The Turkey Struggle Bus with All41 Creative

In this episode, Ricky and Hollywood have a chat with Damon Wolfe and Griffin Laaveg of All41 Creative. 

The entire crew tells stories from the struggles and successes of the 2023 Minnesota Turkey hunting season. 

Ricky didn’t draw any tags this year but the rest of the crew had some luck. Hollywood, Damon and Griffin discuss their plans for the fall hunting season, and the preparation that leads up to it. Also, hear the hair raising story of Griffin’s Nebraska Mule Deer hunt with Damon in tow, capturing all the emotion surrounding the success. 

In this segment of Shiny Things, Hollywood is honing his golf swing. Damon secures content work on the heels of Chris Bee and his entourage at the Total Archery Challenge in PA. Griffin is excited for Summer, to shoot his bow long range and play with his new camera equipment. Ricky is obsessed with his new bow that he’s been waiting for since Dec 2022. 

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery and Stokerized Stabilizers.

Check out the Sportsmen's Empire Podcast Network for more relevant outdoor content!

[00:00:00] More all the story. It's Buck was there with those. Yeah, butted right on the cornfield. And I looked at Damon and like fist bumped. Yeah. All this is happening. We're running through like thorns and our adrenaline so high. We have no clue what our feet are in for right now. Nothing made sense at that time.

Yeah. And we were just going, it was just, it was like go mode. It was like putting cruise control, just go. And I popped up and drilled him and he ran 20 yards and tipped over and all of a sudden I just see the bow up in the air and I just screamed. It was electric. Oh me and Damon went wild. Yeah, I could have cried.

It was so relieving. It didn't even feel real. Just hearing your guys' story right now. I like giving me chills. You know what I, to have like your buddy there and Oh yeah. It doesn't matter what tension you had or what fights you had before, like never, everything goes back. It never happened.

Everything goes away and the way you captured your guys' excitement is great. Yeah, it's amazing. And so it really brings back a lot of those emotions. It gets you pumped up, gets you fired up. Yep. Good job. Yeah. Good job on. Thank you on getting good footage of that. Welcome to the Range [00:01:00] podcast.

I'm Ricky Bruley, and with me is Jake Hollywood Iverson, join us at the Archery Range where we'll tell stories from the hunt, discuss technical bow shooting tactics and gear, and pick the brains of some of the most successful people to ever shoot a bow. Whether you're about to shoot that X for the win, or send an arrow at a trophy buck.

This podcast is for you.

The Range Podcast is brought to you by Vapor Trail Archery makers of the Best Bowl strings Money can buy, originators of limb driven arrow rests technology and innovators of Stoker eyes stabilizer systems. And welcome to the Range everybody. I'm Ricky Bruley, and joining me as always is Target Archer Extraordinaire and Turkey Slayer Hollywood.

No. He doesn't have a mic right now, so you can't hear him. We got a ratchet operation going on here cause we got four people and only three mics. It works. I wasn't able to get it all [00:02:00] functioned, but we'll make this work. So bear with us on that. Again, thank you all for joining us for the, this episode titled The Turkey Struggle Bus.

You can also find this episode on our YouTube channel the Vapor Trail YouTube channel. So please head on over and subscribe. Tagging along with us today is our special guest, Damon Wolf and Griffin Lave of all for One Creative. How you guys doing? Doing all right. Doing all right? Yeah. Just ended high school officially.

Nice. So I'm happy about that last day. Yeah. Very free feeling. Yeah. But right on. That's good. And Griff, you got one year left? Yeah, one year to go, and then I'm free. That's awesome. Oh man. I remember those days. Those were the days. Yeah. Weren't they Hollywood? Y'all have been seeing some content being posted on our social channels.

And a lot of the content's being created by these guys. Both are very talented young men and we're very happy to have them as part of the team. There's a couple reasons why I wanted to have these guys on today. One, because the season showed them the struggle of Bo hunting [00:03:00] turkeys, and hence the title of the episode of the Turkey Struggle Bus.

But they also like to hunt mule deer in North Dakota, which is a pastime that Hollywood and I both enjoyed a few times. So let's start out with the turkeys. And this guys by no means is an attempt to shame you. No, no shame taken. I think that we learned the best from our failures. Just tell us a bit about the struggles in the Turkey Woods this year.

What seemed to work, what didn't and what you would do differently? Yeah. You want me to go first or you? You can go ahead. You had your first mess up, so you sat right there, right on the spot. Okay. So I guess it started as dang we're finally here. All the prep. We got our reapers set up.

We're ready to go. Like you look forward to it every year. You're so excited that Turkey hype comes every year for me whether I'm bohen or gun hunting, but so first hunt, we got out and birds are fired up and I have no, you have the camera set up and I'm, first up to bat, I think that was like [00:04:00] you saying Hey, I shot a meal, deer.

Here you go. And so I'm sitting there with my boat and he is Hey, look up. And there's a tom right on our field, fired off. There's a few others too that we can hear around us. And they come down to the field and, they're putting on a show fired up, gobbling and. I was like, here we go guys.

Like it's on camera. Like first morning, like we're about to do it. This is what every Turkey hunter dreams of. They're fired up. They're fired up. We're light yelping here and there. And I was like, this bird's gonna come in, get 'em on camera. And all morning we just, Toms were filtering into our field, fired up all morning and they just got bunched up in a group would not come in and rain was supposed to hit and we just kinda sat it out cuz it wasn't raining.

And then they had kinda all filtered off and I was like, dang, what's going on here? And finally how did it so we got bored, so we got bored of our hunt. Cuz Turkey, I normally you have one to two hours and you're like, all right, let's go eat breakfast. [00:05:00] Yeah. So we walked around.

We actually picked up, you picked up a shed? Yeah. That's awesome. Diker, but it was, it's a little guy. It was kind like, ah, shed season still going. Let's have fun. Those are the good ones, man. They're like a needle in a haystack. Yeah, it, we're walking, we're like, okay, let's go grab our bows.

We're done. Let's go eat. Like taco bells are go-to for sure. Ooh, man. That's dangerous in a hunting blind. It is. It is. You normally eat it after you're done hunting. Yeah. But we're walking back and Griffin goes, man, there's a tom right in our field. And so we're set up on the ground. We have this little ground.

We didn't even have a blind, we were just kinda sitting with our face masks on hoping and praying. Yeah. This Tom filtered into our field and it started walking towards us. So I got my bow ready. He has the camera and the tom just sorry, decoys would gobble here and there and just putts in.

And finally it got to 30 yards. Was checking out the decoy, but would not come in and I don't know, I got antsy, I got impatient. I should not have done what I did. But we're sitting there and I go, [00:06:00] 30 yards. It's not ideal, but I've taken this shot at other animals before I've practiced it. My bro ins are big.

Let's send it. I was confident. I, he was recording. I drew back, took my time. What was interesting about that is I was freezing. Like I was cold and I could barely, like I was shivering. He was looking at me. My arrow tip was like just, yeah. I'm like, that's beautiful. I'm like, this is, I'm not gonna share this Turkey cuz I'm impatient.

It's almost like I need it to survive. Cause I can't feel my hands. So I draw back and, seeing like past Turkey shots and seeing where to hit, I aimed. Right where I thought I should hit him, watch my light knock sink into him. By now it's raining slightly. So the arrow went through the rain, hit him right in the, what I thought was the boiler room had full confidence, like going to pick up the arrow, that the bird would be laying dead in the woods after it flew off.

Now we record it all and there's no bird. I checked the arrow. Feathers. Feathers, a [00:07:00] little bit of blood thinking. It's from breast, but it was just, we tracked it for probably 45 minutes after to give respect to the animal. Found no blood, no bird. So that was like opening day first, like hour of hunting, like like one of those situations where if you're sitting there with a shotgun, like you're already eating breakfast, you're already walking back to the truck. 25 pounds heavier. Yeah. Yeah. But and I was like, you know what? Like it's a mistake. We post it cuz we didn't want to hide anything. We post it showed people like, What happens when you're Turkey hunting and Yeah.

So like still high hopes, that sucked, but still high hopes going into the season and that shot that Griff got with the camera Yeah. Is unbelievable. And it's actually part of our commercial that comes up in the middle of the YouTube portion and it's just how the mist is coming off.

That arrow is just amazing. You can see that lighted knock and then you can see it disappear. And obviously when you play it back, you're like, okay, it's not a lethal shot. Yeah. But it's that reminder, [00:08:00] again, we're going back to the failures, right? So you have that reminder where like you go back and you can watch it and you're like, okay, now I, I know that's gonna play over and over again in your head from here on out.

And also great. We could use it for a commercial, so we appreciate that. Yeah, no, no problem. I would, yeah, it was just like I was editing it and in the moment you're like, man, I smoked it. And that's one of the biggest things for me is the hunter is I just need to take my time cuz like I shoot and then I freak out a little bit.

And it's like in those moments every time. And that's why I'm thankful for him cuz I have this like rapid oh my gosh, this just happened. Like attitude. Yeah. Where he's more relax, life is still we're still good. Like breathe and that's good to have on hunting trips. Like Absolutely.

I freak out and I just go bonkers. And he's just calm down. We'll find the Turkey If it's dead. If it's not dead, we're not gonna find it anyway. So yeah, I, it didn't hurt like a ton until I started editing it and color grading it for all you camera nerds. Yeah. Once you add the color and you slow it down it's just oh.

If it could have just been like that far to the right. It would've been like an insane video. But [00:09:00] yeah, that was like how we started, which isn't a really great way to start. And then from there it just I don't know, I don't even remember like Turkey season just flies right by us. Like it, it just happens and then it's gone and it. There's multiple other stories I could tell too of these apps. I think where it all went wrong is we got a little cocky and I decided to put a decap on. And that's when it really got bad. Cuz we'd set up and decoys that 15 yards and we couldn't figure out what was really making him mad.

What would get our turkeys in to range. And we tried all sorts of different decoys, all that different setups and it just, it didn't work. Yeah. We couldn't get one into 15 where we wanted them. And then it came to, we had multiple hunts where they'd 25, 30 yards, 30 yards.

And with a decap, I was yeah. Not ready to do that. But the whole deal was we could have killed a bunch of turkeys. Damon could have shot turkeys that. We're beyond 15, but we wanted that [00:10:00] 15 yard, 15 yard decaf shot. Yeah. Because that would've been really good footage and not, that was our whole goal there, right?

Is to, yeah. Yeah. And one of the, another big thing was like when you film, like his schedule and my schedule, like they don't like always go together. Like when we're filming, we still have to film and get like the job done, but at the same time, we still have our lives that we have to live. Sure. So there was situations where I'd have like birds like where you just had the, if you would've just had that camera guy, there would've been that slight possibility that it might've worked.

For example, I have, I had a spot, no, I still have the spot in a certain area near my home, which is 10 minutes away. So I can like book it out there, see if there's birds. If not, I can leave. There was birds there on the bottom side of this hill. And I figured I'll set up on the backside and I was actually planning on going there with a blind to set up for just the rest of the morning and kind of see what putts through.

But those birds were already out there I quit, grabbed the camera on the tripod, set up lab mics, like I was freaking out. That's another thing is if you would've been there, it might've been a little bit more calm and relaxed of a hunt. Yeah. [00:11:00] But we I got set up, I conned these, this tom, he fires off like I waited a little bit.

He fired off again, closer, fired off. And then I like started calling to the hen I got the hen all riled up. And then the hen poked his head, looked at my decoy and just walked in, then all of a sudden I saw that Tom and he saw that decoy just booked it in and like we were talking before this, something like, this is the footage we want like bird running in, beating it up.

Killing it, like walking out. That's like the dream hunt when it comes to Turkey onion. But so all of a sudden I'm set up self filming this Turkey and he's running in, he is at 18 yards in like less than five minutes of sitting down and I'm just sitting there he is beating it up.

