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

Tony Peterson is joined by videographer Max Barta, to answer viewer questions about his 12 in '26 film with Steven Rinella hunting whtietail in Nebraska. In the film they head to Nebraska with Pat Hoffman to hunt whitetail deer on Pat's family ranch. In this episode, they break down Tony's approach to scouting, setting up each hunter, and reading the deer. Watch Tony and Steve's "12 in '26" episode on MeatEater's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KizvptV13b0?si=57wsDr32ALpUE8Jd Connect with MeatEater on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/meateater, Facebook https://www.facebook.com/StevenRinellaMeatEater/, Twitter https://twitter.com/MeatEaterTV?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor, YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAaa0mleeU128Ad5iM1RFIg, and YouTube Clips https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterClips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@MeatEaterPodcastNetwork See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:42Speaker 03

  Dude, that's great, man. Again. Okay. Thanks, brother. Because you're the one that did all the work, dude. You deserve it, man. You just didn't deserve it that quick.

• 1:53Speaker 04

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to the 12 and 26 Companion Podcast for our Nebraska Whitetail Hunt. Last year, I did with Steve Rinella and 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.

• 2:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 2:16Speaker 04

  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 on to the show and some of the things that didn't, that the audience has kind of been asking us about, or we've been, we've been getting questions about. Just so, basically like a behind the scenes breakdown of what really went into this hunt.

• 2:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. We'll just dive deeper into the preparation, the actual hunts. And yeah, like you said.

• 2:44Speaker 04

  What it's like to hunt with Steve when he's trapping, all of that.

• 2:49Speaker 05

  And yeah, just a little backstory. Whenever, 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?

• 3:14Speaker 04

  I mean, this was a, for me personally.

• 3:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 3:17Speaker 04

  When Steve called me, so I was actually walking out of a cattail.

• 3:20Speaker 05

  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?

• 3:27Speaker 04

  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 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 whitetail 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 3,000 acres. It hasn't been haunted in 13 years or 15 years or whatever. And I knew what that meant.

• 3:56Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  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.

• 4:02Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 4:03Speaker 04

  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, 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 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.

• 4:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, because you said you, you got the call in November, or was it December?

• 4:30Speaker 04

  December.

• 4:31Speaker 05

  December. And you basically have almost a full year to prep for this hunt.

• 4:35Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:35Speaker 05

  Right?

• 4:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 4:37Speaker 05

  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?

• 4:57Speaker 04

  So this is, this is something that didn't really make the cut at all, because it's just not something you would film. But, you know, as soon as Steve said that, then we had a, a group text going with Steve, Pat and I. And Pat started sending me, you know, screenshots from OnX or waypoints from OnX. And so I started looking at that ranch, you know, because 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 OnX and it's like, start going, okay, I got a river bottom. I know there'll be whitetails there. Huge pivot fields. What's going to be in those? And, you know, now you can zoom in on OnX. The satellite imagery is so good that you can see cattle. And so I started looking at like, where are there cattle? There were cattle everywhere.

• 5:42Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 5:42Speaker 04

  And so 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. Because I know when you do that, you show up and then you're like, this looks different.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  You know, like this, this field isn't what I thought it was. 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 of 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.

• 6:26Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 6:27Speaker 04

  Super open.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 6:28Speaker 04

  And I've been using our Dave Smith Doe 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'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.

• 6:57Speaker 05

  Okay. I feel like, once you get onto OnX 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.

• 7:12Speaker 05

  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, just all the different circumstances that go into your strategy?

• 7:31Speaker 04

  So, right. I drove down there, the week of 4th of July. I brought nine cameras down me, 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.

• 7:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 7:54Speaker 04

  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.

• 8:14Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 8:15Speaker 04

  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 slews. Like, when I got there, I was like, this is a great place to hunt dogs.

• 8:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 8:39Speaker 04

  You know, like, 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.

• 8:56Speaker 05

  Yeah, next to river bottom.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  3,000 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, 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.

• 9:11Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  So there were a lot of things that I just had wrong.

• 9:15Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:15Speaker 04

  Like I just, I had wrong and I had wrong from every, I went down there three times.

• 9:19Speaker 05

  Oh, really?

• 9:20Speaker 04

  Every time. Well, once was to hunt, but I went down there twice.

• 9:23Speaker 05

  Okay, gotcha.

• 9:23Speaker 04

  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.

• 9:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 9:27Speaker 04

  Like it kept changing on me.

• 9:30Speaker 05

  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?

• 9:40Speaker 04

  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, 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 and that buck got out of his bed and he was enveloped. So the first deer I saw.

• 10:07Speaker 05

  And you're like.

• 10:08Speaker 04

  Was a giant.

• 10:09Speaker 05

  And you're like, expectations are up here.

• 10:11Speaker 04

  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. And the first picture I got on the whole ranch was that buck coming back in there.

• 10:23Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 10:23Speaker 04

  And I was like, I'm like, holy cow. Like this, this deer's really big. But it didn't,

• 10:34Speaker 04

  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 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.

