Show Notes
In this conversation, Kevin Creeley interviews Sam Brown, a deer hunter from North Carolina. They discuss various topics including preparing for the season, transitioning from dog hunting to bow hunting, and the importance of understanding deer behavior and patterns. They also touch on the use of bait and the impact of acorn crops on deer movement. Overall, the conversation provides insights into the strategies and experiences of a seasoned deer hunter. In this part of the conversation, Sam Brown discusses the habitat in the areas he hunts and the strategies he employs during different times of the year. He mentions that during late October to early November, he focuses on hunting pinch points and funnels near food sources, such as corn piles and oak trees. He also talks about the importance of hunting when big bucks show up in daylight and the value of listening to podcasts and learning from experienced hunters like the Drury's. Sam shares a story about a memorable hunt where he encountered trespassers but still managed to harvest a big buck. Kevin also shares a similar story of encountering a giant buck after a frustrating hunt. They both emphasize the importance of the experience and the story behind the deer, rather than just the antler size. In this final part of the conversation, Sam and Kevin discuss their experiences hunting deer during different times of the year. They talk about specific hunting trips, including one where Sam had to drag a deer a long way by himself. They also discuss the best times to hunt during the rut and how their hunting schedules are affected by family and work commitments.
Show Transcript
Kevin Creeley (00:01.827)
Welcome back everybody to the mid Atlantic outdoorsman podcast. Today I'm going to be having a gentleman named Sam Brown on Sam. found he was actually a listener of the podcast and he reached out to me via social media, just kind of giving me the Attaboy telling me he's enjoying the content. We really appreciate that. And, we got to chatting and stuff and I got to looking through Sam's Instagram and this guy kills some really big bucks in the state of North Carolina. So I decided, Hey, we'll just have them on the show and we'll chat about deer hunting. So how you doing Sam?
Sam Brown (00:31.004)
Doing good, doing good. Thanks for having me.
Kevin Creeley (00:33.316)
absolutely, dude. Happy to have you. What you been up to, my man?
Sam Brown (00:37.318)
Trying to stay cool and dry, but it's been pretty tough. It's hot and rainy, hot and rainy down here. And the storm, yeah, y 'all probably getting stormed too, ain't you?
Kevin Creeley (00:45.453)
Yeah, same here.
Kevin Creeley (00:49.707)
Yeah, it started, you know, it's like a nasty heat wave. I'm talking nasty. Like it was just like, didn't seem like it was less than a hundred for weeks. And I'm a fireman by trade. That's what I do full time. So brutal, brutal job to have when it's a hundred degrees, just not fun at all. And then it seemed like the heat wave started to die a little bit. And now it's just like three or four inches of rain a day. So it's like, kind of pick your poison, you know?
Sam Brown (00:53.728)
Mm
Sam Brown (01:04.31)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:16.67)
Yeah, we had that tropical storm come up. I think we got about six inches in last two days, which thankfully it was over two and a half days, not all in one day, but sun's out now and the deer been popping out on my camera. So that's good news.
Kevin Creeley (01:26.329)
you
Kevin Creeley (01:31.801)
Yeah, yeah, that's good, man. Getting ready for season. It's probably, guess, you're in North Carolina, so it's less than 30 days for you.
Sam Brown (01:39.21)
Yes, it's always the second Saturday in September. So this year is September 14th. So looking forward to it. Looking forward to it.
Kevin Creeley (01:46.233)
Okay, right on. Yeah, that's exciting, man. What do you do pre -season wise, getting ready for the season? Other than the obvious, like shooting your bow, going through your equipment, stuff like that. But as far as actually getting ready to hunt, what do you do?
Sam Brown (02:04.706)
I, some years I've left trail cans out year round, but normally about middle of July, I'll start deploying trail cans. Some of the counties we can hunt, we can still put minerals out. We've had some CWD pop up. So the actual county I live in, we can't put minerals out anymore during the summer. Some of the other counties we can. So obviously that's the best place to put the cameras for inventory.
Kevin Creeley (02:24.344)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (02:32.206)
Hmm.
Sam Brown (02:32.768)
The county I actually live in, we can't put minerals out this year. So I've been basically on bean fields just to collect inventory. Some of my go -to places, I'll go and put my stands up. I put one up last week. I like to try to go ahead and do that just so some of my places I can wait till later on in the year because they're more rut and late season places. But all of my...
Kevin Creeley (02:38.764)
Okay.
Sam Brown (02:58.006)
If I think I don't have a good shot that first few weeks of both season, I try to go ahead and get my stands up. So I've been putting stands up each week. I deploy a few more cameras that are kind of staggered. So the ones I have out now are obviously early season. And then I'm starting to put out the ones that are going to be for October, November. And then there's some places we've hunted me and my dad have hunted for 20 years. And it's basically just kind of wait around till they pop up on the camera pretty much.
Kevin Creeley (03:28.471)
Yeah, that's kind of, kind of the approach that I took this year where traditionally I would put cameras out in the early season on a food source, usually a bean field, something like that and collect inventory in the early season. And this year I didn't do a ton of that.
I've kind of got, we were talking a little bit before we got on the air. I've kind of got my cameras already pushed back where I think the deer are going to be. Every year I get a good inventory on the beanfield. It's, it's, mean, it's extremely successful for getting that solid inventory, but I just, this year I wanted to try something different. There's one specific deer that I'm chasing. This will probably be my first time ever really chasing a specific deer. And I've been hunting this deer for, this will be year three.
I've yet to get him back on camera on cell camera anyway. I have a camera that I probably, if he's alive, I'm pretty confident I've got him on camera, but that's a card camera. So I have to go pull that. But yeah, no, cool man. So why don't you, for the listeners kind of introduce yourself, talk about how you got into hunting, how long you've been hunting, what you do for a living and stuff like that.
Sam Brown (04:26.108)
Mm
Sam Brown (04:39.382)
My name is Sam Brown. I live in central part of North Carolina. I do hunt two or three counties here in central part. I do also hunt down east in the county down there. That's actually where I started deer hunting. I'm 38 years old so back in the early 90s there wasn't as many deer.
Kevin Creeley (04:55.48)
Okay.
Sam Brown (05:02.184)
North Carolina period, but there definitely wasn't as many in the where we live. So we would go down east. There was a few more down there and that's when we actually got with the club that hunted our land was a dog hunting club. So actually when I started deer hunting, we dog hunted. the funny story was the first time I ever went, we went down there just to look around. My dad didn't, he bass fished and raccoon hunting off of the eighties and nineties. So he really didn't deer hunt much.
Kevin Creeley (05:15.126)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (05:31.562)
Mm
Sam Brown (05:31.638)
So we went down to our family land down there and they were actually running dogs that day and I said, yeah, you're so and so like, you your family owns the land. Y 'all come hunt with us. And it was actually my eighth birthday and I was supposed to come back home at lunch to have a birthday party. And after the first deer comes by with 12 dogs behind it, that was it. I didn't want to go home. And yeah, my dad had dragged me home. I was crying and mad and cause it was cool. then we, but that's really that was, and then we dog vended for a while and then.
Kevin Creeley (05:45.667)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (05:50.322)
Nope, this is my birthday party now.
man, that's awesome. Yeah.
Sam Brown (06:02.272)
We have a couple other smaller farms around, so we could go dog hunt in this other place, then we'd kind of still hunt some other places too. And then slowly as the years gone on, kind of like we talked about, I love dog hunting, but we now pretty much only still hunt.
Kevin Creeley (06:17.891)
Cool. Yeah. So tell you what, talk a little bit about, cause that's a real pretty similar story to my kind of, how I came into the deer hunting world. Talk a little bit about your transition from being like primarily a dog hunter into still hunting and how that happened.
Sam Brown (06:35.926)
So like most hunting clubs, our land was starting to shrink as time went on, know, suburban sprawl, which there's not a whole lot of development going on down there, but like there is a major road came through right through a middle of our hunting land. The landowners, like I said, we used to have 10 people owned all the 6 ,000 acres we hunted and then that 10 became 12 and 15 and 20. And so we lost one of our spots and so.
And then another thing that happened, we started running our dogs into off season and fox pens. And it's actually got our dogs are in really good shape. The problem with that is you turn them out and then they're, they're gone. They'd be, they'd motor on that. And then our, so our woods were shrinking and our dogs were actually getting better, more stamina they'd go. And so it just became, we lost land and it kind of came where it wasn't fun anymore for quite a few people. So.
Kevin Creeley (07:34.711)
Mm
Sam Brown (07:35.19)
I think around 2008 or nine, we quit dog hunting. And we still hunted too a long time, but it was different places. But that, like I said, we were primarily, you know, ran dogs. And then we started still hunting. And that was basically go throw corn out, get in stand with a rifle. Still wasn't easy as I thought it would be. I never picked...
Kevin Creeley (07:56.537)
Yeah. Yeah, it isn't, it isn't as easy as the people paint the, like the States that can't bait, right? Like Virginia, I'm a non -baiting state and one of my best friends, hunts in Carolina and he baits, he really only baits in the early season. He's a really good deer hunter. so he doesn't really need to bait once the deer on like a, a pre -rut pattern or a rut pattern. But, I always used to make fun of him like, he's throwing corn out and here come 20 deer. then like.