Which you can see on her Instagram that footage of the slowmo of him beating that up. And I went to draw and my top limb hit this branch cuz I didn't have time to set up a blind. It hit the top branch. The hence spot me. Tom saw me and they booked it. Yeah. And that was just one of those hunts where it's if we had a blind, they're like, every hunt we've been on, it was just like, what if?

Yeah. It was never [00:12:00] like, oh, we did it. Which I think is just a part of Turkey onion. Yeah. Yeah. It goes back to the episode previous, like we were talking about where Johnny said even the most experienced hunters run into this with turkeys like you can they can spin on a dime and start patterning completely different or doing something completely different. What the big question is, what do you think that you would do differently next year? What's the big thing that stands out? Do you want to go? Because I know my answer honestly. I. Next year might be a little bit better with Damon not being in school.

Obviously I'll still be in school, which which it's gonna be hard to set up our schedules, but you'll be skipping for sure. Yeah. I'll skip some school to kill some turkeys. But I think honestly the weather, if the weather wasn't the way it was, I think we'd have done a lot better right away.

But other than that, I don't think there's a lot I would change. I think we, we had a plan, we stuck to it. We were like we want a bird in the decoys if we're gonna shoot it. So we stuck to that. That held us back a little bit, but we wanted to be dedicated. Have good content to [00:13:00] put out.

Yeah. And that's the thing is like we've both shot turkeys, we've both gotten that excitement from shooting one and this year with like camera equipment and running the page. We wanted to get like that perfect shot and that required doing the decap slow motion stuff. So that put a halt, like a end to a lot of possible Turkey kills.

Yeah, I don't think people realize how difficult it is to film and be successful. You film, yeah. Filming an animal get shot is like killing twice. Like you have to get on camera and you have to shoot it. So I tried for the longest time and finally I just get, I'm like, I'm not around cameras anymore.

I just, and I was able to enjoy my time a little bit more. And again, like you've got a much deeper passion for photography. You guys do. You know what I mean? I was, I've always been just a jack of all trades, so I've never really gotten super deep into certain things aside from archery.

And some of the technical stuff, a lot of the things are a lot of the cameras are much more user friendly. The interfaces are a lot better than what they used to be. Yeah. [00:14:00] So that helps out too. But yeah, that having a cam being successful in. Har killing an animal and also getting it on camera is definitely tough.

Oh, yeah. You guys got a tough job ahead. You for sure. Yeah. I never understood that excitement until I like filmed him kill a couple of things. It's once you get that killed shot, you're just like, even as the camera guy, there's just a array of emotion that comes out. Even though you didn't sling the arrow, you're still like a part of that hunt.

Yeah. And being able to look back at it is my favorite part. Yep. And being able to create an experience like in real life and then being able to go back and see it visually, like on socials. That's awesome. I constantly find myself scrolling and looking at past posts and experiences Yeah.

And being able to capture the raw experience and not so much like the fake stuff. Is more what I like. As well. Yeah. For sure. That's awesome, man. Next year, yeah. What I'm gonna change next year. Is I'm buying a gun tag. Yeah. And I'm taking out first [00:15:00] weekend. We can do that. I'll stick to the bone.

Yeah. I just, since I find more passion like filming, I just want to focus on filming next year. Yeah. This year or next year, I just want to get my gun tag, kill my bird and just focus on filming. Because trying to film and hunt you kinda halfass it. Yeah. In a way. Even though it's still a good quality production, you're still half-assing it.

So being able to just fill my tag and then go full swing with him is gonna be what I wanna do. Cuz we'll be able to make something out of it. Yeah. And I, like I was telling you before the season started the reason I like to get the gun tag, it limits your time, but if you're, if you can observe.

The weather patterns and how things are, how much snow have we had? How late did we have snow pack? Cuz that always plays a role. And so that can help you determine what season you want to hunt in and i, based on that, based on my prediction, I picked sea and I was wrong.

Cuz the weather was horrible and they still weren't really quite [00:16:00] responding the way that I would like, have liked them to. But that's the beauty with the gun tag is you can still use a bow. Yeah. And not only during that first season, but then the last two. So then, so you've got both options, but it definitely limits your time.

Yeah. But I, I started getting away from. Trying to get in on the first couple of weeks just because one, there's so much pressure and two, usually the snow pack pushes, pushes their breeding back. Yeah. And the weather pushes their breeding back. And so I've never had any, I've never had good experiences early season, but you guys obviously did, you've got good ground that you can hunt, so that helps too.

And that's the thing is after this season is I have I have pretty good confidence next year in any season we I buy a tag in preferably like weather. I'm gonna look at the weather. But like every weekend we were getting on a decent amount of birds. There was better weekends than others.

But yeah, in my opinion, I think we got excited. We went in a lot earlier than we should have. As soon as season kicked in, we were out and going, [00:17:00] freaking out and going on for the record. Yeah. It's like you wait all winter. And then once that opening day comes, you're like, Where's the first gobble?

Yep. And especially the first couple days leading up to the first hunt you're rosing birds, you're driving around seeing 'em starting to strut a little bit. And that's what gets me going. Yeah. And we, we kept going on all of our other properties and we hunted like most of our options right away, just trying to get that, get a bird killed.

And I think we messed up because we were in there before they were even fired up. Yeah. And to do what we wanted to do, we needed fired up birds to come into the decoys and beat the crap out of it. So they already figured us out. Yeah. Hollywood, as we mentioned in the previous episode, you worked pretty hard this year and you finally made it happen, bud.

Just maybe so proud of you. Yeah. So how'd that all go down? What? Honestly what kept get, what kept getting you up at four o'clock in the morning every day? Cuz that's tough, that big old fan. But I'll go deeper into it. Damn. God bless.[00:18:00] Yeah. I'm part of the whole team with struggle bus with these guys.

It was awesome. We all struggled all season. Did you guys hunt public land at all? No. Okay. Sounds private. Yeah, most it was private. Okay. Yeah. I on the last episode we went over most of that. I was doing public land grind and that was, it was pretty tough. Public tough. Yeah. Yeah, it was, yeah.

Keeping me going. 4:00 AM was just having that tail fan. But and Damon said, you come outta winter and it's just now we're going something to chase again. Yeah, I did a couple more public land stints and it was just, I don't know, just wasn't producing the gobbles were just going away.

Stupid turkeys. Yeah. I'm just dumb. But yeah, I had some opportunities for private land. I alluded to that in the last episode and hit up the one turkeys didn't work there at all. And then went to the other, and that was the success. But what we, what Johnny calls the promised land. Yeah, the [00:19:00] promised land.

I, I was offered to go there but yeah I was just gonna say that like on the public land stuff, it was just so pressured where next year when I do things differently, I might honestly try to go really early. I don't know if that's gonna kick me in the butt. Like I'm still the new to this.

I'm asking everyone like, yeah, I don't know. Cuz my public land, I was just, it was heavily pressured, like more toward the middle and the end where I was just seeing dudes all the time. And I think that cold weather might kick some guys outta there. Fair weather hunter. I was just thinking maybe they'll save me.

Okay. Next year. Maybe I'll get 'em when they're dumb. I don't know. But are you gonna do that with a shotgun or a bow? Oh hell, early. Early. No bow guns are only for the ducks man. Oh. I feel like the wimp now. Yeah. No, I'm a little more hardcore. I think. A little more sick than I think most sick for it.

I'm, yeah, definitely. Sick of gear baby. Yeah. No, I The snow pack was a big thing though. Yeah. This year it was so deep. Like the beginning of the year, it's still three feet deep, like one [00:20:00] week before each season. It's this is gonna screw our whole season up. Yeah. It was wild.

But yeah, I ran into a lot of problems with hens and Tom's, but yeah, this last weekend finally tagged out, got her done. But I feel like not as amped up about it cause it is the private land and I'm just like, man, it was, the whole journey was for public, but whatever. I'll take it, Jake, at the end. Yeah.

Confuser, turkey's a Turkey man. I don't care. I'll, yeah. I'm stoked. I'm gonna eat one of the breasts tonight, nice. It, I cooked up a mean Turkey last year and I'm just like, I'm excited for that again. Yeah. Yeah. This last weekend I just went out, it was hot as heck. Had all the bug spray.

I was sponsored by Sawyer. Sawyer sponsored with a 50 50 gallon drum of permethrin for you. Yeah. Yeah. I was, that's all you could smell is just bug spraying, just emanating from me. And then I still forgot my thermic cell in the forerunner. My god, what an idiot. I get down there and no face mask, no [00:21:00] thermic cell here we go again.

And all that stuff does, is it just, it, you still get like 50 mosquitoes on you at a time, but you still have a thousand on you at a time, right? Yeah. And so like my, like just my wrist, like I, they were trying to get to me, but they weren't. And like my pants were just soaked with it too. So I was doing pretty good.

But yeah, I just set up the same two decoys as you did. I'm sure the. Jake and that hen and then, I don't know, I still haven't talked to you about it at all, but did you leave that, did you hunt outta that black chair in the back corner? Yep. So then did you do the whole number where you're like turning around the corner to shoot that bird?

Oh yeah. I did the same thing. I had to shoot around the pole. Yeah. Is that same here? Because he was moving quick. He caught my movement in the blind. Oh, he did? And he started moving fast and I had to pick a spot in the tall grass. All I could see was his head in the top of his back. Dude, that makes you And I both, yeah, I, so this is the first time Rick's heard my story yet.

But yeah, I mean it's, I didn't want to hear it until the podcast. Oh, that works out. But [00:22:00] yeah, I was expecting him to come from where you're facing out the window further, so I was like, oh, I'll just have to wait for him to get in closer. Before I drop back. But the decoys were set up more to my left.

And I guess you set yours up on the further part of that two track. I set 'em up on the closer. I set 'em up according Johnny, like six yards right in, square in front of the blind. Oh dude. I went back this way. Just a hair. Oh, okay. Right where your feathers were. I did it like two, three feet in front of that.

But yeah I was thinking too I always try to do the video thing too. It's just so hard alone. Especially with a phone too. I'm just running a phone and if I forget the little attachment for my bow, it's like impossible. But having another guy there so much easier, but oh yeah, you got too much going on.

But yeah, I was just sitting on my phone, no gobbles in the morning at all. I'm like, here we go again. Just silence. That terrible feeling of Yeah. The birds are gone. Yeah. This is it. And I'm just sitting had my bow down there. No arrow knocked up, nothing. Just release my hinge and my button just [00:23:00] in my pocket.

Just whatever. I'm like, I don't even care. Scrolling through Minnesota Turkey page or something like that. And then Minnesota Archery talk page on Facebook, just whatever. I was throwing out a few Yelps, kinda like you were too. Just diaphragm call. That's it. Again, nothing.

Then I just look up for my phone. I'm like, oh crap. He's sitting there just like squaring up, slapping the decoy with his wing. I'm like, shut up. Just came in silent and from over my shoulder. I'm sure you know the field. If you're facing this way is behind. So that's where you came in from the left?

Yeah. Yeah. Where did yours come in? In front. I'll get to that. Okay. So yeah, he came right over my shoulder and I'm just like it's late season. I don't care. Whatever. Dude, I'm so done with this season, probably like where you guys are. I was just like, I don't care. I just bent over right from my bow super fast.

Everything. I'm like, I just. I couldn't care less right now. Like I, I'm already behind on this bird, like he's got the up on me and just bows up here, [00:24:00] grabbing my arrow's stuck in the quiver, and I'm like, knock that out, knock that on. I'm like, all right, get my release dig through my pocket for release, happen to grab the hinge.

I'm like, oh, this ought be interesting. You guys know turkeys are just jumping around all the time. Like my first one last year I was happy to have just that control over the trigger. But this one is the hinge. I'm like, huh, we're sending it now. And I did this drew back facing that way and I did that little number where you turn around and he had no idea. I turned I didn't look at the bird once after that. I just turned and I'm like, oh, he is still there. Cool. Yeah. Sweet. And then I just cited in that new h a Yeah. The night before I, I was 12 hours before that because I was texting you guys. Tetra max Tetra Max rise. Yeah.

