November 20, 2024 • 19 mins
Pliny and Daniel travel down to deep south Texas, practically Mexico, for another hunt in Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge. This is the third hunting day in the refuge and the fourth episode of our semi-live series. Stay tuned for more!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
All right, we're back. What's up, y'all? Welcome to what
is this? Her fourth episode?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Fourth episode, Day three of hunting. Yeah, we just had
a fun little surprise. We went to the local joint
called Chili Willies.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hilly Willies. What's funny? As I was calling my wife
earlier and I was like, yeah, it's this place called
Chili Willies. And she's like, is this a hot dog place?
So I'm like, no, no, not a hot dog place.
She's like, is it some other kind of.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Like that. No, No, it's it's not.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's just your local small town burgers and get a
chicken strips basket and a beer type of place.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
They had some monster Bucks on the wall, like Monster Bucks, Yeah,
and they said they're mostly from the Canyon. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But we were in there and some guy comes out
of the bathroom and he looks at Plenty.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
He goes, I know you.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I know you too.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
He looks at me, and I'm like, it's like I'm
watching y'all's YouTube videos while I'm sitting out there waiting.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It was a fun surprise, famous four years later. But man,
today was a grind. Grinds the right word, Yeah, just
like we we worked hard at everything we did, but
it was kind of just maybe spinning our wheels, like
we learned some We definitely learned some things. We learned.
(01:25):
We learned where not to go. Yeah, I got a
little bit of closure, I think. So we hiked in,
I guess, so we'll probably be pretty quick with this episode.
And just because it's I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There's not a ton in it. Just yeah, a lot
of a lot of grinding.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah. So got got in this morning spot last night. Yeah.
When when was south so it was perfect day for
you know, or wind was north, sorry, so perfect day
to come in from the south with face into the
wind right up by right, So we picked an entrance
that made sense for that. Got in there. You sat
(02:06):
in the same area, No, I moved a little bit,
but same area. Yeah. And it was funny as you
were walking in, I was like, dude, some other guys
flashing his red headlamp at me, and I realized you
were just looking down with your headlamp and I was
seeing it like blink between the trees. Oh. One little
fun thing. When I was walking in, I walked right
up on a pig like four yards from me, and
(02:29):
then he was growling at me because it was it
was still dark. He didn't know what I was. I
was down wind of him, and he was just I
was just like, I just ran them off. I'm like, yeah,
I mean, on the last day, I'll shoot a pig.
But it was still like an hour before well probably
(02:49):
an hour before official sunrise, so thirty minutes before legal.
But got in struggled to find a spot this morning
and sat down in like the first It's just a
consequence of walking in in the dark to a spot
you haven't thoroughly explored and scouted and pinned. Like I
knew the general area, I knew which way I wanted
to approach from. I knew a lot of like the
(03:11):
meta information, if you will, about the area, but not
the exact place. And so I kind of sat down
in the first place and I'm like, yeah, this looks
like a little meadow. But then it opened up and
I'm like, it's twenty eight yards across by thirteen yards wide,
and so I'm like, gotta be real lucky. And there
was a trail that went right through the middle of it,
and that's what I saw, and that's how I got
(03:32):
in there. So I'm like, well, I'm kind of running
out of time. I'll just PLoP down here. Not long
into my hunt, it was after legal I heard a
little swish in the grass and looked up and there
was a buck staring at me at like eleven or
twelve yards, and.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He was He would have been a legal buck outside
the years, but I mean they're all legal down.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Here, no angly restriction. Any deer's illegal deer.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
But you would have been. He was a decent sized, yeah,
he was.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
He was one I would have shot. But I just
looked up and he was just right in my face,
looking like he was looking in my eyes, and I
think he was just trying to figure out what it was.
And then I tried to be sneaky and reached for
my bow. But any movement, yeah, and he just he
didn't snort or blow or anything. He just he just ran.
