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The Hunting Stories Podcast
Elk. Bear. Hog. Turkey. Deer and More. Hunting Stories that will make you laugh or maybe cry; real life chronicles from the field.
The Hunting Stories Podcast
Ep 117 The Hunting Stories Podcast: Sam Thrash
Have you ever wondered about the adrenaline rush that fuels a passionate bow hunter? Join us on the Hunting Stories Podcast as we sit down with Sam Thrash, founder and CEO of Fall Obsession, to hear his fascinating journey from hunting whitetails in Texas to preparing for an exhilarating elk hunt in Idaho. Sam, a dedicated bow hunter, takes us through his transition to archery, recounting heart-pounding hunts and the camaraderie of the hunting community. Relive his unforgettable hog hunt at a luxurious ranch near Dallas and his eye-opening first Western hunt in Montana, where the steep learning curve of pronghorn hunting tested his skills like never before.
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Howdy folks, and welcome to the hunting stories podcast. I'm your host, michael, and we got another good one for you today, guys. Today we're actually connecting with Sam Thrash. Not only does he probably have the coolest name of anyone that's been on the podcast, he is the founder and CEO of Fall Obsession Guys. Please check him out Links to everything in the show notes. They're just a media company doing all sorts of cool hunting stuff.
Speaker 1:So, first off, I want to thank sam, of course, for coming on the podcast, and for you, guys, thanks for coming in and listening. I do appreciate that. Also, november's coming up quick here, guys. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, but please take someone with you that doesn't typically vote. Let's turn the tide and, uh, let's hope this country ends up where we need it to be come November 6th. That's all you're going to hear from me. Let's go ahead and kick this thing off and let Sam tell you some of his stories. Thank you All right, sam. Welcome to the Hunting Stories Podcast. Brother, how are you? I'm good man. How are you doing? I am doing well, man, I'm doing well. This is a long time coming, I think. When I got signed up with Carbon.
Speaker 2:They initially introduced us and it took us a long time to finally schedule something and I'll blame that on me, because you know I run into the woods and I forget about things, so I apologize, but I'm glad you're here. I'm excited to hear some of your stories, man. To that point, we've been working on it for a little bit getting it set up, hunting season running a hunting show, as you know, is busy and takes up a lot of time.
Speaker 1:I'm glad we finally connected and made it happen, Perfect brother. Well, let's start with this man. Why don't you introduce yourself, let the folks know who they're going to be hearing some stories from, today, and then, man, we'll just dive into it.
Speaker 2:I know we've got a limited amount of time For sure. Man, my name is Sam Thrash. I own the company called Fall Obsession. We're a hunting and outdoor media production company and I'm the host of Fall Obsession podcast, also streaming on Carbon TV and wherever you guys get podcasts. We've got a little over 200 episodes on now. I've been doing it for about four years and that's a grind, as you know. Man, it's a lot of work.
Speaker 2:But I'm a Texas boy, grew up hunting in Texas with my dad mostly whitetails and pigs and I have since, here in the past few years, kind of expanded my horizons a little bit into some Western hunting and everything. I'm actually even next week for an Idaho elk hunt my first ever elk hunt. So if I might have a good, I have to come back on here and have a good story to share after after that trip. We'll wait and see, but I'm starting to get into the whole Western game and everything and enjoying that. I'm exclusively a bow hunter. I went bow only about 10 years ago and I can even tell that story. But it was coincidentally after I shot my first the uh, not my first buck, my biggest buck to date Um, I shot him with a rifle, and after that hunt I went bow only. So, um, it's, it's a, it's a grind, it's it's can be challenging and and very, uh, very difficult at times, but it's very rewarding, and I I have a heavy passion for archery, so I love and hate it.
Speaker 1:I actually just went on a Western big game hunt. I went moose hunting and antelope hunting and then had a buddy from California. He came with me and he'd never elk hunted before, but he is from England and his wife's from South Africa, so the majority of his hunting is South African big game kind of DIY, which is super unique. But we were out there in the elk woods and he just looks at me and he's like I think we've opened a can of worms. I think this is something I'm going to have to do every year. Um, which is cool, especially coming from someone who, like, does such a crazy exotic type of hunting, with most of his hunting being, you know, african big game. Um, but, man, you're going to love it. Uh, it's, it's. It's very different than all that Texas stuff. I actually lived in Texas for a few years. What, what part are you from?
Speaker 2:So traditionally, where most people might recognize me is, you know, saying that I'm from the Dallas Fort Worth area. I live, uh, I live, about an hour West of the Metroplex itself. I live on a couple, two, three acres, uh, out here, a few critters and that kind of stuff, and then I hunt another hour and a half West of where I'm at, um, near a little Texas town called Breckenridge, so it's, it's pretty much just.
Speaker 2:North central Texas is how I would describe it, and that's for the most part where I've, where I've, where I've hunted, we ventured, we had a lease growing up a little bit farther down south at one point in time, but north texas areas where I've, where I've grown up very cool.
Speaker 1:yeah, I was down in new bronfell, so when you're near san antonio, but I've been hunting in that area that you're from. I somehow got invited at like a texas parks and wildlife like beginning hunter thing a few years ago when I was a pretty new hunter and to like the king of Dallas Rebar, he like sells Rebar and he's loaded and he has a huge, huge ranch and it was spectacularly beautiful filled with hogs. I didn't see any hogs but another guy shot 23, so I went home with plenty of meat. Yeah, that's hunting, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome, awesome man Very cool.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm excited for your, your hunt. I actually had a friend just come back from Idaho and he said they the day that he had to leave is the day they started piping off. So I bet you have a pretty great hunt when you get up there, man.
Speaker 2:I'm, I'm excited. I've I've heard some similar things on on some guys that went early and they weren't quite vocal yet and everything. And yeah, I'm, I'm looking, looking forward to you. A new experience. I've gotten to cross mule deer and pronghorn off the list as hunts that I want to go on and animals I want to take with my bow, and hoping to do it with elk this year. Either way, it's going to be an incredible experience. We're doing the whole backcountry thing, riding back in on horseback and all that kind of stuff, and the benefits, I guess, of being a part of an organization like Fall Obsession is that we're going to be able to film the whole thing and have a video to share with everybody at the end of it so other folks can live through us, hopefully. So we're looking forward to it.
Speaker 1:Awesome man. Well, very cool. Keep in touch and make sure that you share that with me. I'll share it with all the listeners and then, of course, we'll have you on to tell the story at some point. But let's uh, let's dive into this man. Why don't you set the stage for, for the stories you want to you want to tell us today, maybe that one that kind of drove you to go switch to 100% archery? That's, that's interesting.
