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It's it's beginning to look like Christmas everywhere.
We from Kansas to Tennessee and everywhere in between.
Looking for the.
Third time is a charm.
This is the third time we're report we're reporting this podcast, recording this podcast, and I'm not int stop again.
I don't care what happens reporting this podcast.
You can hear a little wheeze in my throat, and that's because I have asthma and basement. I'm probably gonna get Jordan to go get mine haalar and throw it to me here in about twenty five.
Minutes, because in a basement, and you know, my chest getting heavy.
And we are in a basement that's really hot, and because it's sixty degrees in the middle of December, it smells a little bit like dead deer down here because it's connected to my garage.
You know what doesn't smell like dead deer is our unbelievable studio in Nashville where all kinds of microphones.
And micro and nice microphone legit stands and nice chairs that are comfortable.
But you can't you can't determine how people were gonna feel during Christmas break, especially when they have the stomach virus. So shout out mow and hope you get feeling better. Yep, wasn't worth the risk, Buddy, wasn't worth the risk.
Might be might have been, might have been the risk out of my watching Matt act could just be today. Shout out also to Ben Stennis for that microphone, Tucker Bethard for this microphone. I took my daughter to Huff's sister, just a little grocery store slash gas station up the road, country store. Got a biscuits this morning, met Stennis there with that SM seven B. Brought it back thinking that I had an s M seven B here didn't because we recorded with Ella Langley. I hope y'all enjoyed that podcast a couple of weeks ago, and she brought her dad. We needed four mics. I brought my mic from here to up there to our state of the art, million dollars studio. I don't know if it's a million dollars, but it might be. I mean the building, I say billion dollar studio, and left it there. So we had one mic called Tucker but you know about his crib, and got another one. This is the Christmas season, and today's got the Christmas tree today is the day before Christmas. Check out these deer.
We're doing everything we can for y'all, and Merry Christmas. We even sang Christmas song we wrote real quick.
We even we even have the studio light that is a just a lamp that's with the shade off. That's all it is. I think Jordan took a picture of it and probably going to post it on this It looks like it's going to take off running across the basement. I don't even know if it's doing anything. Yes, if it's working.
Cloudy on the iPhone, don't care. But here we are. No, it's not time for that.
Ye nope.
Uh, let's get into the Christmas episode, y'all. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas, guys, get off my cord. I have limited my arms already have limited footage. Dan, you've been busy with h F on the show with Sprinkles. Man, give us a give us a little bit, and I don't make it long so I can rest my arm.
Let me just be honest.
I got mad at Chyanne because she she named it Sprinkles the night before and I was just like, you know, if you're going to like do something creative, like be creative with it. You know, I thought Sprinkles was like a pretty just run at the middle name.
What okay, I mean calling your wife out and all over daddy listening to this podcast. Well, just sure she knows it is true or not. I'm not getting stopp or cut. We're not cutting it.
No, I don't care, that's fine, She's cool, So sprinkle like sprinkles. I just feel like it's just such a foreseeable name for a elvia Michelle, you know what I mean.
Like, yeah, but it's not the most foreseeable name.
It's not.
No, I got the most foreseeable name. And I'm really sorry. If you're Elfie Elf is named this, that's a that's a bad one. Yeah, Elf Chippy people, Yeah, Chippy is like the actual Elf on the Shelf show. Oh I didn't know there was a show and people. Yeah, there's an e Fland Shelf Netflix show.
Yeah, somebody's making some bank on that bit.
And Griffin loves it. But Chippy is that one? And I know some people are naming their Hippy. I feel like that's like just h zero creativity. Sorry, yeah, hot takes zero. If your el's name is Chippy, if your kid's names elf. If your kids el's name is Chippy or Elfie or Elfie, get it together and change their names.
It's like people who have an iguana named Iggy.
I'm like it was pre named. We had Eggy and egg, we had e one and two.
It was yeah, we were six.
They're still buried at Shadow Popular Street and Savanna shout out you too. All right, give us some Sprinkles updates.
So here's the thing. My daughter's five.
She really enjoys Sprinkles just because it's like, you know, man, something that look forward to. Right, she's popping up in the morning. Oh my goodness, what did the f do? She's in the moment, she's that young. Sprinkles isn't is annoying to you know, deal with? Yeah, Sprinkles is annoying to deal with. But at the same time, it's, uh, it's pretty fun. I mean you just get to like take this thing kind of be creative that night. So and there's also a plethora of information on the Internet that you can just jump on if you're feeling kind of stumped. And I don't try to like do exactly what the internet does, but I may pull a little inspiration from what they say is a good idea to do, like for example.
Sorry, anxiety tweaking over this thing?
For example, what was the one I did the other night? Oh, we made a gingerbread house and I took a bite out of the gingerbread house like that, like Sprinkles had done it.
Are Loretta is our el's name, and she was she was on the like sitting on this ginger head bread ginger breadhouse of the n Yeah, pretty normal. Yeah, sure for Chippy, easy move for Sprinkles.
So and and let me say this, this is I can get a little personal take in this. There's a lot of stress that comes with these holidays, especially if you have kids and you're trying to figure it all out. And we as dudes want to be deer hunting the entire time, correct every day. Yeah, well, while we're busy worrying about that, some people, my wife as such, it is worried about our kids, the gifts, them, enjoying things.
What Sprinkles is going to do that night?
You know what I mean.
It's like I feel like, as dudes right now, it goes a long way for deer season next year to be considerate of what your significant other is going through at the same time.
So yeah, good good, Uh tip out there too. I mean, that's a good that's what I'm saying. That's a good thing to say. It's like we all know what browning points are, right, Like, dudes feel different about holidays than girls and just kind of in our situation, in our situation, so so do what they want to sometimes.
