Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 259: Becoming a More Efficient Bowhunter with Andy May

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Ep. 259: Becoming a More Efficient Bowhunter with Andy May · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two hundred
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: and fifty nine, and today in the show, we are
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: breaking down the ridiculously successful two thousand eighteen hunting season
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: had by my friend Andy May, with a goal of
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: helping us all learn how to become more efficient bow hunters. Hey, guys,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: before we officially kick off the show, I wanted to
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: just share a couple of quick thoughts. I guess as
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: this is our last episode of two thousand eighteen, and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: this year has been It's been a big one. There.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: There's been so many changes and new projects and new partnerships,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: not to mention the changes in my regular life Allah
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: having a baby and all that, and all along the
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: way through all of that, you guys and girls the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Wired hunt community have stuck along for the ride, and
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: you followed along, and you've supported me and Wired to Hunt,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: and you've shared your stories and your feedback and your questions,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: and it's it's just something that I want you to
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: know that I'm paying attention to and that I'm appreciating
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: so so much. You know, I end each one of
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: these episodes by saying thank you. Hopefully most of you
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: guys are making it to the end and hearing that,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: but if not, if not, I wanted to make sure
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to bump this up to the very beginning because it's
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: just that important. You need to hear this. You know,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: Wired Hunt is nothing without all of you, this community
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: that you all have formed around this white tail hunting lifestyle,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and then I've just been lucky enough to be able
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: to serve through Wired Hunt. It is a badass thing.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: So I want to make sure you all knew that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: and moving on. As I mentioned, this is also the
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: last episode of the year, so I want to wish
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you all a very merry Christmas and happy holidays. Hopefully
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be able to get out there and still
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: do some hunting here before the end of the year.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: Um hopefully have some snow, some cold weather, maybe get
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: a delicious Christmas backstrap on the grill for the holidays,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: all those good things I hope earn your future. And
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: one other Christmas related thing, little house cleaning item that
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I guess I should mention here is that we do
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: still have promo on Wired Hunt hats, shirts and details.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Just head it over to the meat eater dot com
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: if you're interested. You'll see the store there. You can
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: use the promo code wired at checkout and that's w
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I R E D. And that is it from me
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: here on the front end. We've got a really interesting
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: episode for you today. Were one of the very best
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: deer hunters that I personally know, and every time that
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: I get him on the podcast, I'm particularly excited because
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I know that he's gonna have some thoughts and some
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: experiences that are gonna help me and all of you.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: So let's just get right to it, all right. Welcome
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: to another episode of the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: to you by Onyx, and I'm here today with my
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: good buddy Andy May and uh and Andy's kind of interesting.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I was just sitting here thinking about this for like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: five don't even not five years, but for several years,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: probably two to three years, I was begging you to
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: come onto the podcast, and you would never do it.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: And then finally, like we broke the seal last summer,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and now all of a sudden, I feel like you're
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: liking it because you keep on accepting my invitations to
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: come back. So I'm glad that you opened up to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: it a little bit. Yeah, I was very reluctant at first. Um,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: I actually had, you know, hunting Beast asked me and
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: a couple other people, and it just it was just
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: a little out of my comfort zone. I guess, Um
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: that was the only reason. I was just you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: nervous I'd sound like an idiot, and just I didn't
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: feel like I'd be real interest thing to talk to.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But you know, once we did it, it was fine,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: just like talking you know, with anybody about hunting. So
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: it works. Yeah. Man, the key for me is that
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: I just accepted that I sound like an idiot, and
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: I just just embraced that and move forward. Yeah, that's
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: been the key to my success. Um. So, so you know,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: we we've had a handful of podcast together now over
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: the last year and a half or so. UM, We've
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: dove into a couple different topics. You were on one
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: of the Q and a podcast with me and Dan.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You were on the show obviously where you only broke
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: down on Nebraska hunt together. Um, but but you and
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: we got to talk in the other day when we
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: were covering Frank just about how you had, you know,
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: and like you do every year. You had such an
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: incredible season here in two thousand eighteen, and me and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: Corey and Further and Dustin we're all kind of standing
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: around like, jeez ol Pete, like, how does he have
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: so much success every single year without like almost no
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: vacation time. Um, It's not like you've got some huge,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: fancy farm or anything. I mean, you're hunting public land
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: or by permission stuff. You're doing it after work or
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: a little weekends here and there. And somehow this year
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: you killed a mule deer and antelope. Uh, two mature
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: bucks in Michigan and amature buck in Ohio. Um, and
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of the norm for you. You're we
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: kind of on a group text message thread. Me and
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: my buddies just refer to you as like the machine,
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: and we say that very negatively and with a lot
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: of bitterness. So, so, any what I'm what I'm wanting
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to do today, If you're up for it, um, and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: if you're not, feel we can just hang it up
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: and we can guards. But if you're if you're down,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to just kind of walk through
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: your season kind of here, kind of use the two
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: thousand eighteen season, I guess as as like this example
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: that maybe the rest of us can learn from and
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: kind of try to break down how you are so
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: damn efficient, how you do this stuff on a pretty
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: short amount of time, well, you know, without a lot
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: of the advantages that some other people might have. UM, so,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: so yeah, your name is that? Is that a game plan?
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Yup for? Yeah? Yeah, let's let's go for it, all right? Cool? Um,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: Before we do go any further, I just gotta say
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: this was a particularly cool year. I feel like because
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: you know, we've we've we've talked for quite a number
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of years now. You did a couple of podcasts with
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: us in the past, but I feel like we started
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: hanging out a little bit more this year. You've been
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: helping me try to deal with some archery issues I've
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: been having, and then we got to do that hunt together, um,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and then I got to help you recover your big
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Michigan buck, and then you came and help me recover
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: my buck here um in December. It's just been neat
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to be able to take you know, what was for
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a long time I felt like a mentorship from Afar.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I felt I was trying to learn from you and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: kind of dig into what you're doing from from a distance,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and this year to be able to do that kind
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: of a little bit more um in person, uh, bouncing
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: ideas back and forth your text a lot, I guess
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: without getting too cheesy, I just want to, you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: thank you for that. It's been. It's been really helpful.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: So it's been cool, Yeah, no problem, it was. It
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: was fun kind of following along um with you, you know,
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  Speaker 1: specifically on on the big one here in Michigan and
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: strategizing together. And I really enjoyed that, not to mention,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: you know, our hunt in Nebraska. So it's been my pleasure. Yeah,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: it's been. It's been a good time. So so when
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: I was out in Montana the first week in September,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: I think, I think this is right crib if I'm
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: wrong from on my dates, but I'm pretty sure when
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I was out there in Montana chasing whitetails, you were
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: out in Wyoming at the very same time, right, that
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: was when they're going on yep, yep exactly. So you're
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: out there on an antelope and mule deer hunt. You
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: had two tags. Um, well, let's start there. I know
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: we're mostly white tail focused, but I feel like, you know,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: you just started dabbling into western hunt in the last
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: two years, and and really quickly you've kind of developed
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: a knack for at least as far as antalope and Muley's. Um,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: can you can you give us the quick overview of
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: of what that trip was like and and how you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: were able to pull it off on such a quick
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: quick turn on Yeah, UM, well it kind of started,
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  Speaker 1: um last year in two thousand seventeen, I went out
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  Speaker 1: to that area just on an antelope hunt and was
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: successful out there, went out there with a couple of buddies,
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  Speaker 1: and obviously, um, you know, there's an abundance of game
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: out there, so while we were out there, UM, we
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: for sure had our eyes on the white tails and
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the mule e's and and um, you know, it's considered
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: like a general area or a general region in Wyoming.
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  Speaker 1: UM at the time, it didn't take any points to draw,
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: so it's considered more of an opportunity area rather than
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: like a limited entry UM. So you know, it's not
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: an area you go expecting to kill, you know. Boone
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and Crockett caliber type critters. But everything we saw out there, uh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, we felt like we felt like it was
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: definitely worth coming back. Um. We had a blast, and
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: we you know, we saw plenty of animals that you know,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: we would have been happy with. We don't worry too
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: much about size or score. So we UM, we made
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: the plan. Um you know, applied for the antelope tag
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: again and the mule deer tag. So we all went
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: out there, except for one one body. He only did
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: our deer. And we went out there and UM, so
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: we already had a fairly three of us already had
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: a fairly good idea of the lay of the land
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: where the public boundaries were. UM, we were able to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: call a few landowners out there and UM, you know,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: pay a trespass fee to the access is UM you know,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: thousands and thousands of acres of public land because there's
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: specifically in the area we were, and there was a giant,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: giant chunks of public that's landlocked, and UM, it's unfortunate,
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: but you can't get to it without permission from one
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: of the surrounding UM landowners, and a lot of them
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: aren't real friendly about giving permission. And you know, I
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: want to charge money for it, so we went that route.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: We found some good deals. Um. So you know, we
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: literally had gosh, you know, more acreage than you could
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: ever dream of hunting, pretty much all to ourselves. Of
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the pressure was very very low. Um. But um, we
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: got out there a few days before the deer season opened,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: so antelope opens mid mid August. We got out there
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: the last couple of days of August, and the plan
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: was to antelope hunt for a few days and then
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of switch our focus over to deer.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: So um, and if I'm right, this was this is
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: a rare situation for you where you actually were able
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to take a pretty decent amount of time off of work.
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: Because of your job, you don't get to do that
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: too often. But didn't you have like five day days
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: off so you would be able to have a full
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: week and weekends if you need it? Is that right? Yeah? Yeah? Well,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: I uh, you know, I had some sick time saved up.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: And we're we do get um, we do get a
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: couple of personal days a year. Um. That's that's considered
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: our our time off. Because you know, I work in
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: a school. Our vacations are you know, spring break, Christmas,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: break that sort of thing, so we don't get like
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: weeks off, but you can use those personal days, you know,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: wherever you want. UM, and I just chose to kind
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: of use them all for this trip because it was
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: you know, for me, this is maybe not once in
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: a lifetime, but this was the first time I had
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: ever done anything like this. UM, you know, to this
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: uh this length, I guess did you feel given given that? Um?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: And started to interrupt you. I mean, you are a
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: very experienced hunter. You've done it a lot when it
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: comes to white tails, but like you said, this is
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: a pretty new thing. You did the antelope deal last year,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: but this is your first time chasing Muley's only your
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: second time ever in this area at all. Um, coming
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: into the hunt, what did you have a high confidence level?
