23-24 Deer Season Recap - Blacktail

On this episode Jake & Branson relive some of their best stories hunting blacktail over the 23-24 seasons.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Butcher's Boat podcast where the hunt meets the harvest.

(00:05):
I'm your host Jake Dilger and I'm excited to share my passion for hunting and butchering
with you.
With 12 years of experience in the field and in the shop, I have just learned a thing
or two about what it takes to be successful in both pursuits.
On this podcast we'll dive into the grit of hunting from scouting, tracking to shop placement
and recovery.
We'll also explore the art of game processing from field dressing to the final cuts and

(00:28):
everything in between.
But it's not just about the technical stuff, we're also here to share stories of ventures
from hunting trips as well as my friends and expert guests from the industry.
We'll talk about gear, strategy, and we'll talk about lessons learned along the way.
Whether you're a seasoned hunter or just starting out, whether you're a butcher or outdoorsman
or someone who just enjoys a good steak, I hope you'll join me on this journey and we'll

(00:51):
explore the intersection of wildlife management, sustainable hunting practices, and the art
of transforming wild game into delicious meals.
So tune in, subscribe, and let's get started on this adventure together.
I'm excited to share my knowledge, experience, and passion with you, and I look forward to
hearing from you too.
Let's get into it.
Alive.
Yep, we're alive.

(01:12):
Welcome back to the Butchersbow podcast.
I'm your host, Jay Fielder, and today I'm honored to be here with Frank Madura.
Wow, time number three, still honored.
Now I'm honored.
Now I'm honored.
Now I'm honored.
Just a co-host pretty much at this point, I think.

(01:36):
Pretty much, yeah.
We're not going to have another guest on unless I'm on.
That's how co-hosting.
That's how that works?
So what are we talking about today?
So today I thought we would give a recap of hunting season because right now in the east

(01:56):
coast in the Midwest is whitetail season for a lot of people, and I'm kind of sad to be
honest because I've seen all these people kill these giant whitetail bucks, and we don't
really have any deer hunting on the horizon for us.
So I thought we'd give a good recap of California A-zone and what we did for Blacktail this
year.

(02:16):
Yep, no more hunting for us.
We have a really early season.
We have a really early, both stupid early season.
We have the earliest deer season, one of the earliest deer seasons in the nation with our
archery season starting in July, which is hot, dry, brutal hunting, but good time to

(02:38):
get on Blacktail around here because before they lose their velvet, they're a lot easier
to find.
But yeah, rifle season, what are rifle season is over in September?
Yeah, and I'm hoping to change the fact that we don't have any hunting by next year and
find some different hunts that we can go on hopefully at a state and try to find some kind

(03:02):
of either deer or elk.
Yeah, we're...
Get on something like that.
I've ever been told by a mutual friend of ours that I need to convince you to get out
and I'm going to work on that, so we'll see how that goes.
Yeah, we're both at the age and point in our lives now where we can afford to go hunt
out of state.
So I think at least me, I've had my fun in A-zone and I'll hunt every year still in

(03:29):
A-zone.
But yeah, time to go out and I want to get some elk to eat, man.
I don't even need a bull, I don't even need a trophy bull.
I just want to fill the freezer with some elk.
Well, and that's one thing, because there's an opportunity I've learned about recently.
We could also go to a draw unit where you can get a tag that's good for a spike or a
cow, but it's in a unit that's so restricted because it has trophies in it.

(03:55):
So it'd be surrounded by big bulls, just not allowed to shoot them, you have to kill a
rag horn or a cow, which I'm perfectly fine with, especially for being so early on in
our elk hunting career.
Yeah, I got to get our feet wet.
Definitely.
And like you said, it fills the freezer, but you also get the experience of being around
those bigger, mature trophy bulls.

(04:15):
Yeah, you're in the atmosphere of it.
You got to learn about it.
That's what I want to see.
You get more encounters, more experience on the ground.
It's more than you can learn from from any YouTube video or any mapping software hunting
app.
What state do you want to go to?
What state are you looking at?
Because I know a few different ones.

(04:35):
Honestly, I was thinking probably either Utah or Wyoming.
Gotcha.
But that's still yet to be seen.
It's still really want to do more research and figure something out.
I was told Idaho doesn't have points.
So for going into it with no points, having no advantage over anybody else in these states,

(05:00):
I think I was going to do Idaho for sure.
And then maybe Colorado, just because I have friends that know the area or could put us
in an area.
That is local knowledge is always a big plus.
Yeah.
Idaho, however, I think the draw might be in the soon try to hoe.

(05:21):
I think December 10th or something like that.
Yeah, so it's coming up.
So if we're going to do that, I want to get on that.
And it's a lottery system.
So I'm pretty sure you have just as many odds as everybody else to draw something.
You're talking about resident versus non-resident.
Yeah.
I think the resident system is going to be a lot different for them than it is for us.

(05:44):
But Colorado, no out of state points anymore.
No out of state.
Sorry.
No out of state over the counter.
That's right.
So that was kind of originally what I was going to do.
But yeah, not anymore.
Yeah, that plan got axed pretty quick.
But for a long time, I had no desire to leave A-zone.
I love chasing big black tail.
It's so fun.

(06:05):
And there, you can also do that in other states too, like Oregon.
Yeah, yeah, but you know, that's something you can't hunt.
You'll hunt better in your home turf.
True.
And Oregon doesn't make them as big as where we make them.
So also, I think we should probably clarify, because we'll eventually be posting pictures
of a lot of these black tail we shoot here in A-zone.

(06:27):
These are not 100% black tail.
These are binge leg bucks that have been cross bred throughout the years with Mule Deer,
California Mule Deer.
And even around here, some weird stuff.
The Hearst Ranch brought in a bunch of exotics back in the day.

(06:47):
And people think that some of these coastal deer are still cross bred with some of these
exotic varieties that have been brought in.
So we did some beef for a guy the other day that said he's seen some white ones come out
of this breeding.
It's like albinos.
Albinos.

(07:07):
Yeah.
And it's got Sam Bardir over there and Muflan sheep, all stuff that got away from the Hearst
Ranch.
So some weird stuff, but mostly binge leg black tails.
And they're, you know, I'd love to know the percentage.
I think the further you get towards Cariso, the more Mule Deer they have in them.

(07:31):
And then as you get closer to the coast, the more black tail they have in them.
But the areas that I'm hunting are largely binge leg bucks.
So they have the advantage of getting bigger than your straight black tail, which is another
reason why I don't really have a desire to go to Oregon.
Oregon makes giant, big, giant, heavy dark horn black tails.
But I still think the binge leg black tails get the biggest, get the widest.

(07:55):
They have the more of the Mule Deer looking frame rather than like a cagey, tight horned,
like true black tail.
Now on the west side of like Passa, a lot of those deer are still probably almost pretty
pure because you can just look at them and you can tell they're quite a bit different
than the plains bucks out here.

(08:17):
But yeah, no, haven't really had the desire to go out of state.
Like hunting black tail too much.
It's all about the opportunities though.
Trying to find good opportunities is a little bit harder in this state, a lot of it.
The public land isn't really as, I don't know, doesn't pay off as much as the private

(08:38):
land grown here?
Yeah, poor management.
Our public lands are largely sagebrush.
There's very few huntable areas that are high quality, habitat dense deer areas.
They just don't seem to hold there.
The deer seem to move through them if anything.
Yeah, and like, I mean, they're smart critters.

(09:00):
They're just always on the, they're always on the private side.
A lot of these public places have good private ranches connected to them.
But then, you know, I've been through four or five different permissions in the last
five or six years because, is it?

(09:20):
Yeah.
Okay.
I've been through four or five permit permissions in the last four or five years just because
keeping a permission on a place is hard because these properties are, people are buying and
selling like crazy.
Hunting is popular where we're from.
So if you have a place with Blacktail, probably someone's got family that already hunts it.
So finding a place to hunt is half the battle.

(09:41):
Yeah, finding that opportunity is just crazy hard.
And these Blacktail are in hubs in the county.
They're not in, they're not spread out.
They're in hubs.
There's certain ranches that have, you know, a massive population compared to others.
And they've basically found the places that don't have vineyards and don't have vineyard

(10:04):
like depredation tax.
Well, the ones that do, typically they'll guide them out and sell them for crazy amounts
of money as a guide in hot.
Yeah.
Almost any big ranch around here is going to already have a private contract with a guide
service.
And a lot of it's pigs, but some of it is Blacktail.
Blacktail is probably a quarter of it for most of these guys.

(10:27):
The pigs were inundated with wild pigs around here.
But if you can find a place, it's fun.
It's fun.
We need to get on another wild pig hunt.
Yeah, they hit the hay.
They hit the hay.
They hit my hay when the grain pops.

(10:50):
And that's about it.
They stay in the hills.
So that's not until probably the March, right?
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, the March.
Easy to get to them at that point.
But besides that, they're all year.
They're just not turnable.
They're coming in in the middle of the night.
And I don't have a huge desire to eat the wild pigs.
We do.
We usually shoot a small one.

(11:11):
I usually just let buddies come out and try to get them when the hay's popping.
But yeah, we had a couple of good Blacktail years.
Should we go over our last couple deer we shot?
Yeah, sure.
This year I shot my biggest deer to date.

