Wisconsin Archery Recap

Show Notes

On this episode of The Nomadic Outdoorsman Dan sits down with Nick Queen to recap the final few days of their Wisconsin archery hunt and the events since.

Dan and Nick hunted together for several days on a public island in Dan’s home state of Wisconsin. The two found amazing deer sign and experienced extreme rutting activity for an early October hunt. After several encounters with mature bucks, the pair decided it was time to go all in as they pursued a public land giant. This episode relives the final days on the island and the rollercoaster of a journey that they have experienced since.

 

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Show Transcript

Dan Mathews:

Alright guys, welcome back to the show. Now, this show, as promised, is a recap of the Wisconsin Hunt. Cause last you heard, it [00:01:00] was me. My guest for today, Nick and Tyler all sitting down talking about what our game plan was for that night. This is going to lead that leads us right into what actually happened that night.

So Nick is in person with me at my home in Missouri. Yeah, buddy. And the reason he's here is because. We're going elk hunting in the morning. We're driving out to meet people and then driving out the next day To actually go to camp and then we'll scout and then elk hunt which we're gonna do a podcast while we drive tomorrow Yeah, that'd be sick.

That's gonna be Next week's episode, I'm pumped dude, it's going to be awesome man, it's fun, hopefully my tires aren't too loud, I've got the loudest tires on the highway, they're terrible, but hopefully we can get those drowned out, dude I

Nick Queen: know, people are going to be like, I can't hear a thing.[00:02:00]

Dan Mathews: Thing.

Nick Queen: I'll help you doctor it up. Yeah, it'll work. I'm an audio engineer. You gotta remember that. Yeah. I'll be able to get it outta there.

Dan Mathews: It'll sound great. crisp. They're like, are you in a studio?

Nick Queen: They're gonna hear me chewing on my smarties is what? Or my sweet tars. They're gonna hear all the way there.

Keeping my power. Pellets crunch. Keep awake,

Dan Mathews: dude. So that hunt, man after the last week's episode, got crazy in a hurry. Yeah, it was like the wild west out there. Clifton, the podcast before that he walked us through what he thought we should do. Mhmm. And it was awesome. First of all, but

Nick Queen: thanks to him.

Cause I like, so what we're talking about is calling and I've called growing up. And like you said, I'm in the same boat as you, when you the deer in the Midwest or at least where I'm from, where I'm from, Illinois, and you're saying you have the same situation where. In the rut, when it's prime time in that kind of year, it seems like they'll, stupidly come into a call, if [00:03:00] you will, I air quote stupidly come into a call, but for the most part, like I've never rattled in big bucks, I've never, I've grunted a few bucks come in I've even early October, I've had my antlers and Tickled and got a deer to turn around because oh, there's two deer over there, but nothing we're shooting So for him to be like that, yes.

No, this is what you need to do because but it all came to the situation we were hearing deer fighting, then me and you, that big buck come in, pushing that doe around. So obviously it was a dominant buck, like it would, it made sense. It would have never made sense October, what was it, October 11th, 12th?

Dan Mathews: Yeah, 11th. Yeah. Yeah, it when he said that he calls from September on, basically the entire season. I was like, man, I've never heard anybody do that. Nope. He's got a track record to prove that he's doing something right. First time killing some big bucks.

Nick Queen: Dude, he's... Just go to his, just go to his Instagram page or his Facebook page.

He's got studs on there.

Dan Mathews: There's a lot of big deer on his [00:04:00] page and...

Nick Queen: And YouTube. He's got a lot of good YouTube videos.

Dan Mathews: Oh yeah, dude. I, it was awesome seeing everybody produce the... The episodes after the hunt and I'm like, dude, I just remember every day getting together, talking, hearing the stories, and then to see it, it made me really want to do more videography stuff.

And now I'm here coming out, man. Elk camp. I had to pull some strings, but

Nick Queen: Which I'm nervous about in a good way, but it's gonna be different. I'm a Midwest corn fed boy

Dan Mathews: It's an intimidating hunt for someone who's never done. Yeah. Yeah it for sure is I mean I was My first elk camp I'm like dude. I have no idea what I'm getting into Yeah, and even after I'm like, what did I just get into?

Nick Queen: And I think the roles that even in that like flip flop like not that you're not a whitetail hunter cuz you are Obviously, but what we were doing out there on that island is a lot more What I do on it, like I've been doing for the past 10 years almost. And so like now we're flip flopping and you have a lot more experience doing what we're doing and I have [00:05:00] zero.

So

Dan Mathews: dude, it's going to be it's going to be a pretty wild week. It's a lot of fun. It's a good group of guys. And yeah, we're going to we'll get into it tomorrow. We're going to be doing a lot of podcasts from the wall tent. That'd be fun with the wood stove going. It's going to be cold, man. Oh, yeah.

My brother just called me today and he's it's looking like a low in the teens. Oh nice for a good amount of the time, which is good I like hunting cold way more than I like hunting hot. Oh, yeah So hopefully that gets the elk on their feet moving too. Sure, dude. They just They chill out in the shade when it's hot out.

Yeah. But dude, this hunt man, the Wisconsin hunt, man, I have shared this story a thousand times. Shared the video with a bunch of people, got feedback from all kinds of people, and basically after the podcast, we loaded up and went to the boat ramp within minutes. Yeah we were out the podcast down and left.

I shut the computer down, we left, and when we did. [00:06:00] We got to the boat ramp, we got a game plan together, we decided to not put Tyler and his cameraman in one boat, we took three people in ours, dropped them off at their point on the island. That's the last time. Dude, it was, yeah, they looked like they were going over, or the waves were coming over, one of the two.

Sure. And so we get them dropped off and we're like, hey man, you guys go and set up somewhere on this

Nick Queen: point. They were on the, so To give you guys a good example, they were on the North West point, and then we skirted down on the West side and ended up more central Southern part of the But on the west end of it so we can blow our wind because we like we've got that wind switch Yeah, and that wind was blowing us straight into the cattails and we were hoping That we're being a little bit aggressive with the wind I reckon honestly the entrance because there was no there's we haven't [00:07:00] really gotten a good spot to walk it We got lucky that there's a ditch there to get us in so that was nice But we came in through the cattails there snuck up and just got basically where we had hunted The day before, we were just on the opposite end, pushing our wind the opposite direction.

Our theory was, if they were running the edge of the Oak Island that we were on, we were further north where that buck, we'd seen him in daylight, or would have seen him maybe in daylight. So we pushed up into there and then our wind was going towards the water off the Oak Island, but at a manner in which we were still giving them a wind, but by the time they would have gotten our wind, if they would have been on the.

