Bear Grease - Ep. 158: Deer Stories - Passion and Lies (Part 3)

Episode Date: November 1, 2023

This is our third and final Deer stories episode of 2023. On this episode of Bear Grease your host Clay Newcomb will share some wild whitetail stories: a Tennessee Buck, some decoyed bucks, some deer-dogged bucks, Clay’s first big buck, a 200-plus inch buck, and one straight up deer hunting lie. These stories range from Kansas to Tennessee and a few places in between. We’ll hear from 80-year old Henry Susong, K.C. Smith of The Element, Aaron and Andy Stanphill, and Hooch McDonald. Stories carry our culture, our values, and our future - they’re important. What a privilege it is to be a whitetail hunter and we’re living in its heyday! We really doubt you're going to want to miss this last one.... Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop Bear Grease MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. First Lights fieldware collection is made for the work that happens long before opening day and continues when the season ends. Products built for early mornings, full days in real use. Hard wearing where they need to be versatile where it matters. No shortcuts. Just gear designed for the work that earns the season.

Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. I don't know where I got this. I don't know what drives a man to jump out of bed and a frosty morning and go several miles back in the mountains and sit there in a tree all day.

This is our third and final deer stories episode of 2023. And we are now in the core of the best white-tail dates on the calendar. And to stoke the fire, we're going to tell some wild stories. one from the big mountains of East Tennessee, a couple from Kansas. We're going to talk about some decoyed bucks, some coyotes and bucks, some deer-dogged bucks, and a 200-inch buck, and one straight-up deer-hunting lie. The connector of all these stories. In all three episodes we've heard is the passion, respect, and a true appreciation of deer hunting translated through the voices of these hunters. What a privilege it is to be a white-tail hunter, and we're living in its heyday.

After this podcast, we're going back to our regular documentary-style stories. So enjoy this last episode before we start learning hard stuff and digging deep again, cracking into this American hunting culture we've found ourselves embedded in. But that being said, our stories carry the culture, our values, and our future. I really doubt you're going to want to be a lot. want to miss this one. It was a weird deal. Just an old majestic buck like that, you know, lived his whole life and it was just my buck

of a lifetime. We start taping this deer. Well, we ran out of tape. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the places we explore.

Henry Sousong is 80 years old and from the rough country of East Tennessee. And if you've never been there, trust me, it is some rough country that rivals anywhere on this continent. Mr. Henry stands among an elite class of humans healthy enough to pursue their passion. into their 80s, but perhaps even more unique. His internal drive for his passion hasn't decreased. His fire burns hot. The man bubbles with infectious energy. When I went to Mr. Henry's home, he led me into a large room filled wall to wall with deer heads.

And I mean big deer. He grinned like a possum eating red ants while describing how he and his sons had taken all these deer with archery gear. Many came from Tennessee. others came from the Midwest. The bucks ranged from basket racks to stacks of 150s and 160s all the way up to a 220-inch giant. He had one buck with a 27-inch spread on the wall.

I asked Mr. Henry to tell me his most memorable story, which was difficult. But this is the one that he picked. Meet Mr. Henry. In 1991 is when I first found sign of this. this big buck. It was deep in the Cherokee National Forest. It began when my son and I went there and hunted a couple of years. He wound up killing a 134 inch eight point, I think, and another big buck that they called slewfoot because he was crippled in one leg, which made, I guess, that leg or the other leg, when he made a scrape, it was a lot bigger than it should be. So we got

to going back in this area and packing in and staying, you know, three days at a time, we'd come out. First year when I found the sign of the big buck, we didn't get him. The acre and crop wasn't real good. Second year, same thing. I found the sign, knew there was a big buck there, but again, the acorns weren't real good. Probably he had some rubs the size of a ball cap, like six, seven inches through, quite a few of them. Then comes the third year, and we had been to Illinois, looking for some deer sign, and my son was all enthused about going to Illinois,

and I thought, I can't go to Illinois, Nick. I found about 40 scrapes on one ridge back there in... The mountains are pretty steep back in that area, and on the crest of the ridges is where the deer makes scrapes, and also feed on acres. Sometimes the sign that he made would be two miles long. He said, if I go back there one more trip with you, will you then go to Illinois?

I said, yeah, you give me no one or more change. I said, let's go back here and see if we can't get him. So we went back and put her little pup tent up, packed in, put her pup tent up. It was October the 28th, 1993, went hung her tree stands, and the next morning, just to crack a day light. I heard something that I'd heard before. And it was a deer having his horns in limbs over his head. There was a clicking sound.

A lot of people heard it. Then he came out the top of a ridge, and I could see the top of his rack. I had never seen the deer before, but I knew he was big by studying the sign. You can tell a lot, but the sign. By the track and the scrapes, by the damage he does, So he came out this ridge and he had two scrapes underneath the tree I was in. And I thought, well, maybe he'll go straight ahead. If he does, he's too far to shoot.

