Show Notes
Connor records a mostly solo episode of Deep in the Hunt of Texas. He's running late after a day of work golf, and he looks ahead to deer season. He says it's still warm, but a gradual cool-down should help the rut and the rifle season later on.
**First blood in Bowie.** His cousin Trey shot a big 8-point, roughly 130–135 inches. It was a last-minute Sunday evening hunt. The arrow showed liver-type blood, so Trey backed out instead of pushing the deer. Connor uses that to explain how to read blood on an arrow:
- Pink and bubbly usually means lung.
- Darker blood can mean heart.
- Flaky red blood means liver.
- A shoulder hit usually means the deer lives.
Liver-hit deer die, but pushing them too soon can send them miles away. While they waited for a tracking dog, everything went wrong. They got a bad waiter at their favorite Tex-Mex place, then hit a dead deer's antler and got a flat tire. A deputy sheriff questioned their friend at the gate, and Connor worried a game warden might show up. The dog found the buck 25 yards from the stand in seconds. Connor calls the whole night a "Murphy's Law" story.
**Lessons from hard seasons.** Connor shot nothing in 2024 and had to grind out a deer on December 28 last year. He says his biggest growth came in those years. He used to be a "slave to the corn." He now studies travel routes and bedding, and he thinks deer hunting is built on trial and error. He gives this advice:
- Take more risks if you have a lot of land, and compare it to diversifying investments.
- Be patient on strong spots like pinch points.
- Move cameras that show only cows and hogs.
- Trust your gut.
- Focus on the process, not the results. In his words, deer mounts end up in a landfill anyway.
**New Mexico mule deer.** In about three weeks he goes after desert mule deer near the Magdalena Mountains with Parker Webb. It's a low-density, high-quality unit with the rut starting. He expects to know within a day or two whether they'll find deer. His main goal is to get Parker on a buck.
**Jeffro joins.** Jeffro drops in unannounced, fresh from his nine-year anniversary dinner. They tell the story of Connor's 2021 deer, which interrupted Jeffro's fourth-anniversary dinner and ended with Jeffro helping track a deer that was 10 steps away. After that the talk wanders:
- Jeffro's son Brooks makes an appearance.
- Old Duck Commander DVDs.
- Plans to hunt Sunday.
- Broadhead debates (Rage, Muzzy, Grim Reaper, Swacker).
They end on rifles. Both swear by the .30-06, and Connor's hot take is that shooting past 300 yards is long-range shooting, not hunting. He signs off hoping to have his own deer story next week.
