Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 258: The Hunt for Frank

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Ep. 258: The Hunt for Frank · 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 eight,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: and today I'm sharing the story of my hunt for
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the buck known as Frank, the largest buck I've ever
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: had the privilege of hunting. All right, welcome to the
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I I don't know, Um what am I trying to say?
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I guess I don't have the right words to describe
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: how excited I am for this one. It's a story
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to share. Um. And we'll get right to
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: it because I've had a lot of people want to know,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: like when are you gonna tell the story? When you
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: canna tell the story? So we're gonna finally tell the story. Um,
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I got Spencer here with me, I got Dan here
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: with me to help break down the story of my
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: hunt for Frank, And UM, I gotta I gotta apologize,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: right Dan, Spencer, you knew this, but I was was
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: kind of playing at low key on this buck. Um.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: But but now we can tell the full, the full story, right, Dan. Yeah, Well,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the first thing you need to do, I feel, is
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: tell everybody why you kept this all low key. Well,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: there's this buck that I was hunting this year, and
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: he was not normal for where I hunt, very abnormal
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: for where I hunt, and I was just when this
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: buck showed up, it was a kind of deer that
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: would would gain a lot of attention. And I was
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking, you know what, I don't need any
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: extra added attention to what's happening here or any extra
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: pressure on me with this hunt. I was kind of like,
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to jinx anything. I don't
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: wanna you know. I just felt like I should just
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: kind of hunt, just try to take care of the
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: hunt myself without all the other stuff going on. And
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and then if it all came together or whenever it all,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you know, one way or another, whenever it concluded, I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: would talk about some of the details and stuff. Um.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And and now I'm very very fortunate that I can
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: actually now share everything without needing worry at all because
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: it came together the way I wanted it to. But
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: but yeah, man, this this this buck, frank Um, it
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: was like a once in a lifetime probably buck in Michigan. Um.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: So I'll break that down a little more maybe once
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: we get into the story. But this book is is
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: really big or where I hunt, he's not. He's not
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: once in a lifetime maybe in Michigan, but he's a
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: once in a lifetime deer anywhere. Yeah, I think white tails,
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: I think for most people, Yeah, for sure. Um, and
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: he's he's he's big. I mean it's like blow your mind,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: like holy shit big um, the kind of this is
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: the biggest deer I've ever seen while deer hunting in
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: my life. And um, I've seen maybe only two other
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: deer bigger during the summer. Like I've been on some
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: summer scouting trips, you know, on glass and being fields,
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and I've seen a buck that was bigger in Iowa once.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: And I saw a buck that was probably bigger than
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: this or right in that ballpark in Ohio once. Um, otherwise,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: this is probably the biggest deer. Um. So yeah, it was.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: It was very unexpected like that. These deer do not
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: they're not around where I hunt. So I feel like
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I was kind of like, you know, maybe maybe Dan,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you know, somehow I rubbed off your Aowa good luck
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: on me and and one of those deer knuck over
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the border to Michigan because that's what I felt like.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: So he was he was a secret to the wired
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: hunt community. But what about too, like the other hunters
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: in your area? Did people know about this year? So
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: that's a good question. I don't know. I wondered about that.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: I have a hard time believing that he was a
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: complete secret. UM. But I'm not like terribly tapped into
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: the local community. UM. I know some of my neighbors,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: but but most of them ortin deer hunters. UM. A
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: couple of deer hunters I do know weren't weren't really
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: aware of him. There was one who was, UM. A
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: friend of mine around here actually texted me one night
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: and he's like, Dude, I I just nearly hit a
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: giant drive in my truck past the property that you hunt.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, oh, really, UM, that's interesting, and I
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: believe it was probably the same deer. UM. I think
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: they're Actually he was well known because I was through
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: some of the comments on your Instagram page and it
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: sounds to me like there's a group of guys who
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: were very familiar with this dear. Really yep, yep, I
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: didn't see that. Yeah, so I think they called him Frankenstein.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Oh that's what we called him. M hmm, that's what
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: we call. Okay, well, I'm a jackass. Continue, Well, so
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: you say frank and there was other people posting about Frankenstein.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So I thought it was two different two different dear. Yeah, no,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: so so frank is short for Frankenstein. So I got that. Yeah,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: so we should we should just say what we should
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: pride to just rewind to the very beginning of the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: story and then then and then we'll work our way
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: through with with the added context now that I can
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: add to the story. So, so frank first showed up.
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: When he first showed up, he was an unnamed buck.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Because this happened in two thousand sixteen, So the season
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen was that year I was hunting
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: holy Field to using them all over the place. Um
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: that I was seeing holy Field all the time. This
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: is the year that I almost got a shot at
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: him at forty yards but couldn't quite see him in
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: my pins, so I didn't take the shot and then
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: decided at the end of the season in December, you
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: know what, I don't want to shoot this steer anymore.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: I want to give him one more year. So I
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: passed on holy Field, um during muzzleloader season and and
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: you know, had him around their bunch during that time period,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and that I was getting pictures, and I had that
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: encounter with holy Field in that kind of food plot
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: system that I've talked about a lot that I've created
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: here on the front side of this property that I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: got permission on well on December it was December nine,
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: I think of two thousand and sixteen. I got a
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: picture of this buck. I'm like, man, that's a nice
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: ten point. I've never seen him before, never gotten pictures
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: of him before. I got one picture of him in
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that food plot system, and then a couple of hours later,
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I got another picture of him maybe about a hundred
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: and fifty two hundred yards away on another camera. Is
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: the only time that buck showed up. I was thinking,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: he's probably like a He definitely looked like a three
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: year old and he may be like thirty class type
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: three and a half year old. So like, wow, that's
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: that's a nice buck. Nice probably a bigger deer than
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: holy Field even was that you're maybe here in that ballpark,
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: but um, just kind of a random show up type deal.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It was cool, but never saw any more pictures of him,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: never you know, nothing more from him. Didn't think a
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: whole lot more about that deer. The off season comes
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: and goes. Um, it's shed hunting season, shed hunting season
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: of two thousand seventeen, and my number one goal is
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: to try to find the shed from holy Field. So
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I'm shed hunting all over the place, hiked and hiking
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: and hiked to put a ton of miles in the boots.
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: No luck. Um got permission on a lot of different
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: properties in the general area to shed hunt too, And
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: on one of those different properties that I permission on,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I found a soft, really nice shed sitting in some
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: tall grass and I'm like, holy crap, that's holy Field shed.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I go running over there pick it up, and it's
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: not holy Field shed. It's a different buck. Jeez, this
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: is a really nice shed, and I'm looking at it
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm thinking, my god, do I know this buck?
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I mean, first thing, first thought, no, I don't, because
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: the only decently large buck was holy Field that I've
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: been seeing in hunting. But then when I got to
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: thinking about I was like, this kind of looks like
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: that buck I got a picture of, And I went
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: back looked at the trail Karen pictures enough, and sure
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: enough it was that same buck I got pictures of
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: on December ninth or tenth, or whatever that day was.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So I found the shed, got one set of pictures
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: of this deer. Cool, but still, you know, I didn't
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: have a whole lot going for me. Now we get
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: into the summer. It's the summer of two thousand seventeen. Um,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: really hoping how big it was he in two thousand sixteen?
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: You think I thought it would be like one thirty
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: or something like that, as a ten pointer, as three
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: and a half reel ten? Yeah, okay, Um? And how
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: like how deep into the neighbor's property was he when
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: you found that she had? Did to seem realistic that
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: this buck could someday like be irregular at your place. Um,
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: it was definitely realistic that that's kind of buck that
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: could pass by my property that I could hunt. Um,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: it wasn't so far away that it would be like
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: impossible he would me certainly was in the reund of
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: possibility he could show up. But the fact that he
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: hadn't shown up except for one day on the property
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: I could hunt, made me think it was unlikely like
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: this property to hunt. I almost never ever get random bucks,
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Like it's always there's the bucks I get on the
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: camera starting in September, and those are the same, dear,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: I see the entire year. I never get rut bucks
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: that show up by surprise. I never get bucks that
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: mysteriously show up in late season. It's always the same, dear.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Just that's how it's always been on this on the spot.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: So given the fact that I had not seen this
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: buck that season in two thousand and sixteen, or it
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: is a two year old and two thousand and fifteen,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I just never really he never really entered my thought
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: as like, oh I might be able hunt him. Knew
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: there's like a possibility, but it wasn't like a realistic thing.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: I was like, I really hope this dear has been
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: around a bunch. I didn't really think it happened. So
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: it takes me two thousand and sixteen again, or no
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: starry two thousand seventeen and again it's all Holy Fields, right.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: If you guys remember last year was all about putting
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the plan together for holy Field. He was the number
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: one buck everything was revolved around this deer. Yeah, exactly. Um,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: And a neighbor of mine had let me know like
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: this this, uh, this woman knows that I'm a big
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: deer hunter, and she happened to say, hey, I've been
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: seeing a whole lot of deer in the field across
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: from my house, including some like nice bucks. Like you
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: should come and like sit in my driveway and look
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: at these deers someday. So I go drive down the
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: road to where this property is that this lady um
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: is on and um, I go pull into her driveway
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and I sit there for the evening. This is maybe,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: I don't know, sometime in July, I would guess, maybe
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: two seventeen, and a whole bunch of deer are piling
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: out into this bean field, and eventually some bucks and
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: then finally, like this mega buck pops out like a
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: really big Michigan buck. And I actually, I'm pretty sure
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I posted a video of this on Instagram. I think
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: last summer, I guess it would have been. And I'm
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: on this buck. I'm like, I don't know this buck,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Like this is a big deer. This is like one
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: of the biggest deer I've ever seen around here. I
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: can't believe this deer is in the general vicinity of
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: of where I can hunt. Um. And at first I
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: was hoping it's gonna be holy Field as I'm looking
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: at him, like there's I don't think there's any way
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that could be holy Field. Just did not look like
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: him at all, even if he even if holy Field
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: blown up and like add some character points or something. Um,
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I just this did not look like him. An awesome
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and jeeves, this is like some different random buck, really nice, um,
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: not too far away from where I can hunt, and
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: that was exciting. So I saw that deer twice. UM.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: I think it was July, July or August. I can't
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: remember saw him twice. But then the season starts and
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I started getting pictures of holy Field, start getting pictures
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: of some other deer, but this random buck nothing. Um.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: So as the season progress, I kind of just forgot
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: about that deer altogether. UM. I didn't think anything that
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: dear again until December. Late December, holy Field has disappeared.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: You know, I had my chance in November didn't work out.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Now it's December. I've shifted over to dough patrol because
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen it or gotten pictures or anything of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Holy Field, and like almost I don't know what it was,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: four weeks or something. I finally had to try to
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: kill some doughs in this place. So me and Further
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: are in dough patrol. We're sitting in the um. I
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: got this box blind. We're sitting this box blind together
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: trying to shoot a couple of doughs. Maybe it's like
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: December twenty seven or eight or somewhere in that ballpark.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: And I remember looking down this long um opening and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: a bunch of deer start filing through it, and they're
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: kind of like jogging, like something that's spooked him, it
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: seemed like. And I see a couple of dolls and
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: then a couple of little bucks, and the little buck
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: stops and turns around look behind them, and then all
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, this colossus mystery buck comes walking out
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, Further, look at this thing. Holy shit,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: And um, it's this this giant deer the biggest year
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen in Michigan um and it's on it's
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: on the property I can hunt, and it was like unbelievable.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: And we talked about this during the podcast. Dan, I
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: don't know I don't know if you remember, but I
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: was like, I was calling him the mystery Buck. Do
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: you remember that? Ye? Yes, the mystery Bucks showed up,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: walked through this opening, and disappeared. He was a couple
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away, though maybe like three or four hundred
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: yards away. Something like that. Passes through disappears, and that
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: was that super exciting, but you know, just a quick thing.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: I checked cameras the next day or something, hoping maybe
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: he'd been around. Nothing, no pictures of him. Um. I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: hunted the rest of the season, hoping to maybe see him.
