Ep. 617: Lessons Learned from a 7-State Whitetail Roadtrip with Tyler Jones and K.C. Smith

brought to you by First Life. We are off the rails already today, folks. And on the show, I'm joined by two voices you should recognize by now because they have been joining us on the Wired podcast every week this season over on rut Fresh. Welcome back, Tyler, Casey, Thanks man, I'm afraid to say anything. Yeah, you under screwed up. I'm gonna have to keep that in. Mark also used my media name, which is Casey insaid of Casey's good, it's extra work placing that, man. I hate

to have to do anything extra Monda. Mark is like leader in the end man, He's not even putting any line out for the end of the rod Yip the year on namph only anyway today on the show. Uh, we are laughing a lot, yes, But I also want to talk, you know, about this crazy year you two just had, which will go into detail on but for everyone listening, not only were going to hear the story of this epic Whitetail road trip you guys have been

on all fall. But you know, I know we've had Tony had a conversation with U k C last year at about traveling to deer Hunt, and I think we've talked the two of us about some of this kind of stuff, but I think this year, in particular, you guys have taken it to another level. Maybe it was just the duration and the diversity and the different pressures. I think you've been put under to try to figure out dear Fast in different kinds of places, and somehow you managed to get it done. So I want to

break down how you did it, um. But before we get to all of that, I don't know if this is going to be out there in the world. Oh, yeah, it is, I guess, but I don't know if it's like in your world's your Yeah, probably is. I'm answering all my own questions. We could just shot the podcast. What I'm trying to say is in case why you're hunt podcast listeners don't know. You guys have officially joined

the Mediator family. You were like kind of dating Mediator with Retfresh and now like you're you're in a full bear hug forever. So welcome and congratulations you guys. Thanks man. Oh I'm tired, Yeah, tired for sure, but I felt the Mediator stuff. I feel pretty good about it. Man. You know, you and I uh discussed at length, um some of the details involved around doing something like this, and uh, it seemed like a really great option for us. Man.

You know, I think media was doing some great things and been hunting space and uh, we're glad to be a part of it. Man. It's been cool to get invited on the you know that conversation. But that's fine, guys, you'll have fun without you're just reproducing so much. We come hang out. Yeah, no, it's a it's pretty exciting to uh, you know, kind of um be able to join forces, as they say, with a bunch more like minded individuals who like to do the same kind of

stuff we do. And uh, it's um kind of a I don't know, a cauldron of hunting creativity over here where you know. One of Tyler and I shrinks is that we can bounce stuff off each other really well, it's kind of how we hunt um caused once. Um, but sorry for the inside jokes, guys, you're gonna get used in the promise. Um. But it's nice to be able to incorporate people like you and Clay and Tony and others into that and then kind of continue to build on that and maybe we can all be better

hunters after all this, I hope. So I can use all the help I can get. I don't know you've been seeing the bucks Man. Yeah, you had a good season too, good season and good trip here. I mean, I guess I didn't say it, but we are all here together in person because we're hunting in Texas right now together. Yeah, um, and it has been a good start to the trip for me. But I think we're saving that story for your show. Sounds good down the road, um,

So everyone will have to tune in. If you are not already tuning into the Element podcast, you should be, um after you're listening to Rough Fresh and Wired to Hunting Foundations. Of course, gotta pad my numbers. Yeah, if you you know, you get your taste for the seriousness and the deep dive on Wired to Hunt. You're like, Man, I need a release of just jokes. That's what we're here for, because I'm a joke. Uh No. We we

appreciate that, Mark. We do try to be tactical when when it's an option, but you know me, I always just escape into the humor. So I enjoy it. Yeah, enjoy the funny guys bring to the table. In fact, we brought humor. No, this's just nope, sorry, is this for our podcast? I'm sorry? Mark, you take off? We got there's a there's a lot of humor. We have to tell you all about it. So we gotta save the first, the first really big laugh for your show, you tell me. Yeah, I guess it has to do

with Wired to Hunt, So maybe we should. Yeah, yeah, so we can hear it twice too, you know. Yeah, so just this, you're in store for more of this, all right. So um, we're lining up. We're gonna pick Mark up at the airport, you know. And and we thought about getting balloons and candy and roses and having the big sign. Man, we're too subtle for that. You know, that's kind of my middle name is subtle Um. So, uh, we're brainstorming about, you know, how we could play a

joke on Mark because we never joked with Mark. We're always really easy on him, don't. Yeah, he's Tinder. You know, he's like crystal glass. You know, you just can't crack it. Um. And so we're like, you know, we could get some T shirts made that are inspired by the great brand that is Wired to Hunt. But instead, you know, if you happen to misspell or just um rearrange some letters and wired, it becomes weird. So we had there's some T shirts made that looked just like the Wired Hunt. Uh,

and change it real quick. What did you do on that? I broke the nose a little bit and there's kind of cock eyed um. That really pretty little icon. We worked on it. Now it's all that's if you've been wanting Wired to Hunt shirt for a long time, you might might be able to message us. There's a couple of extras that have been printing. You have to sell us on the bed the weird. The weird to Hunt

will go for high dollars. Where we're at this taco truck and we all get out of the truck and you guys must have taken off your jackets or something then at that point, because then I remember like just like saying hi to a couple of the guys and I turned and then I recognized, like, oh wow, he's he's wearing a weird Hunt shirt. And then the first thought in my mind was, we don't sell us anymore? How do you get that? And the next thing I thought was that doesn't say weird. It was the dude.

That joke really went over as good as we could have hoped at the airport, but it was a disaster trying to get in airport, so we put our jackets on and waited for the truck moment. So we are here in Texas because we're filming a show, an episode of a new show. You guys are working on, um, and you've alluded to it, like on rout Fresh you've said a couple of times, Hey, we're filming something for Mediator. Uh,

you're gonna hear more about this Hunt then, UM. But why don't we give folks just a really quick idea, like an overview of this new show was what's it called? And maybe a little bit inside it's like how it came about because it was kind of cool that you know, uh, about a year ago we started talking about this in brain story, like, hey, what could this be? We would

be the right way to approach it. Um, So one of you guys want to kind of give us a quick overview of how you got to this idea and and what it is that you actually went about trying to put together us here. Yeah, they so the idea comes from just a humble the humble moment that Casey and the Hunter had. I guess right, Uh, we were actually this time of year last year, we were in Oklahoma. It goes back for the than that does it South Dakota.

Oh that's right, Yeah, that's right. So I guess it's yeah, Uh, it really came It became a thing, you know, like sometimes you come across like a good joke and you're like, man, I'd like to keep you know, keep that going in the loop of my friends. And it doesn't. This one happened the whole season. But basically, we long story shure, we we realized that Casey's truck tended to see a

lot of bucks. Whatever whoever was in there with them, you know, they were they were in the bucks a lot, and we started to realize that that was mainly because whoever's you know, hanging out with Casey is typically driving around a lot trying to see stuff. Uh. They started in South Dakota when they had COVID and him and you know, Hunter didn't like to get up early, Casey had COVID, and so they would just be driving around the early morning seeing bucks. So they started calling the

buck truck. Well, you know, Oklahoma happens later in the season and and uh it solidifies with killing a buck, me and Casey killing a buck out a buck truck and anyway, Uh, yeah, we've done lots of this, but it's it's the whole the whole idea is that um, you know, we thought, well, that's kind of just that's

the way a lot of dudes hunt. It's like, uh, you and a buddy getting your pick up and you go hunting, and and it's like, for us, the truck is a delivery method for um, for us to get places that bigger deer exists than you know, North Texas or whatever, East Texas. And then it's a place that we've slept, it's a place we've eaten, we map scout

out of it, we road scout out of it. We uh look for you know, um pressure, not just deer, but like all these different things that you would do you can do out of a truck, um kind of the thing. And then it's all stuff that helps you get access as well. Here's creative stuff to it as well. It's my mobile pharmacy. Uh. If uh you know we need some duct tape or something, or some toilet paper,

I know where that stuff is, you know. And then uh, funny enough, it becomes my glassing platform a lot because you can climb up on top the truck and glass from it, you know. So and then like uh pulled the buck boat around. We got some buck bikes that we hauled around. Uh and all it works. Man, you put buck in front of anything, it works really well.

