a two year old or anything like that would be
37:07
Speaker 1: pretty sweet, just to pull it off. So I decided,
37:10
Speaker 1: you know, that second day that I'm just gonna try
37:12
Speaker 1: to get anything and just see, you know, if maybe
37:15
Speaker 1: we can get a younger but curious with it enough. Um,
37:18
Speaker 1: And I guess that was something that we talked about
37:20
Speaker 1: a little bit. You've seen that usually these big mature
37:22
Speaker 1: bucks locked on doose are the ones that are most
37:24
Speaker 1: apt to respond to the decoy. But what do you
37:26
Speaker 1: think about was I was I stupid to try to
37:28
Speaker 1: do this on two year old bucks or three year
37:31
Speaker 1: old bucks or younger. Oh no, no, I've there's been
37:35
Speaker 1: lots of situations where, like I said, when I'm moving
37:37
Speaker 1: in and I see a little buck or even even
37:40
Speaker 1: like a hundred and forty class white tail is just
37:42
Speaker 1: you know, only a three year old or something that
37:44
Speaker 1: I just don't want to kill, and I'll show him that.
37:48
Speaker 1: I'll use the decoy just to keep from blowing out
37:50
Speaker 1: because maybe they're too close to the you know, the
37:52
Speaker 1: buck I want, and they'll just come right over to you.
37:54
Speaker 1: But they're they just they just do it in a
37:56
Speaker 1: different manner. They're not coming over there to kick your ass.
37:58
Speaker 1: They're just coming there to see what you are are.
38:00
Speaker 1: And I mean I've had lots of them, uh you know,
38:04
Speaker 1: and I usually try to record it of my phones
38:06
Speaker 1: because it's hilarious. But they'll just, I mean, they'll get
38:10
Speaker 1: right on top of you, like I've had them. I
38:12
Speaker 1: don't even know how many I've had within ten feet
38:15
Speaker 1: and there. Then they get to a point where it's
38:16
Speaker 1: like they want they're like they kind of get pissed
38:19
Speaker 1: because like move You're like you're not doing anything like
38:22
Speaker 1: like show me something, you know, do something, and then
38:25
Speaker 1: usually they always circle down win when when that happens,
38:28
Speaker 1: and then they just you know, blow up as soon
38:32
Speaker 1: as they hit that that sent But but those those
38:36
Speaker 1: two and a half and even some three and a half,
38:38
Speaker 1: when that happens, they you know, they get tight, they
38:43
Speaker 1: walk up and they blow up, and then they'll almost
38:45
Speaker 1: always stop. They run, but they in the back of
38:48
Speaker 1: their mind like but that was a deer, and they
38:50
Speaker 1: almost always stop in like thirty yards and turn the
38:53
Speaker 1: back like are you sure you're a human, And I mean,
38:57
Speaker 1: if you really want them, you could have them. It
39:01
Speaker 1: that's interesting. Um, I kind of want to fast forward
39:03
Speaker 1: to some of my close encounters to see what you
39:06
Speaker 1: think about what I did and how they turned out,
39:08
Speaker 1: because because what you're describing here is is pretty similar
39:11
Speaker 1: some of the stuff I saw, Um you know that
39:14
Speaker 1: that day I guess to to hit fast forward. Basically,
39:17
Speaker 1: I did see one good buck come on the public land,
39:19
Speaker 1: not a big, big one, but like a two year
39:21
Speaker 1: old two year old probably, and I snuck down to
39:24
Speaker 1: the bottom and tried to get ahead of where I
39:26
Speaker 1: thought he was going, and he never popped out. So
39:29
Speaker 1: then I tried rattling never popped out. Um, he just disappeared.
39:32
Speaker 1: So I went back up to the top, and then later,
39:35
Speaker 1: like a half hour later, something else, like a an
39:38
Speaker 1: even smaller buck popped out, was down in the bottom
39:41
Speaker 1: where I thought we definitely could intercept him, and so
39:44
Speaker 1: I figure, well, we'll at least try just to see
39:45
Speaker 1: what happens. So I went down on that one, and
39:48
Speaker 1: he did end up popping out, saw the decoy um,
39:52
Speaker 1: but just stared at it for a while and just
39:54
Speaker 1: didn't like it, and he went off the other direction. Um.
39:58
Speaker 1: That was the extent of like being counters that first day,
40:02
Speaker 1: like on the public land, but we did have a
40:04
Speaker 1: lot of excitement Like midday, like noon on the private land,
40:09
Speaker 1: just across the river, I looked across and saw some
40:12
Speaker 1: white tails pulled out the buyos and there's a buck
40:14
Speaker 1: and another buck and another buck and another buck, and
40:17
Speaker 1: it'd been six bucks on a dough and just full
40:20
Speaker 1: blown rut fest. And one of them was that really tight,
40:24
Speaker 1: really tall one, and another one was like a solid
40:27
Speaker 1: like four year old type one thirties something type buck,
40:31
Speaker 1: and then a couple like nice you know, smaller two
40:33
Speaker 1: or three year old deer um and they were just
40:36
Speaker 1: getting after the bucks were tussling, and there was like
40:38
Speaker 1: one guy that was in charge with the dough of course,
40:41
Speaker 1: and he was fending off all the other all the
40:43
Speaker 1: other uh people trying to get in on his girl.
40:47
Speaker 1: And then they're running all over the place. And so
40:49
Speaker 1: I made a move down there to to get as
40:51
Speaker 1: close as I col get to it, just in case
40:53
Speaker 1: they happened to cross the river in the public but
40:56
Speaker 1: in that situation they just never did. Um. But it
40:59
Speaker 1: was cool to see them and cool to see that
41:01
Speaker 1: was going on, and I was just thinking, man, if
41:03
Speaker 1: if if only this could happen on my side of
41:05
Speaker 1: the river, I'd actually have a chance maybe. Um. So
41:10
Speaker 1: now fast forward to the next day we I saw
41:13
Speaker 1: one of I saw those deer cruising. I saw that
41:15
Speaker 1: big eight point again later that day cruising on the
41:16
Speaker 1: private but had no actual huntable deer. Go back the
41:20
Speaker 1: next morning, get back to that glassing now, but first light,
41:24
Speaker 1: and right at first light, basically what we did we
41:26
Speaker 1: would get to the ridge and stay on the back
41:27
Speaker 1: side of it until you could actually see and then
41:30
Speaker 1: once it was shooting light, I pop over the edge
41:32
Speaker 1: so we could see down it. And um, you know
41:35
Speaker 1: that way, we wouldn't be spooking anything before we could
41:37
Speaker 1: see what was down there. Get over the edge, look
41:40
Speaker 1: down and in the bottom right beneath me is a
41:42
Speaker 1: shooter Like right away on public land, there's a buck
41:46
Speaker 1: right there. Um, do you remember this moment? Like what Bobby,
41:49
Speaker 1: what were you thinking in that moment when I peeked
41:51
Speaker 1: over the edge and like, shooter buck right there? We
41:53
Speaker 1: gotta go? Yeah, and that was that was exciting and
41:58
Speaker 1: just like oh crap, here we go. And it was
41:59
Speaker 1: it was just like fairly legal light and fairly enough
42:03
Speaker 1: light to the cameras to even pick anything up. But um,
42:07
Speaker 1: I managed to sneak over when you guys drop down
42:10
Speaker 1: and get a good look at it, and um, it
42:12
Speaker 1: was like right there. It was pretty cool. It was nuts.