Through haunting with him and Carolina and stuff like that. That's really not the case. It's not as easy as people make it out to be.
Sam Brown (08:27.943)
Especially with them big ones. Like I said, can get that. It's really good. It was really good to get inventory and to get young people. When I was still hunting, we were small, it was always cool to go because you always see deer most of the time. Especially back, it made more sense back when there wasn't as many deer around. Like now it's like, what do mean you don't see deer? But you might went and see, you didn't see bucks a whole lot. So, but it was kind of, we kind of just threw the coin out wherever and then put the stand where we wanted it.
Kevin Creeley (08:38.231)
you
Hmm.
Sam Brown (08:57.256)
As the years progressed, I was like, I didn't want to pick up a bow yet because I want to kill a nice one with a rifle. I killed some pretty decent deer running dogs, but nothing very big. So, but as time went on, I realized that I may just need to pick up a bow anyway. So when I started bow hunting, that kind of changed to let me get where the deer are anyway. And then I kind of put corn out there to kind of sweeten the deal. And that's really, yes.
Kevin Creeley (09:04.927)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (09:21.229)
Yeah. Yeah. Get a stopping point, you know, kind of that's, that's one thing about bait. Like I was actually on the phone with a buddy yesterday who hunts in Carolina. And when he hunts in like rut funnels and stuff in November, he'll, he'll talk about like, I don't use the bait to attract the deer, the deer are already there. I'm just, I just need to stop a spot where they'll stop and stand there for a second. You know?
Sam Brown (09:32.928)
Mm -hmm. Yep.
Sam Brown (09:41.718)
Yeah, when I'm that and like one of my one of my spots is a good little staging area before they go out into the field. So I'll put it there and kind of catch them in between. that was the other thing was learning to I used to put the stand in whatever best tree it was. And I wouldn't really think about the wind as in hunting with a good wind. I'm like, well, I can't hunt there today. Well, I got a notice in a few years ago that all my stands were wrong for north or northeast wind. And that's when
the weather changes. so really kind of figuring out, you know, where the deer are first, where I want to be next, and then put the corn out as, you to stop them or maybe get them come back. and I think that's kind of really the big change that I've had is kind of, you know, like I have a lot of inside corners on bean fields. I put corn out just so that way they'll come out, they'll come to 20 yards instead of stay out there in the beans at 60 or 70.
Kevin Creeley (10:40.065)
Yup.
Sam Brown (10:40.638)
And like a year like this, the beans are gonna be, they'll be over the deer's back. So you won't have a shot. If you put it too far out, you don't have a shot. But naturally around the edges of the bean fields where the trees suck up moisture and maybe the fertilizer don't get their spray, don't quite get to it. The beans are shorter, brows. So learning stuff like that's been the big thing. It's like, I'll put a corn pile here to stop them and also get them where they're not out there in the tall bean.
Kevin Creeley (10:44.663)
Yep.
Kevin Creeley (10:49.646)
Mm.
Kevin Creeley (11:05.495)
Yeah. I went to glass, actually, I guess it would have been about two weeks ago, maybe less now. I went to glass of a small farm that I had permission on here in my hometown. And I was like, you know, I hadn't been there in a couple of months and I was like, I have a good glass tonight. got nothing going on. be fun. And I pulled up, stepped out of the truck and I'm like, these beans are chest high. I'm like, I'm not going to see anything. Like there's no way it's just going to look like.
Sam Brown (11:28.597)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (11:29.983)
You know, you're just going to see the beans moving around if they're out there in it. Hopefully they'll walk out on the edge. And I did end up seeing one deer and it was a really nice buck. And it was actually on the walk back to the truck. He was in between the bean field and my truck where I parked and I was walking back and I saw the silhouette of a deer and it was pretty much last light. And I was like, that's a deer. I could tell that much.
Sam Brown (11:32.032)
Mm
Sam Brown (11:42.41)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (11:49.783)
I threw my binos up. It was a good deer. mean, it was a, don't, I don't, can't give a size to him, but he was well outside the ears, you know, and he saw me at the same time I saw him and he bound it off into a ditch. And I was like, that's cool. That's the first good one I've seen in person this year, you know, so that was exciting. but, I was just going to say, so you're, you're probably a little bit in North Carolina of an anomaly in the, in the fact that you were raised dog hunting and now you primarily bow hunt. that correct?
Sam Brown (12:06.292)
I've got, go ahead.
Sam Brown (12:18.964)
Yes.
Kevin Creeley (12:19.917)
Yeah, I don't, I mean, this is just from my personal experience, but I don't meet a lot of folks from North Carolina who transitioned from dog hunting into bow hunting like that, and then end up just bow hunting long -term, you know? So that's pretty cool.
Sam Brown (12:34.012)
Well, and I've had some, there's some suburban opportunities that I've had. So you can only bow hunt those. And that's kind of what, you know, helped that transition. But then also too is if I don't like to hunt when it's hot, I don't like sweat, but I work outside, I do it all the time, but I don't like being in a deer stand sweating. But I've learned that if you pick the right day, it's hard to beat those September days sometimes. the...
Kevin Creeley (12:41.603)
Okay.
Sam Brown (13:01.866)
There's getting more and more bow hunters in North Carolina, but a lot of them still don't bow hunt until it cools off. And they don't take advantage of, you you got early bow season, you got late beans, the beans are still green. mean, so you've got probably two or three weeks on these bean fields where they're green and you can kind of somewhat pattern deer. So like I said, it's kind of one of those, you know, when people talk about public land hunting, you know, you want to hunt on Tuesday or, you know, hunt during the low and that's kind of what
Kevin Creeley (13:07.288)
Okay.
Sam Brown (13:32.086)
a lot of what I try to do is hunt early season. Now I've killed most of my deer in the rut, but the first buck I ever shot with a bow, pretty nice nine pointer. It was September 21st, we're at 90 degrees. It was hot, but you know, no one is.
Kevin Creeley (13:51.119)
What was the setup like for that deer? Was that coming to the beans or?
Sam Brown (13:55.134)
That was actually in a corn pile in the woods, but it was more toward bedding. there was, was on a transition from, it was off the back of a big swamp and there was actually a river and then about a four year old clear cut that was not our land. And then the land we could hunt was the timber. So was right there on the edge of a river, clear cut, big woods. Really nice transition place.
Kevin Creeley (13:59.383)
Okay.
Sam Brown (14:23.88)
And so like I said, this is a spot. There's white oaks. They hadn't quite started falling yet, but I put corn out. And so he was coming out of that bedding area. He was two and a half, three and a half year old, but he was really good first buck. was pretty excited.
Kevin Creeley (14:37.731)
Yeah, absolutely. Especially with the bow. Yeah, that's awesome.
Sam Brown (14:39.658)
Yeah, and that particular setup place, chased one of the biggest, at the time, by far the biggest deer I'd ever went after. Me and him went some rounds in that little transition. He finally got shot by a gun hunter the next year. That's something we can talk about later, but he's one of those that taught me some lessons. But yeah, so I have killed him early. Most of my,
Kevin Creeley (14:51.609)
Yeah. Okay. Okay. That's a bummer.
Yeah, absolutely.
Sam Brown (15:05.98)
I to shoot a doe early season two, sometimes just to go ahead and get the muck off my back, I've killed a few of those in the bean fields. Just inside corners most of The particular camera I have out now is in a spot where have a power line beside me. I'm on the bean field and behind me is another field with the hedgerow split and then there's a pretty thicket. So just one place where a lot of things come together. You've got a different field, hedgerow. Well, actually there was corn behind me and beans in front of me.
And I seem to have a lot better luck with that because they like to eat both. This year's beans everywhere, I've not actually gotten a lot of pictures from that camera. I'm kind of disappointed, but I'm hoping maybe exactly, yeah.
Kevin Creeley (15:43.107)
Well, they're just probably just a lot more dispersed, you know, it's not as concentrated. I have, one of the farms I share with some buddies, we lease it and he, he plants a lot of organic stuff and it's usually like cabbage, broccoli, green peppers, stuff like that.
Sam Brown (16:02.014)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (16:05.387)
And you would think the deer would hammer cabbage, but that has not been the case for me. That's not what I've seen. I mean, when he plants beans or corn, that's the spot to get, to get inventory. Right. but the cabbage fields, stuff like that. I don't even know that I've ever seen a deer in them just driving around. Like there's not never really a lot of sign around them. It's just, doesn't seem to get the same pressure, you know? yeah, you were talking about, like bucks teaching you lessons, right? I've got one I was just talking about.
The deer I've been hunting for this will be the third year that I've been hunting a really big 11 pointer. At least last year he's an 11 pointer. I haven't laid eyes on him this year to see what he looks like. If he's alive, he's bound to be a freak. He should be four or five, I would say. and you know, in Virginia in a dog hunting County, that's, that's an old deer. And, anyway, the spot that I was hunting this deer last year, if I can try to paint it for you, it's a pretty diverse, funky little pocket. But if you were to go from the South to the North.
