Ep. 944: Tony and Steve's Nebraska Whitetail Hunt | 12 in '26

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Black buffalo spent 20,000 hours working alongside American farmers to build a tobacco alternative that actually dips like the real thing. Long-cut amp pouches made from barn-cured leafy greens with no tobacco leaf or stem and wintergreen, mint, straight, and more. Check your local gas station or C-store or hit blackbuffalo.com and use code MEAT for 30% off your first order. Black buffalo tobacco alternative. This alternative is everything you love about dip, nothing you don't. Damn. Dude, that's great, man. Again. Okay. Thanks, brother. You're the one that did all the work, dude. You deserve it, man. You just didn't deserve that clip. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the 12 and 26 companion podcast for our Nebraska whitetail hunt last year that I did with Steve Rinella and Pat. Pat Hoffman. Really cool film that came together. We are going to go behind the scenes here. I'm sitting here with my buddy, Max Barta, our videographer extraordinaire, who actually spent the whole week with Steve. Yeah. Documenting not only the whitetail hunting, but the trapping. And we are going to just dive into, you know, some of the things that made it onto the show and some of the things that didn't, that the audience has kind of been asking us about or we've been getting questions about. Just so basically like a behind-the-scenes, a breakdown of what really went into this hunt. Yeah. It's going to be a lot of fun. We'll just dive deeper into the preparation, the actual hunt. And yeah, like you said. What it's like to hunt with Steve when he's trapping. All of that. And yeah, just a little backstory. Whenever I get asked to like go on a trip and Tony's there, I'm like, yes, I'm going. It's going to be a great time. Tony knows how to hunt deer. And it's just something I look forward to. So what's something that was so special about this hunt for you? I mean, this was a, for me personally. Yeah. When Steve called me, so I was actually walking out of. Talk to us a little bit about like how this hunt came to be and just like why you wanted to do this so bad. Well, I didn't want to do it super bad, but I did want to do it. But I was literally walking out of a, out of a cattail slew. I just killed a limit of roosters. It was, you know, four o'clock in the afternoon. I get a phone call from Steve and he said, Hey man, I got the best white tail hunt you're ever going to get offered. We're going to do it next year. He explained to me that Pat's family has 3000 acres. It hasn't been on it in 13 years or 15 years or whatever. And I knew what that meant. Yeah. I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work, but I was also really excited because I don't get to do, I do a lot of public land stuff. For sure. Can't use the cameras in a lot of places. I don't really get to work the deer the way we did on this hunt. So I was actually very excited to have, you know, raw, a lot of raw land that hadn't been hunted in a state that I love. So that was, that was a cool part. Like I, knowing that I was going to get to go through the process of scouting and working the deer and setting up, I knew it would be a lot of work and it was. Yeah. Because you said you were, you got the call in November or was it December? December. And you basically, you have almost a full year to prep for this hunt. Right. Right. Right. And so I guess what is some of the first things that you do as far as like, yeah, give me like a one, two, three step process. What you do when you first learn about, oh, I have access to this property or I'll be hunting this property this fall. What is the, one of the first things you do? So this is, this is something that didn't really make the cut at all. Cause it's just not something you would film, but you know, as soon as Steve said that, then we had a group text going with Steve, Pat and I, and Pat started sending me, you know, screenshots from on X or way points from on X. And so I started looking at that ranch, you know, cause I, I knew I wasn't going to go there for months. Right. I was in the middle of the winter. It wouldn't do us any good. And so, you know, you start looking at on X and it's like, start going, okay, I got a river bottom. I know there'll be white tails. They're huge pivot fields. What's going to be in those. And, you know, now you can zoom in on on X. The, the satellite imagery is so good that you can see cattle. And so I started looking at like, where are their cattle? There were cattle everywhere. And so it started to just get my mind around, like, where are the patches of cover? Where's the really open ground that isn't going to have deer. And then just, just trying to, you know, like get my bearings a little bit. Cause I know when you do that, you show up and then you're like, this looks different. Oh yeah. You know, like this, this field isn't what, I thought it was, um, the river's deeper than I thought or whatever, you know, like it's, it's, it's a good starting point. And so that, that's what I did. And I spent, you know, a couple months doing that where I was like, Oh, I got some free time. I'm just going to like start picking and choosing and started building my plan. And honestly, the first thing I thought of when I was looking at that, I was like, we are going to decoy the crap out of the bucks down there. Oh really? Super open. Okay. And I've been using our Dave Smith dough decoy a lot the last couple of years. And my daughters and I have been killing bucks on it. And that thing is like, I've, I'm very confident. I don't use buck decoys. And I thought the way that that ground was open, we were going to have to be in ground blinds a lot. So positioning a deer is important. So my head, I was like already looking like I'm going to put cameras here, but I'm probably going to put a blind here. We're going to decoy a buck here. And you know, I had some of it, right. And I had some of it so wrong. Okay. Um, I feel like once you get on the ground, Onyx and you start doing all this e-scouting, you kind of paint this picture in your mind of like how everything's going to go down. you get there in July, your first time. What was, what was the difference between the actual, what was in front of you and like what you had painted in your mind as far as cover the river? Um, just all the different circumstances that go into your strategy. So, right. I, I drove down there, uh, the week of 4th of July. I brought nine cameras down me, uh, or I brought nine cameras down with me. And what immediately struck me, I met Pat down there. Pat was down there with his family. His brother, Nick was there. They showed me around. I was like, okay, this place is way more open than I thought. Okay. You know, like when you're, when you're looking at satellite imagery, it's, it's some kind, sometimes deceiving. You know, if you look, in the summer, it looks like everything's leafed out and there's lots of trees to work with. and what i didn't realize was this was 3 000 acres and every acre was involved in cattle production okay and so my thought process was you know i have this patch of trees here this is good cover i have a patch of trees here it's good cover and then i got there and everything had been grazed and so it was a a very different kind of habitat than i was expecting and it was way wetter than i thought so there were cattail sloughs like when i got there i was like this is a great place to hunt dogs yeah you know yeah like uh and not necessarily deer and so that that changed things for me a little bit and i am kind of pretty quickly realized i'm like i thought we were going to have a high deer density like i was just like this is a private land nebraska hunt yeah next to river bottom thousand acres i'm like there's going to be a ton of deer and it did not take me very long walking around there where i was like okay you i think the deer density is way lower than i expected it turned out to be way lower than even what i thought on that first trip okay um so there were a lot of things that i just had wrong yeah like i just i had wrong and i had wrong from every i went down there three times oh really every time well once was to hunt but i went down there twice okay gotcha before that and every time i had an idea in my head and then i got there and i'm like okay this isn't it yeah like it kept changing on me um and were you so you went there hung a bunch of cameras were you impressed with what you found or what do the cameras tell you well what was weird is that this buck right here which is the buck i killed down there the very first deer i saw we went into this spot along the river um you know probably about 400 yards away from where i killed him and i walked into this spot looked around got it got back to the side by side climbed in i looked over at that buck out of his bed and he was really so the first deer i saw and you're like a giant and you're like expectations are up here right and i so he got up ran away i got out of the side by side walked over there