(04:18):
And so I texted you, I'm Mike bucketed your way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah. He never came my way.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, I mean I'm sure he did, but he busted
off way earlier.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, So, I mean he was headed in that general direction,
but so saw that, and then sat there for another
thirty minutes, and I was I don't know, not loving
my spot. I'm like, well, it's there's a little bit
of wind, I have a good wind direction. I'm in
kind of a big broken up mosquit area. Let me
just get to a bigger meadow so I can actually
see something and hunted a little bit better, and so
(04:48):
I packed up my stuff, started walking, came across across
the trail and looked down and there was blood. And
I'm like, no, way, this is this is where because
it's a little further back in the woods than we
were looking last night when we weren't finding we were looking.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
On the ridge line, which he didn't ever go to
the ridge line apparently. No, it was definitely a different
meial guy.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, likely your cow, likely my cow and yours.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Like And that's what I was surprised by is because
when you sent so you texted me, I'm like, well,
I don't think anything's going to happen here because I
was in the general area where I shot the cow yesterday. Yeah,
I'm like, dude, this it's so busted up here.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I'm like, give me like twenty minutes and I'll
head your way.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And where you sent me the pin, I'm like dude,
you're you're seventy yards past where we saw the cow.
I think, yeah, in the in the woods on that ridge, so.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
It gets it's a different animal. And the blood was
really good at first, and then it kind of faded out,
and then it got good again, and then you came
down and joined me.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But the funny thing is like, so he sends me
a pin. I'm walking that way and I'm in the
middle of like the Mesquite flat and I looked down.
I'm like, dude, I found blood.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And you've you found it almost exactly where I first
found it, which is funny because a few yards down
the trail.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm just walking around the woods and then I saw
Plenty had sent me a picture of blood on a
mesquite tree, like probably I don't know, three feet up
in the air. Yeah, and I saw the exact same blood.
I'm like, all right, I'm on your same trail. Yeah,
send me your pin.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'm just I'm like, get over here. You're just following me.
I feel like the I was tempted to be like, oh, also,
by the way, I cut my hand. If you see anybody, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's funny. Aside, we were hunting one time. I shot
a I'd shot.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
A jack wrapper, yeah, and I strapped into my pack
and he was bleeding and we're looking for a blood trail,
and we're like, man, there's really good fresh blood here.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You were just you were just dripping and I was
literally chasing your tail like it was ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
But that was the one I shot with the block nineteen.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. Yeah, it was like, you think I could do it?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
He was twenty yards away and I shot him.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, that's hilarious. But man, we followed that blood trail,
and we there were a couple of times where it
just there was some blood that were like I was convinced.
I'm like, he's going to be right around the next blood.
There's a lot of blood, way more like six times
as much as from that other day. Like there there
(07:13):
were times where I'm like, man, he's going to be
right here.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And I don't know if you notice, like every once
in a while when we'd see that thick blood, I
started looking out, Yeah, I'm just looking for a white belly.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah yeah exactly, and even like bloody snot on limbs
and stuff. So I'm like, man like, but we followed
that blood trail, like there were points where we were
practically hands in knees, just staring at the ground for
five or ten minutes. And it's interesting there were sometimes
we were walking, like quickly walking and just like walking
(07:43):
blood blood and just keep going. But then there's some
areas where we'd stare for ten minutes looking at every
leaf and then find one drip like on the stem
underneath a leaf and yeah, yeah, and we followed it
zero point seven four miles. Yeah, that is the longest
blood trail I've ever followed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And we followed it from the Mesquite Flats all the
way out probably what do you think, two three hundred yards.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Into that field. Yeah, like he went into a field.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's where it got real hard because the sun was
out and like it just got real hard to see
the blood.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And it was we were wide open in ten inch
tall or a foot tall, little just like succulent, frubby stuff,
and half of it's like orange red. Yeah, like, oh,
it got sicked up. And so finally we just called it.
And I hated to call it because it's like we
(08:35):
had invested so much time in following the trail.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Three hour blood trail, yeah, yeah, yeah, three hours and
almost a mile yeah, which by the way, like we
have Plinny and I always talk about like, oh, if
you shoot these suckers and you only hit one lung,
they can run a mile.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
We proved it.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, absolutely believe it.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, those things can run forever.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And like, this dude was big. It was a big bowl.
So obviously there are some that may not be quite
as tough, but if you shoot a mature bolt, like,
they absolutely can run a mile on one long which
is just wild. And then there was like across the
road where he was headed, there were just like at
(09:15):
least one hundred acres of nothing but straight marsh grass
and it was.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Like probably seven feet tall marsh.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Grass at least.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, Like I couldn't walk through there and see.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And it's there are no landmarks, no topography, no anything.
