Getting In The Right Whitetail Headspace

What's up everyone? Welcome to the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast! This week we're really working to get our minds moving more in the direction of whitetails. Spring has sprung, and for most of us the turkey seasons are winding down. What better time to shift focus than right now?! 

This week, Parker and Matt are going through some of the perceived failures of the 2022 season. The guys identify the issues they had, and then discussed some of the potential fixes they might be able to put in places for the upcoming season. 

[00:00:00] Hey, thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast, where you're gonna hear a valuable hunting based conversation that's tailored for us southern folk. If you love what we do and would like to support Southern ground Hunting, you can visit patreon.com/southern Ground Hunting, or you can click on the link in the show notes below.

We'd love for you to join the Southern Ground Hunting community today. Again, that's patreon.com/southern Ground Hunting. You can also support us by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. It helps more than and we greatly appreciate it. And now let's get to the show.

All right, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Southern Ground. Hunting podcast. We grip and complain a lot right now, don't we, Matt? Cuz we gotta talk about deer for an hour when we've been constantly thinking about turkeys. Yeah, it,[00:01:00] tur, my Turkey season's winding down and I was in my garage the other day and I was messing with my trail cameras, seeing how many I had, and I got pretty fired up about the upcoming season.

And how I wanna prep for it. Get ready for it. And I know we've talked, it's hey what do we talk about, this week, last week we had an awesome episode with Jbo talking about his deer, and what a great story that was. But I don't know, I don't, we won't get too much into the stories telling tonight.

I guess Parker, it's just gonna be me and you just chatting back and forth on. I guess what we expect from this season what we're gonna do to reach those expectations and just, everything in the middle. Yeah. And the thing is, we're getting into that time of the season, that time of the year where I'm gonna be honest with you I'm not done thinking about turkeys.

Like I'm in it to win it. I still got a, about a. Shoot, little less than a month left of [00:02:00] Turkey hunting to do. Yeah. You're traveling, you're about to start hitting the road though, right? Yeah, and I wish I would've done it earlier. I wish I would've, I wish I was leaving about right now to head out somewhere western, even a state like Missouri or something like that.

I would love to, to go over there, but it just seems our birds down here are just not, they're done. They're sprung. They sprung out. And so it, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna find turkey's goblin. You surely can. It just, it's a lot harder. It's a lot harder to find unpressured turkeys around here, especially on the public that we got to hunt.

Most every bird's been messed with. And so it just makes it a little bit difficult. And so I'm in it, I'm in it, but I did find myself, like I just said, it's getting really slow in the Turkey woods right now as far as Turkey hunting goes. But the last time I went I found myself deer scouting a lot, a little bit more because I just wasn't here any turkeys gobbling.

It was kinda like I'm here. Might as well do something. I went into this beautiful spot in a [00:03:00] part of this public area that I hadn't never really even been within probably five miles of. And one of the things that we talked about last year or this past fall has been the, was the lack of apron that we were finding on the ground.

And I found this little hole in this spot that had a ton of aprons on the ground, older aprons and holes and stuff like that. And obviously there's a chance that tree is probably not gonna be the hot feed tree next year. But what it did tell me was in that area there was a wide oak that was dropping.

And I was just noticing that and man, that'd been great to know about this spot. And then I started finding, I found a bluff gap actually between two big rocks. I was following this deer trail to just get around and I started working it and just following the trail and I thought, I bet there's a rub right here on this creek crossing.

Sure enough, there was a rub on the creek crossing, so I was like, I'm gonna keep going a little bit further. So I walked up the ridge into it. It wasn't quite a bluff gap, but it was a drainage between two steep. Hillsides [00:04:00] and the trail went up there. There was a rub right there where it first started going up.

Then I get up to the top and I jump this gargantuan deer up and it runs off and runs off of the public and onto private. But it was embedded in a perfect spot. And so I was like, man, I'm gonna get up there. So I walked up there to the bed and there just happened to be like a fire break right there. That he crossed over and the firebreak didn't have any grass on it or anything.

It was like mud and I found his track and that track was. Giant. Probably, granted it was a running track because he had just made it and watched him do it, but it was a big, huge track. Yeah. Real quick. Yeah. Yeah. And so I'm like cool, I got a beat on a buck.