started looking around and found a trail and i hung a camera the first picture i got on the whole ranch was that buck coming back in there and i was like i'm like holy cow like this this deer is really big um but it didn't it it wasn't like a reliable thing like even there was it became pretty clear quickly that there weren't that many deer there and they weren't living there you know like i mean that was like a part of their route but even then in the summer where you're like i expect bucks to be here every day on this food source you know batched out the whole thing it just didn't have that vibe like i i started to realize i'm like i think this is going to be a more challenging deal than i expected i actually thought it was going to be really easy yeah and so you went down there a couple times um and we're actually going to watch a clip here um just kind of a funny moment um we'll tune into this right here one of the things that sucks about filming for meat eater is uh when you do something really stupid like close the gate and you're on the wrong side of it close myself in on the wrong side i feel like uh that's gonna make it in a show you're gonna be like oh look at that dipshit and so seeing that um you kind of feel like a big dummy what's the most embarrassing thing that you've done that did make the fine cut or the final cut uh well i mean because you filmed like the last how many years with me either four four and so like there's been countless number of times you know i i am a mistake making machine for sure that's and that's something that i've been doing for a long time and i've been doing it for a long time and so that's something that like i try to get through in my writing and a lot of stuff is like you you get a very curated highlight reel of success generally from people in my position that's one of the reasons i actually like meat eater it sucks doing something stupid like that um but i i think we have an obligation to that and i worked for a tv show in a past life where it was very common to not show anything like that like the host didn't want to be shown in any way like that misses they wouldn't show this is a lot of times and i was really man we're it's all part of it we're bow hunting right so i mean i think i think the worst one that i had and this was kind of just personal was a couple years ago i snort wheeze in a really big buck in north dakota on public land and just whiffed on him i think i remember watching that yeah and that was you know the hard thing for me the embarrassing stuff for me is i so when i started bow hunting i had buck fever so bad okay and it took me years to sort of rein it in and i got a pretty good handle on it and then i started filming a lot and and i don't i'm not the kind of person who can tune things out so like when i when i missed that big buck in north dakota i know exactly what i did i was i was making sure that my camera guy was on it and i wasn't i that buck didn't have my full attention and i'd kind of filled in the blanks and go and he's going to come through at this distance and that's where i'm going to kill him and i i looked at dylan to make sure because he was on the other side of the tree took my took my focus out and looked back and i just didn't even register that buck had walked way closer and just whiffed on him shot a little bit of hair off of his back and when you do something like that it just sucks you're just like oh yeah you just live with it for like a year and then it drops and you're like whatever you know you also put so much time and effort into this hunt and then just like you just choke that's right that's all you do dude totally and i mean it's like i i'm gonna say that i definitely do that stuff when i'm hunting on my own too it's just it's so much easier for me to make a mistake like that when i'm on film because my my focus just i'm like divided yeah and i think um for a lot of people they just don't realize there's a huge huge difference between just hunting and filming a hunt right you know it's like you have to make considerations that you know you're not going to be able to make decisions that you're not going to be able to make decisions right you know it's like you have to make considerations that you know you're not going to normally wouldn't do right if you were just hunting well i mean as a perfect example on that north dakota hunt we ran into that buck two days later and i had him at 21 yards making a rub a very clear window to his vitals and my cameraman couldn't get on him and i had to let him walk and you know i mean yeah but what i'm saying there and that's just that's a part of the job i don't i don't really care about that but what it is is like and this is this is like general advice for every bow hunter every hunter out there is whatever level of pressure gets put on you it doesn't have to be filming with steve rinella like whatever pressure you put on yourself that is something that's going to potentially cost you because it's just it elevates the experience it it gets you kind of in that fight or flight mode which is buck fever and it's just a different level and so like when people go you know i want my first pope and young buck or i want i killed a bunch of 120s i want a 140 well when that 140 one walks in you've already put that pressure on yourself and you're like oh my god i'm not going to be able to do that i'm not going to be able to that's where those mistakes come from and it's like it's part of what's cool because if you do it right it's incredible but putting that pressure on yourself or feeling that pressure is like such a recipe for making stupid mistakes yeah um back to the film we get there was it first week november yep so was it peak rut do you think or where was the rut calculator would you think well i mean on a scale of one to ten what would you say the rut was like ten being peak rut one being nothing at all i mean you're at a nine for sure i mean for me personally especially you know when you're the northern half of the country that first week of november the last week october is bang and first week of november is you gotta be there i think we got down there on like the third or something so we were like right there and that was the whole goal right we're like we have this place nobody's gonna hunt it nobody's gonna be in there let's go have like an amazing rut hunt yeah and so bucks should be or they could be or they should be pretty aggressive um how do you decide to use a decoy or not to use a decoy well what i realized for me personally it it's such a situationally dependent thing because it could do more harm than good correct right and so you'll see this on the film um you would have seen this if i had hunted longer anyway uh pat was rattling blind calling steve was rattling blind calling battling blind calling the more time that i spent down there and the more trail camera images i got the more i realized like this is going to be a wait-em-out game which is generally how you kill big bucks during the rut like patience is everything and i knew with the way we kind of had to protect an area that had does in there and it had the the most concentration of deer on the ranch i'm like these bucks are going to come in and they're going to leave and they're going to know i'm there i know that if we put in enough time they're going to walk by so i don't i wasn't going to do any of that stuff like if i if i saw one cruising like i would have called to him maybe but there's just like a difference in strategy where you know those guys are western hunters primarily and that's what a lot of people do when they do a hunt like that it's like well it's the rut i'm going to rattle i'm like well there's no deer here hardly so like if you were a big buck there uh that density of deer like i just i don't have that much faith in blind calling that way like yeah they're they're on kind of a different path and it's such a just put your butt in the seat get the wind right and just wait them out and that's you know if we had a little bit higher deer density or you know maybe we had some deer coming into fields on there which we didn't really have those decoys would have came out like we would have we would have had situations but the more time i spent there the more i just realized i'm like i just don't i'm not getting that vibe yeah like it's changing and we need to just be on these pinch points and just ride them out yeah so we get there everyone's excited everyone makes plans first morning and then this happens what was going through your head at that moment well i need i need a backup from that okay so the reason that i went into that stand okay is i hadn't had that buck that was the buck that we had dubbed the split brow buck yeah but that's the that was that's this deer yeah the target buck that's the buck you named right you know so i hadn't had that buck on camera in a while uh i knew that that stand was going to be a really good one what i screwed up on that you don't see on the film is i had easy access to every stand and blind i put up that was the the farthest walk