00:00:05 Speaker 1: And so I get to looking at the direction she's coming and I see big old horns coming. They look like those Texas bucks that go straight out with big times going up. I mean, he was the biggest deer I guess I've ever seen. On hoof half hour into the hunt, they looked up and here's this buck standing not that far away, coming right down the middle of this strip of beans, and the strip of beans only like fifty yards wide, and I thought, holy cow, that's one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen. On this episode of the Burglaries podcast, we're talking about white tailed deer, but this isn't the typical tips, tactics and biology that we're here so much. That's useful stuff and I love it, But the foundation of why that knowledge is even desirable is found in the onion layer deeper. We want the knowledge because of how valuable white tails are to us. White tailed deer hunting culture in this country is uniquely America. There's nothing else like it in the world. The sheer numbers of white tails, their wide geographic distribution, and the liberal seasons, coupled with the rich and unique heritage we have is unparalleled. When you factor in fried backstrap with gravy and biscuits on the cool fall evening, you might start to understand the American Revolution. It wasn't about taxation and representation or t It was about some hillbillies not wanting to share their backstrap with the King brothers. We found ourselves in the ditch, and we're only on the intro anyhow. My first love was undoubtedly white tail hunting, with coon hunting rolling in tight on the do claws. And we've got a compilation of storytellers on this episode, many of which are familiar voices and the bargary stratosphere, and a few are new. We've got big bucks, little bucks, missed, but bucks bristling, grutting, running bucks, clicking bucks, and bucks falling in holes. But one thing's for sure, you're not gonna want to miss this one. And I'll accord to my eye. I see movement again, and that's when one of the biggest bucks that I've ever seen by hunting walks out, just a big body, eight point buck walks out. I walked under the deer and I'll never forget this. I said this out loud. I said, wow, I never killed one like that. My name is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who lived their lives close to the land, presented by f HF gear, American made purpose built hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore. Storytelling is a sacred thing and foundational to human life. Our ancestors not that far back didn't have written language, and so oral storytelling was the medium and conduit of human culture for way longer than it hasn't been. Clay quipped being so dramatic. I'm not I'm being serious. The earliest forms of writing appeared around five thousand, five hundred years ago on planet Earth, which in the big picture of the human story, is equivalent to a single page in a book as thick as a car. The Falsome Man, the Bros in New Mexico that killed the thirty two bison with unique stone points were a live five thousand years too early for books, So for them, storytelling was the architecture of their world. It carried their values, their worldview, their thoughts on divine power, their practical knowledge for how to live, how to make a fire, how to nap stone, where to can't want to eat, when to run, when to fight humans physically talking to humans carried our culture for a long time, a long time. And this culture that I speak of is the platter on which the very thing that makes us humans sits upon. We deeply value the wild beasts, but our differences from them are so steep it's clear that we're different than the beast. We're separate from him. Deep cognition of our surroundings and awareness of the past, a deep longing to understand the future, making tools, recognition of beauty and art and altruism. All these things are diagnostic of humanity. Storytelling is it just about relaying the natural events of a moment. Though we gain relevant information from stories, lots of it, but they carry a sentiment load full of meaning. These stories tell us who we are. They give us identity, They tell us what's valuable. They highlight what's honorable and what's detestable. They give us instruction, advice, and warning. They entertain us, and storytelling highlights leaders inside of communities and tribes. It was very much that way with the Native Americans, and really is still that way today in most places in the Earth. Part of being a chief was being able to talk the big talk. They honored those whose stories inspired people. Stories are everything to us, and they still are today, even deer stories. This collection of white tailed deer hunting stories is so ridiculously rich in value. I struggle to find the words. Every one of these men that tell a story admit a frequency that is part of the sound of my life. So this stuff didn't happen to me, but these stories are personal to me. Some of these guys I've known my whole life, and others are relatively new friends, but I love them all. This first story comes from my friend from Western Arkansas, Randy long Legged step I've known Randy Says grade school and we were the founding members of an elite invitation only club in our high school we called the Timber Scouts. Basically all we did was go camping, never any alcohol, just good claim fund. Randy's hunt took place on public land in Arkansas, and I think you'll be surprised how it ends. So a lot of your hunt stories are probably gonna be about really great hunters that put a lot of preparation into their hunt and really go after a deer they've seen on camera seen My story is not that at all. To put some context in my story, it kind of starts with work. I work retail and work a lot of hours in the fall, especially toward holiday season. And this particular year, I think it two thousand and fifteen, we had inventory in the middle of October, so it really cut down my ability to go scout for good hunting places or even really to go archery hunting. Muzzlelodon season was right in the middle of inventory week, and I just decided I needed I needed some relief from work, needed to get out and just kind of enjoy a day off after working for so many weeks and days in a row. And I mentioned it to Scott Brown, who I worked for at the time, who I considered to be one of the best hunters around, and he thought about it for a while, and I didn't ask for a place to go, but he just suggested, Hey, I know where you should go. There's this great place that usually produces good bucks, and you should know how to get there because we've gone the previou this Turkey season and listen for turkeys up in this saddle. I said, you know what, I ain't got a good idea. I don't have anywhere else to go, so I'll go give that a try. So when day was over, I got off at like eight o'clock at night and got home and rushed to put all my hunting gear together. And I'm usually real meticulous about having everything planned out and ready. I grabbed my my powder, my extra powder, and my slugs and I keep them in those little powered pirate Dex tubes, and I went to bed. I got up early the next morning with what I thought was enough time to get out there get on the top of this saddle on the mountain. When I got out there, I'd forgotten that there was a bunch of down pine trees everywhere that you had to kind of snake your way through to get to the spot where you start to climb up the ridge. And the ridge was very, very steep, so I kind of slowly made my way up because it was really warm that morning too, so I realized how out of shape that I was also climbing up that and I started realizing that