EP 100: Lessons From Mule Deer Hunting.

What is it about hunting that I love to torture myself? It's almost like he was hiding under a bush. Start glassing in there is a giant typical. Right there. It was the best hunt we'd ever been on, you know. Anything to do with Western big game.

Welcome to the Epic Outdoors podcast, powered by Under Armour. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Epic Outdoors podcast. Today it's going to be myself, Chris Peterson, along with my brother John. And we're going to get rolling. But first, we'd like to thank Under Armour, who is our title sponsor. We'd like to thank Under Armour for all they do for us and the support that they give us. If you get a chance, go check out their products and give them some support at uahunt.com. We're right in the middle of hunting season. So if you're like, where the heck is everybody? Everybody must be in the field except for Chris and John. That's pretty correct. We're here working on the next magazine. Cranking away, but everybody else is gone. So we've got, it's a time of year when a lot of our members and our listeners have had some success throughout this year.

And so as everybody knows, we publish a magazine. And a good portion of our content comes from successful stories and photos from our members. And so we thought we'd cover, first of all, real quick, how to send those photos and stories into us. There's a couple ways to submit. Probably the easiest one would be our website. So you just go to epicoutdoors.com. And on the top menu, you'll see submissions. You click that. There's a drop down. And one of those selections is story and photo submissions. You just click that and it'll take you through submitting your story. You can upload your photos. If you want, if you don't want to write a full story, but you do want to do what we call a snapshot, then there's about 10 questions you answer. And it's really easy and you can upload your photos that way. And if you just want to send us a photo only, you can do that as well.

The other way you can do that is if you just want to email me and you don't want to go through the website, just email the photos and stories to john at epicoutdoors.com. And john is j-o-h-n at epicoutdoors.com. And I thought we'd cover a little bit if you've still got a hunt left, a little bit about taking photos. You know, with our magazine, a big portion of what makes the magazine as far as stories go are the photo quality and the pictures that are taken. It's not always about size. Yes, size does go into it, but it's not the only factor. You've got photo quality and story quality as well. There's a lot of animals that we see that aren't the biggest animal out there, but there's great scenery photos and the story is worth reading. And so those stories are great too. If you didn't kill the biggest animal in the world, don't worry about it. We'd still love to see the story.

Yeah, and I think as well, sometimes writing a story is intimidating for people. If you're not a writer, my biggest advice would be don't let it stretch out. And if you're not, you know, a poet or whatever, just put the story down on paper and just get, you know, get it out there. Don't try to be fancy. Just start with the beginning and end with the end. Some of the things that I would, I would kind of tips, I guess, on what to include would be anything that you think might teach somebody something. So things that you learned, let's say you went on a mule deer hunt and there were several things that you learned that you didn't know before, either about animal behavior or about things that made you successful on that hunt. And those are the type of things that, you know, other members are going to read your story and get something out of it and learn something,

maybe be able to apply it on one of their hunts. So anything like that, I would include. Yeah, I had a guy even today and he was a little bit worried about it because he wrote a story and he's like, ah, I'm terrible at grammar. But it's not something you need to worry about. Do the best you can. We do edit these. And so you're not going to look like you don't know anything. Yeah, we've got at least three to five people read each one and go through it. And so, you know, we'll fix the grammar stuff for you. Don't even worry about that. Around 1,500 words is a good length on a story. Depends on how many good photos you have, too. Let's say you go, your camera dies and all you got is your cell phone and you take two pictures. Well, I can't really, you know, do a really long story with two pictures. Otherwise, it just looks like all text and no photos.

So if you've got that, you can still do a story, but you're probably around 500 words. And let's say you did a decent job and you were able to get a couple of scenery photos, maybe a photo of you glassing or some of your buddies in camp and things like that. And then you got, you know, four or five good kill photos. Then I would say you're right in that 1,500 word range, you know, if you've got good supporting photos. One of the things that I've learned over the years is take as many photos as you can because you never get that time back. Like these hunts, they happen once. A lot of times we go and we overlook taking pictures. And especially once you get that animal down, a lot of times we rush it and we think, oh, I got to get out of here and get home. Enjoy that moment. Take the time. Take 10 extra photos. A lot of times that happens. And I've been there so many times.

And we did all this work. We put in scouting days and hunted for a week. And finally we get this animal on the ground and it's three minutes for photos and we're out of there. I'd just suggest stop for a minute and take some pictures and enjoy the moment and really take it all in. Okay. Great advice, Chris. All right. So if you've got any questions too about submitting your photos or your story or anything of that nature, you can always call us at 435-263-0777. And we will answer your questions. So we just barely got done with the Utah general hunts. And it's always entertaining to get out there and hunt public land, especially here. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Before we get there. What do you got? Our pumpkin carving contest. Okay. Pumpkin carving. Speaking of the pumpkin patch, we had a pumpkin carving contest last week. And that was mainly on Instagram.