and when i went down there in july and then i went down there in august and hung that stand the mistake i made is i didn't walk that river and so in my head i'm like the river's shallow sandy very typical nebraska type river easy to cross maybe right and so i was like i'm gonna get into that river i'm gonna go half a mile upstream i'm gonna pop up the bank and be right at that tree well as soon as we got out of and i'm in my knee highs my cameraman's in his knee highs we got into that river and i immediately had water in my boots and i'm like this is deeper than i expected and i can't read the bottom because it's dark yeah and you're not using a headlamp well i was using a headlamp i didn't want to i want to use a red lamp and just wade the river straight up i totally misread it and it and the reason that i wanted to go in there is because i was like i wonder if i i screwed this up so i i had my tracker on on x i'm like i'm gonna send people into stanford sure i don't want to send somebody in and have them get dunked in yeah so you were you almost wanted to be like the guinea pig right if it was going to be too deep i'll figure it out kind of thing yeah so when we left taking one for the team dude i i knew like i had this feeling i'm like i think i screwed up like i think i gotta know this and so and with steve trapping and not going hunting i'm like i'm gonna go i'm gonna go get a track so i can share it with these guys i wade into that river i immediately know i screwed up and so i'm like now i gotta go to either i can't get out on the far side because i don't know if i can cross at the stand and that's where i expect the deer to come from so i'm like i have to be on the side i plan to hunt and so anyway i i had tons of time but it took me way longer because i screwed that up i had to go wade through a bunch of willows and brush along the edge of the river and just really kind of like amateur amateur hour my way you felt like a rookie like it was your first time hunting you know right and you know get to that stand late i got to that stand and sent drew up and i'm looking at my phone and i'm like it's going to be legal shooting light when i get in yeah like it just is and i'm like you know it's the rut so you're like whatever but you know i've got i'm wet i've got water in my boots i'm planning to sit all day and just everything i'm like i could just like i always do something like this yeah you're just thinking negative negative negative like right and drew gets up there i go up after him and i'm like i'm gonna do something like this and i'm like i'm gonna do something like this and i'm like i'm gonna do something like this and i'm like i'm gonna do something like this and i'm like i'm not even close and i hear something and i look over and here's a deer walking and i can immediately tell it's a big deer that's a big deer i bring my binos up and i see just this time and i'm like oh shit oh no and so i'm like drew you got to get your act together because this deer's coming and he's huge and he he moves bangs his carabiner against the the seat totally not ready but he's like you know those dudes are professionals like he got on it and i mean in a matter of just a couple of minutes from being on the ground to being in that tree shot that buck and i didn't know um i didn't know it was him i i kind of had gone from like seeing him in my binos and just knowing it was good enough and then shooting him and he runs off i when i was sitting in that tree afterwards you know the second guessing came in i'm like was he really as big as i thought like what happened and i i realized i was just like geeked out of my mind and it happened so fast and so chaotic that i didn't have there were like pieces clipped out of my like my memory and i'm like i don't know what's going on and it ended up working out but it was a it was a crazy crazy hunt well i just feel like no one was more deserving in shooting the target buck than you you did all the work you did all the prep used your knowledge to break down the property and then it's like perfect buck comes here and you make it look like it was the easiest thing ever like you knew that buck was going to be there and you're just like yep well i mean it what's weird to me is i don't i don't really care like i wasn't like hung up on the target buck like so you didn't feel guilty about shooting the target i mean it just it just happens you know look i knew when i went into that stand that was a good pinch point and i was like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god yeah like i knew that there was a chance but i believe that on every place we had to hunt yeah it's like you're not gonna put a stand or a blind there for no reason right you know like you were like using your knowledge and you're like yes this has potential right and you know i honestly the thing that i thought it it it was a relief to kill one right off the bat oh i'm sure like you could go into a hunt like that and everybody blanks and it's on you you know so getting one killed like that was cool um and it just kind of let me play guide and like relax the rest of the trip so that part was nice but i was actually kind of bummed because i'm like man i was just looking forward to spending time in a treat or yeah for sure you know like and instead i'm like in a camper and i'm driving a side-by-side around and steven pat but it was i mean it was cool man and that's like to me that's like such a good lesson in like if you do the work ahead of time like so much of whitetail hunting is one when you're not in stand it's like you're not in stand it's like you're not in stand it's like you're it's such a different beast from western hunting yeah this episode is sponsored in part by better help now if you've thought about trying therapy with better help insurance options may now be available nationwide with an average co-pay for eligible members of just 23 bucks per session hey you might not know this you probably don't know this but world mental health day is october 10 but your brain does not wait around for october 10 you gotta take care of your mental health at all times and therapy isn't just for like big life choices it can be a place to talk through small but important things like work situation taking up too much mental real estate a relationship dynamic you can't quite name or simply the sense that something feels off if you've been waiting to start therapy better help works with more than 125 health plan networks and eligible members have an average co-pay of just 23 dollars per 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From hanging out around the bonfire to just hopping in your friend's truck and cruising the woods, get outside and enjoy a Mountain Dew. That's right. Enjoy the outdoors with Mountain Dew, an American original. Tasted great since 48. Look for Mountain Dew in stores near you. And a little behind the scenes, when you called or texted Steve that you shot a buck, we were still in the camper, not even dressed, not even ready to go out. And Steve was still drinking coffee at this time. And I was like, you've got to be kidding me. We could have been in a tree stand. Because there's so much that goes into this. You want it, like you said, you want everyone to have success. And yeah, Steve and I are just sitting there twiddling our thumbs because we have to go trapping. Dude. That morning. Because Steve's whole plan was, hey, I'm going to set a couple traps, letting them soak, and just like, I'll come check them when I'm not deer hunting, you know? Right. And so what was that like? You put all this work and effort into it, and you're like, you're doing what the first morning? I thought when he started texting us that he was going to coyote trap on that night. You thought he was joking? I thought he was joking. Oh, gosh. I was like, but it's Steve, so you just don't know. But I was like, there's no way. There's no way he's going to set up this freaking whitetail hunt during the rut. We got three guys hunting, and then he's going to show up, and he's going to trap. And it was by far my biggest frustration point of the whole trip. Because by the time the hunt happened, I knew we were dealing with a really low deer density. There just aren't very many deer on that, in that area even. In fact, this is. This is going to sound crazy, but when I went down and hung stands, I went in the end of August, and I stayed at a. I rented an Airbnb like 20 minutes from the ranch. We drove that, you know, because you're getting good camera light and everything. So we drove that at first and last light for four days, and I never saw a deer in a field. And on that ranch, I'm like, man, we really don't have very many deer. And so I knew it was like a matter of spending time in the tree. Like, I still believe that if we all spent enough time, it would happen. And so Steve's. I don't know if this is true, and I'm filling in the blanks here, but Steve was like, yeah, my buddy who's a professional trapper is like, this is the coyote mecca, and you got to trap here. And that was what prompted