Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light Go Farther, stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on the show, we're breaking down the top four lessons you can take away from me and Tony's early twenty twenty three success in the stories of our big buck kills. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcasts, brought to you by First Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, in which a portion of every sale of our Whitetail cameo goes back to support the National Dear Association, which
is pretty darn awesome in my opinion. And this week on this podcast, I'm joined by my good buddy Tony Peterson, and Tony and I have some good news to share with you today, two pieces of good news. In fact, good news number one is that Tony and I both killed buck bucks this past week. So we are coming to you as successful deer hunters with insights a plenty.
And Tony, if you think you are up for this, I'm thinking both of us should share our story and then break down some very specific lessons learned and some ideas that folks can take from our success, take from our experiences, and apply in their own seasons over the next few weeks. Does that sound doable?
Sounds good to me, buddy?
All right? So that's good news number one, good news number two, and you can jump in and add some color to this, Tony. But the second piece of good news is that if you are listening to this podcast when it drops during the week of October second through October eighth, the good news is that it is white Tail Week at Meetator. So that means everything at Meetator
is white Tail focus this week. Not just what me and TONI are doing, not just what our buddies Tyler and Case are doing, not just what Clay sometimes says he likes to do. We're talking like everybody at Meetatter has been forced to pay attention to the best game animal in the world, the white tail Deer. We've got a new episode of one week in November coming out on YouTube. There's all sorts of white Tail articles over on themeeteater dot com. There's a new buck Truck episode
coming out with a white tail hunt. There's gonna be white tail themed trivia.
Uh.
They've even got a meat Eater podcast that's gonna be about white tails. If you can believe it, Tony. I barely believe it, Mark and I know it's great. And then there's also gonna be like a big buck scoring contest. Every day you're gonna have to guess the score of different folks deer and you can win prizes. All sorts of stuff going on across the first slight social media
FHF Meeta mine yours, there's I don't know. It just seems like we're gonna have more white tail content, stories, tips, ideas stuff than like I've ever seen, which, as far as I'm concerned, is pretty darn cool.
Yeah, we've been we've been trying to drag those Bozeman nights, kicking in, screaming to the to the white tail side of life. And it's like sort of finally starting to happen.
Yeah, man, I'm gonna call this a win. I'm gonna call it a win man. Yeah. And there's also they're gonna because of all this, they're gonna throw some nice discounts and some of the white tail gear too, So some of our white Tail camo, our favorite white tail pieces will be on sale from like thirty to forty percent off. So if you're trying to pick up any last minute stuff, there is the sale to and I
think three hundred and fifty bucks. If you spend three hundred and fifty dollars, you get a free Sanctuary muff. So there's that. That's the second part of my good news Tony is Whitetail Week. So that all said, I do want to rewind back to story number one, which is you kill the big old buck. I killed the big old buck. We kind of know what we're doing finally.
Huh man, I'll tell you what. It just felt good to get out there in September right away and just get after them. Like I think that that window is so good. I mean, like almost comparable to the rut in a lot of ways, and people just don't believe it, but man it, I don't know. It worked out for us anyway. It was. It was fun.
I love early season. I might I might almost like it more than the rut. Sometimes I can convince myself that I might like it better during the rut because like you know, you and I We've been watching our One Week in November episodes revealing them and stuff, and like having to relive those seven days when you're like in the tree for twelve hours and don't see a deer or something like. Those days sometimes are brutal, But I never have days like that in the early season,
like you know what the deer doing. You can pretty well depend on certain things. You don't know if you're going to see, like the deer, but if you've done your scouting, if you've done your work, you can be in them. And it's just something you can you can operate with, like information that you can do smart hunts with. I just love the fact that I was talking about this on this trip. I was just on I love when you go learn something, whether you observe something or
see something while you're scouting or whatever. You get a puzzle piece and you know like, oh man, I have it now, Like now I just need to a couple things got to fall in place. But like you're on a hunt where you've got that feeling like this is a serious hunt, like this is a kill set. Those days are the best, and they're so like early seasons like d time for those kinds of days.
I feel like, dude, I think you know, when we talk about the rut, you're like, Okay, I got to go find that pinch point, that terrain trap, and I got to ride it out. And so, like you said, with one week in November last year and just just general rud hunting experiences, it's kind of across your fingers endeavor, Like you know, it's just a different kind of thing, and it might deliver unto you like an amazing hunt, or you might get a lot of days in a row.
They're just not good. And I just think the work that you can do preseason and the decisions you can make in the first you know, maybe four or five six days of the season opener are like the work just translates to success better. Like you can you can set yourself up in a way that you know you kind of can for the rut, but not as consistently. I think that early season, those that first window is just amazing.
Yeah, now tell me this. Would you agree that generally the tactics that work when we just killed our deer. We killed our deer in September kind of midish mid to late September. The general theme of the approaches we took are basically applicable through most of October and then even most of December, with with like the specifics of the kind thing you're hunting changing a little bit, but the general approach is pretty much the same, right.
Yeah, it's you know, figure out those pieces of the puzzle and get in there at the right conditions.
Yeah. So so I say that in that like what we're going to talk about here in the next couple of minutes. You know, anyone listening could take these ideas and apply it to a hunt on October fifteenth, or apply it to a hunt on October twenty second, or apply it two hont December fifteenth, just you know, remove and insert whatever the appropriate food sources or whatever the
appropriate betting area is or whatever. But that's what I want folks to keep in mind, like, use this as a template for how you can apply this to your own hunts. And I think with that said, Tony, do you want to kick us off like by walking us through you know, the whatever relevant parts of your story, help us understand how you killed this year and this was this was Minnesota.
