00:00:02 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for deer hunting news, stories, and strategies, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your host Mark Kenyon, and this is episode number forty two, saying the show, we're taking a step back from strategies, tips and tactics and instead focusing on another of the most important aspects of deer hunting, the stories. All right, welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, and today we're taking a slightly different angle on the show. You know, over the past couple of months, we've covered everything from hardcore hunting strategies to important topical issues like hunter harass, declined deer herds, and everything in between. But today I kind of want to take a deep breath and think back a little bit on some of the little things that make us love hunting so much and the experiences, memories, and stories that all go along with them. So in this episode of the podcast, Dan and I are going to be regaling you all with a handful of our favorite hunting stories from the past. But before we get into these yarns, Dan, how are you this snowy afternoon? Well, uh, you just said two words I've probably never heard before. What were those words? Uh? Afternoon And I'm just kidding it was uh yarns and regaling? Come on, yarn is. It's just it's an awesome classic word for stories like have you never heard that? Well, I guess in two thousand and fifteen, where I live, we don't use that that much anymore. Plus I probably have a vocabulary of a fifth grader, so well, you know, to be honest, I don't think a lot of people are on here use that either. But it's kind of a cool, old fashioning word that a geek like me might use. Are we going to be talk talking in like old English today and be like ye story of ye shipwreck? That'd be a pretty good idea. I mean, if you could pull off the entire episode with that accent, I say, go for it. Well I'll tell you what. If I do that, you may just have your lowest view podcast of all time. I think you're right, or at least the lowest like length of listening. Like they'll get through the first like two minutes and then click, everyone's off. This is dumb. I'm out of here. Yeah, done with those guys. But yeah, um yeah, I was hoping we could kinda just chat through some of our favorite hunting stories. I mean, I don't know about you, but growing up, I was just obsessed with hunting stories. I remember, I think we've we've talked a couple of times, is about how big I am into reading, And like, I think one of the first things I ever read was up at my family hunting camp. My grandpa always has a stack of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life magazine sitting on this little coffee table next to the World Boarding wood boarding stove, and I would just sit there, like four years old or however all there was, and I just remember a page through those Like every time there wasn't something going on, I'd be sitting in that chair looking through those magazines and you know, imagining hunting stories and eventually reading hunting stories and then just bugging the crap out of my uncles and my dad and my grandpa about stories. I wanted to hear about their first deer. I wanted to hear about their favorite hunting story. I wanted to hear about the time this happened or or that happened. I just I loved those stories and been fascinated by them, so do you remember the Outdoor Life. I think they still do it today, but there's a there's stories in there, but there's they're illustrated, so it's almost like a comic book. That was that was my favorite part of Outdoor Life. And there's one particular article I remember, and it's just stuck out over the years, but it's a guy shoots a buck with a brand new rifle that his wife got him for Christmas, and he sets the rifle in the bucks antlers and he takes the picture. When the flash goes off, the buck magically comes to and runs off and he wasn't dead and and runs off into the wilderness with a brand new gun in his antlers. That's amazing. That was That's that one, for some reason, just sticks out in my head. Yeah, I love I love those kind of stories too. Yeah, there's just something about I don't know, it really gets down to the core of what hunting is all about, right, I Mean, when it comes down to it, it's about a group of guys and girls sitting around a campfire talking about, you know, great memories from the past and the experiences that you know, sure, you know, when it comes to hunting, we all like to you know, bag of deer and put anglers on the wall or whatever it might be. But it's the memories. I think that really that really make it for me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Memories is after all, it's it's I don't know about you, but it's it's why I do it. I mean, it's it's something. It sucks because I'll go back and I'll tell these stories to my wife. I was like, hey, I saw a deer back there at one time. Let me tell you about it. And she's just like, uh, but I'm glad I have you in my life, Mark to tell you those stories. I'm glad I can be there for you in this special way. Oh that's awesome. But but yeah, there's just something about it. And I thought today, you know, we could touch, we could talk to some of our favorite stories. I don't know, I've had a little bit of time to think through a couple of things, um that I want to share today. I don't know if you've had any time to do that yet, Dan, But it was funny. I was sitting um with my dad hunting and I briefly mentioned this a couple so's back. But this is actually one of my favorite you know, hunting memories ever. And I already told you guys that story of the story of my dad and I on our hunt back in late December, I think it was when he got that buck back on my farm, and you know, that night, just before he got that shot, we were actually sitting in the blind telling hunting stories, you know, just like when I was like five years old. I was sitting there just asking me, Dad, tell me about tell me about one of your favorite hunts with your dad, and tell me about that one time with with GP and the big spike. And he was just telling me all these old stories, and it reminded me again of when I was, you know, five years old, sitting there with my grandpa and my dad and my uncle's and there's just nothing like it. So I guess Dan, what I was hoping to do is maybe we could bounce back and forth tell some of our favorite stories. And I'm sure we're gonna have some questions about your stories. We can kind of dig into those and and kind of just see where this takes us. I have no idea, you know, where these conversations might go, what kind of stories we might tell, but I hope we can just share some of our favorite memories and kind of think there's some of those things and I imagine that will be something that allow our listeners will um maybe enjoy and definitely will Bill relate to. Yeah, it sounds good, and if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you a question right off the bat, let's hear it. So my, what what I really like to know about people and what stories I like to hear from people are if there is a particular moment that you became hooked on the outdoors or or hunting, whether it was a camping trip, or a fishing trip, or a hunting trip, or or a specific hunting experience, I'd like to hear your story on that. Yeah. Um, it would be a two part answer to that. Um, I'll give you the first part really briefly. Um. One one was related to hunting, and then one was just the outdoors in general and the outdoors in general. I won't tell the whole story, but we took a family trip um to Glacier National Park when I was probably like seven years old or eight years old, and on that trip, just seeing them mountains and all the animals in the wildlife that really got me hooked on just wilderness in the outdoors. But before that, I got hooked on hunting from a very early age. And um, there's there's two experiences related to deer that really got me just passionate about deer um. The first one, really briefly, was the first memory I can recall about deer ever. I was probably I think my dad told me us four so four or five somewhere around there, and my grandpa had taken me up to our deer camp. And again, this is where a lot of my stories take place, a lot of my memories, and really where I became who I am as a hunter. And really that that place molded me really into the person in general that I am um. And we call our little camp up there Ken Rovan just the name of the deer camp was Ken Rovan Um. And this is a really special place for my family. And my grandpa took me up there by myself one time in the summer and we're just the two of us up there, are doing some chores around camp, and he brought a video camera with us. And on that first day it was probably July, we're gonna go sit out in one of our blinds. Um one of our kind of gun hunting ground blinds and just see if we saw any deer. And that was this experience, remember going the blind, sitting there, and deer started coming out into this field we were sitting next to. And it was the first time that I remember ever seeing deer up close. And if I remember, something like seven or eight doze all came within like ten yards of the blind, and the whole time my grandpa, who we called gp GP was filming the whole thing and then filming me, and I was just so absolutely enthralled of these deer right in front of me, so close. And I always loved animals, but then, you know, seeing these deer, you know, I felt like I'd almost touched could almost touch him, and for whatever forever reason, that just captivated me. Um. And then I was able to watch that video again and show my mom and show my dad that video, and that was just a really really cool thing. So that was one of those first moments. How old are you then? I think four or five four and somewhere on there that I can just imagine your your face. I don't know, you have a young looking face as it is, but I can just sit there and imagine, God, Grandpa, look look at the here. I mean I have I have nephews and nieces that are not nephew little cousins that are the same way. Yeah, and that's that's exactly how it was to like the whole time, Like, I haven't seen the video in a while, but I think I watched it maybe a couple of years ago. Again, my family still has it. And the whole time you can hear me whispering like GP, look, look at the deer, Look at the deer, Look at the deer. And the whole time he's like Mark, Mark, be quiet, Mark. So it's pretty funny. Um, that needs to be online. You need to get that up, you know, I really do need to find that because that's like such a defining moment for me and pretty funny. Plus if people saw it, looked like when I was four years old, a lot of laughs. So I should try to try to get that from my dad. Um, but really quickly, this the second one that like just took me over the edge, is something that just sticks with me, or whenever I see the pictures from this night, it's still just really sticks with me. Um. And this is again at our camp at Ken Rohm and now I was probably eight, maybe somewhere on there, and at this point I was like hooked on deer camp, like hooked on hunting season. Like the night before we're going to go up north for the opening of gun season. I was just like stoked. I remember like going on the bus and like telling all my friends of going to deer camp. It's deer season, going to deer Camp. And nobody really knew what I was talking about or cared because I grew up in the city. Um so it wasn't really common thing. None of my friends did that. But I was just so excited at seven or eight years old. And I remember going up there and opening day. One of the guys that are camp, his name