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: Were you just kind of winging it and hoping it
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was going to go well? I mean, where was your
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: head at at the beginning of this thing? Yeah? Well,
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: it's funny you say that because I was gonna kind
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of allude to this later um in the discussion, but
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I'll mention it now. UM. And I kind of saw
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: it this year because I hunted with you know, I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: hunted with you. I hunted with three different buddies in Wyoming,
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: and I really see, um, I guess a difference and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: and maybe the confidence you know, of different hunters. And
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's not nothing negative. Um. You know, I'm not
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: trying to say any one way is bad or anything,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: but um, when we were in Wyoming, um, I mean,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: we were all excited. But after the first few days
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of kind of driving around and scouting, we saw very
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: few deer, like very few, and you know, guys started
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to get a little worried. Um, you know, rightly. So
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: it's expensive, expensive, tag time away from the family, and
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I could see some guys maybe getting a
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: little maybe panicky. You know, I'd say that maybe a
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: little panicky, maybe not enjoying the hunt as much as
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: they could have. I mean they were. We still all
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: had a blast, don't get me wrong, but I just
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: could see that. But inside, I always felt like we
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: would figure it out. We're all good hunters. We just
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: we got the time. We're going to figure out the deer.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: We're gonna find them. And I mentioned that to a
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: couple of friends. I was like, just don't worry about it.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: We're gonna We're gonna find them. You know, we're we're
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: the type of guys that go out there and we're hunting,
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you know, dark to dark, and you know, we're not
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: really stopping to take lunch or rest or naps. I mean,
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: we're full bored the whole time. So I knew it
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: would happen. Confidence, at least on my end of finding
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: mule Deer was was high. I knew we would with time,
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the same same way in Nebraska. We were a little worried.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: We're a little like, oh, you know, yeah, low deer numbers,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: this isn't quite expected. But deep down I felt like
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: we were going to find dear you know, I mean,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: we know how to do that, so um and then
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: and I felt like we even though in the beginning
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: we were kind of like joking, like kind of darkly
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: joking like oh, this could get rough, you know, there
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: was no negative attitude. That was something that you know,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I thought was so important. We had to keep a
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: positive attitude about it and stay stay, stay, keep that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: that sense of confidence. Otherwise it becomes a self fulfilling
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: prophecy if you don't. Yeah, yeah, so I didn't to
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: answer your question. I guess that was a long way
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: of answering it. But I didn't go there thinking, you know,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I'm gonna shoot a good mule deer. But
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: I had full confidence that I was gonna find them,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that all of us were going to find them and
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: get into them and have some opportunities, gotcha. And that's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: the kind of what I figured. I feel like there's
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: some people who I think, I think confidence and in
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: a general hunting skills that can translate from species to species.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: If there's a certain level of stick tutiveness that I
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: think you have, and that a lot of you know,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of other people I talked to have um
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that they're they're gonna make it happen. They'll figure it out,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: they're gonna observe, they're gonna try things, and they're gonna
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: keep adjusting and learning um off of whatever mistakes they make.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I think that's a real consistent thing I see across
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: the best hunters I know. UM. So, so you head
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: it in there with with a level of confidence that
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: you guys will be able to figure it out. The
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: first few days that was pretty slim pickings. You're not
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: seeing the deer. Where do you go from there? Yeah, Well,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: the first few days we focused on the antelope. That
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: was a you know that that's one man. I recommend
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: that for everyone to go out and chase the antalope
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: with a bow. UM. Very difficult. Um. You know, they
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: live in an area that's uh, they like the planes.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: They like to be able to see you know, long distances.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So spotting and stock real tricky. And I had my
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: work cut out last year. I got one on my
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: third stock ever. UM. So I was like, oh, hey,
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm pretty good at this, but uh, you
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: know this year, you know, I felt like I wasn't
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: so good at I think I had I don't know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: gosh ten or twelve you know failed stocks um. And
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it was just you know, it was just not working
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: out where the antelope were. It wasn't real conducive to
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: getting close and or you know, the real high winds,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: so the long range shots weren't really you know effective.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: But you know, I ended up focusing you know on
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: some water. It seemed like it was real dry there,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: so there's big concentrations near water. Um. And you know,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: instead of like kind of driving around and looking for
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: good ones, we just started kind of focusing more on
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: those you know, those small areas that had water because
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a lot of it around, and uh, you know,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: we ended up having some luck. Um. I ended up
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: getting one and at actually two of my buddies um
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: both missed, and then another guy came back during the
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: rifle season ended up getting one. So we went one
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: for one for three, I guess I should say on antelope.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: So they were tricky this year, they were, they were difficult, um.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: But then we then we you know, we've changed the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: focus to meal there and that's what everybody was I
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: guess most excited about because it was our first time
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, like I said, very few deer
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: um the first few days and I don't gosh, I
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: don't even know if we saw any books, um, but
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: we just started spreading our wings. You know, we're hunting
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: in groups of two for the most part. You know,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: if two guys went this way on this piece, and
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: two guys went this way and this piece, and opening
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: day came and a buddy of mine, um, a buddy
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: of mine justin Actually he ended up hunting this piece
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: of public um all day long, all by himself. I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: don't know how many miles he put on, but it
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: was it was some you know, real high tempts and
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of like open like desert type canyon brutal,
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: brutal conditions, and he ended up getting on right in
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: the I don't know, the last twenty minutes of shooting light.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: He end up getting a nice two by two. And
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: he even said because the lack of deer sightings, he
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: shot a buck that you know, maybe he wished he
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: would have passed on. He was super happy with it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: But because the low deer numbers are you know, having
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: trouble finding dear he you know, he took the shot
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: and made a great shot and he didn't go far.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: So we started off on a good note. Um, but
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: then we just started, uh you know, doing the glassing
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thing basically, you know, setting up on different vantage points
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and glassing just like you see on you know, the guys,
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: the experts, the expert meal deer on YouTube and stuff.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: We took that approach. Um used glass and tried to
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: find you know, a buck that it was worth going after.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: Um and me specifically. Um. I think it was second
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: day of the season. Um glassed up a good one. Uh.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: He you know, I couldn't tell what he was I
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: could just tell he was really wide, and you know,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I was basically I was like, well, you know what,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: let's do it. This in the first stock, first stock
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of my Wyoming trip. And I was so pumped and
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know, kind of a long story of getting
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: but I crossed a lot of ground, gotten a ditch
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: or river bottom ditch, and sneaked through a lot of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: belly crawling. Um the last fifty yards, took my boots
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: off and got to within uh, twenty five yards of
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a group I think it was six bucks, and came
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: to full draw, popped my head up over the hill
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, there he was and I noticed
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: he was a three by three probably twenty two inches wide.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Was just a beautiful buck. But it was the second
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: day of the season and I decided to pass. And
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: uh had all that on video, which was which was
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: pretty cool. Um yeah, so that that was neat and
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, right then, I was just addicted to
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: this type of honey. I'm like, this is this is
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: the stuff right here, And you know, like I love
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: sitting in a tree stand too, and I can you know,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: I love that style of ambush hunting, but this was
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: this was different, and I was just I was in
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: heaven and I really something I want to do, you know,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: many many more times in the future. For sure. I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: can attest to that, because in Nebraska, at least once
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: every day you'd be like, man, I kind of really
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: want to get out there and look for some mule there. Yeah,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I've been bit by the bug. But so anyway, um,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of you know, cool hunts in between. Um,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: there's this, there's this public peace that. Um we noticed
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: actually uh one of my buddies said he was driving
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: down the road, you know, back to the cabin, and
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: he said, man, there's a big beast group of mule
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: deer in this field. So we got on the map
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: and we looked and they were they had crossed what
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: we figured out what they had come down out of
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: the public and crossed and they were in this this
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: rancher's field. So drove by the next day we kind
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: of marked where we saw him. So we I just
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: made an educated guests like imagine like these you know,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: fairly decent sized mountains, hills, canyons, and then a big
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: flat of sage, um, you know for a good I
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, a quarter mile. And I was like, okay,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: if they you know, they're bedded up there and they
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: can't they kind of sneak through this this sage somehow.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: So I found like a little low spot, um where
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I assume, like if that, you know, if there was
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: gonna be some some bucks coming out of those hills,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: they kind of want to stay hidden. So it was
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: one of those scenarios where there's no cover. So my
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: hunt was big clear on my stomach, like in in
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: the sage bushes, and I completely just uh, you know,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I went with my instinct of where I thought they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: would come through, and it ended up being one of
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the coolest hunts because a big parade of bucks came
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: out of those hills and one just giant, and they
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: came down and they were coming and I was I
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: was about fifty yards out of range, and I tried
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: kind of belly crawling commando crawling over there and and
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: getting closer, but I just wasn't able to do it.
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: So I ended up hunkering down, letting them pass right
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: by me, and then UM just kind of watched where
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: they entered the field. So now I knew where to
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: set up how I knew like I saw him do
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: it once. I was like Okay, now, now we can
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: get them the next day. So the next day, UM,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: I had a buddy that he had shot and missed.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: The antil open was kind of down and um he
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: set up on that spot. Actually I walked him. Um,
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: it was weird. This public is the boundary is fifty
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: yards off the road, but you can't you can't cross
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: onto it there, So you have to you have to
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: go down and perk or park at this access and
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: to get where these mule there were coming out of
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: this hill, it was it was about a I don't know,
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: a mile and a quarter. So you gotta go down,
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: park down here and then walk basically along the road
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: because along the road was private. Um, it was kind
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: of a weird setup. But I walked him to the
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: spot where those deer had come out of the hills
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and walked right through and I said, you know, just
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: lave lay right here and you know they're they're moving earlier,
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: going to see you, and you'll be able to shift
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit if you need to. And he hunkered down,
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: was texting me back and forth, and they ended up
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: coming down and they were they were just off a
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: little bit of where they were the night before. But
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: he ended up getting a shot at the big one
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: he and he ended up missing. So it's, uh, it's
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: kind of a heartbreaker. He had a couple tough two days,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: but really a cool, exciting hunt. UM. And then let's see,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: my buck was about twenty I don't know, maybe twenty
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: minutes down the road on another piece, and same type
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of deal. I got up, you know, set up in
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: the dark up on the hill, and UM was glassing down.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I was in a spot where I could see three canyons,
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: and it starts getting daylight and I look on the
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: opposite side hill and I see two bucks feeding. And
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: it was really interesting because this area of where we
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: were at Wyoming, I would call it like desert ish.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like desert mule deer, really dry, prairie grass, um,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: you know, very very little green unless it's irrigated. And uh,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: on the side hill there was just a little bit
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of green just I mean just a little bit of
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: green grass like new growth, just a few inches of it.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: And those deer were right on that spot similar to
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: what we saw in Nebraska, you know. I mean it's
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: just like that stuff was like a premium there. They
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: were hitting it like a like a food plot almost
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and uh that day, the wind was whipping and I
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: see him over there, and I'm like, you know, everyone says, okay,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: you know, glass him, you know, watch them bed, you know,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and then you can sneak up to them. I'm in
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: their bed. That's the best way to do it. And
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I was glass at him, and it was like it
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: was real windy, and I was just like, man, I
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: think I can I think I can get over there now.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: I mean it was it was two canyons over so
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: it was a good way and I'm I'm in the
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: wide open. So what I had to do. What I
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: decided to do, I was going to go after him
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: right now. I said, I think if I run, I
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: can get over there and get shot. So I kind
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: of belly crawled backwards, you know, keeping my eye on them,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: and snuck around this hill. And then right when I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: was out of you, I just started sprinting and I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: went around my hill and I went way up wind.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: That that was the only risky parties I had to
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: go up wind of these deer. The reason I risked
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that is two reasons. One it was blowing thirty and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: two I thought if I can get enough up wind,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: I think I'll be safe. So I just sprinted straight
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: away from him until I thought I was safe. Then
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I sprinted straight uh to the to the west, and
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: then I circled back around and they were just on
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: the side of this I call it a mountain. It
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't really a mountain, but you know mountain us to
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: us Michigan guys um a big hill. And as I
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: was sprinting across, I looked and I knew there was
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: three humps in this hill, and I knew they were
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: feeding right under the third hump. So I got on
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: the back side of the hill that they were on,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: and then I just started sidehilling it. And you know
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: that by now I'm I'm kind of out of breast,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: so I'm slowing down. I'm trying to get my heart
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: right down because i know there's gonna be a shot
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: coming up. And I finally I get to the the
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: kind of the base of the hill and I'm counting
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: the hump. So I see the first hump, and I'm
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: going the second hump, and now I'm at the base
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: of the third hump, and I'm like, okay, he's right there,
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: right over this edge. So I peek up kind of
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: like crawl up to the top and I peeped my
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: eyes over and they're both still right there. And uh,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you know, I was thinking, like, you know how they say,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: like you don't have to be like, you know, super
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: you know, in super great fitness to to do this
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: hunting stuff, and you don't. You definitely don't. And I'm
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: not saying I'm super fit, but I was thinking, like,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: there's probably a lot of guys that couldn't have done that. Um,
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I when I did my track, it ended
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: up being just under three quarters of a mile that
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: I ran. And this was a flat train either, right,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: we're talking to some canyon stuff, right, yeah. Yeah, I
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: was up and down, up and down, yep, yep. And
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: it was just I don't know, the adrenaline was going
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: and you know what I mean, it just I just
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: went for it. But there might have been you know,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: I think I think out there, you know, if obviously,
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: if you could be in some decent shape, it definitely helps.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of walking, a lot of hiking. Um,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: you know, when some guys maybe get tired or sore,
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: you know, make you want to quit, you know, but um, it. Uh.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: It ended up working out. And I got to that spot,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: peeked myles open over the edge and they were right
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: there feeding. So I ranged him and there was two
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: and both of them were pretty nice, but I obviously
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: raised the bigger one, UM, and he was at sixty
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: one yards and it was it was an interesting setup because,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: like I said, there was some really high winds, but
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: where I was, I was just on the leeward side
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: of the hill, so I wasn't feeling any wind, but
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: they were in the wind, so I kind of forgot
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: about the wind and what what it was gonna do
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to the arrow. UM. I drew back and I was,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty nervous, but I was, I was, you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: trying to settle the pin, get steady. Um excited, I guess,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I should say. And I just let that pin float,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: put it right in the pocket there and pulled, you know,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: pulled with my back tension until the shot went off.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: Went off. Everything felt perfect, and I just saw that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: arrow start drifting and I ended up hitting him. I
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: ended up hitting him about four inches back of where
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I was aiming, and it was all wind drift, I know,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: it was. I actually saw the arrow just kind of drift.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: So not a bad shot by any means, but not perfect.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: So I was a little, you know, a little rattled
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: by that. UM. He took off, ran down the canyon,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and you know, for the next the next three hours
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: were like the most intense, um exhilarating, panicking um hunt,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you know, that part of a hunt that I've ever experienced. UM.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: I was hoping that, you know, he was going to
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: die in that canyon. And I got down on my
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: knees and I just started glass in the bottom. And
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know, about ten minutes after I shot, I
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: see him walking out and I'm like, oh, no, you know.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And then I can see the whole and I'm like, man, gosh,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it doesn't look that bad, but you know, it's obviously
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: not perfect. You know. Then I was thinking, liver looked
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: like a liver, didn't look like guts. It looked like
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: a liver. Shot And he comes out, he beds down,
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: and I'm glassing him. Over the next couple hours, I'm
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: just like, uh, you know, committed to knock taking my
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: eyes off this this buck. And I'm just down glassing
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: him intently, and he gets up four or five times,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: gets up beds gets up again, run, you know, walks
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: thirty you know, thirty yards beds down and keeps doing that,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, he gets up from
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: like his fourth or fifth bed and he starts walking
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: kind of away from me, and he's starting to circle
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: around the mountain. And so he's now he's getting to
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: a point where like he's going to get out of you.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh crap. You know, in between me
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: and the edge of that that hill there's probably three canyons,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh boy, here we go. So as
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: soon as he he goes around the corner where I
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: can't see him, I just start huffing it. I grabbed
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: my bow. I go down one canyon, up the next, down, up, down, up,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: just in time to peek over and see him go
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: and bed down again. And it happened one more time.
