Ep. 51: How to Kill a Bedded Buck

the stock? Getting within range is difficult. But just because you're close to a bedded animal with your bow does not mean that you should be visualizing fresh cookback straps are patting yourself on the back. Just yet, it's not the time to take out your friend and text everybody you've been successful, because in my opinion, you're really only

half way there at this point. A lot goes wrong when you're in close, especially that close, And while some of it can be controlled, and there's things that you can do to put the odds in your favor, there's a lot that can still go wrong then maybe out of your control. So this week I'm going to cover tips on moves you can make in that red zone. But before we do. I want to share the story

of two perfectly executed stocks and what happened next. The first stock I'm going to talk about happened in the southern Alps of New Zealand. I was hunting tar. I had my bow with me, and I had spotted this really good bull that had just come off the cliffs before the evening and fed down into the tustic. Now the tustic is like this, really tall, kind of like yellow grass as their primary food source, so they hang

up in the cliffs in the daytime. And then I watched him walk down through the cliffs and move down to where he'd been feeding. He got in there and then just bedded down. But he moved down really late that day, so I figured I'll do my stock while he's bedded and then he'll get up before it gets too late and I can get a shot. I worked my way down, crawling and sliding, just keeping the hill

where he couldn't see me. Now, this tustic is like I would say, almost knee probably knee high, maybe a little bit taller, so I couldn't even actually see him while he was bedded. As I stalked in, I'm like, I just had to make good landmarks of where I thought he was, because I'm essentially stalking in this big open mountain side of grass and I couldn't actually put eyes on the bowl where he was bedded. So I get in and then I see horn tips sticking up

above the tustic. I'm like, sweet, I range, it's within range, in that thirty five yard range something like that. Set my pin, get ready and wait, and I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting. But as I'm waiting, I'm above him, and I know that pretty soon the thermals are gonna shift and I'm gonna get winded, and that's gonna be it. Also, it's fairly open, and once he stands up, if he looks

my way, he might see me. But how tall the grass is and the slope of the hill, I might need to draw back and stand up, and I might be in the open to do that. So maybe if I could do something to get him to look the other direction, I'm within range. I've pulled off a perfect stock. I'm almost thinking in my head, man, this is a done deal. This is this bull is so close, this is this is gonna be awesome. He's probably one of

the better ones I've been on with my bow. So I think, well, they aren't necessarily afraid of noise as much as some other animals because they live in the mountains, rocks and other things are constantly falling. So I decided I'm going to take a rock and chuck it past him and hoping that when it hits the ground below him, he'll stand up and kind of look down that way, giving me time to draw back, anchor in and release.

So I find a small rock and I give it a huck, and I'm trying to be as quiet as possible so he doesn't hear me behind him doing this, and the rock lands maybe I don't know, ten yards past him in the tussock and doesn't make a lot of noise, and the bull doesn't do anything. He doesn't even react to it. Okay, So like grabbing another rock, a little bit bigger and give it a huck, and it lands, and as soon as I throw, I my

releases on my bow, and I'm ready. As soon as that bull stands, I'm going to draw back and this is gonna be perfect, thinking, Okay, nothing happened. So I grab a little bit bigger rock, give that rock a huck. As soon as that rock hits the ground, that bull bolted out of there faster than you could even blink. It did not work at all. Now, I've done that rock technique before and had success. This time, I thought that was my best option. I figured it would work,

and it absolutely didn't. Now I'm going to share the story of a mule deer hunt. I had spotted this good buck in this This is early season Nevada archery hunt deer in Velvet. I'm glassing for a particular deer and on this hillside across from me, I spot a really nice buck, like a high one seventy class four by four with a big cheater coming off one side, and he's by himself. I'm thinking this is perfect a

solo deer that I've got a pretty good advantage. So I just sit there for most of the morning and watch him the bucks feeding. He goes and beds, and I look at and analyze the situation. I think, all right, it's still early. You know, there's not a lot of cover there. The sun's behind me. At this point, You're gonna get hot and move. Sure enough, but gets up, moves and he goes a long way. So I was glad that I stayed in that position and didn't stalk it. So he moves and he beds again in the spot.