But he didn't. He turned down the ridge, come straight to the scrapes. I shot him when he's standing right below the scrape within 10 foot of the tree, right down through the, between the front shoulders. He ran out the ridge about 75, 80 yards, turned down the ridge and went out of the ridge and went out of the tree. my site. So I sat there for a little while and I knew immediately. It's been several years ago. It's the biggest deer I'd ever seen, both horns and bodywise. So I got out of the tree, went down there and the direction he run. I didn't try to follow the blood trail, but I knew

I could pick it up. But when I got down there, I was looking up on the side of the ridge looking for him and looked down and he was right under my feet dead. One thing I thought was really interesting, I finally found my son. He got out of the tree about 11 o'clock and come back to where we came. And I told him, I said, I got him. So we started pulling this deer at 12 o'clock. We put him on the four-wheeler at 9 o'clock at night. That's how tough it was to get out.

It was just, I mean, it was just so far back, you know, in a remote area. But we got him out. So it was just an absolute huge deer for the high. mountains yeah you know amazing in this part of the country scored 155 inches and it's only got a five-eighths of an inch deduction on the whole rack that's that's kind of amazing thing too I've never seen one that close that's just that's you know that's just one of the stories he's hanging right here right now I don't know where I got this I don't know what drives a man to to jump out of bed and a frosty morning and go several

miles back in the mountains and sit there in a tree all day except none of my people as far as I can find out fish or hunted an old man in North Carolina when I was 28 years old I got a coin with sold me a used bow he had and three wood and iris for $20 and that's where I started I think maybe I shot at a deer that year but a friend of mine went with me and someone asked him did you see a deer he said yeah Henry shot at one he said how close was He said, well, it kissed him. I missed him.

I found an old tree stand back in the mountains and got up in it. See, I didn't have a tree stand. And for the first three or four years, I didn't have a tree stand. I finally figured out I could take an old Coca-Cola case that they used to put bottles in. I could tie that up in a tree. It made a pretty good stand. So that's what I hunted off over two or three years. But it's been many years ago.

But it's something you get into that you love. you just get it in your blood. A lot of times when I go back in the mountains, I like to go back there in October and watch the leaves fall when they all turn. And I've always thought there's something magic in the mountains. You know, it's kind of magical. Watch boomers. You know what a boomer is?

Mm-mm. Okay. A boomer is a little squirrel. They're fastest greas light. And they live about 5,000 feet elevation in the mountains. And I like to watch those play. They're fast. I like to watch squirrels, bear,

all the animals. I mean, it's just magic for me. Once you get in your blood, you can't get it out. You've got to go every year. But that's the story of my favorite buck from a place in the Cherokee National Forest. Are you as passionate about bow hunting now as you were when you were in your 30s?

Every bit so. Probably the reason that is is I know it's coming to an end. You know, I've been fortunate enough to hunt some people I had a lot of respect for over the years. And one of my, one of my good friends was 10 years and 10 days older than I am. And he told me one day, he said, they'll come a day when you'll have to stop. And it'll be, it'll be tough on you. He said, it'll happen to me. It'll happen to you. And I know that's true. Yeah. But I still love to go back in the mountains,

and I can still do it and probably will until something happens. Give you an example. Last year I was in a remote area called . And I was on top of the mountain. It takes about an hour to get up there, up a tree. And a fella came by and he finally spotted me and he stopped by and apologized for, you know, affecting my dear hunting. I said, man, I hadn't seen anything.

And he said, I believe I've seen you here before. And I said, yeah, I've hunted here for many years. And he said, how old are you? And I said, I'll be 80 my birthday. And he said, man, can't believe it. He said, I said, you don't have to say anything. I know how lucky I am, you know. But when he left, he said, you know, it's amazing.

He said, come on top of this mountain and see an old man up a tree that's 79 years old. But I've been lucky. Maybe the reason that I go to the high country is because he's taking care of me. Mr. Henry is a special man, full of energy, passion, and a love of whitetail deer hunting that rivals any I've encountered. To my knowledge, he's never been interviewed about his hunting. He never cared to be, but he's been extremely successful as a bow hunter. In passing, he told me that once some knucklehead had spread a rumor in the community

that those Sioux Song boys were killing all these deer at night. He chuckled and told the num-skulled naysayer, they're hard enough to kill during the daytime. I can't imagine trying to kill one at night. As if to say, we're not as good as you think we are, buddy, but I appreciate it. I thought that was pretty witty, Mr. Henry. Thanks for sharing your story with us. Our next story is told by my friend Aaron Stanful.

He was on our first deer stories episode and told about going to the bathroom and calling in those two deer. Here's a short story about two wild days in Kansas with his brother Andy. My brother and I are in Kansas 2009 on his birthday, November the 10th. We were hunting a huge beanfield, and we had decided that we were going to try to decoy a deer in for the first time. So we bought us a Primos, I don't remember, I think his name was Bucky. A little Primos Bucky deer, come in a green bag. We set it up at the edge of the beanfield, and we'd watched enough videos we knew to turn it kind of turning towards us in the tree.

You want to do that because if a deer's coming in, you want the deer to come around your decoy because he'll always come in and face him head first. He won't ever approach another deer from the back. So we knew if he'd come around to the front, we'd have a broadside shot at the deer. We put this bucky decoy up 18 yards in front of us. We was both in this big cedar tree.

Here steps out a beautiful, beautiful nine-pointer out of the corner of the bean field, probably about, I don't know, 100 yards. It was kind of walking away, but it stopped and it saw the decoy. And when it did, it immediately, immediately threw its ears straight backwards and just bristled up and kind of just hunched over and just stiff-legged all the way across the field. It was the most dramatic, the most exciting thing that I've ever witnessed. comes all the way into the decoy.

