00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyan, and today in the show, I am recounting the wild, wild adventures I had chasing white tails across the plains of Nebraska on the ground, trying to decoy them in at ground level with my buddy Tony treech All right, welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. We are continuing our series here recounting my trips this past fall um where I have been meeting up with different regional experts or subject experts, or different style of hunting experts, and you know, spending a few days learning how they do what they do in this specific area and then trying it out myself. So I told the story in last week's episode about what I did in Washington, d C. Learning how to hunt in the suburbs. Today, I want to tell you about another one of my hunts in which I went to Nebraska and met up with Tony Treach, who's a nomad of sorts. This is a guy who works during the winter, spring and summer so he can take off all fall and hunt across the country, hunting, public land hunting, knock on door stuff hunting, Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Montana. I mean, wyoming all over the place Kansas, um chasing white tails, elk, mule, deer, everything. But when it comes to white tails, he not only spends all this time living out in the land chasing deer forever, but he does this on the ground decoying thing where he's holding or using a bow attached decoy and getting a buck to come right in and try to kick his ass and then he shoots him before they do. That is what I wanted to learned about. That's what I wanted to try doing, and Tony Trich was the man to teach me. So in the second week in November, I traveled out there in Nebraska, met up with Tony and did it. Spend a day and a half of him picking his brain about how he goes about this kind of hunt, watching as he does it himself, and then I went off on my own and tried for three three and a half days on my own. Um, so, Tony's gonna hop on here with me in a minute and we're gonna walk through kind of how he got into the style of hunting. We're gonna talk about some of the high level strategy elements, the things that you need to be thinking about when trying to pull off a hunt like this, and then I'm gonna walk through what I did day by day, decision by decision and counter by encounter, and detail how things went, what I did, and then have Tony kind of examined my decisions and what I tried to do and tell me if I did anything wrong, if there's things I could have done differently, um, et cetera, see if we can learn some stuff from this super crazy experience. I mean, this was some of the most fun I've ever had deer hunting. It it was and um also with me on the podcast here in caled minutes will be Bobby Jared. He was one of the cameramen that was with me for this hunt, so he's going to give a second perspective and in fact checking me on stuff if necessary, and kind of talk about the different things he saw too. So that's today's episode. A lot of fun. Um. This is something I will definitely be doing again, and I can't wait for you to hear the story and watch the episode next year. So without further ado, let's get to my chat with Tony and Bobby. All right, so joining me now on the line to continue this story is Tony Treach and Bobby Jerreed. Thank you both for making the time to get back together again and relive our Nebraska adventures. Yeah, thanks for having me, Yeah, scided thanks. Yeah. So here's where I want to start. You know, when we when we began this trip, we met up at a campground in the middle of nowhere in Nebraska, and I remember one of the first things I asked you, Tony is how long have you been on the road for? Like, how how long have you been traveling so far this year? And it was just a ridiculous answer, Tony, how long had you been? I know there was kind of back and forth, but how many days were you on the road this late summer and fall? And where all did you hear it? Leading up to our trip? Wow? Uh? Started? I left Michigan, went to Nebraska. That would have been in August, early August. I spent about a month there. Exactly what I say. You said, Nebraska, but I think you met Nevada, Nevada. Yeah, I'm sorry Nevada and uh spent a month there, got a bowl with Colorado uh there almost two weeks, got a bowl at home, did some work, actually spent some time at home in some months in September, which was rarity, and then back on the road in October to Wyoming for deer help a buddy with a bison tag mom mom at a moose tag. Did those and then headed down two planes to meet you guys. And I also had a a buddy who had a Kansas tag that I helped with with, and I had a Colorado Eastern Plains Dear tag. So all in all, it's probably just over treat months on the road. Yeah, that's a like I was telling you, I felt like I had been like a traveling vagabond this fault. But when I hear about what you do, it makes my makes my travel seem amateur. So I've got I've got nothing on you. That's a I don't know. Every time we we talked about I found myself having two equal feelings. Number one was a certain sense of jealousy, just like the freedom and adventure you have when you get to go all these different places and spend that much time on the road, but then also dread like, I can't imagine being gone that long and spending that much time on the road and how exhausting that must must be in certain ways. Um, so you've got a really interesting, really interesting worlds are living in there. Man. Yeah, it's uh, it does it does. It does burn me after a while. I mean, if if every hunt goes great, uh, and you know you're just riding the high from hunt to hunt, then it's it goes a lot faster and smoother. Um. But you throw in a couple of hard hunts here or there, and or you know, bad weather, hot weather, whatever, things aren't going your way, and it could become a drag. Um. I just got to make sure to everything's uh in line and functioning on the home front, because the wife's not happy. Uh, it wouldn't you know, it wouldn't happen. And it works. It works. If there's trouble at work, you know, it can enter into a disaster. But knock on wood, it's everything's good. And as as as of right now, I'll still be allowed from the wife to don't do it again. You know something that I don't think I actually asked you about back in November that I meant to was quite simply, why why do you why have you taken this to such a just to this degree. I mean, there's a lot of guys that take a week, maybe two weeks of vacation go hunting. There's a lot of people that like to travel to hunt. There's a lot of people to hunt a whole lot around home. Um, but there are not many people that have gone as far as you have and and have really crafted your lifestyle to to do this to the extent that you have. I mean, that's a pretty unique thing. Um, When did you When did you realize you wanted to go this far with it? And and why? What was the impetus for really taking things to this very very different level than most It kind of it kind of built up slowly, and it didn't start by going out west and you know, to the mountains and then to the plains. It started traveling to Illinois and been in a farmer's barn for two weeks and then three weeks. Then we got permission to hunt in Ohio, Buddy and I and we know, we spent a couple of weeks there, and then we drew Iowa and we spent a couple of weeks there. And then I got invited to Kansas the first year, and all of a sudden, now we're spending two weeks down there, and you know, I side, I mean, did the several trips or you know, the basically you know, from a last third week of October all the way through November travel in the Midwest before I got the bug from seeing all the mule here in Kansas that I couldn't hunt, um because at first we were using rifles there. Non resident can hunt you know there in Kansas rifles. So it kind of gat me the bugs like I need to go further west where I can hunt from you there, and and then the elk bug bit me in. It's just a I had already had my business kind of you know, I'm a self employee carpenter. They have a handful of employees, and uh, you know, but the customers that we work for know that we you know, we we basically fried carpetry labor. And when the fall is gone or the fault the fall comes, we're gonna be one guy short and I'm gonna be gone. And uh, you know, we do good enough work that I can kind of, yeah, get what I want, uh per sely with that, because uh yeah, the guys are really good and get stuff done. But it just it grew into what it is now slowly, and it's you know, there's some areas that I can hunt every year, and I love to hunt, and I don't want to give him up, and I just keep adding those types of hunts to the list and then occasionally throw on a great tank you come across, and so it just, you know, about a better hunter, I'd probably get done earlier, and I just shoot him on the first or second day, and I feel to go home once in a while, but it seems like I drag him out to the end of the season every time. Oh I feel like those times when you do kill on the first day, you have like a certain sense of of loss that the hunts already done. You know. That's like, that's the weird catch twenty two. I've been in that position. So so then what about the decoy part of what you do? So so, if I were to oversimplify what I think about when I think about Tony Treach, you, I think about this public land traveling nomad, and I think at least from the white tail side of things, which is, you know, my particular interests. I think about how you're doing this on the ground, handheld decoy thing. You know, that was what I was really interested in picking your brain about. UM. Now, a couple of years ago we did podcast where we talked about this pretty extensively, so we're I don't want to cover every single a little bit, but but how did that come about for you? I remember you telling us a story back there in Nebraska that I thought was, um was eye opening. Can you can you get us up to speed on that, like how this style of hunting became your style? Now moving forward? Yeah, so it was a necessity when I first started out in Kansas. I mean I was typical Midwestern you know, yeah, hunted. You know, grew up in Michigan hunting and it's thicker and snot up here in northern Michigan. And you know, I went to Illinois where it was thick, and I you know, where it's you're hitting the hunting the river bottoms where it's thick. And I went to Kansas. The first time we met the rancher, uh, he wanted to give us a tour kind of like, you know, well, there's