December 20, 2023 • 63 mins
The Element Podcast powered by FIRST LITE
On This Episode, Tyler Jones & K.C. Smith talk about some recent hunts in Oklahoma and Arkansas. The hunting has been tough lately as we struggled to come up with anything good. Tyler tells a story about one good encounter he had in Arkansas but other than that the boys rode the struggle bus to close out November. There's always things to be learned though and still plenty of time to get out and enjoy the woods before the seasons close! Thanks for listening!
For the best gear made with the serious hunter in mind, get you some First Lite Gear
Go Subscribe to The Element Youtube channel!
Texas Rut | Hill Country Buck Down!!
KC'S MOST DRAMATIC HUNT OF HIS LIFE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Casey and Tyler and you're listening to the Element Podcast.
What is happening to all my woods people? This is
the Element Podcast, brought to you by First Like Gear,
(00:21):
Tyler's over here pulling my cord. What's up, dog? I
ain't pulling on nothing. It looks like your Tangled. Yeah,
kind of like that Disney movie that everybody talks about
and I never watched. I bet you watched that quite
a few times, right, Tangled. I mean I don't think so.
I don't know. I figured, you know, the name of
all would have liked that. It's the Rapunzel one. I
(00:43):
never watched that familiar. Yeah, well, I thought maybe we
could just Disney movie a little bit. But you know,
it's probably better that we don't. Well, it's a losing proposition,
if you know what I mean. Yeah, talk about franchises
that are dying, right, it seems to be that way.
It's the Element in Disney, just downhill to opposite thinkers.
(01:04):
That's it, man, that's it. Well, today on the podcast,
things are gonna go downhill because this is how it goes. Guys.
You all probably know a season of deer Hunting has many,
many seasons within it right, there's good, there's bad. To
(01:26):
be cliche, there is ugly, and that is usually Eric.
It's not here today to defend himself. I'll stop. Hey,
this is where I got the Brian mustache is off
of this pillow right here. You know that green thing
that I put my nose to look like Brian's mustache?
How about that interest? I had no idea. Anyways, we
(01:49):
have had an excellent day season and it's not over yet.
In fact, a big buck has gone down on the
Element crew recently, but we won't talk about that that day.
You can look forward to hearing more about that in
a future episode.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm big killing deer till like March. I think that's
what I'm gonna do this year's Ye, how many of
those you're going to spots on them?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Zero? Are you sure? Depends on what kind of spots
you're talking about. I'm talking about them good spots, not
the bad spots.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Good spots, huh like spotty hands? What spotlights?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No? No, No, we might do this little axes hunting
in the spring.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Oh those kind of de Yeah spots. I don't know
about that, but I don't think I got the money
to do that. Yeah, you probably don't keep hunting that
statemasi property and just hoping one dough will.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Come by, you know, Yeah, well you can pass them
like med be a good idea. We we did a
little hunting this year across the country, and there's some
things that Todd and I were just discussing aren't gonna
make the light of day as far as video is concerned.
(03:04):
So we're gonna have to talk about it on the podcast.
Otherwise that didn't happen, right, And here's the deal, y'all.
I hate to be this way. It's like this, but
on the podcast is where you get the real story
on things. YouTube is kind of like Hollywood a little bit.
We try to be We never are deceptive or anything like.
We try to stick to the storyline and not make
(03:25):
things be too weird. But quite frankly, if we put
out a YouTube video where there's no deer scene and
all we do is bilech the whole time, nobody's gonna
watch that, so there's not a lot of reason to
put it out there. So that's where the podcast is.
What the podcast is for, and we sometimes can learn
from everybody's mistakes and hopefully be better in the future.
(03:48):
And you can do that pretty well on the podcast, whereas
a YouTube video like nobody watches it and nobody learns,
and it's just a bunch of bad stuff out there
for the world to not see. So when weever, we
whenever I killed my dear Kansas, we had a party, party, pizza,
and we ate good, got us some sleep, got up
(04:09):
the next morning not too early, packed it up and
made a little drive down to the woods of Oklahoma
in just this little hunting and they're in Oklahoma, the
weather's pretty temperate, and so we stayed in a little
camper and just it's It's actually a thing I look
forward to every year because I like staying in our
(04:34):
pop up camper. For one Tyler and I get to
be cozy, and that's what I'm making up for now.
I'm actually across the living room from him doing this thing.
But in the pop up camper, whenever you have five
guys in there, Michael and Greg sleep in the same
bed because they're both smaller fellers. Tyler and I was
(04:54):
out in the same bed because we're the peepalls. So
one of us is going to get in the middle
of I go the bathroom and we're pretty forgiving of that,
because you never know which one of us is gonna
have to be I do, I bet ye for sure.
But that doesn't make sense though, because you sleep on
the outside.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, you said that they were smaller fellas though they
shared a bed, which is also known as smellers.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The two bigger fellas, which are bellers, sleeping a bed
together too. But I guess it's just the way it
has to be.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It also just established that way when we first started
sleeping that pop up, I mean, just it's kind of
weird to be like, no, I want to sleep with
you this time.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I mean I think Eric is like the exact
amount of tall that you can be to sleep on
the couch comfortably. Yeah, I think if you're any taller, yeah,
like five nine and a quarter yep. Yeah, that's about
what you can do right there.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And we first used that thing in Illinois last year
and liked it, but we didn't know uh, Greg or
Michael as well back then, so it's kind of like,
we're not going to share a bed with those guys yet,
you know, to protect all parties, Yeah, now we know
who's getting protected. Actually yeah it was, but sure, sure. Anyways,
(06:18):
that we've kind of it's like, you know how he
gets your spots at the eating table, that's kind of
how we got in the pop up and it works
all right. Besides, I think that on that other end
there's a little rotten spot and we don't have to
deal with the rotten spot on But anyways, we're staying
to pop up, and uh, we go out and do
us a little drive around that evening. We might even
(06:40):
hunt the first do we hunt the first evening? This
is I did hard to recollect. What did you do?
I hunted an evening in the morning, is all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I went in real deep and I busted a buck
about I don't know, one hundred yards from where I
really was trying to get to.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I think.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That was bedded in some cedars. And then we sat
the rest of the evening and I don't think we
saw any deer or we saw three doughs. We were
sitting kind of way deep in this property, kind of
next to a wheatfield, just looking for like that bed
to food pattern with these little canes around, and I
(07:22):
ended up seeing a buck just at the top of
his rack over the hill in this wheat field, and
like right before dark, and so there was really he
kind of disappeared behind that hill and there was no
way to make it happen, and I could see down
the drawl of the ways and see anything coming. So
it was like five minutes left till shoot, and we
(07:43):
took off and got out of there quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
But you I think we glassed the first evening because
the place that we were going to go into had
a guy early at it already. And this is going
to kind of be the story of Oklahoma. The pressure
wasus this year. Yep. There were people everywhere, and I
don't just mean like at the turnaround at the big
(08:06):
old property. You know, there were people on every corner
just hunting, hanging out, thinking about hunting, talking about the hunting.
They did this, that and the other. The first evening
we decided to go do a little celebration. There's a
little lit cafe there in town, and we met a
couple element friends with a couple of woods people there.
(08:28):
You know who you are good talking to you fellas
people of the woods, and uh that was kind of neat,
fun thing to do, and uh yeah, I got a
bellows full with just high ambition for the rest of
the week. Because Tyler, Oklahoma's supposed to be awesome deer.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Hunting, right, Well, how you asking just me? Well, the
general perception, I don't know. I think there's an increasing
amount of luster or a lure for people. Yeah, generally,
over the last few years, there's been some big deer
killed there.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
There's been Man, my foot got just all tangled up.
Take your shoe off, was so tangled he took his shoe.
I had left it, kind of like that raccoon leaving
his foot in the snare, just leaving.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It there like it. I think that I don't know.
I just don't know what the perception is. I don't
talk to people anymore that aren't you or my wife.
But yeah, I think that it would seem that maybe
that pressure is a product of a few years of
some big deer dying them on Oklahoma properties. But you know,
(09:44):
I don't know. Oklahoma's a weird state. It's it's pretty
you know, it's pretty diverse. It is you're studying the
habitat and such.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It's kind of the South, it's kind of the West,
it's kind of the North, according to me.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Kind of the plains, kind of the mountains, kind of
the Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
That's why the kind Yeah, hey, we for sure putting
that song on this episode. Absolutely media royalties, that's all
I know. So yeah, I don't I don't know. I think,
I think, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I don't know, like how high people I guess saying
I don't know how hip people are compared to hunting,
you know, IOWA or something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I feel as if it's gotten a lot of publicity
in the past few years because of some Yahoo's who
shoot here on public land and put it on YouTube.
I don't know who those are, uh, but they do that, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I don't know why they would, but I promise you
yeah that still need to shoot one.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Here's the deal, guys. Straight up, we are in a
losing battle as the Element because there's this thing that
we do, which is called filming deer hunts that makes
deer hunting look like fun and it is, but it
makes people want to do it more, and that's something
we want to do. However, if more people do it,
(11:05):
then you see more people out there and it makes
things harder. So it's kind of like we're a snaky
in some hotail.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Dude, speaking of all this, this is ironic but I
saw a guy who has access to one of the
baddest properties in Oklahoma. He can kill monsters there every year,
and recently went and killed a deer on public first
deer on public in Kansas, like recently on public land.
(11:39):
And this guy is older, like he's not like a
young guy, but he's not I don't know how young,
but I mean, like he's not like fresh out of
high school or nothing. I mean, I think he's going
to be cold star age or maybe a little younger.
It's like, is he doing that because he thinks it's
cool to do and he saw he's seen it on
(12:00):
some YouTube and stuff like that thinks that it's cool
to do or was it just like a coincidence and
he might not go back and do it and that
he just kind of had some time this year or something,
and maybe he doesn't watch YouTube at all, But like
it just seems very much like I mean, this guy
left like some of the baddest property out there to
go hunt a different state with an expensive tag on
(12:23):
some public I just wonder, man, like how how much
the culture is turning to people just going and hunting
on public land and it just I don't know, it's
one I wonder like, is it gonna drive lease prices down?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
No, you don't think, m I think demand's still gonna
be there for that. I just think that once prices
go up on things, they never come down.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well yeah, but I mean inflation is going up too,
So I mean relative to the value of the dollar,
are they gonna are they gonna sit? I don't mean,
I don't mean they gonna down, but are they gonna
sit while they would? Things inflate? Because I like leasing
ground it's kind of fun me too.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Actually the process of leasing is the worst, but actually
having a having a piece of process of that is, yeah,
the part is nice. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know, man,
I feel like maybe it's just my perspective. It's kind
of maybe this is the thing y'all can help us
with people listening. Is the public land thing losing steam
(13:30):
or is it like one of those deals where maybe
like the front runners are slowing down some but like
just in general and mass there's still a ton of
people who are thinking that's cool and getting after it.
You think it's you think it's losing steam. The I
didn't say, I'm asking the question because there are there
(13:53):
are people out there who think that is the case.
I've heard, I've seen that portrayed some I don't think
at all. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Personally, I think there's I think there's That's what my
point was with that guy is like I think people
are going out and trying it all the time. I
talk to people all the time that like are in
my network, but like I don't know him that well,
or maybe I know him but just you know, their
old friend whatever, and they do this kind of It's
the same same thing you see on TV all the time,
right where somebody shoots a management deer or cole Buck
(14:24):
and they got to justify like he ain't the biggest
but man, I you know, I got to shoot him
because he's a colbuck or whatever. And it's like, man,
just talking about like I liked shooting that deer.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You know. It's the same thing where people will call
me or talk to me and be like, well it
wasn't on public you know, or anything, or like they'll
they'll be like, I'm thinking about going and trying some
public land deer this year, you know, like like that
I would approve of that or whatever, you know, and
I'm like, man, I just think you should try to
deer hunting, you know, I mean, yeah, sure, but I
feel like to me that it seems like it is
(14:55):
still going strong. That that is the case now as
far as like you viewership on videos that like that,
I mean, everybody over the last you know, seven years
has really there's been plenty of push towards that public Land.
I think there's a lot of videos in public landeer
and being shot out there. So like, I don't know
if the if people are like necessarily drawn to watch
(15:17):
public Lander get shot all the time, but like more
that they just like a good story.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And I think people like giant bucks, and no matter
where you put it, it's like the giant buck is
the basis of the formula, and then you can add
things to it. It's like the X and the ex
equals y or whatever, you know what I mean. So
you add public Land to it, and something add archery
(15:44):
to it, add you know, trad bow to it, add
you know, poach to it. You know, like all these
things make something more intriguing for people. So like adding
public Land is something if it's already a big buck,
people think, oh wow, he killed that on public, but
nobody looks at you know, my South Dakota dere from
a couple of years ago, and I was like, oh
(16:04):
he killed that on public. Well yeah, those are around,
you know, but for me, it was like an epic experience.
