00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan in this episode number two eight, and today I'm sharing the story of my hunt for the buck known as Frank, the largest buck I've ever had the privilege of hunting. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by Onyx and I I don't know, Um what am I trying to say? I guess I don't have the right words to describe how excited I am for this one. It's a story I'm excited to share. Um. And we'll get right to it because I've had a lot of people want to know, like when are you gonna tell the story? When you canna tell the story? So we're gonna finally tell the story. Um, I got Spencer here with me, I got Dan here with me to help break down the story of my hunt for Frank, And UM, I gotta I gotta apologize, right Dan, Spencer, you knew this, but I was was kind of playing at low key on this buck. Um. But but now we can tell the full, the full story, right, Dan. Yeah, Well, the first thing you need to do, I feel, is tell everybody why you kept this all low key. Well, there's this buck that I was hunting this year, and he was not normal for where I hunt, very abnormal for where I hunt, and I was just when this buck showed up, it was a kind of deer that would would gain a lot of attention. And I was kind of thinking, you know what, I don't need any extra added attention to what's happening here or any extra pressure on me with this hunt. I was kind of like, you know, I don't want to jinx anything. I don't wanna you know. I just felt like I should just kind of hunt, just try to take care of the hunt myself without all the other stuff going on. And and then if it all came together or whenever it all, you know, one way or another, whenever it concluded, I would talk about some of the details and stuff. Um. And and now I'm very very fortunate that I can actually now share everything without needing worry at all because it came together the way I wanted it to. But but yeah, man, this this this buck, frank Um, it was like a once in a lifetime probably buck in Michigan. Um. So I'll break that down a little more maybe once we get into the story. But this book is is really big or where I hunt, he's not. He's not once in a lifetime maybe in Michigan, but he's a once in a lifetime deer anywhere. Yeah, I think white tails, I think for most people, Yeah, for sure. Um, and he's he's he's big. I mean it's like blow your mind, like holy shit big um, the kind of this is the biggest deer I've ever seen while deer hunting in my life. And um, I've seen maybe only two other deer bigger during the summer. Like I've been on some summer scouting trips, you know, on glass and being fields, and I've seen a buck that was bigger in Iowa once. And I saw a buck that was probably bigger than this or right in that ballpark in Ohio once. Um, otherwise, this is probably the biggest deer. Um. So yeah, it was. It was very unexpected like that. These deer do not they're not around where I hunt. So I feel like I was kind of like, you know, maybe maybe Dan, you know, somehow I rubbed off your Aowa good luck on me and and one of those deer knuck over the border to Michigan because that's what I felt like. So he was he was a secret to the wired hunt community. But what about too, like the other hunters in your area? Did people know about this year? So that's a good question. I don't know. I wondered about that. I have a hard time believing that he was a complete secret. UM. But I'm not like terribly tapped into the local community. UM. I know some of my neighbors, but but most of them ortin deer hunters. UM. A couple of deer hunters I do know weren't weren't really aware of him. There was one who was, UM. A friend of mine around here actually texted me one night and he's like, Dude, I I just nearly hit a giant drive in my truck past the property that you hunt. And I'm like, oh, really, UM, that's interesting, and I believe it was probably the same deer. UM. I think they're Actually he was well known because I was through some of the comments on your Instagram page and it sounds to me like there's a group of guys who were very familiar with this dear. Really yep, yep, I didn't see that. Yeah, so I think they called him Frankenstein. Oh that's what we called him. M hmm, that's what we call. Okay, well, I'm a jackass. Continue, Well, so you say frank and there was other people posting about Frankenstein. So I thought it was two different two different dear. Yeah, no, so so frank is short for Frankenstein. So I got that. Yeah, so we should we should just say what we should pride to just rewind to the very beginning of the story and then then and then we'll work our way through with with the added context now that I can add to the story. So, so frank first showed up. When he first showed up, he was an unnamed buck. Because this happened in two thousand sixteen, So the season two thousand and sixteen was that year I was hunting holy Field to using them all over the place. Um that I was seeing holy Field all the time. This is the year that I almost got a shot at him at forty yards but couldn't quite see him in my pins, so I didn't take the shot and then decided at the end of the season in December, you know what, I don't want to shoot this steer anymore. I want to give him one more year. So I passed on holy Field, um during muzzleloader season and and you know, had him around their bunch during that time period, and that I was getting pictures, and I had that encounter with holy Field in that kind of food plot system that I've talked about a lot that I've created here on the front side of this property that I got permission on well on December it was December nine, I think of two thousand and sixteen. I got a picture of this buck. I'm like, man, that's a nice ten point. I've never seen him before, never gotten pictures of him before. I got one picture of him in that food plot system, and then a couple of hours later, I got another picture of him maybe about a hundred and fifty two hundred yards away on another camera. Is the only time that buck showed up. I was thinking, he's probably like a He definitely looked like a three year old and he may be like thirty class type three and a half year old. So like, wow, that's that's a nice buck. Nice probably a bigger deer than holy Field even was that you're maybe here in that ballpark, but um, just kind of a random show up type deal. It was cool, but never saw any more pictures of him, never you know, nothing more from him. Didn't think a whole lot more about that deer. The off season comes and goes. Um, it's shed hunting season, shed hunting season of two thousand seventeen, and my number one goal is to try to find the shed from holy Field. So I'm shed hunting all over the place, hiked and hiking and hiked to put a ton of miles in the boots. No luck. Um got permission on a lot of different properties in the general area to shed hunt too, And on one of those different properties that I permission on, I found a soft, really nice shed sitting in some tall grass and I'm like, holy crap, that's holy Field shed. I go running over there pick it up, and it's not holy Field shed. It's a different buck. Jeez, this is a really nice shed, and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, my god, do I know this buck? I mean, first thing, first thought, no, I don't, because the only decently large buck was holy Field that I've been seeing in hunting. But then when I got to thinking about I was like, this kind of looks like that buck I got a picture of, And I went back looked at the trail Karen pictures enough, and sure enough it was that same buck I got pictures of on December ninth or tenth, or whatever that day was. So I found the shed, got one set of pictures of this deer. Cool, but still, you know, I didn't have a whole lot going for me. Now we get into the summer. It's the summer of two thousand seventeen. Um, really hoping how big it was he in two thousand sixteen? You think I thought it would be like one thirty or something like that, as a ten pointer, as three and a half reel ten? Yeah, okay, Um? And how like how deep into the neighbor's property was he when you found that she had? Did to seem realistic that this buck could someday like be irregular at your place. Um, it was definitely realistic that that's kind of buck that could pass by my property that I could hunt. Um, it wasn't so far away that it would be like impossible he would me certainly was in the reund of possibility he could show up. But the fact that he hadn't shown up except for one day on the property I could hunt, made me think it was unlikely like this property to hunt. I almost never ever get random bucks, Like it's always there's the bucks I get on the camera starting in September, and those are the same, dear, I see the entire year. I never get rut bucks that show up by surprise. I never get bucks that mysteriously show up in late season. It's always the same, dear. Just that's how it's always been on this on the spot. So given the fact that I had not seen this buck that season in two thousand and sixteen, or it is a two year old and two thousand and fifteen, I just never really he never really entered my thought as like, oh I might be able hunt him. Knew there's like a possibility, but it wasn't like a realistic thing. I was like, I really hope this dear has been around a bunch. I didn't really think it happened. So it takes me two thousand and sixteen again, or no starry two thousand seventeen and again it's all Holy Fields, right. If you guys remember last year was all about putting the plan together for holy Field. He was the number one buck everything was revolved around this deer. Yeah, exactly. Um, And a neighbor of mine had let me know like this this, uh, this woman knows that I'm a big deer hunter, and she happened to say, hey, I've been seeing a whole lot of deer in the field across from my house, including some like nice bucks. Like you should come and like sit in my driveway and look at these deers someday. So I go drive down the road to where this property is that this lady um is on and um, I go pull into her driveway and I sit there for the evening. This is maybe, I don't know, sometime in July, I would guess, maybe two seventeen, and a whole bunch of deer are piling out into this bean field, and eventually some bucks and then finally, like this mega buck pops out like a really big Michigan buck. And I actually, I'm pretty sure I posted a video of this on Instagram. I think last summer, I guess it would have been. And I'm on this buck. I'm like, I don't know this buck, Like this is a big deer. This is like one of the biggest deer I've ever seen around here. I can't believe this deer is in the general vicinity of of where I can hunt. Um. And at first I was hoping it's gonna be holy Field as I'm looking at him, like there's I don't think there's any way that could be holy Field. Just did not look like him at all, even if he even if holy Field blown up and like add some character points or something. Um, I just this did not look like him. An awesome and jeeves, this is like some different random buck, really nice, um, not too far away from where I can hunt, and that was exciting. So I saw that deer twice. UM. I think it was July, July or August. I can't remember saw him twice. But then the season starts and I started getting pictures of holy Field, start getting pictures of some other deer, but this random buck nothing. Um. So as the season progress, I kind of just forgot about that deer altogether. UM. I didn't think anything that dear again until December. Late December, holy Field has disappeared. You know, I had my chance in November didn't work out. Now it's December. I've shifted over to dough patrol because I haven't seen it or gotten pictures or anything of Holy Field, and like almost I don't know what it was, four weeks or something. I finally had to try to kill some doughs in this place. So me and Further are in dough patrol. We're sitting in the um. I got this box blind. We're sitting this box blind together trying to shoot a couple of doughs. Maybe it's like December twenty seven or eight or somewhere in that ballpark. And I remember looking down this long um opening and a bunch of deer start filing through it, and they're kind of like jogging, like something that's spooked him, it seemed like. And I see a couple of dolls and then a couple of little bucks, and the little buck stops and turns around look behind them, and then all of a sudden, this colossus mystery buck comes walking out and I'm like, Further, look at this