I'm looking at it, and I'm like, man, the winds are kind of shifty. I'm just gonna wait and watch this deer. I've got a great view. I've got all day. I'm gonna make this play. Right about an hour and a half after watching him bed, he gets up and walks to the next canyon over. He kind of drops down a little bit and there's I'm just looking at where he could be going, and there's this one big

juniper tree. And the juniper trees are nice because they're the leaves are really dense and close together, and it just provides this really dark shade. And it was good because it was kind of on this point where he'd be getting wind. And I looked at him like, man, please bed there, Please bed there. And sure enough that buck walks right to there and plops down in the shadows. It was perfect because there's some like rim rock cliffs behind it and like a good area to stock down.

I could use some of the rocks and made some markings of where I was going to stock to and this is maybe a mile or so away, so he was the ways out there, maybe even further than that. Actually decided all right. Now, it's like mid morning, eleven o'clock.

The day is heating up, the winds perfect. There's like a good thermal that day, just especially how hot it was was going from high desert get these huge temperature swings where it might be a forty degree temperature swing, and a lot of that picks up in that early morning, and so you get these huge thermals that just rush up the mountain like perfect, this is gonna be great. I get above him, start stalking down and I was actually self filming, so I had to stock this buck twice.

I'm like, one, it's a really good, mature, high quality deer. I've got to stock in. But I had to stock in. And so what I was doing because it was just really loud, rocky, almost like this volcanic type rock where you'd step on it was kind of like loose marbles a little bit, so kind of loud, and there's a few places where I just wanted to be extra quiet and had to stay low because the way that the cliffs came down, I couldn't go that direction, So I kind of had to pop out in a place where

I thought there's a potential he could see me. So I'm crawling in and I would leave the camera. I'd crawl up maybe forty fift yards at a time, drop my bow, crawl back, get my camera, crawl back up, stock with the bow. So I end up creeping in, getting my bow to thirty three yards and that buck's betted there. I can see his antler tips coming out from either side like a little bit of sage, and it's just perfect, Like, okay, do not stand up while

I'm going to get the camera. Crawled back, get the camera, crawl back up, and I get set up. I'm now within thirty three yards of this buck that I've stocked twice. It was the perfect stock on a bedded buck. I mean, I just couldn't ask for more. I positioned myself and I do a little bit of investigating, you know, just to make sure that I can see if I can get a shot like sneak and arrow in there somewhere, and I can't. I can just pretty much see his

head and his antlers. So I put myself in a position where when he stands up, I'll have a shot. I can see where his antlers are at, and I kind of anticipate, okay, when he stands there. His head is actually gonna be blocked when he stands, but his body is going to be in this one opening. I mean, you cannot get a better scenario. It's a great buck. So I get set up and I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting. Hour goes by. The sun is just beating down on me.

I've got my face mask on. I'm just trying to stay not melting in the sun, just focusing on this deer, kind of just in a relaxed position. Another hour goes by, like all right, sooner or later, the sun's gonna move enough where he's gonna get hot and need to stand up. And I thought of every scenario. I thought, oh, maybe I could get a shot while he's betted. Maybe I should toss a little rock. But I've had that work. I've had that not work. My preference is to not

ever have to do that. Just wait for them, be unaware of your presence, and not try to mess it up myself. You know, everything's really good. All I need this buck to do is stand and it's a field tag. I think I actually even I was like thirty yards. You know, I had plenty of time taking pictures, texting my friend Joe like, dude, I'm with it. I'm just like, I'm right here, man, thirty yards, just waiting, been there