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
But I think that I just wonder if I just
I just feel like though that like, when it comes
to actually hunting, people are people are There's still a
lot of people out there that are like wanting to
do a little traveling and going.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
If that is the case, we are generating more revenue
for we'll just be nice and calm wildlife agencies, then
they should then be in turn either trying to put
more animals and landscape or giving give people more opportunity
(16:45):
through added seasons or added properties.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Right, I mean I would agree with that. I don't
know how I can, like, I don't know, yeah, I
would agree with that. I just don't know how I
can say that everybody should agree with that.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And I guess you know, where's the money going. So
if the if the Wildlife department is there to and
their their main function is to progress wildlife and the
hunting and the take of thereof if there's more money
for more people going to public and more people buying licenses.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is there more money just because more people are hunting
public or like, are we really I guess recruiting Or
is there just more people that are taking a public
land out of state trip every year?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I don't know. Well, if they're taking an out of
state trip, then if it's out of state, there's more money.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
If it's state out of state slash public land like
could be either or.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Or if somebody's Yeah, if somebody's going out of state
to hunt public land, there's more money for that state
than what they're used to would have been. But if
they're staying in state and they're saying okay, and unless
they cattagn them, yeah, yeah exactly, which how smart? What
a great idea. Let's limit the revenue but supposedly makes
it better hunting well, and they can if they're Kansas,
(18:12):
they can make the tag five hundred bucks and there's
a handful of people that'll still pay it. Hunter's low,
I think, right, I think it's what it costs. I
think it ends up being like six six o eight
for me this past year. I think they got you, Yeah,
he can get me. But anyways, that was a kind
(18:34):
of a side trip for about a year.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I mean, yes, but I would agree if they're if
they're making more revenue selling more tags. I guess because revenue.
They're going to make more revenue just based off the
fact that we're an inflated time and they're able to
increase tag costs but also costs of livings higher. So
the biologists that's making sixty or whatever probably needs to
(18:58):
make seventy this year, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, but that all kind of brings us back to
the point of pressure was an issue this year. Yes,
and I have friends at hunt in Missouri. I have
a couple different friends like that weren't hunting together that
all hunted Missouri public land and said it was the
craziest dude fest they've ever seen in their life. Like,
I mean, they were literally hanging in stands around people
(19:23):
because that's how many people were around. And so it's
just kind of a weird thing that we have to
deal with. And you can always say, will you got
to go deeper or whatever, and yeah, that's true, but man, sometimes,
like on a six hundred acre property, if there's a
guy hunting in the middle of it, I don't want
(19:44):
to go deeper. Because it's still kind of close to
that guy, you know, or whatever. You gotta walk by somebody.
I guess what I'm saying is like hunting around other
people isn't my favorite thing to do, and so and
it makes things tough because you don't know where people's
wind is blowing. You don't know who's been in there
today before but there that day, and it just can
make things difficult pressure wise. So we didn't really it's
(20:10):
been much time in Oklahoma on that hunt kind of hurts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
We decided to wonder if it's like that across the
state or just where we were at. And I wonder
if if you didn't see us. I don't want this
to sound egotistical, but I wonder if like us putting
out a video on it and buck truck affected that
at all, you know, because it didn't take much in
certain areas to many guys to make it feel like
(20:36):
it's a full property.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, it could or it could just be a big
old winkie dik where that place had a lot of pressure. Yeah, true, yeah,
lots of variables. Yeah, but we you left out a
day earlier because you had I think you had a
Thanksgiving or something coming up, or I don't know. You
(21:00):
left it early because you were smart and only a day.
Might have been two days. I don't really remember.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I fel like there was two days a hunting.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
We came home on the nineteenth, I do know that,
so one of Thanksgiving. But yeah, because I came home
with my anniversary.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I came home. This is after this is after you
shot your Kansas. I shot it on fifteenth. Okay, probably
because I'd just been gone a long time. I don't
know why I went home.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh yeah, because you went on that Texas hunt before Kansas.
So yeah, you just went home because that and there
weren't deer running around too much. You're like, uh, probably, man,
why did I leave? And he just got tired of us?
But we hunted for a few more days, and they
didn't much talk about, uh telling you, I did have
(21:50):
a weird encounter that I would like to talk about
for a second. Deer were rutting and doing a thing.
They were on lockdown for uh a good amount of it.
You'd say, I don't mean, I don't know how you
really there were more deer lockdown with those than there
were deer doing chasing stuff. But we had a coach
a football game. That's why we did have a good
(22:11):
hunt one evening where we saw quite a few deer
and had a buck run through, cruising, chasing, does around,
and it was like a two year old, which I
was willing to shoot a two year old eight At
that point in time, I hadn't killed a ton of
deer yet, and I need some food, and I was
excited to just shoot some stuff. Man. I was gonna
(22:33):
shoot a dough too, if I had a really great opportunity.
Didn't have that. But this buck, we hear like doing
the you know, like you can tell when it's just
a deer running on the right clip, and this deer
runs in Greg I look back at him. He's like
behind man, I can see his chips. It's like going
up and down. He's like excited. I'm like, oh gosh,
this is a big buck and ends up he can't
(22:54):
get around to look at it. So he's just like
excited because he knows it's a buck. And finally the
deer kind of like those through some cedars and smoke
trees or something, and I gett a glimpse of it
and like, that's a dough. Where's the buck? And ends up.
That is the buck, this deer's two year old buck
that I with my binoculars at thirty yards cannot find
(23:17):
antlers on it. Like I almost wonder if there's not
peticles on this deer, like if it is that antlerless buck,
because he is just doing the thing and he I
cannot find a stitch of antler on his head. It
was a weird thing. But did you check from behind
to see No? But I never saw a hang doown
or anything, but it had to be I mean, dose,
do not do what this thing was doing. He had hawks,
(23:39):
if I remember right with does sometimes I have hawks too,
So interesting. Yeah, it was a weird thing, so didn't
you that one? And then that was about it. We
did have a tiger salamander crawl underneath our trash bag
one night and we were loading up and it was
like it's a water dog, but like a mature form, right,
and this thing like stretched out was like a foot long.
(24:01):
It's pretty cool, And I let him lose and put
him underneath a piece of bark or something that way.
Hopefully he found him a whole before it got too cold.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Interesting, But that was that was Oklahoma. And then we
went to Thanksgivings and you went to Arkansas. Yep, you
did too, not before it, Well, you went before I did. Yeah,
I was up there day and a half or so ahead,
I guess. Yep. It was.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Also very tough. There's not a whole lot talking about
except for really for me. For one instance, from from
deer hunting perspective.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You, uh, we go there and we're gonna hunt out
of the boat a lot, but you ended up zoning
in on a spot that was more of a walking
type deal. Yep.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's really dry, so the river is really low. They're
in pretty major drought right now, I think. And we
end up the first let's see, the first evening, I
believe it was, we were gonna walk in. We're kind
of hunting similar place we had last year, and we
(25:37):
walk in to a place that Clay and Michael had
seen a buck or or had a same buck encounter
or twice or something like that. They'd seen some bucks
back in there, and so I was like, oh, it's
about a I don't know, it's about a mile in there.
So we'll walk in and as we get close, we'll
start rattling, and we go rattling off through there nothing,
(26:02):
get pretty close to where Michael thought this buck was
last year. Rattle, nothing, sit there for twenty minutes, nothing,
So get up, start moving pretty slowly. Winds blowing decent,
and I don't know, I walk eighty yards and all
of a sudden, boom, deer busting out. It looks like
two or three dos they bust out through this thick,
(26:23):
thick stuff. It's starting to get real thick. And I
mean Michael had literally just said, I think that's about
where we saw that buck last year jump out of
his bed. And I mean it wasn't fifteen seconds, I
feel like, and it was just like boom. And then
all of a sudden, she goes all the way through
all the cover that we were fixing, the go rattle,
(26:43):
and so I just got I was like, Okay, this
is dumb. There's no reason to even go in there
and just rattle my way down in through this stuff,
you know. And I don't have anything to put up
a stand or anything. So you know, it's getting closer
to sunset. So I'm like, all right, whatever, let's just
bail out, go drive around see if we can see
some deer. So we bail out, and about I don't know,
(27:05):
sunset or a little bit after. We take off in
the truck. We're driving down this road and from a
pretty busy main road. Michael's like, oh, there's some deer
in there. This is a place that we're passing by
that we had seen some deer the year before, and
including a buck. I'd even hunt it in here, I
(27:27):
think two or three times a year before, in some
different areas. Right in that particular like swampy location. It's
an area that has like normally holds water, so it's
got lily pads. It was dry this year, like I said,
no water on the part that held it. So there's
a lot of lily pads. And then there's this like
slightly higher ground that's just willows and just thick nasty
(27:48):
ash trees and you know, button brush and stuff like that.
So I started to slow down. We start looking. I'm like, oh, well,
there's a buck right there. And there's a buck with
a and he is big, I mean big, tall, g
two s. He's not super wild, he's heavy and tall,
(28:08):
and I'm like, oh, that's a that's an awesome buck.
I mean he's big. So we look at him for
a second. We get a little phone scope and we
kind of take off and go back to camp start
making a plan, and I'm like, dude, I gotta go
in there and hunt this place. I look at it.
It's like he was right next to the pen that
Casey sent me last year where they saw that buck.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, And so I'm like, they they they're they're there,
and we saw doze there, but they are that's where
they want to be. They're there, and so I'm gonna
go kill him right there. And so I started making
a plan. I think I called you and you were like, man,
I just go in there and hang In the morning,
I was thinking about kind of uh sitting back on
the ground in the button brush. I go in there,
(28:52):
and I have one of the most frustrating hangs of
my life.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
In the dark.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
It was really quiet in every those willow trees like
eight feet up, like eight feet up. Those willow trees
grow vines all the way up to that point and
then they kind of stop about eight foot up or so.
But it's like a nest, and so like getting up
through that stuff is just loud and really difficult, especially
(29:19):
in the dark. Well, we get in there, I get
up there, finally, man, I mean it's just a disaster,
but it's it is one of the highest places I
could get in those wheels and I'm probably like twelve
foot up and we get up in there and we sit.
I could go on and on about this, but like,
essentially this is the best tree for getting some shots
and been up in the sky, but you don't realize
(29:42):
it in the dark. But we are dagam sasquatches up
in this tree. I mean it is wide open, there's
no back cover and no front cover like usual. Well,
we hunt there and I'm just gonna I just kind
of say, you know what, I hop around a lot.
I can always come up with a reason I can
go somewhere else, and should go somewhere else for the
(30:02):
evening or for the next day or whatever. How about
if I just stay here and grind it out because
I know this is where deer want to be and
eventually maybe we'll get a shot. Well, long story short,
about three days later, well maybe two days later.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I think it's the first morning I hunted. Is this morning?
Was it?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So you had showed up and we've just kind of
been cranking it out in this tree. We're hunting a
kind of if you wind, but I knew which direction.
I thought that the deer wanted to cruise, if they
were going to cruise, and lo and behold, dude, we're
sitting there. We saw like a couple of deer early briefly.
(30:42):
And this is a hard set because the highways like
two hundred and fifty yards away and there's like eighteen
wheelers like every third car, and it's just loud, dude,
and you can't hear your cameraro beside you. You know,
you can't talk to each other very well, especially like
during the work rush that happens before you know, eight
o'clock in the morning a lot of times. So anyway,
(31:03):
we're sitting there, Son's up seeing a couple of deer.
Can't move because there's no wind. So we're being very still.
But it's like eight thirty and we start we start
talking about turkey hunting, I think hunting on our lease,
turkey hunting.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
We're just like talking. You know, who is your camera guy? Oh, Michael, Yeah,
I can see why Turkey and he and.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
He's he's a good dude to talk to because he likes,
he likes to talk to you. He's not He's not
a guy that hops on Instagram all the time. I mean,
he is going to talk to you and hang out
with you. So he's very present. I like hunting with him,
and We're sitting there talking about turkeys and I'm kind
of like looking over at him talking because I can't
look the other way, and him hear me, probably, and
(31:47):
all of a sudden, like start hearing this like it's
like a feeding call. Mallard, you know, you know it's funny.
He can talk pretty fast, Yeah he can, it's in
yeah he does, but he gets like it's like an
ascending volume. So like at first I'm like, is that
a Mallard? And then next I'm like, oh, he's singing something.
(32:10):
And then next I'm like, oh, he's sang buck over
and over again. And so I can finally register as
this happens in split split second, I look over where
I'm you know, where he's kind of looking, and this
buck is coming right where I thought bucks were going
to cruise right down the edge and coming right through
this little gap and into this into this little pocket
of kind of open stuff where bucks can hang out
(32:33):
and not be seen from the road and whatever else.
And that's just where we pended on a couple of times.