thing. Holy shit, And um, it's this this giant deer the biggest year I've ever seen in Michigan um and it's on it's on the property I can hunt, and it was like unbelievable. And we talked about this during the podcast. Dan, I don't know I don't know if you remember, but I was like, I was calling him the mystery Buck. Do you remember that? Ye? Yes, the mystery Bucks showed up, walked through this opening, and disappeared. He was a couple hundred yards away, though maybe like three or four hundred yards away. Something like that. Passes through disappears, and that was that super exciting, but you know, just a quick thing. I checked cameras the next day or something, hoping maybe he'd been around. Nothing, no pictures of him. Um. I hunted the rest of the season, hoping to maybe see him. I was bringing my bow along with me just in case that bucks showed up again. Nothing. Continued rolling cameras through the rest of the winter, no pictures. That takes me though too. I think it was late January, maybe give or take somewhere around that place. And again I'm out in the vicinity of this property. I'm always, you know, checking this place out, always looking around in the summer. I'm glass in the fields in the winter, on glass and fields, trying to see where these bucks are, trying to know where I should shed hunt. And I get to a cut corn field in the general area and there's a bunch of deer feeding out in this cut cornfield, and I pulled the binos on this group of deer and a deer pooks picks up his head and it's a giant missing an antler though just once he's got one antler, but it's a huge five point side like and and right away I was like, oh my gosh, that's the buck. That's the mystery buck. And it's it's a it's it's it's relatively close to that same property, that same area where I saw him in December, so I got some video of him. Then now I'm thinking, okay, this is that that interestingly was actually right near where I found the shed too, So now I'm starting to put some pieces again. I'm realizing, Okay, the mystery buck is the same buck that I got the shed from from the spring and tails and seventeen. And then when I looked at the video from the January and two eighteen video, I connected that to the video of the summer tails and seventeen. I'm like, this is that same buck. Now he's shown up on two different properties that I can't hunt and the one property that can hunt. Um, but it's all kind of spread out like it's it's a wide area. This isn't all concentrated in one little spot. There's kind of a wide area that I've been seen. How many miles are you thinking? Not that wide? Like this is within like a two square mile area maybe Okay, And that's bring up to thousand the air like it's late winter earlier, well, I don't know, late January, early February, whatever you call that. And it's seen that he lost one ailer. So now I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna shed hunt like crazy to find this deer's antlers because this is the biggest deer that I've ever been able to shed hunt around, at least in Michigan. Biggest deer that's ever been around the spot that I can hunt. Um, So I thought, all, I'm gonna wait a week and that or wait a couple of days and keep glass in this field and hopefully see this big body deer out there again without his antler. No, they're both dropped, and then just scour that whole area. So I do that, and long story short, I never found the sheds. I walked and walked and walked and walked, walked every property could get permission on around there. Hoping to either find sign of holy Field being still alive or um finding this buck sheds no such luck. Moving on into the summer, I'm again hoping the holy Fields alive because I did find one of his antlers. Um, But driving around in the summer, never never saw either one of these deer. I didn't know what to expect. You know, September rolls around. I still don't have pictures of holy Field. I still don't have pictures of this other deer. So again I'm kind of thinking, man, I don't know what I'm gonna hunt this year here. Um. You know, as we talked about the podcast, I was kind of bumming there was a couple of three year olds, but I wasn't going to target one of them this year. So I kind of was at the point thinking that, you know, I'm just not going to shoot a buck on this on this property. I have permission here, I'm probably just gonna shoot does there just isn't a buck to hunt? Um? And I didn't want to, you know, shoot one of those three year olds. So that was kind of where things were until Halloween. And I told this story, you know, a month ago or a few weeks ago, A little bit um, but I left out the details about the buck, so I'll cover it again briefly. Basically, right Halloween, I got word that this giant buck had been seen on this property, um that I could hunt. My wife decided to call all him Frankenstein, So I started calling him Frank for short um. And then I got home two days later from the meetings I was at in Montana and I could start hunting on November two. So November two, I'm gonna hunt this front area where the buck was seen. And I don't see anything that morning, don't see anything that night, so that I'm like, ah, you know what, he's probably gone. Like at this point, I realized it's that same dear, Um, it's that same big buck, because I had some video footage and I could look at and um, I I just assumed though, all right, he showed up. This is the first time that bucks ever shown up on my property during the rut. He probably you know, he's got a core area somewhere on one of these neighbors. He hopped and it happened to find a hot dough, and that hot dough brought him on the farm I can hunt, and he was there locked on to her for a day or two. He's probably back to wherever you know he lived usually, so I figured it since I didn't see anything. On the second, I'm thinking, man, that was it? Like there's a once in a lifetime buck here on the property I can hunt, and of course I'm in Montana. You know. Um, what's funny is I was, uh, I was in meetings with the guys here at meat Eator and then I get a text message from my wife with this like cell phone video that she'd shot of this deer because she she saw this deer out in this field and she sent me a video clip that she took, and um, I look at this video. I'm like, holy, I mean, I couldn't believe it. I just like yelled out in the middle of a meeting I'm in when these guys are like, oh my god, look at this. This is on a place I can hunt, and I'm out here. It was crazy, and I was very stressed out because I was not there. Um, and it was you know, you know how that is. I mean, if that buck showed up and you're not there, and you know it's this time of year that they can just show up for a day or two and be gone. I'm like, oh my gosh, this is never gonna happen again. I'm gonna show up and he's gone. And that was it. Um, And so that's what I thought would happened. So so when when you got these when you got these pictures of this buck making an appearance on your property and you get back from montage and you start to, you know, hunt him, what was your initial thought process is how you were going to intercept this buck? What he was doing as far as using your property. So I knew very little, right, I mean, I had no pictures of him. I had never seen him on the property can hunt except for that one random pass through. So the only intel I had to work off of was this kind of from the road siding. My wife had this deer walking along the edge of a bean field. Um, that was it. So I I just took that. Okay, that's where he was seeing. And he was kind of cruising along the edge of that food plat system that I've talked about, the same food plat system where I got his picture in two thousands sixteen. And then you know, so now he's been seeing kind of cruising through there, and he was um in the general area. I think I'm trying to remember if it was if he was with the dough at the in the in the very beginning of he was. I don't know, but it was either he was sighted by himself and then he bumped it was chasing the dough or something. I guess. I it's all a blur to me at this point. But long story short, the basic I just remember thinking, like, he's got to be with the dough. He was chasing dose around. He's likely with the dough, and he was seen with that doughe in this general area. So that general area I had prepared to hunt holy Field. You know, all these different encounters I had with holy Field, many of them were right in the same general vicinity, right I've got I had a bail blind set up there to hunt that area of the south wind or southwest type winds or easterly winds. I had a tree stand that's kind of in the middle of the complex that's they're situated for northerly winds or different things. And I got a box blind's on the far south side of that complex that's used for gun season, like muzzler season used issue does from that so I had a couple of different options. So I thought, all right, I'm gonna hunt in this little area in the safest place from a wind perspective on that first day and hopefully learn something and see something. Because that wind ahead, if I remember right, it was kind of a westerly wind, and it's really hard to hunt this part of the property with any kind of westerly wind because the the food is all on the east side. Or sorry, the food is all on the west side. That's where I can hunt, but all the good bedding is on the east side, where I can't hunt. So there's just one little gap. There's like an open stretch here. It's like a power line type of thing, not a type thing's power line, and um, the way I can blow my wind down that pot power line and avoid blowing out the betting ears. So basically I got set up there. Um no, now I'm mixing my days up. Man, I'm losing my mind here, you guys. I don't even remember where I think I hunt. Maybe I did hunt there. I don't even remember where a hunt on the second now, but that's where I hunted the third. I don't know why I can't remember this but I hunted up in that general area on the second. Maybe I hunted the tree stand I don't know, or the food plat stand. But I hunted that area on the second, um, thinking i'd see him and um, and that didn't work out. What you were telling me, you were you were hunting over a scrape that was pretty active, if I remember correctly. No, no, no, I don't know. I don't know what why. I can't remember all this stuff. Did you even shoot a deer? I don't know what's going on that now I'm blacking out. But what I do remember is that I didn't see him in the second But I went back to the same general area on the evening of the third. And I do know that on the evening of the third, because of that westerly wind issue that I was telling me about, I had to set up in my saddle. I snuck in there with sticks and my saddle and set up in the timber. There's a little strip of timber that's just south of that food plot complex, and I could set up my saddle there and be able to see into that system these couple of little fields, UM, but also see back into some of the cover while not blowing out that area, and I thought, this is the closest I can get to where I think he'll come through. And as I told you guys three weeks ago or whatever it was that I told the first story about him, he ends up coming out behind a dough at I don't like an hour before dark comes out with that dough, right, And I told you guys about how he's out there like seventy yards. I try to grunt to him. Eventually he doesn't. He eventually stays with that dough breeds that do in front of me. So you know what happened there. But just now layer on top of that the fact that this buck is a five and a half year old, he's the biggest body deer I've ever seen in my life. Um, at least at least one of the one of the biggest body deers, deer that at least I've ever hunted. Um that dear jaw breaker that I hunted a number of years ago, he was very big body. But this deer, I just remember thinking it was a cow, just huge body, and then I mean just a really really really big ten pointer UM Boon and Crockett type caliber buck is what I'm thinking when I'm seeing this, dear, like there's there's I feel like when it comes to deer, you can just tell like, oh, yeah, that's a booner, like that kind of buck that just is like head and shoulders frame wise bigger than anything else you ever see. There's usually that kind of like oh wow that you get when you see a deer like that. That's what I got with this deer. Um mark, how many deer in Michigan have you seen that would like go over one fifty or go