00:00:00
Speaker 1: Well to that point, I’d kind of like thought, oh, I missed my broadside shot. So he was a little bit quartered away and just a little bit farther back, and I mean it was about as perfect as shot as you could. Hit it right in the heart, hit him in the heart, and then somehow his the arrow angled off either a rib or the shoulder on the other side. After the broadhead snapped off, the arrow just poked through like the top of the neck and see the kill shot. But it was pretty cool out here. The stakes are real. Effective preparation starts with fitness, but it requires so much more. This show explores the tools, knowledge, resilience, and skills needed to be ready when it matters the most. Join me Rich Browning as we apply the decades of wisdom I’ve gained through training and competition to hunting in the back country. This is In Pursuit, brought to you by Mount Knocks in collaboration with Mayhem Hunt. Jonathan Michael Watkins not to be confused with Jonathan Jonathan Tyler Watkins right. Same middle name we have no, No, you guys, no.
00:01:14
Speaker 2: We have the same middle name.
00:01:16
Speaker 1: Michael. The most Tennessee thing you’ve ever heard Watkins. We just call him Watkins because him and his brother have the same first name. Now it’s Waddy. Thanks Tommy Scott. You’ve been on here a lot and he’s always behind the camera too as well. But you actually got behind the bow this week.
00:01:38
Speaker 2: I did.
00:01:39
Speaker 3: I tried to get behind the camera and behind the bow simultaneously.
00:01:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there’s heartbreak. There was heartbreak at that too.
00:01:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, there’s a couple of heartbreaks. Yeah. So we had del Brisbee last week, well several weeks ago, but to you guys is last week last week. Yeah, man, it was it was fun, It was cool. You know. The one question I had was like, did he take off his sunglasses when he came in? He didn’t have sunglasses on. Do you know what I’m saying.
00:02:07
Speaker 2: I didn’t even pay attention.
00:02:09
Speaker 1: It didn’t really like throw me off or anything. I didn’t know that was his like his kick was sunglasses. So yeah, the people were that was the main question everybody.
00:02:18
Speaker 3: The two things I was most fascinated with were how is the place.
00:02:23
Speaker 1: He that ridden with skunks?
00:02:24
Speaker 3: How do they have such a big skunk problem? And how, you know, how does that happen? And then also the Maverick bulls. Oh yeah, it was very interesting. Like I think that he said he had a video on it. I think that’d be fun to follow. Yeah, well, no, I’m saying to film something like.
00:02:42
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I mean it’s a hunt. It’s a you’re literally hunting, but instead of it’s probably what the peda people would like is that you don’t kill them.
00:02:50
Speaker 2: You just well eventually you probably know, I’m just kidding.
00:02:54
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he basically they he goes on these trips with these Maverick bulls, so basically think of wild pigs basically, but with cows, and they get on you know, up on a high spot wherever they’re at Arizona was at or Texas, I believe it was Arizona, Arizona, and so they like spot these bulls and then they ride out with them, ride out to find them, rope them time to a tree, and then come back after them, right basically, and then haul them in and you know they’ve just either gotten out or been bred out there and lived out there for a long time. But they’re feral cows, which I think would be fun to hunt them.
00:03:33
Speaker 3: That would be fun too if they escaped, much like the two red stag on the property we’re at.
00:03:39
Speaker 4: Talking about, like the mo moocat rat.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, muka, yeah, you get it gets confusing when you start talking. That’s what we always just said mookau instead of beef cow. Beef cow sounds whatever, but move mook cow sounds better.
00:03:50
Speaker 2: Yeah.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: When we used to hunt in Gunnison in Colorado, you would get all hyped up and amped up his public land, but ranchers somehow had a lease to it where they could just let their cows go, and you’d be up at nine thousand feet and you’re thinking, oh, in this we were early on at elk hunting, and we’d honestly, first couple of years we didn’t know what we were listening for. But I think still it would throw me off to hear like footsteps of a large animal and then a mooke out comes walking out, or you you like you’re glassing and you catch brown and you’re like, oh yeah, and it’s a mookout.
00:04:24
Speaker 3: So can you imagine like think drawing before the animal, you know, comes out, so you’re anticipating you’re have full draw and the cow walks out. The disappointment.
00:04:35
Speaker 1: There were several times I considered shooting a mookeout and just taking the meat home because it would be great, It.
00:04:41
Speaker 2: Would be it would be great.
00:04:42
Speaker 1: So yeah, so that was really cool. It seems like a good guy. Uh, it was. You know, it was interesting to hear the parallels between that Maverick hunt and the and hunting. Really you know, it’s not really a hunt, I guess, but round up Maverick, round up.
00:05:00
Speaker 3: We needed dale that weekend when we worked bison.
00:05:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we worked bison the weekend after Honestly, we didn’t really need it to like get them wound up. It was the fact that we got them crawled pretty easily. But then we had Custer got a little upset that he was pinned up with some of the cows and and end up goring one of one of the one of the cows, and so we we had to do a little We got them all worked and then had a little processing ourselves of one of the field dressing field dressing got the kids got a little.
00:05:35
Speaker 3: Down the driveway with a with a bison tractor.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, so one one soldier down, but hey should go to good use, should be eaten.
00:05:44
Speaker 2: So the free west.
00:05:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, the freezers full after this last trip. After this, you know, luckily I guess we didn’t kill multiple bulls this fall because we got we got a bunch of deer and we got a bison in the week up an elk as well. But yeah, that was that was I mean, the kids were right there, and it was not optimal by any means. You know, you don’t you hate to lose an animal like that. But she won’t go to waste for sure.
00:06:16
Speaker 3: So Watkins was up close and personal when that cow went down, right, Yeah, there’s right by the gate.
00:06:21
Speaker 1: Or thee were working the alley.
00:06:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, the opening closing the door.
00:06:27
Speaker 1: You were opening closing the alley.
00:06:29
Speaker 2: I came to get photos and stuff, and then.