42:15
Speaker 1: So basically that deer when we spotted it was maybe
42:19
Speaker 1: a hundred yards away but down on the bottom, and
42:24
Speaker 1: you know, we were I don't know how high we're up,
42:26
Speaker 1: maybe a hundred feet of elevation maybe something like that. Um, yeah, yeah,
42:33
Speaker 1: And so what I needed to do was take basically
42:36
Speaker 1: I had you, Bobby, stay up top. You had a
42:38
Speaker 1: long lens like zoom camera lens on your camera, so
42:41
Speaker 1: what we end up doing Tony was Bobby end up
42:44
Speaker 1: staying up high and filming from a distance, and then
42:46
Speaker 1: Tyler would be with me close and we would go
42:48
Speaker 1: on on these stocks and the Bobby would film from
42:51
Speaker 1: up there. So me and Tyler navigated down and take
42:55
Speaker 1: a little tight coolie of sorts, like it's a little
42:58
Speaker 1: tight draw that had cedars in it where I could
42:59
Speaker 1: slip up into that and and get to the bottom
43:02
Speaker 1: without this buck being able to see us. So I
43:04
Speaker 1: do that. We sneak down the hill, get down to
43:06
Speaker 1: the bottom. We peek out around these cedars into the
43:09
Speaker 1: open meadow where the buck is. And by the time
43:12
Speaker 1: I got there, that buck was moving and I just
43:14
Speaker 1: was able to catch him like walking away, just getting
43:17
Speaker 1: behind the next row of cedars, Like I don't know,
43:21
Speaker 1: he was probably a hundred a hundred yards away from
43:23
Speaker 1: me now at that point, maybe a little bit more
43:26
Speaker 1: walking away and gone behind this line of trees. So
43:29
Speaker 1: like I described as a hundred yard meadow now between
43:32
Speaker 1: where I was and where he was. So my thought
43:35
Speaker 1: process in this moment is, Okay, I need to get
43:37
Speaker 1: his attention somehow, and I need to get him to
43:39
Speaker 1: come back into this opening and if I can do that,
43:42
Speaker 1: and if I'm set up in the right way, he
43:44
Speaker 1: might pop back out see the decoy coming. So I
43:48
Speaker 1: sprinted into the meadow and wanted to close as much
43:51
Speaker 1: of that distance as I possibly could. So I think
43:54
Speaker 1: I had like maybe fifty sixty yards that I could
43:59
Speaker 1: cover until got to the last little isolated tree. And
44:02
Speaker 1: there's like one cedar in the middle of that meadow.
44:05
Speaker 1: So I thought, I can run to that cedar, you know,
44:07
Speaker 1: I'll be pretty close to where that buck disappeared. I'll
44:10
Speaker 1: get there, throw the decoy up, and then I'll rattle
44:12
Speaker 1: and maybe he'll come back. And so that's what I did.
44:15
Speaker 1: Ran across the meadow, got to the cedar, popped up
44:18
Speaker 1: the decoy in front of me, had tyler, you know,
44:21
Speaker 1: kind of hunker down behind me as well. We're tight
44:24
Speaker 1: up against that cedar, and had the decoy you know, pointed,
44:29
Speaker 1: you know, it was facing right towards where I last
44:31
Speaker 1: saw that dear get out. The antlers, start cracking, the
44:34
Speaker 1: antlers together, and within thirty seconds a minute maybe something
44:41
Speaker 1: like that of rattling, here comes that buck running at me,
44:46
Speaker 1: comes busting out of those cedars, comes running right out
44:48
Speaker 1: and as soon as he sees the decoy, he stops
44:52
Speaker 1: and he bristled up, pinned his ears back, and was
44:56
Speaker 1: doing the thing. And so I'm like, oh my gosh,
45:00
Speaker 1: this is actually going to happen. He is pissed. Yeah,
45:04
Speaker 1: I mean it really felt like and I was, you know,
45:07
Speaker 1: I was had my arrow knocked, I was clipped on,
45:09
Speaker 1: I was ready, and I just remember thinking in my head, Okay,
45:13
Speaker 1: this buck's gonna, you know, roll his eyes back, and
45:16
Speaker 1: he's gonna come on and on a death march, and
45:18
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get a shot. Now. Here's what he did, though,
45:21
Speaker 1: that was a little bit different, Tony, And I'm wondering
45:23
Speaker 1: if I should have done anything different, or if this
45:25
Speaker 1: is just the situation and it was out of my control.
45:28
Speaker 1: He circled from that point. Instead of coming directly on,
45:31
Speaker 1: he circled, and as you kind of mentioned with these
45:34
Speaker 1: cruising bucks, he circled down wind and never came within
45:38
Speaker 1: forty yards. And I was fresh off of having missed
45:41
Speaker 1: a buck like three days earlier, and so I was
45:43
Speaker 1: telling myself, I'm not gonna shoot like a long shot.
45:45
Speaker 1: I want like an easy, no brainer shot at one
45:48
Speaker 1: of these bucks. And I kept thinking you know, you're
45:50
Speaker 1: talking about these bucks will come to twenty or fifteen
45:53
Speaker 1: or ten coming in. So I'm ranging him at forty
45:56
Speaker 1: two and I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not
45:58
Speaker 1: taking that shot. But I it of him. He was
46:00
Speaker 1: broadside circling and um and he just ended up getting
46:06
Speaker 1: just a little bit too tight to where our wind
46:09
Speaker 1: was blowing. And he he buggered out there before I
46:13
Speaker 1: expected him to do that, and he was out Now
46:16
Speaker 1: it could have been because of that wind swirled a
46:17
Speaker 1: little bit or I Also, he's circled enough that you know,
46:22
Speaker 1: the decoy was no longer blocking us entirely. You know,
46:25
Speaker 1: he could see now us profiled behind it. Um. So
46:29
Speaker 1: one of those two things I think spooked him. Would
46:32
Speaker 1: you have done, Like, should I have tried to grab
46:34
Speaker 1: the decoy and move it? Should I have done anything
46:37
Speaker 1: different in that scenarity? Think? So, yeah, you're you're absolutely right.
46:42
Speaker 1: He was circling because he doesn't mean to protect. He's
46:45
Speaker 1: coming into a situation. He's just trying to survey it,
46:47
Speaker 1: just to figure out what he's up against. Uh, that's
46:50
Speaker 1: the difference between a buck with a dough and a
46:52
Speaker 1: buck without a dough. But yeah, when I when they
46:55
Speaker 1: when they do circle me, I you know, if it's
46:59
Speaker 1: that windy, I got that on my boat. Um. But
47:01
Speaker 1: I also this is much easier if one person than
47:04
Speaker 1: it is too And I figured this out in Colorado
47:06
Speaker 1: and Kansas this year myself while filming. But when they're
47:10
Speaker 1: moving in, you know, want a door or a buck
47:12
Speaker 1: is seeing you, and it's coming just like just kind
47:14
Speaker 1: of curious, and they're moving, it's real easy for one
47:18
Speaker 1: person to to shuffle and just kind of in that grass.
47:21
Speaker 1: You know, you're you're hunker down, you're on your knees,
47:23
Speaker 1: and you're just moving into the right, moving into right,
47:25
Speaker 1: moving intright, and you reach up and you just slowly
47:27
Speaker 1: turn that decoy and you literally just stayed on you know,
47:30
Speaker 1: you know, a hundred eight degrees behind, you know, from hamlet,
47:33
Speaker 1: behind that, behind that decoy, and they're expecting movement. So
47:37
Speaker 1: then it doesn't it doesn't spook him. But ah, both
47:42
Speaker 1: with two people, that is a lot harder game to play,
47:44
Speaker 1: and you really gotta you know, it's it's it's you
47:46
Speaker 1: better be a good dance partner, which which I'm sure
47:49
Speaker 1: Bobby was. But but yeah, I would definitely move it.
47:52
Speaker 1: I wouldn't necessarily replay restake it, but I'd be pivoting
47:56
Speaker 1: the decoy towards them, and I'd be moving to stay behind,
47:59
Speaker 1: you know, keeping the decoy in between us. But if
48:02
Speaker 1: I had been behind Bobby there with you when he
48:05
Speaker 1: was forty two yards out, I'd be like, kill him now.
48:07
Speaker 1: He's not you kill him now because he doesn't have
48:11
Speaker 1: a doe to protect. He's not coming there to kick
48:13
Speaker 1: your butt. He's coming in to find out what's going on.
48:16
Speaker 1: And I and the first thing they're gonna do is
48:17
Speaker 1: circle that win. And I kept thinking, he'll come closer,
48:20
Speaker 1: He'll come closer, but we didn't. So that was that
48:36
Speaker 1: was disappointing in the game. Yeah, it was disappointing, but
48:39
Speaker 1: it was still like I remember, I was thrilled that
48:41
Speaker 1: we actually had like a buck to see the decoy
48:43
Speaker 1: came in sort of did the thing like it was intense,
48:46
Speaker 1: Like that was that was a blast just having that happen.
48:49
Speaker 1: So so then me and Tyler bombed back up to
48:53
Speaker 1: the top of the rage where Bobby was and we
48:55
Speaker 1: got set up. We actually moved to our main glassy
48:59
Speaker 1: knob then at that point, so we get to the
49:01
Speaker 1: to the main glass nob, and we didn't sit down
49:04
Speaker 1: for more than a couple of minutes, maybe maybe less,
49:07
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I mean, who who spotted
49:11
Speaker 1: that buck first? Bobby, I don't remember how to have it.
