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. All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X. We are here for a podcast that I am really damn excited to be recording. Uh it's it's me here and the Nine Fingered Wonder Dan Johnson. Dan, we are here for a celebratory conversation. I know, if it wasn't so early in the day, I think we both should be hammering some beers while we record this. Who says who says? We're not right? Okay, I guess you are on Eastern time, yep. Um, yeah, dude, Today we are talking success stories. Um, you killed a great buck in Iowa. So I want to hear about how your rutcation went and how you killed that deer and dive into all that. And then, as you know, um, my three year story chasing the buck I called tran just came to a close too, So I want to recap that entire saga. Um, dive into details, dive into how it ended and some of the lessons learned along the way and all that kind of stuff. So this is this is uh man, it's a culmination with a lot of stuff for both of us. You know, Yeah, I love the I love the text messages. You know, the got him that's it and instantly we I know what you're talking about, right, And uh, I think I threw you a text when I shot mine too. It's like arrow launched or whatever, and those are the text those Yeah, those are the best ones. That's it's It's what I enjoy probably more than anything. This time of years is just you just wait and wait and hope that there's gonna be some good news from someone and when it comes waiting it's what we work for all year long. Man, So you want to should we just get into it? I mean, we got a lot to cover. Um. I do have one quick kid story that I have to tell and it is Yeah, it's a So if you're the kind of person who bitches about this part of the show, fast forward about two minutes and then I should be done. So um, so don't fast forward. This is the good stuff, all right. So I'm rotating laundry, right. I take the laundry out of the washer and I put it in the dryer, hit start go away for about four hours, do something come back? Open. I just I'm getting angry even thinking about it. Open the door and someone had ad put a entire canister of glitter in their pocket and it is now I don't know how many times. I don't know how many times I'm gonna have to dry those clothes to try to get it out of everything and take the filter out. It is all over the place. And I don't know if you've ever been so so angry with your children that you skip the anchor and you go right into this deep dark depression because yelling Adam isn't gonna do anything, can change Nope, And you know, you get the dad son of a bit. And then and then oh man, yeah, all I did was shower and she's just like figures. And then when she walked away like she just like kind of left it in my hands. You guys are that phase in life right now where it's just like, oh yeah, another ship on the floor that we need to deal with exactly exactly. Oh wow, man, Mark, it must have been full because it is all over I mean we had a fleece blanket in with that load of laundry. I don't know if it's ever gonna be like if if I'm afraid to take it out of the dryer, because it's probably just gonna do one of those things where it just continually spreads all over the house until it's literally everywhere. So the only way this could have been better is if this had been you drying your hunting clothes and all of you was covered and glitter. That would be the one way this could be better. Imagine you're hunting closed covered in glitter and dear just pegging you from the sunlight bouncing off, and there's really it happens like if it happened like November four, So you have to hunt the next day. You're not gonna not hunt, and you're not gonna have time to get new closer to deal with it. So you're just stuck out there with pink glitter everywhere, and then you shoot a buck and you have to take a picture with your glittery camo too. That would be Oh, but you would deserve it, man. You know what I would try. I would try to market the gimmick uh somehow and make money off of it. Oh, there's always an angle. There's always an angle, man. Is that is amazing? That's right? Back into the world world. Huh, you had all this grand hunting success and then right back to domesticated life. There's no easing into anything anymore. It is straight kick to the nuts every single morning when I wake up dead life. Welcome to your life, buddy. You should have pulled out so so so tell me about the glory days back when you used to sit in a tree and see big Bucks and uh weren't worried about glitter bombs in your laundry? How did how how did the rotation kickoff? Man? It seemed like it was fast and furious. So here's what I'm gonna here. Here is my I'm gonna say two things. South winds and warm temps is what I deal dealt with. So I'm gonna preface this conversation with a conversation that we had all the way back on episode seventy eight with Matt Ross the science behind um the white tail rut or whatever. Some guy uh two days ago hit me up and it was like, dude, I love that episode because you kind of call out some things that people think are uh you know, like I think we talked about moon phase, we talked about warm tempts. We talked about weather patterns, deer movement, all of these things. So I go back and I listened to it, and I'm I'm reflecting back on the seven days it took for me to harvest my deer this year, and I'm can back. I'm like, dude, oh, what Matt said is is really right? And if I'm open to observation and looking around, even in warmer temps, I I would say that I saw equal deer compared to last year's rut, which was below average temperatures. So I'm sitting here thinking to myself, like, man, I should maybe I should stay out for a night or because the temps are worm Well, I didn't do that, and I saw the same amount of deer. The only thing that gets tried that started to get tricky with this rut vacation was that I had so many south winds in a row that I was worried I was gonna bump some of my best spots, and I ended up having to really play off a handful of hunts, like a morning hunt or an evening hunt and goes somewhere so where else where. I knew it wasn't the best option, but I knew I knew that I would have a better chance at connecting with a deer un let's say the next morning, as opposed to maybe sitting in that place, uh back to back for three days in a row or whatever. So I opted to go to a different south wind area that would be like choice number three or four and hit choice number one after it sat for a couple of days. Right, dude, I saw great. I was seeing great deer all, you know, Like I saw some shooters uh way in the distance. Um. I passed a couple of four year olds this year, uh that had less than desirable racks. Um, I passed a couple of really good three year olds this year in that time frame. And I did it all without freezing my toes off. So I mean, I wish I could sit here and say I had some hardcore strategy story for you about how I, um did things different or made all these game plans and chess moves to try to to shoot a deer. Um. And I'll get to this the kill story here in a second. But man, it's like I just follow through, followed through with what my goal was, and that was check trail cameras, look for fresh sign cycle through my stands. Uh, you know, the best possible stands on the wind direction that I'm giving, make the best choices for access routes, and uh, you know, run and gun whenever I needed to, and I put myself in position of some really good deer. The only thing is the big deer that I would was chasing did not show up while I was in the tree stand for that area. So real quick, those best stands. I mean, I know we've talked about in this place in the past, but can you illustrate, like, what are these things look like? This is all on pinch points. These are all back in the timber, I'm assuming, But were you mostly do em betting area sits, transition, etcetera, etcetera. Yep of my hunts. So I'll tell you this an evening and a morning of that seven days, So two hunts out of fourteen hunts resulted in me hunting, betting down wind, of betting down wind of betting or or flanking betting, uh, and putting myself What I would say would be where betting an edge connect? Does that make sense? Yeah? So you're saying all but two or just two were betting everyone except to OK. Yeah, that makes sense then Ye, So my access points or my access routes were on point. I mean I took no liberties there. I was played that wind hard and with a south wind, you can, you know, and in some of the areas you've hunted them throughout the years, you get really comfortable with and knowing what the deer are gonna do, how they're gonna do it. You know what the thermals are doing, if the sun's out or if the attempts are where they need to be. And uh man, I had some really cool encounters with a lot of deer. I didn't get busted, and it just it was one of those It was really fun to be in the tree that first week in November watching all the action happened. You know, I watched the three year olds and and some of the four year olds really do that rut thing where they were chasing those around, and you know, watching them just dive in and out of betting areas all morning long. It's settled down probably about ten thirty ish eleven o'clock, I'd get out of the stand, go to a new spot, and then pick right back up about two thirty ish. Uh and just kind of nothing really crazy where one dough brings about fifteen deer through, but more of this one on one interaction where you know there may be spike buck following a three year old or something like that. So, Uh, I really focused heavy this year because I felt like, for some reason, I felt like the warm weather was going to keep them out moving around all day long. So what did I do. I went to where the concentration of deer movement is going to be the highest, and that's betting areas. So I put myself down wind or flanking with a flanking wind into betting areas, and man had some really good encounters and and uh had a blast doing it. And you were passing on these good bucks? Was that just because well you're you're seeing these good bucks passing on them? Was this because the best bucks that you had on camera were still showing up and you believe they were there? Or where was your head out with that? Did you have a couple of mine? Yeah? So that buck I passed last year. Uh, he was a really beautiful three year old, probably in that one forty class maybe one forty five class. Uh, he was in eleven, and so this year he blew up to a I'm gonna say low one seventies as a as a four year old. He could be five, who knows, but he made the hit list for sure. And then there was the buck that I ended up shooting. I had maybe one picture of him throughout the entire summer, but the other guy who hunts the property had pictures of him all summer and all October and all November. Right, So we kind of put our trail cameras in a little bit different of places, um, just so we're not really overlapping each other, and we've kind of had a We communicate now more than we used to in the past. So you know, I'll send him a pick of a deer and say, hey, you run into this guy, or he sends me the deer that he kills, and I send him the picks that he kills. And then we exchanged any trail camera photos that we have of these deer. Yep. So it was you know, I had definitely the one hit lister on camera number two and number three. Uh you know both were big ten pointers. Uh, No, one was a nine and one was a ten. And so I go to check trail cameras the first day back. You know, I hunted up here the morning of like November two, and the evening of November two before that hunt, I went and I checked all my trail cameras, pulled all the cards, went looked at him all on the computer, and number two and number three were both broken all the way. I mean, like dramatic. You know. They were just a G two and a main beam, so they had knocked off a ton of points. One broke off almost his entire side. So number two and number three were to me, we're both like, you know, I don't even want to hunt the areas where these dyer running because I don't want to shoot. I don't want to shoot a broken buck. I want to shoot, you know, something that's put together and that just that what this does, is it now if these deers survive into the next year, it automatically takes him out of the equation and now they can come back. Right. So I wasn't really into shooting a broken buck, and so I stayed out of that area and UH focused my attention on a couple other places where the big one had run a couple of times he was kind of hit and miss on trail cameras and let's see and then I went back to the one betting area that I shot my dear last year, just kind of hoping that Natalie Charlie would show up, right, you know, almost like holy field, Yeah, wish on a prayer, maybe he'll be there again. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm sure you thought about that too, where it's like, well I really don't know where to go, so let me go to us hit, let me go to a historically good area or stand location, and let's just see what happens, right, Yeah, And and basically that was it I had. I got there and one of my cell cams had been stolen, and I got pissed, and and uh, I was hoping that he would show up on one of those cameras. But if he shows up on that camera, he typically shows up on a couple of other cameras on the farm. He did not, So, um, I think it's fair to say he has either gone and disappeared to go somewhere else, or he's been you know, shot and killed or died of a disease or whatever, because typically deer stick around and they don't necessarily come back if they if they're gone, If that makes sense. Yeah, So so I hit that betting area up a couple of times, and that's my favorite. That's my favorite betting area to hunt now, because the wind does something so awesome in there. And we I'm sitting at the actual top of a ridge and on this ridge, it's real thick on top and it created opens up and creates this edge and along this edge where this edge meets this I called a spur ridge. And it's a really small terrain feature, really small ridge that flanks a bigger ridge. And sometimes there are those terrain features are so small that it doesn't show up on topographic maps, or if it does, it's so subtle that you really need to focus on what you're looking for in order in order to identify it. Now, the closer that the topo lines are to each other, the easier it is to tell. But if they're you know, they're you know, thirty ft apart or a hundred feet apart you and you'll never see it. Right. So I sat there, I passed a really good three year old and then basically sat on a really big ridge where the south wind blowing over the top of the deer and the does just weren't coming through there yet, which took which tells me that, you know, they're still they're not getting pushed all over the place yet. And so I went back to um that main betting area again. And you know, like I said before I even started rambling, here is I wish. I wish I could sit here and break down everything for you. But at the end of the day, it's, uh, most of my success this year was just dumb luck explain. Yeah, so it's it's November seven. I don't even remember what I did that morning hunt. I think I uh, I hunted that big ridge again, and that I went and I checked some trail cameras, went back home, did some work on the computer. And I'll be honest, man, I wasn't hitting the timber until two thirty. And some of the times I wasn't even I wasn't even set up in my tree until three o'clock or a little after three. And just because I was trying to get work done at home, so I wasn't up until midnight trying to you know, get you know, get work done and then wake up at four and get back out out there. So so I ended up driving to Uh. I was gonna do a hanging hunt on where a corner of the marsh meets uh like a tree fell over a fence, and they really crossed there a lot. And throughout the years, I've had really good trail camera pictures of really good deer crossing through there. My number one hit lister had been through there, I think two days before I got to the farm. So I was just kind of like, it's a new south wind. Um, it's a new place on a south wind. I can flank their travel real hard, easy access. And so I parked at the end of this little sliver a timber inside of it was in an egg field, but once they combine it, they let the cattle in, so then it turns into a cattle pasture. So I I said, man, there's no need for me to walk so far. I'm gonna pull up about two yards closer and just save me, you know, three minutes of walking or whatever. So I put my I load up, and I'm getting ready to go to that fence crossing. And what I I get loaded up stand bow, backpack, everything, and I've been running my osonics in my backpack as I'm walking to and front of my tree stands. And and that's a little foreshadowing because I think that actually helped. But I park about so I get out of my truck, I loaded up, start walking, and I'm about eight two hundred yards. This is no joke. A d two hundred yards away from my truck, and it's pretty windy out and I looked to my right and I'm looking in this big thick section of timber. Inside it's like just a pocket of timber. And I said, man, that's gotten thick throughout the years. I bet you there's some deer that feel real comfortable in there. I took two more steps, and I see times come up out of these bushes and then just come straight back down and come up, and they come down. So this buck is raking a tree, and I go, oh my god, that's my number one buck. He's right there, and so I I I get lucky here and there's a giant, giant tree right in front of me. So I just take one big step and now I can see his back half, but he can't see me because I'm behind this big tree and I'm abe and the wind's blowing right at him. I mean, the wind is going right at him. I slide my backpack off, get my arrow knocked to put my release on and I creep around and I I couldn't see him anymore, but I kind of I thought I saw some fur something, and I click the I range the bush in front of him nineteen yards. I range the bush behind him twenty nine yards, and he's right up against he's he's closer to the back end of that gap. So I turned my dial to I got a single pin. So I turned my dial to yards, draw my bow, get my uh kisser button anchored, and I step out and his nose is straight up in the air. He's caught something right, like what what? What is this? Like? You could tell his body language was changed. He wasn't rubbing the tree anymore, and he had since kind of quartered away, but he was looking straight back, you know, like sometimes when they itched their aunt their back with their antlers or their their grooming themselves, their heads turned all the way. And he was like that. And I stepped right out. I'm already drawn, and his noses in the air, and I'm like, man, I was well before that. I was shaken so bad because I thought this was number I thought this was number one, and I was missing the D loop on my on my bowstring. With my release because I was shaking so bad. And I said to myself, Johnson, settled down, because if you mess this up, you're not getting a crack at him again this year. So handle it. So I took a deep breath, got composed, drew back, step out anchor, and let it fly. And he me he I heard. I could hear the thud through through the wind, just like this little best sound mule kick. And he runs off, and I was so fired up. And when he was running away that deer looked running away, I was like, oh my god, what did I just do? Like never happened. First deer, first deer I ever shot on the ground. And so anyway he ends up. He ends up diving down into this pocket running across a cattle pasture. I can see my arrow hanging out of him, and I thought to myself, oh my god, I did not get the penetration that I wanted on that. I'm gonna say a little. I'm gonna say less than half an arrow. And I'm like, but if it's that much, you're still it's still a good soul. I just stop what I'm doing. I pull out my phone and I call one of my buddies up and I'm like, dude, I just shot what I think is an absolute giant. Everybody at the time that I knew my my buddy who helps me drag out sometimes down there he had COVID. My mom and my stepdad they both had COVID. So I was sleeping in the garage during rut vacation. I wasn't in the house. Yeah, so I I I call it my buddies. He's like, I'll be there, and I said, I'm gonna go to impact. I'm gonna see if there's blood, and then I'm gonna back out and then I'll wait for you. Well, I dropped. After I hang up with him, I called my wife, told her what happened. Dropped down into where I shot him. Really good blood, like perfect bubbly bubble blood right like and and like good splots of it. And so I end up following it for ten yards, following it for twenty yards, and then I just it starts to open up and it's really good and it's it's for a for a seasoned hunter who has been on a lot of blood trails, it is a no brainer lung shot. Now my question, I had to myself was is it one lung or is it both lungs, because he was kind of quartering, you know, quartering away at the time. And so I back out and I wait a handful of hours for my buddy to come and and uh help me act this deer. And he brought one of his buddies to another guy that I know, and long story short, we start picking up this blood trail, man, and uh it just it's very good blood, very good blood. Now we're starting to see where there's two blood spots every bound, right, So there's there's two holes in this deer somewhere right, and he is starting to bleed really black bad. We find the arrow and it's broken off right, and there's blood all the way up to the fletchings. So that tells me as he's running he kicked he kicks it out and it broke somehow. And then we get into the timber where we where he disappeared from me after I shot him. Right, that's probably a hundred yards, so I watched him run a hundred yards before he disappeared into this really thick, nasty little area again. And uh um, the blood trail not gonna lie. It's awesome. When you can just at a normal walk follow it, no hands and knees, grid searching, just blood all over the place up here, absolutely absolutely, and uh, man, we walk up on we walk up on him, and uh the shot ended up being one lung front side lung and trachia and jugular. So he he just got smoked, he got destroyed, and uh he ended up running about a hundred and hundred twenty yards maybe and then pile it up and uh, and then you know, you get that moment that is I don't know, man, it's one of those it's it's a surreal moment the first time you ever get to touch the animal that you just killed. I don't have the same feeling for turkeys. I don't have the same feeling for fish or any other animal that I've ever hunted as far as you know, big game. But that moment where you get to grab his antlers and pull his head up and sit down and put your hands on this animal and appreciate it, it's uh, it's just there's no words, man, you can't. It's different for everybody. And uh, I just felt so happy at that moment. And and it wasn't my number one buck, but it did not matter. It's if we're gonna sit here and put numbers or a level to it. It's probably my second biggest buck I've ever shot. And it's a beautiful deer with awesome characteristics, and he's a beautiful ten pointer four year old, and uh I'm just I'm geeked out, man, you should be that he's a heck of a deer and a crazy story how it came together. I mean, like you said, it's not like you put together this master plan for him. But it's really cool in its own unique way. When sometimes you have these crazy things happened that you find yourself in and you can take advantage of it, that's that's awesome in its own right. So I'll tell you what what what I will say is that from a strategy standpoint, I was going to where he had already crossed, so he was already on his feet. He came through the area that I wanted to hunt, and uh so from a strategy standpoint, I guess if you want to say I was going to the right location, it's just he beat me to it and I ended up shooting him on the ground. Well well done, my friend. Congratulations on a another successful Iowa season. Yeah, man, I I'm so happy. The best and one of the other parts is today today I picked my buck up from the processor and there, my my deep freeze is now full again. And that puts an equal smile on my face as it does walking up and touching him for the first time. Gotta have that full freezer. Yeah. So, um, my story isn't crazy, right, first time I ever saw this buck on the hoof probably, um, I got a shed laying out. It might be from him, it might not be, who knows, not a big deal. But this uh, this dear name Tran, that's uh that you've been following for a handful of years, kind of met his match. When did you end up shooting him? What day was it? Shot him? Sunday? November I think would have been the date. Um, that's what it was. And that's after the rifle season. Yeah, in rifle season. Okay, so rifle season eight? So did you shoot this with a bow or with a rifle. Let's wait till we get to the story. Dan oh, okay, ship, Sorry, I know I should know better than this. So, so why don't you kick it? Kick it off? Go all the way back? So This story begins in two thousand eighteen. So that year, if you were call, was the