So it's like if he went in there, he's piled
up somewhere, no chance.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's We talked about Harry Potter Forum or eating Harry Potter
or my kids, and it was like the episode of
the Goblet of Fire, I think when they're or the
Triwizard Tournament and they're in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
The maze thing and I was like, dude, I don't
want to go in that maze. Yeah, I really don't
want to.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, dude, and he might still be alive running around
just with a gangster limb.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Because he has a lot of blood. Dude.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I mean I think he probably died. But we didn't
see birds anywhere, so it's true.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah. So then we came back, hung out for a while,
watched a little bit of football. It is Sunday after all.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The Chiefs won by blocking the field goal, which is
kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And then we'd seen a spot.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So last time we were out here four years ago,
Kyle was with us and my bike had broken on
the last day in the morning, so we had a
hike somewhere because I didn't have a bike, and we
found this spot where you could park and just kind
of hike out, and so we're like, hey, let's go
try that again. But we were kind of looking on
on X and we saw, I mean, dude, like a
(10:35):
little sanctuary with a pond in the middle, surrounded by
thick brush, and we're like, man, that could.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Be good with no trails or roads in there. I
think it is behind it, like in by the pond. Yeah,
and I think but no, I guess I mean no
bike trails or no humans or anything, because after like
the first day or two running into so many people
out here, that was an important part of our strategy
is like, what's a place that looks like a decent
(11:02):
place that's hard to get to, which I.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Think we've done a good job of that. We avoided
people the last two days.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We did a really good job of hard to get
to and avoiding people.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
We did a really good job of hard to get to.
The The going into this place was I mean, we
couldn't have turned around because we kind of were sold
on it.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But probably about one hundred and fifty yards into our
walk from the.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Truck, we hit marshland. Yeah, and it was it suddenly
turned into water up to basically your shins, Yeah, for
about one hundred and fifty two hundred.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yards, yeah, which was probably ten inch deep water. Yeah,
it is brutal. For more than that, I think more
than it was.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It was maybe three hundred yards. Yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But it's just slow going because it's not just water,
it's that like marsh weed, like scrubby stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It's you're like up to your thighs and so you.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Got to like do the high step and stuff with
muddy boots and like like walking in sand. Yeah, so
that that was really tough and admittedly very discouraging.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
But and then we got to that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We got to the perimeter of this little sanctuary, which
is just a circle surrounded by trees, and it was
so thick we couldn't get in, but we looked for
deer trails.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We found one and it led us in. Yeah. Then
that was actually because I was worried that we're gonna
have to walk all the way around, which I guess foreshadowing.
So our walkout, we came all the way around and
there's that on.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Wasn't that bad?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, that wasn't that bad, except for we walked right
back into the marshland.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So we sat there right by the pond on the
north side of it, so we could see things coming
in from the north because we had a north wind.
And dude, I literally like I was, I was kind
of cracking some limbs so I could see and I'm
not even sitting down yet, and I see a pig
probably he was a pretty big pig, probably one hundred
(12:52):
and seventy five pound pig, walking straight down my trail
that I'm at, And so I.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Quickly knock an arrow.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And I've been we've been talking about this orrever, like
am I going to shoot a pig or not? And
I had it in my mind like I don't really
want to shoot a pig yet because last day maybe
I still don't know, like I want to if it's
last light, for sure, yeah, but I want to wait
for something better. And so this was like right when
we got there, this pig comes walking out. He had
no clue I was there and watching him. He was
(13:20):
at thirty five yards coming to probably like twenty twenty
five yards for me, I knocked an arrow, and I
just decided, like, man, I don't want to if it's
a Neil guy or deer, love to pack it out
through that march, Like I'd be excited to pack it
out through that mars. Like for a pig, you basically
go anywhere in Texas and find pigs. Yeah, And so
I decided not to show.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And I think they really want to kill him down here, yeah,
but it's just for as hard as it is to
get in and out and feel dressed, I just.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So I decided like, all right, I'll stand up and
I hadn't made the full commitment that I wasn going
to shoot him, but I'm like, I'll stand up just
kind of see if he bounces off or not.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
And I stood up and he kind of kind of
saw me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
He kept coming and looked, and then he just he
peeled off to the east, and I'm like, all right, good,
I you know, made my decision for me, and I
still don't regret it, even though we didn't shoot anything tonight,
because I really really did not want to pack out