That's probably a pretty good buck. I could tell he had bases growing, it looked like. Yeah, they're grow, they're growing for sure. I've got 'em on camera. Yeah. He, you couldn't obviously tell much about him. This time of year, but it did get me, it got me in a good mood for it.

And I [00:05:00] started I'm not gonna tell all the details yet, but as of last week, deer season got a lot more interesting for me. This upcoming season, I'm gonna be able to be traveling a little bit more. We'll save all that for later. I'll talk about that at some point. And so that's got me excited, planning that out and planning a lot of new places to hunt this year.

So I'm right there with you, dude. I'm getting there. Definitely getting there. You look, stay on. The only reason I'm, where I'm at is I may have two, I might have two more chances to Turkey hunt, and after that I'm, I'm onto the deer stuff, but I. Did I show you the what happened at my truck camera last week?

Did you see that? No. I don't believe so. So I've left this cell camera out since it's been out since September. So I'm constantly getting pictures from the cell camera. Right before Turkey season, I went and put out a mineral lick. I freshened it up put a trophy rock, some What's that other stuff [00:06:00] called?

I forgot. But anyways, they were out there, smelled real good and been getting pictures. Been getting pictures. My two shooter bucks. They're back together in bachelor groups. They're growing, I can see their bases growing and everything. And the, I decided to go Turkey hunting that evening out there.

It was the best Turkey spot last year. I was like, I'm just gonna go check it out. So I'm walking out there, I'm looking like where my camera usually is. It's not on the tree. And there was a big red oak that was like 10 feet by that blew down that night and hit the side of that tree and scraped my camera off the side of this tree and smashed my multry drunk camera.

Oh my gosh. So there, the antennas broken. Batteries are everywhere. Battery trays knocked out. It's intact, but it won't hold the battery tray and it would need a new antenna. I haven't messed with it too much, but going off of [00:07:00] that I got to the house and started un unpacking all my cameras and checking out how many cameras I have.

And if y'all have listened long enough while I've been on the podcast y'all know that I like trail cameras. I like running them. I like checking them. I like cell cameras. I like. Regular cameras that just sit in the woods for a full year and you get a full inventory. All that stuff. So I'm in the process of getting all my cameras ready.

Ended up counting my cameras. You know how many cameras I have? Parker? Let me guess. I'm gonna say 17. I have 22. 22, so I've got 22 and I think. I think 17 of 'em are non cellular cameras and the rest are cell cameras. So my goal right now is to have 10 of 'em out by the end of June. Yeah, and I think I'm gonna let those 10 soaked from June to mid-October.

And just to gimme an idea of some areas, cuz I'm want lo I'm going to locate a big buck [00:08:00] this year. I know you and I talked about it from where you like to hunt. We. They're in there. But we've never, you only get to lay eyes on 'em like once or twice, and that's your opportunity. But knowing where they are, knowing how they live, it's it's pretty a big deal.

But even on the Turkey front, you said you were walking around today, started finding sight. I've been finding beds like crazy. Yeah. Used to. I didn't know how to find deer bed. I didn't know what it looked like. That was foreign to me. I didn't know. Hey, there's hair. They're here. And so I get excited thinking I may find a shed.

And I did find a shed on public the other day. It's tiny little sucker. But he's gonna grow up. He's gonna grow up one day. He may be the one that's my dad. My dad used to sing me a song when I was a Little Boy, is the Rolly Polly song. You know that one? He's he's gonna grow up to be a man someday.

He shout off. I've never heard the Rollie pulley song Spider. No we, it ain't that one. I [00:09:00] ain't gonna sing the whole thing but finding a shed of a young buck is still valuable information. Yeah it showed and it was right beside, I thick it on a transition. Like you, all this stuff, we can get into talking about tactics and.

Hey what do you need to do? What's the special way to rattle a buck in? Or what's the dynamite combination? It's time in the woods, man. And, put yourself in the best spots and we can keep hammering that into the ground and our listeners can keep hearing the same thing. But you gotta apply that.

And I see us each year trying to apply it more and more, and that's what, where I'm at right now, thinking wise for this season. It's, I could go summer scouting, that would be great, but I'm hot, and we're gonna be hot in September hunting anyway, so let's save that for then.

And I'm map scouting and yeah, I may go to a couple areas that I've never been to and check 'em out, but my biggest thing right now is prepping, man, [00:10:00] figuring out what kind of weeks I can make on my system. I had a pretty good system last year and then, as far as my filming gear, I may tweak that up just a little bit, but my biggest deal is how am I gonna attack these deer?