year after I found another buck who I hunted for a long time, holy Field. I found his shed that spring, and so I thought maybe that buck was back for a year number four. So I planning for him, looking for him, and you know, the summer. The summer arrived, he didn't show up. In September arrived, he didn't show up. October arrived, and he didn't show up. I got pictures of a big eight pointer. I'm like, maybe that's him, but it was kind of like weird pictures, like foggy or not great lighting, different things. I couldn't really tell. But he had tall G twos and I'm wondering, maybe possibly, but probably not well that buck I was getting pictures of was this, dear. I eventually did get clear pictures of him and realized, no, it's definitely not holy Field. This is a new buck um, or at least one that I hadn't identified in the past. And he was like just a really nice tall eight point with kind of curving times um. And my guest was he was just a cool three year old and I pinned pointed him as is like the best up and coming buck ahead in the farm. Right then, I started seeing him quite a bit, got some cool video of him, UM, and knew that he would be the deer that if he was around next year, he'd be one I would probably the best buck that I have around based off what I was seeing. So I started keeping tabs every time I saw him, every time I got a daylight trail Cara Pitcher. I started noting it way back then, even though I wasn't trying to kill him. UM. Fast forward, you know, later into the year, the whole frank thing happened. If you remember, this really big ten pointer showed up on Halloween that year, UM, and I hunted him for a month and ended up seeing him on the evening of December. It's like the seventh, eighth or ninth one, somewhere right around there. And Trans showed up that night and I passed on him at like sixty yards. Um. This was this was the late firearms season, and UM and passed on Tran that night. Uh. And then like twenty minutes later, the big guy showed up and killed him. So that was basically year one UH with Tran. I guess I should make one other point, I did actually see him in person once in the summer and got velvet video of him. Just didn't connect the dots until later in the year. But but he was there in the summer, was there all through the fall, and was of of bucks of that caliber, Like he was other than Frank, who was this big new buck, Tran was the best dear. There was one three year old that was him that was shown up a bunch and so I kind of just knew, like he's the one. If he makes it, he'll be the one next year. Um question, Yeah, alright, So as you start to calculate or put together an inventory, and you know, like Frank that one year was your number one target buck. Um, Holy Field in the past has been your number one target buck. How much thought do you give to these other dear throughout the season or what are they doing while you're in the process of hunting your number one target buck. Well, the thing is, because I'm hunting such small spots, there's almost never more than one deer I would actually shoot. Um, Like the main farm my hunt is a little over eighty acres, but half of that's just open crop field next to a road. So really it's like forty some acres that I'm actually hunting, so there's only ever one. They'll sometimes be some other bucks that are up and comers I'm keeping tabs on, but I've rarely have I had like multiple definite mature bucks that are there consistently that I could actually like put a game plan together. There's usually one that calls at home. UM. I also got permission a few years ago on on part of a small like twenty acre piece that I could start hunting a little bit too, so that gave me a little bit more um. But basically what I do is usually there's one mature one that I'm after, and I'm keeping tabs on him hunting him. But if I get a buck that's like a really nice two year old or a three year old, I start kind of keeping tabs because it seems like, from what I've seen this area, usually one buck of that caliberal caliber will make it through. So there might be three bucks, three or four deer maybe that I'll see in a given year that are two or three years old. It used to be all two year olds. Now we're getting to the point where I'm seeing some three year olds. Um, But I'm I'm passing on those now. So in any given year, there's maybe one buck that's four, and then there's a couple two or three year olds that I'm watching. I'm observing when i'm hunting, I'm paying attention to what they're doing. Um, but I'm not actually gonna shoot him. So in two thousand and eighteen, that was the story with Tran. He was the one deer like that. Um. And you know, coming into the following winter, I thought, all right, man, this is the year. Twenty nineteen is gonna be the year of Tran. I'm really hoping he made it. I really hope I can find the sheds. I'm gonna get after it hard. I'm gonna review everything I learned about him last year, put together a game plan. So shed season came, I pounded the timber, I got permission on neighboring properties to shed hunt those spots. Never found him. Um. Fast forward into the summer and in August he shows up in the field. Was a being field next to one of these places, and I saw him and instantly you could tell as him. Um. Just essentially the exact same formation was last year. Just everything bigger, um, awesome, tall, tight, eight pointer, Um, biggest eight point I've ever seen in this area before. So he was he was awesome, and I was smitten um. And then the whole thing was reviewing all that Dad I had thinking through, Okay, when did he start showing up in daylight? Where were the daylight pictures? Where did I see him in person? There was a lot of activity with him towards the back of the properties I had permission on, so I kind of assumed that that might be, like, there's there's a couple of different betting areas on some neighboring properties that I kind of hunt around, and I'm playing movement going in and out of those spots, and it was the back betting area of this eight acres that I thought, Man, he seems to be spending more time back there. So my assumption was that that's when that would happen. But we get to Oh, I guess it would have been opening day. It was opening day, opening day of two thousand nineteen UM, and it was a hot one. It was gonna be really warm, way above temperare, way above average temperatures. But the next day, day two of the season, was going to be this big cold friend hitting. So every year. I always look at opening days like one of my best chances in this area. It seems like year after year there's if there's a good buck around, they'll be active in late September, in the first day of October, maybe the second day of October. But then pretty quickly they change when all these other people around me start hunting and I start hunting. Um. But because you know, because I it was a little bit too stuck on the weather and and folks, I know you know these you've heard some of these stories. I want to put it all in one place so we can kind of see the whole traject three. So bear with me as you hear some of these stories. Again, I've been talking about this guy for years, I know that. But as we've talked about last year, I decided to observe on night number one. So I sat on a hill on the ground a couple hundred yards away from this front food source, this actual little food plot system I've built specifically for these types of scenarios, tight to a betting area in the neighbors. UM. I didn't have any much good cover on my side, so I kind of carved in these food plots and playing all these sorghum strips and UM created a really cool zone of food inside could cover right next to the best betting and it's year and year out turned out to be a pretty good spot UM to get at least an encounter or two per year with one of these good bucks. And opening night, I decided, I'm gonna watch him afar and then strike the next day with this big cold front hitting, and that's the night I thought that the big boy might hit that spot. Well, long story short, I sat that night and watched this front food plot and Tran shows up that night even with the warm temperatures and walks right past the stand that I would otherwise have hunted. So that was a bummer and one in the next day and he didn't show up the next night, but another really nice three year old did, like a hundred and thirty class nine pointer, and I passed him. That's the best buck I've ever passed up to that point. So it's cool that a really nice up and comers showed up um and and we usually don't have multiple deer like that, but that year, so en there was Tran, who I believed to be four, and then there was two other like hundred thirty class three year olds UM at that point in the year. So it was a weird thing and that, for whatever reason, we've had more good bucks survive. UM. And I was just at a new place in my hunting journey where I was gonna pass on deer like that. But it felt crazy having a deer like that, which is really top tier deer for Michigan, having a fifteen yards broadside and not shoot. But I I knew I had to save one of my buck tags for the back forty and I knew I wanted to save one of my buck tags for trains, so that's what I did. UM. Question, So do you feel that holy Field was the dominant buck in this little area that you have access to? He definitely was for that two years when he was mature that I was hunting him, and I watched him for three Frank, same question, Frank. He really didn't live on me. He showed up out of nowhere that the year that holy Field disappeared. So the previous two years I only had like one sighting of him. I got one trail camera picture, Frank, three years before I shot him. I saw him one time in December the year before I shot him, and in the year I shot him, he showed up in a big way on Halloween and basically stuck around for a month. So for that month he was the dominant guy there. But the rest of the season there really wasn't a dominant buck. Okay, So we'll just say that dear though, was the dominant buck in the area for that moment. Yeah, okay. And then the other the buck train this year dominant buck. Uh. Starting twenty nine he was the man. Okay. Cool. So the question I have for you then is do you what what is it about this area, this property that you hunt, whether it's the management that you do, whether it's the does the terrain, whatever, what is it about this little area that brings in and above average dominant buck for Michigan to stay in this little area for a given period of time. Yeah, So I think I've got a set of circumstances that that's that's nice to have. Um, even though it's a small property that I can hunt, I've got a couple of things. I've got myself who and I'm the only person who hunts my little piece that I have sole permission on. The eight um, the eight five or whatever it is. Um, So I am very picky there and I don't shoot anything under the under the four. And then I also have within our like square mile block. Um, there's a handful of other people in that square mile who also are you know, they're not shooting everything. Um, they're at least passing on year and a half old bucks. So there's a handful of people in our square mile who are at least letting deer get to two, which in Michigan is not a given. So there's a lot of places where everyone will shot the first buck they see. So to have a spot where you know you can get some of these bucks through, that's that's a good thing going for me. There's also a couple of the pieces in this square mile that don't get hunted very much. There's a bunch of get pounded, but then there's also a couple almost sanctuary properties, and I think that's a big thing that helps me. I'm next to one of these spots that's relatively lightly hunted, and that one of those spots has really good betting on it. So there's like a twenty acre chunk within one of these pieces that is just nasty tall grass bushes, brambles Um just kind of the prim mere betting habitat for for Michigan. UM. And that is this zone that is just packed with does every year and whenever there's a dominant buck, which there usually is, one buck will make it to four. Usually there's usually one dayer like that and he always is is hunkered in and around that stuff. That's just it's the best spot. They always lay claim to it, and there's a lot of ladies in there. So every year I know there's gonna be one of these guys in and around that spot, and traditionally I've just had to hunt around the edges of it. But that would at least give me opportunities and and once or twice a year they would come to my side. Um. In the case of Frank, I was able to get a shot at him. In the case of