Old School Deer Tactics & What it Takes to Find a Big One with Robby Denning

Foreign. To the Hunt west podcast, here's your host, Jaden Bales.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hunt West Podcast. Today I've got on a special guest that many of you already know about. But whether he knows it or not, he's taught me a lot about mule deer hunting. And I've got a few questions, maybe selfishly, that I'd like to ask him today. That guy is Mr. Robbie Denning. Ravi, how are you today?

Hey, good man. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it.

Yeah, well, thank you. It was fun running India again at Hunt Expo. You've been traveling all over the place, going to different conferences and expos and all the things, huh?

Yeah, I made three of them this year. Western Hunt in Salt Lake, the big one, and then I did Mile High, the one that's just getting going in Denver and then mule deer days. You weren't at mule deer days, right?

No, I was in Argentina.

That's right. That's right.

Feel bad for me, right?

Yeah. You, you and Travis going to all these strange places to hunt weird animals.

That's right. It's a sickness, man. It's fun. One of the things I've always appreciated about you is it seems like, you know, like you've got I don't know how many 200 inch bucks, but you know, there's like a great article on rock slide about breaking 200 that I was just going back and rereading the other day, but. But it seems like you never stop trying to learn. Is that accurate?

Oh, yeah, yeah. It's because I love it. It's not just about killing big antlers. I mean, yeah, that's the period at the end of the sentence, but I love to learn about it. And I think that's why with, you know, everybody saying everything's changing, it hasn't bothered me that bad because it's always been changing. Always. I mean, I, you know, listened to my uncles and my dad when I was a little kid, you know, bitching and moaning about the fishing game, this and that, and this is going to happen and gosh damn non residents and stinking Californ California plate and I mean, there's nothing new under the sun. I've listened to all that my whole life and yet still figured out how to get in and find them and, and sometimes get them and, and so to me, that's the biggest part of the pursuit, is just staying adaptable.

Yeah. Well, and one of the things, I mean, it's like, you know, motivating for Me to always just like keep pushing, keep learning different stuff. One of the things that I've kind of picked up on lately is, you know, getting high and glassing. That seems to be like the, that was the new thing for a long time. And it seems like folks have forgotten some of the old school ways to hunt deer. Do you still, do you still think about just like hunting deer the way people used to back in the, back in the heyday?

I think you have to. I mean there's, there's so many tactics out there that get left on the table if you just sit on the knob. Glassing is your number one technique. Do not get me wrong. Do not get me wrong. You got a glass, you got to do it right. It's, you're going to spend a lot of your time doing that, but it's not always effective is the problem. And it depends on the units and the pressure and stuff like that. So all the other stuff, tracking, still hunting, you know, obeying the wind, all those things still come into play. I think if you want to be a complete deer hunter. But I'll never argue with the guy that's like, oh man, I just glass, I glass all day, I don't do anything else. That's fine, that's fine, that's great. You probably do just fine and you know, maybe kill some giants too. But I just can't just be that one sided in my hunting techniques. And just like last year, dude, I mean that 28 inch buck I killed, I couldn't have killed him any other way than still hunting through the area that he was in. And I mean, yeah, I could have sat back 1500 yards with the long range bomber and probably got him. But you know, as far as just getting in there and killing him and on a buck I had never seen before, which is weird because I'd scouted there about three or four times last year. Just getting into an area that I'm like, well, when they're here they're, they're usually in this patch of COVID and there's really no other way to hunt it other than be way, way back. Literally like 12 or 1500 yards. Because once you get any closer than that, you kind of get in, you get below, you get below the hillside is what happens. And then you're trying to look up into it, it's just hard and, and then you've got no visibility until you're at like 150 yards, I mean 200 yards and. But then you can't see the whole thing either. And so the only way I know really effectively how to hunt that spot, as in have a chance of killing a deer, is I have to be in there with them and I can sit back and watch them from a long ways away, but to actually get one, I gotta get in there, you know, and it doesn't work every time either. Just like glassing doesn't work every time, tracking doesn't work every time, you know, but, but to just ignore the technique and say I'm not gonna still hunt because still hunting is hard. It's, you know, trying to be quiet, it's boring. Although it can be exciting if you're seeing lots of sign and stuff. But I don't know, just to me, I feel like I'm leaving some big bucks on the table if I, if I can't at least do that. Now I haven't killed a whole bunch of them. Still hunting. But if you add together still hunting, tracking, glassing, ambushing, you get a few with every technique and then that's begins to add up over the years where that's when you get a big pile of antlers, where if I was just glassing instead of doing all those things, not that I wouldn't kill some bucks that way too, you know, but I'm just not that one sided. I, I gotta move too. I, I just can't sit and sit and sit. I mean, I, I feel like I'm really patient if I glass for three hours, I, I, and I do it all the time, I, I can handle that. But you know, unless just something's going on like, hey, this buck is here. I know he's here and I can control somewhat where he's going to be in hunting pressure and stuff like that. I really don't know what to do between like 11 and 40 minutes before dark when you actually have a chance of seeing him in the open.

Oh, for sure. So you're talking like you're already like, and this is what I love about listening to Dion podcasts or reading your books. It's like you get in the weeds of like, you know, you've got this full toolkit like these, all these different things. But I was just watching, I went and rewatched hunting Big Mule deer, a rock slide original. That, that was that rock slide buck that you were chasing.

Oh yeah, yeah. With Jordan and Ryan Pimentel. Yeah.

Funny enough, she's coming out tomorrow to hunt bears with me, so I'm super excited.

All right, tell her I said hi, man. Be good to see her.

I sure will.

He's doing a review for us on the new Kafaru Gen 2 hoodlum pack. She probably won't have it yet, although she might. So, so awesome.

Yeah, that'd be great. So while I was watching that though, I was like noticing now you're using kind of all the tricks in the book to try to find this giant. And actually one of the things that popped into my mind or like popped up and really stuck out to me was you got back to your truck and your dad had left you a note and he had just been driving around.

Ah, dude.

And for those who don't know, you know, Robbie, your, your dad passed away unfortunately a year ago. You're just saying. But he obviously had a huge impact on, on your upbringing and in mule deer hunting in particular, right?

Absolutely. Dude wouldn't be sitting here talking to you if it wasn't for Doug Denning. My daddy raising me to hunt mule deer.

What did he, what did he teach you in the early days?