How am I gonna go after 'em? Whether it be, hey, I need to do better with my sync control, or I need to do better with my access routes, which that's a norm, that, that is fax right there. I have to do better with my access. I have too many stories from this year where access messed me up.

I sometimes I'll hunt over to corn pile on some private land that's just asking for, put a target on your forehead to wear the deer. Know when you come in and out. And that was my scenario. I I am I'm right there with you, dude, like talking about access.

I'm not gonna say my access has been bad by any stretch. I, I don't I think about my access pretty hard with all my spots, but I did [00:11:00] have this year this past season, the issue was that there wasn't a whole lot of acres on the ground and deer were doing a little bit different things.

They were coming from different directions in the. Areas that I knew they were just all over the place. It never felt like there was anything super consistent. And so I did feel like I got busted a little bit more this past season. Just on my access. I, I don't know that there was any of 'em that were deal breakers, but again, I don't know a hundred percent.

Like there, there could have been all kinds of 150 inch bucks coming in on my trail. I'd never know. And so that's definitely one of the things, going back to what I was talking about scouting a lot during Turkey season. I'm sometimes jealous of guys who can just do one thing at a time.

And by that I'll say it this way, our buddy Joey Bell he won't be offended by this. Our buddy Joey Bell, who helps co-host on the Limb Hanger podcast. He couldn't give crap about a deer. And so when [00:12:00] he goes into Turkey season, he is 100% completely focused on one thing, and that is turkeys.

And I love Turkey hunting. I absolutely love Turkey hunting. I love deer hunting as well. And I don't know that I would be able to pick one or the other. But I can tell you this, I'm doing both of them together. Most of the time, if I'm deer hunting and I find Turkey sign, I'm marking that Turkey sign.

If I see turkeys, I'm remembering that and I'm marking those turkeys because I'm gonna be glad I did come spring. Same thing for Turkey season. I, I've, you've got, I think that really makes it gives you some I don't know. It, it rounds out your versatility, I think being able to, yeah, being able to think about 'em both together at the same time.

And the great thing about that is, is a lot of times in Alabama during Turkey season, it's it is slow. I have a lot of slow days, and so it means that I'm not wasting any of that and we don't have to [00:13:00] drive that too hard into the ground. Because we've talked about it a lot about. I really truly think that's one of the greatest times to scout for deer is deer in the spring.

Oh, no, no doubt. The other thing, Matt, that I wanted to mention, talking about things that I want to do differently talking about your show cameras, that's something that I'm probably gonna utilize a little bit more this year for reasons we've talked about in the past. I wanna know what.

What's there? I wanna be able to have that confidence in the spot and more than anything I love early season hunting especially when I can be successful in early season. Like to me, those are very beautiful. That's a thing that you've been beating in the ground, I guess the last two years, really, is, hey, I wanna be able to be successful in Alabama in the early season, and where do you. Where do you find guys that do that over and over again? Yeah. You don't, they're not there. There's not a lot over. It's hard cause the [00:14:00] deer are just, not there. But, I don't think I'll be in Alabama as much in the early season this year as I have been in previous years, just from what exposure I had to other states last year.

And I've got a couple balls to pick out there. Excuse me, but I'll, I'd be curious to see, once you start implementing those trail cameras I've seen guys use trail cameras and it changes the whole way they hunt. It's done that for me especially, if I'm know an area and it's a deer has been in here in four days, I'm probably not gonna go there.

With you, you haven't been using them. If you went in there, you wouldn't, you don't know. You don't know the odds of what a deer that walks by a 10 by 10 area. Yeah. You know what it says, I'm I wanna use a trail camera. And here's the thing I'm way behind because most people listening to this use TRO cameras probably more than I do.

There there's always been something, maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit of arrogance or [00:15:00] pride inside of me that's I wanna kill one without one. I don't want to, I don't wanna use drill cameras cause I wanna kill 'em without it. And I still feel that way in a lot of ways. I don't necessarily think there's anything wrong with them.

It's just like personal thing for me. But what I'm learning is in the early season when it's 80 degrees still and deer just not moving a whole lot I'm wasting a lot of time. I'm wasting a lot of trips going somewhere that I don't know that a buck has been there recently. At least somewhat recently, cuz I'm just going based on in early season feed sign more than anything, and terrain features and trying to get tight to the places that I know are betting.