holy Field, I saw him a bunch but never was able to get a shot at him. In the case of Tran in twenty nineteen, UM, you know, he had a couple, had a couple of encounters with them on my side, but it was it was a lot more sightings on properties that couldn't hunt him. But there are spots I could see into but couldn't shoot him. Um, that's to answer your question. I think that's why I've been able to get some of these deer that that make it to that age and then stick around because it's it's it's a relatively small pocket, but it's a really good pocket that usually doesn't get bothered. So I think these deer just no it come guns season, I'm not leaving it and traditionally I haven't been harassed here and and that gets them through. Yeah. So do the does stick around all year long on on that property. Yeah, it's usually uh just consistently a lot. It's high deer density area too, so there's a lot of deer, a lot of does. Um, you know, always a bunch of young bucks. And then you know over the hunted this area now for ten years, I think, and you know, it's it's come a long way. The very first year I hunted it, there was one deer that was three and that was the best year, or that was the best deer. The next year there wasn't a single deer I thought was three. Um. The following year there was a couple three year olds and a five year old Um, no sorry, two year old or three year old and then a five year old. UM, and and then a fast forward to the last couple of years and we've had you know, multiple three or four year old or even a multiple four and five. Um. This year, I had a buck that I think was four and a buck that I thought was five. So, you know, I think between my efforts to pass on some of these deer and then some neighbors that I think are doing the same in a couple of different pockets in our square mile, I'm guessing that's starting to help. Um. So so yeah, that that was the situation. Um. You know, I passed on that buck on the second day of the season, and then it was looking at historical data which told me that, you know, based on the last year, he's at least the first year years around. He didn't really start moving like a whole lot until around the last week of October, which is is kind of a that's common for deer all over the place. It's common for this property year after year of October's when things seem to kick into gear and there's almost always a hot dough that last week, like almost like clockwork, somewhere around there, there's gonna be a good buck chasing, there's gonna be a hot dough with a bunch of box on them. So every year, right around that time, I make sure that that's going to be when I start getting after it. And and so that's what I ended up doing in But it wasn't until Halloween night that I actually saw him Sam chasing dough on Halloween night, and then after that it was almost DAILI or every other day sightings at least or encounters. The second of November was my closest encounter with him in BO season. I hunted the backside of a small betting area that was on my side of the property line that was closest to the best betting here that's other neighbors, and I've found that I can catch during the rut, these bucks will sent check each of these betting airs, so they'll leave the best cunney hoole pocket on the neighbors, and they'll come down to hit the kind of ancillary spots that I that I could hunt if I if I hit those places long enough, eventually one of these good bucks you know, typically will come through one of these mornings or mid days during the rut. That's what happened holy Field when I almost got a shot at him, but I was reading a book in the middle of the day UM, And that exact same stand is where I had my closest called Tran. It was the second of November, and there was a dough in this thicket right behind me, and Tran was weather and they came out of there, but just passed a little bit out of range. I think it was fifty yards somewhere in that ballpark. I remember them coming through and um and passed out of range, went into the big betting area and that was the last I saw them that day. I had six more sightings um over the course of November after that, and again mostly was in that honey hole thick stuff over there, and I'm just bouncing around the edges, trying to make a guess like when's it gonna come to my side, thinking through wind, thinking through different hypotheticals like where most of the dough's coming out to feed into my stuff? Because because the property that I had access to, as I mentioned, was mostly a cut corn field on one side and the cut bean field on the other. So most of what I have to do other than those little back betting year as I mentioned was hope that he'll follow a dough that's feeding in the food plots or the fields of my side. Um. To to make a long story short, I do that see him, but never on my side or never in range all the way until December rolls around. Now it's gunn season and we're in muzzle other season. Ah, I have no qualms about shifting to whatever the legal weapon is of choice. I put in a ton of work to get after these deer, and it is not an easy thing to do in these spots where I'm so limited, and with so many other hunters around me, they're taking the guns out there. I certainly have no problem. You know, played by the same rules all of them. So I took the gun out there. It's December, se I've waited until a big cold front and like the blue Bird skys high bear metric pressure, UM cold day. UM. I've been watching this cut corn field that I could hunt, and a lot of deer been feeding there, but I hadn't been seeing the big guy. But with a weather system that was coming through, I thought, man, um, this is probably the night to push back in there where I thought most of them were coming out. And sure enough, that's what happened. He came out of the neighbor bedding, crossed to my side, but by the time he crossed to my side, he popped into the field but was heading straight away and behind branches of these trees that stretched out over the edge of the field. And I had him in my sights, like the back of his neck. But I just I didn't feel taken, didn't feel comfortable taking the shot as he was moving and branches, and didn't like that angle of course. So that was that was the closest I really came to killing him that year. Um, it was. It was exciting. It almost came together but didn't. And um, a couple of weeks later I saw him one more time on the last day of the season. Something spooked him off another neighbor's property, like twenty five deer come running off another property and he was in that group and came running by like a hundred yards away. UM, so I knew he made it to the end of the season. That was like the last twenty minutes of daylight of the last day and he was still alive. So that was how wrapped up. I was hopeful that he made it, but it has been a long tough season, you know, chasing him only to you know, kind of have to watch him the distance so often. Um so that's how year two ended. Yeah, and and knowing what I know, it's kind of cool because, um, I think this is the same deer your when was your youngest son born? Yeah, so my youngest son was born at the end of January. Okay, alright, so so we have this this time frame. Is there any like throughout the rest of the time until we start getting into that February March time frame? Any any anything else significant happening with Tran? So No, all in new was that I really wanted to find his sheds. All right. All right, so you're foreshadowing here your wife. Your wife is super pregnant, and she says, let's go take a walk. What happens? So she she's due, she's supposed to be given birth the baby like any day now, and she, like you said, she's like, we need to go for a walk. I need to kind of just work this thing out. And uh, I said, well, if we're gonna go for a walk, why don't we just do do it at this spot I can hunt and let's walk the cornfield and maybe we'll get lucky and uh find an early shed. And this would have been like January, I don't know, January, something like that, late January, but still pretty early to find antlers, very early to find ailers for a lot of places. Uh. But I thought, we're gonna walk around somewhere. Might as will do it where there's a chance to find something. And so I go out with my wife who's very pregnant, my almost two year old son, and both of our dogs, and we just barely get into this cornfield. I mean we're forty yards from the road or something like that. We're just getting out into this cut cornfield and I see times and I'm like, holy crap, there's an antler right there. And I go running up to it. And once I got close up to see it, I realized, holy crap, that's it's the antler. It's him. It's trans shed. And then I look a couple of feet away and there's the other side his match set sitting right there, just barely off the road. Uh. My least hard shed hunt of all time, Like the craziest, most lucky thing that's ever happened to me. The match set of the number one buck I'm after, and I got to do it with my wife and my son, and uh, it was wild. It was crazy, and I guess I should have looked at it as maybe foreshadowing of more good things to come, but uh yeah, they're sitting here right behind me on the shelf. And and that just sent tran fever to another level because now I had the match set off a buck that I was hunting in Michigan. I've never had a match set of a deer. I've never found a match that of any buck in Michigan, I don't think. And now it was one that I could actually hunt, and it was a deer that would be five if he made it to hunting season. Um, so it was really excited about that. What what's awesome is like these stories that you have, and I don't know if they're almost unbelievable because it's it's like you're you're writing it, you know what I mean, Like here here's you know, this year, this is what happened, and it's like this climactic, this climactic story and then boom, here's just the sheds and it's it's it's almost like you don't even know I need to know the rest of the story because you are gonna shoot this deal. It's just like I found the sheds, had all this history with him now and now it's just a matter of time until you kill him. Man. It never feels like that to me, though, Well, you're the guy who's spending time in the trees. Yeah, man, it uh, But yes, I've been I've been lucky to have a little pocket where these bucks feel comfortable and I'm able to, you know, not always be right on them, but at least be seeing them and having the occasional encounter and getting to know them. And and the other nice thing about this area is that I can because there's a little bit of topography more than a lot of places of Michigan, And there's some spots where I can sit up on hills and seed down into some of this betting, which is relatively open when you're looking at it from above. So I've got good visibility to some of these places. Um, which leads me to having all these settings to um. But yeah, I found the sheds. It's crazy. Um. Fast forward into the summer. My whole plan, you know, in preparation for the season, was all about this buck. Um prep and new trees that I wanted to hunt in the saddle for him this fall my year. You know, as we talked about a few months ago, I was I was going to be more aggressive than ever before. I wasn't going to you know, basically, I was, I was gonna make moves immediately. I was going to push into some spots that I typically maybe wouldn't have, maybe even earlier than I would have. Um, I just wanted to hunt him down. I was, even though I'm limited a lot of ways, I was going to hunt him down. Was my plan. Um. And then a few things changed, which which change. This year three was really all about change. I had all these plans, at all this historical data again like I did in year one. In year two, I've I've documented every daylight sighting, every daylight photo, what the wind direction was, what the temperature was, where this was, where he was coming from, where he was going. So I have all this stuff, and this, you know, has fully informed what I think I'm going to do. In UM. You know, I changed my food plots to try to encourage him to come out a little bit further. I planted different stuff, I plan it in different ways. I changed tree locations. Um, I see him in August, he shows up again. I'm seeing him. He shows up a handful of times that I'm out there, and I'm confirmed if he's alive. He's a mega stud Michigan five year old. Um, this is incredible. I'm so excited. Quite a few daylight sightings leading up to the opener of season. I think I saw him two nights or three nights before opening day. Um. But then a few things changed. Um. Number one, I end up getting a