It is a last year was standing corn this year. It's again, standing corn field there. That's like 80 acre field. And then it moves into a small parcel of pines, probably 50 to 70 acres of pines, standing pines, pretty young pines, real thick understory. and there's two ponds that are in the middle of those ponds or in the middle of those pines. And there's a drain that runs in between the two ponds. that's right at where the pines.
meet the cornfield. And then on the backside, on the far north end of those ponds is like a four year old cut over. And so the deer will typically, from my experience of scouting the place a couple of years in a row, they'll bet on the edge of that cut over kind of facing the pines towards the cornfield. And I've had a camera for two years in between those ponds in that drain, which is kind of like a really textbook pinch point, because you've literally got the bedding to the north.
Sam Brown (17:35.859)
Mm
Sam Brown (17:59.862)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (18:01.997)
They have to travel between these two ponds to get to the corn unless they just want to swim across the pond. Right. And so it's an awesome pinch point. And I've gotten pictures of that deer in there several times coming out of that pinch point, right? At last light coming to the corn staging right there, whatever. And I'd get pictures of them and I'd get pictures of them and I'd go in there to hunt and I would access, there's not a ton of ways to access it. So I would access from that pinch point and
Sam Brown (18:06.304)
Mm Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (18:26.711)
I did that over and over and over and never saw the deer. I'd see does, they'd see little bucks and stuff. Never saw the deer I was after not once. And I was like, man, I'm doing something wrong. So I went in there post -season scouting and I walked to the entire edge of that cut over on the north side. And I found beds all along the edge of that cut over. And there was one real worn out bed, stunk real bad, had a couple of rubs right around it, some droppings in it, like real textbook, you know, kind of tucked up under a dead fall. Looked awesome.
Sam Brown (18:55.254)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (18:56.217)
And I squatted down in that thing and I looked over towards that pinch point where I was accessing and I could see all the way to the standing corn that was like 185 yards away. And I got to thinking like, well, maybe this deer is literally watching me walk in here and he's turning around and just walking into this cut over. You know? So this year I went in there in June and I took a Bush mower and I went to the backside of the cut over. This is really kind of weird.
Sam Brown (19:07.765)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (19:25.081)
for me like to access like this, but I just couldn't, if you saw them a picture of the place on a map, I could not think of another way to access. So took this Bush motor and I come all the way from the north side of the property from another field. I Bush hogging 180 yard long path through that cut over to get into the pines from the north side, right? And then I sprayed it all down with two 4D and roundup to kill that down. Then I went back in August and I sprayed it again. And now I've got an access path. I can come.
Sam Brown (19:32.053)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (19:53.687)
And when the wind's blowing out of the north, I can come from up there and I can walk all the way through that cut over and get into the ponds. And I'm hoping that's going to be the ticket to maybe getting, seeing this deer on the hoof.
Sam Brown (20:01.652)
Mm -hmm.
Sam Brown (20:05.64)
I think it's, you know, especially being in North Carolina, there's so many cutovers and you got a lot of ag and timber, but I think they see you a lot more than we think. Cause I always, when I'm accessing my stands, I'm like, last year happened, I had a buck, pretty, you know, one of our, one my target bucks, he showed up on the cell cam every afternoon during the rut, you know, I went hunting, he wouldn't be there. And he used to, I would just get mad like, terrible luck. And then last year I'm like,
Kevin Creeley (20:16.684)
and
Sam Brown (20:35.242)
he's figuring out down here, because the next day he'd be right back in there. And it was on one these little hidey hole places. It was like a big field, but one of the corners wrapped into the woods, like just a finger went way into, surrounded by woods, and there was a pinch point. It's a really good rut funnel. And the deer could hang back in there. So they could still be eating in the grass. It was kind of a hay field with crops in the middle with hay around it. That's kind of what it was. So we'd have...
There was corn out in different pockets, but then they would come out and just eat the green stuff. And I think somehow he's, he had to walk a long way straight back through a bunch of open fields. So I think that book was, I think he knew I was in there. I think he was watching me as well. that's always worried about, you always worry about scent and then making noise, but I think they can see you a lot more than you think.
Kevin Creeley (21:19.171)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm. Dude, I've had num - numerous... Go ahead, sorry.
Kevin Creeley (21:32.055)
Yeah, a lot of the land that I lease in Virginia, it's farmland, right? I do lease some timberland, I lease quite a bit of timberland too. I share this with a bunch of buddies, but we lease some timberland and we lease some farmland. And in the timberland, I don't have as much trouble with access because there's a lot of cover.
Sam Brown (21:36.981)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (21:50.721)
Right. And so you can get creative. The ag land, I've had several occasions where I've been accessing a property and then bumped a deer who was like literally in the edge of the woods watching the field. I'm like, man, well, how the heck do you get in here? You know, it can get so frustrating because they can see for a long ways when they're in that ag setting.
Sam Brown (22:06.708)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (22:12.318)
And that's one of the downfalls of hunting with bow hunting with bait is the deer. And this is really with a rifle too. Now some people can set up, know, kind of, you know, different switch grass or something to try to hide their way in. But a lot of people out here don't do that. They just walk to their stand. But if it's a cold day, you walk your stand to the flock, there could still be a deer on the corn file.
And like what I like to try to do is get further back in the woods and I'll put corn out or I'll, you know, kind of get between them and the destination food, you know. But then like if you go in there, they could be on your corn farm. And then it also makes getting down kind of tricky. There's been a lot of nights I've had to sit there or I'll wait for them to, and like I said, I've bowed in more and more, I've kind of figured out where to put my spaces where I want the deer to come. They may nibble at the corn, but then they're going somewhere else.
Kevin Creeley (22:54.169)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (23:07.35)
So I'm trying to get kind of past where they want to be. It's the early season, I'm on the of the bean field. As it gets later in the year, I try to set up where I can get out without them, at least not knowing I'm in the stand. They may catch me walking through the field 300 yards away. I'm not as worried about that because by then it's dark, they don't know what I am most of the time. But if they ever get out of the stand and they see you get out of the stand, that doe's gonna know where you're
Kevin Creeley (23:36.889)
probably not gonna work out again. Let me ask you this.
Sam Brown (23:37.204)
And yeah, yeah.
Kevin Creeley (23:40.909)
When you're hunting, let's say it's a good acorn crop year, acorns are dropping really good, white oak acorns specifically. And you're hunting, let's say it's that early season, but it's like the tail end of what we would consider the early season. And it's starting to shift into more of October. The deer are starting to shift, know, they're hard horned and all that stuff. Acorns are dropping and you, or do you see your bait sites starting to receive a lot less pressure? Like, do you think the deer...
We'll switch to an acorn pattern to prefer that over the Okay.
Sam Brown (24:12.929)
100%, 100%. I think when, because we've noticed this and we would always kind of like, it's the October lull, which I do kind of believe happens, but it's more of a transit for us. It's the deer transitioning from bean fields and bait piles to acres. And that's the, but you're right. Yeah. You can, when you start seeing them bait piles, that corn is lasting way longer than they're eating acres. And so, especially white oaks, like you said.
Like we're talking before we get on here. I'm hoping that my little oak grove has some acres this year because I'm gonna go in there and I might put bait out. I may not. Probably no reason to because yeah, I'd say from October 5th to about the 20th, know, the bait pile is kind of...
Kevin Creeley (24:47.619)
Mm
Sam Brown (25:02.87)
definitely dry up some. It all depends on how much, it depends on the acorn crop as well too. But yeah, it's definitely, and then like you do have some transition of, it seems here about the last week of August, whenever the deer go hard horned, they'll do a transition. And then there'll actually to me be another transition in the middle of October. So we might lose 10 % of our bucks during that first hard horn period, then we'll lose another 10 % it seems, you know, in October as well.
Kevin Creeley (25:04.781)
Yeah, that's probably.
Kevin Creeley (25:08.609)
Yep.
Sam Brown (25:31.988)
Now most of them I'll least maybe catch them every now and then. know, the ones from the summer they're gone. But at least, but some of that is there, think they're going to oak trees. That's what I think. And then that's where the...
Kevin Creeley (25:42.207)
Okay. What's the habitat primarily like in most of the land that you hunt? Specifically the area that you're talking about where you'll see this big shift in late October where you seem to lose a lot of those blocks. What's the habitat like there?
Sam Brown (25:59.84)
So that's actually one of my spots in Wake County, which is more suburban type stuff. So there's no telling where they go. They probably go four or five miles away. And they do the same thing where I live. It's a lot more pockets of small timber and then a bunch of fields. So I think they transition to some of bigger pieces of woods or they transition to thicker pieces of wood or they go someplace where no one's gonna mess with them. That's kind of what I...
Kevin Creeley (26:06.754)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (26:28.117)
Right. So probably a combination of like, y 'all are y 'all primarily the food source, right? So in the summertime you're getting dynamite inventory. You got, you're holding all the blocks and then the bean fields start turning yellow, acorns start falling elsewhere. Add in hunting pressure cause it's hunting season. People are hunting them and they're going to get pushed back to areas, you know, more dense cover. so I guess around that time, like, what do you do? How do you shift with that transition?