E or west side of us, they'd been dead. Yeah. Or beforehand even.

Dan Mathews: Yeah. We were set up in a perfect spot. It was, and I'm excited to hang in that tree again. . It's gonna happen. Oh man. Know whether it's this year or next year, but we got Tyler and his camera guy set up or [00:08:00] dropped off, and if we were all in orange, like for rifle season, would've seen, we would've seen 'em for sure.

Nick Queen: He said what did we look at? If it was like three 70 or something like real,

Dan Mathews: it was real short. It was close. And there was nothing but cattails in between us. And so we got set up and we were communicating with them because we told them we're going to try the rattle technique. We're going to grunt.

We're going to rattle. We're going to simulate a fight and see if this bully bug can come in. And it turned out pretty good because we had a branch hanging low in front of us. And we were gonna cut it, but you were like, dude or no, you did. I was like, dude, I said, let's cut it. Let's screw this bow hanger in.

Yep. And then we'll prop the branch up. And you were like, dude, that's perfect because you didn't shake it. Then we can shake it when we go to do the mock buck fight.

Nick Queen: And we had Tyler and them, they pushed into an island that we hadn't seen. Like we popped out on the South end of it once, like literally the tip of it.

And then [00:09:00] we jumped back out. So I didn't know how thick it was in there, but it's like we said before, it pockets and opens up. And they ended up setting up on what we would consider, or at least what I would consider like an exit route, which like we said if we rattle. Then deer could come right to us or the buck that got his ass whooped, a couple days ago, probably peacing out and obviously when we talked about, like even Tyler said it's usually bigger bucks that fight when they brawl, it's good bucks.

Him on the exit route, him and his the intern, I love that kid. He's cool. Brian, right? Yeah. Him and Brian were set up on the exit route and we were set up where we thought we could draw the deer to

Dan Mathews: us. But even when we got up in the tree, we were like, they're in the kill hole.

They're gonna kill

Nick Queen: it back. We said it twice. Yeah. We said it when we kayaked off, I was like I, and this is honestly and I'll admit this is my lack of, Trust and calling because I thought more than likely we're going to push deer, especially if one got whooped and he's [00:10:00] still the one here, maybe.

Yeah. He's dipping off and trying to get out of here. I'm like, they're in the kill spot.

Dan Mathews: They're invincible. I thought for sure we were going to hear something come from their side or get a text saying, dude, we just smoked one. And so before we even got in the tree, I guess we had that conversation.

On the canoe ride to our spot, we get in the spot and. We're looking at different trees and we're like, you know what? Let's bump farther. Let's bump farther and we did that two times Got to this spot and you'd picked out a tree and I was like, what about this tree and you're like

Nick Queen: Do we walk?

Let's go look to it Yeah, and we walked into the tree and we're sitting there And I just I had a fee like I don't know if you could explain it But you just get a feeling I might do my gut tells me we need to be right there Dude, and

Dan Mathews: I was like, man, if that's the case, let's do it. We got up in the tree, looked around.

I was like, I feel good about this. We had a 10 yard wide shooting window straight to the center of the island where we knew a bunch of deer were because we saw those [00:11:00] there the night before. And we get set up and. I don't even know we, we got there not late in the afternoon, but later than we were hoping to.

We have been,

Nick Queen: yeah. I think we probably got set up at four. Yeah.

Dan Mathews: It was like four, four fifteen. And so we've only got a couple hours of shooting light and you had messaged Tyler and said, Hey, we're going to start calling. Yep. And he's send it dude. And so I do a roar grunt and a couple of small grunts after that.

You start just smashing antlers together and I'd grab that tree that we hung on the bow or the limb that we hung on the bow hanger and I'm just shaking it violently and we, how long do you think we called rattled, shook and grunted probably around a minute,

Nick Queen: 45 seconds to a minute, probably something like that and it was like, all right, we can look at the GoPro, but probably about that, I would say.

Dan Mathews: So we do that and Clifton, yeah. Back to his advice. He's dude, after you [00:12:00] do it, grab your bow and get ready. And I'm thinking, okay, like this could work, but honestly, I've never seen it work that well. You know what I mean?

Nick Queen: Not to mention you have to understand the reserve of it's October 11th and we are we just full board like what you would do in the rut Yeah,

Dan Mathews: Yeah, it's it just didn't seem right it didn't seem like the right move and it's funny since that I've been telling everybody like since that I've been rattling You get a big buck on camera And there's smaller bucks in front of it.

Like it's running them and just like pushing them out. I'm like, dude, just get in there. My buddy drew, he's got a buck that showed up. I think it's been the past three nights, middle of the night, but he's he's he's in an interesting spot because there's houses all around. There's definitely covered definitely deer activity, but it's a spot where his, the trail camera.[00:13:00]

Is 20 yards from his RV that he lives in. And three nights in a row, this buck's been coming through. And I'm like, dude, there's people killing big bucks all over the place right now. I don't know if it's the year, if it's the weather, if it's been the dry summer. But people are killing big bucks right now and it just seems like way earlier than normal And so I told him that same thing.

I was like dude smash antlers together I said you'll kill that buck on your first sit. He's somewhere within earshot of that. Oh, yeah pretty You hang up, dude sit on top of your RV, I don't care smash antlers and see what happens, if it's legal. It's not a permanent dwelling, so it might be.

But anyways, so we smash antlers together, we rattle, we grunt, we shake the tree, in three minutes. Maybe we see a spike.

Nick Queen: Oh, so well that what you're thinking we rattled first. We did it twice. Remember? Oh, yeah. Yeah first time [00:14:00] that we rattled nothing came in Yeah, and He said that like they don't take him sometimes 30 minutes or he heard you he might not get up Yeah at that point I'm thinking we either scared everything off the island Tyler's about to text and said one's slipping out the back end.

And what we probably waited at the ready there for probably 15 minutes. And then we, calmed back down and was like, man, hemming and hawing in probably an hour. Because it was the last 20 minutes of daylight that, we finally called him in. We did another rattling sequence same exact way.

Dan Mathews: And Tyler texts and he's dude, that sounded amazing. He could hear it clear as day. Yeah. He said, it's dude, that sounded just like a couple bucks duking it out. And yeah, probably. He was 300

Nick Queen: yards away.