a pig in that.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It was a grind getting through that stuff. Yeah, And
that whole time I set up and I kept it
was hard for me to mentally figure out. There were
kind of two trails, and I was trying to figure
out some way that I could sit between of them
look look at them, and I'm either I could have
a great view of one and my wind was going
straight towards the other one, or I had a just
(14:41):
barely a half view of both of them but no
real shooting angle. So I just I picked the one
with the better wind and sat there and I could
mentally imagine something coming down that trail, but nothing dead.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I feel like that area like in retrospect because
of the water and everything. It's perfect pig habitat, like pig, pig,
pig everywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's just thick to you, just like anything that's tough
and wants to live in the mud. Great, And I.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Guess my thought process going into it is there's probably
what you think eight hundred to a thousand acres of
field just to the west of it. Like there's a
ton of fields. So it's like, all right, well, maybe
Neil Gui will come into this one water.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Hole field like with air quotes. Yeah, because it's marshy,
maybe it's dry deserty dirt that stuff can just run
around in maybe or maybe or maybe it's ten inch
deep water for you know, yeah a quarter mile.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
But net net we didn't see anything.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, And then we walked out and we saw a
couple of deer just as we were walking out with
our headlamps, just seeing their eyes. And then we made
the wrong angle towards the truck. Yeah yeah, and ended
up right back in the marsh.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And the greatest part about the marshes We got through
the marshal like, all right, finally high ground, and then
we realized it was high ground for a little water hole.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, there was there was one mesquite tree out there,
and I was like, sweet, mosquites don't grow in like
really wet, swampy areas. We're back on high ground. Turns
out that was like the dam of a little pond
that was packed up the whole other.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
In the middle of the entire marsh. So then we
had to walk another one hundred and fifty yards through
the marsh to.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Get back to the truck. Yeah, and you were pretty
bitter about it, but ultimately we got back no injuries,
no lost equipment, like, no hunting success.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
No lost no lost phones or keys, because we would
have been in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, So it was it was just one of those
ones where you just kind of gir and grit and
tough it out and then you just got to move
past it and you say, hey, remember that. Oh yeah,
that sucked. But here we are hopefully we can say
that it sucked. But the next day was it was
all worth it.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, And then we went to Chili Willies and had
dinner and met a YouTube fan.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
But I think that pretty much sums up our day.
We're gonna go back in tomorrow bike in try to
get the back of a unit. We talked about going
to and yet another new place, but I think there's
a lot of people there.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And finding something in the morning's hard.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, a little too unknown for a place like that
that is probably also pretty swampy. So we're just gonna
try a place that was we saw on our initial
scouting day that looked pretty good. That was we saw
Doz and Neil Guy. Yeah, so it was probably our
I don't know, be or see option.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So on that note, though, the north wind changed a lot,
because I would love to go back and hunt where
I hunted the first morning, but ever since that first
morning it was a south wind. It's been north north,
and then tomorrow's north, which completely blows up the spot
at first sat in because it looks down south into
a field, so there's nowhere to go sit south of that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
If we were a rifle hunting, I would totally do it, yeah,
because you could go up that road on that hedgerow
in the dark and then just be ready to make
and your winds great, But trying to close the distance
with a bow, there's there's no cover, there's nowhere to go.
So that's our plan for tomorrow. But it should be fun.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, last day hopefully, uh hopefully get some down If not,
we've had a fun adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah yeah, we've We've flung arrows, we've drawn blood, we've
you know, worn out the bikes, worn out our feet,
like we've we've given it everything, I think, so, I
mean not to the point of like being like crazy,
risky or dangerous, but like we've we've worked hard. Yeah,
and just sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes it doesn't,
(18:39):
so we'll see it happens. But I think we're gonna
go bug the trout again. It's been they're working out.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, a little bony, but the flavor was good. Yeah.
But all right, Well, thanks you all for tuning in.
We've got at least one more episode, last full day.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tomorrow and hopefully a really fun one.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah. We'll report back.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Hopefully it's not until about two in the morning because
we're you know, quartering to Neil guy.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
All the better, all the better, all right, catch you
all later.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
M
All right, we're back. What's up, y'all? Welcome to what
is this? Her fourth episode?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Fourth episode, Day three of hunting. Yeah, we just had
a fun little surprise. We went to the local joint
called Chili Willies.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Hilly Willies. What's funny? As I was calling my wife
earlier and I was like, yeah, it's this place called
Chili Willies. And she's like, is this a hot dog place?
