00:00:01 Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, home of the modern white tail hunter, and now your host, Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm your host, Mark Kenyon, and today in the show, I am breaking down seven days of epic white tail hunting during the rut I'm breaking down the decisions, the outcomes, and everything that happened on this recent rutcation. All right, welcome to the wire Dunt podcast, brought to you by First Light. We got a different kind of episode for you today because this one's just me, just me, your host, Mark Kenyan. I am going to break down the hunt that I just finished up last night. Right now, I am on the road driving from Iowa to Nebraska for another hunt, and I don't have anyone with me. I don't have the ability to get ahold of anyone right now. It's just me and I thought, you know what, I am fresh off this trip, it is in my mind. I've been sitting here in the car kind of running through events in my mind and thinking through what happened, what what right? What right and wrong? What can I learn from this? Breaking it all down, thinking through my decisions. And as I'm kind of doing that, I'm thinking about jeez, I should talk about this stuff. I shouldn't just think this to myself. Maybe I should just share this with everybody out there, the good and the bad and the ugly. So that's what I'm gonna do. And this could be ugly. I don't know, a glimpse into my mind unfiltered, with nobody here to check me, or nobody here to call me out, nobody here to tell me I'm crazy. I don't know. You might not like what you here, but that's I might not look it here. That's what I want to try to do, give you the real raw scoop um from beginning to end. So I just finished up, like I said, a seven day hunt in Iowa from November one through November seven, and we were filming this for a new show coming out in the Mediator YouTube channel here in just a couple of weeks. It's called One Week in November, and we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast leading up to this point. But if you missed those earlier episodes, this show is gonna follow me Tony Peterson, Spencer new Heart, and Clay Newcombe as we each hunt those seven days. But we're each in different places. So I was in Iowa, Clay was in Arkansas and Oklahoma, Spencer was in Montana and Wyoming, and Tony was in Minnesota and Wisconsin. So we're each experiencing the rut, but in wildly different ways. So that's what we're doing. Uh. I wanna start from the very beginning of how this hunt all came together for me and and really try to give you the nitty gritty detail more than maybe I've ever done as far as all the steps to go into this. I want to break down each location that I hunted. I want to break down how I decided to go there, why I decided to go there, how I picked the tree, what happened, what I learned from it, UM, my emotional state, my mental state, all that. That's the level of detail I'm going to try to get to today. Uh and hopefully that'll that will be helpful to some of you. So let's see, this story begins, I suppose, with getting access to the places that I hunted during this trip. Uh. It began back in the spring of when I decided, Okay, this is the year I'm gonna draw Iowa. I'm gonna do this hunt for one weekend November. So where am I going to hunt? That's what I gotta figure out. Now. I had hunted Iowa back in twenty so six years ago as the last time I hunted Iowa, and I had gotten some permission in a couple of spots, but there's been a lot of hunting pressure, and I like every hunt, I was dealing with people and and it just wasn't a whole lot of fun because of that. So I thought, you know, I want to try to get some new spots this year. And so I was talking to a couple of local friends of mine that live in Iowa, and one buddy had a spot that he actually had picked up a small lease, and he said, hey, man, there's gonna be plenty of room for both of us. You could hunt here with me a little bit. I thought, wow, that would be great. Um, I would love to have like a nice spot where we could do this hunt and and not be kind of bouncing around between people all the time. So that was a great thing. But at the same time, I didn't want to be totally dependent on that, uh, just because I don't want to be stepping on my buddy's toes. So I kept looking for stuff, and another friend of mine out there ended up having a farmer who was giving them access to another farm that was kind of an addition to what they usually hunt, so they don't really need this spot. They weren't depending on it, and so my pals said, hey, man, this is this would be a good spot for you to hunt too. We probably won't be hardly out there at all. Check it out. So with those two I DEAs in mind, I headed out there in I guess late March early April and was able to uh. I was able to get out to do hopefully scouting and maybe pick up a late ship. It must have been April, because I remember thinking that it was too late to really expect to find a ship. My buddies property. Did a quick lap of that and then this other farmers land. There was actually two parcels that that guy was giving us access to, so I did a quick lap of both. My basic idea with this was just get a lay of the land of everything. I looked at everything on Onyx and I basically want to just get eyeballs on it physically, to try to match up the things that looked good in the map to what actually was there. In person. So I didn't pick trees, I didn't prep trees. I wasn't able to do any of that kind of stuff. I was literally there for a day and a half. Uh, just did not have a lot of time to work with. I was gonna try to get the lay of the land, was the main goal. I did that, uh kind of way pointed a bunch of different bedding areas, waypointing some little funnels, picked out a few things that I liked. Um, and that was it had to hit the road, had to go home. Fast forward now too late summer. It is August, and I had time now to go back to Iowa for a summer trip. Summer trip. I wanted to put out some trail cameras. I wanted to glass some fields at night, and I wanted to hopefully pick some trees now after I had had a little time to study the maps some more and actually have a few places prepped, not necessarily prepped physically. I wasn't hanging pre hung stands or anything like that. This was just to pick some locations that I could go to with my climbing sticks and my saddle and set up to hunt once November came around. So like three days before I'm going to go out there, one of my buddies called and he said, hey, you know, this landowner that was going to give us access to these two parcels for whatever reason, got cold feet, and now he doesn't want us out there. This is three days before I'm supposed to show up and start to scouting prep. So now I'm out two thirds of what I thought would be my hunting access just before I'm supposed to go out there and do this final work. So that led me to have to get creative and thinking, Okay, all I have is the one piece now that it's really my buddy spot, and I don't want to be all over it. So I go back and I start thinking about the places that I hunted back in two thousand fifteen, and one of those spots was a two parcel property, and this property I actually got permission on and by putting together a I went out there one summer in two and I looked at you know, gosh, at that point, I don't remember if I was using on X or if there was actually just plat maps I was using. Was that for long ago? But I figured out all the property owners that had properties in this little zone I was interested in. They had the best looking land, got their addresses, and then spent a day going and going to each one of these house. I went to fourteen different homes and knocked on their doors and just asked for permission, and I ended up getting permission on this piece. It's actually two pieces owned by the same family. One of them was this farm that just screamed out like amazing. Imagine, uh, lots of timber with these fingered crop fields going and almost like you're holding maybe three fingers in your hands. Is the palm in your hand and three fingers and a thumb that extend into a big chunk of timber, and then the same kind of thing coming down, and there's a big creek drainage that runs through the middle of it, and crop fields up on top, crop fields in the bottom, and just great, great cover. I mean, this thing looked at dynamite and it was big, maybe five acres or something like that. Uh. The second parcel was smaller, maybe like two hundred seventy acres something like that, but it was mostly it was imagine it's a rectangle, it's just a big crop field, but in the middle of it run and several creek drainages thin thin I'm talking you know, eight yards wide to fifty yards wide to maybe a hundred yards wide at the wide is something like that, just thin lines. Several of these thin drainages that that kind of run through the middle of it, making a couple of wide junctions in several places, just a long line across the middle of the rectangle. But you know, it's crop field did not look you know, nearly as enticing as the big one. So I focused almost all my time on the big one. And there were some good deer there. I had some good hunts, but there was also a lot of other hunters. Like I alluded to, there was guys there. Every time I had a hunt, there was someone driving past me in a four wheeler, there was someone bumping into me, or there's someone spooking deer. It was just kind of a mess. So this time around, I thought, Okay, I wonder if I could get permission hunt there again, but try the other parcel. That just didn't look as good. Maybe other guys thought the same thing. So I get a hold of these landowners again and said, hey, I'm coming back out. Uh, and I've actually stopped by their house a number of times over the years during shed hunting season, even though I wasn't hunting there, I would just stop by it, say hi and chat with them, and you know, keep up. So I asked him if I could come hunt this year. I finally had a tag and I'm back, and they said sure, we're happy to have you come back out. They've always appreciated me stopping in and chatting and all that, and we have a nice relationship. So here's what I was gonna do. I I lost access to these two parcels, but now I have permission again to hunt this old spot. And my new idea was, let's focus on the lesser looking parcel, because that's probably what everyone is overlooking. All the other hunters a hunt here, probably see this one. I think, Nah, not that great. I'm gonna hunt the big sexy one. And actually, maybe these little draws that run through the middle of the fields during the rut that actually could be pretty decent, pretty predictable movement. There's gotta be bucks cruising those draws, is what I was thinking to myself this summer. Let's try that and maybe we can avoid hunting pressure that way. So August six or whatever. That's my idea. I'm gonna go look at my buddies property real quick, do another walk through, and then go and spend most of my time trying to relearn this spot. And really learned this spot because I hunted the other parcel. I hadn't hunted this overlooked parcel except for one afternoon. I went and set the edge of it, sat the edge of it. Didn't see a thing. So basically have zero experience on this one August sevent rolls around. I go out there, do some glassing, don't really see much, walk these properties, don't see a whole lot. Um I put. Let's see, we had a handful of cameras on my buddies property. Then I hung one cell camera and two traditional cameras on the overlooked farm. We'll call that the overlooked farm. We'll call the other one my buddies farm. Just to keep these two things straight, so they overlooked farm. I got three cameras up my Buddies farm. I gave him a couple of cameras. He had a couple of camera was like three cell cameras, and we had those all situated by the end of that weekend, and I've gotten a dude. Basically, I'll walk through. I re learned the Overlooked Farm, gotta walk through, picked out a couple of spots that looked pretty good, and that was all I had because I had like a day and a half again for that trip. That was basically the extent of my scouting going into this November hunt. I had done a few walk throughs, but was mostly going to be dependent on, you know, figuring out as I went. That brings us to October one, basically November one, Right, I drive out the night of Halloween and arrive here in Iowa with a week to hunt. I got a cameraman with me, and I've got some climbing sticks, and I've got my saddle and my bow and that's it. I have some trout camera information because my buddy's property, you