him to do it. I think. This is my personal theory. I think that most of the Western hunters I meet are not very patient. Pat was super patient. Oh, yeah, he definitely was. Pat was an all-day sit, no problem guy. But I'm like, I think that Steve did this so he had an excuse to not sit all day because I had told him this before the trip. I was like, dude, it's going to be put in the hours and kill a deer. And I'm not. I know Western hunters will lose their shit because I said that, but it's just true that in the whitetail world, just patience kills big bucks. And in the Western world, it's so easy to go try to be proactive and make something happen. They're very different things. For sure. And it's hard. I've seen this with a lot of really good, great friends who are crazy accomplished Western hunters. They get into that whitetail space and it's just hard for them. It's the same thing like, you take a lot of my whitetail buddies and you put them out in the mountains. They're not going to do very well because it demands a different thing out of you. And so I think Steve was trapping because he didn't want to sit all day. Yeah. And I feel like also with Steve, he gets an idea in his head. He's like, oh, that's a great idea. And he's going to run with it no matter what. And so. Yeah, from a cameraman's perspective, it's like each of us got teamed up with a hunter. And so Drew was with you, Ty was with Pat, and I was with Steve. And so whatever Steve did, I had to go document, you know? And so I was stuck trapping for the whole morning, you know? Right. And I want you to know that I requested you and Steve took you. Yeah, I don't know. So it was just kind of funny and just like, that whole mentality of like, oh, Tony just shot a buck and we're not even out of the camper yet. It's just like, it was hard for my head to wrap around, you know? Right. So target buck is done. What's next? Well, for me, it just became managing Pat and Steve around the wind. For sure. Almost like you said, guiding them, figuring out where's going to be the best sit. Right. Yeah. And I mean, we were, you know, we were still running cameras. It wasn't, I actually, the camera situation was weird. It confirmed some of the things that I thought, some of those pinch points, you know, where Steve- You're talking about the mulchries, right? Yeah. Not the actual camera perspective. Right, right, yeah. The trail cameras. Okay, okay. It was weird because it showed me a couple of the spots we killed were good enough, right? But it also, the spot that Pat sat all day on day one, you and Steve sat in there at some point that blind, that camera was three times as active as any other camera I had down there. I mean, that mulchery was lighting up often and nobody saw a deer there. And I, when we were going into that hunt, I was like, somebody will kill a buck here. It's too good. There's too many does. And it never happened. And so in that way, that was like a cautionary tale camera-wise for me because it was showing me really good deer. It was showing me that there was a lot of deer action, but for whatever reason, they knew we were there. And so I kept believing in it because as soon as we get out, there'd be deer in there, but it just wasn't working. Like it just, I had something wrong there. And so in a way I let those, that camera talk me into that spot, but it also showed me like, hey, I'm not gonna show you what you did wrong, but you're doing something wrong because these deer are still here. And that was, to me, that was actually pretty fun. The camera thing on this hunt was pretty fun because I don't get to do that at that scale. Normally I'm on public land. Normally I'm where there's a lot of people and I don't get to see that kind of thing very often. So that part was fun. But mostly that time after I killed, I spent like, okay, the wind's gonna be out of the north until 11. The wind's gonna be out of the south until whatever. And just trying to like make sure Pat and Steve were on places where I was like, this is so worth your time here. And that, you know, it was tough 'cause there weren't very many deer, but it worked out. - For sure. From your whitetail hunting experience, there's, I would say four main ways to hunt. There's a tree stand, tree saddle, ground blind and a natural blind. Out of those, what are your favorite? Like, what's your favorite? And yeah, you can tell me, yeah, it depends on this, that, this. - My favorite thing to do, is to go out with a light set of sticks and a very, very lightweight hang on or a saddle and just be mobile. That's like, I like showing up. - Setting your saddle up and just hunting, you know? - Right. And I mean, natural blinds, I do that a lot too. I don't like sitting in hub style blinds for deer. Like it's just, I do it, especially with my daughters. And I don't like like big ladder stands. Like I just, I like mobile stuff. And it, that was, that was a tough element to this hunt because I knew that I had to find spots ahead of time that I could put Pat in and the cameraman or Steve and the cameraman. And just like, it has to be good enough. And it's, they're not gonna be like, we're moving. Like we could have moved sets, but I'm like, that's gonna be a whole different thing, so. - Yeah, and I like, I feel like when you set a stand, you also have to think like this, well, first of all, this is a good hunting stand. But since we're filming, is it a good filming stand? Can I put a second stand above the hunter, you know? - Right. - And so on this hunt, you did a multiple different things. You set stands, ground blinds and natural blinds. Tell me a little bit more about these natural blinds. - Well, I only, I actually only did one natural blind. And that was partially because most of the trees down there that the trees were either like saplings or they were a hundred years old and four feet in diameter. Couldn't get a stand into them. And the one natural blind I put up, that was just in a spot that had this great big tree. And there were a bunch of scrapes from the previous year. It was right on a Creek. So they weren't gonna get behind you. And it was just like a, it was the spot that had the most previous year's buck sign. I just couldn't, I couldn't get anything else going there. And I walked all over that place. - Yeah. - I did put a, I did put a pop-up blind probably 200 yards away from it that I thought would be a decoy thing. And that, and that is kind of interesting because I put up, I think I put up five blinds and five double sets when I was there in August. And we only sat a couple of them. Several of the places that I set up, we never sat. And they became a non-issue. And I, I was, I had enough conviction in those spots to actually do a set up and then we didn't use them. And it was like kind of an eye-opener to me that I didn't, I didn't really need to overdo it. You know, like I, I'll give you another example here, just as it's sort of like, you don't get to see it on the film. You see a little bit of setup of me going in there, but I found this little frog pond on this part of this property. It was in a, you know, for people who don't know in that, in that area, you have these pivot fields, right? Yeah. Because there's lack of water. Egg field, right? And then in the corners of those fields, you usually have some kind of brush, cedar trees planted, some kind of habitat, right? Good place to hunt pheasants. Yeah. Quail or whatever, right? And in one of those, there were some, some big cottonwood trees and there was a little frog pond. And I was like, this pond is exactly what I like to hunt. You know, and like, it's kind of in a series of patchy cover. And I put up a double set on that to shoot that pond. Yep. And I put a camera on it in July and I never got a picture of a deer on it the whole time. Probably some cows though. I, I didn't even get cows in there because they're, they were kept out of that corner. Okay. Literally never got a deer. And so when I went there in July, I found it, put a camera on it. I still believe the deer were going to come, hung a double set on in August and ended up pulling that set after I killed my buck because I'm like, there's nothing over here. No photos, no nothing. And so, you know, that was, I, I had like a lot of kind of dead program stuff that I thought was going to kind of hack it. Yeah. And it just didn't. And so it was a, it was an interesting challenge that way. Yeah, for sure. We are going to watch a clip of Steve in this natural blind. And I like, I've built plenty of natural blinds before for like duck hunting or goose hunting, you know, and like, I respect it and take some work and like you blend in probably the best, you know? And so I had full confidence that this was going to work, but yeah, we're going to watch this clip and. Have a little laugh about it. Right. And that moment of truth happens soon. When a buck steps from the woods already fully aware that I'm trying to hide there. I attempt to pull my bow as though I'll somehow shoot from the position I'm in, which is nearly impossible. And all I managed to do is