(11:33):
And almost my second biggest deer.
I shot my biggest deer and almost followed up with my second biggest deer, which the
neighbor ended up shot and shooting.
But the one I ended up with was one of these permissions that we're about to lose because
the property's going up for sale.
But my cousin and I have had permission here for two or three years now.

(11:58):
And we've taken two trophy sized Blacktail and two other, well really three trophy sized
Blacktail and two other small ones.
Big piece of rolling oaks, wild oats connected to a vineyard.
And they kind of live in the back and then at night they'll come up to the vineyard.

(12:21):
We don't ever really end up seeing them in the vineyard.
But the funny thing is, the last year we got a buck.
We found this canyon that's close enough to the vineyard that they can make it there in
five, ten minutes walking.
But not so far.

(12:41):
You know, it's convenient, it's hidden, but it's close to where the vineyard is where
they're feeding.
So when we found this spot and first got in there, we kind of snuck in quietly and there's
this solo tree.
As soon as you get over this knoll to drop down into it, there's a little drop off from
an old wash.
And at the bottom there's an oak tree that sits underneath this, kind of underneath this

(13:03):
wash.
And we, I figured it'd be where they were if they were in there.
We were taking one of his friends to try to find him a meat buck.
And we walked straight to that tree, peeked over the corner and sure enough there was
one there.
So we got that one down last year.
And then this was always kind of like our last place we checked when we had this property.

(13:24):
So we had hunted throughout the morning and we were at our very back corner and my cousin
and his buddy are behind me and my buddy.
And we're kind of both working this.
We push canyons a lot to find the black tail because they will stick and stay.
So we're kind of, you know, one guy's halfway up, the other guys, the other two guys are

(13:47):
three quarters of the way up.
One guy is on top.
We're kind of pushing towards the bottom and my cousin whistles at me and he's got first
pick on all these bucks.
I mean, he had permission on this property before any of us.
And we looked down and there's three bucks fighting so close together that you just see
a pile of horns and they're all looking at us.
You can't really see what's going on.

(14:08):
And Dylan couldn't pick out one that he liked because last year he shot a 20 and a half inch
four by four.
So he's looking for a big one this year.
You can't really pick out one he likes and they get up and take off running.
The first one that runs out is a two year old and the second one that runs out is a three
and a half year old.
The third one that runs out is a six, seven year old, 25 inch fork, uh, bases the size

(14:35):
of baseball bats and they're dead sprint up the side of this hill.
And I called out to Dylan to shoot the back one.
And at some point through all of this Dylan never got an eyes on the back one.
So he says, I don't want it.
You shoot it as he's here running up the hill.
So I thought, okay, I can't believe he's passing this buck, but he's giving me permission

(14:56):
to shoot it.
I'm definitely going to try to shoot it.
Well, first one right over his back, second one right over his back.
And this is not a far shot, 150 yards, but they're at a dead sprint, but he's on a, he's
on a steady angle where I feel like I can get a good shot at him and I was going for
a neck frontal.
Like I was going for, he was three quartering away and I was going for either neck or high

(15:21):
shoulder so that I didn't wound him and have them.
You know, I wasn't going for a body shot.
I was going for a triple.
And if I'm going to hit this, if I'm going to take a shot at a moving buck, I'm going
to shoot at a spot that I know if I hit him, he's not going to run off and die somewhere.
And all four, which is the capacity of my gun went right over the crest of his shoulder.
I just could not get far enough in front of him.

(15:43):
So I watched the biggest bus.
Was he climbing a hill?
Yeah, climbing a hill at a 45 to my right.
He got to the fence line and jumped the fence and I, we're just weak at that point, we just
watched him take off onto the neighbor.
And so I was bummed.
My buddy was there who doesn't have permission on this place with no guns.
So he just watched this all happen and first really like big buck that I'd shot at and

(16:09):
missed.
So I'm bummed and we're going back to the, to the, to our last chance Canyon, right?
And so we say, well, obviously let's go check that tree before we go home.
The one that's kind of underneath that wash.
How far away is this tree from where you just had this, this gun battle?
This is probably almost a mile more.
It's a good, it's a good buffer.

(16:30):
Yeah.
So this place has some deed draws.
So it's a noise is not different directions.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So we go to check this tree and my cousin kind of goes down on the left side and I kind
of go down on the right side of this little knoll and the trees at the base of this knoll
at the, in the center.
And my cousin gets around to where he can see a buck and I look over and he's already

(16:54):
on his knees with his click to safety and he shoots.
Me and my buddy, Wyatt are above the tree on the other side and we see this three by
three with a six inch kicker off its left side over well outside of his ears come flying
by us at like six yards away.

(17:15):
Cause we were on his escape path.
So he comes by us at six yards.
We could tell he was not wounded or anything.
No blood, no shot, clean miss.
We thought so it goes up and over and I was able to get a shot on it going up the hill
that happened to hit it high shoulder where I was trying to shoot the other one and dropped

(17:35):
it.
So we're all celebrating get the buck drug out, get it down to the truck.
And this is by far the biggest buck I've ever shot.
We're all kind of in awe a dropper on a black tail or a kicker on a black tail.
Anything's crazy.
The kicker ended up having a little fork in the end.
So it was like a six inch kicker off his back left with a little fork on the end and we're

(18:00):
sitting there thinking, holy crap, this is crazy.
Dylan's kind of bummed.
He's happy we got it, but he's bummed he misses or looking and he hit the gear, but
it had just gone through his neck cleanly and hit nothing.
Just like poke the hole in his, just in his hide.
Just not like pierced him.

(18:20):
Yep.
And probably maybe long term might have died because of how he hit him, but wasn't going
to die anytime soon.
So same tree two years in a row, walked right to it and produced another.
This one was 22 by 18.

(18:42):
Inside spread was 22.
Outside spread, I don't even know.
I'm not going to go off that because that kicker makes him probably 26 or seven or something
like that, but big old heavy three by three missing teeth in the front, kicker on the
back, biggest buck I'd ever shot.
Couldn't be happier.
Well then later on in the year, my uncle who lives on the property that I live on, which

(19:06):
is much smaller, much harder to hunt, but also has good opportunity to deer.
Also with manicure and to keep the water up.
We don't let people drive in the back just to try to create a habitat for them.
Well it slowly kind of paid off, but it's hard to hunt.
My uncle comes and tells me, my cousin that he saw a four by five in what we call Leon's

(19:27):
flat, which is really right over the hill from the houses.
So then maybe my cousin thought, well, maybe we should focus a little bit here.
So had all my cameras going already, have three cell cams on the property and eventually
went back to check a camera.
Two weeks after my uncle said he saw this buck went back to check a camera and he's

(19:49):
laying seventy first for whatever reason, I look over my right shoulder, right as I
walk up to my camera and he's laying seventy yards away in the brush there and immediately
I can see the four on one side.
I can't really tell what's going on on the other side.
He's not very wide.
He's like, he's super tall, but he's inside his ears and he's not very heavy.

(20:11):
I had already shot something like that could definitely fly under the radar at a distance.
Oh, for sure.
In the shade, in the sagebrush, you know, you're kind of looking through a three by 12 scope.
If you're seeing ears sticking out, all people immediately just pass them up right away.
Yeah.
And that's what I was thinking, man, I've already shot a giant buck.
I don't need more meat.
I don't need to be greedy.
I'd love to let the population appear, bro.

(20:31):
I'm going to get a steady read.
Yeah.
So I'm thinking four genetic, four genetic on either side for a black tail is great.
So I'm thinking, you know what?
If this deer stands up and gives me a perfect shot, then I'll take it.
But I'm going to get a steady, get eyes on him and just try to evaluate like what he
is before I shoot him.
Because again, I don't want to get greedy.

(20:53):
I already have a big buck.
I've got plenty of meat.
While I'm sitting there watching and in the same motion, this deer stands up and is before
his feet hit the ground.
He's already in a full sprint and he is gone out the back of this patch of sagebrush.
And I mean gone.
So I creep over slow thinking, oh, he'll meet me to be on the other side now creep over

(21:16):
the next hill.
No.
And I'm walking out on the, this is 6,700 yards away on the main road of our drive way.
And I see him, he had made a full lap around the property and he was going back to where
he originally was, but he knew I was following him the whole time.
So we saw what sagebrush patch he went into.
And I called my buddy Wyatt, who's on his way home from work, passes my house.

(21:39):
And I said, Wyatt, you got to come push this patch of sagebrush for me.
I think, I think this buck's in here.
I think we can get him out.
Well, I'm hearing this buck in there.
He's like coughing.
He's out of breath.
So Wyatt goes through it one time, nothing.
Wyatt goes through it another time, nothing.
We both go through it with my cousin watching, nothing.
Cannot turn, cannot push this thing out.

(21:59):
Can't turn him back up.
So that night, I told Jamie, I'm going to sit the back corner of the property.
So I'm up in the back corner of the property about six o'clock and I get a ring on myself
on a vibration and I'm thinking nothing of it.
And so about 40 minutes later, I think, I better check who texted me.