So a thing to do, which is not that hard to do, is to smoke down a hobby lobby. You're going down there anyway. You're dropping your kid off at Columbia Academy anyway. So I'm down there, and I'm like, I'm going to just pop in to hobby lobby, even though it's out of my comfort zone. I don't want to be there much. It was the last time you ever went to hobby lobby years, So I'm going with Camelo crocs on. There's like fifty moms in there, and it's so at Christmas time, it's.
Like hobby lobby at Christmas bro six Wonder of the World, sixty percent off everything.
It's like a I mean, what do they call that when they try to fire it's a fire sale. Yeah, they trying. They were already turning it over, putting it all out. Yeah, so everything sixty percent off, dude. I picked up like a bunch of little ornaments for them to paint, some some felt ornaments for them to put together. I picked up a couple of puzzles for like ten dollars. I picked up some like Pez candy, Santa stuff. So now for the next week, that's when I think you enter the danger zone of.
F on the chef. It's like the week before Christmas.
You know you're running out of ideas. Just stock up on all that stuff for like three dollars, bring it all home, put it in a cabinet, and each night walk up there and be like, bam, got it. So this morning Elfie rode the Christmas Pig to North Pole.
One of the most prepared you've ever been in your life.
I think Elfie rode the Christmas pig to the North Pole, not Elfie Sprinkles rode the Christmas pig to the North Pole and picked them up a Christmas warm up, which is a little puzzle like a Christmas pot and with some Christmas cookies on there, and was sitting on it riding the pig.
And they were like, oh, my goodness.
Uh, Sprinkles aught this a Christmas warm up and I'm like, yep, he did, and it wasn't that it wasn't that much to do. I mean, you can really get stressful because you don't want to be the mom or dad that like Sprinkle has been cooking eggs for three days in a row. You know what I'm saying, Like right, get him going, Yeah, put a little effort into it.
You got nothing else to do. You're not that exhausted.
Well five, I mean, Liza is at the perfect age where like Third Imagination is going.
Crazy so loving it.
She's loving Griffin's just like Gryffin will see Loretta hanging from the fan and like twirling and be like like Lauretta to be careful of there, don't. You're gonna hurt yourself if you fall, and then not look at it the rest of the day. And so we just kind of Loretta is not really doing much. She's just kind of hopping around places.
Like around Christmas, christ miss day, keep going everywhere, see with you and me on the good play fash Day.
Well Christmas, dude, especially when it's seventy.
It's one hundred and sixty in this basement, right, good, honest, So what sprinkles? What's the big what's the big? Who roh for sprinkles? You go, you get anything once she goes home on the Christmas Eve. So no, just some steady cool holiday cheer.
Hey, look, man, be cheery, dude. It's one time of year. Be cheery this year. You can just maybe drop your inhibitions. Feel the rain on your lips and just.
I was off key too. This is losing it. It was a December and music city, Remember delusion?
That was funny? I recorded that we got.
I don't know if anything's recording, dude. I don't know if the computers for audience recording. I don't know if the phone looks like or the A seven.
Just stop talking about time, talking about things recording and not recording. So fill the rain on your lips, skin, and be cheery this year.
It is a decision, man, be cheery this year.
This year, be cheer.
There's gonna be plenty of time of deer in duck Hunt. Just give them some talking to yourself.
Okay, what I did? You know what I did? You know what we did say?
This morning though, when we went back to hust for the third time by HUSS for the third time. You think you went up there for breakfast. We went back by there on the way to drop your deer off. We came back by it only drop your deer off. Then we stopped again when I had to get gassed. We've been past HUSS four times a day. There is four dudes, oh man, And I know they're not listening to this podcast, and that's okay, man, but they maybe they are. Maybe they're listening to her right now. They were gassing up their forward extended cab, not four door extended cab, shell on the back with the shell on, pull in the duck boat probably twenty two years old.
Yeah, four of them. Duck Prime, blind bags and Prime decoys Prime. Yeah, prime of your life. Man hold on to those days. Was like, can we get in there? I was like the room.
Look, I'm usually not a guy.
They're from Georgia. And Dan was like, where you going? He's like Arkansas. Black Day was like, he's like black River. I said, I hope you sid I hope you kill me. I hope you kill a million.
I said, man, we all just hopping every with it.
He's like, come on, man, man, dude, go go listen, go do it. Go do it while you got the time of kids. It's a lot of fun.
I was.
There was an ounce of jealousy there at the beginning of that, and then I just felt complete joy because I'm like, man, those guys are just doing it. Man, they're just going and doing it, and like we're past it.
We used to we used to do it.
We used to drive to South Dakota a day.
And all right, let's talk about have we talked about that analyte punch, specifically your analyop tag?
I don't know. So Reed draws a South Dakota.
An awesome antelope mount back. You gonna go grab that?
He grabs a a U South Dakota antelope tag west West River, extremely coveted, by the way, And when he does, it's.
Upstairs, shack, it's upstairs. I thought it wasn't.
No, it's upstairs. We don't need that much you going. So we reads like, man, we can't afford to go out there. We don't have the money to fly. It's gonna be way too much. It's like four hundred dollars a ticket. We both want to fly to fly, and you waited too, Remember you waited too long to get the tickets. At one point it was like two hundred bucks to fly.
Yeah.
Yeah, and so it's like everything else.
And so you called the d N or whatever South Dakota DNR is and we're trying to turn the tag in to see if you can keep your points and she was like, too late, you can't do it.
Yeah.
So you called me and you're like, we're going to southa Coata and I was like okay, So we jump in the truck, we drive. I had to be back on Sundays or Saturday, Saturday, Sunday, I can't remember. We'll say Saturday. And so we left on Wednesday.