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: He ended up getting up one more time and going
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: around the corner, and again I had to go back
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: down to canyon, back up around. It was just there's
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: just so much emotion, um, and I just it was excitement.
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: It was I felt terrible that this deer was suffering. Um,
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I knew he was going to die. And now At
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: this point, I'm thinking, I just want to get an
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: arrow in him and and and finish this off, because
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: at first I thought he was gonna he was gonna
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: expire pretty quickly, and you know, he didn't um. So
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: now I was fully attended on getting another arrow into him.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: And finally he he betted under this big tree, and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: where I was at, I ranged him and he was
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: like a hundred and ten yards or something, and I
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: was like, oh man. So then I ranged this hill.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: There was this peak between him and I and I
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: ranged that and it said I think it was forty
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: five from where I was at. And I was like, okay,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: if I can get to that peak, you know, and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: he's betted right there, I'm gonna have a shot. So
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: I snucked down belly crawl or crawled on my hands
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: and knees kind of up the side. He'll just trying
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: to be real quiet, and I peeked my head over
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and he's still there, and uh, you know, it's one
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: of those situations where I just like had to calm
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: down and catch my breath. I see him right there,
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: arranged him, drew back and put the finishing arrow into him,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and he he was done. You know a few seconds
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: after that, so it was yeah, it was I mean
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: I felt like crying, I felt like cheering. It was
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: just it was so many different emotions in uh, in
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: a you know, a couple hours span. Like I was
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: just toast. I was, um, so you know, not exactly um,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you know how you wanted to go down, but it
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't always go down the way you wanted to, you know.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm glad I was able to glad as I
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: was able to finish him off. But yeah, that was
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: pretty much pretty much the Wyoming hunt. Um intense, Yeah,
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: intense and fun and uh, you know the guys I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: were with, that was something that stood out. Just just
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: good guys and I really enjoy I really enjoy those
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: types of hunts, you know, or maybe not hunting right
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: with a guy, but you know, you gotta guys to
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: come back to camp too, talk about things and strategize. Yeah,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I wish I had a situation like that here in Michigan.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking about that today actually, Like I
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: love hunting kind of close to home, but at the
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: same time, I miss that camp camaraderie type element to it.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like we almost need like a local camp
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that during the hunting season, when you're hunting, you don't
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: go home to your wife. You go to the camp,
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: all your bodies to the camp for a while, at
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: least at least a few nights a year or something
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: like that. So you can still have that trip type
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: of social aspect even when you're hunting the local spots.
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: But that would be fun. But but looking looking back
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: on that trip, if you could like pin it down again,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: you know, this is your first time ever hunting meal,
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: do it and you're able to figure it out in
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: a handful of days and get it done because you
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: guys left. You guys left early, right, if I remember right,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: We ended up leaving a couple of days early because
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: the guy I was with um that we drove down
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: two vehicles we had both tagged out. So yeah, So
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: so what do you think wasn't that, you know, other
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: than being able to get a good shot, other than
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: you'll make the stock and everything. Was there anything that
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: you think helped you figure this out so quickly and
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: on your first meal der hunt killed great buck. Was
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: it your preparation beforehand or was it the fact that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you well, well, I guess I shouldn't answer. I just
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: let you answer. Well, UM, my preparation beforehand was a
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: ton of map reading. Um. I had marked every water
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: source within fifty miles over there. Um, So I had
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: all that marked. I had probably thirty glassing points marked.
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: So I didn't want to go there and be searching
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: for this stuff. I wanted to have them marked on
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: a map and just go and kind of pick off
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: those spots one by one. Now, it didn't end up
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: happen exactly like that. Um. What we found out was
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: a lot of these big hills that you see in
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: these big giant canyons. You know. I was I was
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: thinking in my head, I'd get up on these the
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: highest spots possible and glass into these giant canyons, and
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: I'd see deer all over, and I picked when and
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: go after. Well, what I found rather quickly was these
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: these deer were hiding in actually really small pockets, small
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: smaller canyons, canyons that you can't see from the the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: highest peak you have to. It's it's very chopped up land.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: And some of these Uh. In fact, that the little
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: canyon or the cut that these two bucks were going
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: to bed in, I mean, it was really small. All
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, you wouldn't see them unless you were right
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: on the hill I was at, you know what I mean.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: So they were still Um, you know, they were still
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: hiding even though they were out in the open, if
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. Um, you know they were clearly visible
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: from where I was at, but from a road in
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: no way. UM. So I don't know. I think I
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: think we were just able to um find the pattern quick. UM.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I definitely was prepared with the maps. UM. I knew
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the areas, I knew kind of where I wanted to start. Um,
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: my shooting was prepared. Um. Would it be fair to
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: say that you from from Afar? I feel like something
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: that you did here and something the sense that you
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: do in a lot of your white tones too, is
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: that you're not afraid to seek them out, Like you
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: don't get stuck. Just okay, this is the bottom to go,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm just stick it out and hunt there and
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: hunt there and hunt there, and you keep doing the
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: same thing. It doesn't work. I feel like I always
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: hear about you having a plan to start, and then
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: if that doesn't work, then you're checking out the next area.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Then you're checking out the next area, then you're checking
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: out the next area until you find them, and then
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: you keep adjusting and adjusting. Um that kind of sounds
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: like that's what you did in this case. Yeah, that's
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that's you described it perfectly. And I guess I was
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: trying to find the words there. But yeah, it's more
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: of like a systematic approach, um aggressive, but um, you
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: know this time of year, I really just wanted to
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: lay eyes on one and then um, you know, kind
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: of work on you know, the stocking and get some
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: practice in with that. And you know, I was able
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: to make it happen on my first two stocks. I
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: got within within bow range. But yeah, it's just it's
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: just I guess, relentless, um looking, you know, like you said,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: going from one potential spot to the next, to the
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: next to the next, and not wasting any time. Like
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: we knew we were on a short hunt, so we
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: really just kind of, you know, went all in on
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: this hunt and um, you know their dear Um. You know,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: like I said before, I feel like with enough time
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: we can narrow down, we can find them. And then
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it was just a matter of time of finding one
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that we were interested in going after. Yeah, and and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: like I said, then, I feel like you take a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: similar approach to hunting white tails too, especially in Michigan.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: It seems like because I feel like every year you've
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of different places and then you
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: are systematically working your way through those places until you
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: find the deer you want to hunt. Ump Rip me
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: if I'm wrong on that, but but I think that's true,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And if so, can you can you tell me how
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: you did that this year, because it certainly sounds like
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: you did it pretty well. But before we get to that,
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I want take a quick second here to think our
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: partners at White Tailed Properties and here from one of
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: their land specialists about some scouting advice that, believe it
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: or not, we're all gonna be able to start plying
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: here pretty soon because the season is almost done. In
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: postseason scouting is just ahead of us. This week with
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: white Tail Properties, we are joined by Justin Mason, a
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: land specialist out of Illinois, and Justin is going to
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: be telling us about what are some of his favorite
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: scouting strategies for this time of year, And am I
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: go to spot at the end of winter has to
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: be kind of those thick betting sanctuary areas, um you know,
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: primarily I'm doing two things late winter, starting to look
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: you know, for sheds, but then also trying to figure out,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: you know, if I can nail down specifically more of
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: the deer pattern travel patterns. So I'll usually go into
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: the kind of the south facing slopes up towards the
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: top of the ridge, find some of that thicker habitat
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: with maybe some locust trees, because oftentimes they'll go to
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: those locust pods and feet on them, or honeysuckle, anything
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: kind of the thicker the better, so that I can
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: really dive into and see how how they're traveling through it,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and uh, you know, hopefully I can score and pick
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: up the shed. If you'd like to learn more and
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: to see the properties that Justin currently has listed for sale,
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: visit white tail properties dot com. Backslash Mason that's m A. S.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: O N. I also want to take a second here
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to thank our partners at Onyx. And I'm actually here
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: sitting looking at my Onyx hunt app with my son
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: who's eleven months old. He's currently on my lap and
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: maybe you can hear him. He's touching the phone and
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: touching the microphone. He's a big fan of the Onyx
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: Hunt app and apparently at this very moment big fan
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: of the mic stand. But what we both like about
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: this app is that it helps me find quality places
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: to hunt. I actually was able to shoot a buck
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: this year for the first time while having a son
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: got to share that moment with him. He got to
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: touch that buck, look at the antlers. And I use
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: the Onyx Hunt app quite often during hunt for that
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: deer as I was constantly thinking about where to hunt,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: where the wind was going, where this deer might be,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: and always having the maps available on my phone were
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: a huge benefit. So I would definitely recommend checking out
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: on x. If you're interested in a mobile hunting map application,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you can find it over on your mobile app store
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: of choice or check out Onyx maps dot com. Yeah,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: um with Michigan, Um, I do use that approach. Um,
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I know these I know, I know all
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the areas I hunt really really well, and just like you, um,
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: you know the areas that you've hunted for years and years.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: You're a very uh you know, an astute hunter. You
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: you look at the y on everything and you know,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: why is this happening? When is this happening? And you know,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I start to see trends. I start to see trends
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: in certain areas, I start to see trends in certain deer.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: So uh, basically what I do is is I kind
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: of try to time my hunts um and and time
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: my efforts to win those areas or those particular deer
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: are most vulnerable. UM. So for instance, like, um, you know,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: there might be I got some spots that are that
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: tend to be good early season, but during the rut
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: there's like no deer there, so I focused my time
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: there in the early season, and vice versa. I have
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: some spots that are just tend to heat up during
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the rut or late October. Um, there's sometimes there's a
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: certain buck that you know has shown vulnerability the last
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: couple of years in late October or you know that
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: first week in November, or sometimes it's early season, so
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I try to I start to develop a plan like that,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: you know, in all the areas I hunt, UM, and
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: with that obviously trying to find, you know, a handful
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: of deer that I'm interested in going after. UM. It
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: doesn't always happen like that, but that's I think that's
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: kind of why or how I'm able to have consistent
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: success and and be efficient like as you say, Um,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: you know I have I know where I want to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: be late October, and it's not just one spot. There
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: might be two or three spots. Um, how might be
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: more than that? Yeah, I started interrupted. I was going
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: to ask how many different quote unquote spots did you
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: have like lined up that you could hunt this year?
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: And let's just say in Michigan. Um, I'm trying to
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: kind of wrap my head around how many different options
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: you're kind of bouncing around with as possibilities. Yeah, Um,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: there's probably maybe a dozen between like you know, shared permission,
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: private land, and some and some public pieces that I
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: try to uh kind of keep tabs on. I like
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: to know what's going on there that I scout regularly
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: that I feel uh real confident in what the deer
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: herd is like, if there's a good one in there,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: if there's potential for good ones in there. Um, So
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm always losing ground. I'm always trying to
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: scout new pieces. So it's it's a constant evolution. But um,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you know I'll throw northern Ohio in there too, because
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: I live right near the border. There's a couple areas
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: that I hunt down there too, same type of thing.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: I'm really starting to learn patterns. So when a good
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: one shows up, Um, you know, when a good one
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: shows up on any of these pieces, I'm I'm usually
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: I know the spots where I can kill them, and
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: I know the time of year that they tend to be,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: when those spots tend to heat up. I guess, um
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: like like like you said, I don't remember who said it,
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: but like knowing your DNA of the farm, was that Drury? Yeah,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: Terry Drewy always talks about that, No knowing the DNA
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: your farm, perfect example. Yeah, So it's just kind of
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: knowing when that area of the area you're hunting has
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: the highest potential, and you know, that's when I focus
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: my efforts and I don't push it. Now. I might
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: try to, you know, do a little scouting here, you know,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: on the outskirts and maybe checking some cameras and doing
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: some glassing, and that's what kind of what led to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: my my November buck in Michigan this year. But um,
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: I really try to just focus my time when it's
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: most effective in those spots, in those areas, And I
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: mean that's really what it comes down to. But then
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: if there's an individual book that I'm after, there tends
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: to be you know, there can be some trends there too. Um.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: You know, so it really depends on the situation. Um.
