Judging Canadian Whitetails with Steve Schultz

American wilderness, the bear. We'll talk about tactics, gear, conservation. Wh will also bring you into some of the wildest country on the planet. Chasing Battery. Thanks for listening to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. On this episode, I'm actually in the blind hunting on the worth day of a six day hunt, and my father in law, Steve Shultz,

is with me. Steve killed a deer on the first day and he he talked He shares about his decision to shoot that deer and also his regret that he had taken the book so early in the hunt, and we talked about what he had learned from this and how to judge big Canadian white tails. We're the bear Hunting Magazine podcast. But man, everybody that's hunting bear, including me, we're hunting all kind of other critters. And I before I was a bear hunter, I was a white tail hunter.

I love white tail hunting, and we know that most of you do as well, and so we're gonna bringing you some white tail content throughout this fall. Hey, check out the podcast before this, which was our our recording of Tom Ainsworth, the Outfitter, super neat Guy seventy years old. And then the next podcast, which will be releasing a few days, I'll talk about the end of my hunt and what happened with me. Welcome to the Bear Hunting Magazine Podcast. It is November the onet and we are

in Manitoba. We're in not really central Manitoba. We're about a third of the way up in western Manitoba, about sixty miles forty miles from the Saskatchewan border, and as we know it, about sixty miles from where Milo Hanson killer World Record typical white tail in we are. We're sitting in a blind right now. It's two o'clock in the afternoon. We're in what Tom calls the shack. We're in kind of a building and We're sitting on the

edge of a cut soybean field and we're hunting. So we're gonna bring this podcast to you throughout this hunt, and we're gonna talk about a few specific things, but we're also going to try to just we're gonna set the context and we're gonna just talk about how we're hunting up here and what we're doing. But it is first of all, let me just say, I've got my father in law, Steve Schultz, in the blind with me

right now and he's filming for me. He's also letting me borrow his muzzleloader, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about why I'm shooting that muzzleloader. But to begin with, let me set the context for why we're hunting here. This is the fourth day of a sixth day hunt, and we have Steve killed a deer and he's going to talk about that. James Lawrence, our other buddy that's here, killed a deer on the second day, and James killed his buck on the field that we're sitting in right now.

This field is a cut soybean field. That was it. They insured the crop and they made an insure claim on these soybeans because of elk. So up here in Manitoba they've got elk, moose, white tail, and they've got all kinds of critters. The elk destroyed the soybeans in this field. I don't know how big this field is, Steve, how big is this field? Oh, this thing probably is somewhere in the neighborhood of I would say close to

it's big. It's big. It's a it's six yards to the very edge that the furthest place, we can see a six hundred yards and then we've got a three thirty yards shot one direction. It's big. And so they because they made an insurance claim on this field, they harvested it at a time when when the combine came through, the beans shattered, as they say. And so there's a ton of beans on the ground right now in this field,

and the deer hitting it pretty hard. James aren't sitting here the other night, and he didn't see, you know, forty deer in this field. It's more like he probably saw less than ten. But he saw two mature bucks and he took one of them. And old James, he says, he didn't even look at the other one. He's just the one gave him a shot and he was like, that's the one I want. So he didn't even look

at the other one. So now and it he didn't have much time to make a decision, and this deer popped out and he was he was like, that's the one I want to take home, and so he shot it. And so there's a mystery buck over here. We don't know how big it is, so we're hoping that it's a it's a shooter deer. So we are here in the blind and right now it's half rain, half snow where we've got a weather change that's coming on and there's project to be between one and three inches of

snow tonight. It's been warm first day we got here. How warm was it, Steve? Do you remember it was probably uh, probably forty forty one, I think something like that. It may have even been in the high forties. But that first day, because remember I hunted in like a single layer. I was wearing my first light. Um, yeah, what was it, Choma something? Yeah, and your Andrew swimming trunks were on. Yeah, I had my swimming trunks on. That's right. It was warm for Canada. Uh. So anyway,

the weather is changing it's about thirty three degrees. So Steve, last year, this is our second year to hunt with Tom ains Worth Grandview Outfitting. A little history on Tom. Tom was a long time bear hunting magazine outfitter, I mean long time bear hunting outfitter. He sold his bare business to Todd Wogelmuth of Baldy Mountain Outfitters. So now what used to be Tom's bear hunting outfit is now Baldy Mountain Outfitters run by a younger fella, good guy

named named Todd Waldmuth. But Tom kept his deer tags. So Tom's an outfitter. I think Tom has, like I don't want to say how many tags he has, I don't know for sure, a select number of deer tags that he can sell. And so last year we came up here, you and I and now Steve. Well, first of all, Steve, Steve is not just my father in law. Steve and I have been I mean close for the last well since we met each other eighteen years ago, and we've hunted all over, We've served together on our um.