little bit of additional permission on another neighbors who I'm able to hunt some of that good betting now that in the past I had only been able to watch. Now I was able to hunt some of these places, and and that was totally new for me. There's are places I've watched but never been able to get in there. So all of son, all my ideas of having hunt these edges, having to hunt this back betting air, but not being able to hunt the primo betting, having to kind of depend on him chasing a dough into one of my food plots are opening. Now all of a sudden, I don't need to just wait for those things. I can actually go into the best of the best stuff that I've dreamed of forever. Um, So opening day, all that stuff passes and and he's gone, He's one second, one second. I think you're undervaluing that right there. I mean, we can't just skip, you know, you can't just say, well, I gained it access to this farm, because I think I've been in a scenario where that little bit of access plays a big role and maybe not killing him, but figuring him out. And So did that small little access that you got to that additional property get you closer? Did it get you I mean did it did it help in just a little way or did it help in a big way? Helped in a big way. Um, if that hadn't happened, the story you're about to hear would be dramatically different. Um because of several other changes that came about. There's all these things that changed. And Um, if I hadn't gotten that extra permission, I would have probably had my worst hunting season out here in years maybe ever. Yeah. So my whole point of me bringing this up and kind of emphasizing that particular point is what Mark did here is big. He went after it. He just didn't sit and wait. He he went and he made moves to try to access a piece of ground to get him closer to this buck. And I honestly think people don't do that enough. And access can make all the difference, that is for sure. And um and it certainly did for me because I got I had this extra access now and you know, opening A couple of days went by, and I stayed kind of conservative. For the first couple of days. We didn't have super great weather, so I hunted some of the edges of that stuff just to see what's going on, and there was. There wasn't as much going on as I was hoping, So I had some back forty filming, I had some other things going on. I was gonna kind of just just because now I could get into that great spot. I didn't want to abuse that. I wanted to say, Okay, I'm gonna wait until I know he's there, and then I'm gonna go to the spots I've always wanted to go but couldn't. But I'm not going to rush in their prematurely. Um, So I kind of hunt some observation things, just trying to say, Okay, when's gonna start, you know, moving around a little more. And then my property that I have my original permission on the farmer disks the fields under completely, so not just like a light disking. I mean we go from a bean field to a dirt field and dirt And I had to laugh because that when I was in Michigan and I spent the night at your house that one night, and I just like listening to you tell me that story about how the the field got dissed under, I felt like like you were suffering some kind of depression because like you must have felt that that was gonna play a huge impact in how the deer we're going to move through your property this year. Huge and it and it did. Man. I mean all of the movement through the stuff I can hunt is predicated on having these food sources on the outside. All the movement goes from these interior bedding years to these exterior agg fields, and without it, they're not going to come onto the stuff I can hunt at all. They're just gonna go the opposite direction to the other side of the square mile where there is food. So what I usually have like fifty acres of food that I can hunt on these farm fields. That brings a bunch of deer through the areas that can hunt, and now it's dirt, and I mean immediately that the next day, I was going from seeing you know, fer coming out to these spots from any given location to zero. So if I hadn't been able to push into some of this neighbor stuff, it would have been almost no action at all. I had some food plots on my side, but this is the worst year that my food plots have ever been because right when I planned, I'm a drought hit and so there's still food and there were still some deer hitting those little food plots, but it's very minimal. I mean it's it's an acre compared to fifty that I would usually have. UM. So, as you mentioned, super depressed, really worried about how this is going to change things. And now I say, okay, well I'm not gonna be hunting a bed to feed pad anymore. I'm gonna be hunting. I needed like a rut kind of movement kind of thing, because they'll still be in these betting areas and now I can hunt the stuff I always hunted, plus some a little bit extra. UM. The night of and I do see him finally from a distance the evening of I'm now pushed into. By the time I started hunting, I should preface this, like around the twenty or somewhere around there, I started getting into stuff, and my plan was to, based on the wind, kind of rotate around this main betting that historically had been checking for does and hanging out him and and just kind of slowly pushed my way in further and further as observations or sign tells me I should. Yeah, um, because again I hadn't hunted in this stuff before I watched it, but I hadn't hunted it, so I was going to kind of like tightening, I don't know, just squeezing down day by day as as I based off what I saw, right, And you had some restrictions too, because you had an X amount of time to do it before you had to leave and go start the back forty stuff exactly. So so yeah, so I knew that there was this countdown clock coming down that eventually i'd have to you know, I had to. I had to leave. Even if he was still there and still running around, I'd have to leave. Um. So I see him the twenty seven, and from a long ways away, I see him with a dough and he's locked on a doll, and I told this story a few weeks ago. He's locked on the doll. They're heading the opposite direction. I can finally get into this stuff he's in, though, So I actually get out of my tree and I chase him down, and I tried to stalk and as close as I could get to them, because I knew I knew where they're going. There's nowhere else they were going to go except for to the corn field that was north of this area. So this isn't this would be a field that's adjacent to my dirt field. Um, I can't hunt the corn field, but I can now hunt some of the betting stuff that gets close to it. So I get out of the tree, I stalking as close as I can get. But eventually that wind dies down, they get out of sight and they're they're basically in the corn field. It's dead, no wind now, and there's other deer around. So I realized, okay, I'm stuck this As far as I got, I got a hunker down, but I was close to one of my food plots, and on the seven and twenty eight I had seen him sent and check that food plot and I'd also seen a lot of doughs that for whatever reason, we're leaving that corn field and walking the edge down to my food plot. So I thought, well, there's a chance that that dough will go to the corn feed there for a while, and maybe she'll transition down to hit the food plot, like these other doughs have been doing that I've watched. So I just was able to move another like, I don't know how far I went. I was basically there. I just just kind of crept a little bit closer to the spot where if they decided to come along this edge and cross the creek to check that food plot, they'd be in range. How uh and uh, you know. The night, I don't know. By this time it was down to the last half hour of daylight, maybe by the time I had to hunker down, And with maybe ten minutes the daylight left, I see a dough pop over the hill and then times and it was him, and they did exactly what I was hoping they would do. Almost she transitioned from the corn to the food plot, which I still do under dan. They left like a hundred acre corn cut corn field, right, yeah, I think it was still cut. Yeah, yeah, it would have been cut by then. Yeah, So they left a huge cut corn field to walk a hundred yards across the wide open dirt field to get to a one acre food plot. Um and a bunch of deer were doing that. I would have thought it would be the opposite, and usually it is they would hit the food plot first and then go to the big field. But for whatever reason, these deer were doing at the opposite and this buck followed her. But instead of them walking the edge, which most of the deer would do, they were about fifty yards farther on the field. So I'm forty yards inside the cover and their fifty yards out into the field. And they crossed daylight fades the closer they haked about seventy yards from me. Um. But that was it so very exciting encounter, super cool that had happened. Um, it was. It was exciting to see an aggressive move like that, you know, not quite come together, but sort of proved out like the concept could have worked. And Um, you know, then it was I'm gonna be hunkered in here and he's gonna be locked on that dough. And in the next two days, next day and a half, I did see him again. Um. Basically I was trying to push in on where I thought this dough was gonna go back and forth, and I saw him, but never was Aliot super close. Um. Which takes us then to November two, and we're staring my back forward to start date in the face or running that of time and um again you know this story. I made an aggressive move right to the very smack deb middle of this betting and hunted a tree that I watched for years that I always wanted to hunt, um but hadn't been able to. And I got in there, got a new stand set up, and and I should say, like I'm not hunting prepped stands or anything. This is every single day. Every morning, I'm going in there and hanging a new set. Every night I'm tearing down and moving. Um. I've never been that mobile before. This is every single set. I was in new place almost. UM. So that was a lot of work, but I think it helped me in a lot of ways. Um. And you know he came through before daylight. He was there at ten yards, couldn't shoot him. Eventually got to my downwind side, blew out. Um. Some chasing does and cruising still in there throughout the day. Um, I think I think a couple of things about this because because that happened right he he winded me right close, busted out of there, but then he stuck around chasing does and then like four hours later he crossed the creek with my wind was blowing down about two yards away and caught something again and caught my wind there, but uh, you know, headed off after that. And then the next day I bump him when I'm walking to an evening set. He's better with a dough about a hundred and fifty yards from there. He's still in that area, better with a lock down dough. I bumped him out of there. Then the next night, now I'm making another adjustment based off you know, he's locked on this dough. If she's gonna come out, you know they're not gonna come right by where I bumped them, but she might come out, you know, down wind to that spot. So I make an adjustment, and here he comes fall in the doll the next night. So keep seeing him in this damn little area, like a ten to twenty a chunk. He doesn't want to leave it. And I've I've tried to think about this, like how come, I'm seeing this mature buck over and over. I'm hunting the heck out of this general area. Um, and he's still moving in daylight. That's something that you don't see from a mature buck in Michigan very often. So either is he dumb or is there something going on here? And my best analysis is that number one, I am being, you know, as obsessive as it possibly can about all the details. Right, So I'm not perfect, but I'm as close as I can possibly be. So yeah, he got down winded me. But he must have, you know, with those with my O zone, with all the things I'm doing. It must have not been like the obvious, Oh my god, that's a human that's right there. It must have been like, I don't like it. I'm getting out of year. But um, it was enough of head scratcher that he was willing to still be active in their Number two, this deer or this is a mature buck that wanted to get on these doughs. And there was hot dos and that cloud's judgment. So the role of clouding his judgment. And finally a lot of this hunting was going on in a place that this deer historically had not been bothered. This was his safe zone. And for years he called this his safe zone, and it was always safe. And so now in year five, all of a sudden, you're telling me that my bedroom is no longer safe. It might