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: But that's I think. Once I started really looking at
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: that stuff and focusing on that stuff and trying to
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: kind of I guess time my hunts when things were
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: most productive, my success started going up more. Um And
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: for anyone listening and started to jump in here. But
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: anyone who's listening, if you didn't listen to the podcast
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: that me and Andy did off of our Nebraska hunt
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: about two months ago or whatever that was, you you
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: really should go back and listen to that. I won't
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: believe belabor you guys this again. But Andy walked through
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: this whole process, the whole process that you use as
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: far as journaling all of your hunts, documenting all this information.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: I gotta believe that that's a huge part of the
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: reason why you're able to so effectively figure out the
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: DNA of each of these different spots. It's because you
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: were meticulous about taking note of everything, observing everything, and
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: and documenting it so you can go back and look
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: and say, oh, well, wow, over the last ten years,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the last five years. This was a trend on this property,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and this is a different trend on this other property.
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, all that stuff over half a decade or
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: decade can kind of disappear into the nethers of your
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: brain if you're not finding a way to actually document it. Um,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: and you do a damn good job of doing it.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: Seems like, yeah, that that definitely helps. And I really
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: like looking back at that. And I also have you know,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I think I've told you before. I for whatever reason,
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: I forget what my wife tells me, you know, an
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: hour before. But I have really good recall with deer stuff. UM,
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: So you know, I do have really good recall. I
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: can remember, um. You know, I can remember what this
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: book did last year, you know, during this time and
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: without having to go back to my notes so much so,
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: UM that helps, you know. UM. And another thing too,
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: that kind of it was more at least with my
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: November book this year and in the Ohio Buck for
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: that matter. A lot of the a lot of my
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: success happens with finding, um, acting on like recent information,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: like right now, like the current information that I can get,
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: whether it's a track, whether it's a sighting. Um, whether
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: it's a trail camp picture, uh, an observation, UM, but heaven,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: being able to capitalize on that and move in right
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: then and there, similar to how you did with Frank,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean he he hung around a little bit,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: but you were able to move in quickly when he
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: was there and when he was with that hot dough,
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: And I mean you came really close several times to
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: get them. UM. But being able to do that, UM,
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: and being able to capitalize that by bye bye, being
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: able to jump in there right when that sign tells
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you to UM is huge. And I I'm in a
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: decent situation around home here because I'm able to scout
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: a lot, even though I can't hunt all of time. UM.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: You know, I'll check cameras at lunch, or I'll go
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: walk afield edge at lunch and look for tracks. Um.
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I'm scouting constantly. I like to know what the deer
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: a doing. I like to know, um, you know, if
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: a big buck has showed up. So I'm I'm trying
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: as much as I can to to kind of figure
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: that out as the season goes along, so I can
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: capitalize on a moment's notice, you know, glassing before work.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: I'm almost never go to work. I'll get up early
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: and I'll go glass um or the days I can't hunt,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: you know, if if nothing's going on, I'll I'll try
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: to you know, try to do something that will help
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: me be successful. But that has been also a big,
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: huge help. And you know, just being able to to
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: recognize when you need to get in there. And obviously
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: you missed some things, but if you look hard enough,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: in your persistent and committed I think you one can
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you know, capitalize on a lot of those situations. Yeah.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: So something that when it comes to this whole, this
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: is something I'm trying to get better at. And I
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: think for example, this year it worked out for me
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: with Frank, um is finding ways to learn about an
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: area without impacting that area. So you know, with Frank,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I just you know, I was fortunate that I could
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: easily watch a large, a decent chunk of this property
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: without needing to go in there and hunt it. So
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: I kind of the long distance observation thing, um. But
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: I'm always trying to figure out what different spots, you know,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: how can you watch it or learn it, or check
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: cameras or do scouting without you know, pressuring those deer,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and you were telling me, you were telling me. I
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: don't think we talked about this on the last podcast,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: but you share with me an example of a of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: a late season buck that you had found last year
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: and you almost got a shot at him, I think
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: during rifle season or muzzle over season, I can't remember which,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and then you're hoping he would come back this year
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: and you do the same thing. But you were just
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: gonna constantly monitor cameras in a in a in a
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: spot where you can get to um without spoken though,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: how do you then? This is something I talked to
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: a lot of people about. This is kind of one
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: of those like seecret sauce things like it's it's the
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: silver bullet. How do you keep tabs on recent intel
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: without educating the deer? How how does that work? In
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: your mind? Yeah, I think it depends on the area.
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: You know, obviously, an area that's you know, more chopped
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: up and open, Like maybe if there's there there's like
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: there's one spot that's pretty close to my work and um,
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm able to check cameras there pretty often,
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: you know, as often as I like, really, so what
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: what I do is I'll check cameras, or I'll go
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: walk the perimeter of the crop field and I'll look
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: for tracks. I'll check those cameras. But where I'm walking
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: and where I'm scouting is not where I hunt. It's
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: not where I set up to kill. But I do
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: like to get that information. So you know, I might
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: check and um, I might check the cameras and there's nothing,
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: you know, and then a few days later nothing. But
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: these are in areas. Keep in mind again where I
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: don't care if I really bump a deer here because
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: it's nowhere near where I'm hunting. Um, it's more or
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: less I want to know if they're in the area
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: because this is where they come. It's usually after dark.
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: But if one shows up, then I feel like, you know,
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: if one starts using the area, then I feel like
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: I know where I can I can get them. So
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: that's one example. Um. You know another example, you know,
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: there's this other um area hunt that's you know, has
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: a big swamp. He can't really you know, tracks, and
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: that sort of thing is a little bit harder. So
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I might go in and check a camera, but I'm
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: checking it, you know, I'm trying to do it on
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: a real I try to check cameras on two situations,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: rain or really windy dry conditions, like so you know,
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: if you get a week with no rain and then
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: it's real windy, those are really tough conditions to a
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: deer descentia on the ground. Um, and you know, just
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: the cover, so I use any means necessary. UM, glassing too,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I use a lot of glassing. So it
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: really depends on on that the situation you're in and
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: the type of property you're hunting or the type of
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: you know, what the covers like on that piece of
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: public or whatever. So it really just depends. Um. You know,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: it's kind of a tough there's not not a one
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: size fits all for that question. I guess, yeah, no, no,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: there's definitely not. Um. So so then I guess walk
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: me through, because you you alluded to a couple of
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: these upcoming hunts where you were doing some of these things.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: But let's start in mid October, we had this cold
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: front hit. Um, I was all excited about the cold
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: front hitting. It was like October twelfth or something or
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know, somewhere in that ballpark and uh, one
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: of these nights it was kind of rainy and cold,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: and I get the text message from you saying you
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: shot a big one. How did that? I'll come to me. Yeah,
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: that was an interesting one because this was a buck
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: that you know, he had some history with. UM. In fact, uh,
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: two years ago. What's really interesting about this book is
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: two years ago. I've only seen him one time and
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: that was two years ago and it was on November four.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: But where I saw him, he was standing in the
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: exact same spot where I shot him this year. Yeah,
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: which is really interesting and not not the same time
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: of year. Um. You know, this was mid October when
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: I got him, and I saw him during the rut
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: two years ago. Um, but two years ago he also,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: that's not true. I did see him. I saw him
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: late season also, so he showed up late season again
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: and I had already UM shot a couple of bucks
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: in Michigan and he was a good deer. Then he
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: had you know, the mule deer split and UM, so
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: I decided to let him go and just pray, you
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: know that he wasn't gonna get shot. UM. This area
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: does get quite a bit of pressure around, but I
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: think I think as far as you know, your average
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Michigan property. There's more guys passing some deer, you know,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: in this general area. So there tends to be a
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: few that slipped through the cracks and get to that
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: you know, three, four, sometimes even five, you know, Um
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: it's not many, but usually there's you know, maybe one
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: like that. Um. So, anyway, we two years in a
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: row or two years ago, and last year he showed
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: up late season, and so we just kind of my
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: buddy and I just figured that would be the chance,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: you know, that we we'd have at this book. And
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: on October twelve, on the day you're you're talking about,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: there was a cold front and some like kind of
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: light rain, real good conditions for deer movement. But you know,
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: if I'm being completely honest, I was in there after
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: a different deer um and was set up the way
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: my my my partner, my buddy was set up in
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: one spot and I was set up in another, and
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: we can you know, when we do hunt together, we
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: don't get out as much together as as we used to,
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: but when we do hunt together, it's usually in a
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: strategic way where you know, if the deer does show,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: there's a really good chance and one of us will
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: get a crack at him. We kind of kind of
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: hunt off each other and try to cover all the bases. So, um,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: we were actually after a different deer that was had
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: been visible and showing some vulnerability. And you know, out
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: of the blue, I look up, you know, in the rain,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: and this this buck is standing there, and I immediately
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: know who he is? This spot? Why? Why, why you
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: wanted to be there? Why he was there? Yeah. Um,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: it's a like a set aside field. Um, really tall
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: we grasses. Um. So it's it's a field where it
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: serves as betting. Um. You know that we routinely see
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: you know, decent books bed in this stuff and in
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: specific spots in that field. I might add, um, you're
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: in and year out, and um, they just feel they
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: feel really comfortable moving through that. If if I could
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: hunt any type of habitat, it would be like set aside,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: like CRP, like the tall grass stuff. I just love that.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And uh, the deers just really seemed to feel comfortable
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: in there. Um. So you know, it's not uncommon for
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: you know, especially in October, you know, mid October, late
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: October to have a good good buck betting and one
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: of the beds in this field. Um, I was not
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: expecting that book. Um, but I was expecting this other book,
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: which was a ten point um. And I can't say
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: for sure that buck that I ended up killing came
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: out of the bed um that I that I think
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: he did. Um, but he certainly came from that direction.
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: And and that's a spot where we've routinely seen um,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: you know, big bucks bed and my buddy Mike has
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: killed one out of there, and I've passed a few
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: out of there, and it's a to describe it. Maybe
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: this will help some listeners. You know, if you got
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: a field, a crp field, um, imagine it's kind of
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: like rolling hills and it all tapers down into one
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: really low spot, and you know, you normally hear about
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: bucks wanting to bed high where they can see well
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: year in and year out. That low spot specifically by
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: there's like a bunch of young saplings in there, but
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: it's the lowest spot in the field, and there's a
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: buck betted there often, especially on a west wind, which
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: it was that day. So it's what what I think
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: they do and what I've seen him do. You know,
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: as you know, darkness approaches, you know, half an hour
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: before light. They they rise out of this bed and
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: they just kind of stand there and they just drinking
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: all those thermals coming down to them, and literally for
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: nearly you know, degrees on a west wind, like, everything's
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: just kind of coming right down to that spot. It's
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: one of those thermal sinks right exactly exactly that comes
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: right down to there. So we we it's not a
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: spot I anticipated, but um, I don't know. It's four
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: or five, maybe six years ago now we uh have
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: videoed a real big buck in there and um my
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: buddy Mike ended up shooting that deer a day or
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: two later. Um. But yeah, it's just a spot that
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: they routinely use and and I think that's why. It
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: just gives them all the advantage of being able to
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: smell the surrounding area everything in that field. And this
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: is a pretty decently high deer density area. So when
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: doles come into that CRP and and move towards the
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: food sources and stuff like, they can smell all that.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: They can just sit right in that low spot and
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: get all those thermals. So then how do you get
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: away with hunting where you did? So the trick is
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: you need a west wind. Okay, So where I'm at
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: in relation to the where the bed is, I'm almost
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: h perfectly south. Okay. So if there's a west wind,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: it's blowing me right right, Uh, not even past the bed,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: It's blowing me behind the bed. Does that make sense? Yeah,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: So like on a you know, if you were if
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: it was a dead, calm night, that would be more
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: of a risky situation. But anytime there's a west west, northwest,
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: even a northwest, that stands money and just because it's
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: in line, it's almost in line with that bed, it
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: just it blows right behind them, If that makes sense.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: So you get set up in that, I imagine, tell
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong. But did you choose to hunt
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: this property that night because the front came through and
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you're thinking, man, these are great conditions. I know this
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: is a spot where there's this good buck Tonight's to
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: night to be in there? Or what was the rationale
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: behind making that strike on that day? Yeah? Well that's
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: interesting because this this piece, Um, you know, I hunt
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: it with a friend, um, one of my best buddies.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: And I don't hunt that place like I normally hunt. Um.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I hunt that place very conservatively as does he because
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: we're trying to I guess, uh, you know, I'm not
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: trying to ruin his season by being overly aggressive, and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: he's trying. That's that's pretty much where he hunts all
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: the time. Um, So we hunt a little more passively,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: to be honest. We hunt in spots where if the
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: deer are moving well, you know, you can have some success.