Dude, I don't remember the day. I just know we left and drove. That's a it was fourteen hours. That's a fourteen hours where to South Dakota. Yeah, you're crazy as nineteen hours? Oh okay, I thought it was nineteen hours. Look how awesome this looks uh shout out Craig Jay CG I mean CJ Creig Jerald, Creg Jerald's look at.
Mohawk on that thing not taking customers. Sorry, but this is a meet.
This is the media arount. This is not the ANLOPA shot in South Dakota on this trip. Yeah, it's gonna go on oaks frown looks sick.
Man, Those uh easy.
Those prongs on the shovels are ship shovels are nasty. We drive nineteen well, we drive about seventeen hours. We drove about seventeen hours. I drove the whole way on the way up there. I sure did the whole way all way. We drove my Tacoma and Dan. I didn't have enough money to put tires on my truck. First off, I didn't either, but we we had to have them. We got up there and it was snowing.
Yeah, we're eighteen hours on some it was like it was.
It was snowing and nasty. And I think somebody told I think we talked somebody and they're like, hey, man, if you don't have if you don't have tread on those things, you're done. And we would have been no if we for sure muddy. Remember we slipping that gas.
Wait just start.
So we pull up and there is a shell of a of a barn. Like remember we know we slept in the back parking lot. Yeah, we slept in that gas station parking lot for like two.
Hours until that dude pulled up and kind of sketching.
I was left. Yeah, and then we just kept on driving. Yeah, pull into this to where we're gonna hunt. There's a couple of old sheds. We raised the and it's like literally seventeen degrees I mean, and the windshills like maybe negative. It was freezing straight north wind. Yeah, that that put like a knife wind. That weather out there is way different than down here. Weather pulling the ground was cold. Pull up to a to ah ha, Yeah, I was wearing everything. I was like whatever that micheline Man raised the garage door of this little like this old dilapidated garage pretty much shed dirt floors. We backed the Tacoma in make room for a tent. We put up the tent and ended up trying to sleep in the tent, but it was so cold that we couldn't, so we got in the truck, remember that. And we would take turns waking up and turning the truck one and turn turning the heat on ventilated, and then we would turn it. We would stay up for about thirty minutes while the truck hinted up, and then we turned it off and try to fall asleep Oh my goodness, du that was I mean.
But also the sweetest not sleep ever because earlier to that day, after we set the tent up, we had two hours of light. Three hours of light, that's right. And you were like, let's go check, let's might as well go. We're here, might as well go home.
One giant butte in the middle of this, this five thousand acre ranch and you can eat press. Yeah, it's easily access to it. So we drove to the bottom of it, climbed to the top of the but and I remember there, if you were looking south, you saw those two herds of goats in that cut hayfield and it was round bells and they were rutting at the time, running around doing crazy, going crazy, and it was like, I was like, man, I don't really want to know if we can get to No, that wasn't that was just a straight up pasture, no round hay bells. And then you said, hey, look over here. Yeah, and we looked left and there was one long buck sitting at the end of a cut hayfield with round bells in between us, by himself, and we glassed.
Him and he just looked twice the size of any other antelope in the entire.
His horn, the shovel on his right side was broke off. He's just like an old warrior, he was. He just looked like a brute. And so we literally had just pulled into camp maybe an hour and a half, two hours before set up. Temp came up here and looked and Damn was like, you wanna go for it? And I was like, yeah, man, might as well try. Sure enough, we were videoing at the time, trying to do the brothers hunt thing. We we videoed and stalked our way round bell, round bell, round bell, round bell, and got to forty something like that, set up on a round bell, shot this goat and took hero pictures in the most it was awesome, unbelievable sunset you've ever seen in your life. Just drove nineteen hours to do it.
Hold him out, hung him from a tree, the one tree on the entire place, hold him out, and then tried to sleep and didn't really got up the next morning, went and paid the trespass feed you man.
We did some scouting too that day, yeah, because we were coming back in a month for meal dear and ended up killing great meal deer out there that that and then drove home. Dude, that's getting it, that's getting it.
We were we were on the road one way, like five more hours than we were actually on the property.
Yeah.
I think we were on the property a total of like thirteen hours. We had driven eighteen or whatever it was to get up there, and then came and then and then came back. I came straight home into my wedding outfit and was at a wedding on Saturday night and I was like this just but it was shining sister's wedding, so I had to be there those the days.
That's what we're saying.
The whole point of that rambling story is to tell you that if you're listening to this podcast, you're twenty something years old, you don't have.
Kids, you know, Man, get out there and do it, man, Yeah, do it. Keeping ducks chase them, if fits bucks, shoot them, if it fish catch them.
That's right, it's dreams chasing.
I canna keep going. All those are good things.
What else is moving right along?
Hey, we're gonna try a new thing in twenty twenty five, Big Year coming back for season tall.
Yeah we're back, dude, I forgot that.
Let's twenty twenty five be doing some new things, at least for a little while. We're gonna try a.
Thing called h.
For ratings, and you can you can watch your pod watch the podcast where if you on YouTube, if you listen to it on the on Apple or Spotify or wherever. Give us a little roast man, roast us a little bit su and uh, we'll read something.
Gotta be a five star review, though, don't roast one.
That's right, gotta be a five star review. We'll pick out some five star reviews and we'll let you roast us for a little bit and read the best ones, read the best ones made, and play them in songs. Sometimes.
Yeah, maybe you get a shout out on the podcast. They be really special and famous.
While we're talking about that, go follow us on our socials. All this stuff.
I don't listen, and let's just break it down. This is annoying, and we recognize that it is, okay, but unfortunately it's how the world of podcasting turns. And we need your help. We need Steve Andilli to know we're important, okay, or he's gonna fire us. He's so mean to be fired. He's so mean, so mean, calls us at all hours of the night and just you're not doing good.