The alliteration with those two bees. Yeah, it's it's it's been you know, easy to do because it's just such a natural thing that to get two dudes, we'll getting to pick up and go try to kill deer. So and it's you're kind of on the island whenever you go out of state to go hunting. So the thing that like you're anchored to is your vehicle, you know, so it's, um, it's very utilitarian. It's very natural for that to be kind of the thing that the centers around.

So you're gonna take the buck truck and you're gonna travel across the country hunting like crazy. Um. And I remember early on you were talking like, you know, maybe we'll make maybe we'll add some stuff to the buck truck. We'll do some different things to make it better, you know, be the perfect rig for this kind of thing. Did you end up doing anything new with the truck or

just go with the original? And you know, it was never um like a pimp my ride ever, you know what I mean, because that just you take the the natural part of it out when you do that. We thought about that stuff a little bit, uh, and then we ended up you know, just kind of adding a rack when you needed a hall stuff or uh, I don't know, making sure we got the right trailer here. It's sure. It really is real natural like and we

didn't we're not auto mechanics. We're not and wait, so we didn't want to pull out a weld and towards to try to do something to it or put a you know, something on it just for the sake of doing it. So like whatever is on the truck or with the truck at any time, it's literally what we do. And we actually actually have had intentions to do some things that we don't do, which is also exactly how we operate, you know, like we'll be two days from having to leave them, like oh, we need to register

the boat or something like. We just always like you know, wait until the last second to kind of get things. And that's not even waiting, it's just the last seconds, the only second you have, which is everybody else they got nine to five agot families and stuff. And another thing too on this is this isn't like the first season we've traveled to hunt. It's kind of what we've

been doing for a long time. And so like this was just um a way to uh not even condense it, but just like structuralize what we do because in the past we always just been like having like we know what we're doing for the next week and then we figured out after that. But this year we kind of scheduled out the fall and it actually worked out really good that way. Um, it's almost like operate pretty good

with deadlines. I'm also procrastinator, which um kind of actually told itself true in this series because I killed a lot of deer on like the last day of hunts. So I got killed three deer on the last day of hunts. I believed, uh four if you count one that we left early. So it's kind of wild, um, but yeah, So it just it made sense to just kind of keep on having the truck the way it was because over the past I on that truck for

a few years. Um, we almost told it one time, actually tired three days into heaven only for like a week, and we almost totaled it. Um, not not by our fault of our own but back to the main story, like we didn't really have to make any alterations to it to make a hunt drug because we already hunted

out of it. You know. Yeah, there was there was some definite you know, challenges to producing the series though, Like I have hunted a lot the last this would be the third year that is rety similar to the amount of hunting that I've done, Like you know, it's pretty uh through and through each year it's the same amount pretty much. Um, it's about as much as I can do and this year, the challenge was because we're

producing this series. We it's a different model than us just making YouTube videos, which is what we've done for

the last seven years or whatever. And so one of the biggest challenges was, um, like when I would shoot a deer or he would shoot a deer or whatever, like we're still stuck and we're like connected to the buck truck, you know what I mean, Whereas in the past we would leave in hop camps around and go like if you know, if you's November second and you shot a deer, you probably should be hunting somewhere else, you know, if you have time, So one of us leave, well,

I mean in uh, in Kansas this year, I shot a deer ninety minutes into hunting, you know, and so November one, so I got got a I got a lot of rutt. He's ahead of me, and I had to just hang around camp for like four days until he shot one, which puts pressure on me, yeah, because I'm like feeling bad that he's just hanging out, you know. Which, Uh, when you shoot a deer in the middle of the fall and you've been hunting harder, it's there's like a

day of like I'm good with something around. But then like day two of like being tagged out, you got the pomo real hard. You're like, man, I go a couple of states over and all. Yeah. Yeah, I also had um what I talked about this on my podcast, but um, second day of South Dakota shot a buck too, and just hitting forward, I mean pointing the shoulder didn't get any penetration, probably didn't kill the deer, to be honest,

but um, I thought it might be. Uh, I don't know, you kind of have to hold yourself pretty too, pretty high standards if you're gonna show stuff on you on video, you know. Um, and I thought it would be just best for me to just kind of eat my tag as opposed to continue hunting. I was pretty sure this deer lived. Um, I mean I barely got past the broadhead on it. But uh yeah, So I I ate my tag on the second day of like a week long hunt, and so I also sat around for like

five days. They're just kind of like buck trucking, you know, so it it it. There was definitely like lots of challenges in that manner. And then also, uh, we're very like fly by the seat of our pants. With a lot of things we do and um, some of the like uh consistencies and motifs and those kind of things in the series that we wanted to do and we

had talked about doing. Um, you know, kind of made things challenging at times because uh, we're you know we all A lot of times we weren't actually because we had so many people with us, we would take more in one truck. So just like making sure that we took the time to do those things and video those things. Man, it was it was a lot. It's a very big

project for us. Yeah, but we're it's fun. I like that challenge outside of the hunting space to like the video producing is something I I do enjoy actually, So so how many how many states total did you hit with the buck truck? Uh? This week? Seven? Seven states? And what were those states? States? It's a good question, Mark, We'll I ask that question. Um. That's so for the audience here whenever, First of all, it's a it's a faux paw to say, hey, where'd you kill that? Right?

Don't do that to us, say what's yeah, you can? You can? You can? But I was kind of being hyperbolic there. Uh, I think um yeah, it's hyper in general. I had a lot of coffee and some good lunch. But a running joke is like when somebody asked, like, hey man, what WM was that? Oh man, that's a great question. I'm really glad you asked that question you and you just leave it. You know. I think that might come from Parks and Rick if I remember right straight to jail. Yeah, Uh that was um so to

stop being a smart alec, I'm sorry. Uh, Nebraska, South Dakota, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas. That's a heck of a run. And he had all we both had in Colorado this year. For I was on a mule he hunt. He had in white tails in Colorado. Do we any other states? We just hunted Texas a lot. In between two we had a lot of public anti Texas, so that's kind of where we

filled our gaps and did other things there. So let's can can we start at the beginning of the buck truck trip, the first of the trips, and like you know, we don't have time to go really deep into seven different states, but maybe could you give me like the cliff notes of like the major highlights or highlights from each trip, and then let's kind of talk through like a key learning opportunity or something you took away from that trip. I think that'd be a good way to

go through this. And we'll see across these six seven trip won't talk about today. So across those first six, you know how maybe you guys became better hunters. What some things were that stick with you? Now? So what was the first? So Nebraska was first, and I'll tell you the preteenses and'll that Tyler maybe tell like kind

of the fun part of it. But the neat thing about Nebraska for us was, um uh, he's hunted there for a few years and had some really great encounters and then him and I went two years ago and he killed a really nice buck there way back on some that country like packing style stuff. Um and um. We were going to so we have a couple of guys who are newer to our crew, and this is a big project. So we're like, hey, we're gonna go to Nebraska before South Dakota. Make it a big swing,

