Ep. 2 Deer Szn 2026

Bobby and Ian break down every hunt of the 2025 Virginia deer season from opener to late season — and it was Ian's best season in years. They cover the impact of a bumper acorn crop, hunting pressure from a government furlough, mentoring Ian's younger cousin, and the chaos of hosting their Vermont buddy Chad for two visits during muzzleloader and Thanksgiving week. Along the way there are missed shots, a birthday dough harvest, a mystery giant buck that disappeared after one photo, a muzzleloader buck in the standing corn, a unicorn encounter in the snow, and even a coyote taken with a bow. But underneath all the hunting talk is something deeper — the season as a pressure valve, a reset, and proof that the outdoors does exactly what Limb Junkies was built around.

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Transcript

Speaker 2 0:03

Welcome to Out on the Limb with the Limb Junkies, recovery, resilience, and the outdoors. We believe in the natural world as a therapy like no other, and we're here to prove it. Whether you're tethered in a hunting saddle, pitching lures into deep cover or set up on a roosted gobbler, you're in the right place. This is a space for anyone who's found healing in the woods, forging fishing, hunting, and all of those wild things in between. We're building something here and we want you with us, so let's gear up and get into it.

0:36

What's up everybody? What's up? So this episode, we're going to recap our 2025 Dear Season. Yeah. I think it was important to sit down and talk about how the season went as a whole. We had a lot of successes and a lot of firsts and a lot of lessons learned. So felt like before Turkey season got ramped up, we'd sit down and kind of digest what happened. It was a good season. I had a great season. I had probably my best season in a long time. Yep. It was necessary too. Oh yeah. So I think we gotta start by just talking about, you know, the landscape of this season in the fall. We're in Virginia, so Mid-Atlantic area and. I think most of the country experienced it, but there is a ton of acorns this year, an absorbent amount of acorns, which is, you know, a stark contrast from last year, especially when, there's no acorns and you adjust your stands on your properties based on what you see. And then the following season there's a ton of acorns and everything you did was from n. But we also experienced colder temperatures than normal. I feel like this fall, in our area, we typically don't see snow until February, March. And we had quite a few snow days during the season, you know, late season in December. But, you know, all this stuff affects deer movement, you know, especially the mass production. I think overall the season was. Fairly typical, but you know, the deer movement was vastly, affected by the amount of acorns they had. They just did not need to move very far. You know, they find one mass producing tree and they set up underneath of it. So most of our spots were fortunate enough to be surrounded with a lot of white oak, which, in Virginia in 2025, the white oak crop was expected to be very, very good. So I think we did see the results of that. 'cause, you know, in that one property that we hunt, 15 acre one that's really close to the stable. That, um, it really is only productive when it produces acorn. Yeah. So this season was unique because in unlike other seasons, you know, you always start, I think, I feel like you start practicing with your bow or roundabout when summer starts. Yeah. And then you're pretty consistent about practicing all summer long. I usually lag way behind and I'm usually shooting it two days before the bow season starts. Yeah. But this year I focused a lot on getting started a lot earlier. I was out in the yard practicing probably from the end of August all the way through September. And one of the interesting things about this year was it's the first time I really dialed in my single pin Yeah. On the Z three, you know, before that I was just kind of shooting where I knew it would hit. Without spending the time to really dial it in. Um, so I kind of tolled with that. You know, I knocked it off quite a few times. Mm-hmm. And had to get, dial it back and I was getting frustrated. 'cause every time I did that it would be closer and closer to the season opener. I'm like, well I can't go out with the bow like this. Yeah. So the very last minute I got it finally completely dialed in and that's when the federal government shut down. Right. Literally as bow season was about to start, which was convenient. It was very convenient. It was unfortunate 'cause it was driving me insane. But, um, you know, it was also very convenient to be able to have a place to go blow off some steam about it. Oh yeah. So, but you had hunted already quite a few times. You and I did the opener together. Right. Yeah. So that's something we used to do pretty regularly. You know, for years it was a tradition we would, hunt together the opener of bow season, which, you know, it's crazy. I have, I have a lot of buddies that don't hunt. The beginning of October. Oh, it's too hot. There's too many ticks, or whatever the case may be. A lot of these guys, you know, they, they're buck hunters, you know what I mean? But, I can't, I'm too obsessed. As soon as opening day comes, I gotta be out there. But regardless, me and you have typically hunted opener. And I think. Losing some properties or some properties changing, you know, has affected that the last couple years. We don't have our go-to spot for early season anymore, but yeah, we were able to do that this year and it was awesome. I miss those, opening day hunts. Ah, man, we should make a point to do that every year. 'cause I miss that too. We always kind of kick off the season together at one of the properties that you either have access to or I have access to, or that we both have permission to. Yeah. And we always go out that opening day with the intention of harvesting d you know, from, from what I've listened to and researched, most people think it's best to harvest those early great. You know? Yeah. And I've, I've gone through seasons where I. Leave that till the end of the season and then you're trying to shoot dough in December and they know exactly what's going on. They're every bit as smart as those crusty bugs are. Yeah, it's tough. So to try to fill the freezer early has always kind of been my, my goal. But yeah, we started out together, hunting a property that's got a, a good amount of doze on it. And we had a lot of action that morning, unfortunately, where you were sitting. They never really made it down to you, but I was surrounded by those all morning and,, I took a shot at one and missed, you know, I call it getting the rust out of the way. You know, I was a little frustrated about that, but, this is a small five acre residential property and, you know, the, the slightest things going on in the neighborhood can affect the air movement. And I remember, you know, a whole pile of those come in on the side of the ridge we're hunting. I get a shot at one. They don't really know what's going on. They don't like spook or run off. But someone running a leaf blower or a trash truck, something happened. I remember that. And they all kind of took off back the way they came, so they kind of settled and ended up coming back through a second time 'cause they wanted to go where they were going. And that's when I was able to actually, you know, get a good shot at one and tag one. And I remember walking down there and being, you know, the last. Two, probably the last two years my eyesight's gotten pretty bad. You know, I wear these reading glasses most of the day but I don't wear glasses when I shoot my bow. And I have a clarifier in my peep site and stuff, so when it comes to actually shooting, I have clear vision. But you know, the last couple years it's gotten harder for me to judge size of deer, you know, so, and especially when you, when you have a ton of deer walking around, you kind of