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: I was bringing my bow along with me just in
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: case that bucks showed up again. Nothing. Continued rolling cameras
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: through the rest of the winter, no pictures. That takes
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: me though too. I think it was late January, maybe
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: give or take somewhere around that place. And again I'm
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: out in the vicinity of this property. I'm always, you know,
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: checking this place out, always looking around in the summer.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: I'm glass in the fields in the winter, on glass
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: and fields, trying to see where these bucks are, trying
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: to know where I should shed hunt. And I get
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to a cut corn field in the general area and
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: there's a bunch of deer feeding out in this cut cornfield,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: and I pulled the binos on this group of deer
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: and a deer pooks picks up his head and it's
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: a giant missing an antler though just once he's got
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: one antler, but it's a huge five point side like
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: and and right away I was like, oh my gosh,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: that's the buck. That's the mystery buck. And it's it's
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: a it's it's it's relatively close to that same property,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that same area where I saw him in December, so
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: I got some video of him. Then now I'm thinking, okay,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: this is that that interestingly was actually right near where
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: I found the shed too, So now I'm starting to
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: put some pieces again. I'm realizing, Okay, the mystery buck
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: is the same buck that I got the shed from
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: from the spring and tails and seventeen. And then when
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: I looked at the video from the January and two
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: eighteen video, I connected that to the video of the
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: summer tails and seventeen. I'm like, this is that same buck.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: Now he's shown up on two different properties that I
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: can't hunt and the one property that can hunt. Um,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: but it's all kind of spread out like it's it's
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: a wide area. This isn't all concentrated in one little spot.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: There's kind of a wide area that I've been seen.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: How many miles are you thinking? Not that wide? Like
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: this is within like a two square mile area maybe Okay,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: And that's bring up to thousand the air like it's
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: late winter earlier, well, I don't know, late January, early February,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: whatever you call that. And it's seen that he lost
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: one ailer. So now I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna shed
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: hunt like crazy to find this deer's antlers because this
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: is the biggest deer that I've ever been able to
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: shed hunt around, at least in Michigan. Biggest deer that's
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: ever been around the spot that I can hunt. Um,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: So I thought, all, I'm gonna wait a week and
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: that or wait a couple of days and keep glass
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: in this field and hopefully see this big body deer
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: out there again without his antler. No, they're both dropped,
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: and then just scour that whole area. So I do that,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: and long story short, I never found the sheds. I
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: walked and walked and walked and walked, walked every property
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: could get permission on around there. Hoping to either find
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: sign of holy Field being still alive or um finding
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: this buck sheds no such luck. Moving on into the summer,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: I'm again hoping the holy Fields alive because I did
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: find one of his antlers. Um, But driving around in
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: the summer, never never saw either one of these deer.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what to expect. You know, September rolls around.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: I still don't have pictures of holy Field. I still
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: don't have pictures of this other deer. So again I'm
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking, man, I don't know what I'm gonna
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: hunt this year here. Um. You know, as we talked
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: about the podcast, I was kind of bumming there was
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of three year olds, but I wasn't going
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: to target one of them this year. So I kind
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: of was at the point thinking that, you know, I'm
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: just not going to shoot a buck on this on
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: this property. I have permission here, I'm probably just gonna
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: shoot does there just isn't a buck to hunt? Um?
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: And I didn't want to, you know, shoot one of
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: those three year olds. So that was kind of where
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: things were until Halloween. And I told this story, you know,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: a month ago or a few weeks ago, A little
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: bit um, but I left out the details about the buck,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: so I'll cover it again briefly. Basically, right Halloween, I
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: got word that this giant buck had been seen on
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: this property, um that I could hunt. My wife decided
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: to call all him Frankenstein, So I started calling him
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: Frank for short um. And then I got home two
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: days later from the meetings I was at in Montana
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: and I could start hunting on November two. So November two,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt this front area where the buck was seen.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: And I don't see anything that morning, don't see anything
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that night, so that I'm like, ah, you know what,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: he's probably gone. Like at this point, I realized it's
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: that same dear, Um, it's that same big buck, because
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: I had some video footage and I could look at
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: and um, I I just assumed though, all right, he
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: showed up. This is the first time that bucks ever
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: shown up on my property during the rut. He probably
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: you know, he's got a core area somewhere on one
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: of these neighbors. He hopped and it happened to find
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: a hot dough, and that hot dough brought him on
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the farm I can hunt, and he was there locked
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: on to her for a day or two. He's probably
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: back to wherever you know he lived usually, so I
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: figured it since I didn't see anything. On the second,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, that was it? Like there's a once
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: in a lifetime buck here on the property I can hunt,
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and of course I'm in Montana. You know. Um, what's
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: funny is I was, uh, I was in meetings with
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: the guys here at meat Eator and then I get
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: a text message from my wife with this like cell
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: phone video that she'd shot of this deer because she
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: she saw this deer out in this field and she
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: sent me a video clip that she took, and um,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I look at this video. I'm like, holy, I mean,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it. I just like yelled out in
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: the middle of a meeting I'm in when these guys
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: are like, oh my god, look at this. This is
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: on a place I can hunt, and I'm out here.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It was crazy, and I was very stressed out because
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I was not there. Um, and it was you know,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: you know how that is. I mean, if that buck
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: showed up and you're not there, and you know it's
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: this time of year that they can just show up
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: for a day or two and be gone. I'm like,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this is never gonna happen again. I'm
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: gonna show up and he's gone. And that was it. Um,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: And so that's what I thought would happened. So so
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: when when you got these when you got these pictures
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: of this buck making an appearance on your property and
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: you get back from montage and you start to, you know,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: hunt him, what was your initial thought process is how
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: you were going to intercept this buck? What he was
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: doing as far as using your property. So I knew
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: very little, right, I mean, I had no pictures of him.
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: I had never seen him on the property can hunt
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: except for that one random pass through. So the only
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: intel I had to work off of was this kind
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: of from the road siding. My wife had this deer
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: walking along the edge of a bean field. Um, that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: was it. So I I just took that. Okay, that's
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: where he was seeing. And he was kind of cruising
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: along the edge of that food plat system that I've
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: talked about, the same food plat system where I got
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: his picture in two thousands sixteen. And then you know,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: so now he's been seeing kind of cruising through there,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and he was um in the general area. I think
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember if it was if he was
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: with the dough at the in the in the very
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: beginning of he was. I don't know, but it was
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: either he was sighted by himself and then he bumped
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: it was chasing the dough or something. I guess. I
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: it's all a blur to me at this point. But
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: long story short, the basic I just remember thinking, like,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: he's got to be with the dough. He was chasing
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: dose around. He's likely with the dough, and he was
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: seen with that doughe in this general area. So that
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: general area I had prepared to hunt holy Field. You know,
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: all these different encounters I had with holy Field, many
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: of them were right in the same general vicinity, right
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: I've got I had a bail blind set up there
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to hunt that area of the south wind or southwest
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: type winds or easterly winds. I had a tree stand
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: that's kind of in the middle of the complex that's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: they're situated for northerly winds or different things. And I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: got a box blind's on the far south side of
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: that complex that's used for gun season, like muzzler season
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: used issue does from that so I had a couple
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: of different options. So I thought, all right, I'm gonna
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: hunt in this little area in the safest place from
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: a wind perspective on that first day and hopefully learn
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: something and see something. Because that wind ahead, if I
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: remember right, it was kind of a westerly wind, and
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to hunt this part of the property
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: with any kind of westerly wind because the the food
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: is all on the east side. Or sorry, the food
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: is all on the west side. That's where I can hunt,
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: but all the good bedding is on the east side,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: where I can't hunt. So there's just one little gap.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: There's like an open stretch here. It's like a power
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: line type of thing, not a type thing's power line,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: and um, the way I can blow my wind down
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: that pot power line and avoid blowing out the betting ears.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So basically I got set up there. Um no, now
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm mixing my days up. Man, I'm losing my mind here,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: you guys. I don't even remember where I think I hunt.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: Maybe I did hunt there. I don't even remember where
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: a hunt on the second now, but that's where I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: hunted the third. I don't know why I can't remember
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: this but I hunted up in that general area on
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: the second. Maybe I hunted the tree stand I don't know,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: or the food plat stand. But I hunted that area
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on the second, um, thinking i'd see him and um,
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: and that didn't work out. What you were telling me,
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: you were you were hunting over a scrape that was
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: pretty active, if I remember correctly. No, no, no, I
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: don't know. I don't know what why. I can't remember
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: all this stuff. Did you even shoot a deer? I
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: don't know what's going on that now I'm blacking out.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: But what I do remember is that I didn't see
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: him in the second But I went back to the
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: same general area on the evening of the third. And
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: I do know that on the evening of the third,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: because of that westerly wind issue that I was telling
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: me about, I had to set up in my saddle.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: I snuck in there with sticks and my saddle and
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: set up in the timber. There's a little strip of
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: timber that's just south of that food plot complex, and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I could set up my saddle there and be able
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: to see into that system these couple of little fields, UM,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: but also see back into some of the cover while
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: not blowing out that area, and I thought, this is
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: the closest I can get to where I think he'll
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: come through. And as I told you guys three weeks
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: ago or whatever it was that I told the first
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: story about him, he ends up coming out behind a
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: dough at I don't like an hour before dark comes
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: out with that dough, right, And I told you guys
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: about how he's out there like seventy yards. I try
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: to grunt to him. Eventually he doesn't. He eventually stays
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: with that dough breeds that do in front of me.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: So you know what happened there. But just now layer
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: on top of that the fact that this buck is
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a five and a half year old, he's the biggest
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: body deer I've ever seen in my life. Um, at
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: least at least one of the one of the biggest
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: body deers, deer that at least I've ever hunted. Um
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that dear jaw breaker that I hunted a number of
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: years ago, he was very big body. But this deer,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: I just remember thinking it was a cow, just huge body,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and then I mean just a really really really big
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: ten pointer UM Boon and Crockett type caliber buck is
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: what I'm thinking when I'm seeing this, dear, like there's
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: there's I feel like when it comes to deer, you
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: can just tell like, oh, yeah, that's a booner, like
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: that kind of buck that just is like head and
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: shoulders frame wise bigger than anything else you ever see.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: There's usually that kind of like oh wow that you
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: get when you see a deer like that. That's what
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: I got with this deer. Um mark, how many deer
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: in Michigan have you seen that would like go over
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: one fifty or go over one sixty? Like can you
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: count the exact number of deer that size that you've seen? Yeah?