Steve's the senior leader of our church, and so we've we've anyway, we've got a lot of history together. But we have a rich history in hunting together and Arkhan's saw I mean when Steve's killed a ton of deer there in northwest Arkansas. We live about as the crow flies a mile and a half apart, and so we've done a lot of hunting together half and so last year. So give a little history of your hunting, Steve, that

will lead us up to come into Manitoba last year. Well, my I started my hunting background really was up in upstate New York. I was moved there when I was a small My family did when I was a small boy, and uh, I went through high school there and one year of college in upstate New York. That's where I really got the itch for a white tail deer. As a matter of fact, that was the big game animal for New York State. And uh I had I had nobody in my family that really hunted my brotherhood a

little bit, but I didn't. I was the main hunter of the family. Um in the springtime, when everybody else was playing either tennis or track or baseball, I was. I was out fishing or my dad wasn't a hunter. And uh, but I got the bug one time when I shot a groundhog, and when I did that, it was like I felt like I found something I really enjoyed. So growing up there, I always had this quest for white tail. Didn't know anything at that time. I'm sixty

six years old now. At that time, back in the nineteen sixties, there was two magazines primarily maybe three that would deal dealt with anything to do with hunting outdoor life of course and field and Stream, and then there was another one called for fishing Game, the Glory Days of Print magazine. It was the Glory Days. There's a company called Herders. Some of the old timers remember coming name Herders that you could even buy at that time.

You could buy handguns and rifles right directly from him and ship to ship them to your door shipping right. We're gonna start doing that with Bare Hunting magazine. There you go. I recommend you do that. And uh so those were the early years, and that sparked something to me. Although I didn't have a mentor, and I really learned a lot at that time just by trial and air, and I'd have to say most of it was there, and a whole lot of trials to go along with it.

But then I moved to Florida when I was twenty one years old and worked worked in Florida and was there for a number of years, over twenty years I did. That's where I really started to learn how to to white tail hunt. But of course you're not going to find the white tail near the size of Florida that you do here in Manitoba or even in Arkansas for that matter. And but I did have some guys that hunted with learned a lot from him and killed quite

a few deer down there and UH. And then of course through the years, I just started hunting different places. I traveled a lot, so I think I white tail hunted somewhere around sixteen or seventeen different states and UH. And I just would hunt here and there, and when I traveled internet slee I hunted some in Australia. UM. Hunted Africa six or seven times, UM, but most of that was with friends. I didn't pay an outfitter. I knew people over there. I've been to Africa many many

times where I didn't hunt and UH. But the quest, and leading up to this trip in Manitoba, the quest has always been for a larger deer. UM. I've shot a lot of one in thirty one forty class, dear, but I've never broken the one park and uh, to me, that's kind of the holy grail to step up to another level of deer. Yeah. And so we we planned to hunt last year and we hunted here and it

was a It was a great hunt. And white tail has been even though you, I mean, Steve's taken lots of African game, He's taken lots of stuff out West, the little Deer and ante Lope and od Dad and Texas, just lots of different things. White Tails, you're number one time, Yeah, still the number one bear hunted with me in Quebec

and British Columbia, in Arkansas and Arkansas. Yeah, white Tail to me are still one of the most particularly the particularly those that make it past the four to five year range are the most crafty, most most skilled animals of evasive invading human beings that I've seen. So when people in Africa asked me would you like to come back and shoot something, I say not really, I mean my dream would be to continue to own Yeah. Honed it down to one thing, white tail and particularly trying

to find a large white tail. So and I still shoot. I mean, um, I've already taken one white tail in Arkansas this year that, uh I was I was very pleased with. But coming up to Manitoba is like stepping stepping the game up to a whole another level. Here, animals are just so much as we know, so much larger and and the potential for a hundred fifty two inch of years is increased, increase considerably considerate. But as we know, the big ones don't grow on trees and