And he's coming. I mean, he's coming through the gap quick,
and he's at He's at thirty five yards when I
first see him, and because you just can't see very
far in here it's thicket, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking
(32:54):
that he's at I'm thinking he's at thirty five yards.
I'm thinking that when I get a shot at him
at the hole, he's fixing a B thirty five because
it's hard to range sometimes, like gaps in the in
the woods, you can't tell like how far in front
of that next hard stop of brush that deer is
actually walking. So anyway, he's he's fixing a walk into
(33:16):
this gap. So I'm about to turn the camera on
and I gotta get it because I don't always get
the go pro on, and sometimes my cameraman helps me
to that or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Sometimes you know, I just don't have the depends on
the tree set up.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, but a lot I've been like struggling to get
the go pro on the last couple of times I've
had deer coming in, so I'm like, I gotta, I
gotta get it on. So I like see him and
I'm watching him, and I reach back and then I
look at the GoPro and I turn it on, and
then I start pulling my hand back and and I
look out and I'm looking over at him, and all
a sudden, he just whips his head up to us,
(33:52):
and it's still just no wind, and like he and
I stop, and I and he got kind of a
little bit weird because he's all my hand moving, I guess,
and it's behind me, so I'm doing with my right hand,
if you can imagine. And he does the thing that
I've talked about so many times, and I just just
(34:13):
amateured it. Man so bad. But he does the thing
we learn from our mistakes. Yes, he puts his head down.
Things are happening quick right like this is this is
the bane of public land hunting. For me at least,
is like if I'm going to kill a deer with
a bow, I put myself in a situation where this
happens often, where a deer shows up. He's at thirty
five yards, you have to kill him quick. He's fixing
(34:34):
a walk through your your you don't have a feeder,
He's gonna stop at like you don't have a field
that he's gonna stop and eat at You don't have
a dough or anything that he's gonna like he's walking through.
You've got to get him killed in like fifteen seconds
or less, right, And so that's what it makes this
very hard, this thing that we're trying to do right now.
And so I'm like, I got to get clipped on
(34:56):
because he's fixing a walk behind something and I need
to draw and he's going to come out in a
gap on the other side just a couple of yards later.
So as soon as he puts his head down, I
start to move my hand again, what does he do?
Lifts his head back up. He does the oakie doak
thing that we've talked about so many times. Especially does
will do it at feeders where they they put their
(35:16):
head down and it's right back up. And it's like
almost like a like they know that animals will move right.
It's like almost an instinctual thing they've probably developed or
like they know that if they see a kyote stalking
them that when they put their head down, he's going
to take a few more steps and if they put
their head back up, they'll catch.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Them, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
And that's what they did, and it caught me moving again,
and so at this point, like I'm very close to
my bow string on my right hand and he's staring
at me. So over the course of the next like
forty five seconds, I move like.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So of the least favorite things to do, yeah, is
to do the whole I have to move while this
deer is looking at me. But I'm just gonna do
that slow. Yeah, I just have so much fast switch
about me that, Yeah, that's not fun for you. I
have a hard time moving that slow.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
It wasn't fun for me either, But I pulled it
off and eventually get clipped on while he's kind of
staring at me. I'm not very far away, guys, I moved.
I moved a little fast, and he caught me right.
So I'm just barely moving and I get my I
finally get my hand to my bowstring, clip it on,
and I'm like, all right, if he doesn't run off,
(36:24):
I'm gonna yank the bow back as soon as he
turns right. So he turns and starts walking broadside to me,
back where he's where he came from. Slowly, finally I
yank back. The whole tree goes to whipping dude I'm talking.
It is just like I'm in the top of a
willow tree and it's just like I yank back. The
tree is moving like crazy, and I think he's fixing
(36:47):
stop broadside right and I'm gonna smoke him. And he
takes like two more steps. I don't know why, but
he did not. He did not lock up immediately, takes
like two more steps and then gets behind this little
a couple of trees, turns and looks at me and
it's frontal and I'm like, I've been shooting, well, I
shot all summer, I shot all summer summer before a
(37:09):
lot like every day, right, I've been really trying to
dial it. I'm like, I got this, and so I'm
thinking he's gonna jump string a little bit. So I
put my thirty about dead center on his chest, thinking
that he's around thirty five still and he's got he's
got a couple of little small trees right in the
in front of him. So I was like, I just
(37:30):
don't want to shoot it. And he does this thing
where he starts looking through this stuff and moving his
head back and forth real quick. He readjusts twice, and
on the second time, I had a shot, I felt
like the vertical trees were out of the way.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I go to pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I'm using a backup release because on my last morning
in Oklahoma, I took a jacket off to walk my
mile and a half out and left my release on
the ground in a mile and a half back in
Oklahaugh and I did not want to go back in
there and get it. So I'm using a backup release.
Happens to have a heavier trigger pull than my other
(38:06):
one that I didn't even realize was the case, really,
because just not in this situation. Well, the trigger doesn't
go off when I think it's going to, and this
happens in a fraction of a second where I freak
out mentally right as it's not gone off yet start
I probably start relaxing and everything. I'm not a pro here, y'all.
I'm just shoot a lot, and essentially Bogue finally pull
(38:32):
goes off, and I'm like aiming high and right when
it goes off, arrow takes off and basically the deer
runs off with an arrow sticking out somewhere what looks
like his neck, and I'm like, what is going on?
(38:52):
He runs into the brush, stops don't hear anything for
a second, and then all of a sudden just and
I'm like, is he crashing right there? And then he
runs out and runs down the edge of this stuff
and is like going back and forth, real weird, and
then dips back in and Michael.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Goes he's going down.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
He's going down. So did you see where I hit him?
He was like no. I was like, it's bad, dude.
So anyway, I end up. We replayed the footage. We
even went back to camp. Before I went and looked
for him or anything. I replayed the footage. The arrow
hits a limb and was fixing to miss him over
(39:31):
the over the top because he ducked really hard to
the arrow hits a limb as dead center as you can.
I mean, I'm talking. I found the limb later and
it was sliced like you hit it with a machete. Yeah,
it was dead cent. Pretty big too, Yeah, it was
size of a finger, you know. And he and and
the arrow when it hits that limb, almost goes straight
(39:52):
down and goes across the back of his neck like
at the base of this skull, almost kind of cuts him
there a little bit and sticks in his ear, and
I guess it hit that limb so hard that it
lost a lot of momentum because it kind of went
through his offside ear and just stuck there like an
(40:13):
earing and we are just flopping around. It's just running
off with an arrow. You see the fletching. It's the
weirdest thing, right, And there's nothing back there to kill him,
you know. We did go and look for blood and
stuff and just cult I mean there was nothing. I mean,
it's just they're built to fight each other with pointy
(40:33):
things on top of their heads. Like there's nothing on
top of the neck and head that can kill except
for if I had hit him in the spine, which
I'm probably a few inches from doing.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And so anyway, I was.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I was so mad at myself, and especially when we
leave there later on, and it was a really tough
hunt not to mention, like, man, you I just don't
I don't think. I mean, you guys, tell me what
you think, but I don't think I can put that
on YouTube. I mean, this is an our audience that
understands here on the podcast and I can explain everything
on YouTube on video. I mean, it just looks bad,
(41:09):
and I mean it's not lethal as far unless there's
some weird thing that happens. But I mean, he's probably
not gonna die.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You know. One of the main problems with YouTube is
is that we have a great subscriber base. And if
you watch us on YouTube and you listen often in
your supporter we thank you very much. But more often
than not, on videos where there's deer in our videos,
there's more people who aren't subscribed who are seeing than
are and most of those people haven't ever seen this before,
(41:37):
so it's their first impression of us. They absolutely hate us.
They hate us. You know, anytime you do anything wrong
at all, you're like, oh, these are those idiots on YouTube.
They're right, but they don't have to tell us. But
so I'm in the boat of like this, we have
nothing to gain.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, yeah, you know That's where I'm at too.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
It's like, and I'm probably gonna show like in the video,
here's a little insight for you. We're probably gonna show
the deer. We're probably gonna talk about how I had
an encounter with him. But I just don't feel like
I can talk about that with an audience that you know,
we hunted with a guy named lay mc nasty. We've
talked about a couple of times on the podcast, and dude,
(42:47):
he posts a picture of a deer, dead deer, and
people lose their minds, Like all these moms that thought
he was funny because they do he does, you know,
school kid videos or whatever. I think I can't believe
he's a killer. You know, he's a murderer, you know.
And their name is you know, Animal Spirit or something,
Animal Spirit Mom or something. But like, I know, you
(43:09):
can't just like let a couple of people determine what
you do. But like I just don't think it's a
good idea. It's a couple of people can determine what
you do. I guarantee you they came wrong.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Person at Google sees the reported post or video or whatever,
and then all of a sudden your toast.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, it's sad because it was a really good encounter
and like I said, I've been shooting well, but there
was a lot of things that put Oh. Also the
deer I found out. I went down there like a
couple of days later and stood where he was at,
looked at the limb that was sliced and ranged the
tree that we were in, and it was thirty, so
(43:46):
that adds to the height of miss. Also, the limb
that I hit was waist high, which is weird. That's
how how down he dropped, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yep. So you know that that I hurt for you
on that because I think a lot of people that
hunt together kind of have a little bit of a
team mentality, and I think that you and I probably
have a really heavy team mentality because we do this
together all the time, and on a hunt like that,
it's like somebody here, please kill it here, yeah, because
(44:19):
it's hard, and it's like, man, that was our chance.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I no, I uh, it was and I and I
appreciate you man, because you're just good at like you're
really good at like like what I really need. I
hate that I need this, but I need it. I
realized that I need this. It's like somebody to be like, dude,
it's all right, don't worry about it. Man, go out
there and kill another one, you know, or whatever. Like
(44:47):
I need somebody to tell me it's okay, stuff like
that happens or whatever. And you do a good job
with that because you have pretty optimistic attitude.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And so thanks.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
I'll be like just I was really like that morning,
I was so so, oh so mad at my sight.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I can imagine I mean, not that you should be
mad at yourself, but I can imagine it being hard. Yeah,
I mean I wounded a big elk this year, same
kind of thing, you know, And it's just like it
just hurts, man, because you want it so bad. Yeah,
you want it so bad, and it's just it's hard
(45:21):
to hard to recover from. It is also got you
punched in the mouth on that trip.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Oh hard. I mean, I'm not blaming this on you either,
because I told you do it. But we got back
to the camp, we were like, man, you know I
did it. When I got up in that tree the
other day, like I had to legit. I yanked on
my bow as hard as I could because there was
a a vine wrapped around my sight. Could not get
(45:47):
it off the ground. And I mean I yanked at hard.
So I thought, well, I said, I messed my sight up.
So we go on and start messing with stuff, and
long story short, we realized that it was a heavy
trigger pool, so.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
So it was fine. And we thought that because you
had a new release, it was a heavy trigger pool,
and so we're going to adjust that, and I, being
the tinkerer between us two, know how to adjust that.
I also know that triggers are weird and if you
adst them too lightly, they can go off on their
own with pressure. We talked about this before it happened.
(46:20):
We were prepared and what we were prepared for was
that arrow launching accidentally because Tyler doesn't do like a
terrible like sky draw, but he kind of goes up
a little bit more than he does down.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
It's way easier to draw that way. That's why I did.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah, it's easier on your shoulder. I mean, chris By
does it, and if Chrispy can do it, you can
do it. Yeah. But so you were warning me, Yeah,
I was like, hey, keep the bow down here. We
don't want to send it out in the middle of nowhere. Draw.
I said, hey, draw that we'd already talked about it,
but I was reminding you and you were kind of plating.