• 11:00Speaker 05

  Yeah. And so he went down there a couple of times. And we're actually going to watch a clip here. Just kind of a funny moment. We'll tune into this right here.

• 11:12Speaker 04

  One of the things that sucks about filming for Meat Eater is.

• 11:19Speaker 04

  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. You're like, ah, that's gonna make it in a show. People are gonna be like, ah, look at that dipshit.

• 11:34Speaker 05

  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?

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Ah.

• 11:49Speaker 04

  Well, I mean.

• 11:50Speaker 05

  Cause you filmed like the last, how many years with Meat Eater?

• 11:54Speaker 04

  Four.

• 11:54Speaker 05

  Four. So like there's, there's been countless number of times, you know?

• 11:58Speaker 04

  I, I am a mistake making machine.

• 12:00Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 12:01Speaker 04

  And that's, and that's something that like, I try to get through in my writing and a lot of stuff is like, you're, 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, I worked for a TV show in a past life where

• 12:24Speaker 04

  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 misses a lot of times. And I was like, man, we're.

• 12:34Speaker 05

  It's all part of it.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  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 of years ago. I snort weeds in a really big buck in North Dakota on public land and just whiffed on him.

• 12:48Speaker 05

  I think I remember watching that.

• 12:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that was, you know, the, the hard thing for me, the, the embarrassing stuff for me is, I, so when I started bow hunting, I had buck fever so bad.

• 12:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 12:58Speaker 04

  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, cause 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.

• 13:43Speaker 04

  And when you do something like that, it just sucks. You're just like.

• 13:47Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 04

  You just live with it for like a year and then it drops and you're like, ah, whatever, you know?

• 13:51Speaker 05

  You also put so much time and effort into this hunt and then just like, you just choke. That's, that's all you do.

• 13:59Speaker 04

  Dude, totally. And I mean, it's like, I, I'm, I'm going to 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, cause my, my focus just, I'm like divided.

• 14:15Speaker 05

  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.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Right.

• 14:24Speaker 05

  You know, it's like, you have to make considerations that you normally wouldn't do if you were just hunting.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  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, so, 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.

• 15:13Speaker 04

  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, I killed a bunch of 120s. I want a 140. Well, when that 140 walks in, you've already put that pressure on yourself. That's where those mistakes come from. And it's like, it's part of what's cool. Cause 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.

• 15:38Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, back to the film. We get there, was it first week in November?

• 15:46Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 15:47Speaker 05

  So was it peak rut, do you think? Or where was the rut calculator, would you think?

• 15:53Speaker 04

  Well, I mean.

• 15:53Speaker 05

  On a scale of one to 10, what would you say the rut was? Like 10 being peak rut? One being nothing at all?

• 16:00Speaker 04

  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 of October is banging. First week of November is you gotta be there. Uh, 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 going to hunt it. Nobody's going to be in there. Let's go have like an amazing rut hunt.

• 16:22Speaker 05

  Yep. 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?

• 16:35Speaker 04

  Well,

• 16:37Speaker 04

  what I realized, for me personally, it, it's such a situationally dependent thing.

• 16:43Speaker 05

  Cause it could do more harm than good, correct?

• 16:46Speaker 04

  Right. And so you'll see this on the film. Um, you, you would have seen this if I had hunted longer anyway. Uh, Pat was rattling, blind calling. Steve was rattling, 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 them 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 orbit this thing. And I'm like, the best bet, I don't, I don't want them to know I'm there. I know that if we put in enough time, they're going to walk by.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  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 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,

• 18:11Speaker 04

  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. They're 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.

• 18:28Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 18:28Speaker 04

  Like it's changing and we need to just be on these pinch points and just ride them out.

• 18:32Speaker 05

  Yeah. So we get there, everyone's excited, everyone makes plans, first morning, and then this happens.

• 19:20Speaker 05

  What was going through your head at that moment?

• 19:23Speaker 04

  Well, I need, I need a backup from that.

• 19:24Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 19:25Speaker 04

  So the reason that I went into that stand.

• 19:30Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Is I hadn't had that buck. That was the buck that we had dubbed the split brow buck.

• 19:34Speaker 05

  Yeah. That, that's the, that was.

• 19:36Speaker 04

  That's this deer.

• 19:37Speaker 05

  Yeah. The target buck. That's the buck you named, you know?

• 19:40Speaker 04

  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.

• 20:14Speaker 05

  Easy to cross maybe.

• 20:15Speaker 04

  Right. And so I was like, I'm going to get into that river. I'm going to go half a mile upstream. I'm going to pop up the bank and be right at that tree. Well, as soon as we got out of the truck 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.

• 20:36Speaker 05

  Yeah. And you're not using a headlamp?

• 20:37Speaker 04

  Well, I was using a headlamp. I didn't want to. I wanted 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 stand for sure. I don't want to send somebody in and have them get dunked in.

• 20:57Speaker 05

  Yeah. So you were you almost wanted to be like the guinea pig.