49:12
Speaker 1: I remember someone like, oh, there's another buck. Yeah, I
49:17
Speaker 1: think you might have seen him out across the river
49:19
Speaker 1: over there. Yes, so basically right where I had been
49:23
Speaker 1: five ten minutes earlier, on the other side of the
49:26
Speaker 1: river though, so basically there was there was a peninsula
49:30
Speaker 1: like imagine was the river that's like making s bends,
49:33
Speaker 1: And we're on one of the little peninsula's that stick out,
49:36
Speaker 1: and then on the other side of the river where
49:38
Speaker 1: the others across the middle of the s here's this
49:40
Speaker 1: other peninsula of private land over there. And I look
49:44
Speaker 1: over there and I see a buck. It's a good one.
49:46
Speaker 1: And then I see another buck, and then I see
49:48
Speaker 1: another buck, and then I see another buck, and I
49:50
Speaker 1: realized it's another situation where there's a hot dough and
49:53
Speaker 1: every buck in town is locked on her right in
49:55
Speaker 1: that spot again though, the other side of the river,
49:58
Speaker 1: so I can't get to him in this case. I farewell,
50:02
Speaker 1: I gotta be in, I gotta get over there, just
50:04
Speaker 1: in case, So me and Tyler dropped back down to
50:06
Speaker 1: the bottom sneak as close as we can get. I
50:09
Speaker 1: get basically to the last little cedar tree before the
50:13
Speaker 1: meadow drops down into the river, and they're on the
50:16
Speaker 1: other side of it. And they ended up being like
50:18
Speaker 1: a really nice, super solid nine pointer, definitely like four
50:22
Speaker 1: or older and then uh three like bucks. It could
50:27
Speaker 1: be two or three year olds and then a year
50:28
Speaker 1: and a half old. And that big one was in
50:31
Speaker 1: this nasty thick stuff on the point extending into the
50:34
Speaker 1: river with that dough, and every buck would make a
50:36
Speaker 1: move in there, and then he would run him off.
50:38
Speaker 1: Another buck would come in, he run him off. Another
50:40
Speaker 1: buck could come in, he would run him off. Um.
50:42
Speaker 1: And I just kept thinking, man, this would be so
50:44
Speaker 1: perfect if I could hunt that, like, if I could
50:47
Speaker 1: get over there. It was that kind of scenario where
50:49
Speaker 1: he would have seemingly would have charged in if I
50:53
Speaker 1: were to somehow get close enough with that decoy. Um,
50:56
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't. I tried, like I thought, maybe
50:59
Speaker 1: I could get one of the satellite bucks to come
51:01
Speaker 1: over and investigate. Maybe they would tire of that and
51:03
Speaker 1: pop over on my way. So I popped the decoy
51:05
Speaker 1: up a couple of times when the younger bucks were looking,
51:08
Speaker 1: but no takers. But I kept waiting and waiting and hoping, like,
51:12
Speaker 1: maybe we'll just get lucky. Maybe we'll get lucky and
51:14
Speaker 1: that doele scoot out of there. If that dough scoots
51:17
Speaker 1: out of there, and if somehow we get lucky enough
51:18
Speaker 1: that they come to our side, you know, I'll make
51:21
Speaker 1: a move on them. And so me and Tyler sat
51:23
Speaker 1: there for I don't know, a half hour or something
51:26
Speaker 1: like that, and then sure enough that Doe all of
51:29
Speaker 1: a sudden squirt out of that pocket. And then it
51:31
Speaker 1: just became like chaos broke loose. All those bucks were
51:34
Speaker 1: sprinting after her, and she's running in circles and they're
51:37
Speaker 1: all running behind her. And then sure enough she jumps
51:40
Speaker 1: in the river and comes across to my side. And
51:42
Speaker 1: so as soon as I see her run to the river,
51:44
Speaker 1: I jump up out of my hide. I run to
51:46
Speaker 1: the edge of the river to be able to see
51:47
Speaker 1: where they're going. Now, Tyler Caraman's like grabbing all this stuff,
51:51
Speaker 1: trying to get ready, like we gotta go, we gotta go.
51:53
Speaker 1: So as soon as it looked like they're crossing the river,
51:55
Speaker 1: and I could see where they're gonna come in. We
51:57
Speaker 1: start sprinting down our side to try to intercept him,
52:00
Speaker 1: and I get around this patch of cedars and by
52:02
Speaker 1: the time I get around this, I don't know, like
52:05
Speaker 1: I maybe it was like ran like forty fifty yards
52:08
Speaker 1: around this little clump of cedars to the next meadow.
52:10
Speaker 1: As I was getting around that those deer popped up
52:13
Speaker 1: out of the river into the meadow with me, and
52:15
Speaker 1: that dough is barreling right at me, sprinting at me.
52:19
Speaker 1: She gets she comes running past, those bucks are behind her,
52:24
Speaker 1: and I put the decoy. I'm trying remember what I
52:29
Speaker 1: did here. I guess I'm pretty sure I popped the
52:34
Speaker 1: decoy up as I came around the corner because I
52:36
Speaker 1: saw the deer coming through, but that dough was running
52:39
Speaker 1: right at me, and then she veered off to the
52:41
Speaker 1: left disappeared with several of the bucks behind her. But
52:45
Speaker 1: then I saw a couple of the bucks run back
52:47
Speaker 1: the other way, So then I was confused, like did
52:48
Speaker 1: they see me and spook or was that just what
52:50
Speaker 1: she was doing? And then these other bucks broke through
52:52
Speaker 1: the direction. It just felt like kind of a chaotic moment.
52:55
Speaker 1: But everything was gone. It was like they're all there.
52:57
Speaker 1: They sprinted towards me, and then they're all gone, and
52:58
Speaker 1: just just a matter of second. And this this meadow
53:01
Speaker 1: was maybe I don't like a hundred yards wide, and
53:03
Speaker 1: they peeled off in two different directions. One dropped from
53:05
Speaker 1: the river, the other one dropped into this other patch
53:08
Speaker 1: of cedars. So I wait there for a while, wait
53:11
Speaker 1: there for a while, nothing's popping out. So I said, okay,
53:13
Speaker 1: let's let's go back to where we just we're grabbing
53:15
Speaker 1: my backpack and my other things and then we'll move
53:17
Speaker 1: back into another position where we can get a better
53:19
Speaker 1: view again, get higher, get a servant surveillance situation. Try again.
53:24
Speaker 1: As we get back to my backpack, a buck goes
53:26
Speaker 1: running by, like seventy yards away, not a big one,
53:29
Speaker 1: but this buck is like it just seems like in
53:32
Speaker 1: a panic looking for those doughs but doesn't know where
53:34
Speaker 1: they are. You could just kind of tell by the
53:35
Speaker 1: way he was running. He was running around, stopping and looking,
53:38
Speaker 1: run around, stopping and look him he cruises way off.
53:41
Speaker 1: He gets like two hundred yards away by the time,
53:43
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you know, what, what the heck? Maybe
53:46
Speaker 1: if this. If we can somehow get this buck, I
53:48
Speaker 1: take crack at him. He wasn't a big he was
53:50
Speaker 1: a tight eight pointer, you know, probably probably a good
53:54
Speaker 1: year and a half old or a lousy two year old,
53:56
Speaker 1: I don't know. But I just rattled my antlers together,
53:58
Speaker 1: and from two hundred fifty yards away or whatever, he
54:00
Speaker 1: spins around and starts sprinting all the way back the
54:03
Speaker 1: way he came. Ends up running all the way to
54:06
Speaker 1: me and sees my decoy. But he had run with
54:10
Speaker 1: a he'd run head on, and there was a barbed
54:13
Speaker 1: ware fence between me and him, and he was just
54:15
Speaker 1: beneath the hill, and all you could see was his
54:18
Speaker 1: neck and all his chest was beneath the hill, so
54:23
Speaker 1: I could basically see half of his neck and his
54:25
Speaker 1: head and barbed ware across it, staring at me. And
54:28
Speaker 1: if I had a clean shot at him, I probably
54:31
Speaker 1: would have taken him. But that just did not look
54:34
Speaker 1: a good shot to me, basically aiming beneath his face.