was Terry. He was in there deep in the swamp and he shot a nice eight point buck and that was like probably the biggest buck I've seen to that point, nice eight point. So it was always a really big deal when anyone at camp shot a buck. Um. You know, I remember always sitting in the blind with my dad and every time I heard gunshot, I'd be like, Dad, was that someone you know? Was that one of our guys? Was that one of our guys, and it was always really really far away, and my dad was like, no, no, you'll know when that. You know, you'll know when it's actually close enough to be one of our guys. You'll know it. Um. And then finally we're sitting there in the morning and then there was just a boom that like made me jump out of my pants. It was so loud, and oh, that must be one of our guys, and it was. It was Terry Um. So I just remember going back to camp after the hunt that morning and seeing him come dragging in with his great big eight point or covered and dark, nasty black muck from deep in the swamp, and we, you know, took care of him, took pictures and stuff in the whole group of guys was all around it. We pulled him up into the buck pole and I would just stand in front of the buck pole for hours, like all through the lunch break or lunch hour. I was just standing next to the deer and I would just look at it and touch it and spin it and walk around circles and just stare at the deer. I was just fascinated with it. Well, then fast forward to that night, I was already really excited because Terry shot this big deer. We go out, honey again, now again, like five o'clock or five fifteen, boom, huge gunshot. Scares me half to death. I couldn't believe, Like, Dad, was that another one of our guys that someone else like, yeah, yeah, that must have been. We got home that night or that evening back into camp and you know, after dark, here comes GP, my grandpa, walking in and you can see a big smile in his face and a little um flash I think he must have had with him at the time. He was like, yeah, yeah, Mark, I I got a buck. I got a nice buck. And I was just so excited, and I just remember it was just the scene of the night. Maybe is why I was so special, because it was just beautiful. It's been snowing all night, so it was like fresh, big puffy white snow. It was one of those really clear nights. So there's a big moon. The stars were out. It was dark by now, so big moon stars and it was snowing, and you know, as we we all kind of got together way until everyone came in from the hunt. And I remember this was probably like nine seven, I think it's a year. Um so we just had big kerosene like Coleman lanterns. We weren't like, didn't have big powerful lanterns or anything with battery power. This is like the coalman um or propane or whatever the heck it was um. And I remember all the guys that these big lanterns, and everyone trudged out to go across the creek where GP had left the buck. He shot it, he recovered it, dragged to the edge of the creek, and then we were all going to go out there together, take him over the over to the other side of the creek, and bring him back to the cabin. And I just remember just being so excited walking behind all the men, you know, all the adults. I was the only kid there, and it's like the other five or six adults, and I just remember thinking, like I'm a I'm a hunter now, Like I'm here with all the men walking into the woods in the middle of the night with lanterns. It's snowing, and we're going to see a big buck. And and we come up to the edge of the creek and again snowing like crazy. Now it must have clouded over, because I remember there's a lot of snow and I always remember this image. We get to the edge of the creek and my grandpa held up his lantern and you could just see the prettiest thing you ever saw, a great big He was only seven point, but he was a big, wide seven point, the biggest buck I ever seen. Killed up there still to this day, laying on his side. You know, it's a perfect pile of snow, his eyes glowing in the lantern glow. And I was just like, oh, it was amazing. And the whole experience then from then going across the river, dragging him over, getting him back to the cabin, getting him up on the buck pole. Um, and then from there and out the whole rest of the weekend or however long we were there, maybe four days or so. Every time I wasn't hunting or eating, I was sitting next to the buck pole, staring at those two bucks, thinking about it, dreaming about, man, someday, maybe I'll be able to get a buck like that. And uh, ever, since then, I've been a deer hunting nut. So how long how long have you been going up to that? Ken Robin? And I take it ken Robin is two people's last names. Well, no, since um it is. So the story of ken Roan really really briefly, and my grandpa bought the cabin um back in the eighties, and but they've been going up north to this general area for a long time since the sixties. And there has been another hunting camp somewhere, hunting or fishing camp that my grandpa went to at one point called dun Rovan, I believe. So when he bought this camp, he wanted to give it a name, and I guess he remembered dun Rovan and thought that was a cool name, and so he decided to switch it to ken Rovan since our last name is Kenyan, so so that's ken Rovan. And Um, I've been going there since I was probably since I was a baby, I was born, I mean, it was bought before I was born, So as long as I can remember, we've we've been going there. I mean, that's where I learned to shoot a gun, That's where I learned to sit in a blind. That's where I hunted for the first time. That's where I saw deer for the first time. That's where, um, that's where everything happened a lot of first So it's a very very special place for me cool. Yeah, I dude, that's uh. I love hearing stories like that. Yeah, that was probably a long way to get to that. I'm a I'm a rambler. It's a pretty special place. So let me let me send that question back to you though, Dan, do you remember that first experience that got you hooked? Man? I'll tell you what. There there's a lot, um, there's a lot of them. It was kind of a hole my whole growing up, I didn't necessarily share the family type of outdoors you know, hunting type of thing. Um. I remember every time I would, you know, go um go with them out with my uncles, we would go um, we would go pheasant hunting. And when I was young and my dad didn't hunt, and my mom she took she really didn't hunt a lot, but I remember the that like during the Christmas, her Thanksgiving. You can road hunt in Iowa, which means you drive down the road and you'll see a peasant in the field back when we had lots of peasants, and then the dog would jump out in the ditch and you just stand on the road and shoot the shoot the pheasant. And I just remember thinking how cool I was to go out with my uncles h Dana and Alan and either chick check trapline or uh um or you know, I shot my very first pheasant with my uncle Dana. And you know, not nothing too terribly detailed, but just just a combination of all of those um, all of those experiences kind of rolled into one. Got me, got me used to the out you know, got me in love with the outdoors that you know, I remember going camping with my dad. Um too, real quick stories my my grandma while my uncle was at college. My grandma would run the trap line for my uncle. Is. Yeah, so here we are in you know, she's in hip waiters and I'm in these knee high boots and I'm probably like six. My brother was a real young he was probably just a baby or you know, in one to three years old. And I remember it was my job, as my grandma thought it was gross, if we caught a muskrat or um, a possum or raccoon, it was my job to club the animal over the head with a baseball bat. That isn't that explains a lot of things, Dan, So so I just remember my grandma being like, Okay, we got one, go get him, Daniel and then just whack and if they weren't dead already. You know. The other one was we used to we did, used to go fishing a lot, uh And I remember I had like a Kermit the frog reel again really young, and what we would do that years old Curmit the frog fishing pole. And what we used to do is in these cattle pastures up in northern Iowa where I'm from, like originally we had uh these cattle cricks, and there'd be certain points that we be closer to a main river that would hold a lot of carp. So we would take a can of corn and put hooks and put the colonels a corn on a hook with a bobber and just throw it out there and wait for a carp or a bull head to eat it. And I remember I had I saw my bobber go under, and I'm looking back at my dad and I didn't say anything, but he I don't know if he was in the bushes to go peer or he was tending to my mom and younger brother at the time. But I just had caught a huge carp and all my energy kicked in and I didn't I forgot that I had to reel it in, and it was so big it started pulling me into the water, and I was just kept going deeper and deeper, and finally I got to about chest high and I go Dad, And I looked back, and my dad like loses his mind. He thinks I'm gonna drown. He's running into the creek, splashing, and he grabs me with one hand, grabs the pole with the other hand, and just keeps walking backwards. And I had caught like a fourteen pound carp and I thought that was the coolest thing. And and then I remember my dad hitting it with a rock and throwing it in the weeds. But but you know, as far as the outdoors and and stuff like that, that those are the moments that I remember, not necessarily the perfect. I mean, I'm always gonna remember my very first um bow kill uh with a with a dough But um you know, I like, like I've told you, I didn't really used to be into hunting seriously till about two thousand and six. And what really flipped the switch for me was and I just wrote an article about this on on the nine finger Chronicles podcast or nine finger Chronicles a blog. But I had like just broken up with a girl and was kind of feeling sorry for myself. I had lost my house, I had lost my or I lost my job, which meant I lost my house and uh um, so it's like a giant snowball of crap hit me, and h I I coked with that by just cannonballing into bow hunting. I went and I spent a whole bunch of money. I got a bow, I got an arrow. I went and I got some tree stands, and I just remember spending hours upon hours upon hours in the timber, not necessarily seeing deer or even knowing really what I was doing, but just loving every minute of it because it got me away from the negative thoughts or the the you know, me feeling sorry for myself. I was focused on something different and and I used, I guess, bow hunting as a treatment to get away from the quote unquote sadness, and and it just it's continued to snowball ever since then. I think I think deer hunting and bow hunting and the outdoors in general has saved a lot of people's lives in that way. You know, there's there's a certain healing aspect to being able to participate in something like this that'll um it's I mean, it's a great distraction away from negative things in your life. But then it's also got some inherently positive things. I think that can really um work a little bit of magic in each one of us. So I think I had this conversation with you at the A T A show. Uh, unfortunately we're bullied up to a bar when I shared it. But back in the day, when I was in my early twenties, and you know, I wasted a lot of my lot of my time bullied up to a bar and you know, chasing women and doing dumb things. And when I got into bow hunting in the outdoors, it's just like my life shifted in in more of a positive direction. And uh, that's a good thing. Yeah, And I think that ties in really well to another point I