Dan Mathews: Dude. And anywhere on that island is 300 yards away, if you can hear it that clear Everybody's hearing it and It was

Nick Queen: a calmer wind too, so that helps carry the sounds, be a little bit more

Dan Mathews: calm.

For sure and we do it and a [00:15:00] small buck comes in and We're sitting there watching it. You're filming it I'm like no way dude. This is crazy. And I heard it twig snap behind that buck I've been

Nick Queen: watching for quite a while and that the spike kind of like it was a forky wasn't it? I think so one of the two a little chit head He made his way through and I'm like this deer's gonna end up getting her wind It's what I was thinking.

He's gonna end up circling maybe trying to come back. Whatever. Yeah, and I just, I shut the camera off. It was a little grainy. Cause at that point it was our, it was like, it was dark in the island, but light enough where we were like on the edge. It was like really messes

Dan Mathews: with my camera. Oh, you could have seen a deer 400 yards away, not

Nick Queen: in the oaks.

You're right. But in the oaks, it was dark and it was really hard to, my camera was having a hard time just adjusting to it. So it was grainy. So I remember just getting as much film as I really could of the spike and didn't think much of it. And within 30 seconds of me shutting my phone off, you're like.

Big buck, big

Dan Mathews: buck, here he is. I had heard a twig snap behind that forky. Yeah. [00:16:00] And... And I,

Nick Queen: I was probably not paying attention with the camera. Yeah. The

Dan Mathews: forky. But I, dude, I was looking at that forky, thinking the same thing, like it's gonna catch our wind. Yep. But I'm like, dude, something's behind it.

I don't know what it is yet. But something's behind it. And so I just kept looking, kept my eye open that way. And I see a body and the body of this deer immediately. I was like, big buck. I hadn't seen this antlers yet. I caught a glimpse of them through the tree immediately knew that it was the biggest buck I would ever shoot.

And I'm like, I

Nick Queen: mean see you remember, I disbelieved you that there was bugs fighting. Dan was in a disbelief that I really seen as big a deer as I seen until that rack

Dan Mathews: dude for real, man. When that thing moved, I was like, holy

Nick Queen: cow. So I've watched the footage back about, obviously probably just as many times as you have.

It gets bigger every time I see it.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, dude, he is a stud and it's funny because I watch videos of other people [00:17:00] shooting deer all the time. They pop up on my Instagram feed. And now after having this encounter, I see these deer that other people are shooting. And obviously there's plenty of deer bigger.

Oh yeah. But there's a lot of deer that before I'd be like, dude, that thing is a stud. And I'm like, that's smaller. That's a lot smaller. So anyways, I'm, I see this deer. I finally get a glimpse of his rack. He goes behind some stuff and kind of hangs out. It's at the

Nick Queen: pines. We were talking like they disappear in those pines.

And that's exactly what he did. And cause even when you you can see like when I first pick up the camera I just hit record and I'm talking to you and I'm like where's he at? Cause I can't see him. And then I just caught his head move and I just turned the camera on him and he was between two pines.

I get like a What, a 30 second clip of him shaking his head, putting his antlers down. I'm still halfway trying to find him in the, my viewfinder and he's already disappeared. And then it was like a, you're

Dan Mathews: like, dude, [00:18:00] where is he? I lost him. I'm like, dude, he's still coming. He's still coming. All right. If you're not using TactCam's reveal cell cameras on your hunting property for scouting or monitoring the wildlife, You are seriously missing out when you pair that with the reveal mobile app.

You can see the action as it's happening, no matter where you are. In fact, I've got trail cameras up in Wisconsin on the land that we hunt. And not only do I get pictures from those cameras sent to me, I can also track the progress of the camera, the battery life. how much memory is left on the SD card, and I can see what the weather's doing at the time that a picture is taken.

So I can't think of a better tool for scouting whether it is close to home or in a totally different state. So if you want to stay tuned into the action Or just get into the action. Go to RevealCellCam. com or TactCam. com and use code NOMADIC for 10 percent off at checkout. Alright guys, here are a [00:19:00] few quick tips to help you increase your deer encounters this fall.

A lot of people like to set up on an area because they found a scrape. or a rub, but I'm telling you, you need to put more of the puzzle pieces together. If you can find a scrape line or a rub line, especially one that comes to or from water, bedding, or a food source, that is going to tell you a lot of deer are using it and not just one nocturnal buck.

Also, don't be afraid to take the day off from hunting and do a scouting mission instead. Instead, if you can set up from a distance and glass, the area that you're hoping to hunt, you might see exactly where the deer are coming in and out without just walking in and randomly setting up in a tree, hoping that a deer comes through.

And if you want to save money on the right optics to get the job done, right? Head over to euro optic. com and use code nomadic 10 at checkout. Now let's get back to the show presented by Vortex.[00:20:00]

I've got my bow in hand. I see that he's about to step into this ten yard wide clearing. And I draw back and this is the

Nick Queen: worst part for me because I thought I had to already shut off the GoPro and it was running and so you see me reach up to the GoPro and shut it off and I'm thinking I'm turning it on.

It was already going. Yeah, I was shutting it off. I'm so mad at

Dan Mathews: myself for that. So I'm like, dude, I'm at full draw. I know this bucks about to step out.

Nick Queen: So I'm slowly like a 10 foot gap from basically pine to pine almost would be the oh, yeah

Dan Mathews: Yeah there and he steps out into that clearing while I'm at full draw I go to get my pin settled on him and he just stops naturally has no idea that we're there perfect broadside wide open Zero obstructions in between me and him and I go to get my pin settled and I notice movement above my sight And my bow sight [00:21:00] got caught on my grunt tube, which was hanging way inside of where my bow was.

Yep. But it was on my bow hanger. Yeah.

Nick Queen: The little hooks that are closer to the

Dan Mathews: tree on a bow hanger. Dude. Never again will I make that mistake, but I'm hung up on it now and I'm like, I don't think it's going to affect the shot, but I really. Should get this thing off of there. Sure. And I

Nick Queen: can't see it.

I'm telling you to stop him because he was walking through and I'm like I know so this it's funny because I'm telling you to stop the deer and I'm not a huge component of stopping deer Yeah, but he was what 35 40 yards. Yeah, you have to stop him Yeah, like you're not gonna shoot a deer moving that

Dan Mathews: far away, but he stopped naturally and I heard you say something And all I'm thinking in my mind is please don't get this deer to stop again because if you do that I'm still trying to get this sight loose

Nick Queen: when he stopped naturally Like you said, I never stopped him and I won't do that.

