Ep. 849: Chasing a 200" Buck on Public Land All Season long with Clint Campbell

him to suffer anymore. And plus I'm pretty sick of doing not only my job, but most of his. My guest today is a good friend of mine, Clint Campbell. Clint is a really good hunter who also happens to be the host of the Truth from the Stand podcast. Clint had the opportunity to hunt a very rare deer this year on public land, a buck that he's known about for a few years, a legitimate two hundred inch

type of buck. It's truly incredible. So in this show, we're going to dive deep into that story and go even deeper into the reality of not only finding giant bucks on public land, but what to do if you do manage to locate one. Clint, Buddy, I feel like I needed to do this podcast with you, sort of as a wellness check. You're hanging in there.

killed by people, sometimes killed by cars. Like you know, sometimes you just don't see them to die of old age, right, So I try not to get too precious on a deer. But and I tried to play it off with my buddies where I was like, it's just the deer, you know, and stuff igat And then my buddy reminded me. He's like, dude, he's like, you've been living in your truck, in your

trailer for like, you know, thirty days or whatever. Essentially roughly, you know, since October fifth, I have basically hunted at this particular deer every possible moment you could get there, chasing weather fronts and stuff like that. He's actually, don't give me that. Don't give me that bs, you know. So I was like, and then my response back to him was like, I'm not crying. You're crying.

it to an old age on on public land. And you put in like it, like you mentioned some real time onto this deer, and you just found out just a couple of days ago that that deer is dead.

stuff like that. But what we do, because this is like a huge piece of you know, mountain ground and big woods, is that we pull a lot of our a lot of our intel together. Because it's a little bit of ways away from me from where I live.

It's a little bit of a ways away from like our one buddy and our other buddy kind of lives pretty local, and so a lot of times I would have asked them to check trail cameras if they run by one of mine or whatever, and just like check it and pull a card and like send me some pictures or whatever's good on it and stuff like that.

So our one buddy actually had this year on camera probably two years ago, and I had some cameras around there too, and then coincidentally also picked him up on a couple of different cameras, and so we knew of him for probably three ish years. I guess this would

have been a third year. I mean, we probably had him prior to that before he was really identifiable, but it was probably three seasons ago that he was really identifiable where he showed up and it was like, oh, that's that's a good buck, Like he's probably like at that that year, he was probably like one hundred and fifty inches, you know, And there wasn't really a whole lot I could do about it because I was hunting Kansas like the past several years, you know, and so I was

going to have that tag in my pocket. I knew I was going to be leaving at the end of October for the first couple weeks in November, and so this place is unless you really have time to dedicate to try to hunt October, it hunts really really it hunts really really hard in general, but it hunts exponentially harder in October because they can bed pretty much anywhere.

There's no agriculture, so there's no defined destination food sources that you can kind of play like a bed to food game and stuff like that.

of it. I think we all dig was he was a big year, But it wasn't like we were kind of exclusively hunting him, and I think I had two hunts there last year and I had an awkward like a weird and I won't say awkward, but I had

a weird encounter in super early October. And then it wasn't until after the season I realized that that you know, encounter that I had in the sign that i'd found in the proximity to where this year was kind of shown up on trail camera and I actually had a picture of him the day it was either the day before I think it was the day before I hunted that area. I didn't I didn't find any this out until postseason because I pulled one in and pulled the

cameras and stuff like that. I killed a buck and pa local to me like mid October, so I didn't make it back there to hunt. And this was like October fifth or sixth or something like that when I

had this kind of weird encounter. And then when I did my post season scout and my buddy and I were out scout and sure enough found like a pretty good rub about where I kind of heard this vocalization, you know, and then there was a really big scrape that wasn't far away from that, and so a lot of the dots started kind of connecting a little bit, and it was just a matter of like, wonder if

he's going to show up? Right? There was a second one that was kind of a really interesting deer, and that was probably the one that really peaked my interest, and he was that deer was actually the one that really helped me start to try to piece the puzzle together as far as like how deer really use this area.

And then this deer that subsequently just recently got killed that I was chasing, he showed back up and became even more visible than he had been in the past couple of years, and a bunch of different areas on a bunch of different cameras, and a bunch of different kind of sections of this piece, And that was kind of when, you know, for me at least, I was like, all right, this year, I'm going to dedicate I don't do it really ever, you know, hunt a specific deer

more of a Hey, if there's an area that has a couple of good deer, I'm going to hunt this area on volume and hopefully one of these three or four good year that I like, maybe they passed by. But this was like an instance where I was like, you know, I'm not going to very often have an opportunity to hunt a deer of this caliber, certainly not

in the state of Pennsylvania on public land. And so I was like, you know what, I had a great season last year, filled two tags, killed a booner, you know, so I was like, this is a great year to just kind of let them mature deer try to teach

me some lessons. You know, if I don't fill a tag, and then you know, I'll get to chase a really kind of unique mature deer around the woods for as long as I can and kind of see how they live and how they act, and you know, and hopefully it'll make me a better hunter as I kind of continue to go. And so that was kind of the goal overall.

that opportunity and find that deer of that caliber. I mean, you're talking a deer that's right at the two hundred inch mark all day long, you know, which is which is just bananas, right, But also the fact that that deer probably had a better chance to reach his full potential by being in that big wood setting on public land versus spending his time. If if he had spent more time on private land with any level of hunting pressure, he would have been so well known.

time it came in. So I saw a truck that I thought was his pulled off and it happened to be these other two dudes, and they recognized my truck somewhere and they're like, they're like, hey, you hunting that big one, So like right there, I was like, all right, so it's not just me and two of my buddies.

It's like me too, my buddies, these two guys. And then I knew my other buddy knew that there was a couple of guys on this one piece of private that wouldn't far away that was also also new of him, right, And so I'm like, there's I know, at least like seven or eight guys probably know of this deer like within the area. And then just the number of trucks that you would see kind of in that area kind of told you that there was there was more than that, right,