Right yep? Yeah, man, I you know, the last couple of years I haven't had the chance to do a lot of September hunting because we've been the filming schedule and whatever. And this year I knew I was going to film right out of the gate, and so, you know, I worked with my buddy Eric, and we hang a lot of stands and do a lot of scouting and run a lot of cameras. And this summer was just like we knew we had one farm that had no
beans on it. I had a little bit of hay, a lot of corn, a lot more hunters, and then one farm that should be you know, kind of like a sanctuary with with a bean field in there, which was so we kind of played it two different ways. I kind of looked at it like I have one farm that's almost like public land, but there's good deer there, so you're gonna have to get in right away and hope it doesn't blow up and wait for those conditions to get right on the other property that had the
beans and people probably wouldn't be in there. And I ended up playing that program and I literally saw I ran into four bow hunters opening day out there, you know, and this is a private farm, and you know, so you're like Okay, this is this is going to die real fast. And I had big deal on camera and the whole kind of summer deal, but I knew and
then I actually had a really good encounter. I think it was the second morning of the season, you know, like one thirty type eight pointer and then another pretty good ten pointer with him coming through. They got to like sixty and so it it. It was one of those deals where I was like, man, you can set yourself up so well and learn something like you said and get close. But that part of my hunt just died, like with those people coming in there and going in
the way they did. Like I'll give you an example. So we kind of called an audible opening night because the night before I was glass and and I saw a whole bunch of deer in the corner of this alfalfa field, and I thought, if we don't go in there, those deer will be blown out by whenever, you know. So I go in and sneak in on this fence row to get all the way back there and really take my time and go quiet, pay attention to the wind and everything. Get in there, don't spook any deer.
Setting up a natural groundblind because this spot doesn't have much for trees, and I look and two guys come walking straight through the field that we avoided, you know what I mean. And so you're just like, you play that game and go okay. If I was only hunting that farm the by day three, I would have been into the cover hunting those deer staging. But I had this backup spot that I could go to, and the wind wasn't right for the first couple of days, so
it kind of worked out for me. And then the wind got right and I got to move in there, and I went in right for the biggest deer. There's a there's like a one sixty that's like somewhat consistent in there, and it was things were set up well, but I had a dough and two fonds come in right away, and then I had a house cat come in and those deer would not. I don't know if you've ever had this experience. I've never had a positive experience where a cat walked in where the deer were.
And the worst part about it is, you know, if a coyote runs in, they're gone, right, They're like, I'm not a cat. They're like, I think I can take
a cat, but I don't want to like it. Yeah, so they sit and snort and stop, and this cat spent a lot of time right in front of my stand, and these deer were on, you know, on edge, and then finally everybody kind of spooked and the cat walked down the field and later you could just hear deer snorting at the cat like it was just working its way down and so you know just still like, well, it's what you realize is you know, like you said that the early season stuff, you have so much confidence.
So when you go out and you know, you run into those dudes walking through the field or you have a cat come in and screw up your hunt, you're still like, I just need to reset and you can still like you still want to go and you still believe you have a chance, and you're like, but you know, your options start to dwindle a little bit, but you like that confidence if you've put in the work is so huge, Like it just it keeps you in the game in a way, like you know that you can
you should have during a rout hunt, like you should have that during ratcation because it can happen at any moment. But you know how it is like you go do an all days sit and you blank. It is hard to believe that tomorrow is your day.
He gets in your head real quick.
Yeah. I mean it's like it's like over the counter el hunting, Like when you have three days of that, you're like, why am I not fly fishing or doing something else?
Yeah? You know, yeah, but.
You stick with it.
So I got to ask you to rewind this a little bit and give me a little bit more context as far as the scouting, Like what pieces of the puzzle did you bring into this? You mentioned you glassed the night before, but what else had you figured out leading to the hunt that gave you all these different ideas of where to hunt? What were you working with first? Stuff? And then I'd like to hear like where you saw those big bucks that second morning or whatever. I'd love
to hear like what that setup looked like? That almost worked?
Yeah. So the farm that I was hunting where I killed my buck that has the beans on it has very limited cover. You know, you've got I think it's the whole thing's two hundred and forty some acres and it's you know, you might have forty acres of cover everything else's field, and so it was a lot of trail cameras in the summer and a lot of glass thing.
And what my buddy and I found out was most of the places we put trail cameras and most of the places we could see where we could safely set up in glass, we didn't see any good bucks, but we knew they were in there, and so we ended up having a camera in one spot we couldn't see, and when we checked that camera, that's where they were. And so it was kind of like you know, pre fish in a tournament, you're like, okay, we're eliminating dead water.
Even if I check this and I check that and I don't catch fish, I know I don't need to come back there. That's done. And when you're dealing with a mid September opener and you have a bean field, even if it's you know, it was in three stages, right, it was brown, yellow, and green depending on where it was or you know, how low high, whatever, you know, there's a group in there somewhere, like there just has to be. And so we were like, why aren't they on this camera? Why can't when when we sit here
and we glass, why is it scrappers and does. And then you find that location and you go, okay, well this is like tucked away, it's close to water, and it's just got the right stuff. You know. I had a bunch of acorns falling, and so it was really like kind of frustrating scouting and checking cameras until that and then you're like, okay, now we know. And then you think those deer in velve it, they're they're hanging tight there. When they go hard antlered, some of those
deer are going to move to these secondary spots. Some of these deer are going to spread out, but they're going to be on the farm. So you're like, as long as I know they're there and I can hunt them right there and then and just over the field, you know, over the ridge in the field to this spot and this spot. It just it just gave me a chance to go, okay, I have plan ABCD whatever as long as is you know, the wind does this or the wind does that. So that was kind of the setup to it.
Okay, And most of the stuff was like, is that big alfalfa field the central food source? Is that right?
Soybeans?
Sorry? Yeah, for sure, big bean field? And then there's cover around it, and you're trying to figure you were trying to fare where this deer coming into it, and that's going to tell you where you think they're betted? Were you able? Was there an access way to get out, you know, without spooking out that bean field? Like how are you dealing with the whole exit situation?
It was, so there's not a good way to get out, So you go, my first sit here is the best. Then I leave and I can go to the other side and it's like a first sit again where you probably didn't blow those deer out. So it was kind of strategic, right you go. When the wind got right, I go into the spot I think has the biggest deer in the most dear that blows up on me.
Then I go, Okay, now I got to move to the other side, and I'm going to have one to two first sits there depending on what the wind does. And you know, I mean the wild card to that property and to most of my hunt. I don't know if yours was the same way. It probably was was the acorns. I mean, the amount of deer that we had that were kind of giving up on the beans and staying in the woods eating acorns, or even when they get to the edge, they were eating acorns in
the field. Was it was a bigger factor than I planned for, and it it became obvious real fast.
Yeah, okay, so you were hunting mornings. You do that. I know you hunt mornings on these trips, especially even September October. Can you tell me about that morning setup when you saw those two good ones.
Yeah, So this, I'll try to explain this so people don't fall asleep. But there's one hundred acre field on this property. It's fifty acres on one side, fifty acres on the other side, and there's a waterway between them. The whole thing is corn. And on the neighboring property is a soybean field. And so I know a certain amount of deer are going to feed in that those soybeans, and they're going to come back onto my farm to bed.