(22:21):
That buck was at my water hole while I was sitting in the back corner of the property,
450 yards away.
And I thought, OK, I'll sneak over there and see if I can get to him.
Well, snuck over there was gone.
I didn't want to push him out again.
So I left him.
The next morning I debated going back out, but I had work.
I thought, I really shouldn't cancel on work.

(22:41):
My client's nice.
They wouldn't care, but I really shouldn't cancel on work.
So I was planning to go to work.
So I took a shower, got out of the shower, game campings again.
He's there at 6.15 in the morning drinking.
So I run out there real quick just to see if I can catch him there at the water hole,
not there.
So I thought, all right, that's fine.
He's on a pretty good pattern.
I'll go to work, come back kind of this afternoon and then tomorrow morning.

(23:03):
Well, I hunted him for seven hunts in a row.
Four days, morning and night, and I never saw him again.
And I thought, dang it, he's gone.
He moved off with another doe or whatever.
And he was, I had gotten pictures of him by that time.
And he was, what I thought was a four by three.
It looked like he had three on the right side, but nothing crazy, kind of spindly, not super

(23:25):
heavy, not something like old and nasty that I would want to shoot.
So I was not too upset about it really.
I thought, cool, this year I'll breed everything and then we'll have four genetic back in this
area.
Well, last day of season, like I do every year, I text the neighbors to see what everybody
kind of got.
And Monday morning, I get a text back and two properties down, which is a pretty good ways

(23:49):
away.
There's a 650 acre piece in between us and this other place.
Well, they sent me a picture of some old guy holding this four by four because he had
a kicker off his three.
So I would have had a two kicker box in the same year, a four by three and a four by four

(24:12):
and a three by four opposite sides.
So I asked the guys, what did he measure?
He said 19 and a half.
I said, bullshit.
He goes outside.
I got, that's what I thought.
So I was, I still think I was right to not shoot him.
I don't think I have, I think it was the right choice to let him live and let him try to

(24:35):
breed.
Well, the thing is you never knew what could happen.
So you gave him at least the opportunity to hopefully stay down your property or in the
area and to have covered more does.
Yeah.
And you know what?
He was doing it.
He had six does when they shot him.
So he would have had the whole valley.
He would have had every dough in that valley because nobody was going to.
Well, hopefully they let him finish.
It's all like.

(24:56):
Hopefully, dude.
Hopefully.
Hopefully you got it.
Yeah.
That's the ethical thing to do.
Feel those bucks.
I mean, yeah, that's the gentleman thing.
Of course.
Yeah.
But he got, he's, he's gone.
He's gone.
Um, not, you know, always upset about stuff like that a little bit.
I mean, at least he had those encounters.

(25:18):
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
Had those encounters and gave him a chance to live.
The guy that got him, I guess, had been on like a 10 year dry spell and hadn't killed
him in a way to come out of it.
Yeah.
And he had already missed like four or five deer that year because he couldn't hold his
gun up.
He had some big, I noticed in the picture he had some big heavy, looked like some long
range.
I think he said it was a 308, but it looked like it was a bull barrel, heavy, looked like

(25:44):
fiber stock with a big old like night force coat on it or something.
And I'm thinking, well, yeah, no wonder you can hold it up.
That thing's probably 12 pounds.
Shot him from your porch.
And he was tickled to death that he got him.
So good for that guy.
I'm happy for that guy.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
And it's, I'm glad at least you knew because on my side of things, I have no contact with

(26:07):
any neighbors at all.
I would never know.
Yeah, I would still be hoping this year.
Hopefully he came back.
I would be hunting him for four years.
I'd be, yeah, my trail came out there for the entire year.
Like, oh, is that him?
No, that's not him.
Yeah.
Or I would talk myself crazy and be like, oh, I think that's him.
Yeah.
It's just a different deer.
I'm just going a year away from going, just blowing up too.

(26:28):
Because he was probably four and a half, five years old, which is, you know, that's a, I
mean, I'd accept that's of age for sure.
I mean, most of them probably don't make it to three around.
Exactly.
I say anything past three.
I deem a mature buck.
And then some, but some make it to seven.
And I don't, you know, I don't know, maybe older, but it's pretty darn old.

(26:52):
The oldest one I've seen was the one I killed three by four, the three by three with the
kicker.
And he was missing some front teeth and most, most everything was worn down the gums.
When I dropped that one off at the taxidermist for you, and I can, I can vouch that thing
is a true, it's everything you'd want.
It's the uniqueness of the kicker.

(27:12):
It's got the width.
He's got the height.
He's got the mass.
He is the quintessential like trophy black tail.
Yeah.
It's very possible that I never, she went bigger than that.
Or more.
Yeah.
Hopefully you can go for something more unique at least.
Yeah.
But it's going to be tough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was, I've always wanted a four.

(27:32):
I want a true four.
You want that symmetry.
Yes.
Yeah.
I want that black tail four by four with deep forks, not some little pissant for, I want
that deep four.
And I've seen plenty of them after season.
And therefore a while, we had two or three years where that genetic was really strong.

(27:52):
And we'd see every year we'd see two of them after season and some not slouches, 20 plus
four by four is heavy old deer.
But they got the walk.
I got a bunch of pictures of them.
We should, we should at some point, the next move, the next black tail podcast we have,

(28:12):
we'll throw up all these trail camp pictures because I've got 15 or 20 trophy black tail
on trail camera that probably died of old age.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Just never got to shoot them.
Sad.
Sad, but also they deserve their, their chance to.
Yeah.
No, they definitely have it.

(28:33):
Yeah.
That's one reason they die of old age is because they're so smart and elusive.
Yeah.
And, and can avoid predators and cars all year.
Something with black tail probably more than anything.
I mean, I don't know.
I can't speak to experience, but you've got to pass, you've got to pass here to find one
because they're, the big ones are going to come out last week of season if you're lucky.

(28:57):
And you might have already seen four or five bucks earlier, but if you shoot the first
year you see around here, you'll never even know that the six, seven year olds exist.
I have to agree with that.
Sadly, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that, and then the year before I shot one there that was, that was a solid four by

(29:21):
three, but very, very, I wouldn't even call them forks to make him a four.
Little kickers, little sticks, little stickers, more than anything made him a four.
And I was smitten with that back.
I was, I was thrilled with him.
Didn't get him mounted, Euro mounted him, which I'm glad I did.
I already have two mounts on the wall, about to be three.

(29:43):
But that was a similar kind of thing.
We saw him about to leave that day.
And funny thing is he was in the same canyon, that little tree I've been talking about,
the little, the little honeypot.
When we shot that smaller buck that year, he took off, off the other side towards the
back of the property.

(30:03):
And so we did another loop and ended up finding him going over a hill into this, the biggest
draw on the canyon and everybody had to leave.
I was the only person that could stay in hunt.
My cousin had to take his buddy back to his truck, which was pretty good ways away.
So I said, just drop, I could see that the buddy he was with was in there.

(30:23):
So I said, just drop me off.
I'm going to huck it over this hill and see if I can drop over the top of them.
And it just worked perfectly.
As soon as I got to the top of that hill, looking down into these trees, I saw his buddy
and I just waited long enough that I could finally pick him out.
And he was in the nastiest little patch of sage or little, uh, little patch of buck brush
mixed with like a little baby.

(30:45):
He was just stuck into something and that's just what they do.
They don't like to move.
They like to hide.
They'll let you walk past them before they move.
But it just happened to be that I was right over the top of him, 150 yard shot, easy pot
shot, dropped him, was able to go back and actually get a Kubota for him and drove in
and picked him up with a Kubota.

(31:05):
One we shot this year, me and Wyatt, that dragged like a mile.
And we had, we had blisters on our feet so bad after that, we didn't expect to do much
walking that property is not really much walking.
We ended up dragging that thing.
And let me tell you, when those deer get old, they get heavy, golly, they get heavy.
This was by far the biggest deer I'd ever killed.

(31:27):
And Jake still got one bigger than he loaded on the quad by himself.
It was, yeah, so I might as well tell that story right now.
Yeah, that's your biggest buck today.
And my first buck.
That's right.
Yeah.
That's right.
So that, that buck was last year, 2022 and now 2023.

(31:51):
Yeah, three.
Yeah, 23.
Yeah, because well, for the last four years, I've been hunting the same property.
And I've been, since I got trail cam pictures of a three by two, I've been sodding after
him for, for a while now.
Real big, real mature, three by two, a lot of mass, kind of angular forward.

(32:14):
It is, yeah, antler.
Yeah.
Kind of similar to a white tail or a traditional black tail, not really that Middle East type
setup.
So I've been looking for that one for a long time.
That area is really black.
They all really look, they do heavy black tail.
I've seen two real nice, I would classify them as trophy black tail during archery season,

(32:38):
about 35 yards uphill in brush, where I couldn't get a shot.
And I was at a stalemate there for probably 10, 15 minutes.
Oh, that's brutal.
Yeah.
Because they're right there and you can't do anything about it.
And the second I made a move and stepped out, they, they, they booked it over the horizon.
And that place is thick.
It is the thickest property I've ever seen, mostly poison oak, a lot of just down brush

(33:01):
and I mean, you can't see 10 yards sometimes.
No, it's dense forest bed.
It's yeah.
With a couple open fields.
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
And that's only because the property owner actually does fire control once a year and
just disses everything on that he can.
All this other stuff with the thick oak underbrush like he can't touch.