over one sixty? Like can you count the exact number of deer that size that you've seen? Yeah? I can, um that I've seen in person right myself? Um, two maybe all time over or over one sixty, over one sixty one of those, dear being, Well, no, I can think of uh one, two, two, three, maybe three bucks over one fifty that I've ever seen ever in Michigan. And these are all in the summer deer feeding and bean fields. Um. And then how many did you see yesterday? Thirty? Yeah? Exactly? Yeah man. And so that's that's what it was. That that's what was going through my mind this entire experience. It was just like this isn't gonna happen again? Like this is this unreal? Like it's like I had like as you just said to me, Dan, like did this even happen? Or are you just making it up? Like that was what was going in my head? Like this can't possibly be real. I can't be looking at a buck like this right now in Michigan on this little property that I'm hunting, this proper da hunt and we've talked about four it's ninety acres, but like fifty of that is open field, so there's only forty acres that are huntable, and of that a lot of it is just like little fence row type stuff. I mean, this is not the kind of place you would expect to see a buck like that, um, and I never have, like right, I mean, if you look back at all my years hunting in this spot, as some of these stories I've told, like the Holy Field stuff, I mean, you know, even when there is an old deer running around, they're usually like like that just has not This is not a spot that typically is producing large antler deer. The genetics just aren't great. There's not a whole lot of deer that get old any given near I think if I think back to every year that if hunted this spot or any of the neighboring areas, there's only ever one mature buck, if if any. Some years there's just nothing. UM. Some years there's a three year old or four year old UM. But there's never been any kind of giant like this to hunt. UM. So this is new. Do you feel that the absence of holy Field as a mature buck created a power vacuum for this buck to step in and claim a claim? Uh? I guess a good territory. That's one of the theories. That's one of the theories. Or it might be the flip which some people have like messaged me about, might have the presence of this buck pushed holy Field. Though maybe holy Field actually is alive, but he's on the decline, and this deer started hanging out more in the area and kind of nudged holy Field out of the area. He wasn't UM. I think it's more likely that what you proposed, And I think it's more likely the holy Field probably um probably died from an injury or winter or something. And I think that this buck lived somewhere in the general vicinity. And I think that maybe he caught a dough, caught wind of the dough, and ended up hanging out around this area. And then he bumped into another dough that was hot, and I think that maybe that all of a sudden he realized, well, this is a pretty nice spot. There's not a whole lot of hunting pressure, there's some good food, there's some good cover, there's lots of ladies. Um, I want to hang out here more. And that's kind of what seemed to happen, because you know, I thought he was gonna be there for a day or two, but he wasn't. Right. I had that close call with him on the third when he brought the dough. I had the next morning where I hunted for him, and that was the poop blind morning. Remember that one. Yeah, so so think about that story. Think about what I told you. I had to have an emergency number two inside of my hay Beell blind and I was doing that while watching a Booner type buck in front of me while crab walking my way in the hay Beell blind. That happened to me, Dan Man, I can't wait till I can't wait till your kid here's that story, and he's gonna just I mean, like it's one one of the kind of you are becoming. You're you're quickly becoming somebody in the hunting industry. And to have this story out, I mean it is that's a big time the fact I've becoming someone in the hunting industry because I pooped while watching a booner. It's just relatable because I bet you there's a lot of people that are listening to this right now or listen and follow. You're just like you know what I used to think Mark Kennyon was a huge sellout, only in it for the fame, but when he came come on air and he can say, listen, I poop in my blind just like everybody else does, just like everybody else. Do you think everybody else? Do you think everybody else poops in their blinds? Spencer? Do you poop in your blinds? I only odd to a tree stand, so I'll poop out of a tree stand hashtag hashtag skuy dump hashtag poop blinds. Oh Man, Yeah, And I wondered. I wondered, like am I having this tech because like I'm so nervous because this mega giant is coming towards me, like I gotta hold it together. But but yeah, so that whole thing happened. And if you're not a really wide range of competence, like I think, you're just setting yourself up. You knew you were going to kill that block, so you'd be, like you said, the bar super low with your whole audience. And yeah, I've been doing that for about ten years here with wired Hunt and setting a very low bar. So so, so that whole thing happened. And for some reason you are listening to this podcast and you do in here the poop Blind story or this whole store of this buck of Frank, Um, you should probably go back a couple of episodes, Dan, do you remember what episode it was and we talked about that. I think it was the Heartland bow Hunter episode. I think the first half of it. Yeah, the first half of it you and me talked about this buck and my you know, my November hunts, and I think the second half was with Heartland bow Hunter. So so in that episode, I go through the details, like all the details of these encounters. I don't want to rehash everything. Um, so listen to that, then come back to this know that this whole poop Blind story happened with this really big buck in front of me. Um, and that kind of I think it colors things a little bit differently. UM, I can't tell you how difficult it was and how much I battled back and forth inside my head like is this something that you share? Is is is something you don't share? You know? Because um, I usually share everything, right as far as my hunts and everything and a video everything, And I'm sharing pictures and I'm sharing screenshots and I'm telling about everything. I mean, I'm I'm very very very very very transparent. I tell you, when I pooped my blind I don't know if most people would tell that story. Well, I'm just glad that you decided not to, you know, do pictures with that story, and just well, well we'll trust you on the poop line story. Yeah. So I didn't share pictures that either, But but you know, usually everything I do, I share, and I was just like I didn't know what to do with this deer. I was like, I just this deer is like just it was like a different level. And I just kept thinking, man, this is just the kind of thing that it would just be like too much like stress. I felt like if I put it out there right now. I was already freaking out enough as it was that this deer was running around let alone, if like the whole world knew about it and everyone was, you know, just commenting on it, and you know, added hunting pressure all around you, just all that kind of stuff with stuff I was thinking about and just wondering like, maybe this is one of those stories you tell after the season. Um, it's kind of what I started thinking. Did anything with your experience with holy Field like change how you handled Frank? I mean, for example, the holy Field was so famous he had his own Instagram accounts that everybody knew about it. In me, like, did that change anything for how you know you addressed Frank to your Wired Hunt audience? Yeah, I want to make it clear that I did not create an Instagram account for holy Field. Somebody else created an Instagram for holy Field, which was pretty funny. Um, yeah, is that your Dan know? Um? But but yeah, it did color a little bit because yeah, right, I talked about this box so much a lot of people knew about this buck. I had people that I didn't know hunted around me, Um reach out and say, hey, I knew I saw this buck or I've been looking for this buck, or oh is this where that buck is? Or hey, I saw holy Field down the road, or like people stopping at my house and telling me about holy Field people I didn't know. Um, so all of that has just made me, you know, just try to think, like you know, I don't know. I mean, there's a certain level of privacy that any normal person would like to have, right And I did the same thing this year, dude. So I mean, I think everybody understands, what why you didn't post pictures of this dear? Yeah, And I mean, you know, it's just it's like a case by case things like I'd like to share as much as I possibly can, but sometimes I think maybe, you know, there's some things that that you know, as a hunter, as a person, you're just gonna keep yourself a little bit. So this is one of those things that I thought, you know, I'll keep this one close. I'll just kind of I'll just try to hunt this dear without it being out there and just see what happens. And I think it was probably the right call. I think it kind of kept the pressure a little bit lower. I mean, I I put a lot, like I strepped, I mean, anyone listening to this show knows, as you've heard me kind of like stream of thought talk all the time about how I hunt and that things that go on. Anyone that listens to this knows that like, I overstress, I over analyzed, I get really worked up about this stuff. I put a lot of pressure on myself. Um So with this deer, like, there was already enough of that just in my mind, thinking, Okay, there's this once in a lifetime buck and it was enough just that let alone if I had like everyone knowing about it and following it and all that kind of stuff. So I think I'm glad that I that I stuck to that decision because it made it. It made it was also a little bit fun just to like be able to talk about this deal with a couple of close friends and bounce back and forth without you know, just everything else kind of going on around. So there's also like the fact that it's this it becomes more about the story and not the antlers, right because we're you know, as hunters, we all dive into how big the antlers is. But if you take that out of the equation, you really start to follow along with the strategy. You follow along with what you were doing, what the deer was doing, and the overall story and not just the end, which is, hey, this is uh, you know, close to a Boone and Crockett deer. Yeah, yeah, so you know it was it was a mature buck, and I wouldn't have hunted him any differently, if you know, whether he was a hundred twenty buck or a hundred seventuck, would hunted the same way. Given that he was five and a half, He's still trying to kill him. But it just, you know, it was just something that I had not I had not experienced this. I've never been able to hunt a Boone and Crockett type buck in my life before like this, so it's new for me, new for everything. So so yeah, I mean it was just kind of high intensity. It was a really intense week there in early November when I was having all these encounters. Had the had the night when he came up with the dough bread the dough had the next morning with the poop blind, had the next had that next night when I had to shift spots because the wind, and then he came out past the poop blind again but not within range of the tricky stand I was hunting in and I had to watch that happening. Chased Dose around and he went down win into the poop blind and didn't seem to be bothered by that at all. So I thought, damn, I did a good job of bearing all that. So I felt good about that. And then the next day I did a running gun set up deep into this little thicket where he'd been with the dough that morning and then that night before where he took that dough snuck in there, did a really long roundabout way to get in there without you know, if I kind of based my plan on the assumption that he's only back in that thicket with that dough locked down with her again. So I just said, that's that's where he is. I just had to that was my assumption, and I decided to operate as if that was the truth. That's where he is. So if he's there, and with the wind direction we have in the access routes I have into this property, I had to go way to the far southern border of this property into a huge, rapping, long roundabout walk, like two hours