I'm not gonna stop somebody else's

Dan Mathews: deer. No Dude, yeah, that could turn into a mess I'm like if I'm moving And he stops him. [00:22:00] He's going to look over here and see and bold.

Nick Queen: And I can't see you doing that at all. In my head, I'm panicking. Because this deer is perfectly stopped. He, what he's doing, and we've talked about this before we've seen big bucks do this before, is they nose other little bucks in front of them.

Yep. And then they just watch them. Yeah. And that's, he was mirroring that little buck by about 60 yards behind him perfectly. And he had his head up looking at that little buck, not paying any attention, stopped perfectly. It would have been a no brainer. And in my head, I'm like, why are you not shooting?

But because we're both in saddles, like you're on the opposite side of the tree of me and I can't see anything going on over there.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, dude. And I'm sitting here thinking dude, oh my gosh, I'm about to miss my window. Finally, I get my bow free of the grunt tube. And I just pivot a little bit more and the deer starts taking a couple steps and now my shooting windows closing because he was dead center in the middle of this gap.

Now he's a step, maybe [00:23:00] two steps away from being gone out of the gap. And I have no more shooting windows that direction because we didn't set it up for shooting windows that direction because the wind was blowing that way. And so I give him the thunk, send the arrow and just whack. It connects and I watch it go right to the pot, right where I was aiming.

I had compensated. So I was talking to Tyler while we were shooting. Yeah, at camp. Yeah, at camp. I was talking to him and I was like, dude, here's the deal. Are you aiming an inch low at every 10 yard, like for every 10 yards? Do you cite in an inch low every 10 yards? And he goes, no. What I do is no matter what range the deer's at, I back it off three yards.

And so I range this buck on his site. Okay. Yeah. On his adjustment. And so I range this buck at 40 yards. That's smart. I backed it off to 37 and when I shoot, he ducks [00:24:00] perfectly into the arrow. It hits a 10 ring shot. It is as good as it gets. Even from my view,

Nick Queen: it looks

Dan Mathews: perfect.

Everything was good. He takes off running and as he does. I realized the arrow is still in him And not very far and not very far at all

Nick Queen: And when he takes off it just he gets about it didn't look too bad the first probably two three steps But as he gets about four or five steps into circling himself, it's like wind milling.

Dan Mathews: Yeah it's all the way down to the ground. Yeah up above

Nick Queen: his back still stuck in him like basically just rotating

Dan Mathews: and we watched him run probably 60 yards through the about and It was still in him the whole time. And so I'm like, dude, I just, we, you

Nick Queen: pump how I thought you pumped house then.

Dan Mathews: Oh yeah. I look at you, you look at me, and then we just start yelling. And Tyler immediately calls because he's dude, what just happened?

Nick Queen: He heard me scream because[00:25:00] you went to Oh, like I'm trying to be quiet and I just couldn't help

Dan Mathews: it. No, dude, you just yelled and I was like, I guess we're yelling.

And so we both just start screaming. He thinks there's a pack of coyotes over there screaming. It was all good. Everything felt good. I was so pumped. I was ready to get down and you're like, hold on, dude just, yeah, we got to relax. Let's relax. Let's talk about this. We talked to Tyler on the phone, told him the story.

He's pumped as can be and then we still had to get down get all our gear down And so it was like, all right, we've got a bunch of people out there creating content. They want to come be a part of This is the first buck that anybody's been on which is and I told everybody all week long I'm like dude after what I've seen after what I've heard after the 80 to 120 scrapes that we saw on this 70 acre island.

He's not lying either. I'm like, I am not leaving this island without a big buck and they're like, all right, man, whatever, her buck's fighting. Oh, you saw a buck chasing a doe. [00:26:00] And we, and so I'm just so pumped. Everyone's wanting to come out and so we start sending out the messages like, dude, just smoked a monster.

We get

Nick Queen: down. And even at the time, like we were. Like just seeing the deer and it being a complete panic, like we were still in the wheelhouse of at least off the rip, like we, we knew you shot and made a good, a decent shot. Like we both were pretty confident. Yeah, I didn't get as much penetration, but where he shot, like we were pretty dead deer.

Yeah. Even if you got six to eight inches there, you're smoking as hard, right

Dan Mathews: in the pocket. And then with that blade being embedded in him. As he's running, like it's just doing more damage. That's what we're thinking. And so we're so pumped we end up tearing

Nick Queen: down. And I just started, so what I do is and I've done this before and it's a savior.

And that's why I was telling you to calm down because you think you made a good shot. And so a deer that we shot last year, we thought we heart punched it. And whenever I finally, we tracked this deer to his first bed. And by the time we got to the first [00:27:00] bed and this is why I'm. I try not to track until I get this, but I can download the footage from like you just wifi boot it to my phone real quick.

And it takes five to 10 minutes when you're out in the boonies, but still it'll kick it over and you can see the shot a lot better and zoom in on your phone. And that's saved me because we got shot a deer last year. You could have told me a hundred times over. I would have told you that he heart punched it right where he needed to heart punch it because it was just a perfect shot.

And then when you look at it, it's. Yeah. But I had to pull it up on my, on my phone to see that. So that's why I was telling you like, slow down, go to first blood the most and wait for this to download and then we'll know what to do from there.

Dan Mathews: And so we do. We waited for it to download. We looked at the footage, everything looked good from the footage minus the penetration.

And it was like that immediately. Threw some red flags my way. I'm like dude why I've never had that happen I've always got full pass throughs aside from a frontal shot that I took on a deer at 20 yards And I watched that deer [00:28:00] die right and

Nick Queen: What we were thinking though is that like, when he took that step for the camera, it was just a step that I could just not see perfectly.

You could still see it. Yeah, being on opposite sides. But I just couldn't, I was a foot away from being a perfect view of the whole shoulder. Yep. And so what we were thinking is you pocket punched him and then he snapped the arrow running. And that he was wheelhousing either a loose arrow that just wasn't coming out because of the way that he snapped it.

It was in a bone, like mate, whatever was happening, but the whole penetration didn't freak us out. Too bad. Yeah, we're just didn't

Dan Mathews: know. I mean it definitely gave me that like gut wrenching feeling like why didn't why wasn't it a pass through? Why didn't it make it farther in? Yeah, but I was like dude this deer's dead.

I'm very confident of that We're gonna get down We went and found first blood and then we backed out loaded up the canoe went and dropped a bunch of gear Met up with tyler and brian. They floated out with us and then [00:29:00] Everybody showed up to the boat ramp. Yep, and we're reviewing the footage And as soon as people see the footage, they're like, you need to back out.