they don't come easy either. So so last year I came and uh we had a good, good trip. I was put on a particular of falfa field and I think it was the second morning of the hunt. I heard some bucks rattling in the corner of the field, and probably about two dred yards from me. It was not light enough to really see. Let me stop, you right there, you you uh you described those horn solets, so you can imagine let me even stop, let me

even go back further than that. Coming to Manitoba, for both of us, it's like something we never really thought would happen. I mean, my upbringing into the white tail world was in the nineties. I mean, I was a twelve year old kid reading North American white tail. You know, my dad was a white tail hunter in Canada. Was like the place to go in the world for big white tails. And and now years later, really it's the Midwest.

It's our Kansas, northern Missouri. I mean, it's kind of shifted to some degree in terms of where a lot of the really big deer coming from Kentucky, Wisconsin. But but still this is an iconic place to white tails. So me and you coming up here was like, I mean, we were like five and fist bumping, a dream come true. It really was, Yeah, for sure. Yeah, And I think last year a matter of fact, we were so excited we drove straight through up here. We drove straight through

from northwest Arkansas. And so that brings us to what the story you were about to tell about the second day in the blind, sitting over the south fi Ful field, and you described to me it was in the dark, so we're waiting for it to get light, and you hear just like horns crashing. That was different. It was different. I mean, we're in north I'm used to having, you know, hearing bucks rattling in the woods and normally talking a hundred probably hundred bucks where they the sound is more

of like a clack clack clack. But I heard these. I could hear these, dear. I couldn't see him yet, but I could hear him, and it sounded like someone taking two by four's and and and bumping them together. It was more of a deeper residence in the horn, and I realized, there's something with some something volumes circumference. Yeah, it's more like a boying boy rather than a clack

clack clack. Well, that broked my interest until the sun came up and I was able to before they walked off the field and went over a hill, I was able to get a glimpse of both of them. And one was a big on Eastern count he was a big eight pointer and on the other one he was this Eastern counting bear Honey Magazine podcast We go with four point he was he was an eight, and the other one was at ten. And the tin had rich, dark, dark brown chocolate horns. Oh, just something you do a

dream about. And the eight was no slouch because he was wider than the tin. But the tin had mass. He had good time length. Uh, he had good beam length on his main beams. And I watched him for a little while before they got out of range. I was using her I was using a muzzleloader, but I didn't I probably had a maximum two hundred yard range I felt comfortable with at that time with that particular rifle, so I didn't have a shot early in the morning.

They were they were about two They're about two hundred and moving away from when I really got a good look at the horns. So anyway, he sat there for another hour and and what happened was the big ten point and decided to come back the same way he went on the field. And I saw him coming back, and I arranged and came up with a hundred and eighty eight yards and put the cross ears, got the

gun out. They got that gun situated correctly, and I knew where I was going to aim, and I had the rifle sided in for two hundred as a matter of fact, and so uh he stopped. He was eighty eight yards broadside, and I thought, I'm going to fulfill the dream of a lifetime. This is it, this is the moment you've been waiting forty something years for. And I took the safety off, squeeze that trigger, and all I heard was the primer go off. Pop. That's all

I heard. And for of course, my mind was expecting a boom. I was expecting, you know, some recoil and for a second there, my mind was like frozen as to what in the world happened here? And so that so I was to say I was disappointed would be an understatement, because there was no way to reload the gun. I I mean, it just wasn't gonna happen. It pushed your bullet like six or eight inches down the barrel.

That's corrected, moved my bullet down the barrel, the bullet out, couldn't get some powder in, couldn't put more powder in. I mean, I was stuck only to watch that buck saunter off the field as if I was never there. Let's just take a moment of silence right now on the podcast. Okay, that's good. This is like an iconic story between Steve and I. We don't we don't tell it unless reverent ears listen. Yeah, absolutely, hush on the crowd. I have a feeling we're bringing a few tears to

people's eyes, don't you. People are crying right now. They probably because they experienced the same thing at one time or another. But the issue with the with the issue with the with the rifle was the fact that the night before the weather had turned cold, and I had my rifle loaded. I took the primer ound and I put the rifle in the truck, and apparently there was enough heat in the truck that created moisture inside the chamber because the next day, of course, after having the misfire,

