The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 338: The Biggest Buck in the USA

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Steven Rinella talks with Dustin Huff, Janis Putelis, Brody Henderson, Mark Kenyon, Spencer Neuharth,  Phil Taylor, and Corinne Schneider. Topics discussed: Touring with Luke Combs; killing it with a crossbow; when a marten attacks Jani's hens; The Rinella Doctrine; a very long passage about what male turkeys do to female turkeys; why you best leave it 'till tomorrow; Seth and Chester’s 17th place finish in their first ever walleye tournament; the crew being pro pay-to-camp in National Forest; big bucks on the hog farm; how Dustin doesn’t use trail cams; shoulder growths; when everyone knows but no one says; Megatine Junior; Spencer and Mark, the big buck blowhards; just a deer hunter; when you shoot the biggest deer in America; texting with pops; “it's going to be a wall hanger!”; getting a buck named after you; the bullcrap aftermath and the haters; waiting for the cash money offers; "I Should Be Fishing" and other songs by Dustin; and more.    Connect with Steve and MeatEater Steve on Instagram and Twitter MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube Shop MeatEater MerchSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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First Light. Go farther, stay longer. All right, everybody. Super special guest. every hunt. First light. Go farther, stay longer. Alright everybody, super special guest. Singer-songwriter Dustin Hough who also might be known You like that? Yeah.

Just playing up the singer-songwriter part. I do like it. Who happens to have who happens to be the new typical whitetail record holder. Yep. Got to get lucky sometimes. Dude. It's a big deal. Yeah.

It's been nuts, man. This past six months has been crazy. Here you are sitting with a Huff Buck t-shirt on. You're like officially like a dude with a buck named after him. Never thought that deer hunting would turn into a business. You're friends with Luke Combs. Yep. And Luke contacted me one night, texted me one night, being like, holy shit.

Yeah. And at the time you guys thought it was a state record. Yeah, we just thought it was state. Hmm. Yeah, he called me at 2 in the morning the night I killed it. I assume he was getting on bus call after a tour, and I had sent the picture to Ray Fulcher, one of our buddies that we used to tour with,

and he still tours with Luke. And, uh, I sent Ray that picture of the deer. Cause I didn't post it that night. I just tweeted. I think I killed the Indiana state record. Now.

Okay. We're going to get into this whole story. How did you think, but real quick, why did you think it was that just cause someone rough scored it? Yeah. I had a buddy come over that, that evening after I killed it.

And he undershot it? Yeah. That's a good friend. Yeah, he had like 213, which he had never scored. It was like his first time scoring a big deer. And what did it come in at? 213 is what he had. So he overshot.

No, no, no, that's what he had. It was 211 and 4-8s net, 216 and 2-8s gross. Oh, okay. So he overshot the actual. Yeah. But how did you not immediately realize? Because you didn't look at national. You just looked at Indiana.

I just looked at Indiana. I Googled Indiana state record because I had never looked at world records or anything. Yeah, you felt like distinctly Indiana. Yeah, I was like, well, hell, this might be Indiana. And it crushed it, right? Yeah, by like 8, 10 inches or something. Damn. 10, maybe even more.

So the only typical whitetail bigger out there is in Canada. Canada. The Hanson. Hanson buck. Yep. If you want to know what the Hanson Buck looks like,

go look at Pat Durkin's truck. He's got a decal of it on his truck. Does he need a Huff Buck one? You do. Definitely.

As part of your business plan, you need to get Huff Buck stickers. That'd be good. That'd be good. Yeah. You gotta get on that.

You got your guitar? No, we brought you a guitar. Yeah. You got to get on that. You got your guitar? No, we brought you a guitar. Yeah. I wish you had that whole damn deer head with you. I know. If I could have fit it on the plane, I would have brought it. I'd like to see it. Show me with your hands how big is it.

I guess I could have drove my Ford Focus out here all the way. I'm going to ask you a ton of questions about the whole story, but I got one question to ask you first. When you drew back on it, were you thinking, damn, that's a big buck? Oh, I knew he was huge right whenever I first seen him in the creek. He was faced, and I was just like, this is a 180-inch deer. That's all I was thinking because I had never even seen a 150-inch deer.

To clarify, he killed it with a crossbow. Oh, he did? It was a crossbow, yeah, he did? Okay. Yeah. Good shot placement. Thank you. 40 yards. Killed him with a crossbow. Yep. Hmm. We'll talk about that. Yep. Yep.