you know because those states touched. So you can drive straight north and get there pretty quick and just do like a practice run. Let's film this thing like it's gonna be a Buck Truck episode, but we're gonna live and learn and laugh, love and all those uh illiterations that while women put on their walls right uh, and then we're gonna you know, kind of be ready to

go when we start filming Buck Truck on October one. Yeah. So, um, we we've started filming and doing what we were doing right, and we were like, Casey c. We have these two guys that are are um new to this uh thing that we're doing right, and that would be like running

being camera operators or videoing with a video camera. So they're learning a lot, right Spike Spike and Greg Greg they both started about they both started in August, I think, um, and we'd had them down or to to our place in February to do some pig hunting, and we didn't really get a whole lot of footage, but you know, they're kind of getting used to so we go into it. Uh. It's, um, it's a pretty intense hunt, like we're hunting far. I mean even from day one. Case he's going like a

mile and a half. I think I did them over a mile on the first morning too. So just you know, long long trips, uh, some of its back country. Some we end up in you know, like some hillier terrain and um, anyway, long story short, we kill two bucks on the same evening and within five minutes of one another. Yeah, within within a short period of time from each other. And also we were like eight yards straight line distance

from each other. We couldn't see each other. Yeah, and were we were hunting two different trails on each side of this thing or whatever. Um I had hunted this is similar to where I killed the year before. So but I I let Ksey hunt my spot because I had seen a buck on a trail, you know, in the eight yards south of me. So I wanted to just see what was happening on that trail. Ends up, I kill like a toad that that evening. Um we getting toad like tried to jump the string and cutn't

because he's so fast here. Um. And so that was like, well, I think we got to sleep at like three thirty that morning. You know, we had to pack on my and and what was also what's crazy is like if we'd had if we were just hunting by ourselves. Sometimes having a cruise like a big advantage and sometimes you know, messes up deer, and sometimes uh you can say, hey, can you bring a pack into me so I don't have to go out and then back in so save

some time. We still got in bed at three thirty at night, but as pretty awesome, dude, the guys brought us pizza back when they brought the packs and in the back country drinking carbonated waters and and and eating pizza. It was like, yeah, so this was early so sometimes September, right, So what was what was the setup? This is a great plain state, this is early season. How do you kill two bucks within eight yards of each other the same night? Like? What made this place so great? I

call it providence? But if you want to talk about tactics here, uh, I think it's just long ways from from parking. For one. I mean we walked over a mile to get in there, and we also did up and down a couple of times. And then you've got agriculture on private and good bedding cover on public and hunting pretty tight to the bedding cover. Um. And also uh they think about the wind, Well, that place has

weird wind here. It does. It's one of those places where like the terrain can there's it's it's hard for wind to be just opposite, right, but rank and from in my experience, can almost move we in a whole cardinal direction. And this place is a lot like that. So if you were to say, uh, there's an east wind, you might go back there, and it's really a south from from this one little spot. Yeah. And here's another thing that's hard about that time of years. This is

like late September but still early season. Warm. We're walking in t shirts, you know, sweating pretty hard. Um, you're gonna get a still evening in that situation most of the time, and your thermals are gonna drop. And this is like a thing we've seen across the US is that your thermals are dropping towards deer in most situations, towards creek bottoms, right, So like, how do you kill that deer? And it's literally it's a matter of I mean it the micro we call it like micro moves.

So once you get into the area like a twenty yard or a ten yards distance from tree to tree that you could could possibly hang in, Like that's the difference in killing a deer sometimes And we just happened to not mess it up on both ends. And I do this thing where we like get out our phones and look at the map and just shoot holes in the boat as much as we can, and if it

still floats, we'll hunt it. And if you can find a good hunting partner that you trust, and if you both can set your pride away and not be like, oh, this guy's doging my idea and just realize that, hey, we're both trying to kill each other, dear, like you can. You can do some pretty good stuff. I get what you're saying. No, dear, at the end of that, it sounds real weird. It is a huge advantage you're trying to kill each other, dear, which you could turn into

that if you didn't set your producie um. So this set up then food betting weird. Wind long distance away from the road and these so these bucks are transitioning away from bedding cover heading towards those that those food sources whatever that was. What was the food source. It's actually Milo, which is weird because that's like, I don't

think that's a preferential thing. In most cases, there might have been corn up further, but what I could see was Milo, and they weren't actually transitioning straight into that they were kind of cutting the corner there, so they might have been heading up there was there's a couple of pivots in that area. Um, some stuff that's planted. Um, that's hard to tell from where they very well could you know, you can't go scout the private very well,

could be water that they're heading two up there too. Um. We more reading the fact that it's there's some really good trails in the area that lead to that. Uh, you know, the means to an end is is kind of more important than like what the thing is. It's good cover too, so you know there's deer in there and they have to go somewhere, you know. So I think that time of year you've got bugs and stuff too. They will come up high just to get away from

the bugs because the wind is blowing up there. So so so general question that would apply to all of your trips, but in this case maybe be an example

of this. Um, when you're approaching and beginning one of these hunts, are you always if you if you know the are you already and you know some good stuff, do you plunge right into your best stuff route the gate or do you always kind of easier way in observe, scout and work your way through the trip, Like, how do you approach this because you've got you know, four or five or six seven days per state, you're doing

all these different things. What's that like timing and aggressiveness level look like as you go through one of these. So we have a term that we use for this actually because we've kind of identified that, like there is a thing where you can be spinning your wheels by being too uh conservative on a hunt like that because you kind of have a limited amount of time right

you kills them. So we call it being knowledgeably aggressive where you take all the pieces that you can collect data wise, no matter what that is, driving around, glassing food sources, seeing deer movement. You know, you might see deer moving to uh water tank ten miles from public ground, but then you know water is a limited resource and they're gonna be going to that cattle water tank to

to get the water. You take all that stuff, mix it with map scouting and um, you know, just your general hunting knowledge and knowledge of the way dear act, and you do the most aggressive thing that you can knowledgeably do without saying that's reckless. And that's pretty much my approach. I think a lot of people look at this. This is a question that's posed a lot of times.

I think Tony Tony has answered this for me even but like I think a lot of people look at this whole question as like black and white, and it's really not at all. Um Like, there's a middle ground. It's just like politics, right, Like there's some middle ground there that we could probably all benefit from. Let's dive

into that. I was actually pivoting what y'all do what you want, uh so, but you know, like there there's uh the ideas that um, you don't have to be it's not aggressive and observation sit you know what I mean, Like you can still get into the mix without really I mean there's there are times I'll go in and sit and be like, dude, if this doesn't work, this is gonna mess the whole thing of and and you can sometimes make a play that sixty yards from there

and it's, uh, it stands a chance and messing things up, but it's not a guarantee, you know. So I think that's where you gotta you gotta sitting somewhere in that middle ground, like early on especially um to where you know, if if it doesn't work, UM, then you learn something and you maybe didn't mess up everything in there. It also helps to hone your skill set in that situation to where um, that first evening that we're talking about here, I took a forty eight yard shot and UM made

a good shot. And I'm not saying that every guy needs to do that, and that I would even do that like right now at this time of the year, um, because we've been traveling so much. I haven't shot my boat all summer like I was in May or may not do that, but but I got, you know, knocked

around on the truck for all I know. Right, But if you know that, like, hey, I feel very comfortable on large bodied animals out to fifty yards, that extends your range and therefore your your radius can be you're not intruding on the bubble as much where you can still take a shot. And then you pair that with like, um, your calling ability. UM, I really feel good about calling