the properties that I've either own or rent and you can can hunt these. And I mean we stopped in the first place, intersection of four you know, four county roads and you can't okay't see a tree. I can't see a bush, like I don't know how jack rabbit could have hit out there. And I just remember doing a three sixty looking around like I thought, I don't know what we're doing here. This is gonna be a waste time. And by the end of that week, Uh, we figured out that it's not as it's not as flat and as it looks, it's not as empty as it looks. There's a lot of animals out there. Uh. And it's but but we had to hunt them differently and that grew into you know, traditional spot and stock is pretty tough in the plane because vision you can't see very well. If you can get past that and stand enough on your trucks, if you can climb on top of buildings, you know, find what little high spots there are, you can get on them. And and it's it's not it's not the easiest spot in stock hunting. It's a lot of crawling and it's I mean, at the end of the day, you're just covered in dust and birds, and but what was happening was I was getting close to these bucks and then you know, they're bedding in these grassy draws and these leady draws, and when they stand up, you know, sometimes in order to have a shot when they do stand up, you gotta be pretty dang close. And sometimes it doesn't even matter. I mean ten fifteen yards away. I think I told you for about the biggest book I've ever hundred in Kansas, I just didn't have a shot. I was fifteen yards from him three different times, and I really didn't have a great shot window any one of those times. So I got me thinking I needed something to hold them or you know, bring them to me even better, you know, uh, once they did stand up, So I brought I had an old Montana decoy that I you know, like the full body silhouette, uh, that I brought out one year, and I was trying to use that, and I I brought the wrong legs. I also had the elk version, and I brought the elk legs, which you know, so I got a Joe decoy that's like standing three ft off the ground and fourth front of the ground was pretty funny. So I thought I was funny, and I put up a post on social media with that, and Garrett Rowe, the owner heads up Decoy, actually called her message me and said, hey, uh, we're based out of Western Kansas, briget and converse a little bit and he's like, well, here, let's meet somewhere tomorrow and I'll set you up with my products and consue what you think. I met him at a you know, undisclosed intersection and we he all. He helped me install the bracket on on my bow in front other behind my uh stabilizer and give me a ground steak and uh brushed clamp and off I went. And the very next day I killed five inch white deal with it. And that deer was coming at me. Basically his eyes rolled in the back of its head, and if I hadn't shot it, it might have taken the decoy in the bow right out of my hands. It was, I mean, it was coming for a fight, and it basically it basically solved the prop in my head. Um when I was able to sneak in now to to where they're at mess the key you gotta find them bedded, Yeah, step with their ben gotta get in tight and then just this way you can call him into and and and that's actually how that worked with that that book that a shot that day. But um, the perfect situation that really is kind of pool group is just getting in tight, show them the decoy, and let them do their thing. But it was out a necessity basically. Now, what's like the pre wreck for this kind of hunt as far as what kind of area, what kind of habitat do you think you need? And I guess there's a time of year pre ruck as well, Like what what are the things that are absolute musts for someone to be in a situation to try this from your perspective, Yeah, well this isn't honestly just my opinion. Um, but I've never tried outside of the rut, so I don't know how it worked. But you know, in the rut, the white tails if the bucket ratios is at at a healthy level and they're not just getting hammered by people and you know, always on edge, they see another buck they're gonna come check it out. Uh So the rut is a must in my opinion. But maybe the most important thing is you've got to be able to see where they're sleeping. If you don't know where they're at. You're basically just still hunting with a decoy, and you know, we all know how that's gonna go. You know the best? Have you seen them before they see you as you're creeping through where they're bedded, So being able to see them in their beds, uh is absolutely the most important thing. And then you can put together a plan how to get close as close as you can. Do you want to try to call them or get their attention to see the decoy or do you want to let them see on their own? You know, you get once you once you have them betted in a spot that you can hunt, you know, it's uh, it's over really unless you mess up, you know something. But there you're going to have a great opportunity if you can find a betted Yeah, I um ah, it's interesting. That was like the ideal scenario you kept telling us about. And unfortunately I was only able to get that specific scenario one time, which I'll get to describe that too and a little bit here in the story. But um, but even though I didn't have that specific thing work out, it was wild how many different almost occurred still without that um, I haven't even told you all these stories yet, and I'm excited for you to hear how specifically some of this went, because, Um, what you told me was that this would be some of the most intense fun hunting I've ever experienced, And even though I didn't have an ideal scenario in a lot of ways, I still think that proved to be true. I mean, Bobby, from your perspective watching what we're about to talk about, I mean, this is some wild stuff, wasn't it. Yeah, Man, it was exciting. It was just when the action was happening. It was just bucks everywhere running around, and I kind of had a unique position watching sort of up above you from most of it. So it's just just like my heart was beating just just watching it from the bar. Yeah. I can't can't imagine what you're feeling. Yeah, I mean it's nuts being at ground level getting in close to one of these deer like this. Um, but it starts with the spotting one, and I guess that's maybe where we should pick it up, which was that first night we got together. And we're gonna go find a high spot and do some glass and try to get eyes on something. Um, we're hunting some public land in Nebraska. Uh, you had got their day earlier or yeah, I think the day before and had done something last thing. Yeah. Um, And then we got together and got up high and looked around. What from your perspective, when you're beginning to hunt like this, you're just trying to get eyes on something at that point in the hunt, in the very beginning, what was it that you were really trying to do. Were you trying to find a buck to actually stock that night or was it just let's see if there's anything worth hunting here at all, like an inventory type thing? Was that more so what you were doing? Yeah? No, I think we needed to find out where real they are moving through and there because that was a little bit thicker than than what we you know, what the ideal terrain would probably be that with the river bottoms and the six featers in the bottoms. My idea was that probably if they had that available to them, a lot of times they will use it. So, you know, a lot of the spots I look for they don't have those options. So they had they were forced to be in the open. Uh. So yeah, I figured if we could figure out where they're moving through and there, um, and at least get an idea of you know, what the what the daily patterns are, we can maybe intercept them or call them in or just getting their way. And uh, and again they were running. I mean we saw bucks that were that we're ready and trusing, and I think if we had gotten in the right situation it would have worked. Uh. But yeah, just trying to just trying to basically figure out what's going on there, take the kind of the the poles of that that area. Yeah, so we watched that night and saw quite a few dos on the public land, but didn't see any good bucks. So we did see two bucks that we thought might be mature across the valley on private land. Um. But that was essentially the extent of nine number one is just an hour something the hour and a half maybe glassing up there and just kind of got the land of the land a little bit. And then we decided to go out the next morning. And you know, goal with this was just to follow you and see what you do and how you do it and and pick your brain on on all things when it comes to the style of hunting. Um. So I don't know, I mean, we we did a bunch of hiking around and we saw a bunch of dos and probably the highlight was we came up this ridge. We're working our way up a hill, and just as we approached the crest, I saw a deer silhouetted on another ridge line across the valley, and it was a decent buck. Um. Do you want to walk through, Tony? What what your thought process once we spotted that buck was, and how you thought we could maybe make a play on him. Yeah, Well the wind was when it was ninety degrees at best, so we it kind of depend on which way he turned. But when he disappeared over that, you know, coming our way over that ridge, shap and went down to the valley. I thought, if we could set up on the on the top edge, get a decoy up in front of us, it might just sucking radio and if you know it, he's going to circle around, you know, just to see to see what we are. Because they asked differently, if they have a door or they don't have a dough. If he's got a dough, he's coming at yet, he's gonna he's defending that dough. He's gonna try to fight. But if he doesn't have the dough, He's not just gonna go stumble one in there. He wants to check and swing around and get a kind of a pulsive to what's going on. He wants to figure out before he gets just flies in there and gets his his But what uh what he's what he's dealing with. So I was hoping he would when you see that decoy silhouette on our ridge, he would just come right to us or that worst like that down wind quartering towards the wind, down wind side. So ended just disappearing though he never did do that. We are never did seeing him. Um, and you know for a second that I thought, you know, this actually might work. I think we did a little rattling. Did you rattle on that one? Oh? I think I did, yeah, um, yeah, because he wanted