lose track of which ones are the big ones, which ones are the fawns. So regardless, I shoot this dough perfect shot, double long. She only makes it like 40 yards piles up. Yeah. And uh, I remember walking up to it and being like, oh no, I shot a fawn. But it wasn't a fawn, it was just, you know, a smaller year and a half dough. So perfect dough to eat. Really. I'd call it a yearling. It was a, an excellent meat dough. I, you know, just to paint a picture, you know, we're talking on a lot, that's a game of inches. So they know that we're there and Ian and I are 40 yards apart. He's in on the hillside and I'm in the creek bottom that I could see him and he can see me. And we can both see the deer and the deer have very explicit travel corridors leading all throughout that property up and down into the yard and out into the neighborhood. And, you know, you could be set up in what you think is gonna be the perfect spot. And they'll, even if they haven't got it figured out, if they're the least bit spooky, they'll take just a slightly alternate route that either places them on the other side of a thicket or puts them just out of range where it's safe and efficient to be able to harvest them right there on that five acres. Yeah. Is not having all the permission to the neighboring neighborhood and the neighboring lots. We never wanna risk, you know, injuring an animal and having it run into another lot where we don't have permission and then we have to make adjustments because that puts our permission at risk. So it's got, it's a very precise game. And this morning in particular, I thought that you probably, you played it pretty well. Yeah. I feel like you miss at least the first half of the season you missed, I don't know, a few times. Yeah., Obviously it's something that I don't wish to do, which is Miss Deer, but, um, you know, it's part of the game. So, you know, you do your best to prepare for the moment. And there's always, there's always situational things that happen during a hunt that can, you know, like you said, game edges, you know, you shoot at a deer and there's a little limb in the way that you don't see. We have a lot of beach trees in our area, and anybody who's familiar with bee trees, they have so many fricking limbs. It's unbelievable. And, uh, unless you go in and you're really, really attentive to clearing tons of lanes, you know, these beach tree limbs are so thin that sometimes you can't even see 'em with a naked eye. So, so what you're saying is you gotta trim those beaches. Yeah, trim those beaches. Trim those beaches. So yeah, we opened the season together. I was able to harvest the dough. And then from there we kind of moved on and you had a lot going on. You were furloughed you had a lot going on with the furlough situation with your job, and I remember you being super stressed. Yeah, I was really frustrated. It had been a kind of rough couple of months just even before that because of all the things that had been happening, you know, of the DRP, the government shut down, we lost a lot of employees as an organization and everybody was pretty much really worried about their jobs. Those are the people that decided to keep it. And I kind of let that get to me a little bit and let some of the anxiety creep in over the summertime. So by the time fall rolled around, I was pretty, I was pretty cranked up. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things I think that was really. Good about this season that was different from other seasons is, you know, we're talking about that game of inches is when you came and helped move the stands Yeah. At the one property down the street here. So yeah. That's something that I've kind of learned that over the years too, is, I don't move stands every year. Um, I like to let stands kind of cook for a couple years just to see how they produce, marinate, let 'em marinate for a while. Yeah. But one of the properties we've been hunting for years has just been, you know, notoriously unproductive it's not a property we've even spent a lot of time hunting, but, it was one that I focused on a lot during the off season because I was determined to try to figure out what the deal is. You know, they gotta be traveling in a way that we're not seeing 'em or we're just not set up in the right spot. And we had some snow late season. Uh, last year was probably February or so, and I went in there and scouted in the snow. You know, that's not something that we're really. Used to, we don't get snow that much. Especially like meaningful snow that's gonna stick around enough to actually go in and scout. So fortunate enough to do that last year and when I went in there and saw what I saw, I, I had a good idea of what we needed to do before this season. And it paid off for you because, you know, you went in there on your birthday and you were able to capitalize. I did. And I thought you were full of it. I thought to myself, man, I don't think those are the spots. But then, you know, I did appreciate you hanging all that stuff as I'm getting up there in age and I shouldn't be climbing trees like that. Mm-hmm. But you know, one of the things for me about blending the outdoors and that state of anxiety is that, you know, humans aren't really meant to operate at the pace that we operate now, being pushed by technology. And so we spend a lot of time in our heads and our minds with cognition instead of putting that energy into our bodies. But as soon as you enter a woods, even if it's just a 15 acre woodlot, you are connected back to the human primal spirit that was part of nature to begin with. And when you do that, all of those things sort of peel away and you're left with only the ability to tune into nature and kind of let that artificial noise go. Mm-hmm. And with a few breathing exercises, and if some techniques called anchoring, which we'll talk about in future episodes, it turns into a, like you said, when I giggled a second ago about a ritual, it, that is my ritual. You know, I do a couple specific breathing exercises. I get in the stand, I hadn't hunted yet, and I was putting it off, and then it was warm that day. And I just decided, man, you know what? It's my birthday. I'm gonna go sit in the stand. And it was an evening hunt and I spooked a couple of dough on the way in. And, you know, I think I'm quintessentially a dough hunter. Really. I mean, I, I spent a lot more time working hard for my dough than I do my bucks. But, um, so I rolled in there and bumped a couple of 'em. I, I kind of was hoping that we would come back 'cause it was right there in front. But then I got the stand and sat down. Within an hour they peeled back around again. And I'll be danged if they didn't come right down that exact same corridor. Yep. That you said you had seen him traveling. And it turned out that this one though, in particular, the first one that came through was mature. She was, she was the matron. Um, she was, wasn't that old though. I'd put her at about three, three and a half years old. Yep. Um, and then the second one came through, it was just a little bit smaller and that one was the perfect freezer queen. It's the first time that I drew back the Z three with the intent to harvest a deer. And she's perfect. Less than 20 yards away. Broadside right below the street stand completely unaware that I was there. Clean draw. Clean shot, you know, single lung, bottom of the other lung down through the heart. Uh, she piled up 30 yards away. Perfect. And then I was like, oh man, I gotta call you in and come drag this thing out. Mm-hmm. And then I thought to myself, you know, like, we'd kind of talked about killing anything should be hard work. Yep. So I strapped her to my back and dragged her to the truck. And, uh, I remember calling you 'cause I didn't have the shed cleaned out. I didn't have anywhere to hang. Hey, you were supposed to bring it over. I was called too. I was like, yeah, we're gonna do it. I was like, no. I saw, I stopped at the corner store, grabbed some ice, hung her a, packed