Rates us about this podcast.
You talk too much about private land. Yeah, I'll just kidd you. Don't do that. You don't call us. I don't even know the guy. Yeah, so.
We're gonna do roasting for ratings. All right. You want to get into what are we doing? What you're mad at? Oh?
Sure you yeah, you are.
What you mad?
Just tell us what it is. What you're mad at is a gin lost kid, might be a boss man, well, your neighbor's cat.
Just tell us what.
You're mad. I try to make this that is Christmas as possible.
Me too, Are you mad anything?
M Yeah, specifically specifically, I'm mad at online entities.
My back is killing me.
You are trying to influence people passing deer.
Online entities that are trying to influence people passing deer.
A certain size of deer. Okay, I think personally for their own benefit?
Which you mean?
Am I getting my talking to inside? Should I save this for like actual content in the podcast or should we.
We can do it right now, we can just do it. We don't have a guest, all right.
So I ran across I ran across a thing, A relatively popular thing. And uh, do you have enough microphone rope? Yeah, no, it'll kill you.
It might hit the space mark.
Speak, which you know. I'm talking about your boy doing a front flip here earlier. That's set the mood. Yeah, Dan was moving deer around. That's not even in the shot. And uh, we were in the meantime looking for microphones. I was in an unbelievably bad mood. First off, let me say it wouldn't have happened had there not been a faulty screw in the preston.
But it puts one hundred and fifty inch Mississippi ten point up there, and it just does a somersault off the wall and heads straight on the antlers. Yeah, luckily he's luckily he's tough and didn't break anything. Damn was real glad.
Yeah, I was real glad because that was kind of me kind of kind of.
Not but kind of. I'm working.
That's how hard we're working to bring you.
This for you for you on Christmas Eve. To look, man, these guys online are talking and I think I think as hunters we have to be careful with what terms we use in order to describe something right, Like I mean We've been hunting a long time, right, We're in a different spot in our progression of hunting than.
Other people are.
But this this idea that if you kill anything less than one hundred and fifty inch deer, get out of my face. You're not some true hunter or some get out of my face, annoys me so much, dude, there is so much. Now, look, let me just put a disclaimer out there. There is but two ways a deer gets to one hundred and fifty inches. One we all know is age has to be an old.
Asian genetics put aging genetics in that same category.
It's got to be a special deer anywhere.
Honestly, I mean there's people out like, there's one hundred fifties run around every corner in Illinois and Iowa, Kansas, and there's note, dude, we've hunted there, and there's not.
There are some there, There are some there. But I'm telling you, it takes a special deer to push one hundred and fifty inches. It takes a really special deer to push one hundred and fifty inches anywhere south of Kentucky.
Yeah, anywhere it can happen.
It happens every year. It happens all the time. But no, not all the time. It happens a lot. It doesn't happen a lot, it happens a pretty bit. Okay, they're deer that get killed that are over one hundred fifty in just in Tennessee, Mississippi and Georgia, blah blah blah. But it for sure has to have age. I don't think you're going to have many two year olds anywhere in the country run around over one hundred.
And fifty unless they have unbelievable genetics, which is I mean, it's very rare for a two year old to ever reach that.
Secondly, it's got to have the mineral slash nutrition to get to maximize that antler growth. Right, and we're talking about area, yeah, in which it's sure the area. I mean, this is not a hard it's not a hard concept to grasp that the bigger deer are in the bigger ag areas.
Yeah. Absolutely, I mean more the soul is more fertile. It's it's it produces more nutrition in the corn, produces more nutrition in the in the beans, and.
Says a mineral.
And when you combine the two things, nutrition and age, you start to get into that higher class of literal class. I'm not talking about like a class. I'm saying they call him one hundred eighty inch class. And if you have no idea what we're talking about, this deer right here, it's probably one hundred and thirty five this year forty maybe maybe one thirty.
Maybe one thirty. Okay, this is a Tennessee deer. Okay, they can see it on the well, I guess it's fine.
Yeah, yes, anyway, so it's a Tennessee deer. It's probably a four to five year old deer. Heck of a buck, sure, heck of a buck. But like that's what he's going to be right there. And to try to push it on people that they should be passing this deer in order for there to be like the possibility of hitting one hundred a booner is absolutely ridiculous. Like ultimately, d n R S and TWA that's ours. Tennessee wildfe Resources Agency set up the number of deer that should be taken per state, right, so scientifically they're proving that there are there's this many number of deer in the state, this is how many need to be taken, and then they aim at that right so we're allowed two bucks in the state of Tennessee. Well, what that's doing is doubling the amount of deer of bucks getting shot than you would have in like Kentucky, probably because and I'm nots ssaring, I'm not exactly sure on the numbers, but I would say it's probably more because you're only allowed one buck in Kentucky.
Correct.
Yeah, So because of that, and when this is deer math I'm doing here, but essentially you have an older age class because you can only take one deer in Kentucky. So those deer are getting to a bigger age, they also have.
A bigger ag.
But but where I get kind of weird is when there starts to be pressure on either a novice hunters b meat hunters. I mean, there's all there's all kinds of different reasons while people go into the woods, and just because your reason is different than someone else's reason does not make it correct. And I get really annoyed with that.
Yeah, there's always going to be that, right, There's gonna be that guy that says, well, I'm trying, I'm only shooting six plus deer and if they're not over one hundred and fifty inches you know, I'm passing them because it's a shame to shoot a deer, you know, less than one sixty one seventy when you know the potential that they can they can get to. And that's the term that got me. Yeah, the shame. That's the word shame got me too. But yeah, man, because it's not a shame, but it's just like everything else. Are you ashamed of shooting that hit? I'm not ashamed of any deer hanging in this room, bro. And the reason why is because, like you said, man, I okay, I'm kind of I'm kind of baiting you here. We hunt for we hunt for a lot of different reasons.