to. Yeah. I wasn't sure if he was gonna hang out down there, lay down, and I just wanted to. I wanted to look up there. So uh So in that situation where you're getting eyes on a cruising buck, you said, it's you know, it's different than a buck with a dough. It's not necessarily defending the dough. He's gonna try to skip about the situation. Do you do anything different in that scenario when it's a cruising buck on his zone, as far as when you want to deploy the decoy, as far as how close you try to get to him, anything else. I mean, like you said, they're more apt to circle down wind. Um, what else factors in when you've got that scenari Because I ended up being the scenario that I had a lot um more so than bucks of the does yep, well, it's it usually doesn't happen. I can say that right now because I usually don't. Uh. In the books I'm I'm I'm trying to hunt and kill. Are are going to be the most mature in dominant bucks in areas. So in November, there's always gonna be a hot dough somewhere. He's going to be the one with her, so I heard they ever, I mean, I've had all all kinds of bucks that I don't want to kill. Uh, As I'm moving in, come and see me, and I usually that see me and hopefully run the other way. It depends on I guess on which side of me they are compared to the buck that I'm trying to move in on. But I don't. I can't think of any maybe one situation where I've had a really big book. Uh, as I'm moving, you know, like you know, basically in or still hunting an area, I saw him and was able to kind of move in and use a decoy. You typically, uh, it's not happening, and I'm waiting until he's better with her. But I but from the experience I've had, but those those subordinate books that are just trusing around, Um, it's kind of a craft shoot because again, you're moving and there's you. It's a shot at best that you're gonna see them before they see you. Uh, And you don't want to just be walking around the decoy, you know, stuck to each shoulder and in front of and behind you see you look like a deer from all four sides. I mean, someone's bad. Bad things are gonna happen. So I just don't know how. There's a lot of things that could go wrong with that. I just don't I I wouldn't have I wouldn't advise. I'd say a deal last case scenario where you're moving and trying to pick up other moving bucks too. But uh, but I think you know, in that case, it does allow you a little bit more of a little bit more time because you know, you know, even if they see you. And I've had this happened at Bucks and os, they here I'm walking in and or walking even to a glassing point and Drupada has picked me off, and I you know, like I hunger down real quick and pick up and just pull up the decoy, and they might. You know, I've had him just blow out. I've had him standing there and stop and then go back to feeding. I've had him try to walk right to me. I've had a little bit of everything. So it does sometimes allow you a little bit more you know, I can get out of jail free card. Uh if if if something does see you. But again it's you're not putting the odds in your favor by by by using it that way. In my opinion, um So then what about the the whole situation with calling, because sometimes I know you talked about that's a way that you can kind of when things aren't perfectly working out in your favor. You can't go quite close enough, or you know, maybe you haven't spotted a buck with a dope, but you find a brushing, nasty looking area, you'll try some stuff like that could you elaborate a little bit off how calling might fit into some of these circumstances that you you'll sometimes try. Sure, it's not it's not much any different really than than any other time you're gonna be brattling or calling, you know, trying to treat a scenario to too lure a buck in. But what you're what you're giving him as a a visual uh to add to the the lure. And the one thing that the handheld decoys I think offers you over like a stationary. And don't get me wrong, I've used them together to like I've used My dad last year killed his biggest white tail in Kansas, and he had both. He had to hands up, you know, heads up, decoly in his hand that he could slash the bug and give that motion to that motion sometime is key. And then he also had a stage nary a little buck out in front of him. But having that ability to to just you know, raise the raise the book, decoy, lower the books, decoy um sometimes all they need. Because you know we've all seen the white tail buck you know this season comes in, you're rattling, he stops a hundred yards, he just stares stares at you it just does not move for you know, you know, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, just just does not move. If he given that last little piece in the pie, like there's stuff going on over here, you know he can hear it. He can you know, we'll hopefully can't still it, but he if he can just see it something that makes them think, I gotta get over there and check that out. Ye, it's happening. I think it's helped me a lot. In no way, let's fast forward from that first morning we spent together. You know, it was a lot of glass and hiking. We saw that buck, sawesome dough so a couple other bucks way off in the distance on some private land. Um. But basically coming out of that day, we decided, you know what, you know, probably want to move on to something different. UM. Now, I had thought we we one of the guys in our crew had been able to chat with a neighbor on some of that private lane and it sounded like we might be able to get permission to hunt those fields where we saw the good bucks the night before. But that ended up falling through. So you were going to head to Colorado and we were gonna keep hunting. I wasn'tna keep hunting on my own, and so I decided to pull the plug on this first spot and go check out this other piece of public land that I thought had potential. Um you had talked in the past about, you know, how you move around a lot when you're hunting like this, this way, you have a lot of different locations. Can you speak to just a little bit about your perspective on how long you'll give a zone or a piece of property or a public parcel before you decide now it's not for me and move on. Because because we basically gave this, you know, a night in the morning plus the evening before scotting that you did, and you know, within that day and a half of not seeing what we're looking for, I decided to get out of Dodge. But what else are you thinking about when making those kinds of decisions. Well, first off, you gotta find terrain. That's if you can't, if you can't see them where they're sleeping, you're you're behind nate ball already. It's going to be tough to to to put the scenario together. You know it make it work if you if you if you can't bed them, if if you're not able to find where they're sleeping, where they're bed it, it's going to be tough. Um. So I look for those areas. I you know, I want to be able to get to high points, uh and be able to find deer in their beds. They're going to their beds, and then you know that's that's really everything. So after two you know, a night, I guess I was there the day before, So I had two nights and two evenings in that area. H I mean I think you would ask me one time what would I do? And it was very I mean, it wasn't no hesitations, like I'm out, this is this areas? Well? There are bucks there, I mean in decent you know, uh Nebraska public land bucks. But I you know, you're you're better off. You'd have been better off hanging a set or or using your saddle whatever, your little hutting them in a different way in one of those little bottoms there. So to do what we wanted to do, yeah, I was all about moving in that you know, the area you had described to the north little bit there sounded promising. Yeah, yeah, and so that's what I decided to do. Um, me and Bobby and tyler load of the truck and just high tailed it to get out of there and try to get to this new spot while we'd still have a little bit of daylight so we could glass this area. And this this new area is going to head to was big open prairie hills, and then there was a river bottom that went down through the middle of all this prairie and and I knew that they would probably be a good amount of white tail action in that river bottom. And I thought they might come up into the grassy hills too, And I figured between those two things, we would, you know, be able to have some degree of visibility and be able to use the decoy. That was my hope. Um. Now, the one limiting factor was was that I wasn't sure if they would use the hills and the grassy areas much I knew they would use the river bottom. Now, the thing about this piece of public was that it was only a little knob that went into the river that was actually public. Probably I don't know, less than forty acres might have been are or something like that that was in the river bottom. Now, there was thousands and thousands of the prairie stuff around it, though, so that was what I was working with, and my plan was to high tail it. We drove way down these back road to track things to get to this little area that I thought would have white tails. Me, Bobby, and Tyler went it was, And then uh, well we hiked. We had to leave our vehicle in place and then hike in like a mile or so to get to the river from the farthest we could get with the truck. Um, Bobby, how how do you feel about my hight my walking? You guys had some opinions on my walking to our punt location. Man. Yeah, me and Tyler the other camera guy. We we definitely kept up, but we were like jogging at Mark's walking stride. I think we had both commented on how he should look into competitive speed walking. Um. But yeah, it was like a long sandy double track and we were moving. We were cruising, trying to get there before we got dark. And to make a long story short, that first night, we got there in time to probably sit for what would you say, Bob, like an hour four or five minutes something like that of daylight. Yeah, no more than an hour, I wouldn't think. And so we got on this hill that overlooked the river bottom, and from this ridge you could see a long distance. I mean you could see a lot of the hills on the opposite side, which was private land, and then you could see the river bottom right beneath us that was public, and then more river on either side or more bottom that was private as well. So that was the The good thing is it was a lot of good looking country. The bad thing was that there was just a small part that we could actually