00:00:00 Speaker 1: Hey, I'm Tyler Casey, and you're listening to v Frequent Element podcasts Free Queens, What's going on in my woods? People? We are frequently apparently doing this thing called podcasting in the truck. In the truck, it's a mean Casey, that's it today. You don't get Eric and Greg and all that. Man, you gotta pay extra for that. Uh. We actually right now are on the way back from Arkansas and you and I can't tell you in particular, but I can tell you one place it's not and that's Smoked Ce the Arkansas where we were at. Uh. Yeah, we had we we had a great trip recently and we spent some time. Maybe Casey might have talked about this in the last podcast. We spent some time hanging out with our new found friend Clay Nukelem, uh, who we appreciate tremendously. Um, there's a lot of Clay Nukelem fans in the world, and it's because he's a genuine dude. You know, he's a real deal man is Yeah, we spent a bunch of time with Clay and we had to work our tails off on this trip. So you'll we'll talk about that in a little bit, but sadly we didn't get to do an Element podcast with Clay. We wanted to, but they're just as only so much time in the world. We did get to do the rout Fresh radio intro with Clay, So if you haven't heard that, that's uh the uh the last episode of rout Fresh um we did with with Clay, So you can go here kind of how that went, um and check that out as well. But we got to do a lot of hunting, a lot of hanging out with old Clay. Yeah, we did, man, We got to uh you know, we got to share a really awesome experience camp experience because of one of our friends, Old Scotty. Uh. Scott gave us the um pretty much the keys to his house. He also was there for a lot of the days with us. It's kind of long trip and um he was there a bunch with us and cook for us. Let me ask him to do none of this, uh he offered this up in fact um and cook for us. And let me just tell you, you you know, like you go down and hang out some duck camps in Louisiana and get the like you would figure there'd be some good cooks down there. In Louisiana, right, like a Cajun country. Foods big part of the culture. Let me just tell you Arkansas, this dude right here, Mr Scott can cook. There was some stuff I frankly I ate several things that I had never eaten before that was neat. Yeah, it's not often you get to eat things you haven't I know, it's usually burgers and burritos, Yeah, exactly, some variety of chili powder is usually the way we roll. But that was different with Scott was around it. There's just like and Scott is like a Southern gentleman type, you know, like, uh, good accent man, Like, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. And there's this Southern hospitality side of things. Not anything against our northern buddies, but like, Southern hospitality is kind of a thing, and uh, Scott kind of taps into that real well. It's like, hey, you're our guest. We're gonna take care of you type deal. You know, he's a servant heart, really appreciative of really the delicious food that we got to what was that thing that he cooked the ducks? What was it in the name for, But it pretty much was like duck Alfredo well he had a Yeah, he there was a there's a chicken recipe that's more commonly known. That is what he modeled on. That's right. It was a merry chicken. That's it had gumms came to us at the same time. Um. Yeah, so he did that with ducks. Man, that was amazing. I mean, you want to talk about on a just day when you're just you know, getting pounded by rain, you know, I mean that's just the final warm of the belly. Yeah, warm the belly. Go to bed, just feeling full and saturated with just all kinds of good stuff. Four and a half hours of solid sleep, man less when you go home. Man, this this trip was surprisingly tiring. I expected it to be difficult hunting, uh, but it was surprisingly time consuming and tiring. How many more teas can I use? Taxing? It was taxing. Its tumultuous. It was treacher I don't want to say terrible times. Treacherous times, yeah for sure. Um so we'll talk about some of the tactics and things we were doing or whatever, but man, it really was like such an experience to go do just hunting different. You know, Like, man, there's there's a culture around this stuff. You know. The house we stayed in was I mean it was by no means like fancy, right, it was a really old house but very comfortable years ago I think underwater, yeah, you know. And then you go in there and they've done a little remodel stuff, but it's a hunting camp, you know, and it's it's uh what you'd call rough comfortable, I think, and you know it's uh got bunks. But the neat thing is is there pictures on the wall from like years and years of bucks and outdoor adventures. You know, there's trout on the wall. It's just cool, man, you know, as God's God's like generation generationally been in this area. I think his dad's kind of got him into hunting and fishing in this area. That was a commercial, uh fisherman, that's right about that. Yeah, And that's how we got introduced to buffalo ribs, which is really neat is it's a good way to use a fish that otherwise it's not utilized yet much, you know, yeah, by fishing or like by sport fishing, or by delicacy fishing. If you're unfamiliar with this, there's a there um two species of fish, small mouth buffalo and big mouth buffalo. Their sucker fish. They're a native sucker to North America, not like a carp and um. They have a very oily white flesh that most would say is unedible, inedibleb um. But apparently you can utilize the rib cage of these fish and eat it and fry it up and it's really good. We had some and I didn't know that this was a thing really, but in until last year I started figure out about in Arkansas, you can like we we were eating fish from local rivers. Yeah, it's very cool. Just could pick commercial fishermen going out and getting a few off trout lines or what however they do it, and and selling them to local restaurants. Yeah, and like it was its legit because they were like, no, that's not from the river, but this right here, like they knew which ones came from local sources, which is really cool and just another part of that culture. You know, that was that was thick with culture, man, you know, because this is the thing too. Um. I was talking about it last maybe two nights ago at dinner. Um. Things haven't changed much in some of these areas, some of these parts of the country that we go to and and this is true of this area as well, where like people people would sit there at a restaurant working and they talked about very simplistic things and very like localized things. You didn't really hear a whole bunch of uh, political complaining or high level philosophy stuff. It was just like, you know, talking about, oh, well Sheila has been down there doing this, you know or whatever. It's like very uh small world, and and in a good one, in a good way. Yeah. It's like it's like, man, you know, to not concern yourself with all the things man and everything that you could concern yourself with globally has some sort of fearmongering flair to it a lot of times, you know. And so to go along with this to UM two speak on something we don't talk too much about that that area down there is very racially integrated, and I appreciate that. You know, people, it was it was just you are who you are to every person you talked to. It didn't there weren't any lines drawn. Yeah. I really like they've they've been living together for a long time in close quarters. Right, there's no I was saying this, there's no um you know, for an example, around us, you know, there's no like Highland Park versus Siegaville or you know, like these in a big city that people can segregate but pretty effectively, you know, and and it's not probably a good thing, you know. And uh, these cities, these towns are small enough that everybody just kind of has to live together and they have been for a long time, and so it's it's very it's very natural film. There's nothing force there. It's not like, hey, we're gonna make a cultural movement to make people integrate, exactly. Yeah, And so I like that. Another thing about the people, all of them, Dude, I didn't I met some of the most friendly people that I've ever met. Oh absolutely. Just like we were leaving and stopping the community sort of get gas and some snacks. And this was just like the cherry on top of the whole trip. But like three of us checked out and the lady of the cashier called each one of us like honey or something like that, you know what I mean. Like it's just like it's super nice, you want a bag? You know, Like everybody was very yeah, outgoingly nice restaurant over the top, and uh, the owner of the restaurant comes in. It's kind of like still a small town thing. The owner of restaurant. She comes in about thirty minutes before closing to kind of make sure that the place closes up good. She's wrapping silverware. Now, where are y'all from at exactly? You know? And uh we tell her, know, well, northeast Texas. We've got some people from all over the country here hanging out with us though, and Clays