I had to close my eyes. I'll never forget I had my eyes closed. I was just trying to get my thoughts together. I was like, I have got to keep it together right here. I was so nervous. I was shaking. It comes around the head of the decoy, and it just throws its head,

and it knocks the whole head off of the decoy. Just out there on the ground. When it did, the deer just stood there. Instead of run off, it just stood there. Like, what in the world, you know? And my brother's like, Aaron, What are you doing? Shoot the deer. Shoot the deer. And I'm like, hang on. I got to get this together.

I was like, I can't even draw my bow back. I was shaking so much. Anyway, I finally got Drew back, made a great shot on the deer, and it expired right there in the middle of the beanfield. Still probably the most exciting hunt I've ever been. And just the way that he came in was just incredible. The next evening, my brother said, hey, let's do that again. Let's get in the same tree. We'll do the same thing. There's got to be another deer in there.

So we did. Another really nice deer, probably 135-inch 10-pointer, come out the far other end of the beanfield, probably 400 yards. He's had his look through the binoculars to see it. My brother said, Aaron, there's a big buck. He's like, snort wheeze at him. So I, you know, really loud. He heard it.

And he come running all the way across the beanfield. Saw the decoy, exact same thing. come in, head first to the decoy, and he made a fantastic shot on the deer. We filmed the whole thing. We killed bucks back-to-back nights over a decoy, but we snortwees that deer, and it was such a good hunt. That's some good hunting. I asked Aaron if he had any more memorable stories.

He hesitated for a moment and said he'd like to tell one. It's really more of a confession than a story. The two other guys that he's going to mention here are, mutual friends of ours, Scott Brown and Lucas Alston. And this story is not Bear Greece approved, Mr. Aaron, but I'm pretty sure everybody's going to enjoy it. I got a funny one. I don't know what year it was. It had to have been 1998 or 1999. That's when I met all the mean a bunch. And I'd invited them to come over and have a deer camp with us over on some public land here in North of Arkansas. and Lucas Alston and Scott Brown,

they had been out driving around scouting for the deer camp. And they came back to camp, and it was a tough year. I hadn't found any sign at all to even hunt. They came back to camp. And, of course, I told them that I knew the woods back of my hand. You know, I knew every ridge over there. I knew. Well, they came back to camp, and they said, man, we have flat out found them.

He said, we have found this ridge that is just covered in deer sands. sign. White oak acres all over the ground. I thought, man, really, we're at? You know, over there? And they described exactly where it was at. And I said, yeah, I've got a, I've got a tree stand. I've never told this before. I've never, I don't think I've even told Brown. So yeah, I've got a tree stand on that ridge. And said, you've got to be kidding me. We didn't see one. I said, yeah, I do. I said, I've got one up there at the top. I didn't have a tree stand there. And they thought, man, that was, boy, should have known, you know, Stanfield's going to be, he's already figured, found out.

So they went somewhere else the next day. I wheeled in there at daylight. And I hadn't been in the tree, 10 minutes, and the big old doe come in there and I shot her. And I don't think I ever told them. We've called that Liar's Ridge to this day. I'm not proud of it, but that's just how it happened. Aaron, that was downright dirty, brother. I'm glad you finally got that off your chest.

Confession is a powerful tool. And I think you owe Scott and Luca deer. The way I figure it, 20 years of compound interest on a doe deer by my calculations equals 135 inch buck. You owe both of them, both, 135-inch deer. Don't lie to your hunting buddies, okay? I'm going to tell the next story.

This was the first big bun. buck that I ever killed. This is one of my most memorable hunts. It was October the 25th, 1998, and that's an important date because as a deer hunter, I've learned that dates are very important. And it's something that I remember pretty well of the deer that I've killed, I could tell you the date of almost every one of the big bucks. And it started with this one. I was 19 years old. I was coming back to my hometown from where I was going to college, my first year of college, at Arkansas Tech University. I was going back to hunt with dad on some scrubby public land that we grew up hunting. This land was primarily pine plantation. There was a lot of forestry going on there, so there were a lot

of clear cuts, but they would leave the hardwood timber along the riparian zones, along the creeks. and in late October when the acorns were falling, that's where you'd find the deer, wherever you found the oaks, which was along the creeks. This was a spot that my dad and I had hunted a lot in years previous. It was a place we called Blue Bucket. First time Dad went in there, he saw a blue bucket.

And so from then on, it was called Blue Bucket. Basically, it was a narrow strip of hardwood timber with two clear cuts on either side. And the clear cuts met, and the timber narrowed, down into a point. And right at that point was where dad had found multiple big scrapes, and he had been in there scouting in the middle of the day the week before, bumbling around, and actually heard a deer coming, got real quiet and still, and watched this big buck

come through and mill around in there, which was really unusual to lay your eyes on a big buck while you're scouting. And for whatever reason that next weekend, Dad didn't want to hunt in there. He probably just wanted me to have the good spot. But I went in there and hung a stand within 20 yards of this scrape. I went in early on the morning of the 25th. There was a frost on the ground. It was just the perfect morning. At this time in my hunting career, I had killed several deer with a bow, but I had never killed a mature buck. And honestly, I'd never seen a mature buck from Stan. And this is also a time when we didn't have trail cameras, we didn't have cell phones, and I might hunt a whole season to get an opportunity at one spike buck.

