Patterning A Mature Buck

On this episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles, Dan talks with Matt Rose, a Missouri native, about locating and pattering a mature buck. Matt breaks down the area of the state he lives and hunts in, the deer density on his farms, and what he considers a successful season. Then, the guys get in to a a conversation about three years worth of history on a buck they named "Slingshot".  Matt talks about about where this buck was living, what his annual pattern was, all the way down to the specific drainage he was using to access a green bean field. If you listen close, you will hear a serious bowhunter get really detailed about the strategy he used to hunt this once is a lifetime buck. Enjoy and share!

[00:00:00] Dan Johnson: Interstate Batteries offers a wide variety of batteries for your everyday needs. Stop into one of their thousands of retail locations and talk with a battery specialist about batteries for your truck, trail cameras, and even those weird batteries for your rangefinder. Interstate Batteries even offers cell phone repair in certain locations.

For more information, visit interstatebatteries. com. Interstate Batteries, outrageously Dependable.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the nine finger chronicles. I'm your host, Dan Johnson, and I'm going to start this episode off. By giving all of you some advice, make sure that your hunting gear and equipment [00:01:00] is ready for the upcoming season. And if you have kids, keep your hunting gear and equipment away from.

Your children and or access or any place that's accident prone so I'll tell you what happened my sons and the neighbor boys were in the garage and they were messing around and something happened and my bow Fell off of the hook that it was hanging on. I have three bows some of my old bows Hanging on this hooks underneath of a shelf.

There's stuff around it So it's really hard to get to so I think they were kicking a basketball in the garage Knocked it off and I went back. I went to go start shooting the other day. It was hanging there like it was supposed to be But I started shooting and it was way off I'm like, what in the hell?

[00:02:00] Instantly it starts messing with your head, right? Instantly it start, you start to say to yourself, man, what is going on here? So I look and it's the issue that I had before what was having before where the, I guess you want to call it the third access that rotates it clockwise or counterclockwise.

You can, there's a, on my site, you That had been knocked loose. And so there's two lines that when they touch tells you it's level, but the lines were off. And so I had to adjust it, which means I have to recite in my bow and I'm hoping it doesn't take. too long. I was shooting pretty good at 60 yards.

I know I mentioned that on a previous podcast that I like to shoot at longer ranges so that, I can spend my time making minor adjustments at longer distances so that when I'm in a [00:03:00] tree stand or if I have an encounter out west at, let's just say 20 yards, then I'll feel very confident in that.

But now I have to go through the steps of it. Yeah. Reciting in 20 yards and 30 yards and the rest that are the site that I use you, you cite in 20, then you cite in 30 and then what happens is 60 are automatically calculated for you and you don't have to, you don't have to cite in those pins, maybe some minor adjustments at longer distances either left or right usually, but up and down.

Tends to be tends to be really easy. Left and right is where you have to do the minor adjustments. At least that's how I do it. And I just I didn't know who did it. I didn't care who did it. It just means I got to do a little bit more work at getting the bow recited in and making sure it's not broken or anything.

I did a evaluation of the bow. It looks like it's [00:04:00] good. I've shot arrows out of it. Feels like it's nothing really has changed on it. But again, Don't let your kids, especially if they're young, anywhere near your hunting gear and equipment. And so I learned my lesson and now I gotta take that bow and put it up in my office where no one can get to it.

Take heed, my friends. Alright, today's episode, we're gonna be talking with Matt Rose. Now, Matt is a Missouri native and he is going to share with us a theory. Three year story of a buck that he named slingshot. This is a awesome story and it is a, it's a story that I can actually relate to just given how active the farm is that he hunts the, how the deer use the terrain, how he uses trail cameras.

He's started messing around with mock scrapes and the end of this story, as he's telling me this. And the multiple times that this buck is within shooting range that he had to draw back [00:05:00] and then let down and then draw back and then let down without making any noise before he actually got an opportunity, a clear shot at this buck and the rest is kind of history.

Make sure. That you guys listen to this podcast, make sure that you talk about it on social. I, if you, if what I really want to know is, and I asked this question on Instagram is if you have ever had to draw back and then let down and then draw back and let down again with a target animal within shooting range.

I've been there a couple of times. It sucks. And I never did get the buck on that particular encounter, but it's definitely a stressful situation. That's what we talk about today. Before we get into today's episode, though, we got to do the commercials and the commercials today are tethered, wasp, vortex, and ozonics.

Now, later this week on the hunting gear podcast I'm going, [00:06:00] I don't know if I'm going to launch it this week or next week, but I'm going to be talking with some of the guys from. Ozonics and and just get an update on their product line. I, dude, I love using ozone. I love using ozone in the tree.

I think from a science based standpoint, strictly like it works, right? Ozone eliminates odor because it has an unstable molecule. That unstable molecule attacks all the molecules around it. And. basically dilutes it. So if you have, let's say, it's like those squeeze juice, right? So if your scent is the squeeze juice that you squeeze into water at itself, the squeeze juice is very concentrated, very potent.

But once you start adding water to it, it starts to dilute and it becomes thin. And if you add enough water to it, then. It doesn't even taste like juice anymore, if that makes sense at all. So what I'm [00:07:00] getting at is this ozone, this O3 from the ozonics unit on your clothes in the air dilutes everything around it.

Yes. It smells like something, but it dilutes the bad scent that deer associate with danger. That's why I like using ozone. If you don't use ozone, I strongly suggest going to OzonicsHunting. com and reading up on all of their units, how they work, how ozone works, and and educate yourself on ozone.

And I'll, I'm a big fan of using it. That's Ozonics. Vortex Optics, man, they came out with a new youth model. I forget the name of it right now, but go to vortexoptics. com and they came out with a very affordable youth model. And the binoculars that they sent me this youth model binoculars, I'm going to give my daughter as a gift.

And hopefully she takes care of them. And I might even get her a little [00:08:00] bino harness that she can wear on her chest. And it's just perfect. It's a perfect introductory set of optics for a kid. And then the best part about this is kids are hard on their products, and so when kids are hard on things.

Then you can take advantage of the VIP warranty that Vortex offers, right? And you can take that take that pair of binoculars. Your kids break it, you send it in, they fix it for free, and they send it back to you. Now you got a a brand new, basically, set of binoculars again. Go check that out.

VortexOptics. com Wasp Archery, I'm just gonna leave you with the discount code here. I have a 20 percent off Wasp Archery. N f C two zero and that's going to get you 20% off of all wasp archery. Broadheads wasp archery.com. I'm a huge fan of the three Blade Jackhammer, and I'm a huge fan of the Boss four Blade.

So go check that out. And all the other heads that they have, majority [00:09:00] of their heads are made in America. Was archery.com last, but definitely not least because I. What did I do? I worked on some climbing sticks this weekend, taping them up with some hockey tape. That's, I guess if you want to call that a mod, that's the mod that I do.