Okay, I'm baiting you here, all right. I kind of baited you into this conversation because within the last ten days you've killed one of each class.
Okay, you killed a inch term literally, yeah.
You killed and you killed the bigger one. First, you killed one hundred and sixty inch eight nine wacko bully boss Buck in Kansas a week ago. Yeah, and then you turn right around, come home to Tennessee and shoot a one thirty Yeah.
Okay, there would be.
A conversation from from these guys, whoever these guys are that are having this conversation online and annoying me saying, well, if you're such a if, why in the world would would somebody go to Kansas shoot one sixty come home seven days later and shoot one hundred and thirty inch the deer?
Can you answer that question?
Because I believe he's he's a mature deer and he was one of the he was one of the shooters on that farm.
He was, and he was a mature deer.
He's a deer that that we've watched all year, and we made the decision to hunt him, and we went in there and hunted him, and I just so happened to get into the stand five minutes before he walked out of off the ridge, which deer. You gotta clarify what had here? Yeah, the last ten days have been deer hunt. Wise's been insane for me. We ended up going. Dan took that giant two hundred and eleven inch year early season in Kansas. I didn't tag, so I still have my tag in my pocket. The second gun season came and I couldn't go. Dan couldn't go, and I'd been talking to Jordan and talking to everybody and work and kind of cut out some time, and in doing that, my dad was like, Hey, I'd love to I'd love to go see it. And so I was like, yeah, So we'd plan this this trip out west which just me and Dad to go to Kansas and and try to get it done. And got my court dog cour Sorry sorry sorry. On the way there, I asked him, I was like what, I was like, have you ever what's the farthest west you've ever hunted? And he said McNairy County, which is the county right next to Harden County, so kind of like that, kind of like the antelope thing. We drove thirteen hours. He got done preaching at at the church.
I picked him up Santafy Baptist. Y'all come straight shout out, drove pretty much straight.
We we stopped to eat some dinner to Kansas twelve and a half, thirteen hours. We got there at three forty five in the morning. We slept for an hour, went to the stand, got up, went to the stand and Dad was having such a good and at this point in like the rut's over right, Like they're not, they're just they're on feed there. It's a it's a daylight, dark thing, and so Dad was having such a ball. We saw thirty something plus bucks man, We saw so many doze. There were deer everywhere, new deer. I mean Dad had his binoculars and he was like, a point right there, there's a good one. I don't know if he's a shooter. There's a spike, there's there's there's another eight point just I mean everywhere, you know, because their bucks are running crazy all over us form and he was having such a good time. I was like, it got to about nine thirty and movements started going down a little bit and I was like, hey man, what we want to do? Do you want to get got out of here? And He's like, I could sit here all day. So we literally sat there all day long.
Two hours of sleep that night and for.
An hour of sleep, drove twelve hours, sorry, drove twelve hours up an hour, sat in the blind for twelve hours that afternoon. Hunt was awesome. Is the same thing, bucks running everywhere. We didn't catch up to one of the shooters we had on camera. Go back, we crash, wake up the next morning and a little bit slower, but yes, a deer that we had previously been watching on trail camera. I got a ton of trail camera pictures of him that we were in there were in there hunting two deer. This deer showed up. We call him the Urlacker Buck because there's a trail camera picture of him doing like this, like turned this way, I guess to the to the camera. And I'm talking about if, if, if a deer could be one of those guys that wear the g string bikini and the outfits and like the muscle things and like this, that would be this bob. Yeah, I've never seen he looked like Mike Tyson. He could also be called the Tyson Buck because I've never seen a body on a deer like this. And he wasn't gonna he wasn't the biggest. He wasn't going to score the most on that farm.
There's a couple of deer that we're going.
To score more than him. But this dude was bad, man, he was He was bad. And I kept on telling everybody, Like the trail camera pictures we've got of this deer, he was always alone. He never he didn't run with Bucks. I don't think he'd befriended Bucks. I don't think he Bachelorett I mean bachelor groups with bucks. He just wanted to be and I think he was. I think he was the oldest, baddest dude on.
That farm, which is a telltale sign to me of mature animal. Is like, it seems like these bigger bucks, the older bucks, when they when they get to that caliber, they don't like a bunch of bunch of teenage dude like us.
Right right, yeah, man, we we kind of we kind of do what's comfortable to us. We don't really get outside the box. And I think that's what this deer was doing. And uh, sure enough he stepped out, had a muzzleater in my hand, and you know, cranked him at forty five yards and and he ran around the ceater and me and Dad gave him about an hour and got down and found him in about put us both in the hospital trying to load him up in the man on the car hauler. And it was awesome, man. We got to celebrate with our buddies up there, and uh, and really just to do that with Dad, and just to see him hunt the Midwest and see anybody hunting Midwest for the first time is an unbelievable experience. But somewhere like Kansas where it's like a like it's it's like nature's one to one ratio. The hunting experience is unbelievable out there, and to take Dad to do that and watch that go down was pretty special, man.
So we drove back.
We went out there on Tuesday, drove back, or we went out there on Sunday, got there, hunted Monday. I killed that buck on Tuesday. We drove back Wednesday and uh, you know, did some stuff, finished off work for the year.
Scrapes got hot in Western Sea.