I also know I can park three quarters of a mile away from that soybean field, walk down a county road and then cut through that waterway and get in there and nobody's gonna know you. Now, opening morning, I got caught getting in somebody was already back and I'm assuming it was a buck and then you know that's just the day. That's like the risk you take in
a morning hunt. But generally my idea was they're going to just pick their way along the soybeans and or sorry, along the corn and then cross that waterway in front of my stand because there's a few cottonwoods in there and it's money. I mean, the whole thing that makes that spot hum is the access, which is you know, early season mornings are like that's so important. So it wasn't like I was like, I'm going to kill a
booner here. It was like, I have a very safe way to keep hunting multiple times as long as the wind doesn't really switch bad for me. And those bucks came through. I actually watched a couple other deer go through, and then those two big bucks came through together and where they went off to, I assume to bed. I went after him that night, thinking they might come out where h where I had a spot on top where
I had a blind. They didn't come out. I also found out there was a kid in there still hunting all over, which really didn't didn't help my cause any But that that's set up because of the access and because of where you know, where they should have been feeding, which is where they were. It allowed me to hunt mornings very safely.
Yeah, man, I love that kind of setup, that standing corn with a waterway through it, Like they love that grassy stuff in between standing corn, or like a even with like some sparse timber kind of in that any kind of finger that goes through standing corn that's kind of brushy or something.
Sign me up, like well, yeah man, And you you know, you think, okay, well they're eating the beans, they're picking some soybean, or sorry, they're picking some acorns up. You know, they might be pulling down some of the corn because
it's kind of at the milky stage. But really, when you look at those situations, the amount of browse pressure in there is wild and that's you know, it reminds me of like a soft edge in the big woods where you're just like, it's not like a definitive thing that they're feeding on or that I could name, But they do come back there and they will kill time in daylight just nibbling here and there. For sure.
For sure, a setup like that factors very strongly into my hunt as well.
But didn't didn't you fill that tag in the morning.
Yeah I did. I did, so, so tell me about how you filled your tag. Let's let's fast forward to that. Tell me about what the setup ended up being, Like, how did you have killing this deer? So you had to move to the other property?
Right? Yep? So that morning, that was the fourth morning of the hunt, and I actually went in and sat that water waist a stand again because the wind had switched almost one hundred and eighty degrees, so I thought, I thought it was still going to be safe, and I thought I might pick something up. It was not good for me. I blew it out, I'm sure, but it was it was my last chance whatever, So I didn't see That was the only time I blanked, didn't see anything. And then that night I was going into
that property with the beans on it. I had two stand options, and I was going to go to a stand that I hung pretty close to where I killed that first deer on one week in November in the first season, because it's pretty isolated and it's just like, I'm like, there's going to be a big deer there, right just it just the odds are But I had a stand I had to go past on the way there that's in one of those kind of a waterway deal again with some trees on it, where you only
have about an acre to hunt on this property and the rest is this wooded acreage that I can't hunt, but they feed up through there, And so I thought, my idea is, I'm gonna go to the farther stand unless I see something that convinces me to sit that waterway stand the closer stand. And as I'm walking in, it's just the amount of acorns they had been eating on that edge, and every overhanging tree had a scrape under it, and then you know, you know how it
is where you get into bluff country. The top of that field is totally dry, on the opener, totally brown. Then it transitions into yellow beans, and then in the low spots it's green still and lush. And I looked at the little bowl that that waterway comes out of, and it was green and like vibrant summertime green, and I thought, I can't, I can't walk past this. There's
it's just there's too much going on here. And so I had a decision to make where I could have just followed the edge of the woods around to this stand, but my scent would have blown into that woods. And so the trade off was go straight through the beans, where I'm gonna leave a lot more ground sent but
probably not get winded by anything bedded in there. And I kind of hemmed and hot on it, and I'm like, I'm gonna go straight down through the beans because at least if they get there and they win the you know, they pick up my central, I can shoot them, shoot them, and so go in, get into this stand. It's nice. I mean, it's like you're looking around, You're going this is set up. Well, I'm not gonna get busted. The
wind's real good for me. And I'm sitting there and I'm not seeing anything like and it's getting later and later, and I'm looking out on this gorgeous green bean field and finally a deer comes out in the corner that I can see maybe seventy eighty yards away. I pull up my binos and I see this rack come up, and I told, you know, we're filming. I told the Max. I was like, that's a good buck. Get ready. And so I can't see past him because he's standing up
to film. So I'm like dying trying to look around this tree I'm in, and I see this deer getting closer and there, you know how it is like when you look when you're above a beanfield they've been feeding in. They'll be rows that they just use, like they looked
like a highway through there. And there was two of those parallel and going through my shooting window and I look in a little like four to six pointer is coming in and he's filming it and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense, and I see the bigger buck behind, and so I'm like, okay, I got to watch this buck to see when he hits my centrail and what
he does, because he's gonna get there first. And he hits this centrail and like a lot of young bucks, you know, you see him kind of working it out, and then he follows it right into our tree and I'm like, this is not good like this this is this is gonna be real heartbreaking because now this buck's
like forty thirty five and I can't shoot. But he's getting he's following this lane that's going to take him to twenty nine and I'm watching him and he's he hits my centrail and stops, and I'm like, I can shoot right here, but it's tight. And I look over and the canvas pointed down at the four ky and I'm like, Max, you got to get on the big one.
He didn't even know it was there. He did, He had no clue it was there, and so he switches gears and then by then I'm just melting down, you know, And I'm watching this buck and I go, Okay, if he turns in this spot, I can kill him. Right, he's twenty nine yards, he'll be broadside. I can kill him. And I'm I'm starting to talk myself into it because I'm like, he's not going to walk past that centrail
the way that little buck did. Like he's he's thinking about it differently, and I kind of talked myself into it. Well he's spun around and I'm like, okay, now he's
gonna leave. And so I drew and I had a kind of like crouch shoot, and I mean, you know how it is like when you when you're aiming at a deer after you've been watching it a long time, Like I have this thought process in my head because I'm watching my pin go from like his nose to his ass and back and forth, and I'm like, you gotta you gotta get your act together, buddy, And I got that pin settled and shot and it cracked into him and that deer took off like a freaking rocket like,
and I was like, I think it went right into the pocket, you know, right into his heart. And it ended up actually hitting him through the front shoulder a little bit and busting through to the It didn't go through the backside, but it got close. It broke a rib on the far side, so he ended up only
going like one hundred yards. But you know how it is like when you have enough experience shooting deer, Like for me, when I hit him like that, if I don't see him fall, I immediately start to second guess and go negative and like, oh my god, I screwed it up, Like yeah, I didn't get the penetration I wanted or whatever, And it actually just worked out really well. So it was pretty freaking sweet.
