Ep. 717: Rut Lessons Learned from my Shot at the Wide 9 and Tony's North Dakota Hunt

All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by first Light and their Camo for Conservation initiative, in which a portion of every sale of first Light Spectra Camo goes back to help the National Deer Association and the good work they're doing for deer and deer hunters. And today on the episode, we are talking rut hunting stories, rut hunting tactics, rut hunting tips, rut hunting survival ideas.

Tony and I have just come back from very interesting hunts in which we, I think both of us experienced the wild swings that the rut sends you, without a doubt, the big highs, the big lows, the roller coasters of emotions. We had it all, and so we're going to share the story. We both have very significant stories to share. Big things happen with both of us. They are dead deer on the ground, they're deer still running, and there

are a whole bunch of things. I think that both of us probably have learned from it, and I think that we can share with you guys to make sure that your upcoming hunts here for the next couple weeks in November are better. So that all said, before we get into the meat and potatoes of a tony. You probably haven't heard yet, but we have a new rock Christmas Carol this year. It's called Big White Tails. So uh, Phil Triva, cue the music, Here we go.

big white tails. Big white tails are great. Hold fun it is to sit in the freezing cold tree all day. I hope sand dreams are high the rut. He's finally here, Mark said, it's the most wonderful time to kill o whitetail deer bingch points and pettings. Where you'll find me? Hang, it's twenty feet in a tree, grunt tubes, my bowl, inspector Cambo. It's really camp nah or two ago. I thought that this was fun, but now I'm frozen to

my seat and the good times they are gone. I've ate up all my snacks, my hands and toes unnumb and we're gonna climbed down from my stand. That son of a but decided to come out.

roller coaster. Bow hunting anytime, or bow hunting during the rut specifically, it's literally like that hour to hour all day long sometimes. And you know, when you think about it, you think it in your head like, oh, you have a couple of good days, a couple of bad days or whatever. But I was thinking about this when I was in North Dakota. I was like this, this happens

to me and this same thing in Oklahoma earlier. I'm up and down all day long, every day just about it's so inconsistent and it can break bad or good so fast.

heightened expectations. There's all this heightened pressure on the moment because like this is supposed to be the time, this is when you took your vacation, this is when the deer's finally daylight. There's all these things stacked on top, not to mention you might be hunting a new place, you might be out of state, or you might be you know, doing all these different things. So it is as its energy, tension, stress, excitement, everything packed to the brim.

and he stopped at thirty seven. And these these shots during the rut that you get, they are just amped up like they's so it's so rare to just have that like nice relaxed deer and just like you have time. It's it's always a little bit of chaos or a lot of chaos, and it's it's hard to close during the rut sometimes.

it has felt like full blown peak rut. Like I mean, I'm seeing them doing everything they would do on November seventh, but they were doing it on October thirtieth or thirty first. I mean it was banging over by me. And I don't know if that was just because that amazing cold front we had just had everything feeling comfortable moving in daylight or what. But I the last few days of hunting I've had have been full blown peak crazy. What have you seen?

I'd be like, it's like creepy, you know what I mean. And I think it's just part of it is just a function of you know, I've got a buddy who's hunting south theasterm Minnesota where I killed that buck earlier, and he's he's like you, He's like, oh my god, it is on like they are chasing I'm seeing good ones. So I think I think that's partly tied to it.

So so never assume that what's happening right now will be the case six hours from now or twenty four hours from now, because it is so different what you experience from property to property, or day to day, or state to state. I mean, you know, our rough Fresh radio episodes I think illustrate that very clearly. Every week too, when you're hearing about what's happening in different parts of

the country, it's usually pretedar and different. Or in one week in November when we were doing that over the last couple of years, lots of times like I'd be having something awesome while you guys are sucking or whatever it was. So that's I think for people's mental state of mind, that's a good thing to remember, Like if it sucks right now, don't be too stressed because it can all changed.

of fun. Like that's that's what makes the time pass by, is just the expectation and the anticipation. But so often it just doesn't happen, like for whatever reason why you're when you're there in that spot or that area, it's just it might be to moral, but it's not today. And that's a hard thing, you know, And I think you know, one of the things I noticed where I was hunting in North Dakota that I've never seen before was the sheer amount of trail cameras in where I

was hunting, because you know, it's public land. And I was like, man, if you had one of those days where it was happening there and then you had one of those stretches where it wasn't happening for a couple of days, that trail camera would only tell you that you should have been there, do you know what I mean? So, I think a lot of people would look at their you know, and they were all cell cameras, and they would look at it and go, man, they're going today,

I'm gonna get in there tomorrow. Well tomorrow might be no bueno.

Like the wind was forecasted to kind of be west northwest mostly for the whole trip, so I'm like, if I get set up right, the wind isn't gonna you know, it isn't going to switch one to eighty and then force me to recalibrate or whatever. So I'm like, this is going to be kind of a simple rut hunt. And we got there Sunday probably I don't know, midday, like noon ish, so we had enough time to suit up and go. I was like, we're going to hike into this one pinch point I know of and ride

that out. And so we're walking in there, and you know, this out there everything is either a section or a half section, so it's a mile by a mile or a half a mile by a mile. Basically is pretty pretty consistent shape of the properties and the size. You know,

a lot of checkerboard, some of it's bigger. But anyway, this piece that I wanted to go to is a mile long and it's mostly worthless till the back, you know, like ten percent and then you've got some river bottom stuff and a really nice funnel pinch point type thing.