I could start to see the first little crack of daylight coming and I wasn't in that flow spot yet, and I wasn't gonna make it because I didn't know exactly where it was with a head lamp on, and I was gonna pick a tree and do all that stuff in the dark. And I said, you know what I need. I need to make something happen right now. So I kind of stopped where I was looked around and I noticed a really defined game trail. I mean, you could ride a mountain bike through this trail as much as he was getting used. And I thought, okay, let me check the wind. So I check the wind. It's like, okay, perfect, I can get above this trail a little higher up the hill and watch the trail, and that trail is headed to that low gap I was gonna get to. And this we'll just have to work, and I'll just have to pray that I've got a good enough you when the sun comes up that I could get a cleaning shut off. But I know I can at least hunt that trail. So I did all the work getting up in the tree and getting on my stuff, and then once I got up there, I think I was smart enough to actually bring an extra shirt to change into. And then I pulled the Gary nucom and sprayed myself down with the scent cover, and then I sat there for a few minutes. And as I sat there, the sun start come up, and I kind of got mad at myself. I was like, you know, I've ruined this hunt already. I'm sweaty, I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I don't even know if I'm might have a good shot. This is gonna be a waste of my time. But I'm here, so let me just I'll just enjoy being outside. And I sat there for about two hours with nothing, didn't hear nothing. I thought, you know, I'm gonna give it one more hour and then it'll take me about forty five minutes to climb out and then I'll go home. It's like, this is this is just gonna be a bust. I just probably would have killed one if I'd been in the saddles, what I thought. And not more than five minutes later, I heard the loudest what I would call a growl, but it wasn't really a growl. It was just a loud noise and I had no idea what kind of animal did it. My first thought was, all right, there's about to be a bear walked down this trail. Uh, it's gonna go from a deer hunt to a bear hunt. So I turned and my gun started looking down the trail, and out the corner of my eye, I start to see three does kind of walking the top of the ridge right above me, just grazing their way around and kind of easing through. And I watched them until I had to swing around the other side of the tree and watch them until they went completely out of sight. And they never winded me, which is they should have, but they didn't. So I thought, well, that's pretty good. But I needed to focus my attension back on this bear that's gonna come down the trail because there's still something down there. I don't know what it is. So turn my gun around and I'm watching, and I accorded my eye I see movement again, and that's when one of the biggest bucks that I've ever seen by hunting walks out, just a big body, eight point buck walks out, and I'm like, oh, this is great, Like I'm on him. I already know where those dough went, So I moved my gun right to where he should have went. He walks right into it. I squeezed the trigger and nothing happens. I forgot it was a double safety gun and I hadn't undone the other safety. I quickly undo the other safety. He's moved by that point, so I have to swing around the other side of the tree. I've got one more chance to shoot this buck. I point the gun where those does had gone, and he walks right into the perfect spot, and I pulled the trigger. When you hunt with the mozzleloader, you never know what you're gonna get when the smoke clears. When the smoke cleared, he was down on the ground doing his final kicks, and I was like, I got him, and then he quit kicking. I thought, he's down. I've killed this big eight points the biggest one I've ever killed. So I texted two people immediately. I texted Clay Knokelem and Scott Brown and told him that I've killed this big buck on this mountain. Well, while I'm texting Scott, that deer starts to kick just a little bit, and when he does, he's on such a steep slope he starts sliding a little and then he would stop. And I'm texting this to Scott and He's like, well, you better go ahead and reload, just in case you need to put another shot in him, just to finish him off. That's whenever I made a a realization that I made a huge mistake. I had grabbed two tubes of slugs and no powder, so I had nothing that I could finally dispatch this deer with. And then I'm starting to panic because as he kicks a little bit, he slides further down the mountain. At this point, he's even with my tree stand. He's under my tree stand, and I'm convinced that it's a it's a fatal shot. He's going to die, but the humane thing to do is to put him down. Why you see him? So I called Scott and I'm like, hey, you know where I'm at. I need some more powder. You're gonna have to bring me some powder. And he informs me, well, let that deer get down the hill aways from you. Climb out of your stand, stay a good distance away from him, but don't lose sight of him. I'll find you in the woods and then we'll take care of it. No sooner than I hang up the phone, he makes one more kick and just really starts sliding off down the hill. It's almost like he's on a sled. And then all of a sudden, he just disappeared. And I'm dumbfounded because I can see further down the mountain, but this deer all of a sudden just fell off a cliff and disappeared. And then I heard a water splash echo, like if you dropped a rock in a well, and I thought, what in the heck is going I'm on top of a mountain. What There's not even any water up here. So I climbed down and I walk over to where I had last seen him, and I realized there's a mine shaft right there, and he had slid off when he gained momentum and slid down. He fell fifteen to twenty feet down into a mine shaft hole and landed and just a little bit of water in the bottom. Luckily, he was expired at this time, so I called Scott bag It's like, well, we don't need any powder at this point, but we got us some problem because I don't know how we're gonna get him out. About an hour later, Scott showed up and he brought some rope and some other stuff, and we didn't know if we're gonna have to call more people or get a come along or what we're gonna have to do. We had to figure out how to get him out. So Scott was able to last so one side of his antlers and we both grabbed onto the rope start pulling, and as we did it kind of cranked his head to the side and his antlers were hitting the rock at rock edges and we chip just a little bit of his main beam off. We're honest, we can't do that. We're gonna totally snap off an antler if we do that. So we dropped him back down. Then we decided if we last so him on both sides of the antlers, we can pull an opposite directions and hoist him straight out of the middle when he won't touch anything. So we kind of wrapped the ropes around trees, we pulled in opposite directions, took everything we had because this is this is a big body, dear one. He got to the edge, Uh, wrapped my rope around, tied it real quick, and I ran over and grabbed his antlers and just kind of anchored myself in until Scott could get over there to grab Also, because we didn't want to fall in the hole with him, because if we did, I don't know if anybody else besides Clay knew that we were out there dealing with a deer in a in a mine shaft. We heaved that thing out of there, and when it did, we were just totally exhausted. It took everything we had to get him out of that hole. That's when the work began getting him down off