But I just wanna be able to be ef effective and efficient in the time that I have and it. A lot of times I feel like I'm narrowing down so much by going and hunting places. It's okay, knock that one off the list. Yeah. It takes you like three days to narrow down a spot. Yeah. To narrow down where deer might [00:16:00] be moving at when you'd like to know, by the hour or by whenever you check your camera that hey these deer actually in here using this.

And especially, on the acre crop bill with last year. I know. My area was a little different than your area, but I also hunted. I had a target buck on private. I was trying to hunt, messed my whole early season up as far as just really hunting. Outside of the early season last year both of our main areas, we hunt for the rut just blew it.

Yeah they were out. Let's talk real quick on, hey, I've got a, I've got a spot that, that I hunt year after year, and then it, it goes blank. How are we adapting? How did we adapt this year? I had a really hard time moving around. I didn't have anything really planned. I was banking on that spot.

Didn't really scout any other [00:17:00] places, but you were able to move around a good bit. And scrounge up a couple bucks. You end up tagging out. Big deal. But it wasn't the best hunting you've had. So let's just talk about how put your time in the woods, made your adjustments for when somebody, say has one of their spots fall through that they.

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All one word. S G H.[00:19:00] First off, I wanna say, my biggest issue that I've had that I have got to fix before I stepped back in the woods after a whitetail has everything to do with target panic. And I was, what, three shots away from turning up what is was a pretty tough year into. One of my best seasons ever.

Yeah. I had the opportunities, and between the buck that, that I lost in Kentucky and the one that I missed here in Alabama in December when my dad was here. Those were some big deals. Those were, those sucked pretty bad. And And so those are the things that I'm working on trying to fix more than anything.

But going back to your original question I think people get a lot of people that I know personally, even yourself, you just said it you kind of bank on one area and you're like, this area [00:20:00] always produces, I'm gonna keep going there. Year after year and expect the same results. And I don't think it takes a whole lot of years to figure out that's not gonna work.

And one of the things that's made me, that's helped me be able to adapt is I've talked about it before. I'll talk about it again, and I didn't do it as much this year. As I did or this past season as I did the season before that, but that's new spot Monday, and basically starting off my Mondays with a blank slate, unless I had a bead on a deer and I was after him.

That's always the kicker, right? If, yeah, which didn't happen at all last season, so it really didn't work out that way. But on Mondays I would go and I have a flexible. Schedule, right? Like I can hunt Mondays, which is a blessing, right? But other people can do this too.

Do go to a new spot the first Saturday of every month or something like that, and just try, because I promise you, if you keep going to different places, you're gonna find more places. Yeah. And you're gonna [00:21:00] be able, it helps me whenever it comes to weather, right? Like sometimes it's gonna be raining in one part of an area and then not in another part.

If one place is gonna have great weather, then I can go to that place. And that's all. It's just pretty basic stuff. But when you're talking about especially in early season, because the time that you don't want to go and blow a whole bunch of your best spots is it's gonna be in October.

And Especially during early season, I really stick to this new spot Monday because I'm using early season as a time for me to number one shoot doze if I wanna shoot one. And number two, try to find the, try to find these new places that could potentially hold some deer during the rut and you're able to go and get real time information.

Sure you might burn a hunt, but it's worth it in my opinion. And Having that versatility, having that that list of places, different places that you can go to. It's gonna do a whole lot of, it's gonna help you a whole lot. Like [00:22:00] I, I basically will go anywhere within probably an hour and a half of my house.

To just Dr. I draw that. That's drivable. That's drivable for a morning. Yeah. And you can, if you live in central Alabama or somewhere like that, like you, there's a lot of places that you could potentially go to. You can hit a lot. Yeah, for sure. No it I like the new spot Monday thing.

Cause I don't know I get that way like, If I go here, maybe I won't see anything. But what if I go here and there? There were deer there. The whole fomo, the fear of missing out. I struggle with that a lot. And even going to a new spot and picking a tree, man, that's something that I want to do better this year, is I get severe I don't wanna say anxiety, but Severe doubt when picking a tree in an area, I'll stand somewhere for 20 minutes and just walk from tree to tree.