Speaker 2:Sure, and uh, yeah, it was. It was 20, 2013, I guess, and we we had been hunting um this property in Texas for for several seasons, at this, at this point, and there was a ridge that ran pretty much smack dab through through the middle of it. And, um, I believe it was the first week in December that year and we had just had one of our, our wonderful Texas ice apocalypse events roll through and everything. So the roads were, were slick and nobody was doing anything and we had been planning on going hunting and me and my dad that is. And so now we were kind of second guessing it as far as, oh, are we going to make the trek out there or not? And you know, eventually we were just like, well, we don't have anything else to do, so we might as well just drive slow and make the drive out there and get out there and do some hunting, because we figured the deer would be moving. So we did just that, and by the time we got out there that day, it was considerably later, obviously, with the road conditions, than what we had planned on, what we would normally try to get out there, right? So, um, we got out there. It was like it was probably four, 30 or so in the afternoon when we, when we pulled in and everything, so not really you know, it got dark around six so it wasn't really time to get out there and get in a stand or anything, but I just made the decision. I was like you know what, I'm just going to go, I'm just going to grab my rifle real quick and I'm going to go just sit on that Ridge, cause typically you could sit on that Ridge and be able to see something somewhere, either on your property or it was so high and overlooked so much you could even you know glass deer in the, in the neighboring fields and everything you know that were half mile away and whatnot. So I mean you could just see a lot and I mean it was just a good experience. Right, there was always gonna be something to look at.
Speaker 2:So I go out there and we're, we're sitting there for a little bit and I got some does and some young bucks in the in the field immediately to the base of the ridge that I'm sitting on, and I watched this young buck. There's a corner, a tree-lined corner that kind of juts out into that field, and I watched this young buck walking from my right to my left and it's like he's going to cut that corner, like try to go through the woods and come out on the other side, in another part of the field. So I watched him go into the woods and around the time I would expect him to walk out, this deer steps out with antlers and I'm looking at it just with the naked eye and I'm like man that that is a different deer, that's a bigger deer, and I put my binoculars up and it is just this mammoth a point that just walked out. I hadn't, I didn't have pictures of this deer. We, we weren't big into the trail camera game. We didn't have any cell cams at the time, um, but we had a couple of cameras out throughout the property, but still I had never seen this buck at all. He was just this ginormous eight point came walking out and uh, so I'm like man, I, I want to shoot that deer. So I put my rifle up and got settled and everything, and it was about 150 yards out and I I took a shot. He ran 30 yards just into the tree line and crashed and it just it happened so fast and it was incredible. I knew I had just shot a big deer. I didn't know how big until we got down there and walked up on him and I think at the end he taped out right at about 140. He was just this ginormous Texas eight point to this date. Uh, now, 11 years later, my still my biggest buck that I've ever killed.
Speaker 2:Um, and I was. I was so pumped and excited and everything, but in reflection, as the season went on, I just kept thinking about how how easy it was. Right and not all hunting is easy. But that specific instance was like man, I just I wasn't even supposed to. Really I shouldn't have probably even driven out here to go hunting today. And here we are. We got in late, I slipped out onto a ridge in a jacket and blue jeans and ended up shooting my, my best deer ever. Right, and I was just, I kept thinking about it. I was like I just I want the challenge, I want the pursuit. It was a deer I'd never seen before. Again, not taking away anything from the deer that I did kill, because I was unbelievably excited to shoot a buck of that caliber, but I wanted more, and so after that season, that's when I put the rifle down and made the decision to go bow only and with the exception of like coyotes and some pigs every now and then in Texas. As far as big game goes, I haven't looked back.
Speaker 1:Gotcha man. So did you transition to more of like a spot and stock style I know in Texas that's not that common or are you still doing like trees and blinds? Now you're just doing it from a much closer range? Uh, with the bow or like what is the? How has the actual hunt changed for you, besides just the weapon?
Speaker 2:So it's definitely I'm still hunting from, from stands and trees, and man, I've told everybody it doesn't matter how incredible of a spot and stalk or Western hunt experience I might have, of a spot and stalk or Western hunt experience I might have, um to me there's just, there is something about on a crisp November morning being in a tree in Texas. I just that's always going to have a special place in my heart. Um, but yes, I still hunt, and in tree stands and ground blinds for the most part of the property that we're on. Right now we manage, uh, 800 acres down here of of hunting land and that's where we produce our Texas Dirt Show that's found on Carbon TV.
Speaker 2:But yeah, it does not allow much opportunity for spot and stalk. It would be very, very challenging with the way that the property is laid out and as skittish as our deer can be down here. So yeah, I'm still doing the classic Texas hunting grind of, you know, blinds and tree stands and you know having running feeders and mock scrapes and that kind of stuff to try and help my opportunities. My big bucks don't really hit my feeders at all early season so I normally if I'm setting something up I might have a feeder for does and younger deer to come in. But then somewhere in that same setup I got a mock scrape rocking so that I can hopefully catch a, catch a nice buck traveling early season.
Speaker 1:Well, that's awesome, man. My, my goal is to eventually get to 100% archery. I just don't think I'm a good enough hunter to make that transition yet. I've only been hunting for nine years or so at this point. Um, so I'm an opportunist. I'll I'll walk into the woods with, if I can, a rifle and a bow and like, just like, whatever shows up where it shows up, I'll do whatever I can. Um, so good on you, man. It's, to make that jump is something that I that I dream about doing someday.
Speaker 2:So it's definitely. I would definitely had a wake up call with it because and it'll take me into another story right here for you Um, and that was my, my very first Western hunt, because, yes, I went bow only, but for five years, my first five years of being a bow only hunter, I was still just hunting Texas. So really, the biggest things that changed for me was that I was obviously choosing not to pick up a rifle, but all my stand setups that I was putting in and structuring were now built for archery Right. So, um, the, the challenge like it was different, but it it the challenge wasn't, you know, heightened to to so many levels at that point. So I, um, I got invited for my first. I had never hunted outside of the state of Texas, first time I, um, I got invited for my first. I had never hunted outside of the state of Texas, first time I ever did.
Speaker 2:I got invited to go with our, our marketing director here at fall obsession, drew.
Speaker 2:Um, he invited me to come up to Montana and hunt pronghorn with him and we hit the. He had a chunk of private land up there he had access to, and then we we had a bunch of public in that area, too, we could haunt. So we started on on the private and that's where I got a taste of what western hunting with a bow really is and I realized how just just how you know, ignorant I was to it before then. I mean, yes, I'd seen stuff on social media and YouTube and hunting shows and all that kind of stuff and and I had dreams to do this sort of thing, but I I'd never experienced it myself.
Speaker 2:And I still remember we had our very first stock of that trip. It was cold Like we, we actually had snow coming in, and it was beginning of October 2018. And we, uh, let's see, we found this small group of pronghorn and he had told me and I was good with it Like, hey, you know, the first, the first chance you get that something with a bow, if you're bow hunting like you, you should take it and I had an archery, so I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't have a choice.
Speaker 2:but you know, the mentality changes from having target bucks down here right To okay, I'm taking the first thing I have the opportunity to shoot at. So I, I took a, we took this little stock around this hill and came up on this group of pronghorn and we actually got this, this he he wasn't a young, young buck, but he wasn't, you know, just a monster or anything. But we had him at like 30 yards at one point and it was a brief moment and then he and then he took off. But at the same time drew was kind of looking at me like, hey, man, that's your chance. Like I don't know if you realize that, but that's what this is out here, that's western hunting, that's your chance. I'm like, oh, okay, I, I kind of realized it. So to to get down to the, to the actual hunt itself, we, we work through the snow the first two days and everything. Um, we, we saw some pronghorn, everything, but we, aside from that first stock, we weren't really, uh, getting in on anything, and the second day we were driving.