before daylight to try to get on the back side of that where I was hoping they transition back to the main area where I think they were in the bed, And it worked out almost exactly like I was hoping it would. I got set up in there with my saddle, and at first light, here he comes walking right towards me, and he's raking a tree and he's flying like there's grass and long branches like flying up in the air over his shoulders, and he's got tall grass in his antlers, and it was just like the coolest thing I ever saw. And he's walking right towards and he's like eighty five yards eighty yards seventy five yards, seventy yards on the holy ship. This is gonna happen. Really excited, I got my bow in my hand, and then that dope pops out and she goes rounding the other direction. He follows her, and he goes walking by the poop blind again. And uh, I haven't thinking, jees o pete, if I had been there, if I just said sat in that same blind for all these now I thought that in my head, like if I just stayed there, I would have had him go past me three different times or two different times or something like that. But yeah, three, But the issue was the wind. I can never hunt there with that wind direction. It's a really tough spot to hunt without blowing out this entire bedding year. So I had those early November encounters like like a four day period or whatever, it was four or five days or something, and uh, and then I had to leave, if you remember, Dana had to leave for that meat eater hunt. So left for a week. It was all stressed out that he was gonna be around there and I'm not hunting him and gonna miss out my opportunity. But I can't back. Um, I had no pictures of him anywhere on this property, so it's like he vanished, and I kind of was like, well that was it, until not take that back. As I'm clicking through all the pictures, that's I'm thinking, and then I get to the last day of the last camera card I look at, and that morning, so the morning of the day that I went to go check the cameras, I got one set of pictures of him that morning, like a half hour before daylight. So like, holy crap, he's back. This is the only picture I had of him from that whole time period. Ball was gone and he's back. That morning, I got back to hunt that area. So now I'm excited, and I hunt the next three four days in that area into guns season a little bit and nothing, no more sightings, no more pictures. Um. I remember sitting out there and opening day guns season, I'm hearing all these gunshots all around me. I'm just thinking, man, he's probably dead, Like that's probably it, you know. Yeah. I had to keep telling myself, you know that I was really lucky and fortunate just who have had those encounters Like that's why. That's the thing. I kept trying to remind mysel off every day during that series of days where I was seeing him and not quite getting it done. There was like that that reptilian part of my brain or like the the the initial reaction part of me, like the emotional side, and it's like, son of a gun, you had you you almost had an opportunity, didn't come together, you didn't make quite the right choice or whatever, and he slipped through your fingers and you're never gonna see that buck again once in lifetime. Buck. But then half hour later, in my head, I'm thinking, man, you just got to appreciate it. You just need to appreciate the fact you got to like, you've never had an encounter like that ever, You've never been sitting and watch a deer like that? How cool is it just to see a deer like that, especially here in Michigan. Um So I kept trying to like tell myself that, like, just appreciate that experience. Season. Were you hunting with a gun or were you still hunting with the boat? I hunted with a gun opening day and the second day. I think the first two days I hunted with a gun. And then after not seeing him and not getting any pictures or anything, I was like, you know what, I don't know, I just I was I kind of decided I was going to bail out of that and just keep tabs on things. But I didn't want to over pressure it if you was still around there. At that point, I thought, you know, if he's still around, I should just lay out of here and and just see what happens, because obviously he's not moving in daylight. I was sitting in some spots where I would have thought I might have seen him if he was still doing something like he was he's doing. Um, I wasn't gonna go push into like these there's like one and man, Yeah, there's like one spot I can hunt that's kind of like good security cover, and I usually just leave that as like a sanctuary. UM. I definitely wouldn't want to push him there during gun season because there's neighbors that hunt like all all edges of it. UM, So I definitely didn't want to push in the stuffought. Well, maybe if he is alive, he's either hold up in that spot and I definitely don't want to push him out of there because he'll get blasted right away. Um, or he's there's some other little dark, heidi hole that he stays in that has allowed him to live through, you know, four previous gun seasons. Um, it's unlikely that he's gonna screw up. Here's fifth year. UM. So he's either dead or he's in the hidy hole, and that's just what it is. So my game plan then from that standpoint was to stay out and just observe as many nights as I could get out there where I could just sit and glass room a long distance. I would do that, and I would check cameras a little bit more often, um, but in a safe kind of way so I don't spook it driving there with a truck. Or four with check cameras and try to monitor UM. But I just didn't. It didn't seem like he was going to be a consistent buck. It seemed like he was here for that five days stretch with that dough and then he showed up. You know what was it? He showed up a week later, one camera, one second, you know, was one set of pictures, and you know, maybe maybe if I'm lucky, he might drop in a couple more times the rest of the year, but based off of history, I did not expect him to be consistent in any kind of any kind of way. So that that took me through November. So I got the one picture of him on the or fourteenth or whatever it was, UM, and then nothing until I checked cameras again late in November and I think it was November maybe, and checked cameras that day and looked at pictures, and interestingly, it was the same kind of scenario of all the cards I checked, no pictures of no pictures of no pictures of him. I get to the last card that I'm checking and the last set of pictures of that card. From that, like the middle of the night the night before there he is again. So he's alive still. It's almost the end of gun season. He's still alive and he's still passing through the property. Um. But it's it wasn't in daylight or anything. But that got me really excited again. So I went out hunted that next day. I didn't see anything, um, and then I had to go up to my northern Michigan property for a few days. So I when did that hunt, and all the while just thinking, well, you know, he's alive. He if he made it to November, he made it through gun season pretty much. Um. So now I'm thinking my head, well there's a chance. You know, I didn't really feel particularly strong about my late season chances with this deer, um because you know, he never had been a consistent buck in the late seasons in the past. But but the the one picture that I got of him in previous years was December nine in that food plot system and two sixteen, and then the one sighting that I had on this property of him was in December of two seventeen. Late December, though, so I knew it was like in the past, he has passed through in here in December, so I knew, like, there's this chance in my head that I was thinking, Man, it's just like I'm gonna have to get lucky, Like he's not here consistently. So maybe let's say, maybe he's gonna be here two days or three days or something like that randomly. I have no idea how to pick which one of those days is going to be, Like, how am I gonna know? I don't know. Um So in my head again, my plan was just keep observing as much as possible, check trail cameras when you can, and anytime you get a picture of him or you see him moving in daylight, then you pounce on that. Then you hunt him hard for the next day or two, and then he's probably gone again if you don't kill him, and then maybe he shows up a week or two later, and if you get some kind of intel that he's back, and then go hunt hard enough for another day or two. And that was because I want to try to balance, like I want him to drop in, but at the same time, I don't want to be hunting it every single day and spooking every day around and then he's never gonna come through again. This kind of in my head's at And then now we get too early December, and I start thinking, you know that whole strategy I just mentioned to you, that was kind of my game plan. I'm gonna like play careful hunt if I get some kind of intel. Then I started thinking, you're you're never going to get a chance like this again, Like this is a once in a lifetime chance. Is that strategy everything you could possibly do? Or is there more you can do? Like what is this? Is me talking to my head. I'm talking about something like where do you think this buck lives? And I say to myself, well, he doesn't live on the property I can hunt. He probably lives and this area maybe, or this area maybe, or this area maybe based on these different preseason sightings or winter sightings and all that kind of stuff. Where I found the shed where I saw him in January, where I saw him the summer, he might be over in that spot of that spot, And I was like, you know what, I need to go to him. I needed rather than waiting for that buck to come to me, maybe I need to go to him. Maybe I've got a chance to hunt some of these other properties. Now, over the all these years i've hunted in this general area, I've asked for permission on a bunch of different properties, and most of them have been knows. But I thought, well, maybe it can't hurt to try again. So December, like sixth or something, I'm thinking, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna try to get some new permission. So I called one landowner and I stopped by one other landowner's house that owners in my home. The other landowner didn't answer. Um, So I'm thinking, well, I'm just gonna keep you know, maybe next week, when I've got some more time, I'm gonna try these folks again and just see. Even though the chances are low, maybe maybe I can go out for December. It's been a no for October and November. Who knows, maybe nobody hunts in December. Maybe they'd be okay with me going out there a couple of days something like that. And for context, like you've shed hunted on some of the neighbors before a neighbor, Yes, I do have shed hunting permission on a handful of different properties in the general area, some neighbors, some that aren't neighbors, but in the general vicinity. Um, so I have had some shed hunting permission, but not hunting permission on a lot of these spots. So so that's where it's at. I don't end up getting any extra hunting permission. Um, but you know, I'm just going to continue this observation. And the morning of December seven, I'm doing a little bit of observation and I spot a big body deer out in the edge of this field, in this tall grass on the edge of it. Pulled the buyos and unbelievably it's Frank. And right away I was like, holy smokes, he's back. It's daylight. He's out there. Um, I'm hunting tonight. Changed all my plans. I gotta hold My wife's like, hey, I'm not. I'm not. We're not doing dinner tonight. I'm going hunting tonight. Uh, Frank's out there. I could watch him. I watched him walk the edge of this like tall grassy stuff and he was standing with a dough. And then Survivor comes walking up. You mus might remember this buck I've been calling Survivor. He's a he's Originally I thought it was a four year old. Now I think he's a three year old. He comes walking up to Frank and this dough and they actually start to spa. So Frank pushes survivor off, spars him, spooks him away, and the dough goes running away, and then Frank goes chasing the dough. So Frank is bird dog in the dough. Now it's December seven, and I'm thinking, Okay, maybe this is like some second rout action, you know, maybe there's a dough that came into heat the second time around. Frank's on that dough. I then watch him proceed into that food plot system. There's the same food plot system where I got a picture of him in sixteen, same spot where I had all these