00:06:31
Speaker 1: You got roped in. You didn’t know.
00:06:33
Speaker 3: Jason was on the far side and he was basically he had to work the doors, the sweep tub.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: And the doors.
00:06:41
Speaker 1: Jack was supposed to be working the sweep tub, but Jack couldn’t push the sweep tub door enough, so Jason had to get the other side.
00:06:46
Speaker 3: So but I’m saying at this point he was doing the sweep tub, the doors, the front door on the squeeze shoote and he was doing the de warmer.
00:06:55
Speaker 4: See that would be the worst one.
00:06:56
Speaker 3: I think he was like, hey, I need help over here. This is not a one man job, and so I hopped over there. And so basically at that point, Jason worked the sweep tub and I got the doors and we had them queued up like one in each door, and then I could just do the front and deworm. Well, then when one of the it was Wilson I think, got stuck the uh in Custer. No, Wilson got stuck right.
00:07:20
Speaker 1: No, I don’t know it. It was in one of the one of the bison got stuck in between. So what happened was where we have the alley, we have these super heavy but movable gates or pens I guess, or I don’t even know what you would call them. Anyway, we’ve created this alley Matt has or we sunk a six by six metal post into the ground. But one of the gates got somehow, the movable gates got moved maybe three or four inches, and this thing saw daylight and then got its head stuck in between the pole and the movable fence. Pope. Yeah, and so that was a whole or deeal well.
00:08:01
Speaker 3: So whenever that happened, Jason went over to help. And so going back to why I was over there. It was because he was running the whole thing. Well, we were about halfway done, so the second three quarters, well whatever it was. The last ten or so bison I had to do the sweep tub, the doors, and the squeeze, shoot and de warmer.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: It was stressful.
00:08:22
Speaker 3: Well, the one thing I was worried about is like when the cow and calf go through together, you need to be really careful to separate them because she’ll kill the calf. And so I had to do that one of them alone where I was pushing them through the tub, but then I had to jump down really quick and just freaking slam between the two to make sure she didn’t kill her calf.
00:08:44
Speaker 2: But yeah, it was hectic. One of the.
00:08:47
Speaker 3: Basically we’d open once we had the head squeezed to where you know, they couldn’t get out, open up that front gate to.
00:08:55
Speaker 2: Do the de warmer.
00:08:56
Speaker 3: Well, one of the bulls, like the smaller bulls, not Teddy or Custer, really pissed off as they are and just smashes his head as far as he can as I’m opening the gate, and he’s got like he just blew all this like brown snot over my arm and I’m like, that was close to a horn.
00:09:13
Speaker 2: It was crazy.
00:09:13
Speaker 3: And then of course Matt wanted me to the ones that weren’t tagged yet and he wanted me to dag them. No, he wanted me to check them, oh, to see what they were and they’re not happy to be in there.
00:09:23
Speaker 2: So that’s a fun experience. It was.
00:09:25
Speaker 1: It was good cowboy. Now, Yeah, you’re always behind the camera just kind of like observing. You actually had to get.
00:09:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, which luckily I’ve been there I think time, so I knew what to do, like hopped in. It was fine, but yeah, it was it was funny.
00:09:39
Speaker 2: One.
00:09:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were probably one person too short. It’s just so hard because you know, like if you get them caught, then you’re good to go, but there’s always that chance that they’re not going to go into the yeah, which just happened. We’ve had that before him, and we’ve had times where there’s like thirteen people standing around doing nothing, which actually makes it worse because the bison see people and they do not want to go.
00:10:00
Speaker 4: Oh.
00:10:01
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:10:01
Speaker 3: When I showed up and it was a bit light on help, that was abnormal because usually there’s so many people that want to come.
00:10:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, which we just didn’t tell a ton of people. But yeah, all right, and then we just got back from Taos.
00:10:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was crazy.
00:10:18
Speaker 1: That was awesome. Shout out to Stealth Rigg for having us, Tyler Stallings and Clayton Man that.
00:10:25
Speaker 2: Was to set the scene too.
00:10:29
Speaker 1: We had we didn’t we got inlighted by Nate. We didn’t really know what We had no idea what we were walking into.
00:10:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, we didn’t know what we were walking into. And we have I don’t know how to put it better, like we have very like low standards, very low standards.
00:10:42
Speaker 1: In terms of Nate was like, bring extra arrows. I’ve heard that before.
00:10:47
Speaker 3: Well, so when he said that, that was at that point I was coming just to film and we were just gonna fly and fly out, and I guess shipped the meatback or something. I don’t know, but once he said bring extra arrows, then I started to investigate the possibility of having Watkins drive the sprinter van down and he gets to hunt as like a reward for that, and then maybe I get to fling an arrow or two and they were cool with it, which was awesome.
00:11:13
Speaker 1: Awesome, man, that was above and beyond. It was you know, we were on twenty five thousand acres of free range property. I mean there’s high fences on different you know borders of the property, but they don’t have any high fence, right it’s the other ranches. Yeah, other ranches that have high fence free range. They call it low fence, I guess technically, which just means cal fins. Essentially, it’s a cattle they have cattle on the on the ranch. But also it’s you know, it was it was awesome. Yeah, that’s the only way to put it, like and and I’m not even gonna like pitch this as some difficult hunt or you know something where you weren’t. We were seeing twenty to thirty deer each sit. Well, it’s a different kount of feeders.
00:12:04
Speaker 3: It was different kind of hunting too, because we’re using management tags, and they’re given management tags based on it’s just coming in.
00:12:11
Speaker 1: It’s fishing, right, Like it’s fishing, which I don’t understand, you know, like, hey, I you know, I think it’s cool and you know, to each their own on whitetail hunting, on how you go about it, and there’s absolutely way more reward for going out doing it the hard way, you know, setting up and you know, squeeze poort or you know, yeah, squeeze pinch points and uh, playing wind and doing all that’s one hundred percent and we do that here at the house. There’s also something to be said for fishing for whitetail. You know, we were literally fishing for white tail, which I don’t understand people that are so against it, Like I get if it’s not for you. I don’t get that people are so against it. If you’re okay with fishing, why are you not. It’s the same thing but with a bow, and you get a lot more meat, right you know, So I man, I would do that hunt again.