And about the time I say, Dad, the end hadn't come.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Out, and I was like okay, and I started putting
it down to start moving it down, and like you said,
about the time the end comes out, pap bow goes
off and still shoots over the target a little bit,
but it's only at like a half drawl, right, dude,
just duoped it out there. I with my right hand
hit myself in the face so hard. I've never I
(47:25):
haven't been many. I haven't been in like any fist fights,
you know, but like I've been hit by football players
and stuff a lot. Right, that was about probably the
hardest I've ever been hitting the mouth. I got hit
in the mouth of the head and basketball one time,
a little bit harder probably, but it hit my nose
so hard that my nose bled and my mouth had
teeth imprints in the front top of my lip for
(47:48):
like might still be there. No, We're good, but it
was there for a.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
While, dude.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
And I couldn't even eat food that was salty.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Or whatever for a while. I mean, it was just
what happens. One of the best cooks and can ever.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Can, dude, but it hurts so bad. I was like,
and now I felt bad, you know, because Scott laughed immediately,
and then he like really quickly found out like, oh
I shouldn't be laughing, you know, And I think everybody
was kind of you know.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
What always been like I got some of the worst
times I got in trouble when I was a kid,
was laughing, people got hurt. I've always been that guy. Yeah,
and it's kind of a guy thing to do, you know,
but like you do need to have some concern for
your friend, dude.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I smoked myself, and so I went inside because I
could tell I don't know if I've really like ever
had like a bad nose bleed or anything when I
got hitting the nose because I got a hard nose,
kind of built out of steel. But I I went
in there, I was like, it's fixing the bleed. And
so I got some paper towels and didn't bleed bad,
but like it bled and so yeah, that was and
(48:47):
that was just this That was the beginning of what
would just continue to be terrible hunting conditions. And we
ended up getting in the river with our boats and stuff,
and I I tore my trailer up trying to get
my boat in the river because the ramp was I mean,
there was like no water on the ramp and so
(49:08):
it was just like rock piles and shallow water. And
I was going to go to a place that was
my back up a number one gonna kill a giant,
And I get to the creek that you drove down
last year with your boat, and it was eight inches
deep the whole way. If that I mean it is
bad a shell. So I couldn't go. So we ended
(49:29):
up just hunting with everybody else in the same spots
that everybody else can get to.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
You know, it was so fun. The neat thing is
that you were able to get your boat out of
the water. Yep, you missed your trailer up backing it
in and hitting rocks. I missed my trailer up on
the way down. My bearing goes out in my boat trailer,
and it's old boat trailer, you know. So like this
thing happens from time to time, and the last time
the sparing was replaced was probably ten years ago. It
(49:56):
was a buddy bearing, and I think that the like
the the packing on the seal on the front side,
came out on the way and so I don't know
how long it was out, but I usually stop and
check that kind of stuff from time to time, and
I stopped halfway and my all my bearings were fine.
So at some point in time between the Arkansas Texas
(50:17):
line and that boat ramp, my bearing went out and
apparently went out. Greg said he saw it entirely in
sideways the day before. He didn't inform me of that.
It's weird how I got it. Doesn't talk much. It
doesn't talk much. It just takes note. He loves to
be retrospective. He loves to say, you know, I saw that. Hey,
it's a good way to be right. That's right, dude.
(50:38):
So I then can't get my boat out of the
water because I'm not gonna be able to take it
back to camp anyways. We're a long way from camp
at the boat ram, So just leaving my boat in
the water, start working on the trailer of the next
day after we hunt the same place. Everybody else is
hunting that morning, and we're having bad hunts. Then we're
(50:59):
gonna live it out. But I go back and get
a bearing. It's the wrong bearing. I have to go
back again to get the right bearing, get the right bearing,
and get back to the boat ramp to work on
the trailer the trailer. The bearring won't go on the trailer.
This thing is called a spindle that sticks out from
the trailer. It's connected to your axle. I can't get
(51:21):
it up on the spindle all the way. It's like
what's going on sotly can spindle The spindle has etched
and lumped up a bunch of metal from the bearing
going out, and it's like unfixable. I might have could
have taken a file to it and got it down
to where I could get the bearing on, but then
like who knows that that's going to even get me
(51:41):
back to the house, because then it's like not a
perfect system, you know, And when you got going seventy
miles down seventy miles an hour down the road, you
want things to be right. So long story short, and
this is what we're going to build a little content
around on the video. Is I spin and two thirds
of my Arkansas hunt working on the trailer, and I
(52:04):
drop the axle completely out of this trailer and put
a new axle on my trailer at the boat ramp
in Arkansas while my boat is down there in the water.
And that takes about three days. So yeah, that was fun.
And the moral of the story is it's good to
know how to do a few things. I'm not bragging
on myself because I was the idiot who drove the
(52:27):
trailer with a bad bearing in it, But like problem solving,
this is something I learned from Tyler, which I didn't
learn problem solving for Tyler, but he'd been a good
problem solving for a minute. The ish like the topic
of problem solving, it's a is a thing to spend
some time on, especially with your kids, but just even
(52:48):
as an adult, like some self evaluation stuff like are
you being a problem solver? If you're not, how do
you learn problem solving? And how do you make yourself
better at that? You know, there's you Tube University, podcast University,
y'all are attending it right now, right on certain things
like white tail hunting and all that. There are countless
hours of shows and videos and podcasts and this, that
(53:12):
and the other where people tell you how to do
stuff right. It's a great way to learn how to
do things if you don't know. Thankfully me, I was
raised blue collar, you know, and we didn't have enough
money to buy new stuff, so we had to fix
our old stuff all the time. And so you went
to the University of butcher Derwood. I guarantee you the
University of Oh there's a whole in that throwt thing
(53:33):
tied up with some monofilment. You know, you probably know
a little something about that, so, oh, your trot line's
rotten here, Just tie in some good stuff there in
that one spot and then you don't get your catfish
because your try line breaks. You definitely know about that anyways.
Never I've never dropped an axle out of a trailer
and put it in there. But it ain't hard. It's
(53:54):
four bolts. You just got to know which four to takeout,
and you gotta know what measurements to do. And I
didn't know what measurements to do. So I call the
axle place and I say, hey, how do I determine
what size axle this thing needs to be? And they
tell me, and I do it, and we do it
all and it's got a little wiggle room, you know,
for tolerances, but not much. But I was within an
eighth inch on my measurements and got the new one
(54:14):
in there. And once we had the new one, it
took an hour to put the axle on and to
put the wheels back on, and now we're ready to
rock and roll. Got a brand new one, you know.
So yeah, it's a it's and it translates over into
deer hunting. Right. You show up, Tyler, You show up
to a tree you've never been to in the morning.
It's our favorite thing to do, right, Like if we
had to pick, we would say, no, I'm going somewhere
(54:37):
I've never been in the morning, because it's the best
since the sarcasm got since it. You show up to
a tree you've never been to in the morning because
Casey tells you there's gonna be a scrape down there
at the end of this lake, and there is. However,
there are some trees down there that are kind of big.
And you climb the tree and you get up there,
(54:59):
and then all of a sudden, what happens. You can't
get your saddle platform around the tree. The platform strap
is shorter than the straps on the sticks. What do
you do? Do you cry? Do you go home?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I cried? You go find another tree?
Speaker 1 (55:21):
You just climb down and redo it, right, because that's
what you got to do. It takes a little extra work,
it does. Man. Sometimes you gotta sweat, and that's the
way it goes. But that's about near what Arkansas was. Man,
there just wasn't a whole lot that happened. And that
you'll have that on them big jobs, as they say.
And that's hunting, you know. And and it might look
(55:43):
like we kill a bunch of big deer on on YouTube,
because we do. But the reason it looks that way
sometimes is because we don't put the boring stuff on.
You try not to, you know what I mean. So
that's kind of where Arkansas went for worse and then
even furthermore, I don't know how much time you want
(56:03):
to even spend on it, But you went back to
Oklahoma by yourself.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Yeah, I did, and man it was very tough. I
actually hunted a new place because I thought it would
be you know, breath fresh air. It's something you've looked
forward to. You've been looking at this area for a
long time. Yeah, we just hadn't. It hadn't really set
(56:30):
up for us to go give it a try, and
so I ended up hunting a new place.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
One of our initiatives this year was that Tyler and I,
even though we love each other, we don't have to
be in the same place all the time, right like
we can go do.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
But I think now we're learn any way that we do.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
It's more fun too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
So anyway, I I went to this place and I
was really pumped. I thought would for sure get into
you know, some deer. And the one thing that didn't
realize is that parking was cut off way up by
the highway, and so essentially it made this place hunt
(57:12):
like really hard. In fact, this place has not been managed,
in my opinion, super well, and that place has grown
extremely tall, which we had. It was the year of
the native grass, you know. I mean we had June
(57:32):
rains all throughout the Plain States this year that just
made those things awesome, you know. But like you couldn't
see nothing, you had to be in a tree. Well,
guess what they've done some habitat management. That just so
happens that all the trees that you are looking forward
to hunting, you can't see them til you get there
because the grass is ten foot tall. But then when
(57:55):
you get there, the tree doesn't exist because of what
they've done.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
It's cool. Yeah, on X has a pretty they did
a pretty good job with you know, recent imagery top stuff.
But whenever they cut something down a month ago or
whatever it is or this summer, it's pretty unreasonable to
think that for sure is nothing.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
I mean, they can on X doesn't put the satellites
in the air, ye you know, so they can only
they can only have imagery. They can only have imagery
that has been taken by some you know, uh technology
juggernaut or whatever. So anyway, that it made things really tough.
There wasn't actually very many good trees to hang in.
(58:32):
They were also doing some management at the time. Uh cool,
which you know, it's hunting season, so why can't we
do that maybe after hunting season when people who pay
lots of money to come hunt aren't there. But yeah,
I mean it's just uh, it made that plus that
tall grass, Like even when I dig it into a tree, Dude,
there was times when I could not see deer. I
(58:55):
mean the first dear that I saw from a tree stand,
I sat in the right tree, I picked the right spot,
and I did not see the deer until there were
thirty yards from me. Every every day it came out
that afternoon, I couldn't see it till it was thirty
yards from me. So it's like, man, how are you
supposed to sell film and kill a deer with zero
wind and hardly any trees and really tall grass? And
(59:18):
it made it really difficult. I got creative hunted some stuff,
I mean. And that's another thing is like I was,
I was, I was checking stuff out that was two
and a half miles back, I mean way way back,
and I felt like you couldn't you couldn't get into deer,
Like I felt like you couldn't get into a buck
at this point in the season without doing it a legit,
(59:41):
like a mile and a half at least on this place.
And so it just made a tough hunt man. And
I mean there's not a whole, not a whole was
to say about it, except for there wasn't wasn't nearly
as many deer as I thought there should have been,
and there was a lot of coyotes. And I think
that the management, I know that over we managed for
all the species, you know whatever, But like, I ain't
(01:00:04):
people buying, you know, four hundred dollars worth of coyot
tags and spending money to drive out of state and
go hunt these places.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
And even if they are, there's ten to one white
to hunters for sure, people who are coyo first. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
So I mean that's the thing is, I don't think
the white tails had enough edge on this place to
really thrive.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Lots of monotony, lots of it, lots of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
So it was tough man, and that really put me
in a spot where like my late November early December
time period like just kind of petered out and was
super slow and tough, and it kind of put a
bad taste in my mouth. To our more recent trip,
which we can probably talk about on next next week's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Iund like a good idea. There is some excitement to
come and if you are in the South right now,
there's some positivity out there, some good things going on.
If you're in the north, sounds like there's also a
way to kill you're up there. I don't know how,
but apparently they just go south, they go eat, and
you can go to the places they eat and shoot
them because there's a lot of big deer going down still. Yeah. Anyways,
(01:01:09):
there's a lot of Southern ruts still happening, and I'm
about to try to go capitalize on that a little
bit this week, I think. But yeah, if you didn't know,
our good friend Greg doesn't talk a lot, but he
shoots the deer, and we just put out a video
on our YouTube. He kind of does this thing every year.
He's got a family place down in the hill country
where he can go and hunt and be kind of
(01:01:29):
conservative Greg's a conservative dude. He likes that and you know,
get some good footage of some deer. He's got a
lot of good deer footage, a lot of cool encounters,
a lot of deer rutting doing the thing, and he
takes a real nice buck. And so go check that out.
If you have it on our YouTube channel, it'll put
that link to that description below tall or anything else.
When you talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
No, I don't, I don't think so. I would just say, man,
there's a lot of there's a lot of good hunting
left this season still, and if you're a white tail hunter,
you may be kind of on the downhill. I'm not,
but you might be, and that's okay. But there's duck
hunting and all kinds of stuff to get out there
(01:02:12):
there right now, hogs whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Man our deerlees has got a squirrel corridor. It is
made for squirrel hunting. Really, Yes, I did not know that. Yeah,
I didn't tell you on purpose because I wanted to
hunt every year. But we can go put bands of
squirrels in our waists when we walk through the woods
down there. Really. Yeah, it's like a weird deal where
(01:02:34):
there's a whole bunch of horse apple trees down in there,
and there ain't no acrons around, so it's just like
that's what the squirrels are in there eating, and they
are everywhere, and they do get this. They like look
at you from fifteen yards away at five foot up
and just kind of look at you when you walk
through there. I might need to know about it. I
thought about she won with thirty thirty the other day.
I did. But yep, next podcast, guys, there will be
(01:03:00):
some big buck stories, so be ready for that. I
think there might be a new White Tail bum's coming
out pretty soon and pretty soon, so I can't be
held accountable for anything those guys do. But apparently it's
pretty good listen from what I hear. I haven't listened.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I've heard it was coming out the day we record
this podcast, so it might be out before.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
How really stout? Yeah? Good deal? Okay, well remember to
check that out and remember this is your element, live
in it
I'm Casey and Tyler and you're listening to the Element Podcast.