Well, as the morning came on, about 45 minutes after daylight, about the time you feel like you ought to be seeing some game, I hear something coming in behind me in the leaves. I hear walking, I get ready, I turn around, and here comes a coyote, and he's ziggin and zagging through the trees. mousing, hunting, and he starts hunting all around these oaks that are just raining acorns that my deer are about to be at. The coyote gets in right close to this big scrape, and I didn't hesitate, and I still don't hesitate to this day. I learned with predators that if you're going to shoot one with a bow, you can't hesitate.

You just have to make up your mind before they even get there that you're going to shoot a coyote if it's legal, and it was. By the time he got into the open, he's like 10 feet from this big scrape. And I pull back and shoot this coyote. He drops right there. Right in the heart of where the deer activity is supposed to be, there's a dead coyote laying there. I realize I got to do something.

I climb out of the stand. I drag the coyote over to the creek within sight of my stand and throw it in the water so it's submerged in the water. that a deer wouldn't be smelling a coyote, but still there's coyote, blood, and scent all just right around where the deer are going to be. I think my morning's probably shot. Climb back up in the tree, about an hour later, so now it's probably around 8.30. I hear something coming. I hear steady walking. Steady, loud walking. It's so loud that I think it's a cow because there were free-range cattle on this public land.

or I think it's a man. Typically a deer is going to walk and stop. Walk a little bit and stop. This was just steady. For 50, 60, 70 yards, just steady and loud. And I get to the point where I'm not even excited anymore. I'm just waiting for a man to pop out or a cow. Well, my eyes are just fixed on where I think this sound's going to pop up.

And man, I look up and there's the biggest buck I have seen from the stand in my whole life, probably the biggest deer I've ever seen. And he proceeds to walk right past where that coyote was, right past the coyote blood, stand in the middle of that scrape and go to work in that scrape. About the time he gets there, I get to full draw. And I'm shooting a Matthew Z-Max, which was a brand-new bow to me, and it had a very distinct valley, which means at the pinnacle moment of the draw cycle, it drops into its let off very quickly.

And so that's great. But I was having trouble, though, when I would relax a little bit too much right before the shot and the bow would jerk down. And I'm at full draw. Biggest buck I've ever seen is working a scrape, which this is something I'd only seen on television. And I'm about to shoot this deer at 20 yards.

And boom, the bow jerks down. And I have this fast, erratic movement. I just know that the buck has seen me. I close my eyes and I just barely crack him open, expecting to see a tail running off, and the buck has not seen me. But he's now done working his scrape, and he's turning, and he's leaving. I draw the bow back.

The deer is now at 33 yards, quartering away, and he stops out there, and I touch off the trigger, and the arrow just arcs into where. one of the most beautiful shots I've ever made. The Arab just buried up to the fletching behind the last rib on a steep quarter and shot, and the deer runs off. So it's 8.30 in the morning. I've now got a coyote in the creek, and I've shot a big buck.

And we didn't have cell phones. I couldn't call my dad. He was going to come back at 11 o'clock that morning. It's a really unique feeling that I had never fully felt before. When you've killed a big deer, but you hadn't recovered it yet, it's a unique experience of the mind, soul, body, spirit. There's chemicals flowing. There's emotions flowing. That's hard to describe.

I don't know that you could describe it to a non-hunter, that feeling that we get. And I just paced up and down the road, paced up and down the road for two and a half hours. And at about 1110, Dad pulls up, and he said he could tell when he saw me in the road that, something special had happened and I say, Dad, I've killed a big buck. We go track the deer. The deer hadn't run 50 yards. And it's the biggest deer I've ever killed.

It was a very mature buck. It had to have weighed at the upper side of what deer in that region would weigh. I mean, it was a big four and a half, five and a half year old buck. We took a bunch of pictures. And I remember we took a picture down to the local bow shop in my hometown and hung that picture up on the wall. And I remember what a deep sense of accomplishment that I felt as I was one of the people in the community that year that killed a really nice deer with a bow. And I remember the local paper took my picture. And at the time, I wouldn't have realized how meaningful that was

to me and how much that influenced me. He had a double white throat patch. He was a nine point that scored 126 inches. And that buck hangs in my office to this. That was a memorable buck that hooked me on those white oak acres for life and made me love October 25th. At the time, I didn't understand the larger significance of that date, but in general, many of the best hunters I know will say from October 25th through about November the 10th are the best days of the classic Midwestern-type rut. I'm sure you understand that peak breeding can be slightly to largely different regionally. But in many places white tails live, October 25th is when it starts getting good. In October 25th, 1998 is when deer hunting started getting good for me. On blood trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over.

They just get darker. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bag and there was a full of blood. Oh, my God, he doesn't have a hit. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't.

This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwoods. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkly. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together. He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th.

Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Our next storyteller is my colleague at Meat Eater, KC. Smith of E. Texas. K.C. Smith and Tyler Jones have a YouTube channel and a podcast called The Element. And I'd say these boys are pretty radical white tail hunters. Casey likes to run and gun. And this story is about a very unique ground hunt in the great plains that produced Casey's biggest white tail. Meet Casey Smith. Now I have a habit of being confident or what some might call reckless when chasing deer around on the ground and that comes from a good place I feel like I mean I always try to be a real optimistic guy and I always like to think that I have what it takes to go out there and shoot a

big buck not always the case but I feel like you just can't approach it from a position of doubt right it just doesn't work out and in fact a lot of this comes from the fact that we mess up so much Tyler and I've been trying to shoot big deer on the ground for quite a few years now and At the beginning, we used to get so heartbroken because we would just fail all the time. And it got to the point where it's like, well, we might as well go out there and chase them because we're going to mess it up anyways. Let's not put too much into it. Don't overthink it.

Just go after them. And somehow, some way that actually produced like a level of confidence. And we started to get a little bit better at this. Well, we are up in a plain state and I'm just having a dog of a time. I mean, I didn't have any place to hunt. The wind direction changed on me. I couldn't hunt that property. Didn't know if I even wanted to anyways because I already bumped all the deer off of it.

And that was about the only piece of public ground that I had access to in the area. So I was just kind of in a tight spot. Well, we did the thing that we always say we're not going to do. And we hit the phones and started calling landowners. And sure enough, Tyler pulled one out, man. It's like one of the best bro moves you can imagine. He called up this guy who he had a contact with a few years back and somehow got us some permission on a awesome piece of ground.

I end up staying up practically all night long, sick, going to the bathroom multiple times, just as bad as you can imagine for about eight hours. Being sick, that's what I was. well round about 2.30 in the morning I finally think I had my last episode and I get to lay down for about two hours get some rest but I set my alarm for 4.45

or whatever it was because I mean it's November 7th I cannot miss this day. It is one of the best deer hunting days on the calendar. The alarm goes off, roll over get out of bed. Me and my buddy Greg head out that morning. We're running late, but it's better late than never, whenever you've been sick, and it's an awesome day of hunting. And sure enough, beautiful morning, frost everywhere, super still,

just that great crisp feeling that we all love as deer hunters. We decided to park the truck and just kind of hike down the hill and do something I don't really like to do very much, but I'd call it an observation set. I have my bow with me, but I'm not going to do too much, I don't think. I'm just going to try to be out there, maybe try to kill something that night off of what I'd learned that day. And we hiked down, go to Glass and then looking around, I do have my rattling antlers with me just in case.

Sure enough, I can see a deer about 800 yards away, maybe a little closer, I don't know, and I watch him on my binoes. I can tell it's a buck. And then he's following this fence line, and he's starting. to get about as close as he's ever going to get to us and if he continues on he's going to start to get further away about 500 yards out I said why not I get my rattling antlers start hitting them together as hard as you can and the sound carries I see that deer whip his head around and at that point in time it's like oh my goodness this just went from who knows what

to like this could happen and sure enough that deer does a 180 jumps the 3rd and at that point in time it's full-fledged hunt mode. We're in rolling terrain and this buck is coming up, trying to get the winds. That's what they do. When you rattle at them, they try to go smell and see what's going on, see if they know those deer, just have a safe approach to the situation. So I run down the hill about 80, 90 yards, get set up right on the backside of this rise so that this deer will come up and be looking to where I was, not where I am.

and sure enough, I kind of can see the top of his back over the hill. He drops down where I can't see him and we just get ready, get hunkered down. I get up on one knee, get my bow in my hand ready to go, and all I see is brow times pop up over the sage. Somehow, some way. Probably my sickness helped me hold it together because I didn't have enough energy to be overly excited. And this deer's looking and he's got the sun in his eyes.

He can't see us just standing there. on the bald open prairie, right? He takes a couple more steps forward and then kind of locks it up and looks at us. And somehow, some way, I had the boldness as that deer's looking at me at like 30 yards at full draw, I give him a light snort wheeze. And that's enough to make that deer say,

you know what, I don't know what that is, but I don't like what he said to me. He takes two steps forward. I grunt stop him, squeeze my release, and pap. just hammered this thing. And I knew right away. It wasn't my greatest shot, but it was very lethal in the vitals. And we watched that deer run out about 100 yards, do a semicircle, and then lie down.

And I watched him until his antlers laid down on the ground. And from there, it was just purulation. I just could not believe I'd had the night I had, and it turned into the day that it did. This buck is awesome. He's a mainframe 10, 21 inches wide. I haven't measured him out all the way, though. So I don't know exactly what he'd score, but I'd say he pushes right at that 160 mark. And he's got split brow time.

It's just a beautiful, beautiful deer, excellent representation of what a mature buck looks like on a plain state. And I just could not be more thankful. That was a good story, Casey. Way to tough it out, take a chance with the rattling, and make the absolute most of an opportunity. That was some good hunting. say 98 out of 100 whitetail hunters wouldn't have killed that buck. The only other one that

would have probably would have been your buddy Tyler Jones. These element guys have a way of doing this kind of stuff a lot. Our next story is told by a man that I have known since 1998 and I consider him the real deal. His name

is Hooch McDonald and he's what I'd call a bona fide dog man. As you've heard I love to celebrate the diversity of ways in which we hunt deer in America. Hooch is from a region of Arkansas where dog hunting is alive and well. He's going to spend some time telling

the ends and outs of running deer with dogs. Some of it might surprise you. Here's old Hooch. My name is James McDonald, but most folks call me Hooch. I've been Hooch since before I was born. They call me Hooch because of my grandpa. He passed about a month before I was born.

it's not real sure which of these were the cause of me being Hootch, but he was a moonshiner for one, and Hootch is a slang for moonshine. So that's one thought. And then my dad wanted to call me Hoot after one of his uncles, and then they think that my grandpa just couldn't really get hoot out, and he kept saying Hooch. So when they lost him, and then I came along right after, The name stuck.