that mountain around all those trees. So later I did some research and realized that throughout the mountains there are a lot of mine shafts and test minds, and I believe what they were looking for was manganese. There. There was a time when they thought that there was manganese here and that they really went after it for a short period of time. So one crazy thing about that mine shaft is I took my kids hiking up there just a couple of years ago. The springtime in that mine shaft was completely full of water and there was a fish swimming in it. So nature's crazy. A fish in a mind shaft that was completely unconnected from any other body of water. Incredible. And that's a great, dear story. This next voice that you're gonna hear, you will for sure recognize because it's none other than my friend Stephen Runella. This story was told by his father to him. And just a little background. Steve was born in Michigan, relatively late in his dad's life. Frank Ronnella was a World War Two vet and was often looking for lessons to teach young Steve. This was one of them. This is a dear story that didn't happen to me, and it didn't happen to my dad. However, my dad would tell it all the time, and it was a dear story that he would tell and what it was meant to be. It was meant to be a don't give up story he had. My dad used to have a Yeah, he had a lot of stories you would tell that we're all had served a purpose, for instance, if he's trying to explain an optimist and the pessimist. Or at times it would be the difference you a rich kid in the poor kid. I'll tell the rich kid poor vert kid version real quick. He would say that if you took a rich kid and put him in a room full of manure, he's just gonna sit there and cry. But if you take a poor kid and put him in a room full of manure. He's gonna start digging because he'll be thinking, with all this manure, there's gotta be a pony in here somewhere now here is his don't give up dear story. And this happened to a buddy of his. Is the guy he's talking about all the time. And my dad started like, bow hunting is old. I mean bow hunting. You know, on this continent people been hunting with bows four or five thousand years. Interestingly, bow technology spread from the north southward. The people that came over much later than you know, much later than the Athabaskans, the hunters that came over that became Eskimo and Intuit hunters who came over much later than other Native American Native Alaskan groups, they probably carried some kind of archery technology that eventually spread southward. So people in bow hunting a long time. But then there was like a long, long, long long time when people didn't bow hunt, and modern day bow hunting kind of became a thing in the forties and fifties. And my dad was very avid archer back in those days. This is when people were hunting with long bows and re curves, but it wasn't called traad. Archery is just archery. My dad's buddy is driving home from work and he sees a deer out in this field where he's been seeing deer lately, and he decides he's gonna try to sneak up on this deer and get a shot at his boat. So he takes his shoes off, right down to his socks. My dad always like to point out their white socks. And he does his stock up to the through the woods, up to the field edge and launches an arrow out there, and you can't tell if you got a hit or not, and looks and looks and looks, can't find his arrow, so he decided to start looking for blood in the waning light. Okay, it's getting dark out, but he convinces himself that he missed and he starts cutting little half circles just to check for blood and doesn't find any blood and eventually goes back to his car, put his shoes on, drives home. What does my dad like to tell the story? That night, the guy is getting ready for bed, takes his shoes off, takes his sock off, and what does he see on his sock? A couple of little blood stains on his sock and it wasn't from cutting his foot, and he rushes back out there finds his dear What do you think about that? Clean Newcombe? Never give up, Mr Ronnello, We have all taken note of the core message of this story and we thank you for it. Never give up. The next voice you might also recognize if you're a Bear Grease regular. Andy Brown was on our Turkey Story episode and our Genuine Outlaw series about Louis Dell and Charlie Edwards. You might remember Andy's laugh if you haven't listened to that series. It's probably one of the best stories we've ever told. Andy is from the mountains of western Arkansas and is a heck of a deer hunter and woodsman. This is a tour through Andy's fall of on public land and it ends with a non typical surprise. This this is probably two thousand fifteen or sixteen. I had an area that I really wanted to go look at. It was right before muzzloading season and just look for deer sign It's really see if there was any acrons And made in on the north side of the mountain, and so I called my oldest son he was. He was working and I said, look, when you get off work today, I said, if you don't mind, picked me up on the highway north and uh, he said where and I told him he said, I'll be there anyway. So I I drive up on the top of the mountain and went off wrong. I wanted to go off on this big leg that goes off the mountain, and but I went off wrong and I got in the holler and where I went off it was just just straight up and down. I had to side hill it out through the side, going west and one ft up and two feet pack and grabbing hold of trees, try to hold on two and finally hit the leg and started off the mountain and uh, didn't go a hundred yards until I jumped a really nice buck deer. Of course, at that time when I went off, all I had was pocket off. I didn't have a gun, didn't have a boat, didn't even take a twenty two. Wouldn't killing squirrels with I just I was on a mission to try to make it out before dark where I wanted to go. So anyway, jumped a real nice eight point buck and one of them, and you know how they are when you don't have a gun their team. And uh so I fell off the leg and then there's a I think the prettiest, prettiest saddle that there is in the world. When I got into the saddle, there wasn't a lot of deer sign, but the spotted oakay acrens. It was just raining acres in there. Of course, you know what that means. The bear there was a lot of there's a lot of bear sign right there where I was at. So anyway, I just kept on plugging. I fell north, went up through some rocks and fell off on the back side. And the white oaks that year really hadn't made at all. But anyway, I fell off the mountain and I just kept walking and looking and and just wasn't finding any deer sign at all. And um, it's a long ways and on the low end to but there's a couple more little saddles in there that I wanted to look at. And and uh just before I bottomed out, I did have the binoculars and I'm looking at trees, and you know, I like to look at see what cut acrons they got. Of course you have to look. They were trying to knock your head going off there. But anyway, that particular year, it was really dry, just like it's been this fall. I mean, there wasn't no water anywhere, and there was a pond. There was a game pond that I really wanted to get to because I figured that everything in the world would be water there, bear, deer, everything. And just so happened when I fell off, I hit it just right. I just crossed the bottom, pulled it on the top of a another little old ridge, and just walked right out to this pond. At that time, it was real opening there, and since then some of the old spotted oaks have fell and it's opened up the canopy and it's just a jungle. But anyway, I walk off down to the