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: I can, um that I've seen in person right myself? Um,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: two maybe all time over or over one sixty, over
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: one sixty one of those, dear being, Well, no, I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: can think of uh one, two, two, three, maybe three
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: bucks over one fifty that I've ever seen ever in Michigan.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: And these are all in the summer deer feeding and
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: bean fields. Um. And then how many did you see yesterday? Thirty? Yeah? Exactly?
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah man. And so that's that's what it was. That
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: that's what was going through my mind this entire experience.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: It was just like this isn't gonna happen again? Like
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: this is this unreal? Like it's like I had like
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: as you just said to me, Dan, like did this
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: even happen? Or are you just making it up? Like
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: that was what was going in my head? Like this
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: can't possibly be real. I can't be looking at a
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: buck like this right now in Michigan on this little
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: property that I'm hunting, this proper da hunt and we've
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: talked about four it's ninety acres, but like fifty of
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that is open field, so there's only forty acres that
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: are huntable, and of that a lot of it is
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: just like little fence row type stuff. I mean, this
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is not the kind of place you would expect to
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: see a buck like that, um, and I never have,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: like right, I mean, if you look back at all
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: my years hunting in this spot, as some of these
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: stories I've told, like the Holy Field stuff, I mean,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: you know, even when there is an old deer running around,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: they're usually like like that just has not This is
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: not a spot that typically is producing large antler deer.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: The genetics just aren't great. There's not a whole lot
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: of deer that get old any given near I think
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: if I think back to every year that if hunted
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: this spot or any of the neighboring areas, there's only
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: ever one mature buck, if if any. Some years there's
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: just nothing. UM. Some years there's a three year old
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: or four year old UM. But there's never been any
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: kind of giant like this to hunt. UM. So this
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: is new. Do you feel that the absence of holy
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Field as a mature buck created a power vacuum for
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: this buck to step in and claim a claim? Uh?
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: I guess a good territory. That's one of the theories.
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: That's one of the theories. Or it might be the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: flip which some people have like messaged me about, might
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: have the presence of this buck pushed holy Field. Though
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: maybe holy Field actually is alive, but he's on the decline,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: and this deer started hanging out more in the area
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: and kind of nudged holy Field out of the area.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: He wasn't UM. I think it's more likely that what
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: you proposed, And I think it's more likely the holy
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: Field probably um probably died from an injury or winter
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: or something. And I think that this buck lived somewhere
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: in the general vicinity. And I think that maybe he
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: caught a dough, caught wind of the dough, and ended
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: up hanging out around this area. And then he bumped
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: into another dough that was hot, and I think that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: maybe that all of a sudden he realized, well, this
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: is a pretty nice spot. There's not a whole lot
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: of hunting pressure, there's some good food, there's some good cover,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: there's lots of ladies. Um, I want to hang out
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: here more. And that's kind of what seemed to happen,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: because you know, I thought he was gonna be there
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: for a day or two, but he wasn't. Right. I
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: had that close call with him on the third when
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: he brought the dough. I had the next morning where
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: I hunted for him, and that was the poop blind morning.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Remember that one. Yeah, so so think about that story.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Think about what I told you. I had to have
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: an emergency number two inside of my hay Beell blind
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and I was doing that while watching a Booner type
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: buck in front of me while crab walking my way
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in the hay Beell blind. That happened to me, Dan Man,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: I can't wait till I can't wait till your kid
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: here's that story, and he's gonna just I mean, like
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: it's one one of the kind of you are becoming.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: You're you're quickly becoming somebody in the hunting industry. And
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: to have this story out, I mean it is that's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a big time the fact I've becoming someone in the
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: hunting industry because I pooped while watching a booner. It's
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: just relatable because I bet you there's a lot of
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: people that are listening to this right now or listen
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: and follow. You're just like you know what I used
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to think Mark Kennyon was a huge sellout, only in
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it for the fame, but when he came come on
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: air and he can say, listen, I poop in my
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: blind just like everybody else does, just like everybody else.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Do you think everybody else? Do you think everybody else
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: poops in their blinds? Spencer? Do you poop in your blinds?
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: I only odd to a tree stand, so I'll poop
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: out of a tree stand hashtag hashtag skuy dump hashtag
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: poop blinds. Oh Man, Yeah, And I wondered. I wondered,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: like am I having this tech because like I'm so
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: nervous because this mega giant is coming towards me, like
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: I gotta hold it together. But but yeah, so that
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: whole thing happened. And if you're not a really wide
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: range of competence, like I think, you're just setting yourself up.
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: You knew you were going to kill that block, so
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: you'd be, like you said, the bar super low with
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: your whole audience. And yeah, I've been doing that for
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: about ten years here with wired Hunt and setting a
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: very low bar. So so, so that whole thing happened.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: And for some reason you are listening to this podcast
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and you do in here the poop Blind story or
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: this whole store of this buck of Frank, Um, you
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: should probably go back a couple of episodes, Dan, do
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: you remember what episode it was and we talked about that.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I think it was the Heartland bow Hunter episode. I
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: think the first half of it. Yeah, the first half
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: of it you and me talked about this buck and
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: my you know, my November hunts, and I think the
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: second half was with Heartland bow Hunter. So so in
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that episode, I go through the details, like all the
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: details of these encounters. I don't want to rehash everything. Um,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: so listen to that, then come back to this know
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that this whole poop Blind story happened with this really
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: big buck in front of me. Um, and that kind
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: of I think it colors things a little bit differently. UM,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how difficult it was and how
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: much I battled back and forth inside my head like
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: is this something that you share? Is is is something you
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: don't share? You know? Because um, I usually share everything,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: right as far as my hunts and everything and a
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: video everything, And I'm sharing pictures and I'm sharing screenshots
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: and I'm telling about everything. I mean, I'm I'm very
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: very very very very transparent. I tell you, when I
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: pooped my blind I don't know if most people would
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: tell that story. Well, I'm just glad that you decided
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: not to, you know, do pictures with that story, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: just well, well we'll trust you on the poop line story. Yeah.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: So I didn't share pictures that either, But but you know,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: usually everything I do, I share, and I was just
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: like I didn't know what to do with this deer.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: I was like, I just this deer is like just
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: it was like a different level. And I just kept thinking, man,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: this is just the kind of thing that it would
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: just be like too much like stress. I felt like
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: if I put it out there right now. I was
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: already freaking out enough as it was that this deer
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: was running around let alone, if like the whole world
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: knew about it and everyone was, you know, just commenting
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: on it, and you know, added hunting pressure all around you,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: just all that kind of stuff with stuff I was
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: thinking about and just wondering like, maybe this is one
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: of those stories you tell after the season. Um, it's
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: kind of what I started thinking. Did anything with your
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: experience with holy Field like change how you handled Frank?
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, for example, the holy Field was so famous
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: he had his own Instagram accounts that everybody knew about it.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: In me, like, did that change anything for how you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: know you addressed Frank to your Wired Hunt audience? Yeah,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: I want to make it clear that I did not
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: create an Instagram account for holy Field. Somebody else created
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: an Instagram for holy Field, which was pretty funny. Um, yeah,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: is that your Dan know? Um? But but yeah, it
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: did color a little bit because yeah, right, I talked
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: about this box so much a lot of people knew
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: about this buck. I had people that I didn't know
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: hunted around me, Um reach out and say, hey, I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: knew I saw this buck or I've been looking for
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: this buck, or oh is this where that buck is?
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: Or hey, I saw holy Field down the road, or
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: like people stopping at my house and telling me about
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: holy Field people I didn't know. Um, so all of
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: that has just made me, you know, just try to think,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: like you know, I don't know. I mean, there's a
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: certain level of privacy that any normal person would like
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to have, right And I did the same thing this year, dude.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: So I mean, I think everybody understands, what why you
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: didn't post pictures of this dear? Yeah, And I mean,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's just it's like a case by case
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: things like I'd like to share as much as I
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: possibly can, but sometimes I think maybe, you know, there's
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: some things that that you know, as a hunter, as
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: a person, you're just gonna keep yourself a little bit.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: So this is one of those things that I thought,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll keep this one close. I'll just kind
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: of I'll just try to hunt this dear without it
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: being out there and just see what happens. And I
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: think it was probably the right call. I think it
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: kind of kept the pressure a little bit lower. I mean,
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I I put a lot, like I strepped, I mean,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: anyone listening to this show knows, as you've heard me
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: kind of like stream of thought talk all the time
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: about how I hunt and that things that go on.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: Anyone that listens to this knows that like, I overstress,
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: I over analyzed, I get really worked up about this stuff.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: I put a lot of pressure on myself. Um So
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: with this deer, like, there was already enough of that
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: just in my mind, thinking, Okay, there's this once in
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: a lifetime buck and it was enough just that let
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: alone if I had like everyone knowing about it and
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: following it and all that kind of stuff. So I
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: think I'm glad that I that I stuck to that
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: decision because it made it. It made it was also
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit fun just to like be able to
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: talk about this deal with a couple of close friends
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: and bounce back and forth without you know, just everything
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: else kind of going on around. So there's also like
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: the fact that it's this it becomes more about the
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: story and not the antlers, right because we're you know,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: as hunters, we all dive into how big the antlers is.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: But if you take that out of the equation, you
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: really start to follow along with the strategy. You follow
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: along with what you were doing, what the deer was doing,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: and the overall story and not just the end, which is, hey,
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: this is uh, you know, close to a Boone and
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: Crockett deer. Yeah, yeah, so you know it was it
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: was a mature buck, and I wouldn't have hunted him
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: any differently, if you know, whether he was a hundred
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: twenty buck or a hundred seventuck, would hunted the same way.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Given that he was five and a half, He's still
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: trying to kill him. But it just, you know, it
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: was just something that I had not I had not
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: experienced this. I've never been able to hunt a Boone
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: and Crockett type buck in my life before like this,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: so it's new for me, new for everything. So so yeah,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I mean it was just kind of high intensity. It
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: was a really intense week there in early November when
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: I was having all these encounters. Had the had the
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: night when he came up with the dough bread the
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: dough had the next morning with the poop blind, had
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: the next had that next night when I had to
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: shift spots because the wind, and then he came out
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: past the poop blind again but not within range of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the tricky stand I was hunting in and I had
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: to watch that happening. Chased Dose around and he went
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: down win into the poop blind and didn't seem to
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: be bothered by that at all. So I thought, damn,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I did a good job of bearing all that. So
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: I felt good about that. And then the next day
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I did a running gun set up deep into this
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: little thicket where he'd been with the dough that morning
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: and then that night before where he took that dough
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: snuck in there, did a really long roundabout way to
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: get in there without you know, if I kind of
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: based my plan on the assumption that he's only back
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: in that thicket with that dough locked down with her again.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: So I just said, that's that's where he is. I
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: just had to that was my assumption, and I decided
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: to operate as if that was the truth. That's where
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: he is. So if he's there, and with the wind
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: direction we have in the access routes I have into
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: this property, I had to go way to the far
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: southern border of this property into a huge, rapping, long
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: roundabout walk, like two hours before daylight to try to
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: get on the back side of that where I was
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: hoping they transition back to the main area where I
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: think they were in the bed, And it worked out
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: almost exactly like I was hoping it would. I got
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: set up in there with my saddle, and at first light,
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: here he comes walking right towards me, and he's raking
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: a tree and he's flying like there's grass and long
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: branches like flying up in the air over his shoulders,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: and he's got tall grass in his antlers, and it
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: was just like the coolest thing I ever saw. And
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: he's walking right towards and he's like eighty five yards
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: eighty yards seventy five yards, seventy yards on the holy ship.
