Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 260: Spencer’s South Dakota Success with Lieutenant Dan

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Ep. 260: Spencer’s South Dakota Success with Lieutenant Dan · 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. This is episode number two hundred
0:18
Speaker 1: and sixty, and today I'm joined by Spencer new Heart
0:22
Speaker 1: for a bonus Christmas episode to discuss the conclusion of
0:25
Speaker 1: his season long hunt for a special South Dakota buck.
0:44
Speaker 1: All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought
0:48
Speaker 1: to you by Onyx and surprise, we are back for
0:51
Speaker 1: an episode. I told you last week that it was
0:53
Speaker 1: going to be our last episode of two thousand eighteen,
0:57
Speaker 1: but decided to give you a little bonus here, like
1:00
Speaker 1: like a little bonus Christmas gift. I suppose. Um, I
1:04
Speaker 1: was thinking, you know, I don't have anything better to do,
1:06
Speaker 1: and I imagine there's probably some people that just got
1:09
Speaker 1: done with Christmas. They're tired, they had a lot of
1:12
Speaker 1: turkey or a lot of ham. Maybe they're you know,
1:15
Speaker 1: families great, but maybe they've had a little bit too
1:18
Speaker 1: much family. So maybe maybe a few of you are
1:20
Speaker 1: out there you had to find a little time to
1:22
Speaker 1: get away from the Christmas chaos. You want to just
1:25
Speaker 1: kind of hide in the closet or the back room
1:27
Speaker 1: and you needed something to take your mind off of
1:30
Speaker 1: maybe your crazy aunt or off of the sev different
1:34
Speaker 1: toys you've had to put together over the last week.
1:36
Speaker 1: So so I figured we would try to help you
1:38
Speaker 1: guys out, if that's you, UM, with a little bit
1:41
Speaker 1: of deer hunt and talk here to wrap up the year.
1:44
Speaker 1: And what's nice is that we have a really good
1:47
Speaker 1: occasion to celebrate here as well, because in addition to
1:51
Speaker 1: myself today in the episode, we've got the baritone from
1:54
Speaker 1: South Dakota along with us Spencer new Hearth and Uh Spence.
2:00
Speaker 1: You've been on the podcast while you've been on helping
2:02
Speaker 1: us with the RUT Radio for for three years now
2:05
Speaker 1: and then you've been kind of hopping under the main
2:07
Speaker 1: episodes more and more and more. And this year, Um,
2:10
Speaker 1: in particular, we really kind of dove into little bits
2:14
Speaker 1: and pieces of your season. You know, before the season started,
2:18
Speaker 1: you me and Dan kind of broke down our thoughts
2:20
Speaker 1: and our goals. Dan even named one of your bucks, um,
2:24
Speaker 1: so there was there was this beginning of a story
2:26
Speaker 1: for you. And then each week on RUT Radio we
2:28
Speaker 1: kind of have heard just little bits and pieces. Um,
2:32
Speaker 1: but we haven't gotten like an all inclusive, um, comprehensive
2:38
Speaker 1: look at what you did this year. And I think
2:43
Speaker 1: I think it deserves to be looked at now because
2:46
Speaker 1: that buck that Dan named for you, which then we
2:50
Speaker 1: renamed that buck met his maker recently, and that's a
2:57
Speaker 1: story I want to hear, Spencer. So, UM, I guess
3:00
Speaker 1: I should have said marry Christmas first, Spensor, But merry
3:02
Speaker 1: Christmas and then can we talk about this buck? We
3:06
Speaker 1: can marry Christmas to you as well? Mark. Are you excited?
3:11
Speaker 1: Am I excited to talk about Dan? Well? Yeah, I
3:14
Speaker 1: mean are you? Are you? Are you happy? Are described
3:17
Speaker 1: to me? Just your your mood right now post everything
3:20
Speaker 1: that's happened for you this season? Yeah, I'm I'm very happy. Um,
3:24
Speaker 1: still riding the high of killing that book. It was
3:28
Speaker 1: less than a week ago now that it happened. But
3:31
Speaker 1: I did not think he was going to happen for
3:33
Speaker 1: that year, and so I was pleasantly surprised to kill
3:36
Speaker 1: a buck of that caliber and specifically him. So I'm
3:40
Speaker 1: very excited. Yeah, you should be a heck of a deer,
3:44
Speaker 1: heck of a journey. It seems like throughout the season
3:47
Speaker 1: and you know, I don't want to toot our own
3:49
Speaker 1: horn too much this year because next year it might
3:52
Speaker 1: go horribly, horribly wrong. But this year, between between you
3:55
Speaker 1: and me and Dan, we didn't do too bad. We
3:57
Speaker 1: managed to put a few on the ground. And kind
4:00
Speaker 1: of cool that, Um, the buck you talked about at
4:02
Speaker 1: the beginning of the year you got and um, unfortunately
4:06
Speaker 1: buck I was talking about the beginning year disappeared. But
4:09
Speaker 1: you know, things weren't weren't too bad the way they were. So, UM,
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm thinking maybe we just get right into hearing this
4:17
Speaker 1: story because other than the fact that my pantry flooded
4:21
Speaker 1: today because the wash drain is plugged up, so I've
4:24
Speaker 1: got a flooded room. Um, other than that, there's nothing
4:27
Speaker 1: too else exciting that I have to share. UM, So
4:30
Speaker 1: I think we should just dive right in from the
4:32
Speaker 1: beginning and work all the way through. Yeah, so the
4:37
Speaker 1: story of my pursuit for Dan goes all the way
4:40
Speaker 1: back to the spring, and South Dakota traditionally has had
4:44
Speaker 1: an opener that landed on like the fourth Saturday of September,
4:49
Speaker 1: the three or fourth Saturday, So typically it would fall
4:52
Speaker 1: around like September four or or twenty first whatever somewhere
4:58
Speaker 1: in there, UM, and and with that the deer were
5:03
Speaker 1: normally out of their summer patterns. So I was never
5:06
Speaker 1: super pumped for our opener this year in South Dakota, though,
5:11
Speaker 1: UM by an overwhelming vote, they moved the opener to
5:17
Speaker 1: September one to match a lot of our neighboring states
5:20
Speaker 1: like North Dakota, UM, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana. So that was
5:26
Speaker 1: really exciting, and that gave me something else to look
5:30
Speaker 1: forward to for the season. So with that, a lot
5:34
Speaker 1: of my properties set up pretty well for like an
5:38
Speaker 1: early early September hunt, in that I had had a
5:41
Speaker 1: lot of fields that were green beans this year, soybeans
5:44
Speaker 1: this year, excuse me, UM. So I was really excited,
5:47
Speaker 1: and more than normal. I was doing a lot of
5:50
Speaker 1: summer prep. I was putting up a lot of trail
5:52
Speaker 1: cameras UM, doing that kind of thing, hoping to kill
5:57
Speaker 1: a velvet buck. Normally I don't do much of that
6:00
Speaker 1: because all of the intel that I get, UM, you know,
6:05
Speaker 1: from June, July, August, it's irrelevant by the time we
6:09
Speaker 1: get to late September, because those bucks are gone UM
6:13
Speaker 1: or they're off of their summer patterns. They are now nocturnal,
6:17
Speaker 1: not now nocturnal, it doesn't matter. So this year I
6:21
Speaker 1: was really excited for the September one opener. Uh, in
6:24
Speaker 1: my preseason scouting mirrored that, and so I was getting
6:27
Speaker 1: cams up, um, you know, much earlier than I normally
6:30
Speaker 1: would like in June UM, and starting to take my
6:35
Speaker 1: my summer scouting and my summer tree stand, worked my
6:39
Speaker 1: summer chores a little bit more seriously. So this goes
6:43
Speaker 1: back to mid June was when I got the first
6:46
Speaker 1: picture of Dan. I think it was in the middle
6:48
Speaker 1: of the night. Um, it was hard to tell that
6:52
Speaker 1: he was like going to turn into what he turned into.
6:55
Speaker 1: But when he was in a picture, when he was
6:58
Speaker 1: in the same frame its other velvet bucks at that
7:01
Speaker 1: same you know development of velvet, you could tell he
7:06
Speaker 1: was going to be big. So I was immediately excited. Um.
7:10
Speaker 1: But it didn't necessarily mean that this buck was going
7:13
Speaker 1: to become a regular. But as we got into July
7:16
Speaker 1: and August he did. There were some cases where I'd
7:19
Speaker 1: be getting him on camera like morning and evening in
7:23
Speaker 1: daylight for like two days in a row. And so
7:28
Speaker 1: as we talked about then on the August episode with
7:31
Speaker 1: me you further, Dan, Uh, you know, when we're talking
7:36
Speaker 1: about our goals and stuff, I said my goals to
7:38
Speaker 1: kill a velvet buck, and I thought if I was
7:40
Speaker 1: going to kill a velvet buck, it would be Dan.
7:43
Speaker 1: That was not the case. Now now I want to
7:45
Speaker 1: want to hit pause here for a second. And not
7:48
Speaker 1: only was this the first year that you got to
7:50
Speaker 1: hunt a buck or at least try to hunt on
7:52
Speaker 1: buck that would still be in velvet um. But back
7:56
Speaker 1: to that podcast episode you mentioned on that one when
7:58
Speaker 1: we talked about our goals, we all so you know,
8:01
Speaker 1: also forced upon you the idea of naming a buck.