00:13:06
Speaker 3: It was It’s fun to to also have like different types of hunts almost so like you come here and basically you’re looking for your rule out the house is an a point that’s all you’re looking for.
00:13:20
Speaker 2: But there what we were.
00:13:21
Speaker 3: Doing was trying to kill either does or could bucks yep. And so there’s a lot, like a lot more like elements that go into that. And also for us being not super super experience well or even experienced whitetail hunters in terms of aging deer, it actually was super educational too, because I’m getting content of all these deer, and we didn’t have service to basically, we had no service anywhere.
00:13:45
Speaker 1: That was the hard part.
00:13:46
Speaker 2: You ask if we could.
00:13:47
Speaker 3: Shoot or not shoot, And so you get back, you know, like, hey, what do you think about this deer? What do you think about this deer? Because what they’re trying to do is increase the genetics of their property.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, they want they want to get mature bucks. They want to get you know, bigger bucks. Obviously they you know, they’re they’re not selling by the inch. They’re not doing it like it’s friends and family, you know, it wasn’t.
00:14:10
Speaker 4: Like that’s the crazy part.
00:14:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, And but they have to get some deer out of there. You know, they have so many deer. They’re trying to, you know, make sure that there’s a healthy herd. You know, the state, I think it was a state comes in and gives them like a number of deer they need to be taken off there. They have like a.
00:14:26
Speaker 3: Bole just come in in the state and they basically decide based on all these photos and all this different stuff, like different elements.
00:14:33
Speaker 1: We have Clayton, Yeah, I would love Clayton Tyler.
00:14:36
Speaker 3: They can explain it better, I’m sure, but they they basically say hey, you get you know, five hundred tags.
00:14:40
Speaker 2: Whatever it is.
00:14:42
Speaker 1: They try to keep the ratios. Is it three to one, two to one?
00:14:46
Speaker 2: One?
00:14:47
Speaker 1: I did my I did my part, which shows in one buck, well.
00:14:52
Speaker 2: I don’t want to get out of order.
00:14:53
Speaker 3: But I only saw, like I only sat twice, but I only saw like two doughs.
00:14:57
Speaker 1: That you could have shot. Yeah, we saw a couple. I yeah. I mean, and that’s the hard part too, is you’re like, you don’t want to you want to get invited back, so you don’t want to be shooting a bunch of stuff that shouldn’t be shot, right, And I mean there were several bucks that we would pass on and we’d get back in the truck and he’d be like, oh, yeah, you could have shot that. You’re just the heartbreak of it, you know. And then but then also there were some that you’re like, could I shot this one? They’re like no, no, we would have liked to let them. Thought maybe I could. So there was a lot of like yeah, you know, it was it’s they’re different deer than are here, I guess, you know, they’re a little bit smaller bodied, good antlers and good you know, man, it was it was just awesome. You’re seeing twenty and thirty. I would do that again. I prefer that for white tail hunting.
00:15:45
Speaker 3: Let’s uh, let’s start with the first night, because we traveled in and you and Watkins both got to sit the first night I was filming.
00:15:53
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:15:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, so me and you just sat in a little tripod stand what I thought was completely out in the open, but was not. They couldn’t. They didn’t really pick up on us. We had probably one of the nicest deer, younger nice nicest younger deer come through, perfectly symmetrical, ten tall all the way through, but you could tell he was young. He was young, muscular, slender type thing, and you’re just like, oh man, and he was kind of rolling the roost. We had a dough or two come in maybe that night.
00:16:21
Speaker 2: He had one dough he was with the whole time, and.
00:16:23
Speaker 1: It was another one two and a half year old. Yeah, ten point, young, ten point. And then we had a probably management buck come in yep, but he got spooped off. And then there was another one that would have came in, but he got scooped up. That one he.
00:16:37
Speaker 3: Never got was like close. He didn’t want to deal with it. No, but yeah, that that younger ten what do we think three and a half three and a half. Yeah, he was. He was pissed that anyone would come in. So they have these little basically like hog fences.
00:16:51
Speaker 1: Hog fences in the middle of hog fences, you know, like a two foot fence.
00:16:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it’s probably thirty yard what is that diameter radius? Yeah, he did didn’t want he didn’t want any bucks inside of that, so he would run them out immediately.
00:17:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, I mean it was that was cool to see you’re just watching deer, you know, like yeah, versus sitting around waiting, and he was in.
00:17:10
Speaker 2: There for two hours. Yeah, two whole hours. We had to watch.
00:17:13
Speaker 1: Him, and that was good, like educational. You’re like, throughout the whole two hours, you’re like, maybe he is older. But then you would like see him, you know, he would be you know, super slick and shiny, and then all of a sudden you’d see him kind of like like his hair would like almost like when you get goosebumps your hair kind of like fans out. Yeah, that’s what he would start bristling and you’re like, oh, here, something’s coming, and sure enough, another jear would walk out and he’d just bristle up and you’re like, oh, maybe he’s like four and a half, you know. And so we watched him for a couple a little while you saw, and I shot a hog.
00:17:50
Speaker 4: Yeah, shot a hog, and shot buck that got away. Buck that got away, which was a good hit. We just just couldn’t find him.
00:17:58
Speaker 1: Think a little bit back, you said, mane No, So.