Deer hunting in the South with dogs is a complete social event. There is no sitting in a tree by yourself watching sign, feedpile, whatever. It's buddies and lots of camaraderie, storytelling, bullcrap, you know, messing with each other. I mean, that's what makes it fun. And a typical day for us, we start off a little bit of. before daylight, either somebody will pick up breakfast and bring up there or we'll get together early enough and we'll cook breakfast. And then about daylight, we load dogs, and then we all gather around and we decide who's turning loose for one and where we're going to turn loose.

And then the way we do it is we have crossings that we've known for years. Deer tend to use the same crossings. Like if we go into this block of woods, there's top three escape but then there's others that you know sometimes they run up to that escape route and there's smell somebody here something and they're turning to go the other way and shoot out one of the other side routes so we try to cover everything rarely do we cover everything well the dog man whoever's turning loose decides where he wants to go and he usually ramrods the whole drive people will speak up and say you know I want this stand if nobody else does and then

And once everybody decides where they're going, he turns loose, just casts the dogs. That's the way we hunt. Some people down in the sandy country, they'll put them on a track. But we just kind of cast into bedding areas, acre and flats, lots of buck sign in places. You know, that's where we're hot scrapes. And then dogs are turned loose. Our style of dogs, for the most part, will cold trail. You know, they'll start barking some when they smell something.

once they get that deer up and running, they really get fired up and make lots of noise. And that's when it gets exciting. I have always had dogs with tree blood in them, whether it be tree and walkers, red bones, blue ticks, even some English here and there. And the reason I like that is the tree dog always runs the track. He doesn't run the wind like some of these running dogs will.

Some of these running dogs, when they cross the road, they may be 15, 20 yards down the road, downwind from where the deer crossed. The tree dog is almost always within a few feet of where the deer crossed. And tree dogs are always trashy anyway. Right. And there's something about a tree dog that they just sound different. You have registered walker? Oh, no.

I don't have. Yeah, just gray dogs. We don't care about papers. When people bring registered dogs sometimes and they don't pan out, like they're supposed to. The running joke is he didn't want to cross because he's afraid he gives papers wet. Once the dogs get the deer up and they're running, they're making lots of noise, you know, they're going to eventually, I may circle some, but they're going to eventually kind of line out and head hopefully towards one of our standards. So that's when that standard's life

gets exciting. You can hear the dogs getting closer and closer and then brush starts breaking, your heart starts pounding, your adrenaline's going through the roof, because you don't know if it's going to be a yearling, a dough, or a 12 point. The only thing that I have experienced that compares to running dogs is working a turkey in the spring. It's interesting that Stony Edwards used the exact same analogy of spring turkey hunting. I wanted to ask Cooch about a potential stereotype about running deer with dogs. Here's what he said.

Okay, so to address the statement from a lot of the world about dog hunters are lazy, that couldn't be any further from the truth. Dog hunting is 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, really. You've always got dogs to tend to. You've got to feed, water, vaccinate, vet bills. It's definitely not just for those six weeks a year. There's training, raising puppies, because everybody, Everybody in the business, they want to raise their own dogs. Okay, so there's so much involved in running deer with dogs.

It's not just, you go out there and turn some dogs loose and deer run everywhere and you go to shooting. It's not the best way to thin the herd. You will kill far more deer sitting in a tree. It is more about the time with your buddies. Hooch has done a good job of explaining the context and how to of hound hunting. And to reiterate his point about it being a difficult way to hunt, not an easy way to hunt, let me say this. If I killed a big buck in front of dogs, it would be equivalent to me as if I'd killed it with traditional archery equipment or some other self-limiting method of hunting. To many people, the only sporting way to kill a deer is when it's being pursued by dogs.

Think about that for a minute. It's an interesting perspective. And I say that only to help us all, including myself, enlarge the way that we view the world and take a little walk in another man's shoes. I'm going to turn it back over to Hooch for him to tell one of his most memorable hunts. And you're going to hear him talk about road crossings, but it's essential to know that they're running on gated private land. Okay, so one of my most memorable things. stories with dogs. It takes place December the 3rd, 1999. It was actually reading day when I was

enrolled in Arkansas Tech. So the Friday before our final exams, well, I chose to go deer hunting. It was a little bit stormy that morning, so we didn't get to, we didn't get to hunt right at daylight. Let me back up just a little bit because I had hunted the weekend before, And we had made this same drive, and I was standing up on the crossing. And you could see off in the draw a little bit. And I was standing up on a saddle on the end of the mountain, and the dogs were coming, and boy, I thought they were coming right to me. My heart was pounding.