8:05
Speaker 1: Dan Johnson named your buck Forrest, after your favorite movie,
8:08
Speaker 1: Forrest Gump. We later changed that to Lieutenant Dan, because
8:13
Speaker 1: obviously you should have named it Dan. So this was
8:17
Speaker 1: the first year that you, at least as far as
8:19
Speaker 1: I know, um, kind of had a buck like this
8:22
Speaker 1: that you were actively hunting, that you were kind of
8:25
Speaker 1: talking about other people, that other people knew about and
8:28
Speaker 1: they knew about by name. So there's always a little bit,
8:32
Speaker 1: at least for me, there's like some different level of
8:36
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, pressure or or energy
8:39
Speaker 1: or tension around the hunt, like that when you're after
8:42
Speaker 1: one specific deer and you're thinking about that one specific
8:44
Speaker 1: deer so much. Now I know there's there's other deer
8:46
Speaker 1: around here you were you would have shot too. But
8:50
Speaker 1: did the slightly different significance to this one change anything
8:56
Speaker 1: for you as far as how you hunted or the
8:58
Speaker 1: enjoyment you got out of the hunt, hunt, or maybe
9:01
Speaker 1: some stress or anything like that. Uh, it was definitely different. UM.
9:06
Speaker 1: I think the biggest reflection of that was like my
9:09
Speaker 1: early season, since you know, I haunted like nine out
9:12
Speaker 1: of the first ten days of September trying to kill
9:15
Speaker 1: that buck because I knew he was around. I'm not
9:17
Speaker 1: sure that naming him changed that, but because I knew
9:21
Speaker 1: he was there and I had a chance at him,
9:23
Speaker 1: I haunted a lot harder than I normally would at
9:26
Speaker 1: the beginning of this season. But speaking to like us,
9:31
Speaker 1: naming that buck, that's something that I don't do. UM.
9:33
Speaker 1: I think I've named like one buck ever previous to
9:36
Speaker 1: that in the decade that I've been bow hunting. UM,
9:40
Speaker 1: I'm just not really interested in it. If I name
9:42
Speaker 1: it here, there's like there's an implication that I'm only
9:46
Speaker 1: targeting that buck, or there's like an implication that it's
9:50
Speaker 1: even realistic that I would kill that buck. I know
9:52
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who like, we'll get a picture
9:55
Speaker 1: of one big deer in the middle of the night, uh,
9:58
Speaker 1: in early November, and then they name that deer and
10:01
Speaker 1: then they tell everyone, Yeah, I'm hunting this deer and
10:03
Speaker 1: they give him a name. Um, and that's just that's
10:06
Speaker 1: not something I'm interested in doing. Uh, you know, like
10:09
Speaker 1: I said it, it would imply that I'm actually just
10:13
Speaker 1: like slowly targeting this year. And then there's the added
10:16
Speaker 1: pressure to it, uh and some other things. And then
10:19
Speaker 1: I also have a really hard time tracking deer like
10:23
Speaker 1: within the same season or even season after season because um,
10:28
Speaker 1: you know, like we talked about on the August episode,
10:31
Speaker 1: there's like a few times that the deck gets reshuffled. Um,
10:35
Speaker 1: like in South Dakota here. One is when harvest happens.
10:39
Speaker 1: Another one is when pheasant season happens that pushes a
10:42
Speaker 1: bunch of year around. Another time is in rifle season happens.
10:45
Speaker 1: So uh, it's really really rare for me to find
10:50
Speaker 1: a deer in June and then you know, have a
10:54
Speaker 1: history with him that goes like five months later or whatever.
10:58
Speaker 1: All the way into December. So that's just another reason
11:03
Speaker 1: that I'm not somebody who's really named de year before.
11:06
Speaker 1: But you're you're implying that you, regardless of the naming,
11:09
Speaker 1: that's a convenience thing or having fun with a thing,
11:12
Speaker 1: and that's fine for not into that. But then you're
11:14
Speaker 1: talking about the fact that you don't want to target
11:16
Speaker 1: specific deer. But that's yeah, I kind of did this year.
11:19
Speaker 1: So what did this like confirm that you don't like
11:22
Speaker 1: doing that or do you feel differently now? Uh, I
11:27
Speaker 1: still wasn't targeting this specific deer. If you know, when
11:31
Speaker 1: I was archery hunting, if a different inch buck would
11:35
Speaker 1: have walked by and have shot him. When I was
11:37
Speaker 1: rifle hunting, I did a sit that was specifically for Dan.
11:41
Speaker 1: I didn't kill him. My next sit was a sit
11:44
Speaker 1: that was not specifically for Dan ended up killing like
11:47
Speaker 1: a hundred forty inch buck. Then, uh, my muzzleloader sits.
11:51
Speaker 1: You know, that tag was good for the entire month
11:53
Speaker 1: of December. I didn't kill him until December one. I
11:57
Speaker 1: probably had over twenty sits in during that period. Probab
12:00
Speaker 1: behalf of those were for Dan and the other half
12:03
Speaker 1: we're just for other dear, So I didn't over pressure Dan. Um,
12:07
Speaker 1: So I wouldn't say I was specifically targeting that buck,
12:11
Speaker 1: because if that was the case, that I specifically getting
12:14
Speaker 1: that buck, I wouldn't have killed a single other dear
12:16
Speaker 1: until uh, you know, five days ago. Do you think
12:21
Speaker 1: you would have killed Dan earlier? No? No, I don't
12:24
Speaker 1: think I would have killed him earlier. What I'm just
12:26
Speaker 1: saying is, when I had that rifle tag back in November,
12:29
Speaker 1: I shot a different book, and had I been holding
12:31
Speaker 1: out for Dan, I would not have shot that buck
12:34
Speaker 1: fair enough. So, so we're getting up. Maybe we're getting
12:37
Speaker 1: ahead of ourselves though, um so, so taken back to
12:41
Speaker 1: in September, and I guess this is all good context
12:43
Speaker 1: though too, because this does paint the picture a little
12:47
Speaker 1: bit better for someone going into you know, your season
12:50
Speaker 1: here that this buck was, when you knew of this
12:53
Speaker 1: buck was when you wanted to hunt, but you were
12:55
Speaker 1: very um, what's the word all inclusive with what you
12:59
Speaker 1: would you sounds like he wasn't It sounds like he
13:02
Speaker 1: did not weigh heavily in your mind like deer that
13:05
Speaker 1: I hunt do. Yeah, yeah, I think that's a fair
13:08
Speaker 1: way to put it. Like I was I was very
13:10
Speaker 1: aware of Dan. Um. I did some sins that were
13:13
Speaker 1: specifically four Dan, but overall my season was never about
13:18
Speaker 1: killing Dan. You know another thing that might be an
13:22
Speaker 1: interesting point or a point differentiation is it sounds like
13:26
Speaker 1: you've got other deer to hunt, right it sounds like
13:29
Speaker 1: a lot of different deer to hunt, while you know,
13:32
Speaker 1: like in the main spot of hunt closest to my
13:34
Speaker 1: house that's like a nine acre property, is only other ever,
13:37
Speaker 1: like one deer, So by default that becomes like the
13:39
Speaker 1: one deer that I'm hunting. How many different shooters would
13:42
Speaker 1: you say this year that you had on the property,
13:45
Speaker 1: because this is a pretty big property, right, um, that
13:47
Speaker 1: you would have shot maybe or that either got pictures
13:50
Speaker 1: ever saw or something like that. Why hunt a mixture
13:54
Speaker 1: of private in public? I haunt like three or four
13:57
Speaker 1: different private pieces that none of them are over all
14:00
Speaker 1: very big, um and they're all you know, blessed than
14:04
Speaker 1: a hundred acres or so, and they are shared with
14:06
Speaker 1: other people. And then I also haunt some public ground. Um.
14:09
Speaker 1: So in a in a year's time, I'll usually have
14:13
Speaker 1: you know, a number of different shooters that that I'm
14:15
Speaker 1: interested in. And so that's definitely part of it as
14:18
Speaker 1: well is that I'm not forced to just target a
14:21
Speaker 1: single mature buck. If I find a single mature buck,
14:26
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not against Like, I have no problem
14:29
Speaker 1: when people like set out to kill a specific dear
14:32
Speaker 1: like you did with holy Field. Um. I get that,
14:35
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of excitement on that. It's just
14:39
Speaker 1: at my point in hunting, Um, I'm you know, willing
14:43
Speaker 1: to kill like any duck that walks by. So and
14:47
Speaker 1: I have that opportunity here in South Dakota. Like I said,
14:50
Speaker 1: it's it's not uncommon for you know, me to have
14:54
Speaker 1: a half dozen bucks, you know, in a year that
14:56
Speaker 1: I'm interested in killing, rather than maybe just one. Yeah.
15:00
Speaker 1: And we've never really talked about this before. Um, But
15:03
Speaker 1: so does anything else go into your decision to target
15:06
Speaker 1: a buck other than just you want a hundred thirties
15:08
Speaker 1: so much buck? Or do do you do you look
15:12
Speaker 1: at or care about age or experiences with that deer
15:15
Speaker 1: or anything else? Um? Yeah, I don't know about neither
15:21
Speaker 1: one of those things. No, Um, Because like I said before,
15:24
Speaker 1: I have a really hard time tracking a deer throughout
15:27
Speaker 1: the season. There's plenty of deer that I kill that
15:29
Speaker 1: I've never seen before, and so it is a quick
15:32
Speaker 1: decision that I'm going to kill that deer. Um. So
15:35
Speaker 1: as far as it goes with having history with a
15:37
Speaker 1: buck or knowing that dear's age, no, that there's not
15:41
Speaker 1: a lot of that that goes into it. For me,
15:43
Speaker 1: I see a deer and if I get excited about him, um,
15:46
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill him. That's that's basically what it is.