take you a little while to come to grasps with that. So I think he was a little bit hanging onto his safe place. He's like, damn it, this can't be happening. This has always been safe. It's always been safe. So he's stuck with it. And and I kept poking around, and um, you know that eventually proved to be his demise. I didn't talk to you about this, but I did talk about this on a podcast two weeks ago. UM. I eventually had to leave for the back forty hunted out there, killed the super cool buck. And because I killed that buck early in the trip, I had a couple of day window where I didn't need to be hunting out there, um until our next set of guests came out. So I had two days in between where I could come back and hunt the transpots. And so I did, and I had three encounters with them. One morning, I went in on the south side of this betting area, and at this point My plan was, I'm just gonna I'm gonna stick to this area and I'm just going to kind of volume hunted. It's kind of crazy that I'm spending as many sits and am in this like acre zone. But this is where he wants to be, and until he tells me otherwise, I'm gonna keep pounding it. And so I got in there, and you know, an hour after daylight, here he comes cruising and he cruises in like he's head and right to me. I'm clipped on, I'm ready, and he gets like fifty five yards and then kind of angles the other way and angles out, you know, to seventy I tried to snort wheeze to him, and he didn't like it, and he kind of just buggered out of there. See him again that night, chasing a dough way off in the distance from another spot. Next morning, I go into the north side of this betting area. And most people heard this story two weeks ago. Dan, I don't know if you know this or not, but he follows in. The dough blows through my one spot I could shoot, gets into this thick, nasty stuff. I panic. I'm desperate. I've spent so many days and hours and so much time and energy trying to get this buck. And in that moment, I'm thinking, I gotta get a shot. I have to get a shot. I can't let this, this opportunity that's finally here, slip away. And so I've forced a shot through a little tiny pocket in the brush that really wasn't a good pocket at all, and I miss him, hitting branches and crap. Um, And then I had to go to the back for it again. I leave the back forty. I'm out there for seven days. That takes me to the final hunt the gun season, right bum. Yeah, So gun season opens for seven days, I'm not there. I get back from the back forty and now I can hunt. I'm tired, I'm war out. I'm kind of sick and tired of it, but I feel like I gotta try. Um. Every day the gun season goes further on, there's a chance that one of these other people in the area going to shoot him. Um. So I go out and say, like, yeah, I'm gonna stick the original plan. I want to get back there in that pocket, see if he's still there. And the first day it was just dead. Um saw very little. A neighbor shot a deer and there's a bunch of commotion, uh, coming out. I saw what looked to be a trespasser on a property that isn't supposed to be hunted. I saw flashlights out there, so I kind of ran them down and wasn't able to connect, but kind of let these people know that, hey, we saw you at least, So all that happens, and then there's no deer heading to the food on the other neighbors like they had been. And I had seen that they had actually disc that field under two So now all of the food that's adjacent to anything I can hunt is all disked under. And I'm sitting here Saturday night thinking, all right, based off what I saw and all this pressure and that all the food's gone. Now these deer just I bet you these doughs have just got to be going to the other side of the square mile. And I still bet you if he's alive, and I don't know this, I don't have confirmations alive, but if he is, I bet you he's still gonna be betting in this area and checking this area for does but he's probably gonna be heading in a different direction than has been going on all year. So the next day I just said, all right, I'm gonna go hunt back on the main stuff that I used to hunt all the time, on my main property that I've hunted for years and years and years. I'm gonna hunt down on that side that has been absolutely dead all season because of the dirt field. I mean, I've been checking cameras, I've been hunting some stuff where I could still see in there, and it had been just a ghost town. But I thought maybe because they're on a a different neighbor. Now I've got I'm talking about two different sets of neighbors. There was a recently cut cornfield on one east side of the square mile. Then there was a standing corn field to the south of the square mile that I knew of that were now like the only food sources in the area since everything up on me had been dissed. So my theory was that I'm gonna hunt down in this spot where I can intercept anything that wants to head to the south cornfield coming out of this bedding year, and I'd be able to see from way off in the distance anything that wants to go to the east side of the square mile, and at least see if my hunch is right, and then from there I can make an adjustment. And it's gunned season. I'm taking a gun. Um, we're gonna see what happens and and kind of go from there. That's what I sat up on. I'm sitting kind of in between the good bedding that's off to my north aways, and then there's a little swamp to my south, and then there's other neighbor who that standing corn fields further back behind that. The first three or four hours the night were dead. It was snowing. I thought it would be great, but nothing was moving. Nothing was moving until the last half hour Doe pops out and the dough starts walking down my way, and then right behind her it's Tran And at this point think, holy crap, he's alive. This is amazing. But they're heading into like this timber ahead of me instead of to the excuse me where I'm at. It's kind of in between a little finger of a field that goes into this timber on one side and then a power line on the other. And so they pop out in the power line, but then very quickly crossed into the timber and I can't see anything, and I'm guessing that they're gonna stay in the thick of that timber and foul that all the way down to the neighbor that does have the corn, and they probably won't come out to the open where I can get a shot. I still gotta be ready, though, so I get ready. I'm watching. I'm already thinking, like, okay, based on what I sell, what does that mean for tomorrow? He's alive. I can adjust on this. They're heading to the south. Um As I'm thinking to this, the dope pops out again. But now she's closer to me on the power line side, like she's heading to this little food plot that I have over in this other direction too. I'm thinking, man, they're gonna come close. This is actually gonna happen. And then I see a buck pop up and I look at it and it's not Tran. It's this like mini me of Tran. There's this other buck I've been seeing all year that I passed a bunch that's like a two or three year old miniature version of Tran, and he's with her, And now I'm thinking, damn it, that was him. I didn't see the real trend. It was the fake tran um ah like I'm having this internal battle. I swear to God it was him. How there's no way I could have mistaken it. He's he's just massive compared to this one. And as this is all playing out, Mini Tran pops over to my side of the tree line, comes across this field um this little finger and gets to the downwind side of me. Comes all the way across to the downwind side of man, stops, hits the wind and has like that you know what when you you do the same stuff I do, use nose onics, you're playing other you know, send control things. He stops, he looks, he's thinking. He's like, I don't there's something over there I don't really like, but I can't quite put my finger on it. And he's looking looking, and then he turns and just starts walking back the way he came. That doe pops out, he stops. He's getting kind of like funky doing the head things, staring at me, and I'm thinking, anytime now this is gonna blow up. He's gonna bugger out of here. And if the real trend is here, he's gone to And just when I'm like worrying through all that, the real trend steps out of the thick timber and starts walking right out to the edge to where that dough is. And he comes walking right out, gets to the edge, kind of turns quartering to me, and I pull up the scope and I look at him, and there's a huge tree close to me in between us that he is rund the edge of. And if if I let him keep walking, he will go behind that big tree that's by me, So it covers like a like a sixty yard zone or maybe not that much for meet yards of area that he would cover. And then once he got to the other side of that tree, he'd be almost down wind. So I thought, is it's an hour never basically, so I prop up the gun, my elbows on my knees, and he's kind of quarter two and basically put on the shoulder and and that was it. I let her eat, and um, it happened fast. It was crazy. He went pile driving out of there, disappears behind a big clump of trees in the swamp. And you know, a couple of hours later, I got some buddies and we went in there great Blood Trail, and Tran was on the ground. It uh it came together. And you know that, just just an hour before that, I've been texting with my friends saying, man, I think it's it got buggered up hard this weekend. All this food's gone. It's just dead. I'm betting I'm probably have to pull out for a couple of weeks and just wait until December. Maybe, you know, I can refigure stuff out and I'm just gonna observe and move cameras around. I did not think things are gonna come together. And uh, it had been a long, crazy, wild ride, and I was definitely at the end of my rope by the time that had come together. I mean, I had hunted a ton for this year, um and he had he. I just felt like I was chasing my tail. I was seeing him close, not close enough. I mean I had him within sixty five yards or sixty yards so many times. I had the the miss, the almost shot at ten yards, the spotting stock, the you know, I'm here, he's there, he's there, I'm here, over and over and over. And that's exciting and amazing, but it was also really frustrating and being just so close but not close enough, and also every day thinking like any time now the way he's moving, someone's gonna kill him. Um, And it's it's probably not gonna be me because I seemingly can't get out of my own way or can't get that final piece to fall into place. And I just remember as I was walking to the stand that day, actually, as I was walking in, I remember thinking to myself, Man, you gotta get lucky eventually, like you just right, you gotta have I was like, you're doing the right stuff. Like I kept on trying to think, like what am I doing wrong? Is there something I should be doing different? Do I need to be going about this different? I kept thinking, Man, I don't think I would be doing anything terribly wrong. You just haven't had that find a little tiny piece of luck go your way. Just keep doing the right things, and if you do the right things enough times, one of these times that final puzzle piece will be where you need it. And and that's what was on my minds that went to the stand, and and finally that's what happened, The one little chip went my way. Yeah, and it happened. I'll tell you what, man, that's that is a a statement in itself again, something that man, people get real frustrated. And I get it because they don't get the time to hunt like me and you do right. And some of them may be limited to um weekends or only five days of vacation that they can allocate towards hunting or whatever. But if if you put in your time and you cover your basis and you do the right thing, man, I am confident. Now it doesn't happen every time, but I'm confident that you're gonna get more encounters, You're going to have the tide eventually turns your way. I feel yeah. And and sometimes it really is like there's these different there's these different um parts of a hunt, and you need to check off each one of these different boxes. And sometimes you can get away with checking a few of them. Sometimes you need more of them to be checked. Um. You know, sometimes you're gonna get just straight up lucky, and then other times you gotta do everything just right for it to happen. And other days you can do everything just right and it still doesn't happen. Um. So you know, I think it goes back to what we've said a thousand times. You you check every box you possibly can. You work as hard as you possibly can you hunt, you know, as much as you can when it's right, and eventually good things will