But you're right, like this area hunts, you know. He was definitely aided by the fact that it's a big wood setting, he's not on private, and he's in an area that doesn't have a lot of structure, so there's not a lot of defined areas that are like real, real obvious places that you should set up, right Like, there's not like a he's gonna have to cross this saddle or anything like that, right, Like, there's not a lot of topography change and stuff like that, and so

you're really kind of relegated to try to get into areas where you're using using habitat almost like structure like soft edges and stuff like that that they're going to want to travel and things like that, and that again, that's why it hunts tough, and it's why it hunts better in November than it does in October, because you really just kind of play like where the dough is

going to spend time. You find where the thick cover is, there's probably going to be a dough group that's betting in that general area, and you play those odds, right, And so even when you lay a plan for that area, it's still kind of if you're hunting a specific deer, it's still a little bit of like a hand grenade toss to a degree, right, and but you know, you use the intel that you have, and you know, the one part that I started feeling good about was I

actually saw the deer on the hook on the hoof October twelfth. And that was kind of like an odd hunt because I just kind of jumped into a tree as it was getting late in the evening, and I knew he was in that general area. But it wasn't like I'm gonna sit this tree cause I think I

can kill him here. It was literally like I need to get into a tree cause it's four o'clock and I just need to watch right and he I just caught a glimpse of him at about sixty yards or so, and then I got some camera intel on him in you know, Ladish October, and that was the part that like I he made a rub on camera on video, and I was able to identify the tree and see how he was making rubs and stiff from there, It's like I got a real good He had an interesting

ant like characteristic that you know, people will make that mistake that big deer run rub big trees, or they

you know, they rub real tall or whatever. Right, this deer, this rub that he made was maybe only you know, six inches long, and it was probably only like a foot and a half off the ground, right, And so if you looked at that rub, you would think nothing of that caliber of animal was making that rub, right, but the detail he was leaving he had an interesting ant like character ristick on one of his longer times, and because of the way that time was, you know,

a skew if you will, he was making tick marks that were like sixteen inches above where the rub stopped at the bottom, right, and so it was like, and that was what I was when I said, you know, I was gonna let up mature deer just kind of

teach me some lessons. It's those types of things of paying attention to those small details when you're trying to chase a critter like that, right, that if you can just figure out small things and it's not going to be like, oh, here's a rub, it's like no. I was examining every single rub as I was walking through the woods to see if I could find a tick mark that was sixteen inches or so above where the rub was at to know that that was him and

he's spending time in this area. So I started finding those, right, and that was kind of how I started putting my plan together. You know. The only bummer was is where I got that video. You know, in the off season, I said that would be where I would kill him if I were going to kill him. It's probably the best setup I had, right, because there was some topography there that was going to make him kind of move

in an area. And I heard some fighting on the twenty fifth of October heard buck roar and a buck fight, and I had assumed it was him. And I was a little outside the game one a morning and I was like, you know what, the twenty six I'm going to make a move back closer to that. And my thought was I should go to that spot with a topography and I should sit that. That should be my first sit. And I've debated it, and I debated it,

debated it. Literally that morning. I got out of my truck and I was going to walk to that spot, and I was at the last minute, I was like, you know what, I'm going to save that spot for November because I think it's I think I'm probably like four or five days out from it being real good there. Right. I was like, I'm going to go in on the west side of this particular kind of terrain feature and I'm going to set up there and I'm going to

be about one hundred yards away from that spot. And so I should catch any of the action it's kind of coming through, you know, but not booger that up. So I should be in the game, but not booger that spot up. And sure shit, he walked through that

spot at eight fourteen that morning, you know. And so it's one of those things where it's like, you know, whenever you're hunting a deer like that, you're probably only going to get one crack, right, And it's you know, I constantly try to tell myself when I go out of state, I'm aggressive, right because I'm only there on short time, and when I hunt in state, a lot of times, I'm a little bit more conservative, and I'm trying to like like work that out of myself to

a degree, right, And this is like a time where it's like, oh, I just would have been aggressive, been like what, you know what, this is a good spot. I'm just going to go there, right, and whatever the results are, they are, And if it's boogered up, it's boogered up. I'll figure it out later, you know. But not being aggressive probably cost me, you know, an opportunity, probably a chip shot shot, to be honest with you, right.

you might not see him again. And I you know, you said something there about how you know you're only going to get one crack at a deer like that? Most likely that's probably true, But I don't think it has to be like when you when you're on him like that. I think we I think we tell ourselves that sometimes so we feel better about playing it so conservatively and not being so cavalier. But when you see

you know, and you're not the only one. I mean, I know a lot of really good kind of over the road public land hunters who take that aggressiveness on the road, but they really tamp it down when they get home, and it's like it's just it's a hard it's a mental thing to overcome. But when when you're on a deer like that, I mean that deer clearly spending real time there. I don't know if you if you bump that deer, I don't know if he's not back there tomorrow, because he has a lot of dudes

looking for him, you know. But it's such a that's such a scary risk to take.

front in October. And so what I would do, you know, is I would you know, every Saturday, I would go up and I would have jiu jitsu at night, and I would leave right after jiu jitsu, and I would drive the couple hours and I would sleep in the I would sleep in the front seat of my truck in a sleeping bag, and I would get up early and I would go hunt a morning set that I thought was pretty good. I would see some deer. I

was seeing deer, like all October. I passed a deer you know, on like the sixth or seventh or whatever it was that I would shoot any other year, you know, Like it's one of those ones where I'm like, I can't believe I just passed that dear, you know, like, and truthfully, that was the only good buck I had in bow range, Like the whole season was that was

that encounter. And so I would chase, you know, I'd go up Saturday and I hunt the morning and I would scout and walk like seven eight miles whatever it was until like it started getting dark. And then whatever I happened to be whenever it was getting dark is where I would get into a tree, right, And some of it was checking trail cameras, so someone's putting out

some additional trail cameras looking for sign. I was trying to find a track, you know, cut a track, find a rub, find a scrape with a track in it, like anything you know that I could do to try to find them. And so I would do that on Saturdays, and I would basically hunt every cold front that came through, you know, even minor temp drops. I wasn't looking for like ten degrees. I was even looking just for like five degree changes and stuff like that. Anything that was

just like different, you know. And I would go up and take my trailer and I would you know, work from it during the day. I'd get up in the morning, hunt the morning to about nine thirty ten o'clock, come back to the trailer with starlink, and I would set up and I would work all during the day. Then I would peace out around thirty or so and get back to the woods and hunt the evening. Right And

so that was basically all of October. I knew October was kind of really a flyer just from cheryl camer data.

I knew that place kind of turned on like it was a good rut like piece of dirt, if you will, right, But I also wanted to kind of like know that I was in the right area when Rutt kind of kicked off, right, because these deer, I've had so many deer in this area do two different things, right, Like, it seems to me like this particular area like as the deer get older, they become a little bit more

homebodyish right, and they don't move quite as much. But then there's also like the groups of deer that just completely vanish and disappear. And so I wanted to try to get a good beat on whether or not what deer in him, specifically if they were still around in October. And the crazy thing was was I just had a sneaking suspicion that deer was still around because I don't I don't know if any of us got any pictures

of him. I think the last sure we had of him was like September twenty first, until like I had him on the twenty sixth. I don't know if anybody any of my other buddies got him on camera like prior to that. But yeah, I mean he basically goes at a.

time getting out. Oddly enough, out of the three of us, he was the only one to killed a buck, so he wasn't getting out nearly as often as like he probably would have been the past years and stuff like that, you know. And so but you know, a buddy, my one buddy, and I think we were sharing pretty freely, like of what we were seeing, what we weren't seeing, you know, if we were cutting a track or not

cutting a track or whatever. But yeah, I bet, I mean, I'm sure there was a little bit of secrecy going on. You know. It's like we're all chasing a big dear.

out for like a steak and bourbon. Dinner or staking Scotch dinner, you know, like that was like on the books, you know, because I was like, no matter what, like if one of us gets a crack at this dear and we get him on the ground, like it's just cause for celebration regardless, right, And I mean that's just speaks to like having good dudes, you know, around you and stuff like that.