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: This is gonna happen. Really excited, I got my bow
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: in my hand, and then that dope pops out and
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: she goes rounding the other direction. He follows her, and
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: he goes walking by the poop blind again. And uh,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: I haven't thinking, jees o pete, if I had been there,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: if I just said sat in that same blind for
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: all these now I thought that in my head, like
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: if I just stayed there, I would have had him
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: go past me three different times or two different times
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: or something like that. But yeah, three, But the issue
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: was the wind. I can never hunt there with that
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: wind direction. It's a really tough spot to hunt without
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: blowing out this entire bedding year. So I had those
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: early November encounters like like a four day period or whatever,
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: it was four or five days or something, and uh,
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: and then I had to leave, if you remember, Dana
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: had to leave for that meat eater hunt. So left
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: for a week. It was all stressed out that he
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: was gonna be around there and I'm not hunting him
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: and gonna miss out my opportunity. But I can't back. Um,
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: I had no pictures of him anywhere on this property,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: so it's like he vanished, and I kind of was like,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: well that was it, until not take that back. As
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: I'm clicking through all the pictures, that's I'm thinking, and
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: then I get to the last day of the last
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: camera card I look at, and that morning, so the
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: morning of the day that I went to go check
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: the cameras, I got one set of pictures of him
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: that morning, like a half hour before daylight. So like,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: holy crap, he's back. This is the only picture I
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: had of him from that whole time period. Ball was
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: gone and he's back. That morning, I got back to
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: hunt that area. So now I'm excited, and I hunt
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: the next three four days in that area into guns
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: season a little bit and nothing, no more sightings, no
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: more pictures. Um. I remember sitting out there and opening
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: day guns season, I'm hearing all these gunshots all around me.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, man, he's probably dead, Like that's probably it,
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah. I had to keep telling myself, you
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: know that I was really lucky and fortunate just who
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: have had those encounters Like that's why. That's the thing.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: I kept trying to remind mysel off every day during
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: that series of days where I was seeing him and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: not quite getting it done. There was like that that
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: reptilian part of my brain or like the the the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: initial reaction part of me, like the emotional side, and
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it's like, son of a gun, you had you you
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: almost had an opportunity, didn't come together, you didn't make
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: quite the right choice or whatever, and he slipped through
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: your fingers and you're never gonna see that buck again
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: once in lifetime. Buck. But then half hour later, in
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: my head, I'm thinking, man, you just got to appreciate it.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: You just need to appreciate the fact you got to like,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: you've never had an encounter like that ever, You've never
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: been sitting and watch a deer like that? How cool
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: is it just to see a deer like that, especially
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan. Um So I kept trying to like
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: tell myself that, like, just appreciate that experience. Season. Were
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: you hunting with a gun or were you still hunting
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: with the boat? I hunted with a gun opening day
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: and the second day. I think the first two days
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: I hunted with a gun. And then after not seeing
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: him and not getting any pictures or anything, I was like,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: you know what, I don't know, I just I was
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: I kind of decided I was going to bail out
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of that and just keep tabs on things. But I
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: didn't want to over pressure it if you was still
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: around there. At that point, I thought, you know, if
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: he's still around, I should just lay out of here
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: and and just see what happens, because obviously he's not
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: moving in daylight. I was sitting in some spots where
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: I would have thought I might have seen him if
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: he was still doing something like he was he's doing. Um,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna go push into like these there's like
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: one and man, Yeah, there's like one spot I can
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: hunt that's kind of like good security cover, and I
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: usually just leave that as like a sanctuary. UM. I
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: definitely wouldn't want to push him there during gun season
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: because there's neighbors that hunt like all all edges of it. UM,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: So I definitely didn't want to push in the stuffought. Well,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: maybe if he is alive, he's either hold up in
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: that spot and I definitely don't want to push him
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: out of there because he'll get blasted right away. Um,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: or he's there's some other little dark, heidi hole that
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: he stays in that has allowed him to live through,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you know, four previous gun seasons. Um, it's unlikely that
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: he's gonna screw up. Here's fifth year. UM. So he's
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: either dead or he's in the hidy hole, and that's
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: just what it is. So my game plan then from
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that standpoint was to stay out and just observe as
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: many nights as I could get out there where I
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: could just sit and glass room a long distance. I
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: would do that, and I would check cameras a little
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: bit more often, um, but in a safe kind of
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: way so I don't spook it driving there with a truck.
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: Or four with check cameras and try to monitor UM.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: But I just didn't. It didn't seem like he was
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: going to be a consistent buck. It seemed like he
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: was here for that five days stretch with that dough
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: and then he showed up. You know what was it?
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: He showed up a week later, one camera, one second,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you know, was one set of pictures, and you know,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe if I'm lucky, he might drop in a
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: couple more times the rest of the year, but based
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: off of history, I did not expect him to be
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: consistent in any kind of any kind of way. So
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: that that took me through November. So I got the
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: one picture of him on the or fourteenth or whatever
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: it was, UM, and then nothing until I checked cameras
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: again late in November and I think it was November maybe,
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and checked cameras that day and looked at pictures, and interestingly,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: it was the same kind of scenario of all the
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: cards I checked, no pictures of no pictures of no
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: pictures of him. I get to the last card that
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: I'm checking and the last set of pictures of that card.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: From that, like the middle of the night the night
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: before there he is again. So he's alive still. It's
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: almost the end of gun season. He's still alive and
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: he's still passing through the property. Um. But it's it
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: wasn't in daylight or anything. But that got me really
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: excited again. So I went out hunted that next day.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't see anything, um, and then I had to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: go up to my northern Michigan property for a few days.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: So I when did that hunt, and all the while
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: just thinking, well, you know, he's alive. He if he
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: made it to November, he made it through gun season
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: pretty much. Um. So now I'm thinking my head, well
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: there's a chance. You know, I didn't really feel particularly
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: strong about my late season chances with this deer, um
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: because you know, he never had been a consistent buck
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: in the late seasons in the past. But but the
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: the one picture that I got of him in previous
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: years was December nine in that food plot system and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: two sixteen, and then the one sighting that I had
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: on this property of him was in December of two seventeen.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Late December, though, so I knew it was like in
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: the past, he has passed through in here in December,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: so I knew, like, there's this chance in my head
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that I was thinking, Man, it's just like I'm gonna
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: have to get lucky, Like he's not here consistently. So
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: maybe let's say, maybe he's gonna be here two days
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: or three days or something like that randomly. I have
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: no idea how to pick which one of those days
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: is going to be, Like, how am I gonna know?
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Um So in my head again, my
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: plan was just keep observing as much as possible, check
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: trail cameras when you can, and anytime you get a
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: picture of him or you see him moving in daylight,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: then you pounce on that. Then you hunt him hard
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: for the next day or two, and then he's probably
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: gone again if you don't kill him, and then maybe
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: he shows up a week or two later, and if
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: you get some kind of intel that he's back, and
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: then go hunt hard enough for another day or two.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: And that was because I want to try to balance,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: like I want him to drop in, but at the
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: same time, I don't want to be hunting it every
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: single day and spooking every day around and then he's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: never gonna come through again. This kind of in my
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: head's at And then now we get too early December,
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: and I start thinking, you know that whole strategy I
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: just mentioned to you, that was kind of my game plan.
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna like play careful hunt if I get some
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: kind of intel. Then I started thinking, you're you're never
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: going to get a chance like this again, Like this
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: is a once in a lifetime chance. Is that strategy
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: everything you could possibly do? Or is there more you
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: can do? Like what is this? Is me talking to
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: my head. I'm talking about something like where do you
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: think this buck lives? And I say to myself, well,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: he doesn't live on the property I can hunt. He
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: probably lives and this area maybe, or this area maybe,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: or this area maybe based on these different preseason sightings
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: or winter sightings and all that kind of stuff. Where
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: I found the shed where I saw him in January,
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: where I saw him the summer, he might be over
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: in that spot of that spot, And I was like,
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: you know what, I need to go to him. I
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: needed rather than waiting for that buck to come to me,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: maybe I need to go to him. Maybe I've got
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: a chance to hunt some of these other properties. Now,
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: over the all these years i've hunted in this general area,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: I've asked for permission on a bunch of different properties,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: and most of them have been knows. But I thought, well,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: maybe it can't hurt to try again. So December, like
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: sixth or something, I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna I'm
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: gonna try to get some new permission. So I called
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: one landowner and I stopped by one other landowner's house
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: that owners in my home. The other landowner didn't answer. Um,
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, well, I'm just gonna keep you know,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: maybe next week, when I've got some more time, I'm
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: gonna try these folks again and just see. Even though
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: the chances are low, maybe maybe I can go out
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: for December. It's been a no for October and November.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Who knows, maybe nobody hunts in December. Maybe they'd be
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: okay with me going out there a couple of days
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: something like that. And for context, like you've shed hunted
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: on some of the neighbors before a neighbor, Yes, I
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: do have shed hunting permission on a handful of different
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: properties in the general area, some neighbors, some that aren't neighbors,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: but in the general vicinity. Um, so I have had
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: some shed hunting permission, but not hunting permission on a
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: lot of these spots. So so that's where it's at.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I don't end up getting any extra hunting permission. Um,
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: but you know, I'm just going to continue this observation.
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: And the morning of December seven, I'm doing a little
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: bit of observation and I spot a big body deer
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: out in the edge of this field, in this tall
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: grass on the edge of it. Pulled the buyos and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: unbelievably it's Frank. And right away I was like, holy smokes,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: he's back. It's daylight. He's out there. Um, I'm hunting tonight.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Changed all my plans. I gotta hold My wife's like, hey,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not. I'm not. We're not doing dinner tonight. I'm
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: going hunting tonight. Uh, Frank's out there. I could watch him.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: I watched him walk the edge of this like tall
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: grassy stuff and he was standing with a dough. And
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: then Survivor comes walking up. You mus might remember this
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: buck I've been calling Survivor. He's a he's Originally I
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: thought it was a four year old. Now I think
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: he's a three year old. He comes walking up to
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Frank and this dough and they actually start to spa.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: So Frank pushes survivor off, spars him, spooks him away,
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: and the dough goes running away, and then Frank goes
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: chasing the dough. So Frank is bird dog in the dough.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: Now it's December seven, and I'm thinking, Okay, maybe this
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: is like some second rout action, you know, maybe there's
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: a dough that came into heat the second time around.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: Frank's on that dough. I then watch him proceed into
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: that food plot system. There's the same food plot system
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: where I got a picture of him in sixteen, same
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: spot where I had all these encounters with them earlier
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: in the month, well the month prior. Watch him walk
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: past the poop blind again, um feed in there, and
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: then kind of follow that dope back into the neighboring
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: bedding air this cover back in there. That's all I
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: could see from my viewpoint. That was what I could see.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: So in my head, I'm thinking, Okay, I gotta hunt
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: in there tonight. I pull up my weather app I
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: look at the wind, and then my heart just sinks
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: because it's the worst, just about the worst possible when
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: you can possibly get to hunt in that area. And
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, my God, of course, like this is
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: my chance, and I've got this got awful wind, Like
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: how can I hunt in there without totally screwing it
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: up with this buck in there? So here, let me
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: let me lay out this scenario. Right, we've I've kind
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: of talked about a little bit, but I'll try to
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: paint the picture just a little bit more. Imagine. Um,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: you've got the property line from my property that can
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: hunt in the neighbors that I can't hunt on the
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: neighbor's side. So this is to the east side is
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: a bunch of really good thick cover and there's a
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: bunch of deer better than there. To the west side,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the property that can hunt is a cut bean field
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: the north side of the creek, and then on the
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: south side of the creek is where I put in
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: this food plat system. Is a bunch of tall grass
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: like CRP type stuff. There's the food plots that I've planted,
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: and there's all this like Egyptian wheat and stuff that
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: I've planted around the edges to provide some like cover
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: from the larger fields and the openings in the road
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: and never like that. So this blind that I have
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: is on that edge between the beans and the food
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: plat system, and then there's all this tall grass around it. Um.