Dude rolling in from West Valley City, Utah. Name is Braxton. There's a thing called a... There's a thing that happens to babies. Bra is Braxton. There's a thing called a... There's a thing that happens to babies. Braxton Hicks. Or is that something that happens to women? No, no, no. That's a woman thing.

Yeah. Aren't those like the false contractions? Yeah, if you're a lady out there. The two of you listening. Oh, a lot of times people come out to me in airports. They'll be like... I always like... It's just dudes that come out to me in airports they'll be like you know i always like it's just dudes that come out to me in airports right but then now and then a woman will come to me in airport and i'm like awesome she'd be like my husband likes your show

he was too scared to come up that's him over there waving sheepishly taking pictures my husband likes your show. You ladies out there, roughly how pregnant are you when you start having Braxton Hicks? It's pretty close to the end. That's in like the eighth. Yeah, I mean, that's up to the finish line. So if you're sitting there listening to the show

and you're like, oh my God, I'm going into labor. You might just be having Braxton Hicks. Contractions. This dude's named Braxton who I'm talking about. That's why I bring it up. He's a turkey hunter. Sounds like he might be a new turkey hunter. He might be an emerging turkey hunter.

Because he says, first off, he's allergic to pollinating juniper trees. That's important to lay out. He says in all of his turkey hunting, he's only ever gotten one shot gobble off a turkey. And that was when he was having a reaction to a juniper tree and sneezed and shot gobbled a bird 20 yards behind him. He started laughing so hard the bird got away. So if we ever redo our t-shirt of shit that makes turkey gobbles, is that even on there? Sneezes? I don't think it's on there.

Puking's on there. Really? Yeah, we had a guy puke up one. Got a shot gobble off him. Since I can't really turkey call, maybe those are the noises I should practice making when I'm walking around. Sonic booms. Yeah. Sonic booms, puking, everything.

The Chinook. Oh, yeah. Twin rotor helicopters. Yanni, can you recap your story about everything that's going on at your turkey farm? Like the whole thing. pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop pop And about how they come in the house looking for their eggs. Mm-hmm. Just a quick recap. What about them getting eaten by predators? Whatever you like. Yeah, whatever. All right. Well, do you know Yanni got predated by his chickens got attacked by a Martin?

He's the only guy I know who had his chickens attacked by a Martin. Yeah. And turkeys, but the turkeys survived. They just lost quite a few. One lost a chunk of her upper beak, and she lost a whole... I was wondering about that one hen that was missing. She lost two of Martin.

As far as we know. I'd have liked to have What are the other possibilities? Well, his wife caught the Martin red-handed. You know, skunks are around, foxes. Fox, I think, does the most damage to us. Can I interrupt real quick? Mm-hmm. I'm reading the world's greatest book ever written

called Black Range Tales. It's Carl Malcolm's book. I own a copy too. It's crazy because we were hunting in this area in New Mexico and he said, man, you got to read Black Range Tales. Well, I can't give this detail away. He said, never mind.

I'll tell you another thing though i almost gave away my hunt spot like real specifically gave it away but anyway now they're gonna go and read there's a guy tails and figure it out so it's like the forest it won't work like that so anyways there's a dude in black range tails there's a miner who has... You know how everybody used to have rheumatism all the time in the old days? Mountain men, miners. Achy bones.

They all had rheumatism. Arthritis, achy bones. Yeah. So one miner had come to another miner telling him, I need a big fat skunk in the book. And actually, he tells the story of how they wind up getting the skunk for him. He needs a big fat skunk, and they get the skunk, but the skunk sprays him. Then they carry the skunk around, and then they render its fat, because you know how, like, snake oil?

This miner believed that skunk fat rubbed on his joints would cure his rheumatism, and it worked. Definitively. He came back a while later and said it cleared up. But the miner that got the skunk, he knew that when you had rheumatism, he got on his horse. This is in the 1880s. He would get on his horse and ride to the hot springs and cure his rheumatism in the hot springs. I like his cure better.

And the mountain men would suffer horribly from it because they didn't have chest waders and they were beaver trapping in the water. Yeah, how'd they do that? Because they'd wear, they'd build, they'd make buckskin pants that went to your upper knee and then they'd put wool

there down just to add a little insulation. So when you see a picture of a free trapper and he's got the buckskin and then wool lowers, but they would, they would get suffered

in their knees from all that cold water and the, he was a placer miner. So they're working stream beds and he would get rheumatism from just staying in the cold water all the time. You getting it yet?