And so if you want to go on there and see the entries, the entrance had to tag hashtag EO pumpkin. Yeah. So if you want to go look on there, the winner was Colby Batty and his pumpkin was out of this world. I've never seen a more impressive pumpkin. I've definitely never heard of someone putting a camo pattern into a pumpkin. Yeah. So he got the UA Baron camel pattern in the background of the pumpkin. He has the Epic Outdoors logo in the middle. He's got the UA logo on there. I mean, it's pretty epic. So Colby went above and beyond, and he will be winning. Well, he won our Under Armour boots. All the entries are going to receive the Epic Custom Knife from Outdoor Edge. So we appreciate everybody that participated. It was a lot of fun, and I think we'll probably make a thing of it. Yeah, that was pretty cool. Yeah. Maybe do it next year. So now we're past that. Let's get to the Utah.

So, yeah, we just barely finished up with our Utah hunts. And last week I was able to go out with John on this public land, and I talked about the pumpkin patch a little bit. And it's always interesting when you go out and there's just orange everywhere and people everywhere. But I've never had so many crazy experiences hunting in my life than when I go with John. Quite a few in the office had some success. Adam had some success. Jason had some success, and they're kids. But Chris got to go with me, and we just have crazy adventures. If nothing else, it's a good story sometimes. Yeah. I'll let you tell the story. So last year, some of you may have heard, we had guys that we'd hiked up onto this knob, and we were there, and we looked like pumpkins on top of the knob.

And I set up with my kids and had a guy hike in underneath us and sit like, I don't know, 50 yards underneath us, like just right below us. In front of them. In front of where we were pointing the gun. Yeah. There's nothing wrong with hiking in and sitting by someone or to the side of someone, but they hiked in and sat in front of them. Well, there's clearly a clearing that we're hoping a deer, you know, comes through for these kids, and we're going to shoot in that clearing. Yeah. Well, you sit in between us and the clearing, and anyway, it was kind of crazy. And they're close enough to know that you're there. Oh, yeah, close enough. We were coughing and, you know, trying to say, hey, we're sitting here flashing our lights and all that, and anyway, a little nuts. But anyway, this year, this year we were stalked by a dude. I've never seen anything quite like this.

So Chris just happened to come with us. Chris had found a deer, and a little bit smaller than he wanted, but we were hunting for my daughter. And so we went to that area, and there's a big clearing, and it was morning, and we spotted some deer. And all of a sudden, Chris is like, there's a dude in the trees watching us. And I was like, are you serious? So I pulled up my binos, looked, and sure enough, there's a dude with no orange. Yeah, that was the thing that was weird about it was there was a guy, and he clearly was glassing. He was glassing us, but he was not wearing a speck of orange. He was just standing in the tree line, and, you know, it just seemed weird. So Chris is like, he's watching us. I glassed him up. Sure enough, no orange, and he's just watching us. So we're like, huh, that's odd. He's probably not hunting. I don't know what he's doing, just watching us.

So we kept moving along and looking down in this clearing, and we spotted some does and kind of kept going. Nothing big or anything, no big deal. Saw a little two-point. Saw a little two-point. And Kate, anyway, she would not shoot it, even though I wanted her to. So we move a little bit, a little bit farther along, and Chris is like, he's still watching us. He's not even watching for deer. He's just watching us. So anyway, then all of a sudden I spot a good deer, and it's moving up through the meadow. And where we were at, there were trees kind of in between the deer and us and thick, a little bit of thick trees, but I just barely saw it over top. And so I thought, oh, we've got to get around these trees so we can possibly find an opening and get a shot. So I'm like, Kate, come on, come on. And so we start moving, and I'm pointing, you know, hey, there's a deer, there's a deer.

All of a sudden, we hear shots. It wasn't 10 seconds after we spotted the deer. As soon as we started making some physical movements to try to get into a good area or a good position to make a shot, boom. And then the shot thud, and the thud was really close to us. And I'm like, either there's a deer close to us or he's shooting. But then the second one happened again, and it's the same noise. It sounds like a bullet hitting the dirt. Yep. And we're like, that is odd. So first we thought, well, maybe he's just not wearing orange and he's hunting. And so we stop, glass him up, and he just goes back into the trees. Yeah, he just turned around, walked into the trees. He didn't go check for the deer, didn't go look for blood. So we started thinking, well, he probably wasn't even shooting at the deer. Yeah, just shooting to scare it away or something like that.

He saw that we were onto the deer, and so he decided to end that plan. And so he fired two shots into the dirt. Which it worked. There goes the deer. The deer left. Yeah. So anyway, we thought, well, maybe a weird coincidence, but odd. So then the story gets even more strange. Yeah. So you tell this part. This is funny. Well, we decided to come back to the same spot. We'd seen a good buck in there, so you got to try again. And we went and we set up, and we're sitting there glassing. And I glassed down, and I saw a guy's head sticking up out of the brush. And I'm like, oh, gee. Yeah, it was like a sniper sitting there. Yeah, exactly. All you could see was his head. And once again, he's not wearing hunter orange. And it's the same guy. And he's down in the same general area where he was in the morning. But this time, he's got a spotting scope, and it is just drilled on us. Yeah.

And he's more hidden. It's like, you know, on the movies, you see guys in a ghillie suit, and they've got their sniper stuff. It was just like this. You could barely see him. Yeah. So I, of course, I'm like, this is, you can't make this up. So I got out my spotting scope, and I put it on him. Set up on him. Put my phone scope on there and started filming. And I'm like, I just wanted to see what this guy was going to do. Because his scope was definitely directly on us. And so I was like, all right, John, let's mess with this guy a little bit. So I said, John, act like you see a deer.