I put a little bit of the tape on my platforms as well, especially around the vertical bar and put the, put my platforms together, wrapped a little bit of hockey tape around the front. And the sides to prevent any, it, it deadens the noise down quite a bit, actually especially any type of metal on metal and getting ready and just shooting out of my saddle preparing for the upcoming season.

So I'm getting ready to take on South Dakota here in about 30 days. I want to be, I want to be proficient from the ground with my bow. And in a saddle because if things. If there's an opportunity to get into a tree and and set up and [00:10:00] maybe shoot a mule deer from the ground, man, that would be that would be awesome.

What else do I have to say? That's it. That's it. TetheredNation. com. Go check out their saddle hunting accessories, platforms climbing sticks and all the accessories that you need. Go check those out. Now! We're done with the commercials, and I really appreciate you guys taking time out of your day to listen to those commercials because that's how I get paid and enjoy this episode.

We'll talk to you on the back end. 3, 2, 1. Hey, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Nine Finger Chronicles. I'm your host, Dan Johnson, and today we're joined By Matt Rose. Matt, dude, how are you doing today? 

[00:10:43] Matt Rose: Good, man. I'm on the job site right now, watching the guys work, so they're pissed at me, but that doesn't 

[00:10:49] Dan Johnson: suck either.

Hey, are you management? 

[00:10:52] Matt Rose: Yeah, for the most part. It's just... I work for a couple of my real good buddies that own a landscape company and I form in their crews yeah. [00:11:00] Okay. 

[00:11:00] Dan Johnson: All right. I hate to say it, whether you're in the truck or not, they hate you anyway, right? , probably you're one of those guys that I got a I got a couple friends who are con or they work for big contractors and their job site foreman as well, and so they sit in that building.

That they pull on to the big job sites and people come in all days like it must be nice to sit in air conditioning, and so people hate them no matter what's going on. There's always something wrong. 

[00:11:29] Matt Rose: No, I don't do that. I'm out on job sites doing the labor. We don't have we're not that big of a scale, but I completely get what you're saying.

And yeah, I do have some a seat time from job to job and from stop to stop. But for the most part, I'm out in it every day. Yeah. 

[00:11:42] Dan Johnson: Yeah so it's a landscaping company, commercial, residential, both. 

[00:11:47] Matt Rose: Both. Yeah. Yeah. We do park scapes, soft scapes irrigation a lot of maintenance stuff. 

[00:11:52] Dan Johnson: Yeah. Yeah.

If for some reason you're accidentally in Eastern Iowa and feel like doing some pro bono work on a [00:12:00] resident, man, my, my landscaping is old and beat to shit. And like on the side, like I do enough work to keep it look like. It's not abandoned and then on the sides of the house, then that's where like all the weeds grow and because they can't see that shit.

So I got it. I got a couple small trees I need to hack down and in some bushes to trim up, 

[00:12:21] Matt Rose: I'll check the schedule when I get back. I just want to do a little free time. 

[00:12:24] Dan Johnson: So exactly right. It's the bad time of year to try to schedule that. But who dude, you shot a giant this year, man.

[00:12:36] Matt Rose: Yeah, it was it was something else. I'm still it's still crazy how it all happened. But yeah, it was fun, man. I'm interested. I'm happy to get into the story for you. Yeah, 

[00:12:44] Dan Johnson: absolutely. So I think what we're going to do here is we're just going to go in chronological order. I think that's the best thing to do.

And first off, Where in Missouri, you're from Missouri, [00:13:00] what part of Missouri does this all take place? 

[00:13:04] Matt Rose: Callaway County, pretty well, center of the state. We're north of the Missouri River where we hunt, probably about 10, 10 to 12 miles. Right along 

[00:13:12] Dan Johnson: I 70. Okay, so center, center part of the state.

Describe to us the terrain in that area of the state. 

[00:13:22] Matt Rose: Yeah, it varies. On the northern side of the county, it's pretty flat and open and a lot of big ag country. And then on, as you get a little closer to the river and the parts in between, it's a little, it's a little hillier.

There's some bluffs. There's a lot of creeks that run through here, so it breaks up the habitat really well. And it's mixed ag. Mixed farming operations as far as cattle and stuff go. And then it's pretty heavy timber in spots too. So it's really good habitat for deer. Yeah. 

[00:13:49] Dan Johnson: And it sounds like it's working agriculture as well, right?

This property isn't just strictly managed for deer. 

[00:13:59] Matt Rose: No, [00:14:00] no we do, there are there a farmer farms about 85 90 acres of this is a 500 acre piece where I killed this year. It's my grandfather's farm. It's been in the family for over 100 years. And it it's always been a mixed operation as far as cattle and agriculture goes.

My grandfather passed away probably about 15 years ago. And since then, we haven't really had a big cattle operation. My brother has some kind of a small hobby farm down there. But it's pretty well isolated until maybe a 10 acre patch, right? Where our shack and our cabin and all of our equipment sheds are and stuff.

It's mainly an agriculture farm and recreational and yeah we manage it for big deer 

[00:14:36] Dan Johnson: mostly. Okay good. And so 500 acres, timber. Ag livestock mix type of deal. How many people hunt that farm throughout the year? 

[00:14:52] Matt Rose: Probably about 10 different 

[00:14:53] Dan Johnson: people, 10 different, all family.

[00:14:56] Matt Rose: Yeah. Yeah. And friends. Okay. 

[00:14:57] Dan Johnson: All right. And so[00:15:00] is there a, is it heavily weighted to gun season? Are a majority of the people just doing the gun season or are all of those people spread out during the entire season doing all forms of hunting? 

[00:15:13] Matt Rose: It's mostly, I would say 70 percent 70 to 75 percent rifle hunters and they do a little bit of crossbow hunting down there.

A couple of guys bow hunt down there, but it really, nobody really does it much until, middle October when it cools off a little bit. It's just a, and I hit it pretty hard early if I can and it just worked 

[00:15:34] Dan Johnson: out. Yeah. Okay. All right. So talk to us a little bit about this farm in particular.

And what makes it? I don't know. Good. What made you've you already mentioned in multiple occasions that it's good deer habitat. What makes this 500 acres good habitat? 

[00:15:55] Matt Rose: I'd say the key factor to it is about 4 or [00:16:00] 5 years ago, maybe give or take a couple of years. There used to be some other farms that but up to it and that Are adjacent to it that also had crops on it.

And the family that had farmed those other farms, for whatever reason, got out of ag and switched back to all livestock. So it sucked a lot of deer into our place from other farms that would have been displaced because of crops being in other areas. To me, that's one of the key factors why our numbers have gone up a lot in the last few years because we're lucky and fortunate in the fact that we're the only real ag source around.