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: If they're not moving well, then you know you're you're
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: probably out of the game, if that makes sense. So, um,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: you know we we we hunted for. We set up
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: spots for longevity. Even though I only hunted, you know,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: a couple of times a year, it's set up to
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: hunt for to kind of promote longevity of the season.
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: I guess you should say, I guess you could say,
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: but there are certain time frames that we know, you know,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: these certain spots on this property can heat up, and um,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: mid October. We've routinely have had good hunts in mid
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: October during cold front. So, yeah, you're exactly right. That's
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: why we were out there that day. There was a
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: you know, a good drop in temperature and you a
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: light light rain and uh, you know, just everything kind
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: of set up for good deer movement. So you're there.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: He shows up exact same place you saw him two
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: years earlier, Yeah, which was kind of strange. Um literally
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: standing in the same spot. Go in a different direction,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: but standing in the same spot. Um yep. And he
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: kind of comes in and I think he I almost say,
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: he kind of crusted that hill and he locked onto me,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, like how how
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: did he even know? Like how does he know? Like
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: I'm blended in so perfectly, and he just like stared
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: a hole into me, and I was just like, this
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: is I was in such ah because I thought he
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: had busted me and I wasn't moving or doing anything,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: but he did catch me off guard. I just wasn't expecting,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: you know, a buck like that to just appear out
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: of nowhere. You weren't like hung out in a tiny
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: tree either, right, This is like a big oak or
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, I'm not sure what kind of
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: tree it is, but it's a big bushy tree, some
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: tons of limbs and branches and stuff. I mean, you're
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: you're tucked in there, tucked in their good And I
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: don't know if he was staring at that because he
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: maybe he had winded a hunter and there before I
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: don't know, but he definitely locked on and I just
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: held still, and I don't know, maybe twenty seconds went by.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: We were just kind of both stating there, motionless, and
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: then I saw him flickers tail and then I knew.
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: I knew it was I was going to get a shot.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: So he started walking. That the best feeling too, you know,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: when when you're when they're locked on, you think you're busted,
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: and then they do that tail flick that just says
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: that just says okay, yeah, I'm all right. Yeah yeah,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: And if you can just you know, I've been in
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: that situation so many times, you can just hold still
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: and be patient and wait them out. Sometimes it's it's minutes,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: you know. Sometimes it's ten minutes. Yeah, sometimes it's ten
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, that's right. But yeah, it was a relief,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: to say the least. But then he started walking and
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, okay, you know, he's in range. Whenever
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: he stops, we're good to go. So he ended up
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: stopping naturally, which is, you know, what I always want,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: and I drew back and shot and hit him, and
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: he took off, and it was kind of one of
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: those weird deals where you know, I didn't wasn't sure
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: where I hit him, and you know, I was. That's
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: kind of why I called you initially, because I was like,
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a deer, you know, I was. I was
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: kind of freaked out. It was the deer, the size
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: of the deer, have a little bit of history with
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: and I wasn't sure on the hit, and I was like,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I just felt better maybe getting a dog out there.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not super confident, to be honest with you,
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: in my tracking skills. I'm I'm red, green, color blind.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know that, buddy. So I
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: have a really hard time. I'm getting better at it
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: because I'm I'm starting to get better at other things,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: seeing other things. Um, but yeah, I usually like to
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: have some couple of friends come out just as back up,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and you know, and then and then we have a
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: mutual friend that has a an awesome tracking dog. So
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: I felt it felt more comfortable given the situation, and
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: because it was about to rain, just started raining right
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 1: after the shot, right, yeah, immediately after the shot, it
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: started coming down and started coming down pretty good too.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, so then we uh, you know, we had
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: her buddy Andy come out with the dog and uh,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: she's a rock star, she is. Yeah, we had we
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: had definitely had trouble um you know, finding first blood. Um,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I would have found it. I feel,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: I feel I for sure would have found the deer eventually.
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: But the way the dog picked it up instantly, it
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: was it was it just felt so good. Yeah, she was.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: She was on it like in just a matter of minutes.
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: And then she was kind of heading down the hill
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: and we're heading in the direction where of the deer.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: I was gone. We started down this crest and we
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: look up and we can see my uh nocturnal, my
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: lighted knock glowing in the darkness. And I was like, oh,
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: Like I felt a sense of relief because I knew,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: I knew I didn't get a pass through. I saw
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: that the arrow actually stay in the deer. But then
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: I thought, well what if you you know, what if
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: you wiggled it out and it's just my arrow? You know.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: So there was like relief and then panic, and we
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: ended up going up there and in their lay. So
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: it was a really cool moment with U. You know, again,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: what I lived for just being around friends Um, I
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: just love that, not not just for my recoveries, but
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: for their recoveries to I just I really enjoyed that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: part of the hunt. Yeah, that is that's a special
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: thing to be a part of. I was. I was
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: really glad to be there, and that was is a
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: really really awesome buck. I don't I don't think you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: did you've you've done it justice in describing him. Yet.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: He's a super huge body, big necked. I mean this
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: is October twelve or whatever. He had full blown like
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: rutt neck going on, and a typical eight pointer, right,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: but just the most mass you could ever ask for
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: on an eight point. He's tight and tall, just tons
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: of mass and then these deep splits on both G twos,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: right yeah, Yeah, he's got the deep mule deer splits
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: on both G twos, and I mean it's I know
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: there's heavier deer out there, but uh, you know around
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: the bases and that first part of the main being
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: that's the that's the one of the heaviest deer I've
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: ever seen. The masses just insane. But yeah, he's a
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 1: really cool, like one of a kind deer for sure.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: He's like one of those ones that you just you know,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: you'll never shoot one like it. Yeah. Yeah, that's I
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: was blown away by that deer. Its just an awesome buck. Yeah. Um,
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: So you kicked off your Michigan season while there. Now
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: from that point on, we can skip Nebraska. We covered
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: Nebraska already pretty good. Yeah, but walk me through the
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: rest of your Michigan season because you had two more,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: two more good opportunities, right yeah. Um gosh, it was
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: you know, late October November. I just had some phenomenal hunts.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but I was texting
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: a multiple times where you know, I was like, every
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: time you hunted, you haven't been awesome. And it was
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: one of those years where what, for whatever reason, call
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: it lock, call it you know, just being dialed in.
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I was routinely getting on good bucks.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: It wasn't every hunt, but um, I was routinely having
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: encounters and having close calls, and you know, and they weren't.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: It's not like these are all in one spot. These
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: were all in different areas. But I was, and what
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: I apologize, were always jumping in on you. But can
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: you tell me, I mean right, you were there was
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: no rut there's no rut vacation. There was no big trip, right.
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: This is you were hunting weekends and then some evenings
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: after work, Is that right? Or what what else were
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: you doing? If that's not the case. Yeah, that's the case.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: And it's funny because I really haven't hunted much during
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: the rut in Michigan the last few years. I usually
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: that's usually when I try to hunt out of state
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: more um. But this year, because of Wyoming, UM, I
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: was really limited on what I could you know, make
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: work um, you know during the rest of the season.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: So I was actually kind of excited too to hunt
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: the Rutton Michigan because I knew there were some good
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: ones around and um, you know, I know, I know
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: these areas and uh, I just never give them the
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: time they deserved during November just because I'm I've asked
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: for reasons of hunting new lands and seeing new places
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff. But it was kind
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: of cool to hang around home. And yeah, I was
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: really aggressive with my inseason scouting, and that goes back to,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: you know, to kind of really being tuned into what's
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: going on, um in each area. You know when things
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: are hot and you know, I was Can you describe
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: a couple of specific examples of what you're doing at
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: that time of year that was aggressive in that way? Yeah,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: just um, I guess, uh, you know, I was really
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: trying to focus in on certain areas when you know
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: where in the past they've been good during that time frame,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: and it just seemed like I was always on the
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: mark with it this year, or doing a lot of
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: in season scouting. There's a lot of times I had
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: that that mantis saddle and predator platform. I used that
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: this year, and I was just kind of gung hole about,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: you know, hanging and hunting and being mobile, and so
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: I did. I used that a lot, and it was
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: just really kind of a few a few hunts, just
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: kind of going in and hunting and setting up on
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: hot sign or setting up on the ground still hunting.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was trying it all. I tried the
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: I had a hunt with a bow mounted decoy UM
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: and had an awesome encounter with that. UM. I was
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: really just being real aggressive because I I already had
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: a buck down and I was like kind of, I guess,
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: shooting for the stars and and just trying to make
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: every hunt, trying to make every hunt count I wanted.
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: I wanted it to be a real UM. I guess
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: dialed in kill set that I felt really confident going
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: in UM that I would have success or I was
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: going to try to make it happen. So that was
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: kind of my strategy. So it's kind of like, would
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: you would it be fair to say than a lot
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: of those cases you were kind of swinging for the
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: fences with each hunt and it was either gonna be
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: a home run or a complete strikeout probably, And would
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: I be right in saying that The reason you can
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: do that was because you had so many other options
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: lined up. So if you swung for the home run
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: on this spot and it didn't work out, it's okay
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: that you blew out this little thicket or whatever because
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: you knew you've got seven other spots you can go
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: and try it to, right. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well you
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: gotta remember too, I you know, I I set up
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: my season ahead of time too. I guess I would
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: never go into a season with having scouted two areas.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: You know, I would never go into a season of
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: scouted five areas. You know, I'm going to go into
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: each and every season having plan A and A backup,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: and a backup for that, and a backup for that,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: a backup for that. And you know, I I enjoy
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: scouting as much as hunting, So I feel like I'm
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: more than prepared. I'm overprepared, if that makes sense, And
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: I would it would, I've said this before. I would
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: have to be extremely unlucky to not at least have
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: some success, because I mean, I I do scout. I
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: scout year round whenever I have free time. That's what
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: I'm doing. I don't do much else. Um, so that
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: that helps a lot. I mean that's huge for me.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm not saying that's what everybody needs to do
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: or should do. It's just what I do. So so
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: what walk us through? Then? In Michigan, you're you're getting aggressive,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: you're shooting for the stars on each hunt. Every um,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: maybe describe the shot you did get or or if
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: you encounters or whatever you want to share on that front. Yeah, well, um, yeah,
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: I'll talk about the November twelve buck. And then I
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: did have a uh two good hunts in northern Ohio
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: during that time frame, two which actually led to my
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: kill in Ohio in late November. But so this the
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: buck I got on November twelve. Again. This this was
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: a buck I knew about as a buck that I
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: had seen in the summer and had had observed. Um,
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: I was able to actually visually find this dear's track
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: after I observed him. I was able to walk the
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: field edge, right, you know, and I like to do that, yeah,
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: this summer. So you saw him in the summer, and
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: then you actually said, Okay, I saw that buck. I
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: want to hunt that buck, so I want to go
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: find this track. You actually did that, ye, I did that. Yeah,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: any anytime there's a chance to I mean, I'm not
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm not gonna risk at all to go to
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: go look at a track, but if I can, uh,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: if I can get that piece, that can help me
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: a lot um And I haven't always been able to
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: do that on all my books, but this one in particular,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: I was able to. Um So, anyway, he had a
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: fairly unique track. I think I posted a picture of
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: this online. But he had one toe that kind of
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: curled over and was a little bit longer than the
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: other one. So just you know, I didn't know at
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: the time that this that would help me um in
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: killing this buck, but it ends up helping me. Um
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: just one of those things. He was not. I knew
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: if I had an opportunity at this year, I would
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: shoot him because he's incredibly unique also, but he was
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: not the book I was, you know, the buck I
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: really wanted. The book I really wanted was a different
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: nine pointer that I told you about on the way
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: to Nebraska. That was. That was the one. But um,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: I kind of knew, you know, if I if I
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: saw this buck, I wouldn't be able to h you know,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't be able to hold off because he has
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: a really kind of freakish, you know, goofball um. But anyway,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: you get you got you gotta describe what the heck
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: that means. Yeah, yeah, okay, So he's got this perfect side, right,
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: he's got this perfect side of five, like a beautiful
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: half of a ten point, and then his his other
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: side of the antler it it has a brow time,
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: and then the main beam starts squiggling up and down,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: up and down, up and down, almost like a I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: don't even know how you'd explain it, like a worm,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: like you know, like a worm all curved up up
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: and down, up and down like a wave almost. But
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: they're all points. So he's got he's got eight on
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: that side, and then he's got at the end of
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: all those little waves he's got he had two big
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: giant hooks. One was like seven inches and then then
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: the one that was still on there he had up
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: breaking one off, but the other one's like nine. So
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: just like I mean, just a freak, you know, just
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: a really strange odd rack. Um. But anyway, I had
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: seen him a couple of times from like observation stands
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: in October, way off, way off where I couldn't He's
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: on peace of private that I can't access, and I
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: was like, man, he is really cool, Like you see
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: him and you just know it's him. And um, So anyway,
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: this is at a spot near my work where I
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: routinely and I don't do this everywhere, so I don't want,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: you know, the listeners to think this is the way
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I do things. But this is a spot where I
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: check a camera often every two days, every three days. Um,
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: because it's in a spot where I don't hunt. It's
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: it's in a it's in a an egg on the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: you know, near an egg field. Um. I'll walk the
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: edge of the egg field and I'll check the camera.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: I go the same way in the same way out
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: every time, and I just check it often. And all
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: I want to know is when a deer is coming through. Uh.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: If a deer is going to come through, it's kind
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: of hard to explain come through the cover where I
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: do hunt. This is where they end up. And you're
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: getting these pictures there probably at nighttime, right and you're there. Yeah, Well,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: I'm mainly looking for the Big Nine, and there's nothing.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: There's no pictures, there's no tracks. I mean, this is
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: a spot where if there's a big track, it's it's
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: going to be the Big Nine or the only other
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: deer that this head any size was this one. So
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: I was only I was focused on the Big Nine
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: with the back of my mind knowing that this freak
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: is out there somewhere. But between mid October and you know,
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: early November, mid November, I I didn't see that goofball one. Um,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: I had no pictures, no tracks, nothing. I assumed he
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: got shot because most dear in the series just get shot. Um.