And I'm like, what? I've never backed out on deer in my life. It's hard, isn't it? And I've never had a deer... I've had one deer get out of sight before dying, or I would at least hear it crash. I've had them get out of sight, but I've heard them crash. And been like, alright, it's dead right 100 or so yards, right?

And so I'm like, I felt so good about everything. And then all of a sudden I'm hearing people say back out and I'm like, dude. This is going to be a tough night. And so I take everybody's advice. And I even told Tyler that as we were heading out, I was like, Hey man, if the consensus is to back out, I don't have any experience with that.

But if we're with a ton of like killers, if everyone says back out, I'm going to take their advice, even though that's not what I want to do. And that was it. [00:30:00] Everybody's like back out. It's going to be a tough night, but just back out. He'll be dead in the morning. And that was what everybody was saying.

Dude, he's, he'll be dead tomorrow. He'll be dead tomorrow. He'll be dead tomorrow. So we back out the

Nick Queen: next day. That's when the rollercoaster starts. Oh yeah. Even so obviously like I didn't pull the trigger, but you only did one sit there without me. And then the whole rest of the time was us both busting around on public or around this Island, popping in, scouting, hunting, hanging, moving, getting up early. We stayed out there all day. So this is just, much my dear in a sense, oh, yeah, you did everything it's a it's a team thing for me. Yeah, that's a big enjoyment I get out. So not only am I'm bummed for you, but it's damn like we were the first team to score yeah, right and on a big buck early October and a public land and right out in the middle of nowhere And you're a little more native to Wisconsin.

I've never hunted that type of terrain. [00:31:00] Yeah, granted, the canoeing in and having that kind of experience helps me a little bit, but... So it was just a, it was such a, it was a long night. Just knowing that we worked so hard for that, and then it was just like, we just couldn't catch a break.

Dang.

Dan Mathews: Dude, long night, but, everybody was like, we're excited. Let's go recover them in the morning. We get out there, get on first blood and we're like filming the whole thing, I think there was what four or five of us and then we dropped other people off at their spots to go and actually hunt in case we pushed any deer their way.

It was like, we were following a blood trail, but with how small this island is, we figured there'd be a disturbance and deer would be pushing past other people. Yeah, if there's other

Nick Queen: bucks on there, then... We figured we'd push him.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, so we went out and started blood trailing and we blood trailed and it wasn't a hard blood trail at first.

And then we found the arrow and then we found a lot of blood and it was like, Oh dude, we're on it. And then pretty quickly [00:32:00] after that, the blood started drying up and I was like, dude, I don't understand this. Like I thought we would have found him dead already. I thought we'd find him dead with the arrow still in him.

And there's no deer, no, no beds at all. Like where he bedded down and then we push and push. And now it's not easy to keep on this track. But we were able to, we kept finding blood. And then we found our first bed and that's when it really hit me. We're not in a good situation here.

He bedded down and he didn't die here. So I was like, man, and

Nick Queen: a lot of the track job, just so everyone knows like where I was at. I was probably what? 25, 30 yards off of you guys. And I was just getting and then I was occasionally just dipping off on a different trail, trying to just see if, you find a body or whatever, but

Dan Mathews: I wasn't on the blood with you guys.

It goes from pretty open. A lot of spots are wide open. You'd see the deer for 50 yards. Yeah. [00:33:00] Such a choked out area. Cattails, like you wouldn't see this deer unless you stepped on him basically. And we find that first bed from that bed. He hangs a hard left headed West straight to the cattails.

And these are the farthest West cattails before you get to the mainland. And so my thought is, dude, if he made this, if he made it across this, I don't think we're going to find it.

Nick Queen: He almost made it to where Tyler and Brian were set

Dan Mathews: up. Yeah. And so I'm like, dude, I don't know if we're going to, I don't know if we're going to find this deer at this point.

And you're walking the edge of the cattails. Yeah,

Nick Queen: I went, so there was a point cause like when you think of these oak islands, like you want to think that they're like straight and perfect and little circles or whatever, but they'll have random jagged points off of each one of them. And they're not big points, but there's a, you can tell that there's, like you see isolated trees, twenty five, thirty yards off of like the main. And that's where a big bucks and I found big bucks there. But I was going to those spots while [00:34:00] you guys were still on blood to see if maybe I could find a body. Yeah, because I figured being dead, it's wet, in the marsh.

He's. Pushed into the marsh a little bit onto a tree and there'll be a bump there or whatever Yeah, you can see where the bed and so I went just bumping looking

Dan Mathews: for them And you're walking right next to the cattails I was

Nick Queen: in the cattails because he was coming towards the outside of the cattails and I didn't want to walk over blood Yeah, so I was in the cattails by three or four yards Walked the edge of the cattails towards the point going back towards where We're hunting basically, and you guys are still on the bud.

So I was I don't want to say I was like in front of the bud trail, but I was. Yeah. And that's why I didn't want to step like on the grassy area where that moss is hard to find.

Dan Mathews: Oh, yeah. That green color, it did not stick out well. And it had like red. Like red buds, and the leaves are changing colors So there were leaves that just had spotted red on them.

That wasn't blood. Yep, and the whole time we're talking like normal. We're [00:35:00] yelling to you like hey, man he went into the cattails and we're trying to get you over to us as we go into the cattails and We get into the cattails not ten yards. And I

Nick Queen: so you guys yell at me. He went to the cattails So I turn around from those trees because I didn't see him.

Obviously, I walk back on the edge Instead of in the cattails this time Yeah And I make it back to you guys who are? Three or four yards into the cattails at this point on the trail that he went in on

Dan Mathews: What we didn't realize at that point is we were within five or ten yards of this deer the whole time yeah, and We start going in the cattails.

We're seeing more blood on the cattails because obviously it's brushing up against his whole body, so not only are there drops, but there's also smears of blood on the cattails, and you can tell this isn't like a normal trail. This isn't like the mud paths that we cross throughout the week. This is a single deer that went in here.

And we get in the cattails [00:36:00] and we just hear commotion and this buck jumped out of another bed At this point we're 16 hours post shot. Yeah, I mean It was almost noon the next day and it was probably about 10. So yeah, I'd say 16 to 18 hours post shot. And we bumped this deer.

Nick Queen: Yeah. That's when it was not fun

Dan Mathews: anymore.