• 21:00Speaker 04

  Right.

• 21:00Speaker 05

  If it was gonna be too deep, I'll figure it out, kinda thing. Yeah.

• 21:04Speaker 04

  So when we left.

• 21:05Speaker 05

  Taking one for the team.

• 21:06Speaker 04

  Dude, I I knew like I had this feeling. I'm like, I think I screwed up. Like, 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 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 through the whole thing.

• 21:51Speaker 05

  You felt like a rookie, like it was your first time hunting, you know?

• 21:53Speaker 04

  Dude, 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.

• 22:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 22:03Speaker 04

  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 to myself.

• 22:17Speaker 05

  You're just thinking negative, negative, negative.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Like, right. And Drew gets up there. I go up after him and I'm not even close. And I hear something and I look over and here's a deer walking and I can immediately tell.

• 22:31Speaker 05

  It's a big deer.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  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 gotta 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.

• 23:16Speaker 04

  And he runs off. I, when I'm 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.

• 23:42Speaker 05

  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 gonna be there and you're just like, yep.

• 24:04Speaker 04

  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,

• 24:13Speaker 05

  So you didn't feel guilty about shooting the target buck at all? It just happens, you know?

• 24:18Speaker 04

  Look, I knew when I went into that stand, that was a good pinch point.

• 24:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 24:22Speaker 04

  Like, I knew that there was a chance, but I believed that on every place we had to hunt.

• 24:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like, you're not gonna put a stand or a blind there for no reason.

• 24:30Speaker 04

  Right.

• 24:30Speaker 05

  You know, like, you were like, using your knowledge and you're like, yes, this has potential.

• 24:35Speaker 04

  Right. And, you know, I honestly, the thing that I thought, it's it, it was a relief to kill one right off the bat.

• 24:43Speaker 05

  Oh, I'm sure.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  You know, because you 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 kinda let me play guide and like relaxed the rest of the trip. So that part was nice, but I was actually kinda bummed because I'm like, man, I was just looking forward to spending time in a tree during the hunt.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 25:03Speaker 04

  You know, like, and instead I'm like in a camper and I'm driving a side by side around a guy and Steve and 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 won when you're not in stand. It's a, it's such a different beast from western hunting.

• 25:24Speaker 05

  Yeah.

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• 26:56Speaker 05

  And a little behind the scenes,

• 27:00Speaker 05

  when you called or texted Steve that you shot a buck, we were still in the camper.

• 27:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:08Speaker 05

  Like, not even dressed, not even ready to go out. And Steve was still like drinking coffee at this time.

• 27:14Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 27:14Speaker 05

  You know? And I just like, I was like, you gotta be kidding me. Like, we could have been in a tree stand and just like, you know, because like, there's so much that goes into this. Like, you want it, like you said, you want everyone to have success. Um, and yeah, Steve and I are just sitting there twiddling our thumbs because we have to go trapping that morning. Because Steve's whole plan was, hey, I'm gonna set a couple traps, let them soak, and just like, I'll come check them when I'm not deer hunting, you know?

• 27:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 27:45Speaker 05

  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?

• 27:53Speaker 04

  I I thought when he started texting us that he was gonna coyote trap on this hunt.

• 27:58Speaker 05

  You thought he was joking?

• 27:59Speaker 04

  I thought he was joking.

• 27:59Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh.

• 28:00Speaker 04

  I was like, but but it's Steve, so you just don't know.

• 28:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:04Speaker 04

  But I was like, there's no way. There's no way he's gonna, and it, he's gonna set up this freaking whitetail hunt during the rut. We got three guys hunting and then he's gonna show up and he's gonna trap. And it was by far my biggest frustration point of the whole trip. Because like,

• 28:25Speaker 04

  by the time the hunt happened, I knew we we were dealing with a really low deer density. Like, there just aren't very many deer on that, in that area even. In fact, this is gonna sound crazy, but when I went down and hung stands, I went in the end of August and I stayed at a, I rented a Airbnb like 20 minutes, 20 minutes from the ranch.

• 28:47Speaker 04

  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'm, I still believe that if we all spend 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 a trap here. And that, 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.

• 29:31Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah, he definitely was.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Pat was an all day sit, no problem guy. Uh, 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 the trip. I was like, dude, it's gonna be put in the hours and kill a deer. And I 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.

• 30:00Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 30:00Speaker 04

  They're very different things.

• 30:02Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 30:02Speaker 04

  And it's hard. I've seen this with a lot of really good friends who are like crazy accomplished western hunters. They get into that whitetail space and it's like, it's just hard for them. You know, it's it's the same thing. Like, you know, 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.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  And so I think Steve was trapping because he didn't want to sit all day.

• 30:25Speaker 05

  Yeah. And like, I feel like also with Steve is like, he gets an idea in his head. He's like, oh, that's a great idea. And he's gonna run with it no matter what, you know? And so, um, yeah, from from a cameraman perspective is 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?

• 30:57Speaker 04

  Right. And I I want you to know that I requested you and Steve took you.