For the second for the second time too. So so if you're not familiar with the Southern rut kind of how it works is is that that third week of November, right about Thanksgiving, we got to get some better chairs. Dude, these are yelling, my d my left arms numb, and my back is Lambard done that first? That's that first rut circle. Those those first doze are gonna start coming into heat that third week of November, and it's and it's clockwork every year, right like ish it is. It's clockwork every year. It's gonna be it's gonna be that November to that that December one, like twenty four to one is a great It is a great time if you're hunting Tennessee to be in the deer woods and so so scrapes fired up hundred rut hard. Yeah, so what are we talking about? Sorry, the air came home and I'm thinking that it's gonna mess up our mics what you did. But uh so now we're into the let's it's really this is dropping on the December for twenty fourth, but let's let's fall back to December sixteenth, the second second cycle of dose. The does that weren't bred and the younger yearlings are going to start coming into heat now, and that's all that's gonna do is just kick run off again. Because every buck in there, a buck can breed as many times as he wants to. A dot can only be bred once. So the younger does that didn't get bread, or the yearlings that are coming into heat, or the older does that didn't get bread are coming back into heat too, So.
Clear that they can they can be bred multiple times. They can only be.
Like Inception, Yeah, yeah, impregnated, yes, whatever. Instead Inception is a movie. Yeah, it's a great movie, by the way, as yeah, is that right? Is that the right word?
Terms bread? Insiminated.
What I'm talking about, though, is the acts of breeding. I've seen those be bred multiple times in the same field by multiple bucks. When they take when they become with child, they're not getting bread again after that.
Right, That's what I meant to whatever word that is, whatever whatever word terminology that is, That's what I'm talking about.
So just with child is just falling right in there with the holiday spirit, you know. Yeah, So from.
From a trail camera pictures, we've been seeing that the scrapes are starting to fire up again and and deer, big deer starting to show back up on scrapes. And that's when this big wide eight showed back up. And we had previously said that, you know, there were a couple of deer on the farms in Weston and see that we were going to hunt, and he was one of them. And and h December sixteenth, I had already got permission from Jordan to go down there. I had that Kansas deer to take to Craig, and also had Nana Loved to pick up from Craig and a turkey to drop off at Craigs, and so I had some reason to go down. But I also had like a ton of work to do in the garage, and I'm going to I'm gonna build these like organizing them. We're redoing the basement. So there's all this stuff going on, and I was, I was, Dad was going to go with me, and but he had stuff going on. So I was really contemplating on going and I was like, hey, man, that's kind of what you said earlier. I was like, I've got I've got permission, I've got the opportunity. I don't have a lot of these days anymore as as a parent and a husband and all that. So I took off and took all this stuff to Craigs. We talked for you know, an hour and a half, and literally left there in time to get to the stand at two thirty. When I got to the farm, I had my last, like the last pour of seeds into my into my mouth. I poured the seeds in. I'm on the chinook. Yeah, less salt less, salt less, harsh, they don't they don't chew your jaw up. Cody put us on those. No, I found those. He did not put me on this. I found those. Oh, he put me on them, and they're good. I like them a whole lot. I've also found out that I'm an original guy. I don't like any I don't like any crazy seasonings anymore. The taco things out the door that was a fling. Period's gone through, the last last handful of seeds in my mouth. Drove to the stand, blew a dough out of the field getting there, didn't care when was good, climbed up. I was gonna sit in this other this one lean to but when I got when I got over there, I saw that you couldn't really shoot. We hadn't really cleared out shooting lanes too much, so I decided not to sit there. I went to another double set that me and Dan hung that Dan shot that deer out of, and uh. Climbed up and literally was about to sit in that seat that you sat in when you shot that deer. And I saw that the straps had broken, and I pushed on that tree stand and it swag out like it was literally holding on by the tree.
Nice.
So climbed up into the clant camera stand. Checked the camera stand and I got up there and was looking around. And it's not really ideal because I have to shoot over my opposite side, but I knew this deer had been in there a couple of days before I broke a limb, And this is all sequence, and I'm saying this for what's about to happen. I broke a limb, I got my gun and I kind of aimed around to see where what limbs I could shoot over, what limbs I could shoot under, where I could see. I turned around, hung my gun up on the bow hanger and sat down. I said a prayer and literally looked to my right again, and I just saw a just a bristled up, dark, big deer walking off the ridge two thirty in the afternoon. This is about two thirty eight right now. And I was like, man, there ain't no way, there ain't no way that that's that deer, and grabbed the gun, spun around, put the scope on him, powered it all the way up, and sure enough it was that big white eight point he's about two hundred fifty yards of working his way down this ridge. He went down and washed him make a scrape. I got off of the stand and put my knees on the platform and was and was like holding in my elbow and tried to rest as much as I could on the seat of the millennium and shot the deer, shot the deer and uh dropped him in the in the scrape and that was that was Monday kill Tuesday. So I killed that I killed that deer on Tuesday in Kansas, came back shot that deer on Monday, and yeah, man, they're gonna score a whole lot different. And deer in Kansas is is probably the biggest body deer I'll ever kill in my life. And the deer in Tennessee does not even compare body size or rack.
Size to that.
To that, when you but ten years from now, when you think back on the memories, will the memories compare a million percent? And to me, that is like the answer and the rebuttal to this ridiculous theory that every deer has to be one hundred and seventy inches for you to pull the trigger. What is the reason that you're doing it? I think you just did a beautiful job of explaining telling two stories about two very different deer that mean as much to you as as each other. There's there's no there's no greater weight determined that the second the first story wasn't better because that deer has thirty eight inches on your other one, you know what I mean? Like the heck no, and my and my point.