That we immediately were like, Oh my gosh. So we went, looked at his bed. There was a second bed right next to it. The one that he jumped, that we

Nick Queen: jumped him out of, it was like four or five

Dan Mathews: yards away. So at this point he has bedded down three times within 25 yards. And he was hurting pretty good. The, there was fresh blood coming out of that last bed and there wasn't much of it.

Yeah. And so

Nick Queen: when you guys find found clots in this as the first bed or the second bed, the first bed, yeah, you found clots in the first bed. So you knew he wasn't bleeding bad from [00:37:00] moving from first bed to second bed. And then the second to third bed was. seven, six yards away from each other. And that the third bed was the one that we bumped him out of the second

Dan Mathews: bed.

So we get out of the cattails we find. Blood but like a drop and then 10 yards later another drop and we have no idea Which way his path was after that.

Nick Queen: He just went back towards the center of the island Yeah, which was crazy to me because he passed us we were coming from the island towards he circled around us He circled around us and went back into the island Yeah, cuz he could have turned around and went off the island and made it across that but

Dan Mathews: easy Yeah, but he wanted on that island so bad.

Yeah That he went back into a very isolated Island and circled around us. And at that point we regrouped, we got everybody together, said, we don't know how this is going to shake out, but [00:38:00] we're in a sense going to do a deer drive. Like we're going to set a couple people up with bows. We had three or four of us out there with bows.

And then it was going to be, you guys go to the North end of the Island and push. And hopefully he gets pushed past us. Yep. And you guys did that and absolutely nothing. You guys made it to us, at which point we're like, we gotta back out again. What else do you do? And we backed out, we went and got lunch, and the whole time, on the way there, I'm calling different trackers.

Yep. And I'm going, okay, we need a dog out here, or we need thermal drone. We gotta figure something out and get

Nick Queen: out here. And we had rain coming. Like that evening. Yeah quickly.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, and so I end up getting a hold of Gavin and Bailey who we met at bow fest Yeah, and they referred us to a lady who had like a champion blood tracking dog, and she said I'm on my way Yeah, she was cool.

And so we she

Nick Queen: wasn't in fact on her

Dan Mathews: way. Yeah, she [00:39:00] had another tracking job She had a tracking job to finish up And she thought it was going to be an easy one. It ended up being a lot longer

Nick Queen: track. Yeah, no big deal. Nothing on her part. No,

Dan Mathews: she's doing her job. But she shows up with her dog, and this dog is fired up.

You can tell as soon as she let it out of the car, it was ready to work. The coolest

Nick Queen: thing, and I've had a lot of experience Around like dogs like that as they're usually wiry Squirrely, and they're not like I don't want to say they're not good dogs, but like almost uncontrollable. Yeah, they feel that way Yeah, as if that's their they know what they're about to do.

So they're pumped You know, I mean her dog was different. It was very calm But ready like you could tell he was ready to go.

Dan Mathews: It was calm, but purposeful

Nick Queen: in everything when she got out of the car She didn't even put him on a leash He came right up to us sat down hung out for a second And then once we got on the boat, he was like, all right, it's go time.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, so we end up going back out and at this point [00:40:00] it's dark, right? And so like we don't have weapons with us because now we're tracking with a dog. Yeah, and he can't And so we're going out in the dark, hoping to pick up on the trail and find a dead deer.

Nick Queen: Had been spitting rain for an

Dan Mathews: hour or two. It had been raining, yeah, pretty consistently.

Not hard, but raining. But as soon as we got out off the boat, it was like we got on the trail. And that dog just followed that trail. Absolutely perfectly.

Nick Queen: We took him to the beds that we kicked him out of first. Yep. And

Dan Mathews: that's where he, and so he started trailing this deer. We got to a point that we hadn't trailed the deer to yet.

And so I'm like, wow, he's way over here. Back by where some people were hunting earlier that week. And she's guys, this, it's acting funny, he's doing circles, it's like this deer is still alive, and he's trying to throw us off his scent.

Nick Queen: Cause that's what they'll do with [00:41:00] coyotes, is what you were saying.

Is when a pack of coyotes, especially, and I mean it makes so much sense in those cat, in those cattails, cause he can move. Yeah. And so if he just sits in circles themselves, and then what, where do you go? Did he exit here? Did he move there? There's so much scent in that one area now.

Dan Mathews: You have no idea.

Yeah. The dog, and it's all fairly fresh. Within a couple hours. And so she's this is fun, like kind of funky. He keeps trying to go back to this spot. But there's just so much scent and she showed us on her tracking deal like where all we had gone

Nick Queen: She had a tracker going on

Dan Mathews: X.

Yeah, and so at that point she's like, why don't we do this? Let's go knock out the south side of the island and just prove that he's not there He can go and check the whole thing and he'll tell us yes or no. And we got down there and you could see the demeanor of the dog change like this isn't it.

Yeah. We checked the whole south end of the island. You guys started heading back to the boats [00:42:00] and you were going to our end. And pick us up. Yeah.

Nick Queen: And then that's when it got Western for old Nicholas. All

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Nick Queen: It was [00:45:00] me Tom and Dave, David, right? Was it David? Is it Dave? Yeah, Dave. Yeah, Dave. We, headed back to get the boats, and we got probably, honestly it would have been 45 yards from where we kicked him out of the cattails where he ran right by us. Not very far away, 6 yards max. And We kicked a deer and I have my headlamp.

I'm in it's raining pretty good. So I have my Camera in my sweatshirt pocket and then I have waders over that were a little bit too big so they're wonky anyways, and I have my headlamp and this deer, I'm in front, and this deer jumps out of a thicket, and we're not in the cattails yet, but we're right next to a cattail, and it's real thick right there, and I'm trying to get my way through here, or whatever, and, you think, you kick a deer, you're like, oh, you kicked a deer, whatever, it's gonna take off running I, it jumps up and then falls over in front of me, like just boop and just falls back down.

I'm like, obviously it doesn't make any sense. And when it fell, I seen [00:46:00] rack and I just took off. So like I, I literally jump over, try to jump over a deadfall and just completely eat it. And then I jumped back up and scrambling to try to run at this deer cause he's four or five yards from me, like for me, almost to you, I would feel like maybe a little bit further, but not by much.

And so I'm trying to tackle this deer. I don't care. We got to wrangle him and cut his throat. I'm down at this point. Yeah. We're getting western boys. I'm with it. And, of course, Tom never laughing at me because I completely just... Hate it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Bad too. Cause I'm trying to save my camera so I don't land on my camera.