What is happening to all my woods people? This is
the Element Podcast, brought to you by First Like Gear,
(00:21):
Tyler's over here pulling my cord. What's up, dog? I
ain't pulling on nothing. It looks like your Tangled. Yeah,
kind of like that Disney movie that everybody talks about
and I never watched. I bet you watched that quite
a few times, right, Tangled. I mean I don't think so.
I don't know. I figured, you know, the name of
all would have liked that. It's the Rapunzel one. I
(00:43):
never watched that familiar. Yeah, well, I thought maybe we
could just Disney movie a little bit. But you know,
it's probably better that we don't. Well, it's a losing proposition,
if you know what I mean. Yeah, talk about franchises
that are dying, right, it seems to be that way.
It's the Element in Disney, just downhill to opposite thinkers.
(01:04):
That's it, man, that's it. Well, today on the podcast,
things are gonna go downhill because this is how it goes. Guys.
You all probably know a season of deer Hunting has many,
many seasons within it right, there's good, there's bad. To
(01:26):
be cliche, there is ugly, and that is usually Eric.
It's not here today to defend himself. I'll stop. Hey,
this is where I got the Brian mustache is off
of this pillow right here. You know that green thing
that I put my nose to look like Brian's mustache?
How about that interest? I had no idea. Anyways, we
(01:49):
have had an excellent day season and it's not over yet.
In fact, a big buck has gone down on the
Element crew recently, but we won't talk about that that day.
You can look forward to hearing more about that in
a future episode.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm big killing deer till like March. I think that's
what I'm gonna do this year's Ye, how many of
those you're going to spots on them?
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Zero? Are you sure? Depends on what kind of spots
you're talking about. I'm talking about them good spots, not
the bad spots.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Good spots, huh like spotty hands? What spotlights?
Speaker 1 (02:26):
No? No, No, we might do this little axes hunting
in the spring.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Oh those kind of de Yeah spots. I don't know
about that, but I don't think I got the money
to do that. Yeah, you probably don't keep hunting that
statemasi property and just hoping one dough will.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
Come by, you know, Yeah, well you can pass them
like med be a good idea. We we did a
little hunting this year across the country, and there's some
things that Todd and I were just discussing aren't gonna
make the light of day as far as video is concerned.
(03:04):
So we're gonna have to talk about it on the podcast.
Otherwise that didn't happen, right, And here's the deal, y'all.
I hate to be this way. It's like this, but
on the podcast is where you get the real story
on things. YouTube is kind of like Hollywood a little bit.
We try to be We never are deceptive or anything like.
We try to stick to the storyline and not make
(03:25):
things be too weird. But quite frankly, if we put
out a YouTube video where there's no deer scene and
all we do is bilech the whole time, nobody's gonna
watch that, so there's not a lot of reason to
put it out there. So that's where the podcast is.
What the podcast is for, and we sometimes can learn
from everybody's mistakes and hopefully be better in the future.
(03:48):
And you can do that pretty well on the podcast, whereas
a YouTube video like nobody watches it and nobody learns,
and it's just a bunch of bad stuff out there
for the world to not see. So when weever, we
whenever I killed my dear Kansas, we had a party, party, pizza,
and we ate good, got us some sleep, got up
(04:09):
the next morning not too early, packed it up and
made a little drive down to the woods of Oklahoma
in just this little hunting and they're in Oklahoma, the
weather's pretty temperate, and so we stayed in a little
camper and just it's It's actually a thing I look
forward to every year because I like staying in our
(04:34):
pop up camper. For one Tyler and I get to
be cozy, and that's what I'm making up for now.
I'm actually across the living room from him doing this thing.
But in the pop up camper, whenever you have five
guys in there, Michael and Greg sleep in the same
bed because they're both smaller fellers. Tyler and I was
(04:54):
out in the same bed because we're the peepalls. So
one of us is going to get in the middle
of I go the bathroom and we're pretty forgiving of that,
because you never know which one of us is gonna
have to be I do, I bet ye for sure.
But that doesn't make sense though, because you sleep on
the outside.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Well, you said that they were smaller fellas though they
shared a bed, which is also known as smellers.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
And.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
The two bigger fellas, which are bellers, sleeping a bed
together too. But I guess it's just the way it
has to be.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
It also just established that way when we first started
sleeping that pop up, I mean, just it's kind of
weird to be like, no, I want to sleep with
you this time.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
Yeah, I mean I think Eric is like the exact
amount of tall that you can be to sleep on
the couch comfortably. Yeah, I think if you're any taller, yeah,
like five nine and a quarter yep. Yeah, that's about
what you can do right there.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
And we first used that thing in Illinois last year
and liked it, but we didn't know uh, Greg or
Michael as well back then, so it's kind of like,
we're not going to share a bed with those guys yet,
you know, to protect all parties, Yeah, now we know
who's getting protected. Actually yeah it was, but sure, sure. Anyways,
(06:18):
that we've kind of it's like, you know how he
gets your spots at the eating table, that's kind of
how we got in the pop up and it works
all right. Besides, I think that on that other end
there's a little rotten spot and we don't have to
deal with the rotten spot on But anyways, we're staying
to pop up, and uh, we go out and do
us a little drive around that evening. We might even
(06:40):
hunt the first do we hunt the first evening? This
is I did hard to recollect. What did you do?
I hunted an evening in the morning, is all. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
I went in real deep and I busted a buck
about I don't know, one hundred yards from where I
really was trying to get to.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I think.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
That was bedded in some cedars. And then we sat
the rest of the evening and I don't think we
saw any deer or we saw three doughs. We were
sitting kind of way deep in this property, kind of
next to a wheatfield, just looking for like that bed
to food pattern with these little canes around, and I
(07:22):
ended up seeing a buck just at the top of
his rack over the hill in this wheat field, and
like right before dark, and so there was really he
kind of disappeared behind that hill and there was no
way to make it happen, and I could see down
the drawl of the ways and see anything coming. So
it was like five minutes left till shoot, and we
(07:43):
took off and got out of there quickly.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
But you I think we glassed the first evening because
the place that we were going to go into had
a guy early at it already. And this is going
to kind of be the story of Oklahoma. The pressure
wasus this year. Yep. There were people everywhere, and I
don't just mean like at the turnaround at the big
(08:06):
old property. You know, there were people on every corner
just hunting, hanging out, thinking about hunting, talking about the hunting.
They did this, that and the other. The first evening
we decided to go do a little celebration. There's a
little lit cafe there in town, and we met a
couple element friends with a couple of woods people there.
(08:28):
You know who you are good talking to you fellas
people of the woods, and uh that was kind of neat,
fun thing to do, and uh yeah, I got a
bellows full with just high ambition for the rest of
the week. Because Tyler, Oklahoma's supposed to be awesome deer.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
Hunting, right, Well, how you asking just me? Well, the
general perception, I don't know. I think there's an increasing
amount of luster or a lure for people. Yeah, generally,
over the last few years, there's been some big deer
killed there.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
There's been Man, my foot got just all tangled up.
Take your shoe off, was so tangled he took his shoe.
I had left it, kind of like that raccoon leaving
his foot in the snare, just leaving.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
It there like it. I think that I don't know.
I just don't know what the perception is. I don't
talk to people anymore that aren't you or my wife.
But yeah, I think that it would seem that maybe
that pressure is a product of a few years of
some big deer dying them on Oklahoma properties. But you know,
(09:44):
I don't know. Oklahoma's a weird state. It's it's pretty
you know, it's pretty diverse. It is you're studying the
habitat and such.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
It's kind of the South, it's kind of the West,
it's kind of the North, according to me.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Kind of the plains, kind of the mountains, kind of
the Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
That's why the kind Yeah, hey, we for sure putting
that song on this episode. Absolutely media royalties, that's all
I know. So yeah, I don't I don't know. I think,
I think, Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
I don't know, like how high people I guess saying
I don't know how hip people are compared to hunting,
you know, IOWA or something like that.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
I feel as if it's gotten a lot of publicity
in the past few years because of some Yahoo's who
shoot here on public land and put it on YouTube.
I don't know who those are, uh, but they do that, right.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I don't know why they would, but I promise you
yeah that still need to shoot one.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Here's the deal, guys. Straight up, we are in a
losing battle as the Element because there's this thing that
we do, which is called filming deer hunts that makes
deer hunting look like fun and it is, but it
makes people want to do it more, and that's something
we want to do. However, if more people do it,
(11:05):
then you see more people out there and it makes
things harder. So it's kind of like we're a snaky
in some hotail.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Dude, speaking of all this, this is ironic but I
saw a guy who has access to one of the
baddest properties in Oklahoma. He can kill monsters there every year,
and recently went and killed a deer on public first
deer on public in Kansas, like recently on public land.
(11:39):
And this guy is older, like he's not like a
young guy, but he's not I don't know how young,
but I mean, like he's not like fresh out of
high school or nothing. I mean, I think he's going
to be cold star age or maybe a little younger.
It's like, is he doing that because he thinks it's
cool to do and he saw he's seen it on
(12:00):
some YouTube and stuff like that thinks that it's cool
to do or was it just like a coincidence and
he might not go back and do it and that
he just kind of had some time this year or something,
and maybe he doesn't watch YouTube at all, But like
it just seems very much like I mean, this guy
left like some of the baddest property out there to
go hunt a different state with an expensive tag on
(12:23):
some public I just wonder, man, like how how much
the culture is turning to people just going and hunting
on public land and it just I don't know, it's
one I wonder like, is it gonna drive lease prices down?
Speaker 1 (12:39):
No, you don't think, m I think demand's still gonna
be there for that. I just think that once prices
go up on things, they never come down.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Well yeah, but I mean inflation is going up too,
So I mean relative to the value of the dollar,
are they gonna are they gonna sit? I don't mean,
I don't mean they gonna down, but are they gonna
sit while they would? Things inflate? Because I like leasing
ground it's kind of fun me too.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Actually the process of leasing is the worst, but actually
having a having a piece of process of that is, yeah,
the part is nice. Yeah. So yeah, I don't know, man,
I feel like maybe it's just my perspective. It's kind
of maybe this is the thing y'all can help us
with people listening. Is the public land thing losing steam
(13:30):
or is it like one of those deals where maybe
like the front runners are slowing down some but like
just in general and mass there's still a ton of
people who are thinking that's cool and getting after it.
You think it's you think it's losing steam. The I
didn't say, I'm asking the question because there are there
(13:53):
are people out there who think that is the case.
I've heard, I've seen that portrayed some I don't think
at all. Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Personally, I think there's I think there's That's what my
point was with that guy is like I think people
are going out and trying it all the time. I
talk to people all the time that like are in
my network, but like I don't know him that well,
or maybe I know him but just you know, their
old friend whatever, and they do this kind of It's
the same same thing you see on TV all the time,
right where somebody shoots a management deer or cole Buck
(14:24):
and they got to justify like he ain't the biggest
but man, I you know, I got to shoot him
because he's a colbuck or whatever. And it's like, man,
just talking about like I liked shooting that deer.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
That was fun.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
You know. It's the same thing where people will call
me or talk to me and be like, well it
wasn't on public you know, or anything, or like they'll
they'll be like, I'm thinking about going and trying some
public land deer this year, you know, like like that
I would approve of that or whatever, you know, and
I'm like, man, I just think you should try to
deer hunting, you know, I mean, yeah, sure, but I
feel like to me that it seems like it is
(14:55):
still going strong. That that is the case now as
far as like you viewership on videos that like that,
I mean, everybody over the last you know, seven years
has really there's been plenty of push towards that public Land.
I think there's a lot of videos in public landeer
and being shot out there. So like, I don't know
if the if people are like necessarily drawn to watch
(15:17):
public Lander get shot all the time, but like more
that they just like a good story.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And I think people like giant bucks, and no matter
where you put it, it's like the giant buck is
the basis of the formula, and then you can add
things to it. It's like the X and the ex
equals y or whatever, you know what I mean. So
you add public Land to it, and something add archery
(15:44):
to it, add you know, trad bow to it, add
you know, poach to it. You know, like all these
things make something more intriguing for people. So like adding
public Land is something if it's already a big buck,
people think, oh wow, he killed that on public, but
nobody looks at you know, my South Dakota dere from
a couple of years ago, and I was like, oh
(16:04):
he killed that on public. Well yeah, those are around,
you know, but for me, it was like an epic experience.
You know.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
But I think that I just wonder if I just
I just feel like though that like, when it comes
to actually hunting, people are people are There's still a
lot of people out there that are like wanting to
do a little traveling and going.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
If that is the case, we are generating more revenue
for we'll just be nice and calm wildlife agencies, then
they should then be in turn either trying to put
more animals and landscape or giving give people more opportunity
(16:45):
through added seasons or added properties.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Right, I mean I would agree with that. I don't
know how I can, like, I don't know, yeah, I
would agree with that. I just don't know how I
can say that everybody should agree with that.