54:38
Speaker 1: So he ended up he ended up jumping the fence,
54:41
Speaker 1: but circling around out of range and just kind of
54:43
Speaker 1: continuing his run trot. He didn't really spook, but it
54:46
Speaker 1: was like he saw the decoy. I was like, whoa,
54:48
Speaker 1: what's that? And then I, still looking for my dough,
54:50
Speaker 1: kept running. So I go back up to the knob.
54:54
Speaker 1: Now after that happens, get to the knob. I wasn't
54:57
Speaker 1: back at the knob there with you, Bobby, for sixty
55:00
Speaker 1: seconds or so, when all of a suddenly, oh, there's
55:02
Speaker 1: bucks again. Back down in the bottom at the end
55:06
Speaker 1: of the point, we saw one of these bucks that
55:10
Speaker 1: had been with the little rough Fest group that I
55:13
Speaker 1: was originally with, you know, twenty minutes earlier. So I
55:15
Speaker 1: watched these deer. I see the big nine, I see
55:18
Speaker 1: one of the two year old, and then coming out
55:21
Speaker 1: on the private side, I see like a big buck. Um,
55:25
Speaker 1: different category than the other ones who've been looking at this.
55:29
Speaker 1: Was like, if he was a ten point, he'd be
55:31
Speaker 1: one fifty for sure, Um, but he was an eight
55:34
Speaker 1: and as an eight, you know still, you know, mid
55:37
Speaker 1: one forties, we're bigger. Um. I mean he was a
55:41
Speaker 1: big buck. And some stoked some standing up there glassing.
55:46
Speaker 1: I see the big nine. I see the big eight. Um,
55:49
Speaker 1: I'm watching them, but they're on the private land side.
55:52
Speaker 1: And then I don't know why, but the big eight
55:57
Speaker 1: crossed the river and pops up onto our side. All
55:59
Speaker 1: the other are on the other side, but for some reason,
56:01
Speaker 1: the big guy comes over on my side, and I
56:04
Speaker 1: was kind of shocked that this that was actually gonna happen,
56:07
Speaker 1: like the one that I really would love to get
56:09
Speaker 1: a crack. It happens to come to our side, seemingly
56:11
Speaker 1: not with the dough, um Like, it seemed like the
56:13
Speaker 1: dough and all the other bucks are on the other
56:15
Speaker 1: side still, so I didn't understand that. Um but here
56:18
Speaker 1: he is. He pops over to our side, and now
56:21
Speaker 1: he's in like a I don't know, like a hundred
56:25
Speaker 1: and fifty yard wide by a hundred and fifty yard
56:27
Speaker 1: wide type meadow, and then there was a patch of
56:30
Speaker 1: cedars that was maybe like an acre maybe two acres
56:34
Speaker 1: of cedars, and then there was another big meadow. And
56:39
Speaker 1: my thought was that if I could run down through
56:41
Speaker 1: the first meadow and get into those cedars, I would
56:43
Speaker 1: try to sneak to the edge of the cedars while
56:46
Speaker 1: he was still in that first meadow and then hopefully
56:49
Speaker 1: sea where he's headed, pop the decoy up in either
56:52
Speaker 1: grunt or rattle and get him to spot the decoy
56:54
Speaker 1: and coming. That was my hope. So I slipped on
56:58
Speaker 1: at the bottom of Tyler Bobby's up top filming um
57:02
Speaker 1: And basically I first tried to move to the river
57:06
Speaker 1: and see if I could work the river's edge, because
57:09
Speaker 1: the way the wind was blowing it was, if I
57:12
Speaker 1: remember this right, it was kind of it was blowing
57:15
Speaker 1: towards the river a little bit but up and I
57:18
Speaker 1: was hoping if I stayed right in the river's edge,
57:20
Speaker 1: I could keep my wind blowing out over the water
57:23
Speaker 1: and edge my way all the way up to where
57:25
Speaker 1: that metal was and be undetected windwise. But I couldn't
57:28
Speaker 1: end up being like impenetrable thick, and so then I
57:31
Speaker 1: had to circle back into the cedars. And at this point,
57:36
Speaker 1: you know, I couldn't see the meadow, I couldn't see
57:37
Speaker 1: where that buck was. But it had been I don't know,
57:41
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes, a minute max or something. I
57:43
Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what it actually was, but
57:45
Speaker 1: I feel like we sprinted down there fast. Now, Bobby,
57:48
Speaker 1: what did you see from the moment when me and
57:50
Speaker 1: Tyler bombed off the ridge? What did you see happen
57:53
Speaker 1: from your position because you stayed up high watching from
57:56
Speaker 1: the bird's view. Yeah, I did. I remember. We saw
58:00
Speaker 1: the big guy come over the river and straight across
58:03
Speaker 1: that meadow, and then you guys dropped down, and then
58:07
Speaker 1: a couple other bucks followed him across, and there was
58:12
Speaker 1: some some running back and forth. Um. But then once
58:15
Speaker 1: you guys got into that thick cedar patch, UM, I
58:19
Speaker 1: couldn't really see much much going on. So just washed
58:23
Speaker 1: and UM yeah, I don't think I saw the big
58:27
Speaker 1: one until later after you guys have done down there.
58:32
Speaker 1: But um, yeah, I was just kind of trying to
58:35
Speaker 1: listen through the microphone and anxiously hear what was going on.
58:39
Speaker 1: It's exciting. Yeah, So the big guy last I saw,
58:42
Speaker 1: he was in the medal. I get into these cedars,
58:45
Speaker 1: and my thoughts, I'm gonna sneak quietly through these sears
58:47
Speaker 1: up to the edge. I get into the first little
58:50
Speaker 1: pocket of sears, and I'm coming around a corner of
58:53
Speaker 1: a tree, and as I'm coming around the corner of
58:55
Speaker 1: the tree, that buck pops around the other corner already
58:59
Speaker 1: in the cedar is fifteen yards away from me something
59:02
Speaker 1: like that, and there's like a little rise in the
59:05
Speaker 1: land right there, and I just remember, like whisper yelling
59:09
Speaker 1: at tiler like buck buck it down, and we both
59:12
Speaker 1: collapsed to the ground. And there's this little, like I said,
59:15
Speaker 1: this little rise in between me and him. So by
59:17
Speaker 1: dropping down, we actually slipped out of you. So as
59:21
Speaker 1: as I'm dropping down, I remember sticking the decoy down
59:23
Speaker 1: on the ground in front of my face. As I'm
59:25
Speaker 1: dropping to the ground, I'm on my knees, huddling behind
59:29
Speaker 1: the decoy, kind of laying down as fly as I can,
59:32
Speaker 1: grabbing an arrow out of the out of the quiver,
59:34
Speaker 1: knocking the arrow, clipping on my release. As I slowly
59:39
Speaker 1: start to rise, I can see the buck walking straight
59:42
Speaker 1: at me, the bucks coming head on at us. He's
59:46
Speaker 1: at ten yards, he's you know, at eight yards. And
59:50
Speaker 1: I rise up and I start drawing back. He gets
59:52
Speaker 1: to five yards and I'm like three corters away drawn back.
59:56
Speaker 1: He stops and blows out. I mean, he's right there,
1:00:01
Speaker 1: and before I can get back to anchor, he buggered.
1:00:04
Speaker 1: Now in that situation, do you think I mean, I
1:00:12
Speaker 1: remember you telling me that you should, like, I shouldn't
1:00:14
Speaker 1: worry about drawing behind that thing. I shouldn't worry about
1:00:17
Speaker 1: moving behind that thing. Just do your thing and they'll
1:00:20
Speaker 1: usually let you get away with it. Um, would you
1:00:23
Speaker 1: have done what I did, which was basically slapped the
1:00:25
Speaker 1: decoy down and try to get a shot off in
1:00:27
Speaker 1: that case? Or should I have got the decoy down
1:00:29
Speaker 1: and just waited? Um? Do you think it was just
1:00:31
Speaker 1: the nature of the beast with that there being a
1:00:33
Speaker 1: cameraman behind me too, and just like too much going
1:00:35
Speaker 1: on to actually get away with it. It's hard to
1:00:39
Speaker 1: say what he caught and what if. I don't know
1:00:41
Speaker 1: if it was the wind was swirling or maybe smells you.