a native to Arkansas, and um she said, oh you know, uh m dear, they already be up there running right now with these cold temperatures are to kick them in, you know, Like I don't know if it's ladies ever ever deer hunted, but like she sounded like, yeah, well either way, she knows the Southern culture. It wants to help you also kind of just give you a little confidence boost, yeah, which is also a very good business move because it's like, yeah, let's do this thing. You should be hanging out here hunting. More's you come in there and it's Moore, pretty cool man, it is. It was I don't know the whole experience. We've talked about this several times, but you know, as we started to rap. The last few days, man, we were so so tired. I mean we just is it rained, you know, from pretty much day one took like I mean, we didn't see the clouds till the last day. I mean that a son until the last day, it was it was cloudy every single day, and basically coming to the last couple of days there, we're starting to really just be tired. I mean, I can tell at this point now, like when I get super tired, you may both slur our words real bad. We probably will on this podcast. On we got a little bit of rest last night, but you know, we were coming to the end and I was like, man, you know what this has been. Despite not having the greatest deer hunting trip, this has been a fantastic I had so much fun. And you made a good point that actually the funnest times we had were not in the deerwoods on the strip, which is uh, sometimes kind of new for us, and we don't we don't have that happen a whole lot because a lot of times we're camping in a tent and the best moment is these deer running all over the place in the rut, you know, because everything else kind of stinks, but for this hunt with the camp, Scott cooking for us, the friendship that we had with Scott and Clay and each other except for Michael and Eric, they're not super together, but uh there you know, it was just so good man and and uh that the everything was comfortable outside of just being out in the rain and stuff and hunting through all the mud and everything getting covered in mud and just getting up early, we're traveling pretty far to hunt stuff and trying new new places. But you know, it was just the culture, the people that are namely the ones we were spending all the time with, made this trip really yes, and particular you know, our company there, we got a good group of guys you know, uh with our core group here at the Element. But Clay and Scott are both like extremely talented storytellers and conversationalists, so like it was always good talk. I can't, I don't. Like I've talked about this sometimes with with friends and stuff, like, I don't. I'm not a big fan of small talk. I'll do it. You know, I'm not a person who just like refuses to have small talk, but like I like to, uh like I have conversations that kind of promote growth. I guess you'd say, I don't really know, you know, or at least talk about something interesting, you know, like oh, what do you do? Well? What do you mean? What I do? You know? Like, uh yeah, but uh, anyways, Scott and Clay are there really into talking about cool stuff, stories and all that kind of stuff and knowledgeable dudes. You know, I got a lot of different Scott had is like one of the world's most interesting man. Man, He's done a lot of things. But you know, it was it was a lot of fun. The culture was there. Man that just tingled some weird things and just touched my hand back here and on the deal. Uh and I was just like I had a weird tingent like my hamstring. You know. It was kind of weird. Anyway. So outside of that, though, the logistics of this trip were intense. They were and let's I guess let's kind of break into that a little. Okay, So we have got the buck Truck. As y'all all know, this hunt will be on the Buck Truck series next year on the media or YouTube channel channel, and um, what's going to happen within the buck Truck As we use a lot of different types of access in a lot of creative ways to hunt whitetail deer. And on this trip, the buck boat is a part of the access. What what's so funny, y'all just being silly. So the buck boat is really the thing that complicated things. It actually helps so much, uh to be able to run the boat around on the water in um go'll try to find deer. But getting everyone deployed in a timely manner in the morning and being on the road and driving to the boat ramp and all that just it was complicated. Lots of moving parts, a lot of moving parts, and you have to coordinate three guys asked where they're gonna go, and like make it work where every person can be dropped off on the same area and pickups and and the pick up and all that kind of stuff. Like it's there's a lot of moving parts. And each guy has a camera guy with him too, you know. So we got Greg, Michael, and Eric who are all also have to be coordinated. Um, Michael, poor little guy, I can't keep up with the stuff. Has to have people rescue him at the boat ramp. Ye he does, he does. So you know, it's it's just a lot going on. It is, there's so much involved, the camera gear, the batteries. Uh, and then you add rain into the mix and it slows everything down, right, Michael's gotta find a Walmart. Yeah, and you gotta um, you gotta also like understand the weather when it's gonna hit and when you gotta be out of the woods or when you can go to the woods when you don't have service. The cell phones certain you know, cell phones, Man, I love them, I hate them. They really help you in hunting quite a bit with some things. It's particularly weather like it's nice to have up to the minute, like hey, what's going on here, Hey, we need to take cover, Hey we need to you know, get off the water, that sort of stuff. Yes, exactly. Hey man, let's make a little adjustment as to where you're gonna pick me up in what time? Like all that kind of stuff gets a little bit difficult, you we we can. We didn't talk about this later on, but the day that uh, you picked me up from the boat but I didn't get dropped off in the boat was a yeah, we should tell that story in a bit in greater detail. Um. So the boat was a great uh tool of access and I would encourage people, Uh, if you live in an area where it's practical to use a boat, to do it even when it's impractical, if you can be pretty particular and maybe not over invest in something that you don't really need, but like you know, a tiny kayak or something like that get you across the creeks a big deal. Um, you're laughing because we got a real tiny kayak before we have nine foot sit on top. I mean, this thing was hardly a surfboard, um, And we used to go across this little creek. We'd walk like a mile back in on public land, go across this creek and hunt. And we didn't even have a paddle for the thing, I don't think. We picked up a stick every every time a stick, and we had a string attached to it, and we would You couldn't carry your gear across with you, so you had to get across, and then we would push the kayak across the creek attached to a string part of it, and so it was like you're playing shuffle board and everyone sometimes if you didn't push it right, spin just sit in the middle of the creaking spin and pull it back. And it's since it's spinning, like your para cord gets caught on your stand. You're like, if I pull too hard, this thing is going in the bow, is going to the bottom of the water. Somebody's going to well. He actually never had an accident and we did that go in though, Like I have a light, real dim and you know, the boats constantly just rocking a little bit, and now I felt like I was gonna fall so bad. And then in the daylight, I when I had a perspective of what was around me, I was like, oh, I'm I'm I mean, I'm moving, but I'm super stable, but you don't realize in the dark. And I was like, it took me foreverty to cross because I was like barely even moving my paddle stick, you know, because I didn't want to tip over. Well, the stability was much better on this trip. Actually inherited a boat from my granddad. He's my granddad was is a great fellaw hey uh, suffering from dementia pretty difficulty difficultly these days and ibetes. So he's off the water um and wanted me to take this boat and continue on the legacy, which is cool. This boat's caught. There's been more fish boat in this boat than I ever have a chance to possibly boat. Um. I've grown up in this boat since I was about seven. He had he had an old Kingfisher before the end. You remember kingfishers like try hole looking a deal. Um And this is just a big old aluminum flat bottom and uh so it felt pretty cool to get this thing out into the water. But it's it's huge. It's this nineteen footboat, seventy sev wide. Like just you you can put a full wheeler in this boat, and literally you can't. You can't have a lot of dudes or gear in there. But one guy in a full wheatherer can go in this boat. Uh So it's great for hunting out of there's plenty of room for gearing guys. Uh And it's still very stable and safe when there's that much in there. Uh So it was really pretty enjoyable to