in early October grunt call it especially uh. And if you kind of know how to communicate with deer on a at least a hunting type level, and you feel pretty confident that you can use that to your advantage as well, where you don't feel like you have to just bail off in the big mix to try to get a shot at one. If you think you can get him closer to you, it helps. Hunting a lot is is a good thing. Man like you. It's not even that, um, you know, like we're not sitting here

trying to toot our own horn or nothing. But like, we just hunt a lot. So we see a lot of things happen and we learn from that. So that's that's why the observation said is not my favorite, you know, and that's why we podcast because, Um, I don't ever want to call myself an expert, but I have a lot of experience now and hopefully people can learn from some of the experiences I have. Maybe guys who don't get to hunt as much can still like kind of

secondhand have the experience and that we shared with people. Yeah, alright, So biggest takeaway, biggest lesson learned from that Nebraska on what was that for you you? Guess? Uh, do you have something mm hmmm, I mean I would say, don't don't ignore the thing you know that works. Um, we went in and killed two bucks in a place that we knew was a good spot, and I was trying to make something else work for about a day and a half and it almost did. But at the same time,

that other spot was money. I think my takeaway is, um, the best food in the area, even if it's not a great food source, is the best food in the area. So it's all relative. Yeah, it's very relative. So he had, uh the mile of thing. I wasn't even really referring to that, but he he had really some really good encounters early in the trip on what would be known as hay Meadows, and it's just because that was the only thing there. So yeah, probably a big takeaway. South

Dakota was next. And here's a question. First, so Nebraska was supposed to be like, uh, like a warm up, but then he both killed. So now is that going to be an episode? That is it's gonna be one. I have a disclaimer. Um, like we mentioned, the guys were still learning, and the footage is not rock it's not trapod footage, you know, So it's good. It's good. There's some cool moments, for sure, but like there's some there's some times when like these dudes you know, are

freaking out a huge deer. You know, they're like one hand in this thing or whatever. You know. So but it's almost more fun though, where you speel the excitement from the other side of camera. I think that's what we all communicated to when we're playing buck Truck, is that that raw nature of just what it would be like two follow to hunting buddies around the country. If you watching Nebraska, just holding in the air for the next few episodes, So South Dakota, then what was the

what's your headline of the South Dakota trip? Mm hmm. And and as you think that through, give me a little background as far as was this the place that you already knew, did you have scouting intel from previous years, or was this a brand new spot? Uh? I ended up shooting my dear in a brand new spot, but similar area regionally, it was as uh, pretty similar to

some of the some of that stuff I hunted. I guess one of the things with the buck truck is that, um, the buck truck flies around when it goes out of state. So like our like area of reach is about an hour and a half any direction. It's kind of the way we treat stuff, you know, that hour and a half.

You know, outside circumference is real far. I'd like to find him a little closer, but if we have to, we'll we'll make that jaunt to do it, you know, and have done it quite a few times, and um, so should we do that a lot easier when we're tent camping. Uh So in the past, that's what that's some of the stuff that we've done to find a year. But we actually stated u um he met like a pastor up there last year who gave us a wing

of his church to stay in while there. So it was actually super nice because you know, battery charging batteries for cameras and just having a decent place to you know, lay on air, mattress or whatever it was was nice. But it also kind of limits you because you just you just can't help it. But like mentally, you are pretty locked into that place. This hunt was one of the ones that Tony actually or the one that Tony joined. Was he allowed in the church? Uh, he came in,

he did, but it was after dark. Um big takeaway, Tony's weird. But actually, truthfully, Tony is a lot taller than I thought he was. That's the first time I've ever met him in person. He's taller than you. I think you, Yeah, he might be like red rounder one's taller. Yeah, he's like six two six six three maybe. Yeah. I thought he was like my it's like a five eleven type guy. And I was like, whoa Tony is tall? So, um,

that's uh. I will tell you my My biggest uh takeaway from that hunt was that from year to year places change a ton because in twenty twenty one we hunted uh similar top uh country, you know, in the same spot per se, but something some of it was. Yeah, we covered some of the same stuff and had to

kind of readjust because it changed so much. One was lush, green, rainy while we were there, and the deer were doing completely different things than they were this year, which um uh you look on the uh USDA drought meters or whatever, and it was like extreme drought there. It was very, very very dry. So how how much time do you give a spot? This is like a situation I found myself.

And so you go to a place that you know in the past, Like produced you go into a zone, you feel confidently, all right, I know what do you do here? Um? You're going for the first night maybe let's say you go in there, it's not what you're expecting. When do you decide you need to pivot and change

things up? Do you go back in the next day, but I we're gonna give it another day, or I'm gonna give it one more sit or or do you say no, I know this place will produce because there's this feature that if you give it time, you know something will happen. Like how quickly do you assess the situation like this and then realize like, I gotta scrap this because it's it's gone. Is that I have a couple of different scenarios that where I think about this, but like it depends on time of year as much

as anything. So um, during this hunt, Um, it's gotta happen quick. I mean it really that For me, I I will move, I will pivot quick quick. And almost any situation nearly all a year long. But in this situation, if they're they're doing the same thing daily, and so if you didn't see them the night before, they're probably not going to do that the next day more than more than likely. Also, um, there's a lot of deer in South Dakota, and um, you know you should see

some deer. So in this situation, I'm very quickly pivoting, and that's that's why I ended up on new property um on the second day of the season, hunting a different place. But um, like in the rut, it's very similar there as well. Uh though I can there can be like dead days and then just crazy days in the rut, but I still don't give it a whole lot of time in the rut, So I mean it's

just kind of in the same thing. Late season goes back to those early season patterns a lot of times where it's just like if they're not doing it, then they're not there pretty much. And I think, um truck camera data comes into play here too, and that's the kind of the public private type thing. And some people

run cans on PUB two. But in this situation where you don't have any cameras out, so like you run into like a different approach where like maybe you know you got cameras in a place and there's a couple of fifties on camera you don't see in the first night, and you're like, ah, this is worth sticking around. Whereas we are literally dealing with what we observed. So if you don't see them. I'm bouncing quick, you know, like there's not many things that keep me in the same

place too long in that situation. So what ended up being the setup that worked in South Dakota, Like what worked um I. I found a small property actually that had um It had basically it was like a peninsula UM that was surrounded by creek like water essentially, and had agg on one end, probably a half mile away. And then um I ended up So I ended up sitting. I did one of my more observation type sits. I went in. This is a good thing about saddle hunting is that you don't have like a ton of stuff

on your back. But I went in with the intention of sitting on a landmark tree what we call landmark tree, which is just a big cottonwood that sticks up higher than anything else in the country. And dear ten tend to gravitate towards those things that they can see above the grassland. And I was gonna hang in that while I get in there, and I just don't feel good

about it. I started, as I'm going in, I find some good trails are going up to this agg that I'm crossing, and I'm like man, there's a I'm there's a bunch of deer moving up through this stuff without even going by the landmark tree there. And so I just actually sit sit on the ground and Eric and I we're gonna watch deer and potentially be able to move across these little saddles and these draws, uh to

get shots. Well, I started having I'm it's not I'm not telling tell the long story anything, but like I started having deer moving towards me. But as I'm seeing them coming off this peninsula, which is full of willows, Um, I'm seeing them like dip down back into this creek before they come up towards me, and Uh, I start looking at the creek is super dry, Like Casey said, I'm like, I don't know if there's water there. I mean, it doesn't look like it, but there has to be

like a deep hole there. I think they're going to water and just make that assumption. And like the long story short, that's what I did. The next day. I the next morning, I sat and I betted a deer out on that peninsula and I went and sat next to or I assume there was water in there. I come in from the other directions it up next to a water hole that's just getting hammered, and he comes by. I don't think he was actually going to water. I think he was gonna go on up to to act.