So walking out there, and I know you've heard me say this, you're gonna smirk when I tell you this, we find this one oak tree, just one giant, great, big oak tree that didn't get you know, like there's not very many trees out there to begin with, but

this is just this big, towering oak tree. And as we're walking up to it, there's a little kind of scrubby tree and there's two fresh scrapes under it, and then under the oak tree there's acorns everywhere, and there's there was fresh snow, like twenty four hour fresh snow, with obvious sign that there was deer all over picking those acorns up. And then another big scrape, then another big scrape, and then a little patch of kind of dogwood and brush rubs all on the edge. And I

was like, should I walk past this? Like I'm looking at this, going I did not expect this here. This is more signed than I saw the last time I was out there. And so anyway, I walk past it, and it's like bothering me a little bit, but I get to I get to where this river bottom pinch point is and the trails pounded by there there's fresh tracks and it's like a funnel of trees along the river.

And then there's even a pinch point there, so imagine like a bluff top of ridgetop and then you have that kind of drainage on the side that always pinches them up or on top or in the bottom. You know, like a real consistent kind of bluffy deal. That's what I have going on. And so we get set up in stand and I'm like, this is you know, you're you're you can't be real picky and your trees out there, and I'm like, we got two of us.

not real high, but whatever it was. You know, they're North Dakota deer. They don't look up as much as a lot of the deer I hunt. So I'm like, we'll probably be okay. And as we're sitting there, I'm like, man, there's a huge oak tree right on this pinch point that maybe that's got a bunch or a bunch of acorns under it. I can see down into dreamy river

bottom stuff. And we sit for I don't know two and a half hours, and I look and see a deer coming up this cut right in front of me, this this little drainage, and so I grab my boat and I say, there's a there's a deer coming. And it's like a one hundred and thirty inch type eleven pointer, beautiful, like heavy, you know, short times, but a really cool deer.

And he walks up and we weren't quite on the same page for being able to like being able to shoot right away, and this deer walks up underneath that oak tree and just starts like nose in the grass looking for acorns first, dear, we see right like right away, and so I'm I range him twenty six yards and I can't shoot. He's standing there. And finally he takes a couple steps forward and I got this window to shoot,

and you know, Dylan's like, I got him. And so I'm like, this deer's freaking toast and so I draw, put the pin on him and shoot and just hear this twang and he runs off. My arrow went over him, and I was like, what I thought something broke on my bow. Like I'm like, I don't know what happened here. And I'm like looking around and like, is there something loose on my bow from travel or something? And I can't find anything. But I see that buck cutting back

into the river bottom stuff. So I knock another arrow, and I'm like, maybe I just shanked it, you know how Like when that happens, and like, you know, I I was keyed up. I'm like, maybe I just screwed up. But we were both like something was loud. So this buck cuts down into the river bottom. We lose him, and I'm like, I can't believe I just missed a deer like that on public you know, right away in the hunt. So I hang my bow and turn around to give, you know, to just talk about this like

colossal screw up that I just did. And I'm like talking to the camera and Dylan goes buck, big Buck, big Buck, and I turn around like to grab my bow, and this buck is like ten yards away on this hill right next to us, So he's like right there and he's looking at me, and I'm like, I get my bow get clipped on, and he's kind of like keyed up, like should I keep going through the cut?

Should I turn around? And he looks away and I get drawn and he starts to walk, and I thought he was turning to go away, and so I just murped like like like really quietly, and he took off like a freaking rocket gone, you know, Like so dumb, right, Was that the same deer or different deer? Beautiful aid pointer? Just just dumb? Like I should have just let it play out, because the way he was probably gonna go, I would have probably got a really good shot either way.

But I was like, you know how it is when a deer looks at you and gets wiggy and then he starts to like turn, You're like he's gonna leave, like I talked myself. Yeah, I talk myself and the

like he's gonna leave, but I have gotten drawn. I'm like, and he's ten yards away, Like all he's got to do is just give me an opening, and just instinctively, I just like tried to stop him, and he bales, and I'm like, holy shit, like I just I just screwed up on too awesome deer, like great deer for public land, A great deal for private land in most places, to be honest with you. So then I'm sitting there

and I'm like, okay, what happened with my bow? And we watched the footage and you can see that buck is relaxed. It's windy, that's that front was coming in. He's relaxed eating acorns. And when I shoot, he drops so hard that you can see his stomach his belly hit the snow on the ground and turn so you can watch the arrow just missed him. And so when we got back and watched it on the big screen with the sound, I don't know what I did. I was all bulked up, you know, and I just my

string hits something on me. I don't know what it was because you can hear it in the mic, the microphone you have right on your you know, right below your mouth, and so he got like a head start dropping, you know, and it didn't it didn't look like it really threw my shot off hardly at all because it went right over his vitals, but it missed him, and it was just like, what are you gonna do? So then I was like I took you know, practice, I'm like, okay,

I can't recreate this. So it was just one of those deals where you know, I just bulked up and all my clothes because we were sitting up on a ridge in that north wind and just total rookie like whatever.

property or something, I don't know, parks. We can watch him getting all of his stuff on, and we had found one person's tracks in the snow, not coming to where we were hunting, but like close enough where you're like, okay, he was probably in here this morning. And that guy suits up in the back of his you know, back of the truck whatever, grabs his bow, grabs a camp chair,

and starts walking right at me. And so I'm like kind of hanging off the tree, waving because there's only a little bit of cover back there, and he got finally got close enough where he saw me he waved and turn around. So that was really cool. I really appreciated that guy doing that because you don't you know, you don't know, like that's what I would do if

somebody was there, but it's a small spot. So then I go from you know, I was real optimistic getting in there to seeing him pull up really kind of knock me down a peg. Then two deer come in that are great, and I screw up on both of them.