Everything back then, you know, it's always, it's always period specific, you know, and, and you know, we opened the podcast, I said, you know, I listen to those guys bitching moan about fish and game as a kid. The reason I said that is because that kind of defined that age of, of guys that was just, I don't know, you hear, you still hear it. But you know, they were just always pretty negative. And you know, I was born in 1969, so I probably became aware of hunting and really listening to him, I don't know, mid to late 70s. And they had gone through the heyday and things were 70s were still dang, pretty dang good. But you know, all the techniques that they had used in the 60s when I say they, he had three brothers and my grandpa, and my grandpa was a sniper in World War too, so he was a really good shot when, when, when. And, and I don't mean like shooting people at 900 yards, I mean shooting fast and accurate because when people are shooting at you, you, it changes the game. So grandpa was wired completely different than, than anybody and they got to see all that. I mean do like off hand, 300 yard running shots on mu, you know, things like that he was able to do. And so, but their tactics of just kind of showing up to an area, there was a lot of deer then a lot of bucks. They just, they didn't even still hunt. They just walked around and it worked. They had a few pair of binoculars kicking around on the dash of the truck, but it wasn't a main Technique, but they still did pretty good on, you know, 170 to 190 bucks. So by the time I started becoming aware of mule deer, you know, that the seasons were a lot shorter by then. You know, gosh, back in the 60s they had seasons going clear into December. You could hunt them on the winter range, you know, that's when they, they went big buck hunting and everything that had all changed for those guys. So they, they were pretty down. But, but the reason I get that out there is I know we're going to talk about this later in the podcast, is that things are always changing. Things are changing for you and me too. But I still remember my dad, even kind of as negative as they were, he was like, hey, this is, this is the game we play. That's where I get that phrase from, you know, me say it all the time. And I said, hey, this is the game we play. You know, if we sit home, watch football game, we can go deer hunting. Give it a try. And so, you know, he taught me because his brothers were kind of giving up, to be honest. They were, you know, moving on to elk and stuff like that. But dad was still like on fire. Buck hunter, that's what you want to do. So he made sure I got out there in one of the earliest home movies we have. It's probably about 1977. So I would be about 8 years old. I have a pellet gun. My dad killed a beautiful, beautiful, typical 190 buck. And they, they had a classic wall tent camp. They weren't packed in, they were, they were camped at a trailhead. Then they would hike in or ride the horses in each day. You only had to go about a mile and a half to be up on the ridge. And there's still big bucks there by the way. And he, he had killed a buck before I got there. Mom brought me up like on the weekend kind of a deal. So she would do in her 64 Chevy car. And so this is like 1977, she's driving a 12 year old car up there. So I could see my daddy along with my sister and he was freaking awesome, man. He'd get, he'd. He just drop everything, take you out hunting. Now, now that I'm a dad and a buck hunter, I'm thinking, wow, we probably just like ruined his hunt, you know, because I mean, what can you do with a little kid? But he'd take us out on the horses and stuff and, but this video, this, it's not a video, it's a movie. Is A picture of this buck. It's hanging on a cross pole between two trees, like where you would hang saddles. And he had his, his buck hanging there. And you don't see it in the video, but I remember it well. I just begged him to let me shoot it with my pellet gun. So he let. And all this time he had been telling me, because I, you know, you get a pellet gun, you're like, dad, you know, could I kill an elephant? No, you probably can't kill an elephant. Could I kill a, Can I kill a deer? Yeah, if you shot it in the eye, you kill a deer, you know, and. Well, could I kill a bear? Yeah, he shot it in the eye. You could kill a bear. So of course I talked him into letting me shoot it in the eye. Could you imagine? Like that'd be blasphemy now, you know, a little kid shooting his dad 190 buck in the eye. But he let me, he let me, he let me shoot it in the eye. I still remember. I mean, that's just what, what a good guy he was, you know, and getting me involved in all that. And, you know, so by the time I was able to hunt, which would have been about 81, you know, he had taken me every year and, you know, let me go and, you know, couldn't hunt or anything because you had to be 12 in Idaho then to hunt. And he just let me experience it. And so by the time I was 12 years old, which was in the early 80s, it was just, that's what you did. Our deer season was about three weeks long. He always took us out for, you know, at least two weekends of it, you know, and so, you know, it doesn't sound like very much, but, you know, 12 year old kid getting Hunt four or five days every single fall. You know, by the time I was 16 or 17, you know, I had quite a bit of experience in the woods. Had never killed a bug, never killed a buck till I was 19. And. And so what, what he did right was he took me, he just took me and I just got to watch him do it. He didn't kill very many good bucks then at all. You know, it was getting harder by then. It really was. And, and so by the late 80s, you know, that's when I was picking up on it and I had gone through that and, you know, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. And I was a new dog, so I had all that experience and, you know, I'm reading books. That's when Kurt Darner's book came out, which was kind of controversial. There was a little BS in there, too, but it still had a lot of good buck hunting tactics in it. And, you know, my dad was not reading deer hunting books then to learn how to deer hunt, you know, And I still still remember him even looking at that book. And I don't know if he was jealous. I don't know what he was, but he's like, I don't even believe this guy. And like, well, he's got 13 Boone and Crockett bucks. You know, it's got to be something there. That's. That's where we diverged. And I said it in my first book, too. I had to let go of a few things, you know, that I grew up with. And. And some of that was just kind of the negative thinking and all of that kind of stuff. And that's when I really learned how to glass and all these other things. So I'm just telling you all that. And there's a whole bunch there. More than you even asked to let you know that he took me. That's really all it takes, is he took me, and I love him to death for it. And back to that film. So we're at a trailhead in the backcountry he had never even been to, and he drove around and still found my truck, because that's the kind of father that he was. And by this time, that film was shot in 2019, so, you know, he was 70 then and in very poor health. My dad was in very poor health from about 63 on. Diabetes, heart disease, obesity, all that stuff that there was no way for him to go on. Anxiety, there was no way, impossible, you know, barely could road hunt type of a deal. So to. So to ride out and find that note on my truck from my dad, it was more than just a note. It was like, here he is. He's still trying to support me. He wants to be part of this because that's the kind of dad that he was. And even though we kind of diverged a little bit in hunting tactics, as I got into my 20s and everything, he still showed up like a good father, you know? And I remember going backpacking, taking. He's like, backpacking? Why would you ever go backpacking? What do you think? We got those hay burners out there. But he strapped on a backpack and came with me, you know, he just wanted to be there to support me.

That's awesome. That's really. That's really cool. I mean, and, you know, God, Willing if I have a kid one day, I mean, that's the kind of stuff you hope that they. That you do. Right? Right? Yep. Yep. Yeah, that's cool.

Do it. You'll never regret it. And I think that's why him and I were so close. And right up to the time he died, you know, he didn't have a wife. And so, you know, the last few years, I was really, really taking care of him. And we were close. We had no issues. And even though I'm still grieving him and we had no issues. There was nothing left unsaid. And it's because he was always there for me. Always. And he just. Just showed up for everything I ever did. You know, this is about buck hunting, so, you know, that's the context of this. But everything. He always showed up for everything that I did. My jobs, you know, I work at a gym. I've worked at a gym for 33 years. He was not. I mean, he was not a gym person at all. I mean, that generation was smokers. And I still remember him coming over to the gym and watching him walk across the parking lot and get up the door, throw a cigarette on the ground, stomp it out, and come in and get on the exercise bike, just because he wanted to support his son. You know, he was just that kind of dad.

That's awesome. So one of the things that my family did that was like the. My grandpa's generation is probably real similar to your dad's, and they love doing deer drives, you know, with your dad and your uncles and stuff. Was that something you guys were doing?

Absolutely. You know, like I said, we just walked around. I should have clarified. We did do deer drives. A lot of times. That's how we would start the day, was doing deer drives. And. And they showed me dare. We saw dare. You could hear dare. It was super exciting. But I never got one on those. You know, a couple of them did and everything, but. But, yeah, that was definitely a tactic. And I put that in my first book, even though I don't use it. But that's mostly because I hunt alone a lot. But it's still. If you can get three or four guys that can get along and that. That's the key, because everybody gets real selfish if they can get along and. And they can break down a piece of deer country, it's still a very good technique. Especially middle of the day when there's not much else you can do anyways. Unless you got snow on the ground or you got the rut, you can Sit on the knob all you want. They're. They're in the bushes and they ain't coming out. You got to go in there and get them. And so, yeah, even though I don't get to use that a lot, that's just because I'm. I'm usually alone or with just one other person, but it can still work. The. The suiter boys. Look at those pictures in my first book that, that killed all those big bucks on the Grays river back in the day. They were all deer drivers, those guys. They had binos, but man, they were. They look like Speedy Gonzalez running over those mountains, you know, and, and they did. They killed some giants. Brian killed that 41 inch buck and, you know, multiple 190s. Many of those deer were killed on, you know, small deer drives in country. You don't even really think about doing deer drives in, you know, open high country with, with timber pockets. They, they were mountain goats and they just figured out, hey, you know, you can, you can drive these little places. It didn't take a big group of guys to do them like at my. In, you know, lower country, brushier country, you know, some of that stuff like what you guys have in. You're in Wyoming, right? Yep. Yeah, like so, like some of that lower stuff in region K, some of that stuff, you know, you got to have a bigger group of guys to do that to cover everything. But. But yeah, I was just shock the. The bucks those guys would kill on deer drives.

That's awesome. So assuming, assuming you get a group of four people with deer tags together, because I think that's half the battle these days is. Yeah.

Yeah. Sadly.

What. So what's. What's like. Because I, I think that it's really helpful for people to learn some of these old school tactics and have things that they can do, because that's exactly like, let's just say a group of four buddies do get to draw a tag in Wyoming or they pick up tags in Idaho or whatever. Right. What. How would they kind of map that out?