So I do. I'm like, all right, Kate, get ready. I'm going to, you know, make a big scene like I've seen a deer and get you ready to shoot. And meanwhile, Chris is filming his phone scope on the dude. And so there's a little plug for phone scope. Yeah, we might as well. I mean, I've said it before. These phone scopes are awesome because you can capture whatever you're doing, like whatever you're looking at through your scope. Usually it's probably not going to be some other guy that's watching you, trying to prevent you from killing a deer. But that being said, it's a great tool, and everybody ought to have one. So check out phonescope.com, P-H-O-N-E-S-K-O-P-E.com. Another plug just for everybody. Don't do stupid stuff. Yes. Don't do stupid stuff. Try to represent hunters well. Don't do stupid stuff. Yeah. So I go, all right, Kate.

And I point over, you know, totally in the opposite direction. And I'm like, Kate, there's a deer. There's a deer. So she whips her, you know, whips her gun around, gets behind it, gets in position. And Chris is just laughing. Well, so as soon as John had her put her gun up, the second that gun came up, I'm sitting there just watching him. And he gets this real surprise look on his face. And then he picks up his head from the spotting scope and looks at us with his bare eyes. And then he sees that deer looking at some. And so then he pulls up his binoculars and he starts glassing, trying to find what you're looking at. Frantically glassing. Frantically. Frantically. And the funny part is, as soon as he realized that there was no deer, he turned his hat around so he was less visible because the backside of his hat was a little bit brighter than the front.

He turns his hat around to the dark side, ducked down, and he crawled back behind this group of bushes.

I'm thinking, John, how does this stuff always happen with you? Oh, I don't know. So anyway, we were like, we're pretty sure he was just messing, you know, either there was a deer there that he didn't want anybody to shoot or something. I don't know why else he would stalk us like that. Well, at first I thought he was maybe an animal rights guy. He had a deer in his backyard that he didn't want somebody to kill, and he was just going to protect it with everything he had. But from the video, this guy, he was a hunter. Yeah, he was a hunter. He was a hunter. Yeah. I don't know why it's easy to tell a hunter, but. He got a hat with a little deer logo on it or something, you know. He's a hunter. It's a hunter. Which is a little bit crazy. I was telling Chris about this a little bit. And in France, my in-laws live in France, and they're into hunting there. It's a little bit different.

They're into, they actually hunt deer with dogs. And it's more of like a kind of a team sport type of deal. And they go every Saturday. And anyway, there's what they call the, you know, the team. And they've got the group of dogs that runs that forest. And they'll hunt these deer with dogs. It's pretty cool. But now they're getting these vegans that are just crazy militant vegans in France. They're having huge problems with them. They're starting to be violent with like butcher shops and stuff like that. Just, you know, they're totally against, you know, anything to do with people eating meat. And they're starting to make huge problems. So they're starting to get in the way of people, you know, on these hunts. They're starting to block roads. They're starting to kick, you know, horses and cars and all kinds of stuff. So who knows if that's, you know, coming here or not. But just nuts.

And they're all filming. They're filming everything they do. And they're just hoping that they screw up so they can make, you know, a publicity stunt out of it. So let me, do they carry guns? I'm guessing they don't hunt with guns at all. Well, there are some gun hunts in France, but these are not. And they actually kill the deer with a spear. And it's really a traditional hunt, which they used to do with, you know, the royalty. And they've got the French horns and they bugle and they do all that stuff. It's really cool. So they've got the people on horses who, you know, are the ones that pay to hunt. And they don't even actually kill the deer. But they're, you know, they pay a lot of money to go and be the ones on the horses and chase the deer. And then the dogs, the dogs are amazing. There's like 50 dogs that hunt at a time. And they just, you know, they're on cue.

And they do exactly, you know, what the guy says to do that's managing the dogs. Really amazing. But, yeah, the other, the vegans are just trying to get people to screw up. Trying to get, you know, images that are bad for the hunters. Caught a controversy. Yeah. And it's really, you know, messing up, you know, what they can do. Yeah. And carrying a spear, it's probably not as scary for them. Yeah. No. No. There aren't any guns on that hunt. So, yeah, it's not. When you're out there, we can't control the actions of other people. But we can control what we do and how we act. You know, let's just try to remember what we do reflects on all hunters. So, as hunters, we need to act responsibly and be respectful of other people as much as we can. But you had an experience in Colorado that was kind of similar to that, didn't you? Yeah. I mean, obviously, it was. I'll just tell the story.

So, we had a deer that we wanted to hunt. And we'd actually found the deer in the morning. And the deer had bedded up on this hill and just wasn't in a good spot for us to stalk it. And so, we just were going to sit and wait it out until it stood up and came out in the open when we could get a good shot. And so, I think we were probably 500 yards, just far enough away that we could keep an eye on the deer, keep tabs on it without getting in too close. So, we're sitting there just watching the deer in the spotting scope. And all of a sudden, I start hearing this noise. And I cannot figure out what it is. And it's like this clinking noise. And it's getting louder and louder and louder. And pretty soon, I look off to the left and I see this lady in the brightest clothes you can ever imagine. And she was carrying a bell in her hand. And she was ringing this bell. Like she's at a hockey game.