• 31:02Speaker 05

  Yeah, I I don't know. So it was just kinda 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?

• 31:15Speaker 04

  Right.

• 31:16Speaker 05

  Um, so target buck is done. Um, what's next?

• 31:24Speaker 04

  Well, for me, it just became managing Pat and Steve around the wind.

• 31:30Speaker 05

  For sure. Almost like, like you said, guiding them, figuring out where's it gonna be the best sits.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah, and I mean, we were, you know, we were still running cameras. It wasn't, I actually, the, the camera situation was weird. It confirmed some of the things that I thought, some of those pinch points, you know.

• 31:48Speaker 05

  You're talking about the multeries, right?

• 31:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:50Speaker 05

  Not, not the actual camera.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Right, right, yeah, the trail cameras.

• 31:53Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 31:54Speaker 04

  Um, 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. And I mean, that mulcher 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 action, but

• 32:38Speaker 04

  whatever, 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, 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 going to 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. Like the camera thing on this hunt was pretty fun because I don't get to do that at, at that scale. Uh, you know, 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, that part was fun. But mostly, that time after I killed, I spent like,

• 33:23Speaker 04

  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, this is so worth your time here. And that, you know, it, it was tough because there weren't very many deer, but it worked out.

• 33:39Speaker 05

  For sure. Um, from your whitetail hunting experience,

• 33:45Speaker 05

  there's, I would say four main ways to hunt. There's a tree stand, tree saddle, ground blind and a natural blind.

• 33:55Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 33:55Speaker 05

  Out of those, what are your favorite? Like, what's your favorite?

• 33:59Speaker 04

  I

• 34:00Speaker 05

  And yeah, you can tell me, yeah, it depends on this, that, this.

• 34:04Speaker 04

  I, 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.

• 34:17Speaker 05

  Setting this, setting your saddle up and just hunting, you know?

• 34:20Speaker 04

  Right. And I mean, natural blinds, I do that a lot too. Um, I don't like sitting in hub style blinds for deer. Like it's just, I do it, especially with my daughters. Uh, and I don't, I don't like like big ladder stands. Like I, I just, I like mobile stuff, you know, 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 a cameraman or Steve and a cameraman. And just like, it has to be good enough and it's, they're not gonna be like, we're moving. Like we, we could have moved sets, but I'm like, that's gonna be a whole different thing. So.

• 34:56Speaker 05

  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?

• 35:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 35:11Speaker 05

  And so, um, 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.

• 35:21Speaker 04

  Well, I only, I actually only did one natural blind. Um, and that was partially because most of the trees down there that, that, the trees were either like saplings or they were a hundred years old and four feet in diameter and you couldn't get a stand into them. And the one natural blind I, 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, 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.

• 36:01Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 36:01Speaker 04

  Um, 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 setup 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, I'll give you another example here, just as it's sort of like,

• 36:42Speaker 04

  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?

• 36:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, because there's lack of water.

• 36:56Speaker 04

  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.

• 37:07Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 37:08Speaker 04

  Quail or whatever, right? And in one of those, there were some, some big, uh, 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.

• 37:28Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 37:28Speaker 04

  And I put a camera on it in July and I never got a picture of a deer on it. The whole time.

• 37:36Speaker 05

  Probably some cows though.

• 37:37Speaker 04

  I, I didn't even get cows in there because they're, they were kept out of that corner.

• 37:41Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:42Speaker 04

  Literally never got a deer. And so when I went there in July, I found it, put a camera on it. I still believed the deer were gonna 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.

• 37:56Speaker 05

  No photos, no nothing.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  That was, I, I had like a lot of kind of dead program stuff that I thought was gonna kind of hack it and it just didn't. And so it was, it was an interesting challenge that way.

• 38:10Speaker 05

  Yeah, for sure. We are gonna watch a clip of Steve in this natural blind.

• 38:19Speaker 05

  And I, like, I've built plenty of natural blinds before, um, for like duck hunting or goose hunting, you know, and like, I respect it, take some work and like, you blend in probably the best, you know? And so I had full confidence that this was gonna work. But yeah, we're gonna watch this clip and have a little laugh about it.

• 38:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  And that moment of truth happens soon. When a buck steps from the woods already fully aware that I'm trying to hide there.

• 38:59Speaker 03

  I attempt to pull my bow as though I'll somehow shoot from the position I'm in, which is nearly impossible.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  And all I managed to do is get a partial draw before I really spooked the buck.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  That buck, when he came out, like, 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.

• 39:44Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:45Speaker 05

  And so I'm just like kicking Steve like, hey, there's a buck, like, and I'm like, how's this guy gonna shoot?

• 39:53Speaker 04

  Right.

• 39:54Speaker 05

  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?

• 40:08Speaker 04

  I would say for sure, the spiciest moment that I had with Steve off camera was after he got back from that hunt.

• 40:15Speaker 05

  Oh, he was so frustrated.

• 40:16Speaker 04

  He was pissed at me and I didn't, I'm only getting the story from him.