wanted to make about, you know, our first couple of stories we have talked about their right, We just talked about what was the thing that got us hooked on the outdoors, And for each one of us, it was small experiences when we were when we were kids. And I think that to me just is a great reminder of how important it is to try to get young people out in the outdoors. And we don't need to do anything fancy with them. We don't need to put them in front of a big buck, they don't need to kill anything. But just giving them the opportunity to be out there with us, I think can make such a huge difference. And you know, things that maybe aren't such a big deal to us. Maybe you know, we saw a raccoon one day and it ran really close to our feet. To me, that'd be like a big deal. But maybe to my nephew who was with me, you know, that would be a moment that he'll never forget. These these small experiences with us, where our children or you know, nieces and nephews or friends or whoever it might be a mentor hunter. It can be a really life changing thing to get outside and to have these experiences. And I think that's a great reminder for you and for everybody else, or not you, for me and for everybody else out there listening. Um, you know how important it is for us to try to get people out there, try to get young people involved. Take him out hunting, take him out hiking, take him out fishing. Um, a little bit of time, taking out of our day can maybe even change someone's life because to your point, Dan, you know, these types of things can be a great way to keep people from getting involved in negative things like you know, whatever other things out there might be, like cocaine. You know, that wasn't That wasn't the first thing that came to mind, Crystal Math heroin. But yes, all the above. If we can get someone deer hunting instead of any of those, that'd be that'd be that'd be a win today if we could do that. So yeah, um, that's awesome though. Um. Now tying into something else you just mentioned there, you talked about the fact that you've just gotten a bow hunting when you were you know, pretty old. Um, do you remember, and I'm pretty sure you do, but can you tell us a story of that first either the first hunt, if you remember your first hunt, or I'm sure you remember your first kill. Can you tell us about either one of those? Yeah, And I had been bow hunting since I was twelve years old, but it wasn't the main focus in my life. I mean, I was in sports, and I was in boy Scouts, and I was in um uh like church youth group and whatnot. But but they what set it off. And I could almost remember exactly what, um, what what happened as far as I'll tell you my first my first real serious hunt. I mean, I remember sitting in the tree stand when I was younger and watching deer walk by, and you know, I hardly ever practice, like, Okay, here here's the story of my very first bow. My mom and me got it. Got it at a garage sale. Okay, I got a bail hey for my grandpa, and we took a piece of cardboard and took a marker and drew a circle on it. Okay, maybe maybe a five six inch circle. I stood back at maybe fifteen yards and uh, I drew back and I you know, it was notice I said the word garage sale. Every every arrow was different, every broadhead was different. I drew it back and you'd just go like it was so loud and just so I got like within four inches of of that, and my mom being the person that she is, Oh, Daniel, that's just really good. I'm like, I'm ready to go on. I'm ready to go on. So I don't even know how well I was probably close to fourteen now, it was probably between twelve and fourteen years old, and my mom's like, so what do you do? And uh. She she took me out into the country. She dropped me off on a gravel road, and I said, I guess you just kind of uh wait here until dark for me. And I didn't ask permission. I didn't. I didn't. I didn't ask permission to be on the property. I just was like, oh, there's some woods. Like my mom drove about a mile south out of town. I jumped the fence and we'll start. Just walked into whatever random woods I was and uh. And I sat in a fence line and just I don't even know if I saw anything, but I just remember my mom come. Like I could see my mom's car. She just stood there the whole time because I think she was nervous of me and my first experience and just you know, being fairly young. I may assault one deer a long ways away, but you know, I saw some rabbits and whatnot. I came back. I'm like, no, you know, nothing's moving today, mom. You know, like the one article I read in Field and Stream maybe a good hunter. Oh that's amazing. But then like when I got into it, like I said, I was, I was just I was just, uh, you know, got over bad time in my life, and um, I was working landscaping with a guy and you know he let me go earlier. I had the freedom to do whatever I wanted. But I remember almost perfectly. I I got in my truck, I drove to a property that my um stepdad had permission to hunt, and he got me on it. And I'm sitting in a drawl that splits a CRP field in an egg field, and it's a really deep draw and deer would just file out of there every day. And one of the first hunts that I remember sitting on and it's it's one of those cool October's. It's like the perfect tailgating weather. You know, it's just a just a hooded sweatshirt type of day. Is all you need, anything more than that you're too hot, anything less than that you're cold. I remember the sun's the sun setting and and just like the color of fall was just so brilliant, and the light coming through the trees, it just it made a glow that didn't seem like normal, like the entire world had a different hue to it. And I just remember watching the birds fly by and just like losing myself in nature. It's just like almost coming out of my skin, and it just like it hit me, this is what I have to do. This is what makes me happy, This is this is you know, I don't even know if I saw a lot of deer that that day, but I just remember, like I don't know, like I was like I was on a drug. Yeah, it just that it almost changed my life. And I think it did change my life. I don't know, it's uh, it's it's so deep. I can remember the detail, like I can remember the old tree stand that was homemade that I that I sat in. I remember the bow rope was black, like I remember the bow I had. I remember that color of the arrows. I mean, I remember just like the entryway I walked into this property. And I haven't hunted that property in in probably ten years. So just I don't know, it's something that's gonna stick with me the rest of my life. That's pretty cool, And I think I think a lot of people listening can probably relate to something like that. That something like that too, you know. I mean for a lot of us, those same feelings and the vibrancy of those memories. I think a lot of us have those same types of moments and places and experiences because because this whole this whole hunting thing creates those types of moments. You know, it's a special thing. That's cool, that's awesome. Well, well what what what specifically do you want to hear about my first hunts or my first bow hunt or kill? How about your first how about your first kill with a bow? Alright, so and I'll give you I'll do that. Plus I'll add a short preview prequel I'll say. So. You know, like I said, I was exposed to hunting since the day I was born. Um. But our family was a traditional Northern Michigan gun hunting family. Um. You know, the basic gist of it was my grandpa and uncles and dad and a couple of friends would go up there the day before gun season. They would sit down next to a tree or ground blind maybe they built that summer, and they would just sit there in their traditional places and shoot the first year they saw buck, first buck they saw. My family was not a doe hunting family for you know, you know how it was back in the day, a lot of people just were against shooting. Does that was kind of how it was with my family, so I have you know, grown up doing that. Um. But up there in northern Michigan at that time, right around the end of the nineties, the deer population plummeted. So it went to the point where you know, back in the day in the seventies and eighties and early nineties, you know, every year there was a couple of bucks on the buck poll. Well by the time I started, you know, going up there a lot. You know, the last good season was that seven season I think that I mentioned earlier, when there was two nice seven and eight pointers for shop. After that, it was like we hardly saw any deer, nothing big at all. Um. I think you know, there was a couple yearlings that were killed after that, but like I mean, we go the entire season and see a deer, maybe two deer, three deer, um, one spike might be killed, or you know, we go to three years and then a four keys killed, and to three years and a four point or five point or something like that. So it's really rough hunting up there, um. And that's what I grew up with. That was the only hunting I was exposed to until I was like fourteen or fifteen I think. And at that point though, I was really you know, I loved hunting, was obsessed with it, um, and I couldn't, you know. The only way I was going was when we went up to north to gun camp. So I convinced my dad that we should try bow hunting. So kind of similar to you, um, you know, we didn't know anything about bow hunting. My dad and I knew nothing, um. And so I just remember my grandpa had an old longbow, like the big old wooden, like four and a half foot tall longbow, and that's what I was given to start with, the same deal with you. I was shooting at like a hay ball or some kind of target. I can't remember exactly what it was, and it wasn't much of a shot. But you know, for four or four years or something like that, I hunted um with a bow behind my parents house on the west side of Michigan. UM. So again, the only place I had to hunt now other than up north of our deer camp, was my family's three and a half acre lot behind their house, so a very small, tiny little patch timber. And that's where I learned to bow hunt. And I saw some deer but never could quite get close enough, couldn't get a shot. And again, because my family was a gun hunting family. And again kind of my whole hunting history was just following it, following the footsteps of what my family did, because that's all I knew. So no one ever used tree stands. Did they make fun of you when you started a bow hunt? No, give you a hard time, you know, No, they didn't. Um, my grandpa has some reservations about it because he actually did try bow hunting for a while. Um back I'm not sure when this was seventies or eighties or some some point at that time, and um, he had an experience where he wounded a deer with a bow, hit it in the shoulder or something like that, and it ran off. They never found it, and that just really turned him off to bow hunting. Um. You know, he didn't like the idea of of wounding an animal, didn't like the idea of the fact that you know, at that time, there was a lot of discussion about the fact that bows weren't lethal enough to you know, humanely killed deer consistently. Um. And so I think giving all those things, he put the bow up and never went at again. So when I started. I think there was a little the skepticism maybe, um, but in general their supportive. The didn't give me a hard time. But we didn't hunt with tree stands. None of my family did. And my mom was like, oh, no, you can't use the tree stands. So even though I wanted tree stands, they said no. So I had to hunt from a home homemade little cloth ground blind that I made on the ground on the three acres in a neighborhood behind my parents house. And that's how I bow