15:50
Speaker 1: And that that's because, like I said, I hunt a
15:51
Speaker 1: lot of small fractured properties that I don't get a
15:54
Speaker 1: chance to like follow a buck year after year, Whereas
15:58
Speaker 1: if I had, you know, a thousand acres is a
16:00
Speaker 1: consecutive you know, good deer hunting ground, that wouldn't be
16:04
Speaker 1: the case. I could find a bucking in June almost
16:07
Speaker 1: every year and follow him all the way until winter. Yeah. Okay,
16:11
Speaker 1: so so so let's dive right back into it then.
16:14
Speaker 1: So all this is good to understand your mindset. You
16:17
Speaker 1: went into September the first nine ten days you kind
16:20
Speaker 1: of did spend more time trying to kill this buck.
16:23
Speaker 1: Didn't work out. Um, walk me through then kind of
16:27
Speaker 1: what happened from there, because if I remember right, you
16:29
Speaker 1: you were kind of hunting around a little bit there
16:32
Speaker 1: was that I think you flooded out a property or
16:34
Speaker 1: something so you couldn't hunt him as much, and you
16:36
Speaker 1: started kind of expanding your range out from there, right, yeah,
16:41
Speaker 1: or at least September, I was targeting that deer, but
16:43
Speaker 1: we had a whole bunch of rain. It rained, like
16:46
Speaker 1: I don't know full out of the first ten days,
16:48
Speaker 1: and where I hunted is at the end of like
16:50
Speaker 1: a minimal maintenance dirt road, and so I literally could
16:53
Speaker 1: not get back to the property even if I wanted to.
16:56
Speaker 1: I could have, I guess, parked my pick up, like,
16:58
Speaker 1: you know, three miles away and walked in there, but
17:00
Speaker 1: I just didn't think it was worth it. And at
17:02
Speaker 1: that point in early September, I was starting to see
17:05
Speaker 1: Dan less and less frequently, and so once that didn't
17:09
Speaker 1: happen in those first ten days, um, I kind of
17:12
Speaker 1: thought it was over with for him, maybe until the rout,
17:15
Speaker 1: And so, you know, the beginning of September didn't happen.
17:18
Speaker 1: After that is when I expanded out and I started
17:21
Speaker 1: hunting like my three or four other spots and kind
17:24
Speaker 1: of forgot about Dan, hoping that maybe during the rout
17:27
Speaker 1: he would show up again. So the rest of September
17:31
Speaker 1: and October UM were just like a normal archery hunting
17:36
Speaker 1: season for me. Sometimes I was in the area that
17:38
Speaker 1: Dan was present, um, but I laid. I did actually
17:41
Speaker 1: lay eyes on him one time, and that was October.
17:46
Speaker 1: He was about two hundred yards away UM. I saw
17:49
Speaker 1: him get out of his bed with another buck, and
17:53
Speaker 1: they never got closer to me than a few hundred yards.
17:57
Speaker 1: But that hunt was important because I saw where Dan
18:02
Speaker 1: was betting, and what I learned from that was that
18:05
Speaker 1: he was way away in one corner of my property
18:09
Speaker 1: that I could not get to without pretty much busting him.
18:13
Speaker 1: If I would have had access from some of the
18:14
Speaker 1: neighbor's ground, which I tried to get and failed, that
18:17
Speaker 1: would have made a difference. I would have been able to,
18:19
Speaker 1: you know, have a different entrance and exit when trying
18:22
Speaker 1: to kill him. But because of deep before that property
18:26
Speaker 1: he was, I just didn't think it was realistic. And
18:29
Speaker 1: so that was October fift and after that is when
18:32
Speaker 1: I kind of seriously moved on from trying to kill
18:35
Speaker 1: him because I didn't think it was practical to just
18:40
Speaker 1: target him. And you know, after that sighting and a
18:43
Speaker 1: little bit before that sighting, all of October, I was
18:45
Speaker 1: maybe getting him on camera h like once a week,
18:48
Speaker 1: not usually during daylight. And so he was like betting
18:52
Speaker 1: on my property and frequently frequenting uh, my property, but
18:57
Speaker 1: not enough for me to to just sit around and
19:01
Speaker 1: wait for him to mess up. And and were you
19:04
Speaker 1: actively to sounds like but it sounds like there wasn't
19:08
Speaker 1: like the desire to try to zero in on it
19:11
Speaker 1: or to like push it, to like get closer or
19:14
Speaker 1: pattern him in any particular way because of because of
19:19
Speaker 1: a you had other options or was it be just
19:21
Speaker 1: because of where you thought he was that it would
19:23
Speaker 1: just be too hard to risk you to do that
19:25
Speaker 1: or what were your thoughts there? Yeah, other options? Um,
19:29
Speaker 1: And because of the corner of the property that he
19:31
Speaker 1: was bedded in, I was worried that if I pushed
19:34
Speaker 1: him out of there, then he would just be gone
19:36
Speaker 1: for good. Then my odds of killing him would go
19:38
Speaker 1: from like a ten percent chance to a one percent chance.
19:42
Speaker 1: And so it just didn't seem worth it to me to,
19:45
Speaker 1: you know, get in there that deep into his little
19:48
Speaker 1: hidie hole and push him out of there. What was
19:51
Speaker 1: that hoidy hole? Like, like, what was this area that
19:54
Speaker 1: a mature buck in South Dakota would call home. So
19:58
Speaker 1: this was a bunch of really thick, plump thickets, UM,
20:04
Speaker 1: kind of like on the high side of a creek.
20:09
Speaker 1: And so there was there a creek that runs through
20:11
Speaker 1: the property and there was a pretty steep cut bank
20:14
Speaker 1: that he was on top of that cut bank, like
20:16
Speaker 1: on the flatter surface, um and then in the middle
20:20
Speaker 1: of a bunch of plump thickets. And so I got
20:23
Speaker 1: to I knew there were there were deer that bedded
20:26
Speaker 1: in that area, and it's always kind of been a
20:27
Speaker 1: sanctuary for them. UM. Kind of forced and by choice,
20:31
Speaker 1: because like I said, it's it's super hard to access
20:34
Speaker 1: um to kill something. And because I, you know, I
20:38
Speaker 1: knew that he was betting over there, then I kind
20:41
Speaker 1: of stayed out even more. And so October was speaking
20:47
Speaker 1: of him during the season. After that, I hunt had
20:50
Speaker 1: a few more times for him. UM. I made a
20:52
Speaker 1: trip to western South Dakota, and late October when I
20:54
Speaker 1: got back, he was on one of my cameras again
20:58
Speaker 1: like ten yards in front of all of one of
21:00
Speaker 1: my tree stands, hitting his scrape and he was kind
21:04
Speaker 1: of starting to make those I don't know, reckless walkabouts
21:09
Speaker 1: that they do in October, and so I was getting
21:12
Speaker 1: him on camera a few more times in late October
21:15
Speaker 1: and early November, but I was never in the right
21:17
Speaker 1: place at the right time. And we got to like,
21:20
Speaker 1: I think it was November eight or ninth, and I
21:23
Speaker 1: knew Um, as a lot of bucks do, that he
21:27
Speaker 1: was probably soon going to like abandon his core area
21:31
Speaker 1: and abandon those patterns that he has, if he had
21:34
Speaker 1: not done it already, because of you know, as they
21:38
Speaker 1: do during the rout, they'll they'll move around all day
21:40
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, you can just lose a
21:42
Speaker 1: buck for good or have a new buck show up
21:44
Speaker 1: for good, kind of like Frank did for you. And
21:47
Speaker 1: so we got to that November eight, and it was
21:50
Speaker 1: I just hunted that morning, and I decided I was
21:53
Speaker 1: going to go walk into Dan's betting area just to
21:56
Speaker 1: see what it was like. And I was okay if
21:58
Speaker 1: I pushed him out of there, because uh, you know,
22:02
Speaker 1: with the peak of the rut just about to hit us,
22:06
Speaker 1: I figured that was as good a time if any
22:08
Speaker 1: to UM. I guess Spook came out of there because
22:11
Speaker 1: he was probably going to leave anyway. And so I
22:14
Speaker 1: went walking in there and sure enough, like fifty yards
22:18
Speaker 1: in front of me, as I'm trying to crawl through
22:19
Speaker 1: these plump thickets, he stands up and it was a
22:21
Speaker 1: hundred percent him. I put my binos on him, and
22:24
Speaker 1: he turned and looked, and he busted out of there
22:26
Speaker 1: and it was over with. And then I got to
22:28
Speaker 1: like really really investigate his betting area. And you once
22:32
Speaker 1: I got in there, you could just smell like a
22:35
Speaker 1: running buck was in there. He was with another bucket
22:37
Speaker 1: as well, um, and he was just full of robs
22:39
Speaker 1: and scrapes. Uh. And you could see why he was
22:42
Speaker 1: so comfortable in there. And it also confirmed for me
22:45
Speaker 1: why I wasn't able to hunt him there. Uh. It
22:48
Speaker 1: was just so loud with those plump thickets trying to
22:50
Speaker 1: get in there, and the topography uh windsworld really bad
22:54
Speaker 1: that trying to approach from any direction just would not work.
22:58
Speaker 1: And so I learned a lot from that. Even though
23:00
Speaker 1: I bumped him out of there, and I was okay
23:02
Speaker 1: with it, like I said, because uh, you know, it
23:05
Speaker 1: was about to be November nine November, he was probably
23:09
Speaker 1: going to you know, leave my property anyway at that point. Interesting,
23:15
Speaker 1: so I saw wors better. A lot of people when
23:20
Speaker 1: they bump a buck out of its bad. I think
23:22
Speaker 1: there's you know, try to take advantage of that and
23:24
Speaker 1: try like the old bumping dump technique where you say,
23:27
Speaker 1: all right, I spooked him out of here, but I
23:28
Speaker 1: know exactly where he was betted, and they tried setting
23:31
Speaker 1: up like right over it. We're very close to it,
23:33
Speaker 1: and hope it maybe he'll come back one more time.