get a partial draw before I really spooked the buck. That buck, when he came out, like a little backstory, Steve is to my right. I have a camera on a tripod facing him and also my handheld camera. And I was the first person to spot that buck. And I just. Slowly, like that buck comes out and he's just boom, right on us the whole time. He knew we were there, but he didn't know what we were. And so I'm just like kicking Steve, like, Hey, there's a buck. Like, and I'm like, how's this guy going to shoot? Right. So when you're playing guide, you tell people to go to these spots, but you don't really tell them how to hunt. Tell me, tell me what did Steve do wrong? And what you would have done differently. I would say for sure. The spiciest moment that I had with Steve off camera was after he got back from that. Oh, he was so frustrated. He was pissed at me and I didn't, I'm only getting the story from him. Yeah. Uh, I'm just going to say this. If you see somebody go out into the whitetail woods and they sit in a natural blind and they don't have a face mask or face paint on, uh, you're not thinking this stuff through. Um, what I should have told him, and I didn't think about this and this was on me as I should have said. Hey, get there early, cut some extra stuff and build up that blind. Cause it's been up for a couple months. It's going to be kind of beat down. And the thing about those natural blinds is they work really well when you set them up correctly, but you have to hide yourself and that one, you know, I didn't know the way that buck came in, they could come in from, you know, about 270 degrees there. Cause you have that Creek behind you. So they're not going to come in behind you, but they could have come in from everywhere. And when you're, when you're sitting there like that, kind of in their line of sight, like at their level, it's just tough. And so I should have told him he should have, he should have built that blind up more. Uh, but that was just like sort of a, uh, many mistakes at one time type of thing. And you know, whatever, like that stuff happens. Uh, but definitely should have been built up a little bit more. You get some fresh stuff cut. Yeah. With some leaves. So they're blown in the wind and just like, give yourself like that layer. Right. You know, and that's the one thing that I do when I set up a natural blind for whitetails, I mean, I have, I'm covered, I sit behind something and then you, so you have to do that kind of when you set up a videographer too, is like you stack up a bunch of stuff and you're just filming around that. Yeah. Right. And so your movement is already behind this sort of, um, you know, at least a layer of cover and then that's. That's the same thing. So he's a, he's a lefty, so he should have had stuff built all the way up on his right. So he could have just rolled on. Yeah. So you could just blow on. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, if, if you're in that situation and that buck comes out and he's, he catches you off guard, you're never going to kill him. Yeah. Like he's just, you're done. And do you, are you sitting on your butt when you're hunting these, uh, natural blinds or are you like on your haunches on your knees? So it depends, but I'm always in a situation where I can get to my knees. Yeah. You know, cause that's, that's the whole name of the game. Yeah. Because I feel like in that clip, we just watched Steve's first instinct was like, Oh, I'm going to draw from my butt. Right. You know, so hard. And like, I don't bow hunt. I don't archery hunt. And like, I don't think I could do it. And like, do you think you could, do you practice that at all? Uh, I mean, I have, you know, and I've, I've, I shot a deer a few years ago on film sitting a lot like that. Um, it's. It's not ideal. Like it's some setups. You're just like, this is just kind of how I have to be. Yeah. Um, because you're setting up where you're going to kill a deer. You know what I mean? Like you're setting up. So like you have to just use whatever's available to you exactly on that spot. But that was just one, you know, I should have, I should have told him to brush that in more. And it was just like a, it was like a bad deal. Yeah. You know? So another cool behind the scenes is Pat still has a tag. Steve still has a tag. And this buck basically spooks and like, how, how, how far do you think Steve and Pat were away from each other? We measured it on, on X. I, my, my first instinct was to say 600 yards, but I don't think it was that far. So yeah. After Steve and I, well, yeah, Steve would probably blame me for spooking this buck. But after Steve and I boogered this buck, this buck heads in past direction. Yeah. Are you confident in saying that buck that Steve and I ran into is the same buck that Pat ended up, yeah. Yeah. Ended up shooting. Yeah. And I mean, this is what you don't see on the film too, is that where Pat killed, there's a fence line through this cattail slough. Okay. And it is like a really cool pinch point, or I guess I should call that a funnel because they, they're going to walk a couple hundred yards. Okay. Along this thing. But the way that that worked out is as soon as that buck spooked and he was pointed in Pat's direction, it was almost a guarantee if he kept going, he was going to hit that funnel and have to follow that fence line. Cause either way, either way, it's going to be a super wet and just not that like that's the route. And so for that deer to go do that and then hit where Pat was at and Pat was in a ground blind because all those trees, they were way too big for a stand. Like that was what I had to work with. But it's cool. Like knowing what I know about how the terrain was, it's cool to understand that that buck, even though like theoretically you could look at it and go, he could go anywhere. But if he's, if he's going that direction, he's going to naturally fall into that funnel. Yeah. And then, so, you know, a cruiser would do that. Most deer would do that. And that deer did that too. And then Pat killed him. Yeah. And I think Pat was the perfect example of putting your time. Into it. Right. And it, it paying off, you know, Pat, the whole first day shot or sat in that ground blind, you know, and blanked. Yeah. Didn't he saw possum? Right. I think it was. And then that second day, was he in the same blind? I can't remember. No. Okay. But he's, he was still on the same plan of like, Hey, I'm sitting this blind from sunup to sundown. You know, it just so happened that buck came in mid morning and Pat ended up making, you know, he was in the same blind. And he was like, Hey, I'm sitting this blind from sunup to sundown. A perfect shot. Right. Yeah. Pat, dude, Pat's a bad-ass man. Yeah. He, he is, he is a cool dude. And he has a very, very, uh, a good like demeanor, like a good, he, he has like a vibe about him. That's just what good hunters have. Like he's not, there's not a lot of second guessing. There's a lot of conviction and there's just like, he just sees stuff through. And that, so that, that was fricking sweet, man. Yeah. Like to get, to have him kill that buck. That was a great deer on day two. that was such a relief for them yeah well no i i was gonna say like if so out of the three hunters the most deserving to kill buck would be you because you put all the time and effort my number two would be pat because it's his property you know and so just seeing that was so awesome and it just made me happy and then like that last person who deserved the buck with steve because he's not putting the time into it well yes he's a great hunter don't get me wrong but he's not putting this time into it and he's focusing more on trapping obviously that was a huge challenge of this hunt and i could tell you like we would get back meeting at camp and steve would be like all right i gotta go check traps i could just see smoke coming out of your ears talk a little about a little bit about that and like how was that just eat it at you well steve has been very uh open about how he feels about whitetails generally like he'll tell you that he loves mule deer way more and that white toes aren't that cool blah blah blah and so like there's always like that point of contention but honestly the one thing that i've learned about steve ranella is that like if steve likes it it's something i don't care about and vice versa he said we were in that camper we were talking about fishing and he was like my favorite kind of fishing is like the cold deep water in alaska yeah and i was like give me the flats in the bahamas they're 85 degrees yeah like total opposite i'm like just everything that we talk about you know and so it's just it's just how he is but that that trapping situation i will say this that was a huge pain in the ass he knew it it actually kind of became a thing everybody knew yeah uh but you could see when when pat killed that there was like a vibe shift yeah where he's like oh shit like all the pressure's on me now yeah things got a little tense for a while because you're like you gotta get your ass in a tree buddy you're