Yep. Nice. So just picked that up, just cited in 12 hours before that, which, who really cares? It's a Turkey, you're shooting, 10 yards, but still. Got all the ax axis set on it and everything and just turning. It was like, same thing as you. I can just see his neck up to [00:25:00] his head walking through that two photographs.

I'm like, oh man. And he is still just like eyeing up that decoy and I'm like, okay, I think his beard is there. Go right there. Try it. Let the hinge break over. And dude, he just jumped up, turned around. He's wobbling, but then he is walking away and I'm like, okay, he's definitely done.

And then that was the arrow I sent you. That was like, oh yeah. The arrow ended up like 30 yards away and no blood on it. So Damon's no. What happened? Yeah. I said send pic. I think I said send pictures or Yeah. More pictures. Yeah. Cuz it, it looked like I totally missed. Once I saw that I went on your Instagram.

To see like your story. Cause I happened, posted the story and then I saw the feathers and I was like, oh, he killed it. Nice. Yeah. And so he was just like walking away and like last year mine just ran away after I ate it, so we threw the blind up. This year I saw, I'm walking away, I'm like, I don't know, I'm all about making sure it's not going anywhere.

I don't want to put in extra work for it. I just jump out that window of the blind, throw another arrow on, [00:26:00] start running after him and he starts picking up his speed a little bit and he went into that three foot tall grass. I'm like, dude. And then that's when it was even a one more kick into the nuts for the end of the year.

Get out to that two track. There's this huge Tom just sitting in the middle of the field. I'm like, man, like I would've never known though. Yeah. So he is 80 yards way yet. And I'm just like, Ah, whatever. This thing's dying either way, yeah. Yeah. And I hear him in the weeds and I just run in there and I can just see the weeds like laying over, just kinda like Jurassic Park, how they're like folding over.

Yeah. And I just see this little divot where he laid down, I'm like, oh, let me make sure. It doesn't fly away and sent one more and that was the super bloody arrow. Just write one more in the neck. And I don't know, I guess I could have done it another way, but I'm on the campaigns page just like I'm gonna end it with a bow.

Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Man. I staked them right to the ground and that was it. Nice. Then the mosquitoes hit me. Yeah. Dude, the mosquitoes out there so bad, so terrible. The first arrow where, so where'd your first [00:27:00] arrow hit? I don't know if we wanna put pictures up or not, but it's like just to the right of the beard.

Okay. It was just to the right. So was facing, I felt like I shot, yeah. He was facing toward me, but he was turning, but I felt it broke a little to the right. But I didn't think it was that far. But I have pictures of the entrance wound and I was using that black hornet. You used that too, didn't you? The stair razor. You used the razor. I just used a regular Oh. But still chewed 'em up pretty good. And then when I actually, I wish I took a picture of it when I went to throw the fan up. There's huge exit wound. I just missed that joint in the back. Oh really? By the diameter of the broad, like an inch, half inch.

Okay. Like it just huge exit wound. I'm like nice, like perfect. He wasn't going nowhere anyway. So missed the heart though. But went right in to the right of the. Beard. And then the second one, I just crossed him right here and That's awesome. Stuck into the ground and he's done. So yeah, I was just, dude, did you pull any ticks off you after that?

I'm actually surprised. I think I [00:28:00] found one. Really? Yeah. They slowed down this last week. I grabbed that sweatshirt at four in the morning, and that thing was soaking wet when I got out of the truck. Just with all the spray that I put on it, it just I was sneezing driving to the property, it smelled so bad.

And then my pant legs from the knees down, I just had soaked with every every bit of that soyer stuff, like just ready to go into battle with mosquitoes and ticks. And yeah, I guess I survived pretty well. Yeah, I made it out no. That's awesome. Yeah, the mosquitoes out there are awful.

Every time I got out of the blind, even in the blind, they were bad, but when I'd get out, it was Damon knows. Yeah. Oh yes. He's over there trying to take photos and just I've got six mosquitoes balls deep in my hand are ahead of time, when John showed me where to go, it was like the day before, I think also.

Yeah. It's crazy. I knew nothing about this place until literally 24 hours, and I still had a sight in my bow. Yeah. But he shows me, and we're driving through Windows down. I'm like, dear God, can we roll up the windows? Because like bad, his [00:29:00] mirror hit a branch and just all these mosquitoes just swarm me.

And I'm like, oh my God. Yeah, kill me. That's the big plus about high number early season is you don't have to deal with Oh, yeah. All the plugs and ticks. Yeah. I miss, I missed that honestly. Like when I was chasing 'em and had an opportunity, I felt on public land, like there's no ticks. I could just sit down right in the brush and no ticks, no mosquitoes, no people, and then got warm out and all these fair weather boys started running out.

I'm like, To you too, buddy. That's funny. Yeah. As much as I craft on Turkey hunting in the last episode the good Lord presented me with several opportunities this year. And we're just gonna take a quick break and when we come back I'll give y'all the juicy details. Spring is here and Turkey hunting is in full swing.

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That's 8 8 8 b w s t r n g. Quit your crying and have confidence in your equipment with Vapor Trail vtx bow strings. All right, welcome back everybody. So I'm about to tell the juicy little story about how I missed a Turkey at less than 10 feet or roughly 10 feet sitting out there at the promised land hunting the same spot that Hollywood shot his bird in the same spot that Johnny shot his bird in April.

And this, it was probably a week before I sh I actually killed my bird. But just sitting there in the blind and same thing Hollywood's doing. I'm goofing around not paying [00:31:00] attention, right? Just sitting there. I've got the decoys at I don't know, six yards, six, seven yards, something like that.

And all of a sudden I look up and there's two Jakes coming in on the decoys, and there's a nice Tom right behind him. And I'm like, Ooh, ooh. And I get like, all excited and jacked up. And I moved a little bit too fast, grabbed my bow. The Tom caught my movement and then he started dipping out. And then the Jakes soon followed and I probably should have taken a shot, but I was like, I don't know, I thought maybe I could get 'em to come back, if they weren't too spooked. I thought maybe they'd come back. And then I just sat and watched him for the next two hours goofing around out in the field and going over here and going over there and all this kind of stuff.

And so I'm like getting ready to get outta the blind and go I actually had to work that morning. Yeah. So I'm, I was gonna get ready and I get a text from a buddy asking me how things are going and I was like actually I just heard a gobble, like just heard gobble and not too far off, right?

Wasn't sure where the bird exactly was. So I threw on [00:32:00] all my camel quick cause I was wearing all black in the blind, so I threw on all my camel and I got sick for it in my apex gear. And I got out and started to worked my way. Towards where I heard the gobble, and then all of a sudden here I could see that bird strutting in the field, in the wide open field.

That's to the east there. Yep. So if you take that two track to the east, they're, he's right over there. So I swing back around the blind and that two track kind of dips down low. So I was able to follow that. And I have one of those Montana silhouette decoys. So I pop that thing up and I start walking over towards him.

And when I get to the kind of the bottom of the hill that he's up on, I just start creeping my weapon. I'm going through this grass, it's I don't know, a foot tall or something like that. And I kick up the cloud of mosquitoes, dude. And it's just I'm just crawl belly crawling up this hill with this decoy out in front of me with my bow.

And I've got a thousand mosquitoes just all over me. I'm eating 'em. They're going to my ears, into my eyes, and I'm just like, keep pushing. Did you have the bug spray? I had [00:33:00] nothing. Ooh, I didn't bring anything that morning. I heard that part. Yeah. Just thought the viewers should know.

Yeah, they should know. I a huge mistake and what's sad is I did that three days in a row. I forgot to bring stuff. God. But so I get to the top of the hill and I just like peek up. There's like a little screen in the middle of this decoy. And so I peek through it and I can see this Tom, he's sees me and he's barely, or he sees the decoy and he's coming in.

He's coming in quick. And so I just real quick, stick the silhouette, the steak into the ground and I just get down as low as I can so I can stay behind the decoy and I just draw my bow back and by the time I get up and get over the decoy, he's maybe 15 yards. Oh. Get side, or, get my people lined as best that I can.

And by the time I. Pulled the trigger and the arrow exited the bow. He had already cleared this, this my point of impact or the where I was aiming, [00:34:00] and the arrow went right over his back and shaved feathers off of his back. So he's on the doorstep when you shoot maybe 10 feet, something like that, because there's a pile of feathers that blow all over the place.

And I'm just like, and my arrow's stuck in the dirt like this. And so he runs off and I'm like, knock another arrow. And I'm like, I don't know, I'm 20 yards, and take another shot. And I shot to the right of him and took off into the woods. And so then I tried to do this big circle and I got on him, but he was just, I dunno, he snuck out of there and then I couldn't find him again.

So that was the end of it. But just the craziest encounter I've ever had with the Turkey. Like I. That'd be insane. Unreal. Yeah. And then, and for what happened to me this morning, for all my sins in the blind for not paying attention, I lose out on that opportunity and then I get a second chance and I blow it.

I was just so bummed out. Yeah, that's, that happened to Johnny too, didn't it? Yeah. Because yeah, the last episode we were talking, he had a Tom rubbing up on the blind and he was doing the [00:35:00] same thing. We're all on our phones. Yeah. Ready? It was silent. Yeah. Yeah. It's just and then so I'm just I was super jacked up, but then at the same time, I, at the end of the day, I was like, why am I so bummed out, like depressed feeling, and it's just Because I think about you guys and all the time you guys spent out in the woods. Yeah. And I went out like three times. I know. Yeah. I'd spent, God, I, I wonder how many hours. I could probably count back the days, but many. I did the two full days, like in the rain and, with the shotgun during Season C and didn't have any luck.

But but then I think I went out I think I did two days. It was that first morning I went out on in season E. Is it E and f seasons? E and F that you can hunt? Yeah. I think so. Or is it just f It's just F by two weeks. Okay. So yeah. So it's 17th. Yeah. I think, or 18th. So that happened that first day.

Then I went out the second day. Nothing, not a peep, not a sighting, nothing. And so then I was like, then I couldn't get out again [00:36:00] cuz my wife had an art show that weekend. Oh, that's right. So then come around again to the following Thursday, right? This was last, yeah, last Thursday. Yeah, it's 25th, so it was Thursday, 25th.

Okay. Yeah. All right. Either way. Same thing. Get out there, forget the mosquito spray. Forget the thermic cell. I'm just sitting in there getting sucked to dry by the mosquitoes again. Yeah. I just want to die, right? I'm like, oh, this is miserable. And I'm waiting for like that seven o'clock timeframe, cuz that's like roughly when they were coming in and then all of a sudden, six o'clock in the morning, I can see 'em out in that f out in that field and so prior to that I didn't get out there till five 15 ish, something like that.

It was about five 30. I just did a little, some light calling just to say Hey, over here, just in case you're looking for a direction to go in. And then it was at like 5 45, I did a fly down sequence and. Then it was like six o'clock. Then all of a sudden I see the Tom [00:37:00] and two Jakes and this time the Tom's coming in first and he gets to the decoys.

And again, same thing. I like reached for my boat and he must have caught me moving or something. I'm wearing all black in the blind, so I don't know what I don't know if there's just too much sunlight coming in or I guess just too, maybe too close. I don't know. Cause I've had 'em at, the other two birds I shot were well under 10 yards prior to that, and they never saw me.

Must have not, it must have been because you didn't have the sawyer on the bug spray. Yeah, probably. Yeah. Probably smelled you. I'll have to remember that next time to make sure that I wear that shower up and some wildlife research before I leave in the morning. Yeah. For turkeys. But anyway, so yeah I, he got a little bit suspicious and so I reached for my bow, but this time, instead of swinging my bow around first, I just drew it at the back of the blind.