23:35
Speaker 1: Did you try anything like that or think about that? Um?
23:38
Speaker 1: Or if not, what did you do? Yeah? I considered it,
23:42
Speaker 1: and um that was when I tried to get permission
23:45
Speaker 1: again to access you know, from the neighboring properties, and
23:49
Speaker 1: it didn't work out, and so I just thought at
23:52
Speaker 1: that point, Uh, I'm just gonna stay out of here,
23:55
Speaker 1: because um, this is important context to it. I had
23:59
Speaker 1: a rifle egg that was opening about ten days from then,
24:03
Speaker 1: and with that rifle tag, I would be able to
24:06
Speaker 1: set up, you know a few hundred yards away, and
24:09
Speaker 1: if he was still using that betting area, I'd be
24:11
Speaker 1: able to kill him from there, rather than having to
24:14
Speaker 1: be right on top of him in his bedroom. Uh,
24:17
Speaker 1: you know, set up to try to kill him at
24:19
Speaker 1: at twelve yards or whatever. So because I had that
24:22
Speaker 1: rifle tag, coming up and I could make some safer
24:26
Speaker 1: setups for him. Um. That was another reason that I
24:29
Speaker 1: decided not to come back and try to kill him
24:32
Speaker 1: with my bow in that spot. Yeah. That definitely. That
24:35
Speaker 1: definitely helps know you can reach out there a little
24:37
Speaker 1: bit soon. UM. Did you have any worries were there
24:40
Speaker 1: any other guys or girls around their hunting that we're
24:43
Speaker 1: hunting this deer too, or we're close enough that they
24:45
Speaker 1: could have or did you have to worry about that
24:47
Speaker 1: kind of influence? Yeah? Um, And I learned this after
24:52
Speaker 1: I killed him. There's some public ground in the area,
24:55
Speaker 1: um that gets hunted quite a bit, and there was
24:57
Speaker 1: a few different guys on there who had paid extus
25:00
Speaker 1: of the deer just in the middle of the night.
25:02
Speaker 1: I don't think they were serious threats to kill him
25:05
Speaker 1: because of uh, you know how far away from his
25:07
Speaker 1: betting that was, but they were aware of him. Um.
25:10
Speaker 1: And then where he was betting. He was using three
25:14
Speaker 1: different properties regularly, My property and then the two properties
25:20
Speaker 1: that butt up against this corner, and both of those
25:22
Speaker 1: properties have multiple rifle hunters. Nobody bow hunts them, but
25:26
Speaker 1: there are multiple rifle hunters. So I definitely had a
25:29
Speaker 1: fear that you know, come rifle season, nobody in in
25:34
Speaker 1: our deer hunting neighborhood would turn down that buck if
25:37
Speaker 1: given the chance to kill him. And so, um, I
25:40
Speaker 1: wasn't super confident that he would make it through rifle season. Yeah.
25:44
Speaker 1: So okay, So given that context, then you've got other
25:48
Speaker 1: rifle hunters all around, but you also think you could
25:50
Speaker 1: get a shot at him during rifle season. What what
25:54
Speaker 1: was your strategy once he went into that period? So
25:58
Speaker 1: we got to UH rifle season, and like my UH
26:04
Speaker 1: strategy for rifle hunting is I always set up at
26:07
Speaker 1: the highest spot that I can or where I have
26:09
Speaker 1: the best where I have the best bandage point, and
26:12
Speaker 1: then if I see something I don't want to go after,
26:14
Speaker 1: it could be eight hundred yards away or four hundred
26:17
Speaker 1: yards away or whatever, um, then I will approach it
26:21
Speaker 1: um try to get a shot. And that is always
26:26
Speaker 1: been really successful for me, is to just get high,
26:28
Speaker 1: see a bunch of or find something I want to
26:30
Speaker 1: go after, and then go after it. And so that
26:33
Speaker 1: was my strategy to for hunting. Dan on opening morning
26:36
Speaker 1: got to a really high spot was set up about
26:40
Speaker 1: from his betting area that I could see like the
26:42
Speaker 1: entire plump thicket. If he came in there from any direction,
26:45
Speaker 1: I would know, and then I could get closer UM
26:48
Speaker 1: and try to get a shot at him. So opening morning,
26:51
Speaker 1: that's what I did, and I never saw him. He
26:53
Speaker 1: never came into that betting area. And at that point
26:56
Speaker 1: it was mid November. The act date was like November
27:02
Speaker 1: November seventeenth, I believe, And so that was you know,
27:07
Speaker 1: like I spoke to before, the deck kind of gets
27:09
Speaker 1: reshuffled at that point because bucks lose their minds and
27:12
Speaker 1: they started, you know, changing up where they're betting. And
27:16
Speaker 1: you know, a deer that you followed all year can
27:18
Speaker 1: all of a sudden just disappear. And so I thought
27:20
Speaker 1: that's what happened with Dan. So opening morning, I did
27:23
Speaker 1: not see him. Opening night, I set up in a
27:27
Speaker 1: different area, and about five minutes into my haunted doll
27:31
Speaker 1: came running by with like a hunter and in four
27:36
Speaker 1: by four following him, following the doll, and I shot
27:39
Speaker 1: that buck with my rifle and I put my rifle
27:41
Speaker 1: tag on it. Uh, And I was super choked about
27:43
Speaker 1: that deer. It was a deer that I had a
27:45
Speaker 1: little bit of history with. Um. Coincidentally, a lot of
27:49
Speaker 1: the pictures that I had of him were when he
27:52
Speaker 1: was with Dan, So, uh, there was a connection there, um.
27:56
Speaker 1: And that was then my rifle season. I tagged out
28:00
Speaker 1: opening that the opening day of rifle season on a
28:03
Speaker 1: different book, and so I didn't really give myself a
28:05
Speaker 1: chance to uh target Dan more than that. And it
28:08
Speaker 1: kind of goes back to what we talked about how
28:10
Speaker 1: you know, I was aware of Dan and it influenced
28:13
Speaker 1: some of my hunts, but overall my goal was never to,
28:16
Speaker 1: you know, make my season about just killing Dan. So
28:20
Speaker 1: you kill this buck now you're still have an archery
28:23
Speaker 1: tag though, Um, and you went to Kentucky, Like, what's
28:28
Speaker 1: the fact because you told us about the Kentucky hunt?
28:30
Speaker 1: You kill another deer somewhere? Um? Can you fast forward
28:34
Speaker 1: us from that point to when you next really started
28:37
Speaker 1: thinking about Dan again? Yeah, So we brought this up
28:41
Speaker 1: on the radio before. I had a muzzleloader tag for
28:43
Speaker 1: South Dakota. That is hard to draw. It took me
28:46
Speaker 1: like nine points to draw it. And with that muzzler tag,
28:49
Speaker 1: it's good for the entire month of December, it's good
28:52
Speaker 1: for the entire state. And so I kind of looked
28:54
Speaker 1: at that is my next chance to kill Dan if
28:57
Speaker 1: Dan was still around, and so December one came, and
29:01
Speaker 1: from there up until the twenty one, which is when
29:05
Speaker 1: I killed him, I had probably haunted between twenty and
29:08
Speaker 1: twenty five times in the mornings and evenings, um, and
29:12
Speaker 1: about half of those sits were specifically for Dan, and
29:16
Speaker 1: the other half were just to kill any buck. Because
29:20
Speaker 1: this property is not big enough for me to put
29:22
Speaker 1: all my time and energy into just killing Dan. Um.
29:26
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that. Otherwise I would have haunted, you know,
29:29
Speaker 1: straight times for Dan. And so during that time, I
29:34
Speaker 1: thought I laid my eyes on Dan at one point
29:37
Speaker 1: on like December six, but I just couldn't get close enough.
29:41
Speaker 1: Our muzzleloader season, the regulation is open sites or one
29:47
Speaker 1: power scope, and so with that your effective ranges like
29:50
Speaker 1: hundred yards. Basically, Um, if you've never shot open sites
29:54
Speaker 1: with the muzzleloader through one power scope, uh, it's really tough.
29:58
Speaker 1: And so it had Uh it kind of changed my
30:01
Speaker 1: hunting sun as well, because, like I said before, when
30:04
Speaker 1: I rifle hunt, I would just get to a high spot.
30:06
Speaker 1: If I see something five yards away, I can move
30:09
Speaker 1: into position and kill it. But as I learned with
30:11
Speaker 1: this muzzleloader tag you know, all of a sudden, these
30:14
Speaker 1: deer grouped up and there in the groups of like
30:15
Speaker 1: twenty and so there's forty different eyeballs. If you see
30:18
Speaker 1: something you want to go after, that's not necessarily a
30:21
Speaker 1: done deal because you have to you know, approach one buck,
30:26
Speaker 1: but when he is hanging out with like nineteen other deer,
30:30
Speaker 1: and so that makes it really tough trying to get
30:32
Speaker 1: with him in one hundred yards to make that shot.