know, he's been getting pictures and we had cell cameras that we were both getting pictures to our phones from. So we're keeping tabs and what was happening through that, uh, the overlooked farm. I had that one cell camera, but within like fifteen days of it going, it was dead and wasn't sending me pictures anymore. So I had zero intell on what was going on on the overlooked farm. So arriving in the night of the thirty one, looking at the weather, looking at everything that's going on, we had a good cold conditions coming in for the beginning of the week. It's gonna be November one. I'm thinking they should be cruising, they should be starting to do ready stuff. What I decided I wanted to do was try to get an assessment of what was going on on the overlooked property. Because I had a basic idea of what was happening on my buddies because he'd hunted a few times and we had trail cameras out there that we're giving us, you know, consistent updates. Had zero idea what was on the overlooked farm. If there was hunters on the overlooked farm, Uh, nothing. So I thought, all right, let's start there and then I will adjust from there if I need to. That brings us to the first mooring hunt. I had found a spot while I was scouting in the summer, while I did my quick speed walk of this property that really jumped out to me as a great rut set. It just jumped out as being the kind of spot was that was a no brainer rut location, and it had a tree. I actually remember finding a tree and pinning it, thinking, man, this would be a great tree for a western northwest wind. Easy to get into overlooked. This location was set up decent with a cameraman. It was one of the few spots I found like that. That was it was obvious, So I pinned that. I thought to myself, now, hey, that would be a great location. It would get me back and kind of in the back corner of this property for day one, and then I could pull trail cameras on the way out that night. So morning one was gonna be like a west northwest wind. This is the location I wanted to go to. Now, let me describe this location to you as I As I mentioned the overlooked property, It's mostly just these rows that run through this rectangular field. So imagine you've got this rectangle. The rectangle is mostly corn except for these draws. And if I were to paint the picture for you, imagine drawing a line from the bottom left corner of the rectangle up to the top right corner. That's the main line of the creek, and then take two more lines off of that and extend it from that middle line, that diagonal line, make a y from one of those down to a corner, and then take another one and go down from the corner. So we've got this diagonal line with two draws that dropped down from it, going down, making a couple of ye junctions. That is the farm. The bottom left corner where one of these wide junctions happens is the location that I had picked out as being dynamite. You've got these three lines of a draw coming together, so we've got a three way junction of timbered draws. In the middle of this there's this little brushy bottom kind of a low spot. There's great big scrape in the middle of it. And just to the left in one of these draws, in one of these little timbered fingers, is a pond about sixty yards away from this tree. And then, oh, by the way, look at the other timber draw So this is the third of these timber draws that's ahead of me, and it is thick, thick, nasty, best bedding cover I found on this farm, opening up to a chunk of timber. So I've got dough bedding in front of me. I've got three pinches all coming down and converging right here in the middle, and I have a pond. That is what this location had. Those are things that scream rut success. Right. The rut, as we've talked about over the years, is about the does so being close to dough bedding, ding ding ding, great thing, pinch points ding ding ding. I've got a pinch. I've got three different pinches all converging in one hub. And then hey, let's get the added bonus of a great big hub scrape in the middle of it, added bonus of a pond right now next to it. And oh, by the way, in the field behind me created by two of these timbered ridges coming out is actually CRP. They took this one field out of corn and put it into CRP. So my backside now has great tall grass that I figured does must be betting in. So I got dough betting on two sides of me, pinch points on either side, pond, a scrape. It looks great. I get another day. One got set in the tree. We go in very early. I was trying to get to the property almost two hours before daylight, because it takes a long time to get camera gear together and get your all your stuff takes It was a twenty plus minute walking to get to the tree, and then we have to set up climbing sticks, my platform and saddle my cameraman's platform and saddle all of our gear. So we were, you know, upright and early at it, bright and early getting in there. We get climbed up in the tree, we get settled. That took a while. Daylight breaks and it is November first, first shooting light. Iowa, everything you dream of, everything you hope for, this is it right, This is the pinnacle of white tail hunting. And I'm thinking this is gonna be a heck of a week and not shoot. I don't know. Well, actually, at first light I forgot about this. At first light, I look out and I see a betted deer, like seventy yards away. There's a buck betted seventy yards away, laying down, facing away from us. It's a little year and a half old, but that was a great sign of thought. Then, probably ten minutes after light, I see some movement in the crp behind us. Here comes a dough and a buck, and right away I'm like, oh my gosh, that's that might be a shooter buck. This is a nice framed deer and he's coming my way and I'm thinking, oh no, it's day one. I've hunted for ten minutes in Iowa and here's this buck coming. And I start looking at him and like, ah, I don't know, he's what looks like an eight Eventually, really he's a nine pointer, maybe like to his ears, maybe just outside of his ears, and maybe like eight inch time length, that kind of thing, Just like a nice boxy eight pointer, nice like like a nice buck. A buck in Michigan that would be one of the better bucks around in most places I hunt in Michigan. But here in Iowa, where you know the sky is the limit, where you've waited years and years to draw a tag. I've applied in the lottery for three years to get enough points to get this tag. It's been six years since i've been back. When you go to Iowa, there's a certain set of standards or hopes or expectations that you have. And this buck's coming in and I'm thinking, goshtro I want to end my Iowa right hunt ten minutes in on this buck. He's probably one twenty five ish three year old, probably he keeps coming in and I'm like, ah, I mean, I had this back and forth, back and forth, like I can't shoot that now. I can't shoot that kind of deer here in the first time in Iowa, even though it would be a pretty darn great buck back at home. Ah, I can't shoot that buck on the first morning. And he ends up coming into thirty yards, stands broadside, looking around, makes the scrape, and I sit there and say, you know what, not doing it. I can't shoot this buck right now. Pass great encounter, though, got me very excited. I was fired up sitting there a while longer, a little buck curses through. Another little buck comes through. Then I looked to my left and stepping out of that pond big tall times, and I'm like, holy crap, big buck, big buck. Here comes a deer. But as he gets up over the hill coming out of the pond, and again had the same feeling, Ah, he's kind of tight, he's kind of tall. But he was another one of those in between her bucks. He was bigger than the last one, I thought, but again not a really big body. And at first my cameraman he's like he's one fifty, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, he is he one fifty? In my head, he wasn't that big, and I think he was just over excited as I'm looking at like maybe he's like one thirties. Uh tight and tall, like eight pointer, nice brow times. But again, We're only a half hour into the day of the first day and he's coming out, and I'm like, should I do this? Should I shoot this buck? We've only just started. It seems like it's absolutely popping. I know there's gotta be big mature box around here this year. I don't think so. I think he's probably a three and a half year old. He comes walking by, like forty one yard something like that, and I just let him walk. I don't even try to get him closer. He gets out to ninety yards and I'm back and forth, back and forth, like should I try to get another look at him? Like oh, that's grunting him in have him coming close and let me look at him again and give him a little grunt. He turns and looks kind of starts walking back my way never quite comes in the rain. But as he's coming by, I'm like, no, no, no, I'm not gonna shoot that buck. On day one, I gotta give this time a ride out out. I gotta I gotta enjoy the ride, right you wait all this time to hunt Iowa. You gotta enjoy it. You gotta see it. You don't want to stop it right away. So I passed that buck. The rest of the day come, you know, carries on. I was very like hyped out, so pumped. It's everything I dreamed of suck to like really nice bucks that would have shot in a lot of places already. Um, this is gonna be the week of all weeks. The day moves on, a few more bucks cruise through. It's looking good. I decide that I'm gonna change my plans. My original plan was to hunt that morning see what was going on, and then at midday I was gonna bail out, pull trail cameras, and scout my way out of the property. So that now I'd have a morning hunt and trail camera intel and a midday scout to assess what's happening on the overlooked farm, and then I would go hunt my buddies farm in the evening to do the same thing, to scout my way in, to get set up and to pull another camera and to learn what's going on? But after all that hot and heavy action that morning, and I forgot to mention I all so saw one more buck, just for a couple of seconds, running on a neighboring field that looked like a big frame, so maybe a third good buck. So all that action stopped. Made me think, man, it's on and here. You don't leave fish to find fish, as they say. So I decided I need to stick it out here all day and see what happens the rest of this, you know, afternoon. So I ended up sitting through midday, sat the entire day there, and we saw a few more young bucks, but no other shooters came out that day. But we you know, we felt good about it. We put in the time, had good opportunities, just not quite what I was waiting for. Um, so I thought, you know what great day one. On the way out, I pulled a couple of cameras. One of them had not taken pictures since September ten. That was disappointing. The other one that had taken pictures all the way up until that point. So that night I checked the cameras and what the cameras showed me was kind of disappointing. What that And it's only one camera, so you can only take so much from it. But it basically showed me that there was only one mature buck that was hitting that camera. There was a bunch of young bucks, there was the bucks that I passed on um and a number of others, but there was only one deer that was definitely four or older. He was a stud. He was definitely a four plus year old buck, big like main frame ten with an inside tying on one of them, so technically at eleven points, I mean, a slammer. But he was the only one, and that was a little disappointing because this is Iowa, right, Yeah, you kind of go into this, at least as an out of state or you go into Iowa thinking, man, they're behind every corner. There should be big bucks or at least mature bucks all over the place. This property seemed to only have one or at least hitting that camera. So I thought, all right, I'm gonna go back in and hunt that same spot in the morning, because this just seems like such a screaming rut spot and the activity was pretty darn good yesterday. Let's go back and sit it in the morning, So I go back the next day. We get in there well ahead of daylight. We get back into that same location we left everything up in the tree and we sit it out, and pretty close to first light, here comes that same nice, tight and tall, like one thirty something buck comes in and this time he comes into ten yards and I'm like, oh man, it's the only day two. He's really nice. But I even grabbed the bow this time, and I'm holding like, don't come closer, don't come closer. If he gives me just a screaming shot, I wonder if I should shoot it, Like is this stupid not to shoot this deer? Not only because you know he's a nice buck in most places, Um, I'm also filming this show and there's definitely a certain set of pressures that come with that that you know, just being honest with you guys, like that is something that's on my mind, and it's something that I think about and concerned about, and gosh, I want to make sure that you know, we have something that people want to watch. This Should I be shooting this deer? But I decide no, if I have to question it, if I'm not certain on it, if I'm not dead set. This is the buck I want. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not just gonna shoot a buck because you gotta kill something. Um. I want to enjoy this trip. I want to see what it has to offer. I wanna see what's gonna happen. So far, so good, so there's got to be better stuff ahead, all right. So I don't even try to shoot that deer that time, and the day carries on, and that's basically all we see that morning, slow his way down, and we get to around noon ish, and I remember sitting there and thinking through all this and thinking, man, between what I've seen here, now we've sat you know, for a morning and evening and another morning, and we check those trail cameras and that yet to see a buck that, you know, I think is definitely mature. Meanwhile, on my buddy's property, we've been getting camera pictures of a number of bucks that are at least four years old. I think there's at least like, I don't know, four five maybe like that that had been rolling through on a decently consistent basis. And I'm just sitting there thinking, man, there's all these bucks on this other property. My wasting my time here midday decide, you know what, all right, I did my assessment of the overlooked farm, It's time to go assess my buddies farm. So midday we pulled on everything and we drive to this other farm and we decided where to go in and get set up in this spot. Now, this farm, my buddies farm is How would I describe this. Let's imagine you were to have two big valleys. One of these big valleys runs east to west. Imagine it's a big line of timber with a creek at the bottom of it, running east to west, so very low at the bottom, with steve ridges that rise up to the top of either side. On either side to the north and south of this big big line our crop fields corn fields on the top. You then have another valley that comes in running north and south in the bottom, so you're effectively creating a tea. There's a big t My buddy's property has part of that tea. Imagine you're looking at the te he has the center line and the top line, and then it runs off to the right. To the left side of that tea is the neighbors. To the right side of the tea is the property I can hunt, and then there's a couple of little fingers that dropped down off the top of the tea that we can also hunt. But the main, the main meat and potatoes of this farm is that center post of the tea, and then the top right line of the te timber draw big ridges, and the creek bottom. So that's what this property is offered. And there were a couple of camera locations that have been getting bucks on them over the past couple of weeks, and one of them in particular had been like red Hot. We were getting several mature bucks almost daily rolling through this spot, and I knew in my head that, man, this spot has been on fire, and looking at the maps, I think there's a reason why that is. I think that there's this terrain feature. This spot is at the junction of the teeth. So if you were to envision this tea again, the left side of the tea and the left how am I describing this, So if if you're looking at the t and if you were looking at the top left side, that valley, like I mentioned, was on the neighbors, but we have the junction point, so basically it's like an upside down l and at that junction point there's a field in the back to the left, and then there's the timbered ridge that I'm on and the top valley all coming together here. So I thought, all right, let's slip into this spot near where that camera is. Let's scout it out. See exactly like what it looks like on the ground, and why these bucks are cruising through here. But my idea was that these deer must be cruising this ridge looking for does it must be dough bedding along the top. So these ridges and these bucks are cruising the ridge. And then at this corner right there's this field that pinches into the ridge, right at the junction of the two posts of the tea of the of the timber, and there's a knob off of that, and I thought to myself, maybe there's some kind of feature here. I knew it was cliffy. I knew that these valleys were very steep, and that there's only a couple of places where deer can go up and down them. In my quick speed scout in the spring and summer, I had noticed that, but I hadn't actually climbed up into this corner. So November two, midday I slip into their scout my way in and find what I think is why these deer passing through there. As I mentioned, basically, this whole timbered ridge side is is cliffed out, Like I'm talking fifty eighty foot tall rock cliffs that deer just can't even get up and down, and there's just a couple of places where it softens up, and there's gaps that lead down to the bottom. So I go around this ridge and I try to find a spot where I can see the east west valley while also being able to cover the north south ridge that I'm sitting on. And I find an old logging road that cuts the corner of this ridge and goes above the cliff and creates basically the one easy access gap along this knob as it turns to head east and west. And what it looks like to me is that, Okay, any deer that was running east to west that wants to go north south has to go around this knob because they're not gonna go down the cliff, and they're not gonna want to go into the field. They're gonna take the one opportunity, the one decent easy access to get around this corner. So I'm thinking, man, this is a great pinch. And I saw there was some thick brushy stuff. There must be some does betting right here, and probably on the neighbors over there. It looks good too. Take all that, add to the fact that we had trail camera pictures of bucks coming through here on a relative the consistent basis look good to me. I got set up in the tree that night, sat down, waded it out, and nothing. I think I saw a little dink and a couple of dos. And it was going pretty slow and pretty disappointing until last light. The hunt's done. Me and the cameraman start packing up, and I look out at the horizon and you can see the field edge. You know, we were probably a hundred some I don't a hundred yards in from the field edge, maybe, but you could see up there above us the kind of skyline. And I see antlers come running down off of the field edge into the timber towards me, and I pull up my binoculars and then i'm it's dark in the timber. I can hear grunting, and then I hear crashing. Then I hear grunting and crashing, and long story short. A dope comes walking right underneath us, and then in my binoculars it's too dark to see it with my eyes, but with my binoculars I see a big buck come walking right towards us. This buck walks to ten yards and hangs out around the tree for probably ten minutes, just at the door, looking around, nibbling, making a scrape, just doing buck stuff. He's probably like a hundred and fifty inch type ten pointer, just a stud. Hangs out there and eventually walks off. But great encounter. I mean, even though it's after dark and I couldn't shoot him, it was encouraging that there's a big buck in here. He came right within range. If it had been daylight, he could have shot him. Super encouraging, very excited. And then I look at my phone and then I see that my buddy Josh Ford or Hilliard killed the buck that night on the same property. He also was given access to the same spot, and he had killed a buck across the road into another section. It's it's just an open cut corn field next to a really good neighboring property. I'll save this story for another day, but lone both he shot a buck that night. We were very excited about that. So I saw this buck after dark. He shot this bucket nearby. We're on cloud nine day to the h looking good hasn't come together for me yet, but it seems like, you know, things are whether you want to be. So that said, with what I've seen that day, I decided, okay, we have this kind of rut location that has trained features working for us, and and a lot of this trip I was I was trying to I was trying to balance two things. There's one side of you that wants to learn about new places, see new spots, find the action, find the sign. And then there's another part of you, another part of hunting the rut, which is find something that works, find a feature, find up pinch point, find a dough betting air that works, and then ride it out. You gotta give it time because if it's a thing that will work and write dough betting areas and funnels or pinch points, those are things that do work during the rut. If you give it time, eventually a buck's going to roll through. If you judge it just based on one sit, you know, you might have randomly not been there the right day because there's a lot of things going on the rut. The rut is very much a here but not their type of deal, or today but not tomorrow. If any of you've spent time in the woods during November, you know that's the case. There will be days where it's dead, but yards away it might be absolutely on fire, and then there might be a spot that seems horrible today, but tomorrow it could be the best place to be. So there's this constant tension between do I need to move or do I just need to wait it out and give this place more time. I think sometimes during the rut there's there's the temptation to move around too much because you're trying to find the hot spot, and you never give a spot enough time to actually produce. So that was what I was thinking in my head that night, even though I had a slow sit up until after dark. I thought, you know what, it's definitely deserves another set and maybe all day like this has got the pinch, it's got the dough betting area. There's a terrain feature is going to bring any buck the cruises through here within twenty yards. I need to give this time so I get out there the next morning set it out, and I'm trying to think this through. I'm pretty sure that morning I saw a couple of those. I think was it. I mean, it was very slow, so it was kind of disappointed when I kind of I was very disappointed. I thought for sure that was gonna be you know, that was gonna be a good promising day. But so it goes midday arrives and one of my friends sends me a text message. He says, hey, you know, they are picking all the corn on the rest of the property. Corns coming down, And in my head, the first thing I think is, man, fresh cut corn is a dough magnet. Those first couple of days after a fields combined, there's so much waste grain available on the ground that deer seemed to just flock to it. It seems to, at least in my experience. It's it's an instant draw. It is the top draw. It becomes like the number one food source overnight. Well that in mind, I'm thinking, man, fresh cut corn on the ground, that's where all the doughs are gonna want to be. And if that's where all the doughs want to be in the evening, that's where the bucks are gonna be I gotta get over there. So midday I decided to bail out of this spot and go back to my truck, get my decoy, drive around to the other side of this property, and find a way to access what was I thought probably the best area where this fresh cut corn was. To take advantage of this situation I was hoping would be the case. Now, I described to you earlier how this t that this property kind of looks like this timber tea with fields on the you know, the outside of the tea had a couple of little finger ridges sticking out of it. Well, one of these little finger ridges that dropped off of the top east west post of the t um created a little cove like just imagine like a little half circle cove of corn that pokes into that timber, pokes into all this stuff. Well up there there's From my one walk through, I remember seeing like there's some good prairie grass. There was some good brushy, nasty kind of like multiflora rosie type stuff up on here and in the neighbors, so good good bedding, and then this little cove of what is now freshly cut corn poking into that. As I'm thinking about, man, where would be the spot that does that feel comfortable coming on feeding in daylight? And where Bucks would kind of funnel out into their check Does this spot kind of was the um one of the obvious options that I thought would work well. So me and the cameraman we just all