1:00:45
Speaker 1: Usually they don't if they blow up and just take
1:00:49
Speaker 1: off and don't even bother or look back, they smell
1:00:51
Speaker 1: they smelled me. Um. If they see something they don't like,
1:00:56
Speaker 1: they still think you're a dear. I mean, he didn't
1:00:57
Speaker 1: walk the five yards without being convinced you're another buck,
1:01:02
Speaker 1: so that it's it's hard to it's it's this is
1:01:06
Speaker 1: hard to believe if you haven't done it, but it's
1:01:08
Speaker 1: hard to convince them otherwise. Once they have you pegged
1:01:11
Speaker 1: as a noird dear, they literally will ask confused and
1:01:16
Speaker 1: stop and look back. If they do get spooked, like,
1:01:19
Speaker 1: I don't understand, why is there a person right next
1:01:21
Speaker 1: to you, Um, I smell a human they so I
1:01:26
Speaker 1: would guess he'd probably smelled you or cut something really shiny. Uh.
1:01:31
Speaker 1: But I think we did have the conversation too that
1:01:35
Speaker 1: you know, Decoin might not be fairy body if you're
1:01:38
Speaker 1: not ready to take a frontal when he's walking towards
1:01:40
Speaker 1: you with that range. Um, because you're gonna go out
1:01:43
Speaker 1: of them. You're gonna get a lot of opportunities when
1:01:45
Speaker 1: the animals walking right straight at you at point blank range.
1:01:49
Speaker 1: And you know, white even a mature white tail, you know,
1:01:53
Speaker 1: a five plus year old. You know, I've never had
1:01:56
Speaker 1: any problem blowing through that those bones. But um, if
1:02:00
Speaker 1: I had been behind you at five yards that in
1:02:02
Speaker 1: eight yards need ten fifteen, I'd have been like, Park,
1:02:05
Speaker 1: you need to kill this steer, get that ball back. Yeah,
1:02:08
Speaker 1: I mean, I definitely was. It was as fast as
1:02:11
Speaker 1: I could get the arrow on and get clipped on,
1:02:13
Speaker 1: and it was it happened as fast as it could
1:02:16
Speaker 1: possibly happen. And uh, was he trotting? Would he would
1:02:19
Speaker 1: be like I almost a run? No? I mean, and
1:02:23
Speaker 1: again like the specifics when I say he was ten yards,
1:02:25
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know when it was the first
1:02:27
Speaker 1: time all I know is that I saw him, and
1:02:29
Speaker 1: he was close, and I dropped down, and then by
1:02:33
Speaker 1: the time I was able to get an arrow on
1:02:35
Speaker 1: and get clipped on, and I started rising up and
1:02:38
Speaker 1: drawing back. Basically I was trying to do that in
1:02:40
Speaker 1: one motion. And by the time I was able to
1:02:42
Speaker 1: get up and drawn partially drawn, I'm seeing him five yards.
1:02:46
Speaker 1: So I don't really know how he got from ten
1:02:48
Speaker 1: or twelve or whatever to the final five um, but
1:02:51
Speaker 1: I just I just remember being drawing back, coming into view,
1:02:54
Speaker 1: seeing him and thinking, all right, I'm gonna put it
1:02:57
Speaker 1: right there on the center, punch him, and and him
1:03:00
Speaker 1: going like literally and busting out as soon as as
1:03:03
Speaker 1: soon as I popped up it, Uh was the grass
1:03:09
Speaker 1: of the vegetation around you, thick enough that you had
1:03:11
Speaker 1: to rise up to shoot. You couldn't just shoot like
1:03:14
Speaker 1: the side. It's the side of the decoy. I mean
1:03:18
Speaker 1: I I I basically was trying to shoot to the
1:03:22
Speaker 1: side of him because I was on my knees and
1:03:24
Speaker 1: I was like I was on my knees and like
1:03:26
Speaker 1: bent over flat, you know what I mean. Like I
1:03:29
Speaker 1: was on my knees as long as I could get
1:03:31
Speaker 1: And then That's what the position I was in to
1:03:33
Speaker 1: try to hide myself while I was getting an arrow
1:03:35
Speaker 1: ready and then and then from there then it was
1:03:37
Speaker 1: just rising up like onto my knees straight enough that
1:03:40
Speaker 1: I could shoot, Yeah, and the decoy was off to
1:03:43
Speaker 1: my I was I was going to be shooting just
1:03:46
Speaker 1: to the left side of the decoy. That's why I
1:03:48
Speaker 1: was drawing. Okay, So yeah, I think that you know,
1:03:53
Speaker 1: it could have been it could have been a swirl
1:03:55
Speaker 1: of wind, because we definitely did have like wind swirling
1:03:58
Speaker 1: occasually down there. There was a couple of times him
1:04:00
Speaker 1: where I was. Um, I mean, that was definitely on
1:04:02
Speaker 1: my mind a lot, so that certainly could be it.
1:04:04
Speaker 1: And then I mean there's the whole you know, second
1:04:07
Speaker 1: guy that's behind me, and I can't remember if he
1:04:09
Speaker 1: had the dough decoy with him at that point or not,
1:04:10
Speaker 1: but Tyler had a dough handheld decoy that he was
1:04:13
Speaker 1: trying to pop up when we were in a situation
1:04:16
Speaker 1: like that. I can't remember if he used it in
1:04:18
Speaker 1: that situation or not. Um, but I mean it was
1:04:22
Speaker 1: it was super intense. I mean I thought, I absolutely thought, Okay,
1:04:25
Speaker 1: this is happening, and miss is it he's right here
1:04:28
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna get him, and uh, he bugged out
1:04:31
Speaker 1: of there, and that was disappointing. But I thought, man,
1:04:34
Speaker 1: there was those other bucks still on the medal that
1:04:36
Speaker 1: we know, the other ones that were there, so like, well,
1:04:37
Speaker 1: let's move over there and see if we can't spot
1:04:39
Speaker 1: them again. And there's been the big nine had been
1:04:41
Speaker 1: like seemingly on the doll like on the edge of
1:04:44
Speaker 1: the river. He just wouldn't leave this spot. So the
1:04:47
Speaker 1: big big one moved in the medal. But I remember
1:04:49
Speaker 1: seeing the nine pointer standing by the river, and I thought, well,
1:04:52
Speaker 1: let's go, let's work our way over that direction, see
1:04:54
Speaker 1: if he's still there. And sure enough I moved. I mean,
1:04:57
Speaker 1: this is like a couple of hundred yards maybe that
1:05:00
Speaker 1: I had just slipped through. Get enough that I can
1:05:02
Speaker 1: see over to the river again, and he's still there.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: And eventually I have to like belly crawl um first
1:05:08
Speaker 1: on all four is, then belly crawl slip underneath the
1:05:10
Speaker 1: barbed wire fence, and I ended up belly crawling all
1:05:13
Speaker 1: the way to the river's edge, and he ended up
1:05:16
Speaker 1: bedding down with his dough like in the edge of
1:05:20
Speaker 1: the river. So like they're imagine like a five foot
1:05:22
Speaker 1: bank maybe, and like he's down beneath the bank in
1:05:26
Speaker 1: like these thick weeds right on the edge of the
1:05:28
Speaker 1: river with the dough and so I can see him,
1:05:30
Speaker 1: and there's one little cedar tree down the bank on
1:05:34
Speaker 1: my side. Now here's this is the problem is that
1:05:36
Speaker 1: he's on one side of the river. I'm on the other.
1:05:38
Speaker 1: Now this spot where he was technically it was public
1:05:41
Speaker 1: on the other side of the river to um and
1:05:45
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the river. I'm like, it looks really
1:05:46
Speaker 1: shallow that you could see spots like I thought like,
1:05:49
Speaker 1: this might be shallow enough that, you know, if I
1:05:51
Speaker 1: can get him to just get pisted enough to walk
1:05:54
Speaker 1: ten twenty more yards in my direction into the river,
1:05:57
Speaker 1: I could probably get a crack at him. So I
1:05:59
Speaker 1: slipped behind the seater, like slithered down off the bank
1:06:02
Speaker 1: behind this tree, got down like to the water, and
1:06:07
Speaker 1: finally just slowly ease my way into view of him.
1:06:10
Speaker 1: And he's he's just not looking my direction. He's better.