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: If I wanted to hunt there, which is where this
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: deer passed by, and all these deer passed by, UM
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: I had a west southwest wind, that west southwest wind
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: would blow right into that big bedding area. If I
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: wanted to hunt the tree stand that I have a
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: little bit farther south, a west southwest wind blows into
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: that same bedding area. UM. If I wanted to hunt
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: that box blind that I have on the far south side,
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: that wind blows right into that bedding are everything anything
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: I can hunt around there were blow into that bedding
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: era that I saw Frank in this doe go back into.
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: So I only had two options. I know I had
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: to hunt somewhere around there, but I need to make
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: sure I could get a shot. Now, this was opening
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: day of muzzleloader season in Michigan, so I knew I
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: could go out there with a firearm. And this county
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: that I'm hunting is one of the c w D
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: Management counties in Michigan. And what that meant this year
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: is that muzzloader season this year for those counties is
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: opened up to any legal firearm, So I could go
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: out there with a muzzloader. I could go out there
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: with a shotgun. So I have a shotgun. I thought,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out there with a firearm. I can
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: reach out there a little bit more. So this is
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: a little more reach and I have with my bow. Um,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: so there's one tree stand I have. Again, these are
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: all like edge type spots. Right. And over the years, Dan,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this a million times, how difficult of
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: a time I have here because I can only hunt
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: these edges. And I see all these deer back in
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: the cover, but I can't hunt them. Um. So that
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: was the same scenari here again. But but you know,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I've been trying to improve this little area to make
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: it at least a little bit more secure, so hopefully
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: deer will move in daylight. And you know, over the
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: years has worked decently well. Right, I had a bunch
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: of encounters with the Holy field of had encounters with
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: another deer. UM killed a three year old out there
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, and now this buck Frank
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: was out there. So so it was pretty cool to
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: see the impact that this habitat work I've done in
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: a really small ottle area has worked. I mean, all
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: this stuff, all those encounters that I had with this buck,
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: and all but one of the pictures um was all
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: within like a five acre area, probably five or ten
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: acres against something like that somewhere in that ballpark. Almost
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: all that was in this little tiny spot. So I
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: could hunt a tree stone they had in the far
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: north side of the property. That would be the safest
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: place to hunt because that west southwest wind would just
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: cut like through the northern portion of the betting area.
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: But this would put me two yards away from that
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: food plot system where they were feeding that morning. So
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: I thought, well, that'd be the safest place to hunt.
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: But I don't want to shoot. I don't I'm not coning.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't shoot two undred yards with the shotgun. I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: thought one fifty was my max range I was setting.
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big gun hunter. I hunt very rarely
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: with a gun. I practice out to that distance, and
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: that was that was my comfortable range of that gun.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: So I wouldn't be able shoot him if he came
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: out back into that same place that I saw him
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: that morning. I'd have to hope that he would come
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: out into this bean field and hopefully feed out there
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: with a dough. My theory was that if this is
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: gonna work, that dough that he was with is hopefully
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: going to come back out in the evening, and he
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: would hopefully follow that dough. So that's why I want
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: to hunt back in the same area. But I thought,
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: given where she went in, and given that that a
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: lot of deer had been feeding that food plot. This
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: food plot, I've got a bunch of brassicas like turnips
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: and rape and kale and stuff like that plane in there.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: So it's great late season once you get this cold weather,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: and so there's a bunch of deer feeding in in
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: the morning as they all transitioned back to bed. So
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: I was thinking in my head, it's most likely that
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: these deer are going to come out into that food
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: plot first, feed into that food plot for the first
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: part of the night, and then maybe then they'll transition
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: out to the to the cut being field possibly. So
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: that was like where I really wanted to be. I
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: wanted to be tight to that plot. But with that
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: west southwest wind, if I hunted tight to the plot,
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: the whole betting year scenario I just laid out for
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: you would screw me. But I kept thinking, So I
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: can hunt that tree stand I mentioned, or I could
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: hunt the poop blend the poop blind that west southwest
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: wind I know, right, UM would the west southwest wind,
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: it would blow out the northern portion. Like if you
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: imagine this betting air is like a square and you
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: draw a line down the middle of it, like a
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: horizontal line cutting in half, the northern portion of that
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: betting air would get blown out. The southern portion would
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: not get blown out. I saw the dough and Frank
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: go into the southern portion of the betting air, so
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I had to sit. I was, you know, the whole morning,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: I'm debating back and forth with myself, looking at maps,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: thinking this through, texted a couple of bodies like I'm
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: thinking this. I'm thinking this, What do you think? I'm
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: just trying to think through, Like do I do I
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: sit in the poop blind, which is riskier, but it
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: presents me the best chances of a shot if he's
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: in the southern portion. But if he's not in the
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: southern portion, then I'm blowing him out of there before
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: I even get a chance to see him. So or
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: do I sit there? Or do I hunt the far
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: northern tree standwich, which relatively safe, is low probability of
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: him winning me. But is he going to come out
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: to the shooting range. I don't know much less of
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: a sure thing. So ultimately, after debating this all morning
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: and into the afternoon, I decided, you gotta swing for
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: the fences, like this is the kind of situation where
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: you gotta try to kill him now. And what if
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: if if he is bettered in the southern portion of
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: the betting air, which is based off what I know
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: about this area, based off where he went into, based
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: on what I've seen, that is the most likely thing,
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: based off how he's come the past couple of times,
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: you know, in early November, when I saw him come
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: out into this area, all but one of those times
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: he came out south of the creek. So using all
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: that intel, using what I saw that morning, I made
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: a calculated that he most likely would come out to
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the south into that food plot, and if that's the case,
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I needed to be in the poop line. So I
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: went and I washed all my hunting clothing. Again, I
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: had watched it just like six days earlier or something,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: but I washed every piece of gear. I had took
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: all that gear put it in an ozone box. I
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: crushed or you know, ozoned everything. Um to do that.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I sprayed down everything a a jillion times, all sorts
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: of scent eliminating spray. I took the scent free shower.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I made sure like I took all my scent control procedures,
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: like to the UMP team, Like any any corner I
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: might have cut in the past, or any tiny little
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: thing that in the past maybe I didn't do just right.
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: I tried to make sure I did it perfect this time.
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking, man, like this is this is
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: super risky. There's gonna be deer that are gonna be
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: down wind. Anything you can do to reduce the chances
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of deer winning you, you gotta do so. I just
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: like went o c D to the tenth degree. That afternoon.
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: I charged my osonics unit and my old ozonics unit,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: so I two ozonics units that charged. I took every
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: every trick I could probably think of. I'm thinking like,
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: this is my one and only chance probably this buck. Now, Um,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: you gotta make it count. So I do all that.
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: It's like two o'clock and I'm like, I'm gonna get
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: that get in there um two o'clock. I do a
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: really long roundabout route to get in um so that
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: this west southwest wind has as as small of a
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: chance to blow into that bedding as possible. So I
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: approached from the north. I brought hip waiters in, got
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: to the creek, put on my hip waiters, and then
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: way did the creek for ways until I got to
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: the back of this blind. Crawled up hopped into the
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: back of the poop blind. It seemed appropriate that if
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: I was gonna kill this buck, I should kill him
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: from the poopline, where you know, the most momentous portions
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: of these experiences happened. So I get in there, get
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: all set up, get to ozonics units up there. I
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: sprayed some nose jammer, made sure everything was situated well
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: adjusted the windows, looked around me, tried to think through
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: every different scenario, thought through where, you know, based off
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: what I knew, where I most likely thought he might
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: come out. Adjusted my seat, saw I was real far back.
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: So I'm all situated there, and uh, the first hour
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: or two goes by and there's like nothing moving around me,
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: nothing coming out to the south of me, where I'm
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: hoping this deer gonna be feeding the plot nothing to
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the north of me and this bean field. Um, and
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking, man, your winds just blowing out that bedding
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: year like, I would never do this otherwise, probably all
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: the deer were in the north. They've all winded. You.
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: Your sent control sucks. Your stupid hunter. You made a
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: bad decision. This isn't gonna happen. And then I start
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: seeing there's there's another field, like, there's this little like this,
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: there's the food plus system. And if you go farther
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: south and there's a strip of timber where I had
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: that you know, running guns set up. I did that
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: almost worked out. That's where the saddle hunt was that
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: other day. Um, there's that thin strip of timber. And
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: then there's another field south of that. I start seeing
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: deer piling into that field. Doe doe doughe little buck,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: little buck, two year old buck, two year old buck,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: little buck, Doe doe doe, do dough big buck. Pull
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: up my bios and there's Tran, this nice three year
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: old that I've been seeing this year, like a pretty
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: darn nice buck. He's out there feeding. And then I
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: see survivor pop out there the other nice three year
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: old out there, and I see another two year old.
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: So like every deer I know is all feeding out
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: in this other field like three yards away, four hundred
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: yards away or something like that. And then my head,
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: I'm just thinking, man, of course everything's out there tonight,
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: you're sitting over here. If ever, if every deer is
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: pile into that, that's probably where if Frank's gonna show up,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: that's probably where he's gonna show up. Like there's there
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: must be a hot maybe that hot dough is over there.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: That's why there's so many bucks, an abnormally high number
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of bucks are all out there. I see bucks chasing around. Think, man,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: there's that hot dough. He's pulled every buck in the area.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: She's pulled every buck in the area. I keep on
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: every day that comes out. I'm glass and just thinking
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be Frank. But I don't see him. Um,
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: but I keep thinking, if I see Frank over there,
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna sneak out of the blind and belly crawl,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: Like I can't go walk in that way like they're
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: gonna see me. But maybe I could sneak out of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the blind, get on my belly and belly crawl for
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: two yards or something, and maybe they'll edge my way
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: up to the edge of that piece of timber. Maybe
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: we'll get a shot at something that that way. But
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: I never do end up seeing Frank. So I never
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: do that because if I I didn't want to make
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: that move then because then I would be blowing everything out,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: So that would basically be ruining my original plan. If
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: I did that, well, it takes me to like, I
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: don't know, ten fifteen minutes before the end of the night.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: At this point I thought, well, you tried. It didn't
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: work out. Either he was in the bad area of
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: the betting year and he winded you, or he's going
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: to go out into that south field while as other
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: deer and it's just it wasn't meant to be hit.