Sam Brown (26:33.355)
Mm
Sam Brown (26:43.988)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Sam Brown (26:54.944)
Well, last year I found a nice group of white oaks and I was all giddy and then not a single one dropped. Cause they didn't have any acorns on them. And some of my places, are so many, they are dropping. Some of our hardwoods have a lot of white oaks. So it's kind of hard to pinpoint one. There's not like one oak tree a lot of times. Especially in some of my places up in around suburban areas, they've not cut the timber and ever.
So there's white oaks everywhere. So it's kind of just, you know, my strategy then comes find where I think the most acorns are or where I think they're going to be or where they're still, you know, if there is some standing corn, that's North Carolina. Most of our corn is gone in August and September. If you can ever find some in October, it's still up or maybe, you know, we get a hurricane or if it's wet and the farmers still have it, that's where I go. It's going to be the corn.
Once the beans turn green, you need to go to corn and oak trees. And then like I said, I'm putting bait out at certain places. So wherever I think they may end up. And like I've got a lot of historical data on pretty much knowing when they do that transition. And some of the bucks that leave, like some of them, if you don't get them before October, they're gonna be gone. And like so you might catch them on the back end, but you don't really know.
Kevin Creeley (28:22.295)
Nope. So what is a, what's your favorite time of the year to hunt?
Sam Brown (28:32.886)
Probably Halloween.
Kevin Creeley (28:35.457)
Okay. If you were to give me like a seven day window, what would it be?
Sam Brown (28:42.87)
probably around the 30th of October to November 6th, somewhere in there. Especially if it's Especially if it's cold. The second buck I killed the bow, he was a 19 and a half inch wide, eight point. Had short times, but was the second buck I killed the bow. He was a monster. I killed him on Halloween. My buddy had killed 141 inch ten point the day before.
Kevin Creeley (28:48.791)
Okay. All right. And in that timeframe, yeah, yeah, that helps for sure.
Kevin Creeley (29:08.887)
Awesome.
Sam Brown (29:13.014)
and then he killed a 127 on Thursday. So we bam, bam, bam, and it was a cold, was for here, which is, mean, for Halloween to be in the high 40s and then low 30s or 20s at night, that's cold. And so yeah, if you get that cold, that cold time of Halloween night, that's when I like it. I've had pretty good encounters on November 3rd. I've never killed a deer on November 3rd actually, but I've always seen to have really good, I spotted some of my target bucks on November 3rd, if it's cold.
Kevin Creeley (29:40.887)
Okay. So that, let's call it Halloween to November 5th, or I think is what you said, six, whatever you said. what, what type of habitat and what kind of strategy are you utilizing during that time? Are you hunting the food source or are you hunting more of like a pre -rut pattern?
Sam Brown (29:47.435)
Mm
Sam Brown (29:56.394)
So I hunt kind of a, I don't really hunt scrapes or rugs. I kind of back off even more of the food source. I'm still close to that food source because that's where the doves are going. As in green fields or corn or hay fields, like starting to get into that, know, some of the, some of the places I hunt have hay. And as the beans are gone, corn is gone, acorns are starting to dry up, they just come out there and eat the green stuff.
and or they're coming to my corner pile. So I like to settle in on a pinch point between I've got a couple places I love where a hedge road meets the woods and have two fields on each side. I like to get right in there in that where the head drum meets the field. I can hunt both sides of the head road, the actual head road. And then they're kind of coming through that that block of woods in between the two fields most of the One of my places down east, we had a huge long power line.
So it's like 800 yards long, 40 yards across. Pretty tough to bow hunt it. That's where the corn comes in. it's always a good place to see deer. I my dad rifle hunt. So it's hard to beat November sitting on that power line all day. And you see them cross it. They'll come eat in it. But yeah, as far as rifle hunting, it's hard to beat a cold day. get up on the, you know, that's the beauty about having.
the people at rifle hunting, if you can see a long ways, you're see a lot of deer moving, especially if it's cold. With the bow hunting, I'm trying to just get where the most does are and try to get a pinch point, a funnel. I still hunt some of the inside corners of fields. I'll still put my corn pile in the fields, because they may come out there to mill around on whatever's left. Sometimes if it's cold, they'll start eating actual beans. Once the beans have turned and they're brown, that's more later, later November, December.
For the rut part, it's basically, I'm baiting pretty good then as well. But like I said, it seems them big bucks know, they know about them bait piles. But that's the strategy of you hope you're kind of pulling a hot dough on that corn pile and that she brings him with them. That's kind of the strategy. I think a lot of people get the misconception of you were just shooting deer coming to eat corn. And I've done that, but most of my bucks I've shot, they've been,
Sam Brown (32:24.032)
they're coming to check the coin file. They're coming to scent check it or they're coming to see if there's any does on it, visually check it. I've had them chasing the does. but yeah.
Kevin Creeley (32:37.549)
Gotcha. So, let's say, what was I going to say? so you're hunting during the rut, you're hunting primarily funnels, pinch points, stuff like that. Typical rut patterns. Do you implement any type of calling or any type of progressive tactics like that as well? Okay.
Sam Brown (32:52.638)
No, I carry a grunt tube. I've snort wheezed it near, I've grunted it near, I've never seen him really have any, I've very really blind call, every now and then I do just to like, if I'm doing a kind of all day sit or something, I might, but yeah, I carry a grunt tube, I got a rattle bag, I don't get a Mary down there, but for the most part, I don't do any kind of calling or grunting. I've also seen that when I put my corn out, I do like to find a community scrape and either,
Kevin Creeley (33:13.761)
Okay, gotcha.
Kevin Creeley (33:20.526)
Okay.
Sam Brown (33:21.566)
One of two things happens, I either put my corn pile and set up near a community scrape or as I put the corn out through the years, they end up making a community scrape around those bait piles. We've had...
Kevin Creeley (33:31.553)
Okay. So you're kind of seeing like an influx of dough activity around those bait sites. And then the box are coming and checking the bait site almost as if they would like a field or a bedding area for, for dose. Okay.
Sam Brown (33:37.845)
Mm.
Sam Brown (33:45.483)
almost like a scrape too. They'll come in there. I've seen them skirt me before and what they're doing is they're trying to shake down into that bait pile. That real big buck I was after, that's what he was doing. I quit getting them on camera and after he got shot, I then went and kind of scoured around because I was still in that mindset of like, don't go into your places. Just go in, hunt, get out, put your bait out. And I found the...
truck hood size rub, mean, scrapes and rubs. And I found where he was coming out of the swamp, every trailer that came out of the swamp, he was rubbing the trees. And that's when I learned, and what he was doing is he was there, he just wasn't coming to the corn. Every now and then I'd get him at night, he'd come to eat, he'd come get him a snack, basically. But he was actually just coming there and checking that corn pile. And so sometimes I've set up.
Kevin Creeley (34:37.315)
Hey.
Sam Brown (34:40.627)
I'll set up off the corn, it's really hard to do, but I'll set up off the corn pile. So I'm not trying to catch a buck doing that. If I think he may be slipping around behind me or something like that, is I'll try to get him doing the same thing. But.
Kevin Creeley (34:54.477)
Gotcha. So, I took a look at Sam's Instagram before we hopped on and the dudes killed some really, really good bucks for the area, like for the area that he's hunting. And I'm pretty familiar with that area and it's he's killed some hammers. put it that way. So, why don't you, don't we do this? Take and tell me a story. You can go one at a time, whatever one of the bucks you killed last year, year before, whatever, and the strategy that you implemented to kill that deer, what type of pattern he was on or, however you want to.
or whatever you want to call it.
Sam Brown (35:26.906)
there's two that come to mind mainly because the story is so good. So the biggest buck I killed, was three years ago, I believe. I went to hunt one of my spots and about four o 'clock I heard voices behind me and I saw two dudes walking behind me and it was actually that stand I was telling you would do it's kind of in a hedgerow with two fields on each side. It was two people trespassing.
I actually had them on camera shooting the deer and coming by the camera with the deer. Yeah. And they had come back and they had right. And it was, this is a place you're only supposed to just tell women. So you don't suppose to be bow hunting, but they had a gun. So they come by me and I ran them off, which was, didn't, I just said, Hey, can y please leave? I was very nice because they had a gun. had a bow. I'd already looked out the, I'd already looked out of the place to jump out of the tree. If they went to shoot and I'd already, I didn't put my horn. I'd actually unhooked my hornets.
Kevin Creeley (35:59.373)
No kidding.
Kevin Creeley (36:22.039)
Yeah.
Sheesh, it's kind of a scary situation.
Sam Brown (36:25.04)
cause they look kind of, yeah, they, they, they weren't, they didn't look like they were just, they were up to no good kind of, so I'd actually like, if I say something, they go to shoot and I'm out of somewhat of a exit strategy. But anyway, I was mad and like I said, they had walked all around that head row. So I'd get down, I'd go out to one of my other stands and grab my SD card. in this particular buck, I didn't have a whole lot of pictures of. I was actually hunting another deer that was.