Like completely sideways. And then I came around and then as I swung around, then he was working his way to the left. So then that's when I had to scoot out around the [00:38:00] rod. Yeah. So I wouldn't hit the rod. Yeah. And then it's just okay, everything's lined up. And he, again he wasn't like super alarmed, but still he came outta Straught and he was like working his way out of there.

And I'm just like, okay this looks like a good spot. It's that grass is tall, right? Yeah. So you're guessing and just let it fly. And he didn't go very far. He flopped over twice and then hit the two track and died. Geez. And then, of course then I've got ptsd, so I'm getting another arrow knocked right away and getting ready to let him have it, and I didn't want to jump out of the blind cuz I didn't want to educate him. Cause I know there's a couple other people that wanna hunt still. So I just sat and waited and he didn't move. So I was like, okay, I'm pretty sure he is pretty sure he is dead. And the arrow ended up busting through both his legs.

And Oh, perfect. Damon as my witness. It was a hard shot. Yeah. We got photos of it. Yeah, I was gonna say, you have photos and videos, I think evidence and, yeah, just, I was really shocked to even realize like, how far back the vitals are. They're back [00:39:00] so much further than you would think. Yeah. I blew through both those legs were shattered in 10 pieces.

Yeah. I didn't hit the legs on mine last year, but I didn't even get to see the lungs or the heart for mine. But I felt like I sh I made a good shot on that one last year, but Sam, he's this is how you breast a bird, cuz it is like my first one. And he is this is how you do it. Done throws a bird away.

I'm like, dude I didn't learn a thing out of that. Yeah. Cuz I was interested. I usually like to go through, it's weird, but like I want to go through the cadaver and just be like, yeah dude, where did I hit? Just cuz you know, educate myself for next year. If it.

Oh, this one ran a little further this time or something, just to learn. But I don't even know where I hit the one last year. But this year totally missed the heart. Not even a chance, but I think I just hit arteries or something. Cuz there his cavity was full blood. But heart was fine.

Lungs looked fine. I don't know. But his, the big old bow that hit him. And I can't attest the heart shot to my shooting ability by any means. It was definitely a lucky [00:40:00] shot. You're better than me. But just amazing to say. I was like, wow, I can't believe like straight right through the middle.

Yeah. Caught one of each lungs and, but the, one of the things that's nice about shooting him in the head is, man, was that a mess? When I was cleaning that bird, it took me a while to, get all the bruising out of there. Oh, yeah. I did that last night. Horrible. I was trying to get all that bruising, like the bruise meat and whatnot, all that.

Blood that just was hanging in there. Yeah, it was pretty, was everywhere pretty bad. It, yeah, I had that same thing. Its that little pole that was there. It's just funny. You and I had the same thing. It's just like trying to go around this thing. It's oh god. You're just trying to work your way around it.

Are you shooting your 80 pound bow too? At the turkeys? Fully maxed. Max up just blows right through 'em. Yeah, not a chance. Not a chance. Tough guy. The o only reason why that second arrow didn't go through him is cuz there's a lot of ground underneath him. I was wondering though, I was like, why didn't he not get up?

He had, he seemed like he had enough power to fly off, but I was like, this dude's not going anywhere. When I went to grab the arrow, I had six, [00:41:00] maybe 10 inches of the air that arrow was sticking into the ground past him. I'm like, oh, that's why. Yeah. Yeah. That's sweet though. I was so happy when you said you got one out there though.

I'm like frick. Yeah. With the bow again, me being like the dude that I don't know, I fully gave up on the gun stuff. Like I'll mess with guns for fun, but I'm not hunting with guns. So just knowing you shot that with a bow just made it that much better. Yeah. It's so funny too cuz the last episode, how I was just dogging on it.

I'm not screw the bow, I'm doing it with a gun, all this stuff. And then the landowner said, yeah, you can, I mean you can hunt it, but you gotta do it with a bow. Yeah. And it wasn't because of any particular like restriction or anything like that. He's just wanted to challenge, he's like, why would you work for an archery company, do it with a bone. Yeah. And I'm like, fine. Yeah. And let be known real quick before I forget to go back to what we were talking about, the filming. Every day I hunted, I had a camera with me, except that morning. Yes. And I didn't bring it [00:42:00] with me because I left it here at the shop.

And I was running late and I'm like, I don't have time to pack it. So I didn't bring it, so I didn't get it on film. Back to the excitement factor, like you said I set my alarm for school that morning. Yeah. I woke up and normally I like for school, I wake up, see my alarms going off, shut it off, go back to bed, slowly, wake up, make my way.

I woke up, saw shot one and I'm like, Like a kid on Christmas, I hop outta bed, I'm showered and in my truck in 15 minutes. That's awesome. Yeah. And like with school, that's just not how it works. Yeah. Just grab the camera up. But yeah, I was like thrilled because we didn't have anything to take photos of or video of.

Yeah. But when you said you shot When I was very excited. Plus with some new product. Yeah. Out there. Yeah. You know that it was nice to get that too. Yeah. That's why I was just like, freak. Yeah. One of, one of us four did it like Yeah. And then only took all season. Yeah, I know. The whole season.

And then that, I was gonna say that too, when I was talking about how I'll try and [00:43:00] video my stuff too. I don't know if I ever shared that with you that, that deer, that was like folder on this last year, just a massive eight pointer. I maybe I have huge suspicion or like I'm, very suspicious of, or I can't think of the word, but whatever.

When I bring a camera out or no, I'm gonna film doesn't go my way. Oh God. Every single time you guys like have to film cause that's what you guys are doing. But like when I bring a camera out, it's not happening. That's how it does with fishing too. Yeah. You'll never catch a big fish with a camera in the boat.

No. But then as soon as you forget everything behind everything comes into play. Yeah. Why It's awesome. I start getting weird with him. I'm like, when we're about to go hunting and like we're gonna film it, I'm like, we're not shooting anything. Like we shouldn't even bring the camera cuz we're not even gonna see anything.

Yeah. Oh. So then when it does happen, it's oh, like one time, like one of the mornings we almost shot one. It was like, I was like, we're not shooting anything, but I guess I'll bring the camera with, and then the bird comes full [00:44:00] stru out and I'm like, the bird's on the ground, but we're still not gonna shoot it.

Damon just likes reverse psychology. We'll go out and the whole time he'll just bash on everything we're doing and then when it does start to go, He'll get excited and yeah, this bird's coming in full strout. I'm like, it ain't coming in. Starts getting a little bit closer. I'm like, okay, I should probably press record now cuz it's coming in and then it doesn't happen.

Yeah. So it's what's going on here? But then there is the times where it is coming in and then it dies. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Other than you taking photos of Rick with it, let this also be another chance that we can say it on record. Rick shot that with a Matthews but we'll get some other stuff later.

But this is why we have Hollywood on the show because I, there's certain things that I just subconsciously don't want to talk about and then he's gonna bring it up Poker bear because he knows, but it's fine. It's, yeah. That what's disappointing or what's a bummer is that I had just received my new bow, which I'll talk about Yeah.

In our [00:45:00] segment a little bit later. But I honestly, for a half a second thought. Man, I should run to the shop real quick and get my other bow so that I can take some sh dude some photos with the other bow. And then I'm like, no, I'm not gonna be that guy. I almost jokingly stole your other bow and threw my black gold site on it.

Cause I had my h hha, I almost jokingly stole that, threw it on there and sight it in just so I could be like, dude, go home with it tomorrow. I know. I was so bummed. He's gonna do it. The Matthews No, it's fine. It there Matthews makes a good bow. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It's a great bow. I just, Rick's never shot one.

The reason I'm shooting it is because of our arrow rest that we're testing right now, and this is actually a shop bow. Yeah. And I sold my other bows so that I could pay for this one that I've been waiting for since Sep, since December. Yeah. So it was the only bow I had, but either way I sh and I don't mean to make excuses.

It's a good bow. I actually. Didn't like how it shot at first, but I really got the hang of shooting it pretty good towards the end. Yeah, she's a beau. I shot all through 3D with it this year, so it did me [00:46:00] all right. Yeah. It, it would've shot a lot better if I had any skill or practiced at all ever.

That always helps. Yeah. But so yeah, great season. I was super excited that morning when you got your bird and I don't know, the video that you sent, like I could, for some reason when you send me videos, like it's big half the, it's cuz Johnny's phone. Yeah. They're like, that's it. They're like this big.

So I'm like trying to see it. It's all pixelated. Yeah. And then sent on an Android or Yeah, but I, I don't have the Android. Johnny's got it. But then, so I just, but I knew you shot a bird and I was just like, oh man. And I don't know what. I think you sent the message just before seven, is that right? Yeah, it was probably six 50 ish, 6 57.

And I had been up pretty late the night before and my wife let me sleep in that day and I slept till I think eight or eight 30, something like that. Yeah. So I was like bummed out cuz I, I was like, oh man, I really wish I could be there and you guys were sending me pictures of drinking beers.

And I'm like, oh yeah. And I sent, so I think it was radio [00:47:00] silence for a good 15 minutes. No one was saying nothing. And I'm like, wow. Like this is the most unexciting kill ever. And then I think Tommy Carroll might have been the first one to reply cause I sent him a picture of me with the Whitetail properties hat.

He just got me. Oh yeah? Yeah. I'm like, dude, the hat strikes again. Nice. Oh, that's pretty cool. And he is sweet man. But yeah, I was excited, for both of us getting it done. Just all hours that I put in. Just the fact that you did with a bow again, but with that new bow. We have plans for this fall.

We all do. I went to North Dakota last year. I didn't draw this year, but these boys drew this year. Oh yeah. I'm, I don't know if they've told anything to you, but I'm excited to hear what they're about to say about North Dakota. Oh, yeah. I'm excited. I've not heard. I've not heard, but I'm ecstatic for you guys both having a tag.

Yeah. That's awesome. Swing this over. Yeah, swing bad. I hunted there many years, probably, I think seven or eight years straight and I've had, I've killed three bucks. Heck yeah. Out of there and had [00:48:00] many other opportunities. But yeah. Tell us a little bit about what's your plan or what do you think you guys put together a really sweet film from last year?

And we'll show a little bit of that film as you tell the story, but yeah, go ahead and talk about that. All this whole western hunting thing started two years ago. Yeah, two years ago now. Yeah. So two years ago we're just, Sitting in my basement, like teenagers do, just watching hunting YouTube videos.

That's what you do. And we're watching all these meal Deer hunt stuff and we're like, we should do that. Like, why don't we do that? And I like, got my license like that year and he's yeah, let's do it. So we started doing research and it was already too late to apply for like other states, but we're like Nebraska's over the counter.

So we started doing some research with Nebraska meal deer. And so what we did is we just packed my truck and just headed to Nebraska. Didn't have the proper gear, didn't have our OnX scouting, was maybe one night before we left Hey, maybe we should go here. This looks all right even though it's terrible [00:49:00] and we just head out there and teenagers, were just doing what we do, just going.

And we got there and we're camping and our original plan was to camp cuz we wanted to save money. So we camped the first three days and then, We ended up getting a flat tire during a thunderstorm. So we, we were like hurrying to set up camp cuz of the thunderstorm. Oh man. And we got everything set up.

Me and him were laying in the bed of my truck and we were just gonna wait till the morning to switch the tire out. But our, my bed started leaking water, all of our sleeping bag and I'm, what was I, 16? Yeah. I was 15. Yeah, he was 15 and I was 16 and we're like far away from home and I can't get a hotel room cause I'm underage so I'm limping, with a flat tire into town.

I couldn't even see, barely see through my windshield because gear was packed up to our roof cuz we were sleeping in the bed. When that storm came, we launched it all in and booked it out of there. We were gone. Oh. It [00:50:00] was bad. We just threw everything in there. I'm driving. You're still sleeping. You're like in the bed still.