Like, well, you got to know your deer country too. I think it would be pretty hard unless it was just a real deer dense unit and you weren't super picky to just show up and start doing deer drives on a place that you've never been before. But that's where my family was pretty good at it. They hunted a lot of the same places and so they kind of knew like, hey, this is where we've seen deer. This brush pocket has deer in it usually. And, and so you kind of have to know that it's like, it's, it's like still hunting. When I talk about still hunting is you can't just go still hunt through the, through the woods randomly and expect to do, do well. You got to have an idea of hillsides, the deer use, fresh sign, recent sightings. I think deer drives are a little bit the same. So I think you gotta at least know your country somewhat. And you know, maybe guys that are, that are glass in an area for two or three days, they're good, they're gonna have enough recon to be able to do a deer drive. And if they're just not turning anything up or hey, we're seeing a few bucks but they're getting in the COVID and you know, then they wait all day and wait for them to come out and they don't come out. You know, if it's not the rut, a lot of times they don't. Especially if there's any pressure around at all. Oh man, those are perfect places. And so that's the kind of recon that you could use. And, and there, there was another guy, he's in my first book too, Kerry Hansen. He was a big deer driving guy and you know, look at that 185 buck. I'm, I'm, I'm with, I didn't kill it. He killed it, but he let me take a picture with it that was, I was in his back pocket all the time back then. You know, he, he would kill the big buck. I'd be like, can I have a picture? And so there's a couple of them in there that, that, that he killed, but that big, that big one in that quakey pocket, me and Darren Bergman are, are leaning over it. He killed that buck on a, on a deer drive and, but he knew that country well. And I still remember when we went up to that big, big pocket of Quakeys underneath kind of a, a southeast facing butte. And so southeast is, is a little wetter than southwest. And so it grew this big heavy quake pocket. And you know, this was towards the end of the day and he kept talking about, hey, we're going to go over there and hit that too. And I remember when we got there he's like, okay, we gotta walk up to this ridge. And then when we get there he says it's not very big, you gotta be quiet. And he says it's almost too thick to walk through. We're just gonna throw rocks in it. We're gonna spread out about 50 yards and throw Rocks in it and be ready, he says, because if they're in there and they come out, he says, you only get just a little while to shoot at them. And my gosh, I couldn't. The first rock he threw in there, I heard a deer get up and you know, he got his rifle up. He was always fast. And of course, you know, me and Darren are sitting there with our thumbs up our butt looking at each other and like, what do we do? What do we do? We could hear, hear deer crashing down, down through the trees. And sure enough, right out the bottom at about a hundred yards, a big buck comes out with the doe. This was the opener back then. It was on Wednesday, so it was probably about the somewhere 18 to the 22nd. And this buck was with a doughnut was there. He's breeding or I don't know. But they come out and a two point and of course, you know, Darren and I fall apart. I think my first shot went in the air and the next one went straight in the ground and. And then I, one of us got a shot off near the deer because I still remember trying to get on them and seeing a bullet impact close to that two point. And I mean, this is funny, this was 40 years ago and I still remember like yesterday. And I'm trying to get the deer in my scope and I hear Carrie shoot just one shot. And you know, it was such a mess, you didn't know what was going on. I didn't know what he shot, didn't know anything. And Darren and I are blazing away at this two points. I was the only one I could get my scope corset ran over the hill and Kerry disappeared down around the end of the Kwaki pocket like we couldn't see him. So we waited around for a minute and then we heard his motorbike start up. Like, what's he doing? We didn't know if he got a deer or not. And then we see him riding down below the Kwaki pocket on his little XR500. So we walk down there and he's quiet, he doesn't say anything. And he lets us walk up to him and as we get to him he's like, what in the criminy were you guys shooting at? Do you have any bullets left? I mean, we had just emptied our guns and he shot once and we're like, oh gosh, it happened so fast. And oh, we didn't get him. I guess they got away. Well, he's standing about 20 yards from this big buck and he points over at it. So he had killed that buck right there. And so besides a cool story.

Yeah.

He knew which quakey pocket to push. Now we had pushed six or seven others that day too and hadn't had had an opportunity. But that's what I mean is, is, you know, maybe that's why guys aren't using it a lot. You do need to know your country pretty well. But he killed multiple bucks that way over the years, you know, with, with, with deer drives. Now looking back, I think he was just kind of using this as his brush beater. But I would have to If I was 10 years older than my hunting buddies and showing them my favorite spots, like hey, go walk through that. But anyways, yeah, deer drives still alive and well, I just don't think very many guys do them. I think it's like a lot of the other tactics, they've just kind of let them go and everybody glasses.

Yeah, for sure. Well, the other piece of that equation that you just were hitting on is like how many guys do you know know how to shoot off hand?

Not many. And I just ordered my, my rock Stock's going to be here next week. And you know what that is. Okay, gotcha. So mine will be here next week. Been waiting on a year. Gosh. Ryan and Jake got it over the line. I'm excited, but that's the only, only thing I'm going to. It's going to take a little while to get used to with that gun. That gun's made to specialize shooting from a prone position and but doesn't mean you can't use it other ways. But there's such a demand for that now with all the shooting competitions and the way everybody shoots and long range shooting and everything. To answer your question, yeah, I think a lot of guys are not thinking about shooting offhand and so that's my only reservation about it. But I got to handle Tanya's last year and I think I can get used to it because you can still shoot them offhand. You can. They just shoulder just a little bit different with that. I can't remember what they call that. Straight comb or negative comb, whatever they call that. Yeah, like when you look at them, you could lay one on a table and it'll almost lay flat. Or a Monte Carlo style stock camp. And so that's my only concern with it because I still have to be able to shoot offhand and I wouldn't have that 28 inch buck last year if I couldn't shoot quickly offhand. You know, it's. I Think it's a skill you gotta have. I wouldn't. I wouldn't let it go.

Yeah. Now, I think maybe guys like you and me who grew up shooting pellet guns at everything on the earth, like, probably practiced a lot more than we thought we were practicing at doing that.

You bet.

But do you still shoot offhand? Oh, kind of like practicing.