00:18:01
Speaker 4: Everybody kept talking about like that dead man’ zone, So I’m kind of thinking that’s that’s where it went. Yeah, but what was cool about that one? No Man’s land or whatever, but what was cool about that one? As Clayton was driving us, it was me and Nate and Bo and they was like, man, it’d be so cool to get like a hog. I was like, man, that’d be awesome. Well I got a hog. So we were sitting after I shot that buck that takes Clayton, and I’m just like, hey, it’s just like shot impact. Do I just stay in here because I didn’t know if it like could be like the one in Spencer, like hey just wait and come and get you. So I’m sitting there and he’s just like yeah, He’s like give it about ten minutes and then you can go out. He’s like, I’d be careful though, He’s like, because there’ll be hogs out. So I was just like, I thought he was joking about that. Sure enough, put everything back in my hardness and I’m just sitting there and I hear this ruffling and I looked over to my right and there’s a hog. I was like, oh snap. So I didn’t get that buck fever because that was my first buck ever. I didn’t get that like shaking or anything like that. When that hog came out. That’s when that kicked it really, which is completely odd. And he got in the same position of that as that buck, and it went to the opposite side broadside and I just popped it tickled plumb tickled, and then of course then then not progressed it. And then Clayton came out me and we want a goose chase for that uh buck found some blood and it got real scarce and then found some more. We just couldn’t find it, so we caught it and then go on to.
00:19:31
Speaker 1: Well what was cool was you know Watkins. They were like, just go back out and hunt. We’ll go find the deer the next morning, and Clayton was gonna go look for it, and Watkins was like, no, I’m gonna go look for it. He’s like, I just something doesn’t feel right about going to sit and not knowing whether or not that buck. So you guys went and looked that next morning for yeah, a couple of four and a half hours. Yeah, we that next morning we had a bunch of doze, a lot of doze. We had some bucks kind of come around the back of us but never really come in. And then right before Tyler came and picked us up, we had a good buck which we didn’t get a look at it and get a long look at He came in to kind of check the feeder. I think he was checking for does didn’t like the situation and kind of backed out. So that that sit was probably one of our worst sits. But we still saw a bunch of deer. It was just doze and young. They were like fawns. And so you’re at at one point you’re playing this game of like, all right, I know I’m supposed to take some doze, but you don’t want to spook too much out of there, so you kind of wait to the last like what you would say, ten to fifteen minutes and if there’s a dough in there, you’d take it. And I hadn’t had a buck at this point. I think I’m the only person to this point. Everybody else, everybody in camp had at least shot a buck, and.
00:20:46
Speaker 3: Everyone but you and Watkins had killed a buck. Yeah, yeah, yep.
00:20:49
Speaker 1: And so Tyler picked us up. That morning we went and did some predator hunting.
00:20:54
Speaker 2: Yea unsuccessfully.
00:20:55
Speaker 1: Unsuccessfully. He saw some gray foxes, but I couldn’t get couldn’t go them put down. Next evening is when I killed my buck. We still, you know, like we hemmed and hot over him as he was circling the feeder and couldn’t really decide. And then we’re in this redneck blind, which shooting out of shooting a bow out of like a out of a blind just not used to right, So we you used to shooting out of a saddle or shooting out of a tree stand. And I clipped the edge of the window with my bow as I was getting ready to shoot, let an arrow go and smoked the feeder. But this deer jumped for a second and then just went back to feeding, so I ended up hitting him.
00:21:46
Speaker 3: They’re used to making noise yeah, I think they’ll shoot out the food and yeah, they’ll scatter for a second and then come right back in.
00:21:53
Speaker 1: Yep.
00:21:53
Speaker 3: So he probably thought something inside of it was settling or whatever.
00:21:57
Speaker 1: And so you kind of play this, you know, they were like, hey, make sure take really good shots. They’re completely broadside. You got plenty of time. Well, I do. To that point, I’d kind of like thought, oh, I missed my broadside shot. So he was a little bit quartered away and just knew you aimed a little bit farther back. And I mean it was about as perfect as shot as you could. Hit it right in the heart, hit him in the heart, and then somehow his the arrow angled off either a rib or the shoulder on the other side. After the broadhead snapped off, the arrow just poked through like the top of his neck. You’ll see the kill shot. But it was, yeah, pretty cool.
00:22:34
Speaker 3: And so when he ran away, we could see blood pouring out of him. But then when we went down to check to start bloodshots.
00:22:42
Speaker 1: No blood.
00:22:42
Speaker 2: There’s hardly any blood.
00:22:43
Speaker 1: So I’m starting to panic a little bit because that I guess that dry Texas ground just soaks up all the blood. I mean, you watch on the video and there, and the thing is covered. The deer’s covered in blood. And so I’m tracking track and we get down probably twenty thirty minutes after start trying to pick up some blood. Yeah, and I’m set my bow in every spot, but we would go out and couldn’t find anything. So I’m starting to start freaking.
00:23:04
Speaker 2: We thought that I thought there’d be a lot of blood.
00:23:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so Scott kind of just goes ahead on the path. We think he’s taken, and you know, I’m like panicking looking at blood, and Scott goes, hey, you want to come see your deer.
00:23:14
Speaker 3: I was like, thank god, he didn’t make it far at all. But we were just really slow playing it, trying to play the blood. But in my head, I was like, well, I’ll let you do it the right way. I’m just gonna walk off. I basically went ten yards to the left of where I thought his trail was. Ye, just looking into the sides of the brush, and he just.
00:23:33
Speaker 1: Went and tucked up underneath some of the scroll bro well.
00:23:35
Speaker 3: Because I knew I didn’t know, but I was very confident he wasn’t like a wounded deer. I was gonna bump. Yeah, So I’m like, he’s dead, we just need to find him. And then I saw him tucked up in there. It was what I was hoping I was going to do with your utah ol last year, find him before you did.
00:23:51
Speaker 2: But it worked out.
00:23:52
Speaker 1: Who was it kill first? Yeah?
00:23:55
Speaker 2: I think so.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: Yeah. So we get back to the truck walkings as first buck in there, nice little eight. He was broke off in a couple of different spots, so he was a two.
00:24:06
Speaker 4: Row times.
00:24:07
Speaker 1: He was missing a brown top a brow time, and then it would have been his G three I think it was.