Trying to jump in. I'm going to wrestle a deer with my camera in my pocket anyways. Yeah. But the deer jumps 15 yards into the cattails and then just stops you, you could hear him

Dan Mathews: stop. And so you know this is him,

Nick Queen: man. It has to be. The rack that I seen at five yards is a big enough rack that it would have been him.

I guess I was in a thicket, but he was four or five yards from me. And it was a little hard to see because it's, I have to just have a headlamp on and

Dan Mathews: whatnot. It's dark. It's [00:47:00] raining.

Nick Queen: And a little bit defeated at that point. Yeah. Not paying attention because we're you're pissed off and doubting it, yeah, whatever in that kind of mindset. And so that was when I called you guys we just kicked him up. It has to be him. He went 25 yards. If you come from where you guys are at to this angle, you'll run into us, we'll keep our lights on, and you're gonna bump him, or you're gonna see him. There's no way you don't.

He either stopped in the marsh, or on the other opposite side of it. Cause it went, loud crash, stop. Yep, and that's where i'm thinking like again, he's done that, you know where he just moves 10 yards 20 yards or whatever If you go from the first bed to the second bed to where we kicked him To there like it's a real small circle Yeah, which is exactly where the dog was circling earlier where we were like this is The area that she was trying to say is this deer might be alive because he's circling us.

And that's what he's doing. He's what you call it, which is playing his little bullshit games. Essentially, yeah, that's what he was doing. [00:48:00] Yeah,

Dan Mathews: we, at that point we booked it back up to you guys pretty quick. We started approaching the cattails. And we heard him

Nick Queen: So it was like a little strip of cattails.

That's like probably, I don't know what, 15 yards wide,

Dan Mathews: maybe. Yeah. 15 yards wide at the narrowest and maybe 40 yards wide at the widest. And we get there and we hear him. And it was the same thing. One bound and stop. And at that point it was like, we can't what are we going to do? You can't shoot him cause it's dark.

You can't shoot him. Are we going to choke this deer out? There's nothing we can do. And so we were talking to Steph and she's Hey, we need to back out, give that deer the night. And you're going to go back in there. She's first light go in there with your bow. Yeah. I'm going back home with the dog.

You go in there and if you bump them again during daylight and get a shot at them, great. Otherwise you're going to find them dead right there.

Nick Queen: Yeah. And what we didn't want to do is like, why we backed out at that point too, is not [00:49:00] only are we just pushing a deer that's obviously just wounded but.

At this point, like we've pushed him pretty hard. And so when does he finally get fed up with us and dip? And he's either going to go to the water, which is a bad deal. Cause he'll go drown himself and you'll never get the deer, or he's going to go to mainland and that's going to where he's got thousands of acres to take off running.

So where's he going to go from there? And he's already clotted up going across. Pretty big wide water system. Like the dog's going to have a hard time. It'd just be a nightmare. So we need to back out before he, the deer does something stupid. And right now, the consensus was he's hurt bad enough that he's only going a few bounds, which makes sense if got it in the shoulder and got some penetration in there.

Dan Mathews: And he's not getting up until we're five yards on top. Oh yeah. He's, you

Nick Queen: know, and we're not, like I said, it's not like we're being quiet. It's thick in there. So

Dan Mathews: we're being loud. So he's hearing us coming and he's still staying put. Like he's really hurting. And at that point, Steph was like, back out.

That deer is going to die on this Island. Yeah. And so I'm like [00:50:00] super high hopes. Like we're going to find him. It absolutely sucks how long this has taken. This is something I'm. Totally unfamiliar with, but I'm like, that's what we got to do. So we left and I've never had that happen either. No. And I called my wife and I was like, Hey, this is a situation I was supposed to be.

Home that night. Yeah, and she's stay as long as you need to.

Nick Queen: That's a wife boys. Yeah, just so you know Them women

Dan Mathews: exist. They do Hold out for the right one We so the next day we wake up and it was just terrible weather like full storms white caps on the lake 25

Nick Queen: mile an hour wind. I love you, but I wasn't going to

Dan Mathews: die on that.

No. And everyone's dude, we're not going out. And so I was like I have to get home. I know she said to stay out here, but I'm going to give it another shot. Like I have to go out and figure this out, find out if this deer is still alive or not. Sure. And so I go to the North end of those cattails and I just [00:51:00] set up her.

I set myself up to just zigzag those cattails and I'm going to stumble across them

Nick Queen: somewhere. The one that we kicked them out of the night before.

Dan Mathews: Yeah. Yeah. And so I started zigzagging. I make it probably four, four laps and I'm getting real close. To where we had marked where he was and I figured he was still betted in that spot.

Dead or alive. And I make a pass like my fourth pass. I start making my fifth pass back and I'm only bumping about five yards at a time. Yeah. Smart. And I start making my pass back and I hear him take off. And at that point. I was like, there's no, there's nothing more I can do. Yeah. And

Nick Queen: Going in that weather, what are you going to

Dan Mathews: do?

I had brought a trail camera with me. I told myself, if I don't find this deer dead, I'm going to put a trail camera up and see if I can catch him alive. And if I can, I'm going to come back up and hunt him. [00:52:00] If I don't, I'm going to send the dog back. Yep. So I set the trail camera up, got back to the canoe, and the whole way in on the canoe, it was, Anybody who's canoed, one person in a canoe, if you paddle on the right, you're turning hard left.

The waves and the wind were so strong, I paddled strong on the right all the way to the island. And I was still getting blown into shore. And, so anyways, I set my trail camera up at this choke point that we knew he used and we found rubs and scrapes all down it. It's the path that he came into us on.

It's the path that he left us on. And it's just the best choke point on the

Nick Queen: island. Where we sat, where them does came in on us. Yep. Yeah. A night or two before we shot him. Yeah.

Dan Mathews: And so we... The night before we shot him. I set that trail camera up facing this choke point. If he comes through here, I guarantee I'm going to see him.

And I said, I'm going to give it till the following weekend. So it was about nine or [00:53:00] 10 days. And I said, if I don't see him on camera, I'm going to send her back in with the dog. And so I'm keeping an eye on the camera and I don't know what the deal was. I got pictures and video of myself out there setting up the camera.

I moved it like three different times. I didn't like the initial setup and moved it three, three different times and got a picture of a raccoon that night on a down log and then nothing, absolutely nothing from my camera. I don't know what the deal is. Don't know what happened. Don't know if another hunter came through and saw it and stole the camera.