He wouldn't have scored as much as this one, but he was a lot prettier and a lot mass, you know, I'm running just a Carolina eight point, but he was really massive. We had a lot of mats on him. So I get home and it's the first daylight picture I had of this deer was after it like it, while they were walking around, he'd come to the, he'd come by the corn pile checking it. So I actually had a daytime video of, or a daytime picture. So this is on Friday after Thanksgiving. And I'm pretty upset because like my hunt has been messed up. I drove.
Kevin Creeley (37:12.417)
Enjoy.
Sam Brown (37:23.702)
45 minutes to it. These guys I've had trouble with actually come by. Luckily they never came back. So that was good. But this bucket to come by, first daylight picture I of them. I said, well, this strategy is pretty easy. I'm gonna go sit in this stand tomorrow. This stand is kind of a, it's in the middle of a hay field where I have a hedgerow that comes out of just the field, of the woods into the field. And it's kind of one of those things where it's a big.
Kevin Creeley (37:32.569)
That's good. Yeah.
Sam Brown (37:53.526)
100 acre hay field. And when they do cross it, they like to cross coming to the hedgerow, because that hedgerow juts out about a hundred yards into the field. So if you've got this a square field and about, you know, maybe three quarters of way down it, there's this hedgerow. This hedgerow is full of oak trees too. there's mainly red oaks, but this is the time here there's oak trees.
Kevin Creeley (38:12.513)
How wide is it, the hedgerow, that you're hunting?
Sam Brown (38:14.518)
This one's not very, this one's just like one tree deep. The other one I was telling you about, it's probably a good 40 yards, 50 yards across. So they can, you can catch them, they like to trap them as a creek through the middle of that hedgerow. So this one's a legit hedgerow. So it's basically one tree, know, tree, It's kind of a ditch.
Kevin Creeley (38:20.519)
wow, okay.
Kevin Creeley (38:26.038)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (38:29.729)
Okay, so the first one more like a funnel, like a travel corridor. And the second one in the hay field that you're mentioning, more like a observation stand really to hunt that hay field. Okay.
Sam Brown (38:33.78)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Brown (38:39.158)
Exactly. That's exactly what it is. That stand you got, if you want to see a bunch of deer, you go to that stand. You can see a long way away. It's kind of frustrating because you'll see 50 or 60 deer sometimes and not have a single one get within 100 yards of you. But anyway, it's a big field and it's a hay field too. It's a spray field. So the deer like it because this guy's always green, but it's pretty big and I can see a long ways away.
Kevin Creeley (38:45.9)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (38:50.969)
Sheesh.
Yeah, must be a big field. Yeah.
Sam Brown (39:07.254)
So I go to that stand and like, well, he came by here. So this was now on Saturday after Thanksgiving. And I said, the strategy was he showed up on camera, I'm gonna go there. And I kind of felt like my other spot was kind of blowed up, which was not far from this one, but it's far enough away where you can have different deer kind of come through. And as I'm sitting there, I look way onto there and I see a deer. So I had my book bag on my tree. So I turned to go get my binoculars and I looked and the...
The bigger deer I was telling you about, that I was actually hunting was right behind me at like 30 yards. And he sees me turn around and he's just looking at me. I'm like, no. I was like, maybe, and I was actually stayed still enough that he kind of kept walking. But I wouldn't expect him to come that way. So he catches him. My sense is perfect for the front and for my corn pile is and from where the deer normally come. It's not good for him, but that's why he's behind me. He catches my sense, turns around, runs off. I'm like, well.
Kevin Creeley (39:42.915)
Cheers.
Kevin Creeley (39:52.025)
Okay.
Sam Brown (40:06.762)
I wasn't expecting that deer to be there. I'm like, well, blew my chance. So was like, at least I got to see him. That he was, know, a nice deer. Also, he'd be bigger next year. So I was like, well, I'm not too, I won't, you know, I won't expect to see him. So I was like, that's a bonus. Later on, as nighttime comes, it's getting right for shooting time. And I hear a deer coming out. I've not seen very many deer that day, but I hear deer coming through the woods to my right. And it's kind of the way the wind's blowing, but now it's right at dark. It got really cold.
Kevin Creeley (40:08.525)
Right.
Sam Brown (40:35.734)
The hedgerow I'm on is also a ditch. And I believe my thermals were pulling into the ditch just enough where he came with the wind, but he never smelled it. And he wasn't, yeah. Yeah, it was dead calm. So anything that's probably just going straight down. it was, you know, it'd been fairly warm that day. So it went from 60 to, you know, 50 pretty quick. So I'm guessing thermal pull. Yeah. And it's a pretty deep ditch. So I guess, and he won't quite.
Kevin Creeley (40:41.016)
Okay.
Right. Like day ones are probably, day ones are probably about settled by now. you're, you're.
Kevin Creeley (40:56.961)
Okay, yeah, so your thermal pull is going straight into that drain.
Sam Brown (41:03.67)
100 % downwind, but he was definitely that direction. And he comes through the, and he's grunting. I could just tell it was a buck, just the way he was walking. Just, it was a heavy deer, he was on a mission. And I'm like, I know that's a buck. And then when he hits the field, I see which one it is. And he was checking, he was checking the field. He turns, walks around the front of my eye, shot me 15 yards. When I drew, he saw me.
Kevin Creeley (41:06.382)
Got it.
Sam Brown (41:30.486)
But I mean, 15 yards, yeah, they're gonna see. And the way the terrain is, I'm kinda, the tree's down a little bit in this ditch, and then there's a hill. So, you know, he's kinda actually level with me. I'm not very high, I'm very high on the tree, but not line of sight high. And he actually turned as soon as I shot. But it went in perfect, and it came out. It came out in front of his offside hip. he was done before I went and got him. But that was just a funny thing of.
Kevin Creeley (41:43.523)
Right.
Sam Brown (41:59.518)
a bad situation with someone coming in there messing up my hunt. I'm like, well, I'll go check cameras. I'm gonna get down. then, cause I don't know if I was gonna check that camera or not that day. I was saying, well, I'm gonna check this other camera. And he was on it, first time he daylighted. And it was just kind of a thing of like, when them big bucks daylight, you need to go get them. That's probably the takeaway from there. didn't, I would always, well, I'm gonna wait till the rut. That was a big thing I used to think was, I have a deer I want to shoot, know, September 10th, he's, you know,
you know early in both seasons, well I don't wait till the rut, well he's daylight and go shooting you know. I that was I'd always in my mind I'm like well I wait till the rut, wait till the rut and or I wait to get you know colder and probably the benefit of that is like when he shows up when they show up in daylight find a way to get in there on them and that kind of goes into what I've learned as far especially the last five or six years with podcasts and shows and YouTube
Kevin Creeley (42:33.325)
Mm.
Sam Brown (42:57.492)
I've learned a lot from listening to Mark Drury. I know a lot of people kind of bang on the whole Iowa deer farm stuff, but that guy, picking the day to go hunt and deer movement in general, I've learned a lot from listening to the Drury's about, know, cold fronts. Cause I used to just hunt all the time. I just hunt every day. I used to work with my dad and it was nice in a way cause we were on bosses. So we would kill it during the summer, take it easy during October, November.
But what we ended up doing was we kind of burned our spots out. Because we would hunt so much, we pay attention to the wind, but I would always go hunting in the Marriott, the weather was good, or if it was, I'll go hunt, hunt, hunt, I think now, me and him both, we hunt less, but we're lot more effective. But from that particular book there, he taught me, like, when he shows up in daytime, if you can, don't just go in there from, you you got to the wind right.
Kevin Creeley (43:45.351)
Mm
Sam Brown (43:55.05)
And that sometimes it's hard, especially if you're bait hunting. If you're in the middle of the woods with a bait pile, they come from anywhere. There may be a, what I try to do is not have my wind blowing toward the corn pile and then try not to have it blowing toward where I think they're coming from. And that's about the best you can do. Cause when I get in the middle of the woods, if I'm in the timber, they can come from anywhere. It's not like, well, they always bed here. No, I've, you know, I've tracked a lot, you know, the way deer come in where I know, you know, a couple of bedding places and it's about half an
Kevin Creeley (44:15.522)
you
Sam Brown (44:25.718)
there's a really big buck I'm hopefully gonna try to go after this year. And I've kind of patterned when he comes by my camera and there's a bait, there's a bed near to the left, a bed near to the right. I bet it's been half the time he comes from each one of them.
Kevin Creeley (44:41.248)
Yeah, it's kind of funny. I was actually talking to one of my buddies about this recently. like, seems like, and your story is a testament to that. It seems like a lot of times when you're hunting, you'll have a day where everything in the world goes wrong. And then that's the day you ended up finding success. Right? Like in your situation, you you had, you probably had a good idea of that, that 40 yard wide hedgerow you wanted to hunt there.
Sam Brown (44:58.687)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (45:06.691)
You made the excess. Let's say the access was clean, you climbed the tree. Everything's good. Weather's right. Wind's right. You're excited. And then here come these trespassers, right? Blowing your spot up. Now you're getting in a yelling match with them and now you're kind of scared for your safety and you got all this crap going on. And then you got to get down in middle of the hunt and reset and figure out what you're going to do. And then you're already frustrated. At this point, you're just hunting because you're out there, you know? And then it ends up working out and you kill a freaking nice buck. And it's like, well,
Sam Brown (45:20.154)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (45:29.642)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (45:34.201)
You know, and I have a similar story. I didn't end up killing this deer, but the night I saw the biggest deer I've ever seen on the hoof in my life was similar to that. had a morning, it was kind of a nightmare, a couple of days as far as success goes, but really good for buck sightings. It was actually season before last. I had an eight pointer that I missed. Big wide eight pointer. I missed him at like 15 yards. Don't ask me how I did it. I just did it. I clean missed him, right?