cruise the river in that boat. Now, we did learn some things that we need to make a couple alterations to the boat. First of all, I gotta fix a leak because, uh before my granddad was suffering from from medical conditions, he still had this condition called hardheadedness, uh where he'd just run up on stumps and stuff, and you know, like he kind of hard on stuff, which might be where I get it kind of hard on things too. But the boat like has got some cracks in it and stuff, so it leaks a little bit. But you can spend all day on the water and it pretty much and not be unsafe. Um. The other thing is we had some foggy business going on. Yeah, not fun at all, And so I think you might need to mount up boat bow, mounted a light on this thing, or brighter lights one way or another, whether it's spot lights or yeah, we'd like to mount something there if you actually, if you have an idea, if you're a guy with the big old led, you know, light bar that you use on a boat, we send us a message on Instagram or something. And hunting boats are cool, i'd like, and I know that duck boats, i'd I'd like to see people's duck boats too, because we saw a lot of cool ones on this trip. But I would like to see people's white tail hunting. But like, if you've got some mods or something you've done for how to carry bows, like, man, things can get mud stomped in the boat real quick, and that's sketchy because, um, even in the most stable of boats like this one is there's times when there's acceleration or d acceleration, and if you don't have your sea legs, great you do this like little jumpy thing and you don't really have any control where your foot lands. So we didn't destroy any gear on this trip, but um, we could have, and so like it would be great to stow the the important things in certain places that way, you know they're safer. But the boat was fun, We're able to We kind of employed this strategy a few times. You know, the thing you would think about normally would be uh, we all pull up and we dispersed from there, and that worked to a certain extent. But we also did a deal where we kind of hot scotched, So I would drop off a guy one place, go up river, drop off another guy in another place, and then go up river again and drop a guy off there. And I really like that because we were kind of all three in completely different places and we ended up feeling like we were covering some country. Um. Now the inverse of that. First off, let me say, uh, duck hunters are awesome. I am not too much of a duck hunter. I don't mind shooting the duck, but I wouldn't call himself a duck hunter. Um, when you're trying to white to hunt, there's duck hunters everywhere. It makes it kind of tough. So one of the things we struggled with on this trip was getting away from um human pressure. It wouldn't say it's hunting pressure, but there's just a bunch of people out there, and so that's bumping deer around a little bit. So we're in pursuit of of areas that have a little less a little less of that. We're kind of working around the duck guys in the trip. Uh. The we had pretty much like the second day of the trip was opening, you know, opening day after the Split Base, which is like the second biggest holiday around out there after the original open. There was people everywhere. Yeah, dude's going anywhere. They love their love their boats, and they're there broomsticks and all that. You know. Um, but I can remember kind of the the first time we thought we found a place that was gonna be away from them, some pressure, we all pulled the boat up and dispersed from there. We all three had like on X dots that we were gonna head too, and it's real neat actually on on x these days. Um, you can share like a bunch of pins at once. So I had map scattered all this and found a bunch of different pinch points and stuff like that that I liked, and um, I was uh sharing like ten pins with Tyler and Clay at the same time. And then we had established like which three we're gonna head too, that all worked right on the right wind directions, and um, we all kind of take off on a mary a little way and uh, Greg and I are walking to hours. We're not seeing really great sign we're kind of down in a little bit, and we're just about to asso this this low spot and uh, I look up and Yonder is one Tyler Jones headed my way through the woods. How did we end up in the same place? Tyler? Well, Um, so I guess my whole thought process involved around this trip was a couple of things. Um, and I try to fill this role a little bit a lot of times, but especially on this trip, with this being your boat, I wanted you to be able to go where you wanted to go, and so I thought I will fit in and find something everywhere we go, and so that's what I was doing. And in this case, um, I told Clay to go ahead and pick his spot too, And so they you picked, you picked what I would have picked as well. A great yeah, a great look been. We we both tend to to uh and this is developed as we have hunted together more and more become better friends. But the we have a very similar hunt style nowadays. We see the same things in places and it it uh is warranted too, so continue. So with that, I thought, okay, well, there's plenty of country down and here in different things to to hunt, you know, swamps and all kinds of stuff, I mean, stuffs nasty. Well, um, Clay picked another good spot, I thought, and then that left me with the spot that I thought it was pretty good too, And so uh we get off. We start. We find out immediately there is a full riller trail right on the bank, like as soon as you come up the cut bank, there's a four whither trail and it's being used. And we're like, dad, guman, so y'all take off? Well I I take off, and I realized within about two hundred yards that there's almost to guarantee that this four La trail is gonna go where I am going because there's a there's a kind of ridge system. When I say ridge, we're talking a difference in a few feet, a southern ridge system where I'm going. Well, most of them four whiler trails are built out of the swamp, right, They're built in the on the ridges. So I just know that that's this thing is. I mean, I'm going three quarters of a mile, but I can tell you right off the bat, this thing is gonna go where I'm going. So with that, I follow it for another probably two yards to me and Eric do and I was like, Okay, I'm not doing this. I'm not gonna walk another six tenths just to get in there and be, you know, in the middle of the four other dude country. When this had it had fresh tracks on it, like fresh four other tracks, I was like, here's my probably even a dude in there. And anyway, uh we I peel off and I'm like, I'm just gonna go straight down this thing and try to hunt somewhere down the edge of the swamp. Uh And if I can't find anything, I like, Casey's down there, and I'm gonna meet up with him, we're gonna talk about it because and this we're a ways from each other. So I had done the swamp. Everything is pretty open. I don't like it. It's you know, basically a lake. And I get down to Case and I'm like, man, and he's talking with Greg trying to figure out their spot, and I mean, we've walked like over a mile at this point probably to get to y'all. And I was just like, man, I don't love it, and You're like, yeah, I hadn't loved it yet either, And so then we start to talk. So I look up and see you fellas, And at first I'm like, what are they doing? And I was a little disappointed. Really, yeah, I was because I was like because we were like, had got to my pen, and I was like, why are they here? Because I was like, oh, well, this evening is ruined. But quickly there after it was like, you know what, this is gonna be cool. We're gonna hut together. It's gonna be fun, you know. But like there was just the initial like disappointment of like what happened? Did I send him the wrong pen? Did they end up going to the wrong one? But it was because you didn't feel good about what was going on up there, and we're gonna try to read it literally. Was like I would not have done that if I felt like I had any options, But I just I didn't have anywhere to go, like any if I headed the other direction, I was gonna be in Dudeville, Tyler. It makes me feel good to know that if you have nowhere else to go, you will come to me. That's it, man um. But there was like the initial disappointment is quickly went away because I was like, it's gonna be cool. It's gonna be fun because we don't get to hunt together that much anymore, where we usually like we're on a hunting trip together, but we split up, you know, for each hunt, which is fine. It's that's cool too. I like getting to be the guy who's shooting a lot where we used to like have to trade off a lot, you know. Um. But they quickly turned into like, all right, you know, let's work through here and just kind of figure some things out. And this is a thing that I figured out on this trip more than I ever have before. Using a saddle on this trip was super helpful because I would have it with me and sometimes use it and sometimes not. And I didn't feel too bad about that, Whereas if I