right, we're gonna go in there. We're gonna set the decoy up on the edge, and there will be a bunch of doughs that come out here at night, and there'll be bucks. Bucks will come out looking for the doughs. We'll see this decoy and maybe one will pull on to us. We slipped down in there, and it is kind of a debacle as far as access. I had forgotten how hard to get through this um backside of the property was. It was actually thicker and brushier than I realized. I I should have just coming from the corn field. But I remember thinking to myself, all right, if I come in from the cornfield, I will have to walk out the corn field, and I don't want to walk out the cornfield um and have a bunch of deer out there that I had to spook to get out. I'd much rather walk out the backside. But if I didn't have my truck on the back side, I would have like a two and a half mile walk to get all the way back to my truck what was originally parked. But if I came from the back side, parked over there, and then walked in this back hill, I could kind of do a back door entry and then I would have an exit route after the hunt where I would hopefully not spook all the deer in the cornfield. That was the thought process going into this well ended up being much more difficult to get in, and as I'm doing I'm thinking, jeez, this looks way better than I thought. This probably dear bed in here. I've probably educated some deer as I'm slipping in it. So I was kind of pissed as I was just getting in with myself. We got set up, got the decoy out, and and it up either because of my access or because of whatever was going on another very very dead set. We saw a couple of dolls and a forky and that was it. And I'm thinking, man, what is going on? Like what kind of situation in Iowa where you've got a fresh cut corn field? And and that's it. And we walked, like I said, we walked through a decent bit, but there was this whole other eight percent of the cover was untouched that I wasn't inside of that that should have had deer in it, that should have been piling out to this corn field super slow. I couldn't understand it. So we now had had like a very dead day. I mean all day we've seen just a few dos and a forky uh, and the whole yesterday, the whole day before that, other than like that one like maybe back in the morning and then seeing the back after dark, the whole rest of the day, like most of the sitting hours had been very dead. No cruising, no chasing, no nothing. So two days of that and I'm wondering what is going on, Like this is way slower than it should be on November two. In November three in Iowa with good cold conditions. I mean we're talking these are twenty five degree mornings, forty degree afternoons, the kind of conditions you're really hoping for. So now it's day three and we're almost halfway through my week, and it's looking a little glum. I remember feeling like, yeah, I'm getting a little nervous. So day four, though, I'm back to this debate. Do I keep on boxing around trying to find something fresh, or do I trust my terrain feature, trust my rut pillars and ride it out and let one of these spots produce. I ended up airing in that way. I end up saying, you know what, this ridge betting slash kind of pinch around this cliffy area, it's got to produce, Like there have to be cruising bucks, they have to come through here. It's gonna work. Now. I did notice the first day I hunted there that there were a number of There was like to two bucks, I guess, two young bucks that had skirted the edge of us. There ends up being a little draw, a little like I don't know if it's like a like a ditch kind of in that ridge that does dip through the cliff, and these bucks came straight up to that. So I actually moved our spot sixty yards maybe less than maybe fifty yards, so that we would be able to shoot the cliff pinch that I described to you already right at the corner. But then also this little shoot that came up. So now I can cover the two places that I think deer have to come through while also still being range of where that camera was getting us dear not shooting range, but visible range, and with Doe betting up on these tops, I get into that morning and I say, you know what we're gonna We're gonna let this thing marinade. We're gonna let this spot have the time to produce. Because a buck has to cruise through here, and there's good mature bucks in the area. Something's gonna cruise through. We just need to be here and give a time. So this is day four and I'm in this spot, very early, settled in. We're believing in the spot. We sit there all morning, nothing like a couple of dolls and a year and a half old buck. We sit there all midday, nothing, nothing cruised. We sit there all evening. Nothing, no shooters, no three year olds, no two year olds. I mean, it is dead. I'm talking to some of my buddies and everyone's saying, man, it is dead as a door knob. No one's seeing bucks. It's November four, it's cold, it's great, this is what we had been hoping for, and no one's seeing anything. Um, what's going on? Was what I was thinking in my head, like, what is going on what's happening? You know, these are spots that should be producing. Uh. So now we're more than halfway through the week, and very quickly I went from being super stoked on morning one tonw after day four being ah kind of panicked, like what what's gonna happen? You know, Uh, this is not going the way I hoped it would. So now I am reconsidering what I think about the Buddy property because while it did have more bucks on camera leading into the hunt, uh, nothing's been on camera recently. I'd sat several really good looking spots and put in serious hours. I've hunted four all day sets, um and I've yet to you know, get eyes on one during daylight. Down to my last three days, less than half the trips left, I decided, you know what, the set from the very first morning on the overlooked farm, you know what, is looking a little better, because, yeah, those two bucks on day one weren't what I want on day one, But on day five, the way things are looking as slow as all this is, maybe I should just go back there and try to kill one of them, right they were moving through there. There seems to be a number of bucks like that around Um, yeah, there's only the one big shooter. But maybe at this point I can't be so picky. I've tried to ride this thing out. I've tried to see what Iowa has to offer, and it kind of looks like we're in a lockdown type situation even though it's early. Um, I'm seeing that kind of thing, like all my buddies are experiencing that kind of thing, like nothing's moving around, nothing's chasing maybe these bucks around doors. So my ideas, Okay, I'm gonna go in there and I'm going to sit the ultimate hub pinch point betting year zone again and we're gonna ride that thing out and something is going to come through there. So Day five A head in and that's the game plan. I slipping there early. We get up in the set, we're settled in, we're feeling good, nice cold morning, and nothing. We're not seeing cruising bucks, We're not seeing chasing bucks. I've got three little pinch points all converging in a hub in the middle. I've got a mega scrape, I've got a pond, and I've got a CRP field at my backside and a dynamite betting area in front of me. And my winds blowing off across section, not into any of that good stuff, and nothing is coming through. And I will definitely admit to a lot of frustration. Um, you wait all year, you wait six years in this case, to come hunt Iowa in the rut, and it's it's a dud. I mean, it is absolutely worse than hunting Michigan to this point, is what I was telling myself. Um. And then I'm also thinking, man, I'm i gonna get a buck killed. And already some of the other guys in the crew had been killing bucks, and I'm thinking, gosh, am I the only one that doesn't kill one. Um. Like those kinds of thoughts were slipping in the back of my mind, and uh, you know, definitely stressed now and wasn't Um. I hate to say it, but I wasn't enjoying it. I was just letting the pressure of it get to me. You know, we've been We've done five, well four and a half days of hunting so far, is that right? Yeah, that whole morning, I guess was just uneventful. So mid day I'm wrestling with all this, thinking about all this and trying to think of, Okay, what have I done. How have I How have I made these decisions? What am I doing wrong? And I'm thinking to myself, Okay, I tried to trust the ridge pinch I gave that time didn't pan out. I had now come back to the ultimate hub location. I hunted that that first morning and night the second morning, now I'll come back and hunted the second morning. That's two full days worth of sitting in this hub location. Hadn't had a single mature buck roll through. I couldn't even get one of those nice three and a half to roll back through. So I'd originally planned on sitting there all day. But now at like noon or one, I get this idea that you know what, you gotta go find it. Like it's not happening here. You need to go try to find something different. There's there's something happening somewhere, Go find it. So I decided to pull up steaks, slip out of there that night, and go scout some stuff on this farm that I hadn't been to yet, and see if I could find something worth setting up on. See if I could get lucky and spot a buck locked on a door somewhere, See if I could bump something, See if I can make something happen. So we slipped out like one or two, and they've been starting to combine the field. This is a corn field, and there was a set of timbered fingers running along the top edge of this property. So I told you how Now bear with me. Here is I try to describe this farm again. Remember, this is the rectangle that's all field except for the diagonal line from bottom left corner to the top right corner and then a couple of spurs off of that right well, there's also a finger that kind of runs right along the top of the rectangle, and that's coming off of a neighbors, but some of it's on our at our side. So I thought, you know what, I want to go up there. I've never been up there. Let's go check that out. Maybe that's where it's going on, and we'll still hunt and slip our way through there and try to learn something. So I do that. I get out, I walk up there. I'm kind of still hunting my way through. They're scouting and I'm just not finding much sign. It's like a scrape. I think I saw a little tiny rub. There's some tracks. It wasn't as thick and nasty in there, as I was hoping it might be. UM. I basically walked the up wind edge of that whole thing, just slowly going through stopping glassing, stopping glassing, walking and maybe across the entire finger with nothing. That screamed to me like you absolutely need to be here. So I follow it all the way down almost to the far east side of this rectangle. Now, so we're almost down to the far right hand side of the rectangle where that main draw extends up to the top right corner of our rectangle. Now upward that top right corner of the draw reaches that corner, there is a pond and there's also one of those spur draws that comes into it, creating a y. This is a very tight why though. This isn't like a big wide one. This is like a fifty yard why brushy strip connecting in with another fifty yard why brushy strip, and then you've got this pond in the inside corner of that, and then a finger of the corn extending down into there. This is a location where I put a camera and I pulled that camera earlier in the week when I pulled cameras that first day, and this spot I placed in this gap between the pond and the timbered ridges, this little brushy ridge not even originally a draw um, because again this spot screamed to me like a little tiny out of the way convergence of pinch points. You've got three little draws timbered lines all coming together with a pond. And then there's actually crp on a little side here too, So this is another one of those spots that circled as a potential location. When I checked the camera, there was a decent amount not tons, but there's a decent number of bucks coming through this little gap, including the one shooter buck. Now he was coming through the decent number of times. One daylight picture. I can't remember the date of it. It was in the late twenties, but there was one daylight picture at last light he'd passed through here. So I'm thinking, all right, this is total opposite side of the farm. I haven't hunted, so it's been untouched. There might be something going on down here. Hasn't been going on up in the bottom left corner, but now we're in the upper right corner. Maybe this is where it's at. And I've got another one of these three way hubs it's