It's like any football team. It's like you walk into a game and it's like you could be oh and sixteen facing the team that's sixteen and oh and you're like, we're gonna win the game, right because if you don't think that way, you have no chance. Right.

it takes that mentality, Okay, I know. I mean even though you know you're kind of tricking yourself, right Like, you know that your odds are not one hundred percent that you're gonna kill a two hundred inch buck on public land in Pennsylvania, right like, But you have to you have to put in that requisite work to believe in yourself enough to see that process through, even though you know, like the odds are less than one hundred percent, they just are. But if you're believing in the process

and what you've put in. That's what keeps you making that drive and sleeping in the truck and doing the scouting and everything. And I think I think that you. I think it's easy for people to kind of contextualize that around a buck of a thousand lifetimes. But if you're just starting out, or you've killed a few deer and you want to bump up from you know, two and a half to something bigger or whatever, the same

rules really kind of apply. Like if you don't put in the work, you know, you're not gonna have that belief, you won't hunt as hard like that. You have to. You have to have that faith in yourself somehow.

But you're not going to get any closer if you don't put the time in right. I mean, I felt pretty good about my odds of seeing him, Like I thought that that would happen, but I didn't. I didn't have any delusions of like what this was going to be.

You know, I knew that I had a pretty good chance to see him because I thought, you know, in general, me and my two buddies, I thought we were all in the right general area like to have have a visual of him right and truthfully, like you know, like I said, I was one hundred percent because that's how I forced myself to get up and do this every day and like work and do all the things I needed to do get I mean, I still trained jiu jitsu like three days a week while I was doing

all this right, so it's like my life didn't miss much of a beat, you know, while I was doing it. But realistically, I thought it was fifty to fifty. You know. I thought I had a couple places that were one spot in particular that I thought was really dialut if I could time it right, and that was the spot right, and it was just a matter of like could I be there when he was going to be there, right, And so realistically I thought I had a fifty to

fifty percent chance. I thought for sure, it's like I would see him at some point, whether or not I was going to be close enough to get a shot or not, or at the right spot. Whenever he was close enough to get a shot, that I was like, it's a kind of a toss up, right, because you know just the way they move on that piece and

how far they can move. Like, for context, there was a deer that my one buddy and I knew of the previous couple of years that we were hunting this other general area because I hadn't hunted this area until last year at all, even know I had cameras on it, had been scout it. And there was one particular deer that you know, I had an encounter with in an area and I thought for sure, like that general area

is where you could kill him. And he got killed also I think during during gun season, and he he was killed roughly four and a half five miles as the crow flies from where we had him on camera and where I had an encounter with him, right, So you know the distance that they can that they travel

in this general area. I knew that. You know, when you do see him, the chances of him being around there for an extended period of time are probably limited, especially once you got into like the later part of November. Like I figured like that October earliest November time frame

was probably like the best time. Once you hit mid October, I was like, I think he's probably gonna really be searching and then he'll probably make his way back because I always usually got him again in like late October early December timeframe, right, And so I knew there's probably like a period of two weeks where he's just going to be gone, right and probably not going to be here, which is why I kind of put my odds at like fifty to fifty, because it's like he's not going

to spend all his time here. He's going to travel, you know. And I know that, and I know from prior experience they travel a long distance in this area.

that a lot of times. I think this is the blessing and cursive trail cameras, right, Like you use trail cameras to go, here's my window when this giant's going to be here. Probably here's the window where he's probably just going to light out and go somewhere where I just don't know yet, And they're like very consistent on that,

and trail cameras teach you that. But trail cameras can also tell, you know, the average person like, oh, well, you just had a one forty walk through here, you know twice this week, so like now that becomes your target buck, and that that might have been him. Just like we literally just had this happen at my buddy's

place over in Wisconsin. We had a buck show up for two days that was probably pushing one fifty beautiful mainframe ten point or just a toad for up there, and then he's gone, and my buddy's like, I'm super excited to go hunt gun season now, and I'm like, that deer is freaking gone, dude, Like that was just him. He followed a dough winery that was part of his rot route or whatever for a couple of days and

he's gone. And I think a lot of people, I think they go into a one buck hunt or they you know, kind of pin their hopes on a deer that's really totally out of play. I mean, i'll give you another example quick here.

stickers is back, blah blah blah. And I'm like, you have sixteen acres, man, and you hunt the shit out of it, like you're you're not going to kill that deer, Like you can't. You can't work that deer using you know, a fifty like a hundredth of his home range, a fiftieth of his home range, whatever, Like there's just there's just no way. But it's like so many people are out there looking at just you know, maybe a couple of pictures or whatever and going there there, that's my season,

that's what I'm going to do. And hey, that's like if you want to do that, that's fine. But the more you the more you do the kind of hunting like you're talking about, the more you learn, like what's really in play for me and what's not. And a lot of these deer aren't in play that long in a lot of places.

Like and it goes back to what we were talking about, what we were talking about the beginning, which is, you know, part of the reason why I think this deer got to that age is because he lives on a piece of you know, big woods that he has vast land to travel. He has a lot of places he can hide and a lot of places guys aren't willing to hike two to hunt, you know what I mean. So you know, it gives him the opportunity to grow old.

When you have those places that have a lot of structure and and things like that, I think, you know, yeah, maybe you don't need as much intel because it's really defined how deer are probably going to move, right. You know, you can start to you know, anticipate how they're, where they're going to be and when they're going to be, and like the food is here, and the betting is here, and the does live here. It's like when it starts to set up like that, it becomes a little bit

a little bit easier. But you know, this year, there

was there was none of that. You know, there was no structure, There was no and so you know, the only really reason we were able to kind of successfully i think, kind of stay close to him and know that we were in his core areas because we literally had three years of intel of trail cameras data on him of like being in different places different times of the year, right, because that was the biggest thing for me, was like was knowing that he would be in the

general area, like in the October October timeframe, right, or I wasn't going to spend any time hunt him, Like I wasn't going to pin my whole hunt on just trying to hunt him in November and hope that he comes through on a dough during the rut, you know, Like I wasn't gonna do that. I'm not that lucky, you know what I mean, Like we'll just put it

that way. I'm not I'm not that kind of I'm not that lucky of a guy, right, So I knew that he was probably still in the area just by like previous years intel, you know, and that I needed to spend my time like trying to like get a visual or cut his cut his sign somewhere and then

getting that visual in mid October. Like if I didn't see him, didn't have him on trail camera or anything in October, right, like I probably would have left him went to Missouri, like like I was planning to, right, But because I saw him in the middle of October, I was like, Okay, I know he's here. Like this is his I always assumed this was his core area.