hunt. Um. So I when I got there and was kind of looking at what we could see, and I was thinking, Okay, this could maybe worked. But the big thing is like, will these bucks come on the public side? Um? All the private stuff looked great, there was just this one little kind of peninsula that was actually accessible by us. Would they would they be in there and or would they be up in the prairie hills behind us? That would give us lots of options. And long story short is that that that hour of glass and that night we had two things confirmed. Number One, we saw bucks. We saw a really nice, tight and tall a pointer on the private land across the river, like definite mature, really nice buck like very very tall. Um Like I don't know twelve thirteen inch g three's and two's um but tight maybe twelve inches wide. Um, but a super cool buck. And um then it lasts light like right at dark, I saw buck directly underneath us on the public land. He popped out of some cedars. It was walking directly underneath us. But it was like shooting light ended like right as I was seeing this buck, or what's gonna end in just like a minute or two and so I remember looking at him. I was like, gosh, is there any chance that we could make a play on him? And like the next sixty seconds to two minutes and just there there wasn't a way it would work. Um. But seeing a good shooter buck, like a hundred thirty class buck maybe you know somewhere in that ballpark, um, that moved on the public land made me think, Okay, we have a chance here. And basically my idea once I saw this landscape in person, and then the next morning when we returned, it seemed like this was the situation we would have. It was gonna be a little bit different than what you do, Tony. Um. Just by necessity of what we had to work with. We just didn't have a lot of ground where these white tails were. But I could see like there was a lot of white tails using this river bottom, and by staying up high on these you know, on the side of the valley, you could look down and see quite a bit of country. There was these scattered pockets cedars and then meadows and open grassy stuff. So my thought was, if we sit up on these kind of glassing knobs and wait, if we spot a buck come onto the public, I bet I'd have time to drop down the side of the ridge, get into the bottom, and get into position to intercept. And so I was gonna kind of, you know, hope for a situation where I saw buck, lock down the dough and watch them bed um. But if not, maybe I could intercept a buck like when I saw that first night. Um. And so that's what we decided to try on the next day when I went back to actually hunt, Um hiked in there, you know before first light, got to that glassing knob overlooking the valley. Um, and and just figure we'd post up and watch, And we ended up shifting our glassing location. I don't know, Bobby, what do you think maybe hundred fifty yards down maybe, Yeah, we found this spot where basically had the best visibility of the entire peninsula that was public, while also being able to see a lot on the private And um, today you forgot your stuff. I don't know, there's been so many times that's had. Yeah, I think that was it. I got all the way so the mile hike to the river bottom. I get there, it's almost daylight, and then I realized I didn't have my range finder or my binoculars and something else I can't remember what it was. And I just thought, man, I don't I don't want to be here all day without my range finder, without binos, like we're just doing glassing all day. Um, so I literally ran. In this case, I ran a mile back to the truck to get my stuff and then ran all the way back to try to get to the glass and night before shooting Lay, Um, I forgot about that about it was mr. I think I think I made it like just a little after shooting Lay. I didn't missed too much. Um yeah, it wasn't bad, but it was a suffer fest of a of a trail run in my hunting gear and all that stuff. But uh, but you know that first day it was still like questionable if it was gonna work. Like we could see a good area and we were seeing deer, but most of them were in the private I mean, I think, if I recall, right, Bobby, that first morning we did see one like decent buck. And I should add here that given the fact that I only really had three days to hunt, um, my standards were much lower than you know, what I would use on what I would be shooting for most hunts, and you know, very different than yours, Tony. So in this case, I was thinking, you know what, I love to shoot him ature buck like a three or four plus year old, dear, but to pull it off on any deer, you know, like a two year old or anything like that would be pretty sweet, just to pull it off. So I decided, you know, that second day that I'm just gonna try to get anything and just see, you know, if maybe we can get a younger but curious with it enough. Um, And I guess that was something that we talked about a little bit. You've seen that usually these big mature bucks locked on doose are the ones that are most apt to respond to the decoy. But what do you think about was I was I stupid to try to do this on two year old bucks or three year old bucks or younger. Oh no, no, I've there's been lots of situations where, like I said, when I'm moving in and I see a little buck or even even like a hundred and forty class white tail is just you know, only a three year old or something that I just don't want to kill, and I'll show him that. I'll use the decoy just to keep from blowing out because maybe they're too close to the you know, the buck I want, and they'll just come right over to you. But they're they just they just do it in a different manner. They're not coming over there to kick your ass. They're just coming there to see what you are are. And I mean I've had lots of them, uh you know, and I usually try to record it of my phones because it's hilarious. But they'll just, I mean, they'll get right on top of you, like I've had them. I don't even know how many I've had within ten feet and there. Then they get to a point where it's like they want they're like they kind of get pissed because like move You're like you're not doing anything like like show me something, you know, do something, and then usually they always circle down win when when that happens, and then they just you know, blow up as soon as they hit that that sent But but those those two and a half and even some three and a half, when that happens, they you know, they get tight, they walk up and they blow up, and then they'll almost always stop. They run, but they in the back of their mind like but that was a deer, and they almost always stop in like thirty yards and turn the back like are you sure you're a human, And I mean, if you really want them, you could have them. It that's interesting. Um, I kind of want to fast forward to some of my close encounters to see what you think about what I did and how they turned out, because because what you're describing here is is pretty similar some of the stuff I saw, Um you know that that day I guess to to hit fast forward. Basically, I did see one good buck come on the public land, not a big, big one, but like a two year old two year old probably, and I snuck down to the bottom and tried to get ahead of where I thought he was going, and he never popped out. So then I tried rattling never popped out. Um, he just disappeared. So I went back up to the top, and then later, like a half hour later, something else, like a an even smaller buck popped out, was down in the bottom where I thought we definitely could intercept him, and so I figure, well, we'll at least try just to see what happens. So I went down on that one, and he did end up popping out, saw the decoy um, but just stared at it for a while and just didn't like it, and he went off the other direction. Um. That was the extent of like being counters that first day, like on the public land, but we did have a lot of excitement Like midday, like noon on the private land, just across the river, I looked across and saw some white tails pulled out the buyos and there's a buck and another buck and another buck and another buck, and it'd been six bucks on a dough and just full blown rut fest. And one of them was that really tight, really tall one, and another one was like a solid like four year old type one thirties something type buck, and then a couple like nice you know, smaller two or three year old deer um and they were just getting after the bucks were tussling, and there was like one guy that was in charge with the dough of course, and he was fending off all the other all the other uh people trying to get in on his girl. And then they're running all over the place. And so I made a move down there to to get as close as I col get to it, just in case they happened to cross the river in the public but in that situation they just never did. Um. But it was cool to see them and cool to see that was going on, and I was just thinking, man, if if if only this could happen on my side of the river, I'd actually have a chance maybe. Um. So now fast forward to the next day we I saw one of I saw those deer cruising. I saw that big eight point again later that day cruising on the private but had no actual huntable deer. Go back the next morning, get back to that glassing now, but first light, and right at first light, basically what we did we would get to the ridge and stay on the back side of it until you could actually see and then once it was shooting light, I pop over the edge so we could see down it. And um, you know that way, we wouldn't be spooking anything before we could see what was down there. Get over the edge, look down and in the bottom right beneath me is a shooter Like right away on public land, there's a buck right there. Um, do you remember this moment? Like what Bobby, what were you thinking in that moment when I peeked over the edge and like, shooter buck right there? We gotta go? Yeah, and that was that was exciting and just like oh crap, here we go. And it was it was just like fairly legal light and fairly enough light to the cameras to even pick anything up. But um, I managed to sneak over when you guys drop down and get a good look at it, and um, it was like right there. It was pretty cool. It was nuts. So basically that deer when we spotted it was maybe a hundred yards away but down on the bottom, and you know, we were I don't know how high we're up, maybe a hundred feet of elevation maybe something like that. Um, yeah, yeah, And so what I needed to do was take basically