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: But it's still one of those spots where I haven't
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: set up where I checked the camera often. I don't
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: care if I they smell me here because I'm hunting
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: them two yards away. In fact, it doesn't bother me
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: at all. They come at night. This is a spot
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: where they end up at night. So it's November. What
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: day did I go out there? I shot him on
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: the twelve, so it must have been the tenth. I
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: can't remember it was the tenth or the eleventh. But
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: I go out there, check the camera. Yep, midday. I
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: usually do it right at my lunch. Um. There's a
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: couple of spots where I you know, a couple of
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: spots where I'm kind of I'll do some scouting, you know,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: maybe check a camera, maybe kind of go uh, you know,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: just I get an hour for lunch. So that there's
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: I'm lucky in the fact that I've got some spots
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: near my work where I can get out and just
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: check some low impact spots like this. And I checked
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: the camera and I didn't have anything on the camera.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: But on my way back out, like I said, I
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: walked the perimeter of this field, I see a track
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: and it's a big one and I'm like, oh, I
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen one there all year. And I look and
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: it's that track, the one with the curve foot the
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: longer toe than the other, and I was like, man,
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: that's it, that's that freake deer. So I had no
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: idea if it was, you know, I didn't know what time,
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: you know, the day that happened. I assumed at night.
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: This is a spot where, you know, where are these
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: dear bed I can't get close to Okay, I can't
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: hunt it, um, So I'm hunting off of that in
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: some thick cover. But they do come over into this field,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: but it's usually at night. But the reason I decided
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: to sit, even though I don't I knew he was
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: coming into this area, even though I didn't know when exactly,
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: you know, everything about this told me, you know, if
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have a chance at him, I'm gonna sit
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: back here at this spot. And I have this spot
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: picked out because it's it funnels down between some train
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: features and some water. So when deer kind of work
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: off this big piece of private and they come through
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: this area and then over to this field, and there's
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: a there's a small doverd over there too. So every
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: year around this time it starts to attract bucks. And
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: this is not an area that usually gets a lot
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: of buck activity, but I've killed one there November four
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: twelve and the fourteen. Um so that that that funnel
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: that I'm talking about is way off this field. It's
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: way back in some really thick security cover. And I
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: come in a completely different way that to hip waiters.
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: So as soon as I saw that track, I was like, Okay,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: now I gotta start sitting that spot. And I had
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: not sit that spot yet. And in fact, the funny
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: thing is I've killed three bucks out of that stand,
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: and they were all the first time I sat at it.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: So in the past I had done it more with timing,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I sat there in November fourteen because I knew,
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: you know, that time of years is when the bucks
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: tend to start coming through that area because they start
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: to I don't know what it is if that hurt
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: that little doe group there, you know, comes in, you know,
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: if they have a couple of does that come in
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: right at that time or what, But that just always
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: seems to be that kind of November four through is
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: that little window there where that particular spot heats up
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: you can hunt it October, you know, Halloween, nothing, and
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: it's just it's been like that. I don't know why
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: it's just goes back to you know, just knowing knowing
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: your areas, I guess. But anyway, UM, so like I said,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: you gotta I get into this spot using hip waiters.
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: You gotta walk through basically this high water and you
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: come in way behind all of that cover, so you're
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: coming in kind of the backside. And there's another another
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: couple of people that hunt have hunted up in that
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: field that I was talking about, so that that field
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: gets some pressure so it keeps the deer back in
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: this cover where I was hunting. Um, and I snuck
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: in there and I got up in that spot. I
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: got up in that tree. This was after work, and
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I was just sitting there and I, I
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: don't know, it was one of those things I was
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: kind of probably daydreaming. I should have seen this buck
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: coming from a long ways away, but I didn't. And uh,
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: I kind of look up and he's like at thirty
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: five yards closing in fast. And this was about thirty
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: minutes of daylight left and I see him and I
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: see that big old hook coming off the one side,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: and I was like, oh man, there he is. So
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: that that track led me to to sitting that spot
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: for at that time frame. Um, I probably was going
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: to start. You know, I always put in a set
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: or two before the gun season there because it routinely
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: heats up during that time and this year was no different.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: But I just I just caught his track and that
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: was the deer that I was moving in on. And
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: it's just one of those situations where the terrain and
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: that water they don't have to go through that funnel,
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: but they almost always do. It's just a really it's
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: just a really high percentage spot. If you can just
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: stay out, if you can stay out and wait till
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: the time is right, it's it's just money. But if
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: you is your access an important part of making that
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: spot work too, because I feel like spots that are
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: way back on the cover are so tricky to hunt
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to go in for an afternoon set
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: like that. How'd you pull it off with a blowing
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: every thing out? Yeah? Well, what I do is I
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: go through this this water, this high water. You know,
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: most people I guess that would probably hunt that would
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: go through the bean field and go through the cover
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: and you know, oh there's a funnel that they're going through.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: A lot of the thick stuff and would would totally
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: bump at least the doe groups out. There's not a
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: lot of there's never any books that've been there, but
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: they would definitely blow out that cover. So where I
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: come in is there's some high water. Um. So you
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: just put on you know, put on some hip waiters
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: and you just kind of slowly go through the water
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: and I come up low and then up kind of
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: up over the terrain feature I was talking about was
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: basically just a little knob or a hill and then
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: I'm I have a tree prepped right there, so you know,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: I don't I don't know, occasionally bump a deer going in,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: but very rarely because it's it's it's high water. Usually
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: the deer in that water. So yeah, it's it's a
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: it's a unique spot. Um. And like I said, if
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: you hunt it, you know, if you go in there
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: and you hunt October one in October tenth and and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: you know you do that, you ruin the spot. You
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: you educate the deer that are living in there, which
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: is a small go herd um. So it's just it's
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: just one of those spots that can really be good
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: if you can be patient. Yeah, and I feel like
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: in past it was either past podcast conversation or maybe
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: an article you've written for word hunt in past years,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: you alluded to it with this case that the three
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: kills you have in this property were all the first time.
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: And don't you have record of some crazy number of
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: your kills that were first hunt in a stand for
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: the year. Isn't it just a very significant portion of
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: your kills? Yeah, I have to go back and and
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: update because there's been I did have a statu a
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago. I'd have to go back and
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: look at that, but I mean it was over sevent
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: of the time. It's the first sit um. Yeah, so
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: I mean that there's a lot to be said for that.
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: But there are definitely spots out there, and some guys
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: will argue this, but there are definitely spots out there
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: that you can if the access is good and you're
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: not bumping deer, you can you can hunt it repeatedly.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: It's just it's those spots are kind of rare um
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: and what I what I do in those spots is
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: I try to I try to identify when that area
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: is I have the highest percentage of getting that kill.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: You know, if it's late October. Okay, fine, if I
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: have really good access, Yeah, if I have the opportunity,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: I might, I might sit a spot like that three
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: or four times in a row. I've done that before
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: and just really hammer that time frame. Um, you know
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: when it's when it's your chances are best. But those
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: those spots are hard to find. Um. But when you
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: do that, man, they can certainly be uh, they can
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: certainly be really good. Yeah. I feel like one of
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: the of course, you've got to have your wind plan
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: nailed down to get a spot you can hunt over
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: and over and over again. But then also I feel
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: like you need that access and entry or entry and
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: exit nailed So I I have a spot like this
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: where in the past I'd hunted one time and then
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: trying to get out of there, you just blew out
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: all sorts of deer. Every time you go out of there,
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: you're gonna blow out deer because it's right near food sources.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: M Um. But I finally, this is well documented. I've
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: talked about this many times in the past in the podcast.
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: This is this little area where it killed Frank um
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: where I found out. As long as I get someone
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: to drive through these fields and spook off the deer
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: or pick me up or something like that. If I
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: get that, I can get out of there and deer
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: will be right back at the next day. And so
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: this year the spot I killed Frank, I hunted either that,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: hunted that ground blind where that I killed him out
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: of I don't know, five times maybe before I shot him,
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: and then to two other stands within you know, like
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: a four acre five acre area. I mean, I hunted
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: that little tiny four acre chunk a bunch. I mean,
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: basically that's all I had, because that's what I kept
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: showing up. And I don't think it could have done
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: that unless I've really been careful of the wind and
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: sent control and everything and then had that exit strategy nailed. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: you you when when I look at that place, I
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: couldn't believe you were getting away with what you were
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: getting away with. But that's the thing. You know from experience,
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 1: you know that way better than I do. You know
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: what you can get away with and and and you
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: are also taking some maybe some risks, uh, you know,
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: because because you know, the deer was there and we
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: didn't know how long he was going to be there,
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: and um, he had a history of you know, not
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: being a homebody, so you're maybe taking some risk, but
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 1: you you know what you can get away with on
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: your farm, and it really paid off. Man. That was
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: that was well done. Yeah, it was funny every time,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Just like you said, I I did think
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: that every time I went in there, I was like,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, I can't believe I'm going back in here again.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: This is the third time, this is the fourth time,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: this is the fifth time. So every time I'm thinking,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: this is the last time I'm gonna get away with this.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: But I have to do it because this is the
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: only spot has been showing up. And fortunately Um was
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: able to keep getting away with it more and more
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: until finally he slipped up. But but I think when
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: you find those little spots, you gotta really figure out
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: the nuances there that that make them work. Otherwise the
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: time that first set the second set, that's really your
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: golden opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, And I think a lot of times,
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: you know, I got some some guys, I know, some
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: friends you know that that i'd call them hardcore hunters,
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think I think that's where most
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: of the mistakes are made, is just not recognizing that
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe jumping in a little too soon
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: just because they got the itch to hunt and you know,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: they got a food plot and you know, or or
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: this is their you know, their family farm or whatever,
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: and they're just kind of going in with no real plan,
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: with no real intel, just to sit. And you know,
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: if if you don't have that preparation or don't gain
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: that knowledge, you know, that intimate knowledge of the areas
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: you're hunting, I feel like you're at a real disadvantage.