her on on some ice and that took it to a processor. So that was number one. Yeah. I just remember being so proud of you that day, dude. I know it's your birthday. Your birthday, super stressed. Life was getting the best of you. And you go out there with your bow and end up shooting a dough and everything worked perfect. I was super proud. I was textbook, I was so pumped for you to come over. I'm like, man, it's gonna be like deer camp. We're gonna hang it in the shed. I know. I told the wife, like, mom's coming over. And then I know, you know, an hour later you're like, Hey man, I'm not gonna be over here. I know it was kind of bum. I know you're bummed too. When I bail out, I was bummed, but I was tired and I just, I, I'm like, it wasn't that big of a drag that it, it kicked my ass. So, yeah. So I, you know, obviously took it to the corner store, hung it up, and then, and stuffed on ice. And then, you know, I think that you and I proceeded to go back and forth on a few hunts. We didn't hunt together Oh. Until, again, until muzzle loader rolled around, I think, right? I love bow hunting. And another thing too that I think is important for people out there listening to understand is, the area that we live in, a majority of our hunting is bow hunting residential properties. Yep. Um, I would say 90% of our hunting is done with a bow in a residential area. Um, and that's just what we have to work with and that's also what we've come to be comfortable with. Like Bob mentioned, it's a game of inches and you, you have to be really cognizant of what's going on, but, it's the kind of hunting that we do. And, you know, so throughout the rest of October, I spent a lot of my time focusing on some of the smaller residential properties that I've gained over the years. And it, it's such a funny thing because these properties, some of them are three acres, but those are the type of properties I see the biggest bucks on camera. So entering this season. I had a very good prospect as far as what my cameras were telling me. Uh, I entered the season with three really nice bucks that I wanted to try to shoot. Um, and all of them were in small residential properties. So I spent a lot of time in October trying to be cognizant of wind direction and not to leave a lot of ground scent, just really easily try to slip in and out of these properties. 'cause I was focused on trying to catch one of these mature bucks slipping through. So I harvested that first dough and then the rest of October I was just bound and determined to catch one of them deer walking through there. I did not, unfortunately, in fact, I never even saw one of them, one of the biggest deer I've had on camera was around last year regularly, small residential lot, three acres, and then another residential lot, maybe 300 yards away. That was a little bit more acreage. He was regular at both of those properties last year, and I hunted as hard as I could. Never caught up with him. So, but I knew he made it through the season. You know, I had my cameras out until February. I knew he survived. Our open season typically ends the first weekend in January here, so, we can continue to hunt doze into March if we want to. So I knew he was alive and then going into this season I was like, man, I, I can't wait to see what he's like. This year and the day before our bow season opened, I got a picture of him. The day before. Never got another picture of him the entire season. And he was huge. I would say, you know, 150 inch, eight pointer. And, at some point in November I did get a, a video from a, a buddy of mine, his buddy has a property that's close to one of these properties that I, that I was hunting him at. And he was an absolute giant. I don't know when that video was taken, you know, so I can't really date it. But man, was he huge, giant deer, you know? And, uh, but never saw him. So who knows? I don't know if he got shot. I don't know if he's just smart and old and, and made it through, but never saw him. The second deer that I was really focused on was a really nice deer with twin kickers out of both his G twos. He was the most regular. I got a few pictures of him, especially around the rut, like pre rutt, end of October, early November. He was definitely one that I wanted to try to shoot and then mid-November, one of his G twos breaks off and it was heartbreaking, man. I was like, man, did you scratch him off your list when that happened? Yeah. It's like a girl that you swiped right on and you actually met her and you were like, ah, maybe not. Dang. It was this a situation where I think I'm fairly confident. That a lot of these deer that I see on these residential properties aren't getting hunted. I know that might be an ignorant statement, you know, 'cause there could be a guy hunting them three doors down that I don't even know about. But I don't know. I don't think so. Around here. I think it's unusual in this close to the suburbs for us to be hunting. I do. In the ways that we do. I agree with you. I do. And that's why I kind of adopted that theory. And so when he broke his G two off, 'cause that was his main character, twin kickers out of both of his G twos, it's pretty rare to see, you know? And so, I gave him the pass. At that point I was like, okay, well, and then the third year I saw, I, I'm convinced he was just a, cruiser. I think that was like the first week in November, one o'clock in the afternoon. He just one picture of him moving through one of my properties. But he was heavy. He was huge. You know, really big mainframe eight real heavy mass throughout the whole antlers. And he had one. Kicker off his back G two that went backwards and almost looked like a shark fin shooting back. But either way, you know, knowing that I have these caliber of bucks walking around, like, I'm like, okay, maybe I'll wait it out. Maybe I'll wait and see if I can shoot one of these deer. All I saw is you go back and forth from one property to another every morning and every afternoon. And every time you did that, the deer you were hunting would be at the other property. Yep. And then you'd switch properties the next day and the deer would be moving the property. You weren't hunting that day. I remember too, you were mentoring your cousin, weren't you? Yep. Yep. That was great. So my cousin actually works with me and, he's 19 now, or maybe he's 20, I think he's 20 now. And he's always kind of expressed a little bit of interest and I gave him one of my older bows, a few years back, and he shot it a little bit and then, you know, I told him, I said, Hey man, you know, when you're ready if you, if you want to give this a shot, I think this is the time. So yeah, that was, that was a lot of fun. I'm glad you brought that up. 'cause the first time he went in the stand, I went with him. I set him in the stand at, at a property. I had my saddle gear hanging off the back, and I was able to coach him through what's going on. Um, and that first hunt, we had like 10 deer in front of us, you know, and he was, he was, he was trying to be picky, you know what I mean? And I give him credit for it, you know, he wasn't just trying to shoot the first thing, you know, didn't wanna shoot any mama dos and didn't wanna shoot any fawns, he didn't wanna shoot a small buck. So we have, we have a, a strange code of ethics between us here at Limb Junkies. We, we tend not to, to target matrons or pregnant dough or. Fawns. Yeah. And we tend to give most dinks a pass. Yeah. I mean, we, we have a lot of deer opportunities here in Virginia. We get to be a little bit more selective. We've got some generous limits. So for us it's really a game of like being very selective about the deer that you pick out. Yeah. And I'm glad you brought that up too, because we're very fortunate, man. Yeah. We are, we have a lot of properties to hunt I'm incredibly grateful for those landowners who've become friends, who've given us access and permission to hunt their properties in incredibly grateful to the guys at the club. You know, 'cause some