But um, I mean I had him. I had him in like ten yards. He was so close that my side picture I lost his shoulder in my side picture. That's why I made a bad shot because I I where I thought I was aiming was not where it was aiming. It was like fully my side picture was full of Brown's hair. Yeah, so as I was really sick though when I pulled the trigger, I was. I fully expected him just I mean, I was to watch him fall over and didn't happen. But no, tough casey.

Did you end up shooting one later that idea? And yeah, so i'd pull out by struggling for like six days straight. And so it's funny that um, uh, Tyler and I have affinity for different hunts. He likes evenings. I like mornings. What what did you say that? And it's it's weird how often it works out that that holds true for when we do have good encounters. Uh, so I will um that's around like we're talking about and UM see some deer on the mornings. Tyler scouted for me some

in the mornings too. Is we're really the whole trip for everybody. He buck chucked around and dropped me all places and stuff, and uh, um, you know, I had a shot at um uh, a younger deer that I was happy to take home um coming off of ag Uh and um missed. And then on the way out ended up bumping um a group of bucks out of this little ditch pretty much that led up to an

egg field. And it pains me to say that I killed deer on buck betting, because I like to make fun of it that kind of lightheartedly, right, But that's truly what I did. We bumped deer at a bucks, a group of bucks, out of a thick little pocket of like cedary type stuff. And I went back in the next morning with a really good wind and just it was perfect set up, and and sure enough they filter down off the egg in. It was just the thing.

Did the thing? Did you get up in a tree or you I did, Yeah that you got I got up in the tree. Did you set up that set up right after you bumped him or in the morning when you went in in the morning when I went in, because UM, I do try to make like like quick judgment of things and don't try to like mill things over too much. But at the same time, I didn't want to hunt that, um that or hang that that morning and then needed that evening or something, because I

might killed here that evening. But I knew that it was a good place in the morning, so we went in really early hung that morning. I actually made a mid morning adjustment to where my platform was in the tree because um, we found scrapes um on the way in. I wanted to shoot those scrapes. And then by the time I started getting a light, I was like, oh no, I need to be able to shoot the other direction over here. So I actually moved my platform like three

foot in the daylight. And that was the move that made the difference for me. A key thing that I've noticed and several of these stories, and I think in previous conversations and I have two thousand percent of yours, is these micro adjustments like that is such a perfect example of what you brought up earlier, Tylor, Like these micro things, whether it be with your tree stand being ten yards over or your platform being you know, two ft too high or too low or whatever, like those

little tweaks. So much of white tail success comes down to predicting something or or adjusting appropriately to what you observed, to account for any new possibility, to account for any little thing, to keep tweaking, adjust, observe a just observe adjust, tweaked this thing, tweak that thing. Um, it's easy to to be lazy and so uh and I do it all the time. Like there are so many times in the sea, like would kill a couple of bucks or

several bucks a year. It looks cool, but there are so many times and I'm like, I was lazy and I messed it up and I could have shot another one, you know or whatever, and you just get so mad at yourself, you know, for just being lazy. And it really is like you have to. That's a good thing about having a hunting partner, you know, like he kind of keeps you accountable to to not be lazy or

hype you up or what take a day off. It comes back from like your college football experience where like you can't take plays off, and the same thing goes with deer hunting. You know. It's kind of a cliche thing to go off of. But like, you know, you take a playoff, you're getting six on you right, like, and deer hunting is the same way you you you take a day off and that might be the day that he walked under the tree, you know or whatever it is. Uh. And that probably for me at least

comes from a lot of failure in the past. I think that we're all gonna make mistakes where humans were imperfect, right, So like being able to learn from those mistakes is like huge and being able to learn quick kills you dear, what what microadjustments do you see yourself making? A lot? Oh? Man, I mean there's it's just like constantly going on my head. Every hunt I'm on, I'm thinking, man, am I and

I is it this little knob? But I should be hunting on or should I really be you know, ten feet over on that a little nob because you have a slightly better view you. I mean, so just little things like that on you know, on the hunt that we that I'm on right now. I mean, you're so I do not I'm not a gear much. That's kind to me. I've almost kind of yeah, it kind of came back from that a little bit you know, he

can bog you down. Some people I think so too. Yeah, some people will do that, um like with me for gear. With me, I'm not like the engineering mind, so I know where my strong you know things are in my weak points and a weak points, Like I don't have the brain for engineering for putting stuff together, for like numbers,

so I have to uh like offload that. So like I've got a guy for like my archery stuff that I really trust and he can really dial things in and he can really know the right weight for this, the right length of this, the right everything. So like that's the spot I can't do it. But I know, like I can use my energy well and efficiently when it comes to like should my tree stampy two ft should be in this one or should be you know, should my trail camera be five yards over here, fifteen

yards over there? And I'll consider that little tiny adjustment. You know, those little things are the things that I do. It's funny you mentioned the trail camera thing because we've noticed with some of our friends that have been hanging some trail cameras. Because now we have them a like app, we can see, you know, we'll give some cameras to some buddies that'll hang some stuff and be like, man, if it was just a little bit angled down, camera

hanging is kind of an art. It's funny because, uh, you know, our longest tenured bro Eric just killed his first buck ever that's on our channel, just went out. He'd self filmed the thing. It was. It was awesome and um he set up on that place. It's a place that we've hunted for quite a few years and um like the camera those guys hung and they hung it like ten or fifteen yards off of like probably where we had originally put the things, and we're like, man,

this place is kind of dead. But we were like, dude, I promise you it's gonna be good because that's a good spot. So go in there and sure enough all the deer where and he called that thing in and shot it dude, so you know it made it work. That's pretty awesome. Um So, so real quick back to

South Dakota. I'll move on major takeaway from that trip um or lesson something like that though my me, my major lesson um is this, um So, I didn't feel like I didn't grant to stop that deer and I felt like I was too close and I was gonna he was gonna come out of a skin if I

grant stopped him. So, uh, something I have noticed, Um this is uh, I don't know you know how much you want me to admit this on your podcast, But I have hunted feeders a lot in the beat, okay, and uh, you learn a lot about deer when you hunt feeders because you may spend thirty minutes with dough

inside of twenty yards does with a dough. Uh, So you get to learn a lot about how they react to different things, right, And I have noticed that this down that's it that makes them look up when they're at twenty yards or whatever a lot, especially in a quiet evening. And there's something about that frequency that's the same as maybe a dough blowing or maybe a leaf being drug, a foot being drug across a leaf that's like in that frequency range. And I can, I can.