And what's [00:23:00] that doing? I'm just spreading my ground scent all over the, my, my bow, range. And then those deer smell me as soon as they come in there. So that's, Efficiency of getting in the spot, picking a tree, and just trusting it. A lot of the times I say my feet, just follow your feet.

And that'll lead you. A deer's gonna take the path at least resistance most of the time, unless it's just in the stinking wide open. So you know, if you're, that's what a human does, we are not gonna just wanna things scale 'em out and for the fun of it. You see how deer side, side hill of a mountain and just move through these areas.

So being able to adjust to that really pick a tree is gonna be my biggest thing. I know we took a turn from where we were to, to this, but that was just something that was on my mind that I'm wanting to improve on. But part, go ahead. I was just gonna say to that point, that's one of the things that I was thinking of.

This year,[00:24:00] I really start, I'm a real analytical person. You know this, Matt, cuz we talk a lot during deer season. Like I'm actively trying to figure these things out. I don't just cut my losses and oh didn't see a deer there. Let's mark that place off. I'm trying to figure these things out.

And so one of the things that I noticed was going back to something I've talked about a long time ago. This like common denominators in a spot where you, that you consistently see deer at? I've been hunting I like to hunt terrain features that are on a hard edge, right? On a transition.

We've talked about that plenty. But what I find myself doing is most of the time choosing the hard edge as far as like vegetation. Over the terrain feature. If I have to choose one or the other and I would set myself up to do that. One of the things that I noticed this year I wouldn't say that Deere were using those edges [00:25:00] less by any stretch, but I noticed bucks, particularly were choosing the terrain feature over the vegetation feature, and That helped me a lot, especially later in the season.

When things started coming together a little bit better, I started looking at, I started looking at things a little bit differently. Okay, I want to have this hard edge somewhere close by, but if I'm, if I have to set up to shoot one or the other, I would rather shoot this terrain feature.

That I feel like is gonna funnel the movement to that hard edge because I feel like they're there, especially the bucks are end up there more often than they do in the, in this edge that I'm in. What, any particular spot. And I've maybe figured something out there for myself.

That might help me, especially especially during the rut, be able to, pinpoint these spots for the shot. I noticed this year a lot of my shots, a lot of the reason why I was struggling so [00:26:00] bad was because I was set up I was set up to shoot the wrong spot, and so I had a lot of bad angles.

Even the one decent buck that I did kill here in Alabama, it was still a bad angle. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was not by any means a it was a successful hunt, but there was a lot of things that made that hunt like I, I screwed up a lot. And yeah, I think I think that's, those things are all, talking about.

Terrain features and and things like that. That's, those are big things that are pretty important to me. And I was, as I was walking yesterday, Turkey hunting yesterday is when I did that, when I jumped that big buck and stuff. And when I was out there, I was really paying more attention to that.

And I started noticing a lot of the sign in these features. It was a lot heavier than the sign. On the edges. And just looking at those things every time, I'm constantly adding to that to that knowledge, to that piece. And yeah. You were gonna say something [00:27:00] else?

Yeah. Yeah. You've gotta learn every time you go into the woods, I know somebody just go walk in the woods, but you're gonna learn something, especially from Turkey hunting, may not be. It's not deer season. It's Turkey season. Yeah. But there's some, there's something you can take away from it.

You, you showed that, you found a bed, Hey, there was a big buck in here. Put two and two together, come back to that later that year. When the season's actually in. But I kind of wanna transition from, us talking about our, in the field experiences what we. Plan to, or what we want to improve on next year, and what we found, and I kind of wanna talk about our setups.

I know we, we just love talking about gear and what we do, but I, I'm gonna change a couple things with what I'm gonna be taking in the woods next year whether it be, my bow set up. My tree, my saddle set up, whatever my film set up. Just some of those things that's gonna improve my ability, I believe this coming season.

[00:28:00] So let's jump into that. And my biggest thing is you gave me a hard time about it this past season. And it's the, been the hot topic, I guess for the last four years as aero set up. I shot two deer this year. Both of 'em I hit in the knuckle of the shoulder, killed one of 'em, didn't find one of 'em.

So I'm gonna be doing some changes to that. Probably put on a little heavier air. I still like shooting by mechanical. I just the blood trail, the cut. Love it. And I think, we've had this discussion too. We've thought before, hey, We would both love to shoot a mechanical, but do the benefits outweigh, the negatives?