30:34
Speaker 1: And this is something I talked about with you, Mark
30:36
Speaker 1: that it really uh changed how I had to, you know,
30:41
Speaker 1: try to fill this tag. Yeah, because you were saying,
30:44
Speaker 1: like you usually hunt one of two ways. Either hunt
30:46
Speaker 1: the way you just describe, which is like your rifle
30:48
Speaker 1: hunting style or your bow hunting in which you're setting
30:51
Speaker 1: up for you know, twenty yard shots or thirty yard
30:53
Speaker 1: shots or ten yard shots whatever it is, um from
30:56
Speaker 1: a tree stand. So you have there's like two different
30:57
Speaker 1: ways you typically hunt. And the muzzle loader option though,
31:01
Speaker 1: was kind of this weird in between area. UM. So
31:05
Speaker 1: you told me at first you kind of approached it
31:07
Speaker 1: as as the rifle hunt, and then you very quickly realized,
31:09
Speaker 1: as you just described, there are certain challenges that aren't
31:11
Speaker 1: going to make that work. So then the next thing
31:14
Speaker 1: I heard from you, you said that you were going
31:16
Speaker 1: to start approaching a little bit more like a bow hunt. Again,
31:19
Speaker 1: is that what you end up doing or what did you?
31:22
Speaker 1: Uh So, I still didn't want to limit myself to
31:25
Speaker 1: the point of being in a tree stand where I
31:26
Speaker 1: only had lanes that I could shoot two thirty yards
31:29
Speaker 1: or whatever. I felt that would be too limiting for me. UM.
31:32
Speaker 1: And so what I started doing was I almost was
31:36
Speaker 1: only hunting evenings at this point, and I was setting
31:39
Speaker 1: up on field edgies in a ground blind UM where
31:42
Speaker 1: if something came out of you know where I thought
31:45
Speaker 1: they would enter the field, I would have between a
31:48
Speaker 1: you know, se and two yards shot somewhere in there.
31:53
Speaker 1: And so that that all changed for me about mid December,
31:56
Speaker 1: when I made the switch to haunting that style. What happened?
32:03
Speaker 1: Uh So at this point I didn't really know if
32:06
Speaker 1: Dan was even around. I had pulled a lot of
32:08
Speaker 1: my trailer cameras UM. The one siding I had had,
32:11
Speaker 1: the one siding I had of him was way back
32:13
Speaker 1: in early December. UM, and then I had to take off.
32:17
Speaker 1: I was gone for a week by the time I
32:18
Speaker 1: came back, a lot of things had changed, where there
32:21
Speaker 1: was no longer snow on the ground. We had some
32:24
Speaker 1: like a stretch of really warm days that all of
32:26
Speaker 1: a sudden the deer were not forced to like be
32:29
Speaker 1: up in cut beans and cut corn anymore. And so
32:36
Speaker 1: my uh goals or like I I moved the field
32:41
Speaker 1: goal pulse again in that at this point I was
32:43
Speaker 1: willing to kill like anything over ten inches all of
32:47
Speaker 1: a sudden because the clock was taking um. Things were
32:51
Speaker 1: not in my favor as far as me seeing many
32:53
Speaker 1: mature bucks or like having uh great late season properties
32:58
Speaker 1: to to target them off, and so like going into
33:02
Speaker 1: the night that I killed that dear Dan. It was December.
33:07
Speaker 1: I had set up in my ground blind on a
33:10
Speaker 1: field edge of cut beans with kind of a questionable wind,
33:13
Speaker 1: and I was doing that again because the clock was
33:16
Speaker 1: taking um and my goals had kind of changed. I
33:20
Speaker 1: was willing to shoot a buck that maybe it wasn't
33:22
Speaker 1: even a mature buck anymore. And that evening, with about
33:26
Speaker 1: thirty minutes of daylight left from behind me, I see
33:29
Speaker 1: a buck coming to the field and he was limping
33:33
Speaker 1: really badly. UM, and I pulled up my binos on him,
33:37
Speaker 1: and I saw that it was a big five by five,
33:39
Speaker 1: and gially like I was like, I'm gonna shoot this year.
33:42
Speaker 1: I didn't even have time to but I didn't really
33:45
Speaker 1: take the time to investigate and confirm that it was
33:48
Speaker 1: Dan because I didn't care. It was a mature buck. Um.
33:51
Speaker 1: It was one of the bigger ones that I had
33:53
Speaker 1: seen this year, and it was actually looking like he
33:57
Speaker 1: would be within muzloader range. Oh, it was no doubt
34:01
Speaker 1: about it. I was going to kill this year given
34:03
Speaker 1: the chance. And he limped in from probably like two
34:07
Speaker 1: d fifty yards to a hundred and thirty yards, and
34:11
Speaker 1: that was where I decided I was going to pull
34:13
Speaker 1: the trigger. I would have liked to been a little
34:15
Speaker 1: bit closer, and I think he would have came a
34:16
Speaker 1: little bit closer, but the wind was starting to shift
34:19
Speaker 1: again that pretty soon he was going to be having
34:23
Speaker 1: my sent conen right in his face. And so I
34:27
Speaker 1: shot him at a hundred thirty yards and he dropped
34:29
Speaker 1: in his tracks and I got up to him and
34:33
Speaker 1: he only had one antler on his head at that point,
34:35
Speaker 1: where the whole time that I had been watching him
34:38
Speaker 1: for like this five or ten minutes that he was
34:40
Speaker 1: hanging out in the field. He had two antlers, but
34:43
Speaker 1: not too far away, just like three ft away, was
34:46
Speaker 1: laying his other handler crazy. Yeah, And I still at
34:50
Speaker 1: that point did not even know it was Dan. I
34:53
Speaker 1: was just looking at him and like Dan's number one
34:56
Speaker 1: feature was he spread, And so when he dropped that
34:59
Speaker 1: other antler, I could tell like how big he really was. Um.
35:04
Speaker 1: And Dan also had a split brow that at this
35:07
Speaker 1: point he had broken off, and so that was another
35:09
Speaker 1: reason that immediately I didn't think this was Dan. He
35:12
Speaker 1: was missing the split brow. I couldn't tell how wide
35:15
Speaker 1: he was, and so I just thought I killed a
35:18
Speaker 1: good mature buck until I started investigating a little bit more. So, Well, yeah,
35:24
Speaker 1: so you grabbed the other antler, you stick it on
35:27
Speaker 1: his head to try to see what the steer would
35:28
Speaker 1: have looked like, Well, what did you think when you
35:31
Speaker 1: finally realized this who this deer was. Yeah, I was like, oh,
35:35
Speaker 1: this is a giant. I think this is Dan. And
35:38
Speaker 1: he also had um like these really far back set
35:42
Speaker 1: g two's that a few other bucks that I've seen
35:44
Speaker 1: this year have And then that's something that seems to
35:46
Speaker 1: kind of be and like our gene pool is those
35:49
Speaker 1: way setback G twos and with that and the spread,
35:53
Speaker 1: I'm like this, this has to be him. And so
35:55
Speaker 1: I started looking at the brows a little bit more
35:56
Speaker 1: and I could see where he broke off that split
35:59
Speaker 1: brow tie. Um and then like that was when like
36:03
Speaker 1: the buck fever, I guess kind of got me. I
36:05
Speaker 1: started shaking because that was when I realized that I
36:10
Speaker 1: had just killed Dan. Okay, before we go any further,
36:14
Speaker 1: I want to take a quick second here to thank
36:16
Speaker 1: our friends over at white Tail Properties and to plug
36:20
Speaker 1: one of their land beat videos. And this one's actually
36:22
Speaker 1: from last spring, but it's becoming very relevant again because
36:26
Speaker 1: most of our hunting seasons are just about to wrap up.
36:29
Speaker 1: And what happens right after hunting season ends is that
36:32
Speaker 1: postseason scouting begins, and that's what this video is all about.
36:37
Speaker 1: So going over to the white Tail Properties YouTube channel,
36:40
Speaker 1: make sure you're subscribed to that. They've got lots of
36:42
Speaker 1: good videos there, but this one in particular is called
36:45
Speaker 1: post Season Scouting, very simple title, and my buddy Alex
36:49
Speaker 1: actually walks through some great advice when it comes to
36:51
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff. So check that one out, highly
36:53
Speaker 1: recommend it and um, as the new year, begins, I
36:56
Speaker 1: surely will be getting out there in the woods. Hopefully
36:58
Speaker 1: we'll be too, because there's a lot to learn at
37:00
Speaker 1: this time of year. And speaking of learning, if you
37:03
Speaker 1: do want to learn more about White Tailed Properties, you
37:05
Speaker 1: can head on over to white Tail Properties dot com
37:08
Speaker 1: to see lots of interesting things there too. Now back
37:11
Speaker 1: to the show, So, I mean, do that feel again?
37:15
Speaker 1: I go back to I keep on trying to understand
37:17
Speaker 1: your mindset around you know, your your target choices here.
37:23
Speaker 1: Did it feel any differently than having killed this dearly?