(33:22):
Yeah, it's brutal.
So it's perfect hiding places for these deer.
So that buck was very old, mature, probably six, seven years old.
I got him probably second to last day of season.
So it's on track with your experience and your pattern was mature.

(33:42):
Do you're not come out till the later or you're not going to release right into them
until later.
That one, I've been seeing a buck in that area all that week and I kept going every
day after work and just couldn't get a good shot opportunity.
And I was still hunting with a bow during general, even that year.

(34:04):
And this was either the first or maybe the second hunt I brought my rifle with.
Just because I wanted to get my feet wet.
I've seen, I had plenty of shot opportunities given if I had a rifle.
Yeah, you could have shot probably 10, I remember.
Yeah, but I couldn't because they were all, there was stuff in the way or they were 100

(34:24):
yards plus out.
So that's main thing I was doing was looking to try and get a opportunity 100 yards plus
or within granted.
But something I knew I could do with a rifle.
And the wind changes constantly on that property, but there's only a couple places where you

(34:44):
can hike in undetected on road that it's still dirt, but it's graded to the point where
there's no leave underbrush and you can walk in silently undetected.
However the wind has to be right on the given day or time that you're coming into the property.
Yeah, the terrain is steep, the thermals are insane.
And the leaves like nothing I've ever seen before.

(35:05):
Yeah, the live dry leaf beds are two feet deep in some spots.
Yeah, it is just almost impossible to move off the road undetected.
Yeah.
Even in the places that are disc, there's still remnants of weeds that make sound.
Yeah.
A lot of it's got goat heads or a Russian missile.
Star, yeah.

(35:26):
And it's just, it's some nasty stuff to go through.
It's blacktail heaven.
That's what they love.
Yeah.
And I think that's one reason that in the water is they stick so close to it around with
surrounding vineyards with deer fence, but it's open on some side so they can come and
go as they please, they just tend to stay, which is, which is good for us.

(35:46):
But anyways, I was going all the way to the back quarter of the property.
I believe it's 250, 260 acres.
And I was going up a graded road where I knew my wind was correct because the previous
couple of days I've been busted on wind constantly.
And so I decided to come in at this other angle where I knew my wind would be appropriate.

(36:09):
And I was coming up a graded road with thick poison oak on both sides.
I mean, you can't see 10 yards through this stuff on either side of this road with tall
oak trees, dense canopy.
And I remember seeing some movement up the road to the right.

(36:31):
So it was actually taking off the road, but into one of those top dist fields that was
on the hilltop.
And all I saw was this massive spread of what I thought was three points on one side and
because he was kind of, he was sideways.
So I thought it was a three by two.

(36:52):
And I was able to get a range on him just barely before he looked at me as 120 yards
away uphill, but I could see that I had a decent backstop of another hill behind him.
So I just put my rifle up offhand at six power and took my shot like a workshop, like killing
a beef, but a little bit further away, much louder also and no ear protection.

(37:17):
Not used to that too much.
As soon as I had the shot ring off, I saw him disappear out of my view behind all the
poison oak.
And I didn't have any logic to this at whatsoever because I'd never done that before.
I took off running up that, that graded road as fast as I could rifle on hand, everything
I would have to just sprinting.
Yeah.

(37:37):
I just want eyes on it.
And I had to go probably another 200 yards up the road and then do a steep turn to the
right into that dist field.
And I put up my, my binos and I could see him plowed up right where he stood.
He just dropped.
Right.
Yeah.
Did not move.
Did not move right where he was.
And so I ran up on him and completely finished.

(38:00):
It was good.
Everything was great.
Yeah.
And I love the landowner know, Hey, I took a shot, got a deer, got a buck down.
I'm going to try and get him out of here.
When you walked up to him, were the horns what you thought they were going to be?
No.
So what happened?
What happened?
Always get smaller.
That's why I hear at least ground shrinkage of the thing.

(38:22):
This was still a beautiful buck.
Super unique buck.
He's about estimated six or seven years old, had no teeth left.
One side, his left side giant base into a giant fork with a huge eye guard.
And I mean giant.
He's not lying when he says giant.
We'll post a picture of this thing.

(38:43):
He's almost 20 inches tall and, but doesn't that very wide.
And then on the other side, same solid base, but it's broken off into a small stubby fork.
So he's, I wouldn't even say broken off.
Maybe, maybe in velvet broken off, but it's almost, well, he still had velvet on him too.

(39:05):
Yeah.
And it was almost like, it's like when a buck gets hit by a car or gets shot in the ass.
Okay.
They're one side.
Diverted rows.
Yes, exactly.
Yeah.
That I could definitely see that being a possibility, but super, super different buck.
I've never seen him before on camera.
Never seen him before in person before that day.
I've never seen a deer like that.

(39:26):
It didn't ever.
I mean, I've never seen a mutated deer like that get that big.
The one side, if he was, if his one side match the other side, he's an absolute trophy.
Still is a trophy, but the one side is huge.
Oh, it would have been amazing to see him in symmetrical form.
20 inch.
And he's every bit of 20 inches.

(39:47):
When you look at a picture of him, 20 inches for a black tail to be 20 inches tall is crazy.
And this thing's got beer can bases and a nasty eye guard.
And the other side just grew like a club.
Yeah.
It's almost rounded off tips on this little tree trunk type base.
He's basically just got a small little, probably four or five inch split on the other side.

(40:09):
Yeah.
And it's no slouch either.
The base on that side.
He probably could have messed up another deer with that.
Yeah.
And then he could have just stubby, he could have japted in there.
Little dagger.
Yeah, exactly.
A deer like that, I would expect being that old, he's probably killed a decent amount
of bucks in a fight or hurt them at least.
Yeah.
That's like a big spike.
Big spikes or trouble.
But definitely his time to get removed from the gene pool.

(40:32):
Yeah.
He'd seen and done his service and he covered plenty of does in his day.
Yeah.
And he was what, 140 pound carcass?
Well, so that's the thing.
I go get this, I go get an ATV because the landowners, generous enough to let me borrow
is this Honda four wheeler.
Should have got the Kubota.
And yeah, it wasn't up for grabs.
I don't care, it was great.

(40:53):
I rode this quad back to the spot, got it within like 10 feet of this buck where I'm
being down.
You know, ideal.
I drag him uphill to get him to the quad.
It took me 35, 40 minutes to get him onto the back of the quad.
This steer was no joke, 200 pounds live.

(41:16):
I almost broke my back.
I mean, I was trying everything I could.
I was standing on the back of the quad and deadlifting his horns up on.
I could get his head on, but the second I got up to the shoulder, wasn't it, wasn't
having it.
Yeah.
I think what I ended up having to do was I got his head up onto the rack and I put
my feet on the engine block opposite side of this quad.

(41:37):
Oh yeah.
And just rode him onto the back.
Yeah.
When he was on the back, I didn't have anything to tie him down.
So I had his, I had him basically in a sleeper pole.
Ah, because he didn't get away.
Yeah.
I wasn't letting go of him.
Full Nelson.
Yeah.
You know, I shouldn't name him Nelson.
Anyways, Adam, yeah, choked out, driving him back with one hand in the dark with this

(42:02):
quad.
He slipped off once too.
So I had to reload again on a hillside.
So you didn't have to load 200 pounds.
You had to load 400 pounds.
Yeah, pretty much.
My back was screaming.
Yeah, but by the time I got him all fully field dressed at the shop and hung up, gutless
hide-off head off, 138 pound carcass.

(42:26):
Dang.
That's a big one.
That's a big one.
Yeah, it takes him to get that old to get that big.
That's crazy.
My neck around, no joke, dwarfed my 8-inch breaking knife.
And I got pictures of that.
So I got an 8-inch Victorinox breaking knife where I cut this neck in a cross-section and

(42:48):
the knife blade is still gobbled up by the mass of his neck alone.
Oh yeah.
Was he, were his man parts full?
Did he have large testicles?
Large for who?
I don't have a point of reference here.
I would say for a deer or a lamb.

(43:11):
Let's go animal reference.
Let's stay away from the animal reference.
This is a family podcast.
This is a family podcast.
Incordance to a lamb, I've seen Bigger on a Ram for sure.
But they weren't, I wouldn't say small.
They definitely showed while he was, if he was to be walking, I could definitely see

(43:31):
him.
In underneath, I'm gorgeous.
Gotcha.
That's why I asked because the one that I shot, I would say avocado pit sized.
That's normal.
So yeah.
Yeah, that's normal.
The one I shot that was big body was.
Hung.
Raisins.
Really?
Raisins.
Old.
It was very old.

(43:51):
I think it was like head low T or something because it was an old deer, but its horns weren't
that big and they weren't that heavy or anything.
But he was like 129 pounds carcass.
Big fat and had zero gaminess smell.

(44:13):
That's how mine was too.
So it was like.
It was so tender in the backstrap.
Not even joking.
And he had about an inch and a half quarter, inch and a half to almost three quarter back
fat layer over his top sirloin.
Yeah, I remember every deer that I had shot over there at this property that Jake shot
his on was great fat man.