Speaker 1 (17:04):
And I guess you know, where's the money going. So
if the if the Wildlife department is there to and
their their main function is to progress wildlife and the
hunting and the take of thereof if there's more money
for more people going to public and more people buying licenses.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is there more money just because more people are hunting
public or like, are we really I guess recruiting Or
is there just more people that are taking a public
land out of state trip every year?
Speaker 1 (17:40):
I don't know. Well, if they're taking an out of
state trip, then if it's out of state, there's more money.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
If it's state out of state slash public land like
could be either or.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Or if somebody's Yeah, if somebody's going out of state
to hunt public land, there's more money for that state
than what they're used to would have been. But if
they're staying in state and they're saying okay, and unless
they cattagn them, yeah, yeah exactly, which how smart? What
a great idea. Let's limit the revenue but supposedly makes
it better hunting well, and they can if they're Kansas,
(18:12):
they can make the tag five hundred bucks and there's
a handful of people that'll still pay it. Hunter's low,
I think, right, I think it's what it costs. I
think it ends up being like six six o eight
for me this past year. I think they got you, Yeah,
he can get me. But anyways, that was a kind
(18:34):
of a side trip for about a year.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
I mean, yes, but I would agree if they're if
they're making more revenue selling more tags. I guess because revenue.
They're going to make more revenue just based off the
fact that we're an inflated time and they're able to
increase tag costs but also costs of livings higher. So
the biologists that's making sixty or whatever probably needs to
(18:58):
make seventy this year, you know.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Yeah, but that all kind of brings us back to
the point of pressure was an issue this year. Yes,
and I have friends at hunt in Missouri. I have
a couple different friends like that weren't hunting together that
all hunted Missouri public land and said it was the
craziest dude fest they've ever seen in their life. Like,
I mean, they were literally hanging in stands around people
(19:23):
because that's how many people were around. And so it's
just kind of a weird thing that we have to
deal with. And you can always say, will you got
to go deeper or whatever, and yeah, that's true, but man, sometimes,
like on a six hundred acre property, if there's a
guy hunting in the middle of it, I don't want
(19:44):
to go deeper. Because it's still kind of close to
that guy, you know, or whatever. You gotta walk by somebody.
I guess what I'm saying is like hunting around other
people isn't my favorite thing to do, and so and
it makes things tough because you don't know where people's
wind is blowing. You don't know who's been in there
today before but there that day, and it just can
make things difficult pressure wise. So we didn't really it's
(20:10):
been much time in Oklahoma on that hunt kind of hurts. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
We decided to wonder if it's like that across the
state or just where we were at. And I wonder
if if you didn't see us. I don't want this
to sound egotistical, but I wonder if like us putting
out a video on it and buck truck affected that
at all, you know, because it didn't take much in
certain areas to many guys to make it feel like
(20:36):
it's a full property.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
Yeah, it could or it could just be a big
old winkie dik where that place had a lot of pressure. Yeah, true, yeah,
lots of variables. Yeah, but we you left out a
day earlier because you had I think you had a
Thanksgiving or something coming up, or I don't know. You
(21:00):
left it early because you were smart and only a day.
Might have been two days. I don't really remember.
Speaker 2 (21:07):
I fel like there was two days a hunting.
Speaker 1 (21:09):
We came home on the nineteenth, I do know that,
so one of Thanksgiving. But yeah, because I came home
with my anniversary.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
I came home. This is after this is after you
shot your Kansas. I shot it on fifteenth. Okay, probably
because I'd just been gone a long time. I don't
know why I went home.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Oh yeah, because you went on that Texas hunt before Kansas.
So yeah, you just went home because that and there
weren't deer running around too much. You're like, uh, probably, man,
why did I leave? And he just got tired of us?
But we hunted for a few more days, and they
didn't much talk about, uh telling you, I did have
(21:50):
a weird encounter that I would like to talk about
for a second. Deer were rutting and doing a thing.
They were on lockdown for uh a good amount of it.
You'd say, I don't mean, I don't know how you
really there were more deer lockdown with those than there
were deer doing chasing stuff. But we had a coach
a football game. That's why we did have a good
(22:11):
hunt one evening where we saw quite a few deer
and had a buck run through, cruising, chasing, does around,
and it was like a two year old, which I
was willing to shoot a two year old eight At
that point in time, I hadn't killed a ton of
deer yet, and I need some food, and I was
excited to just shoot some stuff. Man. I was gonna
(22:33):
shoot a dough too, if I had a really great opportunity.
Didn't have that. But this buck, we hear like doing
the you know, like you can tell when it's just
a deer running on the right clip, and this deer
runs in Greg I look back at him. He's like
behind man, I can see his chips. It's like going
up and down. He's like excited. I'm like, oh gosh,
this is a big buck and ends up he can't
(22:54):
get around to look at it. So he's just like
excited because he knows it's a buck. And finally the
deer kind of like those through some cedars and smoke
trees or something, and I gett a glimpse of it
and like, that's a dough. Where's the buck? And ends up.
That is the buck, this deer's two year old buck
that I with my binoculars at thirty yards cannot find
(23:17):
antlers on it. Like I almost wonder if there's not
peticles on this deer, like if it is that antlerless buck,
because he is just doing the thing and he I
cannot find a stitch of antler on his head. It
was a weird thing. But did you check from behind
to see No? But I never saw a hang doown
or anything, but it had to be I mean, dose,
do not do what this thing was doing. He had hawks,
(23:39):
if I remember right with does sometimes I have hawks too,
So interesting. Yeah, it was a weird thing, so didn't
you that one? And then that was about it. We
did have a tiger salamander crawl underneath our trash bag
one night and we were loading up and it was
like it's a water dog, but like a mature form, right,
and this thing like stretched out was like a foot long.
(24:01):
It's pretty cool, And I let him lose and put
him underneath a piece of bark or something that way.
Hopefully he found him a whole before it got too cold.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Interesting, But that was that was Oklahoma. And then we
went to Thanksgivings and you went to Arkansas. Yep, you
did too, not before it, Well, you went before I did. Yeah,
I was up there day and a half or so ahead,
I guess. Yep. It was.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
Also very tough. There's not a whole lot talking about
except for really for me. For one instance, from from
deer hunting perspective.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
You, uh, we go there and we're gonna hunt out
of the boat a lot, but you ended up zoning
in on a spot that was more of a walking
type deal. Yep.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
It's really dry, so the river is really low. They're
in pretty major drought right now, I think. And we
end up the first let's see, the first evening, I
believe it was, we were gonna walk in. We're kind
of hunting similar place we had last year, and we
(25:37):
walk in to a place that Clay and Michael had
seen a buck or or had a same buck encounter
or twice or something like that. They'd seen some bucks
back in there, and so I was like, oh, it's
about a I don't know, it's about a mile in there.
So we'll walk in and as we get close, we'll
start rattling, and we go rattling off through there nothing,
(26:02):
get pretty close to where Michael thought this buck was
last year. Rattle, nothing, sit there for twenty minutes, nothing,
So get up, start moving pretty slowly. Winds blowing decent,
and I don't know, I walk eighty yards and all
of a sudden, boom, deer busting out. It looks like
two or three dos they bust out through this thick,
(26:23):
thick stuff. It's starting to get real thick. And I
mean Michael had literally just said, I think that's about
where we saw that buck last year jump out of
his bed. And I mean it wasn't fifteen seconds, I
feel like, and it was just like boom. And then
all of a sudden, she goes all the way through
all the cover that we were fixing, the go rattle,
(26:43):
and so I just got I was like, Okay, this
is dumb. There's no reason to even go in there
and just rattle my way down in through this stuff,
you know. And I don't have anything to put up
a stand or anything. So you know, it's getting closer
to sunset. So I'm like, all right, whatever, let's just
bail out, go drive around see if we can see
some deer. So we bail out, and about I don't know,
(27:05):
sunset or a little bit after. We take off in
the truck. We're driving down this road and from a
pretty busy main road. Michael's like, oh, there's some deer
in there. This is a place that we're passing by
that we had seen some deer the year before, and
including a buck. I'd even hunt it in here, I
(27:27):
think two or three times a year before, in some
different areas. Right in that particular like swampy location. It's
an area that has like normally holds water, so it's
got lily pads. It was dry this year, like I said,
no water on the part that held it. So there's
a lot of lily pads. And then there's this like
slightly higher ground that's just willows and just thick nasty
(27:48):
ash trees and you know, button brush and stuff like that.
So I started to slow down. We start looking. I'm like, oh, well,
there's a buck right there. And there's a buck with
a and he is big, I mean big, tall, g
two s. He's not super wild, he's heavy and tall,
(28:08):
and I'm like, oh, that's a that's an awesome buck.
I mean he's big. So we look at him for
a second. We get a little phone scope and we
kind of take off and go back to camp start
making a plan, and I'm like, dude, I gotta go
in there and hunt this place. I look at it.
It's like he was right next to the pen that
Casey sent me last year where they saw that buck.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Weird.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, And so I'm like, they they they're they're there,
and we saw doze there, but they are that's where
they want to be. They're there, and so I'm gonna
go kill him right there. And so I started making
a plan. I think I called you and you were like, man,
I just go in there and hang In the morning,
I was thinking about kind of uh sitting back on
the ground in the button brush. I go in there,
(28:52):
and I have one of the most frustrating hangs of
my life.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
In the dark.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
It was really quiet in every those willow trees like
eight feet up, like eight feet up. Those willow trees
grow vines all the way up to that point and
then they kind of stop about eight foot up or so.
But it's like a nest, and so like getting up
through that stuff is just loud and really difficult, especially
(29:19):
in the dark. Well, we get in there, I get
up there, finally, man, I mean it's just a disaster,
but it's it is one of the highest places I
could get in those wheels and I'm probably like twelve
foot up and we get up in there and we sit.
I could go on and on about this, but like,
essentially this is the best tree for getting some shots
and been up in the sky, but you don't realize
(29:42):
it in the dark. But we are dagam sasquatches up
in this tree. I mean it is wide open, there's
no back cover and no front cover like usual. Well,
we hunt there and I'm just gonna I just kind
of say, you know what, I hop around a lot.
I can always come up with a reason I can
go somewhere else, and should go somewhere else for the
(30:02):
evening or for the next day or whatever. How about
if I just stay here and grind it out because
I know this is where deer want to be and
eventually maybe we'll get a shot. Well, long story short,
about three days later, well maybe two days later.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
I think it's the first morning I hunted. Is this morning?
Was it?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
So you had showed up and we've just kind of
been cranking it out in this tree. We're hunting a
kind of if you wind, but I knew which direction.
I thought that the deer wanted to cruise, if they
were going to cruise, and lo and behold, dude, we're
sitting there. We saw like a couple of deer early briefly.
(30:42):
And this is a hard set because the highways like
two hundred and fifty yards away and there's like eighteen
wheelers like every third car, and it's just loud, dude,
and you can't hear your cameraro beside you. You know,
you can't talk to each other very well, especially like
during the work rush that happens before you know, eight
o'clock in the morning a lot of times. So anyway,
(31:03):
we're sitting there, Son's up seeing a couple of deer.
Can't move because there's no wind. So we're being very still.
But it's like eight thirty and we start we start
talking about turkey hunting, I think hunting on our lease,
turkey hunting.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
We're just like talking. You know, who is your camera guy? Oh, Michael, Yeah,
I can see why Turkey and he and.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
He's he's a good dude to talk to because he likes,
he likes to talk to you. He's not He's not
a guy that hops on Instagram all the time. I mean,
he is going to talk to you and hang out
with you. So he's very present. I like hunting with him,
and We're sitting there talking about turkeys and I'm kind
of like looking over at him talking because I can't
look the other way, and him hear me, probably, and
(31:47):
all of a sudden, like start hearing this like it's
like a feeding call. Mallard, you know, you know it's funny.
He can talk pretty fast, Yeah he can, it's in
yeah he does, but he gets like it's like an
ascending volume. So like at first I'm like, is that
a Mallard? And then next I'm like, oh, he's singing something.
(32:10):
And then next I'm like, oh, he's sang buck over
and over again. And so I can finally register as
this happens in split split second, I look over where
I'm you know, where he's kind of looking, and this
buck is coming right where I thought bucks were going
to cruise right down the edge and coming right through
this little gap and into this into this little pocket
of kind of open stuff where bucks can hang out
(32:33):
and not be seen from the road and whatever else.
And that's just where we pended on a couple of times.
And he's coming. I mean, he's coming through the gap quick,
and he's at He's at thirty five yards when I
first see him, and because you just can't see very
far in here it's thicket, and I'm thinking, I'm thinking
(32:54):
that he's at I'm thinking he's at thirty five yards.