00:24:13
Speaker 4: I think it was just broke off.
00:24:14
Speaker 1: No G four, Sorry, no G three. I’m still still.
00:24:18
Speaker 4: But I had like of course, while we was tracking the buck that was shot Monday, Clayton was just like hey, He’s like, do you want me to sit with you? I was just like it would help, could help a lot, because it’s like I don’t know nothing about nothing right, and he’s like, I’ll go with you. So I was like super pumped about that, but also like super nervous because Clayton’s like the man of the So it’s just like I want to shoot something and miss it again or like hit it and then just kind of wounded, so like, my nerves are just like.
00:24:50
Speaker 1: So when I met it was nice.
00:24:52
Speaker 3: It was being able to be like the green lights are right there, you’re good because.
00:24:56
Speaker 1: That was the hardest part.
00:24:58
Speaker 4: Well, the best part about it was I got to see from a fawn all the way up to my buck was the last one that came in. So he’s just like this one Wan had come out. He goes, what do you think about that one? And I’d be like, uh, probably about like a year old. He goes, good, nice, what about this one like two and a half. He goes very good. It’s like he’s so he’s like teaching me as I’m going and then like he was going and on, and then that that cole Buck came out. He goes, now, what about this one? I go, that’s old, that’s that’s about a four.
00:25:29
Speaker 1: He goes that you buck.
00:25:31
Speaker 4: I go all right, right, He’s like you want to get it? And I go yeah. He goes He’s like, you’re kind of hesitating. I was just like it goes. He goes, uh, is this because it’s missing some antlers? And I go no. I was just like I don’t care about that, and he goes, what’s wrong? I go I just don’t want to miss. He goes, you won’t miss. That’s just like cleans, like the perfect hop malad. It comes to stuff like I was like, all right, so I was full, I’m just ready. And of course the videos he’s took like I’m drawing back for at least two minutes. It was like minute and just kind of just waiting, waiting, waiting and just waiting until he’s just like all right, take it.
00:26:05
Speaker 1: Right.
00:26:05
Speaker 4: When I took it, I mean smop smart smack smack, smack smack, and just Clayton just like smoked him.
00:26:13
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, cool, you got to walk he you guys could see him lay down from.
00:26:18
Speaker 4: Yeah he mono went thirty yards, didn’t go twenty No, yeah, he might have went like thirty eight yards and he just laid like perfectly.
00:26:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:26:27
Speaker 2: It was posed for a photo like where he laid. Yeah, it was pretty crazy.
00:26:31
Speaker 4: And then I moved him from that so I could take a different photo, which I wish it didn’t.
00:26:34
Speaker 1: It is what it is. It is awesome. And then next morning we split off. Yeah, me and Watkins went, you.
00:26:41
Speaker 2: Had your buck.
00:26:42
Speaker 3: So I was like, all right, I’m good, I’ve got you know, at least the bare minimum of what I need for content for the trip, and I’d buy a license and they said I could shoot, So I was like, all right, hopefully one or two sits I can make it happen, and then you would.
00:26:56
Speaker 2: Watkins went and sat together.
00:26:58
Speaker 1: We went and sat and we both.
00:27:00
Speaker 3: Had the exact basically, we had the exact same morning.
00:27:03
Speaker 1: We saw a bunch of deer, saw a really good older deer, but he looked too nice and we got back. They were like, yeah, you could shut that buck. He still haunts my dreams.
00:27:14
Speaker 4: That was the worst part about it.
00:27:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, it’s just not knowing.
00:27:17
Speaker 4: Yeah, it’s not knowing.
00:27:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you don’t want to be greedy either, like you’re in somebody else’s place. But I’m like two bucks, I feel like now, I’m like all right, I feel good.
00:27:26
Speaker 4: Like they almost they wanted you to get to clear out the bucks, yeah, but they also wanted you to be like respectful.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: And like yeah, which one hundred percent gets. So you just didn’t know. We ended up shooting a dough that morning, which those things are so small. Thee Yeah, it was like ten minutes left with I knew we were gonna be done around ten, I think, And so it was like nine to fifty and there were still some young bucks that bigger buck had left, and that dough was still there. So there were two does there and so I thought, well, we’ll take one of them and they drop. I aimed at her. We were on in a ground blind. She was nineteen yards twenty yards I think. I aimed at her arm pit and like underneath her armpit and hit her double lung. She dropped probably three or four inches just in that little bit of time. Granted my top pen is at twenty five yards.
00:28:18
Speaker 3: So yeah, and then I was where I was sitting.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: I was in a ground blind, had no.
00:28:26
Speaker 3: Service, no service to speak of, and so I was I was basically on my own in terms of because I couldn’t even text and try to describe the deer, let alone send a photo. And the rules we had were basically looking for a four.
00:28:41
Speaker 1: And a half or older a point pretty much. Yeah, if I had to make then there were some like but there, well they could be a ten, but it needs to be past his prime, right and like.
00:28:50
Speaker 3: And then if it had no brow times, I’ve broken off. But no brow times, that was a green light or uneven which I’ll get into that later because that came into play for me. But the so, okay, I’m looking for mature eight point, Well, a mature eight point comes in before the feeders were going off at seven and seven thirty, and he came in at like, I don’t know, six fifty five maybe, so it was legal light.
00:29:16
Speaker 2: I could have shot him.
00:29:18
Speaker 3: Problem was he was about the nicest mature eight point you could possibly imagine, like really, other than the ten point we had seen. He was the best dear that I we had seen or anyone had seen. And so in my head, I cannot shoot this deer. There’s no way I can shoot this deer. He leaves and I’m like, oh good, I don’t have to choose. Feeder goes off, all the little fawns come in, that comes this giant eight point, and then I have another like twenty year, thirty minute battle with myself of whether or not I can shoot this deer, and I decided not to just because he was so nice that it was better for me to not make a mistake on that deer than to, I guess, be in the position I’m in and regret it. And a couple other like younger eight points came in, but he was really the one that I was interested in, even to the point where, towards the end of my sit, like three turkeys came in and I didn’t even like feel like shooting them because I was so torn up about not shooting that.