• 40:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 40:21Speaker 04

  Uh, I'm just gonna 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.

• 40:29Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 40:30Speaker 04

  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, is I should have said, hey, get there early, cut some extra stuff and build up that blind because it's been up for a couple of months. It's gonna 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 because you have that creek behind you. So they're not gonna 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

• 41:12Speaker 04

  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.

• 41:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:27Speaker 04

  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 with some leaves. So they're blowing 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, 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.

• 41:58Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 04

  Right? And so your movement is already behind this sort of, um, you know, at least a layer of cover. And then that's the same thing. So he's, 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.

• 42:12Speaker 05

  Yeah. So he could just boom. Yeah.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  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 gonna kill him.

• 42:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:22Speaker 04

  Like it's just, you're done.

• 42:23Speaker 05

  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?

• 42:31Speaker 04

  So it depends, but I'm always in a situation where I can get to my knees.

• 42:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  You know, because that's, that's the whole name of the game.

• 42:39Speaker 05

  Yeah. Because I feel like in that clip we just watched, Steve's first instinct was like, oh, I'm gonna draw from my butt.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  Right.

• 42:45Speaker 05

  You know?

• 42:46Speaker 04

  So hard.

• 42:47Speaker 05

  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?

• 42:56Speaker 04

  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 not ideal. Like it's, it's some setups. You're just like, this is just kinda how I have to be.

• 43:12Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:12Speaker 04

  Um, because you're setting up where you're gonna 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've, I should've told him to brush that in more and it was just like a, it was like a bad deal.

• 43:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 43:27Speaker 04

  You know?

• 43:28Speaker 05

  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?

• 43:45Speaker 04

  We measured it on OnX. I, my, my first instinct was to say 600 yards, but I don't think it was that far.

• 43:51Speaker 05

  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.

• 44:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:05Speaker 05

  And are you confident in saying that buck that Steve and I ran into is the same buck that Pat ended up? Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:12Speaker 05

  Ended up shooting.

• 44:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I mean, this is what you don't see on the film too, is that where Pat killed, uh, there's a fence line through this cattail slew.

• 44:26Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 44:26Speaker 04

  And it is like a really cool pinch point. Or I, I guess I should call that a funnel because they, they're gonna walk a couple hundred yards along this thing. Uh, 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 gonna hit that funnel and have to follow that fence line. Cause either, either way, it's gonna be, uh, 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. Uh,

• 45:06Speaker 04

  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 gonna naturally fall into that funnel.

• 45:23Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  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.

• 45:29Speaker 05

  Yeah. And I think Pat was the perfect example of putting your time into it.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:37Speaker 05

  And it, it paying off, you know, Pat, the whole first day shot or sat in that ground blind, you know?

• 45:44Speaker 04

  And blanked.

• 45:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. Didn't he saw a possum?

• 45:46Speaker 04

  Right.

• 45:47Speaker 05

  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 a perfect shot.

• 46:06Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. Pat, dude, Pat's a badass man.

• 46:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 46:10Speaker 04

  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 then, so that, that was fricking sweet, man. Like to get, to have him kill that buck, that was a great deer. On day two, that was such a relief, but then we had Steve.

• 46:41Speaker 05

  Well, no, I, I was gonna say like, if, so out of the three hunters, the most deserving to kill buck would be you. Cause 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 a buck was Steve because he's not putting the time into it. Evil, yes, he's a great hunter. Don't get me wrong, but he's not putting his time into it and he's focusing more on trapping. Obviously that was a huge challenge, um, 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.

• 47:25Speaker 05

  I could just see smoke coming out of your ears. Talk a little about, about, a little bit about that. And like, how was that just eat it at you?

• 47:33Speaker 04

  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 whitetails 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 Rinella is that like, if Steve likes it, it's something I don't care about and vice versa. We sat, we were in that camper and we were talking about fishing. And he was like, my favorite kind of fishing is like the cold, deep water in Alaska. And I was like, give me the flats in the Bahamas that are 85 degrees. Like,

• 48:12Speaker 05

  Total opposite.

• 48:12Speaker 04

  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, I will say this, that was a huge pain in the ass. He knew it. It actually kinda became a thing. Everybody knew.

• 48:26Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:27Speaker 04

  Uh, but you could see when, when Pat killed, that there was like a vibe shift with Steve. Where he's like, oh shit, like all the pressure's on me now. Things got a little tense for a while. Cause you're like, you gotta get your ass in a tree, buddy. You're the last one. Everybody's waiting to go home, you know? And he's, he's out there running a trap line, but.

• 48:47Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:49Speaker 06

  911, what's your emergency? Please help us. They're everywhere. We think they're murder wanted.

• 48:57Speaker 02

  911 Nashville returns.

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  It's a homicide detective down here. Three bodies on the ground.

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  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

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  I will send swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 49:12Speaker 02

  Ryan Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

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• 50:16Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, it was just kinda 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? Which is hilarious. But Steve's trapping and the amount of time that Steve put in to whitetail hunting did pay off for him.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:40Speaker 05

  But it was close to not paying off because he made this mis- I wouldn't say a mistake, but it was, what would you call it?