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: You tried real quick. Before moving on any further, I
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: want to take a quick pause for a moment to
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: think our partners at White Tailed Properties and to mention
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: their land beat video series over on their YouTube channel.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: If you're looking for some quick, helpful tips from some
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: of the most well rounded white tail management experts out there,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: the white Tail Propers YouTube channel has got you covered.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: These guys their land specialists really know what they're talking
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: about when it comes to buying and selling land, when
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: it talks to hunting deer, when it comes to planning
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: food plots or managing deer herds, or butchering deer, or
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: improving timber stands or planning fruit trees. Are all sorts
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: of stuff like that. They've got you covered. So after
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: this podcast, that highly encourage you to head on over
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: to the white Tail Properties YouTube channel. Check it out.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Like I said, lots of great information and some great
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: Hunt film type things as well, so hopefully you can
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: take a look and enjoy those. And the other final
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: thing I would mention on a very separate note, is
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: related to Wired Hunt merchandise. Al right over the last
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: six to seven months or something like that, people have
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: wondered why doesn't the store over and wired hunt dot
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: com work anymore? Where's your gear? Where are your hats?
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: Where your shirts? Where your details? Well, that stuff now
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: lives over on the Meat Eater dot com. That's where
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: my new content is and that's where my merchandise is
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: now too. So if you want a wired Hunt hat,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: if you want a Wired Hunt T shirt, if you
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: want a Wired Hunt sticker, or decal. That's where you
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: can find it in for now right now, which is
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: December through Christmas. So December December eighteen, we're gonna give
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: you a twenty off discount on all that Wired Hunt
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: gear if you use promo code Wired. That's w I
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: R E D figure. We'll run a whole bunch of
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: nice little promotions here on Christmas. I told you last
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: week about the deal with first Light. This week we're
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: gonna run something with Wired to Hunt to thank you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: all for supporting this podcast and what I've been doing.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. So
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: get off. If you want to try out one of
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: those hats or shirts or details with the promo code wired,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: just go to the meat Eater dot com head over
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the shop and you will see it all there. And then,
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: are you getting frustrated at all with this buck? I mean,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: did you even have time because it sounded like you
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: were pretty busy throughout the fall to let this buck
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: sink in like I don't know. For me, I've I've
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: been obsessed with a couple of year over my hunting
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: career where I was almost had blinders on. Everything in
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: my life revolved around this particular said particular buck did
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: did did it get to that point with you? You
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: know it in in fits and bursts like during that
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: week or ten days during November where he was around
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: during that period. Yeah, like I was obsessed. I was
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: freaking out. I was seeing him every night. I was
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: sitting over the maps, like going back and forth where
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: I moved what I do, blah blah. But then after
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: that week where he's around and now he's disappeared again,
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: and then it was kind of like I was always
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: thinking about it, and oh, I mean lots of times
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: going out there to glasses there. I glassed a lot.
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: I didn't hunt a bunch, but I was glassing a
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: lot um every evening I could get away. Every morning,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: I could be you know, looking from that hill. I
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: was doing that um. So yes and no, I just
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: didn't feel like there was a super high chance he
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: was gonna be out there. So it was always kind
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: of like I was just hoping, like crossing all my
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: fingers and toes, like gosh, I hope I get lucky
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: and he shows back up. But I didn't have this
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: like feeling as it was with Holy Field in past years,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: where I thought like I know he lives around here.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: He shows up so often. It's like every time you
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: know he's out there, I just need to happen to
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: be there. This time I was like, well, he's probably not.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: He's probably not there, but maybe. So when it was,
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: it was a shorter time period too, right, I only
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: really knew and was hunting Frank actively from you know,
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: Halloween on until December seven, So it was five weeks
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: of being obsessed to this buck versus you know, three
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: years of the Holy Field. Um So it's different. But
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: still it was really intense because it wasn't just you
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: know it was it was it was he was a
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: mature buck. I'm always always get excited and ramped up
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: and stressed out, and I'm hunting a mature buck like that.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: But then it was also like realizing that this is
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: an incredibly rare mature buck and a very rare opportunity.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Um So that added a different level to it for sure.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: Like with this hunt, I think we know what's going
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: to happen in the last fifteen minutes of the haunt,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: but you had another trip planned shortly after that. We're like,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: if it didn't happen with Frank here soon you just
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: might not literally get a chant in and because you
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: wouldn't be there. Yeah. Well I had a trip just
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: before this, so I've been gone in northern Michigan for
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: a while and then yeah, and then right after that,
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: I had to go to Montana, which is where I'm
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: right now. So yes, I had I had trips that
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: I had to do bracketed on either side of this encounter.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: Um that really severely was going to limit my overall
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: hunting time here. Um so yeah, I mean, my my
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: opportunities are really slim. I just got lucky that I
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: happened to be looking out there that morning, that that
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: he showed up, and that I had the flexibility of
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: my schedule to be able to hunt that night and
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: um and yeah, so this hunt though, so after I
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: saw him that morning, then my stress level and nervous
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: level and excitement level just went to like two th
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: right sneaking in that night and when I got setting
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: the blind, I mean talk about like the nervous butterflies.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: We've talked about this in the past, and but you know,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: there's I have two there's two different types of hunts
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: for me. There's those hunts when you go out there
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: like you're hunting because you've got a day to hunt
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: um or you know, whatever it is. Maybe there's just
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: you know, maybe you're hunting every day of the week
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: because the rut or something. But there's certain days when
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: you go out there where you feel on a decent spot,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: but you've got you're you're excited to hunt, but it's
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: nothing extra special. But then there's those days when it's
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: like a killing day where all the conditions are right
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: or you have some piece of intel and you just
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: feel perfect, like you're in the right spot at the
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: right time, like everything's lined up. I have certain hunts
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: when like it's always when I'm showering, when I'm showering
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: before the hunt, and one of those days is when
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: it usually hits me, like I get these serious butterflies.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, man, Like you just get this different
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: level of excitement and anxiety and like something like there's
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: like a tingle and you're just like, man, this is
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: like one of those hunts. So that's how I was
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: feeling for this hunt. But then this added level of
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: like of of nervousness because I knew it was a
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: risky sit because where I was going was like it
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm blowing out half of the area and
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping he's in the southern half. But I'm doing
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: it because it's it's it's you know, hit the home
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: run or go home with the loss. That's basically what
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: was happening here. So that was my mindset. As this
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: is all happening, gets to the last ten fifteen minutes
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: of the night, I see a buck working the way
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: through the timber from that field where all the deer feeding.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I see a buck coming down through the timber towards me.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: Pull up the buy notes. It's that buck, Tran. Tran
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: comes out and three other dink bucks. They walk from
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: that original field to come to the plot and start
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: feeding the plot in front of me. So I'm like, okay,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: and he's the first year that had come out. Now
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: that there's a button buck that had been out there earlier,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: but that was it. It's like, okay, well there's something
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: coming out here that's good. And then it was cool
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: that Tran came out, like this is really nice three
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: year old. It's a pretty nice buck. Like in previous years,
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: I would have shot this deer um, especially as he
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: came walking him like jeez. He he looks better than
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: I thought from like the longer distance observations that I've
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: seen them. So I had this like, man, that's cool,
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: Like yeah, Frank, it's not happening, but really cool to
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: see this buck up close, like fifty yards easily could
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: have got shot him. He set there feeding for a
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: long time, like really cool, and Connor of the steer,
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: so you know, right off, as is a nice hunt
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: that's happening. Now it's down to like I don't know,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: eight minutes left shooting light or seven minute. I keep
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: looking at my clock on my phone checking what time
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: it is. Now we're down like the final handful of minutes.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: And I remember thinking, all right, you know, I'm in
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: this bail blind and in this bail one there's really
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: small windows. You can kind of just see what's directly
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: out in front of that bailball, and you can't really
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: see well to either side. So I'm like, I want
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: to kind of peer to the side and just see
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: if there's anything like tight to these corners. So I
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: dropped down out of the chair on my knees and
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: almost stick my head out the window to look far
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: to my left. And when I do that I see
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: a dough and this dough starts walking out through this
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: tall grass towards the plot. She stops and she looks
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: behind her, and in my head, I just like, oh, yes,
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: like you know, you know that when the dough you're
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: hoping there's a buck falling a dough, and then the
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: doe stops and behind I mean, what do you expect
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: to happen next? Right? Yeah, here comes the buck. So
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the dough stops. She looks back. I look behind her,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: and here comes another deer and it's another dough. I'm like,
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: all right, that's it. A couple dolls coming out. So
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: they walk out to the food plug. They get in
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: there and they stop and they both turned back and
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: look where they came. Now I'm thinking, oh, maybe maybe,
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: And I turned my head and looked to the left
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: and looking looking and then here comes another deer and
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: boom like picket fence, huge buck walking and it just
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: it was just like, holy crap, this is happening, Like
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: this is happening right now. He's in range, he's on
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: the property. I can hunt, I can shoot him right now.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Holy shit, this is happening. And it was just in
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: my head right now I I want just like right now.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: I was like I wanted to ask her. I wanted
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: to say like it was like nervous or something, but
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: there wasn't anything. There wasn't any kind of rush of excitement.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: It was almost just like okay, go like business. It
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: was just get the gun. So I remember, like I
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: saw him, that's him reach for the gun. I'm on
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: my knees still, and then it's get the gun out
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: the window. And then I remember, usually what I was
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: planning on doing is if I was sitting in this situation,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: I would rest my elbows on my knees and be
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: able to get a solid rest to shoot. But in
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: this case, I couldn't do that. So I tried to
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: rest my gun on the fabric of the window, and
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: that wasn't working really well. So I kind of pushed
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: the fabric all the way down until almost it was
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: on the metal bar. I couldn't quite push it all
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the way down, but I pushed enough that it was
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: enough resistance, had a pretty solid rest. And then I
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: pull up the gun and I looked through the scope
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: and it's zoomed way way out. Like the last time
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: I'd used this gun. I was up at our northern
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: Michigan property, and you can't see more in like forty yards.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: So I had the scope zoomed way out. So now
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: I looked down at the gun. But because I'm in
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: this bail blind, very little light can come in there
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: because all the windows are mostly closed. So I just
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: I can't see the numbers on the scope. So I
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: tried to spin the power dial you know, on the scope,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: tried to zoom in, but I didn't know which way
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: to zoom it. So I just spun the dial, pull
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: up the gun again, and realized I zoomed even further out.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: So then I pulled the gun down again, spin the
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: dial of the other direction to zoom in. Get it up. Okay,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: now I'm dialed in, and I looked at my you know,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: I pulled it up. He's there at the edge. I
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: remember thinking, this is all happening in the course of
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: from the moment I saw him to the moment that
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: I had the scope right, you know, this is all
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: happened in like fifteen seconds or something. I don't twenty seconds.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: I pull him from the scope. I can see him,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: but I can only see him from the neck up.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Got him in the scope, he takes one step, two steps,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: three steps, four steps, passes out of the tall grass
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: and stands right there at the edge of the plot,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: kind of looks around and and and there he is
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: seventy yards probably give or take. Put the crosshairs on him. Boom.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: I remember thinking in that shot, I just remember seeing
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: like I just remember my head like registering that looks
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: like a hit. I don't I don't remember exactly how
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: to articulate why I thought that. I guess I think
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: there's like a certain like impact that it kind of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: feels like when you see a deer get hit, like
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: you've seen enough deer get hit with bullets on TV shows,
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: or like I don't gun hunt a whole lot, so
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: I haven't seen this personally too terribly many times. Um,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: but I just could just tell it looked like he
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: was hit and he just bolted right away. It was
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: like boom running away, and I remember thinking his tail
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: was not up, his tail was down, and he's bombed
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: away immediately, and I could see him like a second
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and a half and he was gone behind trees and
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: that was it. And then in my head, I'm like,
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, was that a good shot? Did I
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: hit him? Did I did I rush? It was? I rested?