hunted for the first like four years. And I remember, you know, seeing a couple of dairy nothing big, but seeing dear having close calls. But finally I had my first encounter with a big buck and it really was a pretty decent buck. Um. I was probably sixteen, maybe I'm not sure exactly, some fifteen sixteen somewhere on there. Um. And I remember the way we built our ground blinds is we had old ski poles and we had like camouflage like berber fabric, and we would just take like four ski poles, four sticks, and stretch that camouflage fabric across those and staple them so you'd have Yeah, and so you have a bundle so you could roll it up. So you'd roll it up, and then when I got to ever I wanted to go, I would unroll it, put one stick in the ground, pull the camouflage top, put another stick in the ground, pulled over camouflage top, put another and that kind of wrapped that around me and sit in front of the tree and have that kind of half circle in front of me. So I'm sitting there with my great, big longbow, sitting behind my camouflage fabric, and I remember this little creek to the right hand side, and it was probably middle October, late October, and it was one of those kind of like you mentioned, a beautiful morning, just perfect autumn colors, but really crisp. It was still one of those crisp, cold, frosty mornings. And I remember looking to my redit cat flash movement, and on the other side of this creek was a little finger, a little point on the other side, and I just saw this big deer step out on top of this finger and turn his head towards me, and I just remember thinking it was the biggest stair I'd ever seen in my life, and it was probably I think it was a ten pointer Um. At that time, I had no idea, you know, how to score a dear at all. Um. But looking back on it, if my memories, if my memory served me right, he was probably a hundred hundred ten inches maybe something like that. But to me, that was like a giant. I've never seen anything like that up north or anywhere. So I was like, oh my gosh. I started freaking out, shivering and shaking, and he comes across the creek, drops down low, comes up the other side, and I can I can still just see him pop up over the side and just start coming towards me. I was like, holy smokes, this is actually gonna happen. And to that point, I hadn't killed a deer yet because again, my family wasn't, you know, into killing does. So I could have shot a million does, but I never did. So I was like, I'm waiting for a buck. A decent buck was gonna my first year. So this big box coming across. He gets to probably I don't know, twenty or thirty yards and he's he's walking down in front of me, um, and I remember getting my bow drawn and I was kind of following him because he was moving from right to left across the front of me. I have the bow drone, and I'm following him with my arrow um as he goes across, but waiting for him to stop. But as I'm following him my bows moving from right to left, I've got these ski poles that are sticking up every two feet and I'm watching the deer not paying attention to my arrow. And I moved my bow and my arrow right into the ski pole, knocked the arrow off. It clatters down, makes a commotion, and this this decent buck goes running off. And that was my first failed big bucking counter. Was it your last one? Yeah, well definitely not my last failed encounter um at all really, But then you know, so first bow kill. This was now a couple of years after that, I didn't I don't have my first bow kill to my late teens. Um. And this is another one of those haunts I can remember really really well. UM back down the same area down that we called it the flats. This is, like I said again, basically a neighborhood with some woods behind it. But the houses were all up on a big hill and then dropped down into this low kind of creek valley creek bottom and Um, I was down that bottom and the flats, and these deer would always come off the ridge and then kind of cut down into the flats and the evening and in the mornings they would come from the flats and go up and bed up on the ridge. So I was sitting there in the evening and I thought I had things figured out. I was like, all right, I'm in this spot. I figured this is this is a funnel. At that point I knew what a funnel was, and like, I'm in a funnel location. It was the Rut. It was sometime in November, I think early November. I'm like, I'm gonna kill a deer. And again I was in one of my little Actually this this is a ground blind still but it was a pop up. I finally bought my first, like pop up ground blind basic, one of the first ones. And um, I remember sitting there all decked out and excited, probably four o'clock in the afternoon, and I looked to my left and I see like white flash of whites and my car. There's a deer coming and I realized it's a dog. It's a big white dog, and behind it is two people, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I was so mad, like, what are these people doing down here? They're walking right through my family's property at this point. Must have been getting closer primetime, because I remember thinking they're ruining the entire night's hunt. I was furious. And so they come walk there just their dog for the evening. And again, this is the neighborhood, so it wasn't like it was totally out of the ordinary for, you know, there to be people walking around the woods, but it was the first time I had had that happening when I was hunting down there. And so I get out of my blind with my bow and arrow on the boat, and I like storm over to them, like this is private property. You guys can't be out here, blah blah blah. I was just really fired up and upset. Um. And they were telling me, well, it's you know, I don't some ordinance because of our neighborhood supposed but you could walk through this portion of the area. I don't know what the deal is, but they claimed to say that they were still okay to be there. I said they couldn't be there, and I was just fuming because my whole hunt was ruined. Um. Well, I end up going up, but going back to the blind, they walked around, went their way, and I just remember thinking, the whole night's shot, I'm not gonna see anything. But the evening kind of came to a close. It was starting to get dark, and I thought I had I've got like ten minutes left or something, so I'm like, well, why not just try a little rattle. I had a little rattling bag at that At that time, I was really big on calls. UM, so I like rattled or grunted like every twenty minutes out like and um. I tried a little rattling sequence there at the very end of the night, and like a couple of minutes later, I saw a shape come over the hill and it was a little four pointer, and then right behind it was another buck like a six pointer, and I was like, heck, yes, like this is it and they came right down, kind of quartering towards me, and I remember drawing, and it was one of those things where you know, I think a lot of people can can relate their first couple maybe their first couple of hunts. You kind of black out. It was like such a crazy moment. I don't really remember what happened. I just remember there was a deer I saw. I drew back, the pin was on him, and I let it go, and he just took off running, and I was freaking out, couldn't believe I just shot this deer. And I remember then going, you know, I heard him run. I thought I heard him crash, but I wasn't exactly sure, um, you know, if he did, and I hadn't seen him go down, So I wait a little bit. At went back up to the house, and I remember telling my dad all about and being so excited and um, you know, expecting him to be really excited, but he was all nervous and upset because of my my confrontation with the neighbor. So he was like, well, why did you go towards why did you yell at him, or why did you go out there with your bow? And he was all worried because, you know, again we were in a neighborhood and we were allowed to you know, legally, we were allowed to hunt there. Um. But he was always worried at the neighbors start complaining. You know, he didn't want to cause trouble, um, So he was all worried about that, and so we kind of got in a fight about it, and then I wanted to go down there in the track of the deer, and I had had big flashlights. He's no, I don't want a bunch of big flashlights down there because the neighbor is going to see. So it's a whole, whole whole or deal with that. But in the end it was good and we actually went to where I heard that crashing and he was there, and UM, you know, one thing I do remember is when I finally I saw the deer lying there dead, it was like shock like it was. It was definitely I was taken him back by it and almost like that is that it like that? It didn't even feel it goes my dear like a deer eight shot. I was like, is that that can't be it? And UM, I definitely felt like, you know, I'm not I'm still not sure what the words are you all the all the things that still you know, to a degree we feel some sense of remorse and sadness and appreciation for that life, but um, you know, realizing that that life has been taken. Um, So just it was a whole lot of emotions, I'm sure, and um and that was it. It was kind of a crazy hunt, but it came together, and um, it's cool. It's cool, and those small parcels offer some good stories. I know a couple of guys who hunt um in some you know, heavy residential areas, and they tell me the crazy stuff you see from a tree stand in the middle of like a suburbia can be uh, can be interesting to say the least. Yeah, I h I know a lot of guys do it now still, and they're really successful doing it. But I kind of I like being away from people like I just it's it's frustrating to deal with that stuff. And I know a lot of people do with it, and God bless them. But if I can help, if I can help it, I like to be a from that as much as I still have dog issues in a lot of places I hunt, and that drives me nuts when dogs come running through. But um, I really like as much as possible just not to have to see people what I know. That's that's one thing I like. So So we've talked a lot here about our first hunts and first experiences and little bucks and first first things and everything, But what about some of our bigger, dear encounters or anything. I don't know. Dan, there's one story in general or specific I'm thinking of for you, and I don't know if you want to tell this story or not. But I don't think we have told it in much detail. But have we Have you told the shipwreck story? I don't think I have. Um, that buck changed my life. I mean, I learned so much about big mature gear through hunting that specific buck over a five year period. It's it's made me the hunter that I am today based off the decisions that I made, how I hunt, the wind, directions where I hunt, pinch points, travel corridors. Um, it's hard to describe. I mean, he he gave. He gave me an education, and unfortunately I wasn't able to harvest this buff, but but I gained so much. I mean, he means so much to me that hell, I named my business after him. I I don't know, it's just it's it's one of those things where the journey is more was more important for me than the than the final the end, I guess you could say, but I'll just run through it. Um. I remember one year, I always drove by this pizza property several several times to go out to another piece of property that I hunted, and all it was it was three CRP fields um and to three skinny draws that would lead to a fence line, and behind it was another wide open CRP field. And you know, people don't associate CRP fields with holding deer. And I would see a lot of deer in the CRP fields, and I would drive by him every night and every morning, and and the third year I was