1:06:12
Speaker 1: They're kind of head down looking around. And I ended
1:06:17
Speaker 1: up thinking, you know, the only the only thing that
1:06:19
Speaker 1: might work here is to pop this decoy up where
1:06:22
Speaker 1: like fifty some yards and hope that he'll do the
1:06:26
Speaker 1: thing that you described when they're betted and you sneak
1:06:28
Speaker 1: up on one, you know, pop the decoy up, get
1:06:30
Speaker 1: his attention, he'll get piste and come your way. So
1:06:33
Speaker 1: I popped the decoy up behind me or in front
1:06:35
Speaker 1: of me, and I'm waiting. He never looks, doesn't look,
1:06:39
Speaker 1: and I grunted. I'm trying to remember what I can't remember.
1:06:44
Speaker 1: I grunted, and he didn't look. It was very windy,
1:06:47
Speaker 1: um and I think a snort wheezed, and then he
1:06:49
Speaker 1: popped his ears up and looked in my direction, saw
1:06:51
Speaker 1: the decoy, and just like glaring at us, and then
1:06:55
Speaker 1: in like one fell swoop, he's up and running the
1:06:57
Speaker 1: other direction. And and I think when that happened, I
1:07:02
Speaker 1: jump up and try to look up. He jumps up.
1:07:05
Speaker 1: The banking is now in the meadow, running away, and
1:07:07
Speaker 1: the dough was running ahead of him. So I think
1:07:10
Speaker 1: that what happened is somehow the doe buggered out of there,
1:07:14
Speaker 1: and then he spun to follow the dough, is what
1:07:17
Speaker 1: I think happened. Now, Why she buggered? Was it a
1:07:20
Speaker 1: wind swirl? Was it she just didn't like this other
1:07:22
Speaker 1: bucks norweisan at him uh or who knows, um, But
1:07:28
Speaker 1: that's what happened there. Um. What do you think about
1:07:32
Speaker 1: what I tried to do? Was that? Was that crazy
1:07:33
Speaker 1: to try to get when it come across the river
1:07:35
Speaker 1: like that? You know, I've never tried a river like
1:07:40
Speaker 1: small streams and tricks had him crossed. But I've also
1:07:44
Speaker 1: had him stall out on the other side, even just
1:07:48
Speaker 1: like a you know, something that's eight inches deep and
1:07:50
Speaker 1: tens of wide, and they just act like it's a
1:07:53
Speaker 1: brick wall. So I think that just depends on the
1:07:57
Speaker 1: attitude of the deer. But I bet you, uh. I
1:08:00
Speaker 1: also know what I've had a lot of is if
1:08:03
Speaker 1: the dough is not quite yet hot, uh, the last
1:08:06
Speaker 1: thing she wants is another buck harassing her. So sometimes
1:08:11
Speaker 1: those does will you know, they stand at first they
1:08:14
Speaker 1: see you and they just come over like, hey, what's up,
1:08:16
Speaker 1: what's up? How are you doing? And sometimes they stand
1:08:18
Speaker 1: up and they see you and they're like, not another one,
1:08:21
Speaker 1: and they just they're out. And we actually had to
1:08:24
Speaker 1: happen to us after after you know, we got done
1:08:26
Speaker 1: hunting and I went to Colorado and the brasket it
1:08:29
Speaker 1: happened to are not brask at Colorado and Kansas. It
1:08:33
Speaker 1: happened to us in both states where those who weren't
1:08:35
Speaker 1: great Freddy bucks were harassing them, and you know, they
1:08:39
Speaker 1: finally lay down. We got in tight. She saw it,
1:08:40
Speaker 1: and she's like, Nope, not not, I've got enough trouble here. Uh,
1:08:46
Speaker 1: And of course they just follow her. Bobby, could you
1:08:50
Speaker 1: see this? I can't. I can't remember. Could you see
1:08:52
Speaker 1: that whole thing going down from your position? Do you
1:08:54
Speaker 1: remember seeing what happened? Yeah, definitely. I It's just fun.
1:08:59
Speaker 1: Seemed kind of a longer wait, and I was just
1:09:03
Speaker 1: watching the bucks on the other side of the river,
1:09:05
Speaker 1: and then you guys are kind of down at the
1:09:07
Speaker 1: edge of that meadow, and um, yeah, I couldn't determine anything.
1:09:12
Speaker 1: You didn't say as to why why they boot eat
1:09:15
Speaker 1: or anything, but um, it seemed reasonable for for them
1:09:19
Speaker 1: to cross the river because after watching them do it
1:09:21
Speaker 1: a few times, it was really only a few inches
1:09:23
Speaker 1: deep and they didn't seem to have too much problem
1:09:26
Speaker 1: with it. So I was I was hopeful. Yeah, it
1:09:29
Speaker 1: seemed like there was a chance. Um, now, I guess
1:09:33
Speaker 1: I guess I could have tried to do like the
1:09:36
Speaker 1: hold the decoy in front of me, and walk right
1:09:38
Speaker 1: at him. But that seemed that seemed way higher risk
1:09:41
Speaker 1: than what I was gonna try. Um, yeah, try to
1:09:44
Speaker 1: get him become my direction. But that didn't work out. Um.
1:09:49
Speaker 1: And that was that was basically the end of that day.
1:09:54
Speaker 1: That morning, we went back up to the knob after that.
1:09:56
Speaker 1: I mean, that was a lot that was like four
1:09:57
Speaker 1: different close calls or something that before before at eleven
1:10:00
Speaker 1: o'clock that day. I mean, it was intense. It was
1:10:02
Speaker 1: up and down and up and down and running here
1:10:04
Speaker 1: and there and it was crazy. Um. But then around lunchtime,
1:10:08
Speaker 1: some other hunters came by and started walking around, and
1:10:13
Speaker 1: then some ranch hands showed up and started fixing fences. Um.
1:10:17
Speaker 1: And so that that whole area just kind of seemingly
1:10:20
Speaker 1: blown up. And I kept going back and forth like, um,
1:10:24
Speaker 1: if we should stick it out there or explore this
1:10:26
Speaker 1: other opportunity. Uh. To make a long story short, our
1:10:29
Speaker 1: producer was in town and bumped into like someone at
1:10:33
Speaker 1: the library and ended up Naviga. I don't even know
1:10:37
Speaker 1: how he does what he does, but somehow was able
1:10:39
Speaker 1: to connect with a I was able to connect with
1:10:42
Speaker 1: a landowner who owns some private land on the same
1:10:44
Speaker 1: river we were hunting, but like miles down and got
1:10:48
Speaker 1: his permission to hunt there if who wanted. So at
1:10:50
Speaker 1: first I was like, no, we're not leaving this spot
1:10:51
Speaker 1: because it's been bucks all over. But now it's like
1:10:54
Speaker 1: mid day, and now it's like two. Now it's like three,
1:10:57
Speaker 1: and those ranch hands are still there. They're slowly working
1:10:59
Speaker 1: their way and the right in our little bottom, like
1:11:02
Speaker 1: right in the spots where we're hoping to intercept a buck,
1:11:04
Speaker 1: and they're just going like fence posts by fence post
1:11:06
Speaker 1: by fence post, making a racket chainsaw and down seaters
1:11:10
Speaker 1: and all this stuff. And decide, you know what, maybe
1:11:13
Speaker 1: we should go try this other spot just in case,
1:11:14
Speaker 1: because this could be a situation where these guys are
1:11:16
Speaker 1: here until dark in our whole night but be blown.
1:11:19
Speaker 1: So bailed out of there, basically ran back to the truck.
1:11:22
Speaker 1: I think this is the day that the wind was
1:11:24
Speaker 1: like crazy strong. Bobby was at the windstorm. We're hiking
1:11:27
Speaker 1: out that night or was it the next day, um, yeah,
1:11:30
Speaker 1: And it just started to pick up that day at
1:11:33
Speaker 1: the end of the day. Um. And then I think
1:11:37
Speaker 1: that's right at that same time when that dough almost
1:11:40
Speaker 1: took your head off, man, I forgot about that. So
1:11:44
Speaker 1: so this is this is that morning while we're yeah,
1:11:47
Speaker 1: I think this is after those other hunters came by
1:11:49
Speaker 1: and we were our little glassing knob. We were all
1:11:51
Speaker 1: sitting around this this seater up on this this hill
1:11:55
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting on the front edge of the seater.
1:11:58
Speaker 1: The other two guys are kind of back off behind it,
1:12:00
Speaker 1: and I mean, just out of nowhere, a doe was
1:12:04
Speaker 1: running right at me, like basically jumped over me, like
1:12:07
Speaker 1: literally within two ft of my head. Was had been
1:12:10
Speaker 1: running along the side the hill and ran across the
1:12:13
Speaker 1: cedar and I'm right there next to the seedar and
1:12:15
Speaker 1: just I mean feet from taking off my head. And
1:12:17
Speaker 1: I remember I yelled and then Tyler was like screamed.