37:25
Speaker 1: It sounds like when you realize what dear this was,
37:28
Speaker 1: your emotions change. You said buck fever hit then, So
37:32
Speaker 1: why did it feel different? Then? Was it? Was it
37:34
Speaker 1: feel Was it more special in some way because of
37:38
Speaker 1: this fact that you knew the deer or something? Or no,
37:41
Speaker 1: it was just like while this is a giant, Uh
37:43
Speaker 1: yeah it was. It was definitely more special. Um. I
37:46
Speaker 1: mean this is like one of you know, my favorite
37:51
Speaker 1: haunting moments I've ever had, because like the story of
37:54
Speaker 1: him goes all the way back until June, and so
37:58
Speaker 1: I can only feel difference than had this just been
38:01
Speaker 1: another deer that I hadn't ever seen before? So that
38:04
Speaker 1: was really exciting to me. Um, But again because of
38:08
Speaker 1: the properties that I hunt and UM, like how how
38:12
Speaker 1: some of those pieces of ground set up. It's just
38:15
Speaker 1: really really hard for me to to set my sides
38:17
Speaker 1: on one buck from the summer and try to follow
38:20
Speaker 1: him all through the year. Um, I would consider Dan
38:23
Speaker 1: to be an anomaly for me. And so, like, if
38:27
Speaker 1: you're wondering if this changes how I'm going to hunt
38:29
Speaker 1: in the future, No, I don't think so. This this
38:31
Speaker 1: was definitely more special, um. And and you know, I
38:35
Speaker 1: loved every minute of the pursuit that lasted like five
38:38
Speaker 1: or six months. But I don't think it's going to
38:41
Speaker 1: change like how I hunt in the future. Okay, Now,
38:47
Speaker 1: outside of that, outside of like the fact this is
38:49
Speaker 1: that first buck you've been able to kind of follow
38:51
Speaker 1: over a month's long period of time and get a
38:53
Speaker 1: shot at Um, did anything else about this hunt stand
38:57
Speaker 1: out to you now afterwards as as like a a
39:00
Speaker 1: learning moment or some kind of takeaway lesson coming out
39:03
Speaker 1: of the two thousand and eighteen season, whether that's in
39:05
Speaker 1: relation to the hunt for Dan or or anything else.
39:08
Speaker 1: I guess this year, Um, what do you think that'd be?
39:12
Speaker 1: Um Man, I don't know, like like you had said
39:16
Speaker 1: with Frank, like just because that dear had huge head gear,
39:20
Speaker 1: it didn't really change like how you were hunting. It
39:23
Speaker 1: just so happened that, you know, Frank had massive antlers
39:27
Speaker 1: on his head, and so that's kind of the same
39:29
Speaker 1: case with Dan. I'm not sure that I come away
39:33
Speaker 1: with like any I don't feel like I did anything
39:36
Speaker 1: different really, Um two that got me to this point
39:41
Speaker 1: where I killed that deer five days ago. Um Yeah,
39:45
Speaker 1: I'm not sure there's like one really big takeaway from me.
39:48
Speaker 1: I think I'm largely like the same hunter that I
39:51
Speaker 1: was in seventeen as I was in eighteen. I don't
39:56
Speaker 1: think there was like naha moment that I made at
40:00
Speaker 1: this point where I was able to kill that deer.
40:03
Speaker 1: Outside of that deer. Looking at your entire season, is
40:06
Speaker 1: there anything that you're gonna do differently next year because
40:11
Speaker 1: of something that happened this year, whether it was Dan
40:13
Speaker 1: or any of the other box or any of your
40:15
Speaker 1: other hunts or any of your other trips. Was there
40:17
Speaker 1: anything that happened this year that you're saying, you know,
40:19
Speaker 1: next year because of this thing that happened, or because
40:21
Speaker 1: of that thing I learned, or because of this, Aha,
40:25
Speaker 1: whatever can you can you envision anything next year that
40:28
Speaker 1: you're a tweak at all? Um, I think I needed
40:33
Speaker 1: to get better with my running gun setups. That's something
40:37
Speaker 1: that I recently added to my to my arsenal, But
40:41
Speaker 1: it's something that I need to get better and more
40:43
Speaker 1: comfortable with. Because had I done that and I was
40:46
Speaker 1: more willing to do some of these running gun setups,
40:49
Speaker 1: I think I would have had a chance at killing
40:51
Speaker 1: Dan maybe in late October, um, because I was like
40:55
Speaker 1: sometimes getting information that was just you know, a a
41:00
Speaker 1: old or something. If I would check a camera and
41:02
Speaker 1: see that he had been on there. Um. You know,
41:05
Speaker 1: if I was more fluent with my running gun setups,
41:08
Speaker 1: I think I maybe would have had a better chance
41:10
Speaker 1: at killing him or maybe maybe like when I kicked
41:12
Speaker 1: him out of the bed um in in you know,
41:16
Speaker 1: early November. If I'd be more confident that I can
41:19
Speaker 1: get in there and set up like in the dark
41:22
Speaker 1: for example, before daylight, or set up and know that
41:25
Speaker 1: I'm going to be really quiet and not bust anything. Um,
41:29
Speaker 1: I think that would have been like a game changer
41:31
Speaker 1: for me. And so I guess that's something that I
41:34
Speaker 1: kind of realized I need to get better at is
41:37
Speaker 1: doing those hanging hunts. Yeah, it's good. That's a good point.
41:40
Speaker 1: That definitely is a great tool to have in the chest,
41:43
Speaker 1: no doubt about that. Um So, this is this is
41:46
Speaker 1: another interesting thing. I just kind of noticed when I
41:50
Speaker 1: was thinking about this deer in your hunt. You had
41:52
Speaker 1: this er this year, this was currently If I'm wrong,
41:57
Speaker 1: but this is the last buck tag that you will
42:00
Speaker 1: have filled as a South Dakota resident because you are
42:04
Speaker 1: moving to Montana. I don't know if this is a
42:06
Speaker 1: public thing, and I hopefully don't mind me sharing this,
42:10
Speaker 1: uh but but I think people probably have noticed. Right
42:14
Speaker 1: you're part of the meat eat or team. Now you're
42:15
Speaker 1: moving to Montana. Um So this is your last residents
42:19
Speaker 1: South Dakota hunting season. How does that make you feel?
42:23
Speaker 1: Is this like a sad or bitter sweet? Or is
42:25
Speaker 1: this like the perfect way to end the year or
42:27
Speaker 1: your your period as a resident. Maybe someday will return,
42:30
Speaker 1: of course, but for the for the short term, where's
42:33
Speaker 1: your head and heart at? Um Well, I definitely didn't
42:36
Speaker 1: want to leave South Dakota. Um I'm leaving South Dakota
42:39
Speaker 1: be as I think meat Eater is amazing. I wasn't
42:43
Speaker 1: looking to to leave this state because I know, UM,
42:47
Speaker 1: like the opportunities that I'm blessed with two hunt here
42:50
Speaker 1: for white tails. Like we've talked about before, Mark, there's
42:52
Speaker 1: some years where if you play your cards right, you
42:57
Speaker 1: can gain the system and end up with like six
42:59
Speaker 1: buck tags. And so, Uh, I am leaving to go
43:03
Speaker 1: to Montana because I think meat eater is an awesome opportunity.
43:07
Speaker 1: So I was not like looking forward to losing my
43:12
Speaker 1: residency here. You know, it was really bummed about it
43:14
Speaker 1: because now all of a sudden, is a nonresident, I
43:15
Speaker 1: can only get a couple of buck tags, and like
43:19
Speaker 1: in in my core area of hunting in the southeastern
43:23
Speaker 1: corner of the state, it's even harder for a non
43:25
Speaker 1: resident to be able to hunt there outside of UH
43:28
Speaker 1: with a bow. And so because I am like losing
43:33
Speaker 1: my residency, this is the perfect way to go out though,
43:36
Speaker 1: um hunting up here UM in a different way, you know,
43:40
Speaker 1: because I got to see him in June, kill him
43:43
Speaker 1: in December with a different weapon being my muzzleloader. UM,
43:47
Speaker 1: and then just kind of everything else that that went
43:49
Speaker 1: into him with him shedding that antler when happened, because
43:53
Speaker 1: I have to go out. This is a good way
43:55
Speaker 1: for and for that to end. Yeah. Yeah, you couldn't
43:58
Speaker 1: write it up much better, I don't think. And and
44:00
Speaker 1: the good news is that while your story is ending
44:03
Speaker 1: in South Dakota, I haven't told you yet, yeah, Spencer,
44:06
Speaker 1: but I actually have been putting feelers out in southeast
44:08
Speaker 1: South Dakota. Got permission on a property. D got killed
44:12
Speaker 1: there this year and like another like maybe high one
44:14
Speaker 1: fifties or one six why ten pointer got killed there.
44:17
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna be hunting there next year. I'm really
44:19
Speaker 1: excited about it. I think it's gonna be great. I'll
44:23
Speaker 1: tell you how it goes. Yeah, yeah, So I will
44:27
Speaker 1: be coming back here for sure to to hunt with
44:30
Speaker 1: my bow. Um, but you know it won't be the same,
44:34
Speaker 1: so I will. Yeah, I'll be back in this area
44:37
Speaker 1: and into some of the year that I've seen this
44:39
Speaker 1: year in the last few years. I'll still get a
44:41
Speaker 1: chance to hunt, but rather than it being an entire
44:44
Speaker 1: season from September September, it's probably gonna just be like
44:47
Speaker 1: a five day stretch in early November. Yeah, that'll be different.
44:51
Speaker 1: But I'm sure you'll have all sorts of all sorts
44:54
Speaker 1: of cool opportunities coming at you Montana to a hunter
44:57
Speaker 1: of paradise. So I'm sure we'll have stories from you
44:59
Speaker 1: next year about that. I guess, yeah, yeah, I guess
45:03
Speaker 1: I will just say I think I said this already,
45:07
Speaker 1: but if not, congratulations Like that is that's an awesome story,
45:12
Speaker 1: an awesome buck, and it's been fun to get to
45:14
Speaker 1: follow along and to see it all come together this way.
45:17
Speaker 1: Is it's just like you said, it's special. Um, I'm
45:21
Speaker 1: I'm obviously anyone who's listening to podcast knows that I'm
45:24
Speaker 1: a sucker about going all in, or at least kind
45:26
Speaker 1: of all in on on these bucks. I really get
45:28
Speaker 1: charged about figuring out one specific deer and and getting
45:32
Speaker 1: to see you dabble in. That was kind of fun
45:34
Speaker 1: from the outside. So big congratsman, And um, I guess
45:39
Speaker 1: you know that's just popped in my head. I it's
45:43
Speaker 1: not related to you at all. But speaking of these
45:45
Speaker 1: bucks that um that we follow, sometimes a year after year,
45:50
Speaker 1: one of the bucks that I was hoping to hunt
45:51
Speaker 1: next year got killed. Did you see that? I did
45:54
Speaker 1: see that survivor? Yeah, that buck I was calling survivor.