Yeah. I've never been to a hockey game, really, where they ring bells. But I guess I'm missing out. You are. Oh, my gosh. Maybe she was a hockey fan. I don't know. They ring cowbells like mad. Well, it must have been a hockey fan. Vegan hippie lady. And so, she walks in between us and the deer ringing this bell trying to scare the deer away to save its life. And I'm just like, how dumb can these people be sometimes? I mean, I wouldn't do it. No. Not a chance. It's just, it's kind of sad that people are doing things like that. But it happens. And it's just, it's public land hunting. And even in that situation, though, you've got to, you have to keep calm and keep under control. Because once again, what we do reflects on all hunters. So, we just sat there and watched. And luckily, she didn't know exactly where the deer was. She basically just saw us and decided to walk in front of us. Yeah.

And the deer just held tight. And we ended up killing that deer that night. She did not save a life. No, she didn't. So, it worked out. But, I mean, it's just one of those things with public land and hunting. And it's challenging all the time. I guess that leads me into the next little segment of this year. I hunted the early rifle hunt here in Utah. And I found this area that I wanted to get into. And it was about a two and a half, three hour hike to get there. And so, I'd start hiking about 4 a.m. And just took my time trying to get up into position before it got light. I was hiking through Oak Brush. And you're getting up at 3.30 in the morning to get going. Of course, hiking steep country, you start sweating. And so, I get up there to my spot. And then you freeze to death. And as I'm sitting there watching the sun come up, I'm like, what am I doing? It's a lot of work.

I don't even know if there's a deer here. And so, I sat there. And the sun comes up. And, of course, there's the orange army around. And everybody's out there working hard, which is great. But it makes you wonder sometimes, like, man, this is a lot of effort. I saw one deer that day. And it was a pretty nice buck, but it was running at 1,200 yards away. When I picked it up, it was running. And I got my spotting scope up, and I saw it crest this ridge. And it stopped just long enough for me to tell it was a nice four-point. It just went over the hill, and it was gone. And, I mean, to get to that spot where it was, it would have been another three-hour hike. Anyway, I hike back down and do the same thing the next day. And there's boot tracks everywhere I went. And you just really get to thinking, like, why do I do this? Like, what is it about hunting that I love to torture myself?

Well, and that always seems to come about three, four days in, at least for me. Yeah. And I hit, and I'm like, holy crap, this is never going to come together. Yeah. The first day I went up, I was fine. I'm like, whatever. It's just hunting. But after, you know, three or four days of hiking your guts out, I mean, I clocked it one day, and it was 12 miles round trip. And I'm like, wow, like, that sucked. Why am I doing this again? No one gives you a medal at the end of the 12 miles. No, you don't. I mean, I didn't get anything. A deer is a nice medal sometimes. But I didn't even see a deer on that, toward the later days in the hunt, like, the deer were just gone with all the pressure. And so I started thinking about it, and I guess I came to the conclusion that a lot of the reason that I like to hunt is the challenge.

Because there have been a few times when I've worked my guts out, and I thought I was going to fail, and I kept going, kept trying. And all of a sudden, I had some success, and I ended up getting that animal, and it's just all worth it at the end. And I don't know what it is, but it's some satisfaction that you did it, that you overcame, that you kept going. Yeah, our own mental weakness. But I just wondered, do you have any times that you went out, and you were just grinding, and it sucked, and then maybe because you were persistent, you had success? I have a lot of times that I just went out, and we grinded, and it sucked, and then there was no reward. No, I'm just kidding. I've had a lot of those, too. I've had a lot of those, too. But no, I have one hunt in Colorado. It was a hunt in Unit 63 with my buddy, Kurt Conley.

And I had hunted that unit a couple years before and done really well, and there were deer everywhere. It was great. And I'm like, Kurt, let's go back to 63. It'll be awesome. Well, we got there, and it sucked. It sucked so bad. In fact, we didn't see anything bigger than a two-point the entire week, and we were there the whole time, you know, just hiking our guts out, glassing like crazy. There were a bunch of deer on private land, but that's kind of how that 63 is. The deer just stack up in the private and stuff. But it was different than the years past, you know, and I knew how it could be. Well, Kurt was like, dude, this unit sucks. You know? And I'm like, hey, it can, you know, it can happen. It can happen. And so we just kept gutting it out. I know you guys at least had good food. We did have good food. That's guaranteed. You and Kurt go together.

I know you have at least some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies or something. We do. We gained some weight on those. But, yeah, we hiked and hiked and hiked. And then, after not seeing a four-point the whole time, all of a sudden, we're hiking this drainage in the middle of the day because, you know, we were just like, oh, crap, nothing's happening. Morning and night, we're not glassing anything up. And Kurt spots a deer that's, it's almost like he was hiding under a bush. He probably was. It was like a sagebrush, but a large one, you know what I mean, and had a little bit of space in it. And the deer had its head underneath it looking at us. And he just happened to catch it. It's one of those that usually you just wouldn't see, you know. And Kurt's like, I think that's a deer. You know, just odd. Anyway, so we kept glassing it. And Kurt's like, it is a deer. It is.