Sam Brown (45:50.346)
Mm
Kevin Creeley (46:02.559)
And so that was in the morning hunt and way deep in the timber. And that evening I was frustrated. I'm all mad. know, I'm like, I don't feel like putting a ton of effort in tonight. I need like a take it easy hunt where I can just relax, watch some does, you know, and just, just chill. So there's this tripod stand. It's at the top high point of this really big soybean field. And it meets up with a long hedge row that on the other side of the hedge row is a real young cut over.
And that's the neighbors cut over. It's not ours for this particular property release. And it's just a really, honestly, just a really pretty spot to watch the sunset or shoot a doe with a rifle. If that's something you're interested in. And, I was like, I'm just going to go get in that tripod, watch the sunset, relax, just be grateful that I'm out here and just kind of shake the frustration off, you know, and I get up in that tripod, tore enough does come out in the beans. It's kind of like that peak rut timeframe. I'm not real interested in shooting a doe. I'm holding off and.
Sam Brown (46:39.464)
Yeah. Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (47:01.881)
and I, I see some does start getting up way far away, like three, 400 yards away and a cut over. can hear him breaking sticks. I watched them in my bino's and I'm watching these days and then two more get up and there's about five of them standing up little family group of does. And then they're looking back and looking back and looking back and acting weird. I'm like, man, there's bound to be a buck on these deer. And then here he comes, he gets up and he starts barreling through the cut over chasing these does. And I mean, the biggest deer I've ever seen on the hoof.
And especially in our area, dude, just a freak. And I actually ended up going into that hedge row tighter to the deer the next day. And when you have it, he popped up in our beans behind me. And I missed him with a muzzleloader at 90 yards. So two days in a row, I missed really nice deer. It was a nightmare, dude. It was, it was tough, but really cool encounters. And I mean, this deer, dude, I'm telling you had 12 inch brow tines. Just couldn't tell you how wide he was just a
Sam Brown (47:42.451)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (47:51.85)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (48:00.333)
freak of a deer dude and I was like I was pretty heartbroken but
Sam Brown (48:03.722)
Yeah, that, also that particular buck, I hadn't shot a buck in four years when I shot that buck. For various reasons, some of it was getting into bow hunting, transitioning to bow hunting, learning how to bow hunt. And then two, I was passing, I passed some, the first year I bowed and I shot two, or the second year bowed and I shot two pretty nice bucks. And I'm like, all right, I'm not gonna shoot anything bigger than these now. And then five years basically went by.
And I did shoot another deer, but it was actually on the ground. It was actually a crazy story of I was in the, I was on that power line with my bow and my dad was at another stand and he comes out to the fields. I hate there's a bunch of does in the corner of the field. I'm like, well, I'm we're going back to the trail. I'll come down, but I'm gonna sneak through the woods and try to shoot one of those does. Ended up shooting like a six point, just walking through the woods and he was hitting a scrape.
Kevin Creeley (48:54.105)
Right on.
Sam Brown (48:55.412)
I always forget to tell this story. When people talk about what's like, you know, what's your craziest deer story or what deer are you proud of? I always forget. I've actually in North Carolina walked through the woods and shot a deer on the ground, just kind of spotting style or steel hunting style, you know, just creeping through the woods. I shot him at seven yards. He comes up to me. I can't believe this is happening. He was, you know, two year old six point or something. And I didn't even keep the antlers. I did keep them, but I didn't keep up where they're at.
Kevin Creeley (49:01.219)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (49:07.437)
Yeah, that's freaking awesome. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (49:20.333)
Yeah, yeah.
Sam Brown (49:24.554)
kind of really mad at it because most people are like, it's pretty cool.
Kevin Creeley (49:30.233)
Yeah, it's really easy to, especially in 2024, like, give too much credit to like antler size, right? Like a lot of times it's, it's more valuable of like the story behind that deer.
the experience, whatever, how that day went, like the core memory that came along with it. And I have, like, I have a similar, I have a 15 inch wide six pointer that's on my wall and, really, really cool story with that deer. And every time I look at it, I get excited and it just gets me thinking about deer season, you know, and not certainly not, you know, a giant by any means, but just, was a really cool story and really fun hunt. And I look at that deer, just gets me really excited, you know,
Sam Brown (49:55.936)
Yeah. The... Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Brown (50:06.858)
Yeah, I don't if you saw the buck that I the pack out mount for. So he had pretty big brow times. He had a little bit of ground shrinkage too once I got to him, but I had him on camera and I'm like, that deer kind of interests me. This is at our spot, just about an hour away down east. And I plan to go hunting there on Saturday. It was during December, I think it December 6th or 8th. It was kind of late season. And my wife said, we'll carry in my son to Disney on Ice.
Kevin Creeley (50:12.215)
I did see that, that was really cool.
Sam Brown (50:35.094)
I said, okay. said, well, I better hunt around here then. But I really want to go down there. Sure enough, that Saturday morning, he pops up on the cell cam coming down the trail. I'm like, well, that figures, you know. Well, that's fine, you know, because it's like, you know, it's getting into the year. I shot that bigger deer the year before, so I was like, that's fine, you know. I'm not gonna go down there. So we go up to Raleigh, we go to Disney on Ice, and about halfway through the first round of Disney on Ice, my son does not like
Kevin Creeley (50:58.755)
you
Sam Brown (51:04.062)
He ready to go home. So we hit intermission. He's like, I'm gonna go home. He's kind of scared and where it's overwhelmed by the people he was too. but he was definitely, he did not like Disney on it. So was like, we gotta go home. Well, we're coming home now. Two hours earlier, we were thinking some, all right, well, I'm headed down to Duke County and my wife, she's like, you're really going down there. I'm like, yeah, if I'm going down there and she just shakes her head. I'm like, and I knew it was going to be kind of pushing it, but I was like, well, get that, get down there.
Kevin Creeley (51:14.026)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (51:22.496)
Might be able to make this work.
Sam Brown (51:33.866)
get in stand, deer comes out, draw back on, perfect shot. Well, I thought it was gonna be and then he turned so I gotta let down and he's got a spike with him. draw back again, the spike sees me, had to shoot him quick. I'm pretty sure I hit a limb or I kinda got some tunnel vision because I hit something. He ended up hitting the deer in the neck but I saw him go down as far as hit the ground. I knew I hit him. Runs out in the cut over. I find him but it took me a long time to find him.
But I found them. Now I'm 300 yards in this cut over by myself. We still need more more black bears down there. I'm kind of this is kind of spooky. But thankfully I've been going to the gym that year because I had to drag this deer a long way by myself. Then get him in my truck by myself. Yeah. Yeah. But get home, pick up my son. He's at my parents' house. Get home.
Kevin Creeley (52:11.748)
Yeah, yeah.
Kevin Creeley (52:17.988)
Yeah. That's the hardest part, man. Getting them on that tailgate by yourself. That the dragon part you can get through, but dude, the getting them up on the tailgates. joke.
Sam Brown (52:32.308)
My wife is pissed. She hears this, tell you. She's talking like, next year you're not doing this, blah, blah, blah. you, know, cause I told her I was going to cut down on the hunting when we had kids. And I had for my standards, it turns out she was also about, yeah, cause she's like, you know, and I think when I go down, well, it's easier if I hunt around the house, cause I'm just, you know, a mile down the road or, you know, here. But when I go down to do, when I go down an hour away and.
Kevin Creeley (52:43.191)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe not to the, to the degree that she was expecting you to. She's thinking two, three hunts a year. Right.
Sam Brown (52:59.946)
But she was, turns out she was actually about five weeks pregnant at that time. So she's also getting hormonal. anyway, that was a good story because him freaking out at, know, frozen on ice pretty much was allowing me to go hunting that night and get that particular deer. And he ended up not being as big, but I really liked the brow tines. And I was just, I really liked that deer just because he was unique. And then my buddy, he just started doing taxidermy. said, hey, I'll go pack out a male. And he did a real good job on that.
Kevin Creeley (53:03.892)
wow, okay. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (53:13.773)
Yeah. Yeah. Heck yeah,
Kevin Creeley (53:20.792)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (53:26.893)
Yeah, that was beautiful, man. Beautiful.
Sam Brown (53:28.468)
He did a good job. That's only about his six or seven degrees ever done in his first packout now.
Kevin Creeley (53:33.045)
I'll tell you what, you want to take a, like a copy, a DVD copy of that Disney on ice, tuck it into the string on the mount there. That's what you got to credit it to.