of the most meaningful times that we have have been at these places. Yeah. So thanks to all y'all. Yeah. They're not like, stereotypical picturesque perfect properties. You know what I mean? But no, we take, we can exactly what we can get. We take what we can get. We're grateful for what we have, and we, we don't have a ton. And of course, I'm an addict, so, you know, there's never enough for me. You know, I'm always thinking more properties, this would be great, but let's be honest, at least in my situation, I've got enough properties to make it unmanageable to try to figure out which one to hunt. Hence the reason that you ran back and forth Yes. Property to property, and that's what you hinted at. Yes, because I, you know,, six o'clock in the evening, I get a picture of one of the bucks I'm hunting, going through a property. I'm like, cool. I'm gonna be there tomorrow. I go to that property. He's at the other property every time, and it never felt, it was almost like they knew as soon as you got up, they'd be sitting out back looking at you, have coffee. All right, bill, I'll see you next door. You, you'll go ahead and do the property today. Yeah, but you know, it, it was fun. I hunted more this season than any other fall. You know, I, I am incredibly blessed with a wife that is, you know, so supportive of my outdoor hobbies and my love for, for hunting, and she is 100% supportive of it all. Um, I don't want to take that for granted. I hope that I don't ever abuse it, but man, I hunted a lot, a lot, bud. I probably hunted close to 10 times before work, just an hour set. You know, fortunately I have properties that are close to home, so I would go sit for the first hour and then race to work and not be late to work either. Like, just can I ask you a question? What's that? Is it like you, have you always wanted to hunt at that extreme? Has that always been your goal to hunt at that level? Like, being out there all the time? Absolutely. So you've actually reached your desired outcome, maybe? Yeah. So I think we should take an extra minute to shout out to your bride Yeah. And say, not only thanks for letting him be out and hanging out with me, but thanks for letting him go blow off steam. Hey, let's, let's also, take a minute to recognize the idea that she hunted with me quite a few times. Oh, that was, I forgot all about that. That counts. Fa I would say at least three times she hunted with me. You know, I set her up in a stand. I saddle off the back of the tree. You know, she loves it to her sitting in a tree, watching the sun come up and the world come alive. She loves that, you know, she gets it. She totally gets it. One of these days I'll actually get a shot at something with her in the tree, but I actually told her that this year we're gonna get her practicing with her bow a bunch and hopefully she can try to shoot one. I don't know, bud. That might ruin the magic. I don't know. We'll see. But, but yeah, so October was spent, you know, obsessively trying to, trying to kind of like pinpoint, you know, if these bucks are gonna come through, uh, when are they, which ones are gonna stick around, which ones are gonna be roams during the rut? So I spent a lot of October really hammering it hard trying to figure out. Where to be and when you were able to successfully harvest that dough on your birthday, you ended up harvesting another one shortly after, before November. I know. Yeah. Second one came. Same thing Bo This one was in front from my climber in the creek bottom., This was over at the club. Yep. Uh, it was a night hunt. Again, most of my hunting was most successful in the evening time, just about all the way through October into the right of muzzle loader. I got much more action in the evening time, just before dark than I did in the daytime. So, and that's then that second one came and then Chad came down. Chad after that. Chad and you were, I guess you were 1D tagged one do at that point and been hunting all October and then when Chad showed up, we were switching gears to spend time hunting together. And it was muzzle loader season. Yeah. So our muzzle loader season opens first weekend in November. And that's when Chad, our buddy Chad from Vermont, he came down, hunted with us for three days. I think it was a long weekend. Yep. One of the properties I had been hunting. The property that we opened our season at, river property, small, five acre lot bow hunting. I didn't spend a lot of time at that property, you know, pre rut, pre rudd's. My favorite, by the way, I I, that last week in October is my absolute favorite. I think that's your best chance of getting a nice buck cruising around, trying to, you know, take inventory of what those are coming into heat. That's when I've seen the most rutt activity. Oh, I'll take that first week in November all day. Yeah. Well, so this river property that we hunt, the biggest buck that I had seen on camera at that property was super regular. I had done a mock scrape in front of a camera there, and there was a handful of bucks that would come through regularly, almost daily, and hit that scrape. And one of 'em was a nice deer that. I wanted Chad to shoot, he was probably 120 to 130 inch, probably 3-year-old deer. Nice Bach. Um, and so all, all leading up to him coming, I was like, that's your, that's your buck Chad. And I send him trail camera pictures. I said, he's still, he's still showing up. He's ready for you. So he drove down here on a Thursday, if I remember correctly, and then we hunted that evening somewhere. Like he got in town just in time to hunt that evening and., I took him down to that river spot and I was like, listen dude, he's been coming up regularly. Oh, that was, so he went straight, straight from pulling up to straight to getting dressed and hitting the stand. Yeah. He, if I remember correctly, he left super early. He left Vermont like two or three in the morning and I took that day off and I hunted that morning in the rain 'cause it rained that morning. So by the time he got into town, it was about two or three in the afternoon, just in time to like pull up, empty his stuff, put his camo on. I was like, let's go get time to get in the stand. Yep. Yeah. So we went and this is a bow only property. So we went and I set him up down on the bottom. I was set up halfway up the ridge just like when me and you hunted and had a bunch of dough up by me. You know, I'm hoping that one of 'em is gonna make their way down to him. And then before I know it I see I can see a little bit better from my vantage point 'cause I'm higher and I can see down kind of through all the beach tree leaves. And, shooting them beaches. I saw, I saw this deer rolling in, coming from his, his right, walking right through that, that river bottom there. And, you know, I was able to actually get the camera on it and it comes in and I can see, I can see in the viewfinder. I'm like, okay, it's not the big one, it's probably like a seven pointer or something like that. So I'm filming it, and sure enough, he shoots it, which I'm pumped. You know, I'm that type of guy. If I take you to a spot to hunt, you shoot whatever you want. I am never the type to be like this deer's off limits. Nope. You shoot whatever you want. And Chad knows that. So this deer rolls in, he shoots it perfect. I mean, I almost watch it pile up. It goes 40, 50 yards and, and, and piles up. So I'm, I'm ecstatic, like, cool. He's got one. And at this point I still have some doughs around and I'm like, cool, I'll try to shoot a dough if I can. So maybe 20 minutes goes by. We're like maybe only 20, 30 minutes,, left of shooting light. And at the corner of my eye I see a big deer coming through the bottom. And I don't even get the camera on. I think I pulled my cell phone out and started just filming with my cell phone. And I can tell this thing is big. I'm like, that's probably that buck. And it walks within five yards of Chad and Spooks and runs off, you know? And so anyways, we get down and we celebrate and it was a great deer, you