Yeah. I'll tell you when I get it. It's very specific. If I stop and kneel in the snow and then walk down a steep hill. Which you think wouldn't come up very often, but it does. I'll get you some stuff. Oh no, Yanni, tell your freaking turkey story.

Well, last August we received in mail, I think we had to order 20. And when they got there, I want to say that 18 had made it. So you open the box and there's two dead turkeys in it? Yeah. And I think that that attrition is expected. They're like days old and they you know, they just, you know, were shipped across the country where I think they came out of maybe your neck of the woods, Dustin, somewhere down around those parts.

Not quite in the South, not quite in the Midwest. Southeast. Not quite the South. Right in the middle. Is there ice fishing? That's how we can tell. Well, oh yeah. There is?

That is why. Ice fishing where you live? Yeah. In Indiana? We go ice fishing all the time. For can do it. Oh yeah. There is? Ice fishing where you live? In Indiana? We go ice fishing all the time. For how many months of the year? Month. Month or so. Farm ponds, man. I don't know if you know, but there's

a thing called the Rinella Doctrine. If you live in a state where they can ice fish, you don't live in the South. Really? Well, I guess I'm North then. Oh, Yankee. Yep. Your accent just changed when you said that.

Oh, shoot. Gosh darn it. When we were hunting with Luke, we were laughing about, like, they were saying, hey, they were telling, Luke and his friends were asking us to do like, so do your Southern thing for us. And I was like, there's no way in the world. There's no way in the world

I'm going to tell you guys how we goof, like the voice we use to goof on Southerners. And they're like, well, we have the same thing. Like when we talk about Yankees, and he does it, and I'm like, you're not talking about Yankees,

you're talking about people from Northern Wisconsin. Oh, yeah. Okay, guy. Two fillets per salmon. Big box. I'm like, why are you doing this on a Northern accent? We're up in Green Bay. Yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, guy. Big box. The turkeys. Yep. So we raised them up and sold off, I don't know, sold off most of them. What did you do with the dead ones in the box? It wasn't ceremonious, was it?

No. Okay, no. Yeah, the garbage can, probably. But we raised them up and sold off most of them. I think we were, my goal was to keep five, I think. Hold on a minute.

Sold them as what? Just sold turkeys. Meat turkeys? Well, whatever you want to do with them. How big were they when you sold them? Oh, jeez. I don't know. Pretty good.

I mean, like a fall poult, you know? Like a bird that where you're like, it's almost the size of a- Who were you selling them to? Yeah, we just wanted to kind of break even. I just put it out on Instagram. On Instagram? Yeah. So you broadcast to a national audience.

Yeah, and you know what? That was a mistake because a lot of people from far away were like, so what would it take to get a couple in southern Indiana? I'm like, bro, no, it's not happening. Okay. You can, if you can drive here, you can buy as many as you want. So yeah, it wasn't too hard. We ended up selling them all to, I think there's some living in, you know, I think I told you, I sold some to the daughter of, gosh darn, I'm not gonna remember his uh name now john the turkey author that i was saying that we should have on the show that lives with his daughter out by like three forks

country now they bought some and uh we did that deal right in the costco parking lot i just had a box turkeys put them in her truck. She gave me some cash. And then there's some living, I think, down kind of like South Cottonwood at the mouth of Highlight. I was down there the other day. And anyways, unfortunately, in the end, when I thought I had one, I wanted one to keep one Jake, because we thought we would enjoy the Jake in the spring when he would gobble and strut around, you know? Yeah. And, uh,

turns out I can't sex them very well, even when they're, you know, five, six months old. And so I was left with a bunch of hens and, uh, we lost, I don't know, a few more. Anyways, we're down to two now, two hens. We lost some to a pine, Martin. Probably lost some. What happened is I was trying to teach them to roost in those fir trees, you know, right next to the driveway there. So you're like, gather around, turkeys. No, we threw them up in there that one night.