00:30:21
Speaker 2: Fuck. Well, you guys came and picked me up. I was.
00:30:24
Speaker 3: That was the last one that got picked up of our truck. And first thing I did I went up to Tyler and and he’s your property owner and her family owns a property, and I’m like, hey, what do you think about this deer. He’s like, oh, yeah, Like I see, he is kind of like borderline. But I would have been fine with you shooting him.
00:30:43
Speaker 1: The worst that’s the worst phrase to hear that whole trip. Yeah, I’d have been fine with you shooting him. Gosh dang it.
00:30:49
Speaker 3: And I talked to Clayton about it and he agreed, like, yeah, he’s like a borderline deer, he said. I just asked Tyler him, like well, he said it was fine, he said, well yeah. So that morning I was like, you gotta be kidding me. I could have shot that deer.
00:31:04
Speaker 1: It’s bad here.
00:31:07
Speaker 2: But then in the afternoon we went the same thing spots.
00:31:10
Speaker 1: We were in the same spots hoping that big boy would come out.
00:31:12
Speaker 3: And I went to a different Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to a different spot, and I had bad service, but good enough service to send texts, and Clayton was about three minutes away from me, and he told me that there was a few young ten points in this spot, which obviously I wouldn’t shoot well. Up until maybe sunset was like five forty or something.
00:31:37
Speaker 1: M hm.
00:31:38
Speaker 3: So up until maybe like five o’clock, all I’d seen were the were three three really nice young ten points and so and so I was like, man, you gotta be kidding me. I’m just gonna see deer. I can’t shoot again. But this time I knew I couldn’t shoot him.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: Well.
00:31:57
Speaker 3: The fourth buck that came in was gosh, I’m choking. The fourth buck that came in was so so much a cold buck I didn’t even text Clayton. He was a big bodied at least four and a half. He had broken off brow times but he would have been an eight point, but he was a six point. Just looked like as cold buck as it comes. I thought, well, they were definitely broken, but I don’t think there was much to them to begin with. They made Yeah, they were definitely broken. I’d have to look at it again. But he came in and I knew immediately that’s a cold buck. So he gives me an opportunity. I shoot and where I mean, if you shoot enough a in practice and b like I I had just gotten back from Georgia too, So I just shot a bunch of deer, like you know, if you don’t make a perfect shot, yep. And I thought he was perfectly broadside, and I thought I hit about six inches behind where I wanted to. And so I texted Clayton. I’m like, hey, Kolbluk came in. I shot him. I think it was a little bit back. I’m gonna wait here. I’m gonna shoot some does if they come in. And for context, I’m sitting in a tripod stand that has barely enough room from my feet. So I’m holding my bow because I didn’t bring a we didn’t know what we’re getting into. I didn’t bring a bow, hang or anything, because I thought it was mostly blinds anyway, so I’ve I got my bow in one hand and I’m trying to text him in the other hand. Well, then like bucks all of a sudden start coming in. First one comes in, no brow, time’s eight point looked mature. So I’m trying to like hold my bow, hold my binos, and make sure to verify on the rack, Texting Clayton, putting my phone in my mouth, crack the screen with my teeth. He says, hey, don’t shoot that one. I’m like all right, So I’m like, all right, hopefully a dough comes in. Next thing comes in nine point. It’s five and four, so it’s you know, uneven. So again texting Clayton, I’m verifying with the baiinos, biting down on my phone, trying to because I’m trying not to move too much either because there are our deer like right in front of me. And he said, don’t shoot that one. So anyway, fast forward. I wanted to give that buck enough time. I was actually pretty sure he went down, like right in the woods, but I still want to give enough time. And I was getting worried because every buck that came and left went out the same path as him, so I was worried they were gonna bump him. Will I get down And he’s just parked his truck and maybe like thirty seconds before, I’m standing inside this thirty yard radius pen and we’re talking like full blown conversation, and then like a pretty mature eight point walks up and he’s just staring at us. I’m like, what is going on? And he’s like, we’ll just let him, We’ll let him go, and so we’re just standing there and he finally walks off, and so we go to check for my buck and there’s all kinds of blood. And the other thing too, is I checked my arrow, but it had the blood had dried on the arrow, so I wasn’t in and that arrow, it was the fifth That arrow in Broadhead was the fifth deer that Combo had killed, so there’s like five deer worth of.
00:35:12
Speaker 1: He was gonna die from infection.
00:35:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So there’s all kinds of like that arrow just has all kinds of stuff on it, and then that blood had dried. So I was like, maybe I hit him back, maybe I didn’t. Well I knew I hit him back, but I just couldn’t tell how far based on the blood. And so we get like just outside of the little feeder ring and unlike your deer, which you’re you hit him in the heart, and we saw him gushing blood. We couldn’t find blood this dear, I didn’t see him gushing blood. Well we get and there’s just blood everywhere, and I’m like, that’s crazy. So we would go about fifteen yards into the woods and it turns right, and where it turns right, I see the deer and I’m like, wow, that was not what I expected. It was one of those things where normally what happens is you think you hit a deer great and then and you.
00:36:01
Speaker 2: Can’t find it. Well, this was the opposite.
00:36:03
Speaker 3: And he had to have been quartering away a little bit because I e clipped his lungs somehow, because it was a little bit back. But yeah, it was. It was a stressful night because I passed on like six bucks and shot the one and then I didn’t think I made a Like I thought I was gonna have to look up for a while for that buck.
00:36:21
Speaker 1: But meanwhile, me and Watkins are back in that first spot watching deer young eight or he was broke off eight but young, hoping that big one would come back in. Never did a couple of small young eights come through a ton of forkys. We’re sitting there and we gotta teach watkins like deer hunting etiquette. We’re sitting there and he there he is, so I grab my bow. I’m like where he goes a little spike that keeps pushing everybody out of the corn. I’m like, dude, you can’t say there he is. He hated this little spike. It was a little forky forky spike, but he was like the dominant one. So then what song were you singing?