So I'm like, no, no, not a hot dog place.
She's like, is it some other kind of.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Like that. No, No, it's it's not.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
It's just your local small town burgers and get a
chicken strips basket and a beer type of place.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
They had some monster Bucks on the wall, like Monster Bucks, Yeah,
and they said they're mostly from the Canyon. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But we were in there and some guy comes out
of the bathroom and he looks at Plenty.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
He goes, I know you.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
I know you too.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
He looks at me, and I'm like, it's like I'm
watching y'all's YouTube videos while I'm sitting out there waiting.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It was a fun surprise, famous four years later. But man,
today was a grind. Grinds the right word, Yeah, just
like we we worked hard at everything we did, but
it was kind of just maybe spinning our wheels, like
we learned some We definitely learned some things. We learned.
(01:25):
We learned where not to go. Yeah, I got a
little bit of closure, I think. So we hiked in,
I guess, so we'll probably be pretty quick with this episode.
And just because it's I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
There's not a ton in it. Just yeah, a lot
of a lot of grinding.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah. So got got in this morning spot last night. Yeah.
When when was south so it was perfect day for
you know, or wind was north, sorry, so perfect day
to come in from the south with face into the
wind right up by right, So we picked an entrance
that made sense for that. Got in there. You sat
(02:06):
in the same area, No, I moved a little bit,
but same area. Yeah. And it was funny as you
were walking in, I was like, dude, some other guys
flashing his red headlamp at me, and I realized you
were just looking down with your headlamp and I was
seeing it like blink between the trees. Oh. One little
fun thing. When I was walking in, I walked right
up on a pig like four yards from me, and
(02:29):
then he was growling at me because it was it
was still dark. He didn't know what I was. I
was down wind of him, and he was just I
was just like, I just ran them off. I'm like, yeah,
I mean, on the last day, I'll shoot a pig.
But it was still like an hour before well probably
(02:49):
an hour before official sunrise, so thirty minutes before legal.
But got in struggled to find a spot this morning
and sat down in like the first It's just a
consequence of walking in in the dark to a spot
you haven't thoroughly explored and scouted and pinned. Like I
knew the general area, I knew which way I wanted
to approach from. I knew a lot of like the
(03:11):
meta information, if you will, about the area, but not
the exact place. And so I kind of sat down
in the first place and I'm like, yeah, this looks
like a little meadow. But then it opened up and
I'm like, it's twenty eight yards across by thirteen yards wide,
and so I'm like, gotta be real lucky. And there
was a trail that went right through the middle of it,
and that's what I saw, and that's how I got
(03:32):
in there. So I'm like, well, I'm kind of running
out of time. I'll just PLoP down here. Not long
into my hunt, it was after legal I heard a
little swish in the grass and looked up and there
was a buck staring at me at like eleven or
twelve yards, and.
Speaker 3 (03:48):
He was He would have been a legal buck outside
the years, but I mean they're all legal down.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Here, no angly restriction. Any deer's illegal deer.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
But you would have been. He was a decent sized, yeah,
he was.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
He was one I would have shot. But I just
looked up and he was just right in my face,
looking like he was looking in my eyes, and I
think he was just trying to figure out what it was.
And then I tried to be sneaky and reached for
my bow. But any movement, yeah, and he just he
didn't snort or blow or anything. He just he just ran.
(04:18):
And so I texted you, I'm Mike bucketed your way.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah. He never came my way.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Well, I mean I'm sure he did, but he busted
off way earlier.
Speaker 1 (04:24):
Yeah, So, I mean he was headed in that general direction,
but so saw that, and then sat there for another
thirty minutes, and I was I don't know, not loving
my spot. I'm like, well, it's there's a little bit
of wind, I have a good wind direction. I'm in
kind of a big broken up mosquit area. Let me
just get to a bigger meadow so I can actually
see something and hunted a little bit better, and so
(04:48):
I packed up my stuff, started walking, came across across
the trail and looked down and there was blood. And
I'm like, no, way, this is this is where because
it's a little further back in the woods than we
were looking last night when we weren't finding we were looking.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
On the ridge line, which he didn't ever go to
the ridge line apparently. No, it was definitely a different
meial guy.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, likely your cow, likely my cow and yours.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Like And that's what I was surprised by is because
when you sent so you texted me, I'm like, well,
I don't think anything's going to happen here because I
was in the general area where I shot the cow yesterday. Yeah,
I'm like, dude, this it's so busted up here.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
So I'm like, give me like twenty minutes and I'll
head your way.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
And where you sent me the pin, I'm like dude,
you're you're seventy yards past where we saw the cow.