I had you, Bobby, stay up top. You had a long lens like zoom camera lens on your camera, so what we end up doing Tony was Bobby end up staying up high and filming from a distance, and then Tyler would be with me close and we would go on on these stocks and the Bobby would film from up there. So me and Tyler navigated down and take a little tight coolie of sorts, like it's a little tight draw that had cedars in it where I could slip up into that and and get to the bottom without this buck being able to see us. So I do that. We sneak down the hill, get down to the bottom. We peek out around these cedars into the open meadow where the buck is. And by the time I got there, that buck was moving and I just was able to catch him like walking away, just getting behind the next row of cedars, Like I don't know, he was probably a hundred a hundred yards away from me now at that point, maybe a little bit more walking away and gone behind this line of trees. So like I described as a hundred yard meadow now between where I was and where he was. So my thought process in this moment is, Okay, I need to get his attention somehow, and I need to get him to come back into this opening and if I can do that, and if I'm set up in the right way, he might pop back out see the decoy coming. So I sprinted into the meadow and wanted to close as much of that distance as I possibly could. So I think I had like maybe fifty sixty yards that I could cover until got to the last little isolated tree. And there's like one cedar in the middle of that meadow. So I thought, I can run to that cedar, you know, I'll be pretty close to where that buck disappeared. I'll get there, throw the decoy up, and then I'll rattle and maybe he'll come back. And so that's what I did. Ran across the meadow, got to the cedar, popped up the decoy in front of me, had tyler, you know, kind of hunker down behind me as well. We're tight up against that cedar, and had the decoy you know, pointed, you know, it was facing right towards where I last saw that dear get out. The antlers, start cracking, the antlers together, and within thirty seconds a minute maybe something like that of rattling, here comes that buck running at me, comes busting out of those cedars, comes running right out and as soon as he sees the decoy, he stops and he bristled up, pinned his ears back, and was doing the thing. And so I'm like, oh my gosh, this is actually going to happen. He is pissed. Yeah, I mean it really felt like and I was, you know, I was had my arrow knocked, I was clipped on, I was ready, and I just remember thinking in my head, Okay, this buck's gonna, you know, roll his eyes back, and he's gonna come on and on a death march, and I'm gonna get a shot. Now. Here's what he did, though, that was a little bit different, Tony, And I'm wondering if I should have done anything different, or if this is just the situation and it was out of my control. He circled from that point. Instead of coming directly on, he circled, and as you kind of mentioned with these cruising bucks, he circled down wind and never came within forty yards. And I was fresh off of having missed a buck like three days earlier, and so I was telling myself, I'm not gonna shoot like a long shot. I want like an easy, no brainer shot at one of these bucks. And I kept thinking you know, you're talking about these bucks will come to twenty or fifteen or ten coming in. So I'm ranging him at forty two and I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not taking that shot. But I it of him. He was broadside circling and um and he just ended up getting just a little bit too tight to where our wind was blowing. And he he buggered out there before I expected him to do that, and he was out Now it could have been because of that wind swirled a little bit or I Also, he's circled enough that you know, the decoy was no longer blocking us entirely. You know, he could see now us profiled behind it. Um. So one of those two things I think spooked him. Would you have done, Like, should I have tried to grab the decoy and move it? Should I have done anything different in that scenarity? Think? So, yeah, you're you're absolutely right. He was circling because he doesn't mean to protect. He's coming into a situation. He's just trying to survey it, just to figure out what he's up against. Uh, that's the difference between a buck with a dough and a buck without a dough. But yeah, when I when they when they do circle me, I you know, if it's that windy, I got that on my boat. Um. But I also this is much easier if one person than it is too And I figured this out in Colorado and Kansas this year myself while filming. But when they're moving in, you know, want a door or a buck is seeing you, and it's coming just like just kind of curious, and they're moving, it's real easy for one person to to shuffle and just kind of in that grass. You know, you're you're hunker down, you're on your knees, and you're just moving into the right, moving into right, moving intright, and you reach up and you just slowly turn that decoy and you literally just stayed on you know, you know, a hundred eight degrees behind, you know, from hamlet, behind that, behind that decoy, and they're expecting movement. So then it doesn't it doesn't spook him. But ah, both with two people, that is a lot harder game to play, and you really gotta you know, it's it's it's you better be a good dance partner, which which I'm sure Bobby was. But but yeah, I would definitely move it. I wouldn't necessarily replay restake it, but I'd be pivoting the decoy towards them, and I'd be moving to stay behind, you know, keeping the decoy in between us. But if I had been behind Bobby there with you when he was forty two yards out, I'd be like, kill him now. He's not you kill him now because he doesn't have a doe to protect. He's not coming there to kick your butt. He's coming in to find out what's going on. And I and the first thing they're gonna do is circle that win. And I kept thinking, he'll come closer, He'll come closer, but we didn't. So that was that was disappointing in the game. Yeah, it was disappointing, but it was still like I remember, I was thrilled that we actually had like a buck to see the decoy came in sort of did the thing like it was intense, Like that was that was a blast just having that happen. So so then me and Tyler bombed back up to the top of the rage where Bobby was and we got set up. We actually moved to our main glassy knob then at that point, so we get to the to the main glass nob, and we didn't sit down for more than a couple of minutes, maybe maybe less, and all of a sudden, I mean, who who spotted that buck first? Bobby, I don't remember how to have it. I remember someone like, oh, there's another buck. Yeah, I think you might have seen him out across the river over there. Yes, so basically right where I had been five ten minutes earlier, on the other side of the river though, so basically there was there was a peninsula like imagine was the river that's like making s bends, And we're on one of the little peninsula's that stick out, and then on the other side of the river where the others across the middle of the s here's this other peninsula of private land over there. And I look over there and I see a buck. It's a good one. And then I see another buck, and then I see another buck, and then I see another buck, and I realized it's another situation where there's a hot dough and every buck in town is locked on her right in that spot again though, the other side of the river, so I can't get to him in this case. I farewell, I gotta be in, I gotta get over there, just in case, So me and Tyler dropped back down to the bottom sneak as close as we can get. I get basically to the last little cedar tree before the meadow drops down into the river, and they're on the other side of it. And they ended up being like a really nice, super solid nine pointer, definitely like four or older and then uh three like bucks. It could be two or three year olds and then a year and a half old. And that big one was in this nasty thick stuff on the point extending into the river with that dough, and every buck would make a move in there, and then he would run him off. Another buck would come in, he run him off. Another buck could come in, he would run him off. Um. And I just kept thinking, man, this would be so perfect if I could hunt that, like, if I could get over there. It was that kind of scenario where he would have seemingly would have charged in if I were to somehow get close enough with that decoy. Um, but I just couldn't. I tried, like I thought, maybe I could get one of the satellite bucks to come over and investigate. Maybe they would tire of that and pop over on my way. So I popped the decoy up a couple of times when the younger bucks were looking, but no takers. But I kept waiting and waiting and hoping, like, maybe we'll just get lucky. Maybe we'll get lucky and that doele scoot out of there. If that dough scoots out of there, and if somehow we get lucky enough that they come to our side, you know, I'll make a move on them. And so me and Tyler sat there for I don't know, a half hour or something like that, and then sure enough that Doe all of a sudden squirt out of that pocket. And then it just became like chaos broke loose. All those bucks were sprinting after her, and she's running in circles and they're all running behind her. And then sure enough she jumps in the river and comes across to my side. And so as soon as I see her run to the river, I jump up out of my hide. I run to the edge of the river to be able to see where they're going. Now, Tyler Caraman's like grabbing all this stuff, trying to get ready, like we gotta go, we gotta go. So as soon as it looked like they're crossing the river, and I could see where they're gonna come in. We start sprinting down our side to try to intercept him, and I get around this patch of cedars and by the time I get around this, I don't know, like I maybe it was like ran like forty fifty yards around this little clump of cedars to the next meadow. As I was getting around that those deer popped up out of the river into the meadow with me, and that dough is barreling right at me, sprinting at me. She gets she comes running past, those bucks are behind her, and I put the decoy. I'm trying remember what I did here. I guess I'm pretty sure I popped the decoy up as I came around the corner because I saw the deer coming through, but that dough was running right at me, and then she veered off to the left disappeared with