So I'm like, I don't at the end of the day, those are the only two deer we saw, two big bucks, and I'm like, this is still probably a volume hunt spot, but I don't know if other people are going to be coming in here, Like I don't know, I don't know if I did just lose my two chances, Like I don't know if those were my only ones or not. So it was like, you know, looking at the forecast and everything, it was like, we probably have enough time

to get back on something. But my confidence level was like not quite as it wasn't quite as high as it was.

so then I was talking to Dylan. I'm like, we we'd kind of thought about doing an all days sit, but I was like, there's just no way we're gonna be It's it was brutal. So I'm like, let's go get down and go back to that oak tree. See if we can find a set up to just go grab the saddles and just do something or eat, like sit on the ground whatever. And I could tell Dylan was like, Uh, do you really think you should leave this spot? Like we might we might be in Jurassic

Park here and you want to walk away. But we get down hike over there, and it's halfway back, so it's like a half a mile from the truck, half a mile from where we were sitting just about. And we get there and it's just it's just covered insigne and we look at like every tree, like, could we get in there, could we stand on that limb? Could he film this way? Could I shoot from this direction?

Like and you only have a couple options, you know, And we're just looking at it, and I'm going, we're not We're not gonna be able to do it, Like I just I don't see it happening to be able to shoot to this specific tree. And so I'm looking at the ground where that all that dog wooden stuff is and I'm like, man, we could almost just tuck

in here. There was like kind of some dead fall stuff and some brush and it was so windy that all these little, uh kind of like poplar saplings just blowing in the wind or these aspen saplings whatever they were, and they all still had their leaves on because they're low to the ground. And it was just movement everywhere like kind of you know, sawgrass and just brushy stuff. And I was like, if we tuck in here, maybe like maybe a buck will come through or go grab

a bite acorns and not spot us. So we kind of set up and drag a dead tree over their little ways and whatever or you know, some dead brush and sit down and he's just behind me, and I'm like, look around them like there's no way, Like there's there's no way. But it was it was, you know, it was like kind of out of the wind. We were a little buffered thirty five yards from the base of that giant oak tree, you know, kind of some patches of brush and one patch of trees where they could

just filter in, you know, and not get spotted. And then on a neighboring property you could see this private property. You could see on onex a giant slough and I was like, man, it's that slew probably has doze bedded all over in it. So I'm like, let's just ride it out. And we're sitting there. It's like noon, you know, so you can hunt till almost seven there, a quarter

to seven something like that. So we have like seven hours of sitting on the ground where I'm like, we're not going to have like a crew, like a one o'clock cruiser coming through, Like this is just not that spot. So we sit there all day, you know, like the rest of the day, and it gets to like six twenty five and it's blizzard. The wind has blown even hard. We haven't seen anything. And we had been talking and I was like, there was one patch of big cottonwoods

that had some dogwood underneath. It kind of like a three acre patch in the middle of this big grassland. And I was like, there's like, why wouldn't there be a buck bedded there that would just walk into here? And He's like, yeah, I wouldn't be so awesome if we looked up there and just like across the prairie, here comes this buck. And like five minutes later, I look up and here comes this buck, just like we envisioned it. And I'm like, oh my god, there's one coming.

And that buck walked in and it was like he was committing a suicide. He walked in like he could have come in from any direction because it's pretty wide open, you know. And he like takes a route right at us and then takes a hard right and just goes to thirty yards and puts his head down to feet on acorns, never looked at us. So I dialed into

thirty and shot him right through the heart. He took off, and it was like first year we saw being out there all day and I'm like, we've seen three deer and they've all been awesome bucks, just wild.

were both they weren't rutting up. They were just zero point A to B to get to this one tree they knew about that had acorns under it, you know. And as soon as that, so he was like, don't walk by this, like, don't walk by this sign over and over again. I keep running into that. And the other thing was when when that buck ran off, he ran off, jump the fence and died right in front of us. Basically we were like, oh my god, I

cannot believe that just happened. After a day of not seeing anything, and then I looked and I saw deer legs coming from the backside of the tree through some

of this brush. I'm like, there's another one coming and looking it's a dough And she walked in through the brush, pegged us, and ran away like and so, you know, people are always like, you know, like when we went down in Oklahoma for that, when I hunted with Steve and I killed those two little bucks and he killed a buck, like, people will be like, how come you guys didn't shoot some does? It's like we literally didn't

have a chance. Like sometimes, you know, we take it for granted that, you know, these big bucks, like they're so cagey and everything, but a lot of times they're super confident, and it's the doze you have to worry about busting you and blowing up your hunt. Like they they're tolerance like pressure does They're tolerance is so freaking low.

there's a ton of dose using it too. So I think he was just like, I'm gonna go fill up my belly a little bit, like he knew that dose were gonna come to him too.

But then you get to the point where that little drainage, that little ravine's running down there, and now you have a funnel with a pinch point in it where they're either going to go above it or below it. So you have like you have a good spot. Then you have the spot on the spot. And it also just happened to have those oak trees in there too, But that was like a that was like a bonus thing.

was concentrated there. Halfway down the hill, which is where the Big eight came in that I messed up on, is a pounded trail like a side hill trail, and then on the bottom there's another trail and so it's like if you if you were like I found this amazing funnel. I'm gonna run this camera on here and wait for them to be cruising. You might have most of the bucks cruising forty yards below you, below that camera, and you would never know it till you got in there and watched.

And I think I've glassed him like maybe four times in October or since September thirtieth, I think, in this kind of little bedding region. And I've also gotten a few more daylight trial camera pictures of him. So throughout the month of October, I had kind of been circling around the edges of this like core area. He ninety four percent of like all my daylight sightings or pictures of this deer have happened in like a ten acre fifteen acre ish type of region, you know, like tight,

which is a betting area type thing. Yeah, and it's like a it's grassy autumnolives and little bru she things and stuff like that. So like from my hilltop where I can glass, I can see down along this creek into these different openings, so I can see like kind of the center pivot right in the middle of it. And so that's why I've been able to see him so many times. And I've got a couple spots where I hunt in there that also give you visibility in

there seat. So I've just been over the years been able to you know, observe this deer doing this thing in this betting year. That's like I said, like it's you know, ten ish ach five. I don't know the actual I think I did a circle the other day.