00:37:01
Speaker 4: Here she comes? I don’t know the song.
00:37:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, but instead of saying here she comes, he would sing here he comes. But I’m like where and he’s like, oh no, man, I’m just singing a song. And he goes and just replacing she with he, and.
00:37:16
Speaker 2: Dude, it was so why would you do that?
00:37:19
Speaker 1: He was just I wanted to punch him every time you do that. So then we’re sitting there as raccoon walks out. He’s like, hey, you think they’d let me shoot that raccoon? I said, I guarantee they don’t care if you shoot the raccoon. You know, it’s a nuisance.
00:37:31
Speaker 2: You were trying to three two one on them.
00:37:33
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I was just like, what’s the odd It’s just like you shoot a dough and then I smoke this raccoon and I’m.
00:37:39
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, we probably can, I said, He goes, we’re about on three two one. I was like, not very good odds, I said, maybe with a gun. It’s really hard even with a gun, but with a bow is near. And the dough was here and the raccoon was here. And I’m left handed, so I’m on this side. He’s right handed, so we would have had to anyway. So Wawkin’s supposed to be working the long lens. We practiced a couple of time, like filming some stuff, and so I’m like, all right, you know, it’s ten minutes left to the last light till last light, and I’m like, I’m gonna take this dough. She’s at like sixteen yards. He’s like all right. So we get the camera set up. Doe’s on the camera. I see it on the thing. So I’m like, all right, you ready. He’s like yep, and so I shoot smoker. Look down. The camera’s on stand by. You can see in the corner where it says recorder stand by and it says stand by. So this dough runs off and we’re sitting there and I’m like, you idiot, and he’s like, all, I’m gonna shoot this raccoon. Well, in the meantime, we hear like a death cough, like a bloody cough, and Walkins goes, oh that. I’m like that dough literally just ran behind that tree twenty yards off, laid down and died. But anyway, he smokes this raccoon and it’s like limping off, blood porn out everywhere, and I’m like, you got him. He’s like all right, he’s like, let’s go find deer in the raccoon. I’m like, all right, swee, zip everything up, and it’s still a little bit of light left and we start looking. And Watkins looked for like an hour to find that raccoon because you guys were still trying to find your buck. So we were just sitting out there in the in the moonlight.
00:39:06
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, because we didn’t even start looking for mine until it was after legal light, because I was like, this might take a while, and I thought if I hit him back, he’s gonna I need him to not bump, right, which turns out I didn’t really need him to not bump, I guess.
00:39:21
Speaker 1: But so last morning, man, we went back to that same spot just because we knew that buck had been there and we were okay to shoot that buck. You know, part of me was like I didn’t want to sit the same spot three times.
00:39:34
Speaker 2: We probably shouldn’t.
00:39:35
Speaker 1: I shouldn’t know because we didn’t see anything walking saw every deer on the property. Granted, we couldn’t have both sat in there unless you went up to one of the shooting blinds. But yeah, man, the last morning was kind of as similar to the night before, where we didn’t see anything, but sure didn’t see anything dough wise to even shoot. We didn’t. We see one dough maybe, but she didn’t hang around long, which was that was you.
00:40:00
Speaker 4: I wouldn’t we that was with you?
00:40:02
Speaker 1: Oh you were with me. And then and then we had that buck, that mystery buck. I just happened to like it’s cold and rainy and kind of windy, and I just happened to like stick my We didn’t have the up far side on zipped and I just turned my head and like, look out, and there’s a buck walking a good he was a ten. He probably too big for us to shoot, but he came to like just check the fear and go on. Never really got another glimpse of him.
00:40:24
Speaker 4: That was the cold, rainy morning, wasn’t. Yeah, that’s when I had that because you went back to the spot, to your spot for a little bit perfect cold buck like the one that Clayton was like, that’s what we want everybody to get.
00:40:34
Speaker 2: They come here.
00:40:36
Speaker 4: And I was freezing because it like we woke up and this was it was cold, but it was kind of missed it and I was just like, I don’t really need a jacket, and I’m getting there. It was like freezing to death because I’m just getting soaked in that little spot.
00:40:47
Speaker 3: It was one of those weather days where it’d be like, if you’ve experienced it, you know what I’m talking about. It’d be better to be like twenty eight degrees and snowing than thirty degrees and thirty.
00:40:58
Speaker 1: Six degrees raining and windy.
00:41:00
Speaker 2: Better to be colder and snow.
00:41:02
Speaker 4: And that eight point came out and I was just like, man, it’s just too pretty to shoot. And then there was this another eight point that came out, which I was just like, well this I probably should shoot this one. Turns out I shouldn’t have shot that one, should have shot the one that I was supposed to got. I mean I’m sitting there just like, you know what, I just I got another day. I’ll just let it go, get in the truck. Clton goes, how to go. It’s like, I’ll show you these photos. He goes, oh, you should you should have shot that one. And I was tore up about that one. And that’s when you went back to that spot.
00:41:33
Speaker 2: Right like an hour.
00:41:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:41:36
Speaker 4: Then I saw that old bino deer that I just thought it was this normal Texas thing and I didn’t know anything about it. So I was telling Clayton was like, hey, you’re just like seen this white deer and they’re like He’s like what. I was like, yeah, it’s a white deer. He goes, how what I go, it’s pretty wide and he goes, did you take a picture of it? I go no, He goes, why would you not take a picture of that? I was just like, dude, is Texas. There’s all kind of weird stuff stuff running around here. He goes, oh, yeah, true, it’s true.
00:42:00
Speaker 1: It is true piebald. I think because only I shot a piebald deer.