encounters with them earlier in the month, well the month prior. Watch him walk past the poop blind again, um feed in there, and then kind of follow that dope back into the neighboring bedding air this cover back in there. That's all I could see from my viewpoint. That was what I could see. So in my head, I'm thinking, Okay, I gotta hunt in there tonight. I pull up my weather app I look at the wind, and then my heart just sinks because it's the worst, just about the worst possible when you can possibly get to hunt in that area. And I'm like, oh, my God, of course, like this is my chance, and I've got this got awful wind, Like how can I hunt in there without totally screwing it up with this buck in there? So here, let me let me lay out this scenario. Right, we've I've kind of talked about a little bit, but I'll try to paint the picture just a little bit more. Imagine. Um, you've got the property line from my property that can hunt in the neighbors that I can't hunt on the neighbor's side. So this is to the east side is a bunch of really good thick cover and there's a bunch of deer better than there. To the west side, the property that can hunt is a cut bean field the north side of the creek, and then on the south side of the creek is where I put in this food plat system. Is a bunch of tall grass like CRP type stuff. There's the food plots that I've planted, and there's all this like Egyptian wheat and stuff that I've planted around the edges to provide some like cover from the larger fields and the openings in the road and never like that. So this blind that I have is on that edge between the beans and the food plat system, and then there's all this tall grass around it. Um. If I wanted to hunt there, which is where this deer passed by, and all these deer passed by, UM I had a west southwest wind, that west southwest wind would blow right into that big bedding area. If I wanted to hunt the tree stand that I have a little bit farther south, a west southwest wind blows into that same bedding area. UM. If I wanted to hunt that box blind that I have on the far south side, that wind blows right into that bedding are everything anything I can hunt around there were blow into that bedding era that I saw Frank in this doe go back into. So I only had two options. I know I had to hunt somewhere around there, but I need to make sure I could get a shot. Now, this was opening day of muzzleloader season in Michigan, so I knew I could go out there with a firearm. And this county that I'm hunting is one of the c w D Management counties in Michigan. And what that meant this year is that muzzloader season this year for those counties is opened up to any legal firearm, So I could go out there with a muzzloader. I could go out there with a shotgun. So I have a shotgun. I thought, I'm gonna go out there with a firearm. I can reach out there a little bit more. So this is a little more reach and I have with my bow. Um, so there's one tree stand I have. Again, these are all like edge type spots. Right. And over the years, Dan, We've talked about this a million times, how difficult of a time I have here because I can only hunt these edges. And I see all these deer back in the cover, but I can't hunt them. Um. So that was the same scenari here again. But but you know, I've been trying to improve this little area to make it at least a little bit more secure, so hopefully deer will move in daylight. And you know, over the years has worked decently well. Right, I had a bunch of encounters with the Holy field of had encounters with another deer. UM killed a three year old out there a couple of years ago, and now this buck Frank was out there. So so it was pretty cool to see the impact that this habitat work I've done in a really small ottle area has worked. I mean, all this stuff, all those encounters that I had with this buck, and all but one of the pictures um was all within like a five acre area, probably five or ten acres against something like that somewhere in that ballpark. Almost all that was in this little tiny spot. So I could hunt a tree stone they had in the far north side of the property. That would be the safest place to hunt because that west southwest wind would just cut like through the northern portion of the betting area. But this would put me two yards away from that food plot system where they were feeding that morning. So I thought, well, that'd be the safest place to hunt. But I don't want to shoot. I don't I'm not coning. I wouldn't shoot two undred yards with the shotgun. I thought one fifty was my max range I was setting. I'm not a big gun hunter. I hunt very rarely with a gun. I practice out to that distance, and that was that was my comfortable range of that gun. So I wouldn't be able shoot him if he came out back into that same place that I saw him that morning. I'd have to hope that he would come out into this bean field and hopefully feed out there with a dough. My theory was that if this is gonna work, that dough that he was with is hopefully going to come back out in the evening, and he would hopefully follow that dough. So that's why I want to hunt back in the same area. But I thought, given where she went in, and given that that a lot of deer had been feeding that food plot. This food plot, I've got a bunch of brassicas like turnips and rape and kale and stuff like that plane in there. So it's great late season once you get this cold weather, and so there's a bunch of deer feeding in in the morning as they all transitioned back to bed. So I was thinking in my head, it's most likely that these deer are going to come out into that food plot first, feed into that food plot for the first part of the night, and then maybe then they'll transition out to the to the cut being field possibly. So that was like where I really wanted to be. I wanted to be tight to that plot. But with that west southwest wind, if I hunted tight to the plot, the whole betting year scenario I just laid out for you would screw me. But I kept thinking, So I can hunt that tree stand I mentioned, or I could hunt the poop blend the poop blind that west southwest wind I know, right, UM would the west southwest wind, it would blow out the northern portion. Like if you imagine this betting air is like a square and you draw a line down the middle of it, like a horizontal line cutting in half, the northern portion of that betting air would get blown out. The southern portion would not get blown out. I saw the dough and Frank go into the southern portion of the betting air, so I had to sit. I was, you know, the whole morning, I'm debating back and forth with myself, looking at maps, thinking this through, texted a couple of bodies like I'm thinking this. I'm thinking this, What do you think? I'm just trying to think through, Like do I do I sit in the poop blind, which is riskier, but it presents me the best chances of a shot if he's in the southern portion. But if he's not in the southern portion, then I'm blowing him out of there before I even get a chance to see him. So or do I sit there? Or do I hunt the far northern tree standwich, which relatively safe, is low probability of him winning me. But is he going to come out to the shooting range. I don't know much less of a sure thing. So ultimately, after debating this all morning and into the afternoon, I decided, you gotta swing for the fences, like this is the kind of situation where you gotta try to kill him now. And what if if if he is bettered in the southern portion of the betting air, which is based off what I know about this area, based off where he went into, based on what I've seen, that is the most likely thing, based off how he's come the past couple of times, you know, in early November, when I saw him come out into this area, all but one of those times he came out south of the creek. So using all that intel, using what I saw that morning, I made a calculated that he most likely would come out to the south into that food plot, and if that's the case, I needed to be in the poop line. So I went and I washed all my hunting clothing. Again, I had watched it just like six days earlier or something, but I washed every piece of gear. I had took all that gear put it in an ozone box. I crushed or you know, ozoned everything. Um to do that. I sprayed down everything a a jillion times, all sorts of scent eliminating spray. I took the scent free shower. I made sure like I took all my scent control procedures, like to the UMP team, Like any any corner I might have cut in the past, or any tiny little thing that in the past maybe I didn't do just right. I tried to make sure I did it perfect this time. I was just thinking, man, like this is this is super risky. There's gonna be deer that are gonna be down wind. Anything you can do to reduce the chances of deer winning you, you gotta do so. I just like went o c D to the tenth degree. That afternoon. I charged my osonics unit and my old ozonics unit, so I two ozonics units that charged. I took every every trick I could probably think of. I'm thinking like, this is my one and only chance probably this buck. Now, Um, you gotta make it count. So I do all that. It's like two o'clock and I'm like, I'm gonna get that get in there um two o'clock. I do a really long roundabout route to get in um so that this west southwest wind has as as small of a chance to blow into that bedding as possible. So I approached from the north. I brought hip waiters in, got to the creek, put on my hip waiters, and then way did the creek for ways until I got to the back of this blind. Crawled up hopped into the back of the poop blind. It seemed appropriate that if I was gonna kill this buck, I should kill him from the poopline, where you know, the most momentous portions of these experiences happened. So I get in there, get all set up, get to ozonics units up there. I sprayed some nose jammer, made sure everything was situated well adjusted the windows, looked around me, tried to think through every different scenario, thought through where, you know, based off what I knew, where I most likely thought he might come out. Adjusted my seat, saw I was real far back. So I'm all situated there, and uh, the first hour or two goes by and there's like nothing moving around me, nothing coming out to the south of me, where I'm hoping this deer gonna be feeding the plot nothing to the north of me and this bean field. Um, and I'm thinking, man, your winds just blowing out that bedding year like, I would never do this otherwise, probably all the deer were in the north. They've all winded. You. Your sent control sucks. Your stupid hunter. You made a bad decision. This isn't gonna happen. And then I start seeing there's there's another field, like, there's this little like this, there's the food plus system. And if you go farther south and there's a strip of timber where I had that you know, running guns set up. I did that almost worked out. That's where the saddle hunt was that other day. Um, there's that thin strip of timber. And then there's another field south of that. I start seeing deer piling into that field. Doe doe doughe little buck, little buck, two year old buck, two year old buck, little buck, Doe doe doe, do dough big buck. Pull up my bios and there's Tran, this nice three year old that I've been seeing this year, like a pretty darn nice buck. He's out there feeding. And then I see survivor pop out there the other nice three year old out there, and I see another two year old. So like every deer I know is all feeding out in this other field like three yards away, four hundred yards away or something like that. And then my head, I'm just thinking, man, of course everything's out there tonight, you're sitting over here. If ever, if every deer is pile into that, that's probably where if Frank's gonna show up, that's probably where he's gonna show up. Like there's there must be a hot maybe that hot dough is over there. That's why there's so many bucks, an abnormally high number of bucks are all out there. I see bucks chasing around. Think, man, there's that hot dough. He's pulled every buck in the area. She's pulled every buck in the area. I keep on every day that comes out. I'm glass and just thinking it's gonna be Frank. But I don't see him. Um, but I keep thinking, if I see Frank over there, I'm gonna sneak out of the blind and belly crawl, Like I can't go walk in that way like they're gonna see me. But maybe I could sneak out of the blind, get on my belly and belly crawl for two yards or something, and maybe they'll edge my way up to the