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: And it's not easy to do because it does take
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: some commitment and some time to really uh you know,
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: to really learn those, like you said, those nuances of
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: of each area. So um, yeah, it's just you know,
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's a tough thing to to do. It
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: takes time, but man, it just it just pays off huge. Yeah,
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: definitely does so. So speaking then of kind of figuring
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: out the nuances of spots and all that, that kind
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: of transition is nicely I feel like to your Ohio
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: story because this is kind of a situation where you
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: learn something new this year, right, Yeah, yeah, Ohio. This
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: year Ohio's kind of bed my nemesis. Um, you know,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: you hear about how good Ohio is, and you know,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: I've that's that's one state I have struggled into consistently. Uh,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: you know, shoot big bucks in and and I don't hunt.
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: It's nice to hear that makes me feel a bit
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: better somewhere. Yeah, I don't hunt it much. Um, you know,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: I I rarely hunt it over you know, five or
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: six times a year. That's probably a big part of it.
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: And the area hunt is northwestern Ohio, which is you know,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: the county I'm in is, and I think the bottom
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: five you know for trophy bucks in Ohio. So it's
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: it's not a real great spot, but it's close to
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: home and gives me another tag and another opportunity. But
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: had some luck there over the years, for sure. Um.
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: And it's consists of a lot of open ground like
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: this is big farming country flat and the cover consists
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: of really small wood lots anywhere from you know, a
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: couple of acres too. You know, if you had one
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: that was like seven to ten acres, that's pretty big one. Um.
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: So it you know it low deer density. Uh, you
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: know that the buck quality I think can be good,
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: but I think the you know, they just don't. A
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: lot of deer don't survive there. They do a lot
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: of deer drives and and there's just not a lot
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: of places for him to hunt. But um, there's a
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: spot I hunt down there. Um, and there's quite a
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: few other people that that hunt in this area. And
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: I'll go back to early November. I was I went
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: out to this spot. There's a nice little funnel there
• 1:35:53
  Speaker 1: where I've had some luck in the past. I killed
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: the buck there in two thousand and eight, the same funnel,
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: and I went in and I was wearing my gilly
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: suit and I was hunting from the ground, and basically
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: I was just trying to stay mobile. Um. I wanted
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: to kind of, you know, work on some ground hunting.
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: I always try to try to, you know, I like
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: to improve in different areas of my hunting. And I
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 1: hunted from the ground quite a bit, um, and I
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: like to do that more and more. It seems like
• 1:36:23
  Speaker 1: I'm on the ground more and more these days. But anyway,
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: I wanted to, you know, just do a lot of
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: still hunting kind of glassing and see what I could
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: come up with. And I knew there was a couple
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: of good ones in the area there was a ten
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: point and an eight point that I almost shot. Almost
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: shot the eight point late October, right when we got
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: back from Nebraska. Um. But the ten point um looks
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: like a probably a probably a three year old buck
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: um if I had to guess, but he was one,
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: you know that I would have looked at hard too.
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: And so anyway, the gist of that hunt was I came,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: you know, as as prime time was approaching. I was
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: kind of like sneaking through, you know, the edge of
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: this field and down into this cover and I just
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: got tucked into this cover where I could see this
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: real skinny field. I can't see it from the road
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: at all, and there's a low spot and a lot
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: of times, like at dusk, deer will come out into
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: this the skinny field and the slow spot, and I
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: was just kind of working up to that edge, and
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: I was working up to that to that I was
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: just gonna sit the rest of the night because I
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen anything prior. And I'm kind of like hunched over,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: kind of sneaking down the edge just inside the cover,
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, I see this deer break
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: into the field and I'm like, oh man, I got
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: down on one knee and I put my glass up
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: and it's that wide tin and I was like, oh man,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: here he is. He's like angling right towards me, and
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my gosh, this is really gonna happen.
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: Like I I didn't have other than a picture of this, dear,
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't know anything out him. I just know during
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: the run there's a few spots where, you know, if
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: deer moving, this is where they tend to go through
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: and through the skinny field on this low spot, they
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: can't be seen from the horizon in any direction, so
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: it's just a real popular spot for them to get
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: from one patch cover to the next. And I'm setting
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: up or I'm setting I'm sitting there and he's kind
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: of angling towards me, working his way into into range.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: And he stops and he looks back from the way
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: he came. I'm like, oh man, there must be more
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: deer coming or something. And then all of a sudden,
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: he just takes off and I'm like, oh gosh, he
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 1: like runs right by me, no shot, And then I'm
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: just kind of sitting there like trying to figure out
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: what happened. And then all of a sudden, I see
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: this guy walk out into the field and he's carrying
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: a crossbow and I'm like, he got getting me like serious,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: like primetime, you know, walking around, And then I thought
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: to myself, I was like, wait a minute, I'm doing
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: the same thing, you know. Yeah, So I couldn't end
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: up talking to the guy. I mean, obviously it w
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't wasn't mad at him. He didn't know and he
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: was just doing the same thing. He was just out
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: kind of sneaking around, and um, I didn't know he
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: was out there, and he didn't know I was out there.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: So we exchanged numbers and he uh, he was planning
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: on gun hunting that area with his brother, um, and
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: he just kind of telling me, you know what the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: what they're plan was and all that. So I actually
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: came out the very next day to set up on
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: that ten point and I was like, okay, he came
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: through here, and this was a long shot. My confidence
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: in this time was was low, but I could hunt
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: and it was the only thing I had really to
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: go on. So I went back about you know, fifty
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: yards where that deer came through the cover, and I
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: set up and I didn't see a deer that night.
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: But I did see his ladder stand. He had a big, giant,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: elaborate ladder stand, a sent Wick ten yards in front
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: of it, and a pea bottle and the instead of
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: rattling antlers up there, and I was like, oh man,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: Like I was like, guess you know, I gotta I
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: gotta rethink this area and get out of here. So
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: that hunt was a bust um. And then I don't
• 1:40:15
  Speaker 1: know if you weeks go by, um the season and
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: where you keeping tabs on this at all? As those
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: few weeks went violent, did you swing down and check
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: cameras or anything at all? Or we just waiting. I
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: checked cameras one time, Um I went and I don't
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: remember exactly the day, but it was it was probably
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: a week or so after hunting was winding down a
• 1:40:41
  Speaker 1: little bit, you know, Michigan gun season was under way,
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: and um, you know, I was trying to get you know,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: the kids out and you know, just family stuff, and
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: so hunting was winding down a little bit for me.
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: I still had my Ohio tech, but I, I don't
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: know it was satisfied with my season, but I wanted to, uh,
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: you know, still giving hones stuffort in Ohio because I
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: had some time, um, but I wasn't really planning on
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: gun hunting down there. Um. So anyway, I checked the
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: camera I don't know a week or so after that,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: and there was nothing on it. So I just end
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: up pulling that camera and didn't hunt for well, I
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: didn't hunt again until the day I went out there,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: um and end up getting my buck. But I went
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: out on the November and I was gonna basically just
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: go scout. I was gonna put another camera up, and
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: the gun season had started. Ah, I can't remember what
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: day it was. I think it was the six of November.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: So this is this is gun season had already started here,
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: and this is a spot where Okay, it's a a
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: landowner that lets he pretty much lets anybody hunt if
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: you ask what he's real particular about certain things. He
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: he tells some people they can bow hunt, he tells
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: some people they can gun hunt, and it's just kind
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: of his way to kind of keep control of everything.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: And quite a few people out there. But usually, uh,
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm one of the guys that's allowed to
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: bow hunt. So even during gun season, I can only
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: bow hunt. But usually during the archery season not too bad,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: maybe a couple of guys out there. UM. So I
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: was out there scouting UM, and basically my plan was
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: to try to find, you know, some cover an area
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: of of the property where you know, maybe the pressure
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: hadn't been so high I could maybe get into some deer.
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: I was gonna pop a camera up. I didn't have
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: a plan other than just to do some end season
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: scouting and try to find something to go off of.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: And what I did find out was that these guys
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: had been doing quite a bit of deer drives. And
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: that's the kind of big thing down there during on
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: season deer drives, you know, pretty much every day of
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: the gun season. And I went and kind of scouted
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: some areas where I thought maybe the deer had been
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: pushed into. And I was wasn't seeing much um and
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: pretty much was kinda gonna call it quits on this
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: this particular property and go check out a new area.
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: And I was actually on my way out, on my
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: way out back to the car, so imagine a big
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: rolling hill of cut beans, and I was going walking
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: back and there's this this low spot that kind of
• 1:43:40
  Speaker 1: I don't know, between two gradual hills, the beans kind
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: of go down to this low spot and that low spot,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: it's almost like kind of like a little drainage connects
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: the big chunk of cover. When I say big, it's
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: not big, but the thickest chunk of cover where you know,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: I had the encounter with the ten point where those
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: guys have been doing a lot of their drives. Um,
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: you know that sort of thing. This drainage connects that
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: all the way for about I don't know, about a
• 1:44:11
  Speaker 1: half mile through open ground, completely open ground, not a
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: tree anywhere, to this little patch of woods right up
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: by the road. And as I hit that low spot,
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: I look and I see running tracks. I could see
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: them from quite a way away. And I get up
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 1: there and I look, and I'm like, man, these are
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: big tracks. So I don't have any idea what you
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: know what the deer looks like. I hadn't never seen
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: these tracks before. I just they looked fresh. The deer's
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: running and it's heading towards that patch of cover up
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: by the by the road, the wood little wood lot.
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: So I just start walking them. I'm down low, so
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: imagine I'm down low. You know, you can't nothing can
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: be seen when you're down in this little drainage from
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: you know, any road or any surrounding area. It's it's
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: it's low enough where anything could travel down there and
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: not be seen. And uh, I just start following the
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: tracks and i start approaching the wood lot, and I'm like, gosh,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: I wonder, you know, I wonder if he's in here.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: And this is a wood lite. I feel embarrassed to say,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: like I've never even looked at because you can see
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: it from you can see it from the road, and
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: you know those woods that almost look like, you know,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: like you can see into them, you know, I mean,
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: they're like real wide open, there's no undergrowth. So I
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: just now, it never struck me as an area that
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: a mature deer would ever use, and I don't think
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: it is under normal circumstances. I've seen deer in there.
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: I've seen a couple, like a dough on a fawn
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: pop out of it at dusk um, but I've never
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: even thought about hunting it um, just because of the
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: lack of cover. Um. But there is it's it's kind
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: of like a rolling hill, hardwoods open and then at
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: the very top there is a little thicket there. But
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: it's small, and it's I mean literally next to the road,
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: and then on the other side it's next to like
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: a a small little highway kind of. It's not like
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: a just a little two lane, you know, country highway.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: So it's like real close to a lot of action.
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: But anyway, I sneak up and I sneak up to
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: this wood lot and I just kinda you come down low,
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 1: and then you start coming up to the wood lot,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: so you're low and you're walking up to the edge.
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: And I peek in there and I see a deer
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: in there about sixty yards and walking straight away from me,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: and all I see was just like giantly wide rack
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: and I immediately dropped to a knee, and I was like,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, Like was he just did he just
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: run out of there? Like when I was scouting, I
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: didn't know, or like was it from a deer drive?
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: Has has he been in there? I didn't know. All
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: these things were going through my mind, and I just
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: watched him and he walks down into this ravine. The
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: way this this woods is set up, there's like a
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: ravine that goes in there and then it kind of
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: goes up into this hill to a knob on top
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: where there's a thicket, and I see him walking down
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: into the ravine and I was just I had no bow, nothing,
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: so I was like completely unprepared. I was basically on
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: a scouting mission and that was it. So I just
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: quickly backed out of there and I got to my
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: car and immediately got on my phone. It looked like
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: what the wind was going to be doing the next
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: day or two, and called the wife and figured out
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: what the plan was. And I couldn't get out hunting
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: until twenty nine, which was two days. And I looked
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: at the wind and everything looked good. I think, I
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: it wasn't perfect, but I thought I could. Uh, if
• 1:47:49
  Speaker 1: he was in there, I thought that I could. I could.
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: If I can get in there without bumping him, I
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: got a chance. I got a really good chance. In fact,
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: I called my buddy Mike, and I said, if he's
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 1: in there, if he's in there and I can get
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: set up without spooking him, I said, I'm gonna I
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: think I'm gonna shoot him. And uh, I just felt
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: like it's just one of those small woodlots where like
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: if you can get in there, I just where is
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 1: he gonna go you know, everything around him is is
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: wide open. I just don't see him, you know, go
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: on out in the wide open field and in the
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 1: middle of a gun season. But the real question was
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: was even gonna be in there? Is he hiding out
• 1:48:24
  Speaker 1: in there because the gun pressure. That was my that
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: was my instinct, you know, that he was hiding out
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: in their up while it's would he could, he'd be
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: in that type of tiny woodlot. So um, I went
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 1: in and I set up right. Initially, my plan was
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: I wore I had my saddle on, but my initial
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: thought was I'm not gonna be able to get up
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: into a tree because it's just gonna be too risky.