I think, yeah, in the in the woods on that ridge, so.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
It gets it's a different animal. And the blood was
really good at first, and then it kind of faded out,
and then it got good again, and then you came
down and joined me.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But the funny thing is like, so he sends me
a pin. I'm walking that way and I'm in the
middle of like the Mesquite flat and I looked down.
I'm like, dude, I found blood.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
And you've you found it almost exactly where I first
found it, which is funny because a few yards down
the trail.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I'm just walking around the woods and then I saw
Plenty had sent me a picture of blood on a
mesquite tree, like probably I don't know, three feet up
in the air. Yeah, and I saw the exact same blood.
I'm like, all right, I'm on your same trail. Yeah,
send me your pin.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
I'm just I'm like, get over here. You're just following me.
I feel like the I was tempted to be like, oh, also,
by the way, I cut my hand. If you see anybody, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
It's funny. Aside, we were hunting one time. I shot
a I'd shot.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
A jack wrapper, yeah, and I strapped into my pack
and he was bleeding and we're looking for a blood trail,
and we're like, man, there's really good fresh blood here.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
You were just you were just dripping and I was
literally chasing your tail like it was ridiculous.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
But that was the one I shot with the block nineteen.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
Yeah. Yeah, it was like, you think I could do it?
Speaker 3 (06:51):
He was twenty yards away and I shot him.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, that's hilarious. But man, we followed that blood trail,
and we there were a couple of times where it
just there was some blood that were like I was convinced.
I'm like, he's going to be right around the next blood.
There's a lot of blood, way more like six times
as much as from that other day. Like there there
(07:13):
were times where I'm like, man, he's going to be
right here.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And I don't know if you notice, like every once
in a while when we'd see that thick blood, I
started looking out, Yeah, I'm just looking for a white belly.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Yeah yeah exactly, and even like bloody snot on limbs
and stuff. So I'm like, man like, but we followed
that blood trail, like there were points where we were
practically hands in knees, just staring at the ground for
five or ten minutes. And it's interesting there were sometimes
we were walking, like quickly walking and just like walking
(07:43):
blood blood and just keep going. But then there's some
areas where we'd stare for ten minutes looking at every
leaf and then find one drip like on the stem
underneath a leaf and yeah, yeah, and we followed it
zero point seven four miles. Yeah, that is the longest
blood trail I've ever followed.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
And we followed it from the Mesquite Flats all the
way out probably what do you think, two three hundred yards.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
Into that field. Yeah, like he went into a field.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's where it got real hard because the sun was
out and like it just got real hard to see
the blood.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
And it was we were wide open in ten inch
tall or a foot tall, little just like succulent, frubby stuff,
and half of it's like orange red. Yeah, like, oh,
it got sicked up. And so finally we just called it.
And I hated to call it because it's like we
(08:35):
had invested so much time in following the trail.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Three hour blood trail, yeah, yeah, yeah, three hours and
almost a mile yeah, which by the way, like we
have Plinny and I always talk about like, oh, if
you shoot these suckers and you only hit one lung,
they can run a mile.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
We proved it.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Yeah, absolutely believe it.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yeah, those things can run forever.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
And like, this dude was big. It was a big bowl.
So obviously there are some that may not be quite
as tough, but if you shoot a mature bolt, like,
they absolutely can run a mile on one long which
is just wild. And then there was like across the
road where he was headed, there were just like at
(09:15):
least one hundred acres of nothing but straight marsh grass
and it was.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
Like probably seven feet tall marsh.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Grass at least.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Yeah, Like I couldn't walk through there and see.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And it's there are no landmarks, no topography, no anything.
So it's like if he went in there, he's piled
up somewhere, no chance.