Man, beautiful, beautiful sight when that all comes together. So what are the what are the two big takeaways or lessons learned that we can pull out of that.
One man again? Like I know I say this a lot, but options, like you know, we've I've been hunting you know, I've hunt like ten days this season, and I've had east winds like four or five days, you know, like I've had things that I don't typically plan for. I plan for a little bit, but not a lot. And it just reminded me the same thing with the morning sits, where I'm like, I know I'm gonna sit mornings when
I'm doing these hunts. I didn't give myself as many options, and I kind of tried, but I needed to give myself more options. And I'm always reminded of that, Like you you're gonna build a plan and you're gonna say I'm killing this book here on the beans opening night, and then the wind sucks or it's pouring rain or something, and you're like, Okay, what am I gonna do to
make the most of it? And so for me, it's always I don't ever give myself enough options, Like I don't think I could even when I feel like I'm super prepared. So that that was like a big takeaway for me, like you've got to do better, especially if you have the time and you you know like you can do it, like if it's if it's like a traveling public land hunt or something it's a different deal. But this wasn't and I didn't. I didn't set myself up as as well as I should have, basically, and
I think a lot of us do that. We kind of settle for good enough and do the other thing that I'm just I get reminded of this, I don't know every three, four, five seasons is do not walk past really good sign like do.
Not so hard not to want to see like what's around the next corner though, or if you had like a plan to get to point A, you know, it's like, well I was gonna go to point AH.
You know, it's it's hard, and it's because we fall in love with our ideas. But the reality is you have to have like a loose framework of a plan and you have to have options, but you also have to be like smart enough to go I'm looking at this right now and I should not walk past this. And I you know, I did this probably like five years ago in Oklahoma and killed a buck one time.
Like I just on this one, I was like, do not go beyond this, just stay here and give this a sit because everything is telling you that this will be a good spot tonight.
Now. Remind me I remember you said, like at the bottom of this low spot there was the really green beans and there was acorns dropping two right, yep. What else was making that spot? Was it just those two things happening at the same place that made it so dynamite or was there something with like was it really tight to where you thought they were bedded too, or anything else that made that like the spot?
Absolutely so. The way that this this side of the field is positioned, the sun is setting, you know, beyond you, so you're not in the sun all night like you're you're in We were in shadows and it was hot. I mean it was mid seventies, I'm sure, and the sun was blazing away. But when I walked in, the difference in temperature between being in the sun on the top of that field and just dropping into that hole,
it was like relieving. And so you're sitting there going, man, if you're a deer out there, even summer coat deer that are going to be bedded close, they're going to pop out here earlier and probably be it wasn't the first day of warm weather, right, so they they were probably like this is the place to be where it's just more comfortable and so that that was a factor too, Like where we were set up wasn't that far away from a trout stream in the bottom of the valley,
so it was like a little micro climate. It was just cooler than the other side of the field.
Man, sounds pretty that's pretty nice. I get it.
Yeah, I mean it was. It just it worked out well.
It's a good feeling. It's a very good feeling. So how would I walk through mine? Then? And then you pressed me on some questions as I go through this, and then I've got a couple of thoughts kind of takeaways that I've thought through on this deer too. So I was in Wisconsin, as you know, and had some like weird changes in travel things that I had to do that I kind of found out late this summer early fall in which led to me having to change
my hunt plans this fall a little bit. I was going to do a different thing Wisconsin, and then as you know, we had some work stuff and all of a sudden, I was like, WHOA, I need to rethink this, which led me to try to find like what other options I had in Wisconsin where I could hunt someplace with a very short amount of time and maybe have a chance to kill a dough or a little buck or anything like that. And I thought, man, Doug Duran has always said I could come hunt around him someday.
I know there's deer around there. I'd love to spend some time with him. I want to get McAll and see see what he you know, what he thinks. So long story short, I gave Doug a call, and I couldn't hunt his farm because he has other people to bow hunt that. But he does have another farm in the neighborhood that he helps manage, and he has this program called Sharing the Land, which is very cool for folks if you're interested in trying to find access to hunt.
He's got this program that connects landowners that want help on their property with access seekers like hunters who are looking for somewhere to hunt, and basically connects them and in exchange for doing some work on the farm, doing some conservation work, you can get access to hunt. And that was basically the program I was going to go through. So in exchange for me doing some chores in the farm at Doug's place, I was going to get permission to hunt this other property in the area. But that
said I'd never been there. I'd never seen it before going in cold, so just did a bunch of e scouting leading up to it. It looked like a good spot. It was. Imagine like a two tiered property. There's a large plateau that had a bean field on top, and then there's the surrounding ridge that runs around like imagine like a half circle. Imagine so the top of the half circle like a double decker cake, like a double
decker wedding cake is what it kind of looks like. Right, So you've got that top part of the wedding cake that's smaller bean fill up top, and then on the side of that, you've got a wooded ridge line with points extending off of that, which on on next showed like there's a bunch of oak trees and stuff in there and all these points that come off something and oh man, there's definitely got to be deer beded off of these points leading up to that standing beanfield and
at the bottom there's standing corn and so that's what the property has.
So hold on this. This is like a very typical kind of bluff land set up right where top and bottoms of egg and anything that they can't run a tractor on is going to have the cover in it?