I now really think that it is right. And now I have a better idea that I actually even think like a section of this is more in play than the rest of it, if that makes sense, right, Because you know, at one point my buddy and I both did this. We were talking about it on the phone one day. We both basically took like the primary areas where we had him relatively consistently dropped a pin and

then put a mile radius around it. And that was what I was scouting in October, was I was basically scouting that mile radius around that central kind of area that we thought was kind of like, let's just call this the center of his home range, right, And then just spent time walking like that mile radius and like the little areas that I thought he might be hiding out and dropping a camera and stuff like that, just to you know, see if I could pick him up.

And you know, and a lot of that time was probably spent for not but based on you know, what I ended up learning where he was spending a lot of his time. But you know the benefit of that was, you know, I really got to understand this piece a lot better for future hunts, and I basically just gave you know, I gave this season up to either trying to kill this deer or I was going to little mature deer teach me like that was my goal. Those are the two goals I had to either fill my

tag with this deer. I was talking to my buddy Jako for about this because he was like, man, you know, hunting a deer like that, one specific deer in that type of country. He was like, is like a task, you know? And I was like yeah, I was like, but you know, the season that I had last year, I was like, I feel like I owe it to like my development, if you will to do this and let a mature deer, if nothing else, just teach me

some lessons and probably some hard lessons. I was like, but you know, for me, that was part of like the gratitude of the season that I had last year, was like, let's do something hard this year, knowing that the success rate's probably not going to be real high, right, but the growth I think I can get out of it, like as a hunter but also just as a person. I was like, I think will be well worth it. And so that was kind of the that was kind of like the secondary goal.

Like you have you have to do things that are it's not the challenge of killing a big deer alone doesn't really mean that much without like all the other variables involved, right, And so if you're not, if you're not trying something to help yourself level up a little bit, like you're just you're just not going to get there. And that's that's just how it works. And the thing that I love about your story with this deer is, you know, for a while the public land thing was

so hot. It's starting to that that I feel like that's like sort of died down now and we're kind of back to leases and box lines and like trophy, we're like back to trophy hunting again. But public land, as bad of a rep as it gets a lot of times, can be sometimes a better option if you want a giant, or you want a great hunt, or you want to really learn how to do something out there, better than good private land. And this is this is

like nobody really wants to hear this. But I ran into this with my daughters this year, or one of my daughters anyway. The other one killed a buck right away, so she was tagged out, but one of them didn't. And so we just had a weekend in early November, and I said, you know, let's go run that decoy. Let's do what we did last year, hunt some of

the private pieces we have. Couldn't see a deer, and I told her, I said, you know, I got a spot on public that I haven't been into for a few years, but I killed some good deer in there, and I saw some big ones, and I'm like, maybe we can just roll in there and find something. And she's never done that kind of hunt, dude. We pulled up and there's there's a couple old logging roads and there's big woods. It's thousands and thousands of acres of timber.

And I got out of the truck and I could see big rubs from the truck and a scrape where these deers scraping right by this gravel road. And I told her, I said, we're going to go back and get our stuff, We're going to walk in here and we're gonna hunt, Like we're not going to go because I just was originally going to go walk it with her and just kind of look around. And we went in there, and because you know she's crossbow hunt, she's twelve, we set up on the ground, which is tough over there.

It was kind of that rainy southeast wind almost no wind kind of stuff where it was like we keep getting that weather pattern this year. So we sat that night and when we walked in there, the amount of sign and it keep in mind I had just come from Iowa public Land, but still I didn't see sign like that in Iowa anywhere I went. And I covered some ground like it was like we are We're in the belly of the beast right now. There's something going on here. We didn't see any deer that night, but

it was rainy, the wind sucked. It was just like I was like, I'm not I don't count this as like a negative toward what we have working here, Like this was just sort of a probably wasn't going to work out. So we go back to the cabin and I'm like, do I want to go back in there with her in the morning, and I'm kind of like debating because I have easier setups on private, you know, And we were literally hunting any bucks. She'd shot any illegal buck, but I was like it bothered me, and

so I don't get reception in the campies. I walked outside and I pulled up on ax. I'm like, why are they there? Like I didn't understand this, this concentration a sign And I found a private hayfield I didn't know. It looks like a horse hay field or whatever, nine hundred yards away in the exact direction that that scrape line was going. And there had been a bunch of tracks on the road because we were dealing with a lot of rain. And I was like, why why are

the deer doing this? Like why would they go to that chunk of big woods and leave this one when they're all kind of the same, you know what I mean.

So I'm like maybe logging activity or something. And then I found that and I'm like, I'll bet you that's the destination, Like it's it's you know, there's no agg up there, right, And so I told my daughter, I said, tomorrow morning, we're going to go the long way in it's gonna be a pain in the ass, but we're gonna not We're gonna We're gonna get ahead of these

deer and go set up again in that blind. You know, we'd piled some dead falls together whatever, and I was like, maybe we'll catch them coming back in in the morning. And we got in there and it was super foggy, dead still kind of rainy, and we heard a stick snap like an hour into the morning, and she got ready. Deer never showed up, and I know there's like little logging roads and stuff they'll peel off of, and so

I'm like, maybe he didn't get here. And I looked up and there was like one hundred and thirty inch or stand in forty yards away and he had us peg and he just cut down or ran away, and I was like, man, we.

And there's there's some opportunities that are just like, you know, really great deer that you can work on public and it's so freaking cool.

there's good deer everywhere in those states. Right, it's just a matter of you know, being at the right on the right piece, right, whether it's private or public or whatever. But I really think when you start talking about states like Pennsylvania, for example, you know, I think you have a better chance to find, you know, a quality deer, and like it's like, let's just say quality in the terms of age structure, right, because that was ultimately the

one guy that I ran into. You know, he asked me where I was from, because that piece that I was hunting a little bit of a ways away from my house a couple of hours, and his question to me was like, well, how did you, like, why do you hunt here? Right? And he'd been hunting there a long time, so it's like I think at first he was a little bit precious on the spot where it's like people coming in that aren't from here hunting this area,

you know what I mean type of thing. Even though I'm from I'm a resident, right, but it's still like I'm not a local. And I just said, I looked on a map and I was looking for a place that I thought had enough land mass, you know, that deer could hide during gun season. I was I can get age on them so I could hunt the age

class of deer that I wanted to hunt. What's relative consistency, you know, And that to me was like the most important thing, was like being able to find a place where they can you know, get to like four and a half years old, you know, I'll even take three and a half because a lot of the deer around me locally, don't make it.