I'm thinking that when I get a shot at him
at the hole, he's fixing a B thirty five because
it's hard to range sometimes, like gaps in the in
the woods, you can't tell like how far in front
of that next hard stop of brush that deer is
actually walking. So anyway, he's he's fixing a walk into
(33:16):
this gap. So I'm about to turn the camera on
and I gotta get it because I don't always get
the go pro on, and sometimes my cameraman helps me
to that or whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Sometimes you know, I just don't have the depends on
the tree set up.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Yeah, but a lot I've been like struggling to get
the go pro on the last couple of times I've
had deer coming in, so I'm like, I gotta, I
gotta get it on. So I like see him and
I'm watching him, and I reach back and then I
look at the GoPro and I turn it on, and
then I start pulling my hand back and and I
look out and I'm looking over at him, and all
a sudden, he just whips his head up to us,
(33:52):
and it's still just no wind, and like he and
I stop, and I and he got kind of a
little bit weird because he's all my hand moving, I guess,
and it's behind me, so I'm doing with my right hand,
if you can imagine. And he does the thing that
I've talked about so many times, and I just just
(34:13):
amateured it. Man so bad. But he does the thing
we learn from our mistakes. Yes, he puts his head down.
Things are happening quick right like this is this is
the bane of public land hunting. For me at least,
is like if I'm going to kill a deer with
a bow, I put myself in a situation where this
happens often, where a deer shows up. He's at thirty
five yards, you have to kill him quick. He's fixing
(34:34):
a walk through your your you don't have a feeder,
He's gonna stop at like you don't have a field
that he's gonna stop and eat at You don't have
a dough or anything that he's gonna like he's walking through.
You've got to get him killed in like fifteen seconds
or less, right, And so that's what it makes this
very hard, this thing that we're trying to do right now.
And so I'm like, I got to get clipped on
(34:56):
because he's fixing a walk behind something and I need
to draw and he's going to come out in a
gap on the other side just a couple of yards later.
So as soon as he puts his head down, I
start to move my hand again, what does he do?
Lifts his head back up. He does the oakie doak
thing that we've talked about so many times. Especially does
will do it at feeders where they they put their
(35:16):
head down and it's right back up. And it's like
almost like a like they know that animals will move right.
It's like almost an instinctual thing they've probably developed or
like they know that if they see a kyote stalking
them that when they put their head down, he's going
to take a few more steps and if they put
their head back up, they'll catch.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
Them, you know.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
And that's what they did, and it caught me moving again,
and so at this point, like I'm very close to
my bow string on my right hand and he's staring
at me. So over the course of the next like
forty five seconds, I move like.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
So of the least favorite things to do, yeah, is
to do the whole I have to move while this
deer is looking at me. But I'm just gonna do
that slow. Yeah, I just have so much fast switch
about me that, Yeah, that's not fun for you. I
have a hard time moving that slow.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
It wasn't fun for me either, But I pulled it
off and eventually get clipped on while he's kind of
staring at me. I'm not very far away, guys, I moved.
I moved a little fast, and he caught me right.
So I'm just barely moving and I get my I
finally get my hand to my bowstring, clip it on,
and I'm like, all right, if he doesn't run off,
(36:24):
I'm gonna yank the bow back as soon as he
turns right. So he turns and starts walking broadside to me,
back where he's where he came from. Slowly, finally I
yank back. The whole tree goes to whipping dude I'm talking.
It is just like I'm in the top of a
willow tree and it's just like I yank back. The
tree is moving like crazy, and I think he's fixing
(36:47):
stop broadside right and I'm gonna smoke him. And he
takes like two more steps. I don't know why, but
he did not. He did not lock up immediately, takes
like two more steps and then gets behind this little
a couple of trees, turns and looks at me and
it's frontal and I'm like, I've been shooting, well, I
shot all summer, I shot all summer summer before a
(37:09):
lot like every day, right, I've been really trying to
dial it. I'm like, I got this, and so I'm
thinking he's gonna jump string a little bit. So I
put my thirty about dead center on his chest, thinking
that he's around thirty five still and he's got he's
got a couple of little small trees right in the
in front of him. So I was like, I just
(37:30):
don't want to shoot it. And he does this thing
where he starts looking through this stuff and moving his
head back and forth real quick. He readjusts twice, and
on the second time, I had a shot, I felt
like the vertical trees were out of the way.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
I go to pull the trigger.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I'm using a backup release because on my last morning
in Oklahoma, I took a jacket off to walk my
mile and a half out and left my release on
the ground in a mile and a half back in
Oklahaugh and I did not want to go back in
there and get it. So I'm using a backup release.
Happens to have a heavier trigger pull than my other
(38:06):
one that I didn't even realize was the case, really,
because just not in this situation. Well, the trigger doesn't
go off when I think it's going to, and this
happens in a fraction of a second where I freak
out mentally right as it's not gone off yet start
I probably start relaxing and everything. I'm not a pro here, y'all.
I'm just shoot a lot, and essentially Bogue finally pull
(38:32):
goes off, and I'm like aiming high and right when
it goes off, arrow takes off and basically the deer
runs off with an arrow sticking out somewhere what looks
like his neck, and I'm like, what is going on?
(38:52):
He runs into the brush, stops don't hear anything for
a second, and then all of a sudden just and
I'm like, is he crashing right there? And then he
runs out and runs down the edge of this stuff
and is like going back and forth, real weird, and
then dips back in and Michael.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Goes he's going down.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
He's going down. So did you see where I hit him?
He was like no. I was like, it's bad, dude.
So anyway, I end up. We replayed the footage. We
even went back to camp. Before I went and looked
for him or anything. I replayed the footage. The arrow
hits a limb and was fixing to miss him over
(39:31):
the over the top because he ducked really hard to
the arrow hits a limb as dead center as you can.
I mean, I'm talking. I found the limb later and
it was sliced like you hit it with a machete. Yeah,
it was dead cent. Pretty big too, Yeah, it was
size of a finger, you know. And he and and
the arrow when it hits that limb, almost goes straight
(39:52):
down and goes across the back of his neck like
at the base of this skull, almost kind of cuts him
there a little bit and sticks in his ear, and
I guess it hit that limb so hard that it
lost a lot of momentum because it kind of went
through his offside ear and just stuck there like an
(40:13):
earing and we are just flopping around. It's just running
off with an arrow. You see the fletching. It's the
weirdest thing, right, And there's nothing back there to kill him,
you know. We did go and look for blood and
stuff and just cult I mean there was nothing. I mean,
it's just they're built to fight each other with pointy
(40:33):
things on top of their heads. Like there's nothing on
top of the neck and head that can kill except
for if I had hit him in the spine, which
I'm probably a few inches from doing.
Speaker 1 (40:44):
And so anyway, I was.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
I was so mad at myself, and especially when we
leave there later on, and it was a really tough
hunt not to mention, like, man, you I just don't
I don't think. I mean, you guys, tell me what
you think, but I don't think I can put that
on YouTube. I mean, this is an our audience that
understands here on the podcast and I can explain everything
on YouTube on video. I mean, it just looks bad,
(41:09):
and I mean it's not lethal as far unless there's
some weird thing that happens. But I mean, he's probably
not gonna die.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You know. One of the main problems with YouTube is
is that we have a great subscriber base. And if
you watch us on YouTube and you listen often in
your supporter we thank you very much. But more often
than not, on videos where there's deer in our videos,
there's more people who aren't subscribed who are seeing than
are and most of those people haven't ever seen this before,
(41:37):
so it's their first impression of us. They absolutely hate us.
They hate us. You know, anytime you do anything wrong
at all, you're like, oh, these are those idiots on YouTube.
They're right, but they don't have to tell us. But
so I'm in the boat of like this, we have
nothing to gain.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, yeah, you know That's where I'm at too.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
Man.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
It's like, and I'm probably gonna show like in the video,
here's a little insight for you. We're probably gonna show
the deer. We're probably gonna talk about how I had
an encounter with him. But I just don't feel like
I can talk about that with an audience that you know,
we hunted with a guy named lay mc nasty. We've
talked about a couple of times on the podcast, and dude,
(42:47):
he posts a picture of a deer, dead deer, and
people lose their minds, Like all these moms that thought
he was funny because they do he does, you know,
school kid videos or whatever. I think I can't believe
he's a killer. You know, he's a murderer, you know.
And their name is you know, Animal Spirit or something,
Animal Spirit Mom or something. But like, I know, you
(43:09):
can't just like let a couple of people determine what
you do. But like I just don't think it's a
good idea. It's a couple of people can determine what
you do. I guarantee you they came wrong.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Person at Google sees the reported post or video or whatever,
and then all of a sudden your toast.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
Yeah, it's sad because it was a really good encounter
and like I said, I've been shooting well, but there
was a lot of things that put Oh. Also the
deer I found out. I went down there like a
couple of days later and stood where he was at,
looked at the limb that was sliced and ranged the
tree that we were in, and it was thirty, so
(43:46):
that adds to the height of miss. Also, the limb
that I hit was waist high, which is weird. That's
how how down he dropped, you know.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
Yep. So you know that that I hurt for you
on that because I think a lot of people that
hunt together kind of have a little bit of a
team mentality, and I think that you and I probably
have a really heavy team mentality because we do this
together all the time, and on a hunt like that,
it's like somebody here, please kill it here, yeah, because
(44:19):
it's hard, and it's like, man, that was our chance.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I no, I uh, it was and I and I
appreciate you man, because you're just good at like you're
really good at like like what I really need. I
hate that I need this, but I need it. I
realized that I need this. It's like somebody to be like, dude,
it's all right, don't worry about it. Man, go out
there and kill another one, you know, or whatever. Like
(44:47):
I need somebody to tell me it's okay, stuff like
that happens or whatever. And you do a good job
with that because you have pretty optimistic attitude.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
And so thanks.
Speaker 2 (44:56):
I'll be like just I was really like that morning,
I was so so, oh so mad at my sight.
Speaker 1 (45:01):
I can imagine I mean, not that you should be
mad at yourself, but I can imagine it being hard. Yeah,
I mean I wounded a big elk this year, same
kind of thing, you know, And it's just like it
just hurts, man, because you want it so bad. Yeah,
you want it so bad, and it's just it's hard
(45:21):
to hard to recover from. It is also got you
punched in the mouth on that trip.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Oh hard. I mean, I'm not blaming this on you either,
because I told you do it. But we got back
to the camp, we were like, man, you know I
did it. When I got up in that tree the
other day, like I had to legit. I yanked on
my bow as hard as I could because there was
a a vine wrapped around my sight. Could not get
(45:47):
it off the ground. And I mean I yanked at hard.
So I thought, well, I said, I messed my sight up.
So we go on and start messing with stuff, and
long story short, we realized that it was a heavy
trigger pool, so.
Speaker 1 (46:00):
So it was fine. And we thought that because you
had a new release, it was a heavy trigger pool,
and so we're going to adjust that, and I, being
the tinkerer between us two, know how to adjust that.
I also know that triggers are weird and if you
adst them too lightly, they can go off on their
own with pressure. We talked about this before it happened.
(46:20):
We were prepared and what we were prepared for was
that arrow launching accidentally because Tyler doesn't do like a
terrible like sky draw, but he kind of goes up
a little bit more than he does down.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
It's way easier to draw that way. That's why I did.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Yeah, it's easier on your shoulder. I mean, chris By
does it, and if Chrispy can do it, you can
do it. Yeah. But so you were warning me, Yeah,
I was like, hey, keep the bow down here. We
don't want to send it out in the middle of nowhere. Draw.
I said, hey, draw that we'd already talked about it,
but I was reminding you and you were kind of plating.
And about the time I say, Dad, the end hadn't come.
Speaker 2 (47:02):
Out, and I was like okay, and I started putting
it down to start moving it down, and like you said,
about the time the end comes out, pap bow goes
off and still shoots over the target a little bit,
but it's only at like a half drawl, right, dude,
just duoped it out there. I with my right hand
hit myself in the face so hard. I've never I
(47:25):
haven't been many. I haven't been in like any fist fights,
you know, but like I've been hit by football players
and stuff a lot. Right, that was about probably the
hardest I've ever been hitting the mouth. I got hit
in the mouth of the head and basketball one time,
a little bit harder probably, but it hit my nose
so hard that my nose bled and my mouth had
teeth imprints in the front top of my lip for
(47:48):
like might still be there. No, We're good, but it
was there for a.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
While, dude.
Speaker 2 (47:54):
And I couldn't even eat food that was salty.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
Or whatever for a while. I mean, it was just
what happens. One of the best cooks and can ever.