I could hear the brush breaking, and then the brush breaking got really loud, and then all of a sudden it started going away. So I run over to the edge and stand up on a stump where I could see, and I got two or three glimpses, and all I could see was antlers. I'm like, oh my goodness. So now, back to that Friday morning, we decided we were going to make the same drive.

And me, I'm always thinking. So I had watched what he done the weekend before. I thought, you know, I'm not going to stand on the road. I'm going to get off the road down there in the draw. So even if he does come up and cross the road, I'll still have a shot at him. But if he doesn't, then, you know, I'll get a. a shot at him down there. Well, I got off down there and found me a good stump where I could

sit and see 75, 80 yards in any direction. And I heard them when they started hooping and turned the dogs out. When just a little bit, the dog started trailing and just a little bit longer. They jumped, and I could tell, you know, they were coming my way. Well, they come up there and started up the draw I was in, and they got almost to me and then kind of turned and started going away. I thought, well, this is over. And then I look down, look down the draw, and here come a book. Okay, so I guess he had turned a circle quite a ways in front of the dogs, and then come back to me. So I'm watching, I'm just catching glimpses, and I can tell it's a really good book.

Well, he gets on up there about, like 60 yards, and I start following him with my rifle, and watching him through the scope, and he hits an opening, and I squeeze the trigger. and nothing happened. I mean, he kept coming. So I squeezed the trigger again. And then I thought he went down, but I wasn't sure. And then all of a sudden here comes another buck that's a really nice book. He turns.

I didn't know it at the time, but he watched the buck in front of him fall. And so he turned and started going the other way. And then there was another buck behind him. Well, they went out the other draw, and when they hit the, the other cross and I heard my dad shoot. There was another guy standing there with him and I guess the third buck had ran to him and heard him shoot. After all that happened, I went back up, I didn't even go look right then. I went back up the hill, got on the radio and found out that they had killed the two bucks over there. And I went down there, shoot, I got 15, 20 yards from it and I could

see antler sticking up over the grass. I'm like, oh my goodness. He ended up being a nine point that Gross scored 132, which at the time was a giant to me. And the buck my dad killed, he was low 120s. And then the other one was just a five point, but, you know, backstraps are backstraps. We all got together, put them all up on the dog box, took a picture. And even the guys that didn't pull the trigger, they've got the biggest grin. Because it's not I kill the deer when it comes to running dogs. It's we killed the deer.

That feeling of it's not I that killed the deer, but we killed the deer. That stuff is pretty unique to dog hunting. I love the solo aspects of tree stand bow hunting, but a group experience with like-minded people is hard to top. That was a great story, hooch. Our final storyteller is Aaron Stanfell's little brother, Andy. And just because he's little doesn't mean that he doesn't kill a lot of big bucks and I mean Andy's just like a normal size guy so you know he's not little and uh it turns out

he's actually killed bigger deer than Aaron these guys are deer hunters I'm telling you this is the story of the hunt for a giant Kansas buck they called daddy rabbit I've forgiven Aaron for lying to Scott and Luke and so he and Andy are going to tag team on this one so I'm Andy Stanfield and I'm here with my brother, Aaron Stanfield, and our cousin has family in Kansas. So we've been going up there bo-hunting for this would have been our 23rd consecutive year. So it all starts back in around 2000. We slowly, you know, started getting permissions from farmers here and there. And in the early 2000s, we had a lot of land that we could hunt. Well, what happened was our cousin, Jared, his grandpa, bought a farm in the 50s. It was an old homestead place.

and since then his son was living there on the place. And I remember one day they told us that, hey, boys, if you guys will come up and put a big spread out in the yard some spring, we'll have the whole community, the whole church crowd, congregation, I'll come over there after church. So me and Andy, our buddies, Scott and Jared, we had much fried crop, wild turkey, all the desserts. I mean, we laid out a spread now. And the whole congregation showed up after church. And, man, next thing you know, that next year we had a lot of land to hunt. So it's been good.

It's a second home to us. This particular farm, like I said, didn't have very many trees on it, really. So Aaron hung his stand on the north end of it, and everything that we have, we share. You know, we put the tree stand in together. We trimming everything out. You know, we anticipate every stand that we put in, we anticipate you on a big deer there. So we go to the north side and we put that stand in. I go to the south end and we hang another set over there.

Both of them in big cedar trees, big bushy cedar trees. We try to always hunt out of cedar tree. Try to always have a hole on our left side so we ain't got to get up. Both of them were fantastic sets. So in 2018, right off the bat, I mean, we had numerous shooters on that north end. And one of those was just a giant, non-typical deer. It's hard to say. One of the biggest bodied deer that we had hunted in Kansas in 23 years, so just a giant of a deer.

He was so big that his rack, you know, it was just about 13 inches wide that he was so massive. But his rack just didn't look that big because he was such a big buck. But lots of trash on his bases, lots of horns everywhere. I mean, over the two years' time frame, we had hundreds of pictures of this deer. And we estimated him at 170s, 1.70s, somewhere in that ballpark. part. November the second of 2018, I had the deer at 35 steps with a dough. Got behind two big hedge apple trees on me and I couldn't get a shot at him. I tried everything I could do to get him in there and he just wouldn't leave her and he was, he was one special animal. We didn't get him killed in

2018 and then fast forward to 2019. And you didn't draw a tag that year. Which was heartbreaking. I'm sure God had a plan for that. So October the 18th, 19th, when we first went up. Yeah. So he was all over. Our camera, you know, he basically beds in there. That was his bedding. So the last part of the week, we finally got our north wind,

and it got really, really cold. So on the morning of October the 24th, I'm laying there in bed, and we're both wide awake, and we both know that this is the morning we've been waiting on. It's high pressure. He was there the night before. He was there the night before, and it's cold, and we've got a north wind.