for hours. Then I'm sitting there and I feel something, a slight tickle of wind on the back of my neck, and that dear blew out faster than that tar blew out. I waited there all day. Everything was perfect, by every measure of success, I've done everything right, and something that I couldn't control happened and that buck ran out. I share those two stories to say there's a lot of different options, a lot of different things you can do,

and a lot of things that go wrong. So the tips that I'm going to share today are ways that when you get into range, how to just kind of swing the odds in your favor, because even on the perfect stock, there's a lot to manage and a lot to think about when you're in that close proximity to whatever you're stalking. I think a major misconception about stalking and on bedded animal is that that's the time that they're very vulnerable. Now, it's a time that they're stationary,

but it is not necessarily that they're vulnerable. They're betted there because they have a certain net of safety. And that's why when you get within that what I call the red zone, that range where you're close enough to shoot, but you're also close enough that a lot of things can go wrong and you may not have a shot at that time, so you're gonna have to wait. And by waiting, you know, you're putting yourself at the mercy

of natural elements that can change very quickly. But there's also things, you know, having stocked many animals in the bed, I've been very successful doing it, and I found that in that crunch time, there's a few things that you can do outside of those things you can't control that really helps swing the odds of success into your favor. Now, before I even go too much further my philosophy, when I stalk in on something betted is my first thought

is I don't want to have to wait. Part of that is because I'm slightly impatient, but the other part is I've had things like that scenario where the wind

shifts and the animal runs away. Now, I think there's probably people that will tell you, oh, if shooting at a bedded animal is unethical for whatever reasons, I disagree with that, and I think that maybe the main reason that people say that or that's a misconception, in my opinion, is because they don't understand the vitals of the animal and they think that maybe the way that the animals

bedded or other things doesn't offer a good shot. I'm not talking about taking marginal shots on bedded animals that don't offer good shots, but what I'm looking for. The first thing I do when I stalking on a bedded animal is see if I have a shot. And what I mean by that is, I'm only going to shoot at a bedded animal if I have a shot that has is higher percentage of vital and success that I know when I release that arrow for on, that animal

will die quickly, and that is that is doable. It's actually in my like when I think about it, I prefer taking that betted shot if it's a good one. Because of the animals stationary, I have time, I'm not rushed, there's not other factors in the way. I can take my time to analyze all the factors and then decide whether I'm going to shoot or wait, so it's this. As soon as I get in, I always make the

shoot or weight assessment. Most of the time it ends up being weight, but there are those few times where everything's lined up just right where it can be shoot. So when you get in the first thing you want to do is kind of analyze the situation and decide

whether there's a shoot opportunity to do that. I mean, i might be at thirty yards, but I'm gonna take my time and really scrutinize how the animals betted, being very honest with myself and saying, this is a very big decision, so everything has to be a pent right. Is the animal betted slightly quartered? To me? If it is, that's not a shot I'm going to take on a bedded animal, That shoulder blade is going to be in

the way. The vitals are going to be in an awkward position because of the way that they're laying, and so I'm gonna I'm gonna pass. Is it bedded slightly quartering away? That might make a difference. Is it really steep downhill or is it more flat? Am I shooting up? Or am I shooting down? So I'm gonna factor in all these things. I'm also going to use my binoculars and really focus in on the animal, and I can start to pick apart. Okay, here's where the muscles are.

How is it laying on the hill, like, is it laying kind of back where its lungs and heart might be rolled up? And really understanding the position of the animal, where the vitals are, and just looking up close, even at that close range, saying Okay, here's where the vitals are, Here's where the bones are. Okay, I have a shot or I don't have a shot. That's the first thing that I generally do. Now. A couple of tips on that when you're within range, when you're in that red

zone on a bedded animal. One of the tips that I always think about, because I've had this blow my stock many times, is being careful to shield your optic from reflection. A lot of the time, maybe the sun's out there, it's high in the sky. Every time you raise up your range finder or binoculars, you run the risk of the sun hitting the lens and then throwing out almost like a signaling near flash that can go into the dark shadows of where it's bedded or somewhere else,