So he got into a position. I went down the ridge a little bit. And Kurt shot that deer. And it ended up being just a beautiful mid-190s buck. It's a straight four-by-four. Huge typical. Beautiful. All of a sudden, the suckiest hunt we'd ever been on was the best hunt we'd ever been on, you know. And we were riding high, and it was awesome. So we just, you know, kept cutting it out. And then you come out of it and then go home. And what you remember really is, that was awesome. Yeah. Remember when we killed that bear? Oh, we ate so good. And, you know, we laughed and we had fun and had a lot of great time together. And we killed this giant buck, you know. It was fun. Yeah. It's those moments that make it all worth it. What's funny to me is that big buck was there, and there were probably other big bucks there. Those things are smart. Yeah.

Just put its head on the ground, and you guys were going to walk right by. Right. And we were close, too. And it was just amazing. How close were you when you walked by it? I think we were within 150 yards, 100 yards, you know. But it was just hiding. One of those smart old bucks. Purposefully hiding, and its head was under the bush, pretty much. Yeah. I had a, speaking of big typicals, one that still haunts my dreams. Got to the unit, and I was stoked and ready to go. And first day out there, I climb up this ridge and start glassing, and there's a giant typical. It's right there. I bet it was, it was probably only 400 yards away. Maybe 500. And I don't know what got into me that day, but I just, it was the first. And I was like, man, if it's this good today, what am I going to find tomorrow? And it was, that deer was just lip curling and trailing these does and just super ruddy.

You were like game on. Yeah, I'm like, this is going to be the most incredible hunt of my life. I have this thing for weird deer with points in funny places like cheaters. Yes, you do. Yeah, just, I like non-typical deer. I like the odd ducks, and this was a beautiful typical, and probably 30 inches wide and solid, solid buck. And I filmed him and sat there and watched him for probably 30 minutes. I just decided, you know, I'm just, I'm going to hold off because this hunt's going to be amazing. Well, I went back to camp that night and started looking at the footage, and I realized I'd made a huge mistake. That's when you screenshotted us pictures of that deer. Yeah, I sent pictures to everybody of the buck, and they're like, you're an idiot. You're an idiot. You should have shot that deer. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I probably should have.

And so, from then on, all I was trying to do was go back and kill the deer that I could have killed in the first place. And, man, I hunted my guts out. I knew right where that buck was, and he stayed there, but I just could not get on him. And I would see him every morning, but I was by myself, and I'd see this buck clear up at the top of the mountain, and I'd have to hike up there, and it was 30, 40 minutes to hike up there. And by the time I got there, I couldn't find the buck because I was on his level, and he had gone into a fold or gone over the next ridge, and I could never find the buck. And I was just hunting like crazy, and it got down to where I had, it was the second to last day of the hunt, and morning I'd hiked up, and I decided instead of glassing for the buck from the bottom, I would hike to the top and just see if I could catch the buck on the top of this mountain.

I sat up there and watched for a while, and pretty soon I see the buck. Same thing, he's trailing some does, and they're at like 450 yards. And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to shoot this dude right now. And so I had this rifle that... That was the cursed rifle. Yeah, this is a whole different story that I could talk about for 20 minutes. But I had this rifle, and a few weeks earlier, it may have been a month or two earlier, but I took it to get a muzzle, it kicked like crazy. It was terrible to shoot. And so I took it to have a muzzle brake put on it to reduce a little bit of that recoil so I could be a little bit more accurate. And of course, I was dead broke at the time. I was in college, had no money, and so I had a buddy that was like, oh, I had this guy put a muzzle brake on my gun, and he was really cheap. And I'm like, okay. At the time, you're like, cheap is good. Yeah, yeah.

Like, I can afford it. And so I took it to this guy. He supposedly fixed my rifle. Well, he put a muzzle brake on it and accurized it. And I get the gun back. I took it to the range, and I shot it. It seemed to work great. And so back to the moment when I'm sitting there getting ready to shoot this buck, and I go to put a shell in, and it double feeds and jams. And I'm like, oh, crap. So I'm frantically trying to get the shells out of this gun, and it's just a mess. And I had this small window of time when the buck was walking through this opening. I mean, it was probably a 100-yard opening. But by the time I got a bullet back in the gun and closed the bolt, this fog had set in, and I could not see a thing. Just not the worst luck. Yeah. I couldn't see anything. I'm just like, really? If I had a gun that I was confident in, I could have easily made that shot.

But instead, I tried to save some money, and I went with this half-rate quote, gunsmith. And it screwed me up. Well, there's more of that story to come. But I'm going to put in a plug right now for Red Rock Precision. If you want a good rifle that you can be confident in, I would recommend Red Rock Precision. Even if you have a gun right now that you just want somebody to set up for you, they do a great job. I actually had them do that with the rifle that I'm using right now. They set it up for me, put a scope on it, and figured out the load, got it all dialed in, and it's a great gun. If you have a cursed rifle, sell it. If you have a cursed rifle, sell it. Even if you're not to the point where it's cursed yet, mine got to the point of cursed, and for some reason, I just kept it until it was past cursed, and I'm like, I have to get rid of this thing. I felt bad selling it.