a tighter one, it's a smaller one, but this could work. Uh Now, remember I'm slipping in here by foot. I'd left my gear are sticks and saddles and stuff up in the tree at the original location. So we've got a southerly wind. It's starting to get warmer now by the way the weather it's turned starting to get warmer. We're getting down on to the final couple of days of the hunt, and I decided, you know what, we'ren't to just make a natural ground blind type situation work here. I got up on a dike the pond. On one side of the pond, there's a there's a dike like a tall uh ridge. I'm blanking on the right word here that would describe this um but imagine like a tall hillside, and then it drops down like maybe fifteen yards is down to the bottom where these two draws come together, where the little finger of corn comes together, and where this gap is between the dike and between the draw where the camera was was getting pictures of these bucks. So I just tucked into this tall grass right there, and my cameraman's listening underneath me, and we lay down and we start kind of mapping out all the different things that might happen and how we'll react. Okay, so if a buck comes from the northwest corner, he's gonna be kind of angling towards us, so we're gonna have to stay laying down in the grass all the way till he's past us. And then right when he angles past us and turns, I'm gonna slowly rise up, draw and get a shot. If he comes from the left side, you know, we'll be able to get in position better because we'll have a little ridge, a little hillside in the way, and taller grass so I can actually get on my knees and draw back before he steps out into the open. So I basically like mapped out all these different things like this and practiced it. Practice drawing back, practice what the cameraman should do, practice what I should do, um and and just really sets up nice. I forgot to mention, like, because we're on the edge of this pond, we're able to have their wind blow across the pond, so we're almost completely safe from wind perspective with this really nice pinch point convergence of hubs in front of me in the water rail by the way, which could be a drafted deer. And then finally, about hundred yards away above us is where there's this another cut corn field on the neighbors. So if there are deer beded in these brushy draws, they're gonna head that way and probably funnel past us. So again, pillars of rut hunting. Right this whole week, I been trying to make sure everything I do revolves around one of these pillars. Am I close to doe betting or dope food? In this case, there's a cut cornfield past me, and there's these really thick, really nice looking brushy draws that just has to be deering end. Second pillar of run hunting funnels, any kind of feature that will concentrate dear movement a tight area. Well, I've got two of those coming together. So I've got two tight pinches that come together right next to me, and I'm set up in this location with water, which is a nice bonus. This has gotta be it. There's gonna be something to roll through here. There's gotta be something rolling through here. This is gonna be it. It's what me and my camera and Chase kept saying. We sit there, we sit there, we sit there, and then we start hearing to combine getting closer and closer. It's getting closer prime time, the combines getting closer, closer and closer. We're down to the last twenty minutes. The combine comes over, the hill, comes down, starts. I'm bining right next to us. Now, if you, if you guys hunt, you know farm country, you know as I described that, when the combines are in the field, when they're picking the corn. You know that fresh cut corn can be a drop and can be a drive. Right dear, you're gonna want to feed in that fresh combine corn. But from my experience, they're not gonna want to be like right next to the combine. Like if the combines doing the edge row, like, they're not gonna be standing on the edge. I know there's exceptions, there's all sorts of farmers out there. We will say, well, I'm in combine, the deer standing right next to me. I know that happens sometimes, but I also know that they usually aren't gonna be right there. Like I don't want to have a combine forty yards away from me and expect a buck to come out at thirty yards and let that happen. Well, that's basically what's happening to us. At the end of this night. We've got the combine work in the field right next to us, and a little forky comes through and that's it. Another one of these picture perfect rut locations and nothing's rolling through it all. And that's the end of day five. Down to two days left. I have yet to see a mature buck during daylight. I've hunted what I think are really good locations, and I've I've tried to balance the need to go find stuff with the balance to give a location time. Is at least the debate I kept having, and and really the the story of this trip is trying to walk those two walk that balancing act between the two. That's the end of the day five. And I'm definitely disappointed now, definitely concerned about what's happening. But I gotta keep going. I mean, that was my mantra all week was you gotta keep on grinding, you gotta keep going. And these are the things we've talked about, I mean a thousand times on this show. Right, Uh, this is a story you've heard some version of before from me. Right, how many times have I hunted during the rut and been concerned about how things are going. How many times has this happen to you where you've been hunting during the rut and it's been super slow and you're just thinking, man, this isn't gonna happen. Why is everybody else killing deer and I'm not. And then like in a snap, all of a sudden, bam, there's the buck, there's your shot. It's all changed. You just had the season in your life for the day of the year or whatever. I mean, the rut can change things so so so quickly. So this entire time, I'm just trying to remind myself it can all change in the second. They can all change in the second. It can all change in the second. Just keep going, Just keep going. So that's what I did. Day six rolls around and I'm debating what I want to do. I decide, you know what, the ultimate Hub needs one more try. I'm gonna double down on the Ultimate Hub. And I just believe that that spot just seems so good. It just seems so good. And at this point I lowered my standards. I'd be shooting any decent like three and a half ro buck. Something had to roll through there, and the way we've been operating with the wind. I just thought we can get away with hunting this thing. You know, this would be the We'd hunted it three mornings in an evening, and I thought one more morning. That's a lot to ride in one spot. But I also thought it could it could do it. It just had to do it. So we go in there morning of number six high hopes I had actually gotten I had a camera. I put a camera. I forgot to mention this. On day one, after that evening hunt, I went and put a cell camera on that hubscrape, and that hub scrape camera had actually got a picture of two like nice three year olds. One is the one I passed, that tight tall one, and one was another tight tall one. And I didn't recognize that it had come by that in daylight while I was gone. So I'm thinking, all right, they've been coming through, and I'm sure if if these bucks were on the hubscrape, I'm sure there's other bucks that have been around it that didn't make it on camera, it's gonna produce. I go back in there. This is day six, morning six, it's a Saturday. Now the weekend has arrived and we slip in there really good and early. We've got like forty five minutes sitting in the tree before dark, perfectly, still making sure nothing's you know, being s booked on our way in. Um. You know, we've been grinding and UM, I'm tired, but I'm trying to stay positive, trying to believe, all right, it's gonna happen today. And the light comes up. We see two doughs underneath the tree. Stand. First thing, I'm thinking, okay, live like live bait right there. That's what the bucks want. They want those doughs. It's gonna happen. It's gonna happen. And then I hear crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack, and me and Chase my caraman look at each other. Is that dear fighting? Crack crack crack crack crack. And then I get this little whisper in my head like that doesn't sound right. That sounds that sounds like me when I'm rattling a rattling bag. We look at each I'm like, man, I sure hope that's not a hunter. Well it stops. We keep sitting there, nothing, nothing, nothing. Twenty minutes later crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack crack. And instantly when I heard it at the second time within twenty minutes in the same location, I knew, damn it. There's another hunter and he's like a hundred yards away, a hundred fifty yards away something like that, on the other side of the property line on the neighbors and he's in that big brushy doe betting era that I'm just down wind of that. I'm like counting on the reason that buckstert me coming in and out of this hub. That's the draw. He's right smacked down in the middle of that, cracking his rattling bag together every twenty minutes. So there it is my ultimate hub, the spot that I dreaming of having a big buck rolling out of that had to produce. Well, now I know there's another guy sitting in the middle of it, blowing his wind through crash Nantler's to get every twenty minutes. Uh, you know it's shot now, I know. Like I kept I kept telling myself, well, he'd come from these other different directions. There's these other legs of the draw that come into my hub. But I absolutely was disheartened by that and disappointed, and um, you know, I kind of lost my conference in my in that spot after this. So that was the morning number six, and you know, at this point it's it's the end. I mean, I'm desperate. Absolutely was feeling feelings of desperation. Um, I decided, Okay, it's time to it's time to lose any of inhibitions. It's time to go ball to the wall. It's time to do whatever it takes to get something killed. There was two ideas I had. There was one location on my buddies farm that I knew had deer and good deer and opportunities, and I had purposely chose not to hunt despite that this, I had mentioned that my buddy Josh had killed the buck earlier in the week. Well, this is where he killed his buck. This is a corn field. This this part of property is nothing but a corn field. There's zero trees on it, there's zero grassy anything. I mean, it's just the corn field. And then on the neighbor's property is is basically land that's not allowed to be hunted. They don't let people hunt there. It kind of acts as a sanctuary and over the years historically, like just driving around the area, like you see a lot of good deer in there. We we just know that they're a good deal in the deer in that zone. They know they're not hunting in there, and they stay in there. But with this cut corn field, the belief is that the deer would be coming off of that little sanctuary area and feeding in the corn field that we can hunt. So when the corn was cut earlier, I guess it was late October, one of my buddies buddies brought in a box blind, brought in a trailer, put it down here, and we had this idea that you know, you could you could pull a deer in off that field. Something would I'm in the field, if you were sitting that box blind with a decoy, you might be able to get a buck to come in there. And that's what Josh ended up having happened to him earlier in the week. I had told him leading up to I don't want to hunt the box blne like, I just want to do it on my own. I want to hang my own stuff, I want to go saddle haunt, I want to find him somewhere else. Um, I just like that wasn't what I was dreaming of when it came to this hunt. It wasn't a box blind that someone else had pulled in there and kill him that kind of way. That's how I was feeling day one. So I was like, yeah, have at him, Josh Killy, great buck, awesome hunt. Really excited about it. For him, it was amazing. We'll tell that full story another day. Great great hunt. But still in my mind, I'm like, no, I'm not going there, especially now like it's been pressured. I'm not going there. I'm not going there. I'm not going there. Um. But now it's day six, I still haven't killed anything, and I'm sitting there thinking, man, I just want to kill something. I just want to kill something. Nothing's moving anywhere. Haven't seen a mature buck in daylight once this entire week in Iowa. Uh, I know there's mature bucks in they're moving around. We'd actually drove by, well, it was that day. I guess that day. So I bail out of the Ultimate