the last one 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at moultrie.com um yeah it was just kind of crazy to me that like you go on this whitetail hunt and you spend just as much time trapping as you do as whitetail hunting you know just hilarious but steve's trapping and the amount of time that steve put in to whitetail hunting did pay off for him yeah but it was close to not paying off because he made this miss i wouldn't say a mistake but it was what would you call it well i mean i don't want to give it away yet but are we going to watch the clip yeah we're going to watch the clip but what would you call it let's let's watch the clip okay and then we'll get to it we're going to watch it so um yeah i guess a little bit of backstory before this i think it was like day two i was starting to get sick and like just the sickness came out and just knocked me on my butt and hunted day three um through the sickness and i was this miserable in this tree stand it was cold windy and i'm just like okay i got one more one more morning left in me and steve and i get up into these this tree stand and i have this all-out cough attack just hacking up a lung and there's nothing i can do to stop this cough okay and steve is just like oh gosh right he understands that i wasn't feeling well everyone knew it was not like i was hiding it and so he kind of expected this and he was probably thinking like i probably should have took a different camera guy and i cough for a straight minute or two and then i finally get this cough under control and i'm like oh my god i'm so sick i'm so sick i'm so sick i'm so sick and i'm not kidding you it was 30 30 seconds later steve makes his sound and like that was his signal of like hey deer coming so let's watch that deer was still moving right which so there's a lot to unpack here yes uh the the thing the first mistake he made here was he thought that that buck in that stand was going to look up and bust him and i'll tell you i've really started to look at a lot of my hunts like i'm trying to like be really honest about what are the advantages i have in a situation and what are the disadvantages one of the advantages that i figured we were going to have which i think was a hundred percent true on this hunt was that these were not going to be the smartest white tails we've hunted yeah like these were not public land yeah because they haven't been hunted in right x amount of years right so you have bucks that i and and and like i know people will lose it over this but i've hunted nebraska a lot i've hunted i've killed a the biggest buck i ever killed in my life was on public land in nebraska like i've hunted there a lot they're not deer that are at least in my experience are super cagey are looking up in the trees all the time like some places i hunt like northern wisconsin i get busted all the time by deer yeah because they're probably walking like this you know it's just a different thing and so on this one i'm like we're not going to be dealing with bucks that are going to be super cagey you know not not to say that they wouldn't wind you or pick you off or whatever but i just knew and you have peak rut so the whole reason that i killed that this buck here a huge part of it was he was so rutted up he just didn't have a clue that's why i got to shoot at him as many times as i did like he was just like he was in one mode can i see him for sure yeah keep talking about him um and so steve thought there's no way this buck's gonna walk in and not bust me and i would look at that situation i'd go 99 out of 100 times that buck comes in and he's not looking up at you he's cruising and so in his head he's like i can't draw i can't do anything until that buck's right there which whatever you know like you're kind of erring on the side of caution but it was unnecessary but what he did and a lot of bow hunters do this uh is okay i'm gonna i'm gonna draw i'm gonna stop him i'm going to shoot that's the thing going around in your head his thought was i don't know if i'm gonna be able to draw without getting busted it wouldn't matter at that range that but if that deer sees you you just still kill him but in his head i know where he was going he draws he murps him you know get him to stop and instantly punches that trigger it was almost like he went to stop him that right and they're just like a reaction right and i'll tell anyone who's listening to this or watching this who's who's a bow hunter who's listening to this who's hunter, if you do that, which we all do, right? I stop deer all the time, shoot them. If you go out into your backyard and you draw and you make that sound and then go to shoot, the odds are you'll punch that trigger or you'll shoot maybe faster than you need. It is like a thing that just, like, psychologically just tells you you've got to let this go. And that's what he did. And, you know, I mean, lucky for him and to his credit, he was on that buck. For sure. He was right in the wheelhouse, like, right in the boiler room aiming at it, you know? Right. But it's like a, it's a very, it's a sort of a very interesting psychological thing to, like, acknowledge because you start that clock ticking because you've made, you know, auditory contact with him. That buck knows something's going on now. So in your head, you go, I have X amount of seconds to get this shot off or that buck's going to bolt because I've now changed this, the vibe of this situation. That, like, if it were me, well, I guess it's different when you're on film because you always kind of try to stop them. But. But that buck, you could kill that buck all day long just walking like that, nice and slow. He was super close. Didn't know you were there. Right. Yeah. It's just, it's a, it's like an interesting thing to watch to see how that play out because people will see that and they'll go, he totally rushed it and punched the trigger, which he acknowledged and he did. But that happens a lot when you, when you're in that situation. Yeah. I just, I just can't even understand it because. Well, I mean, you think about it, like, so let's say you have. A pointer or a flusher in your pheasant hunting, right? And you have a new hunter, right? Like somebody who's like, they're on their first rooster hunt. Okay. And that pointer locks up tripod point right in front of them. They walk up or that, that lab, the tail is just, you know, helicopter, right? You're like that sucker's right here and they know it's coming. And so they're standing there, get ready to take that safety off. And that big rooster gets up and it's both barrels they miss. And it's, it's just one of those things like there's too much going on. Yeah. Like, cause now you're thinking I'm going to get my chance. That bird's going to get up right there and it happens and you're just, your brain just melts. Yeah. Um, another question that I have just not being a archery hunter, a bow hunter is how do you know when to start tracking? I mean, there's a lot that comes into play is like, oh, did that animal turn? Yeah. I mean, it's, you know. Did it drop some, you know, like. When you're filming, you have the benefit of. The benefit of just getting to watch it and go, all right, we can slow this down. You can see where that arrow impacts. And it honestly, that, that has taught me a lot about how archery tackle performs and, and deer reaction and stuff. I mean, I shot a buck a few years ago in North Dakota from the ground on public land that we filmed. And that arrow went all the way through that buck and in it, I don't know how many frames per second we film in 61, 20, whatever it is, 24, 24. Oh, well in, in. Between two frames, it went in and came out, that arrow fully penetrated and fully got kicked out. And so in my head, I was like, man, I didn't get very much penetration there because my brain's only registering so much that's going on. And then you watch it on film and you're like, oh my God, that fletching disappeared inside of him and poked all the way back out. So you, so you get that, but it's, it's really just a matter of like, what is the evidence, you know? And, and again, so I know I said that. Whitetail hunters are patient. Western hunters aren't as much. Yeah. One area that I see a lot of impatience in whitetail hunters is trailing deer. Okay. People, they just want to get on that blood trail and get going. And it's always, almost always a better idea to play it safe, you know, because people go, oh, well, coyotes are going to find it or it's too warm. You can get away with a lot. Like you get away with a lot of warmer weather than people think. The coyote thing is often. Kind of overblown. It's like an excuse we use. It's not always, but often. Yeah. I feel like the coyote thing is like very common for like the overnight maybe. Sure. I mean, and it's certain areas, right? But mostly we're just not that patient. Like we want to get on the trail. And so it just depends, you know, like if you, if you know, you made a good shot and your arrows in the ground covered in bright red blood and he meal kicked on the way out or whatever, you're