And I think whenever you're talking about states like Pa, if you do want to hunt deer that you know, get to that four and a half year old or older kind of age class, like that's your best option, right because if you're hunting the back forty and you're around a bunch of other back forties, you know, and it's a heavy hunting heritage state, and you could throw Michigan probably into this too, you know, or even Wisconsin

for that matter, probably to a degree. You know a lot of people and you know, it's not whatever they want to do however they want to hunt, but like a lot of people aren't trying to kill, you know, the better deer in the air. They're just trying to have fun and shoot a deer, you know what I mean,

and like, you know, or power to him. But if you're a person who's looking for an age class to chase, you know, or something like that, or a type of experience you're looking for, and those places, you know, you're probably not going to get that on your back forty or your grandpa's back forty or one hundred and fifty acres that you own over here, Like it's just you know, it's going to probably be hit. And this as far as like yeah, one year you might be able to,

but then the next five you might not. And that's kind of the situation I had, you know, several years ago, because we own property back in Western PA, like my family does, and I hunted that, you know. Growing up, I had like private property that I hunted, and then as I got older, we had like other family pieces that I that I hunted, and I just got to a point where I was hunting a specific buck. You know, this is like the last time I hunted a specific

year prior to this. And I had four different encounters with him in late season, and like all well within like marginal bow range, just could never get him shot. And so the following years like I'm gonna kill him.

Open him day and he came out out of the crick bottom and I saw him, and he just he's with a couple other deer, and the other's deer got spooky and he turned around and walked away, and then someone shot him in gun season, and I knew where he was bedded, but he was on the neighbors And that was when where I stopped kind of hunting public land, not because I have think there's anything wrong with it, but I was like it killed me to know that, Like I knew where that deer was at, and there

wasn't anything I could do about it. I just had to wait and hope that he took the travel route that I was setting up on right and that things were going to break my way as opposed to getting within fifty yards of him, you know, and having enough daylight or whatever to work in, you know. And that

was kind of the thing for me. It was like I was like, you know, I want to hunt a better age class a deer, and I want to be able to if I know where a deer is at I want to be able to go get him, you know, and and that's ultimately why I ended up, you know where I ended up. And you know, finding this caliber of deer to hunt this particular year was just kind of a was just kind of a bonus.

public land hunting, and I truly believe it. You know, private land is so appealing because you feel like you're only working the deer generally, you know, but if you're on forty acres and the next forty over has five hundreds on it, and the next forty over has two hunters and the next forty. Oh, you really are working the hunters too. You're just not thinking about it. You're thinking about what are the deer doing on my place now?

And you know you can't divorce that from the fact that they're getting pushed around and shot and all kinds of stuff on other properties. You go out in thousands of acres of unbroken timber in pa or wherever you have, you accept the fact that you're going to be working against other hunters like you have. You have to work the hunting pressure to some level, but you also get to work that deer, maybe in his entirety, and not worry about him hopping the fence and betting where you

can't get him and somebody else might shoot him. And there is there is like something really appealing to that. And it's like, you know, I push this message on here all the time and in my Foundation podcast because I believe it so much. But I'm like, if you're limiting yourself, you know, to forty acres and you're not happy with your hunting or eighty acres or whatever you have,

you're not out anything. By going to try to figure out some of the local public land or some of the you know, maybe going like you do a couple hours to a different part of the state, or I do here in Minnesota quite a bit, just to see if you can find something to work that puts you in a little bit different place and gives you a different chance to you know, kind of flex your muscles a little bit. That shit's fun, and it's like that

is how you get way better. And you know, getting better at something is pretty enjoyable typically.

Like I think some of the locals think there's there's pressure there, but you know, what I always kind of say is like, man, if you're deterred by hunting in areas that you where you see tree stands and flagging tape and bright eyes. Dude, you will never even set up where I live, you know, to mean, because you walk into the woods and it's all over the place, you know, and so you can't really care much about what other hunters are doing, right because like you just

never step foot into the into the woods, right. And I think that coming from a place that like that's kind of what the pressure is, Like, I think is a is a benefit to a degree because I'm not typically deterred when I see a truck in a parking

lot or I see someone out in the woods. Like for example, the deer I killed last year in Kansas, I was glassing the deer that I killed the night before, right, and I was watching a guy walk about two hundred yards away from where I was watching the deer that I was wanting to kill, right, And some people would have been like, well, that's too close, like a deer that's blowing up, like he just walked through a bunch of stuff. Right, I was like, whatever, Like he's he's there.

This deer may or may not really know that he's there. He's on a dough, Like he's probably more focused on the dough. He's gonna come out, you know, probably tomorrow night with this with this doe again, right, as long as like she doesn't get bumped, you know or boogered where they're petted. And so I went in the next afternoon at like three o'clock and I killed a boom and crocket deer on the ground at five point thirty,

you know what I mean. And there was guy, there were guys all over that in trucks and stuff like that, and it was just one of those things where it's like I knew where this deer was, wasn't so concerned about what they were doing. I had a plan and I and I thought that I could get it done without them interfering, you know, And so I wasn't too broke up about other people hunting the hunting the piece necessarily.

You know. Now if they walk through exactly where you're gonna be, it's a little bit of a different story, right. But it's just like there were trucks there every day, you know what I mean. But like I was, I think they actually helped me because I wanted a deer in a certain spot and that's where he ended up being. And I had seen that over the past year or two as well, right, And this was a big deer.

So he was being pretty consistent, you know, like he wasn't going to change up unless someone made him change, you know. And and so I wasn't, you know, put off by the fact that there were other guys hunting the hunting the area. In fact, I saw two guys walk out of where I thought he was bedded with a dough in the eat like where he was typically

betted in this CRP. The evening that I glassed him and I drove out to go back to my camp, I watched two guys walk out of where he's where he was betting with that dough, right, And so it's like he would say like, oh, man, that's all buggered up, But like I was like, ah, they didn't. They didn't

bother him, you know. I was like, and I'm sure he's he and that dough are probably used to people walking around the area because they're doing it all the time, right, And as long as they didn't get bumped, I was like, I don't think it'll change much of what they're gonna do. And sure enough, like it worked out the next day.