I tried another primer. It still did not fire. I was able then to realize that the bullet was right at the end of the barrel. I took the breech plug out, pushed everything out, and when I did, the powder came out of my hand and it was literally soaking bush. And uh, I'm not shooting black podder. I'm actually shooting smokeless powder muzzleloader. And uh so I'm shooting I MR And uh it just came out wet. So I knew what the problem was, so I vowed bringing

us well. I hunted for four more days last year. Um I saw one other buck, but just could not get a shot on him. When I was squeezing the trigger, he went behind a pine tree and he never came back out. And I saw your buck. I was not

with you when the gun misfired. The next morning, I had already killed the du And so the next morning I went scouting for Steve, sitting in a blind on the other side of the field, and I had the the buck that Steve was shooting at, and the eight point walked within a hundred yards of me, and they were they were all he said, they were. I mean, you know, fifty plus ten point, just what we were after. Yeah, big huge body, big big, huge neck on him. And

of course that added insult to injury. I was because Clay had taken the video camera that morning and he was actually able to record some footage of that buck for me, and it seemed like it was gonna be easy after that. I mean, it's like it's just a matter of time. We'll get back on him. Yeah, and and he just he just never he just disappeared. I sat there number more nights and mornings and we never did see him reappear. And so last year I went home with an unfilled tag based on that, and that

leads U up to this hunt this year. And of course Clay took a very nice buck with his bowl last year here and uh, and that that spurred me even more, and Uh I decided to come back with Clay again for a second time, with high hopes, tremendously high hopes that I might even see that same buck again, but this year we'd even be bigger. But yeah, anyway, that led us to come in here talk about what the caliber of deer that we're hunting here. You know.

So last year we came and basically by the end of day two I had killed a hundred and fifty two inch buck with my bow and Steve had shot at misfired at what we believe was a hundred and fifty plus buck. Maybe maybe bigger, we don't know those big ten points with bodies like that, or he could have been one sixty about as easy. So we were like, Wow, this is this is the place. This place has got some big deer. And you know, Tom tom Ainsworth what a guy. Tom seventy years old and he he has

thousands of acres. That's not an exaggeration that he can hunt much of it. He owns big crop land. I described on the podcast the last podcast that we did. I mean, this is this is big agg country. I mean, this is uh where they're growing canola. Soybeans, oats and wheat and flax and the and the deer eat almost all of it. Lots of alfalfa too, so it's kind of it's I would say it's similar to Iowa, except

for the trees are different. There's a lot of spruce and a lot of poplar, and other than that, I mean, it would be similar to like hunting somewhere like Iowa, except I'm not sure that these there's not more agriculture here than even in the country of Eyewa. I don't know, just huge I mean whole sections, you know, six acre sections that basically don't have trees, and you know, just along the a single tree along the creeks, maybe somebody, I mean big agg and so up here, the deer

densities are not extremely high. That being said, you know, you can hunt in the evening and see two or three deer, or you know, James has been looking out behind Tom's house in South afa Field and seeing thirty deer at night. So you're seeing dere just about every time you sit, for sure. But so we last year like we were both gonna come home with er and

that was just phenomenal. The weather was great last year, or too though high temperature rarely got over thirty two, I mean it was it stayed cold the whole time. The deer really keyed in on the alfalfa, and they

just don't seem to be this year. And I'm bo hunting, and the reason ut for me to successfully bow hunt this property, at least with the knowledge that I have right now, I really needed those I needed mature bucks to be keying in on two alf alfha fields because I felt like I could set up bow stands to catch the deer coming off. There just aren't mature deer right now on those South Alpha fields. So my bow hunting plans were kind of thrown off. And so we're

doing it. Do two things. I'm gonna tell you how I got to where I'm at, and then we're gonna go back, and I'm gonna Steve's gonna talk about his hunt this year. The the so we so so right now that the deer weren't keying in on the alf alfa too much, and uh, um, well shucks, I'm trying to decide where to go from here. Um cut cut. Now we're also looking for deer. Steve and I are bobbing our heads around looking through these windows looking for deer.