(44:34):
Like super fat.
They in just delicious too.
It is hard to.
That's a Cabernet Blaine venison right there.
There you go.
Yeah.
Aged.
Yeah.
Like fine wine.
Exactly.
So yeah, it was definitely hard to get that one out.

(44:55):
Even with a vehicle.
I don't know.
It probably took me two, two good trips to get them out.
Yeah.
So this year you said screw it and broke them down in there, huh?
Yeah.
So similar, very close to the same spot this year.
I was looking for a similar caliber deer.
I was sitting up on the same road looking out over across the valley about 300 yards

(45:21):
glancing because I've seen deer in that area before too where I've tried stalking with
a bow but that part's the exact opposite.
So open you can't get close to them.
There's nothing to hide behind.
There's one singular tree in the middle of this valley.
Yeah.
And I the closest I could get to this wide fork was about 100 yards crawling on my belly

(45:41):
and he kept feeding away from me.
In Star Thistle.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Fire Ants.
Yeah.
I got him alive.
Rattlesnakes.
I mean I couldn't get a shot.
So anyways I was glancing from further away trying to entice one of those deer and get
a shot opportunity on them and I was actually cracking into a bag of beef jerky when I looked

(46:02):
just off to my left down the fire road 60 yards and there was a buck just staring at
me.
Didn't know what I was but you could definitely tell he was curious.
You know what he thought?
He thought this guy likes beef.
I'm safe.
This guy's a beef.
Is that it?
This guy's not a venison eater.
Yeah.
I'm not the one I'm looking for the rifles for.
Yeah.
This is kind of embarrassing.

(46:22):
I'll just tell it though.
Yeah.
60 yards.
This buck's staring me down and I'm so excited that I put my rifle up.
I dry fired on this buck.
Oh you clicked on him.
I clicked on him.
Oh yeah.
And he's all men there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I had an empty chamber on my rifle.
I took a nice dry fire on him for sure.

(46:43):
How did it feel?
Good clean break.
Oh beautiful.
Clean like glass.
And I realized he didn't move and there was no bang so I racked my bolt and the deer stood
there.
And by the time I dried fire loaded my rifle and he was still staring at me this thing,
he was asking for it.
Yeah.
The same.
Yeah.

(47:03):
He gave him a fair chance.
Definitely.
Decent width and is all I saw through the scope to be honest.
I just saw that this was a wide buck.
He was legal.
I was going to take a shot.
So I pulled the trigger and in the all the you know second and a half of chaos, all I
see is a dust cloud from where he ripped and just took off.

(47:25):
Yeah.
And I was just heartbroken because I had never shot one that ran before.
So you thought they all just fall.
I thought if you shot him right they just fall right where they lay wherever they stood.
They just lay down basically.
So I start walking cautiously down the road quietly trying to see if to get eyes on this

(47:48):
buck where he wins.
See if he piled up or if he's heard and walking away.
But I felt that it was a solid vital shot that it didn't go anywhere else.
I didn't miss.
I didn't high-spire.
Dry fire felt so good you figured you hit him.
Yeah.
No, I had a good practice shot for sure.
And I get to the site where the buck was standing and there is a good probably eight

(48:15):
inch circle on the ground of blood.
Where you shot him?
Right where he was standing.
Where he took off from and already got hit.
Wow.
Surprised he bled that fast.
Oh big spot of blood.
And it was already starting to like get.
Collagulate.
Yeah, I get dark almost.
So I was like, huh, I always hear you have dark blood liver shot, you know, white blood

(48:39):
oxygenated from the lungs.
But that's all from our tree.
I don't know if this is the same for rifle or not because it was a lot of trauma for
the shot with the 308, you know.
100 yards.
60 yards.
60 yards.
Yeah, that thing hit like a semi truck.
Yeah.
So I see that pile of blood and I immediately say, I just got a fall on the blood trail.

(49:01):
And I actually see that in part of the graded road where it's still soft, I can see track
too.
So I just start finding drops of blood every five yards or so.
Yeah.
Mixed in with the tracks.
And I just had to go super slow.
And every time I found a spot of blood, I'd have to look at like a five foot radius and

(49:23):
just find another one and another one.
And then finally I get to the edge of the road where he dived off and went downhill,
you know, path of least resistance into the thick concealment.
And I started going in there and I started looking and by the time I got into all this
thick stuff, it was dark.
Like I couldn't see anything, even with a flashlight headlamp.
And I'm thinking like lions, coyotes.

(49:44):
Yeah.
That's a deep little spot right there.
Yeah.
And it's far away from people on the road.
So you're bound to run into something else.
Yeah.
And also if granted, if I didn't get a good shot on him, I didn't want to push him out
onto another property where I knew he was going to die later because he was losing blood.
Yeah.
So I decided to pull out there, back out, and go home and then come again early morning.

(50:08):
And I flagged my spots where I last saw blood that I was on the trail.
Came back early morning, first light hiked in.
Within five minutes of going from last blood and finding, looking, seeing little tiny specks
of blood on poison oak leaves and a couple down sticks.

(50:30):
Dead right there.
I looked up five yards, he's dead piled up right there.
The next morning?
Next morning.
So he died right away?
Most likely.
Yeah.
You were so close to him the night before?
Well, by the time, and then I got to him.
And I'm pretty sure he died either right away or, or maybe an hour later that night.
Yeah.
But he would already bloated, rigor started to set in a bit.

(50:55):
So immediately I'm just thinking about trying to save the meat because I knew it was going
to be hot that day.
And on the steep, I was on a steep graded hillside.
All I could think of is I got to get him up to that next road because it's closer.
And I actually, I came from that way.
So I know there's a path versus down where it's thicker into another road.

(51:15):
Even though if it was open, I would have totally gone down first, even though it was further.
So I immediately got his guts out and started pulling him uphill, got him up to the road
flat again, which that was, that was a hard work in itself because it's just such a steep
angle.
And honestly, this deer wasn't much smaller.

(51:37):
Yeah.
Body wise.
Yeah, they're making big over there.
I got him up to the road and then I, I skinned him out one side at a time and boned out the
entire animal minus the back legs.
I left those bone in, got him all loaded into my kafaru and hiked him out halfway until
luckily the owner met me on that same four wheeler and was able to give me a ride the

(52:01):
rest of the way out because I think it would have took me too long with one trip.
I was starting to worry about meat spoilage.
So I had to get him back to the ice chest and back to the cooler as fast as possible.
Yeah.
And by the time I got him back to the shop, just hanging him, I hung him in game bags.
Yeah.
100 pounds of meat.

(52:23):
Dang.
So my size, I'm thinking 125 carcass.
Yeah.
Probably.
Well, you had to do a damn good job if it was only 25 pounds carcass because I think.
The last one I weighed all the parts I discarded.
How much was it?
15.6 pounds.
Oh wow.
A bone.

(52:44):
A bone.
A bone.
Just bone.
Just bone.
Yeah.
Not trim.
So my guess is I'm thinking 25 pounds because I mean you're not going to be perfect field
dressing.
Yeah.
That's fair.
Breaking something down the field.
Yeah, that's fair.
So 125 pounder.
I would say the average deer in our area, carcass wise is 90.
85.
That's from what I've seen from friends.
Yeah.
So just to give reference to people listening, 125.

(53:06):
The biggest deer.
That could be twice as big as some of these blackfellow around here.
Especially if someone's shooting a smaller juvenile meat box.
Yeah.
But this one, perfectly symmetrical fork and he's about 18 wide inside spread.
Yeah.
Very nice buck.
So I would say use your typical just coming of age blacktail.

(53:30):
Would say most people would be thrilled to shoot a buck like this.
Right.
We've shot bigger so we're more critical of them.
I feel like I should have let them live almost.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I think he had potential to become a real big buck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I never know because granted another wide buck we saw on that property died two weeks

(53:52):
earlier guy had to buy a car.
Yeah.
That's the, yeah.
Yeah.
So you never can really play the iffy.
Really those two brothers that hung around for a while that were fork frames and the
one was a three by two and the other one was trying to be a three by two.
Those were the only deer we had.
I would ever see repetitively.
Anything else I would see would kind of come and go.

(54:14):
And I think you're still there.
I think they're there and you just don't, they just don't move.
You just walk right by them because there's been so many times when either we're hunting
the forest or we're hunting the property we have in the plains that's got a bunch of

(54:35):
junipers.
They never run, they never run when they hear you or when they see you.
It's always when you pass them.
So we'll be going through junipers and we'll pass a juniper and from behind us a deer will
run out for one time we were leaving the forest and we got to the parking lot where our trucks
were parked and 15 yards from the trucks was a giant buck just stuck in the brush and he

(55:01):
thought we couldn't see him.
Well, everything's all packed up by the time you try to go after them.
They're gone, gone, but they just sit there and watch.
I honestly think they just sit there and watch because they know if they move then they're
going to be seen.
But if they stay still they have a chance of not being seen.
And then your only chance is last two weeks of season when they start chasing does they

(55:22):
just get absolutely dumb.
I mean dumb as dumb as an animal can get.
They will follow to the ends of the earth a hot doe.
Well, I think that's part of the reason they're just up on the hill right now.
I think that's part of the reason I almost say I shouldn't have shot that deer.
I mean, I'm totally thankful for him.