and catch the eye of the animal. So every time I raise my optics up and make sure that they're shielded, they're covered with shade and nothing's gonna reflect off that lens, because even if the animal can't see you, that flash can travel for I mean, airplanes can see that flash from ten thousand feet above, So it's it's not unexpected for a deer to catch that in the peripheral vision. That's something that you just definitely want to be careful of when you're in that red zone. So let's say

we've got a clear shot. Everything looks good, awesome, that that's a great scenario. I'm going to take that shot. That doesn't happen very often because I do scrutinize those shots so much, and you should too. But so now the options. Let's say now we can't take a shot, we gotta wait. What you're waiting for is you're waiting for that opportunity, and that opportunity normally arises when the animal stands up. So right now, I'm just gonna run through my process. When I get within range on a

wait scenario. The first thing I gotta tell myself is I gotta be patient. I need to be patient enough to give that animal time to naturally stand and give me a shot. And I go in with the mindset that the sun might be beating down on me, I might be there for hours, but I'm already this far and this is how I'm going to be successful. So you just have to get your mindset of be ready to wait. And when I'm stalking in on a bedded animal, I go in with that mindset every time. Hey, I

gotta be ready to wait. You're gonna stalk in and then you're gonna be patient. As soon as I get within that range of where I'm going to shoot from where I'm gonna sit and wait, I probably won't be able to stand up. So I'm gonna set my body in a position where my knees are perpendicular to the line of the deer. So it's like, to describe it a little bit better. Think about yourself shooting at a target.

Your your legs are like if you drew a line from your toe tips, they should be pointing toward the target. I'm going to do that same thing with my knees while I wait. So there's not a lot of movement, not a lot of shuffling around, I've seen so many times or had instances where I'm just sitting comfortably in like a different position. The deer gets up and now I'm just squared off with it, and I draw back.

But my body positions awkward. I don't have as much mobility to move, and it's really hard to make a good shot or impossible to get, you know, a good shot off. So the first thing I do is I set my knees. And what I like to do is I kind of sit in away where one side of my body's on the ground, and then I've got kind of my knees stacked on top of each other. So I'm sitting comfortably because I might be there for a long time, but I can easily move into a sitting

shooting position already ready already, if that makes sense. Now, the other thing that I do is I always obviously have my bow ready arrow. No, it's ready, you know, have the release ready, whether it's if you use like a back tension style or thumb release, it's already hooked on the de loop, or you know, sometimes I'll just sit there with my release. I use a wrist release just hooked onto the de loop. For the most part, you know, on those long waits, you gotta make yourself comfortable.

But you also want to make sure that wherever you set your bow, you can raise it up without making a lot of movement, without making a lot of sound, because you might not have a lot of time and you might have to, you know, be from zero to a hundred in a very short amount of time without making a lot of noise. So make sure that that bow is ready, that bows like in a way that you can easily get it up and drawback without having

to do too much. I'm also going to pre range the deer as well as other things around the deer or whatever I'm stalking in on. So I'm gonna range where they're at. I'm gonna know exactly where that deer is, I'm gonna set my pin for that, and I'm going to range stuff that's like, okay, how that next tree? What? What's just understanding the distances around because you may not have time to rerange. So there's so many times where you might draw back right when he stands up, the

buck stands up, you don't have a shot. He walks off towards this other bush to go bed down, and you're kind of guessing, but you've had the time to understand and just really know that area where you're at, know all possible scenarios before they happen. One thing that I think is huge is anticipating where the deer is going to be when they stand and understanding whether you have a shot or not. What that's gonna do is that's going to give you a good indicator of when

you're going to draw. I think this is like a major novice mistake. You stalk in on the buck it's bedded, and that buck stands up, and as it stands, you draw and you have no shot, and you're holding, holding, holding, holding, You're holding for a point where now you can't hold any longer. You have to let down, and you're at a very vulnerable position where you're probably gonna risk spooking