Speaker 1:Awesome, you got to 30 yards by the way, that's crazy to get to 30 yards.
Speaker 2:It was. It was just. Luck of the draw is what it is. We just popped over the hill and there they were. That's all it came down to and yeah, I learned a lot. Yes, in hindsight I should have been ready for a shot, but that also means that within 30 minutes of my first Western hunt I could have tagged out, so I'm also kind of glad that I did, and then you would have switched to like spear hunting, sam knowing you right just you're like well this is too easy too.
Speaker 2:Time to switch to spear hunting any.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it, it, uh, it opened up more opportunities for for the rest of it for sure. So I uh I got excuse me, I got back into it. For the next two days we're working through the snow and everything. We're actually driving from one piece of private to another that we had access to and when I say pieces of private, like I'm talking a couple hundred acres, it's in the Western hunt world. Right, it's not a whole lot, especially as quickly as pronghorn can move, as quickly as pronghorn can move, and we're moving from driving on a dirt road from one place to another. And we're driving along this fence line on a piece that we didn't have permission on so we couldn't go on it. But there was this group of pronghorn standing there like 40 yards off the road. So we just stopped to look at him because we noticed there was a stud buck in the group. So we pulled over and we're looking at this stud and he's really unique. He's got full curls coming in and he's really unique because his cutter on his left side it's still there, but it's like half broken off, so it's like halfway hanging on, and so we just stopped and watched for a little bit and we're thinking, man, that that is a stud, stud, pronghorn and and I'll, I'll have to send you a picture of them. We're like this is a stud. If we can see a buck like that, that would be incredible. So they move off. We go on about our way.
Speaker 2:Next day, sun comes out, snow starts melting, it starts warming up. Fast forward to the afternoon, drew dropped me off on the piece of private that we actually started the hunt on before. Um, because he had he had a ground blind set up on a water hole and he was like, hey, if you want to like kind of work your way through the property along this, this same Ridge where we've been seeing them and everything, and it's kind of take the long way around ending up in that ground blind for an evening hunt, he goes, it's warming up, the snow's melting, he goes, they might, they might hit that water hole and we'd gone from temperatures in the thirties to temperatures in the sixties now. And he's like I'm going to go scout this piece of public, so if you don't kill one today, we can change gears and go to public tomorrow. I said okay, so he drops me off and I start making my way up this this same same ridge and almost the same spot where that first encounter had happened.
Speaker 2:I kind of topped the hill. I was ready this time and, sure enough, like he was, probably 150 yards out, there's a buck, a lone buck, out there on the side of the hill, and he pinned me pretty quick. As far as you know, it's just grass. He's like there's something there, but they're curious creatures, as you probably know. So he starts working his way toward me and so I'm just trying to get settled in and thinking, man, if this thing walks into my bow range, I'll fling an arrow. And at the time, with the bow setup I had that year, I was excuse me, I probably wasn't going to fling an arrow more than I don't know. 60, 70 yards, that was probably the max that I was going to be able to shoot that year. So he starts working in and he gets like he's flirting with that 75, 74 number on my range finder and I thought about flinging one and I didn't. I just I was like, ah, I'm not going to do it, I'm not going to do it. So he ends up busting me, taking off.
Speaker 2:I keep going down the long trek, going to the blind drop down in there, and at this point again, we'd gone from 30 degree highs to 60 degree highs and carrying my gear stalking across the property, everything I was sweating at this point when I got in the blind. And so I get in the blind and I sit down like man. I'm just kind of thinking to myself, kind of reflected on the last two days. I'm like man, this, this is a grind like it was settling, settling in a little bit on on what it was like hunting pronghorn out there. I've been sitting there for about 20 minutes, man, and I look up and there's a hill across from the waterhole for me and I don't know. You can, you can see see a long ways up that hill and I could see a pronghorn had just topped that hill and was working his way down. So I put my binoculars up and it's a good buck, it's a good buck. And he starts literally running in toward this water hole and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to freaking happen just like that.
Speaker 2:So I get my bow up, I'm getting ready, I'd already ranged everything you know from my perspective, out, the, out, the blind and everything, and this trail that he was walking on.
Speaker 2:I had ranged it at around 40 yards, uh, and he, sure enough, comes down the water hole, makes a turn and starts walking down that trail. And, man, I was trying hard not to look at his horns but I really felt like I saw a split cutter on that left side. But I put it out of my mind, I got my bow up, I ranged him 42, drew back, shot and absolutely smoked him. I watched him try to run back up that hill and he ended up rolling back down it, down into the bottom and he was laying there dead at the bottom of the hill and I was pumped. I couldn't believe what just happened. So I had to walk all the way out of that bottom and get out there, to where I could even get a bar on my cell phone to call Drew and let him know hey, forget the public, I just tagged out. And so he came flying back in there and we got down there and, sure enough, man, it was that same buck that we had seen three miles away the day before.
Speaker 1:No way.
Speaker 2:His cutter and I have him coming into the water hole on video so you can see the. If you zoom in, you can see the little split on the cutter. And then when we walked up, I was lucky he honestly didn't bust it off when he rolled down the hill because it was literally hanging on by a thread at the end, but it was still there and man, I just I couldn't believe it. Drew couldn't believe it. He was like dude, this is the biggest pronghorn that that anybody shot on this place and I felt kind of bad. I was like dude, you've been hunting out here for like five years and I came in here in three days and had an opportunity to get a buck like this. I was like I feel kind of bad. He's like no, dude, this is awesome, this is an incredible buck. So that was my, that was my introduction to to Western hunting.
Speaker 2:Uh, day three was fortunate enough to to shoot a buck, uh, and a Pope and young buck at that, or would have been. I ended up bringing him home, had him shoulder mounted, got the mount back and I posted a picture on my Instagram or something of the mount and I had a bunch of buddies start reaching out like dude, did you score that thing? Did you score that thing? And I said no, I haven't. And one thing that I did that I might've done differently if I had known, if I had thought about it more before the hand is I had that I had the cutter repaired because it was hanging on by a thread it was going to fall off. Like he was one just good bump away from it falling off, and he was super symmetrical too, so he would be a very clean buck with it repaired. So I had it repaired and, um, so I started looking up. After all, my buddies were were asked me about it.
Speaker 2:I started looking up how do you score a pronghorn? And I did a rough score on him and everything, just myself. And he ended up he, I think, minimum to make it into Pope and Young record book 67, and he was 69 and some change. So I started looking up. I was like, man, this, this obviously wasn't a goal of mine, right, I was just happy to get a pronghorn. But I thought, man, it'd be cool to be able to say you have one in the in the Pope and Young book. So I started looking up. You know what do you have to do to get in the books, and because I had that uh cutter repaired, he's ineligible because they consider it artificial. So, um that, that ended that quest pretty quick, but at the same time it's.
Speaker 1:It's.
Speaker 2:I understand the caliber of a buck. I had the privilege of shooting, and and again that that wasn't the end goal. I'm not, I'm not in it for the inches or the or the stats or anything like that. You know so. But that that's how Western hunting started for me. And I did end up going back the following year to Montana. Um, we didn't have access to the private this time, so we were exclusively hunting public, and it was a grind. We hunted for seven days. Also, again exact same time of the year. We started the trip in snow again somehow, and yeah, I hunted for seven days.