And even though I didn't draw a tag, I wasn't going to miss that. week. We're always up there together. There's four of us and we camp all week and I was up there all week just itching, you know, but just helping everybody else and camping. So my alarm, my alarm goes off and Aaron's already awake. I was like, Aaron, you think there's any way you can get up there with me in that tree? Because we had a camera. We used to film a lot of our hunts and because we thought it was going to go down. We talked about that for a little bit. Looking back on it, we probably made the right decision because we'd probably made a lot of racket that, you know, early morning,

But so I got up super early and walked out through this cedar thicket. And as in all cedar thickets, it's easy to get lost. And I didn't want to shine a flashlight. I was trying to go super quiet in there. Sure is a world, I got turned around a little bit. I actually made a small circle on the north side of my tree. I just could not. I mean, all the trees look the same.

I was like, this is not happening, you know. And I finally got my bearings, found my tree. And just soon it started breaking day. I hear some deer get up. So this dough comes in. She's a very mature dough. I mean, she was, and it's the very same dough that all of our game camera pictures have shown.

He's always been with this dough that's, you know, four or five, I mean, a power dough. Super rare to see a giant white tail get with a dough that early in the year. But he was with her. When we pull cards, he was with her. So I recognized her, you know, right off the bat, as she's coming in.

So she walks in there, you know, 20 yards away away from me and I don't see him. And she keeps on walking out and she gets, you know, 30 or 40 yards away for me. And I look back and all I can see is this cedar limb just thrashing in the woods back there. And so I got pretty worked up and I knew it was him. And he's just taking a sweet time and he's falling that dough about 60, 70 yards away. And he finally gets in there and takes the very same travel path as what she did and gets in there broadside. You know, I always try to compose myself, and I had plenty of time to think about it.

Dad had always told me, you hunt hard, and when the opportunity arises, you know, you do your part. So I pulled my bow back, and he was there broadside, and I made a really good shot on him. And he ran and took a little circle, and it came right back underneath my tree where I'm standing, and he slows down right there underneath me. And I'm just looking straight down on him, and he's walking very, very much. very slow. He walks over there and takes a little circle about 15 or 20 yards away from me to my left. I've killed a lot of deer and I've never seen a deer do this, but he, just like an old cow would, you know, he puts his hind legs down and puts his front elbows down and he lays down perfect.

He doesn't fall over. His front two hooves are straight on the ground when he laid down. And he just kind of leaned his head over on a cedar tree. And I've got pictures of that. It was just like, you know, it was just his time and it just, it was a weird deal. Just an old majestic buck like that, you know, lived his whole life and it was just my buck of a lifetime. And I got over there and usually I text and call and I didn't. I climbed down and I went over there and man, it was emotional for me. And we nicknamed him Rabbit after Daddy Rabbit after our cousin, Jared's grandpa that had such a big part in our lives up there. You know, it's his farm and he had just passed away.

And so yeah, it was an emotional deal. I just cried around a little bit and called Aaron, called dad, and they came over and we all dragged it out together. And it was just a special moment for all of us, you know. And that's just what it's all about. I mean, and we've done that numerous times, you know, on smaller deer, you know, if you're all there together and that's what it's all about. And man, I couldn't have, I couldn't have drew it up any better.

So we got back to the cabin. He's like, man, what's this thing score? And we started putting the tape together. We bought one of those new at Walmart. They sell those little orange tapes. Trophy tape. Trophy tape. You know, you kind of rip it there and you rip it off.

Well, that's all we had. And we'd never used it before. So we started taping this deer. I did. I'm the one that did it. And I tape, you know, here and there. Well, we ran out of tape. Tape just went to 200 inches.

We ran out. It ran out and getting the spread. So it ended up being, of course, I had to officially scored and ended up being 203 and 6'8s. Killing a 200-inch deer is an experience the vast majority of whitetail hunters will never experience.

The history that they had with this buck and the fact that Andy's brother and father were able to be there was unique and unforgettable. That was a good story. This brings to conclusion our deer stories episodes this fall, and I already miss them.

I'm going to miss talking to all these folks until next year. I really hope that you have a great fall and make some great memories in this ephemeral window of time when we chase white tail bucks. Really, I wish you the best of luck this fall. And I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Grease. Please leave us a review on iTunes and share our podcast with the worst white tail hunter you know. And tell them that. Tell them Clay said share it with the worst.

So here it is. I'm just kidding. but be sure to check out First Lights white tail hunting gear. They make the best white tail gear in the industry. And if you want to actually try some on, you can go to any Shields store in America and you'll find a First Light section. This is new.

I look forward to talking with everyone on the rendered next week. Now it's time to go kill a big boat. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey diaphragms called prime cuts. Now I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for.

I have a great turkey hunting track record. If you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right? That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelps Game Calls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.