driving by this property, I look and I see a good one fifty class bucks sitting there, and I'm going, man, I'm gonna go find out who owns this property. So I went to the courthouse, got a plat map, and UH ended up finding who the owner was, knocked on his door and got got permission to hunt it. So I remember there, remember hunting there the first couple of times and seeing a lot of deer moving my tree, stand around and try to find the right spot. And over the course of the first week the first year I hunted there, the first week in November, I saw, I want to say, five deer over over one seventy uh five five five deer five deer over. Can I tell you something? You call your if you call bullshit. That's fine, you can call it. I'm not even gonna call bullshit. I'm just gonna say that is stupid, that's dumb. So I'm sitting here going, what the hell? So this this spot is completely overlooked. It's between an interstate and like a lumber yard and another company that makes this is out in the country, and it's on one of the busiest roads in the county. And so I'm sitting here going, why are there no I mean, there's no other tree stands in the in the on this property. There's no tracks or signed to anybody's ever been here. The timbers wide open. So what made this spot good is it connected just by a small fifty yard kind of pinch point to another gigantic piece of really thick property and all the way down to a river and another main road. And this it held a ton of deer. I mean I saw fifteen deer over probably one forty that year. Now is all the activity that you're seeing or we're seeing there during the rut? Yeah? It was during the rut and I had I just got my first trail camera that year, so um, so I set it up in a pinch point and I was I was getting some of the smaller deer on it, but I wasn't getting any of the big bucks. And one buck. I remember watching a whole bunch of movement and seen signs and scrapes in this one corner where the one drawl would connect to the big chunk of timber, and I go, I gotta get a tree stand there. So I set up a tree stand in uh in a a group of three trees, two of them were dead, and in the bottom of it was a bee hive and I had to crawl up up the tree stand to a bee hive. And in like two thousand and seven, I think it was the first year that I I saw UM that I was uh hung there a majority of the deer I saw We're at a distance and coming across different parts of these CRP fields, and I was doing a lot of playing cat and mouse, but basically set up an observation stands. So I made the move in one night to see or just try to catch one of the deer that I had seen come in and out of this place um previous hunts. And I had my had the wind blowing into the CRP field kind of at a southeast angle and here down, here comes uh, here comes a deer walks by small buck. About twenty minutes later, I rattle and then I do a grunt, and here comes two more bucks out of this really thick stuff. And then out of the corner of my eye, I catch a split G two, like a really big G two. And I turned around and I'm actually filming filming at this point, and it is the biggest one. It's uh. At that time, I think shipwreck was probably one seventies and uh as a as probably a four year old. And um, he comes through. I'm trying to get him on camera. I let him walk through one of my shooting lanes once again, another example of the Dane cameras. Yeah, exactly. So he comes up, he stops right behind a tree, and by this time he's at ten yards. I draw back. The only shot I had was at from like the very last rib to the hind quarters, and I said, I can't take that shot. He needs to take one step backwards or two steps out because he wanted to go check out in the CRP field see where this noise is coming from. And then all of a sudden, the works wind must have swirled and no, I mean he took off, and I'm just like, oh my god, that was the biggest buck I ever shot, or ever like at that time had seen there. There only been a couple other bucks bigger than that that I've ever seen, and and it I was just like, oh my gosh, this spot hold. So I continued hunting the rest of the year. I didn't see him one another time. I set up trail cameras UM the following year and to hope it was some mineral, hope hopefully I would catch him. I didn't catch him. I got one trail camera picture of him in two thousand and eight, and that was um. He had broken off one of his sides and it was over top of a pile of corn. Two thousand and nine, rolls around and um I I started the chase for him again, and one of my good friends, Kyle, who was filming me this this particular day. UM. I started focusing a lot of attention on this property for for good reasons. But over the years, the number of mature deer started disappearing. I think a lot of it had to do with a shipwreck being so dominant that he started kicking all these other bucks out and be I think the words started to get out of this area, and how many deer we're getting, how many big bucks reading hit by cars on the on the interstate, and how many people were starting to see them. So shipwreck, I'm sitting there one night and uh, on a northwest wind, I'm sitting with Kyle. We're filming this hunt, and all of a sudden he uh. I had seen him like two nights before in different in different different tree stands, and on this typical north northwest wind, there was a particular draw that would that run ran right across or right parallel with the CRP field all the way down into the creek. And there, all of a sudden, I heard three dos pop out, you know, some noise. They were kind of trotting through this thick stuff that led up to an open patch of timber where these draws met, and that's where my tree stand was at. And one dough comes out through a shooting lane, The next dough comes out through a shooting lane, The next dough comes out through a shooting lane. And I looked back into this thicket and there their shipwreck. At this at this time, he's probably one nine and go ahead is this is this the video where he's off to your left side and the timber a little bit. Yep, he's off to the left side and the timber and he just holds up and he's he's sitting there and he's watching these dos walk off, and I'm thinking, I'm gonna have a crack at him. At twenty five yards, he's gonna walk through this treet, he's gonna follow these doughs right out up in this draw and uh, he stops at about forty yards, but he's in some thick some thick brush, and he just sits there and he's so patient, and he waits, puts his nose in the air, and by this time I knew it was him, and I'm just like, like, for some reason, I was completely calm. I didn't have buck fever at all. And and then all of a sudden, he's he steps out and he walks away from me, right on the edge of the thick stuff where it opens up and just disappears. And I'm just like, oh my god. So of course I'm thinking he doesn't. He didn't bust me anything like that. Hunted the rest of the year, didn't. I didn't find you know, didn't I didn't see him, and okay, so too. So I become good friends with one of the landowners who borders the property, and he lets me know that they found they find his sheds. Some turkey hunters had found his sheds in the spring of two thousand and ten, and I think my years are right here. But so again I start popping. I buy more trail cameras, I get trail cameras out there, I get mineral station, and sure enough he's there. This year he was two d or that year two thousand and ten he got to about two inches. And so so my buddy Ryan is now filming me and we're back. Like I I had. I pretty much put all my all my energy towards this one buck. So two thousand and it's two thousand and ten. I've been hunting this deer for you know, almost four years now, four straight seasons, and and so now this buck is becoming like a legend in my eyes, you know, and being able to share that legend with friends and then showing him the show camera pictures and whatnot. And I you know, we we played cat and mouse with him a lot. We saw him in one draw, so we moved over there the next day. And you know, these deer are so smart. He was so smart. He would use the slightest bit of wind change would result in him doing a completely different thing. And so I kinda I'm looking here, and I'm like, I need to gain access to a different piece of property. So I contact this other person and I get permission to hunt it. So I bounced around and probably a fifty to sixty i'd say a hundred square acres, No, I'd say I'd say probably a fifty square fifty acres of like two pinch points. And that's the only trees. It's in a giant CRP field. And I finally get into this big oak tree. I'm setting up there, and it's my it's my birthday, November five, and I'm setting up there strictly as an observation stand. The wind was kind of wrong for what I wanted it to be, and I'm watching all these dear funnel up up top where I had my encounter with him the previous year. So I'm like, tonight, if this wind stays the same, we're going back up into that tree stand. And it was a morning hunt, and all of a sudden, I look out the corner of my eye. It's like nine o'clock in the afternoon. At nine o'clock in the morning, and I look out the corner of my eye and it's one of those things where you just know who it is. I looked behind. I go Ryan at shipwreck, get ready because I'm shooting him, whether you're ready or not. And he comes out and he I just remember, I just remember him catching his antler on a on a low hanging branch and he had to pick his head up and trying to, you know, force it through, force his antlers through, And it was just the most glorious sight I had ever seen in my life. What's he look like at this point at this age, Like, tell me about the body and the antlers and everything. He said it was over two inches. But what kind of rack are we talking about? What's this dear look like? Coming through? Okay? So he's like a main frame eleven with junk all over the place. This year, that year that I that I had the encounter with him. Um he had he had like little drop times. He had um jump coming off his bases. He had kickers off of his G twos and threes, and his main beams. One main beam was just like a normal antler, and the other main beam would just was all mass and it swept straight up. You know, you look at the sheds and it's a completely different. Dear. You would say these antlers don't go together, but they did. Um. He had a really big split G two on his geez I should know this on his right side and uh kickers off off it and UM what I what I'll do is I'll give you a picture of him in his glory and you can, uh, you can post it. But he comes out twenty two yards dead broadside and I draw back. I settled the pin and I and I'll be honest with you. I I I had let the moment get away from me because it's just like four years all built up and now this is my moment. Right So you know, like how I said said, I've talked to you before, I'm like, act like you've been there. I had never been there. I wasn't acting like I've ever been there, and I was like I was kind of shaken. But I remember taking an extra and I released the arrow and it hit him and he kind of dropped down. He rolled and not like you know, not rolled on the ground, but he took that big dip, you know, like the bolt the pre bolt stride where they ducked down and then they just roll out and and he he disappeared into the into the timber, and I lost my mind. Tell me about that. I was crying, I will. I looked back to Ryan and I'm just like what. I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I I I had this feeling. It's kind of funny because the only thing that I can really relate it to is like the first time you've ever had sex. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but it's like that. It's just like, it's like, oh my god, this just happened. I want to give myself a high five. I want to like break down. I'm just like and then and then all the years of stories and stuff like that, and I'm just like, oh my god, this is this. It happened. It happened. I get down on the tree and I'm just like, because I swear I hit him a little high, but at the angle I was at, I'm like, dude, I got good penetration. I had eleven inches of penetration on him. I'm I'm thinking, I go down, I get the arrow. I wasn't staying dead deer quite yet, but I crawled out of the tree and went to the impact site. I found the arrow. He had the broad head in about five inches of arrows still in him. And then so what I did was I put the two arrows together. I measured, um what I felt was penetration, and then how how much was still in him because the arrow broke and about eleven inches of penetration and the broadhead was still in him. And at the site there was good blood. There was good blood, you know. So anyway, I backed out, got some friends to help. Um. We we followed the blood trail, and I'm like, good blood, good blood, good blood, paint blood with bubbles in it. And I'm just like, oh my god, yes, I mean, I'm just I can't wait to walk up on him. And and all of a sudden we crossed this little ditch and he rubs his body up against a tree and it's just soaking in blood. He comes up out of the ditch, no more blood. And I felt, at that moment, I'm just like what happened? Like at that point, I started replaying, replaying and replaying and replaying this into my head over and over and over and over again. And I know this story is kind of dragged out, but I just remember someone pulling the life out of me. And although I didn't want to admit it, I had a gut feeling at that time that was You're not going to find him. That's the worst feeling. And I've had other instances like this with dear, but that particular moment it was different because I had such a huge history with this dear and it was almost like I felt guilty for not killing him because I just wounded him and he's gonna die and I'm gonna find his corpse during shed season or whatever and end. So the next the next part of this story will be real fast. But I dumped Corn out after the seasons over. Anyway, I don't find him, Okay. It tears me up. And from the very first moment I ever saw shipwreck in two thousand and seven untill to this day, I still think about that buck every day now that he's dead, because the following year, the property owner to the next the next property owner shot him, who was the same Colora. He's well renowned um in the kind of industry as a big buck killer. This is his, that was his, like thirder He's ever shot and North American White Tail cover, third third North American White Tail cover. The cool part about this is the story of that deer in North American White Tail is not about a big buck getting killed. It's about the history of that deer and the friendship that became of it. Because like between me and Sam, because a lot of this, a lot of people would be jealous. Because he called me up at work and he's like, Dan, I got some bad news for you, slash good news for me, and I knew exactly what I was talking about. He had killed the deer and I was one of the first people that he called and I thought that was so awesome. Yeah, And I don't know, did you happen to read the story? Thank you? So like the story. It's not really about a big deer getting shot. It's about the history of this deer and what it meant to the people who who were in this dear's life. And I think that's really cool. Yeah, I do too. The story the story was really really well done, and one of our past podcast guests, Scott Bestel, wrote that story right he interviewed me. And I remember, it's it's crazy just how all that works. But even though I didn't kill that deer, the education I got from him is worth way more than any mount on a wall can ever can ever give you. And and like I said, and and sorry for that this story took so long, But it's one of those stories that you have to tell it a certain way or it's not worth getting told. Yeah, no, absolutely so I think, um, something interesting you said that, right, you said, this story and that experience is worth you know, even more than having you know, a buck on a wall on the wall, right. And I think you know a lot of people, a lot of non hunters see deer on the wall and like you know that that's a you know, some kind of sick trophy hunter just kills all his deer just to put their head on the wall to have some decorations and etcetera, etcetera. Um. But I think what it really is, at least for me, and I think a lot of guys I know, UM, is that that it's not just a trophy. It's it's the memories, it's the story, it's the experience. And every time you see that, you think through all those things, and for you, because you had such a rich experience is such a deep story in history. You don't need that symbol on the wall. You have the pictures and the memories and the experiences that will live with you forever. That that means so much, and that that's pretty great. You know, he's still he's your buck in some way because of the impact that deer and that hunt head on you. And that's it's pretty cool. And I think it's really cool how you handled that whole situation. How um the right word is, but how not like an ass that you were to to Sam about it. And you could have been upset, and you could have been jealous and all these different things. And I'm sure there might have been a little bit of you that was bumming that it wasn't you right, But still, you know, you handle like a champ and you took that experience and you learned from it. It became a better hunter because of it, and uh, I think that's that's the right way to handle it. And that's really the only positive way you can, you know, move from a situation like that. I think one of the coolest things to this whole story is I remember going into Sam shop and to personally congratulate him and just be like, man, this is, this is I'm so happy for you. And I wanted I wanted to tell him how much that buck meant to me, and he knew he knew how much it meant to me, and two things he told For two things, he said, Hey, I want to show you something in my back. Here. He took me in the back and he showed me as antlers and I got to touch and hold shipwreck and look at him from that the year that Sam shot him and hold the skull amountain and I broke down. It was like, although I am not the reason behind its death, I feel like I had been a part of this buck's life, and uh it was. It was pretty cool. Now. The second thing I wish you would have never told me was he goes, yeah, uh you shot him. Here's a scar where the scar was here, there's a scar in here. Uh you definitely hit one of his lungs. And I have no idea how this buck survived your shot. And I'm just like the son of a bitch, I wish you never told me because for the rest for the rest of that like that day at work. I was sitting at my computer and I just was like, you know, you don't ever want to think like this, but one inch one inch down, half inch down, half inch to the left, half inch to the right or whatever. Oh yeah, and it's eat you up a little bit. But that only lasts for so long and then yeah, you got you gotta move on, eventually move on. But you know, to this day, when I sit there and uh um, when I sit there and I'm setting up tree stands where I'm thinking of what what wind to play, you know in a certain area, I always think kind of what would shipwreck do type of scenario, and it's it's helped me. It's it has helped me over the years get really close to some pretty big deer. And although I don't have a you know, an impressive wall of mounts, I've I've had encounters with some tons, tons of world class animals based on my education that shipwreck gave me. That is, and that's that's pretty cool. Yeah, that's very cool. Well, uh, I don't have a story that can really match that down, but it's not about that's my story, you know what I mean. And just like the listeners out there, you've got to make your own stories, you know, and it's it's not about what this guy or the next guy does. It's about what you do. And that's really all the matters. Who cares if you know, big name Buck Hunter has killed for four booners, what are you doing because you're not going to share, you know, for me, I'm not going to share Mark k no offense, but I'm not going to share Mark Kenyon stories with my kids. I'm going to share my stories with my kids, just like you're gonna stare your stories with your kids. And I don't know. That's just my two cents. I think you're spot on. I think that's so important because we talked about this a lot. But so many people see what's on TV and the DVDs and on the magazines, and they feel like that they need to be shooting those kinds of deer or seeing those kinds of deer to to have a story worth telling or to have a hunt worth talking about. And that's just not the truth. You know, You've got to chase what's what gets you excited and what makes you happy and what challenges you and brings you fulfillment, and and do that and do it unapologetically, and I think that's what I encourage everyone to do. So what do you think, dan Um? What kind of story do you want me to tell? Do you want to give you a you know how about this? We've had it? Really I was a really deep story, important story, a life lesson story. Do you want to hear a kind of funny story? I love funny stories, and you're gonna You're probably gonna say, damn, that's in this is inappropriate. But any story like that has to do with pooping from a tree stand. I find those. I find those hilarious. So if you have one of those, I'd love to hear it. But if not, you know, I mean, I wish I had another good pooping from a tree stand story for you, But I can't beat the one you told earlier when you were letting letting it go while Ryan was sitting there next to you. I can't match that. I did have to like I should have just done what you did. And when we can't do another episode where talked about pooping on tree stand so I'm just gonna move on, or we should have one episode entirely dedicated to pooping out. Oh this might this podcast might even get a PG thirteen rating, right, we might need to a just the writing scale here. So here here's a funny story. Um, I don't. I'm pretty sure I haven't. I have not told this story on this podcast, but I have been a guest on a couple other podcasts where I have told the story. So if you heard one of those times, I apologize, but I gotta tell it just for the general listener group here on Weird Hunt. Dan, I don't you tell me if I've told you this one. But I don't think I did to ever tell you the story about um, the deer hunting story I told my colleagues at my my old day job. I don't. I don't think so. I don't remember. I remember you telling them the shed hunting story and they actually they thought she hunting. You're going to go out and build find a building. So so that that's good context for the story, because right, this is the same people. So you know, I got this job out of college with a big tech company out in cel Konda Valley, so out there south of San Francisco in California, and the ship me out there and we lived in these kind of corporate apartments for the for four or five months while I was working there, and all of us that all start together all kind of lived together in these apartments and we have like potlucks every Friday and all this stuff. So of course I'm the only one who works for this company that does anything outdoors or the hunts or anything like that, and they're all kind of like, who is this guy? He's a wild man um, So they