But I made sure I had it repaired by a legit gunsmith before I sold it, because I didn't feel right about selling it before that. But I just felt not good with that gun. Anyway. Sometimes a gun's got some bad mojo. Yeah. It's better to get rid of it. Yeah. Confidence is a huge thing with a rifle. If you're confident in that gun, it makes a big difference. Anyway. So it fogged in, and that deer was gone for the day. And I'm thinking, okay, I have tonight, and I have tomorrow, and that's it. And this hunt is over. I had spent every single day of the hunt looking for the deer that I'd passed on the first day. So I called up John. I think it was that afternoon. I called him, and I'm like, hey, I need help. I've got this deer, and I'm seeing it consistently, but I cannot get it killed just because it's such big country. And by the time I get to the deer, it's gone. And so I'll let you tell.

So what are we? You're part of the story. Eight hours away from there, I think. Like eight, nine hours. Yeah. So Chris called me, and he's like, I need help. I need help. So the second part of that was there was a huge storm that was rolling in. And we were eight hours away, and I got in the car and figured I would get there at 3 a.m. And just thought, if I drive the whole way there, I can get there at 3 a.m., be there for the morning hunt. And it started to snow, and it snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed, and it snowed. And I'm driving. And at one point, it was freaky. I was going 70, and it was snowing, and I hit some ice, and I was going sideways on the freeway. And I thought, I'm dead, you know? And somehow, miraculously, I turned out of it and corrected and kept going. Anyway, it got so slow that I was going, you know, 20 to 30 miles an hour on portions, and it was snowing so hard.

And I think when I got there, it was light just after daylight. Yeah, because I remember I had my alarm set, and I got up, and it was still dark outside. And I think it was probably 5 in the morning, and John still wasn't there. And so I'm like, oh, crap. This is not good. And I started worrying about it a little bit. But I was like, well, I'm going to get ready, and I'm going to head to the spot where the deer is, and hopefully I hear from him before I get there. So I go out, and I had plenty of time. I got up plenty early, and I decided I have to chain up because there is literally like 8 to 10 inches of new snow in the valley, and I'm trying to go up this mountain. And so I had some chains, and I tried to throw them on. Well, I was on my last chain on the front, and, of course, my hands are freezing because I'm trying to hook up these chains. I hate chains, by the way.

I mean, I love them once they're on, but putting them on is like. Sucks. I wish I could hire somebody to do it for me every time I have to do that. That's what a girlfriend's for. You'd have to have a real good girlfriend to do that for you. Anyway, so one of these links, the last link that I'm trying to do up on the last tire, it jams, and I can't get it to close, and I can't get it to open. So I can't get the chain off, and I cannot close it. You can't get it on or off. I know if I start driving with that chain not fully secured, it's going to pop off and tear my fender off. And so I sat there for probably 30 minutes trying to get this chain to release. Finally, I got it off and re-hooked up, but I'd burned probably 30 minutes, which was a big deal. I get on the road and start going up this mountain, and if I hadn't had the chains, there's no way I would have made it.

It was just insane. It was insane. There was up to a foot of snow in a lot of the places, and it was pretty steep. But I got in there, set up, and it was just getting light, but I was definitely late. You know, you want to be there just as it's getting light. You can spot the deer, make a move. Well, I get there just at that point when it's starting to get light enough that the deer are thinking about going to bed and moving. And so I set up, I look up the hill, and I see the buck. And I'm like, all right, I'm going to go. So I start heading up the hill, and I'm moving fast. And this is kind of a random side note, but as I'm going up, there's a buck standing right in front of me at like 50 yards staring at me. And it's one of the weirdest bucks I'd ever seen in my life. He had one side on his head. I think it was his left side was just messed up.

Like, looked like this whitetail frame with some weird points coming off. But he wasn't real big. The one side looked really small, and then he had a nice four point on the other side. I was like, huh, that's a weird deer, but I'm chasing this giant typical. So I just kept pushing on, and that deer runs off. And that'll come up later. So I get up to the top of the mountain, and of course the deer are gone. And I'm like, well, I can track them. So I start tracking them, and I get up on the other side of the mountain where they had gone, and there are tracks everywhere. And they're in the thick trees. And I walked in circles for probably an hour and a half, two hours, just hoping that I could stumble onto this deer, trying to do that persistence thing. And it didn't work. The deer was not going to be found. I bumped some does, and maybe he was with them, but I never saw the buck.

At that point, John was there waiting at the bottom of the hill at my truck. And so I hiked down, met up with John, and I'm just like, I don't know what to do. Like, we can give it one last shot tonight and see what happens. So that night, we come back to the same spot, start glassing, and the deer is not there. Nowhere to be found. But there was another buck that had been there for two previous years, and he was just the coolest three-point ever. If I was ever going to shoot a three-point, this would be the buck I wanted. And I'd had plenty of shots at him, and I just didn't take it because I had a giant typical. He was probably 30 inches wide, had bigs. And he had baseball bats coming up the back. You were talking the best-looking, like the coolest three-point I've ever seen. So, of course, I haven't seen the big typical. And so I'm like, dude, you've got to shoot that deer.