I've done. I know this because I had a running nose at one point and I'm sitting there with these does at a feeder and I just am like, you know, doing that and every time they would look up. And so we talked about this. I think Casey gave me the idea. I had told him this story, the same thing I'm saying here, and uh, he gave me the idea that like, that's what maybe I should have done in that situation. Was at ten yards, just go that's

the element policy now and quiet. If if it's like twenty yards or less, we're gonna do just no sniffle. But if I don't, if he if he wouldn't, if he wasn't walking, I just felt ten yards. I shot a here walking at fifteen last year and just smoked him, and so um at ten yards, I just was. I thought it was no big deal and I just didn't know where he was because the side picture was, you know, full of her. So yeah, My big takeaway was don't I said earlier, don't assume things are the same year

to year. Okay, So South Dakota wraps up. You got a buck in the truck. You gotta punch tag and a tough, tough pill swallow. What was next, Ullinois? I can tell this one in about five seconds. We can make this quickly. Yeah we Uh, we struggled um to find the year we were on a prime farm like eleven acres hasn't been gun hunted since the sixties. We built a horse barn or yak barn or something on

this place in the summertime to gain permission. So we just offered some help around the farm, and uh, we get permission, and long story short, there was there was some other guys that have hunted it, bow hunted it, and we kind of struggled with the whole permission thing because they were not super happy that we are in permission to and uh, I mean we hunted five days, I think, and we didn't hardly even see a deer

till day five. For much all the corner was still in, all the crops were still in um and they were working on a combine, and I kind of went buy a game a cheerleading session, like, Hey, what are y'all gonna cut this? Yeah, I'll get this thing. They were like They're like, oh, we might cut tomorrow or something. He's like, Casey was like, oh, yeah, are doing a good job. Keep going in tonight if you want a

man can help. They won't bother us. So but it was very tough and uh, basically the last evening, um I moved into a huge swamp and UM got caught setting up which I think. I think it was one of those things where like we're making noise setting up in the bucks like they can, there's somebody over there raking a tree, you know. And so Eric looked up. I was putting my jacket on, and Derek's like it was like standing up out of his bed at ninety yards.

So I didn't get him killed. I called him into twenty but it was so thick with willows in there that, uh, we couldn't We couldn't even see him at twenty yards. I can hear him though, I can hear him. He sneezed like twenty yards and uh. And then same afternoon, Casey and yeah, so neat thing about having a career of guys, just like we got the two guys filming with us, and there's a guy who ends up being Michael, a lot who does a great job. He's like utilitarian man.

He just does whatever he needed to do. And um he Uh he was supposed to be filming Isaac. Yeah, and uh Isaac with vector. He we were hunting with Isaac and so he was supposed to be filming him, and uh, Isaac was having some he had just had to be you know, family man, he had some stuff

going on and couldn't hunt that evening. So we were like, hey, if you want to go sit in a tree, see what's going on on this part of the farm, can if you're gonna do observationship it's good to do it when you don't have a tag or a bow, like, that's the one time to do observations. So that's what Michael did, and uh, he saw Bucks. So I went over there and moved in on that spot that he had seen Bucks, kind of at Afar and um uh, we knew it was gonna be a good spot. Like

this is like when we summer scouted this thing. Because we actually went up there, we knew we had the permission. It's like a lot different than other places. Right. Well, it was like this place is gonna be awesome. Let's go hang some cams. We had a couple like you know, quote unquote target Bucks like Bucks that at least met our criteria, you know, and um uh, this area we had some pretty good Bucks on. Well, this area kind of was off limits for a little bit and then

it kind of opened up to us. Um So we went over there and thought we're gonna have the same kind of seeing as one of those late October just kind of cool still evenings, but nothing. It's just milk toast kind of evening, you know, nothing like cold front or nothing, wind shift, nothing to like make them do anything. And then finally, like out of the swamp, Greg spots a buck behind us, just standing out on this peninsula. It's like giant buck. And this is where the dramatics start.

And I try to not be a dramatics type guy. I really like it whenever things go well and you just smoke them, you know. But this deer comes out and walks to and he's like at forty five and he's at my five o'clock in a saddle which if you saddle hunt, you know, it's like the hardest spot, at least it is for me. And I'm really out of position. I'm watching this deer and then he gets to where I can't see him at all. So I'm looking at Greg, and Greg is looking at the deer

and he's telling me what the deer is doing. The deer is going to go away from us. He's angling away, and so I get off the grunt call and start calling at him, and I'm giving him like these soft grunts because it's it's very quiet, and uh. He finally turns a one eight and comes back to us and gets to where he thinks you should be able to see the deer that I am, you know, the grunner, and um, I think he's at like thirty and so, uh, I like try to put my grunt in my pocket.

I got my bow in my hand, getting adjusted very slowly because like we're pretty much skylined, you know, like we're really high in this tree because it drops off to where this deer is, so he's like way down from us. We're probably three ft up in the tree, and then he's like seven or eight foot below the base of the tree, so way down there. And um, I get to the point where I'm in such pain and discomfort because of the angle I'm at that I'm like, I'm gonna try to to draw and try to shoot

this deer. And about the time I decided to do that, my grunt call falls out of my pocket hits the ground right at the base of the tree. And the deer, I think he might have even seen us possibly up there in the tree, like knew that there was two big shapes of them. And when the grunt call falls, he looks down at the base of the tree, doesn't spook, doesn't panic, just looks down at the base of tree, and I'm a and he and I just draw my

bow and he doesn't even pick up on it. And the rest of the story you just have to see on the video. That's pretty good. It's pretty good. Yeah, what happens after that's cool too, but pretty awesome. So barely got her done in Illinois? Oh man, Like we were leaving the next morning early and I shot that buck that evening. Take away, Um, don't um infatuate yourself with one particular property. Uh, And by no means that do you mean any disrespect to anyone who helped us

with any permission or anything in that. But we thought that that was gonna be like our chance I had booone and Crockett dear in this lifetime, and it just it wasn't that. And so like, man, maybe within that manage expectations. Yeah, I think, uh, my takeaway is don't it's similar, But don't um, don't uh think that your property is so good that you can just get away, especially in late October with fringe hunting. I mean, my best hunt was when I hopped thick into the swamp.

We took hip waiters and I, you know, have a camera guy with me. We only have one pair of hip waiters and they have to be a size fourt team because if they don't fit me, then I can't use them. Right, so I fit everybody else might be a little loose. Well, So we had to cross the canal that almost went over the hip waiters and then hook my pool rope to the hip waiters, toss them up in the air and let Eric pull them across the you know, so they didn't land in the in

the water. Yeah, it was a big dealble. I mean, it was just point being hard access to get in there and had a good hunt. And I should have been hunting in that thick stuff the whole time, but I thought, you know, no pressure on this farm, I should be able to get away with it. That's my takeaway. Where too, next Kansas for first and November. And this is a place you knew, Yeah, I've I've hunted uh Kansas for twenty years now. Um in this particular place, um is um at lease that my dad um has

had for twelve years. I think, really cool place. He he manages, Uh, they kind of manage it in a way that they really want to shoot five plus year olds. Um, and they just wanna They just mean they want. My dad wants us to just be happy and shoot deer whoever. But like his goal is to shoot you know, I think it's a it's just a kind of a it's a it's something that he doesn't necessary, so I expect to happen. But he wants to shoot a two hundred, you know what I mean. And we've never seen one

on the property. But anyway, Um, I had a I had a very short hunt there and then you know, like I said earlier, we we kind of had to wait several days, um for k C kind of working a little bit. He doesn't a case. He is not on the lease and so um he has to kind of scratch out on public and any permission we can

get that kind of thing. But yeah, I mean first first afternoon, I'm sitting there like playing solitaire, looking at my Bible apps some you know, and just like um doing a little reading, and all of a sudden, Um, Eric's like he's like not a shooter. It was like a hundred year is a nice year, you know and uh, but he knew right about it was a shooter because

he's been there with me before. And um, the deer comes in works as scrape goes by me, and um, I got a big huge cottonwood on my blind on my right side here that's like blinding me from anything coming up the draw from the other direction, and that deer goes out. They're like thirties fixing and go into my blind spot in the tree trunk and all of a sudden, I see another deer walk out of like fifteen and it's it's a toad. I know which one it is immediately because I hunted him last year. Um,