Until last year, they started putting a farm that adjacent to us about 60 acres of it probably back in crop. But we were, we really haven't seen a downturn in the numbers. And so that's probably the one thing that's sets it apart from the other farms that bought up to it is that we have food.

And my dad and I also put probably about a dozen acres [00:17:00] of food plots on it every year. We try to give them more than they can handle. Gotcha. All 

[00:17:04] Dan Johnson: right. And so from a land management portion, part of it You got the egg. You got a little livestock on there. The, the neighborhood is ag and livestock.

It's working. How do you determine where and what kind of food plots you plan on planning every year? 

[00:17:24] Matt Rose: We kind of work with what we're given as far as what the farmers don't farm. So we work, we use edges, we use fields like fallow fields that they don't, that they don't do anymore.

And we have a bunch of little openings up on top of some ridges that. Allow really good skill plots, and we try to mix back and forth in some of our bottom fields, we try to put some ag in there and we try to match what the farmers do because we have really high deer density.

If the farmers planting corn in our 90 acres and me and dad try to plant 2 acres of soybeans it's going to look like a dirt field all summer. So we try to match what the farmer does in those fields and that kind of lets us [00:18:00] get by with. with some browse pressure and stuff like that in the summer, but mostly we do clover, a lot of clover in the spring.

We mow it in the summer. If we need to spray it, we'll spray it. And we put in fall pots with radishes and turnips and fall mixes. And we just try to keep a variety of everything. Gotcha. 

[00:18:16] Dan Johnson: All right. What's the deer population in that area like? 

[00:18:23] Matt Rose: It's high. I went down and filmed the buck I killed one night this year in July on about a 50 acre bean field and there was about 95 deer in that 50 acre field.

Yeah, it's high. I'd say on average during hunting. See, it's probably 40 to 60 deer per square mile. Okay. It's not uncommon to see 40 deer a night. Yeah. 

[00:18:45] Dan Johnson: Yeah. Okay. I've talked with some guys who have just a little bit more property than you in the grand scheme of things, if I'm comparing 500 acres to let's say 1000 acres total, right?

This one guy says he tries [00:19:00] to take about 100, 100 does off of that property every single year. And he said that the last time he did that, that might've been a little bit too much. But. It, the deer herd always seems to recover, especially if they have the food and the cover and the water that they need.

How many deer a year do you guys take off of that 

[00:19:20] Matt Rose: 500 acres? That's interesting. We actually keep pretty good track of that and I don't have any numbers here with me, but usually we'll take around 35 to 40 does a year off that farm and sometimes more. And usually we'll take. three to five bucks off of it.

You're looking around 40 deer a year and we've gotten over 60 in some years just because the numbers are so high and we go down there and take friends. And, we have doe seasons in Missouri where, you know, once the normal rifle seasons have passed, we have antlerless only portions where you can go out for.

Several days in a row and feel tags, or, we have guests come in and feel tags for us. Cause it's a good, by that time of year, with the rifle, you can sit over that bean field and you're going [00:20:00] to see does, so it's a good way to do management. You can do depredation tags up here in the summer, but I'm just not a fan of that with the way it all plays out.

So we don't do that. We do all our management in the fall and winter. Okay. 

[00:20:14] Dan Johnson: All right. Now here's where the juice comes, right? Here's the meat and potatoes. How do you guys manage for bucks? And is there an age class? Is there an antler size? Cause I, cause in my head tells me there's 17 people on there and.

Unless there is set expectations going into absolutely every season of what you can shoot and what you can't shoot, then people are going to let bullets fly on stuff that is young and so describe to us how you set those expectations for the properties on what bucks to shoot. 

[00:20:52] Matt Rose: Yeah. Calhoun County actually has, I believe it still does.

I know it has in the past. It has a four point restriction on one side. That doesn't [00:21:00] apply to youth seasons. Yeah. I don't believe so. And when we have youth hunters in for our youth seasons, there are no restrictions. They can shoot whatever they want. We're not, this is more of a family farm in a place to go enjoy it than just to be strict about it.

Whenever the family hunts during the rifle seasons, there really aren't any restrictions. Dan, we me and my dad we do I run. A couple dozen trail cameras down there. So I know what deer generally are where and we we can put it together a list that we're interested in and a list that we want to not shoot.

But, the last 3 or 4 years, we've gotten some really good neighbors to our West that I'm on the same page with, and they're very intense. It's just 2 guys on a 400 acre piece over there, and he killed a 193 that I was after last year too. We. Yeah we're on some good ones, but it takes a, it really does take a community to get big deer to grill, I think, but, there are really no restrictions from a family standpoint. However, most people down there have killed some decent deer so far. So they keep trying to maintain [00:22:00] that bar for themselves, so it's on a case by case scenario, really. Yeah. Okay. I'd say on half the farm, my dad and I really intensely manage it on the other half of the farm where my other half, the family spends most of their time.

It's much more loose on that side. So the west side of the farm is definitely more intensely managed than the east side of the farm. 

[00:22:21] Dan Johnson: Okay. All right. And so this buck that we're going to start talking about, right? I feel especially in a rifle state, and you've already laid out the picture that part of this farm is Pretty intensely managed and it and a neighbor, I don't know if it's on that side of the farm or on a different side.

Also, it's 

[00:22:43] Matt Rose: across the creek on the 

[00:22:44] Dan Johnson: west side. Okay, so they touch, right? The part that you heavily manage and the neighbor's part, they manage as well. So now you have this combined 600 some acres or whatever that is intensely managed, right? As far [00:23:00] as age structure and antler size is concerned. Alright it's laid out.

Did you have a name for this buck that we can reference in this story? 

[00:23:09] Matt Rose: Yeah, I named him last year when he was I don't know that he was 4 or if he was 5 last year, but I named him Slingshot, he had a big split G2 on his left side that looked like a slingshot, so we named him Slingshot, and then this year he just flipped it over to his right brow tine, so it actually worked out good.

[00:23:25] Dan Johnson: Okay, alright, Slingshot, what year did you first find out about Slingshot? 

[00:23:34] Matt Rose: 2021, He was a three year old eight pointer. Big, tall, nine inch brow tie on his right with a split on it already and just a wide frame, probably 130 inch kind of buck. And I knew right then he was going to be something if he made it and got pictures of him and saw him one time in the bean field that summer.

Got pictures of him until probably velvet shed and then he was gone. 

[00:23:59] Dan Johnson: All right. [00:24:00] So slingshot, I take it. He was a three, roughly a three year old based on what you've said. You think 

[00:24:06] Matt Rose: estimate that's what we were thinking. Yeah. That's what we were thinking as a 2021 

[00:24:10] Dan Johnson: buck. Okay. So 2021 three year old roughly how big was he?

Probably one 30. Okay. 