Yeah, I didn't even try to get up to the front. You're still wearing like pajamas and sleeping bag and I'm driving. Gear up to the top, barely can see cuz it's stormy out. And I'm called my mom like, Hey, can you get us a motel room? If not, we'll just park in the gas station parking lot, wait till the morning.

Love her to death. She got us a hotel room. We parked awesome. We just sat, we got everything in the hotel room, got it all dried out. But yeah, besides that, so that was our first year. We had maybe what one stock? Maybe one or two? One or two. It wasn't crazy. We didn't know what we were doing. It was a learning trip for the most part.

So I think the biggest book we saw was like a fork. No, we saw it. We saw some nice books on the way in. We did, yeah. On private. Yeah. So yeah, that first trip was dang, that was fun. Even though we didn't shoot one, maybe let's do it again. And then the following year came by, we just slacked again on or no wait, no.

Yeah we went to the same spot [00:51:00] and did the same stuff had, we had a little bit more understanding of what we're doing and I think we did a little bit better. We had a couple opportunities and it just didn't work out. It's tough. Public land is so difficult. We had a buck that came down a ridge and he went and Beded and we knew right where he is, beded.

And we just wanted to give him time to get real comfortable cuz he knew he was gonna sit there for most of the day. And we're just sitting back, kinda watching and a truck blows right by parks. Oh, right there. And just runs out. Buck busted out. It was like, really? It's like we're sitting there and we like.

Yet again, one of those moments where we have so much confidence, it's like we shouldn't even have that much confidence. We're sitting there, we're eating donuts, drinking narcotic, or drinks, and we're just waiting for this buck to go, and all of a sudden we see a truck pull up with a ku you sticker on the back, and four guys with their Matthews bows hop out and they just run right into this ditch and this buck spooks.

And we're like, really? And then of course they're walking back up and we pull up next to 'em, we're like, Hey, any luck? And they're like, no. I [00:52:00] think they had slight oh, those guys, they're like, oh, we busted that for them. But the big like deer sticker on the back of our truck didn't give it away, but yeah.

One of those like really salty moments where with public land, just go on to the next. And that was probably the biggest learning lesson for us, was like, we would get caught up on a buck and we'd be like, we just need to kill this buck. But it's public land and you never know what happened.

So we moved on, but that year we applied for North Dakota in a group. Didn't get it. So we had one point in the system. And so that's why we went back to Nebraska is cuz we didn't draw. But that second year in Nebraska, even early season, we had a lot more stocks even though they weren't like the caliber of bucks we were really after, we were still getting on stock, like two to three stocks a day. Which was really nice. Especially verse the first year where we weren't barely seeing anything. Yeah. So we went though, we, so we hunted for 14 days in total and we kinda learned what we were doing now. And we just, we said scratch that whole area, move somewhere random.[00:53:00]

All we had was some eess scouting and that, that was a grind. I don't know if you want to talk about that. Oh. So yeah, like our first early season trip we had a few guys out there. It was more of Hey, it's deer season finally. This is fun. You guys are in Nebraska, right? Nebraska, yeah. Nebraska.

And are you hunting mule deer specifically, or both Meal there specifically? Yeah, I would say, If a stud whitetail pops out, or even a decent whitetail pops out, I'm slinging. Yeah, that redneck instinct kicks out. I'm slinging. Yeah. But so first trip, early season trip was like, Hey, this is fun.

Let's have a campfire cook a couple hot dogs and hunt some meal's. Then we didn't draw or no draw. We didn't kill. So we're sitting and we just, on our way back, we're yeah, there's the possibility we could go back, but who knows with like school and other stuff. And I think we were just hanging out at my house and it was like two days before Thanksgiving break and I was like, Hey, Griff, want to go in Nebraska again?

And he's yeah. Not like a, yeah, more like a, yeah, like a [00:54:00] sure. So I'm like, alright. And then now I'm finally 18. So I called, got us a $25 a night. Nah, it was 50 but it, but 25 per person. Yeah. So $25 a night per person. Ooh. Motel in had to be a beer, a town that we're not gonna speak of cuz we might go back there maybe.

I don't know. But we got this motel and we p so we drove, we left the school parking lot with all of our stuff loaded down, drove overnight. I'm driving my truck and I'm just like, like falling asleep while driving and it's not good. Just energy drink, energy, drink. And we finally roll in it like what 1:00 AM We probably didn't go to bed till 2:00 AM or like we had like maybe a few OnX point, like minimal public had a few OnX points.

And then we just went from there. It was bad. It was bad. So we didn't get much sleep that first night. We barely made it there. We were like falling asleep on the way and. Right away in the morning, we'd just [00:55:00] go and we'd look at some of the spots we marked and it was like, okay, we're not seeing much here.

But then we decided, you know what, we're just gonna drive, we're gonna look, we're just going to look at everything we possibly can within a hundred miles. Yeah. So what, how many days did we drive nonstop before we even made a stock? Like what we would do is, since it was majority of private, we'd wake up, like you said, and we would just drive.

And the, what we had was like, the good thing we had was, it was during the rut. So bucks were like out like crazy. Like you drive and you just seat blocks everywhere. So what we would do is we would drive, find a buck, mark it on Spart forage, and then we would just move on. And then we'd find the next, we'd find the next, we'd find the next, then we would just knock.

But we drove for five days straight. Yeah, five solid days. So what we would do is we'd wake up, hop in the truck, drive all day. Go the next drive all day. We were filling a gas tank a day at least. [00:56:00] Yeah. We probably went through 800, $900 worth of gas in a week. So we just wake up, drive, wake up, drive, wake up, drive, wake up, drive, got told no like probably six, seven times.

And it was a struggle cuz we'd see like 160, 180 class mealy bucks, like 50 yards off the road and we just can't touch 'em. Yeah. Cause it's all on private. Last day we woke up and it was, we got into that weird, I got into that weird psychology where I'm like, we're not like, this is our day.

Like whatever, we roll past this property and we saw this. You go into, it's your buck. Yeah. We rolled by and it's like some farm, like a ranch. Somebody owns a ton of land and it's all dispersed, but we roll by and we already spotted like one decent buck on a property and we marked it. We'd probably go knock midday, but we drove by, saw the buck that I ended up killing.

We're like, okay, mark it. Keep going. Let's find another one. And yeah, we didn't even care. We were like, it's just a buck. Let's go mark it. Let's leave. Yeah. It's two Caseys. [00:57:00] We went, we just wanted to get as many bucks marked as we could so we can just go ask, go glass property, figure out, and I can just go put a stock on 'em, but we went, we probably saw one or two other good bucks. One was like a 1 60, 1 70 buck. Really nice. We just washed it. Remember for 45 minutes. Remember when I went knocked, when I got tried to get permission of that? Yeah. We, I'm not gonna talk about that, but just tell it so we're. We're watching this 1 65 at least.

Yeah, he's big. He was a big buck and he's just like in this perfect spot, he is just going over the ridge. We could sneak up, get on him, and I'm like, where's like the property owner? It's not here. It's in retirement home. In town. In town. Oh my gosh. So I pull up, I'm like, dude, it's last day.

We have to try something. So I pull up to this retirement home and I walk in and I, the front desk lady goes full sit. Could by the way, sick for it. This hashtag [00:58:00] sit sick for it. Yeah. This front desk lady goes, you need help? I'm like, no. I already had the last name dialed in what room he was in. I go straight to his room, I knock on Spartan Forge is weird.

You can do a lot of stuff on that app. It's probably not ideal, but I go straight to this guy's room, old farmer bib overalls, opens door. Hey, how's it going? I'm like, good. I walk in, we're talking. And right away he denied the permission, but like he was just such a cool guy. He is an old farmer.

He understands. And what started with asking for deer permission went to like floods and like weather and farming. And I, like 25 minutes later, I'm sitting down at this table drinking coffee with this farmer and I'm like, how do I not have permission yet? But I was like, what turned into this isn't morally right.

Turned into like ding. I just met a cool guy that I'm never gonna talk to again. Yeah. So that's really cool though. So I left and then we went to Casey's and then we went back to that other property. Yeah. And by the way, that spot Damon was all alone in there. I wasn't about it. So I waited in the truck and he got [00:59:00] back.

I was got, I got mad at him, but towards the end of trips we get tension kind of rises. Oh yeah. The fun game I like to play with him is like, when I go and knock on a door and he doesn't want to come with, I'll like, act like I got it and he'll be like, you get it, you get, I'll be like, no.

I'll be like smirking and smiling as I'm going back to the truck. He's. And I'm like, no, didn't get it. Yeah. But yeah, back to the tensions part, Nebraska was like, I wanted to rip his head off. Yeah. Like it was, we both wanted it so bad that it was like, yeah. It was just like, let's just do it. And so go back to what you were saying.

Yeah. So he went in town and asked permission at the retirement home. And we went back and we looked at our waypoints where we marked some bucks. And we drive by and I look in the cornfield and there's some dots out there, like some dark brown dots, and we're like, I'm not gonna look yet.

Let's just not get our hopes up. So we went and asked, cuz we knew he was in there, there was no other place for him to go. And we got permission. Thank God. It was, I knew if we were getting permission, like when you get that feeling when they open the door, you're [01:00:00] like, I got permission. And the cat's running all around.

25, 25 cats come down. This little old lady walks out, Hey guys. Because most of the time they open the door, they go, what do you want? But this girl was Like I knew, like I had this weird feeling and as soon as like they give, they gave us permission. We looked at each other and we're like, don't freak out.

Don't freak out. Don't freak out. Yeah. Like when you pull away from the property you just got and you're like, look cool while you're driving away. Don't freak out quite yet. But yeah, so we got permission and we rode down and we're like, okay, I'm really hoping this is the buck Beded up here. And got the sp scope out.

So we pulled the spotting scope out and we're sitting on the road we can glass 'em from the road. And it was probably like a thousand yards away or something. Not even 1500. Yeah. I thought it was pretty dang far. Yeah. But we didn't range it from where we glass, but more all the story. It's Buck was there.

It was like with Doz. Yeah, beded right on the cornfield. And I looked at Damon and like fist bump Yeah. Was like, this is perfect. He's beded there, there's a hill going up to him like, [01:01:00] this is looking pretty good, but I'm not gonna get my hope super high. So we we sat there for a minute, wind was perfect, checked all that, and we just came up with a game plan and we swung around and we got in our socks and we just started going.

And I went minimal and slow there. Yeah. All I had was my bow and my rangefinder and then we just crapped slowly and the hill wasn't what we thought it was. So we we got up to where like it wouldn't take much to get over and take a shot, but I kept looking at my map and I was like, dude, I, from where I think that buck is, it's too far.

If I was to pop up and if I'm gonna pop up, he's gonna see me in Spook. So like right as we're sitting on that spot looking, the sun comes out, it gets warm. So they're beded in the wide open, those bucks or the buck and the dough stand up and they start working towards us and they cut [01:02:00] over down the ravine.

And I was like, did this, I was like, not there anymore. There's only one, one place for him to go. So I kept doing that, which I shouldn't have been doing. I like, but when they're standing you gotta figure something out. So when you say you're doing that, you're poking my head over the hill just to see, get, just barely, like I took my hat off and I just tried to stay as concealed as I could.

And while all this is happening, by the way, so like the whole trip we were filming it, but not Film filming it. And then as soon as I saw that there was a possibility of something died, and I started taking it more seriously I'm behind him this entire way, but then as soon as he gets close to the bucks, I'm like, it's, we're far into the trim.