had a big old tree stand on my back first off, walking through the thicket, it would be terrible. But having that Cruiser x C and a secret mini platform, like you just aren't that committed, So chat it at cruiser. He's one of his favorite sayings that I've heard at least him say several times. It is. It's a tool in the toolbox, right, h hunt, however, is most effective for you, And to be honest, if you're able to hunt off the ground, because it doesn't you're not convicted about this thirteen pounds stand on your back, but more power to you, you know. Yeah. And in fact, sometimes being able to hunt off the ground gives you an advantage because the deer are pressured where the trees are, you know, the hangarble trees. You know, if if you're in an area that a climbing stand can go up any of the trees, well they probably you are taking them up those trees quite a bit. But sometimes a saddle will get you, you know, one stick high, and that's most people won't do that, or you can just hunt on the ground with your stuff still in your back, and that's what we did that evening. Actually, we we were what we were doing. So we're targeting these pinch points where like marshes would come close together and they'd be like a little strip of land right there, and uh, you can kind of cross that stuff. Sometimes it was muddy, but that's that would funnel the deer, right It's like a classic pinch point. We crossed one, and all of a sudden we start running into deer sign right away on the other side, which is weird. I don't know if that I think that's a telling thing as to the morning and evening movement. I'm trying to figure this out. So this is actually on the flower on the podcast, but this thought just came to me. I think that in that spot, when those deer are using that pinch point, they are moving towards that side of it, uh in the evenings and they kind of hang up and they leave like staging area type sign right there. And that's why there was no sign on the other side of the pinch point, because as soon as they pushed through it, there off to the races to go do whatever they do after dark. Yes, but closer to the human stuff, yes, exactly. Yeah. So on the other side where we were seeing the sign, I think that's where you see evening movement. So maybe that's something for us to keep in mind going forward. We actually quickly had an encounter and uh, to make a not great story, you know pretty sure two bucks. You spot a buck as we're walking, he's looking at us, and you hit a can call because you've you know, used those your whole life, right. I've got some inside information from a buddy there who says that the can calls, the ticket and in the South is a thing, you know what I mean, must be can calls or you know, I think they sound silly. I think they do too. But guess what the deer don't We pulled out a call, a can call in this buck from about one fifty comes walking straight to us, straight and we've seen us. He was an eyeballing me at and he goes behind a tree and we all hit the ground. There's four of us, Okay, in the middle of the kind of the open hardwoods. We hit the ground. Like I said, long story short, these two bucks come and just cannot stand it. But they eventually before we can get a shot, Uh, they hit our wind and go to Bliss So, um, we know the wind was being weird right there. We had established before this hunt that your standards were a little lower than mine for this trip. You you have a freezer that needs maybe a deer or two more in it, and um, I'm pretty good on meat. I actually have, um a couple of plays. There's a church that I know of that needs some meat for a Wednesday meal program they do. So that's kind of what I'm hunting for at the moment, is to kind of share some meat. Um, you need a little bit more for your family. Um, so you're you don't have as high standards as I do. In the buck that I see is it's probably not a deer that I want to shoot, So I just quickly go into caller mode and you go into hunter mode, and it's kind of like the old days, really, except I don't have the camera. Well I didn't really realize there was two bucks. Uh, And the buck that I see is not a deer old shoot. But the buck that shows up first in our shooting lane is a pretty nice deer. He's like at the ears eight point, probably like a three year old, And for me that qualifies like I was like, oh gosh, it's a nice buck. Well he smells us. We're trying to like get the whole thing on film and and all that. It was crazy. Yeah, it was a wild deal. Um, but it kind of it kind of started getting laid on us after that, and we we kind of just went to hunting on the ground, spread out through that pinch and oh well, um, funny enough, there ends up being six guys and stuff for right. So after this deer encounter, like five or ten minutes later, we look up and Yonder comes in Arkansas. And actually what we did was T Jones went over to do his classic I gotta pee and uh found a tree over there. And as soon as I got ready to pee and I got my pants unzipped, I look up and there's none other than Clay Nukem walking through the woods at me. Which is funny because if we were hunting in Arkansas without Clay Nwcomb, we would probably end up calling, like the public land guys out there, Clay Newcomb's running around, you know what I mean, Like, oh, there's Clay, because we're in Arkansas. Sure enough, it was Clay and Michael Spike as we call him Spike Mike, UM, and he's like, he's looking at us bewildered, like what are y'all doing here? This is my this is my pen and he's like, what do you mean? And we I'm I don't mean to paint clay in a bad lot. But it was just funny. He he got either mixed up on which penn he was going to or I don't know, um, but we all end up in the same place and it was pretty funny. Uh, and we we had a good time with it. Um. But from there we pretty much went about our boating business over the next few days, deal with the rain and stuff, and um, we didn't have any grade encounters too much there that evening, so we went to doing some map scouting and I was trying to find places that weren't open hardwoods. It would seem that the deer were not too much in the open hardwoods. That was the That was kind of the deal. And after that we really couldn't figure much out. Um, we were finding sign and not really finding deer. So that makes things makes things tough because you're like and not just like old rubs and I'd say signed me like fresh tracks that were laid down after the rain, which it was raining every twenty four hours, you know, so like it just got complicated. We zoned in on this other place that was a pretty long boat ride. Uh we kind of map scattered it out, and yet again Tyler Jones selflessly, self lessly kind of goes with the third spot. Um, not because it was worse, but it was a little bit longer walk, and um you you were like, I'll do that. It wasn't a terrible walk, though it was longer than that. You can end up getting a little bit I don't want to say lazy, but like relative on this stuff. Like it was longer than like the two yards I walked from the boat, but it still wasn't like a long public land walk. But that ended up being all right, yeah, I did. So one of those cases where like we talked about getting a bunch of guys mobilized in the morning and going a long ways trailer in your boat too, hopping the boat you know, in the river and drive for quite a ways as well, and the navigating the fog and the dead fall and floaters and all that stuff. It what ends up happening is essentially by the time we dropped Clay and then Casey and I get out at our spot. Um, I mean it's starting to get pretty, it's starting to get light. Yeah, and so uh I get I get to I split up from k C after I took off nine d layers of jackets. Somehow ended up that morning with every jacket I brought on the trip in my bag except for the big old giant what's that thing called the chamberlain or whatever. It's like it's a huge puffy you know. That's the only jacket I don't have in my bag. I got way too many clothes and it's like sixty five I think so, but it's muggy and it's kind of it was cold on the boat ride, right well, I had a bunch of jackets in my pack and on my body and I and we had rain gears. So we get to we get in there and like at your standard, just take some stuff off my stand because we gotta make comotion anyway right there. So I started taking all jackets and it takes me forever to get out of there, and finally you're like a bouting there in your on your you know, mini seeker and I, uh, I take off with with Eric and Tow and so we kind of it's wet, so we're gonna kind of walk slow and see what's ahead of us, but you know, at a d not super slow, but at a decent pace, and try to kinda scout our way in there because its getting daylight. We get, you know, several hundred yards from you and kind of starting to close in on the spot that we're going to. We're still a couple of maybe a couple hundred yards from where we had pinned, and uh, we're walking in between a couple of like slews or whatever. And I just like look over and and something catches my eye and it's a buck, just like in