Maybe one 35, nothing spectacular, but you said this buck has the potential to be something. Absolutely. Okay. Now describe the area that. So you saw okay, so you saw him in velvet and then after antler shed He did he disappear for the whole season or just part of it?

[00:24:41] Matt Rose: The whole season never got another picture of him Didn't find any sheds Neighbors, the neighbors on the west side of the creek that also intensely manage we'll just call them the Bama boys because they're from Alabama. Okay. So that's a good reference. The Bama boys didn't have any pictures of him the rest of the year after he shed his velvet.

So he had [00:25:00] moved off of both the properties and was just somewhere else. Okay. 

[00:25:03] Dan Johnson: Were you thinking about that buck at all during the 21, the 2021 season at all? Man, I wonder where this deer went or did you just go, hey, cool buck, then forgot about 

[00:25:11] Matt Rose: him? Yeah, I was on a couple of other really big deer that year that I was focused on.

He was in the back of my mind. I saved the pictures, cataloged him and knew that, in the future, I wanted to go back and look and see what he turned into. But I didn't really pick, it was no big deal type thing that he left that year to me. Okay. All 

[00:25:27] Dan Johnson: right. Not a big deal.

And that's oftentimes that's what happens when. You're after a certain age class. Hey, I hope this guy makes it, or I hope I don't run into this guy when I'm feeling, when I got an itchy trigger finger and things like that. And he leaves, what, when is Missouri's opener? When can you start hunting?

September 15th. Okay, 15th, alright. He's gone, alright. When was the next time that you saw this buck, or got a trail cam picture of him and put the [00:26:00] pieces of the puzzle together that says, Hey. This is him. 

[00:26:05] Matt Rose: I didn't realize it was him until this year. I didn't realize that was him as a three year old until this year.

But looking back now, knowing what I know, he, so as a three year old, he was probably a 130 kind of buck as an eight point as a four year old, he turned into probably 155 inch 10 with big brows and a split on his left G two. Was he running the 

[00:26:26] Dan Johnson: same? Was he running the same area? 

[00:26:29] Matt Rose: Pretty close. He had shifted about a quarter mile to the east.

In the center of our farm and he was there all summer. So that's when I named him slingshot. I kept tabs on him all summer. I was on that big deer, that 193 last year. So I wasn't hunting slingshot. And then when that deer got killed. I actually had another 160 low 60s 10 on that farm that I killed slingshot on so I hunted him and killed him and didn't pay really much attention to slingshot.

Kind of really [00:27:00] wanting them to make it. And he he disappeared again. I had. pictures of him even in daylight about this time of year. So he stayed around a little bit longer last year. But then I didn't get any pictures of him in october, not a single picture. And I killed my dear last year on october 19th I think.

And Just kept running cameras, because we get another tag in Missouri once the rifle season opens up and I usually take guests and my wife and stuff during rifle. So I don't really hunt a lot during rifle season, but I still run a lot of cameras and try to figure out, what deer are moving where from pressure and stuff like that.

And on November 6th, right before rifle season last year, I got a picture of him on the very year. Three south end of our property on a logging road. And he was chase. It looked like he was chasing a dough. He was in that bird dog looking position, and he was going up the road from north to south.

And that was the last picture I got of him last year, November 6th in the morning in daylight. So I was like good. He's still alive. Dad's gonna kill him. And I was hoping dad killed him last year. We never saw him. Never got another picture of him. Never. [00:28:00] Never. Not a shed. Nothing for the rest of the 22 into 23.

And we pick it back up in into June this year when I found him in the exact same spot he was in last summer. Okay. 

[00:28:13] Dan Johnson: Did you have an idea of why he liked to summer at your place and then disappear for a while and then come back? 

[00:28:23] Matt Rose: It had to have been the food that we have on the property in the summer. Generally it's soybeans or it's double cropped wheat and then corn.

Or, sorry, it's double cropped soybeans or they'll do corn and then put wheat behind it. It almost had to be because we had the food. We have the water down there too. And we have all the other deer. In the summertime, those deer, they're in big groups especially the bucks, generally he was for whatever reason, and this property to the south, I don't want to say too much about it, because people are going to know where I'm talking about, but this property to the south that I think that he went to An older gentleman owns it.

Super nice guy. It butts up to our farm and I actually approached him this year about leasing it because I had a [00:29:00] feeling if that deer was still alive, that's where he was going to be. And he was super nice guy. Wasn't really interested in that. He's like 85. Wasn't really interested in it. I took my shot on that and it didn't pan out, but I'm pretty sure that's where that deer was 

[00:29:11] Dan Johnson: living.

All right, so you're starting to put the pieces of the puzzle together on, on this book of where he was coming and going on your piece and where he was going on some of the ne the neighbor's piece, the last trail camera picture. that you had of him last year was, you said November 3rd or 6th or 

[00:29:33] Matt Rose: something like that?

November 6th. Yep, November 6th and 8 o'clock in 

[00:29:36] Dan Johnson: the morning. Okay. And no confirmation, any late season or post season picks of him? The next time you saw him was June of this year? 

[00:29:48] Matt Rose: I put a camera out on that. We call it the, we call it the dump field. When my grandpa owned this place years ago, all these old farmers around here, if there was a ditch somewhere and they had like [00:30:00] old metal or freezers, they dumped that shit in a ditch.

And so we just called it field dump field. And years ago I went in and cleaned it all up, but it's just maintained the name, and Anyway, I've got a, I've got a mineral site on the south end of this dump field. It's probably only six or seven years old, but it's huge. These deer have just, it looks like a pig wallow, and they're in there every day.

And it's just a really good transition. So I put a camera up there on June 30th. or June 25th, something like that. And didn't check it for July 2nd. I went back in there, I think, or 3rd. And he was like the second or third deer on there. And I was like, Oh my God what deer is this?

And then I still didn't put it together that it was slingshot until I started sending pictures to the Bama boys. And I'm like, what year is this? And immediately Cleveland was like, buddy, this is him from two years ago. I didn't see him last year. And then I'm like, Oh my God. So that's when I realized.

Who he was at three, who he was at four, and then what I was assuming those ages to be, and then I realized, now, oh shit, it's him, he's alive, [00:31:00] where the hell did he go? And, I don't care where he went now at this point, but it's always, it was in the back of my mind all summer, so I'm like, the key to this hunt's gonna be getting him early because he's gonna be gone.

It's either he feels pressure, or he There's another he's not a he's not a deer that likes to fight or something and he gets pushed off so I knew it had to happen early 

[00:31:19] Dan Johnson: and I'm glad you said the word pressure because here's where I want this direct this conversation to go now is How do you manage pressure on this farm is do you try to be as less impactful as possible?

Or are you out there? 

[00:31:40] Matt Rose: This is gonna blow your mind this So my dad and my brother has a firewood business and kind of a log business that he basically runs from that farm. And he's down there every single day. And he, and so is my dad and they're down there dicking around with something every single day.