1:12:20
Speaker 1: They were both in the crap scared out of this.
1:12:23
Speaker 1: That was crazy. Um, But yeah, I got super winding. No, No,
1:12:28
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of excitement on this hunt that
1:12:30
Speaker 1: you just never have in this tree. Um. But to
1:12:33
Speaker 1: make a to make a long story short, in this evening,
1:12:35
Speaker 1: we we high tailed it out to this other new area.
1:12:38
Speaker 1: It took like an hourady into this new spot. End
1:12:41
Speaker 1: up working on our way in this spot, like just
1:12:43
Speaker 1: it didn't set up as well. It wasn't like high
1:12:45
Speaker 1: ground to glass, you couldn't see as much, but there
1:12:47
Speaker 1: was a lot of open country. Ended up spotting a
1:12:50
Speaker 1: decent buck going into a patch of cover, so I
1:12:52
Speaker 1: started kind of slipping my way towards it, and end
1:12:55
Speaker 1: up spotting a really good buck, like another big type,
1:12:59
Speaker 1: but um seemingly locked on a doll and so I
1:13:06
Speaker 1: ended up watching trying to see where I was. I
1:13:08
Speaker 1: was wanting the eyes and on them one more time
1:13:10
Speaker 1: before trying to make a move. Basically, I was in
1:13:13
Speaker 1: a little cluster of like cotton woods, and then there
1:13:15
Speaker 1: was a hundred hundred fifty yard wide opening of just
1:13:18
Speaker 1: open grass, and then it gets this like clump of
1:13:21
Speaker 1: cotton woods and cedars and stuff that he was in
1:13:24
Speaker 1: with that doll. And I didn't want to go running
1:13:26
Speaker 1: across that big opening until I could see him again
1:13:28
Speaker 1: and just get a good idea of where he was at.
1:13:32
Speaker 1: But time was running out, the days trickling away. Finally
1:13:35
Speaker 1: I said, you know what we gotta just I'm just
1:13:37
Speaker 1: gonna make a make a move across this and get
1:13:40
Speaker 1: into the cover and try to sneak our way in
1:13:42
Speaker 1: there and maybe kind of do the thing you talked about, Tony,
1:13:45
Speaker 1: which is in the high odds deal, which is trying
1:13:48
Speaker 1: to slip in there and spot him before he spots
1:13:50
Speaker 1: me and maybe make a move. And tried that, got
1:13:52
Speaker 1: into that area without spooking anything, but never spotted him
1:13:56
Speaker 1: before dark came. So that was that night. The next morning,
1:14:00
Speaker 1: went back to the public land spot and just had
1:14:02
Speaker 1: a super slow day, just it was it was dead.
1:14:06
Speaker 1: Um saw one smaller buck, made a move on him,
1:14:10
Speaker 1: he just wasn't interested. So that afternoon I decided to
1:14:14
Speaker 1: go back to the private property one more time. This
1:14:16
Speaker 1: is our last night, and almost the same exact same
1:14:20
Speaker 1: kind of thing happened. Um. I was working my way
1:14:23
Speaker 1: towards that little thicket area where the buck had been
1:14:25
Speaker 1: the night before. I get to that last clump of
1:14:28
Speaker 1: cotton woods, and sure enough I spot him again in
1:14:30
Speaker 1: like the same exact place that I saw him twenty
1:14:32
Speaker 1: four hours earlier. Like and I'm not saying like in
1:14:35
Speaker 1: the same five acre place. I'm saying like within ten
1:14:37
Speaker 1: yards of where I saw him the night before. He
1:14:40
Speaker 1: was in the same spot, and he's chasing a donow.
1:14:43
Speaker 1: So he goes running off in the direction with this
1:14:46
Speaker 1: dough and then running back my way, but they're probably
1:14:49
Speaker 1: like two yards away, and you know, daylight's fading fast again,
1:14:53
Speaker 1: same type of situations. So again I decided, you know
1:14:56
Speaker 1: what I gotta, I gotta. I was basically debating a
1:15:01
Speaker 1: couple of things. Number one, the way the terrain, the
1:15:05
Speaker 1: way things looked. Basically, it was like a little funnel
1:15:09
Speaker 1: where this big patch of cover that he was in
1:15:10
Speaker 1: with that dough next down, and the only way to
1:15:13
Speaker 1: not be completely exposed out in the open it would
1:15:15
Speaker 1: be to come past us. So pardon me, thought, man,
1:15:18
Speaker 1: if if any deer leave this thicket, they're gonna come
1:15:20
Speaker 1: by me, maybe that do is gonna come this way
1:15:22
Speaker 1: and take him with her, or take take him with her.
1:15:26
Speaker 1: And so one side said stay here, another side said,
1:15:28
Speaker 1: you got a bomb in there, and try to just
1:15:30
Speaker 1: get on them. And so, after a couple of minutes,
1:15:33
Speaker 1: hoping to see them again, decided that, you know, last night,
1:15:36
Speaker 1: we're down to the last like twenty minutes or something,
1:15:38
Speaker 1: you just gotta hail marry. So I decided that I
1:15:41
Speaker 1: was going to hold the deco up in front of me,
1:15:43
Speaker 1: get Tyler right on my hip, and we're gonna sprint
1:15:46
Speaker 1: across the field, run all the way across the field
1:15:48
Speaker 1: to get into the thicket and then hopefully spot him
1:15:52
Speaker 1: in there. And this is the last twenty minutes of
1:15:55
Speaker 1: the hunt. We go Hail mary sprinting across the field.
1:15:58
Speaker 1: We get into the cover, and not within like twenty
1:16:02
Speaker 1: thirty yards of getting into the cover, I spot that
1:16:05
Speaker 1: buck running at us. And so he's running at us,
1:16:08
Speaker 1: We're running at him. We same thing as like that
1:16:12
Speaker 1: other buck. I dropped to the ground like Tyler knocks down,
1:16:15
Speaker 1: dropped down, stick the decoy on the ground in front
1:16:17
Speaker 1: of me. Late, but you know, Neil, the same exact thing.
1:16:20
Speaker 1: I'm down on my knees, but as low as I
1:16:22
Speaker 1: can get, get an arrow of the quiver, get the
1:16:24
Speaker 1: arrow knocked, get clipped on. As I rise up now
1:16:27
Speaker 1: back onto my knees, you can see him heading like
1:16:31
Speaker 1: head on, but behind a whole bunch of stuff. And
1:16:33
Speaker 1: he turns broadside at thirty yards but just all sorts
1:16:38
Speaker 1: of brush and crap in front of I'm basically he
1:16:41
Speaker 1: was coming straight on and I'm about to draw, and
1:16:43
Speaker 1: he steps out broadside and there's no way I can
1:16:47
Speaker 1: get a shot. And then the same exact kind of
1:16:49
Speaker 1: thing happened. He's he stared for half a second and
1:16:52
Speaker 1: then booger and ran off. And that was that. Um
1:16:57
Speaker 1: And I don't think. I don't think the wind. We
1:17:00
Speaker 1: had a really good steady wind blow in the opposite
1:17:02
Speaker 1: direction from that time. So the only thing I can
1:17:03
Speaker 1: figure there was just like there was too much action there.
1:17:07
Speaker 1: You know, there was a caraman moving around for a
1:17:09
Speaker 1: better angle or something, um or or I don't, I
1:17:14
Speaker 1: don't know, but I mean it was super intense exciting thing. Um,
1:17:18
Speaker 1: I mean it was. It was very intense, spreading across
1:17:22
Speaker 1: that field, getting into this patch of cotton woods, running
1:17:25
Speaker 1: in there, see this deco, this buck, Like I think
1:17:27
Speaker 1: I think that buck heard us running and I thought
1:17:31
Speaker 1: that that was a doe or another box. He was
1:17:33
Speaker 1: coming to see what's going on and so and then
1:17:36
Speaker 1: he sees this buck decoy coming at him and uh,
1:17:39
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like if there had not been
1:17:42
Speaker 1: all that brush, I think I would have killed him. Um.