Heck, yes. You go to my house right now, dude, I have about 10, 15 milk jugs. I've just been saving them as we go through them. I don't let my wife throw them away, or I get them out of the garbage, go outside, rinse them up, fill them up with water. I got them stacked out by the shed. At least one of my shooting sessions this summer. And almost every year, I'll take those milk jugs up full of water, I'll set them up. I love to go out on, like, a sagebrush flat that's pretty thick. And then I can go out and I can lay them down, and I can't see them all at once. And then I'll walk back, I'll put them out there, anywhere between 30 to 150 yards, something like that. And. And I'll set them up, and then I'll walk back to the truck, get my rifle, and then I just start hiking out. And, you know, you kind of remember where they are, but, you know, it's thick enough. You can't see them all at once. And then my goal is, once one comes in sight is. And I carry my rifle on my shoulder, which isn't really how you should still hunt. This is going to be your longest, you know, time to get aimed, but, you know, half time, I get lazy and throw my gun on my shoulder. So the goal is to get it off my shoulder and bust that jug with the first shot as fast as I can. And it's fun, man. It is fun. You can really heat a barrel up doing it that way. And so, yeah, last year, I mean, I had a bunch of them left over from the summer, and I hadn't gone out and done it yet. And, yeah, I went up and busted about eight or 10 of them. You know, you end up. You realize how. How much you miss shooting offhand. You know, if you're. If you don't really get dialed on it, you got to think about it. But, oh, yeah, dude, it is great practice. And the other thing it also teaches me is that anything beyond about 100, 120, it gets damn hard to hit them offhand. Damn hard. And so, you know, I'm not Wyatt Earp out there just whipping it up from the waist and, you know, busting a jug out there in 300 years. No, it's not like that. It's. It's kind of like our cold bow challenge. It teaches you in a hurry that, wow, I' not very good at this. And I need to limit the distance that I take these offhand shots at, which is okay, because typically the further out the deer is, if you're, if you're hunting right, the more time you have anyways to get steady and always get steady, try not to shoot off hand. That's your last resort. You don't want to shoot off hand. You know, at least try to get to a knee. But again, I keep bringing up this 28 inch buck because he's fresh in my mind. I couldn't go to a knee last year. There was too much brush in front of me. I had to shoot him. I had to shoot over brush that was probably three feet tall. If I would have knelt down, I wouldn't have been able to see him. And plus, he had me pegged. I shot him at 80 yards. He. He had me pegged. And, and, and so when that happens, when you're still hunting, you can't be farting around. You cannot. You got to be so fast. It'll be your fastest shots that you'll ever do is. Is when you're still hunting. And, and a lot of them will still get away. It'll blow you away. How many of them you. You starting to get the gun on them and they're going. But, but yeah, shooting milk jugs like that is even better. Now if somebody can go with me and they hide the milk jugs, it's even better. It's even better because now I don't have any idea where they're at. You know, I'm just, I'm just walking. And, and, and, and you do. You get fast. And the other thing, you get fast with Jaden, I've done this with rolling tires as well, which is a whole. Another skill set you need to have is we are so clunky with our rifles. When the pressure's on, we don't even believe. We don't even think it. We think we're awesome. We think we're fast. Almost every time I take a guy out to shoot rolling tires, 50% of the time, the first tire I roll, he doesn't even get a shot. Because I don't coach him. I just say, okay, I'll go out there. Obviously got to get In a safe place and be where you're not in the line of fire. And then I'll roll the tire. I don't even tell him when I'm going to roll the tire. It is so fun funny to watch guys fumble with their guns, trying to get a shell and trying to get it off safety, trying to get the scope covers off. And, and, and, and that's. Those are speed killers. Those are speed killers. And so, you know, this was stuff my dad was showing me as a teenager. And I'm so glad now that I think about that because what you just said, opening up this segment of it. There are guys even thinking about shooting off hand. No. Because they just think it's a built in skill. No, it's not, man. It is hard. And so, so getting fast with your rifle, all of those things. And last year when I shot that 28 inch buck, I still remember I still didn't get the gun off safety. And as my first squeeze I felt the pressure and I had to reach out and flip the safety off, you know. And luckily, luckily he gave me that one second, you know, because I wasted a second right there. Luckily he gave that to me. And so that all comes down to handling your rifle quickly and everything. Accuracy is part of it, definitely. But just getting the gun on the deer, that's the part that I think people really would be served well to practice. So I do need to say something about the shooting tires because you got to be really careful with that. You have to have a super safe place to do it. And the best way to do it is if I'm right handed. I have the tire roller off to my right and he's rolling the tire in front of me at about 45 degrees because that allows him to be either behind me or, or almost straight across from me. Sometimes they're in front of me a little bit, but I'm not shooting that direction. It's no different than walking down the field with a shotgun and you got a guy to your right, you know, you point your gun to the left and you know, you only shoot the birds that are going to the left. Same thing. Be really, really careful with that, you know, and, but, but if you can find a place to do it. And rimmed tires are great because you bullet impact the tire, but they're a little heavy too. And I've got one that I just cut a piece of plywood and then I screwed it into the tire and then I freshen it up with some paint. Every time I go and shoot at It. And just like shooting the milk jugs, you know, this is a 30 yard to 100 yard exercise because you will find that when it gets further than that, you suck, you suck back. And it's like the cold bow, you just start figuring out is okay for shooting like this. I need to be under a certain yardage, you know, but, you know, you'll. You'll see. And maybe you already have. Jade, how many big bucks have you encountered under 100 yards that you didn't know was there until they jumped and were gone?

It happened to me last year. I was. I was still hunting and what blew up just like a quail at my feet and I was like, oh my gosh. And. And I didn't have one in the chamber. So that's actually a question. Are you still hunting with one in.

The chamber or do you have to. I know people are losing their freaking minds right now that you have to. You can't. You will not have time to get a shell in the chamber and get on that buck. You won't. You just won't. Now I do have a rule on that. I will never hunt with a shell in the chamber when I'm with another hunter. Okay, Got it. So this is, you know, when. But when I'm still hunting, I'm alone. And so, you know, I can eliminate that factor right there and now it's just a matter of my muzzle control and everything. But yeah, I gotta have one in the chamber. You can't. You can't. You just can't kill them if you don't have one in the chamber. It takes too long. It takes too long. Especially on big bucks that are not going to stand there and look at you. I feel so, so lucky to kill that 28 incher last year because I caught him off guard. He was surprised to see me. And the reason I say that, because he gave me enough time. If they know you're there, they don't give you enough time. And it probably did help that that bush was between us and that I couldn't kneel down. I think that confused him a little bit. Like he saw some movement and he whipped his head up. Did you read the story on Rockslide? I shot the two bucks.

Yes, I. Yeah, I heard it on a podcast too.

Yeah, yeah, Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We probably. I guess we should tell the listeners the whole story. Luckily, I had two tier tags. Thank God.

Yeah, they should definitely go back and listen to the full story because on that podcast, because it was. I appreciated your candor and Just being like, whoa, this happened. I was good legal but like holy cow, if you know, it had been a different scenario, it could have been.

South and I would have called the game warden too if, but let's let your listeners know I still hunted into a pocket and step stepped out from service berry bush like an eight, nine foot tall serviceberry bush. And I had been pussy footing through this area for, I don't remember, 20 minutes, something like that. I just first kind of got into it and come around this bush and here's, here's this big buck lifting his head, looking at me, looking straight at me, right straight below me and dang it, I cannot remember if I had my rifle on my shoulder at my side. I wasn't totally prepared. I mean I, you know, all this podcast, all the stuff I talk about, I still screw it up. But I got the gun up on him and I, I, I could see he had double cheaters six by seven. I couldn't see all the other points, but good buck, especially for the area. This was a winter kill area. I haven't seen a good buck in there like three years and good buck had like one or two seconds to decide to shooting. And it was one of those buck you look at and you just know I better shoot. And so I threw the gun up and like I said, I got scope on him and all I had was a neck shot. His shoulder was still hidden. He was kind of, kind of behind a bush too. And all I had is a neck shot. Like I said, as I pressured that trigger I could feel that I didn't take it off safety because that Christiansen arms only got like 2 pound trigger on it. So I, I reached up, flipped the safety forward, which doesn't sound like very long, but it's long enough to lose a buck. And I got on him, pulled the trigger. No, no suppressor, no muzzle break. So I lose my sight picture. And when I, when I, when, when I see again he's running off to my left straight away from, and he went behind another bush. So I stepped over the left about, I don't know, three, four, five steps to, to. I couldn't believe I missed the. But as I stepped out from behind the next bush, he saw me and slammed on the brakes and turned around and looked back up at the hill, at me. And so I paced at him, dropped him, so pumped, so happy. I mean I watched him. He went up on his back feet and right over backwards. Saw him down there kicking. I was like, oh my gosh, I got it I flipping got it, Walked down there. Here's this 144 point, nice looking four point, but like 140. And I'm like, whoops. Oh my gosh. Did I. No. I know I saw cheaters. I know I saw cheaters. This is not the buck. What just happened? I. I mean, it was a little bit of a panic moment because even though I had two tags, I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking I either just killed two deer or I just had the biggest hallucination in my life. So I turn around, backtracked up the hill from the direction that he came. You can see kind of where he bounded down the hill. 20 yards up the hill, here's this 28 inch, 6x7 laying there, shot in the neck. So when I shot, he had just dropped immediately. And the next thing I saw, there was another buck there that I. That I hadn't seen. That's what I saw running off and I thought that was him. So I had this like 20 seconds of panic and I'm like, oh, yeah, gosh, thank God I got two tags here. So anyways, my whole point in all that is that that's the first buck I've shot still hunting in quite a few years. I can't even remember the last one, but it's still another big buck. I would, I wouldn't have. If I hadn't done all that stuff with the milk jugs and the tires and getting used to handling my rifle and actually being willing to go pussyfoot through a hillside when, you know, a lot of guys would have been off glassing. Which I had glass that morning too, by the way.

Well, there's actually. There's another video on the rocks. See, this is where I get to remind you about all these things you've put on the Internet. There's that video when you were in Colorado with Travis and you were. You were doing the same thing, though. You were getting in the aspens and you were just like. Or maybe it was a burn. Regardless, it was that kind of timber you can see through like that.

Yeah.

You were hunting a big buck that way then too. Yep.

Right? Yep, yep. So if it's the same one I'm thinking about, it's. It's got the very awesome name of. Of a film. Probably the most awesome name of any film out there. I think it's called Hunting Mule Deer with Robbie and Travis. I mean, it sounds like Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. If it's that one.

Yep.