Speaker 1:That's kind of prime rut right Early October, am I right there? I feel like that's the rut for animal yeah they were chasing a little bit out there.
Speaker 2:There was certainly some action going on, but it was a completely different ball game and we hunted hard for those seven days and were unsuccessful. Both of us in camp ate a tag sandwich on that one, but I wouldn't trade it for the world man, even though that's a long way to go from Texas to hunt speed goats.
Speaker 2:At the same time, I learned much more in those seven days than I did in the three days prior as far as how to hunt these things and the grind that it takes, I believe that, as far as you know how to hunt these things and and the grind that it takes the closest, I got to a stud buck which I I believe he's bigger than the one I shot the year before. He was a giant. I got 127 yards from him and, man, there was a. There was a second in my mind. I was like, oh, should I just launch one and see? But the, the more ethical side of my brain took over. It's like no, what are you thinking? So we didn't do that.
Speaker 2:I was more prepared as an archer. After, after that first year, I changed my bow, set up, I changed my sights, um, and I like I don't go out West if I'm not ready to fling one at a hundred, worst case scenario, like I, I will practice those 70, 80, 90, a hundred yard shots down here leading up into it, because not that I want to shoot an animal that far, but if it comes down to the last day and all I have to work with is a 78 yard shot, I've made that shot before and I'm going to take it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get that Especially with antelope man. Youope man, you, you kind of you grind and you grind and you're like, okay, I'll shoot 60, okay, I'll shoot 70. You know five days in, okay, I'll shoot 80. And I, uh, I went antelope hunting, you know, a week ago, and I did get my first antelope, but the day before I had one standing there at 92 yards and I was like, well, I know I can hit that. So I launched an arrow. I didn't consider the wind directly at my back blowing straight to him, and my fletchings hit his back Like it was a great shot.
Speaker 1:It was one of those shots. When you release it you're like, yes, like you know, you just had a perfect shot, but I just didn't think about you know, a hundred yards of wind taking my arrow 10, 12 inches farther than I wanted it to go um. So that guy walked free, he literally walked, the arrow smacked him and he sort of walked a little walk, just walked away from me, walked faster than I did nice try, dude.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly man. But it all worked out, because I ended up killing one a day later and I think I put in like six full days of antelope hunting and I only sat in a blind for like half of one day. I just couldn't do it. I was like it takes a special mindset that I'm working on. But, dude, my, mine. I want to ask you, how do you measure an antelope? And also mine, his cutter was completely snapped off, like he, so his, his left horn, looks just like a, like a wizard wand. It's just straight, as could be, with a hook at the end. It's super unique.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, I'm not the expert on scoring. I don't know what you even have to do to get certified or qualified to be a professional scorer and all that kind of stuff. I'm not one is what I'm getting at. But I go online and go online and I look at, um, you know the uh, just like Pope and young or Boone and Crockett, depending on on what I'm scoring and who I'm taping it out for, and I, man, that's, that's all I do is I just look at, I just look at the measurements and where the sheet specifies you gotta, you gotta do it, and then I, I tally it up the way that it tells it to, tells you to, and they're pretty, pretty user-friendly on those scoring sheets and everything that you can just print off and uh and be able to get a rough score yourself on on an animal you just killed.
Speaker 2:I went on this mule deer hunt. We can talk about that, but I went on this mule deer hunt last year, um, up in Colorado, and one of the guys there in camp, there at the farmhouse, he had a whitetail that he had shot a couple years prior. An absolute excuse me golly lost my voice there. An absolute hammer of a buck, that's right. But he uh, yeah, he had never scored him or anything, so he he had the sheet print off and everything and that was the first thing we did. The first, the first day before he even started hunting, was we got a tape and we taped that thing out just to get an idea on what he was at. So, yeah, I can read a tape measure and write stuff down. That's about as technical as I get with it.
Speaker 1:Okay cool, that's totally fine. I typically don't measure anything. Someone measured my elk for me. But yeah, I just am curious about antelope. I never even thought about measuring, especially when his cutter was completely cut off right. I was like, well, that probably can't possibly be a good score, but who knows, Maybe it is. I have no idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of puts it in perspective, right? You always hear about these 300-something-inch elk and whatnot. And well, a 160, 180 whitetail is is a stud, you know, and and I never, you know, there's always that gap that you have between deer and elk, but I never, I never, thought about what pronghorn inches are. So when I first taped them out and I was like 69, it's like man, that that's not anything. But then I started looking up on what our record pronghorn and everything, and I I I'm pulling this out of my butt at this point but the world record pronghorn is like 90 something inches or something you know it's. It's not crazy, right, and they don't have a lot of, they don't have a lot of horn to measure, right, it's just it's lengths or comforts, is your cutters and a couple other measurements and that's about it. So, yeah, okay, cool man, well yeah, well, it's uh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:I yeah, okay, cool man. Well, yeah, well, that's interesting, I love it. I'm like recently riding that antelope high and I totally get that. It's a culture shock, even for like elk hunters. You try and go to the antelope totally different game. I've been studying them for a while. Here's some antelope trivia for you and the listeners. They are the only animal with horns that fall off. They're not antlers, they're actually horns. And then the other thing is, genetically speaking, the closest relative to an antelope. Take a guess, sam.
Speaker 2:It's something in Africa, because they're technically like a. Aren't they a subspecies of something over there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Yep, and they're not antelope, they're actually goats. But the closest relative is a giraffe, of all damn things, right.
Speaker 2:I would not have guessed that.
Speaker 1:Okay, I kind of see it. Yeah, no one does. And then they're also the second fastest animal in the world. So when you put one down with a bow, it's pretty impressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, fastest animal in North America, I think, is what title that they have. And man, I don't doubt it. There would be so many times you'd bump a group and they go over a hill and you're skedaddling to try and get to that hill and look over it and everything and by the time you get there they're already three more hills over. They're just, oh man they cover some ground.
Speaker 1:It's impressive. Yeah, here's a quick story and then we'll let you tell another one. But my very first morning archery and low punting, which is like two years ago in southeastern Colorado, just flat as could possibly be we're driving around, my buddy and I, and so I'm sitting shotgun with my bow. He's driving and we see a herd and every time we pull over they seem to run. So I'm like, okay, I'll jump out. You try and get in front of them and then stop and try and drive them back to me because there's like one bush. So I'm like I'll go set by that bush and we'll hope you know, one in a thousand chance they actually walk back this way towards that one bush. So I'm walking towards that bush as I drop out and next thing, I know I just hear my truck horn honking, just, and I'm like what the hell is that I turn around.
Speaker 1:Apparently my buddy went up ahead. They started running head, they started running Half of them and I don't know if you've experienced this, but they always like to run in front of your car like trying to get hit but half of them got in front of him, ran across the road to some private One buck specifically turned back around so he flipped around and was driving back. That buck was trying to join the rest of them but he was kind of cutting him off. My buddy's going 65 miles an hour down the road and barely keeping up with his antelope. That antelope runs by me, it maybe 30 yards just flying by. I'm like, well, I no way I'm ever gonna shoot that. And he comes up to a barbed wire fence that's some more private and I mean he's straight up liquid terminator, because you know they don't go over fences, right, they go, they go under it. He did not lose a step and he was under that fence and gone and I was like holy crap that was one of the coolest things I've ever seen.