pond. I could look on the kind of the northwest side of it, and I could just see a trail coming into it. And when I when I walked around there, I get us every deer in the country where you was using that pond, they just had it muddy where they were the old white mud where they were leaving on that one side, and of course they was walking all the way around it. And one of the biggest cotton mouse i've ever seen. I've seen right there that day. I mean one of them them double beggings. I mean that you're you hate to leave and don't kill you know what I mean. It's one of those deals. But anyway, when I walked around the pond, there was a buck track in the mud, and I took my pocket knife and I laid my pocket knife down beside it and took a picture of it so I could show Scott how big a track this, dear head. It's one of the biggest tracks I ever saw and walked on. Now Scott was waiting on me, and I told Scott, I said, every day in the country is using that. We need to hunt that. Now, this is the week before buzzlo You know my intentions was I was gonna hunt it one day muzzload. Well, you know how it is, You muzzloon gets here and you've got another plans and you go someplace else and you hunt. Well, we let muzzleloading pass. We didn't hunt it, okay, but I did take a tree, stand up there and hang on the tree to climber and left it. Anyway, Muzzlodon gets there, it passes. We didn't hunt. Gun season comes the first week. First two weeks a gun season, we didn't hunt well. He gets Uh Thanksgiving, I decide I'm gonna walk in there weednasty before Thanksgiving. So I walk in there and it's just raining. Acrons are at that pond and the deer tracks are still there, and check my stand. Of course, the bears got my stand and toward the seat out of my stand, you know, and I had to fix all that is upside that, you know how they do. But anyway, so I called Scott. He he works a lot, and I thought, well, it's tomorrows Thanksgiving, he may be off. I called him and asked him if he wanted. I said, you need to go hunt that stand, and he said, man, he said I have. I've got to go in to work in the morning. There's no way out of it. So the next morning I get up, I walk in there. It was cool thing. In fact, I think it was a pretty good frost that morning. And I'm gonna say I think we all agreed yesterday, because I went back to that spot yesterday. Uh, we agreed. It's a big mile. But anyway, I got in there early and it was on Thanksgiving morning. And the way it works out with me is of course, we have we have kids and they have families and we have we have grandkids, and usually we have our Thanksgiving the weekend before with a family, and so usually on Thanksgiving it's just Tina Nie. So there's not really nothing going on. And I'm a little selfish, but I kind of like it that way, you know, because I think Thanksgiving Day as a heck of the day to hunt. It has been for me over the years. Anyway, I walk in there and get up and stand and it's it's a finer morning as God ever made. I mean, it's there's just a what little bit of breeze there is out of the northwest, and it's just enough just to just to shake the leaves just a little bit. I set up there, and I don't know, it's just something about it. The leaves, you know, Thanksgiving a week the user fall, and you know it's they're starting to fall off the tree, specially when the sun gets up. It seems like they just fall off on frosty mornings. And everything was it was just perfect. And after a while, probably about eight thirty right in behind me on this ridge, this ridge runs north and south that goes in there just a leg, it makes off, and I heard a big calamity behind me, and but it sounded to me like a buck chasing the dough. Any kind of quieting down there a little bit. And after a while, right out from this pond there's a there's a saddle, and I caught a little emotion. I looked, and here come a seven point buck and he come off down there. He's probably a two and a half year old little deer and he come down and all the doing around and smelling, and he'd go up the ridge and off in the holler and back up, and and uh, he messed around there for fifteen minutes, probably right there out in front of me a little bit. He just walked off, walked off, went west. So it kind of got quiet again, you know. And and uh, in a minute, I just got to hear and something I could hear it. I could. I could hear a deer just coming right in hid me, just on a mission, snap crunch pal, you know, just coming right down the ridge. And I'm up. I like to get pretty high. I'm probably three twenty four or maybe twenty five ft high, and it just kept coming. I wouldn't move, And about that time I just looked to my left there and it was a little numbed buck. I said, uh huh, that's exactly what mom was off cat round and you're you're out here by yourself. And anyway, he messed around there a little bit and he turned and went right back down the top of the ridge. And about ten thirty probably I sat there and soaking it all up. I mean, it's a it's a fine morning. Had a lot of confidence, you know, that makes a whole, That makes a big difference. So I think confidence is everything. And you know, I had a I had an uncle back when I was in my twenties and thirties that when he when he would take you hunting, you packed you a lunch because it wasn't one of those where you go hunt at eight o'clock and then coming and drank coffee and eat breakfast. And you know, he'd always say pack your sandwich. And anything he taught me was patience. So I'm a type of guy that I can go set a half a day as good as anybody. I mean, I can get there double early and and I've killed a lot of deer between ten and noon. Just because of that. Everything kind of calamity. Everything quietens down. But anyway, I'm sitting there, and so I get out my grunt call and I grown a time or two and and it's still quiet, but the wind has shifted and it had switched over to the northeast. It was hitting me right in the right cheek. And problem. You know how it is ten thirty eleven o'clock, the wind, it picks up a little bit. But the leaves were crackling, you know, when they were drying then uh over the leaves. I was sitting there and I just got to hearing something, but I couldn't tell where it was at. And then I could tell it was a deer. I could tell there was a deer coming. I got to look in and about that time I just looked over my left shoulder and I see him come off the mountain to my left. You know how it is with a big buck. When you see a big buck, you don't have to guess if he's legal. You don't have to guess anything with him. I said, look here, you know. And when he come off Clay, he was just he was on a mission. I mean he was just here he comes and he had to drop off the mountain and come up to me. And when he dropped off the wind, I'm scared to death. He's gonna win me, because what little o there was now then was going right to him. But there was two or three of them big old bullpines there on the side of the ridge. I'm owned, and he got them dudes between me and him, and I couldn't. I could just see glimpses of him coming up there, and I'm thinking, this guy is gonna get in my lap and he's gonna win me, and I'm gonna let this deer get away from me. In about that time, he just walked out from behind the tree. And uh, you know a lot of people don't like to take a frontal shot. I've never had any issue with it, especially one shooting between the front shoulder, in the in the chest. I killed him dead in these tracks. I mean he never wiggled, but he was only about fifteen steps, you know. I mean, he's way too close. I made. I just smoked him. I said, wow, And I can see the big I could see the big G