a in a jog with his head down. And I'm like, I couldn't even tell it was a buck other than just body, uh you know, stance and everything. So I just hit my knee immediately, and Eric does the same, and he's probably like a good five six seven yards away from me or so behind me, And I said, it's a buck, and uh so I like shed my backpack real quick, put my ball on the ground, and grab the can out right because it seemed to work before, and flip that can and then I and then I grabbed an arrow out of my quiver, knock it on, flip the release or the rest up and put it, you know, upright. And when I look up, I see the deer at like a hundred yards coming straight at us. Dude, just walking straight at us. And I'm like, no way, man, and um so anyway, I tell Eric he's coming, he's coming to us. So he's coming as for a secon there and he kind of goes behind a tree you can't see him, and and next thing I know he's going. He's kind of peeled off and going down wind. Which the wind. Again we the wind was not what it was supposed to be very often. I don't know how this is this thing. It affects like all the slews and everything somehow affect this. And in river country this is the thing. This is a thing anyways, like a large body of water will affect the wind in multiple ways. And one of the things with rivers is like you'll have these straightaways and a wind will almost go off by half of the cardinal too. And I don't mean Eric, stop getting excited back there. When I say the world Cardinal, I don't mean baseball, sir. I'm talking about like a direction, So half of an Albert bluholes. So yeah, so uh half a yaddi. Um. So like, if it's supposed to be a west, you can have a a strong northwest and be consistent. We had we had a one eight both of us one day, half the way it was supposed to be, I mean, And so I think that, Uh, this is another sentiment that people of the culture of that area tend to have when you talk to them, or people that have hunted the area, is they don't ever they never talk about the wind. They never like regard the wind. They go in and hunt spots and sometimes the wind works out for him and sometimes it's kind of bad. But either way, in the end, those deer are very roaming throughout that stuff, and so you always kind of have a chance, you know what I mean. So our buddy that we talked to that hunts there a lot, um he like, I try to get this out of him, and he told me, but then he's also kind of telling me other stuff too. He's like, yeah, man, you kind of want to blow your wind at the water. And then he's like, yeah, I'm deer in the water, you know. It's like, yeah, it's it's kind of like, okay, well, which which one? I'll tell you this. It's actually, if you can fully let go of that something you like, you gotta have the wind blow in a certain direction, it's kind of refreshing. It's like, man, I just go find a good looking spot on the map and go hunting, and it may turn out for you, you you know, but it certainly didn't a whole lot for us on this trip. But I think that it would end in the rut or something like that right posts a hard time, especially if you don't have like the classic Midwest like oh we left some standing corner or whatever, you know, a food destination. Anyway, So, um, Buck's coming at us, and um he starts to head peel off down wind to try to get our wind. And um, it's a nasty day, like I said, sixty five, kind of muggy, rainy, wet, everything's wet, and um I pulled my range finder up to start ranging trees. Well, the first tree I hit, I can barely even see through my Like it's dark, not dark, but like it's not fully light, you know, it's it's shooting light by probably twenty five minutes. But uh, it's it's a dark day, cloudy, cloudy. There's like storm clouds going over, like dark clouds too. So I can remember like it being like sunrise and kind of bright and then like ten minutes later getting darker. Yeah yeah, oh my my range front of lens is foggy too, And so I looked through. I finally a find a tree in the in it and I hit the um range button and I've got a red display. Dude, the whole thing turned red, I mean because it just it radiates through the fog, you know what I mean. It's like it's like if you just had a foggy windshield and hadn't put your defrost on, and then you let somebody shine the bright lights and you coming and at you on a two lane can't see nothing. It just blind you, right, And that's what happened. Well, I'm like, dad, gum, I'm start to freak out, you know, I kind of wipe my my deal and my lens a little bit, and I'm trying to range the stuff, and he's coming and I can't move the whole time because every time I comes out from a tree, he's looking and um, and so he finally sees us when he's probably about I don't know fifty right. He sees me um and stands there for a second and then thinks that's not that's not something, and so he just starts walking on and he's he's looking around different look, you know, trying to find this little faun or whatever it just can call him. And he gets um. He I'm getting some ranges. I get a range on a tree that's at twenty five. Like if it had been further than that, I don't know if i'd have been able to see it through my range finder because the display stays lit up like for a minute or whatever, so I have to I would have to wait a minute for it to go off. Well, the deer is moving pretty fast, he's getting down in and I've got one more hole really like shoot him in. So I range a tree at twenty five and I see him fixing a goal behind another giant gant or tree, and I'm like, I start to go, okay, if that's twenty five, then that tree back there he's let's see he's going me. I go, he's probably thirty five, thirty six, maybe thirty seven somewhere in there, just like ten yards are a little more from that tree is what I guessed. And it's still kind of dark and foggy, so hard to see, right, So I get um. So basically he goes behind the tree and I draw back, and he comes into my window and I gotta shoot over this like over like this bent over tree. Basically this little one, little sapling, I gotta shoot under it, off the ground. So I draw back. He comes out from the tree and I grunt stopping perfect right in the whole of that bent tree. And I'm thinking he's amped up. He's already kind of seen something. Uh he's called he's been called to. This deer is at thirty five, thirty six. He's gonna he's in prime string jumping territory right here, right. So I put my my put my thirty like about chess line. Bottom of his ches uts right and uh pull the trigger and it goes way low, dude, And I was so disappointed. Well he runs, he kind of runs off and start he blew, he blew once um and and I was like, day, go on, Well, maybe maybe he's amped up enough that you know, I can hit him aginn of the call called to him again. He doesn't come back. I'm kind of talking to the camera and and and uh, I turned back around, and I'm kind of just sitting there looking and it's been like a minute or two, and all of a sudden, there is another buck and he's closer to my wind at about fifty, working towards our wind again, and he's he's even bigger than the one I just shot at as far as like maturity and and overall rack really like he maan he may not have had as many times. I think he's a seven point and the one I shot at was a nine maybe ten, And but he's just a different dear for sure, thick body, and he goes long stories short, he goes basically uh starts getting close to my win. So I'm starting to hit him with that can a bunch at like fifty, and I'm kind of a little bit gunshot because I don't know the whole ranger thing, just like I kind of didn't feel good after that after missing him and having the range finder just blind me and all this stuff. So I didn't try to whip one out there at fifty adam or nothing. And I didn't have a whole lot of opportunities with all the brush, but I was I was using that call a bunch. He wanted to come so bad, dude, even after smelled Oh dude, even after he smelled me like I would. I saw him smell us, and I was like, for sure he smelled us, So I hit him again, and he starts like freaking out and like taking a little jog and steps and doing circles and trying to like come back to us, and then he finally went into the brush. After anything, that those deer lessensitive to human scent because there's so many duck hunters in the wood that never shoot him. That's a interesting thought, for sure, It's interesting thought. But potentially, yeah, because the evening before we kind of had this anything go on where deer smelled us but they still wanted to be there. Yeah, I don't know. It might be two or three, I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah, I don't know. Maybe that, I mean it definitely they were wanting the call. So either they were real ruddy or they are less sensitive for some reason. But yeah, he he ended up being wise enough to make his move and get out of there. So anyway, I go, and I figure out real quick that I'm pretty sure that the range was was off that I I projected for that range on that deer, and anyway, we we do a loop after that. Uh actually set up right there