Jordan. Jordan is the one that Filmed that. So that morning from across the canyon, I glassed a 30 incher over in that quakey pocket chasing does. And you know, we'd been there five, six, seven days. He was, he was by far the best buck I had seen. There was just no way to get to him without saddle and a horse and headed over there. So I lost like an hour and a half trying to get over there, maybe even longer. And Jordan, she's trying to film me. Only had one horse and we just trained, we just leapfrogged. You know, I'd ride for a while and then she'd ride for a while. But as we got closer to the buck, she's like, don't wait for me, just get up there, her tongue's hanging out. And so I rode Charlie to the top and I got up above that quakey puck and I broke out, you know, I don't know, quite a few hours later. And so I think that's what you're talking about. And I pussy footed down through those quakeys looking for him. And I think we hunted right till dark then trying to find him right there. And he had just moved in that time, you know, it was the rut. It's hard to pin him down, but again, you either sit across the canyon and look at him or you get in there and try to kill them. And there's been enough of them that I've got in there. I mean most of them get away. 80 or 90% of them are going to get away, but 100% of them will get away if you don't go in there and try. And so that's what happened on that buck. And I'm glad you bring him up because we couldn't really get him in the spotter. I glassed him in the BTXs, dude. He was a big buck, probably over 30. I remember telling Jordan, I can't even remember if she got to get on him or not, but he was a big buck, you know, and so all that hunting that whole week of being there, that was my one chance. And you know, this is Rut, third season Colorado, you know, and, and, and if I'd have just stayed on the knob that whole week, I don't know, maybe I'd have got lucky, maybe I would have found one. But really my best chance come from getting in the COVID If you watch to the end of that film, if it's the same film, then I missed that 27 incher at the very end and same thing. Look, look at what I was in when I missed him because that was the only place we were seeing deer, you know, he was down in the thick stuff. I missed him at like, I can't even remember what it was, 90 yards or something like that. My fault, you know. But again, it's this whole up close, gotta be ready, can't get it, can't get steady, you know, I tried to kneel down, I knelt down, I couldn't see anymore, so I stood back up and, and if I stood up too tall, I couldn't seem. So I had to do this kind of half squat, tried to shoot at him, thing. So, so, so two bucks that week. And both of them, both of my encounters were close range, you know, and, and, and believe me, we did plenty of glass and out on the knob, we really did.

So the way that, that lays out, like describe like, how far are you from what this thick stuff you're glassing and then like, is the thick stuff you're glassing? Is it, is it a burn? Is it aspens? Like. Because the idea is you're looking from above into it, right? I mean, I think a lot of people just can sit, write that off as like, oh, I can't glass into it, it's thick, you know. But like, what's the setup there?

Everything's about conditions. I don't care if you're glassing, still hunting, tracking, ambush hunting, it's all about the conditions. Okay, so if you've got good background snow, the end of October and the leaves are off, that's a viable tactic. Okay? But just three days before, especially on a mild fall with no wind and the leaves are on the trees and you get a big snow, but it's not enough to knock the leaves off the trees. It's still not a good tactic. But there seems to be a little bit of a window when the leaf off. Snow on the ground, in the COVID you can see those deer in there and then there's a little mini window inside of that when they think you can't see them and they get real brave. They don't get skittish yet is probably the best way to say it. They've been in those pockets all fall. They go in, everything gets quiet. There can be a jeep on the ridge, guy down below shooting, guy over there talking. They never get bothered. And so when you forget that first snow and it's leaf off, they think that that's what's still happening. But you can see into those pockets if you're willing to glass them, them and they'll get up and walk around and, you know, they're not in the dark timber or anything like that. But then with a little bit of pressure, I think they start realizing they're vulnerable and. And they'll quit using even those pockets and they'll go into, you know, thicker timber stuff that you can glass in. And so I don't know if I answered your question there, but. But there's a little window there where. Yeah, I'm always trying to look into the COVID with. With snow on the background. And rut just helps even that much more because deer are more on their feet and. But just because you can see them doesn't mean you can shoot them. And that's, I think, what throws guys for a lot of loops. Until they hunt with me, they're like, man, you're seeing all these big bucks, you know, Are you lying? Like, no. You'll see a lot that you don't get. You know, that's part of the game is filled. You know, it's trying to get a shot. You got to filter through a lot of scenarios before you actually get a shot. So I spent a lot of time looking for big bucks in the COVID and I see way more than I kill. Literally, when I said you'll only kill 10, 20% of them, that might even be high, but you'll kill 0% of them if you're just looking out in the sage brush all the time. Unless it's opening day or it's a really good draw hunt with no tags on it and nobody's out messing around with them. You know, that can happen too. And I know, and I try to hunt those hunts and, you know, and sometimes even on a higher pressure OTC tag, sometimes you can catch those bucks out in the sage brush, but not very often.

I've got. I've got an application in for a second season Colorado hunt that I'm, like, thinking specifically, like, that is a. That is the time of year you're talking about, or like late season in Wyoming or Idaho. Right. I mean, those are kind of the prime examples, right?

Yep. You got it. Just a few minutes in the morning when you might catch them out in the open. And then after that, you know, with no rut setting in it, it's just hard to catch them out of the COVID You got to hunt around the COVID you know, and. And. And then if they do come out, at least you're right there. But, yeah, sitting up on the wide open knob and, you know, not a lot of COVID around. I just. I'll see four Points, you know, I'll see smaller bucks, you know, and sometimes you just think, well, the bigger ones right here, he's not coming out. But if it's pretty easy place to hunt, there's probably not a bigger one there. He got killed when he was 2.

Yeah, that's right.

That's not to be big, you know. Yeah.

And you bring up a point that I wanted to pick your brain on. You might have seen this in the show notes, but I did some number crunching. How many bucks, how many bucks have you taken over 200?

Four. Four.

Okay. I think there was five bucks in the breaking 200 article that I don't know if they are all over 200.

Or what, but I, I, you have four in there.

There's four in there.

Okay, there's four. That's all four of them. Yeah. It's only four that I've killed.

Well, then my math, my, then my math is wrong. But. So here we go. This is the, this is kind of the point I wanted to get at. All those bucks were five and six years old.

Right. Let's see. The, the 234 buck was lab aged at five years old. The 224 buck was five years old. The 208 buck was six years old, and then the 201 buck was six years old. So yeah, okay, five to six. All. All four of them.

Yep. So you're averaging. Yep. Which is not perfect math because you're dealing with halves, but just based on the numbers, you're averaging a six year old deer. So I broke down my last five bucks, which have averaged 5.9 years old, and they've all scored 160 on average. 160 inches. Yeah. What do you think is the difference in chasing big bucks versus older bucks? Because obviously, you know, the age class difference isn't crazy, but you're finding the big ones. And that's something I think is a mindset shift that I don't know that a lot of us have differentiated between because I think everyone assumes old bucks are big or that big bucks are old. So I just was kind of curious, like what's, what's your mindset on that? Especially, you know, now that you've gotten so deep into tooth aging and you know, all these tooth ages of bucks and, and their scores, it's, it's kind of painting an interesting picture.

Yeah. Because I have a nine year old buck, an eight year old buck, I have a couple of seven year old bucks, a whole bunch of four and five year old bucks. None of them go over 200, you know, they're all, you know, 170 to 190 type bucks. Well, how tall are you, Jaden?

I'm five six.

Okay. I'm five nine. Okay. So you and I are totally different body sizes, totally different body shapes. Okay. Bucks are no different with their antlers and they are individuals. And it takes a very special buck to grow a set of antlers that either make all time net typical, all time non typical, or just to gross over 200. They're, they're 6 foot 7 men is what they are. And you don't see a lot of them out there. Okay. And it's because, it's because we're all different. And so to answer your question, this is what I, what I, what I think it is because you're right. We all think the older the buck, the bigger that hasn't borne out. In, in, in, in my small sample size of tooth aging, my oldest bucks have not been my biggest, highest scoring bucks. They've been in that five to six year old range. But had these bucks grown older, I think they would have been even bigger giants. I really do, I really don't, I don't think is that they're hitting six and then they're shrinking. They could individual bucks go watch all the old Eastman's extreme buck films. You know, some of them do, do regress a little bit as they get older. But you know, most of them get, just continue to get bigger. And so what I think, to answer your question is it gets down to that I passed up all those other bucks that you passed up or that you didn't pass up just using yours. I passed all those bucks up until I had a chance at a bigger buck. Did you read my first book?

Yes.

Okay. There's a little chapter in there. It's called the one thing. Go read that again. It's the one thing you have to do to kill the biggest deer. And do you remember what it is?

Just passing bucks.