The windows are fogging up just a little bit in here. But but so anyway, we come into this hunt and you never know really what to expect that warmer temperatures, and then we've struggled this year to see the big deer. I mean, we kind of thought like maybe just it was gonna be pretty easy to get on a hundred and fifty inch type of deer, but this year we've just not seen them. And Okay, this is where I

was gonna go. The rut is different here. It's November the first back home, it's like prime time rut in Arkansas. I mean, right now, if I could pick a day to hunt, man November one through the seventh, Holy Cow, they're responding to calls, bucks are cruising. I mean, it's showtime right now. The bucks are still grouped up, they're not responding to calls. It's kind of like the rut

is dead in these northern latitudes. It's seems like the rut is so compressed because fond survival has to be so precisely timed well, the timing of breeding has to be so precisely time for good fond survival that the rut is just compressed now. Granted it must be crazy about ten days from now, even a week from now. I wish we were here ten days from now. Sure, yeah we're not. We're not seeing the bucks cruised by

themselves too much. They're not up during the day running around just just eating and and if they're full, they're not. They're not getting there, just staying on their beds where we just haven't seen them like we did. So the big deer here, we're just not seeing them. I mean, we're just seeing younger deer really, but we know the big ones are here, and uh, it's just one of those years. We're probably a week probably a week off of probably prime time here that we'll be able to

make it. But so we're making the best we can out of out of what we've been the hand we've been dealt. And uh, I was very fortunate on the on the first morning that I hunted, I we hunted here, got here in the afternoon, early afternoon, got on stand the first night, didn't see too much nobody did. I was out the next morning. And let me set the let me set the stage for this. Tom. Tom puts

a few trail cameras up for us here. But also he's driving these roads around these fields and these woodlots and this area, and he has a pretty good idea of you know, pretty good idea of what's on the what's on some areas of his land. So he normally

accuses in every time that we come. Yeah, and uh, this particular time, he said that the particular field he was gonna put me on was the same field that I hunted last year where I had the misfire, And I was kind of looking forward to, quite honestly, going back to that same field and having a little bit of revenge. Now let me open the same book would

be I was hoping, and he would be bigger. Now let me say this that in the between last year and this year, one of the things I decided to do because of the misfire was I decided to have my Savage bolt action muzzleloader, uh which Savage no longer makes. I decided to have it rebarreled for a little bit longer range and to have it restocked. I wanted to be able to reach out to yards if I wanted to with a muzzleloader, and uh so I came prepared

this year you were prepared. I I I scraped and saved and put the money together and sent the rifle away and sent it up to a a guy named Luke um and uh Arrowhead Sporting Goods up in Iowa. He builds a long range muzzleloader, does an excellent job on it with a muzzle break. And so I came. I came for revenge. So I'm sitting in the same spot. Um, and that's when this year I didn't see a deer come out and go over the hill. This time he just came over the hill and he was walking almost

the identical path that the deer had walked before. Now, the thing about these deer clay as you know. First of all, Tom had already told us that he's there was a bus driver with a bus route saying that they had been seeing a big, big buck right there. And um, so it sounded like, well, he's may be pretty patterned of as we know, the school buses going every morning, five days a week. So over the hill comes this buck and I've probably fifteen minutes after legal

shooting light. I can make out horns. I could see him pretty good, and uh, he's coming, and he's walking steady so I immediately get the binoculars on him, and I determined, well, he looks like a five by five from what I could tell, But I can only see one side of him because he's at he's on my far left hand side, and he's walking facing kind of uh facing to my further to my left, walking bike from the front of me to the back of me, and so I so I was looking at him and

and uh, what happened was when he finally got where I could see him well enough that I thought, well, he could be a shooter. It was I had about four seconds to make the decision because he couldn't get him to stop. And I'm sure a lot of guys have had that happened where you you know, and they just keep walking and the that's again, the bucks here are not in rut. So he really wasn't interested in a dough bleat or I don't anything. So I tried

a couple of times. He kept walking, and I realized, I'm about to run out of real estate because he's about to walk off the field and now he here's the here's the challenge. I was trying to make a split second decision on what appeared to be a five

by five. And we had been talking all week about how these deer their racks look smaller because they're so big, so big, and I was, I mean, the whole trip up here, we're talking about Judge and deer with James, and and you know last year the DFT buck that I killed. When I first saw him, I was kind of unimpressed with him. I thought he's a hundred and thirty five inch deer and so, but he turned out to be one fifties. So it's like, hey, these these