but just old deer. He's got you. It's a main frame ten with super heavy kind of tiracked with with some junk and uh, I mean easy shot, like kind of like South Dakota. Um, but yeah, I pretty much watched him fall. And what was he doing there? Like

what was the set up he was? Um? He So I'm hunting a draw and um, basically the draw leads up to an egg food source like probably a mile or more away, about a mile away probably, um, which is wheat winter wheat, and this is just this is the most remote part of the of the place, that particular property. Uh, nobody ever goes there, I mean, and I don't. I don't even hunt this place most years, like the entire pretty because if there's not a five year old for me to shoot, then I'm just going

to public with Casey and we're chasing. I'll shoot a one thirty every day in my life right now, you know, So I'm cool with that. Um, and we'll go chase deer doing that. But um, this year, I hadn't hadn't any cameras runn or anything, but I knew there was some good deal there last year and chased him for a little bit and yeah, he's Uh. I started looking back at footage from seen and I'm pretty sure that I'm very like, I'm pretty sure that this deer is a deer that I video in sixteen as a three

year old, so I think that makes him nine. Yeah, very old, had a broken broken time already. He was just cruising, you know, just kind of not super fied. It was warm, but he was cruising for sure. Was fat and healthy, like yeah, I mean huge chest but maybe the biggest everything. So yeah, and then um pretty much became the camp cook me and Eric did for the next several days. But sneeze, that's why Casey, you were scratching out on the other stuff. I'll look information

kind of bouncing around on that. And I had some okay hunts. Actually, Uh chase the deer that I had history with. UM. Who knows how old he is, but I saw him last year, big buck, giant frame. Um. He was actually a little smaller this year. I think probably related to the drought year. We also saw a lot of broken times across the country this year. I think the drought might have something to do with that. I noticed my buck when I got the antlers back

because we I'm gonna shoulder madam. Um like the rack was super light, almost like it's and he had some broken times on November one. I just wonder if they don't grow as dance on drought years or something. Sometimes I don't know if that's a thing or not. Just you know, somebody, I'll message you and let you know. So Um, I uh had a failed stock on that deer and then UM kind of had pretty tough ones

after that. And it was kind of in we do this thing where like, uh, you're like day four of a hunt and you're just in despair and belly aching. That's kind of wallow on the floor sometimes. Um, you know it makes that can happen. I know, and I'm just in that mode. He doesn't do it very often. He's a super super up knows whenever I am doing that. It was Prema Donna, that for sure it was. It was bad. Well, it's just between pressure and uh, you know,

limited public ground ground like you just hopeless. Yeah, if you got a spot or two that work, and then the way they don't work on the wind for the next few days, you're like, I don't have word to hunt. Uh. So Uh we actually hit the phones and started, uh call him people and uh found a piece of permission. Uh that was like awesome, like mill of nowhere. A guy gives us to go ahead. We drive out to this place. It looks great. Random cold call. You had

no end. I think you might actually call anybody. I don't think I did. You know, I didn't talk to anybody I called. I called a bunch of numbers, but I never got through to anybody. You got through to I think two people maybe Greg called him. Honest, I'll go I'll go to recent so i'll get on the app, I'll show you. But Tyler's call, for sure, I might have said we Tyler's call is the one that paid off. It was a guy that I hadn't talked to several

years before, so I just he didn't remember me. But right off the bat, I tried like to show him I knew I had talked to him. I wrote down his dad's name in his phone name. And that's how I do it. Is like if I talked to somebody, I try to take notes right after and keep it in the contact him. So yeah, so it was kind of like, oh, yeah, I kinda remember you, you know, Yeah, I got this place out there. I don't know if there's any dear out there, which is always good to hear. Actually,

and so we go out. It looks pretty good. We're gonna scout it. Uh really just familiar eyes of show with the place. Um. We hung a camera and then actually saw deer, a nice buck on the south boundary of the property, and the wind didn't set up to go after him. We were glassing from a long way away, and uh, we're just like, okay, tomorrow morning, that's we're

gonna go over there. Um, because we had already decided because I was kind of holding Tyler back and I didn't want because he already feels his tag, you know. And I was like, Okay, I wanna put this limitation on myself. I'll be done and I can come back later in the month if I need to or whatever, and we'll keep on keeping on. Um. Well, while we're hanging this trail camera, I get the rumble from down

Under while we're out there. And from then on, about three fifteen until about one thirty am, I'm I'm sick out both and like atrociously uh about as bad as I felt um, And I was like, man, why does this have to happen on November five? You know, like just it was bad, but about one thirty held it together enough to get some sleep. Woke up at five thirty the next morning and said, you know what, you only get so many Novembers in your life. I'm going hunting.

And I was slow. I was for sure he was not In the next morning and I was in the I was on the couch. I think sleep, yeah, and and like I hear Casey just talking normal in the morning and there in the kitchen, and I'm like what is going on? I could not believe he was okay. I probably wasn't actually, but because I still actually I held it together enough to go hunt, and then still for the next few days kind of had some belly problems. But um, I got off that morning, went and hunted.

It was almost observation sip. I got there late, which, um, I'm not the fastest in the morning. Anyways, A paired that with an extreme sickness, and I think we're inting the gate in shooting lit you know. Um so Uh. We made it down to kind of a place to observe from at about sunrise and within twenty it's heavy, heavy for us. Great morning, you know, can't miss this morning. It's the coldest day in five days. Uh and uh.

About twenty minutes into the hunt, I glass up a buck walking a fence line at about three fifty yards and putting binos on it, like, oh yeah, that's a shooter. And I'm like, well, it's pretty open between here and there. I can't make a move on. Hi, Let's see if we can get me to come over here. So I get out, rattle aandlers, and I just bang those things together as hard as I can whips his head up,

thinks about it for a little bit, doesn't win. Eight and A crosses the fence and uh, it's like, okay, we're doing this. So I bail off down the hill because this deer is gonna pick us off at like a hundred fifty yards because he's gonna be able to see us whenever he goes through this bottom and comes up on the on the ledge. Uh. So I get down behind that little rise that way. Uh, you know, whenever he feels like he can clear to see, he'll be in range. And uh. Um, we run down the hill,

get set up. I have the son in our back, which is a really great thing for that situation. The wind is good, this year is pretty fired up just coming in on a string. He's probably one of the top dogs in the area. I think that's why he was just like I'm gonna go see what the heck is going on over there. Uh. And then I see antlers and I can just see giant brow. Times. I

didn't realize how big this deer was. Um, this deer is like super wide and tall brow times I'm freaking out of course, which I hold it together like um, like in an observed way, I look really calm, cool and collected at anytime there's a deer round. But um, inside I was like, oh my goodness, in Greg's behind me. I don't know what he's doing. He's probably we have this thing called the Greg Eys where so if you know Greg, you love Greg. But Greg is a very

even killed guy. But when he sees a deer, his eyes go there so huge. I can only imagine what they were. This dear cleared the cleared the brush and uh yeah, routed that deer for like three fifty and shotty maybe watched him, watched him fall out. There ends up being the biggest buck in my life, all because Tyler Jones got me a permission on this property. So

that's a pretty epic trip right there. It was takeaway, major takeaway for you guess um uh I think for me, just don't uh don't ever under underestimate the power of a remote spot. And it doesn't even have to be like middle and nowhere X State, But as much as like a you know, a couple hundred acres that nobody ever goes to for whatever reason, you know there's no good access for humans there or whatever. I think that people undervalue days that aren't prim rut dates, but at