Sam Brown (53:39.904)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, because it came in a mission. He's I'm ready to go home and my ass so and But yeah, it really is the stories and so he's that there's actually still with my buddy's taxed on the place but we're waiting to get get our house our house should be finished hopefully in next few weeks and get Get all my turkey fans and deer kind of like I'm warm and hopefully add one to it But last year we had we had our second son in August so
Kevin Creeley (53:48.537)
That'll do. it's awesome.
Sam Brown (54:11.316)
I was about a day late on all my bucks last year. I was literally the one I was telling you about that I just knew in my mind he's gonna show up Sunday morning, the weather's gonna be right, he's not daylighted yet, he's gonna show up Sunday morning. The baby was up all night, off and on, me and my wife taking turns getting up with him, and I'm like, I just can't get up, could not get up to go the next morning. And this is the bad thing about cell cams is sure enough, I woke up at nine o 'clock that morning, no sorry, eight.
Kevin Creeley (54:14.029)
Gotcha.
Sam Brown (54:39.798)
Looked for eight, we to church. And I look and I've got about 50 pictures and he's there that Sunday morning. The wind was right. So I can't say I killed him just because you know, still gotta make the shot, but I doubt he would have winded me from the direction he came. And I was like, no. So I'm upset. We go to church. I'm in church, phone starts going off again. He's back at 1030. I'm like, no, he's back again. And of all nights.
Kevin Creeley (54:46.403)
Man, brutal.
Kevin Creeley (55:06.638)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (55:08.554)
That night me and my wife were actually doing a, we were part of the Sunday night service as well. And it starts at six. I'm only about five minutes away from church. And I'm like, I'm going after this deer. And she's like, and she knew she could, my wife's great. Like she puts up with a lot. The countless packages, the deer cameras and batteries that come to the door and deer stands and sticks, know, yeah.
Kevin Creeley (55:15.043)
Okay.
Kevin Creeley (55:21.837)
Hahaha
Kevin Creeley (55:33.101)
Yeah, yeah. I can relate to that.
Sam Brown (55:38.28)
And she's like, you're going hunting on. She's like, yeah. She's like, well, what if you kill one? was like, well, it'd be, it'd actually be good because I can shoot him. I'll run to church, give him time to die. I'll get my buddies and we'll all go, you know, go after church. She's like, well, you go, but you gotta be there at six. And I went hunting. I saw every buck I had on my camera except that one. He didn't come in there that afternoon. I had three or four really nice young bucks come in, but, that's kind of his MO. He did come for a couple of times in the morning or afternoon. didn't see him for a little.
Kevin Creeley (55:55.501)
Dang dude, what a night.
Kevin Creeley (56:06.435)
Gaza.
Sam Brown (56:06.74)
This buck didn't live on the property. It's the first time I ever hunted this property too.
Kevin Creeley (56:10.633)
What time of year was that?
Sam Brown (56:12.596)
That was November 15th, 16th, kind of right in the lockdown period. It was in the rut. That deer showed up November 8th and left December 1st.
Kevin Creeley (56:18.241)
Okay. Okay. All right. Let me.
Kevin Creeley (56:25.419)
Okay. Let me ask you this, cause you were talking about the other buck you killed. was November 28th, the one in the hedgerow. Is that correct? Or the hayfield was that that was November 28th. Okay. in your experience in the area that you hunt, when is kind of the peak rod activity that you see as far as chasing bucks on their feet, excuse me, in daylight and stuff like that. And, when does it start a Peter off?
Sam Brown (56:31.914)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sam Brown (56:50.817)
It's pretty, my ears are pretty traditional. You get that first week of November, last week of October, first week of November is pretty good. November, I've been getting more more activity though over Thanksgiving, but it starts to go down about Thanksgiving. One of my particular places, there's a lot of doughs, like there's weighers, 10, 12 to one buck to dough ratio.
And that's why I kind of leave it for that late season because they run all the way into December sometimes. So, but it's pretty traditional like a lot of places. Like it's hard to beat that last week of October and the first few days of November. And then it seems like there's also November 4th, 5th, and 6th, and 7th, I've not quite had as much luck. Then about the 9th and 10th seems to be really good. And then from the 10th to the 18th or 20th, that lockdown is pretty...
Kevin Creeley (57:21.633)
sense? Makes sense.
Sam Brown (57:46.23)
pretty tough. And then it kind of starts back up over Thanksgiving and then kind of goes down, you know, after that.
Kevin Creeley (57:47.895)
Yeah, so my body.
Kevin Creeley (57:54.307)
Gotcha. Yeah, my buddy, Caleb, he, he hunts Eastern North Carolina and he is okay. Cool. Yeah. He's a real, he's an engineer, right? So he's a nerd and he's real meticulous about these spreadsheets that he does. He does. makes these historical data spreadsheets that where he logs all his bucks.
Sam Brown (57:58.078)
Yeah, at least as a podcast, I think you do him. Yeah.
Sam Brown (58:07.2)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (58:13.169)
And, he has like a criteria that they have to meet to make the spreadsheet like this many inches wide or this many years old, presumably. And it's pretty cool. and, and his experience, and I have a pretty similar experience. don't have the spreadsheet data like he does, but I've just got my memory bank, you know? we'll see bucks chasing every, every year, first week of November, right? But
It's a lot of times it's your spikes, your four pointers, you'll see the occasional big buck on his feet, but he's not acting a fool really. He's just on his feet a little earlier, you know, maybe right at the tail end of shooting light. But that second week in November in our area and in his area, it seems like you start getting those bigger bucks on their feet. Do you have a similar experience?
Sam Brown (58:58.528)
kind of, I will say as far as the ones...
So my dad, my dad's killed a lot of right nice deer too. He has the rifle but he's killed all his big deer in Actually, and most of them that last week October. Collectively between me and my good buddies that hunt and my dad, we've killed all our big deer in October. I think the big deer actually go on their feet earlier. it seems like they get off because I think they kind of get up and get that first doe. There may be you know that
Kevin Creeley (59:14.081)
Okay, awesome.
Kevin Creeley (59:17.912)
Right on.
Kevin Creeley (59:24.141)
Okay.
Sam Brown (59:33.13)
the first day that comes in, that big deer kind of, I think they're looking her in October, know, last few days of October, first few days of November. then, and then the second week is good too, but I think it's kind of like the big one, you got a chance early and then you might as wait to that second week. Like you're probably right. Like it's probably is now I think about it. What I'm guessing is they're probably getting up and either finding them or they're getting there about the first one. Cause I've, my second biggest deer I've killed on Halloween. My dad's killed three of his biggest deer.
Kevin Creeley (59:48.077)
Mm -hmm.
Kevin Creeley (59:56.057)
Yep.
Sam Brown (01:00:02.774)
the last week of October. The last big deer he killed though was October 17th or 18th, but we had a crazy cold front come through. And I always heard like you get that first real cold October cold front go hunting. it was like 28 degrees. And my dad, he's older, he's 69 now. He was about, I think he was 67 at the time. He's like, can't stand getting up and going. was like, daddy, he's coming on our cameras every morning.
Kevin Creeley (01:00:12.109)
Nice.
Kevin Creeley (01:00:19.811)
Nice.
Sam Brown (01:00:31.606)
And he's, all right, I'm like, I'm telling you, go hunt him. It was one of the he hunts. I was like, because it was cold, it's, you to be in North Carolina at 28 degrees in October and a high of 44, that's cold. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:00:41.603)
That is really cold. Yeah. Yeah. I have a cell camera that I ran in that pinch point that I was talking about in the beginning of the show with that pine stand, right? In between the two ponds where I've been chasing that big deer. And I had a picture of him last year, October 23rd with a doe. Doe walked by the camera and less than a minute later, he walked by the camera. And I was like, hmm, might be something to that. You know, that's pretty interesting.
Sam Brown (01:00:54.893)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:01:08.212)
Yeah, I think now this deer today shot, he was just coming to the corn, but he was beefing up, but it was so cold. And he actually saw him one morning and he couldn't get a shot on him, but then he was ready to roll. He went hunting the next few mornings and he ended up getting him. yeah, it seems that October, it seems to me, I shoot him in October, I shoot him in Thanksgiving. I like hunting the rut because a lot of my spots, me and my dad have lot of little farms too.
Kevin Creeley (01:01:20.099)
There you go. That'll light a fire.
Sam Brown (01:01:35.894)
It's not uncommon to us is getting new deer us to get different bucks during the rut. So I like hunting the rut because there may be something, you know, if you've got a spot where you don't really have nothing you want to shoot. If you kind of save that for the rut, you may get something for the neighboring property. If you're only hunting 25, 30 acres or a little 60 acre property, you know, there may be something that kind of like the buck. was telling you that came in the morning when I, when I couldn't get up to go hunting. Like I he showed up November 8th and left, you know, December 1st. you know,
Kevin Creeley (01:02:03.831)
Makes sense.
Sam Brown (01:02:05.446)
we do have, it's not, we get some surprises still. You know, we've got cameras everywhere and we, a lot of the places we hunt are pretty close. We can still get some surprises. So I do like hunting that second week of November. I mean, I'm all in November's, you know, if I can be hunting, I will be, but it just seems like we.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:21.453)
Right. Yeah. You were talking about the, the, the, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. Were you still saying something?