The actual like betting betting, the best of the betting is about seven acres and then you know the surrounding area around it that I have cameras or that I can hunt, you know, maybe gives us like a fifteen acres zone where I've kind of said, like since the beginning of the year, like it's gonna happen somewhere within this like fifteen to twenty acres, and I've just kind of worked the edges based on wind and some days,

like I know he does come out of that. Course, I knew it was possible on the edges, but earlier in October I wasn't going to bust into the middle of it. But I did that and did not see him other than the scouting days, and I could glass into the middle of it. So then first third week of October went up to the family deer camp to try to help my dad get a deer up there. That was that week in October. It was really hot everywhere, or at least warm and rainy. We had like the

entire hunt five days. It was high sixties and torrential rain almost the entire time. It was lousy and did not see hardly anything moving. Unfortunate, but my plan is I was going to get done with that, and then there's this big cold front hitting back in southern Michigan.

So as soon as I got back from that hunt, I was going to start hunting back locally after the Wide nine and I would have three and a half days before I had to leave for Nebraska, So I was planning on at that point that hit it hard, like get aggressive, get into that core area, get tight,

tight tight to where he's betting. You know, went between where he's going to leave that betting and train position out to you know, check does or head out to the dough spots where he's gonna feed in the evening, where the doughs will be feeding and he'll do a little both. So that was my game plan going into it.

That coal front hit. It dropped, you know, twenty some degrees here, and my first hunt was a morning hunt, and so I was going to slip in and do a hanging hunt, saddle hunt just on the downwind edge of like his core bedding zone. Like if I had to narrow down like that ten acre area down to like the best three or four, that's where I was now.

And so it was like I was right on the edge of this super thick downwind side and then there's an old like cut like maybe a I don't know, decades ago, maybe someone cut a pipeline there or an old two track or something, but there's like a twenty yard wide cut where there's no trees, it's just grass that kind of separates this timber. And then there's the cut and then there's like the thick, thick, thick, nasty

brushy stuff where they really bed. And I've historically seen that when I'm hunting on this edge of it, you'll yet a good number of deer will follow that track because that's that path at least resistance. So I was downwind and I was also on that perpendicular track, so that was like kind of like a funnel on that down one side was my hope. So that was the

thing I was hunting. My wind was gonna blow away from that back into some open timber behind me where there just isn't you know, compared to the rest of the area, it's it's lower deer traffic. So got in there, hung my sticks, got up there in the saddle, and right away there was deer chasing. There was like three little bucks on a dough running them around. Then I look in the another direction, there's a little buck chasing a dough. Look in the other direction there's a little

scrappers just kind of cruising. So it was like on and this was the twenty ninth I think and I don't know if it was maybe nine thirty nine forty five something like that. I look to my north and so this would be like on the other side of the creek, on the north side of his bedding zone, and there's a dough standing there on the edge of this thick, thick stuff. And then you see like a deer like shake a bigger body deer, and then pull

my bi notes and there he is. He's standing behind her, just doing that thing that a big buck does to get this little dough in front of him, and she's like cowering, and he's just standing tall over top of her. And then I see him this is probably one hundred and eighty yards one hundred and fifty yards something like that, because I can see up that cut across to the

creek and then on this other thick stuff on that side. Okay, so he's like, I've got the really thick stuff to my right where I couldn't see more than like twenty thirty yards, but he's north of me, just on the edge of the edge, so I see that. Then he pins his ears back and I see him like start strutting, and then I zuome my glasses over to the left and there's another buck that was like staring at him. So he goes and pushes that buck off, and then he trots back and I see another buck come from

the right, and he goes pushes that deer off. So right away, I'm like, okay, I know I've seen this movie before. He's on this dough. Everyone's circling him, like the sad lights are all circling around him, you know, hoping to poke in there and get a shot at her. But he's locked on this dough. So I watched that for a while and then she squirts back into the thick cover and they disappear. I stay there till midday, watching hoping to catch him again, see him again, anything,

don't see anything else. I do see a few other bucks that like come up to this thicket and stop and like stare at it for a while and just like linger and so everything's telling me like they're still in there, right that's you just see this over and over again. He's in this thick, thick thick. It's you know, about two hundred yards away ish, maybe maybe a little less.

So I decided I got to pull down the set, and I think the best thing I could do is get as close as I possibly excuse me, get as close as I possibly can to where they are, and be right in that zone if I can, Because every time I've seen a buck locked on a dough like this, like, they're usually not going to move a whole lot like once they're in their little spot, he's going to be there all the way till that dough decides that she wants to move on to feed, and then he's going

to be right with her, and they're probably going to be there for twenty four hours or something like. I've got to I've gotta the way I looked at it, as I said, I have a unique piece of intel right now that I have to move on, and I know where there's a really strong chance he's going to be for the next day or so. So I got to be as tight as I can and hopefully take advantage of a few things that I know about this area. So Number one, get as tight as I could without spooking.