because it's like we saw bucks here, there's something going on. I'll shoot it dough if it comes by. We set up. We sat for probably two hours and then got down. I did a big loop, and on the way back, I went to where that deer peeled out and took off, you know you could see, and I arranged the closest big tree to me, and then went over and found where I was sitting on my knees in the dirt, and it it was like four yards it was. It was anywhere from nine to twelve ft probably, so three or four yards right, which would have put me at forty one from that spot. And so what I ended up doing was shooting a thirty yard pin at a forty one yard deer and putting it on his brisket. And he didn't blow and he didn't he Yeah, we reviewed the footage. He did not jump the string one bit, dude, and the Southern jump deer I know, dude, I think he was. I think he legit just thought there was a deer there and he was super relaxed, and forty one is kind of out of the range of that jumpy spot. That's right, it's further, it's further, so it's a little less explosion. Yeah, Like the margins around thirty yards is the jumpiest spot on a deer, Like they're far enough away that they have time to get out of the way, but they are still close enough to hear the bow go off and be like that's real out. Yeah, exactly. At forty one, it's like, you know, the teen yards makes a pretty good difference, you know. Yeah. Um So anyway, now I know it was it was a little weird, you know, because I haven't had quite a year that I wanted to I guess, um, but I have shot some nice bucks too, nice bucks. But I had the South Dakota deal, and I think I talked about everybody about the Oklahoma thing on the podcast as well, And those are two that have just been punting me a little bit, and then you know, this deal and I made good shots. The South Dakota deal was for sure on me. I mean it was the does the podcast audience know about the like some reasoning behind the Oklahoma miss I don't think I've talked about actually what happened. Since then, we talked about how it was just low but it left and right it felt good, so I inside, Yeah, I took my boat to the bow shop before we left on the Arkansas trip, and uh, my, my botech Brett, who's a good, good dude man um and really knowledgeable about this stuff. He he gets my boat once he gets off of whatever he's working on, and immediately just my boat disappears, and I'm just talking with people, you know, and I'm like, and I'm looking back, I'm like, Brett had like a mini like, holy smokes, this is bad thing, you know. And I didn't even know it at the time. He just kind of kept it quiet and started working on it. And I go back in there after he's getting he's gonna been working on it for probably fifteen minutes, and he's like, dude, your bow was three eights out and it was pulling sixty seven and says seventy one. And I was like, you got to be kidding me, dude. And for those of you who don't know, you probably do. But what that means is Tyler was not shooting his arrow at the loss the orchrajectory in which he thought he was. Yeah, so so fps per pound? How much is that? Like? Five? I believe it's it's gonna depend on the bow, but three to five is probably pretty good. So if you say three on the bottom end, four pounds, it's twelve ft per second slower five it's twenty right, sure, I mean that's that's uh, making your two eighty two ft per second arrow go to sixty or less? Yeah, or no, sorry, to sixty five or less. You know, so at forty eight yards forty seven yards, that's a that's a difference, you know what I mean? And I mean it just it may it hurts, It hurts, yeah, and that's just. But that's the nature of the baseball man. We go, we go hard where we go, and uh, we don't always have as much time as we'd like to go back to the bowshop and make sure everything's shooting through paper good you know. Nobody does though, dude, No, I mean they don't unless you are just that guy. And some people, some people are close to a real good shop. Maybe, but that's not it's not practical to go to bowshop every week. It's not. It's not practical. Put your bowl on a press every week or to check your poundedge or whatever. It's a thing that happens. It's not anything against a bow either, you know, Like dude, I'm telling you, we put our stuff through some russ conditions. We do. And uh, that's that's why it's impressive that they hold up as good as they do. Let's tell you the truth. That's right. Um, But yeah, so that's a that's a the bow shooting good now and the the the miss there, you know, it's it's on me because I miss judge the distance. But uh, there's some pretty good excuses I think I have there. Um that may at least for me. You may be thinking I'm a clown. So that's fine, But I look at it and I justified as like, you know what, I felt confident. I thought I had judged it correctly. But it just that's the way both hunting goes. We can talk about this kind of stuff with Clay and uh, Clay, I think his a lining was you gotta shoot to kill, and he said he grew up with a different mentality of like you just shoot him twenty yards an inn and you're absolutely sure the shot. And I'm not saying by any means that you shouldn't be sure of your shot. But I think that all three of us are pretty much an agreeance that, um, you're gambling when you're using archer equipment in general. Like it's just the way archery hunting goes. Uh, And these um wildlife departments understand that archery is less lethal than a gun. That is how it is. Now somebody out there's yelling because like, actually arrows are more lethal than bos. But if all things considered, you throw the shot into the mix scot then uh, they have a lower lethality and so like they figure that in for that. And you know what, nothing's wasted in the world. Uh, you know in coyotes and maggots, all that stuff's gotta have something to eat. So it's gonna be fine. Guys, we don't worship these animals that we like him a whole lot. They're awesome. I respect him as one of God's creations. But I'm I'm not here to like just ruin my life because I'm missing deer happened to maybe nick one or something on it and trying hard to be a good shot at something you do. And so it's when you don't make the good shot. It's a little disappointing, but it's also you get over it because you you know that you haven't There's not a whole lot more you can do, right, There's always another rep, you know, if you got that mentality you grew up in sports, Always another rep you can do before you die. You know, if you take two steps two inches short of the line, that's a state championship loss, you know, or whatever. And I get that, I do, and like you've worked hard at it. There's a difference in in knowing your confidence level and understanding your limitations and just not knowing what you can or cannot perform. And do you know what I mean? Like if you're a guy who hasn't practiced much and you don't really know how good you're shooting, yeah, man, maybe work on that. But like if exactly where you're dialed at and you draw your bow back and you feel good about the shot, take shot, feel good about it, don't like, why would you not? I love watching birds, but dad gumm, it ain't nothing better than blacking out when you pull the trigger on the beer, you know what I mean, That's the best feeling in the world. I love that dude. But anyway, so yes, that that happened. Um, we've got some cool footage, Eric, got some cool footage of those bucks and the swampy They look like some dad gum Arkansas bucks. Like as soon as you hit the Red River, man, things change, you know. And Uh, anyway, we we we basically from there continued on with kind of uh what was happening before that, where we just struggle and we we did everything. We hunted all over the place. I mean a big swath of country, uh, I mean big part of the state, you know, just trying to like figure out is there a different habitat we can be in? Is there a different uh you know, should we be uh on hills or should we be in the bottoms? You know? How does this activity like? You know, Arkansas is one of those places that has a Picasso of of rut dates, so you can it ain't never good when you see a chruck on side roads in the tire sit sideways wheel. So sorry for that guy. This sign, by the way, this sign has been laid over for ten years and they will not fix it. Man, it's got vines growing on it. Um anyway, so yes, it was. The trip was overall we were trying, you know, trying different things, trying to make something happen, and we were struggling, and we were we were hunting out far from camp we had. The camp was awesome, but um, you know, it was definitely, uh, I guess, a tiring thing to go and hunt out for far from this stuff. But we were going to try hard because you know, uh, that's just kind of what we do. And so um, we we struggled and struggle to have deer encounters. But you did see what you thought might have been a board at one part did that did kind of almost shot a haul um and then I realized that it wasn't, so I didn't. I was being cautious. I wasn't drawn back on our animal that I was unsure of. But Greg