00:42:04
Speaker 4: Because that’s yeah, that’s what he said that he thought it was. And then I found another one that was kind of similar to it, but it was just a regular white tail. I was like, hey, it was a lot water in this one. But he goes, yeah, he goes, that was an ibano, but he didn’t take a photo of it.
00:42:21
Speaker 1: But I didn’t.
00:42:24
Speaker 4: Hey, I got my first buck though.
00:42:26
Speaker 1: Happy. Yeah, it was a good trip, man, It was a lot of regret, shame and regret. You know, it was one of the hardest. That’s probably the hardest trip to like leave ever, because we were seeing so many deer. There were opportunities every hunt and knowing that, hey, we could probably could have showed another one or two, you know, like going home and everybody’s staying too didn’t help. Like walking out. We dropping us off at the airport and.
00:42:51
Speaker 2: I had to kick out a little early for an.
00:42:53
Speaker 1: Event freaking our flight got delayed, so we we wouldn’t have been in the prime time, but I could have been, and you know, we could have went and pushed the magic button, the test button. So man, yeah, I you know, one hundred percent get guys that wouldn’t want to do that style of hunt. But I don’t understand people that are like completely against that style of hunt. They weren’t like they’re not high fence deer they’re not, which that’s a whole nother argument. I’ve never done it, so I and I, you know, I don’t know, you know, the I don’t think. I don’t think I would want to do that. But I didn’t think i’d want to just sit over a feeter ever either until this last trip.
00:43:33
Speaker 4: So I don’t see anybody turning an opportunity like that down.
00:43:37
Speaker 1: I just don’t meat we got, we brought we got twenty or we got ten deer. We brought home meat from ten deer. And you know, I I’m completely okay with it. You know, I got to I got to practice some situations on my bow, make some shots on live targets that will be you used, you know, correctly, and we’ll eat them. And made good shots, you know, had that one that I screwed up but didn’t no harm, no foul, then destroyed my arrow, but I made three really good shots on bow, built some confidence and had a ton of front You got to sit with somebody and kind of talk and bs and then also like I mean, it was just a it was a great trip and I had a ton of fun. I’d love to have Clayton on here and kind of just talk about and Tyler and and talk about the management style of you know, why they do it and how they do it, and like.
00:44:39
Speaker 3: Their whole like regimen they have for in terms of like feeding and cameras because I think they have certain cameras and locations to like show traffic of deer for the biology stuff.
00:44:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they feed protein throughout the year. They only feed the corn during hunting season.
00:44:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I’d be interested to know about all.
00:45:00
Speaker 1: That try to keep the ratio correct.
00:45:01
Speaker 3: And exactly like what they’re doing too, because since they got the property to now, it sounds like the genetics have increased quite a bit and so that’s all super interesting.
00:45:09
Speaker 1: You could get into like the dough is the one that actually carries the genetics, like if you read some literature on that, but.
00:45:17
Speaker 2: Like a trophy dough.
00:45:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently the dough is the one that predicts the antler size and stuff a lot of it has a huge portion of that. So it’s tough to know that.
00:45:26
Speaker 2: But just start cowering up doors.
00:45:30
Speaker 1: But man, that was.
00:45:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, if we get to go back, we only need to change two things. We only messed up on two things. Thing one we need to we need carry with us. No, well, okay, three things. We need to not have such an aggressive like outdate. Yeah, and we need to maybe borrow Angelo’s giant cooler.
00:45:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, just we had we brought home three coolers. Yeah, you know, just the meat to take to the process, even bigger cooler, you know, like what we to Georgia. We can do that. We have a sprinter now, yep. Yeah, man, that was a ton of fun. Stealth rig man. That thing’s pretty cool too. And there was a couple you know, the magnet’s pretty heavy on there and it you know, got the metal plate that it connects on to. So like the style of hunting we were doing, it wasn’t super well.
00:46:19
Speaker 2: I should have used it to night eye hunt.
00:46:21
Speaker 1: You could.
00:46:21
Speaker 2: Because I was climbing that tripod I did almost felt. I didn’t bring a pull up rope.
00:46:26
Speaker 3: I didn’t bring my I brought nothing because I thought it was I thought it was all blinds. I didn’t We didn’t really know much anyway. I could have used it to hook my bow on because there was no thing. I was holding my bow climbing this ladder with three land camera and I went to grab the chair and it started like lifting up and then I thought I might be falling backwards off this ladder and my butthole was puckered, and I managed to get up there without dying. But the stealth rig would have been very handy to just pop it on my.
00:46:59
Speaker 1: Yeah. Man, that was a that was a ton of fun.
00:47:02
Speaker 2: Yep.
00:47:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, So self throg, I think is a cool thing we did when we were prodator hunting. You would you had a tripod and it had the metal plate on top of the tripod, so you would just drop the gun that was had a picatinny mount that mounted on the magnet mounted on the maget’s strongest ship, and you would just drop it on the tripod and you’re just settled on that tripod there. You didn’t have to worry about tighten it down or anything.
00:47:24
Speaker 2: You could pop it off, put.
00:47:25
Speaker 1: It back off your back, or whatever it was. It was cool.
00:47:29
Speaker 3: I think that ends our hunting season kind of other than stuff around here.
00:47:32
Speaker 1: Right, So around here we got Illinois with access at least in Illinois a place in Kentucky we can go.
00:47:37
Speaker 2: So how long does bo season go up there?
00:47:39
Speaker 1: I think, because I think there’s two weekends of gun and then it opens back up to bow. It’d be like late season bo. Yeah, so if you use a bow you’re around, you can’t apparently on those two weekends.
00:47:53
Speaker 3: It might be like Iowa, like when Iowa goes into gun season, you can no longer use a bow, so you can’t do the lesser weapon thing.
00:47:59
Speaker 2: Really yeah, which is weird.
00:48:00
Speaker 3: I don’t know why why that would benefit anybody, but anyway.
00:48:06
Speaker 1: All right, let us know how much you hate hut overcorn. Sure you will peace
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