Yeah. And I do have farm [00:32:00] because I hunt seven different farms around this county. So I do have farms that my impact is super minimal on and I try to keep it that way. And it does make a difference, but for whatever reason, man, on this farm, those deer are so accustomed to people. It's not it's not like you can just hunt the wind wrong, or you can just go out there after work and smell like shit.

It's not going to work like that, but like they're used to people, man. And so I use that to my advantage as far as when I started. Bombarding this deer with cameras. Is I knew he was comfortable in there. He was daylight all summer. He was daylight into the early fall. So it was a fluke as far as this deer being used to human activity.

And being a mature buck. That a lot of times out of smaller deer and does and yearlings and stuff, but you don't expect to see that out of a fully mature buck. And yeah. Yeah. So it was it's not a, it's not a property that, that's really a stay the hell out of there type thing.

It's dude, do your thing. And these deer are used to it, man. Yeah. 

[00:32:56] Dan Johnson: And I'll tell you what, man I've heard [00:33:00] of some guys. I don't want to call it conditioning really like they're not they're not purposely conditioning I've heard guys that do they go out every day They live on their farms and they make a lap in their side by side down every two track down every trail And then they come back to their house basically just saying okay, they get used to that type of activity And so as long as they're not directly bumped then, you know Let you drive right by you 

[00:33:30] Matt Rose: Exactly.

We call it desensitizing them. There 

[00:33:33] Dan Johnson: you go. Absolutely. 

[00:33:35] Matt Rose: We noticed it after we had our farm logged about 10 years ago, like after we had the farm log you could drive your side by sides or your truck down the logging trails and the deer would just watch you go by and we're like, what in the hell is going on here?

And one of my buddy dude, these things are just desensitized from all these. from all these loggers being in here all summer and I mean over the course of you know a deer growing up with it as a fawn, as a two year old, as a three year old, as a four year [00:34:00] old, I mean they learn where they're safe and where they think they're safe and where they're not and they you know if those side by sides and those trucks for the most part stay on those trails and they stay running and they don't stop running most of the time man when they get used to it after a generation or two a deer It seems like they're just like, Oh, whatever.

They're doing their thing. I'll just let them leave and then I'll do my 

[00:34:19] Dan Johnson: thing. But the second you start to tiptoe through the woods, they're 

[00:34:27] Matt Rose: gone. Which could be why he, which could be why he left the last couple of years when we started putting hunting pressure on that farm because he knew that something was different.

This ain't the normal type of thing that I feel from them. You know what I mean? Yep. 

[00:34:38] Dan Johnson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. Now he's big this year. He went from 155 to, what did you say you measured him at this year? 

[00:34:48] Matt Rose: We measured him when we, when I killed him, we measured him at 184 and some change.

So he's in that, he's in that, he put on about 30 inches this year, I'd say. 

[00:34:56] Dan Johnson: Mid 80s. Okay. Giant body. Yep. Alright. He's got your [00:35:00] attention, right? And I'm sure, yeah, and I'm sure the Bama boys knew about him this year as 

[00:35:05] Matt Rose: well? They didn't have any pictures of him, but we share all our pictures together.

Yeah. Yeah I was like, Hey man, if this deer comes by, he absolutely shoot his ass. There is no, and yeah, we were, there's no, I've told people this for years and I don't know that people believe me, but I don't have any reasons to keep any secrets on deer, man. I just, I really don't.

I hunt up most of the time I'm hunting a spot where they're. safe. I just, but, I don't keep secrets. 

[00:35:30] Dan Johnson: Yeah. Here's my my next question is other big deer. And you mentioned, and I, the term I always use is power, a power vacuum. All right. So there's big deer in the area.

And that sometimes they keep other deer out, especially if they're like a big bodied, big, mature aggressive deer doesn't, it doesn't matter what their antlers are. Sometimes that could be a [00:36:00] hundred. The new farm that I got permission to hunt this past year, the bully buck was probably. A hundred and one hundred and twenty five inch eight just a basket rack but his body size was probably two fifty three hundred pounds like huge noticeably huge body.

He walked, he would walk into the field and all the deer just all the other bucks just left. And he ran the roost and so what, were there any other deer that were potentially keeping slingshot out of the area? 

[00:36:35] Matt Rose: Yeah, for sure. The farm, that farm has got some good ones on it this year and a lot of them are up and comers.

But there's one deer in particular and I'm not sure. This is just me thinking out loud here, but it's a buck I call RJ. He's about a 145 10 pointer. Last year he was probably 155 10, but he went backwards this year. And I'm thinking he's probably six and a half, seven and a half years old, super old buck.

And now I did get pictures of those two deer together [00:37:00] a lot this summer, but That would have probably been one of the books that could have possibly kicked his ass out of there Okay, because RJ was there all year every year. Gotcha. 

[00:37:10] Dan Johnson: All right now And so that's another thing that not everybody has the luxury of worrying about but it's something to Consider you get pictures of him.

All right. Did you get consistent pictures of him all summer up until let's just say End August. 

[00:37:34] Matt Rose: Yeah, so I'll back up just a little bit. When I found him I knew I was going to have to be sensitive on him. Initially I put out six more cameras on him in about a 45 or 50 acre area. And gave him a week and went back in there.

They weren't cell cameras. And went back in there and checked them and I was only picking them up on two of the six. So I was like, okay so I took six more cameras down there. And so we're the two that I got him on. I just started [00:38:00] working my way a little closer that to where he was coming from and gave those about a week.

And so now I have 12 on him in about 40, 45 acres and started picking him up on four different cameras. So I'm like, okay, now I'm narrowing them down a little bit more. And this is probably mid to late July at this point. And so I, at that point, I got a couple of simple, a couple of my cell cameras rolling and I started putting them on him and.

So I've got 14 15 cameras on this deer at this point I'm just slowly pushing back to where he's getting out of his bedroom and getting the first daylight pictures of him and So I find this little narrow and I didn't find it. It's just a farm line It goes from a 10 acre bean field. It's about a 200 acre.

I call it the chute. It's about a 200 acre lane That run, er, 200 yard lane that runs from a 10 acre bean field to a 2 acre bean field. And that fucker was in there 3 to 5 nights a week, 645 to 7 o'clock at night. And I'm like, I'll be goddamn, he's coming right down that fucking [00:39:00] chute. And my brother and my dad go down that chute multiple times a day just doing their shit throughout.