Speaker 2 (47:59):
Can, dude, but it hurts so bad. I was like,
and now I felt bad, you know, because Scott laughed immediately,
and then he like really quickly found out like, oh
I shouldn't be laughing, you know, And I think everybody
was kind of you know.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
What always been like I got some of the worst
times I got in trouble when I was a kid,
was laughing, people got hurt. I've always been that guy. Yeah,
and it's kind of a guy thing to do, you know,
but like you do need to have some concern for
your friend, dude.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I smoked myself, and so I went inside because I
could tell I don't know if I've really like ever
had like a bad nose bleed or anything when I
got hitting the nose because I got a hard nose,
kind of built out of steel. But I I went
in there, I was like, it's fixing the bleed. And
so I got some paper towels and didn't bleed bad,
but like it bled and so yeah, that was and
(48:47):
that was just this That was the beginning of what
would just continue to be terrible hunting conditions. And we
ended up getting in the river with our boats and stuff,
and I I tore my trailer up trying to get
my boat in the river because the ramp was I mean,
there was like no water on the ramp and so
(49:08):
it was just like rock piles and shallow water. And
I was going to go to a place that was
my back up a number one gonna kill a giant,
And I get to the creek that you drove down
last year with your boat, and it was eight inches
deep the whole way. If that I mean it is
bad a shell. So I couldn't go. So we ended
(49:29):
up just hunting with everybody else in the same spots
that everybody else can get to.
Speaker 1 (49:34):
You know, it was so fun. The neat thing is
that you were able to get your boat out of
the water. Yep, you missed your trailer up backing it
in and hitting rocks. I missed my trailer up on
the way down. My bearing goes out in my boat trailer,
and it's old boat trailer, you know. So like this
thing happens from time to time, and the last time
the sparing was replaced was probably ten years ago. It
(49:56):
was a buddy bearing, and I think that the like
the the packing on the seal on the front side,
came out on the way and so I don't know
how long it was out, but I usually stop and
check that kind of stuff from time to time, and
I stopped halfway and my all my bearings were fine.
So at some point in time between the Arkansas Texas
(50:17):
line and that boat ramp, my bearing went out and
apparently went out. Greg said he saw it entirely in
sideways the day before. He didn't inform me of that.
It's weird how I got it. Doesn't talk much. It
doesn't talk much. It just takes note. He loves to
be retrospective. He loves to say, you know, I saw that. Hey,
it's a good way to be right. That's right, dude.
(50:38):
So I then can't get my boat out of the
water because I'm not gonna be able to take it
back to camp anyways. We're a long way from camp
at the boat ram, So just leaving my boat in
the water, start working on the trailer of the next
day after we hunt the same place. Everybody else is
hunting that morning, and we're having bad hunts. Then we're
(50:59):
gonna live it out. But I go back and get
a bearing. It's the wrong bearing. I have to go
back again to get the right bearing, get the right bearing,
and get back to the boat ramp to work on
the trailer the trailer. The bearring won't go on the trailer.
This thing is called a spindle that sticks out from
the trailer. It's connected to your axle. I can't get
(51:21):
it up on the spindle all the way. It's like
what's going on sotly can spindle The spindle has etched
and lumped up a bunch of metal from the bearing
going out, and it's like unfixable. I might have could
have taken a file to it and got it down
to where I could get the bearing on, but then
like who knows that that's going to even get me
(51:41):
back to the house, because then it's like not a
perfect system, you know, And when you got going seventy
miles down seventy miles an hour down the road, you
want things to be right. So long story short, and
this is what we're going to build a little content
around on the video. Is I spin and two thirds
of my Arkansas hunt working on the trailer, and I
(52:04):
drop the axle completely out of this trailer and put
a new axle on my trailer at the boat ramp
in Arkansas while my boat is down there in the water.
And that takes about three days. So yeah, that was fun.
And the moral of the story is it's good to
know how to do a few things. I'm not bragging
on myself because I was the idiot who drove the
(52:27):
trailer with a bad bearing in it, But like problem solving,
this is something I learned from Tyler, which I didn't
learn problem solving for Tyler, but he'd been a good
problem solving for a minute. The ish like the topic
of problem solving, it's a is a thing to spend
some time on, especially with your kids, but just even
(52:48):
as an adult, like some self evaluation stuff like are
you being a problem solver? If you're not, how do
you learn problem solving? And how do you make yourself
better at that? You know, there's you Tube University, podcast University,
y'all are attending it right now, right on certain things
like white tail hunting and all that. There are countless
hours of shows and videos and podcasts and this, that
(53:12):
and the other where people tell you how to do
stuff right. It's a great way to learn how to
do things if you don't know. Thankfully me, I was
raised blue collar, you know, and we didn't have enough
money to buy new stuff, so we had to fix
our old stuff all the time. And so you went
to the University of butcher Derwood. I guarantee you the
University of Oh there's a whole in that throwt thing
(53:33):
tied up with some monofilment. You know, you probably know
a little something about that, so, oh, your trot line's
rotten here, Just tie in some good stuff there in
that one spot and then you don't get your catfish
because your try line breaks. You definitely know about that anyways.
Never I've never dropped an axle out of a trailer
and put it in there. But it ain't hard. It's
(53:54):
four bolts. You just got to know which four to takeout,
and you gotta know what measurements to do. And I
didn't know what measurements to do. So I call the
axle place and I say, hey, how do I determine
what size axle this thing needs to be? And they
tell me, and I do it, and we do it
all and it's got a little wiggle room, you know,
for tolerances, but not much. But I was within an
eighth inch on my measurements and got the new one
(54:14):
in there. And once we had the new one, it
took an hour to put the axle on and to
put the wheels back on, and now we're ready to
rock and roll. Got a brand new one, you know.
So yeah, it's a it's and it translates over into
deer hunting. Right. You show up, Tyler, You show up
to a tree you've never been to in the morning.
It's our favorite thing to do, right, Like if we
had to pick, we would say, no, I'm going somewhere
(54:37):
I've never been in the morning, because it's the best
since the sarcasm got since it. You show up to
a tree you've never been to in the morning because
Casey tells you there's gonna be a scrape down there
at the end of this lake, and there is. However,
there are some trees down there that are kind of big.
And you climb the tree and you get up there,
(54:59):
and then all of a sudden, what happens. You can't
get your saddle platform around the tree. The platform strap
is shorter than the straps on the sticks. What do
you do? Do you cry? Do you go home?
Speaker 2 (55:14):
I cried? You go find another tree?
Speaker 1 (55:21):
You just climb down and redo it, right, because that's
what you got to do. It takes a little extra work,
it does. Man. Sometimes you gotta sweat, and that's the
way it goes. But that's about near what Arkansas was. Man,
there just wasn't a whole lot that happened. And that
you'll have that on them big jobs, as they say.
And that's hunting, you know. And and it might look
(55:43):
like we kill a bunch of big deer on on YouTube,
because we do. But the reason it looks that way
sometimes is because we don't put the boring stuff on.
You try not to, you know what I mean. So
that's kind of where Arkansas went for worse and then
even furthermore, I don't know how much time you want
(56:03):
to even spend on it, But you went back to
Oklahoma by yourself.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Yeah, I did, and man it was very tough. I
actually hunted a new place because I thought it would
be you know, breath fresh air. It's something you've looked
forward to. You've been looking at this area for a
long time. Yeah, we just hadn't. It hadn't really set
(56:30):
up for us to go give it a try, and
so I ended up hunting a new place.
Speaker 1 (56:33):
One of our initiatives this year was that Tyler and I,
even though we love each other, we don't have to
be in the same place all the time, right like
we can go do.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
But I think now we're learn any way that we do.
Speaker 1 (56:46):
It's more fun too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (56:48):
So anyway, I I went to this place and I
was really pumped. I thought would for sure get into
you know, some deer. And the one thing that didn't
realize is that parking was cut off way up by
the highway, and so essentially it made this place hunt
(57:12):
like really hard. In fact, this place has not been managed,
in my opinion, super well, and that place has grown
extremely tall, which we had. It was the year of
the native grass, you know. I mean we had June
(57:32):
rains all throughout the Plain States this year that just
made those things awesome, you know. But like you couldn't
see nothing, you had to be in a tree. Well,
guess what they've done some habitat management. That just so
happens that all the trees that you are looking forward
to hunting, you can't see them til you get there
because the grass is ten foot tall. But then when
(57:55):
you get there, the tree doesn't exist because of what
they've done.
Speaker 1 (57:58):
It's cool. Yeah, on X has a pretty they did
a pretty good job with you know, recent imagery top stuff.
But whenever they cut something down a month ago or
whatever it is or this summer, it's pretty unreasonable to
think that for sure is nothing.
Speaker 2 (58:10):
I mean, they can on X doesn't put the satellites
in the air, ye you know, so they can only
they can only have imagery. They can only have imagery
that has been taken by some you know, uh technology
juggernaut or whatever. So anyway, that it made things really tough.
There wasn't actually very many good trees to hang in.
(58:32):
They were also doing some management at the time. Uh cool,
which you know, it's hunting season, so why can't we
do that maybe after hunting season when people who pay
lots of money to come hunt aren't there. But yeah,
I mean it's just uh, it made that plus that
tall grass, Like even when I dig it into a tree, Dude,
there was times when I could not see deer. I
(58:55):
mean the first dear that I saw from a tree stand,
I sat in the right tree, I picked the right spot,
and I did not see the deer until there were
thirty yards from me. Every every day it came out
that afternoon, I couldn't see it till it was thirty
yards from me. So it's like, man, how are you
supposed to sell film and kill a deer with zero
wind and hardly any trees and really tall grass? And
(59:18):
it made it really difficult. I got creative hunted some stuff,
I mean. And that's another thing is like I was,
I was, I was checking stuff out that was two
and a half miles back, I mean way way back,
and I felt like you couldn't you couldn't get into deer,
Like I felt like you couldn't get into a buck
at this point in the season without doing it a legit,
(59:41):
like a mile and a half at least on this place.
And so it just made a tough hunt man. And
I mean there's not a whole, not a whole was
to say about it, except for there wasn't wasn't nearly
as many deer as I thought there should have been,
and there was a lot of coyotes. And I think
that the management, I know that over we managed for
all the species, you know whatever, But like, I ain't
(01:00:04):
people buying, you know, four hundred dollars worth of coyot
tags and spending money to drive out of state and
go hunt these places.
Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
And even if they are, there's ten to one white
to hunters for sure, people who are coyo first. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
So I mean that's the thing is, I don't think
the white tails had enough edge on this place to
really thrive.
Speaker 1 (01:00:24):
Lots of monotony, lots of it, lots of it.
Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
So it was tough man, and that really put me
in a spot where like my late November early December
time period like just kind of petered out and was
super slow and tough, and it kind of put a
bad taste in my mouth. To our more recent trip,
which we can probably talk about on next next week's podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Iund like a good idea. There is some excitement to
come and if you are in the South right now,
there's some positivity out there, some good things going on.
If you're in the north, sounds like there's also a
way to kill you're up there. I don't know how,
but apparently they just go south, they go eat, and
you can go to the places they eat and shoot
them because there's a lot of big deer going down still. Yeah. Anyways,
(01:01:09):
there's a lot of Southern ruts still happening, and I'm
about to try to go capitalize on that a little
bit this week, I think. But yeah, if you didn't know,
our good friend Greg doesn't talk a lot, but he
shoots the deer, and we just put out a video
on our YouTube. He kind of does this thing every year.
He's got a family place down in the hill country
where he can go and hunt and be kind of
(01:01:29):
conservative Greg's a conservative dude. He likes that and you know,
get some good footage of some deer. He's got a
lot of good deer footage, a lot of cool encounters,
a lot of deer rutting doing the thing, and he
takes a real nice buck. And so go check that out.
If you have it on our YouTube channel, it'll put
that link to that description below tall or anything else.
When you talk about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
No, I don't, I don't think so. I would just say, man,
there's a lot of there's a lot of good hunting
left this season still, and if you're a white tail hunter,
you may be kind of on the downhill. I'm not,
but you might be, and that's okay. But there's duck
hunting and all kinds of stuff to get out there
(01:02:12):
there right now, hogs whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:02:13):
Man our deerlees has got a squirrel corridor. It is
made for squirrel hunting. Really, Yes, I did not know that. Yeah,
I didn't tell you on purpose because I wanted to
hunt every year. But we can go put bands of
squirrels in our waists when we walk through the woods
down there. Really. Yeah, it's like a weird deal where
(01:02:34):
there's a whole bunch of horse apple trees down in there,
and there ain't no acrons around, so it's just like
that's what the squirrels are in there eating, and they
are everywhere, and they do get this. They like look
at you from fifteen yards away at five foot up
and just kind of look at you when you walk
through there. I might need to know about it. I
thought about she won with thirty thirty the other day.
I did. But yep, next podcast, guys, there will be
(01:03:00):
some big buck stories, so be ready for that. I
think there might be a new White Tail bum's coming
out pretty soon and pretty soon, so I can't be
held accountable for anything those guys do. But apparently it's
pretty good listen from what I hear. I haven't listened.
Speaker 2 (01:03:11):
I've heard it was coming out the day we record
this podcast, so it might be out before.
Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
How really stout? Yeah? Good deal? Okay, well remember to
check that out and remember this is your element, live
in it
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.