Like last year you had a situation that you wished you would've had a mechanical, and I had a situation where I wish I had a fix plate. So it's funny, us going back and forth to each other. I think you gave me a little bit harder time than I gave you, but just going into that, are [00:29:00] you gonna do anything different with your arrow or are you gonna keep it the same?

No, man, I'm not gonna do anything different like to the, integrity of the arrow. That was a jab by the way. I didn't pick it up. I'm, yeah. My, my time that I wish that I had a mechanical this year, this past season was when I got shot a deer. My hope is just to not gut shoot deer.

That would be, yeah, that would be the more beneficial thing to change. But no, I'm, the only thing I'm doing different is I'm gonna try to figure out how to get a little bit lighter because I have such a short draw length. I think I've talked about it before. I've got a 26 and a half inch draw length, and so my arrow is only five 50 I think is what it was this year, which is heavier than it's ever been.

But my pin gaps are just too, it's too much. Like I have a very little room for error with my shot. Because if I missed range a, a deer at, say it's, 36 yards and I [00:30:00] shoot him for 32, then I'm probably missing that deer. And I noticed that this year, I was not very accurate.

I think that's hard when you can't like, float a pin or just have a little bit of, two yards may be six inches for you. And that's never been, I don't know. It's not been that big of a deal, but I've also dealing with target panic like I talked about, like it's just not a, it's just a recipe for disaster.

And so I'm still going to prioritize the. The f ooc of my arrow. I still want it to be probably around that 15% range. But I need to get my, I need to get my arrow under 500, I think yeah, to get as much. I don't believe speed is the most important thing, but I do think it, it is decently important and mine is just too slow.

Help a little you said target panic. And this just kinda evolved in my head while we were talking about that. We film, right? We self film, we do our best to produce good [00:31:00] content for the channel. We like to get the kill shot when we can get the kill shot. There's times where, hey, it just didn't work out.

It was either kill the deer or spook the deer trying to move the camera. If y'all, if any of y'all film, you understand, ah, I, I have had the target panic. But it was because I was filming. Yeah. Cause there's so much going on in that moment that honestly, you shooting the deer is the last thing that you're thinking about.

I've moved the camera last year. I pressed record twice. I may have had target panic with my camera. I, cause I, I hit record twice and missed a great opportunity for some good footage. And you did that with a Turkey too, right? Yeah, I did that with a Turkey, with a thing Turkey too.

It was a dang good video too, man. Dang. Good video. And then I double tapped it. But there's so much going on in the moment. That I wonder if we've pressed you, you're pressuring [00:32:00] yourself too much then to get the shot on camera, which I've added the 360 this year, which I think that's gonna help tremendously with Bo Hunts for me.

I know it's worked great for you, but in these moments, like I, I just, it's hard for me not to think that Philman has something to do with some of our target band. Yeah. For me, maybe it's the pressure of creating the film. It's not necessarily, it's not necessarily the film. I'm obviously, if everybody's watched any of my videos, I obviously don't prioritize it over everything.

That's the main reason why I implemented the 360 camera in the first place is so that. Especially with a bow, I can concentrate on that shot if I need to. If I don't have time to film, then 360, you'll get the best it does. And so that's been a big help for me with filming. I've never really felt like filming was a big thing for me.

[00:33:00] Like as far as my target panic, I felt like it was just more. I don't know, dude. It's just every time I do it, I'm always, I always tell myself like, act like you've freaking been here before. You know what I mean? Yeah. You've killed deer, you've killed a lot of deer. You've killed some nice deer.

Act like you've been here before. This ain't the first time. And so what's some people get this, some people get this killer instinct. And I'm jealous cuz I used to have it where, yeah. When the opportunity comes. It was like they, like something came over them and they just got freaking like Stone cold Killer.

And they focused on it. And I used to be that way. And I remember telling Michael Pike this one time on a podcast cuz he was talking about missing a lot. And I was like, you know what, man? I just never really had that problem because I've feel like when I get an opportunity, I take full advantage of it.

And it was like from that moment I jinxed myself and. [00:34:00] I just became that, like I just became this, I freak out and I don't know what it is. And a lot of it's adrenaline man. Like I, I know that I, I black out more than anything and it's not good. There's sometimes when I'm like that Kentucky Buck that I shot, bro, I don't know how.