Yeah. We'd throw or place one or two onto a limb, and then everybody else would be like, oh, okay, and fly up. It was quite impressive to see. The general flying of the turkeys that we got to watch while we had the big flock was cool. They'd climb way up that hill behind the house, and then when they were done on the hill, they wouldn't walk down. They'd all pitch and then come swooping and dive bombing in

and land right like at the garage or next to the garage. And to see like 15 turkeys do that together, it's a pretty cool thing. But yeah, they weren't smart

about roosting. And no matter how many times I pitched them up there, they liked this fence. And the fence was maybe six feet tall. I guess that that is low enough to the ground

where a fox can jump up and get some part of them. Yeah. And anywho, I had a day I came home. I'm getting to the part where the turkeys got into the house. I come home. I go into the house, leave what we call the service door open. It's just like the side door into the house. And go back to the truck to go grab a few things, some groceries or whatever.

And in this short little period of time, all five of our chickens and the two hens have gone into the kitchen. And one hen has jumped up onto the countertop where the eggs are kept. And at this point, the turkey hens were laying eggs. And she is with her beak sort of fondling and rolling a turkey egg that's in a basket of eggs. And I can see that she is specifically working the turkey egg and not the chicken eggs that are around it. So I thought that was kind of interesting that she like walked into the house and literally within 30 seconds like knew exactly where the eggs were

and then was able to pick out possibly her egg. Then another little interesting thing that we had happen was that some wild jakes showed up. A four pack originally. They're down to three now. Brody they were there again last night and they actually

roosted at the house last night. Brody can't get it done. Well he just hasn't had time. Huh? You didn't let me know last night, and they actually roosted at the house last night. Brody can't get it done. Well, he just hasn't had time. You didn't let me know last night. It was late. Oh, okay. It was too late. Why don't you just move in over there for a while? Set up a tent.

You and Hayden. Set up a tent in the yard. And one day, we're in the basement looking out the basement windows, and all the Jakes are there, and our two hens are there. And it's interesting because Jennifer thinks that our hens think that they're chickens. And when they see those wild jakes, they don't go, oh, you're one of us. They're like, what are you? They literally could give a shit if those jakes are there strutting, gobbling, or whatever.

Couldn't. Yeah, couldn't give a shit. They don't pay any attention to them whatsoever. Like they want it so little that they wouldn't even give shit for it. Exactly. But one time. Like something you normally just want to get rid of. They wouldn't even give that for it.

You got it. Yeah. Thanks for got it. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the clarification. One time, I don't know if next to the house, everybody's got this where like the grass doesn't quite grow right up to the edge of your house and you kind of sort of have like either a mud

or a dirt or like a dusty dry kind of zone where the grass kind of quits before you hit like the concrete, you know? I would do. Well, chickens and turkeys will like to dust in that stuff. So I don't know if this hen was dusting or if she actually laid down to get bread, but basically

right outside the window, like right under our noses, those four jakes bred what looked like bred her. All four of them. Yeah. Hard to say what, you know. Kids are like, those turkeys are fighting. Oh, no, no.

I told my girls, I said, listen, that when you guys talk about this, uh, use that word sexy and it's like super cute and all that. I said, that's what the boys are going to want to do to you right there. Getting it straight. Yeah. No. We talk about everything with our kids, man. because they're hearing about it anyway at school oh yeah yeah i'd rather from yanni's kids well what's gonna happen susie is you're gonna lay down and oh we just lay it all out man it was funny you start laying something out for your kids that you think you're being

a little ahead of the game to lay it out for them they're like oh yeah tell me something i heard yeah oh i heard at school that what happens is like now listen while we're on the subject no that's not what happens what happens is this but there's nothing you can't get ahead of anything no not in public school so we figured they may have or may not have gotten bread we were going to then save the eggs and put them in an incubator but uh the more we researched it and and started messing around with it or didn't mess around with it because it was just going to be a uh a big investment to get into it. To get an incubator. In time, yeah.

We kind of had them. Then we were reading reviews on the incubators and the warmers. You got to turn them. Why can't she just incubate her egg? We tried. They're just too dumb. Yeah, they're just not into it. They don't know enough about being turkeys.

No. I don't know. I wonder if that's part of the problem they had When they used to try to reintroduce turkeys By putting out domestic Like farm raised wild turkeys That they could never pull together They didn't know how to avoid predators They didn't know how to nest And then they realized you gotta move wild turkeys

To establish wild turkeys That's right Can I tell you two pieces of feedback? Yeah please do So one I like It was a very long email that's all one sentence Is it really? Oh it's great

It's like Cormac McCarthy would get lost Reading this sentence That says something It's a great sentence I can read it But one guy wrote in Very similar experience to you yanni he lives in the area hold on is this a sentence or not no no there's two two turkey letters that are of note the first one is not a single sentence got it but he lives in the area northeast of atlanta they hadn't seen a wild turkey um in 15 years

hold that thought from it in the book in barry lopez's book arctic dreams he talks about this phenomenon that happens where you know what a fjord is there's a thing that happened to whales belugauga whales now and then, where they'll be working the back of a fjord and the fjord will freeze. And so, so much of the fjord freezes that they can't hold their breath long enough to get from the area they've kept open out to the open sea.