know, pumped about the whole situation. But you should heard him talking about that stand location. He swears that happened because that's the worst. He said, why would you put a stand here? They walked right under you. Yeah, he's crazy. He's, he I his mud again, we talked about off season prep and that property last year. None of the deer moved in the bottom. No, none of 'em. No. Until that freaking day he shows up. There they are. Right then bottom I walking under him. So it's a situation where, you know. Yeah, I can't just move stands every year. You know, you gotta let 'em cook a little bit. And yeah, it just so happened this year they moved right in the bottom and they would travel within 10 yards of that tree stand. But, so that was cool. He was there that weekend. We hunted a bunch more, you know, muzzle over open that Saturday. And, we had a blast. We tried to get him on some more deer so he could fill his freezer. We ended up going back to that property and I don't remember what day it was, but I remember I'm in the, the stand I was in, he's in that same stand in the bottom and the homeowner sends me a picture of that big buck standing in their backyard. And he just never made his way toward me or Chad. That's a game of inches, man. That's, that's urban deer right there. That's it. So that's it. Yeah. That was a good time. That was a good time. I remember, I think you guys were hunting the day that I, the night that I hunted and I shot a, a little five point game. Yep. And that was a long, that was the longest drag of the whole season. And that messed my hip up. Yeah, that was, that was probably about a quarter mile of the truck through the British. And his antlers kept getting caught up on everything. And I kept having to stop, but I dragged his whole thing all the way back to the truck all by myself. I felt so proud of myself. And I wished you were there. 'cause then you could see me dragging the thing all by myself. If I was there, I would've been dragging. Oh, I know. You would've. Totally, totally. I heated it into the truck and then got home. But, you know, it, it kinda was weird because we were just talking about how being selective, how selective we are about your day. Yeah. And one of the things about Yankees and, and Chad in particular is, is that these, these guys are, are, are down to get down. Yeah. And, and they're here to shoot deer and they're here to fill the freezer. Yep. So for them passing on a buck like that is unheard of. Yeah. You see a deer like that, you shoot it. Well we're hoping to have Chad down and, and have him on here. And I'd like to have him talk about, the deer hunting up in his area. 'cause what we've heard, and,, the numbers suggest that he's completely true is, there's not a lot of deer up there. You know, and the tag limits and stuff suggest it too. You know, they get one buck tag. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. You know, and so they don't have the large deer numbers that we do. So they come down here and, even as a non-resident, they get six tags. So to them six tags is six deer that they want to try to shoot. Well, and I think that we've been pretty successful in putting 'em on deer. I think one or two is not gonna cut it though. Yeah. They come down and get one, maybe two. I think Josh Chad son got too, that one year. Yeah. But, definitely looking forward to having him back down again. 100%. So, yeah. You shot, so you shot your third deer when Chad was down. Yeah. And let's get it straight. It wasn't just a dink five pointer, he was missing one whole side, correct? No, he was a parker. He was heavy. But he was still, he was still like, he was broken up. Like he, it's not that he was this little dink five pointer. He, he had five points remaining on the one side that, that he actually had something. Yeah. It, it wasn't like, it didn't look like pedicle damage and it didn't look like it was damaged from running. It just looked like he had broken a couple pieces off. Yeah. But it always, it did. It didn't look like he fully formed to begin with. Yeah. But he was a porker. He was good size. Yeah. And he's the one that, that worked out really well size wise. Yeah. So, so I think after Chad left, we ended up hunting together at the club. Yeah. That was the first hunt with the standing corn. Yep. And I remember those are special circumstances 'cause I have to get permission and talk to the owner and make sure that it's all good with them. And yeah, so it's special for both of us. And I, it's weird because I get, I feel so much pressure every year because I know that you're gonna want to go there because it's like literally the best place that we have to hunt out all the places. I'm like a kid on Christmas morning when I get to go over to that property. So yeah, this is, you know, we're talking second week of November and it's probably 60 acres of standing corn and I, I think that then the rut is hammering and no pressure, zero pressure and the rut is hammering. So we go in there standing corn bob's set up on a tree stand in the creek bottom. I'm set up. 250, 300 yards away from you. I'm in my saddle gear on the edge, on the other edge of the corn. Yeah. And it still in the creek bottom, but way away from you. And, um, I remember first light I heard grunting and looked behind me. And a decent six pointer. You know, it hard to pass him. You know, he, he only had six points, but he, he had some mass. He was outside of his ears. He was a good deer. Just dogging the crap out of a dough, chasing her all over the place behind me. And that was pretty much my morning. That's all I saw. But you, you had a ton of action. Oh my gosh. From the, the minute I got sat, I listened to a couple beaver chase each other around, down at the base of the tree. And if you ever wanted to be mindful, just listen to them, chew on trees and squeak at each other as they're chasing each other around. And then just as they finished up what they were doing, the ducks came in. And I'm a big duck hunter. And we're not allowed to duck on over there, but you'd seeing the ducks come pouring in there, you know, a whole entire group of wood ducks and a couple of big mallards. So I'm like, oh, I'm pumped. And I'm just enjoying sitting there watching that. Yeah, man. I felt like as soon as the sun started coming up, the deer started coming out of every single hole over in this big, deep grassy kind of a field. Yeah. Everywhere I looked it's like CRP grass everywhere there was, you know, there was dough creeping through on all kinds of different angles. And I think I kept telling you, 'cause all, all the action that I had experience with comes out at the corner that you were in. Mm-hmm. So I kind of just anticipate that's where the de big deer were gonna come out that corner. But instead they were completely on the opposite side of the property and a real nice, a pointer stepped out and he was on the teleo and they looked like they'd been with each other for a while. 'Cause he was, you know, instead of chasing her, he was just minding her and following her. Yeah. And, it was probably about a hundred yards. It was a, it was a poke, yeah. Muzzle loader. You know, two charges of powder, 50 caliber. And I let it rip and dumped him and I was like, nice. So this is four at this point? Yeah. And I'm like, sweet. And I'll tell, he, tell, I'm gonna be honest, he kind of downplayed this buck. He's like, yeah, has a decent buck. It's all right. It's an okay buck. So I sit, I sit the rest of the morning, I'm like really trying to take advantage of this opportunity. I think we sat till almost 10. Meanwhile, you know, Bob drags this, this deer all the way back to the truck all by himself. So I get down, I gather all my gear, I hike all the way back to the truck, and I look at this thing and I'm like. But this is a heck of a buck. Like this is not some little dink, you know what I mean? And thing had good mass to it. Real big body deer, a lot of gray in its face. Like you could tell that was a, that was a mature buck. Yeah. He was heavy. He was heavy too. He was a good buck. One of the interesting things that I'll say for a different episode is, the interactions I had with those new guys that were doing processing mm-hmm. That decided to offer deer processing normally a, a halal farm for halal goat and they started offering deer processing and he was the second deer that I'd taken over there Yeah. To have them process. But, uh, that's a fascinating story that we'll save for another episode. But that was the fourth deer. That was my big buck for the season. Yep. After that, all I was really interested in was, you know, either finishing out with dough, but by that time they'd already gotten pretty spooky. Yeah. And I started kind of running outta steam. 