bodies make the horns look small. So that's in your mind as we've been talking about that for a year. So you see a four, you see a five point side the bucks in the same spot as the one last year. Everything's the same, everything's the same. He's been talking about sitting in that blind for for twelve months. I've been dreaming about sitting in that plane, hanging out

the window. And here we go, and I I looked at him and I thought, well, I thought to myself, Okay, I know he's not a one seventy, but I think maybe this buck could do one fifty. And I thought I'd be satisfied with that. I'm not going to try to get two two pigs year and uh and uh. So I went ahead and I had two seconds to make that decision. I'm thinking in my mind, one of the things that Tom's wife said the night before is don't shoot any you know, don't pass up anything on

the first day. You would shoot the last day. And you know they that's that's been said a lot. And I thought, well, you know, if I was just the last day, I definitely would shoot this deer. So I went ahead and shot, and uh and uh. I heard the bullet. I even saw the bullet hit him. He was he was two hundred yards away and broadside but

walking slowly. Shot And then of course later when we went to recover him, he only went about five yards and we went to recover him, and uh, the infamous ground shrinkage took over, which is something I've been familiar with for many years. And you're always hoping or imagining your something is bigger than what you actually think it is. We're hoping for a ground swell. Yeah, exactly, all we

got was ground shrinkage. Yeah. So, I mean, but at the same time, of course, it's enjoyable being up here, and I mean and you you know you're gonna this is hunting. Nothing is an exact science. Animals will always behave differently than you think they will. You're dealing with a whole set of factors that are uncontrollable. And for me this trip, it was like I was determined I

was gonna wait until the right buck. But being in that same location with a five point dark horn, it just looked like it was a replay of the year before until I actually found the deer and really I realized he was a five by four. Uh you know he did wasn't a by five. I couldn't see the other side real well. Actually he's Uh, if you were to take that beer that that set that rack, put some steroids on it, and let us swell up a

little bit, it would be a very nice rack. He had all he had, all the stuff, didn't he He just was just a younger deer. You know, I'm thinking, but they're big though. I mean even this deer we weighed James Lawrences deer and it weighed tune or fifty pounds, And I mean your deer was just not smaller than that embodied side. So this was probably a tuner pound deer. He's a big, big body deer for sure. And that's another thing that kind of messed me up is I'm thinking, well,

big deer, that the racks look a little smaller. So so you know what I hated for you is that it happened on the first day, you know, Yeah, because Steve's been just hanging out at camp while we're hunting, and I know how much he's been looking forward to this hunt. So that's the part that kind of stinks, is that he filled his tag early and so I didn't. I didn't just hadn't got the hunt. He's nothing with me today. But yeah, that's that's why they call it hunting,

not shooting. Yeah, I'm I'm glad to be here. So the quest continues, that the quest will killing. The good thing about this is you don't get to quit now. Yeah, everybody, everybody is always like, if you killed the deer like that, I'd quit. Man, If I killed the deer like that quote air quotes unquote, I think it would just make you want to go more. I probably wouldn't mean too but you know, you always you always think, you know, get the big one and you're done, particularly the older

in life. You get You're like, you know, how many more years can I keep doing this? I've done it for every so many years. But well, you enjoy doing it, so I think even if you shot a big one, it's something you really thoroughly enjoy. You just keep doing it. But it's just fun to be here. I mean, for where we're at in Arkansas, coming up here is like hunting a different planet. Flat country, farm country. I mean

we're in the Ozark Mountains. We got we can't see more than fifty yards in any direction unless we're setting on the edge of a field, a man made field. I mean, it's thick, it's mountainous, it's rugged. You know. We do have some good deer in northwest Arkansas, and the occasional guy will kill d and you know, one in a lifetime if he's lucky. I mean, there are a good deer where we are, but it's not common.

It's not common, you know, not common at all. Average average a good shooter buck that somebody would mount where we're from a hundred twenty inches. Most guys go a hundred buck. They are like going to the text turmists. Truthfully, average guys, it's a tax two dermist Paradise. Yeah, yeah, there was a that's that's a funny funny you say that. You remember there was a guy there and Winslow that had a text Germany shop. Did real good move to Iowa?