and I were stalking in on this place, uh that we were gonna hang, but we're getting there kind of late. So we're being real quiet and cautious, and uh, I look over at forty Wars and there's a black thing chowing down on akrons, like, oh my gosh, that's a pig um. And then I got to look it in the ears. Didn't look right, and it ended up being a bear. I saw a black bear, uh at forty yards just eating acrons, not not carrying the world. Man, and it looked at us and didn't care. It was. It was so cool, man I uh. And we got to talk to Clay quite a bit about this. Um. Clay is very knowledgeable about stuff. And I might have mentioned this already, but like apparently Arkansas, the black bears in Arkansas were extrapated except for a certain area, and this bear would have had that gene. This is not a imported bear. This is a native Arkansas bear, which is pretty cool to me. Man. So and it had a real black face, you know, like it looked like a swamp bear. It was. It was neat like that made the trip for me for sure. You like, I've seen bears and the Rockies been close to him, but like, man, this bear, I mean, it's bear are like you know what I mean, Like from the South. We've sweated and dealt with the mosquitoes and stuff. You know, dude, it was cool. I uh. I tend to lift through you and your experiences went. We're on the same hunt, and I like the bear kind of made the trip for me too. And I didn't even see it, you know, but like the footage that Greg guys pretty immaculates. Yeah, I mean it is cool. So this bear is just channeling Acrens. I guess it's being loud in his head, you know, kind of like you eating a granola bar. But um, it's also real wet, so our steps are real quiet, and Gregg's sneaks up to about thirty yards and I give this bear a few squeaks, hoping that maybe it'll come our way. Well it doesn't come our way, but at least kind of like it looks at us. So it's primo. Man, it's very neat. But that was actually probably the highlight of my trip. I didn't I really struggle on this trip to have good deer encounters. I got a little enamored with some some places and some sign and I was really trying to figure things out. And man, quite honestly, if you're conscience, if you're trying completely new areas every hunt, you can figure out some things, but you can also strike out a lot too. So like about halfway through the trip, I decided to dedicate myself to like, I don't know, sixty acre area, you know, trying to figure that out. And I might have figured out some things, but I still didn't see many deer. And then on the last day we kind of get got a little bit uh wild, you could say, just you know, the boat is already what you might call creative access, but we decided to get like pretty super creative with their access. That day things got western. Man. Uh So, what we decided it was Clay was not gonna go boating that morning. Um, and so I was. I was trying to decide what to do. I had the hay early that that night before, uh so I didn't really get in on any of the planet. So I woke up and ask Ksey, what are you doing? He told me where he's going, and I was like, man, we're kind of running late that morning. We're getting tired in the trip, you know, and just not making uh you know, not moving fast. And so it's it's getting late and you know, it's probably like four or forty five, and I gotta figure something out. And I'm thinking, man, if casey like where I really want to go, I can get in by walking, but it's gonna be a mile at least walk, which is pretty hard considering this this terrain. And then I'm also gonna have to have hip hip waiters to get in there because it's rained a bunch and uh, we've got hip waiters, um, And I'm pretty I'm pretty like, man, this is gonna be something, you know, I have to be all in on and I'm trying to decide, but I don't want Casey. Basically, if he takes me in the boat, he's gotta be the exact opposite way of the way he's going and he is not going to get in there till late late. And so I hop in the truck and I'm I kind of got this ide in I'm trying to run him through it. And I'm like, I'm gonna walk in, but can you pick me up because that'll make this a lot nicer if you can, you know, because it's like a five hundred yard walk out, um, depending on where I actually set up. So Eric and I go and uh, we walk in from this from you know, road access or whatever, and we have to cross like two or three like major slew slash creek systems that are flowing pretty good. That are I mean, one of them came within probably three inches of our top of our waiters or so on. The hip waiters. But we made it across and we we get back in here, and this is the thing. I struggled a lot, like Casey last year. I struggled this year too, but like I mean, I had had to fund last year too, But this was one of the better spots I found last year that we hunted, and I was like, I just want to get give it a try. You know, I saw deer in there, so we're struggling to see deer right now. We go in there, we walk a mile in. Of course, we're late, um getting in there because overall everybody's late that morning, and um, we're walking in hit boots for a mile, you know. And we we get in there. We get to the spot that I hung and I was like, yeah, it's pretty good, but I kind of really want to see this stuff up, you know, a little bit further up this way. So we continue on end and we kind of are working our way through this country and I kind of come around a dead fall and I see a ginormous scrape like on a just scrape tree if you've ever seen it. And the scrape is really not like opened up in a ginormous fashion, but it's muddy, so they're like tracks in like a five yard diameter and like stomped in the mud. I can see it clear as day in the leaves, you know. When I come around from like twenty thirty yards away, and I was like, there's scrape right there. It's like I'll walk over to it. And I'm like thinking, man, it's kind of open up right here, you know, like I'm just gonna get trying to get shot in here and make this happen. It's getting pretty light, you know, Son's gonna come up pretty quick. I mean it's already it's already light, but the sun's gon actually come above the horizon pretty quick. And so we're trying to make us tree work for forever, and we're looking, looking, looking, cannot make it work. I got poison ivy last a couple of weeks ago on the public Land, Texas hunt and stuff that we did. Me and Michael both got it. Michael got it worse than me, and so I was like, I don't really want to hang in this poison ivy tree that's pretty much perfect for us. So we get on the ground, me and Eric do, and we're sitting on basically leaned up against two trees in the ground, just straight up Arkansas hill billy style, you know, and he's got pretty good cover. I'm pretty wide open, but I'm we're both in the shadows and the sun is kind of behind us, you know, and we're sitting you know, blowing our wind to where I mean it's open and I can't see any deer for a long ways. I'm like, this good, good setup. We'll have something cruise by. You know, wind is blowing into this thick stuff and they're gonna cruise up and down this thing, trying to win you know, windows potentially well windows, windows, that's it, uh, trying to smell those and window you mean yeah, yeah, So everybody's got a dose story, right, Yeah. So I'm gonna not make this last a whole lot longer. Um if y'all don't know, uh, so you might be new to us, uh from a meat eat your audience or something. I appreciate y'all being here. This is how the Element podcast goes. It's a lot of storytelling, a lot of fun. We laugh a lot, uh, and we have inside jokes and the more you listen, the more you're gonna be in on the jokes. There's this funny meme that Tyler likes to talk about where there's uh, like this delivery truck that maybe like as a bread truck or something. There's like two ladies kind of laughing on the side of the truck, and then there's this real dude sending here laughing too. And the caption reads, me listening to my favorite podcasters. That guy can beat you if you listen to that's the inside joke. I uh were Tyler coined this phrase whenever I went and uh hunted elk in Arizona and I shot a cow. It was to on the big long story of the cow. And um. Then Tyler's like, you know, everybody's got no story, man, and it's a metaphor as our buddy Clay likes to talk about for how uh sometimes you're hunting. Story might be more interested more interesting to using these to other people, but Tyler, this one is interesting to me. It's pretty cool. Uh So anyway, Um, We're sitting there for a while and just chilling and I kind of look over. I don't know if something I heard something or what. Sometimes I think that I either hear or actually see something out of periphery or something and I don't really realize that something clued me into those deer. I just feel like I'm just scanning, but maybe something actually did clue me in and I don't ever realize it. Anyway, long story short, the uh the that I look over to this gap and like probably at eighty yards or so, maybe a little bit further hunter yards, there are a bunch of