Speaker 1:I couldn't believe he made it through that fence at that speed. It was insane. So I have a lot of respect for the speed goats, wow.
Speaker 2:That is crazy man yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're incredible, needless to say we didn't fling any arrows, we didn't have any opportunities. That hunt, that was our first year ever going after it and, like you said, those seven days you spent, you learn a lot. We learned a lot that year. And so come back to this year. I'd finally got it done, but it was a lot of work and a lot of crawling through sagebrush flats. So, yeah, no man, I I get that. Yeah, cool man. Well, what else you got Sam? Uh, we went on a little antelope tangent there. What, uh, what are the stories you got for us today?
Speaker 2:Well, man, I one that I I have to share is definitely this this mule deer hunt that I had last year, another another amazing archery experience and, as much as I value and that pronghorn story that I told is is definitely up there, you know, being my only pronghorn that I've killed up till now. Um, this hunt this hunt, in its own unique way, is is by far one, if not the favorite hunt I've had in my life up to this point, for, for a lot of reasons, but it actually and just because I know that that you like hearing the stories and all the details and stuff, I'm actually going to start this story back in back in Texas. Um, first off, we uh, I kept putting in for that prom horn hunt in Montana because I loved it so much and I got drawn, obviously, and went in 2018 and 2019, but then I went several years being unsuccessful in getting a tag. So I decided you know what, I'm going to change it up. I want to go somewhere else. I want to do something else. I'm spending too much time literal years wanting to do the same thing over and over again. Let's do something different.
Speaker 2:So our Western Regional Coordinator here at Fall Obsession, tim. He had been inviting me for a few years at that point to come out and hunt mule deer out at his family farm in Northeastern Colorado. So flatland and I finally took him up on it, put in, got an archery tag out there and I was prepping for this hunt. So again a Western hunt. As I've already mentioned, I'm shooting long range and everything and we were going right after Thanksgiving of last year. So November, october, november, full swing and everything. Down here Texas we're whitetail hunting, everything and we last year we were watching some incredible whitetails down here on our place, like the best year we've had so far as far as the caliber of bucks we were seeing. We were watching 140, 150, 160 class deer down here. It was impressive. And so I'm hunting like 10 days before I leave for Colorado.
Speaker 2:I'm hunting Texas and sitting in one of my favorite stands, the rut starting, and I catch a glimpse of this buck moving in my peripherals this morning from my tree stand and he's just, he's cutting through the brush. He's not coming into the clearing, he's just. I can just see him through the trees and he's a nice looking eight point. So I hit him with a couple snort, wheezes there's a doe in the clearing. He turns, he starts working his way around and coming into that clearing and he comes in. He's standing 35 yards broadside on the back side of the clearing.
Speaker 2:I'm ready with my bow but the doe's looking at me so I can't draw. He takes one quick look. He's not interested in that doe, so he's like I'm done, there's nothing here. I don't know what I heard. So he's turning to leave out the backside and I just had a quick, quick moment to give him the old and stop him and draw back and shoot. I did not have time to range him standing in that opening and I had ranged it before, so I was like 45. He's at 45 because I had ranged the trail that he's on.
Speaker 2:So I fling an arrow and it's one of those deals where the second that you release it you know that it's not hitting where you want it to, and I knew this arrow was about to go high and so I'm just praying at this point like all these thoughts are running through my mind, while this arrow in my mind is just flying through the air in slow motion. I'm like, please go over his back, please go over his back. And I hear that smack, I hear it hit. No man's land and I'll watch him run off with that arrow sticking out of him. And no man's land. And I am just sick and I I range it where he was standing and he was at 41, and he had ducked a little bit. So I messed up as far as I was four yards off of my range and I didn't anticipate the drop in the moment and everything. So I felt horrible. To end that story, I have a blood dog down here in Texas that that I have with me and run him for myself and other hunters put him on them for four hours and work. The area turned up with nothing 90% sure that a deer that I have on trail cam a month and a half later is the same deer. Um, so it looks like he made it. But this is messing with me, cause I'm like man, I'm about to go hunt mule deer and I can't kill a white tail at 41 yards, are you kidding me? So again back on the range shooting, shooting, just beat myself up about it. And a lot of uncertainty now on, just for me having to mentally deal with it as an archer going into this mule deer hunt. Deal with it as an archer going into this mule deer hunt.
Speaker 2:So we head up to. I head up to Colorado. I was going to be in camp with with Tim and one of our other producers from Michigan, mike. He was coming out there too. He had a. He had a, a whitetail tag that was good for archery and rifle. When rifle season opened, um, which it opened, would open on day seven of our hunt, when rifle season opened, which it would open on day seven of our hunt. And then I had an archery only tag for mule deer and Tim had a rifle only tag for mule deer. So we kind of had a mixing pot of the tags and the options out here. But we get out there and again, let me pause you real quick.
Speaker 1:Sam, I just want to ask one question about the whitetail thing before we move on, just because, again, I'm relatively new to hunting. Haven't been doing it my entire life. You know, not generational hunter, like like most folks, but like no man's land, is like just below the spine, above the lungs, there's a spot that, like a lot of people, think there's nothing really there and you can go through it, but nothing it's not really going to cause the the damage that you'd hope right is that?
Speaker 1:yes, is that is that what you're speaking to, or am I? I just want to make sure I'm guessing right there.
Speaker 2:Correct, so it's it's kind of behind your, it's just behind your shoulder blade, below your spine, above the lungs, if you kind of think on where your back strap comes from, inside, uh, or where your back strap is right, it's, it's kind of like below the front of your back strap, if that makes sense. Um and and correct. There's, if you, if you hit them just right, you're not going to hit any major arteries, you're not going to hit the top of the lungs or or anything like that. Obviously not the spine, it's just flesh, it is all it is. And there's, there's a ton of deer that you, that you will see where a hunter will hit them in no man's land and they'll live to see another day.
Speaker 2:And I believe that that is the case with this buck. I was watching my trail cameras like a hawk man for the weeks following that, because just hoping and praying that he would show back up. And my buddy that hunts out there with me, he kept sending me pictures from his cameras of bucks, like, is this him? Is this him? No, no, it, it's not him. And then finally, one day I got a picture of a buck. And I'm looking at him, I'm looking at his frame, I'm looking at his body size and everything like that. That's him, I'm pretty sure that's him, so I believe the buck to see another day.