45:58
Speaker 1: He was he was a buck last year. I thought
46:00
Speaker 1: he was a three year old, um, and so I
46:03
Speaker 1: was thinking he might be a four year old this year.
46:04
Speaker 1: It might be a deer out hunt. Um. But once
46:07
Speaker 1: he showed up again this year and I started getting
46:08
Speaker 1: pictures and seeing him, I kind of was like, man,
46:11
Speaker 1: that he just does not look like he has the
46:14
Speaker 1: body size of a four year old. Now, of course,
46:16
Speaker 1: estimating a deer's age is a it's it's not science.
46:20
Speaker 1: It's it's a guestimation as best as possibly can on
46:22
Speaker 1: the hoof. Um, taking the factors like body size and history,
46:27
Speaker 1: you can sometimes get a decent guest So I don't
46:29
Speaker 1: know for sure. But my best guess was that I
46:31
Speaker 1: was wrong last year, that he was probably just a
46:33
Speaker 1: good looking two year old last year and probably just
46:35
Speaker 1: a kind of average looking three year old this year.
46:38
Speaker 1: So then I was passing on him this year, hoping
46:40
Speaker 1: he'd make it to next year. Now um, and he was.
46:44
Speaker 1: He was like that most visible deer like Frank was
46:46
Speaker 1: visible for that small period time. And then there's this
46:50
Speaker 1: buck that I that I called Survivor, and then it's
46:51
Speaker 1: one of the tall eight point. Those two were like
46:53
Speaker 1: the two three year old that were quite pretty visible
46:55
Speaker 1: and kept seeing him, kept getting pictures and got all
46:59
Speaker 1: the way through the guns season and got into the
47:01
Speaker 1: muzzle over season. I was thinking, man, like, we're right there,
47:03
Speaker 1: like they're gonna make it. I'll have to deer, hopefully
47:06
Speaker 1: on this this little area I can hunt next year.
47:08
Speaker 1: I was really excited about that and starting to like
47:10
Speaker 1: maybe get over confident in my head, like usually there's
47:12
Speaker 1: only other one. There's only ever one deer that's a
47:15
Speaker 1: that's over four, or that's four or older if and
47:19
Speaker 1: now I'm thinking, man, I'm gonna have two next year.
47:21
Speaker 1: This is gonna be great. And both of those deer
47:23
Speaker 1: I've seen for multiple years. And then uh yeah, I
47:26
Speaker 1: counted my chickens before they hatched. Because in the last
47:28
Speaker 1: day of muzzlo or season, UM survivor got got hit,
47:33
Speaker 1: got shot, so he's done. He got shot by a
47:37
Speaker 1: neighbor UM who I ended up seeing him on the property.
47:40
Speaker 1: Saw he was tracking the deer. Track the deer onto
47:43
Speaker 1: the farm. I can hunt UM, And I went out
47:45
Speaker 1: there and helped him that next morning, and UM actually
47:49
Speaker 1: actually was the one who found him. Um drove around
47:53
Speaker 1: the guy who shot him lost blood and so I said, well,
47:56
Speaker 1: I know some different betting years that I can just
47:58
Speaker 1: go check real quickly, uh and drive a four wheeler
48:01
Speaker 1: round some these edges and scope in there a little bit.
48:04
Speaker 1: And the first little high cool I went to there
48:07
Speaker 1: he was so um yeah it was It was nice
48:10
Speaker 1: to be able to be there too, to see what happened,
48:12
Speaker 1: you know, because lots of times as these deer you
48:15
Speaker 1: see get pictures of and then one year that just
48:18
Speaker 1: disappeared like holy Field this year for me, he just
48:20
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. So in this case, it was
48:22
Speaker 1: nice to know at least you know how the story ended,
48:25
Speaker 1: got to got to see him up close, got to uh,
48:28
Speaker 1: you know, be a part of someone else having a
48:30
Speaker 1: really nice day. So that's the silver lining, I guess. Right.
48:35
Speaker 1: So how do you feel then, about going between the
48:38
Speaker 1: potential mature bucks. Do you think that leaves you with? Well,
48:42
Speaker 1: as far as bucks that are around right now, that
48:44
Speaker 1: would leave just one. There's one three year old that
48:47
Speaker 1: I think is still alive. Um and I don't even
48:50
Speaker 1: know for sure. Last time I got pictures of him
48:52
Speaker 1: was probably at least a week ago. Um, so there
48:57
Speaker 1: was still a week a muzzlin or season in between
48:58
Speaker 1: then and now that he could have got hit somewhere Um,
49:02
Speaker 1: but hopefully that one um made it, and I'm certainly
49:07
Speaker 1: not gonna shoot him the rest of the year, So
49:08
Speaker 1: hopefully he's smart and sticks around and it makes the
49:12
Speaker 1: next year, and he'd be cool. Dear Um. I saw
49:14
Speaker 1: him quite a bit this year, passed on him the
49:17
Speaker 1: night that I shot Frank UM. But you never know
49:22
Speaker 1: if he's out. You know, holy Field wasn't around this year,
49:25
Speaker 1: and Frank showed up. Frank's not gonna be around this year.
49:28
Speaker 1: Hopefully some other mature buck, whether it's this tall eight
49:30
Speaker 1: pointer that I've been calling Tran and named him after
49:32
Speaker 1: a buddy of mine, um or some other buck, kind
49:35
Speaker 1: of rolls in um. And if not, I'm I'm working
49:38
Speaker 1: on getting permission on some new spots next year and
49:41
Speaker 1: kind of diversifying where I can hunt locally, because you know,
49:45
Speaker 1: I hunt a bunch of different states, but here locally,
49:47
Speaker 1: I've kind of focused a lot in this one little
49:49
Speaker 1: tiny spot and then every year kind of dabble in
49:51
Speaker 1: some other regions. But I'd like to kind of diversify
49:55
Speaker 1: closer in this area so that I can still hunt
49:56
Speaker 1: locally but not have just this little, you know, forty
50:00
Speaker 1: acre patch. But just have a bunch of places closer
50:02
Speaker 1: that I can you know, stay at home, be with
50:05
Speaker 1: my family, but then still have a number of options.
50:07
Speaker 1: So that's one of my goals going into this year,
50:09
Speaker 1: this next year. Um, because you know to what I
50:13
Speaker 1: alluded to earlier, it becomes very much like by default,
50:17
Speaker 1: the hunt for one deer, because if you don't get
50:18
Speaker 1: that deer, if someone else gets that deer, then there's
50:20
Speaker 1: nothing but year and a half old and like a
50:21
Speaker 1: two year old usually run. So let's see, um. One thing,
50:29
Speaker 1: one thing we didn't get to really touch on in
50:30
Speaker 1: that story was um like when Dan shed that handlers.
50:33
Speaker 1: So one thing that determines win deer shed besides like
50:38
Speaker 1: photo period, that's the obvious one, you know, that's why
50:40
Speaker 1: most of them shed between January and March or whatever.
50:44
Speaker 1: But another factor is health. And so if a buck
50:47
Speaker 1: is really healthy and he has a great food source
50:50
Speaker 1: and it's an easy winter and there's no predators, you
50:53
Speaker 1: know that that kind of buck can hold on his
50:55
Speaker 1: handlers until like April. I've seen it while turkey hunting,
50:58
Speaker 1: you know, deer holding andlers at l a. But on
51:00
Speaker 1: the opposite end of the spectrum is if a book
51:03
Speaker 1: is not healthy. And so you know, Dan limping in
51:07
Speaker 1: was you know obvious that that he was in doing
51:11
Speaker 1: very good. And that was why you know when I
51:13
Speaker 1: shot him, that one antler popped off from him hitting
51:16
Speaker 1: the ground. The next morning I was moving him, I
51:18
Speaker 1: accidentally popped his other handler off even though I was trying.
51:21
Speaker 1: I was trying to be super careful and not tug
51:24
Speaker 1: on it or you know, have any sudden movements with it,
51:26
Speaker 1: but I just couldn't prevent it. The other one popped
51:29
Speaker 1: off the next day. Um, And so he was he
51:33
Speaker 1: was limping visibly when I went to got him in
51:36
Speaker 1: his one back ham h, he had like a pretty
51:40
Speaker 1: bad wound um to the point where there was like
51:44
Speaker 1: just a little bit of intestines sticking out. Um. Yeah,
51:48
Speaker 1: he was. He was blind in one eye that I realized,
51:51
Speaker 1: you know after I had shot him. Uh. His he
51:55
Speaker 1: hardly had any fat on him at all. Um, Like
51:58
Speaker 1: you could see his his backbone, uh you know, while
52:02
Speaker 1: right after I killed him, like you could run your
52:04
Speaker 1: hand along his backbone and feel every vertebrae. When I
52:08
Speaker 1: skinned him, like I said, he was super super lean
52:12
Speaker 1: when his body was hanging there and he was skinned
52:15
Speaker 1: out and kept out. You would have thought it was
52:18
Speaker 1: a doe hanging there because his neck was so small
52:22
Speaker 1: and not what you used to with the mature buck. Now,
52:24
Speaker 1: I don't think this was like a you know, some
52:26
Speaker 1: grandfather out there walking around. I think this is probably
52:29
Speaker 1: like a five and a half year old buck. But
52:31
Speaker 1: some other deer in the area like really really messed
52:34
Speaker 1: him up in the rut and that was why I
52:39
Speaker 1: think that was another reason that I was able to
52:43
Speaker 1: like get a chance on him into December, because a
52:46
Speaker 1: lot of those deer will leave during the rut um
52:49
Speaker 1: and then it just stay wherever they wound up at.