Sam Brown (01:02:25.78)
No, it seems like the big ones is the last week of October for us.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:29.613)
Gotcha. Yeah. That gets me excited, man. You were talking about the, the baby thing, like last year, was it last year? said you had a newborn.
Sam Brown (01:02:37.844)
Yeah, last year was the, so both my kids were born early deer season, but the first one was bad. When you got a three year old and a newborn, it's yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:44.515)
You're not.
You're not very good at the timing thing with that.
Sam Brown (01:02:49.448)
No, I think the only thing worse would be if we had one in November and then we had the birthdays would be, yeah. Yeah, I barely escaped that, but yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:02:54.124)
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be rough. so my wife, yeah, my wife and I, we are planning to start trying to have a kid here soon. And, with that.
I told her, was like, all right, well, if we're fixing to get ready and start trying, I'm going to hunt a ton this year. Cause this might be my last kidless year. Not saying I'm not going to hunt, but you know, it's going to, it's going to take away from it a bit, right? Once I have, I have a kid. So the other day she was like, Hey, do me a favor. So I don't have to worry about scheduling and stuff. She said, write down for me every day that you want to hunt in fall. And luckily for me as a fireman, I have my schedule for the next 30 years. It's not going to change.
Sam Brown (01:03:16.107)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:03:19.755)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:03:23.22)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:03:35.219)
Yeah, that's nice.
Kevin Creeley (01:03:37.665)
It's easy. can see the days and I get a lot of vacation time. So I was like, all right. So I took October 27th through the 31st. I wish I'm fired up about that. Cause I never take time off during that time of year. I'm really excited to put in some time in the woods then. and then I have to work November 1st and then I'm off the second through the 22nd of November.
all those days. So I gave her this calendar and I'm like, Hey, and October 17th through the 21st. I took that off as well for some Sika deer hunting on, on some public land stuff. And I was like, here's my dates. And she's looking at me like, are you, are you crazy? And I'm like, no, no, this is my last kid for a year. I'm going crazy with it. You know, I'm just gonna, I'm going to get after it. So I'm excited, man. I got a ton of time off. should be a, should be a fun fall.
Sam Brown (01:04:00.33)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:04:16.756)
Hahaha, yeah.
Sam Brown (01:04:21.716)
Yeah, go on, Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:04:29.837)
What about you? are you taking? Do you take like a vacation usually during the rut or do you just kind of get hunts in when you can or?
Sam Brown (01:04:36.466)
Every year I say I'm going to and I really need to. I'm at the place I work where we make, I worked at NC State at the university there. actually make feed for all of our research animals. We like to we have a big college of Ag and Life Sciences department. the good news is I'm the manager of the feeding mill so I can kind of, you know, make my own hour somewhat, but we still have to make the feed, you know, and that's kind of the animals got to eat.
Kevin Creeley (01:04:51.873)
Okay, cool. Right on.
Sam Brown (01:05:06.13)
Every year I'm like, I'm going to take these days off and I end up the weather's not quite right or we end up getting busy. And so I ended up doing is I just take a lot of half days or I'll take one or two days. I probably do need to just take a week off and I might do that this year. last year, since we had the newborn and my three year old, it was, I won't want to take a week off anyway, just cause we were still dealing with that. So, but I actually don't take, I take a day here and there, and then I try to get off it like lunchtime.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:30.211)
Gotcha.
Sam Brown (01:05:35.702)
or like one o 'clock. The place I hunt in Raleigh is not far from where I work. So I can kind of, you know, just take an hour off and get in the stand, especially before time changes. I can actually work all day and then get, get off, we work seven to four or 730 to 430. So I can, before time changes, I can work all day and then go get in the stand.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:38.019)
Gotcha.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:44.941)
Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:52.835)
Gotcha.
Kevin Creeley (01:05:56.601)
Yeah, for me, the land I lease is 100 miles from where I live. So it's a two hour drive, right? And I work 24 hour shifts. So like if I'm on the segment of my work cycle where I work every other day, there's no hunting on those days off. I get off at 7 a I probably got to catch a nap because we're a busy, busy department. And then time I get up from my nap and stuff, I'm milling around, eating breakfast. It's 9 a 10 a whatever to go.
Sam Brown (01:06:00.725)
Yeah.
Sam Brown (01:06:06.678)
you
Kevin Creeley (01:06:26.425)
do an evening hunt and then get up at five and then go work a 24 hour shift sounds terrible. So not to mention the two hour drive. mean, you're just, you're literally not going to sleep for 48 hours straight.
Sam Brown (01:06:31.242)
Yeah, it does. Yeah.
Kevin Creeley (01:06:37.236)
So I don't hunt unless I have these big chunks of time off. My minimum is three days. So if I have three days off, I'll drive to the lease and hunt. Now I might do an evening hunt here in my hometown if I can squeeze that in on a day off. The deer hunting is not nearly as good here as where I lease on the Western side of the state, but it's still, you you're in a tree, you're deer hunting.
Sam Brown (01:06:59.19)
Yeah, our farm where we used to run dogs at and the place that I killed the deer after we went to Disney on Ice, it's about 90 miles away. It's about, it's a good hour drive. Probably an hour, 10 minutes when you count driving down the path and getting all your stuff going. But this year, probably gonna have, my biggest deer might be down there this year. I'm not seeing him in while. I've seen him this summer, but I'm not seeing him recently.
And I told my dad, may have to, and since we've had our kids, we've not gone there as much because it's just that far. And honestly, our deer around here have been bigger than our ones down there, what we wanted to chase. But this one, there's a couple down there this year that's gonna cost us, make some trips. But so this, if he's deer in that rut time and he's down there, I might take some days off. I kinda wanna go circle a few weeks on my calendar, like boss man, like I may work.
Kevin Creeley (01:07:46.828)
Absolutely.
Sam Brown (01:07:59.094)
but I may not. just don't put anything on schedule these days, because I may come or may not. I should just take off, because a lot of times I'm awake to see what the weather does. And traditionally it seems like November is as hot as shit the first few days. it seems that, yeah, so I'm like, I don't want to go. At that point, I still go, but I may take off the morning. I may come and work from 10 to two or like nine to two. Because if it's 80 degrees, I'm not really worried about hunting the meal of the day.
Kevin Creeley (01:08:02.317)
Yeah, yeah, tentatively I will be off.
Kevin Creeley (01:08:12.39)
It does seem to do that to us.
Kevin Creeley (01:08:24.536)
Gotcha.
Sam Brown (01:08:27.732)
that much but I still hunt in the morning and in afternoon because it's still November 4th or 5th or it's November so if it's really hot I'll just kind of hunt and that way I don't feel so bad for taking off work and like I said I hunt very close to where I work at so if I'm up there I might as well save some outwards like that.
Kevin Creeley (01:08:33.859)
Gotcha.
Kevin Creeley (01:08:48.087)
Right on. Well, tell you what, man, we're a little bit over an hour here, so I think we're probably going to wrap it up. I appreciate you coming on here, telling some stories and getting everybody fired up, absolutely.
Sam Brown (01:08:49.728)
So.
Sam Brown (01:08:57.654)
Yeah, appreciate you having me. Yeah, I'm getting pretty fired up. I got a few cameras that are going off all the time. Actually, no, the one I got is a car camera. I got a few bachelor groups that I'm really excited about. I wish the season would come in tomorrow. I don't care if it's 98 degrees, I'd be out there. They're on a pretty good pattern. I'm still worried. I still got a month, so I'm still worried something will happen between now and then.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:08.205)
Good job.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:14.305)
Yeah. Yeah. Dude, I'm past the point.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:23.105)
Right. Yeah, man. I'm past the point of anticipation. Like I'm just at, you know, there's like the first parts of the summer, you're shooting the bow, you're checking off your gear, making sure everything's good to go. Do I need any new whatever blah, blah, blah. I'm past that. I'm full blown anticipation. Now I'm like, okay, I'm already bored of doing all these mundane tasks. I'm tired of going to work. I'm tired of doing crap around the house. I'm ready to deer hunt. Like I'm just over it. I'm full blown ready to go. I'm going to be
Sam Brown (01:09:48.436)
Yeah, I am too. I'm tired of being at work and being wet either from sweat or it raining because it's rained every day for three weeks and I'm just like, I gotta have something to do. My wife can see it. She's, yeah, he's getting ready. He's starting to shoot the bow a little bit more. Like last night, we put the kids down. She's like, where did he go? I'm outside, get some arrows in real quick before it gets too dark. And getting a few stands up. So yeah, it's football and deer hunting. It's my favorite time of year.
Kevin Creeley (01:09:55.799)
Yeah, that's it, man. That's it.
Kevin Creeley (01:10:17.635)
Yes, sir. Absolutely, All right on dude. Thank you. Yes, sir, man. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. for anybody listening always, if you could leave us a review podcast, Spotify, that's a big help. if you know anybody that you think would be a good guest, or if you have any topics you want us to cover mid Atlantic outdoorsman, Instagram, Facebook, please feel free to shoot me a message. That is great. Muchly appreciated. And, appreciate everybody listening and, talk to you guys next week.
Sam Brown (01:10:19.358)
I appreciate you having me on.