edge of that piece of timber. Maybe we'll get a shot at something that that way. But I never do end up seeing Frank. So I never do that because if I I didn't want to make that move then because then I would be blowing everything out, So that would basically be ruining my original plan. If I did that, well, it takes me to like, I don't know, ten fifteen minutes before the end of the night. At this point I thought, well, you tried. It didn't work out. Either he was in the bad area of the betting year and he winded you, or he's going to go out into that south field while as other deer and it's just it wasn't meant to be hit. You tried real quick. Before moving on any further, I want to take a quick pause for a moment to think our partners at White Tailed Properties and to mention their land beat video series over on their YouTube channel. If you're looking for some quick, helpful tips from some of the most well rounded white tail management experts out there, the white Tail Propers YouTube channel has got you covered. These guys their land specialists really know what they're talking about when it comes to buying and selling land, when it talks to hunting deer, when it comes to planning food plots or managing deer herds, or butchering deer, or improving timber stands or planning fruit trees. Are all sorts of stuff like that. They've got you covered. So after this podcast, that highly encourage you to head on over to the white Tail Properties YouTube channel. Check it out. Like I said, lots of great information and some great Hunt film type things as well, so hopefully you can take a look and enjoy those. And the other final thing I would mention on a very separate note, is related to Wired Hunt merchandise. Al right over the last six to seven months or something like that, people have wondered why doesn't the store over and wired hunt dot com work anymore? Where's your gear? Where are your hats? Where your shirts? Where your details? Well, that stuff now lives over on the Meat Eater dot com. That's where my new content is and that's where my merchandise is now too. So if you want a wired Hunt hat, if you want a Wired Hunt T shirt, if you want a Wired Hunt sticker, or decal. That's where you can find it in for now right now, which is December through Christmas. So December December eighteen, we're gonna give you a twenty off discount on all that Wired Hunt gear if you use promo code Wired. That's w I R E D figure. We'll run a whole bunch of nice little promotions here on Christmas. I told you last week about the deal with first Light. This week we're gonna run something with Wired to Hunt to thank you all for supporting this podcast and what I've been doing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. So get off. If you want to try out one of those hats or shirts or details with the promo code wired, just go to the meat Eater dot com head over the shop and you will see it all there. And then, are you getting frustrated at all with this buck? I mean, did you even have time because it sounded like you were pretty busy throughout the fall to let this buck sink in like I don't know. For me, I've I've been obsessed with a couple of year over my hunting career where I was almost had blinders on. Everything in my life revolved around this particular said particular buck did did did it get to that point with you? You know it in in fits and bursts like during that week or ten days during November where he was around during that period. Yeah, like I was obsessed. I was freaking out. I was seeing him every night. I was sitting over the maps, like going back and forth where I moved what I do, blah blah. But then after that week where he's around and now he's disappeared again, and then it was kind of like I was always thinking about it, and oh, I mean lots of times going out there to glasses there. I glassed a lot. I didn't hunt a bunch, but I was glassing a lot um every evening I could get away. Every morning, I could be you know, looking from that hill. I was doing that um. So yes and no, I just didn't feel like there was a super high chance he was gonna be out there. So it was always kind of like I was just hoping, like crossing all my fingers and toes, like gosh, I hope I get lucky and he shows back up. But I didn't have this like feeling as it was with Holy Field in past years, where I thought like I know he lives around here. He shows up so often. It's like every time you know he's out there, I just need to happen to be there. This time I was like, well, he's probably not. He's probably not there, but maybe. So when it was, it was a shorter time period too, right, I only really knew and was hunting Frank actively from you know, Halloween on until December seven, So it was five weeks of being obsessed to this buck versus you know, three years of the Holy Field. Um So it's different. But still it was really intense because it wasn't just you know it was it was it was he was a mature buck. I'm always always get excited and ramped up and stressed out, and I'm hunting a mature buck like that. But then it was also like realizing that this is an incredibly rare mature buck and a very rare opportunity. Um So that added a different level to it for sure. Like with this hunt, I think we know what's going to happen in the last fifteen minutes of the haunt, but you had another trip planned shortly after that. We're like, if it didn't happen with Frank here soon you just might not literally get a chant in and because you wouldn't be there. Yeah. Well I had a trip just before this, so I've been gone in northern Michigan for a while and then yeah, and then right after that, I had to go to Montana, which is where I'm right now. So yes, I had I had trips that I had to do bracketed on either side of this encounter. Um that really severely was going to limit my overall hunting time here. Um so yeah, I mean, my my opportunities are really slim. I just got lucky that I happened to be looking out there that morning, that that he showed up, and that I had the flexibility of my schedule to be able to hunt that night and um and yeah, so this hunt though, so after I saw him that morning, then my stress level and nervous level and excitement level just went to like two th right sneaking in that night and when I got setting the blind, I mean talk about like the nervous butterflies. We've talked about this in the past, and but you know, there's I have two there's two different types of hunts for me. There's those hunts when you go out there like you're hunting because you've got a day to hunt um or you know, whatever it is. Maybe there's just you know, maybe you're hunting every day of the week because the rut or something. But there's certain days when you go out there where you feel on a decent spot, but you've got you're you're excited to hunt, but it's nothing extra special. But then there's those days when it's like a killing day where all the conditions are right or you have some piece of intel and you just feel perfect, like you're in the right spot at the right time, like everything's lined up. I have certain hunts when like it's always when I'm showering, when I'm showering before the hunt, and one of those days is when it usually hits me, like I get these serious butterflies. I'm like, oh, man, Like you just get this different level of excitement and anxiety and like something like there's like a tingle and you're just like, man, this is like one of those hunts. So that's how I was feeling for this hunt. But then this added level of like of of nervousness because I knew it was a risky sit because where I was going was like it was like, I'm blowing out half of the area and I'm hoping he's in the southern half. But I'm doing it because it's it's it's you know, hit the home run or go home with the loss. That's basically what was happening here. So that was my mindset. As this is all happening, gets to the last ten fifteen minutes of the night, I see a buck working the way through the timber from that field where all the deer feeding. I see a buck coming down through the timber towards me. Pull up the buy notes. It's that buck, Tran. Tran comes out and three other dink bucks. They walk from that original field to come to the plot and start feeding the plot in front of me. So I'm like, okay, and he's the first year that had come out. Now that there's a button buck that had been out there earlier, but that was it. It's like, okay, well there's something coming out here that's good. And then it was cool that Tran came out, like this is really nice three year old. It's a pretty nice buck. Like in previous years, I would have shot this deer um, especially as he came walking him like jeez. He he looks better than I thought from like the longer distance observations that I've seen them. So I had this like, man, that's cool, Like yeah, Frank, it's not happening, but really cool to see this buck up close, like fifty yards easily could have got shot him. He set there feeding for a long time, like really cool, and Connor of the steer, so you know, right off, as is a nice hunt that's happening. Now it's down to like I don't know, eight minutes left shooting light or seven minute. I keep looking at my clock on my phone checking what time it is. Now we're down like the final handful of minutes. And I remember thinking, all right, you know, I'm in this bail blind and in this bail one there's really small windows. You can kind of just see what's directly out in front of that bailball, and you can't really see well to either side. So I'm like, I want to kind of peer to the side and just see if there's anything like tight to these corners. So I dropped down out of the chair on my knees and almost stick my head out the window to look far to my left. And when I do that I see a dough and this dough starts walking out through this tall grass towards the plot. She stops and she looks behind her, and in my head, I just like, oh, yes, like you know, you know that when the dough you're hoping there's a buck falling a dough, and then the doe stops and behind I mean, what do you expect to happen next? Right? Yeah, here comes the buck. So the dough stops. She looks back. I look behind her, and here comes another deer and it's another dough. I'm like, all right, that's it. A couple dolls coming out. So they walk out to the food plug. They get in there and they stop and they both turned back and look where they came. Now I'm thinking, oh, maybe maybe, And I turned my head and looked to the left and looking looking and then here comes another deer and boom like picket fence, huge buck walking and it just it was just like, holy crap, this is happening, Like this is happening right now. He's in range, he's on the property. I can hunt, I can shoot him right now. Holy shit, this is happening. And it was just in my head right now I I want just like right now. I was like I wanted to ask her. I wanted to say like it was like nervous or something, but there wasn't anything. There wasn't any kind of rush of excitement. It was almost just like okay, go like business. It was just get the gun. So I remember, like I saw him, that's him reach for the gun. I'm on my knees still, and then it's get the gun out the window. And then I remember, usually what I was planning on doing is if I was sitting in this situation, I would rest my elbows on my knees and be able to get a solid rest to shoot. But in this case, I couldn't do that. So I tried to rest my gun on the fabric of the window, and that wasn't working really well. So I kind of pushed the fabric all the way down until almost it was on the metal bar. I couldn't quite push it all the way down, but I pushed enough that it was enough resistance, had a pretty solid rest. And then I pull up the gun and I looked through the scope and it's zoomed way way out. Like the last time I'd used this gun. I was up at our northern Michigan property, and you can't see more in like forty yards. So I had the scope zoomed way out. So now I looked down at the gun. But because I'm in this bail blind, very little light can come in there because all the windows are mostly closed. So I just I can't see the numbers on the scope. So I tried to spin the power dial you know, on the scope, tried to zoom in, but I didn't know which way to zoom it. So I just spun the dial, pull up the gun again, and realized I zoomed even further out. So then I pulled the gun down again, spin the dial of the other direction to zoom in. Get it up. Okay, now I'm dialed in, and I looked at my you know, I pulled it up. He's there at the edge. I