Passing up smaller bucks, buddy. And even passing up dang nice bucks. Now you can totally get carried away with that. You can, you really can get carried away with that. And I have, I've made some mistakes. I can think of about a 36 inch buck. I went walk once because just being stupid, you know, looking for, looking for a mega giant which didn't exist. And so, but if you, if you're not passing up bucks and, and we always think, oh, when you're passing up bucks, you're passing up younger bucks. No, you may be passing up a 6 year old, 27 inch heavy buck that scores 160. A lot of those do. I just had Randy Larson on the podcast this week. I don't know if you listened to him.

He's.

I did, yeah. They surveyed all those high quality units, many of them private land units, and the average buck was scoring like 1, 160, 170. It's because, you know, most guys are 5 foot 9. You know, that's the average that you end up at. And so to get something bigger, dude, you got to be able to pass those up. And it's hard and it's harder now than it ever has been. I used to be able to do it. I was better at passing up Bucks 15 years ago because there were more big bucks around. So I knew it was worth it to pass up where now it's like, oh gosh, literally 15 years ago I might not have shot that 28 inch buck I shot last year because there was always a chance at a bigger buck around in that place where I've hunted. You know, usually there was a 180 to a 190 buck available, you know, somewhere if you just held out where, you know, after going through those winters, it's like, man, I haven't seen a 190 buck up there in five years. But passing up bucks is, is how I would answer that. And in that same chapter, I talked about that guy that had a lot of nice bucks. He's a better buck hunter than I was. He really was. But every time he'd come into my house, he'd be like, dude, how do you have these giant freaking bucks and you and I are hunting basically the same places and, and, and, and you know, he really was probably a better buck hunter than me. Slower paced, calmer, better shot, things like that. And I was like, it's because you shoot the first nice buck you see. And he agreed. He's like, you're right, you're right. I see a 170, I dump him. And yet I, I'm, I'm passing those bucks. And, and it gets down to scouting a lot too. It's, it's easier to scout a big buck when you know there's another one out, or to pass a big buck when you know there's another one out there, right? When you know that, you know that, you know, you know that 224 buck, dude, there was a beautiful 19030 inch buck on that same hillside from the middle of August to the middle of October when I killed that 224. I passed that buck up four or five times and dude, he would have been a solid 190. And just, I just remember you, you've heard me talk about messy haired bucks before. You know what I mean by that? Bucks with messy hair is that the.

Ones that just have points going crazy or.

No, their hair is messy. They're actually, and they're freaking fur is all messy. You, you watch old bucks, you'll begin to pick up on that over the years. They have, they have just clumped up hair. It's, they're, they're just not sleek and smooth. Okay, he was that kind of a deer. So he's probably that 6,78-year-old range deer and he was a bigger body deer than the Bucket and ended up killing, you know, at least a little bit. I passed him up four or five times that fall, including in the, in the five seconds before I killed the 224 buck. That buck stood up out of his bed at 80 yards on the last day, staring right at me. And I had to, I had to, I had to sneak a bullet past him by six inches and killed that 224 buck that was behind him that I still didn't know was behind him other than I'd seen tracks earlier in the morning and there was two big set of tracks. So what I'm, this is what I'm getting at. I'm not saying go pass up 190 bucks, but it's easy to pass up a 190 buck when I know there's been a 220 buck right here and they've even been together at certain times in the fall. And so that kind of stuff can pay off. And it's harder than ever now because I mean, think we really are in a lull right now. We really are. But I think, I think good things are coming. It's just hard to do that right now. And you know, so some of this stuff, you know, it's like, wow, you know, you're passing up 190 bucks. Well, that was then, that's not right now. 20, 25. Although I may, you know, because if I scout up a bigger buck, I can't shoot that nice 180 buck walking around if I really want a chance at this big one. So that's a long, long answer, Jaden. But that's really what it gets down to. You gotta be able to pass. If you really want something better, you really have to be able to. And that's the hardest part. But I Think you're great that you've shot these bucks that are all averaging 5.9 years old. Because that should tell you that I've got the techniques down. I'm getting in on killing older age class bucks. It's just that you're shooting the first good buck you have a chance at. And no shame in that, no shame in that at all. That's what I'm saying. In 2025 you probably should be doing that right now until we get a few more of these bigger bucks back on the landscape and everything. But if you just keep shooting the first nice buck that you see, then yeah, you'll always have some four to six year old deer. But you'll still be thinking how come I haven't killed a really big deer? And dude, I have not killed 200 inch bucks since 2010. So it's been 15 years. You know, some of that's, you know, what's changed. And then just the point creek creep, point creep. You know, we were getting one point tags and you know, hunting high quality units now that are over the counter for residents but draw for non residents. We could still get them every year. Those days are gone. We can't do that anymore. So now I'm kind of hunting, you know, quote leftover stuff. I don't mean leftover licenses, but just the, the stuff the guys aren't focused on. And so the number of 200 available is lower. But that film in that you, that you mentioned at the beginning, the Jordan film, that I didn't get him in the spotting scope, you know, people just had to trust me. I was looking at a 200 inch buck there. And that's why, you know, hopefully the proof's in the pudding. I stayed on that mountain like 15 days. You know, I saw something right, that buck 2019 was a 200 inch buck. I think I saw another one in 2021. I have to look at my journal. I mean I'm still seeing them. Yeah, but, but you know, my, my chances are lower, Adam. And that's why my, my score's gone down the last kind of five to ten years. Something else too, dude, and I saw that in the outline there. Or you, you sent that quote to me that I had from my book that at that time I had only seen about two or three net typicals. Boone and Crock typicals at that time. That's about doubled since then. So my number of two hundreds has gone down. But just last year I saw a net Boone and Crockett puck. I'm still Seeing good bucks is what I'm trying to get at, but we just don't have the number of them on the landscape that we did where you can still make some mistakes and get one.

So there's. I kind of have two thoughts on this one. 20, 23. Right after the winter, I admit, I maybe let some of the, some of the background noise seep into my brain and I had found a buck that was special. Like, really stuff going everywhere. He was special. And then the first 200 special, I'll have to send you a photo or video I got of him.

Yeah, 190 special. Let's not get too hung up here. Was he. You think, you think he broke 200? He.

He had stuff going everywhere. Yeah. I'll get your take on him. And then a helicopter flew. I was there on the glassing knob. I'd seen him three days prior. Or like the three consecutive days prior to hunting season opening.

Rifle or archery?

Archery. I, I asked you about this and at the expo, but I'll, I'll re, I'll rehash it here with you. So I seen him three days before season and I was like, oh, he's dead. You know, I've got a, I got his pattern. He's like doing the same thing.

Like, this is.

I got this buck. I go out there and the, the opening day of, of archery season, they're spraying teat grass right on top of where this buck was living.

Never fails.

And I was just like, holy crap. Well, I had a, I had a good elk tag in a desert unit in Wyoming. And I was like, well, I'm just gonna go glass up an elk middle of the day and then I'll come back this evening or something. Well, as, as fate would have it, I glassed up this really nice 27 inch, 170 inch buck and I, at 11am or whatever. And I was like, well, let's just go get some practice. Like, let's go stalk this buck. Well, he's on my wall now. So I didn't end up, I didn't end up hunting. Well, I went back 13 days that season after the, the helicopter debacle. I didn't have a deer tag in my pocket, but I was like, I want to see if this buck's still alive.

Yeah.

And I never saw him again that fall. And then I went back and I was in there 17 days last summer looking for this buck. I never saw him again last summer. And it just is like, is eaten at me now that I didn't stick with that deer and just put everything I had. I just. The helicopter came over and I was like, yeah, let's go check something else out. And they go back and I didn't do the one thing. You know.

And this. This will be a. This will be a gutache the rest of your life because you'll never know what would have happened if he'd have just kept hunting them.

Exactly.