they asked me the last questions. So eventually we had one of these potlock dinners, and at this point I was like dying like this. This is kind of when Wired to Hunt really took off. Because I couldn't hunt. I couldn't do all these things I love to do. So I would just work all day and then come back to my little apartment and just work on weird hunt all night, for like eight hours a night. So I went to this little dinner and there was like maybe twenty of these people that I worked with all there, and somehow someone was like, tell us a deer hunting story, mark Um. You know, they've never heard a deer hunting story before. So I was like, well, okay, I'll tell you a story. So I kind of stand up and you know, I can sometimes be a little bit of a ham So I really had. I realized I had, like the audience, the perfect audience for a story like this. So I stand up in front of him. Oh oh yeah, big time. I get a really serious look on my face and I said, well, this, guys, is the story. It's kind of hard to tell because it's such a It was a huge moment for me, in one of the worst but most defining moments of my life. Um, but it was. It was a perfect autumn day and I think it was late October in the afternoon, probably thirty seven to forty degrees, just like you said, kind of that sweatshirt weather. I was sitting there was a beautiful night, sitting in the tree stand. You know. I had to explain to them that I had. You have this ladder or steps up the tree and then you sit up in this tree stand twenty ft up. And I was waiting for deer to come through. And I was bow hunting, and they couldn't believe you bow hunt, You shoot a bow and arrow. Oh my gosh, that's so incredible. Um. So I'm out there with my bow and a couple of hours and I saw some squirrels I saw a turkey, saw coyote, and then finally a deer appeared, and it's a buck, and he starts walking towards me, and he's he's walking, he's getting closer and closer. My heart starting to beat a little faster, a little faster. My breathing gets a little bit tense, and I grabbed my bow. And as I grabbed my bow, the arrow is on the end. It knocks a tree branch and the arrow falls off from the bow and clatters to the ground. And I have no other arrows. For whatever reason, I have no other arrows. And everyone's like, oh my gosh, what did you do? I said, well, this buck was coming and I couldn't let the opportunity to slip through my fingers. So as he slowly approaches, I stand up, ever so slowly, making sure that this tree, the tree stand doesn't creak, making sure I don't move too fast. And they slowly move around to the back side of the tree and put one ft on the ladder step, and then a hand, and then another foot, and I slowly begin climbing down the ladder. While I'm doing the sad is heading straight towards my tree, very slowly nipping at this leaf, nipping at that leaf, coming little bit closer, taking a step, looking around, taking a step, looking around, And every time he puts his head down the ground, I take another step down the ladder. This goes on for ten minutes. Every time he stops and looks around. I had to hold my breath because I was afraid that the frost and the steam coming out of my mouth might be visible to him. Well, I finally get to the bottom of the tree, but I'm on the opposite side of the tree from him. He's now coming closer. He's about five yards away, walking right towards my tree. And as he gets a little bit closer, I reached into my pocket and I pull up my skinning knife in my hand. That I've got my knife in one hand, I've got my left arm holding onto the ladder. And the deer takes one more step, and I was right in front of the tree, and he finally takes one more step, just past the tree, and I swing down, grabbed the deer around the neck, pull him down to the ground, and slit his throat. And at that point I had twenty, you know, adults staring at me with her eyes wide open, their mouths down to the ground, just like completely enraptured and possibly horrified by me. And I just stood there, you know, and I had acted this all out with my hands, so they could see me slit the throat with my hand, and I just stared at them kind of the wild eyed look in my face, and they were just like they didn't say anything for like ten seconds. Everyone just stared at me, and I just stared back at them. And then finally it just started to crack up and I was like, that's that's just a made up story. And then they just they freaked out and they're like, oh my god, that's the most the craziest story. And then you know, they couldn't handle and they were just amazed by They really really believed I did that. And I kind of lived on inam for that. So that's that's the best deer hunting story I ever told and the best reaction I ever got from a deer hunting story. Oh man, that's funny. Yeah, it was. It was a great moment. It was a great moment. I'll tell a really really short funny one. Um, my brother, my brother and I don't typically hunt. My brother is not a hunter, but once a year now we've kind of had a tradition where he'll come up and get in the tree stand with me. Don't don't look, don't judge him, but he's a golfer Mark. Oh, boys, he's one of those guys. So anyway, I was kind of waiting for a buck to come by, and I really wasn't too you know, interested in uh, And I can barely tell the story without laughing. But um, but we get in the tree and a couple of dose does come by, and it's a it's a mature dough with two with two like yearlings, and the mature dough starts farting, and every time she farted, the little bucks or the little deer would get scared and like trot off and then like be on alert for a little bit and then slowly work their way back. And this kind of just kept going on, and finally me and my brother are laughing so hard and that we can't like we can't muffle it anymore. We're just laughing that a deer notice us and runaway. So the deer's flagelence probably saved her life. But we're sitting in the tree stand just laughing, just belly laughing. It was hilarious. I've never heard a dear fart. I don't think, Oh my god, I hear him fart all the time. It must be an Iowa thing, not a star. Oh that's awesome. Yeah, I um, speaking of sounds. Here's another story. This is one of my favorite hunting memories. And it won't be quite as funny to people because they don't know the person. But my grandpa, again, like I've talked about, he had a huge impact on my life and my hunting, and he's a very very serious guy. He was military, big time military guy, and um, you know, he always has his rules and everything had to be spick and span and just right, and um just typically was was by the book, straight and narrow military guy. Well, we're at hunting camp during gunning season, you know, the whole cruise up there, and it was just you know, it was in the evening. We're all kind of sitting around. It's just a one room little cabin with the wood birding stove and a couple of couches and uh, we kind of sit around the stove and talk and you know, have a coffee or beer or coke or whatever, and that was kind of the evening. Sometimes play cards, well list night. I remember we're all sitting out there just kind of talking in the cabin and my dad and my uncle said that let's go for a walk. They asked if an bales want to go, but no one did, so my dad and uncle decided to go for a walking. It must have been like a full moon is pretty bright out and um, there's a an old when then old there's a two track that leads from our cabin's way back deep in the woods, leads back out to the closest road, but it's probably three quarters of a mile or a half mile, so we're way back off or back in this deep swamp. So when you're walking down this two track heading back towards the main road, there's no lights, there's no other houses, there's nothing out there. It's just you and then you know the deep timber and swamp kind of on either side of you. So they go off and they've gone this walk through the woods. Me and my grandpa and I think another one of my uncles, and maybe I think there was someone else. They were all just kind of sitting around, um talking and I don't know what whatever we're doing socializing. Well, eventually we were playing cards or something. My grand grandpa went outside to go to the restroom. Um, because there's kind of a piano tree outside of there's an outhouse, and the rest of us continue talking and whatever, laughing, blah blah blah. Well, maybe fifteen minutes go by, and all of a sudden, here crashing on the deck like crash, crash, crash, big stumps, and the door flings open and it's my dad and my uncle. My dad at this point was probably forty forty five something like that, so he's he's old, not old, but he's an adult. UM and my uncle and they were panting like they were panting and they were panicked, and they walked into we just got chased by a bear. I'm like, what's yeah, we just got chased by a bear. And they were just they had literally ran like a quarter mile down this two track while they thought there had been a bear chasing them, and they're like, oh my gosh it. We were walking on the two track and we start hearing steps in the woods and we kept walking and we looked at each other and like, could that be a bear? Because there's a lot of black bears up there, and um then they heard like crashing and getting closer and closer, and then all of a sudden like coming right towards him, and they turned and like we're gonna run, and they sprinted all the way back to the cabin. So they're telling us the story like literally like, oh my gosh, we just had like a life flash before our eyes moment, and we're all like enraptured, like staring at them like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that just happened. And then my grandpa, who would all had forgotten, had gone out to the restroom steps back in the cabin and just starts chuckling and were looking like what are you laughing about? He's like that there was me and he had snuck like deep into the woods, like this is it just isn't something he would ever do. I would never have imagined him does. But he snuck all the way through the woods to get close to them and then make all this rash and coming tourism and scared that living the Jesus out of him. Oh my god, that's something that we will just I will never forget that. How much we laughed that just seeing my dad, my uncle that flustered and having it was a long way for my dad to run at that point. That was awesome, just awesome. So that was that was a great, great moment up at Kendra Roman. Oh. Memories, Yeah, memories. What a Well. So you got Dan, any other big experiences that stand out for you? Well, I can tell you. I can tell you a couple of learning experiences. Yeah, and it's another kind of a short story. But I had gained access to a farm um in a different part of the county that I that I hunt in and they're which my trail cameras caught some some big bucks and it was in the middle of the rut and it was warmer than normal. So I'm sitting here in this tree stand and I had decided to sit all day long, and uh so I packed the lunch and whatnot. And that night I actually witnessed my very first buck fight. UM probably one fifty and one sixty class probably eight yards eight yards away from me tangled and that was awesome. And if you ever watch people on TV rattle and they they they kind of tinkle their antlers and racks their their horns together. Uh that does not sound anything like a buck fight. A buck fight sounds like a car rolling through the timber, just crash, boom, bang. And then you hardly hear the antlers at all. You'll hear them when they shift their their heads, but it's just pushing back and forth, branches snapping, leaves crashing and and I mean they're falling down, they're