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: Well enough? What just happened? Oh my god, I just
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: have frank um and I just texted a couple of
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: friends and my wife. I was like, I just shot
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: him and um And then you know, it wasn't even
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: like I didn't even have like a rush of excitement
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: or anything. It was just like nervousness, like, oh my gosh,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: did I did I just have the most incredible thing happened?
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: Or I just blow like the one opportunity to have.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what to think yet because it just
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: was was so fast and I couldn't see. I couldn't
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: watching for very long to like know whether or not
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: I was a hit. It was just like a gunshot
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: and he's gone, and uh, I texted you, Dan, and
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: then you got really mad at me because I didn't
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: tell you anything more for like an hour, right, who
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: does that? He's like I shot him? And I reply, thinking, Okay,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: maybe we're gonna have an active conversation right now, like hey,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: what do I need to do? You know, like what
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: friends do? But no, then then blackout for like an
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: hour and a half. Yeah. Sorry, well yeah, it was
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: like I texted you. I texted my group text um,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: you know, Corey and Further and Andy and Dustin, all
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: those guys group text those guys told them and I
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: texted my wife and then um, then I was like, okay,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: I I just need to sneak out of here. And
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: then I was just like so kind of worked up
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: with it all. I just it took me a long
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: time to get everything packed up. I was just kind
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: of fumbling with things and got everything packed up and
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: got out of there and after a while got home
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: and I'm aren't going and I and my wife, like
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: you know, came giving a big hug and a kiss.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: She's like, oh my gosh, she's all excited, and I'm like,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: don't get excited, Like, don't get excited yet. I'm not
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: excited yet. Um. I don't even want to act like
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: I'm excited yet. I just like I'm just nervous. Um.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: And then so I'm waiting for all my friends to
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: come over because you know, we you know how it
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: is like if you've got buddies, you always want to
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: go on recovery together, Like that's a really fun moment
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: and experience to share with each other. And this year.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: All my Michigan buddies, no one had killed anything in Michigan,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: so we hadn't gone on a single track job together.
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: No one had yet. And now finally we've got one down,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: or we hopefully have one down, and we're here in Michigan,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: and it just happens to be the biggest buck that
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: any one of us has ever been a hunt in Michigan. Um,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: I take that back, du My buddy Dusty shot a
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: state record a long time ago. Um, but that was
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: before any of us were really serious about this stuff.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: So basically, this is gonna be like a once in
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: a lifetime opportunity for all of us to get down either. Um,
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: So I guess I'll fast forward through all this. This
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: isn't too particularly interesting. Basically, I waited around for three
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: hours before everybody could get there, very nerve wracking. Three hours.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: Drink a beer to talk through the story, tell the
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: story a thousand times, each different person, try to eat
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: some food, can hardly eat a single piece of pizza
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: because I'm so nervous. Finally everybody gets there, we head out,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: We go to the shot um where the impact site was,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and you know, I'm still just nervous. I don't even
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: know if I hit him, um, because I hadn't gone
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: and check the impact site. I just wanted to scoot
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: out of there without just I don't want to get
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: close to it at all, just in case. Um. So
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: now we get to the point of impact right away.
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: There's blood and uh blood, blood blood. We gone five yards,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: twenty yards, forty yards, fifty yards, and then I remember
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: like we'd slowed down because there wasn't a whole lot
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: of blood now, like there was a great blood trail
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: in the snow, and then it slowed down and then
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: we just kind of, um, we're looking around kind of
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: all directions. I remember standing kind of upright with my
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: flashlight and I just started training it out in the
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: distance a little bit. And then man, there was and
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I just I think I said, uh, guys, we got him. Uh,
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: we got him. Like it just it wasn't even I
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: don't know, I just couldn't believe it. It was just
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: it was surreal to see that it actually happened. And
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: we walked up on this deer and uh, man, I
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: had killed this buck. I had great double long shot
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: and he had ran I don't know, sixty yards or
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: seventy yards or something that hadn't ran very far at all,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: and there he was. Um, biggest buck I've ever shot,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: biggest deer I've ever been able to hunt in Michigan,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: probably the biggest buck Oliver Good hunt in Michigan. I
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: do not There's not gonna be another buck like this
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: in this area for a lot forever, probably like there haven't.
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: There hasn't been a buckle that before, very very unlikely ever.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: Well again, um so I was just kind of in
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: shock that this thing that I thought was a pipe dream,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: that I thought was not gonna happen because I missed
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: those opportunities. This thing that I was thinking of my
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: head was a once in a lifetime thing had actually
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: come together. Um in was it was just kind of
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: just I didn't I couldn't process it at the moment.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: It just like it didn't seem real. Um. And that
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: was that, I mean, that was That was the long
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: That was my long drawn out version of the story
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: of my hunt for Frank. I mean it it was.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: It was a three year hunt. Like I had known
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: of this deer for three years, but it really wasn't
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: until the last five weeks that I really was hunting him.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: Um So it's kind of weird and that I kind
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: of knew of this deer but never really thought that
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: I could hunt him. Um And and somehow it all
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: kind of miraculously came together like this and in a
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: really really cool way. So my question to you is,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: it's a big mature buck with a big rack on
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: his head. What does that particularly mean to you? Well, um,
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: it's it. And killing any mature buck in Michigan means
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: more to me than killing the mature buck anywhere else.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: Like I've view, mission is the hardest place I hunt.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: Of all the states of over hunted, this is the
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: hardest place to hunt, the toughest place to to get
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: mature bucks, to get with a range of mature bucks,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: to see mature bucks, to hunt him. There's the fewest
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: of the place the different stage and I found out
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: of ten twelve, ten different states or something like that.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: Um So I've always thought to myself, like, you kill
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: mature buck here, it is, it's worth it just seems
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: like sweeter than somewhere else. So to have killed the
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: five and a half year old buck in Michigan, I
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: felt amazing. Um to have killed a buck like this
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: in Michigan just seem like it's the the rarity of it,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: like the simple fact that this animal is like so
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: so rare in that area. Um. And for this set
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: of circumstances and factors and variables and all these different,
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: million different things all had to come together for this
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: moment to have occurred, um. And to realize that it's
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: it's something probably will never happen again. That means to me,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: like it's just such a such a unique, special, rare
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: moment that these things all came together, um, not to mention,
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a beautiful, incredible animal as a
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: specimen of a white tailed deer, and like their respect
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: and admiration, just how much like I love these animals,
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: Like how cool I think they are, how much I
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: love like looking at him and watching them and chasing
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: them like he is just like and he this buck
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: epitomizes everything that I think that makes white tailed deer
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: so cool. Right. And he was a huge bodied, mature
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: buck that had survived five years here in Michigan where
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: there's hunters all over the place, just a beautiful, heavy
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: antlerd tall time to mean, like if you if you
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: imagine like that buck that someone draws a painting of
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: that you hang on your wall. This is kind of
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: like that buck. It's the buck that gets painted and
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: gets sold for those those paintings get sold for five
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: thousand bucks, like those beautiful paintings. Like that deer in
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: real life happened to by some miracle chance show up
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: in real life somewhere I can hunt, and I actually
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: somehow I was able to kill him. All those things
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: lining up just made this like like a dream, like
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: a dream situation. I guess, um that is just it
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: was hard to like process and hard to like to
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: know what to think of it all. And now at
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: this point it's just just like a an overwhelming sense
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: of appreciation that had happened. Um, and maybe like a
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: sense of awe, Like there's something like, ah, I don't
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: know what it was, but like like a sense of
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: of magic. I don't know if magic is the right word,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: serendipity or magic or just like I don't know. This
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: is weird, just a weird year for me where things
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: fell into place in like a really unique and special way.
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: I mean it's just been a really outside I mean
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: it's just been I've been really incredibly fortunate this year
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: for so many reasons. Most importantly, I have a son,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: I have a family this year, and to be able
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: to have all these things happen, you know, as as
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: a as a father now, um, and getting to share
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: these moments like yeah, he's young, he doesn't really know
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: what's going on, but you know, it's just been special,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: just special. Um. And this kind of capped it off
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: in like a way I never could have imagined. Um.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: So it's just been a special year. And I'm just
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: not gonna I'm not going to fail to appreciate that
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: all the emotions you just described. Plus I would imagine
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: like some validation not just for you know, the Wired
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Hunt fans who you know can look at the thing
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: as an example. Yeah, I know what I'm talking about
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: in the magazines you've written for, in the books that
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: you've written, but just for yourself as well. Uh, you know,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: there's like a bit of confirmation there, Like yeah, like
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: all this time I've been thinking about it, Um, all
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: these podcasts that I put together, it can amount to something. Yeah,
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: I guess I guess there's some truth to that. Um.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: I mean it's not like I know, Mark that Wired
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: Hunt has never been like, it's never supposed to be
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: the Drewry outdoors and killing giant bucks or Lean Tiffany
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: and killing giant bucks. That's how wired hunt is about.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: But it's definitely nice to make this like a part
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: of it and put that feather in your hat. Yeah,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, like you said, like, that's not like people
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: better not get used to me doing this, right, this
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: isn't likely going to be a reoccurring story that we tell, um,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: But but it's certainly it's certainly is something that when ah,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: right when you get that gift, you just be really
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: thankful that you got it and just enjoy the hell
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: out of it. And that's kind of how I'm looking
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: at this one, um. And and I mean it is
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: also you know, to a degree, I don't want to
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: say like this doesn't prove anything about me to myself
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: or anything like, yeah, I killed I killed a mature
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: buck in Michigan and just so happened to be a
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: buck that a lot of people look at and be like,
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: oh wow, that's that's a big buck. Um. It wasn't
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: like I did something extra special to have killed a
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: big buck instead of just a nice buck. I didn't
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: do anything particularly different. It just so happened that this
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: buck miraculously showed up, and I made the right decisions
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: that led to that buck getting killed, plus had some
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: luck to um. But this buck just as likely could
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: have been a five and a half year old duck.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have done anything different. Just that what if
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: if that was the mature buck, if he was five
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: year old, I would have been hunting him the same way.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I would have done the same things. And that's the
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: BUCKOUT have killed. And I would have been super stoked
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: about it. People maybe wouldn't have been quite as like
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: excited about it, but um, but I would have been
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: really excited about it. Um. And you know, just so
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: happened that this time kind of a freak of nature
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: special thing kind of happened here. Um. Now that said,
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: there were a few things that this experience like illuminated
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: for me, or like reaffirmed for me, um or or
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: we're we're interesting to note one thing. Take a look
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: at the annual pattern here year. I think this is
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: a really interesting example of the annual pattern thing that
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: you and me Dan talk a lot about. Right this buck.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: The only pictures I got of this buck in two
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: thousand sixteen were December nine in that same food plat system.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: Two years later, I kill him in that same food
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: plus system on December seven. Interesting, Um, take a look at, uh,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: what's another thing? This same spot? This is? This is
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: this is a little bit of validation for me. This
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: is just validation to myself as far as hard work
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: in that some number of years ago, five years ago
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: or six years ago, as I was trying to figure
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: out how to hunt this property again, I always had
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: these issues with it being mostly just open field, not
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: a lot of cover I could hunt. Then there was
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: this front part of the of the property that just
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: seemed like there's nothing going on there. There was all
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: sorts of deer on the neighbors, but nothing coming out
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: into the spot I could hunt. Um, I'm thinking, how
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: can I make this better? Like, how can I how
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: can I utilized this front the property in some kind
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: of way? And I remember I was sitting at breakfast
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: with my buddy Corey, and I pulled out a napkin
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: and a pen and drew a sketch. I was like,
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: you know what what if I took this like tall
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: grassy area and carved in like little food plat system
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: and planted a screen around it and made it like
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: feel secluded in there. But then there'd be like some
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: food that might entice deer out of there, Like maybe
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: that could make this whole area a lot different. And
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: I did that, And I've been fine tuning it over
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: the course of these past five years or whatever, every year,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: making switches, trying to make it better, trying to figure
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: out how to haunt it. All these different things I've
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: tweaked and changed around out of the bail blind a
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: year ago. All that came together now killing this deer
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: with all these encounters, So that was a cool thing. Um.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: That showed that, yeah, this kind of hard work. And
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: it hadn't paid off yet. I killed one deer there
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: in a bunch of doughes, but I mean it hadn't
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: hadn't paid off as far as getting holy Field there.