Yeah, exactly, And it's it's something where I've not really hunted that kind of bluffy stuff before. My stuff in Iowa has some topography like that, but not quite like this. And then I hunted, you know that one other time I hunted Wisconsin with Tom Inderbout it was a little bit like this, but this definitely felt a little bit different. I got there was like it was bigger than I had hunted in the past. So one of my questions coming into it was thermals, Like how much are thermals
going to play into this? I assume they would play into it, but like throughout the whole week, I was constantly thinking to myself, Okay, is the wind gonna win out here or is the thermal gonna win out here? And which do I trust more when trying to make a decision. So all that said, coming into it, I thought to myself, well, the beans should still be green. I'm guessing that's going to be a top food source still, So I imagine some evenings around those beans will be a
good starting point. Hopefully I'll be able to see something, see where they're bedded, where they're coming out and make some moves. And then I thought, I'll hunt some mornings, but I'll hunt down on the standing corn side. There was like a waterway that comes through that standing cornfield and then goes up into like a wooded brushy look and draw, and there's a creek that runs through there, and then that kind of extends up to the side of the cake, the wedding cake, and then extends up
to the top of the cake. So like this is the connection point from the bottom of the wedding cake up to the top of a wedding cake. So I thought, like, man, if there's going to be a dynamite like morning location, I bet you deer transition through there in the mornings and you could safely get to it because I could come through that standing corn or through the waterway and
get set up. So I pinned a spot along that brushy waterway for a possible morning location, and I pinned a couple of different ideas up on top along the beans for some evening starting points, and that's all I had to work with that first night. We got there kind of late because I had been in Minnesota doing a fishing camping thing leading into this, and so we got there like already too late, some kind of rushing.
And so the short version of what happened that first night is I thought, with the wind and with the map, that I could hunt this northeast corner of that bean field and see to where I thought the two best betting points might be. I thought i'd be able to see deer come out of that, so I headed that direction. And then what I've discovered was that this field is one of those fields where it's like high in the middle, but then it drops off, you know, steeply on either side,
so you actually can't see most of the field. And so it was one of those nights where it got very still as I'm walking out there, and so by the time I kind of realized, oh crap, Like when I got to the area, I was interested, when I'm like realizing I can't see very much at all. I also am realizing it's late. Everything silent, like every step I take is making a ton of noise, and we're already running out of time. And I've got a cameraman with me, who you know, isn't used to setting up
in the saddle. I'm like, this is already feeling like a disaster. I can't I'm stuck. I just felt stuck. So I felt like I just needed to get in a tree here and cut my losses and you know, maybe see something to learn something. But I was not happy with the situation and it didn't pan out well. I saw a few doughs, had a few doughs whin me that came behind me, and that was it. It was like a lost night. So the next morning, I'm like, well, Then that evening, I'm like, Okay, you made a mistake.
You I got too far into a situation and you did not learn Like I realized. I need to step back and get back into learning mode because that situation did not at all play out the way. So I needed to reassess. I need to figure some stuff out. I gotta get some eyes on things. So I'm gonna do two things today to reset myself. I want to have a couple really really smart hunts versus like a bunch of these blind hunts where I'm not, you know, knowing what I'm getting into and they're not well set up.
So the first thing I decided it was that I was not gonna hunt. That first morning, I wasn't gonna go and blind to a spot and set up in the dark, like I originally thought I might. Instead, I was going to figure out a way too smartly scout and locate a good betting located or a good morning hunt location, and set something up that I'll have ready
for the next days hunt. The second thing I was gonna do is that I was going to find an actual, really good observation stand and hunt in a spot that I don't think I'll actually kill a deer that night, but where I can see stuff and really learn. And I would rather sacrifice that night's hunt to have two really good smart hunts after that.
So how many days did you have to hunt this place?
I had four evenings and three mornings, Okay, so that which ended up being four more, which ended up being four evenings and two mornings.
Yeah, but you but that's a there's a good lesson there in that even with a very very short amount of time, you still go. I'd rather scout and set myself up correctly then take a gamble just to be hunting. And I think a lot of people don't like I think that's very hard for a lot of people.
Yeah, And it was I mean it was even hard for me, like and I, but I realized like after that first I was like, you got too you got too greedy, Like I pushed in it. I thought like I want to get into where I thought that good stuff wasn't. Yeah, I was able that night, Like laying in bed, I was thinking this through and I had this whole debate with myself. It's just not worth it, like I would rather sacrifice all of tomorrow if I
can learn the right things, you know, yep. And so I was sitting and trying to think, like how do I figure out where I could hunt morning without screwing it up? And I got to thinking Doug drives around his farm all the time on his side by side, drives around his farm, likely drives around this other farm because he helps manage it. So I got in touch with Doug and I said, hey, Doug, do you drive around all the time on your side by side doing
farm stuff? And He's like yeah. I was like, all right, Well, would you be willing to drive around doing your farm stuff like you usually do today? And can I ride with you? And if I ask you to stop somewhere, will you just stop and sit there parked with a cannam riding or still running, and let me set up a tree, and he said, yeah, let's do it. So this was like the secret to my success. I knew that that draw looked awesome. It was thick and brushy
and there's all sorts of betting all around it. But if I were to walk through that on foot, every dang deer around there would see me, smell me, hear me something. But I decided to take a calculated risk and drive in there on this path that Doug has that he goes riding around and often, and we ride in there. And one other thing I learned. As I'm telling him about how I'm interest in this draw, he mentions that there's apple trees in the area. So I
asked them where are these apple trees? I said, well, there's one right here, right next to this pathway that I was interested in checking out. So right away, I'm like, that sounds great. We definitely have to check that out. So we go do that. We drive over to this place. I have all my stuff. I've got sticks in my saw and platforms and stuff to go and prepar tree. We drive in. We get to that apple tree right away, I see it's loaded with apples. They've been hammering it,
and I look around. I'm thinking about what the wind in thermals are going to do, and there's one tree that seems like you could be in range and the wind would work. And you're kind of downhill, so if the thermals are dropping in the morning, it would drop into the standing corn and I could probably get away with it. So he stays in the canam running. I hop out, sneak over to that tree, hang a set, trum out a couple shooting lanes, slip back down to
the rig. We drive out. That's all set for the next morning hunting this spot where this apple tree is in that waterway connecting to like a thick alder thicket that leads up that creek bottom and up into like an amphitheater on the side of that cake. So that's
the morning plan. Feeling good evening, I go back to that bean field, but I find the one high spot where I can actually get up top, and I can from this This is the only place in the whole field where you could actually seed down to the points. So get up in a tree. Six something o'clock. All of a sudden, deer start coming off of those points. So imagine like the edge of that top tier of
the wedding cake. There's these points that extend out, and so each one of these there's two big fingers of beans that extend out to those points, and groups of
deer started popping out into those two points. Last thirty minutes of daylight, a group of bachelor or a group of bucks comes off of one of them, several young bucks, and one of them is like a big giant, and the big giant comes working this way down the edge of the timber and right towards the last light gets almost, you know, within like one hundred some yards of me,
and then it ends up being too dark. I wait till they leave, slip out of there, and then my plan the next day is to hunt the apple tree in the morning and then make a move on those bucks that next night. So in the morning, I was gonna hunt the apple trees, and I was gonna shoot the first door I saw, because the one thing Doug did really want was that, in addition to farm chorices, he really wanted me to shoot a dough. They're trying to manage the deer population out there because of CWD concerns,
so that was also part of my duty. And so yeah, got in there early that morning, was able to get you great access along that waterway to get up into this tree. Didn't spook any deer. Got up half hour after daylight or something. Here comes a dough smoker. The weird situation with this was that, you know, I shot the dough double lung. She ran off from the thicket.