like, okay, I'm going to go. Yeah. But if it's like. You know, when I shot that buck of mine, my first shot, I had no idea where it hit. I just knew I hit him. Yeah. Because you could also hear that meat report. Right. The way he reacted, I was like, okay, that wasn't great. The second shot hit him right next to the heart. You can actually see there's, there's two, two broadhead cuts like side by side in the pocket, but it must have like missed his heart by like, I mean, it had to be within. Like millimeters. Um, and so on that one, you could watch that and be like, that deer's toast and he might go a mile. Yeah. It's a dead deer running almost. So it's like, you got to, you got to take in like, what was your initial reaction? Where do you think it hit? Um, what is the, what does the arrow show you? If you can find it, what's the first blood show you like, and then, so you build this plan, you go, okay, I'm going to give it two hours, even though I think I smoked him. Then you get out there and you're on the trail and you find a. A little bit of gut material in the blood, or you go 250 yards when you're like, there's no way he should have gone a hundred. And then it's like, okay, now you have new relevant data. You better reassess this situation. Is it time to back out? Is it time to get the dogs? Like, what is it? Yeah. Uh, but, but generally it's like, be really patient and trust the actual evidence. Not what your brain is telling you. Like, what is the sign and the spore and everything show you? Yeah. I've, I've been on. Three whitetail hunts with, you know, and I, I would say that's one thing you're really good at is just being patient and just taking in what you're actually seeing as far as blood, um, how much blood is on the aerial. And yeah, I just think you're just really good at it. And, um, I think Steve on his buck didn't feel so great about it. Um, but yeah, you saw the footage. Right. How much time do we got? Um, we're almost at an hour, four minutes. Yeah. That's pretty, probably pretty good. Start that over. I think Steve, Sadie. Um, I think Steve, after he shot his buck, wasn't feeling the most confident about his shots. And I showed you the footage and you're like, oh, we can start tracking right now. You were very confident in that. And, uh, we ended up tracking Steve's buck a hundred and 150 yards and there he was laid up. So, yeah. So there's a, there's like an interesting thing that happens from a hunter perspective or. Well, yeah. From a hunter perspective. Okay. So Steve, Steve knew he punched that trigger. So now he has that, that doubt. Right. Like I, I probably didn't do the job I needed to, because I know I screwed up that important part. Right. Um, so his, his. His default is to go negative. I do that all the time. Oh yeah. I'm sure it's easy to do. But the reason he does it and I do it and a lot of people do is if you've been on enough blood trails, I mean, ask any guide out there, ask anybody who's been around a long time and been on a lot of them, uh, un, unearned enthusiasm. Like if it's, if you're, if you're too optimistic right off the bat, you have a, you have like a high. Odds of being disappointed and the high odds of making a mistake. So you see people with a lot of experience generally default to like, I don't know, man, we gotta play this safe. I'm super worried. And you know, you could see it when we found that buck Steve's like, oh yeah, like he was plowing. Like I felt like the hit was good, but it's very common to, to immediately default to like second guessing mode and low confidence mode for people who've been there a lot. And then when you have people who haven't. They often just are. Like, I think I smoked him. It looked perfect right behind the shoulder, you know, and then you're on a, you know, all night ordeal over and over and over again. And so it's like, uh, it, it's interesting how different people like experience level plays into how do you, how you react to that stuff? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I remember one point in this video, you mentioned how it would be a lot of people's. Dream to hunt with Steve or Noah, what is like the biggest or hardest thing to do with hunting with Steve? And then you could ask me that from a film perspective and I'll tell you, I got a pretty good idea. Your answer, buddy. Uh, you know, I don't, I mean, obviously Steve, Steve's super famous. Uh, it's like a, it's like a weird case, right? I like hunting with people who have. Have a lot of experience just to see what do they do, right? Like I have a, a cameraman that I use a lot, who I use a lot. Dylan Lenz, who's a really good whitetail hunter. I like hunting with him, filming with him because he'll make observations or he'll question a decision I'm making. Yeah. You don't have to babysit him. Well, not only that, but I learned from him. Yeah. And so like Steve, you know, when we're, when we're whitetail hunting, I'm in the driver's seat, but he's a guy who's done a lot of stuff out there. And he's like a very. generally capable outdoorsmen and so I enjoy that part. i like being around people who are even if he's not like specifically super good at white tail hunting he's really capable in the outdoors and he's and he's like a student of the game and so anybody anytime i can be with somebody like that like i've spent a lot of time with some wildlife photographers uh who don't hunt very much but i learn so much from them and so i like being around people who've been out there a lot and i don't spend a lot of time with people who are trappers like i don't spend a lot of time with people who do a lot of his stuff so that part's fun and honestly he's kind of a pain in the ass you know because he's like i know i know how to do this you know and he's a little bit stubborn right but it's also it's fun for me to watch him because i can see him wrestle with what he thinks he should do and what i say and i've done two two white tail hunts with him um we did one down in oklahoma on public land and he he he will like defer and he'll be like all right i'm going you say this i'm gonna try this and he will actually go through that stuff and it works and so it's he's he's like an interesting yeah yeah you feel like you shouldn't tell him what to do but you have to yeah and you feel like he won't listen but he will you know well and i think he's definitely the kind of person that will like take your knowledge and like try to learn from it too which is awesome right yeah and i we've we've been kind of ripping on him but he's actually like super funny yeah he's like super down to hang um it's generally been like my first time i did with him i was like i don't know if this is going to be a non-stop stress fest like i don't know if he's gonna bitch if i cook burgers and not something fancy or whatever and he's like he's like way more easy going when he like gets into the mode like you can tell it takes him a little while to unplug from whatever he's got going on and get into it but once he gets into it he's like pretty just like okay we'll do this we'll do this whatever um so it's interesting but yeah that's that's my experience i'm not sitting in a tree with him swinging a camera around oh gosh go ahead buddy well like i said before there's a huge difference between hunting and filming a hunt when you're filming a hunt you have to get all these shots to help build the story you have to um like some walk-by shots you have to run up there have them pass um you have to do all these b-roll shots um scenic shots um you have to film the same branch about five different times in five different ways you know um do all these focus pulls but i feel like the biggest thing with steve is he wants to hunt as naturally as possible which makes sense he's there for five days he wants to have the odds stacked in his favor and so like in a tree is like i have to switch lenses as quietly quietly as possible but it's gonna make some noise you know right and so there was so many times where i would be like moving slowly switching a lens you know and i would make a little noise and it would just be like you know just the death glare like hey shut up you're making too much noise you know and like um i feel like when you film with someone the more time you film with someone you can read each other and so like it was really easy for me to read steve or be like hey i gotta quiet down or like knock it off with the b-roll you know uh and so like and also steve is a big uh fan of not doing any retakes and so i'm constantly sitting in that tree thinking one two steps ahead of like okay what's he gonna do is he gonna look left is he gonna look right um when is so it's just like a constant right you know there's no breaks you have to be on 24 7 or else you're gonna miss that shot you know and so yeah that was the big the biggest challenge for me was just like not making that much noise so i mean people people don't understand and like i'm not i'm not complaining about this this is just an observation it's hard to sit two feet away from for hours on end and days on end in you