So they've kept it open by swimming around. Their activities have kept it open. Oh. And they'll be locked there. It can be quite a group of them. And they just keep an area open and they can't hold their breath long enough to get out from the ice. Okay. And the ice is too thick to break it.

And when this happens, here's the ice is too thick to break it. And when this happens, here's the part that the mystery part of it, when this happens, polar bears just materialize there. And it's like, how in the world? It was talking about this one time this happened in like 13 polar bears wound up there. And it'd be like,

how do they know? How do they know this is going on? So do the whales die? And then are on shore rotting? No, they keep a small area open. So these whales are just swimming around in a circle alive in the water. And they're going down. They're coming up and breathing. And their activity, there's a whole pod of them.

And they're able to keep a little breathing hole open. But they can't leave because they can't hold their breath long enough to get to other open water. And it's like this mystery that he gets into. I was just ruling out that there wasn't like a rotting whale carcass that a bear could smell for 10 miles. Well, bears are killing it. But even like, if you look at like the densities of bears, there's bears from, this isn't just ones that wander by.

It's sort of like this mystery, like how does, like, how does word get out? Are they that good at smelling? You know, or whatever. Hold that thought. No wild turkeys in 15 years. His old man had killed one 15 years earlier, and that was a rare sighting. He gets some hens. He goes out and buys some turkey hens, and bam.

There's a strutter out breeding his hens. Like word gets out. He watched what hen got bred by the strutter and saved her eggs and he's incubating those eggs. He hatched them, I think, according to that email. I ended up hatching off the majority of her eggs that she laid and had great success with the offspring in this breeding season. So yeah, successfully he hatched the hybrids.

I would like to ask him a follow up. His name's Slade. Follow up question. Hell of a name. If the offspring, if they were more, did they tend to be more wild slash feral, or did they just follow the domestic mom around and become barnyard birds?

Ready for the single sentence? Please. Oh, you know what? There's a period in here. Did someone go into ad periods? I rewrote the whole thing. Oh, Corinne! Corinne! Oh, Corinne. Corinne. Oh, Corinne. Pause.

Give me the original. I want to hear the original. Oh, dude. It's a great sentence. This might be a new song. Actually, I don't even think it's a sentence because it doesn't have a period at the end. Okay. So it's whatever you have.

It's a passage. Stream of consciousness. Oh, yeah. But it's great passage stream of consciousness oh yeah but it's great though great you have been talking a lot about turkeys on the podcast lately so i thought i would share with you a pretty crazy story i live near a creek we say creek where i'm from a creek is the sound a rusty door hinge makes anyway moving on bear with me anyway moving on my wife thought a few turkeys added to the barn yard would be a good idea to eat what the horses cows and pigs leave behind and we would eat them in the fall so she brought home a tom and two hens she got from a friend they were adults and she thought she would just hatch them off and raise her own long story short at one point

there was six jakes and two Toms that came up from the creek to strut on the two hens, and that poor bastard Tommy was working his ass off to defend his two hens. He had been fighting so much, most of the feathers on his breasts and legs was gone from being spurred off from the wild turkeys. I came home from work

to find one of the hens dead. Didn't think much of it. Maybe she was sick, or who knows. A few days later, I find the second hen dead with two or three of the wild jakes still breeding her even though she was dead. And old Tommy joined the dark side and was joining in. Period. Oh, right. There's a period.

That was the sentence. That's how it ends. That looks like an accident. No, that was one sentence. I don't think he even meant to put that period there. Yeah, it continues. It continues because the next two words are the continuation. There's supposed to be an N instead of that period.

He was joining in on the fun. Oh, sorry. So it's still the same sentence. Listen, here's the thing. This is not to dog on the person who wrote it. Because it's like, everything I need to know is here. All the details. Everything I need to know is here.