that deer by letting down at some point. So what I like to do is anticipate when I'm going to get my shot before I even think about drawing back. So one thing that I use is a good indicator, especially is like mule deer, you can use their antlers and just see, okay, where's its head and neck, where the top of its head is if it's sitting up right, is generally kind of where it's body like the bottom of its body line is going to be, depending on

the hill and other things. So I'm gonna anticipate, Okay, when it stands up, Am I gonna have a clear shot? Or is it gonna stand up and I'm gonna have branches in my way? Am I going to have an obstructed shot above the animal? Or am I going to have a clear shot? Because understanding what's going to happen next when it stands will help me make a better decision of when to draw. Now, as you're sitting there, you want to anticipate when that animal is going to

stand up, because that's when you can get ready. I've noticed like mule deer, and every animal kind of makes its own little move before it gets up, and so you're just gonna watch them mule here, often you'll see like this crazy ear flick and then they start to stand up. Elk kind of like to rock their antlers back and forth before standing up. So every time I see those movements, I'm like at the ready in that draw position. My bow should already be vertical, my release

on and I'm ready to pull back. Now, there's times where they do those moves and they don't get up or whatever. But every time you see it in uh stand up indicator, you want your boat already up and ready so you don't have to make those movements later. Because the time that that animals betted is if you've been sitting there for a while, you already know it doesn't see you. You know that's the time to get

set up. You don't know what's going to happen after it stands, so you really need to be ready in those moments and anticipate that standing up beforehand. My preferred option is if I know when the animal stands up, I'm going to have a shot. I like to draw back while that dear standing. I can think of so many times where, especially with Muler, I've been successful. As that dear stands, I see those ears flick, I see him start to go and as he's standing up, you

know his heads now probably facing downhill. It's gonna be hard for him to look uphill and stand if. If that's the position that he's in, you know, I try to anticipate that. But as he's standing, I'm drawing. So as soon as he's stopped, I'm already settled in and can release that era before he goes takes a step anything like that, before he's too distracted or too focused in on anything like While he's distracted standing up, I'm generally drawing if I know that I'm going to have

a shot when he's fully standing. If I don't think I'm going to have that shot, I'll wait now. Often animals, when they stand from the bed, they're gonna be thinking about a couple of things, and you want to try to anticipate this. Are they going to just be moving a little bit too to re bed? If you see that the sun's just beating on him, now, you're gonna think, Okay,

he's gonna go towards the shade. So which shade is he going to go to the same tree or is there some other spot around that you've already pre ranged where you think he might walk to. A lot of times they'll stand up, they'll stretch a little bit, they'll walk out a little ways and start feet. That's a big one. That's where pre ranging comes in. And if

that's the case, you aren't gonna have a shot. What you're gonna want to do is as soon as that animal starts to make a move and look away, that's when you're gonna draw and be ready to take your shot. As I'm sitting there, you know, you've got time, You've got a lot of things to think about. So when I stalk in on a bedded animal, one thing that's

going through my mind is just my shot process. What that shot is gonna look like, What I'm gonna do, you know, think about picking a spot on the animal. Think about calming your nerves. You've been within range of this animal for long enough. If you start to get that crazy amount of you know, excitement, that's when you start to rush things. So allow that time when you're within range of this animal to just kind of meld into the surroundings. And it really does make a difference

if you think about it. There's times where I've stalked in on deer that I know I'm not going to shoot, and it's it's almost like they just never leave, Like you have opportunity after opportunity. When you're in on a deer that you're trying to kill, you get this rush of adrenaline, and that rush of the adrenaline causes you to rush things and by rushing things in many ways