two on the left sticking up there, and I said, man, that's a that's a good buck there, you know. And by this time, it's you know, it's ten forty five something like that. And I'm in there by myself a ball and every boy myself, and so I shinny down and I walked under the deer. And I never forget this. I said this out loud, I said, I said, wow, I never killed one like that. I don't really know how many points he is. That's he's got all kinds of junk on the end. I think he's about a nineteen or twenty one. However you want to count those, and you know how his archies are. If you hang a ring on him, you can count him as a poet, you know. But he's a main frame teen. Uh. We weighed him. We were able to wane with a gut seat him. He weigh a hundred eighty nine pounds. And that's that's. That's a big buck for down here. I mean, I know they get bigger than that, but I don't see a lot of them over two hundred pounds. I said all that to say this, And what's kind of funny about this is I went in there hunting the deer with a foot big as a pocket mine, and I killed a deer that that wouldn't the same deer because his foot wasn't near as big as the war was bout taking the picture of the pocket eye. I love the comprehensive way Andy tells the story and what an incredible deer. Killing a buck in these mountains is an accomplishment, and I tip my hat to anyone who can do it consistently. This next story comes from a guy who lives in Minnesota, approximately eight hundred and ten miles due north of Andy Brown. Tony Peterson works for met Eater's Wired to Hunt Whitetail brand and is a veteran whitetail bow hunting Yankee. And I love this guy. This is the story of his first big buck in his home state of Minnesota, the fourteen point in the Beans. Man, I gotta set the stage for this because up until two thousand and six in my bow hunting here. So I started when I was I was twelve years old. So I started bow hunting deer in and I had you know, I went through the typical progression, you know, killing, killing young ones, killing does finally killing a few bucks, moving up to the two and a half year old. But I got just plateaued on the two and a half year olds like I couldn't I could not kill a bigger buck. And what it did to me is I started to get buck fever insanely bad. I mean, I always had it. I still have it to this day, but I always had it. But when it came to you know, even a deer that was like five inches, it was like, I was never going to make that shot correctly. And in two thousand and five, I had already gotten a few shots at big ones and and blown it. And I had a I had a hunt in two thousand and five where I had two really big bucks come in within ten minutes each other, and I missed them both, and I just in my head, I was like, this is never gonna happen. You're never gonna be able to do this. So fast forward to two thousand and six, and this is the first year of my life that I couldn't hunt the opening weekend in Minnesota. And it's always kind of a tradition with my dad and I, and you know, something that meant a lot to me. But I just got married. I had moved to the suburbs of the Twin Cities, so I was miserable there, especially coming from a little dairy farming community in southern Minnesota. It was a it was a culture shock for me to have a million people in my backyard and not have the places to hunt that I was used to from growing up. And then on top of that, one of my wife's friends, who I don't even really know that well, got married on bow opener and I had to go, and so the whole opening weekend I was kind of ticked off. But whatever I had, I had a bad attitude at that time because I knew my season was going to be rough. I wasn gonna get that much time. I had a job. I hated that I would only get one day off a week typically, and so you know, to make the two hour drive down to hunt was just not that feasible most of the time. So anyway, bad attitude, bad job, every everything, My world was kind of turned upside down. And I was I was just setting this mindset that I was like, I'm not going to kill a big one ever, Like it's just never gonna happen for you. You're gonna be a scrapper shooter your entire life. But on the second weekend of the season, I ended up working Saturday morning and having a chance. I figured if I if I finished work, I could hop right in my truck, grabbed my brand new golden Retriever puppy, drive down to southern Minnesota, hand the puppy off to my buddy's girlfriend, scramble out to the woods, and I could get an evening hunt Saturday night, and then hunt Sunday and then go home. So I I flew out of there, grabbed that puppy, drove way too fast down there, just knocked on the door, handed Amy my my little retriever pup, and drove right out to the woods. And it happened to be one of those nights where it's kind of like drizzly and you know, not not really raining hard, but kind of wet, just a little bit fallen here and there, grace guys, like a perfect day to sit on the beans. And you know, it was September. So I figured, this is this is kind of a no brainer, is what I'm gonna do. But I was almost out of time, and so I ran from my truck all the way back to the stand, which is maybe I don't know half of my three quarters of a mile climbed up in there, and I remember, just like setting up and get my release on, and thinking there's no way, like, there's no way you're going to get a deer tonight. You're in here way too late. You probably blew the field out. It's like I kind of was just sitting there wallowing in myself pity. And you know, half hour into the hunt, I looked up and here's this buck standing not that far away, coming right down the middle of the strip of beans, and the strip of beans only like fifty yards wide, and I thought, holy cow, that's one of the biggest bucks I've ever seen. And he's on his way towards me, and I just could not believe he was not only there, but he was the only deer in that field, first one to come out. And as I'm watching this here, I'm thinking, Okay, he's gonna he's gonna keep following that row and you know, maybe passed by like twenty five yards. Well, this deer never looks up at me and ends up just for some reason, crossing a bunch of the rows and browsing right at me. And so he gets to like ten yards broadside. And I mean, up to this point, every big buck in my orbit had got away, Like I had I had buck fever so bad, i'd shoot over him. I'd rush it, and this deer standing there a gift and I draw back and shoot and it's all a blur, you know, like it's one of those things where you're like filling into the details afterwards. But he runs and stops in the field and he takes off, and I remember thinking, gosh, I think I saw blood coming out of his side, and I thought I saw my fletchings disappear right behind his shoulder. And at that point I'm not very patient now, but at that point I was really not that patient, and I couldn't take it. So I got down and went over to where I thought I hit him, and there's just blood all over the beans, and it's like this surreal moment where you're like, I think I might have finally killed a big one. And I thought he was just like a pointer. I didn't really know what he was other than big mature. So I started following the blood trail, and a hundred yards away, at the edge of the woods, he's piled up, and I just remember walking up to him and not only was he's a mainframe eight pointer, but he had six stickers and you know, ended up scoring I think a d inches or something. Just this like otherworldly dear to me. And it was such a lesson because I had I had such a bad attitude going into that hunt. You know, I was throwing that little pity party for not being able to hunt the