I'm staying back. I, like I, I'm want the kill, I want the footage, but we need the kill. And I respected that and his space. So I, while he's doing all this, popping up and seeing all these deer I have no clue what's going on. I just see his head, the top of his bow, and I'm shaking so bad, I can barely stay in focus on my camera.[01:03:00]

Yeah. And I'm just sitting there and all of a sudden he disappears for five minutes. And the, yeah. So where I left off is when we were like, when the deer actually moved over so I could get around where I needed to be. And I saw where they moved and I was like, Okay, we have to go now, or we aren't killing this deer.

So I waved Damon along and he's no, I'm not risking this. This is the last day. Yeah. I moved up and I got behind this and I poked my head up. I was like, okay, here he is. This is my opportunity. So I knocked, my arrow ranged and it was 60 yards. I drew back and popped up and I whiffed. I was like, oh my, oh yeah.

Oh no. So I immediately just dropped just hit the deck. I was like, shoot. And that's the nice thing about meal deer is they're not dumb, but a little like with whitetails, they hear that and they're yeah. With meal deer, they're kinda like, what? It worked out good cuz he was [01:04:00] paying attention to the dose.

He had no idea I was there. Yeah. Even if, but I knocked. What's that? Even if he did, as long as those dolls are there, right? Yeah. He was staying put, not going anywhere, but I knocked that other arrow and I was like, okay, he's still right there. I'm gonna do it right this time. And I popped up and drilled him and he ran 20 yards and tipped over, watched him do it all, and I just screamed.

It was electric. Oh yes. Me and Damon went wild. This, a lot of footage got cut out. But I'm sitting back there and I just have the tip of his bow in focus. I have no clue where the deer is. I have no nothing. And I'm just sitting there and I just see, I didn't even see the first shot. That's why I thought right away he just, he saw me shoot the first time and he started walking down.

But the deer was in a good po good position where he didn't see Damon come home. I just, I was recording. I just saw sh and then he, I just saw you duck down. You must have gone on that backside. And I'm like, he's shot. And like in the [01:05:00] footage you can hear he shot and I was just like, he shot, like, why am I not hearing anything?

He shot, and then I got closer and this is happening. We're running through like thorns and we have no, our adrenaline so high, we have no clue what our feet are in for right now. And it was a pasture. There's all those sand burs and all kinds of junks that got on our feet, but so I'm just like slowly walking.

Oh, that's right. You guys were in socks too. Yeah, socks. Minimal stuff. I'm in socks and I'm just walking towards him and all of a sudden I just see the bow up in the air and I'm like, scream. And I was like, no way. Yeah. And he's dude. And back to the emotional part, like that's just one of those things where everything paid off and it just like that feeling of that array you get when that happens.

It's it just shocks you. Yeah. Like I, yeah. I could have cried. It was so relieving it didn't even feel real. Yeah. Like I remember. I don't, I Yeah. It was bad. I don't even know. Nothing made sense at that time. Yeah. And we were just going, it was just, it was like go mode. It was like putting cruise control, just go.

And when I didn't even see [01:06:00] the buck. I just heard you scream. You didn't even I didn't even see a buck laying there dead until we like walked up to film it. Yeah. Yeah. And what it ran 10 yards, 15 yard? No, it ran 20 or 20. 2020. And then he tipped over right in front of my eyes.

It was crazy. But blood pumping everywhere. Yeah. Just hearing your guys' story right now, I was like giving me chills. Yeah. You know what I mean? I'm getting goosebumps because I've been there before. And especially to have like your buddy there and Oh yeah. It doesn't matter what tension you had or what fights you had before, like never, everything goes away.

It never happened. Everything goes away and yeah. It's such a cool thing. And the video, like when you first showed me that video the way you captured your guys' excitement is great. Yeah. It's amazing because, So many people have been there. And so it really brings back a lot of those emotions.

And then you're just like, oh man. Gets you pumped up, gets you fired up, yeah. Good job. Yeah. Good job on, thank you. On getting good footage of that and yeah. It was shot, it was, 60 yards is a long ways. And it's not even it's just that, like that deer meant a lot, like the animal clearly [01:07:00] harvesting it using its meat and the experience.

But that deer had three trips, Nebraska trips, thousands of dollars worth of gas and food and anger and Yeah. Plenty of trips to shields and Cabelas and nights talking, like it's, everything that involved that deer that was just insane. It didn't, even, the size doesn't matter when that happens, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. That the miss we, after that, I just want to make this clear. I don't wanna make myself look good here. So after that we end, we actually ranged where he was and there was a fence, pro fence post right where he was. And I've ranged, I ended up ranging over his back at 73 and that's, so I cranked my dial down to where he was, but Ah, gotcha.

Okay. And yeah, you shot right through the funnel and it Yeah, I took a off the back. Was it messing around? Blew up. It was right in that, that perfect opening thoracic cav. Yeah. And it, he did not stand a chance because when you gutted it, the arrow was like right in the back. It hit everything possible with the schwers.

Yeah. Yeah. [01:08:00] So yeah. That's a cool story. Yeah. So that's Nebraska, that's our experience now. North Dakota. So yeah, North Dakota, you guys both drew a tag, so that'll be awesome. You guys both will have opportunities. One behind the camera one. Yeah. How do you guys, how do you typically like to organize that kind of stuff?

Do you, because I think about when I've hunted out west with buddies and we're like, okay, first person to spot, right? Gets choice. If you wanna shoot it, you get to go after it. If you don't, you can pass it off to the other guy. Do you guys have any organization with that?

Or how do you figure that out A little bit? We usually, we try to be pretty good about it, make everything fair to each other, and it's sometimes every other stock, or it's oh, you spotted the deer, you're taking that, yeah. We go with the flow on that. We work well together that way. Yeah.

Like with Nebraska, it was like you had the bow and I know that I'll be able to get it on camera. And I just had more confidence with my camera than the bow. So I was like, let's just go. Yeah. But yeah, like it's [01:09:00] normally every other stock. If I have a stock, blow it, then it's your stock.

Yeah. Or if it's like you spotted deer that you want to kill, I record. We don't really get into it too much. It's like we see the deer and like one of us will be like, all right, go kill that thing. So it's already decided we don't get into it too much. Whoever takes like the initiative to go do it, it's, that's the one thing that we've never thought about.

It, the main goal is to just get content and get somebody out the post. Just get something, whoever kills it doesn't really matter. Cuz we normally have other opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. With Nebraska, that was like that. And with North Dakota, I have a feeling it's gonna be very similar to that where the thing with Nebraska is we never really went on that many stocks, but with North Dakota, I have a feeling that it's gonna be a lot more stocks.

A lot more craziness. Yeah. So do you guys have a plan yet? Do you know where you're gonna go or you got any leads or, don't say it where, but yeah. I've done maybe an hour of e scouting so far. Yeah. I, we don't know exactly what we're gonna do. We've [01:10:00] got some things in our back pocket, we're throwing it around, whatever.

I've talked to my dad a little bit. He's a North Dakota boy, so he's been around all that. Yeah. And my grandpa lives in North Dakota, so I'm gonna talk with them and we'll figure out some stuff, but everything's up in the air. We just know we're going in kill mode. Yeah, probably just, we're just gonna run off other people's intel and I have quite a few spots marked.

But besides that, our plan is we're gonna go early season as of now. Just cuz with him in school more of as like a scouting trip slash where, what are we even doing here? Get a lay of the ground. Definitely do that. If we're not successful there. Definitely gonna go in October, middle of October when he has a break.

Or November we got three weeks. Yeah. Three week long parts that we can go on. Yeah. Than Thanksgiving and time if we need it. Maybe we'll kill the first weekend or the week, but I would be very happy if we both filled our tag by October. Yeah. Yeah. That would be very happy with that. And like caliber, [01:11:00] buck wise, whatever makes me happy, I'm gonna shoot.

Yeah. Yeah. No, that'll be awesome. Yeah. You got, you want to match wits. With what you're hunting. And it was smart that you guys did a lot of stocks, even though they weren't like target bucks that you had. Because we started to find out that it was about, we had about a 10% success rate.

So for every 10 stocks we would have one where we would get an error win, maybe an opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. And then everything else has to fall into play. Winds gotta be right. You know what I mean? They gotta still be where you know where they were when you first last saw 'em. And what's crazy too is like understanding the terrain because there's so much between you and that buck.

That you can't see. And so when you start getting into the thick of it and you're just like, I've had time. I've, there's some bucks that I've killed out there where I get halfway there and I almost give up. I'm like, this is insane. I don't know if I can even get through this terrain right now.

Yeah. This is wicked. Like I could die in here. Yeah. So it's good to be in there and exploring [01:12:00] around. And hopefully in the process you find some sheds. And so yeah. Going out early season, midday, when it's hot. It's miserable running around in that stuff, but they usually stick to the thick cover in the shade, but yeah. I, you guys are gonna have a blast. There's some, yeah. Really good hunting out there. It's, yeah. I mean there's, it's terrible. There's no bucks. Don't even try. Don't apply. No, it's bad. I was so hoping we would all draw. That would've been epic. Yeah. Like I, I was planning on going out With a buddy of mine.

Then I was like, man, if all, if we all drew, like we could make an epic film like a deer camp, right? Yeah. But but that didn't happen. So it's on you guys. Yeah. All the pressures on you guys. Yeah. All pressures on us. Yeah. And yeah, no, it should be interesting. Nebraska definitely taught us a lot.

I feel like our, I'm grateful for Nebraska because it gave us slightly more knowledge than we didn't have. And I appreciate that knowledge going into North Dakota and it's just gonna be fun to get to run around and chase him [01:13:00] again. I love it. I, Western hunting is a lot of fun.

It's a lot of fun. Especially for us. A street eight 80. I was just gonna say that I like to move, yeah. That's the thing is we hunt whitetails around here and we're like, we get in the stand, we're sitting there. Normally the time the first little Debbie gets taken out, the second Mountain Dew and like at least an hour of TikTok, I'm like, All right, let's go.

Yeah. And with, if that's with zero Dear activity when there's deer activity, I'm not like that but adhd, definitely getting to run and just go. Yeah. It's like insanely fun. I look forward to that. I look forward to the footage that you guys are gonna get and hearing the stories and everything.

And of course, we should probably sit down. I might be able to give you some pointers. I don't know. But we'll, we can get into that later. Yeah. Hollywood over here, you're still due, but you had some opportunities in North Dakota last year. Now you didn't draw your tag this year, but you drew a couple states or one, just one.

Yeah, that was [01:14:00] awesome, guys, by the way, hearing that success story, that's, yeah, man. Thank you. I'm pretty jealous. Yeah. My hair was 16 or 17 when you shot that thing. You were. 17. 16. 16. You were 16. He was 16. 16, yeah. He's 16. Yeah. I can't even imagine, dude, I was still like chasing white tails.

I'm like, oh my God. I didn't shoot a deer with my boat till I was 25. Yeah. He was 16 and I was 18. Barely 18. That's super nuts. That's barely 18. Yeah. Awesome. The film is on, dialed our trees, YouTube. Yeah. And I've, I have no idea what success is like neither do I. I, you almost, you should, yeah, I had, I won't say too much, but yeah I had opportunities.

You guys will too. You should be able to do a few less DOK knocks, I'd think this year, but, yeah, I definitely shot one. I just hope it's not the one that I saw come down the hill. Cause that thing was just a giant and yeah I don't know if I've already talked about that story or not.

You've told you told me, but yeah. Keep it somewhat short. I shot one and I was expecting to shoot a hundred yard shot. I was [01:15:00] full well ready to do that, 80 pound bow and I got the speed and the potential energy for making it through. But I ran after one and right down this like crick bottom and turned the corner.

And I like, look. I'm like, oh, he's right there. Step back around, whip the site up, take the rangefinder. He's 30 yards. Ooh. And I sent one and I think it was like, I think because I did the same thing you guys did. I went and checked like where he is standing, it was like 37, I think I had 34 on my rangefinder.