And. And dude, honestly, odds are you wouldn't have got him. But you can't kill them if you're shooting a.27. That's what I'll remember a minute ago. That's that whole big long stuff I was talking about. That's what I'm talking about right there. And. And again I've screwed up. You stuff too far and not. And. And then you don't get a deer. But you have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with that. And I'm with you. Practicing stalking. That's all good and stuff, but man, 27 inch buck stands up at 25 yards. You know, you got him. It's pretty hard to pass that up. And so I'm with you. I've made those same mistakes. But. But again that's. That seems to be where the giants come from in. In a hunter's career is especially in this day and age, you got to focus. You got to stay with them. I had that same thing happen with a helicopter two years ago on about a 185 buck. They were filling. I thought they were scouting at first. I'm like, these guys are pure flying during the season. I mean I couldn't believe it because they. You know, they're. They're combing the ridges right where we're all hunting. But then we realized they were filling water troughs for. For the cattle. They would. This thing that would come down. So anyways, same thing. Dude stirred that whole place up. But I stayed and I didn't see any deer for two or three days. But I still end up getting a stock on that 180 buck. I don't know. Within a week, you know, he was right there. Didn't get him. That's what I'm saying. A lot of times you still don't get them. I can do all the right things and not get one. That happens all the time. But I know one thing. Once you punch your tag, you're. You're done. You're done. You are done, done, done, done, done. And those giants. Jason Carter talks about it all the time. There's so many that we've we've screwed up on and let go that man. You get one now in your sights, you, you do everything you can to kill them and kill them right now. That's best advice Jason has is you got to figure out to kill him right when you see them, you know, because for whatever reason the helicopter comes or whatever happens, you know, you just. The window closes and it never comes open again. And I remember your question now at expo now I forgot about that. And you were asking do I think that buck is still there? No, I don't think he's there, dude. Not so much that you didn't find him that first year when the helicopter was there. I think you smart to go back, spend those extra days looking for him, you know, because you could have picked up a clue like okay, when he's pressured he moves over there on that private. But all things get quiet, he comes right back over here where the good feet is. But what you told me the second year that you really and you were smart. I, I always start back with the bucks. I left off last year that 17 days and you to see him again. I, he could be there and I probably still would go look this year because you can either rule out he's not alive anymore or he gave you the golden ticket. He said big bucks like to be right here under certain conditions on certain years. Big bucks like to be right here. And dude, one of those little three points that was running around with him two years ago that you didn't even look at, he's probably a 190 now. So it's definitely worth looking. But my gut feeling is that individual buck is gone.

Yeah. Now that makes sense. So as we wrap up here, I thought I would could kind of ask you for some, you know, words of encouragement. Not for necessarily me, but just for people who are wanting to chase big bucks. Because you know, I think a lot of people are down in the mouth about just dear numbers in general. And it seems to me like just all of the things I'm, I'm picking up and learning and my personal experience is it's like I don't feel like we have an age class problem on the, on the mountain. Like we're finding bucks that are older maybe not finding the special ones. Right. What do you think about, you know, when you go out this, this fall? Like what is your mindset for finding a special one? Finding a six, seven buck, you know, like the, the, the abnormality in comparison to just finding the nice one?

Well, the amazing thing about big bucks is They're. There's always a few around everywhere. I mean, they. They're just survivors, you know? Dude, literally, I was thinking about it this morning when I was getting ready for this. This is probably about the 300th podcast I've done between the ones I've done through the Rock Cast and being invited on other guys's podcasts, I always think, what the heck am I going to talk about? And people are probably sick of hearing from me. Going through the ups and downs of mule deer the last, you know, 40 years and really, you know, 25 of them, you know, hardcore buck hunter and everything. It's always been hard, Jaden. It's always been hard, and there's always a reason to complain. That's why. That's why I bring up my dad and my uncles. I love those men. But I kind of had to break away from that mindset because those were their good old days. They're not mine. You know, my good old days are now. You know, every day God gives me is my good old days. I got to make the best of it. And so everything is situational. Everything is always changing. And right now, yeah, it kind of changed for the worse. But when you stack three killer winners, 16, 17, and in some places, 18, 19, and then 22, 23, which is the mother of them all, something's got to give, you know, and that's kind of the inner mountain west, you know, maybe, you know, where you and I, huh? You know, Idaho and, you know, Wyoming, maybe, you know, part of Utah, but then you jump over to Colorado.

Dude.

Dude, I am just sick about what's happened to Colorado's age class on bucks. I. Because I get these biologists on the rock cast, and we, you know, we talk and everything. I. Some. Sometimes I think people think I'm a little naive, and I don't know what's going on. No. When I have the five best big buck hunters I know in Colorado, all that don't even know each other that are all saying the same thing in five different, you know, large areas that, man, our mature bug numbers have plummeted. It's sickening to me. And I blame it all on the late seasons because that's really all that changed. I mean, there's a few units where tags went up, but there's a few units where tags went down. And, you know, if you listen to those. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly, Jaden. And you listen to those episodes they did with the biologists, their. Their buck to dough ratios holding up, it's actually the envy of every state still. But the age class is gone. I don't need a biologist to tell me that the age class is not there right now. So I'm just going to say it. I wouldn't be looking for a six or seven year old buck in Colorado unless I just had the nuts on information on something. One that was seen last year, I'm scouting him and you know, it's, it's not going to be in the pages of the research mag, you know, because everybody's looking at that, you know, you're the, you know, that used to, used to be pretty reliable where now everybody's looking, digesting that same information. And that's why I'm, I'm now hunting in places that are. I didn't even really think about 15 years ago. And so when I say everything's situational, the situation in Colorado right now is not good. Not good. Although I've applied for a tag down there because I do have the nuts on that information right now. It's a unit I've known for years. I killed a 32 inch buck there a couple years ago. They're still survivors and there can be some there. But to just throw out on a podcast that oh yeah, go on third season Colorado, not that'd be bad advice, you know, unless you just knew, knew something was going on. So I would kind of rule that out right now. You got to look at, you know, what's going on in every state. You know, our southern states right now, you know, southern, Southern Utah, Southern Nevada. You know, you can't even really talk about southern Nevada because you hardly get a tag over there. But you know, we've had some timely rains this spring. Things are coming on. So if you can actually get a tag, you know, there's a chance there. But then you move over into Utah where, you know, tags are pretty abundant, lower buck to do ratios and everything. It's probably not a bad time to be there. But you still gotta be that guy that knows where those type of bucks are coming from. Maybe you knew where one was last year. I think those are the ones that are going to get killed right now. And then, you know, you move up into our winter kill units. I just saw a shed this morning from a guy that I trust lives in a winter kill unit. And this I got to get used to talking about shed scores because I'm so used to talking about whole buck scores. He thinks this scores 110 to 115.

Oh my.

So double that and add an inside spread.

Yeah, Whatever you want the inside spread to be is probably greater than 20, right?

Oh, yeah, dude. Yeah. This is, you know, 230, 240, maybe north of that. He's holding the brown shed. He just got it. He just picked it up. That buck is out there. And it's what I've. I've always said I've seen some of the biggest bucks in that two or three years after the hard winters. And so, you know, in the Intermountain West, I think we've got that opportunity right now. And even the naysay and naysayers that I know that are always down in the mouth still saw some really good bucks this winter in. In multiple places in the Intermountain West. It's just, you got to get used to not seeing very many deer right now and not very many bucks. Although I think that's going to heal up in the next year or two because we're still getting the water, you know, rain, right? Always quote Luke Bryant. Rain is a good thing, and it's happening right now, you know, and. And. And yet we're not, you know, at the expense of a hard winter. You know, a lot of times, that's where your water comes from, is a hard winter. And so I don't have a canned answer for a podcast on that, buddy. I don't. But I know I'm going to go. I'm going to be out there. I'll bet you I find a 190 buck this year somewhere, somehow. Somebody might even kill him. I'll bet you I do. And it might even happen in Colorado if I draw that, you know, one point unit just because I know it, I can play on it and everything. And. And, dude. But by the way, that stupid freaking unit that's just across the road, same number of tags, everything. They kill like a 250 buck in there two years ago. On the general freaking. Well, nothing's general in Colorado, but just on. On a unit, people aren't thinking all that much about that. Those bucks are always still out there. So if. If I got to give guys hope, that's what I got to give them, is that there are some survivors out there. There always has been. They've always been big. Big deer are always a very fractional, small part of the herd. Unless you just have a great draw unit, you know, everything changes then. But again, the great DAR units, I. I quit getting excited about those about 10 or 15 years ago because Point Creep took all those out. I did that. That podcast with Dustin Wentworth just about a month ago, so. I was kind of researching about how many preference points are on the sideline. And in Colorado, there's168,000 preference points sitting on the sideline right now. Wait, the for to be spent. And, and there's 500 hunt codes that might be any good at all. So there's just hundreds of guys sitting on the sidelines for anything that pops up at all. And I don't blame them. I'm doing the same thing in the states that I have a lot of points in. And so that's where the game changed. And, and I don't think cutting more tags and I mean, it may help, it may, it'll help the deer. I'm not against that. I want to help the deer, but to just have deer that nobody can hunt, I'm not really super interested in that either. You know, I mean, we have enough Ponce Str. Strips, 44s, 45s. We have enough of those around now. And, and, and by the way, most of those people are struggling at some level too. Strip seems to be holding up pretty good, but look how low number of tags that are on there. And then, you know, it's, I think it's holding up because the outfitters are so good down there. They find those bucks, they stay on them till they kill them. And as they proved last year, they don't even need a trail cam to do it. They can do it. They, they can do it naked with a spare if they need to. So, so I, I, I, I'm just going on and on here, buddy. I don't know what to say other than I'm gonna be out there. I'm not giving up. I'm gonna keep hunting and scouting and, and, and doing all this stuff. And that's part of the chase. That's part of staying in the game. And here we are. We're still in the game. That's the way I look at it. And unless something just happens in the next couple years, I think we're healing up good. I really do. I think it's gonna surprise guys. And, you know, some of these herds, yeah, they're record low numbers. The Wyoming range herd heard, you know, at least last year, before last year's fawns hit the ground, record low numbers. That's sad. But that's where some of the nay naysayers are. They're like, wow, saw some really good bucks this winter. And then coming off the winter we just had, we've got the spring rain. You know what's going to be out there. And, you know, I don't want a hot spot. Wyoming, this is occurring, you know, northern Utah, central Utah, you know, probably the lower half of Idaho. Dude, I'm even hearing some guys talking positive about eastern Oregon.