I could hear a crash. Seemed like all right, great, I figured why I sit here a little while longer in case of buck comes along, and then I'll pick up the trail. So, you know, maybe an hour hour and a half after that, I get down the tree pick up the blood trail. I'm a slow blood trailer, as you know, because I've got the red green color deficiency issue. So it probably took me a half hour forty five minutes, maybe more than that to get to
the end of the blood trail. But the blood trail kind of petered out right around where I thought that she should be dead. So I'm standing around looking for don't understand why I can't find the blood, and I kind of take a few steps back and then I see a dead deer in the grass, but it's like destroyed, like it's all eaten up. And I say, like, man, that's weird. It's a dead deer. It's not mine, though. I walk over, yeah, and I'm looking at it and I'm like, that can't be my deer. But it looks
fresh and like the meat looks really fresh. But I mean, like the rim meat is gone, the whole one half is completely opened up. The stomach's out, the intestines are out, the front cores in the back corse eating, the backstraps eating. And it's only been like two some hours since I shot the deer, and I still am like, there's no way this is my deer. And then I flip her over and I see the exit wound right behind the shoulder. And then I walk back. I'm like, oh, here's the
blood trail leading right to her. And I'm realizing, like holy smokes, like within like two ish hours, this deer got.
Devoured so that you didn't hear the oats on there.
I didn't hear a thing, and I was less than one hundred yards away, Tony. Wow, that crazy, yep. I mean you saw the picture, I think. And then they really got to her, So that was bad luck. But I felt good that the setup worked. Good good shot, great dough. I felt good at least Doug it has one less dough in his property, and we were able to submit the head for CWD testing all that kind of stuff. But that was like a big day. When did my farm chores mid day that day to to
take care of that part of my obligation. That evening made a move on those bucks. The wind was like I couldn't have asked for a harder wind to try to make a move on them, So I was kind of limited what I could do. But I made a move, got as close as I could and hoped that the thermals would suck my wind down this draw behind me. And the long story short on that is that just didn't see him. I saw a few dos, but the
bucks didn't show that night. Whether that's because I screwed up in some way or just they weren't there, I'm not sure.
Do you think they knew you were there?
I don't. If I had to put money in, I don't think so. Like my wind for most of the time, not that an airant little swirl couldn't have done it. It's possible. They definitely did not hear me or see me. The only question is if the wind, because the wind was like it was very it was like a light and variable wind was basically what I had, and so I wanted to get tight, tight to where they came in, but because of that wind, I just didn't think I
could safely do that, so I stayed back. I was maybe still like one hundred ish yards or so away from where they came out from the field, but I was right at the top of like a little draw that was right behind me. So my hope was that this light and variable wind would drop my wind down beneath me and then they would be coming from the side and they wouldn't smell me. And just didn't happen. So I'm not sure why, but uh, that was that night.
So my game plan was there's a big rainstorm coming through overnight and into the next morning, and I thought was, well, I'm gonna make another move on these bucks tomorrow night. I've got a slightly different wind. I'll get really aggressive because my last night, but let's go hunt that apple
tree set one more time. It's dynamite. The rain came through all through overnight HOPEU that washes away any scent that we left, and when we were in there getting our deer, it just seemed like a really really good
location was worth a shot again. Next morning, thunderstorm, pouring rain, get all suited up, walk out in there, just kind of in the trench, downpour, hike into the tree, and my thoughts are supposed to die off about half hour forty five minutes after daylight, the rain's supposed to stop, and then you know, hopefully get lucky and something will be moving up.
When that rain passes through.
Half hour after daylight or whatever it was, the rain stops.
I look up and there's a big giant buck walking right up that water right towards the apple tree, and my winds dropping down perfect just like still dropping down the thermals kind of cutting off to the side of where he's coming, dropping into the standing corn, and he's paralleling where that wind's going up that waterway heads right to the apple trees, and he's got another buck with him and kind does the same thing that dough does, except for the dough moved up to the front side
of the apple tree, but he was on the backside. So it's a forty yard shot, took it and got him. Shot was a little back. He went off. Then some rain came in after the shot. So then I started getting really paranoid because I'm like, man, the SHOT's back plus rain, it's gonna be a hard one to find. But fortunate Doug had a front with a dog with a dog said yeah, I love too. If you have any questions and you can use a dog, I always bring a dog to be safe. And so that was right,
that was the right call. We waited, you know, the necessary time on a on a hit back and came in that evening. The dog led us write to him.
How far was he?
How far are you run?
Yeah?
I think one hundred and twenty yards as the crow flies, but I think as like the track took it like he took kind of a he went. He dropped in that same creek bottom and then did one loop and then died in the creek. And I think the track was like one fifty or one sixty or something like that.
How much did it weigh in your mind knowing that you'd shot that dough just before and she got eaten up real fast to take a shot, you know, forties of polk and you know you've got rain, and like, was it in the back of your mind, like you better, you better get this right.
So I'll tell you in the moment, I wasn't thinking about any of those things. In the moment, I was thinking, holy smokes, here's a buck and it had stopped raining and it was supposed to be done raining. So at that point I thought we were safe from a rain perspective, like it was zero percent from there now. So what I was in that moment when that buck came in he came to the back of the apple tree, and his running buddy didn't go to the apple tree. The
running buddies start heading into bed. His heart headed into his cover. And so when I saw that, I'm like, he's gonna follow his buddy any second now, Like this is gonna be my shot. I I just remember thinking, like I don't think he's coming closer, and so forty is my max range, Like I don't like to shoot past that on a deer, and uh, but he's a big body deer, and I'm just thinking I can do that,
And you know I didn't. I didn't twelve ring. He kind of did a little you know, he started to turn a little bit, and I pulled a little bit, and those two things combined put it. I thought the hit might be the back of the liver or just behind it, and that's what ended up being. So when I really got stress was after the shot, because after the shot then like then this extra rain came through. I'm like, ah, I hit the deer back, and now there's this rain, and then there's those coyotes, Like I can't.