He said, they don't mountain deer like we do in Arkansas. Everybody in Arkansas mounts all these little deer that they kill all the time. He said, Oh man, they don't mount one unless it is a hundred and sixty. So I think he struggled a little bit. He's got to come back to Arkansas to get little ones, take him back to Iowa to mount him, and then comes back down here. So yeah, yeah, we're a tax service Paradise. There's a text service on every corner. Man. I hope

it stays that way. That's good. Oh so what I mean, what would you what did you would you learn? What would you do different? How will what we will? It's always a hard call. But I think probably the biggest thing was I should have passed on the buck because it was the first of the first full day of hunting, the first morning, and and as tempting as that was, I should have just I should have passed on it.

And this a decision window was too short. The decision window was too short that Buck never turned and faced me. I never got a good I was neighbor able to really fully really you were able to give him about assessment. That's when you really needed about assessment. Yeah, because he's about the buffer bar needed to get to eighty before

you knew for sure what you're shooting. Absolutely, you know, and they always say up here, well you'll know the big ones, you know, they'll stand out, And that's true. But I was I was willing to just break the one fifty is what I was shooting for. I thought that would be a good start. Let's go for that. I'm not going to try to try to go for a one sixty or one seventy. So that was probably the biggest takeaway is it's like, wait a minute, if I had to do it again, you know what I

would have I would have passed for sure. The second thing was I would have said, wait about any deer that doesn't up here, doesn't give me an opportunity unless it really stands out as a very very exceptional good dear, um, don't rush to judgment, you know, don't give him the opportunity to stand in front of you, or at least walk on a long enough way that you can get a good look, get both sides of the rack. And uh, that's what But that's what the deer have been doing

this year here, uh with James, with you, with me. Uh. The deer just aren't coming out and just feeding. There seemed to be just when they are, they're moving, but they're not moving a lot. But every time we've seen them, they seem to be on a steady, steady journey somewhere. Yeah. So so that was the big takeaway from this year, and it shows you. I don't care how old you get and how many years you've hunted and how many how many times you've pulled the trigger, You're always gonna

learn something new every time you go. Yeah, well, we're all subject to make an error and judgment at any time and then and come into a totally new place with different body sized animals. It really is, it really is tricky. But hey, at least you got the chance to make that mistake. How many white tail hunters have dreamed about coming to Manitoba, Canada and you've had some kind of poor poor I don't looks the wrong word, but you know, misfire and then and I mean, you

killed the nice dear. But for where we're at, it really wasn't what you came for now, but what you came for, and so that's what kind of stinks about it. But hopefully we'll get to come back there. You go. Well, as they say, there's three parts to a hunt. You know, there's the pre hunt where you dream about it for eleven months, which we did. We probably like at least bi weekly twelve months and they talked about this hunt.

Then there's actual hunt time, and that's what anywhere from two to three maybe five day hunt, six day hunt usually maximum. So that's enjoyable. But then then obviously there's the post hunt. The post you know, and you do one of two things. In the post hunt, you either celebrate the great success and chance that you had or if you don't do too well, you celebrate the fact

that you had another learning curve in your life. Yeah, and what I've seen you do all these years, when something goes wrong or you want to see something different, you go you take action, just like last year. I mean, man, you didn't wait a week before you were sending that muzzle loader off to be redone and ready to real I mean, so you didn't just say I had a

faulty muzzloader. You you took action, okay to amend the situation. Yep, yep, yeah, I And uh my thing was, well, I knew, I knew the how big these fields were, and I realized, boy, this one is big. Steve. I'm using Steve's muzzloader tonight. Uh he's let me borrow it. And I may have already said this, but I've I pretty much have decided that a bow hunt for this year is gonna be really low odds. Last year it was good odds for

a bow kill buck and I did it. I really wanted to do it again this year, but I just I just don't know with the feeding patterns east deer on. And that's a good thing about coming during muzzloader season in bow hunting is that I can make an adjustment. And uh so that's what I'm doing. So I'm we're we're looking. Wow, we can see six hundred yards across

this field. Leaf yet to see a deer. This whole podcast, we're talking in the loud voices voices because we're sitting in a We're sitting in a shooting blind and it's raining. The snow kind of quick. It's just rain, and so there's a little bit of noise with the rain, and these deer when they come out, they're gonna be long waves from us on this hunt. The evening came to a close. We saw seven or eight deer. I never

saw a shooter. Stay tuned for the next podcast where I talk about my successful hunt from that very blind well not the blind. I got out of the blind from that very field two days later.