Yes.

They're like, what the heck? You haven't heard in years yet. You go look on the drought monitor, what's going on in eastern Oregon. It's white right now. They're in good shape. Yeah. They don't have a lot of age, class and everything. And so. So we just got to stay in the game is my encouragement to guys and that, you know, if you give up, you're not going to get one. I can tell you that. Stay involved with the. What your fishing game is doing and, you know, management practices. That's why I get all those guys on the. On the. On the rock cast, just to give another viewpoint, you know, so guys can make good decisions and everything. I always like to quote what Jeff Short said that, oh, yeah, growing big bucks, it's not that hard. Cut back all the tags, nobody goes hunting. Of course you're gonna have some big bucks, but I hope we can do better than that. And, And I think right in the next couple of years, we can keep these winners stacking up. We're gonna get back into some good places. You know who Gary Froehlich is from Wyoming? The biologist from Wyoming. This was at mule deer days, and I didn't get to hear him say it, but one of the guys was talking to him and he said that Gary said that at the rate we're going, we could be back to 30,000 deer in the Wyoming range within just a couple of years. And that's, you know, that's kind of at their objective. Right. I think they want. They'd like 40, but that. That's pretty hard to get to and everything. And now that we know some of the negative parts about running too many deer on the range and how hard it is to recover them, that might not be ideal to try to get back to that, but to, you know, to go from the low number of deer they have, they had two years ago, I can't remember what it was. 12,000 or something, to be back up to that. And yeah, still make it take a couple years to get some age class on those deer. But that's just mule deer biology. And, you know, that's. That's always been going on and. And so I'm just trying to give guys hope and. Because if there's no hope, what are you and I even doing right now?

That's right, that's right. So I used to wrestle and I'd always look at guys like on the podium with a gold medal and I would, would say to myself like, well, if they could do it, why can't I? And then I see my roommate, he just shot a 200 inch buck last year. Our friend Braxton, he killed a 200 inch buck last year all on the same tag that I had in my pocket and I'm like, if someone's doing it then why can't it be me? And anyway, that's my mindset on it all. And like you said, you can't do it if you're not, if you're sitting on the sidelines, can't dude.

And I think you can even be on the mountain and can be hunting but you're sitting on the sidelines if you're already defeated in your mind. And, and, and when you talk to Braxton, he's a friend and dude, he's still positive, he's not naive. You can be naive and dumb and you know, oh, everything's fine or no, I'm not saying that, no, everything's hard right now. But you know, he's hunting basically OTC stuff and he killed a five year old buck last year with his bow. I think that buck was 180s, really good buck. And then the buck he got this year, which by the way he's just released the age, wasn't it five? It was four. It was four. Another big four or five year old buck. I mean there, there it is. And so, so anyways, you know, he's not naive, he's not stupid. You know, he knows things are tough but he just keeps out getting out there. And you know, some people say oh well, he grew punts and well, whatever it takes. Of course, you know, he's, him and story trade off each year they, they scout hard together. That's the adaptability that I'm talking about. And that's where I started to kind of lose my uncles on a little bit of my dad is, is that stuff was changing and, and they didn't want to change with it. And, and, and so I just know that if, if we don't change, if we don't adapt, then what the hell are we doing out there? You know, we're just going to be defeated. And I can talk to a guy for two minutes and tell almost what kind of buck hunter he is just by his attitude because I don't find hardly any, any big buck hunters that are consistently successful that Have a bad attitude, you know, and they're realists, they get it, things are tough, you know, but if, if their attitude sucks, their hunting sucks. I'm not picking on anybody either. I'm. And, and you know, I've been that guy before too. That's why I'm real guarded about getting into that, you know, and, and anything I have a crappy attitude about in my life usually ends up crappy.

That's right.

Is that what I mean?

Oh, man. Well, this is awesome, Robbie. We covered some awesome things today. Like between some unconventional not glassing tactics to mindset on bucks and finding the big ones, I really appreciate you taking the time today. This has been really, really fun.

You bet. Dude, I've wanted to do this for a long time and dude, I want to commend you. You're always on that positive end of the spectrum. I see you out there on Rock Slide and social media, you know, just, just trying to have hope and work hard and all that stuff. And man, I commend you. Bravo, dude. Every time I see that kind of stuff, I'm like, hey, good on him. Because you could buy into a lot of negativity and, and if, if you're going to be negative, just go elkhun. There's a lot of things to be hopeful about. Elk hunting right now. Maybe more guys should.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Oh, shoot. Yeah, well, I always figure it's, it's, you know, as long as like you said, you're also a realist and your effort is commensurate with the, the situation of the times.

Right? Yeah, it has to be. It has to be. And I'm hoping I can get real picky in the next couple of years too because I'm starting to see some really top end bucks out there and everything. And, and dude, I, you know, even though it's harder and I haven't killed one in 15 years, I still expect to call another 200 inch buck somewhere somehow, some way, because I'm still running into them. You know, it's just things have to come together. That net typical last year that I saw it in that Archer season and yeah, I figured it out. He ended up on private land. You know, I caught him on public just that one day. Dude, that buck is a hog as good as anything I've seen in my life. You know, and he's still out there. I'm still trying to figure out a way to come up with a deal to hunt him and everything. And so you know, that, that's the thing about the chase is if you're just out there learning and adapting and changing, I think you can always stay in the game and you can have some hope.

I love it. So if anyone wants to follow you to watch your adventures of getting this big buck, where can they do that?

Dude, just. I post almost everything on Rockslide. You know, Rockslides, how I make half my living. I'm. I'm faithful to Rock Slide. I don't put a whole lot on social media, Instagram. It just feels like strangers out there sometimes. And. And I do, you know, but I. I don't put a lot of it on there. But, you know, I always leave my best stuff for Rock Slide. So just watch for me on there. But definitely subscribe to, to, to my Instagram page, Robbie Denning. And you know, I always. I always try to put highlight stuff and everything on there, but I don't post a whole lot.

Yeah, I love it, man. Obviously you know this, but I'm an avid Rock Slide. Yes, you, forum, reader, contributor. I think we're working on some projects this summer too, with our Golly. So, yeah, I'm excited for all that and I really appreciate you giving me a little bit of a platform to talk with you today. This has been super fun.

You bet, dude. I love it when someone else is the host and I get to be the guest. And so. And we'll play this on Rockslide too. Those guys will get to hear you and everything. Good luck with everything you do. And I'm here if you need anything.

Awesome, Robbie. Thank you.

Okay, buddy, catch you later.

Yep, that's the pod.

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