Hub and we decide we're gona go do something different, And as we're driving by this property that's not allowed to be hunted, we see a big buck locked on a dough in there, and my buddies who had been in the area have been driving around earlier in the day and they'd seen a different big buck locked on a different dough in the same general era. So I know what's on in there. I know what's happening. I decided, you know what, screw it, there's nothing wrong with hunting the box blind using a decoy. Uh. At this point, I would be stoked to get anything killed. Um, I'll go hunt. Why not? Like I'm I'm frustrated, haven't seen anything? At least I wanna have a fun hunting seasoned darned deer like I haven't had a time. I've seen more than a couple of day at a time. Um, I haven't seen any running activity. This might be it. I don't care how we do it. So my idea is this. We left the Ultimate Hub at midday. I was gonna hunt the box blind that evening with a decoy on the corn field, but I wanted to set up a new location for the morning. Now, there's one area on my buddy's property that I had not been in. I had only walked it one time when I was there in the summer. I did like a ten minute walk through it. I was we were late. I didn't have a lot of time. As the end of our little day and a halftime I had there, I was like, I gotta walk this really quick. So I just ran through it. Just got a very very basic idea of what was going on. But now I'm realizing, Okay, this is the one part of the property I haven't been to. We did have one camera up there that was getting some bucks on it, and I recalled, I don't know why I hadn't thought about this sooner with all the other things I was thinking about. I guess it just overlooked it. But I do remember that there had been some cutting up there, and I remember thinking, man, it's some good but she's stuff up there. There's tree tops on the ground and new growth and and good bedding up there too. So I got to thinking, all right, midday day six, I'm gonna go in there with a set, scout at mid day and hang a set to hunt on the last day. So that's what I go do. I'm gonna go scout it out. I get there to the property, I slip in the backside and where this is is remember my buddy's property, Like the T. Right, we've got the top right of the T, and we've got the middle post of the T, and there's timber inside that upside on L and there's fields. Well, this area that I'm talking about is the top post of the T. So like the east west ridge, the north side of that ridge, there's a valley in the bottom timber on the top ridge of it for the very top of the tea here the north ridge, And as I described, there's a bunch of cutting in there, and actually it looked a lot better than I remembered from the summer. As I'm walking in the edge of the feet field, I see a scrape, then another scrape, then another scrape, then another scrape, literally ten twelve scrapes, all fresh, lining the edge of the standing corn field and the timber. I slip into the timber. Here's a rub. There's a rub. There's another scrape. There's another scrape. There's a rub. I mean, it's blown up in here. Right away I realized, whoa, there's some stuff going on in here, And whoa, this cover looks better than I realized compared to everything else, um, you know, better than anything else I've been in yet, this this week. So I go in there and start walking around, and I'm thinking, all right, I definitely want to be here tomorrow morning, and what's the what's the best way to take advantage of this? So I'm gonna try to describe this to you in a way that makes sense. Remember, we've got this east and west running line of timber, and there's the creek bottom. We're on the north edge of it, right, so the corn fields and the top behind me. This ridge has got basically a bench running along the top. It's maybe seventy yards from the top where the field is down to the end of the bench, and the bottom of the bench it cliffs out again. So I described you how this is a really steep country, but there's cliffs that no deer is coming up and down. There's just two spots, and this I had marked from the summer. There are two spots where you could come up or down from this ridge to get to the bottom. So I thought, okay, I want to get set up in a position where I am along the left to right movement right, because there's bucks are going to run the line of the ridge going east to west or west to east. But I also want to be where the convergence of any of the up and down movement comes into that. So I found a spot where the one gap in the cliffs is that allows these deer to come from the bottom to the top, or from deer that are up the top to want to go to the bottom, where that intersects with the left or right movement. And I found that there was a ditch, like a steep ditch that ran down the ridge that created like a really hard thing for deer to get across if they if they were running east to west, there was tree tops in the bottom. It was pretty steep, and you could see that there was two trails. One was like an old logging road and one was just a easy spot in the ditch where this deer we're running. So basically I found a spot where the up and down movement came up the ridge and then where there was these two obvious or at least the most obvious easiest trails for deer to be traveling left to right across. So basically I'm intersecting three lines of movement with all of this tree top cover, all this brushing new growth, just screaming bedding cover, so reitering the same damn thing I've said over and over again, pillars of rut success. I've got dough bedding all around me, and then I've got these terrain features that are funnily movement, the ridge top bench, the ditch funnel that's keeping deer moving, just two trails across west to east, and then the one up and down access coming up the cliff face. I hang a saddle set there. Looks really good. Feeling good about that for the morning. Leave there fast and get going to the box blind. Me and Chase get to the box blind, get settled in there, put the decoy out in front of us. Behind us is this property that doesn't allow hunting. It's thick tall grass, it's cedar trees, it's it's what you imagine when you imagine hunting. Iowa. Nothing else that I have access to looks like this, um, and so like this is the one spot that when you look at it, like, oh gosh, like this is the stuff that Mark Drury hunts. Um. It just looks cool. It just gets you excited to look at that and to know that, you know, four hours ago or two hours ago or whatever it was, when I was driving around the other road, I saw a big giant buck in that stuff with a doll, and I knew there was more in there. So I set a decoy on front, and I'll describe the decoy set up. Uh, Basically, we set up this decoy, I take one antler off of it. This is a thing that I think it was John Dudley years ago was writing about and that I've just kind of stuck to you ever since. You've take an antler off, so it seems slightly less imposing, look a more approachable beat up a ble buck. Because the idea here is you're putting this decoy out there and hoping that a buck's going to see it and then want to come in and and tango with it. So I set that decoy with one antler off, and then I set him quartering towards, kind of quartering off either one of your shoulders from left or right, or off your right shoulder, recording off your left shoulder, looking kind of past you. Because what you want to set up is you want this buck to come in to the decoy and give you a broadside shot. And bucks usually almost always want to approach a decoy head on like there, you know, try to approach antler to antler will kind of circle around it and head to the down wind side. Usually so in a perfect world, you'd like the wind blowing from the decoy to you. So he has to circle in closer to you, but he'll be looking at the decoy and not at you, and then give you that quartering away your broadside shot. So and with Tim looking over my right shoulder and into the stuff behind me, got set up in the box blind and and yeah, I mean it was cushy. It was. I was thinking, man, this is really nice after after spending all day every day hanging in the saddle um night number six, sitting in a box blind was was just the luxurious break we needed. At this point. I didn't care. I was fine doing that. We've been working our tails off, I mean working our tails off. I was ready to enjoy myself finally. And uh, we actually sat on our knees because we were worried about we We went through the whole um practice, every scenario, kind of thing that I talked about sometimes like we did. We did this when I described that sitting on the pond dike in the grass situation, well, in this situation, I was like, Okay, How are we gonna get the window open and get in position if a buck comes from this way? How are we going to get into position and film and be in shop position if they come this way? So we worked out each situation, we practiced it. We you know, went through all the motions, drawing back the boa, having the cameraman move around where it needs to go, everything, And we realized it was really hard to do it quietly if we were trying to use the chairs in there. So we just push these chairs in the back corner and we both just stayed on our knees on the floor of the box blind so we could be as silent as possible and move as little as possible if a buck were to come through. And you know, like an hour and a half four day, like here comes a dough, Here comes another dough, and another dough. All these deers start piling out into the field, and and all right, I'm like, wow, this is the best set of the whole durn week we've had. Um Like we're seeing a bunch of deer, seeing a bunch of doughs. And as these doughs start piling out, I start realizing like, hey, you know, this could actually work. You know, Having all these doughs out here all of a sudden gave me a lot of confidence, because that's that's all you need, was does. We were counting on the fact that if these doughs would come out to that field, like bucks would have to be checking it, because they were definitely bucks in this brushy cover behind me. And if the does that come out to be in the cornfield, the bucks will come to and maybe we get lucky with the bucks seeing that deco, so does start piling out, and then a little buck and then a little buck, and I'm jacked, like, finally I'm having that exciting Iowa anticipation, like it's gonna happen. We're seeing the deer, I know, those big buck in here. And then I see a dough run over the hill towards us, and the antlers come behind her, and right away, like big buck. Here comes a big, big shooter deer I think he was a ten point runs over the hill and I'm like, chase shooter. Finally we've seen a mature buck during daylight. There's our second to last night and very excited, we start moving like a right here is coming from the right, getting a position, move my rep I taking my range finder off, put it in the right spot, put my binoculars down, have my grunt to within range. Reposition myself so I could open this window. And now I'm just waiting for it to happen. And he comes over the hill following that dough, and he stops and looks at the decoy. And this is like the moment of truth, like he's gonna see the decoy and be interested in it or he's not. It looks at the decoy and the doe starts moving off, and he turns back to the door and starts following down. I'm like, oh no, he's not gonna leave that dough. But you never know. I slowly opened the window and it's all right. I'm gonna try to call him. I'm gonna try to give him a grunt, snort, wheeze. See if I can piss him off. So I give him a grunt. He doesn't hear. Give him another grunt, doesn't hear, give him a snort weez. He stops, his head, swings around and just glares at me. He's probably ninety yards away something like that. Maybe you know, give or take glares at me, ears kind of pin back. He turns and starts walking right at us. It's gonna happen. This is happening right now, This son of a buck is gonna come into the decoy. We're gonna get a crack at him. I mean, I was pumped, get in position, got the window ready to get turned open. He rung. He walks about ten yards and then stops stairs, stairs, turns around, goes back to the doll, keeps walking, folling dough keeps walking, following dough. And I'm no, I know in the back of my head, like this isn't gonna happen, But I try one more time, give him one more snort. He stops stairs, turns, takes a couple of steps towards me. I'm thinking, all right, yes, yes, yes, yes, And then he turns back to the dough, chases the door over the hill. And that's all she wrote. Buck walked out of our