It's the last day. Well, and it was an awesome buck. And to this day, he's one of the bucks that I wish the most that I had. And it was a three-point, but he was every bit of 30 inches wide. And a good friend of mine actually picked up one of his sheds, and it was insane. Like, just the size of that, the G2 on that thing, it was like a baseball bat. Just a giant deer. And so it's the last evening, and I'm like, I would be super happy with that deer. And so I'm like, all right, John, I want to get on that deer. So I sent John up above to glass down on this deer. So he got up there, and I started making my move into this deer. And I got set up. It was probably 300 yards. I'm like, chip shot. The deer was bedded right there. And I get all set up perfect. I have some shooting sticks that I'm on. And I click my safety off, and the gun fires. I thought, game over. He's done. Yeah.

No, it's just more of the cursed gun. And so the gun fires. The buck gets up, and he's just standing there for a minute. And so I'm like, okay, I'm going to get a shot. So I throw a shell in, but my free hand is sitting underneath the trigger rest. And that'll come into play here in a minute when you realize what the problem is. So I jack in another shell, get up on the deer, and I got the deer in the crosshairs, pull the trigger, and nothing happens. And I'm just dying. So I jacked the shell out, and I moved my free hand up to the stock, jacked another shell in. I was a little frantic at that point. And so I took another shot, and, of course, I missed because I was so flustered and frustrated. And the deer runs over the hill. And so I cannot figure out what the deal is with this gun. And it shot when I took it off safety, didn't shoot when I put a shell in,

and then it shot fine the time after that. And I'm just, I don't know what's going on. And so I was like, well, I'm going to go over there and try to get the deer on the other side of the hill. So I go over there, climb the hill, and in the meantime, I jacked in another shell. I get to the top of the hill, and the deer is staring at me. I bet he's only 40 yards from me, staring at me. I pull the rifle up, pull the trigger, nothing happens. It's the worst luck ever. And, of course, same thing. I move my free hand up to the stock, jack in another shell, pull up to shoot, and I'm frustrated once again. And I'm just standing freehand. And by now the buck's hit like 200 yards. Pull the trigger, and I miss, of course. And so that was the last night of my hunt. I was done. Done. And I had hunted my guts out, didn't kill the big typical, didn't kill the big three-point.

And John had risked his life and drove all night to try to help me out, and failure. It was terrible. Yeah, it was the low of lows. One of the worst feelings ever. I could have killed that deer on the first day. And, well, looking back, maybe I couldn't have because my gun probably would have screwed up. Come to find out, like this is kind of the side note. Come to find out, I took my gun into a legit gunsmith after that, and he told me that there was a screw that had not been put back in inside the action. And so any time I had any pressure on the bolt release behind the trigger guard with my free hand, it wouldn't caulk. It wouldn't engage. Right. And so if I had my hand on the stock, it would. It worked. So the times that it shot, my hand was up on the stock. The times that it didn't shoot, my hand was on the trigger guard behind on the hand grip. Yeah.

So when I would get frustrated and stand up, that's when it would shoot. Oh, man. Anyway, lesson learned. But one of the things I learned, well, I didn't learn. I learned that don't pass on deer that are awesome on the first day. I learned that. But that's one of those times, you know, your hard work doesn't pay off sometimes. And this is kind of a long story, but there's a second half to this story where if you're persistent and you keep going, sometimes it does pay off. But so the next year, I had a full year and all I thought about was that buck that I'd passed, that giant four point. And I'm every night I'd go to bed and that deer would just flash in my mind. And I'm like, oh, geez, why did I do that? It didn't help that you printed out a picture and put it next to your desk. That's true. Well, I was focused on killing that deer. And I had a picture printed out.

It was my screensaver on my computer. I saw that deer every day for the next year. I was determined to go back and kill that deer. And I went at least a week early to the unit and scouted my guts out. And I knew exactly where the deer was, but I never could see him. Hunt comes along and I had some friends that also had tags. So they came. I'd been there for a week already. They came. And like two days in, I took him up into the same spot. And one of my really, he's a real good friend of mine. And we always make fun of him because he gets really excited. And we will have to say, you know, hold off. You can do better. You can do better. And he's just like, no, I'm killing it. Well, and I love that because he just loves hunting. He loves being there. And, but usually we don't let him hunt by himself. And for some reason this one afternoon, he decided to go for a walk.

And so we're sitting there and we hear this gunshot and we're like, oh, crap. We're going to have to pack out a two point or something. So we go over there. And my giant typical is laying on the ground. I was super happy for him, but I was sick to my stomach because I had put so much effort into that deer. And it was all I had thought about for a year. And sure enough, it was right where I had said it was going to be. But he was just down lower and you had to walk in there and basically bump him to see him and get a shot. So my buck was gone. You're like, oh, crap. Now what? Yeah. And this was the third season. So this was a nine day season. And my other friend ended up killing a really nice deer. And they went home.