and then an hour later there's deer there, you know, and or you bump one and you're like, I'm never going to see a deer here, snorted a million times and then they come right back through. Like I ran into this this year in Iowa where I killed my buck. I had a whole plan going down there. The last time I drew there was there wasn't hardly any hunting pressure there. This time there were freaking people everywhere. I

mean it was. It was nuts. The first four spots I went to had trucks, and I was like, okay, like i gotta i gotta recalibrate my plan because I'm not I'm not working in it's not twenty twenty anymore. I don't know. Something changed, and so I started looking at it and going, well, most of these guys probably aren't going in very deep. They're probably sitting obvious stuff like there's there's that you know, kind of first layer, you know, and down there the woods it's all nice

deciduous force, it's easy to walk through. It all looks like it looks good. There's lots of deer, so there's tongues of sign. So I'm like, looking at, you know, on X again, I'm like, okay, I love river bottoms. I love those flats along rivers that have willows and just like that sawgrass and kind of like just that different level of habitat right. And I was like, the river that I'm hunting along is so low right now. I've never seen it like this, and I've turkey hunted

and deer hunting down there a fair amount. So I'm like, there's probably better vegetation, like better nutritious vegetation for browsing in those spots than anywhere else. And so I'm like, okay, I'm I'm gonna go figure that part out. And dude, it was like a ten minute walk, you know, and this is Iowa, of course, but there were there were a lot of people hunting down there, and you know, there's tracks along the people tracks along the river, and

I can see a blind in this one spot. I'm like, okay, But you get in there and you're like, well, the deer been browsing like crazy, and here here's a good crossing. Here, here's a good crossing there. The cover is different. There's actually like vibrant green plants growing along the river. I'm like, this is probably just the next layer in. And you know, we were we had a bunch of deer around us.

Decoyed went down the river and shot him and it was like all we all I had to do was sort of like forget about all the trucks, like forget that, you know, like this is not what I expected, and just go in and find them and then you work them. And a lot of people just aren't you know. They bring They bring us sort of a set of rules

to public land that just doesn't necessarily apply. You know, like if you if you knock down a door somewhere and walked in and you were gonna go sit, you could go sit a field corner and shoot a deer, right like, maybe probably not going to do that on public land. In a lot of places, like it's going

to take a little bit. Like you mentioned about that big when you were after how there's no bed to food food to bed type of thing, Like you're not you know, the cornfield isn't over there and the river bottom isn't over there, Like it doesn't work that way. But you're like, you know, there's soft edges in the woods, and I'm starting to think about this. In fact, I just wrote a Foundation's episode about it, Like the connective tissue that the deer use, you know, like that that

river bottom buck eye killed. There were three river bottom flats and the connective tissue was the shortest route between them to stay hidden and stay in those willows and shit like that and just not go into that wide open woods where more people were. And it's like it's a linear thing, right, like if they if they're over here and they want to get over there, why what are they going to use to get there? And that's soft edge, Like you're talking about those real soft edges

in the woods, the big woods. They just use them. They use them for cover, they use them for brows, and they're just like one of those things that a lot of people would walk through and just never pick up on. But that's like, you know, you're hunting public land, like you're working a giant deer. What is what is like? What can you use to your advantage when you can't use those train traps and an obvious A to B type of food to bed thing or something and that that shit's so fun.

he's like, I'm not coming on. So but because you know, when I first started up there, the one, my one buddy, you know, I don't remember how we met exactly, but you know, he was like, hey, you know, let's go walk the woods or whatever. And just because I was not sure whenever I was seeing sign if it was like if that sign was good or not for that particular area, right because I wasn't seeing a lot of it and I wasn't seeing big sign right, and so

I just needed some context. And so we walked the woods a little bit and hung some trail cameras and stuff like that, and like, and I was showing him like, hey, this is the type of stuff. I'm fine. He's like, no, that's good, and I was like, okay, cool. And then I ended up meeting my other buddy. Those two were friends.

So that's how I met the other the other guy, and then he and I would walk the woods and stuff together, and they're both really really good hunters, and so I was able to kind of they expedited my learning curve in the area by kind of helping me understand like what good sign is for that area, what deer like to use in that area, how they kind of use the soft edges and stuff like that a little bit, you know, more effectively, where you're typically going

to find like sign typically right, or where you're going to find pockets of deer, and so a place that would have taken me probably five years to start to learn to actually be able to hunt effectively, like you know, with their help, it's like I was able to kind of figure out what I needed to know within like three years, you know, which was you know, props to them for being cool and you know and helping me out.

But you're right, it's like, you know, it's figuring all that little stuff out was was not just helpful for that area, but it's also changes how I look at other, like other landscapes as well. Right, So, whether I'm in Kansas or whatever, like you start to kind of you

and I talk about this all the time. You start to create these like analogs between different places right where it's like I've never been here before and I've never hunted this type of terrain, but man, it feels a lot like this place I was in in Kansas or this place I was in.

did I what did this deer teach me? You know that I can use to look at this landscape a little bit differently and start to like find other areas I want to explore, Right. And so I've already kind of started going through the map and kind of like dropping pins in areas that aren't even necessarily close to

that particular area. Right. It's like, what are the things that this place had that allowed this deer, you know in and a couple others to reach a certain maturity or a certain caliber, And where can I find that in some of these other pockets? Right? And then the second part of that is is like, you know, where can I use like some interesting access to find these? Right? And so like I'm starting to like double down on it a little bit because I'm like, this is a place.

You know. You know, when you find certain places or certain types of setups, you know, there's a reason why. You know, if you're in any state that doesn't grow giants consistently, right, if you're finding them somewhere, right, there's a reason why.

I feel pretty confident in saying that, you know. And so with that, it's like then they they have the opportunity to get age on them, right, And so you know, there's there's got to be more like him somewhere. You just have to, you know, put the work into to try to find them, right, And I'm not hung up on trophy hunting necessarily, but boy, it's fun to chase them like that because you know, you just they give you a different lens into their world than you know,

other than younger deers. Just don't just don't give you, right, they just don't make the mistakes, they don't leave as much sign They make you work for everything, you know, and it's just a different it's just a different experience. And and that to me is like the fun part, right, Like is just that experience. So like, give me like one hundred and thirty inch like seven year old deer.

It's like I'd love to chase that deer, you know what I mean, Like because that's just he's been around the block, man, Like he's not gonna You're not gonna kill him sitting on the inside corner of like foots. It's just not gonna happen, you know what I mean. Like you're gonna have to kill him in this funky little setup somewhere that like you wouldn't even think that a deer would you know, walk through that.

And that dude was spending a lot of time in a valley on this one property, and he he taught me so much about like like the real nocturnal nature of some of these deer, but also just thinking about individual trails. I mean there was a trail that he took back to go to bed, very consistent, and it was like it bothered me so much because I knew the trail, I knew where to set up, and I

knew that he wasn't coming through there in daylight. And it just like instead of thinking about that farm like I usually do, where I'm like where can I run into a decent book, Like I just want a good one, Like I don't you know, I said this part, this

part's a big farm. I was like obsessed with that stupid ass valley, scouting it, looking for shann Antler's in it, running trail cameras on different trails leading out, and it was like it kind of occurred to me and I never killed that deer, by the way, but it occurred to me, like, I'm learning more about this this particular area in one season that I have in twenty years of hunting there because this deer likes to use it.