But what I came down to is like I'm thinking about all these things that I'm thinking. I'm worried about coyotes getting on him, but I just you can't push a deer like that that's hit in that place. Like if I go in there now, there's a very good chance I push him and I'll never find him. If I wait the appropriate amount of time, I should find him, and hopefully I'll find all of them. Maybe I won't, but at least I know, like I didn't push him away that that seemed to me like the only way
to guarantee i'd find him. The other way would be like, very likely I can mess it up. And so that was the judgment call I made, And unfortunately he was in perfect condition. No coyotes got on him. He died in the creek, and so the creek you know, kept him like perfectly cold and cool and great, like the meat was with one hundred percent great. So so yeah, all of that worked out. Awesome, He's got dropt time, he's got a sticker off of G two, very cool deer two. So just awesome.
Yeah, he's a neat buck man. So what did you learn?
Yeah, so I'd say the two things are this number one. You kind of address this early on the value of scouting more than hunting, Like that was the key to my success was taking that day too and saying, you know what, I just need to learn. I just need to figure this out right now because right now I'm working with zero pieces of the puzzle. I need to sacrifice the day of hunting to get some puzzle pieces and to prep something and make sure I've got, you know,
something that's well planned. That's that's uh. I just blind hunts, uninformed hunts are worthless. You're just counting on luck and most of the times you're not going to get that. So I'd much rather sacrifice a day like that to
get two or even one. Just good days. And so that was the key I was going in there that day and and doing that midday scout and prep prepping that location in there, and and then even you know, even if I didn't kill that buck that morning, I think that the work, the things that I learned through the evening probably would have led me eventually to killing a buck up on top, maybe two if I had a few more days, because I feel like I was, you know, learn a couple of key things that I
needed to with that observation set as well. So that was that was the most important thing, I think, glassing, observing, doing little prep work, doing that scouting work. That's the ticket.
Was that buck, the one you saw on the beans.
So I haven't seen the footage, so I don't I can't stay it with one certainty, but I'm ninety six percent sure like it matches up usually as I remember them, Like the frame is the same for sure. I feel like I remember seeing like a funky thing off the main beam on that evening buck, which would match up with the little drop time on the buck I shot. So I would say ninety six to ninety seven percent sure. I just haven't got to confirm it with a view yet.
It was just it was low light, you know, in the evening hunt, so when he got close enough, so I just didn't see him well enough to be certain certain. The second thing is just the importance of never being so set in your ways that you're not willing to break your own rules. So, as you know, I'm usually not an early season morning guy. At least I used
to be like a never. And then over the last ten years, I've gradually you know, fifteen years ago, when I was basing most of my hunting off of what other people said and what I learned from other people, that was like a rule I wrote down because so and so said it, and so and so and said it, and so and so said so said, Okay, you can't hunt early season mornings because they're too risky and it's
not worth it. And then over the last fifteen years, as I've gotten more and more and more experience of my own, I've slowly learned that, you know, there is a reason why those are risky and maybe not always a great call, and maybe some places it doesn't set up. But at the same time, there are other situations where it's worth that risk, or where there is the right access, or where there's the right situation that it can work.
And so in this kind of scenario where you don't have a lot of time and you had something you could access, like, heck, yeah, hunt it. There's no reason not to try, especially when you had good in and out access the way I did, and not a lot of times. You've got to take advantage of the opportunities that you do have. So so thank goodness for my evolution over the last five to eight years on that one, because I would have missed out on a great opportunity if I had.
Well, I mean, it's you know, I mean there are situations obviously where people can't do it or you shouldn't do it, but to go into a new property or even to take some of the properties we think we know and just be like there's no way. I mean, with the way things change and crop rotations change and logging and whatever else, like, there there are opportunities out
there that you should be looking for. Maybe you won't find it, like maybe it just doesn't exist on your farm, but it probably does, or like there's there's maybe a better chance than you think. And when you find it like that, I mean, that's like, that's a great opportunity. And that's that's one of those setups like you're talking about that might be good every day of the season like that, that might be that good of a setup where you could hunt that from opener until close every morning.
I mean, obviously you wouldn't want to, but there are situations like that out there.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know that's another thing going back to like not assuming something just because of like what it should be. You know, I think I might have ten years ago I might have said, well, there's no way I'm gonna hunt that apple tree again, because I was in there yesterday, I shot a deer, I walked through it. It's gonna be all mucked up every and the nation knows about it. I shouldn't hunt that spot again. But I took a calculator risk, and I said, well,
I really liked the spot and I had rain. I've also seen enough times where like one time one time in Ken screw it all up. Yes, Also it doesn't always you know, the buck the year after might have been a mile away, or he might have never been through here. And so I did think about them, like is this stupid to go in here and try this again? And I said you know what, I've trust in the spot so much and I think the rain will cover me.
I think it's worth it. Ten years ago, maybe I would have said, oh no, it's write it off, move on somewhere, do something different. So that's another one where like you got, you gotta be willing to sometimes go outside of what the pros tell you.
I guess you know, well, and when you're when you're in a situation. Man, I've been running a camera on this new property by my house here on an apple tree. And I don't I don't hunt apple trees hardly ever, Like I just don't really have the opportunity. But this has been an eye open and you know, you think about you go in there and you shoot that dough and there's coyotes in there, and you guys are in there and the whole thing, and then you get that rain and you go, okay, well, I've got kind of
a blank slate to start over here. You also have the reality that those deer absolutely know that that rain is knocking down apples, and if you have a downpour, you typically have some kind of frontal wind with it at some point that might help you knock down some more food. For them anyway, and so it's it's not just as there might be more going on than just like, Okay, our scent's probably gone. So we kind of get a
redo on this spot, which is a gift. But you also have the reality that those deer live out there every day and they know certain kind of weather conditions come through, and there's a whole bunch more acorns or apples on the ground, and that can work in your favor.
Yeah, yeah, I hadn't thought about that, but there's definitely some truth to that. And yeah, I don't have apples anywhere else at Hunt, but you know, it seems like any the couple of other times I've been on other propers where they did have them. If you happen to catch it on a year where like you have the apples and it's it's like an isolated apple tree, it just seems like they have a really hard time resisting that. Like ice cream, stand back and cover.