happen. Like you said, it's not gonna happen every time. Maybe it doesn't happen every year. Um. You know, I'm fortunate that in this case, you know, I'm able to hunt more than a lot of people, and so in this scenario, it required a lot of volume. It required a lot of doing the right thing over and over and over um for all the different mistakes and things to iron out and for it to actually come together for me. So so I'm thankful for being able to do that, but I'm also I guess it also came down to just keeping a little bit of belief and persisting. Um, there were a lot of times. There was a lot of negative self talk over the last two months. There's a lot of days where I was kicking myself or mad about picking this spot rather than that spot, or thinking, man, you're never gonna get another opportunity. Now, you're never going to see him again. Man, you're never gonna you know, there was just so much built into this hunt because it was three years running, because all the work in the spring and summer have been about this dear, I can't tell you how many days I've spent with binocular staring out at these fields and these openings trying to see him. I mean hundreds of hundreds of hours um, watching and searching and thinking and planning. UM. And then it makes what's kind of an absurd thing the case, which is I was obsessing over a deer and letting it consume a ton of my mindset and my thought and my time and energy, and so it builds this thing up into this huge thing. And I kept telling my wife that, yeah, it's just a deer, but it's also like so much work, so much of me has gone into this thing, and and there's not many other things in life I can think of where I can work unbelievably hard. I can work work, work, work, work, and do everything I know I'm supposed to do and still not get the payoff. Like when I'm writing a book, I knew that if if I work my butt off and if I do the stuff I need to do that I know how to do, I'm going to get that book done. If you know, if I put in the work I need to to do a good podcast and do the right preparation and plan and ask the right questions and spend the time leading into it, make sure we do a good job atting. I know we'll get a good podcast out. Um that's not the case with a hunt like this. And that was like I was getting to this point where I was I was feeling I had actually reached a point of resignation. To be honest with you, I gotten to a point where I've been so frustrated and like stressing. I was loving it, but also stressing. And then I got two guns season. When gun season hits, I always kind of used to just kind of hands off, and you realize that it's out of my hands. Now, there's way more people out there now than usual and a lot better chance of than killing him, he's probably gonna get it smoked by someone. And I kind of had to be like, Okay, you did your very best, you worked your damnedest, you put in the time. Um. So I kind of made peace with things when November rolled around. Um And and you know, I don't have much advice to give a person, Mark and especially you, but one thing that I've learned throughout the years is if you can learn to get us that or over that feeling, hunting becomes so much more than then that, if that makes sense. Like the stress part, like you said, it's like you can work as hard as you want and the payoff still won't be there, and you start to get this this some sort of stress build up or uh, the worrisome build up that you were feeling. I'm telling you right now, man, I used to be like that too, and i've since I feel like I since planned prep, I do all the things, but I leave the worry at home. I leave all the worry. I just don't do it anymore. I just go out and I hunt. And I feel like when I was able to do that and make that step and just say, you know, dude, if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't, and and accept that fact. Dude, I feel like I've reached a different level in hunting and I've been able to enjoy it so much more. Yeah, I mean, that's that's awesome. Man. Um. I don't know if I'm I'm probably not that person that I can. I can, I can I get to that point Like I kind of got to that point. I had to force myself into that and realize, like, hey, you tried, and this is where we're at and it is and you know what what has helped me the most, there's kids. You know, whenever I have a bad hunter, or whenever I feel like this stuff didn't go the way I wanted, I would just remind myself of the boys that I was gonna come home to and see him and hug him, and you know, that always bring me back to what's really most important. But but I'm just so goal oriented and I can't help but put so much into this and and really really really wanted to come together. We talked about every year. Um, it's something I worked through every year, but um, I don't Yeah, there's the dogs, Um, congratulations man. Yeah, this one was a wild ride. He he worked me over, he beat me up, he stressed me out, he made me work my tail off. Um. And and it was pretty satisfying for me to get to a point where I kind of was okay with not being able to kill him. I knew that was a possibility, and then to have it actually come together was was a crazy, amazing satisfying ending that. Um that leaves me in a very happy place today. Absolutely. Man, those these big bucks, man, they can make a smile or they can make us cringe, you know. So congratulations brother, thank you, my friend. I'm glad that uh I could share it with you over these years. And um, thanks for all the thanks for all the kind words and advice encouragement along the way. Absolutely, and I guess what here's to uh, here's two white tails for dare I say one? It's gonna be a good year. It's gonna be a better year. It's gotta be better than got to be a better year. Is It's only up from here. That's all right, man, thank you. Let's uh, let's catch up soon and talk about the plan for next year. Alright. So Dan had to bounce off, he had a he had a hard stop. So we kind of had to rush things a little bit there at the end. But I wanted to take a second here to kind of tie a bowl on this and and synthesize some of the main takeaways or lessons learned here for me, And then I think maybe we can all take from this because this isn't yeah, this is a story of my own personal hunt and and this kind of journey I went on. But my hope all along has always been that by sharing these stories you all are able to learn right alongside me. And so now as I'm wrapping up this hunt and I'm trying to process what what did I take away from this? Uh? I want to make sure that that you all can take away something too. UH. When I you know, over this last seven days essentially it's been seven days as I'm recording this, since the hunt actually happened. Now at this point, um, here here's what stands out to me. One of the major things going into this hunt that I wanted to do differently this year was to be more aggressive and mobile than ever before. You've heard me talk about this throughout the year. That was a goal of mine. And you heard me just mentioned to Dan that I thought I did that, and I really do. I think I was more mobile, more adaptable than I ever have. UM. I really fine tuned my mobile setup. I've I had the process nailed. I mean I was going up and down, up and down every day for day after day after day. From you know. I did some of that in early October. There a lot of that laid October right on through the middle and almost towards the end of November. And because I had dialed in that process, and become really comfortable with my gear. It wasn't something that held me back previously. When I wasn't comfortable with those two things. It was a real inconvenience to to move from this stand to that stand, to go hang a news stand fifty yards over there, or to adjust twenty yards, or to move at all. You just want to go hunt the pre hung sets that were there and easy, um. But oftentimes that's not going to put you in the place you need to be, especially if your bow hunting. UM. This year, I wasn't going to let that stand in my way anymore. So I made the moves when I had to make them. When I saw a movement that was thirty yards farther away, I would bump up. I would make that move. Um. I would go in the next day, two hours before daylight and hang new sets, something maybe five years ago I never would have done. Now I'm realizing time and time again that that stuff pays off. It's inconvenient, it's a pain in the butt, it's not easy. It's hard at times. UM. It takes some work to get comfortable doing that kind of stuff, But so often I'm finding that the hard thing is usually the right thing to do if this is the goal you're working towards. Of course, secondly, I had to adopt a different kind of strategy as the season progressed. So early on when I started this, this a couple of week period where I was gonna be hunting for Tran pretty aggressively. That first week, UM, I was mobile. I was bouncing all around the outside of this area, trying to figure out where is this deer, what is he doing. I hadn't seen him at all since late September, So during that period I was moving. I was moving, I was moving, adjusting based off wind, adjusting based off of different things going on. But once we got into that second week in November, I had been seeing him. I had been having these encounters. I kind of had it die all day what he was doing. He was staying in this little, tiny pocket, and every one of the times I saw him or encountered him, it was within this you know, I don't know, ten twenty acres or less, even you could almost in zeer it down to I don't know, I mean of it maybe was happening in five acres um. It was really a small little pocket where so much of this stuff was happening. So eventually got to the point where I was I was bouncing from this spot to that spot, and that spot to this spot, and I was realizing what he was here, and then I was over there, and then I was there and he was here, and I got to the point where I realized, Okay, there's sometimes and you need to be mobile, and you need to be bouncing around, but maybe there's sometimes when you shouldn't do that, and you just need to hunker down and hunt a basic zone that he knows right that you know you've got the right wind for, and you know he will eventually come through and give it two or three days or two or three sits, give it the time for him to rotate through there. And so I eventually realized, Okay, I'm gonna stop trying to get fancy with it, and I'm gonna stop outsmarting myself, and I'm going to zero win on these couple of spots and and just hunt him until he's either here or he's not. And that is what eventually led me to, you know, those last two out of the final three encounters with him, one of him was when he came in and got to about fifty five, and then the other one was when I missed him with a bow, and then finally I had to adjust later. But I do think that there was something to be said about finally realizing that my my comment, my my intuition was saying, Oh, this is crazy. He can't keep popping up in the same stupid places. Um, he's got to have moved on. He must have smelled you right now. You must have done something. He should have been educated. But I kept seeing something different, and eventually I had to tell myself, Okay, don't don't what am I trying to say here. Believe what your eyes are telling you, and don't outsmart yourself. Sometimes you just gotta be there and wait until things go the right way. So there's there's this interesting line you have to walk between be mobile, be mobile, get that first set, get that first set, adjust, change, surprise him. But then sometimes you just gotta be there and wait. So that's something that I don't know if what I just said there cleared articulates this thing yet, But there's there's this balance that I'm finding, and you need to learn how to and when to strike that balance and go one way or the other, which then brings me to another big takeaway, which is related to this whole idea of being mobile, and that's the importance of adapting fast. More than any other year, this season, on this set of properties, I had to deal with major changes, lots of different stuff going on for the first time ever that I can remember out here, these crop fields got plowed under, and one of those happened in late October and change things dramatically. And then another set of fields got disked under and I don't know, it was like November somewhere around there, and that changed things even more dramatically. So each time that happened, it it was like a light switch event for the local deer populations. And I went from knowing what deer doing these places historically year after year, to