several of the bucks behind her. But then I saw a couple of the bucks run back the other way, So then I was confused, like did they see me and spook or was that just what she was doing? And then these other bucks broke through the direction. It just felt like kind of a chaotic moment. But everything was gone. It was like they're all there. They sprinted towards me, and then they're all gone, and just just a matter of second. And this this meadow was maybe I don't like a hundred yards wide, and they peeled off in two different directions. One dropped from the river, the other one dropped into this other patch of cedars. So I wait there for a while, wait there for a while, nothing's popping out. So I said, okay, let's let's go back to where we just we're grabbing my backpack and my other things and then we'll move back into another position where we can get a better view again, get higher, get a servant surveillance situation. Try again. As we get back to my backpack, a buck goes running by, like seventy yards away, not a big one, but this buck is like it just seems like in a panic looking for those doughs but doesn't know where they are. You could just kind of tell by the way he was running. He was running around, stopping and looking, run around, stopping and look him he cruises way off. He gets like two hundred yards away by the time, and I'm like, you know, what, what the heck? Maybe if this. If we can somehow get this buck, I take crack at him. He wasn't a big he was a tight eight pointer, you know, probably probably a good year and a half old or a lousy two year old, I don't know. But I just rattled my antlers together, and from two hundred fifty yards away or whatever, he spins around and starts sprinting all the way back the way he came. Ends up running all the way to me and sees my decoy. But he had run with a he'd run head on, and there was a barbed ware fence between me and him, and he was just beneath the hill, and all you could see was his neck and all his chest was beneath the hill, so I could basically see half of his neck and his head and barbed ware across it, staring at me. And if I had a clean shot at him, I probably would have taken him. But that just did not look a good shot to me, basically aiming beneath his face. So he ended up he ended up jumping the fence, but circling around out of range and just kind of continuing his run trot. He didn't really spook, but it was like he saw the decoy. I was like, whoa, what's that? And then I, still looking for my dough, kept running. So I go back up to the knob. Now after that happens, get to the knob. I wasn't back at the knob there with you, Bobby, for sixty seconds or so, when all of a suddenly, oh, there's bucks again. Back down in the bottom at the end of the point, we saw one of these bucks that had been with the little rough Fest group that I was originally with, you know, twenty minutes earlier. So I watched these deer. I see the big nine, I see one of the two year old, and then coming out on the private side, I see like a big buck. Um, different category than the other ones who've been looking at this. Was like, if he was a ten point, he'd be one fifty for sure, Um, but he was an eight and as an eight, you know still, you know, mid one forties, we're bigger. Um. I mean he was a big buck. And some stoked some standing up there glassing. I see the big nine. I see the big eight. Um, I'm watching them, but they're on the private land side. And then I don't know why, but the big eight crossed the river and pops up onto our side. All the other are on the other side, but for some reason, the big guy comes over on my side, and I was kind of shocked that this that was actually gonna happen, like the one that I really would love to get a crack. It happens to come to our side, seemingly not with the dough, um Like, it seemed like the dough and all the other bucks are on the other side still, so I didn't understand that. Um but here he is. He pops over to our side, and now he's in like a I don't know, like a hundred and fifty yard wide by a hundred and fifty yard wide type meadow, and then there was a patch of cedars that was maybe like an acre maybe two acres of cedars, and then there was another big meadow. And my thought was that if I could run down through the first meadow and get into those cedars, I would try to sneak to the edge of the cedars while he was still in that first meadow and then hopefully sea where he's headed, pop the decoy up in either grunt or rattle and get him to spot the decoy and coming. That was my hope. So I slipped on at the bottom of Tyler Bobby's up top filming um And basically I first tried to move to the river and see if I could work the river's edge, because the way the wind was blowing it was, if I remember this right, it was kind of it was blowing towards the river a little bit but up and I was hoping if I stayed right in the river's edge, I could keep my wind blowing out over the water and edge my way all the way up to where that metal was and be undetected windwise. But I couldn't end up being like impenetrable thick, and so then I had to circle back into the cedars. And at this point, you know, I couldn't see the meadow, I couldn't see where that buck was. But it had been I don't know, a couple of minutes, a minute max or something. I don't know. I don't know what it actually was, but I feel like we sprinted down there fast. Now, Bobby, what did you see from the moment when me and Tyler bombed off the ridge? What did you see happen from your position because you stayed up high watching from the bird's view. Yeah, I did. I remember. We saw the big guy come over the river and straight across that meadow, and then you guys dropped down, and then a couple other bucks followed him across, and there was some some running back and forth. Um. But then once you guys got into that thick cedar patch, UM, I couldn't really see much much going on. So just washed and UM yeah, I don't think I saw the big one until later after you guys have done down there. But um, yeah, I was just kind of trying to listen through the microphone and anxiously hear what was going on. It's exciting. Yeah, So the big guy last I saw, he was in the medal. I get into these cedars, and my thoughts, I'm gonna sneak quietly through these sears up to the edge. I get into the first little pocket of sears, and I'm coming around a corner of a tree, and as I'm coming around the corner of the tree, that buck pops around the other corner already in the cedar is fifteen yards away from me something like that, and there's like a little rise in the land right there, and I just remember, like whisper yelling at tiler like buck buck it down, and we both collapsed to the ground. And there's this little, like I said, this little rise in between me and him. So by dropping down, we actually slipped out of you. So as as I'm dropping down, I remember sticking the decoy down on the ground in front of my face. As I'm dropping to the ground, I'm on my knees, huddling behind the decoy, kind of laying down as fly as I can, grabbing an arrow out of the out of the quiver, knocking the arrow, clipping on my release. As I slowly start to rise, I can see the buck walking straight at me, the bucks coming head on at us. He's at ten yards, he's you know, at eight yards. And I rise up and I start drawing back. He gets to five yards and I'm like three corters away drawn back. He stops and blows out. I mean, he's right there, and before I can get back to anchor, he buggered. Now in that situation, do you think I mean, I remember you telling me that you should, like, I shouldn't worry about drawing behind that thing. I shouldn't worry about moving behind that thing. Just do your thing and they'll usually let you get away with it. Um, would you have done what I did, which was basically slapped the decoy down and try to get a shot off in that case? Or should I have got the decoy down and just waited? Um? Do you think it was just the nature of the beast with that there being a cameraman behind me too, and just like too much going on to actually get away with it. It's hard to say what he caught and what if. I don't know if it was the wind was swirling or maybe smells you. Usually they don't if they blow up and just take off and don't even bother or look back, they smell they smelled me. Um. If they see something they don't like, they still think you're a dear. I mean, he didn't walk the five yards without being convinced you're another buck, so that it's it's hard to it's it's this is hard to believe if you haven't done it, but it's hard to convince them otherwise. Once they have you pegged as a noird dear, they literally will ask confused and stop and look back. If they do get spooked, like, I don't understand, why is there a person right next to you, Um, I smell a human they so I would guess he'd probably smelled you or cut something really shiny. Uh. But I think we did have the conversation too that you know, Decoin might not be fairy body if you're not ready to take a frontal when he's walking towards you with that range. Um, because you're gonna go out of them. You're gonna get a lot of opportunities when the animals walking right straight at you at point blank range. And you know, white even a mature white tail, you know, a five plus year old. You know, I've never had any problem blowing through that those bones. But um, if I had been behind you at five yards that in eight yards need ten fifteen, I'd have been like, Park, you need to kill this steer, get that ball back. Yeah, I mean, I definitely was. It was as fast as I could get the arrow on and get clipped on, and it was it happened as fast as it could possibly happen. And uh, was he trotting? Would he would be like I almost a run? No? I mean, and again like the specifics when I say he was ten yards, I don't. I don't know when it was the first time all I know is that I saw him, and he was close, and I dropped down, and then by the time I was able to get an arrow on and get clipped on, and I started rising up and drawing back. Basically I was trying to do that in one motion. And by the time I was able to get up and drawn partially drawn, I'm seeing him five yards. So I don't really know how he got from ten or twelve or whatever to the final five um, but I just I just remember being drawing back, coming into view, seeing him and thinking, all right, I'm gonna put it right there on the center, punch him, and and him going like literally and busting out as soon as as soon as I popped up it, Uh was the grass of the