So I went a little low, had blood eventually. That's part of the long story, but fell on his bed and then. I think it was the second day. So it was 24 hours before I even knew I shot him. Like I thought I completely missed, cause a bunch of bucks ran out of there and so I was like, oh, I missed it. All these bucks aren't bleeding.

But yeah, then I found where his bed was and there was some dudes just, [01:16:00] I went during rifle season. Don't do that. Anyone don't do that. Rick warned me and I still did it, but I always do. Just because you can still get in, you can still find bucks. Oh yeah. I definitely could have killed and for, she got mine, but I just don't like that I have to wear Blaze for Yeah.

However many days until the rifle season's out. But yeah, I wouldn't say they were harassing me, but they were constantly on me all the time as the same two dudes and outta nowhere. Like I, he was vetted here. There's a little ridge up here. They'd run the guys in the utv that'd just run this all day.

Yeah, that bed was right here. Full of blood and then I couldn't find him. And then it was like 6:00 PM last night of rifle. So it was a Sunday night, maybe it wasn't six, whatever sundown was. And these dudes come out of this draw right on the other side. I never heard a shot all day. Oh, mind you, I was in that area.

So I, all the time I scooped him up, I think. Yeah, I think he just somehow got it crossed with no blood and then, yeah, I think they grabbed him. So it was a [01:17:00] tanker too, wasn't it? Yeah. I mean there's two big bucks that came out of there and one was a giant I was like, no way I get an opportunity like this.

Yeah. And the other one was like, yeah, this is a nice opportunity. And then the two that ran out of there, I'd take any day and that's what I'd expect a caliber to take, something like this. And I'm just like, I'd take that. No doubt. And dude, that is one of the two. Because one of the two big ones, didn't make it out of there.

Just yeah. Oh my God. Yep. But yeah, I don't know what happened with that deer. I hunted all the way to the end. Yeah. That just made me mad when you told me that story. I'm like, oh, that's just, that had to been what happened? I walked miles in two feet of snow for two days straight looking for this deer.

Cause I'm like, I don't want it to just die and then go to waste. And I, who cares if, and the biggest thing is the guys that might have TA taken it, I wanted to just be like, Hey, is that, my deer. Yeah. Potentially. Because you'd know if it had two holes in it. And [01:18:00] even then, if I, if it was mine, I'd ask, can I take the rack?

At least, it's my first time. Play that game. Yeah. Or at least, you guys can have the whole deer. I just want the antlers or, or at least let me get a picture with it. I mean something. But I didn't even get that opportunity. I was gas when I got to the top of that hill.

If I put myself in their shoes and I see a dead deer sitting there, okay I may take it. But if I see the guy that probably killed it and his car's in the parking lot, I'm gonna give, I'm gonna give it up. Or at least ask and quiet Hey, do you think, cuz you can tell if it's an arrow Yeah.

Or a bullet hole. Yeah. Yeah. You know what weapon you, you clearly can see what weapon you're using. Yeah. So that's the disappointing part is that, I wouldn't want to just leave a deer die and rot away, you know what I mean? Or get, get eaten by the coyotes, but at the same time, like they knew you were there.

So it's every day, it's just so disappointing. Same forerunner, same dude with the bow. And it's the same blue utv, most likely residents too, because, It's [01:19:00] really hard to draw. Oh yeah. Panag out there as a non-resident and even a resident, even residents can take up to seven years. And to just make things worse is three quarters to a mile back that I had to walk through all this snow and I was just hosed from walking so much that day.

And I'm like, just a ride back. I'm like, just gimme something. And they came up with all that draw and they just gunned it. I'm like, damn. I'm like, dude, this, you're exhausted. I'm pissed. Pissed off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know this I put in probably, probably a good solid eight hours now on east scouting for South Dakota, cuz I, I know it's, there's less public land.

I might have an opportunity with a family that owns like almost a county's worth of acreage. So That'd be great. That'd be good. Because you can go out earlier too. Yeah. And then the people I know that it's just like a ranch and they're like, yeah, they don't really hunt. And if they do, it's just During rifle season.

And they're like, yeah, you're guaranteed to be done in the first weekend, so that'd be great. But I'm just trying to find like public land that's gonna be [01:20:00] worth our time since I know what I'm trying to look for, I haven't been out there that much. I've never been to South Dakota, but I think that's why I'm not like as excited cuz if we did all of us drew, oh man, dude, I'd be like, I'm going right there.

I dunno where to go. But I tell you what though, cases of beer and bottles of wine go a long ways. Yeah. And getting permission. Okay. Yeah. That works. If you don't know where they live, just start sending it or, yeah. I've got points already, like all over South Dakota, just I'm gonna check there and there.

But yeah. Yeah we'll see. I know there's a lot of things I'll change and a big thing that screwed me over so many times last year is all that snow that North Dakota got hit with. And even when I was there, just, the bucks were dumb. They're, full of dough, which was great, but now you have 20 sets of eyes.

Yeah. And noses and ears listening and seeing your movements. And then I never thought I'd ever have this moment in my life, but I had multiple stalk ruined by big horn sheep. I'm like, yeah dude, come on. What are the odds? There's this monster right here and I wanna scoot down this way, [01:21:00] but the yous are sitting here feeding the rams up here.

I'm what are the odds, boo. Yeah. This is awesome. But yeah. Yeah. So you got some good solid leads on South Dakota so far. That's good. Yeah, no, I've got points for, I just got the notification, I got the point for Colorado, so I'll probably wait a couple years for that, for deer and then should have a elk one coming and then I've got the point for Bighorn for Colorado. That was confirmed too. So we'll be waiting for years for that one, but it'll probably take you a little while. Yeah. Cool. I wasn't so lucky this year I didn't draw North Dakota. I thought I had a good chance cuz I had two points, didn't draw.

So I got like an 80% chance next year. And then thought I would draw bear tag this year. Didn't draw bear tag even though I'm still, so then I was thinking I'd go OTC, Colorado and then now I'm like backpedaling on that and thinking I might save my change. For if I, can draw a better tag and then just have that money [01:22:00] set aside and then just go spend a week up in the boundary water screwing around.

I was gonna say locally draw a better tag. Yeah, probably. And I applied for Minnesota Elk, but that's not gonna happen. When did we need that in? I would be shocked. I think it's June 6th. Oh boy. I better do that for Minnesota Elk. Yeah. It's only five bucks. Yeah, it's cheap. But you have most areas are the better ones.

You have, what is it like, there's two tags in the better areas, like seven, 800 people apply yeah. Yeah. We had a customer here that he came in like last year, and he is yeah, I drew the Minnesota Elk tag. I'm like, really? That's pretty rare. Yeah. Super rare. This was like the year before, and he actually was successful.

I'm like do you know the percentages of that? And the guy honestly had no idea. He's nah, I just thought it was pretty sweet. I'm like, let me just show you the DNR stats real quick. I'm like, you're kidding me. That's pretty far up north, right? Where it's right on the border. Yeah. Yeah. It's right on the border.

I guess I think of things in perspective now, like driving 10 hours to go to, out west and hunt. Or[01:23:00] yeah. Nebraska. What was that like six hours, seven hours? We were looking at 12. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I would say way up north is whatever now if I'm staying in states like whatever, I'll do it today.

And it's it's one of those hunts too where you just, you get ahold of the local DNR and they'll tell you where the herd is and you just have to, if it's private, you just gotta get permission. And most of the landowners are fine with it anyways, because that's part of the reason why they keep 'em, keep the numbers down because of the degradation they have in the fields and they wreck fences and all that kind of stuff.

So most landowners are more than willing to let you hunt. But that'd be cool. Oh yeah. Yeah. But I know that if you've, I, they don't have a point system, but I know that for the people who have applied for 10 years or more, they get put into the pool or they get drawn first. Oh, okay. So if you've been in for a while, like you've got but not consistently away.

Yeah, I think I've applied maybe six years or something like that. But that'd be super cool if I drew that. Aside from that though. Yeah, I just figured I'm not drawing anything. Maybe that's a sign that I should take a break. I'll, I'll [01:24:00] hunt whitetails and stuff like that.

But since we're talking about the Dakotas, I thought I would tell a quick story about what I call the Thanksgiving buck shot at, on Thanksgiving Day. And a cool story. I'm hunting with my buddy Ben, and I had been hunting with him for several years up to that point. And going back to what I was telling you guys about how we decide who's gonna take a stock or whatever we didn't really have to do much deciding because he was always spotting him before I could.

Cuz he had, you just, you start to figure out like what you're looking for and he would always spot him before me every time I could never. And then, so he was like I don't know, I wouldn't wanna shoot him, but do you wanna shoot him? I'm like, heck yeah I do. And he's clear across this draw.

He's gotta be. A mile away. I don't know, super far away, right? But I was just like, all right, let's just start closing in on 'em, start closing ground. So we just, we worked our way over there and tried to get into position. And the other cool thing about closing that ground is you'll bump other deer too, which sometimes it's kinda oh, I don't wanna bump deer, but man they just circle [01:25:00] around you and come back.

Yep. Oftentimes, they like to stick to that core area, especially during the rut. And if there's dough in there and there's a hot dough they're not gonna go anywhere. But on our way over there, we spot this buck and had these two like sticker points coming out, I think of his G2 as, I can't remember.

I've got his dead head at home, which that I'll lead to that part of the story. But so it was like, okay, do I keep going after the buck I'm originally going after, or do I try to go after this guy? He had already, he was sitting up on top of this. Or out in this point, he was looking right at us, so I'm like, okay, we're already busted, so let's just keep moving.

So we go over there and we're trying to find this buck and can't find him and didn't have any luck. And there's a bunch of cattle, there's like free range cattle out in this area, so they're milling around and stuff, and Ben starts getting in, impatient, starts getting bored and starts picking up cow pies and throwing 'em at the cows and starts chasing after him, pretending he's a bull and making all kinds of noise and stuff.

And so he chases this whole herd of cattle down [01:26:00] this draw, right? Just makes a, just a, sounds like a freight train going through the woods, chases him down through this area, whatever. And so then we're just like, all right, we didn't, we're not gonna get him, so let's just start working our way out.

So we start working our way out and we get up on this point and we look across and we can see the buck. And he's probably Ben Ranges. 'em, I, it was like 92 or 93 yards, something like that. And it's like, all right, I was like, ah, that's too far. I can't take that shot. And at that time we had been doing exhibition shoots ahead of Tom Knapp at Game Fair.

I was gonna say, is this game fair? Yeah. That's awesome. So before the a hundred yards shoot, before they were doing that as a competition out at Game Fair, me and Randy Herman and Frank Welsh and Eric Nathan, and I think it was, I think it was just us. And so we would shoot balloons at a hundred yards just to entertain the crowd while they were waiting for Tom Nap to come out.

And what's his name? Ron Sherra would [01:27:00] be MCing the whole thing, whatever. Oh. So we were practicing a ton out underneath these's property, shooting at a hundred yards, 120 yards, practicing a ton. And It. Ben just looks at me. There's f for like the first time in history, there's no wind in North Dakota.

And he's dude, the conditions are perfect. You can make that shot. I was like, oh man, I don't know. I'm like, all right, dial in my site, pull back. I got all the time in the world, right? There's just take my time, breathe everything, pull the trigger. Wa the arrow literally left the broom, like I couldn't see it.

It went over the broom I had, so I completely lost sight of the arrow, and then all of a sudden I ke see it come down, it drops down like a bomb. Oh. And and they're so far away. I have no idea what happened. They all run off. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, this ain't happening, but all right, let's go over there and look.

So we go over there and look and there's blood and I'm like, no way. We are looking around. We can't find my arrow, we can't find it. And we can hear some [01:28:00] commotion going down in the Down in the Pines in this draw. So it was like let's just back out. We'll come back in the morning. So we backed out, come back and there he was.