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: So I was just gonna try to work my way
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: low and that the ravine again, get right under the edge,
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: and then just kind of scoop my way in just
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit, just so that I could see because
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: it's so wide opening there. But as I got closer
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: and closer, I was like, man, he's not gonna be
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: in this wide open stuff. He's gonna be up in
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: that thicket on the top, especially with the way the
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: wind was blowing. My wind was blowing me towards that direction.
• 1:49:11
  Speaker 1: But it was kind of like just missing it. And
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 1: I said, if if he's you know, if he's gonna
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: be like on the leeward side, it's he's gonna be
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: up in that thicket just off the other side. So
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: that's kind of what I banked on. I was just like,
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: you know, if he's in here, that's where he's gonna be,
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: you know. And I kind of I peeked in the
• 1:49:29
  Speaker 1: woods and you can see. I mean, if there's deer
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: and there the that side of the woods, you can
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 1: see forever. So I looked glassed all around. I was like,
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: there's nothing. So he's either not in here or he's
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: up in that thicket. So I was able to set
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: up in a tree. I got set up with my sticks,
• 1:49:45
  Speaker 1: got all set up on the the settle and everything.
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 1: I felt real good, and I just waited, and you know,
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: nothing happens. Nothing happens. I just keep glassing up of
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: that thicket up there. You can't see. You can just
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 1: see the edge where it gets and then when I
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 1: say thick, it's probably about the size of like a
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 1: square foot house. I mean, it's not big. And then
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: and then it goes down the backside, so there's like
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: a little a little knob there, and I'm sitting and
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, it's kind of dying down
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: in the evening, and I hear something walking up there.
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: I hear footsteps like in the leaves, and I'm like,
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh. I was like, he's I just setting
• 1:50:27
  Speaker 1: myself as like he's up there. I can't believe this,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: you know, It's just it was my adrenaline started just
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 1: pouring and my heart was going and I was like,
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, I got really worked up on this diard.
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 1: I think because it was like such a long shot,
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and such a unique opportunity. It just I
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: wasn't expecting anything like this during the middle of the
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: Ohio gun season, you know. So I'm sitting there and
• 1:50:56
  Speaker 1: I hear him moving around, and then all of a sudden,
• 1:50:58
  Speaker 1: I see his antler's crest and then he starts walking.
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: He comes over the top of the hill, and then
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 1: he starts walking down to that same ravine I saw
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: him walking down. So he comes down, he kind of
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: side hills down to that ravine. So he's walking the
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: exact opposite way that he was when I first saw
• 1:51:17
  Speaker 1: him two days prior. And he's coming and I'm I'm
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: like right at the base of that ravine, like just
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: up the other kind of creates a v you know,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: like one one hill goes down, then there's a ravine
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm on the other side hill, so I can
• 1:51:31
  Speaker 1: shoot the ravine and shoot across. And he comes right
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: down and he ends up I don't know, sixteen yards
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: from me, and I shot him and he takes off
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: going back down, back down the ravine and he tumbles
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: over about I don't know, fifty or sixty yards away,
• 1:51:47
  Speaker 1: and that was it. Yeah, it was. It was incredible
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: in this deer. Uh, he he was run down. He's
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: an old deer. Um. I didn't know what he was
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: at first, but he's an older deer that I have
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: had some pictures of and after talking with unfortunately, uh,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: the word got out real quick that I had gotten
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: this deer because those other guys were out gun hunting
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: that day and not that I you know, it was
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: intentionally going to try to hide it from anybody, but
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: it just you know, on areas where there's other guys hunting,
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of times that can just lead towards,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: you know, some bad luck for you. In the future.
• 1:52:36
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it was just one of those things, right.
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: There was no way around it because I was by myself,
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: and I went up and talked to the landowner, and
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: then those guys were there and they found out that
• 1:52:46
  Speaker 1: I had shot it, and we all went and got it.
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: And they had had pictures of that deer um from
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: this year and last year. I had pictures of him
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: last year, and one of those, I said, actually shot
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: that buck last year in the neck with a gun.
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: And there's a picture of him that was given to
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: me with a giant wound in his neck. So he's
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: a really cool dear. He's super wide, super long main beams.
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: But man, he was in rough shape. He was in
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: really rough shape, and I think I get the sense
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 1: that he probably wouldn't have made it. Um. He's his
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: spine was sticking out, his hips were really bony, his
• 1:53:27
  Speaker 1: his body size looked really run down, like more than
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: more than you would expect, like a a buck that
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: rutted hard, you know what I mean. He looked like
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: he was just really in bad shape. So yeah, man,
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: just crazy crazy hunt. Um. You know, a lot of
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: luck involved there, But um, I'm glad, i I'm glad
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't give up on Ohio because I was really
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: close to just you know, with all those guys out
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 1: there and doing deer drives and stuff like, I didn't
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: have a whole lot of confidence in the area, you know. Yeah, Well,
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: well you said this to me back in October when
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: we did our Nebraska podcast, when you said, Uh, it's
• 1:54:08
  Speaker 1: very humble of you to say that it was luck,
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 1: but very rarely is that really the case. Usually there's
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: you know, the older dog is what is it? Uh?
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: Luck is where preparation meets opportunity. UM. I think that
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: by doing all the preparation and knowing how to make
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: the right decisions at the right times and how to
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: adjust that that kind of stuff is what allows you
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: to take advantage of luck when it does come your way. UM.
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: So as as I hear you say, kind of walk
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: us through this whole, this whole season of years. Um
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: and when I think about the fact this is not
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 1: an anomaly. Last year you killed I don't know, three
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: or four bucks, and the year before that you did it.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: In the year before that you did it, and the
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: year before you did that. Um And and as alluded to,
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: you're always doing this just efficient is the only word
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 1: I keep coming back to, just more efficiently than anyone
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: I know. Um. And as I'm trying to pick this
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: apart listening to you and from seeing what you're doing
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: in the past, I'm going to try to nail down.
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: Let me give you a couple of things that I
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 1: think are like my takeaways from trying to learn as
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: much as I can from you, and then you tell
• 1:55:16
  Speaker 1: me what you would add. Um, it seems like your
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: success and the ability to to achieve so so much
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: hunting success without a big, fancy property, without a whole
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: ton of time, without a bunch of vacation days, is
• 1:55:31
  Speaker 1: that number one year level of scouting in the off
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 1: season and in season is just next level. Just more
• 1:55:39
  Speaker 1: work goes into that than almost anything, probably more than
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: hunters out there. Number two. Part of that preparation, part
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: of that scouting is you have so many different options
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: available that once the hunting season comes, you can cycle
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: through them and you can be in the right spots
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: at the right times based off experience, or you go
• 1:55:56
  Speaker 1: in there either scouting or observing or thing and then
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 1: adjusting as you go through, and then you swing for
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: the fence with many, many of your hunts, you're either
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: kind of observing or you're going for the kill, and
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: you know that you can go for that kill, and
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: it can be a high risk hunt because you've got
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: another spot you can go to, and another spot you
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: can go to, and another spot you go to. So
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: because of that, your hunts are disproportionately high odds for
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: success compared to the average guy or girl because you
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: are doing kill sets almost only to the kill sets
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: are learning. Kill sets are learning, and you do that
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: all year round and you don't give up, and then
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: you've gained experience of the years to be able to
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 1: make the right adjustments when necessary. When I try to
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: drill down at a at a base level, if I'm
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: trying to like oversimplify this, that's how maybe I would
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: paint the Andy May success model. Um, did it get
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: it right? Or what would you add if there's anything
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: else makes you se efficient? I think I think you know.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 1: I think that's it. I really do. I think you
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 1: held it. Um, you know all the scouting, the preparation. Um,
• 1:57:06
  Speaker 1: you know that's something I enjoy. So to me, that's
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 1: just normal, and I sometimes forget that. I don't forget.
• 1:57:14
  Speaker 1: I'm aware of it, but sometimes I don't always I
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: guess think of that. You know, not everybody does that
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 1: or not everybody does it as much um as I do.
• 1:57:26
  Speaker 1: And there's certainly are guys that do and some guys
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: that do it more. But that that plays a huge
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: role in uh. And and and probably that's the number
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: one factor is just you know, knowing your area and
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: being prepared and having you know, having like you said,
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of spots to go. Um, you know, and
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: AND's kind of setting those up, kind of setting the
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: groundwork up for success. Um. And then you know, I
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: always try to two locate you know, four or five
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: bucks if if I'm just talking Michigan and northern Ohio,
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: because I consider that kind of my home ground. Um,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: you know, I try to locate four or five bucks,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: the four or five best books I can find. Usually
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 1: they're the most mature bucks. And you know, um that's
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: those are the ones I tend to focus or uh
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: you know, focus around and try to learn as much
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: as I can. And um, you know, if I only
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 1: had one or two, uh, you know, I don't think
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: you see as much success. Um. You know, I think
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: our buddy Joe Elsinger said the same thing. I think
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: he takes a similar approach. He tries to find like
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: six or seven bucks to focus on, knowing that he
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: won't be successful on you know, two or three or
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: four of them, but he will be successful on a couple. Um.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: So I think, you know, I think there's that goes
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: a long way, you know, kind of doing the prep
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: and the groundwork to make sure that your season is
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 1: set up for success and not going into the season
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: with without a plan, you know, and just hoping that
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: you know, a big one is going to show up,
• 1:59:14
  Speaker 1: you know, on your spot during the rut or um.
• 1:59:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I think I think guys would would be
• 1:59:21
  Speaker 1: I would have a better chance of success having a
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 1: couple of scenarios set up like that. Um, you know,
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: utilize everything, utilize public knock on doors, you know, do
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 1: whatever you canada um to kind of set up several
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: of those situations, and then you know, I think I
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: think you'll be able to have more success doing it
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 1: that way. Yeah, yeah, I know. UM, And we've talked
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: about this in the past, that that I'm self aware
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: enough about myself to be able to recognize that as
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: a spot that I need to improve on. I I
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: have fallen victim to sometimes settling for a couple of
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: spots I know I've got and UM although they're usually
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: pretty decent UM and then I have a few years
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: found myself having that bite me in the butt. So
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 1: I think that this conversation is just another great reminder
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: for me that this offseason got to keep on ramping
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 1: it up, keep ramping it up every year, and to
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: your point, always try to have plan for success. I
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: think the way you put it, there is nice plan
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: for have a plan for success that is not asking
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: for luck. You're not depending on luck, You're not depending
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: on it just happening this year. You've got a plan A,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: and if that doesn't work, there's Plan B. And if
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 1: that doesn't work, this plan c d E F UM.
• 2:00:37
  Speaker 1: I think if you want to be consistent, that's the
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: right way to go about it. So Andy Man, I
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: just I'm I'm glad that you um I have been
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: so generous with your time and knowledge and experience because
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 1: it helped me a lot personally, and I guarantee you
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: it's help. It's helping a lot of people have been
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: listening over the last year and a half two years
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 1: since UM super being able to start talking here, so
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: so thanks to Andy. Yeah, no problem, man, it's it's fun.
• 2:01:02
  Speaker 1: I love talking about hunting and get a little more
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: comfortable with it on the podcast. So anytime, anytime you
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: want to talk hunting, I'm I'm game. I think I
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 1: think you're going to be stuck doing a bunch more
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 1: because I enjoy these and uh, man, if if if
• 2:01:20
  Speaker 1: every year, if we hunt together, if our seasons go
• 2:01:23
  Speaker 1: as well as I did this year, we're gonna have
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: to play a whole lot more hunts together because this
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 1: is a good year for us. Yeah, no, kidd, And
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like, you know, we're talking about
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: you know, my season here, but you had a pretty
• 2:01:34
  Speaker 1: magical season yourself, So I think you think you're on
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: the right track. Man, for sure, you got it. You
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: gotta good game plan, and I see, let's see good
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: seasons in your future for sure. Yeah. Well, like like
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: like both of us often like to say, you always
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: just gotta keep getting better, right, always learning, always improving,
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: and uh, that's that's my game plan moving forward. So
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: with that, Andy, I'll let to go. Let's talk soon,
• 2:02:02
  Speaker 1: all right, buddy, thank you, And with that, the only
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: thing I will add just to echo what I mentioned
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: at the top of the show is Merry Christmas, thank
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: you and until next year, stay wired. Tony