vegetation around you, thick enough that you had to rise up to shoot. You couldn't just shoot like the side. It's the side of the decoy. I mean I I I basically was trying to shoot to the side of him because I was on my knees and I was like I was on my knees and like bent over flat, you know what I mean. Like I was on my knees as long as I could get And then That's what the position I was in to try to hide myself while I was getting an arrow ready and then and then from there then it was just rising up like onto my knees straight enough that I could shoot, Yeah, and the decoy was off to my I was I was going to be shooting just to the left side of the decoy. That's why I was drawing. Okay, So yeah, I think that you know, it could have been it could have been a swirl of wind, because we definitely did have like wind swirling occasually down there. There was a couple of times him where I was. Um, I mean, that was definitely on my mind a lot, so that certainly could be it. And then I mean there's the whole you know, second guy that's behind me, and I can't remember if he had the dough decoy with him at that point or not, but Tyler had a dough handheld decoy that he was trying to pop up when we were in a situation like that. I can't remember if he used it in that situation or not. Um, but I mean it was it was super intense. I mean I thought, I absolutely thought, Okay, this is happening, and miss is it he's right here and I'm gonna get him, and uh, he bugged out of there, and that was disappointing. But I thought, man, there was those other bucks still on the medal that we know, the other ones that were there, so like, well, let's move over there and see if we can't spot them again. And there's been the big nine had been like seemingly on the doll like on the edge of the river. He just wouldn't leave this spot. So the big big one moved in the medal. But I remember seeing the nine pointer standing by the river, and I thought, well, let's go, let's work our way over that direction, see if he's still there. And sure enough I moved. I mean, this is like a couple of hundred yards maybe that I had just slipped through. Get enough that I can see over to the river again, and he's still there. And eventually I have to like belly crawl um first on all four is, then belly crawl slip underneath the barbed wire fence, and I ended up belly crawling all the way to the river's edge, and he ended up bedding down with his dough like in the edge of the river. So like they're imagine like a five foot bank maybe, and like he's down beneath the bank in like these thick weeds right on the edge of the river with the dough and so I can see him, and there's one little cedar tree down the bank on my side. Now here's this is the problem is that he's on one side of the river. I'm on the other. Now this spot where he was technically it was public on the other side of the river to um and I'm looking at the river. I'm like, it looks really shallow that you could see spots like I thought like, this might be shallow enough that, you know, if I can get him to just get pisted enough to walk ten twenty more yards in my direction into the river, I could probably get a crack at him. So I slipped behind the seater, like slithered down off the bank behind this tree, got down like to the water, and finally just slowly ease my way into view of him. And he's he's just not looking my direction. He's better. They're kind of head down looking around. And I ended up thinking, you know, the only the only thing that might work here is to pop this decoy up where like fifty some yards and hope that he'll do the thing that you described when they're betted and you sneak up on one, you know, pop the decoy up, get his attention, he'll get piste and come your way. So I popped the decoy up behind me or in front of me, and I'm waiting. He never looks, doesn't look, and I grunted. I'm trying to remember what I can't remember. I grunted, and he didn't look. It was very windy, um and I think a snort wheezed, and then he popped his ears up and looked in my direction, saw the decoy, and just like glaring at us, and then in like one fell swoop, he's up and running the other direction. And and I think when that happened, I jump up and try to look up. He jumps up. The banking is now in the meadow, running away, and the dough was running ahead of him. So I think that what happened is somehow the doe buggered out of there, and then he spun to follow the dough, is what I think happened. Now, Why she buggered? Was it a wind swirl? Was it she just didn't like this other bucks norweisan at him uh or who knows, um, But that's what happened there. Um. What do you think about what I tried to do? Was that? Was that crazy to try to get when it come across the river like that? You know, I've never tried a river like small streams and tricks had him crossed. But I've also had him stall out on the other side, even just like a you know, something that's eight inches deep and tens of wide, and they just act like it's a brick wall. So I think that just depends on the attitude of the deer. But I bet you, uh. I also know what I've had a lot of is if the dough is not quite yet hot, uh, the last thing she wants is another buck harassing her. So sometimes those does will you know, they stand at first they see you and they just come over like, hey, what's up, what's up? How are you doing? And sometimes they stand up and they see you and they're like, not another one, and they just they're out. And we actually had to happen to us after after you know, we got done hunting and I went to Colorado and the brasket it happened to are not brask at Colorado and Kansas. It happened to us in both states where those who weren't great Freddy bucks were harassing them, and you know, they finally lay down. We got in tight. She saw it, and she's like, Nope, not not, I've got enough trouble here. Uh, And of course they just follow her. Bobby, could you see this? I can't. I can't remember. Could you see that whole thing going down from your position? Do you remember seeing what happened? Yeah, definitely. I It's just fun. Seemed kind of a longer wait, and I was just watching the bucks on the other side of the river, and then you guys are kind of down at the edge of that meadow, and um, yeah, I couldn't determine anything. You didn't say as to why why they boot eat or anything, but um, it seemed reasonable for for them to cross the river because after watching them do it a few times, it was really only a few inches deep and they didn't seem to have too much problem with it. So I was I was hopeful. Yeah, it seemed like there was a chance. Um, now, I guess I guess I could have tried to do like the hold the decoy in front of me, and walk right at him. But that seemed that seemed way higher risk than what I was gonna try. Um, yeah, try to get him become my direction. But that didn't work out. Um. And that was that was basically the end of that day. That morning, we went back up to the knob after that. I mean, that was a lot that was like four different close calls or something that before before at eleven o'clock that day. I mean, it was intense. It was up and down and up and down and running here and there and it was crazy. Um. But then around lunchtime, some other hunters came by and started walking around, and then some ranch hands showed up and started fixing fences. Um. And so that that whole area just kind of seemingly blown up. And I kept going back and forth like, um, if we should stick it out there or explore this other opportunity. Uh. To make a long story short, our producer was in town and bumped into like someone at the library and ended up Naviga. I don't even know how he does what he does, but somehow was able to connect with a I was able to connect with a landowner who owns some private land on the same river we were hunting, but like miles down and got his permission to hunt there if who wanted. So at first I was like, no, we're not leaving this spot because it's been bucks all over. But now it's like mid day, and now it's like two. Now it's like three, and those ranch hands are still there. They're slowly working their way and the right in our little bottom, like right in the spots where we're hoping to intercept a buck, and they're just going like fence posts by fence post by fence post, making a racket chainsaw and down seaters and all this stuff. And decide, you know what, maybe we should go try this other spot just in case, because this could be a situation where these guys are here until dark in our whole night but be blown. So bailed out of there, basically ran back to the truck. I think this is the day that the wind was like crazy strong. Bobby was at the windstorm. We're hiking out that night or was it the next day, um, yeah, And it just started to pick up that day at the end of the day. Um. And then I think that's right at that same time when that dough almost took your head off, man, I forgot about that. So so this is this is that morning while we're yeah, I think this is after those other hunters came by and we were our little glassing knob. We were all sitting around this this seater up on this this hill and I'm sitting on the front edge of the seater. The other two guys are kind of back off behind it, and I mean, just out of nowhere, a doe was running right at me, like basically jumped over me, like literally within two ft of my head. Was had been running along the side the hill and ran across the cedar and I'm right there next to the seedar and just I mean feet from taking off my head. And I remember I yelled and then Tyler was like screamed. They were both in the crap scared out of this. That was crazy. Um, But yeah, I got super winding. No, No, there's a whole lot of excitement on this hunt that you just never have in this tree. Um. But to make a to make a long story short, in this evening, we we high tailed it out to this other new area. It took like an hourady into this new spot. End up working on our way in this spot, like just it didn't set up as well. It wasn't like high ground to glass, you couldn't see as much, but there was a lot of open country. Ended up spotting a decent buck going into a patch of cover, so I started kind of slipping my way towards it, and end up spotting a really good buck, like another big type, but um seemingly locked on a doll and so I ended up watching trying to see where I was. I was wanting the eyes and on them one more time before trying to make a move. Basically, I was in a little cluster of like cotton woods, and then there was a hundred