deer moving through the timber. I can't really see how many or what, but they're moving fast, like maybe getting chased by a buck. And I'm like, dear, and he's like seven seven yards behind me, so he can't really hear me. Great, I said loud enough he hears me. He gets the camera kind of rolling and these deer getting closer, and I'm like, oh man, So I put my bow up on my knee, on my leg and kind of get a vertical and uh range, start ranging some trees to make sure and basically, again long story short, these does come in kind of see me. Um there's four of them, and there there they come. They're coming towards us. Man. They get to like forty they start seeing us. The lead one sees us, and the other three just they should be able to see us, and they're looking at where that deer is looking. But they just like don't they just don't take it serious, you know what I mean for some reason, they do that a lot. Well they uh they The leado finally works breaks through her fear and she comes, I had finally ranged a tree at like thirty and uh and I knew, I mean it was thirty two. I think it's what I arranged it at. And she comes kind of like south of that a little bit, and I'm like, she, I'm looking at im like she's got to be right there at thirty two thirty four or something like that. She's winning a short window there, which is prime string jumping distance, right, and she's pretty amped up, and uh, and they're all kind of now they're kind of all being weird. The three are kind of standing back for a second, and um, she goes behind these two trees that are small, but it's they're like so close together stacked that, um, they make kind of a little wall. And she she puts her her head is right behind them, and then she just kind of looks the other way, and I'm like, what she's She's seriously doing that. She's trying to trick me, you know, and uh, and then she kind of looks like ahead, she's broadside, she's looking straight ahead, and I can see her head kind of moved through the cracking those two trees. Well, I'm like, man, it's kind of now or never. I feel like, so I pull, I go ahead and draw back, and um, when I do, I know what's it's gonna happen because there's three other ones looking at me, right, but I got I mean, this is this is the chance, because otherwise they're all gonna be looking at us, you know, the whole time. Anyway, So I pulled back, drawback. They freak out. Of course, I have to stick my bow into the sun out of the shadow, and I draw back. The three just go nuts, start blowing and running, and the one that I was gonna shoot is um uh. She takes like two quick steps like oh, what's going on? And then she stops to see what's going on in her head and the majority of her shoulder is behind this gigantic oak and I can just barely see the crease A joke, that's right, And I can barely see the crease. And so I'm like, I'm gonna give myself a tiny bit of margin there and just put it, you know, behind the crease a little bit. And I also put my thirty again on like on her breastbone. Essentially, Man, let me tell you something, Tyler. You do a lot of aiming that is outside of the entered. This deer is at thirty yards, so I'm gonna use my thirty yard pen. Yeah, you do a lot of that. Yeah, that's uh, and it's good. It's premeditated, a good thing to think about and do. But it's just it's it's strange, strange in the right word. It's interesting to me how often you are thinking about stuff like that. I a lot of a lot of that is, like said, premeditated. So I think about do I have uh, twenty seven to you know, forty yard shot? And if I do, what should I do? And then you know, things kind of happen quick and sometimes you make the wrong decision. But anyway, I put it like on her sternal, you know, low the thirty and pull the trigger and it goes good. And she did, in fact jump the strings. She did in fact jump the string quite a bit. Actually it appears because it hit above the midline. But if you know much you know that they're the high back long is deadly and I and when I when I got to her, the lungs were completely had a hole like there wasn't it wasn't a fringe shot, it was through through the lungs and um, yeah, she she literally ran into the thickest brush ten yards away and I was pretty sure I heard her crash and I was like, that was awesome. She literally I shot her probably at thirty two or so. She probably ran less than that. I mean, it was like over faster than you could imagine. And uh, I guess the rest is kind of just cool stuff you'll see on video where you know, I I drag her five hundred yards with guts in because I'm going through swamps and stuff to get to where we're meeting case. And we had to like pre plan all this because we didn't have service. So I was like, all, here's two pins. If I can't get to this one, there's our backup pin. I'll meet you there for a toilet paper and the tree, because we have this system of if you see tilt paper, I need to do this, that and the other. And then there's also like this whole thing where if hey if it's noon and I'm not there, go to the truck. And that's why I was worried about that, because we actually come wet. Man, I never time things outright. I'm always five minutes like. But I was on the dawn living and that's a there's a there was a lot of moving parts to make a living thirty happen. Yeah, surprised, and um uh we drove past both the pins and you weren't it either. I'm like, gum it, where's yeah, we were trying hard. Well, he saw you. And then so I saw y'all go up past us, and I was like, man, I think I can cross this slough potentially and get a little bit further on the point because it was all flooded back in there. You having to look through the woods, you know. And so I crossed this sloo and I get out there and y'all are coming back down like they're gonna miss us. And I'm like running out there trying to like wave my arms. And I had a jazz had the saddle with me because it's kind of silverish, you know, gray. It's like the only solid I had, and so I'm trying to wave that and Greg sees me. So yeah, y'all, I had gutted the deer down, you know, by the river there so that I could uh not get her muddy and the meat muddy or whatever. But anyway kind of got got her taken care of and put in the boat. And that was which is something I've kind of wanted to It's a dream, you know, you're in the boat. Is just awesome, and uh, congrats on that man. It's a big feat. Um. You know, it's probably kind of a common thing thrown around is like, you know, any deer on public lands, big deal. I mean, I try to not get too caught up with the public land doing anything. It is cool no matter what, you know. But this is a hard hunt and I think that that's the bigger thing than like a public land. It's just it was difficult and it was awesome that you were actually able to kill a deer on this trip because I, outside of um the time, I was kind of the caller for you. I really had no deer in range that I could choot. Yeah, it was real tough, So big congratulations on that man. And after that pretty much the story wraps. We do one more hunt and nobody really sees anything. But the bigger story to all this is just how much fun camp was just and and the hunt was an adventure itself. And then yes, camp was was awesome. Yes, and I cannot wait to go back and do that again because it's it is a lot of fun. And man, if you don't have good, enjoyable people to hunt with you, you are missing out on something. I understand. Being alone too, That's that's actually really nice sometimes as well. I'm only child, like I've said so, like, I enjoyed my lone time, but uh, being able to reflect on things with other people, bounce ideas off of people, and uh also like share some beliefs and talk about some things openly, openly and passionately, and also like challenge one another is a is a good thing to have. You know, Um, hey why did you do that in the woods? Or hey, what do you think about this scripture? Or whatever it is? Man, having people that you can talk about that kind of stuff with, uh means a lot. And that's one of the things I enjoyed the most out of this trip. Me too, Man as great as great. Well, we're gonna get old Clay on the on the podcast. One of these days and uh, maybe do some other hunting with him. We've already talked about it. We've already started playing some stuff and we're seeing lots of deer right now. Do we have to stop in here? Uh No, the stuff's at my house, I believe. But yeah, there's some deer around home, so maybe, uh, there's still some deer hunting to do. I know we've got one more trip that will happen at some point, and uh, we're probably gonna see our friend Mark Kenyon at some point, igine, so you might have well hear from old Mark Kenyon on there. So uh, I hope that y'all have a very merry Christmas. I think this what this episode? She release some time right before. Yeah, we may get one more and before who knows. Who knows. Guys, if you have if you have a tag, it's still deer season where you are, So get out there and get after it. Remember to work hard and remember this is your element. Live in it.

Save this episode