Number two, I had to make a judgment call on where if this dough does want to push out to feed tonight, what's the most likely way she'll go to transition? So I can pick the right, you know, side of that betting stuff that they might go out on. So that was going to be to the west. Based on where I've been seeing a lot of these deer head out to feed. There was a standing cornfield a few hundred yards away, probably three hundred yards to the west, give or take. I figured that was the best guess

of where they might head. So it's pretty windy and wet that more so I was able to tear my set down and I went back to the truck to grab some stuff. And then when I went back out maybe an hour later, it died down. And now it's like completely still, and it just the leaves had just crisped up enough that now like everything feels loud. So now I'm like paranoid, and I'm like, oh man, we can't get to where I want to get. There's no way we're gonna get there without blowing things up, YadA,

YadA YadA. So I'm all stressed out about it, but like, you gotta get in there, And so I had to kind of I readjusted where I thought I was going to try to get to. I was originally thinking I could sneak right up this line of trees and get

like forty yards off of where I saw them. I thought I could like get really tight because it's so thick where they're in, like as long as they weren't right within like a yard or two of the edge, I thought I could use this tree line to like literally line up a line of trees and travel right along that line of sight and then get up in the back of a tree. But when the wind died down and it crisped a little bit, I really I was like, Okay, there's no way that's going to happen.

I need to I need to figure out a different way I can approach this but still be in that zone. And so, to make a long story short, I decide instead of getting right on the like on the button where they were, I was going to get closer, but more down towards where I thought they would transition, so that way I would not have to get quite as

close but hopefully still be in the game. So I ended up being able to get within about one hundred yards of where I saw them and set up right along the creek that I mentioned that they were on the edge of. But there on the other side of the creek in this thicket and I'm on the opposite side about one hundred yards down towards that cornfield where I was hoping they transition. This is also like I've seen him, like this is that zone I can glass into. So I've seen him right where I'm at, like a

thousand times over the years. I've seen him cross the creek right here, Like there's a big crossing right there where I'm lined up at. They transition along the creek

and then they bounce across the creek a bunch. So I'm like, I'm right there where all this stuff happens, and i know, like he's ninety nine percent sure he's still going to be so or I'm within one hundred yards and I get set up in that tree, and within being like up there for five ten minutes, I see two bucks set up of that same spot and start lingering, you know, just that that zombie buck thing where they're just staring in there together, and then they

start sparring, and then they start circling, and then another buck comes in sniffing around. And so for the last next like four hours, that's what was going on, just like bucks circling around, bucks chasing little or little bucks chasing dose, but they never popped out. Didn't see them, so that was kind of disappointing. I thought for sure

I would see them. I thought, I can't guarantee they're in a trend like they're gonna move down towards me, but I gotta believe they're gonna come out of that pocket somewhere. I can see them because I can see all the way down this creek, and like there's grass along the creek for like fifteen yards on either side, maybe twenty yards, so it's like a forty yard cut basically in the middle of this bedding air that I

can see. And I can see to the west side of this thicket too, So I've got good even though like for them, they feel incredibly incredibly safe because tall grass and brush, but from twenty some feet up, I can see down into all this stuff.

should be in there. Again, he's probably still in that dough. I gotta be in there, and I can make the northwest wind work. So I get in there really early, get I'll set up. Feels great, then starts raining again, so it's rainy. Now it's windy and rainy and just kind of bluck. But as those gusts pick up more and more throughout the morning, that northwest wind all of a sudden was like a west northwest wind, and I'm throwing milkweed and it's not cutting the bottom of the

bedding area. It's like cut into the bedding aar. And I'm like, ah, this is bad. And then I would like throw another piece and then it cut beneath it, and then I'm like, okay, I can this will be okay, this will be okay. And then another gus comes up and I throw a milkweed and it blows it right

into the bedding air do west. I'm like, ah, no, this is really really bad, and so for like fifteen minutes I played that game where like a little bit of my soul died every time, and I kept I threw so many pieces of milk weed, just hoping and praying that one of these times it would just consistently start going northwest. And it never did. It just got worse and worse and worse and worse, to the point where there's like fifteen to twenty miles on our winds

and they're blowing like right at the best stuff. And the whole time, I'm thinking, like I gotta go. I have to go, Like this is a disaster. We hadn't seen a deer the whole morning, and I'm wondering, like how many deer have winded me? How many deer have gone into that thing? You know, this is disastrous. You know you can't be here. You have to get out

of here. But at the same time, not only do I need to get out of this tree and get a saddle and sticks out of the tree, but I've got a camera guy in the tree with all his stuff, and it takes in like a half hour to get unpacked and packed up right, you know, So I just know that this is going to be a debacle, like every time you get in and out of a tree with two guys, it is so so so messy and

takes so long. So I was debating all this in my head and trying to weigh like the risks of the rewards of doing this, and I finally decided, like, you have to go, and if you're ever gonna go, you gotta go right now because there's no deer around, it's rainy and windy. Cut your losses now, scoot and relocate, get around the other side of this bedding year get on the place where now it's like the right place to be, and don't f this up anymore. So I make that decision. I tell my camera, go, hey, we

got to do this. You know this sucks, but I just think we have to do it. Otherwise I'm blowing this best. I'm blowing the entire place that I'm trying to hunt for half a day or whatever it's going

to be. You just can't do that. So we start packing up, and I wait and I wait and I wait, you know, waiting for him to get all of his stuff put away, and I'm I usually don't put away my bow or anything until, you know, he's mostly done, and then once he's mostly done, then I can get my stuff packed up, and then he climbs out of the tree and then I come out of the tree and take this the platform and sticks down with me.