So I'd been there for like a week and a half at least. And now I'm there by myself again. I don't really have a buck to shoot or to even chase at this point except one buck. And funny story, it turns out this was the buck that I had bumped on the morning that I was hiking up that ridge. The year before. The year before. He had just this one side that was just funky. But this year he turned into something really cool. And he was my third buck on the list. But anyway, he was in this flat. And I would hike up the mountain every day. And I could glass down into this flat. He would stand up about noon. That's the only way I'd find him. His deer would stand up at noon. And I'd see where he was at. And then he'd go re-bed somewhere that I couldn't get to. And this went on for like five more days. And I couldn't ever get a shot. Couldn't get close. The morning before the last evening.

So this is the last morning. There was this really nice five-point buck down feeding. And but he wasn't he wasn't what I was after. And I sat there and watched him and watched him and watched him. And I'm like, I have worked so hard. I could shoot this deer and go home. And I just thought, you know what? And I'm not I'm not doing it. I'm going after that other buck. I passed it. That night comes along and I sat there. It's that time when it starts starts to get to where you're like, I only have a half hour left. Yeah. And I'm thinking I'm done. I should probably should have shot that five point this morning. But all of a sudden I look down below me and this buck is standing. And so I watched him go over this little hill and I went down kind of where he was and started looking over this hill for him. And he was bedded below me at like 150 yards.

So I pulled up and I, of course, had a different gun on this hunt and ended up shooting him in his bed. And it was just the most surreal feeling. Like I had worked harder than I've ever worked before for a deer and it didn't work out and it didn't work out and it didn't work out over two years. Finally, I had this buck on the ground and it was like one of the coolest things ever. And I to this day, like that's one of my favorite bucks. I love that buck. He ended up being like 190 inch deer. Just. Yeah. It looks half mule deer, half white deer. Just a crazy looking deer. Yeah, I called him lefty because he had just this messed up side. It goes back to that quote, you never really fell until you quit trying. That was the last evening of the last day of the hunt. I spent 18 days in the field. And finally, on the very last night, I shot that buck. And it was, it was pretty awesome.

And that's definitely one of the, one of my memories that I'll always treasure. So what that comes down to for me is, is on these hunts, you just got to keep a positive attitude and try to remember why we're out there. It's, I mean, it's not the end of the world if you don't kill a giant, giant mule deer or elk or whatever. But you just got to try to enjoy every day and keep pushing through and working hard and keep, keep a positive attitude. I think we've got quite a few listeners that are new to hunting. And yeah, I think, you know, especially for, for those of you who don't have a lot of experience, just keep that in mind. You know, it's those times when you just question, you know, this is the wrong sport for me. You know, that, that, you know, it's so rewarding when it does come together.

One of those things I, it's hard to explain unless you are a hunter and you've experienced it before. That reward is just so awesome when you, when you finally overcome all those challenges and you find some success. But no, it's, it's the truth. Well, that's what happens. You don't give up. You just keep trying. And yeah, eventually, you know, it does happen. Yeah. I mean, I believe fully that we give out mentally before we do physically. Don't get me wrong. It helps so much to be physically fit and in shape and that helps mentally. But the mental part of it to me, every time trumps the physical part of it. Yeah. It's huge. It's huge. And all except for one hunt I can think of, uh, Jason's Escalante desert sheep hunt where physically it was just, it was so brutal. And, but I'd still say the mental part was, was as big as the, as the physical part. Yeah.

I remember the first trip on that, the first trip we went to scout, there was a point where I literally had to tell myself in my mind, like, just take one more step. And like, it's, it's hard to sit here and explain that, but like your body is in so much physical pain. And then you have cramps in your thighs and your calves and your tendons hurt and you literally taking one step is, is all you can do. And so I just, I literally focused on taking one step and I would take one step and take one more step. And yeah, I made it, but it was, it was tough. It was tough and it was mental. It was physical too. But anyway, so never give up, stay positive. And that's what makes stories. That's what makes these hunting stories that we all enjoy and, and we can share with other people. Well, I think that, does that about wrap it up for today? I believe it does. I sit here and rattled off stories.

And if you've had some success this year, don't forget to send us your stories and photos. I love to see them. So, uh, share them with us. Makes the magazine awesome. Um, and if you've got any questions, give me a call 435-263-0777. Ask for John. And, uh, I'll, I'll help you, you know, even if you're not computer literate, we'll, we'll figure out how to get them, get them to us. Even if you've got to text me the photos or something like that. So, um, otherwise you go to our website and, uh, at the, at the top, there's a submissions button. And then you click on stories and photo submission and send them to me or john at epic outdoors.com. And you can just email them to me if you want. Um, otherwise I think we ought to just give a shout out to all of our sponsors. We really appreciate them supporting, uh, epic outdoors, supporting the podcast.

That's the only, only way that we get to bring it to you for free. And, uh, you know, it's, it's thanks to them. So if you've got a choice on, uh, what you're going to buy, then, uh, check out our sponsors. I'd like to give a shout out to Kings Camo and, uh, Kings Camo.com. One of our sponsors, also Kenetrek, uh, Kenetrek.com. Awesome boots. And, uh, so give them a, give them a visit. Yeah. If you have any podcast ideas or things that you'd like to hear about from us, send them over to Chris at Epic Outdoors. Um, if you have any guests that you'd like to have on that you'd like to hear from, send those over as well. We'd appreciate it. Uh, and thanks for listening. Over and out.