So that's why I overlooked it, I'm like, there's no way. Then finally I was like, oh my god, he's coming right down this damn chute. So This is getting close to early to mid august at this point So it's it's getting close, and deer still doing his thing and At this point i'm staying the hell out of there as much as possible because I don't need him Because I got one picture of him this summer and he came right up to my camera And he's got his nose up to the camera and I didn't get another picture of that deer for a week So after I saw that I was like Fuck he's on to me or he smelled something and then he whatever happened for a week and he came right back to that mineralic again so I you know and then so that's when I started moving cameras closer to him and picked him up in this shoot and set on up you know and I waited until September I think it was September 7th or 8th attempt to hang the stand because I was trying to be pretty on point with [00:40:00] what the wind was going to do that night because, I didn't want to hang a set for a south wind and then a month out and then have it ready and then come a week before season we got a north wind that I'm going to have to go move a set.

This deer's still doing his thing even into the beginning of September. He sheds his velvet. He's still coming through the chute. He's still going to the mineral leg. About September 7th, 8th, 9th, somewhere in there, I'm looking at the long range forecast and it's just looking like south wind.

And that's what you needed, 

[00:40:25] Dan Johnson: right? You needed a south 

[00:40:26] Matt Rose: wind. Okay. Yep. I'm like, okay time to go hang the set, there's this giant burr oak on the edge of this, it's on the north edge of this two acre field. And, I've been wanting to put a stand in it for a couple years, I just, for whatever reason, I hadn't.

And, I'm like that's the tree. It's perfect. There's a it forks at 25 feet, and you have all kinds of cover right there. I get up to the fork, I put the stand up. I go and I make a scrape post. I go get a, my dad has a sawmill down there, and he does a bunch of cedar lumber.

I went and got a Cedar Post and a Cedar two by four. And I made a rope scrape. So I [00:41:00] put the post in the ground, cut the two by four off at the top, brace it at the bottom, paddle bit right through the two by four. Put a scr, a hemp rope on it. Make a scrape underneath it. Then I took the paddle bit and drilled through the other side of the post and went and got a limb off that bur oak and stuck it in there and then screwed it in, made a couple of scrapes underneath it, right in this pinch.

And I haven't gotten a picture of them working that scrape yet, but dude, they walk by that thing every freaking night and just downwind of it and just check it, seeing what the hell it is. Man. And it worked. 

[00:41:32] Dan Johnson: Yeah. I've been messing with some mock scrape type setups too this year and I hope. I hope they're using them right now.

I don't have any cell cams right now over top of any but I do have a couple of regular trail cameras that I'll go check here early October when I go do my first hunts. But I'm really like that mock scrape ever since I've started, ever since I talked to Troy Pottinger.

On that episode I did about specifically mock scrapes. I [00:42:00] 

[00:42:00] Matt Rose: listened to that one. 

[00:42:01] Dan Johnson: That was cool. Yeah, that that's really got me fired up on how to properly, properly use them those things. So that's awesome. Okay, so he's working this road three to three out of five days a week Did you have an idea of where he was betting at?

[00:42:20] Matt Rose: Yeah, absolutely He was using one drainage That I could tell he was using one drainage ditch and it's it runs North to south. And I don't know where he was using it at cause I never went up in there to put any cameras out or anything at it. As long as I was getting him in daylight in that shoot, I wasn't going any further.

Okay. So I don't know for sure where he was because that shoot butts right up to that giant block of timber. This is probably 1000 acre block of timber, which, we only have about 200 250 acres of the north portion of it. What I was afraid of is if I go up there and try to stick a camera on this deer and get him in the woods, which we're not going to be hunting him anyway, that could be the thing to close him [00:43:00] out of here.

So I'm not doing it right. So I was pretty sure where he was coming through that shoot. He had to been using one drainage ditch. Yeah, I had a really good idea where he's coming from. 

[00:43:08] Dan Johnson: Now, out of curiosity, did you talk with your dad or your brother and say, Hey, man, I'm going in. On this buck on a south wind, excuse me, here pretty soon, don't go down that road or was it just business as usual on the farm?

[00:43:28] Matt Rose: Do your thing, man. Yeah. I didn't say, do your thing. He's there, he's still doing it every day, I don't give a shit do what you gotta do. 

[00:43:35] Dan Johnson: Okay. All right. All right. The, the strategy set, you got the stand in there. And it's a shooting, with shooting lanes to this lane, right?

[00:43:46] Matt Rose: I can shoot all the way across this. This is where these deer come across this bean field. It's only 60 yards across it. And at this burrow, this will play into the story later when I actually get the shot off, but this burrow has a ton of limbs underneath me that are covering me from about the [00:44:00] 20 to 30 yard area.

And there's some holes in it where I can get shots in, but there's, yeah. I've got a lot of cover and a lot of limbs that are blocking me out. But yeah, he's 

[00:44:09] Dan Johnson: yeah, he'd be, if he came right underneath, he'd be difficult to get a shot at him. I wouldn't have 

[00:44:15] Matt Rose: got a shot if he 

[00:44:15] Dan Johnson: came right underneath me.

Okay. All right. So your gut told you he's going to come on this opposite. side of this field, basically, 

[00:44:24] Matt Rose: I was pretty sure he was just going to walk right through that pinch like he'd been doing that summer. And then just, I was hoping that there'd be other deer in the field when he came out to keep him calm.

And there was, and Yeah, and he did pretty much exactly what I thought he'd do. But he, man, he threw me for a loop whenever I finally, you know how it goes in the moment of truth. Everything seems like it's happening twice as fast as it does. And it was a roller coaster once it all finally happened.

[00:44:47] Dan Johnson: And this was a bean field, right? He was coming to. 

[00:44:50] Matt Rose: It was, and actually these beans aren't getting harvested this year because they were double cropped, so they drilled them in like right around the 4th of July, maybe a little before that in June, [00:45:00] and we had just a shitty drought this year, and those beans didn't germinate very quick, so the weeds grew up like crazy, and so the farmer, I don't know, a month or two ago, had his insurance guy come down, and his insurance guy's yeah, don't even worry, not even worth messing with.

Okay. So I'm really friends with the farmer and this little two acre piece. I was like, dude, there's, I know it's not worth you messing with, but there's beans in there. Do you care if I go in there and spray them clean and put radishes and turnips in there? And he's no, go ahead. I don't give a shit.

So I go in there probably middle of August and two, four D and and round up these beans down and kill everything in them. And beans are actually looking pretty decent after about a week of die down. So I go in right as it's raining one day and I just broadcast turnips and radishes and a little bit of fall mix in a walking lane.

I tilled a walking lane where they come out of the chute to go right to that scrape post. And so I seeded, I over seeded it all, just no tilled it or whatever one day while it was raining. And it grew great and [00:46:00] those deer are just hammering it. Okay. So not only... So I sweetened... I sweetened the spot up.

Yeah. 

[00:46:06] Dan Johnson: Yeah. So you identified this deer's pattern. You identified the food source and then you said to yourself, okay, now it's time to make it really good. I'm going to kill these weeds, right? I'm going to plant some more food in there. We're the beans starting to dry out and turn. turn brown. No, 

[00:46:24] Matt Rose: there's still green because they didn't probably actually germinate well until middle of July.