Speaker 2:Um, as we all know, these, these animals are, are tough creatures and and they, they can take a lot, um, but yeah, still still nothing that anybody wants to have to deal with. But no matter, no matter what the shot looked like, I tell folks you, you haven't been a deer hunter for long enough if you've never lost a deer. And that's a sucky part about hunting, but it is a part of hunting and at some point what by, from whatever circumstances, may be, everybody, in my opinion, that hunts long enough. They, they lose an animal at one point and and yeah, it's, it's. You want to throw up all over the place, man. It just, it's a sickening feeling, but it it's an unfortunate part of hunting that we, we all, have to deal with from time to time yeah, okay, I just wanted to.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to verify. But yeah, I've, I've, I've shot an axis deer in that same spot, like I had meat on the fletchings, but like no blood from time to time. Yeah, okay, I just wanted to. I just wanted to verify. But yeah, I've, I've, I've shot an axis deer in that same spot, like I had meat on the fletchings, but like no blood. I'm like what the hell's going on here? Um, so, yeah, I, I am familiar with it. I just wanted to make sure that I knew and that the listers knew, um, what specifically, what no man's land is?
Speaker 2:but continue, okay, you talked about the tags with the mule deer yeah, so we're, we're getting up to to colorado the mixing pot of tags between the three of us and I. I gotta thank the the tim his last name is burges and I gotta thank the burges family for for the invite and letting us come out there and and hunt with them, because it was just, it was an incredible experience and and they were very hospitable. His grandparents still live in the, in the old farmhouse on the on the place, and that's where we stayed and, yeah, very, very awesome folks. But, um, we get up there and again in normal what's turning into normal Sam thrash fashion at this point um, we, I, I'm driving in in a snowstorm, so my hunt is once again starting in snow. This is kind of becoming a tradition and I'm really hoping in a snowstorm. So my hunt is once again starting in snow. This is kind of becoming a tradition and I'm really hoping that I can break it for Idaho, but we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2:Either way, we get up there and it completely messed with the deer behavior. So for the first two days we're scouting all sorts of deer property and everything up there and we're not seeing anything. No mule deer, no white tails, they are just all. They've all been hunkered down with all this kind of stuff, and even Tim, who knows these deer very, very well, he's kind of stumped and as a hunt host, he's feeling the pressure too. And I've been there where you're like, oh man, I invited these guys to come up and this just isn't working. You know, I can tell that it's stressing him out too, but I mean, we're, we're there for up to a week and we're going to, we're going to make it happen one way or another. So, um, the snow kind of starts going away and I should paint the picture for for y'all Like this is this is flat country. This is not what you think of when you think of mule deer hunting, like in the mountains with all this varying terrain and trees and all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:This is flat land, this is farmland in colorado, practically nebraska, eastern colorado. Right, yeah, yes, far yeah right so that's where we in colorado say if, if you're east of i-25, you're basically in kansas. So yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's flat as could be no man, I'm not kidding you can. From the farmhouse you can see the nebraska Like we are so close to Nebraska. But the Burgess family they have a lot of. It's an old farming community so everybody knows everybody. They have a lot of great friends and everything in the area.
Speaker 2:So their family farm and the land that they own that we had to hunt was around I believe I'm correct in saying around 3,500 acres was around. I believe, uh, I'm correct in saying around 3,500 acres. But then there were tons of other um permission pieces that we had been given permission to hunt. There was, um, some public land or privately owned land that was has been given to the state for you know their walk in for big game or small game hunting. So basically, like I'm sure you probably know what walk-in is, but it's it's land that's contracted back to the state. The state pays for a private landowner to let people hunt on it, basically. So and all that kind of land in those properties are clearly marked saying that's the case, and obviously we're using Onyx and stuff like that too. But by the end of it, even though their home farm was around 3,500, we did the math by the end of the week and we had scouted over 68,000 acres and put like 1,400 miles on the farm truck, like we were moving and covering ground to try and find these deer. And again, that's over the course of a week. But, um day three, the snow is start, it's starting to warm up a little bit but again the the temps had just been in the at night and the single digits and the teens and twenties during the day for these first two days and we just weren't seeing any deer.
Speaker 2:So, and, and being flat like this, I'm just looking around, like they had told me, hey, it's flat and it's going to be a challenge with a bow. But I'm looking around, even myself a little bit skeptical, like man, this is going to be a long shot if I'm killing anything out here. So, yeah, I'm really, really honing in and field where we went to a different area and are scouting a, uh, a new, a different piece of a public, and we see this forky walking out in this field and everything. And I told the guys I was like, hey, look, I know he's a forky, but I want a freaking stock. I just I need to get out of the truck, I need to to get my blood pumping a little bit.
Speaker 2:Um, and you know, don't pass on the first day what you would shoot on the last. This is Western hunting, so I'm not holding out for a target buck, I'm looking for the first buck. I have the opportunity to shoot an archery distance. So I I do a little stalk on this Forky. I ended up getting within, uh, within 50 yards of him, but just with the tall grass and the CRP fields and everything. I didn't have a shot. Um, he blew out of there and blew over the next hill and even though he's a young deer and I'm I was pretty confident he probably topped that hill and went right on back about his day and was just hanging out over there. I was like, uh, all right, I've, I've killed an hour and I've, I've spent some time doing this. I'm going to come out of here and we'll go find something else. So we get back in the truck.
Speaker 2:I'm a little bit yeah stretch my legs kind of got my first stalk out of the way. So we're starting to head back and our normal routine and again thanks to the, the Burgess hospitality is we would. We would be covering land, scouting, hunting, and again, I know this might not sound like hunting to some folks, but this is just what you did out here in this country and the way it was set up. So we would come back in around noon, go back to the farmhouse, grab a sandwich and then we would head back out again for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. So we were about to hit that time frame where I was like, all right, do we head back to the house and get our sandwich or do we keep going? And Mike and I are both in the truck not from Colorado looking at each other like, oh man, this is a grind, this is a lot.
Speaker 2:And Tim can sense the uncertainty in us. He's like let's just do one more lap around the home farm, just one more lap. Like, trust me, we're just gonna do one more lap. I always see deer when I just do one more lap. So we, uh, we do one more lap and we're driving past the crp on the home farm and as we're driving past, mike spots a deer out in the field about 200 yards off the road, and we keep driving but we slow down enough to kind of look at him and it is the nicest buck that we had seen up to this point. Um, he, he was a very respectable deer and one that I would have been tickled to to put my tag on. So we keep driving so that we don't bump them. We park up on a hill at an intersection, about I don't know a third of a mile or more from him, and we're just kind of glass and trying to figure out how are we going to make a move on this deer, cause he, he's bet, he bedded down and he's in the CRP, he's, he's looking, he's facing up as much as a hill can be out there, he's facing uphill, a gradual increase in the slope, and the wind is at his back. So the direction he's facing is the direction that I'm going to have to come downhill into him to try and get a shot. So he's in a very challenging spot tactically.
Speaker 2:And so there was some conversation, discussion in the truck, as far as okay, what are we going to do? So up the slope and kind of on the edge of the wheat field that's past this buck that neighbors the CRP field that he's in, there's this row of evergreen trees and so we decide that the guys were going to drive me around. They were going to drop me off on the edge of those evergreen trees and I was going to walk up those trees, walk out into the wheat field and try to basically use those trees to get me as close as I can, and then we'll see what it looks like when I get in that wheat field and start moving toward the CRP. So that's what they did.