'cause I'd been at it more than other years. More than normal. Yeah. So, so I think after that hunt. I was pretty worn out man. You know, I've been pushing hard since, since middle of October trying to get an opportunity at a good buck. And one of the properties that I used to hunt religiously, especially for do, the dynamic of that property changed two years ago. So we're talking another residential lot. This one is 10 acres surrounded by a bunch of other 10 acre residents. The neighboring property sold. Okay. And so the property that I hunt, 10 acres are primarily hardwoods. Very open floor too. Like there's not a lot of underbrush at all. Is there a lot of beaches? No beaches, actually. No beaches, huh? No beaches. Dad with no beaches around. This property is actually 90% poplar, which is weird. It never made sense to me why deer were in there, but there was always one giant. White oak on that property that would drop So early season. I mean, how many times me and you hunted there opening day? Absolutely loved that property. It was, it was so mysterious to just walk past the swing set into the backyard and disappear into the, under the canopy and be completely hidden and see the number of animals that traversed that tiny little intersection back there. Yeah. But the key is the neighboring 10 acre lot was thick. Very, it had undergrowth, uh, there was a little creek that ran through there and a lot of thick undergrowth. So a couple of good blow downs for bedding areas. Yep. It was a good spot. You know, it was a great spot. Um, so anyways, two years ago, they sell it. Guy that moves in sides, I'm gonna mow down my entire 10 acres. Like, but he, but he just didn't, he didn't just mow it. He clear cut the entire thing into dirt the entire thing. Dirt made it dirt. Yep. He made it a field of dirt. He left about 10 trees on the 10 acres. The rest of it, he mowed down the dirt. Um, so needless to say, that totally affected deer movement. So two years of that being frustrated, I gave up on that property. I took my stands down last year and was like, this is, I'm just, 'cause for some reason the deer started betting right in the bottom of the, the 10 acre lot I'm hunting. And there was absolutely nowhere to get in there in the morning without blowing every single deer outta there. It was super frustrating. So that was written off, you know, going into this season. I wrote that property off. I'm not gonna spend any more time here. No cameras, no stand there whatsoever. So here we are, mid-November. I've been pushing hard trying to, run into a mature buck and I got frustrated and I said, you know what? I just need to, I need to shoot a dough. I need to just. Get one out of the way, fill the freezer and typically, you know, during the ride, I don't like to do that. So I said, I'm gonna take my saddle gear, I'm gonna go back to this 10 acre lot that I had written off. 'cause I know there's a lot of tow out there. And I said, I can't go in the morning, so I'm just gonna go out there one afternoon with my saddle gear and get up in a tree and see what happens. So, if you guys follow our YouTube channel, that's the dough days video, because I had a ton of dough come through there and was able to harvest a perfect dough. I mean, she walked right underneath of me, probably 12 yard shot, ran 30 yards and piled up. Like you can't ask for a better hunt. So. For some reason that reset helped so much, you know, 'cause I get so wound up in, the obsession and just wanting to be out there as much as possible and trying to get an, a counter with a nice buck that I needed a reset of sorts and that worked perfectly. You know what I mean? Get out there to an old familiar spot. I know exactly how the deer go. I know exactly where they're gonna move, when they're gonna come through there. I just know that property like the back of my hand and it worked out perfect. I think at this point you were tweaking too, because you had been skunked for a long time. Yeah. And you had been hunting your. Butt off. Yep. So I think for you it was almost like, wow. Finally. Yep. It was great. So you already had four under your belt? Um, I had two and we get close to Thanksgiving and Chad is, Chad is telling me like, Hey man, what's, uh, you know, you guys have a lot of luck around Thanksgiving down there. And I'm like, yeah, of course. You know, I knew what he was hinting at. And we've always told Chad, he's always welcome whenever he wants. So he ends up coming back down? Yeah. So he comes back down. He, he actually got here Thanksgiving day. He walked in, I gave him a plate of food and he was here for another weekend of hunting. And it's funny 'cause I told him, I said, listen, if nothing else I can take you to this 10 acre spot where I know there's deer. We gotta go there in the afternoon. And I said, honestly, I'm gonna set you in a child's place at. I'm going to literally set you in a swing set for a kid that sits right on the edge of this wooded property. Man. My man Chad did not even batten eyelash because that is so incredibly common where he comes from that it, it might as well have been the fanciest tree standing in the county. Yep. So we, we go out there and I, I brought my saddle gear, I sat up in the back where I was and like I said this, it's like clockwork in this place., Listen, don't get it twisted. Just because we know how these deer move in these residential spots does not mean it's a gimme any time. Never. It's never a give, it's never a guarantee. You know, the thing is on these small lots, you only have so much to work with. So you know what works and you know what doesn't. You know what I mean? But it's a chess board with half the squares. Yeah. I mean, you just have no very, very limited amount of plays. And I think that that's one of the things that I learned from you early on when we started hunting together and you taught me how to like focus and scout these small OTs, is you'd have to know where they need to be for you to be able to drop 'em in that. Yeah. Property boundary. Yeah. And I explained that to Chad too, you know, when he started hunting with us down here, I'm like, listen man, you, you have to be very mindful of your shot. You know, this isn't, this isn't Vermont where we got lots of land to, to cover, you know what I mean? You need to be very cognizant of where you're shooting and what's gonna happen. So, so he comes back down here. We hunted a couple different spots, but I put him in a child's play set and sure enough, deer came through and he shot a deer out of a child's play set. Yep. Glad he did. Glad he did. I think he spent a little time with me too after that. 'cause I think you had to work and then we hunted a little bit. Uh, we tried to set up on some some geese. We working the, the corn that had been cut. But that didn't really pan out. We ended up just kind of, you know, scouting around a little bit. Yeah. But still had a good time. It was still nice to have him down as always. Oh yeah, of course. So let's move into, you know, December at that point, Thanksgiving's over usually. The way I kind of played dear season is from the last week of October until November, I'm really trying to get a chance at a buck. But Thanksgiving is kind of that flip switch to me. You know, when Thanksgiving comes, that's when I go back to, okay, I am harvesting for meat. So we go into December and we get a chance to go back to the club. Yeah. Yep. And then that was su you know, that was super cold. It was. That was super duper cold. Well, more so than that, the corn was now cut. Yep. The corn had been cut. It was really cold outside and there was snow on the ground. It was snowing when we got in there. Yep. They were calling for snow starting early morning. I think sunrise was like 31 degrees, the kicker was by noon. It was supposed to be in the teens. We had a cold front coming through. Oh, that's right. 