causes different outcomes. You know. Now, it may not be that the animal necessarily senses that, but it it may sense you doing movements at times you shouldn't so one thing. While I'm there, I kind of think through this process of Okay, I'm gonna wait for my opportunity shot. I'm gonna draw back. I'm going to focus in on that spot. Like you've had time to look at the deer. You don't need to look at the antlers. You just think about making a perfect shot and whatever your process is

for going through that shot. You know, me personally, I just kind of think about picking a spot on that animal. I like to find one one hair, Like I think about aiming for one hair, and I think about where that's going to be and what I'm going to visualize and pick a spot focus in, and then I don't even think about the rest. I just shoot, and that

for me has been very successful. Now, the thing you don't want to think about, because I've done this and every time I do it doesn't work out, is that those thoughts of oh, it's I'm I'm so close, this is such a done deal. The times you're just counting your success before it happens. Every time you do that, you literally shoot yourself in the foot, because there's this psychological thing of when you think something's easy, you don't

take all the precautions that you need to take. You get lax, you sit funny you, and then things go wrong and they go wrong really fast. So if I keep that mindset of is still difficult, I'm not there yet. I need to like follow through, think about the plans and the execution, not how close I am and when that deer stands up, Oh, this is just such a

done deal. Backstraps tonight, baby. That's like every time I start thinking about that, thinking about how I'm going to take a field photo or who I'm gonna text first, I know it's not going to work out at that point. But it's because in my mind, I get lax, and you just end up doing things that that aren't focused in on the exact task at hand. There are so many facets to spot and stock hunting, and there's so

many difference in areas. But just having this type of information, I think is really going to help you if you encounter maybe a new situation that you haven't seen, or maybe you've done this a million times, But just kind of thinking through a few of these things that I go through every stock, I found that as I got better at understanding the things that went wrong, I became a lot better in making things go right. And that's just time in the field and understanding what to do

in certain scenarios. And I'm really thankful for that, having that opportunity. You know, there are a lot of stocks that don't work out or things go wrong that you can't control. But I try to limit the things that I can control from going wrong. You've already got so much stacked against you doing something like not being ready for when the animal stands up, not having your body in the right position, you know, not accounting for this

or that in crunch time. Just one little mistake there could mean, you know, the difference between getting a shot and not. So I try to control all those little things. And I think by just kind of understand ending some of the little nuances like that, even just shielding your optics from the sun and stuff like that, you're gonna be a lot more successful in the long run. And you're just you're you're minimizing your chance to mess something

up and That's that's what this is all about. I hope you've enjoyed a little bit of the this kind of I guess it would be like a three week thing on spot and stock tactics. So if you missed any of the other two we talked about cutting off, we talked about, you know, planning your stock on a bedded animal, and then now obviously getting within range and what to do when you're in the red zone. So if you missed any of those, you know, feel free

to go back. If you've got friends or whatever you think you enjoy this podcast, please I appreciate the support from everyone you know share it, and I really appreciate that. Next week, I want to talk about a little bit of summer scouting and maybe some stuff to plan for that fall season. So if you get a little bit of time to go out and pre scout some tips on that, I think that will be huge for your

success as well. So I'm really excited about that. Also, as a reminder, I talked about it last week, but I've got a massive gear giveaway. I want to just support you guys for supporting me, So I'm going to give away a package of gear that is essentially everything you need to hunt from now until forever. It's like it's just an awesome package of great gear, high quality gear that's gonna last a long time. So if you're interested in that, you can go over to my Instagram page.

I'll just leave that link in my bio there so you can find it easily. And yeah, I'm super excited for this season coming up. I'm excited for you guys to share your success with me. There's I know some people in California've already been chasing some black tails in the A zone, and there's gonna be some antelope seasons starting in a couple of weeks, you know, depending on tag draws, and then early mule deer seasons August mule deer season. So I'm excited you know, as always, feel

free to share your success or your stories. I've I've got a lot already from people black tail hunting in some good spring bearer stories, so I appreciate it. Until next week, get within range and don't count your eggs until they're hatched.