Speaker 2:They dropped me off, I started moving and they went back to the spot where they had been parked originally, where we were coming up with this plan, because from that tree line I could see the truck. I could see a little black speck of the pickup truck up past them, and they said hey, if you can't see the deer, basically we're going to tell you to walk out in that wheat field. We had some cell service. They said walk out in that wheat field as far as you can and we'll basically line you up with him, the truck. That way, you just have to walk toward the truck and you'll be walking toward the deer. Okay, sounds good.
Speaker 1:That's smart Okay.
Speaker 2:So that's what we did and I walked. I walked, probably I don't know how several hundred yards out into this wheat field before my phone dinged and they, they told me like hey, you're, you're good, start moving in. So I moved through the wheat field, I get to the CRP. And I barely got into the CRP and I was kind of feeling it, and they also sent me a message at the same time like hey, I know you can't see the deer, but you're going to have to start crawling. And so I got down and I just started crawling, man, and you know, the snow was still kind of melting away. So my hands by pretty quick, my hands were getting soaked through my gloves and freezing and I'm just, I'm crawling like literally, just crawl a couple steps, move my bow, crawl a couple steps, move my bow. I'm just easing my way into the CRP field. And I did that for for a couple, two, 300 yards probably, and I know that I'm getting close. Like I have yet to lay eyes on this buck, because the CRP fields, as you probably know, they're deceiving, like from the road they don't look like nothing, but you actually get into one and you're like this grass is super tall, there's these little cubbies and everything that these deer can hide in, and there's plenty of cover. People just don't realize it when you're driving past. So I still hadn't laid eyes on this deer.
Speaker 2:And finally I'm coming up on this patch of grass and I see antlers moving at the top of the, at the top of the grass. He had stood up and so I stop and I'm looking and I can't. There's so much grass I can't get a range on them. But there's this low spot that I'm eyeballing and it looks roughly the same distance away from me as as the buck, kind of off to my left. So I start ranging that low spot and I had it like 62 yards and the wind's blowing. I had the wind to think. Cause the wind? Probably it was in my face or kind of an angle and in my face and it was, uh, it was blowing pretty good, so that was covering a lot of my sound, but it was also going to make a long shot hard. So, yeah, I'm, I'm thinking like man, if he steps out from this patch of grass, he's in, like, yeah, I probably should fling one, but with this wind, like it's going to be a it's, it's not going to be good. I I don't know about it so, and then the antlers just disappear and I'm like, well, he bedded back down. So I'm going to start moving in closer.
Speaker 2:So I start crawling in, I'm easing my way and easing in and everything, and I get to, I cut the distance in half and I think I arranged that low spot. At this point I'm on the edge of the clump of grass that he's in, edge of the clump of grass that he's in, and I arranged that low spot at 38 yards. I'm like man, this this is pretty close for mule deer hunting. Like I should probably get ready and I've seen those. I've seen those hunting shows, those monster buck videos or whatnot over the years back in the day, where you know they'll be crawling through a cornfield and they'll stand up at full draw and start, you know cow calling at the buck and get the buck to stand up and shoot him. So I'm like I guess that's what I'm going to do, literally. I saw it in a movie once. So let's try that.
Speaker 2:So I just start creeping my way up from being on my knees to being in a standing position looking for this buck, and I can't see anything. I can't see this deer anywhere and I come to full draw. I know roughly kind of where he's at or where he was when I saw him, but I don't know exactly where this buck's at. So I get to, I I'm fully standing up, I'm at full draw and I start doing just that. I start cow calling and nothing is happening, nothing, just nothing in front of me. So I let down and I go back down on my knees and I'm like, well, I guess the wind really is blowing that hard, I'll get closer.
Speaker 2:So now I'm crawling into the same clump of grass that this deer is in as far as I know and I'm getting really uneasy. I feel like at any second I'm going to crawl and just be eyeball to eyeball with him Like it's thick, and I'm just thinking, man, I don't know where this deer is. It was making me uncomfortable. So I covered about 10 more yards into this big clump of grass and I'm thinking, all right, I'm going to try this again, but I need to know exactly where this buck is before I try to get him to stand. So I ease my way back up to where I'm kind of hunched over, but standing, and I have my binoculars up and I'm looking in the grass right in front of me with my binoculars just trying to find any evidence that there's a deer there, and finally, kind of angled off to my left, I find an antler in the grass and then I see the white of his ear so I can tell that he's facing me. His position hasn't changed. He may have been standing up and sitting back down, but he has not changed his angle on anything in the hour and a half that I've been working toward this. So I know where he's at and everything.
Speaker 2:I go back down, I get my bow ready and stuff and I'm like all right, this is it, like this is the moment. So I stand up, full, draw again, I have my pin on that spot where I saw that buck this time and start calling again and I can see his head start moving. I see his butt come up he's about to stand up and then his whole upper, the whole front of his body and everything shoulders, head, it all comes up above the grass. He's staring right at me and I had already adjusted my uh, I'd arranged that low spot at 28 yards. I had already adjusted my, my site, and when he stood up, my it like I'm pretty sure it was God man, because that pin was exactly where it needed to be when he stood up, and so instantly, the second that his legs locked into a standing position, that arrow was released.
Speaker 2:He was hard, hard quartering toward me. I put it right there in front of his shoulder, angling back into his heart. Hear the smack. He takes off running. I can see the arrow sticking out of him. I can see blood pumping out of him. He's running off. But again, just with this Texas experience that I had a couple weeks before, I'm glued to this deer. I'm not going to celebrate until I watch him go down and he runs about 80 yards farther out in this field and then you see him do the death, wobble and crash. And man, I just started jumping up and down. That pickup truck sitting up there on the hill peeled out on that dirt road and started flying down toward me. They've been watching the whole thing and I, like man, I was.
Speaker 2:I was so excited it literally like I've watched I've grown up watching hunting shows and everything and you know, just had a dream of Western hunting and say what you want about you know us doing all of our scouting and stuff from the truck. Like I said, that's just how you hunt out there, the stalk itself an hour and a half hundreds of yards on my hands and knees, crawling into CRP and like ultimately, to sum it up, killing a deer with a bow in rifle country. That was it for me and he was a cool buck man. He's not going to break any record books. He probably only. I think he taped out when I rough scored him at only about 120. He's not a giant deer, he's got some cool stuff. He grew his, his G2 or G excuse me, his G3 on on both antlers. He grew it twice. So he's got two G3s side-by-side on both antlers. He broke one of them off but the other one's still there. So he's just got some cool characteristics. And, again, just an unbelievable opportunity to get in on a buck like that, an experience that I've dreamed of, that I would never, never imagine that I would get to do.
Speaker 2:I called my dad when we got back to the house and I was like you'll never guess what I just did. We've been watching shows like this ever since I was a little kid and you would never guess what just happened. But the one of the rewarding things too was the family, like, as I've mentioned many times, where it's very hospitable. But, um, tim's granddad, who lived there, he kept asking me stuff. He's like man, nobody's ever come out here and bow hunting before everybody rifle hunts, why are you out here Bow hunt? This is rifle country, like he would. He told would tell me those things that you know over over every night and we'd have dinner with them.
Speaker 2:And when I killed that deer and brought it back and Tim went in and told him that I got one, he wanted to come out. He was like grandma, give me my coat. He's grabbing his coat and his cane and he's coming out there. He wanted to see that deer in the back of the truck and he walked up to me. Just this. This old farmer man walked up to me, put his hand on.