'cause it had dropped. I remember that. 'cause I was like, wow, I got cold real fast. Yeah. So cold at cold at sunrise. Snowing huge cold front coming in that was gonna drop it, you know, another 10, 15 degrees by noon. Like a picture. Perfect morning for hunting. Especially for hunting deer, you, you know, cold front, inclement weather cut corn, you know, the whole nine yards. So again, it's Christmas morning all over again for me. But I think it's important that we. Address that you were full tilt. Oh, I was off the rails man. I was off the rails. The, the short version for the sake of the discussion was, is a, is a couple of fully loaded dump trucks. Just kind of just came driving into the yard in the middle of the night. I wasn't middle. I was like seven o'clock round dinner time and they meant to be one road over, but they just plowed right through my yard and just banged up everything. And this was like, I don't know, a week or two before that we went out there. So like, you know, having been in therapy for so long to deal with anxiety, I wasn't really panicked or anything. I was in like battle mode. Yeah. And I couldn't get out of battle mode. I mean, I just wanted to just like to, to sue these guys. And you know, I was emailing the county and just went bananas, you know, just as like you would expect. And I was having a real heck of a time deescalating. And one of the things you mentioned about the cold. It was that, you know, for me, sensory kind of input is really important for that whole anchoring technique. Right? And it was so cold that day that it was just the right kind of cold, that it was painful enough that it felt really good. Mm. It was just a real honest to goodness feeling that you could definitely get your hands around. That was obvious why it was there. And it actually felt great up until the point where my nuts started to freeze off. Yeah. And then I wanted to get down, but I didn't have any action on my side whatsoever. It was night and day from back there in November. In the peak of the rut, you know, with the snow cover and the cold. It was like a barren wasteland. Yeah. Not a single thing moved other than those same beaver, incidentally. Well, I think too, looking back at it. I don't think you really intended to shoot anything that morning, but I think that you intended to get what you got out of it. That's exactly, and you know what? That's a hundred percent true. That's a hundred percent. The other half of it is, is it always, it actually brings me a stupid amount of joy to see how stupid giddy you get when you get to come to their, with me. Yeah. So, yeah, it was my, my purpose there was not to hunt or to harvest my purpose. There was to really just be mindful. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Freeze your nuts off and that's it. Feel grounded again. That's it. So we set up, same spots we were at when the corn was standing, and man is it, man, it's a beautiful morning. So this is the second video we put out this fall. This was the unicorn and I'm 23 feet up a tree in a saddle. By the time the sun came up, my, my ropes were all frozen solid. But I had all the cameras going and right at sunrise I had a group of dos come across the field toward me. You know, they pop out in the cornfield, 200 yards away. They're slowly but surely making their way across the cornfield toward me. And at this point, I can, I can kind of tell, you know, there's, there's three young deer and there's two mature deer. And they make their way closer to me. They don't really get into a shooting lane. You know, where I'm set up is, I'm probably like 10 yards into the woods from this cornfield, but I got a great view of the cornfield. You were really high up there though. Oh yeah. You were like 20 past 25 feet. I was 23, 25, something like that. That's high. I'm four sticks high and I stretch my sticks. Yeah, that's high. I'm six two and I use every bit of my lanky frame to get as high as I can. You're up there. But, you know, comfortable tree completely set. You know, I've had, I've climbed this tree before, so I know exactly how to set up. So anyways, these deer slowly make their way across this cornfield. And at this point, like I mentioned before, I, I'm looking to fill the freezer so I'm not being picky. So they're slowly making their way over. Once they get close enough for me to really identify, I can see that one of them's like a spike., So I'm not gonna shoot a spike if I have an opportunity to shoot a dough. So I'm kind of watching these deer and they're real finicky because I got like 20 turkeys roosted behind me, mouthing off all morning. You know, we know where the turkeys roost in this property and it's, it's nothing to hear a whole gaggle of turkeys in the morning. So they're, they're being kind of. They're kind of sketchy. You know, they, they're, they're not exactly comfortable. I mean, the weather wasn't comfortable, let's be honest yeah. So the birds are behind me. They, they finally hit the ground. They're yelping and cutting back and forth, which is awesome, you know. And then I have these, this, this group of deer in front of me, in this cornfield that I can't, I really can't shoot yet, you know? Like I said, I'm set up in the woods a little bit. I have an evergreen tree blocking, like most of my shot to the left. Um, so they're kind of meandering around. They're really, they're really paying a lot of attention to these turkeys behind me going crazy. And I catch another bigger deer. Entering the cornfield where they did 200 yards away from me. So, you know, I got my camera rolling. I zoom in on this deer that's just entering the cornfield, and from at that moment I see no antlers. And this is a decent sized dough. You know, I never once again did any sort of assessment of this deer, but this deer makes it all the way across. The cornfield joins the other group of deer, and they all end up right in front of me within 50 yards. Of course, the turkeys behind me are now making their way closer to the cornfield where the deer are in, and a bunch of these deer spook outta there. You know, the turkeys are going crazy. And I think that deer, I think that deer kind of lean on turkeys for their eyesight, and I think that they felt like something wasn't right. Not to mention the wind was swirling that morning. So maybe they, they caught my scent or something. So the original group of deer spook and they run off. But this one that I had spotted across the cornfield that came in by itself, stuck around. Um, I'm able to get the camera on it, get a good shot. You know, this deer takes off toward the creek bottom and inevitably expires. Bob hears me, shoot. We decide we've had enough 'cause it's getting cold. All my gear is frozen solid. I get all my gear together, climb down the tree, get all my stuff packed up. He comes over, he sees the blood immediately. So we go and we start tracking this blood comes outta the cornfield, down in the creek bottom, crosses the creek and piles up in this real thick area. So I walk up to it and I'm like, man, look at the size of this thing, like big body deer. And I look down and he's, you know, he, at this time, he's getting up to it too. And he's like, man, that's a big dough. And I looked down and I'm like, it's not a dough. You know? So this, this buck had one, one of his beams broke off. Flush right. With his head. Yeah. You know, and the other side