opening weekend and getting down there late and being so limited. I was just in my head, I'm like you just you just you don't have a chance, dude. And it was like such an easy way to feel bad for myself. Plus I just never thought I was going to kill a big one, and that dear land there was like it was like another world opened up for me as a deer hunter. It was like you can kill these deer, like they will make mistakes, big bucks will screw up if you keep going out there and keep doing your thing. And it just I think about that dear all the time when I'm hunting now, because if I get a bad attitude, or I screw up, or I bump one or miss one, it's so easy to slide into that negative mindset. I always think about that fourteen pointer in the beans just making every bad decision possible and just offering himself up to me. And it always keeps me going. It always makes me feel good because that dear just showed me what was possible with this stuff. And I just I love I love that hunt and that experience for it because it it literally changed the arc of my my hunting career, but also my work career. Is just it was something so special to me. I love it, Tony, great hunt brother. This next voice you'll recognize for sure. James Lawrence is my Arkansas Backwoods Mansaul Milling rock Land horse riding, big Woods, white tail hunting mentor. He's a member of the Bear Grease Hall of Fame. And if you remember, the third episode of bear Grease was called The shed Horn Buck of nineteen sixty two, which was all about James. This is a short story, but it's one of his favorites. It's probably me at eighties and most of those most of those years I hunted by myself ninety percent of time. I don't do a whole lot of setting. I'd usually distill hunt slipping through the woods and I like the the wind has to be right to under certain area. Wind was good that morning. I left my truck across the river and started in and the direction I was going. The wind was perfect for me. I started up the hollow. There's a big mountain on my left, and there was a ridge on my right heads and turns into the mountains, so this is the easiest access the way. The wind blowing, I eased up this hollow and UH to go back a little bit. In the past, when I would kill a deer, I would always skin the hawks off, put him in a baggy, take them home and freeze them for cent. If I kill a doe with archery a lot of times, if I could, I'd say the bladder and use the natural scent. And that's what I've done this day. I get in the area where I was hunting, I stopped, sit down, I tied those buck hawks, went on each foot on my heels. My boat started up. Come around a big holly tree just a few yards from where I put the hawks on in there with the fresh the fresh scrape and what I mean fresh, fresh, fresh, till I mean he dug it out. He's down around that dragging those buck hawks. I get up the little ways and I was going up this hollow to my right, and I was walking in the hollow, just stepping on rocks, trying not to make any noise. When I could see the top of the ridge, I decided to get up on top of the ridge, get out of the holler, and get up on the ridge, easing along, stopping, leaning up against the tree, watching up ahead of me. Wind was still good in my favor. I hear something behind me, and like I said, I just left the hollow. I probably, I don't know. I don't fit two yards up it. And I heard something coming off the mountain behind me. For I come down in all and by this time I didn't know what it was. And then I turned and here this nice bucks coming up the mountain. His mouth was open. He was making every time his feet hit the ground. It aren't aren't aren't never heard that. It wasn't a grunt, wasn't growl, wasn't a snort. His mouth was open. The hair on his neck was standing out, which made him look a lot bigger. Hair running down his back was standing up. And before I could get on him, got my rifle up and this was a nice buck, and I couldn't get on him, and he went out of sight. Well, when he went out of sight, I knew that I could see the end of the holler where it tied onto the ridge. He didn't come out. Everything got quiet, and a little bit I heard him again coming down the bridge, got on my trail and here he come same way, mouth open hair on his neck, which I've never seen before, and I mean, he was seriously mad. And I got my rifle up him running, I got on him and I squeezed off around none of them in. He come on around, and that shot put him down, and then everything come m and I never get scared in the wood, never get bothered in the woods. I always I'd never ever ever experienced anything like that. And he went down. Then I realized, and it was following the scent that I'd put on. And I used the sin after that, but I didn't. I don't use it like I did that time. A person could get uh in a bad position with a buck, with fresh deerhawks tied on and going through the woods and having a buck you get in his area. It's scary bother me kill a lot of deer. And I've never been bothered like that. How did you get that deer out of the woods? I don't like, I always do feel dressed in and then I've done the shock pouched feet together, and he was. It was all downhill, so I didn't have a problem getting them out. I was back in a pretty good, pretty good ways from the truck. He was telling me how you sho pouch one? You get it like you always do. Feel dress it. I peeled a go around the dew claws on the deer and skin it down to the first joint and need joint, and I popped that joint off through all four legs that way and leave the duke clothes on. That makes the deizer. And then you just take the right front foot to the left pine foot down together, just as tight as again, and do the same to the other so down and run your arms through them and then lean forward and get up and get your rifle in one hand, got horn to the other. Carry him out on your back, Carolina back pat. Yeah, I carry that one up. It's a whole lot easier than dragging one. How long will it take you to shock pouch one? The time to go? Just just a few minutes. Who taught you how to do that? Basically? My grandmother and my grandmother's brother love it. James. If you want to see a video of how James taught me to shock pouch you deer. Go to the meat eater dot com and search for shock pouch, you deer, and you'll find it. My, my boy, you're in for a treat now. The voice, cadence, worldview and frequency of this next storyteller is core to the energy of Bear Greece because it's none other than my own sweet dad, Gary Believer Newcomb. Dad showed me how to be passionate, to live by a value system, to have confidence in my identity, and to work hard. But maybe most relevant to this story, you taught me how to look for them akers. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this Arkansas public Land story, but every time I'm on the edge of my seat. This is the story of the clicking buck. You know, I've hunted since seventy six, and you know I really didn't know how to deer hunt. I kind of taught myself. I don't have a lot of patients, so I don't kill a lot of big bucks. I kill a lot of little deer. But every now and I run into a big buck. And uh. I found this big buck because there was a huge area in a sawdust pile where they had logged and there was a huge it looked like a fifteen or twenty ft scrape, ten ft scrape. And so I got the scouting and I started seeing uh, four inch rubs and started seeing normal scrapes, big ones. And then you know, I went to my m O like I always did, and found a place with her acrons, and I put my best set up. You know, I put a lock on stand. Next day, I can't hunt very long, only a couple of hours, and I climb up in that stand. A dog comes in, and typically I would have shot that dough in a New York second, but I thought, I ain't gonna do it this time. I know the bucks in here. And so I got to watching her and she kind of acted like she was in heat. And I don't remember what I twitching her tail, doing things that was a little different than other dose. It's twenty three, I'm gonna say twenty three October, and uh ends up she was in heat, probably the only dear coming in. She wasn't in. And so I'm sitting there looking around watching her feed, and all of a sudden I hear big steps coming. I mean, they're this sucker sounding like a gorilla. Coming in. You know, I get my bow already, and this buck all of a sudden starts going. I call it the clicking buck. I would not have even known what that was, but a friend of mine had just bought a clicking call. It was kind of silly. It was a wheel that had little notches in it, and you'd spend it did go click click click. So I knew what it was, and I go, that's thinking clicking buck. So I sit there and I had a real thick pine thicket behind me that deer could move through but you couldn't see. And then I had this big white oak out here, and then just normal woods around with a few thickets. And so I'm sitting there and I'm turning the best I could to get see if at deer's there, it never shows itself, and then I hear it turned walk off. Well about ten minutes later, a real nice ten point, you know, one twenty class probably maybe better, maybe not, but a good ten point came up. And he came up almost under my stand. I mean, he's he's five yards if you were to step it. It It had been five or six yards to my shooting side and back then and for thirty years. I mean, if it came on on my left side, I wouldn't even shoot at him. I sit down Freda Heights, and uh so he's right there, man. And about that time, loops got real popular to put on your strings, and I had a loop on mine, and and something happened had changed string, and I just thought, I don't need that sissy stuff, so I didn't put a loop on my bowl. And so finally I sit there watch him for it seemed like an hour, but it's probably five minutes. And he never moved, and he had a big tree in front of him, not real big, ten inches eight inches, and so I kept watching him, and he kept staring at that dough, and so finally moved just a little bit and I pulled my bow back and I was just getting ready to shoot him in my air fell out, So he takes off in the dough take off. Well, so I think, well, that's all the action we're gonna have today. And I needed to get back to town. I guess i'd better get down, and uh I was about halfway down my ladder and eight point good eight point came in. Of course, that spooked him, so I went back The next Saturday only hunting on Saturdays basically well, on the way home, instead of coming by Blacktop, I went through the mountains. I knew a camp there where these guys were like trophy hunter type guys. I pulled into their camp late that night and I said, told him what happened with that clicking bug? And I said, what the heck was that? And this guy said, I can't tell you exactly. And I've told a lot of people, and I'm telling you, I don't know of anybody that knew what this clicking buck was all about. But these guys acted like they knew, and what they told me ended up, I think, being exactly right. They said, I can tell you exactly what it is. That is the absolute dominant buck in the area. And he's not gonna waste his time chasing the dough that's not completely in heat. He's said, in two or three days, he'll be with that dough like glue. So he came in, he sent checked her, he left ten point came in. He's gonna follow her. You know you're gonna stay with her. Clicking buck leaves. So I come back the next Saturday, climb up in the same stand, and she came in straight to my shooting lane to the left, and I could see her coming from you know, four yards. So she comes in same thing, acting kind of crazy, eating acrons, and so I get the looking at the direction she's coming and I see big old horns coming. They look like those Texas bucks that go straight out with big times going up. I mean, he was the biggest deer I guess I've ever seen on hoof. At the time, I said he was one forty. But as I get older and think back and learn more about dead, I'm telling he was one fifty plus maybe one sixty. I mean he was big. And so he pulls up broadside, big huge animal, easy shock, thirty two steps. But I didn't I didn't know it. I mean I figured he was thirty, but I didn't, you know, I stepped it off and he was thirty two steps. And so he's watching this dough feed. Well I'm twenty five ft up and I'm getting away with everything. I mean, I I could move, I could do whatever I want head no idea. I was there. Of course I did my sense stuff, not like I told Bear, but I mean I just was clean. And so I get to do and this bending over down to my knees and and I wouldn't stand up, and I kept looking. I couldn't find a hole to shoot him. There was a hickory tree with yellow leaves that tells you the time of the year. It was had yellow leafs, and and the limbs coming off of it low We're only about ten inches long, but they all had leaves on them. And so I'd move up on the edge of my seat and I've been way over and finally I saw a hole. But it took me so long to find that hole that by that time distance wasn't an issue. I mean, I didn't even think about distance. I just pulled down, put my twenty pin on him, and shot right on the rea. And you know, now, the bows I shoot now, I wouldn't have made any difference, I would, you know. I mean, they shoot flat, pretty pretty flat. But back then you had to know thirty. I mean, I just shot under that buck. But uh, it was a thrill lean morning. And you know, I had a couple other mornings that were just about his thrilling, but that would probably probably be the second most exciting hunt I was. Ever. Only other one was when I was really a rookie, and I had eleven those come in at different times, and um, it was pretty thrilling. And and what's kind of interesting to me our own inner makings and hidden mechanisms, is that the longer I get away from that date, the more I regret not clicking my brain in and shooting that dear a thirty yards. I mean it, really, I mean he would. He would be a wall hanger deluxe. I think these stories of failures stand out in our minds for a very specific reason. A father's story of missed opportunity is supposed to equip the sun not to miss. The story still stings me twenty five year later, but the clicking buck won't be lost in newcom lore for generations. This last white tail hunter needs no introduction. Mark Kenyon is my friend and colleague at Meat Eater, and he heads up the Wired to Hunt podcast, which is a die hard nuts and bolts podcast about white tail deer hunting, and you ought to be listening to it if you're a white tail man. Mark is a meticulous, hard hunting dude, and he came to Arkansas last year with me and James Lawrence and killed the buck on public land and You can watch that hunt on the meter to YouTube channel on Mark's new series Dear Country, which is very cool. This is the story of Mark's first buck on his family's land in Michigan. It was mid November and we were in northern Michigan and my family deer camp, my favorite place in the world. And it was one of those days where the air was crisp, the leaves crackled, snow was just starting to fall. It's one of those perfect days that you dream of as a deer hunter. When I was a young man, still a teenager, heading out for the first evening hunt of guns season, and I was walking out to my tree stand with my grandpa g P, as I called him, set off from the