getting back up. And uh So, the next time you see someone rattle on TV and of just tickling the antlers together, uh you should call him out on it. Anyway, I'm sitting there, Um, it's unusually warm. That was in the morning when I heard the buck fight, so it had been eight hours, nine hours, and I still had not seen a deer. And uh so I'm like, and it's like seventy degrees and I'm like, I'm out of here. I'm getting down. And that night was the last night I ever left I had. I left to stand early again. I walked down to this creek, hopped this fence into this big crp field, and standing on a trail that was leading to my stand was the most beautiful deer I have, the most beautiful, typical deer I have yet to see in my life. Uh two hundred easily two ten pointer, no junk, staring right at me, and he had a chocolate rack and his tips were like, uh, almost like an elk, you know how elk get those ivory tips. Um he had. He had those whitish tips. And I just remember looking at him, going, I wonder if I could note there he went, and he just bounded up over the over the hill. And that was the first and only time I've ever seen that buck. Probably the third biggest buck I've ever seen in my life. And right there, Yeah, that's crazy that that is the third biggest buck you've ever seen in your life. I'll tell you the story the biggest buck I've ever seen in my life. Shipwreck wasn't the biggest buck you ever say. Shipwreck was not the biggest buck, not even close. Can I just tell you I don't even like you as a person. I know, I just don't even So here's here's here's a really short story. I'm driving back home one night and there was some deer on this black top that I south of my south of my house and um where I hunt and where I used to live. And I had to slow down because there was this lady who owned house and had a whole bunch of bird feeders out, and the deer would eat out of these bird feeders, so I had to slow I always would slow down. And the house was on one side of the road, and there was a barn in some other sheds on the other side, and there was a yard light talking about here. We're talking about holding tractors and those kind of sheds. So I'm slow down, and I let this dough and I look. I let this dough run in front of me because she's heading over to the bird feeders. And I look, and there's some other doughs already, um uh, you know, already eating off the bird feeder. And I looked to my right. Underneath of this, underneath of this yard light, stands the most magnificent animal I have ever seen in my life. I don't know what a world record, what what would take to beat the world record typical buck, but this bucks G two's, G G three's and G four's, and it's gonna sound like I'm exaggerating. We're probably all over fourteen inches mass. His his his bassis looked like I mean, this looked like as Larry Zach painting typical white tail extremely wide way out past his ears, just the giant cage of an animal. And I let go of my steering wheel and I just turned my head and watched as my car rolled by, and I'm just like, are you kidding me? Like I don't believe my eyes, basically, and then I stopped. I drove up to the next driveway, pulled it, it it turned around, and came back and by that time he was gone, okay, but I got a really good look at him. The next day, I go over and I knock on the farmer's door and this is on a a popular black top and I say, hi, my name's uh Dan, and um, I was just kind of curious. I see you got a lot of deer in your property, would you? And before I can finish my sentence, he goes, you saw him, didn't you know? And he goes nope, and I go I said, I said, uh, I go fair enough, and I just said I go. All I said to him was good luck. And I don't think that buck was killed. Um that's one of those deer that if if it was, you would have heard about it. Pictures would have surfaced. It was literally I'm gonna have I'm not I'm gonna throw out a number here. I'm gonna stay somewhere between two twenty and to thirty as a typical probably sixteen pointer. I mean he had he was an eight by eight. That's crazy. Yeah, huge deer, huge deer. Yeah. So that is why I love just going to somewhere like Iowa. Like for me, you know, here in Michigan. And again not trying knock Michigan, but I'm just not going to see deer like that. Um, you know if I see a one twenty in the field, like it was a big buck. Um. But like when I go to Ohio or to Iowa especially, I just love driving around just to see thee you know, because you never know what you're gonna see. You can see a one sixty or one seventy or one eighty or two twenty. Um. I just love seeing deer like that. That is awesome. Like I have a my first season I ever hunted Iowa. We went there during the summer to do some scouting and hang some tree stands and do a little bit of velvet filming. And I'm one of my buddies, Ross Kendle and Pete and we're driving around and we're coming down this road, and I remember looking up. It's a little dirt road, country lane, and I just see this big We were actually sitting there, stopped because there's a little buck betted down some beans to the right of us, and we're looking out the window of this dear and then someone says, there's dear cross on the road, and we look across the road and there's a big buck just running across the road, maybe a hundred yards in front of us. And he jumps across the road and there's a little fencer along the road and then another big bean field, and so he hops and he goes into the fence row, and I'm just like, the first thing I thought was I need to get I gotta try to video this day. I want to see this here up close. So I hopped out of the truck and I kind of scoot up to the edge of the field. And he's still on the fencer, so we can't see me. And I crawled up to the edge of the soybean field my video camera and I kind of wait there. I'm waiting, hoping that the buck is going to come out into the field and I'll be able to see in my binocular is a film film him or something, and he starts walking down the edge of the field right towards me, and eventually like twenty yards away from me, walks right in front of me. And this is just at that point and probably still to this day, I think, if I think about it, the biggest buck I've ever seen. And he's like somewhere in the one eighties, and at that point, just the biggest thing I've ever seen by far, just a giant, huge and he had like um his brow times weren't it wasn't a single brow tann It was like like a circular saw blades, like big serrated edges all the way up is brow Tynes, just huge frame wrapping around and just the most beautiful deer I've ever seen. And he just comes slowly feeding his way right in front of me. And I just have the coolest video footage and the coolest memory of just seeing this beautiful deer like twenty yards away from me in the fading light in the bean field. Just unbelievable. And you know, only in a place like Iowa or one of these other couple of states can you you know, have to happen on a random night like it's just the coolest thing to be close to an animal like that. Um, and that's still an experience I think about today is like one of the coolest deer experiences I've ever had. I just uh, man, and I actually had that video. I don't I don't know if you ever saw that, Dan, but I posted that video up on wire to Hunt before. Um. Yeah, so so yeah, I can put that in the show notes for anyone that wants to check that out. That was pretty cool, very cool, right, That's it's it's what it's all about. Man. Unfortunately, I just wish that on some of these stories we would be on the opposite end instead of the Hey, I just have a story. Um, it would be nice one of these days to get one of those, Hey, let me show you, you know, let me show you this about he's downstairs, you know what I mean? I agree, But then you know what I think about when you say that too. So we've got these incredible stories and we both we both killed some big bucks. But you know, it's those aren't the stories that we're telling here, Like those aren't necessarily Sure, we do tell those stories sometimes, but that's not you know, when we kill a deer. That's not necessarily always going to be the story and the memory that has the greatest impact on us. It's these other things. It's the time Grandpa scared dead, or it's the time that you and your brother saw dove arting, you know, And I think it's I think that's one of the really really cool things about what we do about deer hunting and hunting and being the outdoors of the time we get to spend with the family and friends and the experiences and the lessons learned. And I think that's a good reminder for me and maybe some other people out there that, you know, when it comes right down to it, putting a bullet or an arrow in a big buck or whatever, you know, it isn't life and death. It's not the most important thing. And sometimes I think we need to look back on these stories and these memories and remember how great these are. Right, It's not all about the kill. Yeah, I think I think that's probably a good place to end off to. This has been a longer episode than usual too, But we just I guess once we get talking, we can't stop him with well, and I know me and you we could keep going. We could we could we could definitely keep going. Yeah, but I imagine there's some people who well I might already might have already signed off, like enough these guys talking so gissing me off. Not even a good tip in there at all. But alright, my friend, don't leave your tree standardly. There there's the tip. There you go, good lesson learned, And uh yeah, that's all I got. So let's shut it down. We'll we'll be back next week with hopefully some some good lessons learned, strategies and tips and whatnot. But I think for today, this is a good place for us to end. And I know this wasn't our usual information packed episode, but I hope you guys still enjoyed this, this little trip down memory lane, and maybe you two were able to think back on some of your great stories and memories and maybe just like just like I've been here reminded of how important those things are. So so that said, I guess wrapping things up, if you have been enjoying the podcast, as we always ask, if you could leave a rating or review on iTunes, that's really really helpful. That helps us get the show in front of new people, and it helps, you know, let people know who are looking for a deer hunting podcast, you know whether or not this is one that's worth their time. And I think and I hope that a lot of you think it is, so, so thank you for sharing that. Also, if you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the podcast, you can do that on iTunes, on the Apple podcast app, on the Stitcher app, um, wherever it might be for you, make sure you subscribe so you get the future episodes downloaded right to your phone or your tablet, your computer every week. That way, you don't when you think about it, You're just gonna wake up on Thursday mornings and and there it is. So that makes it super easy. Um. Also want to thank our partners who helped make this show possible. So big. Thank you to sick A Gear, Trophy, Ridge Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Carbon Express Arrows, Hunt Soft Lacrosse Boots, Big and Jay, Long Range Attractings, and the White Tail Institute of North America. And finally, thank you to all of you listening today. You know, there's some very very exciting things on the horizon for Wire to Hunt and for the podcast, and it's all because you guys. And girls have all been so supportive. So thanks for your time, thanks for listening in, thanks for giving us your feedback, and thank you for staying wire to hunt

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