remember thinking, this is all happening in the course of from the moment I saw him to the moment that I had the scope right, you know, this is all happened in like fifteen seconds or something. I don't twenty seconds. I pull him from the scope. I can see him, but I can only see him from the neck up. Got him in the scope, he takes one step, two steps, three steps, four steps, passes out of the tall grass and stands right there at the edge of the plot, kind of looks around and and and there he is seventy yards probably give or take. Put the crosshairs on him. Boom. I remember thinking in that shot, I just remember seeing like I just remember my head like registering that looks like a hit. I don't I don't remember exactly how to articulate why I thought that. I guess I think there's like a certain like impact that it kind of feels like when you see a deer get hit, like you've seen enough deer get hit with bullets on TV shows, or like I don't gun hunt a whole lot, so I haven't seen this personally too terribly many times. Um, but I just could just tell it looked like he was hit and he just bolted right away. It was like boom running away, and I remember thinking his tail was not up, his tail was down, and he's bombed away immediately, and I could see him like a second and a half and he was gone behind trees and that was it. And then in my head, I'm like, oh my gosh, was that a good shot? Did I hit him? Did I did I rush? It was? I rested? Well enough? What just happened? Oh my god, I just have frank um and I just texted a couple of friends and my wife. I was like, I just shot him and um And then you know, it wasn't even like I didn't even have like a rush of excitement or anything. It was just like nervousness, like, oh my gosh, did I did I just have the most incredible thing happened? Or I just blow like the one opportunity to have. I didn't know what to think yet because it just was was so fast and I couldn't see. I couldn't watching for very long to like know whether or not I was a hit. It was just like a gunshot and he's gone, and uh, I texted you, Dan, and then you got really mad at me because I didn't tell you anything more for like an hour, right, who does that? He's like I shot him? And I reply, thinking, Okay, maybe we're gonna have an active conversation right now, like hey, what do I need to do? You know, like what friends do? But no, then then blackout for like an hour and a half. Yeah. Sorry, well yeah, it was like I texted you. I texted my group text um, you know, Corey and Further and Andy and Dustin, all those guys group text those guys told them and I texted my wife and then um, then I was like, okay, I I just need to sneak out of here. And then I was just like so kind of worked up with it all. I just it took me a long time to get everything packed up. I was just kind of fumbling with things and got everything packed up and got out of there and after a while got home and I'm aren't going and I and my wife, like you know, came giving a big hug and a kiss. She's like, oh my gosh, she's all excited, and I'm like, don't get excited, Like, don't get excited yet. I'm not excited yet. Um. I don't even want to act like I'm excited yet. I just like I'm just nervous. Um. And then so I'm waiting for all my friends to come over because you know, we you know how it is like if you've got buddies, you always want to go on recovery together, Like that's a really fun moment and experience to share with each other. And this year. All my Michigan buddies, no one had killed anything in Michigan, so we hadn't gone on a single track job together. No one had yet. And now finally we've got one down, or we hopefully have one down, and we're here in Michigan, and it just happens to be the biggest buck that any one of us has ever been a hunt in Michigan. Um, I take that back, du My buddy Dusty shot a state record a long time ago. Um, but that was before any of us were really serious about this stuff. So basically, this is gonna be like a once in a lifetime opportunity for all of us to get down either. Um, So I guess I'll fast forward through all this. This isn't too particularly interesting. Basically, I waited around for three hours before everybody could get there, very nerve wracking. Three hours. Drink a beer to talk through the story, tell the story a thousand times, each different person, try to eat some food, can hardly eat a single piece of pizza because I'm so nervous. Finally everybody gets there, we head out, We go to the shot um where the impact site was, and you know, I'm still just nervous. I don't even know if I hit him, um, because I hadn't gone and check the impact site. I just wanted to scoot out of there without just I don't want to get close to it at all, just in case. Um. So now we get to the point of impact right away. There's blood and uh blood, blood blood. We gone five yards, twenty yards, forty yards, fifty yards, and then I remember like we'd slowed down because there wasn't a whole lot of blood now, like there was a great blood trail in the snow, and then it slowed down and then we just kind of, um, we're looking around kind of all directions. I remember standing kind of upright with my flashlight and I just started training it out in the distance a little bit. And then man, there was and I just I think I said, uh, guys, we got him. Uh, we got him. Like it just it wasn't even I don't know, I just couldn't believe it. It was just it was surreal to see that it actually happened. And we walked up on this deer and uh, man, I had killed this buck. I had great double long shot and he had ran I don't know, sixty yards or seventy yards or something that hadn't ran very far at all, and there he was. Um, biggest buck I've ever shot, biggest deer I've ever been able to hunt in Michigan, probably the biggest buck Oliver Good hunt in Michigan. I do not There's not gonna be another buck like this in this area for a lot forever, probably like there haven't. There hasn't been a buckle that before, very very unlikely ever. Well again, um so I was just kind of in shock that this thing that I thought was a pipe dream, that I thought was not gonna happen because I missed those opportunities. This thing that I was thinking of my head was a once in a lifetime thing had actually come together. Um in was it was just kind of just I didn't I couldn't process it at the moment. It just like it didn't seem real. Um. And that was that, I mean, that was That was the long That was my long drawn out version of the story of my hunt for Frank. I mean it it was. It was a three year hunt. Like I had known of this deer for three years, but it really wasn't until the last five weeks that I really was hunting him. Um So it's kind of weird and that I kind of knew of this deer but never really thought that I could hunt him. Um And and somehow it all kind of miraculously came together like this and in a really really cool way. So my question to you is, it's a big mature buck with a big rack on his head. What does that particularly mean to you? Well, um, it's it. And killing any mature buck in Michigan means more to me than killing the mature buck anywhere else. Like I've view, mission is the hardest place I hunt. Of all the states of over hunted, this is the hardest place to hunt, the toughest place to to get mature bucks, to get with a range of mature bucks, to see mature bucks, to hunt him. There's the fewest of the place the different stage and I found out of ten twelve, ten different states or something like that. Um So I've always thought to myself, like, you kill mature buck here, it is, it's worth it just seems like sweeter than somewhere else. So to have killed the five and a half year old buck in Michigan, I felt amazing. Um to have killed a buck like this in Michigan just seem like it's the the rarity of it, like the simple fact that this animal is like so so rare in that area. Um. And for this set of circumstances and factors and variables and all these different, million different things all had to come together for this moment to have occurred, um. And to realize that it's it's something probably will never happen again. That means to me, like it's just such a such a unique, special, rare moment that these things all came together, um, not to mention, I mean it's it's a beautiful, incredible animal as a specimen of a white tailed deer, and like their respect and admiration, just how much like I love these animals, Like how cool I think they are, how much I love like looking at him and watching them and chasing them like he is just like and he this buck epitomizes everything that I think that makes white tailed deer so cool. Right. And he was a huge bodied, mature buck that had survived five years here in Michigan where there's hunters all over the place, just a beautiful, heavy antlerd tall time to mean, like if you if you imagine like that buck that someone draws a painting of that you hang on your wall. This is kind of like that buck. It's the buck that gets painted and gets sold for those those paintings get sold for five thousand bucks, like those beautiful paintings. Like that deer in real life happened to by some miracle chance show up in real life somewhere I can hunt, and I actually somehow I was able to kill him. All those things lining up just made this like like a dream, like a dream situation. I guess, um that is just it was hard to like process and hard to like to know what to think of it all. And now at this point it's just just like a an overwhelming sense of appreciation that had happened. Um, and maybe like a sense of awe, Like there's something like, ah, I don't know what it was, but like like a sense of of magic. I don't know if magic is the right word, serendipity or magic or just like I don't know. This is weird, just a weird year for me where things fell into place in like a really unique and special way. I mean it's just been a really outside I mean it's just been I've been really incredibly fortunate this year for so many reasons. Most importantly, I have a son, I have a family this year, and to be able to have all these things happen, you know, as as a as a father now, um, and getting to share these moments like yeah, he's young, he doesn't really know what's going on, but you know, it's just been special, just special. Um. And this kind of capped it off in like a way I never could have imagined. Um. So it's just been a special year. And I'm just not gonna I'm not going to fail to appreciate that all the emotions you just described. Plus I would imagine like some validation not just for you know, the Wired Hunt fans who you know can look at the thing as an example. Yeah, I know what I'm talking about in the magazines you've written for, in the books that you've written, but just for yourself as well. Uh, you know, there's like a bit of confirmation there, Like yeah, like all this time I've been thinking about it, Um, all these podcasts that I put together, it can amount to something. Yeah, I guess I guess there's some truth to that. Um. I mean it's not like I know, Mark that Wired Hunt has never been like, it's never supposed to be the Drewry outdoors and killing giant bucks or Lean Tiffany and killing giant bucks. That's how wired hunt is about. But it's definitely nice to make this like a part of it and put that feather in your hat. Yeah, I mean, like you said, like, that's not like people better not get used to me doing this, right, this isn't likely going to be a reoccurring story that we tell, um, But but it's certainly it's certainly is something that when ah, you know, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right when you get that gift, you just be really thankful that you got it and just enjoy the hell out of it. And that's kind of how I'm looking at this one, um. And and I mean it is also you know, to a degree, I don't want to say like this doesn't prove anything about me to myself or anything like, yeah, I killed I killed a mature buck in Michigan and just so happened to be a buck that a lot of people look at and be like, oh wow, that's that's a big buck. Um. It wasn't like I did something extra special to have killed a big buck instead of just a nice buck. I didn't do anything particularly different. It just so happened that this buck miraculously showed up, and I made the right decisions that led to that buck getting killed, plus had some luck to um. But this buck just as likely could have been a five and a half year old duck. I wouldn't have done anything different. Just that what if if that was the mature buck, if he was five