all of a sudden, they're doing things completely different. If I had not been mobile, if I wasn't willing to quickly say, Okay, things are changing, how are they changing? What do I need to do? And I had to do that within a day or two, and and that was key to staying on this deer. Other examples would be hunting pressure. Several different times I had hunters really changed the game for me. Uh So you remember the story back in late October, when I thought I was getting in close. I was really in the best hot fresh sign hunting this spot ahead meal hunt in the past. Finally snuck in there, finally had the wind to do it. And then a neighbor shot a deer like fifty yards away from me and blew their wind all three and really blew that spot up. I thought that was going to be the spot. It wasn't. I had to quickly change put together a new plan how to attack this core zone from a different direction where that hunting pressure wasn't. I was able to do that this year, and within a few days got back on him. Another example, this was the whole example, when Tram was locked on that dough. I saw him locked on the door heading a different direction, and he was the only darem after and he was heading to a food source away from me. And in past years I would have said, well, you know, there he goes. I guess the next hour and a half of the hunt is just gonna be me sitting here and wondering what's gonna happen. That maybe would have been me six seven, eight years ago, but this year it was Nope, I need to think fast. I needed to adapt, and I'm gonna be aggressive and make this thing happen. So I decided, you know what, with this wind we have, I think I know where these deer going. I think I know what they're gonna do. I might be able to cut him off. And I went for it, got out of my tree, took a stab at going after those deer, and it didn't come together, but it almost did. So once again, I just have seen examples of quickly analyzing the situation and adapting to those new things fast and being confident in how you adapt. That proved to be very very important. I guess the very most important example was the very last one. I mean it is the very most important. I went from focusing on this core zone I've been talking about all day. Um, that was where I focused like two weeks of the hunt, and then I get back from the back forty seven days later, and everything is different. The deer gone, hunting pressures increased, they're doing things different, and I had to quickly fare, Okay, why are they gone and where have they gone to? And my hunch was that they're heading in a totally different direction out of this core zone. I made the pivot and lo and behold that was where they were and I killed the buck that night. Now, yeah, I got a little lucky, of course I did. Like I mentioned, you have to get lucky every once in a while. But I think because I was willing to make that quick change, trust the gut, trust my analysis, and then move on it fast. I wasn't gonna sit in my usual spot for two, three, four days. Well, eventually, change, eventually change. Nope, when you're not seeing what you want to see, change fast with it. And that's what I did. This brings me to the final big takeaway, which is related to what Dan was talking about there at the end when he made a really good point about how he's been able to get away from the stress and the worry of hunting season and just enjoy it. And he's one correct, that is what we need to be striving for. And for some people that's a lot easier to do than for other people. If you listen to this podcast, you know me. You know me well, you've heard me verbally vomit for seven years now, telling you everything, telling you my deepest, darkest fears, telling you about the best things I've done, the worst things, I've done. You've you've heard me share my mistakes and my successes. You've heard me try to verbally work out my thought process. You've heard me talk about my stresses and think through my strategies. You know what, you know what you're gonna get when it comes to me. And one of those things is being very goal oriented, being very mission focused, shooting for the moon, and and having a hard time not striving for those things. That's me, That's that's just who Mark Kenyon is. I want to do that stuff and I love that stuff, but it also inevitably does lead to stress, frustration, and it leads to you know, every hunting season, I have this back and forth go out in my head, and I've talked about it every year, so you you know this um and when I come back to every year and this year again is being able to find this strike this right balance. So much of what we're talking about here today, you know, this hunt comes down to striking balance. For me. It's this balance between chasing goals, chasing a dream, chasing something you're trying to achieve, or whatever it might be, filling the freezer for the first time, killing your first dear, killing a dear killing your first three and a half year old, dear whatever um striving for them, pushing yourself to do that. I really personally think there is value and pushing yourself to do things that are hard, to take on, things that are challenging and that you might fail at. Maybe that you probably will fail it. I think there's value in trying to do really hard ship and forcing yourself to grow and change and to face that adversity and to push through that. I think that leads to growth. I think that leads to good things. I think that, at least for me, is a really important part of life. So I like that. But what I also have been continuously trying to do is to get better at enjoying not just reaching that pinnacle, but really enjoying the entire process. And I'm really good at enjoying the process prior to unning season, when I'm thinking about it and planning for I'm really good at enjoying the process after hunting season, when it's all said and done and I can look back on it enjoy it in the moment. I'm great at enjoying the process seventy percent of the time, probably I really love it. And then thirty percent of the time, I get it too worked up, and I get too focused on when things aren't going well or why things aren't going well, or this decision versus that decision, or this outcome versus that outcome, and that's this thing that I guess gotta keep on working on. But this year, again I'm reminded of process, process, process, And throughout this year, I kept on going back to this when I read get into one of those little low points. Um, at least what I've seen my progress has has gotten to the point now where I'm not feeling like stressed out and bummed for days on end. It's it's like I'll have a moment and then I have a little mental conversation or internal conversation and then I get out of it. But I'm gonna have those those ups and downs, and I'm gonna have these conversations, a little self talk crazy markship where I say, Okay, Mark, you're frustrated, you're bummed out, Yeah, okay, but that's just part of it, or okay, that's not achieving anything. What can you do next? How do you move forward from this? Where do we go? And you know what, something I didn't mention, but it probably should be mentioned, is that this last weekend of hunting, all right, I told you that I got back from the Back forty and then I started hunting that weekend, and that first day, that Saturday, Saturday morning, Saturday night was a disaster. Didn't see anything, neighbor shot a deer, saw trespass, or all that stuff happened that night. I came back in Chattel my wife and I said, you know what, I'm just kind of I've been given it my all. I've been hunting NonStop between here and the Back forty and hosting people and filming and doing all these things, and it's great. I can't complain about it. I love it. I'm very I just want to make it clear that I don't want it to sound like I'm complaining about this, but at the same time, it also is. It's a lot of work still, and I had gotten to the point where I was I was worn out too, just worn to the grindstone. I'm not just whooped And I said, you know what, I'm not. I'm not going to go out in the morning. I'd originally planned on hunting next morning, but I've been away from my family at I hadn't had a weekend morning to wake up and play with the kids and have a good time. I hadn't done that in three and a half weeks. And I said, you know what, I'm not going out tomorrow. It's snowing, it's cold, it's awesome. You know, it's stupid not to go. I should go, but I'm not. I'm sleeping in. I'm gonna play with the kids. I don't have a good time. I want to have a little bit of this back. I want to enjoy that, and then I think I'll be more refreshed and enjoy it more when I go back on the evening. And at this point in the hunting season, that's probably what I needed to be a little more focused on. And that's what I did, and lo and behold a morning with the kids um led to an evening with a buck on the ground. Coincidence, correlation, I don't know, But maybe that was Mother Nature or the good Lord above or something telling me that, you know, sometimes you gotta take a step back, enjoy the process, have fun with this thing. This thing is about fun. This thing is about enjoying the connection we have with wild animals and wild places. And our family and friends, and and once again that was you know, that was that was illuminated, I guess for me, for lack of a better term. At the same time, though, at the same time, persistence is the name of the game as well, keeping at it, believing it could still happen, grinding in a day after day, all those early mornings, I mean, nothing can really make up for that. Sure you might get lucky some years and kill early. Sure you might get you know, something bounce your way and you don't need to put it in a lot of time and work. But if you want to have consistent success with anything, really, but in this case deer hunting, in my case, trying to kill a mature buck on small properties in Michigan, you gotta just keep after it. And the three year hunt for Tran all these things I just meant and are definitely wrapped up into it. But the name of the game, the big headline across the top over all this is persistence. Persistence through every crazy thing, every obstacle, every mistake, every bad decision, every good night, every bad night, every early morning, every late night, every time where you're tired and didn't want to get up in the morning, and I wanted to hit the snooze button on the little harm clock. Persistence is what killed this dear, So that is, uh is my typical Mark Kenyon long winded way of saying. This has been a hell of a hunt, a heck of a journey. I hope that through this story, this one here on today's podcast, but also the story that I've been telling you that has stretched over so many podcasts over these years, I hope that there's been something that that resonates with you or that you've been able to learn from it. Maybe learned from my mistakes, maybe you learn from my success, may be learned from all my knuckle headed um naval gazing, um talking all this stuff out as I'm just thinking it through. I don't know, but I sure I'm hoping that we all can come out of this um having learned something. And I just appreciate all of you following along. I know some people tire of my stories of these deer over and over again. UM, I hope that's not the case too often, because I I enjoy the heck out of it. I find um, I find it just to be never endingly fascinating, and so I'm thankful that you could all be here along with me. So that is a rap for today. Uh. The only other thing I'll mentioned is that new back forty episodes are up. Speaking of high points this season, my hunt with my dad killing his first deer with the archer equipment that just dropped here a few days ago. It was it was another one of those examples where family friends enjoying the process, enjoying everything, the ups and the downs. Um Man, that that really came to life for me during that experience. So, man, it has been a crazy, crazy hunting season. I've I've I've been really lucky to have a lot of things come together and and learned a lot and enjoyed a lot of incredible experiences out there. I hope you've had a successful, fun and fulfilling hunting season with your friends and family. I hope you're staying healthy. I know these are tough times for a lot of people. Um So I'm wishing you all the best here in these days after Thanksgiving. I hope you can enjoy this holiday season. I hope you can stay healthy and safe and best of luck out there hunting. Thank you for being a part of this community. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, stay wired to hunt.

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