I'm like looking around. Then I'm working them, looking around and working, and the whole time I'm thinking, like, this is going to be so disastrous if the Y nine shows up while we're doing this. I'm so worried he's going to show up while I'm doing this. So I do a little look around, panic, Do a little look around, panic, But I don't see anything, and it's rainy and windy. I start to lower my bowt like I lean it

over the side. I'm about to start lowering, and I turn a look over my shoulder one last time, and there's a deer twenty yards away over my back, left shoulder, and I realized, oh, there's a deer. And then the next thing, I realizes, oh, that's a big buck. And then the next thing I realized, oh shit, it's the why nine right there, twenty yards walking into my shooting line. Perfect. So I'm like, Charlie, Charlie, why nine? Why note? Why nine? Like trying to get my camera gus attention. I get

my bow back up. He's just slowly walking. I mean, I can't tell you how amazing tony this would have been if we had waited ten more minutes. I'm able to get my bow up, I'm able to get an arrow knocked. He's still just nicely dopedy doing along. He's in my shooting line. I get an arrow knocked, I clip on. I look up at Charlie. Charlie is still

packing his gear. He'd never heard me any of these times when I'm telling him, so look at him again, like Charlie, why nine right here, right here, right here? And he looks at me and then he sees my like complete panic stricken face, and he's like, oh my god. So I'm like, get a camera, get a camera. So now he's trying to get a camera out of his backpack, and I'm about to draw back on him because im I have him thinking, I'm s shooting this deer. I don't care if he's on him or what. I'm shooting

this deer. And then I remember my toe rope is tied through the cam still, So now I'm like, I can't. I can't shoot this with a toe rope on there. So I get my bowl like in my knees and I start trying to unravel a thing around the cam. And by the time I'm able to get the rope off the cam, he had crossed my shooting lane and got like to the edge of where my wind had been gusting up into and he got wiggy. He stopped, he freezes, he's like nose up, he's looking around. He's

like something's not right. He didn't completely freak, but he's like this doesn't feel right. He turned and bounced back like ten yards back across my lane. Stops and then like takes like a ten yards straight away a walk and then he stopped and he's fifty two yards, and Charlie,

at this point, it's like, I'm on my mom. I'm like, it's fifty two I'm not shooting him there, and and then he just trotted off, and so I'm devastated, you know, like, yep, you only get you don't get a whole lot of opportunities, especially when you're after only one deer. Like there's one deer I'm trying to kill and I just had him at twenty yards in my shooting lane and somehow was not able to get an arrow off, you know, nightmare,

nightmare scenario. That is just such bad timing, Like how unlucky can you get?

He's thinking about does he's back on the move. He's cruising, so he's not with his dough now, so he's on his feet. You're still in the game. So I decided, like I'm going to finished yank in the set and I'm going to go make the move I wanted to make. I'm going to reposition and get on the other side. So I do that. I get I do a big wide half moon circle. I go way south way, yeah, so be way. I go west south and get all the way up on the other side of the property,

to the opposite side of this betting air. So that wind was supposed to be northwest but instead of his west. So that meant I had to get to the east side of this core zone of this betting of this like you know, seven to ten acre area. Get over there.

And this is an area that I have not hunted a lot in, but I've hunted around it, and I know there's like three There's the main betting air that I've been talking about, and then there's like two smaller betting airs further to the south, and I've seen the past bucks will cruise this line when you've got a westerly the cruise from the big big betting are that I'm on down to these two micro betting airs to

the south. And there's also basically a travel transition route from that big big ed area down to another section of this corn, another area of standing corn, plus a

little food plot I have in between them. So I thought, all right, if I get set up kind of at this far eastern edge of that big betting area, but just south, there's like a tip of it that extends out, so I could be south and east of the main bedding, so I could catch deer cruising the downwind side of the bedding, but also catch if there's a transition heading from the bedding heading south to the corn, I could catch that bed to feed transition. To get set up.

Had a heck of a time trying to find any kind of tree with any kind of cover. It was like all bean pole trees, you know, one of those where you know where you want to be, but no tree will work well for it unless you like. So if I go to a good tree, I'm gonna be right in the middle of where the travel will be I'll get winded if I go to where it's safe from a wind perspective. I'm in a tree with zero cover, so I spend like I don't know how long, standing

around like and then I go to a tree. I'm like, maybe we make this work. And then you can't get your straps around because it's way too big. And ended up having a dough walk in with two little bucks following here, and I just lay on the ground for twenty minutes waiting for them to go away. So just everything was like just felt like a disastrous day with everything that happened. We get set up in the tree. Finally I find a tree that about twenty feet up

something like that. There's a big fork in the tree, so there's there's a big y so there's no big branches on the tree, but I've got a big fork, and I thought, hey, we could get up in that fork and tuck in between the two forks of it. It's a pretty big tree, and I thought, that's that's

the best we can do. I think, so get set up, and you know, the buck parade continues like lots of year and a half old's just cruising around anytime there's a dough, there's a buck like nosing there, bumping around doing that kind of stuff. And to make what's been a very long winding story a little bit quicker here tony.

After all that kind of stuff going on, the last like forty five minutes or half hour of daylight, I see a big bodied deer step out of the southern edge of that betting area and start kind of cutting through the timber towards one of those micro betting areas. Pull my bid knows it's him. He's on his feet, and he's heading from north to south. He's out of range and heading towards that next little betting pocket south of me. I try grunt, can't get his attention. I

try snort wieze. It stops him. He looks in my direction and then keeps going the way he was headed. I let him get right to the edge of that betting pocket. He's now maybe one hundred ish yards, and I give him one more really hard snort wheeze, and

that stops him. He looks at me, stares for like thirty seconds, and then starts coming in, stops, makes a big old scrape, and then starts hooking downwind, so instead of heading straight at me, he does the down wind circle, so he's he makes that scrape of like forty five yards and then starts cutting. And I had ranged a down tree in front of that scrape earlier in the day, so I knew that that was about forty. So as he starts, he starts walking through that lane I have

at forty. I murp him to try to get him to stop. He doesn't hear it. He keeps walking. So he's getting closer and closer and closer to my down wind side, staying at about that forty yard wide area, but behind trees. Now there's one more gap that he's going to get to that I see that should be right around forty. I'm able to range it and check it's about I think I got like thirty nine on one side of this log and like forty one on the other side. So I said, if he comes right

through there, it's gonna own. I'm gonna use my forty yard pin and my wind is gonna be blowing like just a little ahead of that. So if he makes his past this gap, I'm in trouble. So this is also on my off shoulder with my saddle set up so as he's making this hook. So for people to understand, like in a saddle, you can shoot very well in front of you. You can shoot very well to your left. If you're right handed, you can shoot very well at

right behind you. The one place that is a little bit more difficult to shoot is to your right side. So the way to get that shot to your right side, which is like your off side, would be to stand up on your platform and spin and have your bridge

go over your right shoulder. And then now you're standing up as if you're on a tree stand and that bridge or sorry not your bridge, but your your tether is over your right shoulder holding you to the tree, and you're standing up right like like I said, tight to the tree, like you're in a tree stand with a rope holding you tight to that. So I'm able to make that maneuver. As he's walking through and doing that fork or doing that hook, I get all that done.