cabin and we walked across the first little field we had across the bridge. We get to the second little field, and this is where GPS blind was the place where, seemingly, in my mind, legends were made. All of these stories he told me took place in the second field. He walked to the edge of it, and this is where we were going to part ways. And as we set off, Grandpa looked at me and GP said, all right, Mark, good luck. You can do it, and he went off his way, and I went off my way, and I said, along the creek, heading back along what we would call the peninsula. At the end of a point was an old ladder stand. And I suppose before we go any further, I should tell you a little bit about g P and about why he factors into this story so much, because Grandpa he was like another father to me. He was this legendary figure in my life who was always the hero of these stories that her growing up. And he was the one who took me up to go fishing, and took me up to go hunting, and took me out into the woods and taught me how to move through the swamp, and taught me how to hold still. He was there when I first had my first close encounter with the deer, he was there when I caught my first big fish. And he was always there with these these lessons and these rules and these reminders of the right way to do things, and and this was true with my dad as well, But really Grandpa was the one who who set these rules and stones commandments. And I remember the line was was drawn in the sand, and you didn't cross. It was more important how you did something than what you did. And I remember one example of this very well. I remember being up a deer camp as a young child, and there were some other folks, some friends of my uh other relatives, who were up at deer camp for the first time, and they did not necessarily do things the way that we did things. We would come to find out. And there was a buck that went running across the field in front of the cabin, and one of these friends ran out and grabbed his gun and started taking shots at this deer as it ran across in front. I remember my grandpa was furious, absolutely furious, told him he was gonna have to leave if he would ever do something like that again, because we didn't ever risk wounding an animal like that. You would never take a shot at a moving animal. You would never take a shot unless it was just right, to make sure it's as quick and ethical as possible. You had to do things the right way. And that stuck with me throughout all of my years living up as a hunter. And as I'm heading out in this night, I'm eighteen or nineteen years old, whatever it was, and I'm slipping into that tree stand I get there, I'm i gotta do it. I gotta get it right. This year, I had not gotten a buck at our cabin yet. There's not a lot of deer up there, but a really special place. And remember getting to that ladder stand and slowly going up, up, up, trying not to make a creek. Got to the top of the stand, and remember thinking, we're all the different places a buck might come through here, they come from my left, to come from my right, Remember knowing that there was a trail that paralleled that creek off to my right side, And so I tried to move and get a good shot. You know, see if I could get a good shot from that direction. And I couldn't really turn very well in the stands. So I remember standing up and thinking, they're okay, if a buck were to come from that direction, what would I do? And so I practiced slowly standing up in the ladder stand, slowly spin and having to get down on one knee and rest my gun on the armrest of this stand, and thinking through, all right, if a buck came through there, I'll make this move ever so slowly and quietly, and then I could get it. So I practiced that in all different directions. Finally I settled in, sat down, and waited to see what the night would bring along. I remember it was a slow night, and I remember my mind thinking, well, this is just gonna be like every other hunt. This is just gonna be another hunt out here where we see nothing. Maybe I'll have some birds come through. Maybe I'll see a partridge. Now, maybe you'll hear coyote off from the distance, but not too likely we're gonna see anything. I'd seen. Jeez, fewer bucks and you can count on one or two hands, and all of my years up there, tonight was gonna be different. And as lights started to fade, it's down to the last half hour of daylight probably, and I see something off in the cattails, and I pulled my binoculars and I see antlers, and I knew at this point any buck was a I want to take a crack ass. So I want to get this buck back into view. He was straight away into the cattails. I lost him, but I had one of those little can calls, that little dough bleak candid if you tip over it makes that sounded. Reached for that in my backpack and the first thing I went to turn it over and did one more time, and then I waited. I don't know if I breathed. I was hoping so so badly for this deer turn around. And then there he was, that buckets spawned a d eighty degrees and was walking right back towards me. I could just see his head, you couldn't see his vitals. He had him holding my gun. My heart's beating a million miles a minute. I had not shot a buck up here at our cabin before. This was something that I never experienced here. But now he turns, and he turns back into the cattails, and he starts paralleling me. And now I realized he's going to move off to my right side, to that side that I would have a hard time shooting if I didn't do this kind of complicated maneuver I practiced earlier, but now I had to do it. And I could see him moving through the cat tails, and I thought to myself, I could probably shoot him through there, but no, I gotta wait. And I don't know how long it took. It felt like a year, but finally I saw him approaching the one clear land I had, and as he stepped into that, I squeezed the truth and he dropped right there perfect, And I don't even know how to describe my reaction. It was just disbelief. I had actually done it. I had actually joined the legends of my family here. I had entered my story into the record books here in our family cabin, at this place that I had grown up, where I had been taught so much, where I had kind of marveled under these adults who had come before me and taught me how to hunt and fish and be an outdoorsman. And finally I had secure my place at that table. I would finally have a buck on the buck form? Man, Do I love some white tell stories? Were truly fortunate in this country to live in the heyday of white tail. Honey. We've got some challenges with c w D land access, some overcrowding, but goodness, it's hard to complain with a little work. Anybody in this country can do the stuff that you've heard all these guys talk about. These deer live in our backyards, and adventure awaits those willing to grind and go. We haven't heard about any two inches, and we haven't heard from any chest banging killers. But we've heard from men of common means that I believe are all extraordinary hunters in their own sphere. And they're extraordinary not because of the bucks on the wall, though they've got them, but because of how much they love white tails and hunting them. They just love being in white tail country. I can't thank you enough for listening to the Fair Grease podcast. We put our heart and soul into this thing, and its energy is bird from a love of wild places, wild beasts, and wildhearted people. Do me a favor this week and share our podcast with your brows and foes and have a great week, and I look forward to talking to everyone on the Render next week.

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