And that was it, you know, And you you mentioned how we talk a lot about how, you know, figuring out you know, why, why does why did that buck have the opportunity to get to two hundred inches out there? How did he get that age on him? What? Where was his where were his sanctuaries? Like what was his

like hideout strategy? How did he do it? When you when you start figuring that stuff out and taking it on the road with you or taking it to another place, or using that on another giant you find three years down the road, it's so beneficial. And you you mentioned that, and you said something way earlier about figuring out that this this deer had a very distinctive rub pattern, and it reminded me. So I killed a buck a long time ago, probably eight B nine something like that. I

had bow hunt this deer in north central Minnesota. He's like one hundred and thirty inch nine pointer, but he was the biggest deer on this place. I had had eighty acres to hunt, and he was living in a cattail slough, and I'll tell you what, that son of a bitch just had that little sanctuary figure. He was unapproachable most of the time, and you'd see him in there, you know, like I glassed him in the summer, and

I kept finding these tracks. These the biggest tracks I found on the farm had this like wonky kind of toe shape where it was like a very distinct and I remember like, like, that's got to be that deer, Like there's there's probably not another deer here that's like

of that maturity level. And I ended up killing that buck with a rifle, like totally just scummed into him, bought a rifle tag that I'd never bought before, walked into that cattail sou like six days in the deer season, and he followed a dough through there, and I thumped him and it was stupid, but that deer had that

distinctive hoof pattern, so it was him. And so even just like I think about that all the time now because I'm hunting cat taill slews a lot and where I live is very sandy, so tracks are a big deal, like we just you know, like I use tracks a lot, and I'm like, man, I think back to that deer in that season often, and it's not you know, it's not like a huge buck. It wasn't like a particularly special thing. But the journey that that deer took me on is like still there's still payoffs to this day

from it. And that's I mean it's like I kind of shit on mark and is like name and bucks and stuff like that sometimes, but really, this this one buck thing, well I should hun him for a lot of reasons most justified it, but that that style of just going that's the one and I'm going to figure it out. That brings you to a different place as a deer hunter, and it's definitely can be like very beneficial.

times I'm not. You know, It's like I'm just kind of like, hey, there's some rubs.

I'm just trying to figure out what some deer will do, right, And it becomes different if you're looking for a specific one, because it's just like when you think about sociology versus psychology, right, Sociology is the study of groups, right, and psychology is the study of the individual, right, And hunting a specific deer is like taking a psychology course and not a

sociology course. Right. It's like I'm trying to understand one, right, not I don't care how the group, because that one, especially if they got age on him, like they don't act like the other deers, especially whenever they get to that you know, older age class, right, like they just you know, this dear, particularly like you would see some like trail camera intel on him, where he was with other deer, I can think of like a couple, but like, by and large, most of the stuff I had of

him like he was by himself, Like he wasn't very often with with other deer, even in the summer, you know, Like I remember, I can think of like maybe two years ago, like maybe a couple of trail camera pictures that we got to him on this one scrape where he was with another buck, but I don't it wasn't more than like a handful of pictures, right, it might even been the same from the same day, like just

like the rapid burst or whatever. And then this year in last year, me personally, like on the cameras that I was running, like, I don't have him on camera with any deer ever, you know. And so which would make sense because when he was like we got you know, he was young. He was a younger deer, right, and so maybe a little bit more amiable to be around, or maybe a little bit more interested in being around

other deer or whatever. But it seemed like now as he got older, like he had no interest in being around other deer no matter what time of year it was, you know. He really kind of became a recluse, and like that was kind of telling, right, not just for him, but like how I think about whenever I'm trying to

find another good deer or older deer. And then there was like you, I won't mention what they were, but there were two like habitat types that I found in proximity to one another that I felt like was the thing right for why he was spending time in an area. And I was talking to another buddy of mine who hunts a lot of big woods, and he was on a hammer this year and I think he missed like one hundred and sixty inch deer public land in Pennsylvania, and I was talking to him about it, and he knew.

I sent him a picture of like a scrape and a rub or whatever, and where I was at. He's like, oh man, he's like I love that area. He's like that's he's like that habitat rate there. He was like it, like he's like, you'd be surprised how many how often I find the biggest deer in those in those areas, right, And so that was kind of like when the light bulb went off, I was like, oh, wait a minute, okay. I was like it's this piece here that's next to this piece, and it makes a lot of sense why

he's here now. And so when I say I start to look for those things now, it's like if I can find a place where those two types of habitat are adjacent to one another, It's like that to me is like where where like the light bulb starts to go off right, you know, And that's the type of Those are the types of lessons that you take with you, you know, as far as cutting tracks, like I tried, like this area a lot of grass, leaf cover, hard soil, like hard ground, or you're in a swamp with like

mud and you know, uh heavy, you know, dense foliage or whatever that you're not going to see a track. But I did cut a good track on like the next to last day that I was hunting, and I know that wasn't this deer. And oddly enough, it was

like by where I parked my truck. I didn't see it when I pulled in in the morning and I was getting ready, I was coming out at night and had my head lamps down and opened up my back door and I was like, holy shit, man, that's a big track, and got down and looked at it was like the size of my hand, you know, And so I was like, all right, it wasn't in the right area for it to be him. But I was like, okay. And the crazy thing was, is I think it's a

younger deer. It was on hard ground too, so it wasn't like there was splay or anything like that, you know what I mean. But the his hooves were still kind of pointy, you know what I mean, So where it's like it's a big track, but it was still kind of a younger deer because they weren't starting to round quite yet, you know. So you know, maybe next year for that.

And the coyotes had got to him, and I could only see like basically from like the back of his ribs ounce I couldn't see like his his his hind quarters or his his his guts, or he could have

got hit on the road, you know. So that's you don't know, you know, I don't know if we ever ever figured it out, you know, And it doesn't really matter, you know, to me, honestly, it's like he's not there to he's not there to hunt anymore, you know, which is a bummer, But you know, you just hate to see you know, I hope I hope fingers crossed that a hunter shot him and that they they get to claim him, you know, like that's that's what my hope is, just because I hate to see an animal like that,

you know, get hit on the freaking road and like end up in the game commission, you know, you get scrapped or whatever. You know.

But yeah, I mean, you you're not going to get that chance. That's just not going to happen very often. It's incredible.

think was the last day that I hunted. I ended up hunting him twenty six days, and I ended up sleeping in my truck or in my trailer, like you know, cause there were days where I didn't hunt, or it was a Sunday that I didn't hunt, or it was the day where it's like, well, the first day I was gonna hunt because the wind was right and the weather was right, but then it got warm, I wouldn't hunt the next day and it's gonna hut the day after. So there was like some of that where I was

just spending time there. So it's like one hunted him twenty six days and you know, I think I slept in my truck or my trailer like thirty thirty couple days or something like that overall within like that month and a half time period, so about half the days that you could possibly hunt him, like I hunted him essentially, you know. You know, and my wife, you know, got to love her man because she was like never said like when are you coming home or what are you doing?