was like a three inch real dark brown tie. Just shot straight to the back, kind of. Yeah. It didn't, it, it, when I first got the camera on it, it blended in with its ear. And that's why I determined this is a dole, you know, and it's fully legal for me to shoot this deer. There wasn't any issue there, but, you know, we try not to shoot bucks like that. So, there was a part of me that was upset, but honestly I was pumped. I mean, I'm mourning like that, especially, for years I've said I've never shot a deer in the snow. So it was a great morning, you know, it ended up being awesome and we, we get it out of there and we get out of the woods before it gets real, real cold. Yeah. So it was a great morning. Yeah, that was a good video too. If you, if you all check the video and you look at the footage from him hanging in the tree, you'll see that his, tether and his lineman rope,, and his carabiner are all, covered in snow and ice while it's hanging there. Yeah. I got a lot of good footage that morning. Yeah. Yeah. So we crept up and I looked at the base of the antlers and around, and it looked like this was a scenario where he'd been injured in his, in his antlers and his pedicles earlier in the rut. And because of that, either that or early, when he was growing back for the season, he took an injury and that one that never grew fully mm-hmm. Was impacted. But given his size, chances are pretty good. The next year he would've been something special. He would've been something special for sure. Yeah. He'd been, if his rack stayed normally, didn't get injured again, he'd have been in good shape. Yeah. So it was a great season, man. You know, I hunted more than I ever did. I mean, if referencing our YouTube, I put out, you know, a little 2025 dear Season recap video, and you'll see how many times I came to full draw. I mean, and that's not what you see is not even the total amount. I hunted a lot. I tried some new things on some new properties late season, moving around, you know, abandoning stands and instead using my saddle to get in different, just slightly different spots, you know, like we talked about, you know, 60 yards away and you're seeing tons of movement compared to if you sit in the stand. So I hunted hard. I ended up shooting a coyote with my bow. I was just about to ask you that. I was like, you had an opportunity to coyote and you took it. Yeah. Which I wish I would've got that on film, but. You know, it is what it is. I'm hunting a residential 10 acre lot and a coyote comes running across the neighbor's, backyard right toward me. Right. I mean, for the sake of the com the listeners, I mean, it's incredibly common to have urban populations of coyote. Yeah. And oftentimes they go unnoticed because of how much they look like dogs. Yeah. Sometimes like, you know, sneaking around garbage cans, things like that. Yeah. I'm not the least bit surprised any hunt turns into a coyote hunt real quick. Pretty cool though, especially with a bow. 'cause you're not gonna make any, uh, any sort of disturbance to what you're already doing. So he come across that backyard, came right in underneath me, was able to shift in my saddle and draw. He jumped up on top of this falling down tree and at 20 yards I drilled them. I mean, it was awesome, you know, to actually shoot a coyote, get rid of 'em, you know. We shouldn't be seeing them. So if you see 'em, there's too many. It's subjective. You know, the general consensus is, is that, you know, yes, it will have an effect on population. They're particularly hard on fawns, pre fawn recruit. And when they reach that six month recruitment age for the, for the herd, and they're hard on Turkey polls. Oh yeah. But once you take two or three out, it's not very long before that vacuum gets filled by one. So it's only, it's really temporary in the grand scheme of things. One of the things that I asked you about was whether or not you were gonna take the pulp because it was deep winter. Yeah. So it would've been like a really thick, lush pelt and coyote pelts and pelts in general haven't held the same value in quite a long time. Yeah. So it's really just a memento for you. Yeah. Because it probably wouldn't fetch it very much. Yeah. Unfortunately, it was not a pretty looking coyote, you know, had it been, I would've taken it. But it, it wasn't very pretty looking. I don't think it was as bad as like mange or any sort of disease, but it just didn't look super healthy, so I did not save the pelt. Yeah, they're not, they're, uh, it's one of those byproducts of trying to decide. And that kind of brings me, I think, to what would be kind of some closing remarks for this episode. You know, one of the things that I looked at was, you know, when it came to storing all that meat from all four of those deer, I realized that I had, you had, you had a mountain of meat. I did. I still do. I sell a whole freezer full. But, uh, you know, I noticed that I had packed away a lot of parts, like I had some Turkey wings that I kind of always intended in making wing calls or skinning down for wing bone calls. I had had that night gobbler. That I had harvested a couple seasons ago in there 'cause that I'd always meant to mount. Yeah. And I looked at this pile of meat and I thought about the hunts and I thought about them. The message for me, and one of my takeaways was, is I'm gonna place a lot less emphasis in future seasons on mounting and, you know Yeah. Antler and thing. And a lot more emphasis on making room for me. Yeah. I don't blame you. I don't blame you one bit. So it was a great season. All in all, you know, from a mental health aspect, we got exactly what we needed out of it. And I think you, especially, man, I can't tell you how proud I am of you for this season, you know? Yeah. I appreciate that. It's been, it's been very many years of us hunting together and you've always kind of leaned on me for motivation and support. Yep. And this year you really stepped out and did it yourself and did it for the right reasons too. You know, when we started Limb Junkies, it was a, it was the idea that, getting out in the outdoors and hunting and fishing, it, it helps with anxiety, it helps with stress, it helps with the hard times we deal with in life. And that's what you were dealt with this fall? Yeah. I utilized it exactly what was designed to do, and then I was designed to help triage some mental health crisis and, and put me back, both feet back on the ground. And I ended up having a great season, season of a lifetime. And I'm, I'm ready for a tricky season. Yeah. So now we're, we're moving toward Turkey season and for, for me at least, and, I try to instill this in Bob is, March is typically when I assess my properties and figure out what changes I need to make. Um, like I hinted at before, I like to let stand locations kind of marinate, so. I moved every single tree stand that I have on every single property that I hunt last year. So there's not gonna be a lot of that this year, but we got some snow supposed to be rolling in tonight, so I may utilize that and go do some scouting and make some slight adjustments. But any sort of adjustments or planning that I have for next year, I do it in March because the foliage is still off. You can still see what's going on. It's easier to see trails and the season's still fresh in your mind. So get out there and do it in March when it's still fresh and you can, you can make adjustments that are meaningful come next season. So I'm looking forward to doing some wrap up for this deer season and then shift focus 100% toward Turkey. Right on, man. Right on. All right, so we'll catch you guys in the next episode. Thanks for listening. And don't forget, frost makes the blade stick. That's it. See you next time.

Speaker 57:57

Thanks for going out on a limb with us. If this episode hit home, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Find us on Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook, and follow along for more. Until next time, keep your powder dry. I.