I get ready. He steps into that lane step step step and stops. I mean perfect. As I'm drawing back, I was thinking about trying to murp him again because he was going to walk through that, but he stopped, and my cameraman's like on him, and I released that arrow, and immediately when I hit all I could see was like he has moved a bunch and there's a bunch

of arrow sticking out. When when he's spun and ran off and he goes running out of there like a bat of hell, maybe one hundred yards away or something, he stops for a second. I thought, like, man, is he about to tip over? And then he bolts off again. I didn't know what to think. My first thought was shoulder based on the fact I can see this arrow like it looks like all my arrow is hanging out and like flopping, and so first thought was, holy crap,

I his shoulder shot him. But I don't know. Maybe I poked it in there, maybe it slit underneath the shoulder blade. I don't know. But to save folks from more sob stories, we waited until I got some buddies that came out to help me because I can't see bad blood trails with my red green issues. So I had the whole cavalry come out with hopes that maybe you know, I had got in there, Like we watched the footage a thousand times and it doesn't sound like

a really loud crack. So I started trying to convince myself, well, maybe I didn't get the shoulder, despite the fact that it looks like there's no penetration, that maybe I got in there. But we got on the blood trail. There was blood and it was consistent, but it was like a drop here, a drop there, then like a smear and then a drop here, drop there. We tracked it for three quarters of a mile and he basically just walked.

It looked like, you know, he ran off, and then he got into this cornfield and he walked for like half a mile down this cornfield and then hooked and made like a jay hook back into his bedding area, and we were basically on I don't even know how my buddy's well, my one front has a dog, so it always brings his dog with The dog got us through sections where there was no blood for fifty or seventy yards, and the dog would gets across that and then he'd find like a pin prick, and then we

would go for twenty or forty more yards and then like a pin prick and I couldn't see any of the stuff. So if it weren't for my friend, I wouldn't have been able to do half of this, but we covered about three quarters of a mile, cover a lot of stuff. We were tracking until like, I don't know, two something in the morning, and you know, dried up, no more blood. And at that point, I think all of us for a long time knew what had happened.

But you know, the way I saw it going was like, either this deer either I poked it in there, and that deer is dead fast, Like there's a bunch of blood and he's dead fast, because if I got in there, it would have been like a heart shot or the front of the lungs. It's either that or I did, in fact hit the shoulder and this is just a meat hit and he's gonna dribble blood for a long time, but he's going to live and we're never going to

find him. And so after we didn't find him dead within the first couple of hundred yards and we never got like that screaming blood trail, I kind of knew it, but we're like, hey, we have to keep following as far as we can and keep looking. And you know, we walked all around where we couldn't find blood, circling out and bring the dog all over the place, just trying to hopefully smell something or pick up on any thing. But no more blood, no deer, no recovery. And that is where things stand out.

or like a big curve in right yep. So it would have just ten ringed him right through that spot if he had not dropped, you know, a big big chunk. So could I have, like I always like my I still don't ever wait quite long enough, like would I give myself an a plus on the shot?

forty yard shots. So I know lots of people shoot deer at long ranges, and forty yards isn't that long, but I think I feel kind of done with forty yard shots for a while. Like I'm just not dudetty about this at all.

like different thing. But when they're keyed up during it's just that's a long shot, man, Like a lot can go wrong. And you know, I saw that video of how much that buck moved and I said the same thing. I'm like, this buck did just what my my first one did. I mean, you can you know, that's one of the crazy things about filming is you can sit

there and mark where their back line is. Yeah, when you shoot and then watch how much they drop and it is crazy even you know, we did this when when my daughter shot that little spike with her crossbow in September, that dear at twenty yards out of a crossbow that's smoking fast. That deer still dropped like five inches at the shot. And that's a tiny spike close, So you think about, you know, double that distance on a deer that's you know, been around and done that.

Like they can get out of the way, man.

So that worked out in that case. But in this case, you know, it was four just enough so that when I went high, you know, it wasn't high into the back of the lungs. It was high into the back of the shoulder. Yeah, and and so yeah, like, I don't know, man, I feel like it might be thirty thirty five yards max for me for a while. After these couple of situations, I just I do I hate

I hate, hate, hate, hate hate this. Man, there's some people I know who like they miss a deer like, well, you know what happens early, they hit a deer and don't find it. Like, ah, you know whatever, I don't get that at all, Like I don't, I do not get that at all. I can't. I can't swallow it. And I would much rather watch a deer walk than have this. So I think I don't think I'm taking a forty yard shot for a while. Yeah, I'm also sorry.