So shit there. Yeah, they're still the ones that are there that still have leaves on the deer haven't demolished. They're 

[00:46:35] Dan Johnson: still green. Okay, perfect. So you got it set up. You got it set up. Let's talk about the timeframe that you said to yourself, this is when, what was your plan on when you were going to attack 

[00:46:47] Matt Rose: this buck?

As soon as possible. And I had the first wind. What day was that? As soon as I had September 15th open at night. And I wasn't going to hunt him in the mornings. I wasn't getting, I was getting pictures of him in the morning randomly. [00:47:00] But they weren't daylight. They were 3am, 4am, and he was going through the shoot already.

So there was no sense. I don't hunt. I very rarely hunt mornings anyway. I just most of my bucks have been killed in the evening. So I'm just more of an evening guy. But so I knew the first evening that I had a south wind. I'm going. Okay. When it was south 

[00:47:16] Dan Johnson: 15th. Okay. How many days leading up to that?

Whether, or maybe, now, how many days leading up to that? Was he coming through in front of your trail cameras? 

[00:47:26] Matt Rose: So when he shed his velvet, he had slowed down his pattern through that shoot to only coming through like maybe every third day or so and He came through it on the 11th, and then he went on the 12th He went through and went to that mineral lick so I knew That he and both in daylight one at 645 one at 715 as dark, and So I hadn't had him through the shoot in three days.

So I'm like, yeah, he's got to come back through. It's just the do factor is going to work here at some point, and so I just took a chance. I just took a chance on him being there. and [00:48:00] he was. Oh man, 

[00:48:01] Dan Johnson: that's awesome. Alright, September 15th, afternoon hunt, south wind. How jacked are you going into this and how confident were you that he was going to show up?

[00:48:12] Matt Rose: I was I was just nervous the whole time. So I sent a picture to my wife. I could not get my hands to stop sweating at five o'clock in the tree stand. My hands are just fucking drenched and I'm like, Jesus Christ. So I take a picture of my palm and I send it to my wife and I'm like, my hands.

Will not stop sweating and she sends me a text message back that says get your shit together And i'm like, okay, I got it. That's a good wife. That's a good wife right there Yeah, I got lucky there. Yeah, she's yeah I don't know Yeah, I don't So I'm nervous and, but, as the night starts unfolding, it's playing out how I'm expecting, six o'clock and there's does coming out and feeding and, the wind in this bottom, luckily it was low humidity that day.

It wasn't high humidity and my wind wasn't dropping straight to the [00:49:00] ground because I had a lot of does that came through and they would get downwind of me, but they're like 70, 80 yards and they, how. Do you use an ozonic stand? I do. You know what I'm talking about. They'll look and they'll what the hell is that?

And they'll just start putting their nose in there. And a group of three come walking right towards me. And I'm like, god damn it, don't you do it. You ruin this and you're dead. You know what I mean? And they get 20 yards. And she's, she can't figure out what the hell it is. And I've got some nose jammer in the tree too.

And so they just flick their tails and walk on and I probably saw 15 or 16 does and fawns that night and none of them spooked and then end up having nine different bucks come through before slingshot and none of them spooked. And so I was like, man, this is, if he's in here, it's going to work.

So at I would say 715 I look into the shoot and here comes a buck. And I put the binoculars up and it's RJ. And he's got a big [00:50:00] white double throat patch, so he's really easy to notice even if he's staring right at that. And he's about 60 yards, and I'm like, Shit, there's RJ. Hang on, I'm looking at him through the binoculars, and all of a sudden this coyote starts going crazy 150 yards behind me.

And RJ throws his head up and just stares in that direction, stands there for about two minutes, and turns his tail, walks right back through the chute, get a picture of him leaving. And I'm like shit, that probably just ended it right there. Yeah. Fucking coyote, em. So I'm standing up, and I've been standing for about 10 minutes watching some more deer filter through, and Man, I look down to my left, and he's walking straight to me at 30 yards, and I'm like, oh shit.

That's him. He snuck up on ya. And it's getting perfect. Yeah, but he can't, he did not come through to shoot because I did not get a picture of him. So he may have cut a trail before he got to that camera, which is looking back on it. I think that's probably what he was doing when I wasn't getting this picture quite so often in that shoot as he was cutting the trail before that camera.

So anyway, I looked down and I can tell it's a big [00:51:00] body deer and it's getting pretty dark. So I just grabbed my binoculars real quick, one handed, look, confirm it's him. He's coming left to I grabbed my bow. I've already arranged all my spots. I know how far he is. He's getting into my 30 yard hole, so I go ahead and get ready to draw back.

By the time I get my bow and get all my shit hooked up, I couldn't even get drawn back on him before he gets through the 30 yard hole. I lose him behind these burgers. He was 

[00:51:20] Dan Johnson: walking pretty quickly. 

[00:51:22] Matt Rose: He was on a mission. He was going somewhere. He wasn't wasting any time, but for whatever reason... Okay, so he gets out behind these...

Burrow clams and he's walking he gets to 45 50 yards and it's probably too dark for me to really shoot at 45 at this point So I'm like, shit, he's, I'm going to have to hunt him tomorrow night. So he's eating in the field, and for whatever reason, he just turns around and walks straight at me. And he comes downwind of that scrape, excuse me, that scrape post.

And I know from ranging every spot when I get in there, the scrape post is at 35 yards. My pins are set [00:52:00] 25, 35, 45, and I can dial past 45. So I'm like, okay, he's at 35, so I go ahead and draw back. If he turns to my right, I'm gonna stop him and shoot him at 35 yards. But for whatever reason, he turns left. He goes back behind the bur oak limbs, so I gotta let my bow down.

And he gets, he's walking real slow, just feeding. I can see him through these leaves, and he gets almost to my 30 yard hole in these bur oak limbs. I went ahead and draw back as soon as he almost hits that hole, right? And he's just standing there with a turnip in his mouth, just chewing it.

Just head in the hole, nothing else. And I'm like, you gotta be shitting me. I'm at full draw on this son of a bitch. Take one more step, buddy. And he turns around, goes back to the right, so I gotta let down again. At this point, he's getting a little closer to me. He's probably at about 25 yards now, and he's getting ready to walk out from behind these limbs and be 25 yards.

So I come to full draw, and he stops again. And I'm standing there, and standing there at full draw, and I wouldn't film, or I didn't, I wasn't filming or anything, so I don't have a time stamp, but [00:53:00] I'm guessing 45 seconds to a minute, I'm at full draw, and he won't move, he won't move, he's just feeding, so I slowly let my bow down again.

[00:53:08] Dan Johnson: And light's fading quick at this point, right? 