Speaker 2 (09:31):
It's We talked about Harry Potter Forum or eating Harry Potter
or my kids, and it was like the episode of
the Goblet of Fire, I think when they're or the
Triwizard Tournament and they're in.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
The maze thing and I was like, dude, I don't
want to go in that maze. Yeah, I really don't
want to.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Yeah, dude, and he might still be alive running around
just with a gangster limb.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Because he has a lot of blood. Dude.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
I mean I think he probably died. But we didn't
see birds anywhere, so it's true.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yeah. So then we came back, hung out for a while,
watched a little bit of football. It is Sunday after all.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
The Chiefs won by blocking the field goal, which is
kind of fun.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
And then we'd seen a spot.
Speaker 4 (10:13):
So last time we were out here four years ago,
Kyle was with us and my bike had broken on
the last day in the morning, so we had a
hike somewhere because I didn't have a bike, and we
found this spot where you could park and just kind
of hike out, and so we're like, hey, let's go
try that again. But we were kind of looking on
on X and we saw, I mean, dude, like a
(10:35):
little sanctuary with a pond in the middle, surrounded by
thick brush, and we're like, man, that could.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Be good with no trails or roads in there. I
think it is behind it, like in by the pond. Yeah,
and I think but no, I guess I mean no
bike trails or no humans or anything, because after like
the first day or two running into so many people
out here, that was an important part of our strategy
is like, what's a place that looks like a decent
(11:02):
place that's hard to get to, which I.
Speaker 3 (11:04):
Think we've done a good job of that. We avoided
people the last two days.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
We did a really good job of hard to get
to and avoiding people.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
We did a really good job of hard to get to.
The The going into this place was I mean, we
couldn't have turned around because we kind of were sold
on it.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
But probably about one hundred and fifty yards into our
walk from the.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Truck, we hit marshland. Yeah, and it was it suddenly
turned into water up to basically your shins, Yeah, for
about one hundred and fifty two hundred.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Yards, yeah, which was probably ten inch deep water. Yeah,
it is brutal. For more than that, I think more
than it was.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
It was maybe three hundred yards. Yeah, it was a lot.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But it's just slow going because it's not just water,
it's that like marsh weed, like scrubby stuff.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
It's you're like up to your thighs and so you.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Got to like do the high step and stuff with
muddy boots and like like walking in sand. Yeah, so
that that was really tough and admittedly very discouraging.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
But and then we got to that.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
We got to the perimeter of this little sanctuary, which
is just a circle surrounded by trees, and it was
so thick we couldn't get in, but we looked for
deer trails.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
We found one and it led us in. Yeah. Then
that was actually because I was worried that we're gonna
have to walk all the way around, which I guess foreshadowing.
So our walkout, we came all the way around and
there's that on.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Wasn't that bad?
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Yeah, that wasn't that bad, except for we walked right
back into the marshland.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
So we sat there right by the pond on the
north side of it, so we could see things coming
in from the north because we had a north wind.
And dude, I literally like I was, I was kind
of cracking some limbs so I could see and I'm
not even sitting down yet, and I see a pig
probably he was a pretty big pig, probably one hundred
(12:52):
and seventy five pound pig, walking straight down my trail
that I'm at, And so I.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Quickly knock an arrow.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
And I've been we've been talking about this orrever, like
am I going to shoot a pig or not? And
I had it in my mind like I don't really
want to shoot a pig yet because last day maybe
I still don't know, like I want to if it's
last light, for sure, yeah, but I want to wait
for something better. And so this was like right when
we got there, this pig comes walking out. He had
no clue I was there and watching him. He was
(13:20):
at thirty five yards coming to probably like twenty twenty
five yards for me, I knocked an arrow, and I
just decided, like, man, I don't want to if it's
a Neil guy or deer, love to pack it out
through that march, Like I'd be excited to pack it
out through that mars. Like for a pig, you basically
go anywhere in Texas and find pigs. Yeah, And so
I decided not to show.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
And I think they really want to kill him down here, yeah,
but it's just for as hard as it is to
get in and out and feel dressed, I just.
Speaker 3 (13:49):
Didn't want to do.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
So I decided like, all right, I'll stand up and
I hadn't made the full commitment that I wasn going
to shoot him, but I'm like, I'll stand up just
kind of see if he bounces off or not.