There's dead right there, geez. Within, I don't know, maybe 45, 50 yards of where I shot him. Jesus. That's a perfect shot. That's nuts right in the heart. No, wasn't No, but it was. Yeah. Rain in the pump station. Yep. Double lung. Yeah. I don't remember. I don't know. Buddy's dead, whatever, wherever that arrow went, I can't remember.

Cause it's been so long now. I think I sh I think it was 2012, so we're talking 11 years ago. Oh, geez. Yeah. But that's the buck that's hanging out here in the pro shop. One of one of two. The other ones from South Dakota. And there was no snow was there? No. No snow. Yeah. I hunted a week before Rick, like before Thanksgiving, and I had three feet of snow I was going through.

Yeah, it can be, it's hit or miss. We've had, I would say about half the years I've hunted out there, there's snow on the ground and the other ears and there's, it's, and it can be a. A blessing and a curse, right? Yeah, it can. I loved it. It can [01:29:00] quiet your footsteps. It can make 'em louder. It can, it's nice when you shoot something, it's easy to track.

But Yeah. And if you get a hot day, that glazes over the top. It's so crunchy and it's yeah, you may as well just not even bother. Just go home. Cuz Yeah, I had that and that was terrible. The herd hears you. No problem. And then it's also great though because it's just like a huge, it's just like looking at black speck on a white piece of paper.

It's just oh, right there. I, there it cuts all the work out, but yeah, dude, it's, yeah. When the crunchy snows there, oh my god, it killed me every time. It's just like that one that we also put a stock on a hundred yards away and it's like my buddy's knee rolls over cuz we're sick of, kneeling on the ground and that dude looks right up and I'm like, god dang it. So that, that brings me back to when I was With that buck that I shot too. It, what's nice is if you are hunting in an area that has cattle, right? The deer used to hearing some of that noise. So that can help mask some of that because all the goofing around Ben and I were doing up there, it [01:30:00] didn't alert the deer because they were used to the cattle being in there and moving around.

So that can be helpful. There's been times where we've literally pretended to be a cow. Like he gets in front like this and then I get down behind him and try to create the back of a cow, and then we try to run across a clearing, yeah. So we can, and we've pulled it off that's nuts.

They don't know where people, cuz we're, these deer were staring at my buddy and I like, we were just like stacked up like that too. But it's just, the snow was so crunchy, it's like one of us would move our feet or something. They just knew right away. They were just like looking over there what is that?

And there's no cattle out there. So it's like they, they knew it was, That the gig was up. So me and my buddy cow used to have a lot of fun with one of those Moo Cow Montana. I was just gonna say it was at the Montana. Yeah. We would just goof around and stock up on do and stuff. And I remember there was a buck once that kind of caught us up on this weird climbing up this ridge.

And all of a sudden we look over and there's this white tail out of place a little bit just staring at us. And I'm like, shoot, man, what do we do? And he just pulls the blue cow out from his pack and then [01:31:00] just pops it open. It didn't work, but he's still, the buck was still standing there wait, where what?

Yeah. Transformed into it. Cow we're like pretending, making it pretend to eat. I imagine hunting with Ben has just gotta be stupid fun. Oh man, he's a riot. He, I'm sure he definitely has a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah, it's a good time. I miss hunting with them. I hope we can, I hope I can get out and hunt with them again sometime soon.

But should have 'em hook you up with the Montana tags. We've talked about it, but man, that's that's a lot of money. It is. That's what's keeping me outta there right now. And that brings us to shiny objects. This is our segment where we talk about our current or new obsession or some new product or something.

In our world, that is really exciting or that we're losing sleepover. We're gonna start with you. Hollywood. What's, oh, me? Yeah. You. Oh boy. I've been golfing a lot lately now that I'm done Ooh. With turkeys. But no, I usually do the golfing thing in the summers now, [01:32:00] but I'd say my shiny object right now is probably just getting back into the target stuff like, you guys saw, I'm just back chasing after the paper.

That's good. Hopefully take up Broadwater next year, so I'm just gonna tell everything. I think you got a chance. But yeah, no I think that's my big thing right now. It's slower season, so there's not a lot of companies are releasing stuff either. So Yeah. It's just the time to r and r.

Back, I think you said this a couple episodes ago, but Arrow customizer. That's the fun thing right now, but Yeah, for myself, I'm just heavily focused on. Fixing myself with paper. So not that I have target panic, it's just knowing every single step like thing that my body's doing, just to know I can do it every single time.

So for 60 arrows. And that helps with hunting season too? Oh yeah, definitely. Cuz yeah, totally. I didn't even think of it until you just said that, but like when I drew back on that bird, I'm just like, okay, shoulders back, aim, get outta the aiming window, start executing shot, go, boom. And then done. Yeah, yeah, there's some [01:33:00] podcasts that listen to it. With good old shot iq. Yeah, I've been focusing a lot on that stuff, so I guess that's my thing right now. No, that's good. That's good with some of these new ideas that are coming out and all that kind of stuff, it's good to get back into it and really start to figure this stuff out, oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially since it's slower. Yeah, exactly. What about you guys? Right now you want to I can go first. Yeah, go ahead. I always gotta ask. Right now my shiny object is probably tack total archery challenge. I leave tomorrow. I'm hopping on a plane and going to Pennsylvania. It's awesome.

So we'll be filming out there and yeah, that's, it's gonna be interesting, like in like fun though. Like a good, interesting, cuz I've never been to attack I've never met a lot of the people out there and I've never got to experience it. So luckily work brought me there. So I'll be filming out there and.

I'll be filming with Chris. I met Chris B last year. Yeah. I filmed his Kentucky Hunt and he's an awesome guy and he he's allowed me to do quite a bit of work for him. Yeah. A little bit here and there, so That's cool. So it's fun. [01:34:00] So that's what I'm excited about cause I leave tomorrow at 7:00 AM so I gotta get home and back and That's so cool.

When you told me that today, I was like, what? Don't worry. So I'll be out there for a couple days and then head back and I'm done with school. I'm excited with that. Don't have to worry about that anymore. And just scouting deer and getting cameras out and putting minerals out and that's what I'm excited for too when I get back.

Yeah. There's a lot of preparation work to be done. Yeah, absolutely. How about you? Yeah, I'm a little bit jealous of the tack. I was hoping we'd go to South Dakota, but Damon's gonna be gone yeah. I'm excited for summertime shooting, get out and shoot some long range and yeah, just. I don't know.

Shoot. Start running stuff for deer. And I buy, I bought a camera, so more behind the scenes stuff. Oh, nice. Yeah. Go see a lot of that. He got a camera sweet. What, like a week ago? No, probably a couple weeks ago now, but a couple weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. So stoked. A lot more angles and a lot more content coming out on the page.

Yeah, man. So that's good. And like you said, shooting, we need to start practicing [01:35:00] long distance. Like now. What's yours? Oh, I suppose I should talk about mine. Huh? Tell us your shiny object. It's sitting right there. We talked, we alluded to it a little bit earlier, but it's yeah, my new bow finally showed up.

I ordered it, gosh, I don't know, back in December, something like that. PSE mock 34. Here it comes, it's green. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. I don't know. Can, I can't see the cameras, so I can't see. I gotcha. But it's partially, yeah, right there. Sweet. There should be, I love the white the white eyes text on the limb.

Yeah, that looks awesome. Sweet. And it's light. I felt it. It's very light. Yeah. So we got the the Stok stoker rise. M one stabs on here. The eights got one out front, one out back, but I don't know, I'm gonna have to play around. I don't think they balance right. So I'm gonna have to change that up a little bit.

Got the gen seven X on here, because this is one of the few bows on the market right now that are integrate our GI eight does not fit on because of the roller guard there. But yeah, my wife inspired the color. Her favorite color's [01:36:00] green, so she helped me decide on that. And yeah, went with the Coca-Cola and silver on the strings and cables and.

That's about it. Got the e ec two cam on it. I originally had the S two cam when I ordered it, but Holly Wood and I went and shot some bows. We shot 'em at the ATA show and I was like, it was a little too stiff. So decided to go with the EC two. It's a little smoother draw. And what site you thinking gonna throwing on that?

I'll probably just transfer over my, the kingpin my kingpin, my optimizer hha haven't got on the. Haven't got on the the dialed bandwagon yet. You got team hha over on this side of the table and team dialed over there. So they make a color match for that, I believe. I'm sure they do. It would look really good.

You could probably get like a brown dial on it too. I'm already thinking about the certified run. That's sweet. Yeah, it'll be interesting. I haven't honestly haven't even shot it yet. I was hoping to shoot it before this so I could talk a little bit about that, but haven't had a chance. And [01:37:00] obviously, like you said, I don't have a sight on it yet or anything.

So excited to get that out and start shooting and goof around and, get some shots through it on my lunch break. And that's sweet. Now that we're starting to get the podcast dialed in and figuring out how to the process of getting everything going quickly, I look forward to getting that out and hopefully we can all.

Start dropping some bombs. Heck yeah. Yeah. We definitely should get together and shoot. Yeah, for sure. A lot more bunker. Or I still want to know if we can figure out a way that we can shoot out on the side of the building here. If we built something like what a one has. Yeah. Big old berm.

Yeah. Where you can only shoot so high and that way you can ensure that your aerials aren't gonna go flinging. But I don't know if an NOCO will have that. Yeah. I've already been shooting the ad yards over at Bunker. Just getting ready. Just, I don't know what, when the summer comes out, I'm just like, you, Griff, I'm just like, yeah, I'm ready to send some bombs.

Yeah, bunker doesn't even go far enough. I'm just like, Give me the one 20 that my site tape runs. Tape. Like I actually have one 30, [01:38:00] but I might have clearance issues, but I'm like dude, gimme the distance. That's what happens. An 80 pound bow. Yeah, exactly. With my short draw, you just, you can just fling.

Yeah. Light or arrow, but nothing with that crazy foc stuff. I'm still at 60 pounds. I might get new limbs, honestly, cuz I, I feel like I could bump it up. I'm confident and I want to get a little bit more speed. Yeah. I'd say just be mindful for cold weather. Oh yeah. Everyone always hits me on that.

They're like, can you do it in cold weather? I'm like, I wouldn't be shooting this if I could, if you can. And if I can't then I guess I'll just turn some, limb bolts out. Otherwise I'd run a 75 pound bow. Yeah, no big deal. It's make sure you're comfortable. Still gonna go in the deer and Yeah.

Yeah. I've killed deer at 50 pounds and 40 even. I think so. We're good. Yeah. Heck yeah. Cool. All right. We should probably cut it short here. We're almost hitting two hours, so genius. Time flies. Yeah. Folks, you can you can find the range podcast on Instagram and on Facebook, head over, and give give us a follow on [01:39:00] both those pages.

You can give me a follow at Ricky dot Wayne 80 on ig and Ricky w Bruley on Facebook for me. Jake Ivy, three on Instagram and Jake Iverson with the Hollywood in parentheses on Facebook and these boys. Yeah, we got all for one creative on Instagram. And then Griffin Underscored Lavi on Instagram.

Yeah. What do you said? Yeah, all for one creative. Look it up. You can find us there where you try and post a few times a week. Right now we're struggling a little bit with lost footage, but we you can find us on there, you can find me at all for one underscore Damon, d a m o n. So definitely go check 'em out, guys.

Yes, check out their content. They're very talented, sweet stuff. Yeah yeah, and you'll also see a lot of their content coming up on our pages here as well. And again, be sure to head over to our YouTube channel. If you like the video, hit a hit that thumbs up button and make sure to subscribe so you can be up to date [01:40:00] on all things archery.

And with that, we are going to pack up our bows and arrows and we're gonna leave the range. Have a great day, everybody. Thank you. Peace. Vapor Trail is now offering an exclusive discount to the Range Podcast listeners enter promo code T R P 15, that's T r p 15 at checkout for 15% off VTX Post strings and Vapor Trail and Stok Rise, branded t-shirts, hats, and other gear.

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