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: UM had a close call with him there, passed on
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: him that one year. But last year I had made
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: all these changes that I thought were gonna leave to
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: me getting a shot in there. It didn't work out,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: But now the next year here it is. UM. I
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: also think this is also another example of like just
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: persistence and perseverance paying off to right. Everyone knows the
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: long drawn out story of holy Field that never got
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: the conclusion that we all wanted. Right, it didn't happen.
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: But this is like a strange like universe saying, you
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: know what, you tried really hard. You worked really hard
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: trying to kill that deer. It didn't work out. But
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: then like the universe gave me a kind of gave
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: me a gift here. Uh. I don't know if that's
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: the thing, but it kind of is some weird, like
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: interesting way that that story finished off. That the place
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: where I had my closest calls the Holy Field, the
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: place where I thought I was gonna kill holy Field. Um,
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: that that spot that I've specifically worked on for that deer.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: Now the next year, that dear disappears. I'm very disappointed.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Most of this year in Michigan was mostly gosh, this
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: thing disappeared. That story ended. All the hard work I
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: put on the Holy Field was for not. And then
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: this happens and it closes out that story in this
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: this interesting, very very surprising way. That was interesting. Another
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: thing that stood out to me was just this year,
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: if you compare my two thousand and eighteen year. And
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: and Dan, I do want to give you an opportunity.
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: I know you got a bounce out of here soon.
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: So if you want to cut me off and share
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: any final question or thought for me before I ramble on,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: feel free to do that. Just go for it. Yeah.
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: So then what I'll say is that this two thousand
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: eighteen year, it stands in start contrast to two seventeen. Right,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: last year, I didn't kill a single buck. I hunted,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: holy feel like crazy. I did all these things. Nothing
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: went my way. Last year I went to Montana, didn't
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: work out. I went to Ohio. I had a bunch
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: of things that didn't work out. Ohio hunted hard mission
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: it didn't work out. Now this year, I go to Montana,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: I kill a great buck. I go to Nebraska, I
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: kill a break buck. I have this great buck in Michigan.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: Like everything went right this year. And if I sit
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: and I analyzed these two seasons, like if I if
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: I put them next to each other, and I think back,
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: did I work harder this year than I did last year?
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: Not not in any kind of stip substantial way. I
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: think I I I put in the same amount of
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: after both years, I think I made generally the same
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: number of good decisions. I'm not I'm not three mature
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: bucks smarter than I was last year. I'm not three
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: mature bucks better off a deer hunter than I was
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: last year. UM. I think that this two seventeen versus
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen is just a perfect illustration of the
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: game of inches that is hunting mature bucks. You can
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: do everything right in some days or some weeks or
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: some years, the final little variable or factor just won't
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: go your way, and then you can do the same
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: thing the next year, or the next week or the
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: next day. You can do everything right, and then those
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: little final pieces of the puzzle do fall together and
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: do come together, and you do feel that tech. So
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: I think this is just a great reminder to all
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: of us that even when everything's going wrong, if you
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: keep doing what you know you gotta do, if you
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: keep working hard, if you keep believing, if you keep trying,
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: things can come together. We had like h like if
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: if you're looking quantitatively like last year being like the
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: worst kind of year didn't fill a single buck teg.
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: And then this year quantitatively being like the best kind
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: of year, if we're if we're just talking about filled
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: tags for bucks, right, two very different levels of quote
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: unquote success. And I think it's simply that things fell
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: together this way. UM. Now, Yeah, I did learn some things.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: I did do some things different. I learned from last year.
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: I did get better. UM. But I still think there's
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of just a lot of you know, I
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: got a little bit lucky this year. I got a
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: few things fell in my favorite that last year didn't. UM.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: And I think when those things happen, it's just a
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: great reminder and it's also just a great opportunity to
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: say here, you know what, appreciate it, enjoy it when
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: it does happen that way. UM. And I think I think,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Those are those are my big takeaways
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: from all this. Those are the things that stand out. UM.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: And now I'm just very appreciative, very humbled by the
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: by this thing that happened to happen to me. Um.
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: And I'm just going to enjoy it and um be thankful.
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: So that is where my head is at as far
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: as all these things. Do you do you guys have
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: any thoughts? Congrats That's all I gotta say. Dude, Thank you,
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: my friend. I appreciate and I appreciate you know your
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: different thought. You know this is interesting. We didn't mention
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: this Dan, but so so I saw him in the
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: morning of December seven, and I text you and said, dude,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: I saw him this morning. I'm going after him to
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to kill him tonight. And you text
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: me back you said what I want. I should find
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: the exact quote that you said. Um, all right, you
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: wait here two seconds. I'm gonna read you what you
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: said to me. I texted, you saw Frank this morning,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: moving in daylight dot dot dot, going after him tonight.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: You said, stop blinking around Kenyan and kill him. I said,
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: I said, I'm sure gonna try. You said there is
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: no try. There is only do. Then I text you
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: a Jeff or a gift or whatever you say of
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: Yoda saying he says he says do or do not
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: there is no try. And then the next thing I
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: text you is I shot him, so you shot him.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: And then it goes from four seven to me doing
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: multiple multiple text messages to finally you responding to me
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: at like it's like almost five hours. Yeah, I'm I'm
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: still a little upset. About that. Yeah, I said I
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: shot him. You say w t F. Then you say
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: I need details, then you say you're killing me. Then
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: you say this is getting ridiculous, and then I texted
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: me picture and then you said, holy sh it, speechless. Yeah, man,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: it was nuts, just a crazy, crazy, crazy situation. And
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: uh and yeah, I mean yeah, I don't know what
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: else to say, Spencer. Do you have any wise words
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: that we should end with, or any final questions or
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: anything that we should that we should cover. No, I mean, congrats, Mark, awesome, Buck,
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: awesome season. Uh that was fun, follower, But like, what
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: if magically holy Field and him stepped out at the
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: same time? Then what man if Like, so if that night,
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: if holy fielding him both stepped out at the same time,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: I think if you don't know for certain holy Field
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: is dead, correct, still a chance, there's still a chance. Yeah, okay,
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: so this could have happened. So say they both step out,
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: then what, man, I do not know what I would
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: have done. I think, I think, I think, I man,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think I would have I'd like
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: to think that I would have shot holy Field. No
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: wrong answer, but you know, because have more history with
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: that Buck Um, I don't know what, but it's such
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: a weird thing because like either what either one would
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: have been unbelievably special in so many ways. So then
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: it's like, then i'd be sitting there with I don't know,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: I probably would have this is what I probably would done.
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: I probably would have froze. I would have paralyzed in
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: the moment, and then they would have walked away. I
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: would have shot either one. That's probably what happened. Um,
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean one bucks like a four year history,
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: incredible amount of ups and downs that deer. Another buck
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: would have been three years of history and a once
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: in a lifetime buck as far as the rarity of
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: that type of animal. Um, I mean it would have been. Yeah.
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: I would have just froze, panicked, maybe had to go
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: to the bathroom and not shot at the buck. That's
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: probably what would happen. So yeah, I'm glad that didn't happen.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: And maybe, maybe, just maybe holy Field is still alive,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: and now that Frank has gone, maybe he's gonna reclaim
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: his old territory and to the um, to the may
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: of the wired and audience, they'll have to hear about
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: holy Field for a fifth year. Probably not so, uh,
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: I guess with that Dan, any final anything final? Nope,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: my kids are starting to cry. All right, go take
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: care of your kids. Thank you for taking the time
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: to to chat through all this. Thanks for all the
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: support and and uh ideas and thoughts and and go
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: get hims and Spencer. Same to you man. Thanks for
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: all the you know, a couple of different chats for
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: radios where we talked through what's going on in the
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: encouragement and big thanks to you know, all my buddies
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: are other people who knew about this hunt, even the folks,
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: even everyone who knew that I I was hunting this buck
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: but didn't quite know um what he looked like. Everybody
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: was out there, you know, giving me encouragement and wishing
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: me on and crossing their fingers, and um, I think
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: this is actually just I want to say thank you
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: to everyone out there listening, the the kind words and
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: the support and everything throughout all my hunts. I just
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that, Like I really do appreciate every comment
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: you guys leave, the reviews, you leave, the notes you
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: send me. I don't get to respond to every one
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: of them, um, but it means a lot. So so
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: thank you for all those all those um all those words,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: and I think with that we shut this down and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: that's gonna do it for this episode. Thank you all
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: for listening. Just another quick reminder, we do have that
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: percent off deal going for wire hunt gear over at
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: the meat eater dot com. Head to the shop, use
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: that promo code, get off all of the wire hunt
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: gear that's wired w I R E D. And otherwise
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: that's all I got. Well, we'll get you one more
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: episode before the holidays. Hopefully you're having a great December.
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: Hopefully you're hunting season is coming to a to a
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: nice end with a lot of fun, a lot of
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: venice in the freezer, and a lot of great memories.
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: So thank you and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.