If you have it, you're just gonna check it, I mean, they just I mean how to check it?
This just I mean, I couldn't have written up a much better kind of location for a morning kind of transition spot. It just right away jumped out like everything you want. You've got the safe access and you've got it on the edge of this betting. You've got the apple tree isolated back that were far back in there. Some mean, it's just it was sweet, and you know, it worked out.
Well, and you have the benefit of the crop rotation, having beans on top to send those deer down to you, because a fair amount of them are going to be up there at night and you know where they're going to start. That would have been a different hunt for you if it had been corn on the top and the bottom. Probably yeah, I mean it still might have been good, but maybe not that good.
Yeah, it would have would have made my axis a whole lot harder, that's for sure. I would have had to figure out a way to come from the top somehow and work my way through all the bedding down to the edge of it would been a much trickier So yeah, yeah it worked out, and yeah I learned some stuff from it, and it's fun to see it coming here.
So let me ask you this about that the post shot deal with that buck. Are you are you to the point now? Because I remember, like when I was growing up, Maybe it's different for you being having red green color blindness. But like when I was growing up, like I'm like I love blood trailing, like it's so exciting, like my dad would shoot one or I'd shoot one, like I loved it. Now I'm to the point where I'm like, if I don't see him fall, I almost
hate it. Like we had a situation. I was just in Wisconsin with my daughter and she shot a little buck and that I actually saw it hit, Like we watched the footage. I was like, this deer is toast and that deer did stuff on that blood trail that I was so frustrated and it took me like two hours to find him and he was maybe maybe made it like one hundred and twenty five yards, But I remember just being like I don't like blood trailing anymore. Like I'm not I'm not enjoying this at all, Like
I hate the uncertainty and the second guest thing. I'm like, I just want them to freaking I want to watch them tip over from here on out.
Yeah, I'm almost to the point where I'm only gonna take twenty yard shots where I guarantee like a hard shot, just because of that very reason, Like i just want to see them go down because to your point, like it's so stressful and in the tiniest like the margin
for error is so tiny. I mean, I kept thinking about on this book, if I had just been like when I looked to the shop, you give me two and a half inches, and it would have been double lung shot, and that deer, like no questions asked, is dead. But I mean just that it's not much. It's like a finger length and that is gonna make the difference between me having a good, miserable day of stress or right away high five and and stoked. And so it's
just I mean, the tiniest little thing. It can be a little mistake on your own, or you could do everything perfect and the deer move, or a little gust to win, or a little I mean, all these little The fact that we ever kill any dear tony, I think is a freaking miracle. Dude. You know, there's so many things can go wrong.
It's so true. And the thing that I mean, this happened to me twice. It happened to me on my buck and happened to me on my daughter's buck. Where I thought the hit was was like four inches from where it was, and that that didn't it didn't really change anything on my buck, but on hers, it changed everything.
Like I wouldn't have just went out there to go find it, Like I walked out there way too cocky, and I was like that deer is toast and I brought one headlamp, you know, just dumb, like he's gonna he's gonna be right here, like I watched it, He's gonna be right here. And then you know, an hour into it, you're like time to go back to the truck and get real lights and think this through. And I just remember thinking, like God, why is this so freaking stressful? But it is?
Yeah, yeah, If that's there's a huge takeaway right there for this episode too, like always always be cautious and conservative with these blood trails, because yeah, I've had so many that I've been over confident with too, and they're just always tougher than you think they're gonna be. And I'm just lucky in this case, like with this deer. You know, we had footage and the luminac showed me
very clearly where I hit. But if I hadn't waited, like if I did not do what I did, yep, I think it would have been a really hard dear to find. So very glad that I waited. Very glad I didn't go walking around and mucking stuff up, because like the dog with zero interference was able to go
right to them easiest pie. But if I had tried to go walking around, I don't see blood well, so I wouldn't have seen the little blood that there was, and I would have messed up any cent trail for that dog later in the day.
So how long did it take that dog to find it?
Hmmm? I think probably was twenty minutes, thirty minutes, But it was like the only reason why it took even that long was because we were like literally crawling on all fours. It was so thick, so we had to crawl through like this hell hole to get into where
this deer was running around or walking around. But I mean the deer, like I mean, the dog never once had to be pulled onto a different trail and never once had to be led somewhere different, Like he just got on it and walked it right and we could see blood here and there along the way that he was on this trail the entire time. So I bet you could have found the deer in five minutes if we hadn't had to be like crawling around. Yeah, the oh man, I mean so incredible, and I'm just glad.
Like one of my best buddies has a tracking dog, and so we would just often, like, no matter what the shot on a deer was, we would have him come out to train his dog. And that has just gotten me to the point where, like I'm not stigmatized by like having a dog out there. So now I'm like, hey, if I have a question at all about the blood trailer, if I didn't see him go down, and I've got a buddy with a dog around or something, I'm gonna
get him out there because why not. And like it was so the right call in this case just gives you so much more confidence too.
My eyes, dude, they're just so much better at it. Yeah, like orders of magnitude better at it.
Night and day. Although I do love like when there's a you know, like a paint can spray it all over the ground kind of blood trail, I do like following one of those, but uh, those seem to be less frequent than we wish.
They don't happen every.
Time, No, they don't that dough that I killed. I mean, like, great shot on her and her blood trails crap. Even though it was, like, you know, almost as good of a shot as I could ask for. I'm just like, why why isn't there more blood? You just don't mean they're just weird, You just never know. So well, buddy, I uh, I'm gonna say we wrap this one up.
I think we've got some good stories we will share, We've got some good lessons learned, We've got some good things for you and me to keep in mind for the rest of the season. And I've got another opening day hunt coming up here. Well, when people listen to this, my hunt will have already happened. But from us recording it, we're like five days out from opening Day in Michigan, which I'm very excited about. So let's do another one of these soon. How about that?
Definitely? Well, good luck there in Michigan, buddy.
Thank you YouTube man, thanks man. All right, and that's a wrap, folks, thank you for tuning in. As I mentioned at the top, if you're listening to this between October two and eight of twenty twenty three, make sure you head on over to the Mediator dot com or first light dot com to check out Whitetail Week, all sorts of new content, all sorts of good deals, all sorts of love for our favorite big game animal, the white tail deer. So that all said, appreciate you being here,
Thanks for being a part of this community. We are in it. This is the best time of year. Get out there, folks, have some fun hunts. Best of luck to you, and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.