I was also gonna say I need to figure out what else I can do to maximize the sound reduction of whatever archery setup I have, Like, I need quiet, I need quiet, quiet, quiet, and and something's not quiet enough about what I'm doing right now.

through it whatever. That's not why I would. I'm just curious because if you shoot, there's there can be a noticeable difference if you're you know, you have somebody who's shooting like a four hundred grain pretty light set up out of you know, sixty five seventy pounds versus somebody who has like a five twenty or you know, like

a little bit heavier. I mean, it's it's one way to you know, tone down the vibration a little bit on your bow, but then you've got bigger pin gaps and it changes things a little bit, you know, it slows it down.

like I've had string jumpers at thirty two. So I'm gonna mess with my archery set up a little bit more, not right now, obviously. For right now, I'm just gonna I'm not gonna shoot super far. So I'm leaving for Nebraska here in like an hour, and I'm just gonna get them close. Yeah, we're not shoot at all.

It's hunting. This happens. Keep on keeping on trying to figure it out. And I feel very confident, like you said, like, I feel very confident he should be back, he should be around. I don't think the hunt's done.

say we're a little different than the usual. There's a lot of stuff out there that make long range shots seem easy. There's a lot of people that talk about long range shots and it's become norm and I actually feel I am guilty of this. I feel like, oh my, like you won't shoot past forty yards. I feel a little bit like people maybe think it's crazy that I

have a max range of forty. So many people shoot to fifty or sixty now for white tails, and like so many guys shoot to seventy to eighty out west, one hundred yards out west, all this kind of stuff, And so I was like, I'm still holding it forty. I don't care what other people do, and now I'm going to make it even shorter. But do not be convinced because you see a few people on TV taking these long shots to think that you should be doing

that too. It's so much better to let a deer walk than have to deal with what I.

a screw up almost always. You know it's different at closer, like you can still like it's different, but when you start pushing that range and things like that happen, it's so easy to screw up.

now is the time to do it. This is not the time to stretch it out because you really want to kill that deer. But that's probably what a lot of people do, right is they feel like this pressure like, oh, I mean there is a forty five this is gonna be my only chance. I better take it. Ah, shit, there goes Yeah, don't do that.

happened with you, You get busted by a buck. He wins you your target buck and he's right by his betting area. So often you would look at that as like this is over for now, and you go scoot on to the other side. And he didn't, you know, go nuts and get out of there. He wasn't living somewhere else. He just walked away and started doing his thing again. Like you can. You don't need to always force something to happen, because when you get into that realm, like it's just a recipe for failure.

gotta be tight, tight inside this core betting air. So I went in there, saw him locked on a dough. Next thing, I decided like, hey, I got to get tight to that again, tighter, and then I need to give it some time here because I think he's gonna stick around. And sure enough, the next morning he wasn't on the dough, but he was still right in there. Now it didn't work out because of what I described. Then things got messed up, and I said, Okay, he's not gonna totally change his world up and get to

the other side of this whole section. He's still gonna be cruising, he's still gonna do his thing. I'm gonna surprise him in the other opposite side where he's not expecting me. I just basically did a wind push for

him to the other side, and there he was. So I think, you know, sticking to your core RUP principles, I made sure, like I'm always on the down one side of dough betting area, or I'm in some kind of pinch or something that's going to funnel some deer activity together, I try to do the same thing on the other side there as best as I could. And I think that that general approach, like it's so easy during the rut. It has been for me in the past, like ten years ago, I would chase sightings, I would

chase pictures. I'd be here, then i'd be there, then it'd be here, then I'd be there. And these deer don't do the exact same thing from one day to the next. So if you're chasing seeing like a picture, it almost never works out. You gotta stick to principles. I think, don't chase isolate incidents. Stick to principles when

it comes to the rut. The principle being like, Okay, is there a reason for this deer, for for any deer, but and maybe it's a specific deer to be downwind of this betting or in this pinch point, or is there convergence of all these things, like how many of these things can I stack on top of each other

to make this an optimal location? Like in your case, you've got that ridge kind of pinge with the river cover pinch, and then you also had an oak tree in there too, so you had like stacked attractions all there. Like that's that's a principle for rut hunting success. That works. So don't get hung up in these freaking trail cameras and and this crazy like oh do this wiggy waggy thing, like,

just keep it simple, stupid, it's the rut. Do the things you know that works, stick to those, stay focused, don't go crazy with your shots, don't get caught up in the craziness of the whole thing, and you know, manage expectations.

a better chance at a big one now. Even though my days are going to be probably more boring, they're still going to be out there doing their thing. There's there's plenty of time left here, even though we're not on the crazy chase fest that was Halloween or whatever. Just stick it out like it's not it's not over and it's not going to be over for a little while yet, like keep going.

check that out. I think that's it, So thank you for listening, Thank you for being a part of this community. Stay wired to hunt, and this week we're gonna send it out with some different tunes. Let's queue last year's rut sing along of the Year, the most Wonderful Time to.

most wonderful time to kill deer. With the run now just starting and dashing and dotting and veins cutting clean, It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. There's far too much isonus glass. It's the half happy seeds of all. There's gotta be at least twelve cues with grunting and bleeding and call fronts and sleeting the last weeks of fun. It's the half happy seedssin of home. There'll be pictures for posting and bragging and boasting, and truck beds with

big bucks in toe. There'll be narrow miss stories and tales of your glories of booner bucks missed with our bulls. It's the most wonderful time to kill deer. Not just one, maybe two. There will be no dose of blowing and looming knocks glowing and blood trails so clean. It's the most wonderful time to kill de Excuse me, can I have a napkin. Please. I just spilled some scotch on my loafers. I can't have dirty loafers in the studio.

Thank you Tailgate Beers for drinking. And big Bucks is slinking and chasing and sent jacking does They'll be fighting and scraping and no more escaping and arrowshot true hitting. Oh key, change what. No one told me that it's the most wonderful time to kill deer. I was very unprepared for this. There will be much morning sitting in cold fronts, are hitting the dawn, crispin clean. It's the most wonderful time, most swonderful time, yes, the most swam

diffle time to kilty. There's too much ice in the glass. Two rocks