Speaker 1:I said son, I'm going to shake your hand, cause I didn't think you were going to do it.
Speaker 2:Nobody's ever killed a deer out here with a bow and that gave me goosebumps. That's awesome, that just gave. That was just something that you know I. I I try to be very you know I. I am not the best archer and and obviously as the as I told at the beginning of this story in Texas right Coming into it, you know I make mistakes too, but for me that meant a lot to know that I took on a challenge that nobody else had done before. We were successful and this gentleman who you know was happy to have me out there but really questioned whether or not I could pull it off and everything, he wanted to shake my hand because I got it done and that was just very, very rewarding for me and there was a lot of respect both ways there when that happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so awesome. I mean, he knows that land better than anybody right, it's his property. He's an old timer, he's been doing it for years and he's just like, nope, this ain't happening. And then you pull it off. Man, that had to feel amazing when you said he came out and like honey, give me my coat. All that just goosebumps, man, that's the exact kind of story I love to hear, brother. So, thank you, that was awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tim told me after the fact, after I had my deer, but before I went back to Texas. He was like yeah, I didn't tell you this, but I had to talk my dad into letting you come out here, because nobody thought that you could do it. And I said well, if anybody can kill a deer with a bow, it's Sam.
Speaker 1:I was like dude, you have way too much confidence in me, it turns out he was right though.
Speaker 2:He was right, he was man and yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was an awesome experience and just for me personally, right, not only to kind of restore my own confidence in my abilities as an archer after what had happened in Texas, but then also just this this bow only thing, right, bow only in Texas can be easy for somebody to do, for the reasons I mentioned earlier, as far as you can kind of pick your setups, but obviously when you go to a Western world with a bow hunt only mentality, that that changes a lot. And and there have been trips in the in the very few that I've done up to now that I've started with man, man, am I biting off too much by you know? Am I too proud, am I too much of an archery guy?
Speaker 2:And being able, like, being able to actually put in the work and the effort to kill an animal with a bow in an environment that is not ideal, like that, that's a rewarding experience, man, and and honestly, that's that, that's the high right. And and honestly, that's that that's the high right, that that's, that's why I, that's why one of the reasons I love it so much, I I think that it is not just for the adrenaline rush, but it it is the pinnacle of fair chase, in my opinion, like I'm gonna I'm gonna work my butt off and do everything I can to to take this animal in this animal's butt off and do everything I can to to take this animal in this animal's wheelhouse, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no man, that's awesome, that's that's an awesome attitude. I love it. Um, again, it's. It's like my hopes and dreams. I just need to be as good as you, sam, and then, uh, maybe someday I will switch to all archery. Um man this was fun, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I was just going to say again, I don't claim to be the, I'm not the world's best archer, by any means man. But I'm passionate for bow hunting and, yeah, I'm enjoying this bow only ride for sure at this point, it's good.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, man. That's awesome. Well, we've gone over. I know I booked you for a little bit of time here I over. I know I booked you for a little bit of time here. I think this is a perfect place to kind of wrap it up, and then we'll get you back to hear about how you stalked 500 yards in a snowstorm on some elk here in Idaho.
Speaker 2:Let's not talk about that snowstorm this early in the game. Man, Come on now. Don't jinx me.
Speaker 1:I'm giving you some bad juju, my bad, all right, sam sam. Well, let's do this. Why don't we uh tell the people where they can find you some of your adventures, if you want to, um, or you can just walk off into the sunset, brother, your call no, I'll give a quick pitch real quick.
Speaker 2:We uh, like I mentioned, I'm with the media production company called fall obsession, so you can uh find us at fall obsessioncom. That's the hub, that's where you can uh see all of our content, and we got a bunch of different producers and content creators across the country that contribute to that platform in various ways, whether it's photography, videography, written articles, all that kind of stuff. So there's some awesome content on there for everybody. At this point, we got multiple different shows streaming on Carbon TV and some episodes on YouTube as well. Our podcast, fall Obsession Podcast, is on Carbon TV and wherever else you listen to podcasts, we have a staff-inspired video podcast series on Carbon called Couch Chats. Basically, our producers across the country sometimes meet up and do a little informal podcast episode and we put it in those series. We got two different hunting shows on carbon tv called texas dirt that's my, my baby down here in texas. And then midwest mindset is uh mike, our producer from michigan. He produces a habitat management series up there in michigan and indiana. Um, so all for for whitetail hunting. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And then check out the youtube channel fall obsession, this hunt that I just talked about the mule deer hunt. We did produce a film around it. It's called flatland deer country. You can stream that okay on youtube. And we also did record a couple of podcasts while we were all in camp there. I think it's episodes like one 66 and one 67 of our fall obsession podcast show.
Speaker 2:If you guys actually want to like hear, hear the story from the guys, the three of us ourselves, like we, I killed that deer. Uh, you know, early afternoon on on that third day and by 7 PM we were sitting in front of a microphone in camp podcasting about it. So it was. It was. It's an awesome episode that's fresh off the hunt. So we got we got a few episodes like that in our in our archive and everything.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's where you can find us and definitely go check out that that flatland deer country film on YouTube. It's. It's an awesome, an awesome thing that we were able to put together around the experience and I wish that there. There are moments in there where I wish we had some more footage from certain parts and everything but um it. It tells a story in full and the story like and I know we're wrapping up the story doesn't end with my deer either. We still had another three and a half days in in hunting camp because the other guys had tags. So after I killed mine, I went full cameraman producer and just started filming everything for everybody else. So, um, there's a lot, a lot more story that came with that trip. That's pretty awesome and we tell that through those podcasts and that that film.
Speaker 1:So that's awesome. I'll make sure to put links to uh. I'll find those episodes and the YouTube uh video and all that stuff and I'll put links to all of it in the show notes. So, guys, please check it out. Um, but say, man, this was fun, uh, it's uh. I love it when I get goosebumps hearing other people's hunting stories and you definitely made it happen today. So thank you, brother. I appreciate you taking the time to share your stories with me and my listeners.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate the invite, man. Thanks for having me on. Yes, sir, All right guys, that's it.
Speaker 1:Another couple of stories in the book. So I want to thank Sam, of course, for coming on the podcast Couldn't have done it without him, um and for scheduling on such short notice. Uh, you guys don't know this, but it was a little like two days from us finally connecting here and it's the middle of hunting season. So, thank you very much, sam. I do appreciate it To you listeners. Please go, check out the links in the show notes, check out Fall Obsession, check out what they're doing, check out Mount Carbon TV, youtube, all the different places. And, yeah, leave them some comments saying the Hunting Stories podcast sent you in there and then, beyond that, guys, one more time.
Speaker 1:I don't want to beat a dead horse, but November's coming up. Find someone that doesn't typically vote and take them with you. They probably have the same moral compass that you do and probably have the same standard ideas to what's best for this country. So, get out there and vote and bring one friend with you. That's it, guys. Oh, actually, you know what? Go ahead and send us a review as well, why not? Okay, have a good one, guys. Get out there and make some stories of your own. Thank you.