lives, wouldn't leave his dough night closed. And that was it. But it was exciting. It's disappointed it come together. But finally we had an encounter. Finally had I got to see mature buck. Finally I thought we're kind of in it. Um so at this point is that, Okay, we're gonna be back here tomorrow. Like there's mature bucks in here. This almost worked out. This buck wasn't willing to do it, but maybe another on the cruise through and you know, be willing to be aggressive and come after. So that said, the next morning, though I had that set, i'd hung at midday. So we're today seven. This is the last day of the hunt. I am tired. I am worn out. We've been up at three thirty four or whatever it is every day, hunted all day, every day other than and we we moved locations a couple of times, but we've not once like we never went to the house. We never went to lunch. We never We're going the entire time, hanging new sets, moving new spots, uh, sitting the hold armed time. All my buddies felt bad for my camera guy. They thought he was gonna either murder me or quit or something because I was putting him through hell. But he was a trooper and uh and just went with it. Um. So I was trying, you know, I was feeling a little bit of optimism now though like that that mid day's that mid week stretch from day three through through that night of day six. Um, you know, we're just pretty much dead, you know, nothing but like a couple of does and or adnker here and there for three and a half days when it's supposed to be, you know, the best of the best. That was a tough stretch where I just was bumming out. And I think a lot of us can relate to that. With the white Tail rut, you have so much expectation. I think that's why the the slow periods are harder during the rut is because you have such high expectations. You know, if it's slow on October fifteen, things kind of I was expecting. If it's slow on septem you know, it's just how it is sometimes. But when it's November four, especially if you're in somewhere like Iowa or Illinois or Kansas summer, you dream of Um, it's supposed to be amazing. It's supposed to be it's supposed to be the best of the best, and so when it doesn't happen, I think it hurts more. So That's where I was at and Um, as I mentioned, was was was bumming about it. Finally we saw Buck. Now I'm re energized and I'm like, you know what, damn it, Final day Magic, We're gonna do it. Like I'm not quitting, I'm not giving up. This is gonna happen. We have worked for the universe will reward us. So the final morning, I remember in the car, I put on the final countdown you know, classic rock song by Europe, and we're jamming out down No, not there, and just like jamming like this is it? Hell Yeah, last day. We get to the property. We slip in their way before daylight so we're not spooking anything at gray light, and we get set up. We're feeling great, We're feeling confident, and I'm excited, like I'm gonna pull this thing out in the end. Somehow it's gonna happen. This spot looks good, feels good. Um, it follows the rules of the rut that I preach all the time. Um. And it's fresh, and the sign was hot, and daylight breaks and the woods comes alive. Here's a little buck. There's a little buck. And they're all doing just what I was hoping they would do. Their cruising east to west, the cruising across the top of the tea. Try and check these betting areas, and because of that steep ditch along our side, they have to cross these two places that are both within range of me. So these box are cruising past, and everything that's coming past is within shooting range. And now it's I don't know, oh somewhere around the first hour of daylight um, and we are sitting there quiet, scanning, scanning, and I see times come out of the brush approaching that ditch to my left, and I remember saying buck coming, and I pulled out my buyos and as a shooter buck. Immediately you can see like this is a big, big shooter buck coming in. So I start swinging into position, swinging and go grab my bow. And he's coming fast, like he's cruising on a very fast walk, not stopping, not loafing, nothing, and he's heading. If you can envision me hanging on my saddle, let's let's say I'm like, like, I'm sitting in my truck right now, driving right so I'm here holding the steering wheel, and the trees directly in front of me, if we're talking about them, the hunting snare, So imagine the trees directly in front of me, I'm hanging off of the rope back off of that tree. This deer is approaching from kind of where you're left rear view mirror would be, so my left front side, he's approaching, and he's gonna head across in front of me. As if you were, you know, gonna walk from my left across to directly in front of me, my shot would be just off the just left side of the tree. So I need to lean out around the tree just a little bit and then shoot directly in front of me. As I lean to get into position to shoot, I've got several thoughts going through my mind. I had ranged this area earlier, and there was this old logging road that this ditch crossing follows, and I had ranged it like the back was somehre on like thirty six yards ish, in the front of this log arns around thirty yards, So I knew he was gonna be, you know, somewhere in that like thirty something yard range. And I remember thinking to myself, I want to range him, but he's come so fast, like there's no I don't have time to arrange him. The second thing I remember thinking is that this freaking backpacks in my way. The freaking backpack is my cameraman's bag. And this has been a thing like all week is that, uh, my cameraman has got a lot of gear with him. He's carrying three different cameras because he's got one camera that's pointed at me to try to get my reactions and my stuff, and then he has a handheld camera that he's using to film the deer coming in, and then he has a third camera that's for still photography, and he's got a camera arm and all this kind of thing. So he's got a big, huge backpack and then like extra bags that were attached to that. So in the tree, every time we were unning, it was a challenge to try to find a way like position his bags somewhere that they'd be out of my way, but also you know, hidden. We're always trying to find ways to stay hidden because like with two guys and two sets of gear and and all this crab, it was very hard to ever stay hidden. So it was like a point of concern at all times to try to find this middle ground where I'm able to get him hidden in a way um that also allows us to get shots. And that morning he set up and I remember thinking that this backpack is in the way if a deer comes right here to my front left. So I told him, like, do we gotta do something all that backpack. So he tried to raise it up a little bit, and then we tucked the straps that were hanging off and we hadnt really straps, so take the straps. I remember putting the straps into the water ball pockets, and I practice like, can I get a shot around here? It's still dark out, this is really early in the morning. Can I get a shot around? Like, damn, it's still kind of like in the way. But I had been I've been on him so much to like move these things and do this stuff. I felt ad like I was. I was worried. I'm being like that annoying nag, like always talent move this stuff or this stuff is in the way, or it's like I'm not gonna ask him to move it again, Like he's he's got a thousand things to do. It takes a long time for him to get set up with all this different gear and all these cameras, and you know, I was approaching daylight and all that. So I'm like, it's good enough. What I'll do is if a buck's coming I can just lower myself down. You know, if you know on a satellite, you'm hanging from a rope, So I can either like kneel down and get lower, or I could even release the ropeman that's running me on the rope. I can actually lower myself on the rope even more so, so I remember thinking it'll be good enough. I can just lower myself or kneel down and shoot underneath that backpack. Probably just fine. I'm not gonna bug chase anymore. So that was that morning. Well, now this big buck's coming through, and this big buck is is running walking from left to right very quickly, coming down this logging road trail, and he's gonna give me one opening. There's one opening in the brush, and it's right where that backpack is. Let me tell you about this buck. This buck is like a horse body. I mean, he's like a Clydesdale body buck. And he is big, heavy, wide, tall eight pointer. He's like a hundred and fifty in eight pointer, biggest eight point buck I've ever had within shooting range. Slammer, and I get my bow up into position, and I remember thinking I can't get underneath this freaking backpack. I need to lower myself, but that bus coming so fast. He's almost to my shooting lane, and I realized I can't. I don't have time. I'm like reaching from my rope man like I can't do it. So all of this happens in the matter of like this is like an eight second time period. Probably I don't know how long. It was, maybe maybe twenties seconds from the time we out the buck to the time he gets into my shooting lane. Like he came out on an oor in the thick cover, and then bam, he's crossing the ditch. He's approaching the shooting lane. All I have time to grab the bow, swing down, and then I have the two thoughts. One thought is God, I wish I could a range on him. Second, not enough time. The second thing is gotta getta get lower and it's backpack. I can't do it. So I am trying to crouch. I'm trying to angle my bow. I'm trying to find some way to get under this thing. But my top limb of my bow is bumping up against the top of this backpack that's still hanging down too low. The buck enters the shooting lane, I have to get a shot I remember drawing back and knee I'm like kneeling down and like hanging out and trying to keep my bow underneath the backpack. I remember the moments I can remember. I remember once like hitting it. I remember being canted to the side, and then I remember just trying to hack. I don't know. All I remember is trying to navigate around this thing. And then I remember member seeing my third yard paint on that buck and being like this is it, and the shot went off, And the moment the shot went off, I cursed, like I knew instantly I missed. I mean instantly. Um, the poor editors are gonna have to edit it out because like the shot and then immediately instantly, and that buck ran off so probably like sixty yards and stopped just looking around, and I'm just like, no freaking way. And I grabbed another arrow and I get the new arrow on there, and where he's positioned, I don't have a good shot, but maybe if I could lower myself on the rope and swing around this stupid backpack all the way the backside, there might be a clear lane. So I'm trying to fumble with my rope and my rope man, which is like the This is like the ascend. It's like this little mechanism that holds you on the rope at whatever level you want to be at. I'm trying to open that up so I can lower myself down the rope and swing around either side. And as I do that, like it makes a clicking noise, it pops, and that buck just bolts, blow in and barrels out of there. And uh, I had just missed one of the biggest bucks in my life. Um. Definitely the biggest eight point in my life. Uh. And uh, you know, first mature buckhead within shooting range. Definitely the biggest buck I saw that week. Um, And that was my opportunity. I busted my balls all seven days for that. I passed on those really nice bucks the first couple of days for an opportunity like that, and then there he is and I blew it, and um, you know, I decided to sit there the rest of the day because after that, I saw a number of other young bucks come cruising through, and I knew there's other maturity deer on camera, so I knew, like, all right, he's out of here, but maybe another one of these big boys all roll through because obviously this spot is the spot they want to come through. So I sat out the rest of the day. Then around like two o'clock that wind um I was getting stronger, and I realized that more of these deer were taking the top trail like that big buck had done. And in the morning he couldn't win me because my thermals were dropping. But now the air warmed up and the wind was blowing towards that trail now and more deer we're using that top trail than I was expecting. So I got to think of, man, you know what, we really need to be in a position so that if another deer comes on the top trail doesn't wind us, Like, what's the point of sitting here all day and trying to do this if another buck does what that one does and then he wins me before I can get a