hundred fifty yard wide opening of just open grass, and then it gets this like clump of cotton woods and cedars and stuff that he was in with that doll. And I didn't want to go running across that big opening until I could see him again and just get a good idea of where he was at. But time was running out, the days trickling away. Finally I said, you know what we gotta just I'm just gonna make a make a move across this and get into the cover and try to sneak our way in there and maybe kind of do the thing you talked about, Tony, which is in the high odds deal, which is trying to slip in there and spot him before he spots me and maybe make a move. And tried that, got into that area without spooking anything, but never spotted him before dark came. So that was that night. The next morning, went back to the public land spot and just had a super slow day, just it was it was dead. Um saw one smaller buck, made a move on him, he just wasn't interested. So that afternoon I decided to go back to the private property one more time. This is our last night, and almost the same exact same kind of thing happened. Um. I was working my way towards that little thicket area where the buck had been the night before. I get to that last clump of cotton woods, and sure enough I spot him again in like the same exact place that I saw him twenty four hours earlier. Like and I'm not saying like in the same five acre place. I'm saying like within ten yards of where I saw him the night before. He was in the same spot, and he's chasing a donow. So he goes running off in the direction with this dough and then running back my way, but they're probably like two yards away, and you know, daylight's fading fast again, same type of situations. So again I decided, you know what I gotta, I gotta. I was basically debating a couple of things. Number one, the way the terrain, the way things looked. Basically, it was like a little funnel where this big patch of cover that he was in with that dough next down, and the only way to not be completely exposed out in the open it would be to come past us. So pardon me, thought, man, if if any deer leave this thicket, they're gonna come by me, maybe that do is gonna come this way and take him with her, or take take him with her. And so one side said stay here, another side said, you got a bomb in there, and try to just get on them. And so, after a couple of minutes, hoping to see them again, decided that, you know, last night, we're down to the last like twenty minutes or something, you just gotta hail marry. So I decided that I was going to hold the deco up in front of me, get Tyler right on my hip, and we're gonna sprint across the field, run all the way across the field to get into the thicket and then hopefully spot him in there. And this is the last twenty minutes of the hunt. We go Hail mary sprinting across the field. We get into the cover, and not within like twenty thirty yards of getting into the cover, I spot that buck running at us. And so he's running at us, We're running at him. We same thing as like that other buck. I dropped to the ground like Tyler knocks down, dropped down, stick the decoy on the ground in front of me. Late, but you know, Neil, the same exact thing. I'm down on my knees, but as low as I can get, get an arrow of the quiver, get the arrow knocked, get clipped on. As I rise up now back onto my knees, you can see him heading like head on, but behind a whole bunch of stuff. And he turns broadside at thirty yards but just all sorts of brush and crap in front of I'm basically he was coming straight on and I'm about to draw, and he steps out broadside and there's no way I can get a shot. And then the same exact kind of thing happened. He's he stared for half a second and then booger and ran off. And that was that. Um And I don't think. I don't think the wind. We had a really good steady wind blow in the opposite direction from that time. So the only thing I can figure there was just like there was too much action there. You know, there was a caraman moving around for a better angle or something, um or or I don't, I don't know, but I mean it was super intense exciting thing. Um, I mean it was. It was very intense, spreading across that field, getting into this patch of cotton woods, running in there, see this deco, this buck, Like I think I think that buck heard us running and I thought that that was a doe or another box. He was coming to see what's going on and so and then he sees this buck decoy coming at him and uh, I mean, I feel like if there had not been all that brush, I think I would have killed him. Um. So that was the hunt. That was the trip. I mean, it was intense, it was really exciting. It was a ton of fun. I think that's the most fun I've had in three three and a half days of hunting. Like concentrating too a type dust like that probably ever um So, I mean it was, it was a success and always except for having fired and arrow and filled the tag um. But I don't know hearing anything that I did Tony the last time. I'm curious, is you know, given the situations I was in as best as I could describe them, is there anything that you heard me say that you think I should done differently that you would make me keep in mind for the next time I tried doing this outside of just trying to find situations where you can better do the main thing, which is fine about better with the dough. No, I think you you played it great. It sounds like you're very aggressive, and that's I think, you know, I think that's the right way to do it. You know, you're going to get a lot of opportunities we have given it. You're in an area has multiple bucks that you you know, you guys hit the root just perfectly. It sounds like, and you had all kinds of opportunities on different bucks and that you know, there's a lot of time when when we find ourselves we're running and it's like, you know, you don't you don't think of you know, running from one little spot to another, just you know, to get it, you know, to get a shot at a buck a white tail here. But it's it really can't happen with with the decoy and system. And I think he probably did everything right. And those here that those two bucks that boogered out, they just they saw something they didn't like and it's hard to her to see what that was. I really feel like if I had had, you know, like a full seven days and you've got enough chances like that, you know, one of them, one of them would pan out eventually. I think it exactly definitely could have done. And of all the things I've tried this year, I've tried a lot of different types of hunting and styles of hunting, this is the one that I'm absolutely for sure gonna keep doing. Like it was just too much fun not to want to try again. Yeah, No, it is very exciting. And and if someone had told me before I started that you're gonna have more opportunities on the ground, being more bowl and taking the game to them with this decoin, and you can get away with so much more to been like whatever they're white tailed, dear pound of my whole life you can't get away with that stuff. And then and then it happened, and you do. And I mean I never even knew that a white tail buck would pin his ears back and puff up like a porkupine and come stomping in to kick it, you know, to kick my butt, you know, if I'm holding the decoy. I mean, just just the thought of that. But you know, when you're on his level, is it happens one time to here and it works, and you're just like, all right, I'm this is this is the most fun. And I don't know, You're yeah, I'm I'm dedicated to to making it happen one of these days. Bobby, you've done some white tail hunting yourself, after having observed this and being a part of it for a few days, what do you think is this is this something you would ever try yourself for? What was your general take away from this crazy adventure? Yeah, totally. Um So, I've done a little bit of white tail hunting, um but it's all been out in the mountains here in western Montana with her rightful um So, I've never really been able to see up close the action and just that much of it. Um So, it's really exciting. It almost almost reminded me of like the Elkret, like just running around and having a bunch of encounters and watching them just go go bonkers. Um so. And and like you said, I feel like if there were more days, it looked very doable and possible. Um So, yeah, I would I would love to get into that again. And um I thought it was really cool. Yeah it was. It was everything I could ask for. I mean it really was, especially you know with it being in public land that we had never hunted before. It was we just got really lucky that a couple of our guesses panned out and uh you know, got into Bucks and hit the rut just right. And I mean there were a lot of things that ended up going our way and then a few things that didn't. Um, but it was enough to make for a super, super fun a couple of days. So I guess I just want to thank you again, Tony for for a taking the time to walk me through all that stuff and show me how you do what you do and uh just teaching me and encouraging me to try this thing because it's uh it's now officially one of the coolest things I've ever done. Well, I'm happy to hear that, and I'm glad you got to experience it, and I think I think you're right. To a couple more days you would have got it done. And I'm excited to see what happens next year or try to decide to try it. Yeah, I think it's going to be on the list for one way or another. So so, Tony Bobby. I appreciate you guys taking the time to to relive this experience and share the stories and experiences this is. This is fun to get to kind of reminisce on a good time again. Yeah, of course, I can't wait for the footage to come out. Me too. Yeah, I'm excited, all right, And that's a wrap. Thank you for tuning in. Couple of plugs. Make sure you check out one week in November, that's our new white Tail series that's airing right now on the Mediator YouTube channel. UM check that on out, enjoy it. If you need any other Christmas gifts ideas for friends, family, or yourself, Mediator the Mediator Store, First Light f HF. We've got a whole lot of stuff that we're working on. A lot of good deals, a lot of fun things. Check it out there as well, and I think that's all the plugs and updates and things you need for me. I'm gonna let you go. Hopefully i'll have another good story in a podcast coming to you soon. Until then, thank you for listening, and stay wired to hunt.

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