52:52
Speaker 1: But I think another buck like really messed him up,
52:55
Speaker 1: and then he felt comfortable there and that was one
52:58
Speaker 1: of the reasons that he hung around and was able
53:00
Speaker 1: to you know, kill him what I did. And I
53:02
Speaker 1: don't think that he would have made it through the
53:04
Speaker 1: winter either. Um. You know, whether it was infection that
53:07
Speaker 1: would have got him because that backham was so uh
53:11
Speaker 1: you know, Gord or you know, if coyotes in the area,
53:15
Speaker 1: because he was not as mobile as as a mature
53:18
Speaker 1: buck should be. Yeah, yea, that's um. I wonder if
53:22
Speaker 1: that was also something that led to him, you know,
53:24
Speaker 1: being killable on that food source during daylight. You see
53:27
Speaker 1: a lot of times those bucks that are struggling, they
53:30
Speaker 1: just become so much more dependent on being on that
53:33
Speaker 1: food all the time as they're trying to refuel. Um,
53:35
Speaker 1: the bed really close they come on. I've seen there
53:38
Speaker 1: was a buck this year that same way. He was
53:40
Speaker 1: injured and he was just out in the food all
53:42
Speaker 1: the time. Um, he was betting in the food source.
53:46
Speaker 1: He was gumping around and he would just lay right
53:47
Speaker 1: in the middle of a cut being field and just
53:50
Speaker 1: be out there. Uh. And unfortunately he wasn't hurt so bad.
53:55
Speaker 1: I've kept kept watching him trying to see, you know,
53:57
Speaker 1: what situation was going to be, and he was getting
53:59
Speaker 1: better and better and putting on Wait, and by the
54:00
Speaker 1: time we got into the late season, Um, he's moving around,
54:04
Speaker 1: you know, just like any other deer. It looks like
54:06
Speaker 1: he's gonna be fine. So that works out very well
54:09
Speaker 1: though sometimes on it's a buck you're after, and um,
54:12
Speaker 1: he certainly did in this case. So yeah. Yeah, and
54:15
Speaker 1: like all this, you know, mental real estate we invest in,
54:19
Speaker 1: like hunting a mature buck like that, it could just
54:23
Speaker 1: be something completely out of my control and lucky like
54:26
Speaker 1: that that he happened to get messed up by another
54:29
Speaker 1: buck and then he just decided to to not leave
54:32
Speaker 1: the property. And like you said, he was you know,
54:34
Speaker 1: more visible, likely because of it's that I was able
54:37
Speaker 1: to kill him. Yeah, well, you know, I uh we
54:41
Speaker 1: say this often but so cliche, but but luck really
54:44
Speaker 1: is where preparation meets the opportunity. You gotta do all
54:47
Speaker 1: the right things to to be able to take advantage
54:49
Speaker 1: of that luck. And the kind of I feel like
54:51
Speaker 1: it's what happens anytime any one of us kills one.
54:53
Speaker 1: It's luck, right, because there's so many things that can
54:55
Speaker 1: go wrong, so you have to get lucky that some
54:58
Speaker 1: of the things go right. You just need to be
55:00
Speaker 1: doing enough of the other things right that the luck
55:03
Speaker 1: is the final piece of the puzzle and not just
55:05
Speaker 1: one out of ten other pieces that you didn't take
55:07
Speaker 1: care of. So so you certainly did that. That's pretty cool.
55:10
Speaker 1: Interesting of note to your point there about how your
55:13
Speaker 1: buckshed early while I was out there helping this guy
55:17
Speaker 1: track survivor, he stumbled upon a shed, a four point
55:21
Speaker 1: shed um that was real fresh, still blood in the bottom.
55:25
Speaker 1: So some deer over here just shed shed sandler too.
55:28
Speaker 1: And interesting. I think I mentioned this when we did
55:31
Speaker 1: the Frank Store, but it's worth noting again. Frank last
55:34
Speaker 1: year UM shed his antler in January because I saw
55:38
Speaker 1: him on a on a neighboring field with one antler missing.
55:42
Speaker 1: I think it was like January twenty or late January
55:45
Speaker 1: or something like that. UM. So he, interestingly, you know,
55:50
Speaker 1: dropped an antler early last year, and I don't know
55:52
Speaker 1: what that was, UM, what that had to do with anything,
55:55
Speaker 1: or why that happened in his case. UM. He didn't
55:57
Speaker 1: look unhealthy when I saw him last year, UM or
56:01
Speaker 1: injured or anything. But one thing. Now I'm really going
56:05
Speaker 1: off kind of off the rails here. But you know,
56:10
Speaker 1: when you look at that deer, a lot of people
56:12
Speaker 1: noticed that his left side was much stronger than his
56:15
Speaker 1: right side. UM, Like, he had significantly longer times on
56:19
Speaker 1: on that left side than the right. And by significant
56:22
Speaker 1: I mean like a couple inches inch or two maybe. UM.
56:25
Speaker 1: And someone I know from the Quality Management Association reached
56:29
Speaker 1: out to and said, hey, you know, it's kind of
56:31
Speaker 1: interesting how much better of a side he had this
56:33
Speaker 1: year on the left versus the right. Do you know
56:36
Speaker 1: if he got injured at all last year. Um on
56:38
Speaker 1: like the opposite leg, because lots of times you'll see
56:41
Speaker 1: things like that where an injury on the back leg
56:43
Speaker 1: might impact the other side aniler, so the like a
56:46
Speaker 1: back right leg injury oftentimes will impact the left antler
56:50
Speaker 1: um for whatever reason that is. And so I started thinking, well,
56:54
Speaker 1: I don't, I didn't. I hadn't seen him, you know,
56:56
Speaker 1: at all last year other than the one time while
56:57
Speaker 1: hunting in December, and that was so quick I couldn't
56:59
Speaker 1: tell if he was injured. But to what I just
57:02
Speaker 1: told you that January sighting, he dropped earlier, so that
57:05
Speaker 1: might indicate, like you said, either malnutrition or an injury
57:09
Speaker 1: or something. So so maybe that was something going on
57:11
Speaker 1: with him last year, And I don't know if that
57:14
Speaker 1: impacted things in all this year. He seemed healthy as
57:16
Speaker 1: a horse this year. Um but um interesting things to
57:20
Speaker 1: take note, And I don't know. I think this is
57:21
Speaker 1: a really roundabout way of explaining why I got such
57:25
Speaker 1: a kick out of your hunt and why I got
57:27
Speaker 1: such a kick out of this hunt for frank Is.
57:29
Speaker 1: I just love watching these animals, I love learning about
57:32
Speaker 1: these animals, I love like all the little things that
57:35
Speaker 1: go into it. Whether it's with a whole bunch of
57:36
Speaker 1: different new places and new critters, or if it's one
57:39
Speaker 1: little property and one deer. Um just being able to
57:43
Speaker 1: be a part of all these experiences and be out there.
57:46
Speaker 1: And it's for all like the high minded intellectual words
57:54
Speaker 1: or rationale that we like to sometimes talk about, or
57:56
Speaker 1: all the management objectives that we're achieving with hunting this deer,
57:59
Speaker 1: or all conservation wins we get out of it, or
58:02
Speaker 1: all the you know, the sustainability and the great food
58:05
Speaker 1: you get. All those things are amazing. They're all part
58:07
Speaker 1: of it. But you know what, this is just a
58:09
Speaker 1: lot of damn fun sometimes, and uh it's not a
58:12
Speaker 1: bad thing to to to remind ourselves of occasionally, yeah,
58:16
Speaker 1: for sure. And um going back to an episode that
58:19
Speaker 1: you and I recorded in mid September, I made the
58:23
Speaker 1: sports ball analogy that like if my season, if my
58:27
Speaker 1: season was around to golf that back in September I
58:29
Speaker 1: had just heat off or whatever. But now that I
58:33
Speaker 1: just killed and it's at the end of December, I
58:35
Speaker 1: am back at the clubhouse at this point after eighteen
58:38
Speaker 1: good holes and uh, saving on a beer. So that's
58:42
Speaker 1: where I'm at right now, and I think that is
58:44
Speaker 1: where we should wrap up. We should all crack a
58:47
Speaker 1: cold beverage of whatever is legal for you and available,
58:51
Speaker 1: whether that's a Coca cola, a nice glass of milk,
58:55
Speaker 1: or some other frosty beverage, Take a sip, enjoy it,
59:00
Speaker 1: look back on two thousand eighteen. Hopefully everyone else listening
59:04
Speaker 1: had as good of a year as as me and
59:05
Speaker 1: Spencer had. I know it doesn't always happen that way.
59:08
Speaker 1: We both are very fortunate. Spencer, I know I'm pinching myself.
59:11
Speaker 1: You probably are too. And uh, just a thankful, thankful
59:15
Speaker 1: group of hunters here. I think that that are part
59:17
Speaker 1: of Wired Hunt, and I hope everyone listening had a
59:20
Speaker 1: similar year, similar exciting moments, similar lessons learned, and uh,
59:25
Speaker 1: with that, I think we should wrap it up and
59:27
Speaker 1: six years to everyone into two thousand eighteen. So thank
59:31
Speaker 1: you every one. This is truly the last podcast of
59:35
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, So Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and
59:39
Speaker 1: stay Wired to Hunt