(55:43):
He's an amazing buck.
But I shot him I think the second day of general season.
I could have waited and maybe seen if that three by two came back or another bigger deer
that we haven't even seen yet would come out.
So that's definitely a lesson learned in my book.
Now that I've accomplished what I have, I'm going to start looking towards tail end of

(56:05):
season.
I'm still going to go probably opening weekend see what there is to see.
But I think I'll probably back off mid season and then hit a hard towards closing.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
And that's really what most people that are looking for a big one do.
Yeah, for sure.
And it all depends what you want.
I mean, if you're just looking for a meat bar, then tear it out.

(56:29):
Yeah, whatever you can get, take whatever you can get more opportunities, more experience
and tell them around is always going to be better.
But yeah, I wouldn't say the one you shot was a shooter though.
I mean, unless you're going for a management program where you're passing deer, that's

(56:51):
a tough one for a lot of people to pass it.
An 18 inch fork that doesn't look like a young, you know what I mean?
I think it's also hard if you don't have decent predator control in place.
Yeah, that's the biggest problem with where we live.
The vineyards and their depredation tags do a number on them, but then the coyotes and
mountain lions are just out of control.
Well we're here at the shop, we're going to unload these beets, we'll probably take a

(57:14):
break and come back very shortly for a brief minute and a half.
And with the power of editing, we are back.
We never left.
No.
So, you think you might want to go to Colorado now?
Yeah, I'm down.
Can't disclose what unit, but we might be going to Colorado in seven years.

(57:36):
But see, I don't think it has to be Colorado.
I think we can find a caliber of deer like that somewhere else in another state.
Yeah, for sure.
I just think all of them that are really kind of worth it are five plus points.
We just stopped to drop off a beef at the shop and one of our buddies was there who just
came back from Colorado.

(57:57):
And he shot a stud.
Monster.
And he shot a.44 with back kickers.
How long was that drop time?
Two stickers and a 12 inch drop.
Yeah, massive drop time.
Looks like a club.
That was awesome.
Yeah, that was a great buck.
That'll get you pumped up for a deer podcast right there.
Oh yeah, definitely.
Yeah, well let's start applying for Colorado I guess.

(58:21):
Somewhere.
We've got to be on the same page and figure out what we want to do and then just do it.
I want to do rifle though, I don't want to do archery.
For Mule Deer, yeah, I think I want to be rifle first at least.
For some reason we ever get bored with that and I can go bow.
Yeah, and it's like if I'm going to spend the money to go for my first trip I want to

(58:43):
draw blood.
Yeah, I hear that.
That's how I feel too.
But speaking of drawing blood, I got one more black tail store I got to tell before
we leave this podcast.
I was first started bow hunting.
I had bought a $400 and I was probably 20 years old.

(59:06):
I bought a $400 archery research compound bow and set up a stand in the back of the
property filled up a water hole and had no idea what to expect but just was going to
go deer hunting.
My family has deer hunted my property forever.
Nobody's ever really shot a big deer.
A bunch of little small forks, you don't ever really see them, never really had much interest

(59:29):
in it growing up but then when I started bow hunting at 20 I set this area, little area
up, got my bow, got all set up and the first horned deer that came to water was a three
year old 23 inch fork in velvet.
It was during archery season around here, it's all velvet.

(59:49):
And he came into 15 yards, drank out of the water, turned to walk away, stopped broad
side at 25 yards, gave me the perfect shot opportunity and I picked the wrong pin.
And I picked the 20 yard pin instead of the 30 yard pin and he didn't gap them or anything.

(01:00:10):
And it flew and hit his back and I saw something fly off his back and I saw the arrow go flying
into the air and he took off running.
So I go down to evaluate what happened and there was a strip of hide that the broad head
had cut off this deer's back and the arrow with fat on it.

(01:00:31):
You can tell a fat arrow because there's no blood, it's just greasy.
It looks like someone took a steak and just wiped it on your arrow, it's just greasy.
So I thought, well, shit.
That's a clean, clean nick.
You know, probably not going to die.
Not a clean nick, but a clean nick.
It's not going to die, but probably sore for a little while.
He should heal and recover.

(01:00:51):
He should heal and recover.
So I'm, you know.
Especially being on his back, I feel like he would be, it should be cleaner than like
the belly or leg or anything.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
I don't think I'm sectioned in.
So much meat in between the vitals and that.
As long as the vultures leave them alone.
Or coyotes.
Yeah, or the coyotes.
So years go on.
I ended up wounding a deer by archery, having success has been a bismol compared to my rifle

(01:01:17):
lining success.
Wounded a deer, went back to find it the next day.
Coyotes and pigs had eaten it, found it with 30 pigs on it.
They had eaten it to bones.
So I walked back to the house that morning.
This was the next day?
No, this was the two years later.
Different deer, smaller, smaller fork, just a meat buck with my bow, trying to get my

(01:01:37):
feet wet, right?
Trying to get one killed.
Hicked him low in the brisket.
Coyotes killed him that night because I had seen the struggle marks.
I felt terrible about it.
Found him with pigs eating him, walked back to the house with a head and pair of horns.
Brutal.
Brutal, right?
So at that point, extremely discouraged with archery deer hunting.

(01:01:58):
Kind of bummed out about the whole thing.
Starting to feel like I was being unethical in trying to shoot these things with a bow.
Because all of these deer are dead in a heartbeat with a rifle, right?
What am I doing trying to shoot them with a bow?
So I'm not going to give up because this is my best opportunity at seeing big black
jealous because it's early in the season and they still got velvet.
Well two or three more years go by.

(01:02:19):
Don't see any horned animals on the property.
Kind of give up on it.
Kind of start archery hunting with my buddy at one of his ranches.
That's massive.
Hard to get a stock on.
So I had gone to the point where I had bought a trad bow and I was just shooting for fun.
I wasn't even archery, just archery for fun, right?
And I really liked that.
I'd go shoot quail with the trad bow and stuff, dove and stuff.

(01:02:43):
All fun.
And then pretty much had written off archery hunting.
Were archery hunting my buddy's ranch one day and on the way back I get a picture from
my cell cam.
No, this was before cell cams.
Back when they were crappy and couldn't really trust buying one.
So I had a regular camera.
Well I went back that night to check my camera at three nights in a row at seven o'clock,

(01:03:05):
which is still daylight that time of year.
This buck had come in.
Giant fork, heavy, old giant fork had come in.
This is 2020.
Every night for three nights.
So I pulled a wide, all right, I'm not hunting with you for the next few days.
I'm going to go sit here and try to see if I can kill him.

(01:03:25):
Well, I never got him killed.
It was with this with your trad bow or?
No, this is compound.
Okay, so you finally had your Hoyt then.
Yeah, I had my Hoyt.
I wasn't going to risk the trad bow with a buck like this.
And so I go and sit on him a couple days in my tree stand that I have there and nothing.
But I noticed when I'm not there, he's coming in.

(01:03:46):
So I thought, all right, I've got to set up different.
So I set up further down where I assumed he first saw my tree stand as he turns this
corner.
And sure enough, the night that I had sat on the ground, here he comes walking in right
to the tree stand.
Right when he gets around the corner, he stops and stares at my tree stand.

(01:04:08):
And I'm sitting there watching him for probably 10, 15 minutes.
He doesn't move.
He's just checking to see if he's in there.
He's just locked in and checking to see if I'm in my tree stand.
And I'm thinking, oh man, his next look's going to be right.
And he's going to see me sitting in the brush right there and he's going to be gone.
And it's like he decided that I wasn't in my tree stand and just lost all safety in regard.

(01:04:31):
Up straight to the water, 15 yards in front of me.
Drinks.
This is going to be the craziest thing you've ever heard here, honey.
Drinks.
Walks to 25 yards.
I go to Gap and I gapped the wrong, no, I'm sorry.

(01:04:51):
I should have gapped.
And I completely forgot about the five yards that I needed to add on to my 20 pen.
So I shot for 30.
And he was at 25.
And he was at 25.
You'd think five yards, not much difference, right?
Oh, a huge difference.
Smoked him a little bit high in the shoulder.
High enough in the shoulder, right?

(01:05:13):
But looked like it was still center mass.
So I'm like, okay, we're good.
Call my buddy Wyatt, call my wife, get the crew ready to go look for him because I was
the closest people I could think of to come help me.
Well, what happened when you hit him?
I hit him and it sounded like I shot the side of an old redwood barn.
It's crack.
The loudest crack you could imagine.

(01:05:34):
It was crazy how loud it was.
And I thought, holy crap dude, it sounds like I just shot a piece of plywood.
So I thought, that's not good.
I've never successfully shot a deer, but I usually, I feel like you hear people say
it goes, or like, you know what I mean?
Something like that.
Well, I heard a crack.
And he takes off running full speed up and over and kind of behind me still on the property.

(01:05:57):
Luckily, because if he would have gone the other way, I never would have found the deer.
He went back on the other side, got the crew together, start to go look for blood, start
to go look for him.
Can't find anything.
Four hours goes by.
We can't find anything.
Did you have any blood at the shot?
Nothing.
Nothing on the site.
Nothing for his first 400 yards he ran.
So we went all the way.