1:17:46
Speaker 1: So that was the hunt. That was the trip. I mean,
1:17:49
Speaker 1: it was intense, it was really exciting. It was a
1:17:51
Speaker 1: ton of fun. I think that's the most fun I've
1:17:54
Speaker 1: had in three three and a half days of hunting.
1:17:56
Speaker 1: Like concentrating too a type dust like that probably ever
1:18:00
Speaker 1: um So, I mean it was, it was a success
1:18:05
Speaker 1: and always except for having fired and arrow and filled
1:18:08
Speaker 1: the tag um. But I don't know hearing anything that
1:18:12
Speaker 1: I did Tony the last time. I'm curious, is you know,
1:18:15
Speaker 1: given the situations I was in as best as I
1:18:18
Speaker 1: could describe them, is there anything that you heard me
1:18:21
Speaker 1: say that you think I should done differently that you
1:18:24
Speaker 1: would make me keep in mind for the next time
1:18:26
Speaker 1: I tried doing this outside of just trying to find
1:18:29
Speaker 1: situations where you can better do the main thing, which
1:18:33
Speaker 1: is fine about better with the dough. No, I think
1:18:36
Speaker 1: you you played it great. It sounds like you're very aggressive,
1:18:39
Speaker 1: and that's I think, you know, I think that's the
1:18:43
Speaker 1: right way to do it. You know, you're going to
1:18:44
Speaker 1: get a lot of opportunities we have given it. You're
1:18:48
Speaker 1: in an area has multiple bucks that you you know,
1:18:50
Speaker 1: you guys hit the root just perfectly. It sounds like,
1:18:53
Speaker 1: and you had all kinds of opportunities on different bucks
1:18:57
Speaker 1: and that you know, there's a lot of time when
1:19:00
Speaker 1: when we find ourselves we're running and it's like, you know,
1:19:04
Speaker 1: you don't you don't think of you know, running from
1:19:07
Speaker 1: one little spot to another, just you know, to get it,
1:19:10
Speaker 1: you know, to get a shot at a buck a
1:19:13
Speaker 1: white tail here. But it's it really can't happen with
1:19:17
Speaker 1: with the decoy and system. And I think he probably
1:19:19
Speaker 1: did everything right. And those here that those two bucks
1:19:22
Speaker 1: that boogered out, they just they saw something they didn't
1:19:24
Speaker 1: like and it's hard to her to see what that was.
1:19:28
Speaker 1: I really feel like if I had had, you know,
1:19:29
Speaker 1: like a full seven days and you've got enough chances
1:19:33
Speaker 1: like that, you know, one of them, one of them
1:19:35
Speaker 1: would pan out eventually. I think it exactly definitely could
1:19:38
Speaker 1: have done. And of all the things I've tried this year,
1:19:40
Speaker 1: I've tried a lot of different types of hunting and
1:19:41
Speaker 1: styles of hunting, this is the one that I'm absolutely
1:19:45
Speaker 1: for sure gonna keep doing. Like it was just too
1:19:47
Speaker 1: much fun not to want to try again. Yeah, No,
1:19:51
Speaker 1: it is very exciting. And and if someone had told
1:19:56
Speaker 1: me before I started that you're gonna have more opportunities
1:19:58
Speaker 1: on the ground, being more bowl and taking the game
1:20:01
Speaker 1: to them with this decoin, and you can get away
1:20:03
Speaker 1: with so much more to been like whatever they're white tailed,
1:20:05
Speaker 1: dear pound of my whole life you can't get away
1:20:08
Speaker 1: with that stuff. And then and then it happened, and
1:20:10
Speaker 1: you do. And I mean I never even knew that
1:20:13
Speaker 1: a white tail buck would pin his ears back and
1:20:16
Speaker 1: puff up like a porkupine and come stomping in to
1:20:19
Speaker 1: kick it, you know, to kick my butt, you know,
1:20:20
Speaker 1: if I'm holding the decoy. I mean, just just the
1:20:22
Speaker 1: thought of that. But you know, when you're on his level,
1:20:25
Speaker 1: is it happens one time to here and it works,
1:20:28
Speaker 1: and you're just like, all right, I'm this is this
1:20:30
Speaker 1: is the most fun. And I don't know, You're yeah,
1:20:32
Speaker 1: I'm I'm dedicated to to making it happen one of
1:20:36
Speaker 1: these days. Bobby, you've done some white tail hunting yourself,
1:20:40
Speaker 1: after having observed this and being a part of it
1:20:42
Speaker 1: for a few days, what do you think is this
1:20:46
Speaker 1: is this something you would ever try yourself for? What
1:20:48
Speaker 1: was your general take away from this crazy adventure? Yeah, totally.
1:20:53
Speaker 1: Um So, I've done a little bit of white tail hunting,
1:20:56
Speaker 1: um but it's all been out in the mountains here
1:20:58
Speaker 1: in western Montana with her rightful um So, I've never
1:21:02
Speaker 1: really been able to see up close the action and
1:21:06
Speaker 1: just that much of it. Um So, it's really exciting.
1:21:09
Speaker 1: It almost almost reminded me of like the Elkret, like
1:21:12
Speaker 1: just running around and having a bunch of encounters and
1:21:15
Speaker 1: watching them just go go bonkers. Um so. And and
1:21:19
Speaker 1: like you said, I feel like if there were more days,
1:21:23
Speaker 1: it looked very doable and possible. Um So, yeah, I
1:21:27
Speaker 1: would I would love to get into that again. And
1:21:29
Speaker 1: um I thought it was really cool. Yeah it was.
1:21:34
Speaker 1: It was everything I could ask for. I mean it
1:21:35
Speaker 1: really was, especially you know with it being in public
1:21:40
Speaker 1: land that we had never hunted before. It was we
1:21:43
Speaker 1: just got really lucky that a couple of our guesses
1:21:46
Speaker 1: panned out and uh you know, got into Bucks and
1:21:49
Speaker 1: hit the rut just right. And I mean there were
1:21:52
Speaker 1: a lot of things that ended up going our way
1:21:55
Speaker 1: and then a few things that didn't. Um, but it
1:21:57
Speaker 1: was enough to make for a super, super fun a
1:22:00
Speaker 1: couple of days. So I guess I just want to
1:22:02
Speaker 1: thank you again, Tony for for a taking the time
1:22:05
Speaker 1: to walk me through all that stuff and show me
1:22:07
Speaker 1: how you do what you do and uh just teaching
1:22:10
Speaker 1: me and encouraging me to try this thing because it's
1:22:12
Speaker 1: uh it's now officially one of the coolest things I've
1:22:16
Speaker 1: ever done. Well, I'm happy to hear that, and I'm
1:22:20
Speaker 1: glad you got to experience it, and I think I
1:22:23
Speaker 1: think you're right. To a couple more days you would
1:22:25
Speaker 1: have got it done. And I'm excited to see what
1:22:28
Speaker 1: happens next year or try to decide to try it. Yeah,
1:22:33
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be on the list for
1:22:35
Speaker 1: one way or another. So so, Tony Bobby. I appreciate
1:22:40
Speaker 1: you guys taking the time to to relive this experience
1:22:43
Speaker 1: and share the stories and experiences this is. This is
1:22:46
Speaker 1: fun to get to kind of reminisce on a good
1:22:48
Speaker 1: time again. Yeah, of course, I can't wait for the
1:22:52
Speaker 1: footage to come out. Me too. Yeah, I'm excited, all right,
1:22:57
Speaker 1: And that's a wrap. Thank you for tuning in. Couple
1:23:00
Speaker 1: of plugs. Make sure you check out one week in November,
1:23:03
Speaker 1: that's our new white Tail series that's airing right now
1:23:06
Speaker 1: on the Mediator YouTube channel. UM check that on out,
1:23:09
Speaker 1: enjoy it. If you need any other Christmas gifts ideas
1:23:13
Speaker 1: for friends, family, or yourself, Mediator the Mediator Store, First
1:23:17
Speaker 1: Light f HF. We've got a whole lot of stuff
1:23:19
Speaker 1: that we're working on. A lot of good deals, a
1:23:21
Speaker 1: lot of fun things. Check it out there as well,
1:23:24
Speaker 1: and I think that's all the plugs and updates and
1:23:27
Speaker 1: things you need for me. I'm gonna let you go.
1:23:29
Speaker 1: Hopefully i'll have another good story in a podcast coming
1:23:31
Speaker 1: to you soon. Until then, thank you for listening, and
1:23:34
Speaker 1: stay wired to hunt.