shot. So at like two o'clock or to thirty or something, I tell Chase, Man, I'm sorry, I know you're worn out. I'm worn out. I don't want to do this, but we need to make a little adjustment because I'm not gonna have gone through all this and then miss this book to just have a final opportunity to the last night for magic, and then we get winded. So with a couple hours left in the day, we pulled on our set, move forty yards to another tree that's better for the wind and gives us another shooting angle. Put another step back up like our seven seemed like our seventh setup of the trip, got up in the tree. And I should point out that they started combining this field now and we're sitting up there and like, oh man, please stop, or please work on the opposite side of the field or something, or please get done before daylight, I mean before dark. But as the evening progresses now we're sitting there and of course, just like that other night, the last half hour daylight, he's picking the field right next to us and literally doing the last row right next to the timber that we're close to now during the last ten fifty minutes of the night, and nothing but a single dough comes through and there's two one little buck, and the night ended like that. That was this was last night. That was how I hunt added and I did not kill a buck in Iowa. And I blew my opportunity at my opportunity, blew mine, blew my shot um and you know, I replayed that moment over and over and over again, thinking about what what happened? You know, what did you do wrong? What could have you done different? I mean there's a whole lot of self loathing. I mean I was busted up about it, of course. Um, and you know I I couldn't get around that back I mean, it was a horrible shooting situation. It was just a horrible I mean it was awful. And UM, you know, I guess I blame myself. I do. I blame myself for that because I should have known to not settle for that backpack being anywhere in the way. Um, because you know, I should have known that I wouldn't be able to easily adjust to get around it in the heat of the moment when there's a buck barreling down on you. Um. I thought it was good enough, but it was not good enough. And uh, you know, if I had moved that backpack, it might have been a different story. Um. I shot low in a little It's hard to tell exactly watching the footage, but it looks like the arrow hits beneath him and a little bit back. Um. So what did I do wrong? I had that backpack there, that I should have moved even more than I already moved it. That backpack made it really hard for me to shoot around it, and I was just in a very augard position, bending down low, kind of leaning out. I might even had to have the bow canted out to left a little bit. Um, I mean, you don't want to shoot like that, can lee That buck might have been a little further than I thought. Um, you know, I was using my thirty yard pin, but he was probably more like thirty four yards when I you know, watching the footage and trying to range exactly where he was and all that kind of stuff. So not only was that in a horribly awkward position trying to shoot wonky, but also I'm shooting with a thirty yard pin when he's you know, thirty four yards away. Let's say, so there's another reason why the shot could have been lower than it should have been. Um, you know, ah uh yeah, I I guess. I don't know what to say. I've thought through this thing so many times. I beat myself over it so many times. Definitely like a confidence I don't want to say I'm having a crisis of confidence, but this definitely like shook me, you know, Um, even though there's all these extenuating circumstances that made this awful. Um, it's also kind of thing. Man, you missed a big buck last year, Now this happens again. You don't you don't want to get into a thing like that where that starts happening. And all that is to say, um, man, just not a good feeling, really really disheartening feeling, very discouraging. Um. As you all know. I mean, those those those moments of the lowest of lows, and it comes to hunting, and I'm still working through it. Um, this is this is raw. This just happened yesterday morning, and now it's that that the following day in the morning when I'm recording this, and it's a bitter pill of swallow. It is a really really bitter pilla swallow. Um. And I know that's something that a lots you can relate to. Um, this is not something you need to me. A lot of us have worked really hard and not gotten paid off for a lot of us have practice a ton and try to very best and still missed or still didn't get to see one or still has something going wrong. So there's no use to me sitting here. Um. Playing my fiddle and feeling sorry for myself because I know that plenty of other people have dealt with it, and plenty of other people have to deal with worse. UM. So I'm trying to do what I've said here on the podcast in the past, which is number one. I'm trying to remember that there's a lot bigger things in life than this. And I've still got great I don't need. Um, i don't even feel that bad because I've got a great family. I've got the best kids in the world. I've got a home, I've got a way to pay the bills, I've got great family and friends. I'm healthy. Um. So I'm trying to put things in context and and remember this isn't life or death. UM. And I'm also, you know, trying to do the other thing which I preach a lot, which is trying to remember the process. Right. Um, I didn't get the results I wanted. But the one thing I can hang my head on, and then one thing I can say, probably I'm honestly I'll go back and say I'm embarrassed, like I'll tell you, like just honestly, just being brutally honest with you. This is embarrassing. It's embarrassing that I missed a buck. It's embarrassing that I didn't kill a deer. It's embarrassing I spent seven days in the best place in the world and couldn't get it done. It's embarrassing that, you know, me, Clay, Tony, and Spencer were all on this hunt for the show, and Tony killed, Spencer killed, Clay killed. Who's the one guy I didn't kill? The son of a gun that hosts the Wired Dunt podcast, this this great big white tailed podcast. I'm supposed to be the guy is supposed to get this done, and then I don't. Um So all of those things have been in my brain, and uh man, it sucks. But the one thing, when I climbed out of the tree last night, I just said, I freaking gave it my all. I mean, I just did everything I could. I did not take a break. I did not take an easy route. Every time I thought, man, I got to make an adjustment, every time I thought I gotta take a long way, every time I thought I gotta go harder, longer. Whatever I did it, I gave every damn little bit of myself. And I am whooped and Um, tired, and uh, you know, that's just how it goes sometimes. So I I'm gonna try to sleep easy tonight in some kind of way, knowing that I left it on the court, left it all on the field, and that that is just how it goes sometimes. That's all right, that's life. Right. You're gonna work really hard for things, and you're not gonna get what you want. Sometimes you're gonna have tough times. You have good times and you have tough times, and you get learn how to weather both. And you gotta learn how to stay even killed. And you've gotta learn to stay positive through it and make the most situations. And you gotta know how to take your lumps. And so I'll get through this one. I've gotten through all the others. I'll get through this one. I'll learn from it. I'll grow. And um, you know, if any of you followed Wired to Hunt for any period of time, you know that I have been through these things before. And this is just this is this is what wird Hunt is. I guess right. This is a process, this is a learning process. You've gotten to ride along with me since two thousand nine, when I first decided to try to start killing mature bucks. When when more like, well, yeah, I guess he's nine. Um, when I said, all right, I'm gonna try to kill them a sure buck, And you've got to follow along with me as I have tried to learn how to do that and started being able to do that, and started to do that consistently. But you've also seen me fail a whole lot along the way. You've seen me struggle, and you've seen me learn from it. You've seem to get better, You've seen me revert back and do bad again. You've see me get better again. And damn it, what we're gonna keep on doing. I'm gonna bounce back from this one. I'm gonna learn from it. This whole little breakdown I just did with you guys, I don't know if this is interesting in any kind of way. I don't know if you just listen to me prattle on for an hour and forty minutes with with nothing to it, I'm not sure. I hope that there's something valuable here, But I hope that by trying to break things down like this, um for myself, it can serve as an illustration of how you might be able to do the same both you know, how to work through a week of tough hunting and make adjustments. And you know, I feel like one of the things that I I think I did an okay job of. I think it did a good job of was trying to balance this um tension between searching out new spots and hot sign versus finding a good spot and giving a time. I you know, there's a couple of spots I really found h the deserved time, and I gave them a good bit. I didn't pan out, but um, I tried to kind of let a couple of spots soak the way they should. And at the same time, I also said, all right, there's times and you get a bail out and you gotta seek out new spots. So I I bailed out and scouted new areas and I hunted new spots, and you know, a couple of those plays lead to opportunities, are close to opportunities or sightings, and um, I think those are those were good moves. So you know, I can look back at my process, and I can look back at those decisions and and and and see some good things. I can see some good things. I can see some things I wish I would have done differently. I wish I had scouted out that north Ridge sooner. I wish that I'd gotten there sooner because if I had more time, I wonder if I would have had another opportunity. Um because it definitely was the best looking signed by far um that I found. And um, I didn't get there till the last day or second to last days when I scouted it and didn't hunt it till the last day. Um So tho's those those types of things too. And of course then the shot, I mean, I can look at that and tell you, I mean, I already did the things I wish I had done differently. Um So that's where I'm at, Guys. It was a heck of a week. I'm not happy with how it turned out. I wish I had a successful story to share with you right now. I wish I had a hundred and fifty and shape pointer five year old buck in the back of my truck right now, But I don't. And that's life. Sometimes you drive home with an empty truck bed, and what makes the man, I think is what you do the next morning when you wake up. You're gonna hang your ahead and are you gonna bitch about it, and are you gonna let that define you or are you gonna hit the road and keep on trying. And I guess, literally and figuratively, I am hitting the road and going to keep on trying, as I'm actually in my truck driving to Nebraska, and I will be starting to hunt again tonight, filming an another show and hopefully gonna put something together a very different hunt. We'll talk about this at a later day, but um, I'm gonna keep on keeping on then, keep grinding. And I hope that if you guys are out there, if any of you are out there and you've had something like this, if you had a tough hunt, if you had a tough week, if you had a tough moment, if you missed a buck or wounded a buck, or if you can't seem to get on a deer or whatever it is, Um, I hope that you will keep on grinding too. I hope you will do what it takes to keep the fun in it. Don't let this stuff get miserable, don't put so much pressure on yourself that you aren't enjoying it anymore. But also remember that you know hard work, hard work is good for you, and Um, it does. It does pay off in the end in one way or another. So keep after it, keep the faith. I'm pulling for all of you. I'm I'm stoked that so many of you have had success. I love all the messages and pictures and notes I get sent when you guys do fill a tag and uh and I'm just wishing the best for all the rest of you too. So that is it for today. I appreciate you listening to me kind of do my post hunt therapy session here. Um, I don't know if this is I don't I don't know anything right, what do I know? But uh, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope that the next time we chat, I've got a better story for you. And until then, thank you for listening, and stay wired to Hunt.