Like there was another editing of that. She was always like when I get back, She's like when you going back up? And I'm like, uh. I would literally come home on like a Sunday, go to jiu jitsu train and be like, yeah, I'm leaving Tuesday after jiu jitsu, you know what I mean, Like, and I'm gonna be there Tuesday, Wenesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday next week, you know.

And so there was a lot of that, you know, but I will say I will say this because you know, I think we get wrapped and I certainly did, like I got wrapped up into this, and there were a few moments where I, you know, I try to remind myself like when the grind's happening, and like you're just not feeling it right, and you just you want to be anywhere but in the woods that at that moment, for whatever reason, I try to just remind myself to be and I kept saying this to myself, like be

where your feet are, Like be where your feet are. Don't wish the time away, don't wish you were somewhere else. You know, there is no place better to be in the world than where you're at right now, right, just like in general, right because it's really easy, especially when things aren't going your way or you're you know, you're not feeling like you're on him or whatever the case is, where you can really start to kind of get down.

And there was an older fellow that I met. He's in his sixties, he's retired, and when I be's sleeping in my truck, he just so happened to like the park and sleep at the same spot because you can really see the stars in this area. And he's retired, and so he has a little set up in the

back of his truck that he sleeps in. And so the first night, you know, because this all started in August, because there was an area I thought I could kill him in and and uh, I needed to see what the thermals were gonna do, and I got the right wind that I would want, would I would hunt that area on And so I went up in August before I left to go Elk County in and Idaho, slept in the bed of my truck, got up at like, you know, five o'clock in the morning, and hiked in

so I could get into that tree. Literally climbed into the tree with my saddle, like got set up like I was gonna hunt, you know, obviously no bo or anything, and set up and just sat there and waited for the sun to come up to see what the thermal was going to do when the sun came up, based on that prevailing wind that I was getting that day, right,

So that's kind of how obsessed I was. Like I was there in the summer, like sleeping in my truck, like getting into setups like to check thermals and stuff. And he happened to be there that night when I pulled in, and I'm like, man, who the hell is in this parking parking spot? You know, I mean, like it's like, is this guy knew about this big deer?

And like I'm already battling like some guy like in August, you know, and uh, older guy he hunted the area a lot, told him what I was up to, and so he was like, you know, he hunts that general area. And he was like, Hey, I'm going to stay out of this area if you're if you're on something good, I don't want to booker you up. He's like, I'm not, I'm gonna hunt this, I'm gonna go over this other area.

We exchanged numbers and stuff, and he would text me every so often, and I went up a couple of different weekends to you know, to scout and do stuff and uh, and he was there almost every time. Right. He was doing some drywall work for you know, he's retired, but he was doing some like freelance drywall work for like a buddy of his that he knew in that area. And he would just go there and sleep in the evenings, right because he just like the stars, and he likes

to camp, and he loves the fish. He's a woodsman, you know, and he just thought it was the coolest thing that I was trying to kill this particular deer. And so we really hit it off and he let me know, get we out on the topic of like family or something like that, and uh, on the topic of wives or whatever the case is, you know, and maybe he was like, here, you spend a lot of

time up here, and I was like, yeah. I was like, well, you know, maybe I said something about like, you know, you know, what's your wife thinking you camping out here or whatever the case is, you know what I mean, like just talking some snack. And he let me know that his wife of like whatever it was like forty years had passed away, right, which was was you know, obviously sad, he's widowed, and so we were kind of

talking about it. Let Be asked me how long I've been married, and I told him, you know, you know a little over twenty years now. And and I just asked him, hey, you know, cause he's a happy, go lucky guy man, you know, he had he's had a good life. And I was like, what's the key to that kind of marriage where it's like you get to do all this outdoor stuff and you know, and because

he he's always done that. And he said, just make sure that you always give more than you take, was what he told me, right, And so I remember I was sitting in the tree on the day before I came home and I was just thinking to myself, like reminding myself to be where my feet are. And I thought to myself back to that conversation, and I asked myself, have I have I given more than I've taken to this point And the answer was was no. And I was like, I've taken my fair share of this false

time for me to go home. And so I just kind of made the decision and that was gonna be the last day I was going to hunt. And then subsequently the next day I found out that deer got killed, and it was his words of wisdom that kind of like was like, because I was struggling, man, I was like,

I don't want to go home. I was getting prepared to like work and hunt from the trailer for like the next week, you know what I mean, like this week actually, and and I was just thinking about him and what he told me, the advice he gave me, and I was like, nope, I've taken my fair share. I was like, it's time for me to go home and be where my feet are. My feet should be there. And so, you know, we get crazy on big deer, you know, and love chasing them, but at the end

of the day, you know, they don't matter. And that was kind of you know, my one buddy or you know, mutual friend of ours, Chad, you know, text me about it. I said, you know that as like it sucks, you know, the deer got killed. I was like, but you know, in the grand scheme of things, that di didn't matter a whole lot. You know, It's like I learned a lot.

I had a great time chasing him, and I was like, the man, I'm a fortunate guy with the life that I have, you know, I was like, and I need to remember that, you know, above all else and everything else will work itself out.

going to keep yourself going? As a person, you know, and we we joked about this a little bit, but I gotta I gotta ask this before you wrap this up. Are you going to take that stick bow out and go stick a forky or something now, just to get like a palette cleanser out. I think you should.

and uh, yeah, I'm gonna take that out. I'm gonna go out Saturday to some spots, a spot locally, you know, where I know there's some deer, and we'll see what comes through. I haven't checked a single trail camera locally, so I have no clue what's happening around me. So it's gonna literally just be you know, probably kayaking into a spot that I like actually where I killed my buck last year, and and kayak into there and take the stick bow along and see if we can make

some magic happen. And and that's going to be you know, that's probably what's gonna what's gonna transpire. There's one other deer that I'm kind of interested in.

this point. It's like everything's gravy, you know. So there's no you know, if I get deer walks in and I got the stick bow in my hand, I get fired up. You know, I'm gonna let one rip. You know. That's the that's the game plan.

a recipe whatever. Maybe you're just bored with your commute, or you're gonna head out on some late season trip somewhere and you need to fill the time. You need to go check out Clay's Bargeres podcast, Brent Reeves This Country Life. We have a lot of really cool shows out there for you to listen to that aren't whitetail related necessarily, but they're pretty dang interesting and pretty fun to listen to. Go check them out at the meadeater dot com and as always, thank you so much for listening.

beep beep sound if I have a drop of the stuff. Also, alerts the authorities, who in turn alert my parole officer. So there'll be none of that in the studio today, I promise you.