year old, I would have been hunting him the same way. I would have done the same things. And that's the BUCKOUT have killed. And I would have been super stoked about it. People maybe wouldn't have been quite as like excited about it, but um, but I would have been really excited about it. Um. And you know, just so happened that this time kind of a freak of nature special thing kind of happened here. Um. Now that said, there were a few things that this experience like illuminated for me, or like reaffirmed for me, um or or we're we're interesting to note one thing. Take a look at the annual pattern here year. I think this is a really interesting example of the annual pattern thing that you and me Dan talk a lot about. Right this buck. The only pictures I got of this buck in two thousand sixteen were December nine in that same food plat system. Two years later, I kill him in that same food plus system on December seven. Interesting, Um, take a look at, uh, what's another thing? This same spot? This is? This is this is a little bit of validation for me. This is just validation to myself as far as hard work in that some number of years ago, five years ago or six years ago, as I was trying to figure out how to hunt this property again, I always had these issues with it being mostly just open field, not a lot of cover I could hunt. Then there was this front part of the of the property that just seemed like there's nothing going on there. There was all sorts of deer on the neighbors, but nothing coming out into the spot I could hunt. Um, I'm thinking, how can I make this better? Like, how can I how can I utilized this front the property in some kind of way? And I remember I was sitting at breakfast with my buddy Corey, and I pulled out a napkin and a pen and drew a sketch. I was like, you know what what if I took this like tall grassy area and carved in like little food plat system and planted a screen around it and made it like feel secluded in there. But then there'd be like some food that might entice deer out of there, Like maybe that could make this whole area a lot different. And I did that, And I've been fine tuning it over the course of these past five years or whatever, every year, making switches, trying to make it better, trying to figure out how to haunt it. All these different things I've tweaked and changed around out of the bail blind a year ago. All that came together now killing this deer with all these encounters, So that was a cool thing. Um. That showed that, yeah, this kind of hard work. And it hadn't paid off yet. I killed one deer there in a bunch of doughes, but I mean it hadn't hadn't paid off as far as getting holy Field there. UM had a close call with him there, passed on him that one year. But last year I had made all these changes that I thought were gonna leave to me getting a shot in there. It didn't work out, But now the next year here it is. UM. I also think this is also another example of like just persistence and perseverance paying off to right. Everyone knows the long drawn out story of holy Field that never got the conclusion that we all wanted. Right, it didn't happen. But this is like a strange like universe saying, you know what, you tried really hard. You worked really hard trying to kill that deer. It didn't work out. But then like the universe gave me a kind of gave me a gift here. Uh. I don't know if that's the thing, but it kind of is some weird, like interesting way that that story finished off. That the place where I had my closest calls the Holy Field, the place where I thought I was gonna kill holy Field. Um, that that spot that I've specifically worked on for that deer. Now the next year, that dear disappears. I'm very disappointed. Most of this year in Michigan was mostly gosh, this thing disappeared. That story ended. All the hard work I put on the Holy Field was for not. And then this happens and it closes out that story in this this interesting, very very surprising way. That was interesting. Another thing that stood out to me was just this year, if you compare my two thousand and eighteen year. And and Dan, I do want to give you an opportunity. I know you got a bounce out of here soon. So if you want to cut me off and share any final question or thought for me before I ramble on, feel free to do that. Just go for it. Yeah. So then what I'll say is that this two thousand eighteen year, it stands in start contrast to two seventeen. Right, last year, I didn't kill a single buck. I hunted, holy feel like crazy. I did all these things. Nothing went my way. Last year I went to Montana, didn't work out. I went to Ohio. I had a bunch of things that didn't work out. Ohio hunted hard mission it didn't work out. Now this year, I go to Montana, I kill a great buck. I go to Nebraska, I kill a break buck. I have this great buck in Michigan. Like everything went right this year. And if I sit and I analyzed these two seasons, like if I if I put them next to each other, and I think back, did I work harder this year than I did last year? Not not in any kind of stip substantial way. I think I I I put in the same amount of after both years, I think I made generally the same number of good decisions. I'm not I'm not three mature bucks smarter than I was last year. I'm not three mature bucks better off a deer hunter than I was last year. UM. I think that this two seventeen versus two thousand eighteen is just a perfect illustration of the game of inches that is hunting mature bucks. You can do everything right in some days or some weeks or some years, the final little variable or factor just won't go your way, and then you can do the same thing the next year, or the next week or the next day. You can do everything right, and then those little final pieces of the puzzle do fall together and do come together, and you do feel that tech. So I think this is just a great reminder to all of us that even when everything's going wrong, if you keep doing what you know you gotta do, if you keep working hard, if you keep believing, if you keep trying, things can come together. We had like h like if if you're looking quantitatively like last year being like the worst kind of year didn't fill a single buck teg. And then this year quantitatively being like the best kind of year, if we're if we're just talking about filled tags for bucks, right, two very different levels of quote unquote success. And I think it's simply that things fell together this way. UM. Now, Yeah, I did learn some things. I did do some things different. I learned from last year. I did get better. UM. But I still think there's a lot of just a lot of you know, I got a little bit lucky this year. I got a few things fell in my favorite that last year didn't. UM. And I think when those things happen, it's just a great reminder and it's also just a great opportunity to say here, you know what, appreciate it, enjoy it when it does happen that way. UM. And I think I think, I don't know. Those are those are my big takeaways from all this. Those are the things that stand out. UM. And now I'm just very appreciative, very humbled by the by this thing that happened to happen to me. Um. And I'm just going to enjoy it and um be thankful. So that is where my head is at as far as all these things. Do you do you guys have any thoughts? Congrats That's all I gotta say. Dude, Thank you, my friend. I appreciate and I appreciate you know your different thought. You know this is interesting. We didn't mention this Dan, but so so I saw him in the morning of December seven, and I text you and said, dude, I saw him this morning. I'm going after him to I'm gonna try to kill him tonight. And you text me back you said what I want. I should find the exact quote that you said. Um, all right, you wait here two seconds. I'm gonna read you what you said to me. I texted, you saw Frank this morning, moving in daylight dot dot dot, going after him tonight. You said, stop blinking around Kenyan and kill him. I said, I said, I'm sure gonna try. You said there is no try. There is only do. Then I text you a Jeff or a gift or whatever you say of Yoda saying he says he says do or do not there is no try. And then the next thing I text you is I shot him, so you shot him. And then it goes from four seven to me doing multiple multiple text messages to finally you responding to me at like it's like almost five hours. Yeah, I'm I'm still a little upset. About that. Yeah, I said I shot him. You say w t F. Then you say I need details, then you say you're killing me. Then you say this is getting ridiculous, and then I texted me picture and then you said, holy sh it, speechless. Yeah, man, it was nuts, just a crazy, crazy, crazy situation. And uh and yeah, I mean yeah, I don't know what else to say, Spencer. Do you have any wise words that we should end with, or any final questions or anything that we should that we should cover. No, I mean, congrats, Mark, awesome, Buck, awesome season. Uh that was fun, follower, But like, what if magically holy Field and him stepped out at the same time? Then what man if Like, so if that night, if holy fielding him both stepped out at the same time, I think if you don't know for certain holy Field is dead, correct, still a chance, there's still a chance. Yeah, okay, so this could have happened. So say they both step out, then what, man, I do not know what I would have done. I think, I think, I think, I man, I don't know. I think I would have I'd like to think that I would have shot holy Field. No wrong answer, but you know, because have more history with that Buck Um, I don't know what, but it's such a weird thing because like either what either one would have been unbelievably special in so many ways. So then it's like, then i'd be sitting there with I don't know, I probably would have this is what I probably would done. I probably would have froze. I would have paralyzed in the moment, and then they would have walked away. I would have shot either one. That's probably what happened. Um, But yeah, I mean one bucks like a four year history, incredible amount of ups and downs that deer. Another buck would have been three years of history and a once in a lifetime buck as far as the rarity of that type of animal. Um, I mean it would have been. Yeah. I would have just froze, panicked, maybe had to go to the bathroom and not shot at the buck. That's probably what would happen. So yeah, I'm glad that didn't happen. And maybe, maybe, just maybe holy Field is still alive, and now that Frank has gone, maybe he's gonna reclaim his old territory and to the um, to the may of the wired and audience, they'll have to hear about holy Field for a fifth year. Probably not so, uh, I guess with that Dan, any final anything final? Nope, my kids are starting to cry. All right, go take care of your kids. Thank you for taking the time to to chat through all this. Thanks for all the support and and uh ideas and thoughts and and go get hims and Spencer. Same to you man. Thanks for all the you know, a couple of different chats for radios where we talked through what's going on in the encouragement and big thanks to you know, all my buddies are other people who knew about this hunt, even the folks, even everyone who knew that I I was hunting this buck but didn't quite know um what he looked like. Everybody was out there, you know, giving me encouragement and wishing me on and crossing their fingers, and um, I think this is actually just I want to say thank you to everyone out there listening, the the kind words and the support and everything throughout all my hunts. I just I appreciate that, Like I really do appreciate every comment you guys leave, the reviews, you leave, the notes you send me. I don't get to respond to every one of them, um, but it means a lot. So so thank you for all those all those um all those words, and I think with that we shut this down and that's gonna do it for this episode. Thank you all for listening. Just another quick reminder, we do have that percent off deal going for wire hunt gear over at the meat eater dot com. Head to the shop, use that promo code, get off all of the wire hunt gear that's wired w I R E D. And otherwise that's all I got. Well, we'll get you one more episode before the holidays. Hopefully you're having a great December. Hopefully you're hunting season is coming to a to a nice end with a lot of fun, a lot of venice in the freezer, and a lot of great memories. So thank you and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.

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