(01:06:20):
I could see where he ran.
So we had a good amount to go off of visually.
Then he went over the hill and we lost him.
We ended up finding blood at like nine o'clock that night.
50 yards behind where I shot him.
50 parts behind where I was.
So he had looped.
Did a big loop?
He had looped back behind me because he went to the fence line.

(01:06:41):
We tracked him to the fence line.
He tried to jump the fence, but his shoulders were too pinned because of the arrow.
So he couldn't jump the fence.
So he looped back towards the sagebrush, which was behind me.
So we finally got on his trail and we tracked him all night.
One drop of blood at a time.
It took us from nine o'clock at night until four o'clock in the morning.

(01:07:02):
Hell, I threw sagebrush on our hands and knees.
One drop of blood at a time.
Me and my wife, my buddy had left by that time.
Had gotten to the point where we were physically and mentally exhausted.
We could not track him anymore.
And we had moved into this, the end of this little trail where it starts to open up and
I heard him get up and run at four o'clock in the morning.

(01:07:23):
And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me.
This is not going to happen again.
I'm going to lose another big buck.
He's got to be wounded and I'm going to feel terrible.
It's like same thing, right?
So the next we go back to sleep for two hours, wake up at six and go back out there.
And at this point, faith is low.
Very little hope that I'm going to find this year.
So I said, all right, we got to start just cutting swaths across this property.

(01:07:48):
So just burn it all.
Just burn it all, right?
So we go spread out and start walking, start walking, gritting it all out.
And we, I walk 15 feet from this buck and I look over to my left or my wife looks over
to the left as she goes, he's right there.
And he's perfectly alive, laying down in between these two tiny pieces of sagebrush with the

(01:08:13):
arrow sticking out of his side stone.
And I'm like, oh, and did you have your bow with you?
I had my bow with me, but I didn't have a shot on him because we had his butt at that
point.
So I had said, all right, well, we know he's not really going to run.
I'm going to walk around the other side of this sagebrush patch and just see if I could,
if he's still there, I can get a frontal shot on him laying down.
And it just happened to be that I could get far enough around the other side that I got

(01:08:36):
a frontal shot on him laying down.
And when he took up to run, I could tell that he wasn't doing well because he was wobbly.
Yeah.
And he went a couple hundred yards into another patch of sagebrush where we eventually moved
in.
I moved in to make sure he was dead, where he was in fact dead.
That frontal shot finished him.
And I move in and I'm starting looking at this deer and I go, this looks a lot like the buck

(01:09:01):
that I first missed in 2016.
It's now 2020.
I go, look at, check his back and why it takes him and flips him over.
And there is a big scar, perfect scar from where I had missed him in 2016 or nicked him
in 2016.
So I said, I said, holy crap, I kept that piece of hide.

(01:09:22):
So we ran him back to the house, went in my house, pulled out the piece of hide that still
had the broad head and the hide in a Ziploc bag.
And I held it up to the scar and it just fit like a puzzle piece.
And we are all, we are all, yes, I got pictures of all this and got him mounted, but make
sure, made sure to take pictures of the scar with the piece of hide that I still have to

(01:09:43):
this day.
I still have the piece of hide.
And he should have had Chad like embed that broad head into his hand.
Or like the piece of hide like in his tooth, like a cigar.
Yeah, something.
And uh, yep, sure, it ended up being him 21.
Stable it to the back of the shoulder now.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's not a bad idea.
And he was like 21 inch, three by two with four eye guards on one side and like seven

(01:10:11):
inch bases, just really old, nice, heavy, heavy buck.
But for, so if you get people always wondering how big black dog, how old, how long they
can live.
Is that your velvet buck?
That's my velvet buck.
So in 2016, that thing was a giant.
Yeah.
That you're telling me that thing wasn't at least three or four years old in 2016 to
be a giant.
It's at least three years old.

(01:10:33):
So then 2016 to 2017, a seven years, a seven year old buck, it looked like at least, right?
So we're saying, I mean, safe baseline seven years.
Yep.
Crazy.
That's the craziest black tail hunting story I have.
And it's all at home too.
All at home.
Yeah.
It's wild.
And I've passed a lot of deer there just trying to let them live.

(01:10:55):
I'm trying to, yeah, hopefully they live in a row.
But I get so nervous with bow hunting.
And I don't, I feel like I'm good at locking in with stuff and I can overcome the nerves
in a lot of stuff.
But with bow hunting, I get so excited.
So nervous.
So nervous.

(01:11:16):
It makes me like it jittery.
I get anxious.
It's like a buck in the rut.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Check it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I've definitely failed more bow hunting than the other three years ago.
Well, I'm right there with you because I have had no lock.
Well, but besides the one I have shot, you've had the same luck I had.

(01:11:38):
You've hit one maybe in the brisket kind of like I did.
Like that was a longer shot.
Yep.
But never saw anything after that.
Yeah.
What was that shot like?
So a similar setup.
I came around the, like around a corner up a road into an open valley with a single tree

(01:12:00):
on one side on the other side, thicket of just nasty oak trees and poison oak scrub brush.
And there was a bachelor party of three bucks right there.
And I had time, like I was undetected at that point.
I was glossing and I could just see horns and ears at that point because of the rise
that came up the hill.

(01:12:20):
And I was trying to get a game plan together because I couldn't go anywhere around at that
point with the wind direction was set up perfect.
It was right in my face.
They weren't going to get me.
They were going to either hear me or see me before they spelled me unless the thermal
shifted.
And I was deciding which buck I wanted to try to shoot at, how close I needed to get.

(01:12:41):
When I ranged them and I was looking at them through finals, they were a hundred yards
away.
I found out that I wanted the buck that was right in the middle of the three.
I started, I took my pack off, started creeping in.
I got to 72.
Like crawling or walking?
Like a real low crouch, kind of real slow going in.

(01:13:03):
And these bucks were all bedded too.
By the time I got, I rearranged, I got up the road a bit.
I got to 72 yards and I should have tried to get closer.
But by that time I got up there for probably 10 minutes.
One of the bucks had started standing up and it was starting to feed.
So I got to 72 yards.

(01:13:25):
I think I may have got two yards closer when I was kneeling, drew back on this middle buck
that was standing there.
Had a good anchor, solid point, pulled through the shot, let arrow fly.
And I definitely heard a connection, I heard a flack.
And the buck took off running as soon as that one ran, the other two ran after him.

(01:13:49):
Across the road into the thicket, into the thickest stuff possible.
I walked up on the shot, found my arrow, had a little bit of blood on the arrow, not a
lot.
And sparse blood drops.
I mean talking every 10, 15 yards there would be the size of a pinky nail had a blood drop.

(01:14:09):
So I knew I hit him, knew it wasn't the greatest hit, not sure where I hit him.
But I had a feeling that it was low kind of brisket area.
Because at the time that boat that I was shooting, I noticed that if I shot in each
where past 60 yards, I had a trend.
I don't know if I was torquing the bow or what was going on, if there was camille.
But I was trending low left in my groups.

(01:14:32):
And that buck was broadside facing to the left.
Broadside facing to the left, I can still see it like it was yesterday.
Isn't it funny how those images stick in your head?
Oh haunts me every day.
And so I tried tracking as far as I could across that road.
I got him and where I watched him go into the underbrush.
I got about halfway up that hill probably another 60, 70 yards.

(01:14:56):
And the whole trail just disappears.
There's no leftover gills.
There's no blood, nothing like that.
And at the same point, I just, I don't know, I came back later to the next day because
it had gotten dark.
In the daylight, I looked for vultures.
I looked for any other sign.

(01:15:17):
I even threw a drone up in the air, generally illegal that is.
But I started scouting with a drone.
We'll find out.
Just see if I could find him.
I mean, I would, I would, I mean, I'm not, I would never promote braiding, breaking the
law, but I would break the law.
I would think it'd be the ethical thing to try and find a lot of try to find a buck that

(01:15:38):
I shot.
Yeah.
Well, I'm not aware of any laws, but we're sticking to it then.
But I, yeah, I looked for this buck for a long time and I'd never found any sign of
him whatsoever.
No blood at the site where you shot him.
No, no, no blood.
It was, it was just a, what would we call it?

(01:15:59):
Solid nick.
Yeah.
Solid nick.
Yeah.
Solid nick.
Yeah, no.
Not a clean miss, not a dead hit.
I think, I think that, I think those, I think those bucks live like nothing.
I think those bucks just.
I think so too.
It was a smaller amount of blood.
I think he made it just fine.
Yeah.
I just think that it takes so much to kill those things.

(01:16:19):
They are so tough.
I'm sure checking the brisk at every deer I kill now though.
That's right.
I'm looking for a scar.
That's right dude.
Oh, that'd be a crazy, crazy thing.
Yeah.
What, so you said in yours, you're one from this year, you got six yards from him as he
was running to you.
I had something kind of like, but you had a rifle.