• 50:50Speaker 04

  Well, I mean.

• 50:51Speaker 05

  I don't wanna give it away yet, but.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  Are we gonna watch the clip?

• 50:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, we're gonna watch the clip, but what would you call it?

• 50:57Speaker 04

  Let's, let's watch the clip.

• 50:59Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 50:59Speaker 04

  And then we'll get to it.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  We're gonna watch it. So, um, yeah, I guess a little bit of backstory before this.

• 51:07Speaker 05

  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. He, he understands that I wasn't feeling well. Everyone knew. It was not like I was hiding it.

• 51:51Speaker 05

  And so he kinda expected this and he was probably thinking like, I probably should've 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 not kidding you, it was 30, 30 seconds later, Steve makes this sound.

• 52:15Speaker 05

  And like, that was his signal of like, hey, deer coming. So let's watch.

• 52:29Speaker 05

  That deer was still moving.

• 52:31Speaker 04

  Right. Which, so there's a lot to unpack here.

• 52:35Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 52:36Speaker 04

  Uh, the, the thing, the first mistake he made here was he thought that that buck in that stand was gonna look up and bust him. And I'll tell you, I, 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 gonna have, which I think was a hundred percent true on this hunt, was that these were not gonna be the smartest whitetails we've hunted.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  Yep.

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Like, these were not public land.

• 53:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, cuz they haven't been hunted in

• 53:07Speaker 04

  Right.

• 53:08Speaker 05

  X amount of years.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  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.

• 53:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, cuz they're probably walking like this, you know, like-

• 53:36Speaker 04

  It's just a different thing. And so on this one, I'm like, we're not gonna be dealing with bucks that are gonna be super cagey, you know? Not, not to say that they wouldn't whinge 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.

• 54:01Speaker 05

  Can I see him?

• 54:02Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 54:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, keep talking about him.

• 54:04Speaker 04

  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, ninety-nine out of a hundred times that buck comes in and he's not looking up at you.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 54:16Speaker 04

  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 kinda 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, that deer sees you, you just still kill him. But in his head, I, I know where he was going. He draws, he merps him, you know, merp, get him to stop, and instantly punches that trigger.

• 54:56Speaker 05

  It was almost like he went to stop him, the merp, and then just like-

• 54:59Speaker 04

  Right.

• 55:00Speaker 05

  A reaction.

• 55:01Speaker 04

  Right. And I'll, I'll tell anyone who's listening to this, or watching this, who's, who's a bow 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, 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 gotta let this go. And that's what he did.

• 55:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 55:31Speaker 04

  And, you know, I mean, lucky for him, and to his credit, he was on that buck.

• 55:36Speaker 05

  For sure. He was right in the wheelhouse, like, right in the boiler room, aiming at it, you know?

• 55:40Speaker 04

  Right. Uh, but it's like, uh, it's, it's a very, it's a sort of a very interesting psychological thing to like acknowledge, because you start that clock ticking, cuz 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 gonna bolt, because I've now changed this, the vibe of the situation. That, like, if it were me, well, I guess, it's different when you're on film, cuz you always kinda try to stop them, but that buck, you could kill that buck all day long, just walking like that, nice and slow, he was super close, um, but it's just-

• 56:17Speaker 05

  Didn't know you were there.

• 56:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 56:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  It's just, it's, uh, it's, it's like an interesting thing to watch, to see how that plays out, cuz 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.

• 56:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, I just, I just can't even understand it, cuz-

• 56:38Speaker 04

  I, well, I mean, you think about it, like, so let's say you have a, a pointer or a flusher in your fowl hunting, right? And you have a new hunter, right? Like, somebody who's like, uh, they're on their first rooster hunt-

• 56:49Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 56:49Speaker 04

  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, getting 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.

• 57:09Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 57:09Speaker 04

  Like, cuz now you're thinking, I'm going to get my chance, that bird's gonna get up right there, and it happens, and you're ju, your brain just melts.

• 57:17Speaker 05

  Yep. 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?

• 57:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's, you know-

• 57:36Speaker 05

  Did it drop some, you know, like-

• 57:38Speaker 04

  When you're filming, you have the benefit of just getting to watch it and go-

• 57:41Speaker 05

  Footage, yeah.

• 57:41Speaker 04

  Alright, 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, sixty, one-twenty, whatever it is.

• 58:06Speaker 05

  Twenty-four.

• 58:07Speaker 04

  Twenty-four? 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, cuz 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.

• 58:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:43Speaker 04

  One area that I see a lot of impatience in whitetail hunters is trailing deer.

• 58:47Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 58:47Speaker 04

  Um, people, they just wanna get on that blood trail and get going, and it's always, almost always a better idea to play it safe. You know, cuz people go, oh, well, coyotes are gonna 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.

• 59:13Speaker 05

  Yeah. I feel like the coyote thing is like very common for like the overnight, maybe.