the same time you cannot replace the rut. It is just awesome, you know. And I don't want to say the first seven days in November or what because sometimes that kind of changes or whether kind of hasn't effect on things or whatever. But just rut action in general is the baddest thing there is, dude. It is so cool. Well into something you said, like, you only get so many notes. Ever, you only get so many November days

or whatever. So you're sick, You're like, oh man, you know what you can't if there's any way I can do it, you can't miss It's right. That's a great point, even when the weather is not perfect, even when things aren't just right, even when you're sick something if nothing else, Like that was my song out there. It's like I'm sick and I can't go hanging a tree because I might have to get down. Uh, just sit there and see something. If nothing else, you know, learn something, do

what you can. Ye. So, in the interest of time, and we gotta get a hunting here pretty soon, let's just cover the next two states. What was your big takeaway from that? What was the next day. First off, Oklahoma, Oklahoma. Big lesson learned, Oklahoma, Um, did you kill one? I killed one? Yeah you did, Tyler and I should have man came close. So big lesson learned here. Big lesson for me is, um, uh, good spots are good spots, which is very contradictory to some things I've said earlier

on this podcast. But the ruts different, like we talked about. So you had like a slow period and you trusted the good spot. Is that what happened pretty much? Yeah? Uh? Or I had a control camera at this place, um, and I hadn't had great data on that camera, had seen some bucks, a little bit of daytime, not much, but I just knew it was good and I hunted around that area. This was the first morning I hunted this spot, those particular treat and went in there and

shot to do the first fifteen minutes. We're in the tree that morning. Yeah, just because I knew from previous experiences that spots worth on. So don't let your slow trail cameras get you too up in the month of November. Let me get the cave yacht. Uh mine. I just would probably reiterate the the same sentiment I had in Kansas that, Um, I didn't really trust this remote spot

that I picked. UM, and I ended up having a almost killed a really good deer, like a really nice a point not you know, nothing huge score, but nice buck almost killed him from the ground with a like

a two dimensional decoy. And um. And then I think the next morning or evening I went in there, didn't see anything at all, And over the course of that trip and the next trip, I ended up kind of retrusting the spot and I left there, but I retrusted it later on and it was awesome And I should have just stayed in there more than I did because it was super remote, and there's when people around Arkansas was next. That's correct, Yeah, I think let's see yeah, yes, yeah,

it sounds like Arkansas was a doozy. Yeah. Well what company keep has a big effect on how trips Clay was there with us and Arkans saw so it UM my my takeaway there, um probably like UM I would say that. Um. We so we were we have some different contacts in the area. A guy we stayed with that gave us some good information, and then a guy that we know that gave us good information as well. Um. You know, everybody's everybody's you actually encountered this probably in

the deer country stuff a lot. But everybody's got their own style of hunting to an extent, right, A lot of people have these different styles and it works for them. But like if you've never done what Tony Treach does, you're a struggle to do that the first several years probably um, but Tony can literally break it down on a if this then that in every scenario, all the

way through an entire stock. So for for me, like you know, I think that those guys as we're giving good information, but there's nothing that replaced me walking around in the landscape and observing what I was seeing and making you know, references to things I've experienced in the deer woods throughout my life and trying to put it all together. Because I did end up later in the trip, I killed the deer, killed the dough um and dough boat.

I really gonnaen counter two bucks and actually ended up misjudging one um arranged a tree that was the only tree I could get a bounce off of. It was like sixteen yards from him. I thought it was ten and I thought he might jump strings, So better safe to shoot low than um, you know, have him jump and hit high. So I missed him blow. But yeah, that's my Takeaway's kind of just like, um, if you have hunted quite a bit, then definitely trust what you're seeing,

trust your eyes. I guess yea I would. I would uh agree with everything Tyler said. And since I didn't have us dell or hunt as far as deer encounters go on that trip, I would say to give it a more novel approach. Don't let hunting success dictate your enjoyment of a hunt, because truthfully, this Arizona, I mean Arkansas, Arkansas hunt um was one of my favorite hunts of the season, and I uh Tyler and I were together for one hunt and saw some bucks, but by myself

from a tree or the ground. I did not see a antler critter um the whole trip. And we gave ourselves some time on the trip but had an absolute blast. It was so much fun. Yeah, so um yeah, so yeah, let's take away from Arkansas, Texas will say for another day, right, hopefully there's a happy ending here soon. It's been some excitement, also food, some fun. It's very good food, good fun. Maybe too much food or one night. Sorry Mark, Uh.

Since this is your podcast and we like to pi rate that thing, Um, I would like for you to tell us your big takeaway from the twenty twenty two seasons, since that's the theme of this thing. Great, great, great question. My biggest takeaway is getting back to my number one goal for this year, which is just getting back to the fun of it. And like I talked about all year leading up to this hunting season, like I'm gonna

push the expectations aside. I'm gonna push like all the stress that I'm worried about doing this thing or that thing, or achieving this or being like this person or anything. I just says, forget all that, and I'm just gonna do what got me into hunting again, like make choices, because that would be the fun thing to do, not dumb hunting decisions. Um. Make time for the things that really matter, Make time to hunt with my dad, to do stuff with my son, to do things like that again. Um,

and stop caring whatever everybody else thinks. And I think as a product of that, I had more fun and I had more success. I mean, I had like a season that'll go down in the history books as far as I mean, it was good, like as far as deer, but just like so many great memories, so many things I got to do. I got to take my son out like eight times this season. I got to do all these cool things and had like just incredible memories with my family, my dad, friends, kids, um, and great

hunting to boot. I chose locations that I want to go hunt not because it's where I had the best chance to kill boon and cracker buck. But I chose to go places because like I just love the area or I know it would be a fun spot. Um. I planned my calendar not around like the absolute best way to kill six huge giant deer, But how do we make sure I can go to the family deer camp this year? How do I make sure that I'm around for certain key times when my son could go

with me and do these different things. Um. I broke like a rule where I said I wasn't going to hunt for two different bucks in the same general area. But after I killed an opening night buck, I got to think of, you know, I really want to hunt this other deer again. This would be fun. And you know what, you don't know how many more hunting seasons you have left in life, go after it, and I had a lot of fun. Um. So that's my big takeaway this year. It's good man. Um, still a few

more bucks to shoot though, there's still some time. You're gonna get two more. Yes, that's exactly right. That would be an all time or if that actually happens. But you can make a plug before we get out of here, please do um. If you are a Wired Hunt fan listening to this podcast and you have not watched one of Mark's very first please go back right now, the furthest episodes back of the Hunt. Yeah, the early podcasts are rough. Gosh, dude, you're just a cute little kid. Man.

Well though you are a cute kid with a mustache. Well, thank you, guys. I appreciate you taking some time here midday. I know everyone's pet place to be. Thanks for coming to Texas. Man. This is a lot of fun and I'm really glad we get to hang out and do the same thing too. It's it's been so yeah, I mean, it's been great to get to spend time with you guys. Has been great to get to see what the Texas things all about. It's wild down here. Well, have further

conversations on that. Um, but I'm tore up with prickers and cactus spines and all sorts of stuff all over me. But I'm really glad, I'm really glad ever here. So let's try to let's try to send this thing out with a one last let's go all right, Well that out of the way. Thank you all for listening, appreciate you being here, and until next time, make sure you check out all the stuff from the Element. Make sure you stay tuned next year on the media to YouTube

channel for the Buck Truck. And until next time, stay you boys. Say it Hunt