Is because I love hunting, man, I love being in the woods. I love I love making memories. I love going on adventure. And that's what that is, man. I was thinking back, dude, and we've hunted together our whole life, right, and we've we've been blessed to hunt with have Dad hunt with us. And I've been I've done a ton of hunts. I've went by myself. I've gone by myself. But I shot that deer and Dad was hunting on that other farm over there, and I loaded that deer, I took him back, I gutted him and did everything. And it was the first time that I've been by myself and killed a buck by myself and did the whole process by myself, and to me while I was doing it, Man, I remember, I put that deer in the creek after gutting him and just to cool him off a little bit because it's again it's sixty degrees outside, and I was just sitting on the bank just staring at him and looking at the farm that we hunt and had been you know, blessed to hunt. It for a while now, and man, just sitting there and enjoying that moment and reliving all the hunts before that and all the deer that had been laid in that creek, and you know, just just thankful for the opportunity to do it and the memories that you make while doing it. And that's dude, there ain't no I mean, if it could have, I don't care what kind of I don't care what deared, what size, anything like that. Man, That's that's why. And and listen that it's all different, right, it's all subjective, and you may do it for a different reason than I do it. But that's my take on that anyway, it's my right.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's much left to say. I mean, to me, it's like, what are you? What are you doing it for?
You know?
Not A guy show me a picture of him holding a seventy inch eight point and this boy holding a about a forty inch forecorn the other day and he was proud to show me that and he knew. He's like, man, I love the podcast, love what y'all do? Can I show you my dear? And he flipped that thing around.
Dude, and I was.
Like, hell yeah, brother, it's almost hell yeah.
It's probably almost more encouraging to you to see those deer than to see a hunt. Him holding one hundred and fifty inch deer and his son holding one hundred and thirty inch deer.
Yeah, man, And he was thankful.
He was like, man, I appreciate what y'all do and representing like the normal Southern hunter, which is what we are.
Man.
Yes, we get to go to some unbelievable places now, but we just start off like that, man. I mean, we started off hunting age and well we could start off hunting anything we could shoot, and then once we had shot a couple of six points and eight points, we kind of started moving up into wanting to get into the higher class bigger deer because we could we had the But but the reason, I mean the truth is some folks got twenty five acres that their aunt owns, and she's ninety two and who knows how long she's going to be left on the planet, and them some just shooting everything or anything that walks across with horns. And to tell the truth, that is okay, dude, absolutely perfectly.
The fact that we're even having to debate and talk about it is kind of ridiculous.
Right, agreed, that's what anyway, let me round this out.
Yeah, recognize as hunters that we all do it for different reasons, and that whatever the reason is, it's valid, it's valid. Yeah, there's the shame should never even enter.
We should erase the word from conversation at all.
Yeah, absolutely, especially if you said twice in a two minute clip, Yeah, about small deer and what a deer's potential could be.
Come holler at us, Well, that was what you're mad at, as well as the rest of what we're going to touch on in the podcast.
Yeah, it just kind of opened Pendora's box here.
What else.
You got anything music going on? I mean everybody's done.
Dude, everybody's done. Just waiting for next year. Yeah, no, I've been. I've I hadn't written a song in a little bit, and to be honest, it's been kind of nice. Yeah, agreed, just kind of being able to get some stuff done and you know, hunt a little bit, dad, a little bit, husband a little bit. Do you get ready for my birthday tomorrow? Well? Last week? Oh yeah, thirty seven week? I don't feel Yeah, no, dude, I really don't. Man and me and Dad listen. We were in the truck for twelve hours on the way to Kansas hand back, and we had this conversation because he's turning seventy one or seventy two, and he's like, man, I'm not old. He's like, I'm not old. He's like, I still feel like I'm young. And I feel, I mean like I'm thirty seven.
He acts young when he ain't wearing his hair, and ads, I want to lose my mind.
Yeah, huh huh no, he said today he said, sometimes I wear them, sometimes I forget them, and sometimes I forget them on purpose. And I was like, I get that, and I like that point. But uh no, man, we think, you know, you think back to when you were younger, and and like you said, right, like I think about Dan and Bobacks and and those are two people from from our back, you know, way back in in uh Savanna, Tennessee. But they were the forty year olds. They were the thirty five, and they were the four year old, and they were brothers want their four or five years apart. They were the they were the guys that that the cool guys, the young dads, the doing everything good playing softball, going to you, going to watch football games like those those are the dudes. Man. And and now that I'm to this point, and I saw how goofy they were back then and like acted they still acted young. But I was like, man, how can you even? I remember thinking like when I was little, like how can you? How can you be forty and act like they do? And dude, that's where I'm at, man, Yeah, like I I still feel I have a zest for life and and dude, I feel like I'm I feel like I'm twenty years old. Man, me too, honestly and meja yes, Dan, we were talking about earlier. If you're if you're twenty in single and you don't have any responsibility, man, go go chase your dreams. Go chase those deer, go chase those ducks, Go go chase those turkeys all over the country. Do it. But like I promise you, I'm thirty seven, I've got a wife and kids, I've got tons of responsibility. I don't have a lot of time to myself. And I wouldn't change anything.
For the world me neither, because I feel like we did it. I feel like when we had the time, we went and we got to a place to where now it's changing, right, It's turned into time for our kids. And to be honest with you, at this stage of my life, I'd much rather be playing with my kids in the backyard than in a rusted up to come seventeen.
Hours from home. Ain't no doubt. If I'm just being honest, there's times for both right now. There's there's periods for both.
Like I said, I saw them jokers getting in that boat and that truck today and thought.
There in that there, that's their rested up to come ahead of decide.
But I quickly turned from jealousy into gratefulness. Yeah, a sense of gratefulness that I had the opportunity to do that. And if you didn't have the opportunity to do that, you still can, man, there's still time. Like if you're breathing, there's a chance, you know. We talk about it all the time. It's like people getting into hunting through this podcast, right, like taking their tests, finding them their uncle's rifle, tuning it up, putting a new vortex on, shooting a spike or whatever.
Who cares do? We love to see it.
We're encouraged by it, and uh, We're just thankful to be a part of the ride with you guys, and thanks for thanks for you know, letting us be involved without hope. It's encouraging and you can always reach it out with questions. I had a guy hit me up the other day for our deer chicken fried deer recipe. Oh, He's like, dude, I from Canada. We don't do that stuff. Can you run it back on me?