know like you said you have different goals in mind i mean the overarching goal is to get a kill on film and get your show but how how that comes to be isn't from just sitting quietly and not moving you know like it's it's a tough deal yeah um one last video we're gonna watch kind of end on a happy uh fun note um this was one of the first videos i've ever done in my life and steve didn't like how much i was moving and this is something that didn't make the cut but i just think it was absolutely hilarious you gotta chill out on that moving head around pretend you're a video why don't you make a video about you not moving that camera so fast we'll make a video of camera moves that shouldn't have happened and that'll be like the cold open they'll be called worst camera moves for deer hunting and that'll be the cold open what do you think of that just give me one talking what's that just give me one talking point i'll stop i just gave you a talking point i gave you i gave you pointers i gave you professional feedback what more do you want oh man that was just hilarious yep goodness it's uh i don't know i don't remember if you and i i don't feel like we had any too contentious moments but generally when i film a whitetail hunt i will end up having to apologize to my yeah videographer at some point i i remember the last whitetail hunt i filmed with you um you were almost full draw on this buck and then you look up and realize i'm filming the wrong buck you know so it's just well right that worked out yeah so that's that didn't lead to anything but i just i filmed a a fishing show uh this summer and lauren molten one of our one of our good videographers he came out and filmed that with me and he and i were reminiscing we filmed one week in november the second season together and it was a rough hunt yeah just we had a we had a rough hunt and the last morning it was kind of i kind of had a hail mary situation going on hung a set for us and we got in there and he was climbing up and he was up ahead of me and he got tangled up in the toe rope and he's spinning around and swearing to make a bunch of noise and i was like hey man you got to get your shit together and he looked down at me and he goes you got to chill the fuck out and uh we had a little uh spicy back and forth and then got into that tree and killed a buck and it was great but almost almost every time at some point it just it just breaks a little bit you know yeah but that's that's like it's that's like the nature of doing something like that where you have all that pressure on you to get the film and you're just you're you know like those competing interests or like the competing routes to the same goal or you know yeah it gets a little feisty yeah and i've this is the last time i'm going to say it there is such a big difference between hunting and filming a hunt you know yeah so all right tony it's late september fall is here i think a lot of people want to know what trips or fall look like man i have some cool stuff i'm working on uh talk about them i'm i'll talk generically okay generally yeah yeah uh i got a couple of whitetail hunts on public land cool spots cool situations uh that i'm building a couple films around and i have another one on public land that i'm not going to talk about yet that's going to i think it's going to be unlike any whitetail hunt that's ever been filmed i don't think it's out there yet uh so i'm very excited about that so i'm i'm going hard toward the public land uh whitetails this fall a couple different states uh maybe an extra country in there somewhere and just just going after like those like what i feel are just very like real world you know like anybody could do them hunts and just trying to show like that process like i feel like at least for my audience like generally like that's like bread and butter man like people want to see that and i and i like doing that like i like going and living out of a tent just hunting those deer where anyone can and so that's what i'm going to be doing very very soon well that's just so relatable to the to the viewer too you know like that's what a lot of people are doing these days so for sure that's sweet um what's one thing you're looking forward to the most any is there any one hunt that you're you know i'm i'm doing a hunt uh in minnesota that we're gonna we're going to be doing next week and it's it's a property it's a public it's a piece of public actually there's a couple pieces in there uh that i hunted when i was like a teenager and hadn't been back into for i haven't set foot in there in 15 20 years for sure and it's just sort of this like nostalgia hunt on this place where i was like learning how to whitetail hunt and like i went in there um in the beginning of september and scouted around and it just dude i got so excited and it just brought back like so many memories and so that one is a hunt is, that one's really cool to me. And then the other ones will be hunting with my daughters off film like we've got a lot of deer to hunt a lot of a lot of forkies and spikes to target i would be scared if i was a four-year spike yeah we don't they don't get a lot of uh uh mercy from the peterson girls oh that's funny that's awesome well tony um great job if no one's told you about this hunt i had a lot of fun filming it um i had a lot of fun just watching it as well too um and it just makes me want to pick up a bow start flinging some arrows you got it buddy so no i appreciate it man that is our companion podcast for this 12 and 26 film where steve ranella pat hoffman and i went down to nebraska chasing bucks on pat's family ranch had a hell of a time down there we had a good four-day run um you you can check it out if you haven't watched it yet it's at the meat eater youtube channel and if you do go watch it leave us a comment let us know what you think uh tell us what you want to see us do more films about yeah tell us what we did wrong tell steve what he did wrong i don't want to hear it no you can tell us uh but leave some comments go check it out and thank you so much for all your support yeah good luck to you this fall thanks brother this episode is sponsored by better help you know those little promises you make to your future self tomorrow i'll put my phone away earlier or stop rehearsing arguments in the shower tomorrow i'll stop saying yes to everything or stop overthinking that conversation most of us aren't trying to become completely different people we're just hoping to feel a little better every day that's what's great about better help with them better is personal it's matching with a therapist who gets you and having someone in your corner better doesn't have to come back to you from major victories it can be from the small habits you create and how you honor your needs on a daily basis so many of us are great at prioritizing even the smallest things for our loved ones but what about ourselves with thousands of therapists and millions of members in over 100 countries better help is making therapy more accessible so more people can keep moving forward one conversation at a time better is personal therapy should be too visit better help dot com to get 10 off your first month that's better help dot com cold morning spent outside and long days of hard work can really take a toll on your hands whether you're outside cleaning fish digging around in your garden or grinding through a long day of your day job your hands take a beating that is why o'keefe's working hands hand cream is an essential part of any daily routine it provides guaranteed relief for extremely dry cracked hands with a concentrated unscented formula designed to deliver serious hydration where it's needed most here's the best thing about this stuff it doesn't leave your hands all greasy i've been using it it's like i've always looked for sort of the right hand cream my hands get kind of cooked at our place up in alaska for some reason this stuff you put it on and your hands are ready to work your hands are not greasy they're not slippery it works really good a little goes a long way making o'keefe's working hands hand cream effective dependable and economical for hands that work hard every day it's great for your hands and your hands great to have something that works hard for them o'keefe's working hands it really does really work keep your hands hydrated comfortable and smooth all season long visit o'keefe's company.com that's o-k-e-e-f-f-e-s company.com for guaranteed relief o'keefe's working hands it works for real hey let me tell you when the hunt is over the work isn't over you've still got all the grinding stuffing slicing and sealing turning your hard work into a success harvest into meals takes the right tools lem products offers grinders stuffers slicers dehydrators vacuum sealers and more for hunters and home meat processors for more than 30 years lem has been helping people bring their harvest from field to table visit lemproducts.com and use promo code steve15 to receive 15 off plus free shipping. that's steve15 at lemproducts.com this is an iheart podcast guaranteed human