Speaker 3 (13:59):
And I stood up and he kind of kind of
saw me.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
He kept coming and looked, and then he just he
peeled off to the east, and I'm like, all right, good,
I you know, made my decision for me, and I
still don't regret it, even though we didn't shoot anything tonight,
because I really really did not want to pack out
a pig in that.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
It was a grind getting through that stuff. Yeah, And
that whole time I set up and I kept it
was hard for me to mentally figure out. There were
kind of two trails, and I was trying to figure
out some way that I could sit between of them
look look at them, and I'm either I could have
a great view of one and my wind was going
straight towards the other one, or I had a just
(14:41):
barely a half view of both of them but no
real shooting angle. So I just I picked the one
with the better wind and sat there and I could
mentally imagine something coming down that trail, but nothing dead.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I feel like that area like in retrospect because
of the water and everything. It's perfect pig habitat, like pig, pig,
pig everywhere.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It's just thick to you, just like anything that's tough
and wants to live in the mud. Great, And I.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Guess my thought process going into it is there's probably
what you think eight hundred to a thousand acres of
field just to the west of it. Like there's a
ton of fields. So it's like, all right, well, maybe
Neil Gui will come into this one water.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Hole field like with air quotes. Yeah, because it's marshy,
maybe it's dry deserty dirt that stuff can just run
around in maybe or maybe or maybe it's ten inch
deep water for you know, yeah a quarter mile.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
But net net we didn't see anything.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, And then we walked out and we saw a
couple of deer just as we were walking out with
our headlamps, just seeing their eyes. And then we made
the wrong angle towards the truck. Yeah yeah, and ended
up right back in the marsh.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
And the greatest part about the marshes We got through
the marshal like, all right, finally high ground, and then
we realized it was high ground for a little water hole.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, there was there was one mesquite tree out there,
and I was like, sweet, mosquites don't grow in like
really wet, swampy areas. We're back on high ground. Turns
out that was like the dam of a little pond
that was packed up the whole other.
Speaker 3 (16:15):
In the middle of the entire marsh. So then we
had to walk another one hundred and fifty yards through
the marsh to.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Get back to the truck. Yeah, and you were pretty
bitter about it, but ultimately we got back no injuries,
no lost equipment, like, no hunting success.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
No lost no lost phones or keys, because we would
have been in a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, So it was it was just one of those
ones where you just kind of gir and grit and
tough it out and then you just got to move
past it and you say, hey, remember that. Oh yeah,
that sucked. But here we are hopefully we can say
that it sucked. But the next day was it was
all worth it.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
Yeah, And then we went to Chili Willies and had
dinner and met a YouTube fan.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
But I think that pretty much sums up our day.
We're gonna go back in tomorrow bike in try to
get the back of a unit. We talked about going
to and yet another new place, but I think there's
a lot of people there.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And finding something in the morning's hard.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, a little too unknown for a place like that
that is probably also pretty swampy. So we're just gonna
try a place that was we saw on our initial
scouting day that looked pretty good. That was we saw
Doz and Neil Guy. Yeah, so it was probably our
I don't know, be or see option.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
So on that note, though, the north wind changed a lot,
because I would love to go back and hunt where
I hunted the first morning, but ever since that first
morning it was a south wind. It's been north north,
and then tomorrow's north, which completely blows up the spot
at first sat in because it looks down south into
a field, so there's nowhere to go sit south of that.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
If we were a rifle hunting, I would totally do it, yeah,
because you could go up that road on that hedgerow
in the dark and then just be ready to make
and your winds great, But trying to close the distance
with a bow, there's there's no cover, there's nowhere to go.
So that's our plan for tomorrow. But it should be fun.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
Yeah, last day hopefully, uh hopefully get some down If not,
we've had a fun adventure.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Yeah yeah, we've We've flung arrows, we've drawn blood, we've
you know, worn out the bikes, worn out our feet,
like we've we've given it everything, I think, so, I
mean not to the point of like being like crazy,
risky or dangerous, but like we've we've worked hard. Yeah,
and just sometimes it goes your way. Sometimes it doesn't,
(18:39):
so we'll see it happens. But I think we're gonna
go bug the trout again. It's been they're working out.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Yeah, a little bony, but the flavor was good. Yeah.
But all right, Well, thanks you all for tuning in.
We've got at least one more episode, last full day.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
Tomorrow and hopefully a really fun one.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Yeah. We'll report back.
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Hopefully it's not until about two in the morning because
we're you know, quartering to Neil guy.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
All the better, all the better, all right, catch you
all later.
Speaker 3 (19:23):
M
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