[00:53:12] Matt Rose: It's fading quick, I've still, since he's only 30 yards, I've still got enough light, but, it's 730, I think end illegal was like 746 or something we had some time. But so then finally he wags his tail and that's the telltale sign.

He's getting ready to move. So I just draw back, he takes about three steps. I stop him, he looks right at me and put the pin on him, shot him. He meal kicks, runs about 80 yards. Crashes in the field, stands back up, and then just tipped over, and it was, it was, it's still, just talking about it still gives me chills, man, 

[00:53:49] Dan Johnson: I'm, I got the chills, dude. Dude I tell ya, I've been in a I've never really been in a scenario like that, where I've had to come to full [00:54:00] draw, come down, come to full draw, all while the deer is within shooting range. I've had deer I've had to come in close. I've had to come to full draw, let go and then they've left and I've never got an opportunity but not very many have come ever come back into shooting range.

So the fact that you had some sort of composure to ride that out and still make a great shot, man. That's pretty impressive, man. 

[00:54:28] Matt Rose: It rung me out, buddy. I'll be honest with you I just sat down in my stand and I really don't even remember. I know I called my wife. I called her right away. And she goes, hello.

And I said, I just got him. And then she put my, she's, she goes crazy and she puts my boys on the phone and they go crazy, too. And Paul called one of my best friends and It was basically hyperventilating, when I was telling the story. And yeah, and then but see, so here's the thing.

I, this is the 20th deer I'll [00:55:00] have on the wall and I've called my, I've either shown my dad or called my dad first on every single one of them, but he was hunting with me that night down about a quarter mile, half mile from me. So he actually dropped me off on the side by side and then he drove down to his spot.

So I hadn't told him yet. And I hear a side by side coming. And I'm like I'm not gonna tell him at this point, I'm just gonna let it pull up. So he pulls up, and he's about 60 yards, and he turns his side by side off, and it's dark, I'm still in the tree getting all my shit together, and that, he shuts his side by side off, and I said, did you get one? And he said, nope. And I said, oh. And nothing was said for 20 seconds, and he goes, what the hell are you doing? And I said I'm trying to get my shit together. And he's hurry up. And I said, just drive over here. Me and my dad are best friends.

We like to give each other shit like that all the time. So he drives over there, shuts his side by side off. He's what the hell are you doing up there? I was like, man, I'm trying to get all my stuff together so I don't forget nothing, just give me a second. And I'm like, walk out in front of that range and see if you can find [00:56:00] any blood.

He was like, dude, what? And I'm like, I just killed him. And he's no, you didn't. And I'm like, yeah, he's laying dead right over there. And he's get out of that stand. And I'm like, I got it. I was like, but I'm still shaking. You're going to have to let me sit here for a second. Go see if you can find him.

He's no, I want to wait for you. So then. It was awesome, man. It was pretty special to have dad right there with me and I hadn't even walked up on him yet and yeah, we filmed recovery, which was we'll always have. And it was, dude, it was a special night. And I hope it's not my last one, but it was a damn good experience for the first one.

Yeah. First tree. 

[00:56:33] Dan Johnson: Yeah. Let me ask you this. Did you, Is this your biggest buck? 

[00:56:38] Matt Rose: Yeah, I killed one in 05 that was 175, and I've got a couple in the 60s, but this one's, it's the biggest one. Yeah. 

[00:56:45] Dan Johnson: And I really like this question. What was the thought running through your head when you grabbed his horns for the first time and picked his head up to get a real good look at him?

[00:56:55] Matt Rose: I did. Yeah, the video says it all. I'll have to send it to you. I [00:57:00] just didn't really have much to say, man. I was just like, wowzers. I've waited my whole life for this and I've put in, I don't even know how many hours, probably more than I've actually worked for a deer like that. It was just to have it all happen and when I picked him up He was probably a little better than I expected him to be, but yeah, it was just like a huge Just like a huge relief, yeah and a sense of accomplishment too.

Yeah, 

[00:57:27] Dan Johnson: Absolutely, man. That's well. Congratulations, dude now There's pluses and minuses in this story, right? The plus is you got a giant you shot a giant opening day now doesn't is Residents of Missouri. Do you guys get two tags? Yeah, we do. And so you have another archery tag 

[00:57:48] Matt Rose: Yes, cuz I don't rifle hunt I usually just take people with me when I during rifle season and I let my farms like absorb the pressure.

So I don't really rifle hunt, but I do have a [00:58:00] tag that comes in on the opening day of rifle season. So we can either kill one buck before rifle season and one buck after rifle season with a bow, or you can kill two bucks after rifle season with a bow. So my second tag won't come into November 12th, 13th, 14th, something like that.

[00:58:15] Dan Johnson: Gotcha. Okay. Now for you, is RJ on the table or is that a deer that it's You're gonna try to get somebody else on 

[00:58:26] Matt Rose: I'd really like for dad to kill him. Or somebody else down there and I mean if he's still around at the end of the year and I haven't found Another deer that really trips my trigger somewhere else and I'll probably target him pretty hard if he's still alive like late November, December, like I usually pretty good about that time of year on our food sources.

So if there's not another option for me, then yeah, I'll probably go after him. But I hope he's killed well before that. Yeah, 

[00:58:49] Dan Johnson: absolutely, man. At least there's still things to do. Do you got any out of state hunts planned? 

[00:58:55] Matt Rose: No I don't really travel out of state next year. I am going to Idaho to elk [00:59:00] hunt.

I will probably I really want to kill a wood duck pair. I want to get a pair of wood ducks mounted. I'll probably try to do a little bit of duck hunt, which I've never really done much of this fall. And then I'm going to go catch a shitload of crappie for sure. 

[00:59:12] Dan Johnson: I tell you what, at least you're not like gonna, I don't wear yourself out, waking up early and then.

And then, hunting all day during the rut and things like that. Dude, congratulations. This buck is a Magnum and I hope that you and, whoever runs into RJ, find success and your season's not over. So you still got plenty of hunting left to do, man. Thanks for hopping on today.

[00:59:37] Matt Rose: Hey, thanks for having me, Dan. This is fun. 

[00:59:41] Dan Johnson: And there you have it. Huge shout out to Matt. Man, really appreciate you taking time out of your day to tell this story. It was an awesome story. I'm glad you finally got to arrow in that buck. Huge shout out to Tethered, Wasp, Vortex, Ozonix, Code Blue, Woodman's Pal, and Huntworth.

Please go out and support the companies that support this [01:00:00] podcast. And if you do decide to buy something from them, man... Let them know that you heard it from the nine finger chronicles. Last but not least, man, good vibes. Let's have some positive energy going into the hunting season. And and then at the same time, if you're going to be in a tree where your damn safety harness hunt hard, hunt safe, and we will talk to you on Friday.

‍