But, at this point, I was back in Missouri, and... And I don't know

Nick Queen: nothing about them cell cams I don't even know where to tell you what to tell you. I don't know. Yeah,

Dan Mathews: I really don't know. Who knows? It could have been a storm that night. Sure. Lightning strike. But, for some reason...

I'm getting absolutely nothing from the camera, and I talked to Logan to see if he'd be [00:54:00] interested. I dropped a pin where the camera was to go and check, and see if he could reset it, find it. He doesn't live there, but I said next time you're up there, if you wouldn't mind going out that would be a huge help.

But I contacted Steph yesterday, and said, hey, as soon as you can, go back out with the dog. See if you can pick up Mortality. Sent yesterday. Yep.

Nick Queen: Yeah, I don't know this yet. Okay. Yep.

Dan Mathews: Yeah, this is what I was saying before

Nick Queen: The show I was gonna tell you dropping some secrets on me

Dan Mathews: here. Yeah. So she's gonna go out, we're gonna be on our way to Elk Camp or at Elk Camp when she goes out and she's either gonna say, Hey, we checked nothing, or I'm gonna get a picture from her.

Of that deer And that's it dude. I'll probably cry dude. I don't know what i'm gonna do man and that's the thing at this point i'm like if it was a After reviewing the footage after blowing it up bigger on the computer What from what we can [00:55:00] tell is he ducked into the arrow perfectly? What I didn't account for was when a deer loads up to spring away, just like a person would, if they're doing tricep pushups, their elbow comes back and blocks the vitals.

And it did. And I caught

Nick Queen: an inch though. You missed by, if I was an inch higher, air coats missed. You were an inch higher inch back.

Dan Mathews: We would have found him that next six yards. We wouldn't have even waited to go back in. We would have gone in that night. It would have been a full pass through no issues whatsoever.

For sure. But yeah, it's the difference of an inch. Yeah. And

Nick Queen: so what's cool though, is I know we, we You know, referring back to Clifton, but like Clifton said, like he actually shoots different depending on his arrow set up and that was, I never thought about that before. I, obviously you do, I, I shoot mechanicals or I shoot, fixed blades, because I'm in thick [00:56:00] cover and I'm usually only 20 yards from these deer, so I want to be able to shoulder punch something. And yes, I'm setting up for a different shot. But I never thought about if you're really aiming for that line of the pocket, to come off of it a little bit if you're shooting a mechanical and you can hug it a little more.

If you're shooting, I never,

Dan Mathews: no, but after that, now, knowing what I know, experiencing what I have, I'll forever shoot two inches behind that pocket. Instead of in the crease, I'm going to push it back a little bit and So that's where the story ends for now.

Yeah, this is the intermission We'll see what happens, but it's like I go back to Wisconsin in November for rifle season Yeah, so you can always pop in there, you know I might go in if she goes out there and doesn't find that this deer's dead I will be back in there. But at the same time, I'm like, what do I want to happen right now?

Do I want her to go in and find that deer dead? Or would I rather it be an elbow shot, [00:57:00] man? It's, it took some time to heal, but it's going to make a full recovery and I can go back and hunt that deer again. Yeah. Redemption. I don't like the idea of that deer. Laying there and suffering and dying a miserable death as it gets infection or gets eaten by coyotes, And so I'm like

Nick Queen: that's the nature of the bees that we play though.

Yeah nature is a bitch Yeah, it is what it is for sure So it's there's things that you can't account for and as much as it sucks But like we were talking about like just with like different scouting techniques and stuff like that like I'm a lot more aggressive and you seem to be the same way because like we're The failure in what happens is exactly why you think about what you're thinking about next time you shoot a deer Yeah, that two inches three inches away from you know That crease is because you'll never done and then you know, now you make a mistake you're not gonna make that mistake

Dan Mathews: Yeah learn from it move on from it.

I mean it took me a little while To come to terms with it, but I said I'm still upset [00:58:00] about it. I said we're either gonna find this deer dead she may find it tomorrow or the next day or whatever. She goes out have

Nick Queen: her bring something to check that trail camera, too Yeah, okay. So you're still running just not giving you signal.

She at least has something to pop in her and back Oh, no, I do

Dan Mathews: need to I'll call her tomorrow on the drive out to Elk Camp and have her do that but yeah, we're gonna, we're going to be waiting for a yes or no from her, a picture or a all clear. There's nothing on the island. Nothing dead on the island.

Yeah. And so we'll see how that all pans out. But dude, tomorrow we're going to knock out another podcast. This one's going to be a little bit more exciting and not as depressing. Yeah.

Nick Queen: But I think like you said, there's still hope. And the lesson that we learned, and then ultimately we found a pretty badass spot

Dan Mathews: to hunt in the future.

I will hunt that spot every year for the,

Nick Queen: the rest of my life. And I think the, so something about what's pretty true even [00:59:00] in my own public ground that I hunt around my house and stuff like that is, it's ebbs and flows. You're gonna have big bucks that live on it some years that they won't.

You know what I mean? different pressure, we're filming. So it's, sometimes bound that people are going to find spots or whatever. But I think the key to that spot was for one the accessibility is really hard. You're going miles back, even if you were going to walk to it and walk across the water and waders, which you could do was still.

Miles back there. Yeah, and then on top of that. I think we were the first people there 100 percent there was even if guys hunt that rifle season, whatever They run it. However, they shakes down if you get in there early season every year before everybody else is going Yeah, I think you're like, obviously they were there and the weather is I think Contributed to all the rut action that you've seen it got really cold and it didn't just You know, a lot of your October cold fronts come for a couple days or a [01:00:00] day at max, and it was cold.

It went from 90s, the week before 80s and then it was 30, 40 degrees at night and 50, 60 during the day with colder with windshield. So I think that really contributed to the fighting, the pushing the does around and does probably weren't ready. But then bucks thought, different because of the temperature. Yeah.

Dan Mathews: Yeah. So for now the story ends here. We'll see what happens. I'll be, you better believe if I get a picture, I'm posting it , . I'm not gonna cut Elk Camp short, but you better believe I'm going to get that deer. Oh yeah. If she finds it and who knows, man.

Fingers crossed. Yeah,

Nick Queen: she could definitely, she definitely could run upon him and he could be dead. And if

Dan Mathews: the camera if that deer's dead on the island, that dog will find it. I agree with how small the island is. The cattails are the only thing like if it pushes out to one of the edges She would almost have to float around the whole island to get the wind of all around and find [01:01:00] out float around find out so thanks for listening everybody.

Thanks for joining me and tomorrow we load up the trailer and head to colorado out 2023