(01:16:40):
Yes.
Yeah.
So one of my first years deer hunting at this property for Blacktail, I, I came up that
same draw that I was talking about just a minute ago.
And so it's thick, thick stuff to the left, that one tree on the right.
And then it opens up into a valley with a hilltop on the left that's, that's discable

(01:17:01):
and it drops down into another like ravine.
I was hiking up that road one day after work, real hot, probably 98 degrees.
And as I'm coming up the road, the sun's setting in my face.
So everything's kind of silhouetted.
I remember walking up and where the, all the dense brush and foliage ended on the left

(01:17:24):
hand side where it turned into all the disc field.
Yeah.
There was a nice fork bedded down there.
And when I, by the time I saw him, I had an arrow knock, I was drawing back.
He stood up and spun around down the hill before I could get a shot, right?
So I start trying to pursue him, not running, but quickly going after him, trying to be

(01:17:48):
quiet.
And I, I come around the bend of all the, all the brush and everything.
And I come around on the other side, the top side of that, all that brush thicket was another
small road with no climb on the other side of it for the vineyard.
That's how it would cross from it.
And so I'm walking on this road where there's thick foliage and brush and boys and oak and

(01:18:11):
oak trees.
And on the other side is no climb fence.
So I'm like, he has nowhere to go.
He's in this pocket.
Like he's in this isolated thicket right here.
He has to be here.
And like you said, they typically just hide it.
They don't want to come out or do anything to jeopardize their own life.
They want to hide from you.
They don't want you to know where they are.
They want to stay un-tected.

(01:18:32):
Yeah.
The wildest thing happened.
Probably 20 yards from where I spooked him out of his bed.
I'm walking up this road.
I have an arrow knocked and I have my pen, my dial set to 20 because that's the closest
thing really goes on my side tape.
This buck, no joke, jumps out of the brush at about five to eight yards.

(01:18:58):
In front of you?
In front of me.
Almost impales me.
And he does this high jump thing.
You know when they tuck their chubbikes?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
This thing was taller than me when he jumped.
Oh, he was true.
And he was going to come down on me with his antlers.
He was so close.
I got about halfway drawback, drew back on my bow.
And he booked it back off down the hill into the thicket.

(01:19:18):
Oh my gosh.
I had nothing, but it scared the Jesus out of me.
I wonder what, I wonder how that happened.
I wonder if he was looking the other way and you crept up on him.
I think he...
By the time you got that close.
I think he realized that I was so close he thought he was going to get pounced on and
died.
Yeah.
So he just moved.
Yeah.
He stuck.
So that's, there you go.

(01:19:38):
That's how close he stuck.
That's a good example of how much they will stick.
But I mean, this was probably waist to chest high, like natural weeds that wouldn't, you
know, that if he didn't disc the field it would have stayed.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Yeah.
So he came out for me hot.
If I had had a knife or a handgun, though, I probably would have jumped.

(01:20:00):
Spear.
Maybe.
Yeah.
It was a good spear chuck would have got him for sure.
Shout out Tim Wells, the Schlokmaster.
Schlokmaster.
That's crazy, dude.
You almost got got.
I almost got got by a decent sized fork and be a bummer of a way to go.
How'd your buddy die?
He was hunting deer and the deer hunted him.

(01:20:20):
Pailed.
Yeah.
That's a mention like I think the deer would die too.
If you didn't come off of that, like because of exhaustion, you know, they lock up with
each other.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If he just has my carcass and is dragging you around.
I don't think he could lift me up with his neck.
So yeah, I think he just died of exhaustion.
You know, it would be like the ones you see where the coyote eats the dead one off of the

(01:20:40):
alive one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It would less the coyote.
So it would get a neck fervor hanging from it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
So yeah, it was either that I got too close or he just smelled my testosterone.
I don't know.
I think it's the testosterone.
Is that it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's got a rival vibe there.
I think the less testosterone you have, the easier you can sneak up on deer.

(01:21:02):
That is a solid theory.
Also, probably the less you smell like cats.
But I don't smell like cats.
You don't have a cat?
No, I don't.
No, I know.
Is that why I'm successful sometimes?
I think that's why you got so close to that one.
That's why I got good encounters.
Uh-huh.
Yeah, that could be.
I'm not a big cat person.
No.
No, that's crazy.
I don't remember.
I don't think you've ever told me that story.
I don't think I've told anyone that story.

(01:21:25):
Too traumatic.
Not even that.
Like it's kind of embarrassing.
The deer got the jump on me.
Yeah.
It's pretty amazing how easy it is to screw up a deer hunt.
More times than not, they're unsuccessful.
Yeah.
They're unsuccessful.
Yeah.

(01:21:46):
But you just go with your gut.
In situations like that, like every story we've had today, you just, in the moment, you'll
have a feeling.
You just always go with that feeling.
It just goes to a reaction.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, that's all you can really do.
But if you're feeling down to that, yeah, kind of crunch time, you just go back to gross
motor skills.
Yeah.

(01:22:06):
And if your feelings are wrong and time and time again, you fail, maybe you're just bad
at hunting.
It could be.
Very well could be.
But there's nothing that you can't get better at.
No.
And black tail, I mean, black tails.
It's hard, man.
It's hard.
And especially big ones.
So you think that after seeing that Colorado buck, you want to go out of state?

(01:22:29):
Yeah.
So if me and Casey were to set something up, you would, you'd want to go with?
Depending on where.
Okay.
Better be good.
All right.
Well, knowing Casey, but we can probably make something good happen.
Casey Nix?
Yeah.
Because we just talked about it last night.
He's like, you have to get Branson involved on an out of state hunt.

(01:22:50):
He's been telling me that for.
And we'll go.
He has been on me for that for years and years.
I know.
I know.
And he made it pretty enticing this year when he went and killed four mule deer in
a month.
Yeah.
You guys an animal.
Two California mule deer in Nevada and Idaho, I think, something like that.

(01:23:14):
I believe so.
Crazy.
Crazy.
So yeah.
Yeah, no, I'm working on it.
I'm down.
I'm down.
You're going to have to hold it to it.
Casey is going to want to ride your points though.
Casey is a point rider.
Is he?
Oh yeah.
I'm going to have to hold it to it.
And after all that, it gets stuff done.
So yeah.
For it.
Yeah.

(01:23:35):
We need like six or seven points for anything really good in California.
But the out of state stuff, he's the guy to talk to for knowing which ones are a little
easier to attain.
Yeah.
And then don't need as many points.
Still have a good chance of getting a buck.
Yeah.
Yeah.
He's like the master of out of state point.

(01:23:57):
He's got, he's probably got an application every year in every single state.
And then rides points from guys in California and helps them find their deer in order to
be able to hunt.
Yeah.
In terms of, I mean, out of everybody I know, he's, he's the guy.
He's the goat.
Well, we're going to have to work with him though.

(01:24:18):
We can get some plans.
He's the point goat.
Because yeah, we need to venture out a bit and learn some stuff and have some more, some
more good interactions and more ventures.
Yeah.
So you got anything else?
What are we calling it?
I don't think so.
I was just thinking, I was just trying to think.

(01:24:39):
But check in with Jamie.
Still need to Jamie.
Yeah.
Jamie, pull up my list of ideas for hunting stories on podcasts.
Thanks.
It's brought to you by Yeti Cooler.
Yeah.
So Joe Rogan, we're coming for you.
We got, how many, how many subscribers does Joe have right now?

(01:25:00):
Honestly, I don't know.
Somewhere in like the 10 million range.
Well, we have nine million Joe and we're coming for you.
A couple more subscribers and we're there.
Just a couple.
Joe Rogan, if you're listening, we're coming for you as number one podcast in the nation.
Also, don't need to make him mad.
He's a super nice guy from what I hear.
Also if you would like to have us as guests on your podcast, we would also love that.

(01:25:24):
I have really probably nothing good for you like compared to most of your guests.
But just in case you hear this Joe, you want a couple butchers, a couple average butchers,
average deer hunters.
We're more than happy to come on the podcast.
But if you don't want us on the podcast, we're taking you down and we're going to have more

(01:25:44):
subscribers than you.
But also you're our hero.
Yep.
Definitely inspired.
So are you Trump?
45, 47.
Donald Trump is your president like it or not?
Yeah.
I got big black tail guys here.
Go on.
Go on.
Even my even my T-Mobile subscribers.

(01:26:08):
Go on Spotify and look up the Trump playlist.
It's like all of the greatest Trump rap songs, Trump support songs ever written.
You just jam to it because it's good.
There is some good music on there.
Jake pulled it up while we were working.
The first one is put 50 cent mini men.

(01:26:30):
That's how it starts out.
So it just kicks it off on a real good note.
That's all we're giving you.
The first track is 50 cent mini men.
That way you know you're on the right one.
Yeah.
That's right.
All right.
So well anything we got coming up soon?
Hopefully Buffalo next week?
To Buffalo, to Beef next weekend.

(01:26:51):
We'll probably do another podcast.
Yeah.
We can talk about Buffalo.
Yay.
I'll get my loincloth and sharpen my obsidian.
Okay.
You feel so inclined to say you could also do something.
Buffalo are hard.
I don't like doing the Buffalo's.
Yeah.
Well.
The Buffalo are hard because the way we-
I saved it for next.

(01:27:12):
Okay.
Sorry.
Saving it.
Can we do a duck cunning one too at some point?
Of course.
Yeah.
Duck cunning Buffalo podcast coming your way.
Sounds good.
All right.
We just want to say sharpen your skills, elevate your game, and we'll see you on the
next one.