One time? I was like, I don't have time for this, and then I wrote in my whole paragraum, we just uh, we just brought those deer from Kansas. I had that buck tag and then a dough tag and me and Dad. It was a heck of a two days uh processing those deer. But got them all processed and Jordan was gone to a Christmas event the other night and I and it was that night that we processed and I was like, man, what are we gonna eat for dinner? With the kids? Gonna eat? And I was like, okay, I got macaroni, I got I got deer burger macaron I got deer burger helper. How guess was that Griffin didn't touch it? She just she ended up just eating mac Okay, two balls. He's crushing it reaching for it. So that was that was fun. It was first his first time eating deer. But then we had deer chili. You made dear chili. I want to do some I got jerky thing. It's just the time, man, just that time, a time of year to be doing it.
Let's wrap it up, all right.
I'm sure that was important, that thing that I was saying, but it's a part of our show for the one that got away, and I'm gonna do one that got away, and you're gonna do gravorite.
I don't know is that how we're walking this about it?
But yeah, I go.
We'll just you know what, it's gonna come up a lot about songs that we like. So uh, I'm just gonna do a song I like. And you what if I have to do another one four episodes from now, You're just gonna have to deal with it.
Where let's well, let's get it going. I gotta I gotta go get bone. Where we hunt in West Tennessee, there's this long power line. And when Dad used to and I thought you'd probably know this because we've talked about it, But when Dad used to go hunt. He would take me and Dan with him and he'd drop us. He built out two boxes he'd dropped Dan in the first one me and the second one was called Dan's Blind or Dan's Field Readsville. And then Dad would take off into the woods and go hunt. And we'd have radios with walkie talkies and we'd be we'd be talking the whole time. We'd throw the orange, our orange vest out the window that signal to turn on your walkie talkie and turn the channel too, and we had got something to say. So I was I was real young, uh, And I hadn't killed a big deer at this point, and really hadn't seen big deer at this point. I've seen a bunch of bucks, but this one was different. He and and the first this is like I'm gonna say, like, let's go Friday Saturday, right, So Friday we go out there. This is the afternoon and I'm looking out the north part of this blind and I just I see what I think in the thicket is a is a deer butt. I put it on and it moves, it's walking down the power line. I can't see its head, but it's just not knowing. Then I was probably eight nine years old, well maybe I was probably older, twelve thirteen maybe, but not knowing then that what I was looking at was a super old deer, very gray, very sway back, very big belly like he was mature, probably was a big buck. I couldn't see his head because of the thicket, but I had opportunities to shoot this deer, and so he walked through the power line. I radioed walkie talkie Dan and told him and I was like, man, this deer's body was huge, and but I just and see his head, so I didn't want to shoot him. Well, when Dad found out, he's like, hey, man, he was like, next time you have that. He's like, that's an old deer. Shoot that deer.
Yeah.
I was like sure. So the next morning I got back into that same blind and I remember putting my scope out the window and my gun out the window and looking through the scope, and I was like, man, if that deer was right there again, I would put the gun. When I was practicing looking through the scope and I was in my mouth, I was going and about that time, still looking through the scope, that same deer, I'm pretty sure, stepped into my scope and I was like and I looked at it. I remember looking up and I should have shot him, just like yeah, right likee years old. Yeah. And he stepped broadside perfectly, and I had the gun out and I was like, oh my goodness. And I remember raising up and looking over the scope to see him and then I put it down. And when I put him down, he turned and started walking away, and I did at that point, I went man and he gave me a shot and he turned around and I put it right on the back. He's walking away, turned around, was put it right over his back, and I pulled the trigger and I remember his rack like the way I explained it is that I said it looked like flames, my young way, I would look like flames almost touching at the top. And it didn't go out. It wasn't wild like out and up. He just went over the top and was almost touching and I hit him. And we trailed blood for probably close to a mile. And the last time you know, we we found bloods was traveling uphill. We grid searched everywhere and never found that deer. And to me, I also shot one back there. Then I'm pretty sure I shot his rack and knocked him out because he fell down the hill. I got down out of the stand. I called you, and I was like, I just killed a giant. I got down. Under stand I was walking toward the deer, and the deer hopped up and frant We never found him, never found him, didn't find blood, didn't find nothing. So probably blew his horn off or something nice.
That's the one that got away.
And that was a couple that got away.
Let me see a country song.
Dan's gray for it, everybody, I mean, it is, it is, but it's just one.
It's just a country song that I love.
Oh, it's gonna hurt.
How are we gonna do this?
And look, I don't I'm not a good singer, and I don't care if you think I am or not.
I don't care. I just like the song.
Should I do Christmas song? It's too late?
No, Well, it sure feels good to come in here.
And just pull up.
See frosty mug of a cold one helps to be the.
Lee's old don days of summer. Lord, I'll be glad when they're gone. It's too hot to fish, too hot for gold, and.
Too cold home to of course, marn't you kill me?
Wellowly plant for one or two, my safe three. That good looking thing in the corner keep smiling back in me.
It's so week easy, not care.
About what's right of what is wrong.
Dog struggling.
It's too hot to fish, too hot to go, or too cold at home. It's too hot to hunt, too cold.
Fish and two kids at home?
You got three kids, I got two kids. Oh my goodness, my shoulders.
Thanks for chicking it out with us. Appreciate you.
Home episode done, rappid ambles today, Merry Christmas figured it out.
Thanks Jam got it doing.
I hope all this recorded.
Mary christ I'm not sure it did. I'm out by Merry Christmas.
Thanks for the support. We'll catch ull letter out in God's country or our basement.
See