I don't know how I hit him as good as I did, cuz I don't remember anything about that shot. That's how my dad is. He'll shoot a deer. I love it. It this makes great stories for us. He'll shoot a deer and he goes, man, I don't know what it was, it, it could have been a spot, a do. I don't know what it was.

He walked down there. It's a big old eight point, he's I couldn't tell you what happened. And Then you wait a couple hours and then the real story starts coming out and I just, I love it. But now I'm like you, I, I love to hunt and I've gotten that instinct for me has [00:35:00] gotten better with turkeys.

I've figured out on turkeys, like when I can move and, hey, Control your breath, move slow. He's not going anywhere. He's coming in looking for me. It's a whole nother ballgame when it comes to a deer. Because, they could, turkeys can fly, but a deer, he can smell you.

He can hear you. He can see you, turkeys can just really see it, hear you. And if they hear you you actually can get away with more movement, blah, blah, blah. So there's a lot of different characteristics for the two, but like deer, I'm just worried because they're so stinking skittish as it is here.

I get so excited, my adrenaline's pumping. I had a deer in this year come up behind me and I'm trying to do the camera, get him ready, clip on. Meantime, I've about hung myself in the saddle because I've spun around so many times just trying to get positioned, and he ends up smelling me and gets out of there, and you put all that work into that one little moment and hey, could [00:36:00] do, I think I could have got the shot off if I got my bow pulled back.

Probably not. I probably would've shot the tree he was behind, but it's just the, I get worked up, man. I get worked up real bad. And especially I know me and you've talked about stopping a deer to shoot a deer, man, that's talk about melting myself. That kills me. I had a deer in Florida that I did the old mar and he stopped and looked right at me and I just lo I lost it.

I should have just thrown my gun at him. I would've been better off doing that shot over him two, three times, but just. Just crazy stuff that, like I said, some people don't have to deal with. Yeah. And I ivy those people. Yeah. Man I've felt like I've missed my opportunity on that Kentucky buck because I didn't stop him.

But I'm like you, I've had days where I've stopped a deer and it ruined the whole hunt, man I thought I was [00:37:00] over that. Miss, if I'm gonna be honest with you, you were sitting here talking and I was just sitting here daydreaming about that miss on that big buck this year. I thought I was over it.

I've had a great Turkey season and so I'm been sitting on cloud nine now. I'm like crap, I missed that day Buck. We can start our therapy session after, after. I know. I know it, dude. Hey Matt we can wrap this thing up, dude, but I do want to say everybody heard the ad that played in this podcast for join or die knives and we're super excited to have them supporting us, go support them that make some kick butt knives like Real.

So I'm gonna say this, I'm used to these knife companies on Facebook and somebody will message you about buying their Damascus knives. And his name is a long name that you can't pronounce, and it always feels scammy, right? And my buddy James Moffett, who owns Trailhead Creative, he was like, Hey dude, I got this knife company you need to check out.

And Immediately a red flag went up for me because I was like, [00:38:00] crap, dude. Like knife companies. I just, you get a bad taste in your mouth for 'em, for, because of social media, because of Facebook. He introduced me to, Brent, introduced me to join or die in this company, and they're legit and they're making really cool knives for a lot of different applications.

And we're about to get some and super excited to try 'em out. But one thing I know is that they're great dudes and they support what we do and so we're gonna support what they do. So yeah, go check 'em out. You can get a discount if you use the code. SG h u n t. We're super excited about having join or die on the show with us and Yeah, we hope to to get them on the podcast here soon and talk a little bit about the company.

Matt, you got anything else before we go? I think that's it if y'all haven't already. We already had Jbe last week talking about our Paton couple guys have joined the marker polo. That's getting more interesting as the day goes, so if you haven't go up on there, we'd love to talk to you.

Absolutely. [00:39:00] Hey guys. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of the Southern Ground Hunting Podcast. You can keep up with Southern Ground Hunting by following us on Facebook or Instagram or subscribing to the YouTube channel, and you can be sure to check us out@southerngroundhunting.com to pick up some of our merch, read some blog articles, and all that good stuff.

I truly hope you enjoyed this week's episode, and we'll see you here again next week. Remember that God gave you dominion over the birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and the beast of the earth. So go out and exercise that dominion. We will talk to you next week.

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