• 59:17Speaker 04

  Sure. I mean, and it's certain areas, right? Um, but mostly, we're just not that patient. Like, we wanna get on the trail. And so it just depends, you know? Like, if you, if you know you made a good shot, and your arrow's in the ground, covered in bright red blood, and he meal kicked on the way out, or whatever, you're like, okay, I'm gonna go.

• 59:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 59:37Speaker 04

  But if it's like, you know, when I shot that buck of mine, um, my first shot, I had no idea where it hit. I just knew I hit him.

• 59:46Speaker 05

  Yeah, cuz you could also hear that meat report.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  Right. Um, 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, uh, two broadhead cuts, like, side by side in the pocket, but it must've 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.

• 1:00:16Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's a dead deer running, almost.

• 1:00:18Speaker 04

  So it's like, you gotta, you gotta 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 gonna 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 little bit of gut material in the blood, or you go two-hundred-and-fifty yards, when you're like, there's no way he should've 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?

• 1:00:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:00:55Speaker 04

  Uh, but, but generally, it's like, be really patient and trust the actual evidence, not what your brain is telling you.

• 1:01:02Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:01:02Speaker 04

  Like, what does the sign and the spore and everything show you?

• 1:01:05Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've, I've been on three whitetail hunts with you now, 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's on the arrow, 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.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:01:34Speaker 05

  And-

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  Well, uh-

• 1:01:36Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:01:39Speaker 05

  How much time do we got?

• 1:01:40Speaker 04

  Um, we're almost at an hour, four minutes.

• 1:01:43Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's pretty, probably pretty good.

• 1:01:45Speaker 04

  Start that over. I think Steve, Sadie!

• 1:01:49Speaker 05

  Um, I think Steve, after he shot his buck, wasn't feeling the most confident about his shot. And I showed you the footage and you're like, oh, we can start tracking right now. You were very confident in that. And we ended up tracking Steve's buck 100, 150 yards. And there he was laid up. So.

• 1:02:14Speaker 04

  Yeah. So there's a, there's like an interesting thing that happens.

• 1:02:20Speaker 05

  From a hunter perspective or?

• 1:02:22Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, from a hunter perspective. 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 default is to go negative. I do that all the time.

• 1:02:42Speaker 05

  Oh yeah, I'm sure. It's easy to do.

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  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

• 1:03:23Speaker 04

  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 a, it, it's interesting how different people like experience level plays into how do you, how you react to that stuff.

• 1:03:55Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah. Um, I remember

• 1:04:00Speaker 05

  one point in this video, he mentioned how

• 1:04:06Speaker 05

  it would be a lot of people's dream to hunt with Steve Rinella. 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.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  I got a pretty good idea of 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 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 Lens, who's a really good whitetail hunter. I like hunting with him, filming with him because he'll make observations or he'll question the decision I'm making.

• 1:04:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. You don't have to babysit him.

• 1:04:56Speaker 04

  Well, not only that, but I learned from him. 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 outdoorsman. And so I enjoy that part. Like honestly, I like being around people who are, e- even if he's not like specifically super good at whitetail 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.

• 1:05:36Speaker 04

  And I, 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, cause 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 whitetail hunts with him. Um, we did one down in Oklahoma on public land. And he, he will like defer and he'll be like, all right, I'm going, you, you say this, I'm going to try this. And he will actually go through that stuff and it works. And so it's, he's, he's like an interesting guy.

• 1:06:20Speaker 04

  Cause you feel like you shouldn't tell him what to do, but you have to, and you feel like he won't listen, but he will, you know?

• 1:06:28Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:06:36Speaker 04

  Right. Yeah. And I mean, he's, we've, we've been kind of ripping on him, but he's actually like super funny. He's like super down to hang. Um, it's generally been like my first hunt 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 going to bitch if I cook burgers and not something fancy or whatever. And he's like, he's like way more easygoing. 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 that's, that's my experience. I'm not sitting in a tree with him, swinging a camera around. So go ahead, buddy.

• 1:07:21Speaker 05

  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 get, 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.

• 1:08:05Speaker 05

  And so like in a tree is like, I have to switch lenses as quietly, quietly as possible, but it's going to make some noise, you know? 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, read Steve or be like, hey,

• 1:08:45Speaker 05

  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 he gonna grab the bow? You know? And so it's just like a constant, you know, there's no breaks. You have to be on 24/7 or else you're going to 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.

• 1:09:25Speaker 04

  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 somebody for hours on end and days on end. And you know, like you said, you have different goals than mine. 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.

• 1:09:56Speaker 05

  Yeah. Um, one last video we're going to watch.

• 1:10:01Speaker 05

  Kind of ended on a happy, uh, fun note. Um, this was one of the first evenings 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.

• 1:10:19Speaker 02

  Put that in your video. Why don't you make a video about you not moving that camera so fast?

• 1:10:28Speaker 02

  We'll make a video of camera moves that shouldn't have happened. And that'll be like the, the cold open.

• 1:10:39Speaker 02

  They'll be called worst camera moves for deer hunt. And that'll be the cold open. What do you think of that?

• 1:10:46Speaker 05

  Just give me one talking.

• 1:10:47Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 1:10:48Speaker 05

  Just give me one talking point.

• 1:10:52Speaker 02

  I just gave you a talking point.

• 1:10:56Speaker 02

  I gave you, I gave you pointers. I gave you professional feedback. What more do you want?

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  Oh, man, that was just hilarious.

• 1:11:04Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:11:05Speaker 05

  Goodness.

• 1:11:06Speaker 04

  It's a,

• 1:11:08Speaker 04

  I don't know. I don't remember if you and I, I don't feel like we had any two contentious moments. But generally when I film a whitetail hunt, I will end up having to apologize to my

• 1:11:20Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:21Speaker 04

  videographer at some point.

• 1:11:23Speaker 05

  I, I remember the last whitetail hunt I filmed with you. You were almost full draw on this buck and then you look up and realize I'm filming the wrong buck. You know, so.

• 1:11:34Speaker 04

  Well, right. That worked out.

• 1:11:36Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:37Speaker 04

  So that, that didn't lead to anything, but I just, I filmed a, a fishing show this summer and Lauren Moulton, 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.

• 1:11:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Speaker 04

  We had a, we had a rough hunt and the last morning it was kinda, I kinda had a hail Mary situation going on, hung a set for us and we got in there and he was climbing up ahead of me and he got tangled up in the tow rope and he's spinning around and swearing and make a bunch of noise. And I was like, hey, man, you gotta get your shit together. And he looked down at me and he goes, you gotta chill the fuck out.

• 1:12:21Speaker 05

  Oh, gosh.

• 1:12:22Speaker 04

  We had a little 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? 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

• 1:12:47Speaker 05

  For sure.

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  competing routes to the same goal or, you know?

• 1:12:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:51Speaker 04

  It gets a little feisty.

• 1:12:52Speaker 05

  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?

• 1:12:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:59Speaker 05

  So, all right, Tony, it's late September. Fall is here. I think a lot of people want to know what trips or what's your fall look like?

• 1:13:10Speaker 04

  Man, I have some cool stuff I'm working on.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  Talk about them?

• 1:13:14Speaker 04

  I'm, I, I'll talk generically.

• 1:13:17Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:13:17Speaker 04

  Generally about my best. I got a couple of whitetail hunts on public land, cool spots, cool situations.

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  That I'm building a couple of films around. And I have another one on public land that I'm not going to talk about yet. That's gonna, I think it's gonna be unlike any whitetail hunt that's ever been filmed.

• 1:13:35Speaker 05

  Really?

• 1:13:35Speaker 04

  I don't think it's out there yet. So I'm very excited about that. So I'm, I'm going hard toward the public land. Whitetails this fall, a couple of different states, 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 and just hunting those deer where anyone can. And so that's what I'm going to be doing very, very soon.

• 1:14:15Speaker 05

  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.

• 1:14:22Speaker 04

  For sure.

• 1:14:23Speaker 05

  That's sweet. Um, what's one thing you're looking forward to the most? Any, is there any one hunt that you're?

• 1:14:30Speaker 04

  You know, I'm, I'm doing a hunt in Minnesota that we're gonna, we're gonna paddle in with kayaks. And it's, it's a property, it's a public, it's a piece of public. Actually, there's a couple of pieces in there. 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 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, that one's really cool to me.

• 1:15:09Speaker 04

  And then the, you know, 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 forkeys and spikes to target.

• 1:15:17Speaker 05

  I would be scared if I was a forky or spike.

• 1:15:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, we don't, they don't get a lot of, uh, uh, mercy from the Peterson girls.

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  Oh, that's funny. That's awesome. Well, Tony,

• 1:15:31Speaker 05

  great job if no one's told you about this hunt. I had a lot of fun filming it.

• 1:15:37Speaker 05

  I had a lot of fun just watching it as well too. And it just makes me want to pick up a bow, start flinging some arrows.

• 1:15:45Speaker 04

  You, you gotta buddy.

• 1:15:46Speaker 05

  So.

• 1:15:46Speaker 04

  No, I appreciate it, man. That is our companion podcast for this 12 and 26 film where Steve Rinella, Pat Hoffman, and I went down to Nebraska chasing bucks on Pat's family ranch, had a hell of a time down there.

• 1:16:01Speaker 05

  We had a lot of fun.

• 1:16:02Speaker 04

  Had a good four day run. 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. Tell us what you want to see us do more films about.

• 1:16:17Speaker 05

  Yeah, tell us what we did wrong.

• 1:16:19Speaker 04

  Tell Steve what he did wrong. I don't want to hear it. No, you can tell us. But leave some comments. Go check it out. And thank you so much for all of your support.

• 1:16:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. Good luck to you this fall.

• 1:16:28Speaker 04

  Thanks, brother.

• 1:16:35Speaker 03

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