You could have a guy who's real good with a period who would not be able to write is here. All the details, everything I need to know is here. You could have a guy who's real good with a period who would not be able to write this story. So this is nothing, no comment on that. It's great. Or it'd be a natural break. She was dead and old Tommy joined the dark side and was joining in on the fun.

Giannis was saying there might be more to the turkey that we have yet to learn. Talking about his hen rooting through the eggs on his counter. But nature along with man kind of can be pretty brutal. Can you imagine being bred to your death? Pretty rough way to go. Thanks for all the good work and great educational entertainment. You got that last sentence.

On the bright side. On the bright side, on the bright side, old Tommy was already half plucked for the roaster and my brother and two of my younger cousins killed a couple nice toms that year right from the pasture. Heartwarming story. Yeah. That'd look good on a t-shirt.

I'd buy it. Oh, that would be a great t-shirt. We should get permission to see if we can print that on a t-shirt. Oh, dude, we gotta do that. Can you send that to Sam James? Can you imagine being bread to death? Thank you, bye.

Send that to Sam James. We'd sell a shit pile of those shirts. We gotta get... Put it on those shirts. We got to get... Put it on the back. Corinne, can you manage this, Corinne? Yep. Okay. I got to get my tomatoes in.

I'll do it. So here's what steps you need to take. Got it. Ask that gentleman if we can print it on a t-shirt. He'll get a free t-shirt. And then tell Sam we just need this worked up on a t-shirt. Yep. If we don't do that...

I'm thinking Helvetica. If we don't do that, we should do a graphic novel. Well, Hel. Either a t-shirt or a graphic novel. Helvetica, a big block. Are you sure Helvetica? Whatever. Whatever thing looks good.

Yeah, because I think the font's good. Not like a heavy metal font. Very important. It needs to be like, yeah. It's a new Dustin Hoff song, maybe. Yeah. You put that to music? I could get a couple lines out be like, yeah. It's a new Dustin Hough song, maybe. Yeah. You put that to music? I could get a couple lines out of it, probably.

You're going to sing us a song, right? If y'all want. Shit yeah, man. The way I write my initials in heavy metal style, like the way you like to say, do you think that's worth? We could just make our own Yanni. We could call it Yanni's initial font.

Sorry. You're always saying, I just thought I just wrote my initials. Like no big deal. Yeah, when Yanni writes his initials, they're in a heavy metal font. I don't know what it takes to get like a font. Yeah.

Like create a font. Oh, you want to like draw out the rest of the alphabet. Yeah. That'd be a good idea. Here's a question came in. This is a line. Oh, you want to like draw out the rest of the alphabet. Yeah. That'd be a good idea. Here's a question came in. This is a legit question. A hunter from Ontario, Canada wrote in with a question that many folks may have. Is that you editorializing there?

What? Who's saying like many folks may have? Yeah, that's you editorializing. Anything that's not italicized is me writing Okay so it's Corinne editorializing The question is this He sees a lot of TV shows Such as ours he points out

And other folks who shoot big game And they'll Shoot it and then say they're going to leave it Until tomorrow And he's like the way I was brought up you're supposed to go get an animal no matter what and at least gut it as soon as possible to save as much meat as possible. Am I wrong to think that way?

And am I missing something? Or is the carcass okay to be left overnight with the guts inside? Not knowing if you made a perfect lung or heart shot. I'm a meat hunter in Ontario, Canada, and this has come up a lot in hunting camp conversations. This is a great opportunity for everybody else that's here besides Dustin to introduce themselves

and answer this quick question quickly. That way my dad will be happy. I like that. He'll still be a little upset that it took so long. I'm going to throw it to Mark Kenyon. Okay. Mark Kenyon, why would someone say, best leave it till tomorrow?

Yeah, it's a good question. And it comes down to the fact that not every shot is a perfect lung or heart shot. So if you do have that perfect shot and you're very confident that deer's going down right away, then yeah, go get them. But if either from your

best guess of where it hit, or you actually saw where the hit was, if it was farther back, there's certain places where you might hit a deer with really a bow or a gun, that's going to tell you that that deer might not die right away. And if you were to, let's say, hit that deer back towards the stomach or the intestines, and then go chasing after that deer right away, he's probably not dead yet. And you're more than likely going to bump that deer and run it even farther away. In which case you might not recover that deer at all. So the idea behind waiting.

Because it might not be bleeding by then. Yeah. So the idea is many times a deer like that will bed down relatively quickly, but might not die for four or eight or 10 hours. That's a worst case scenario, but that does happen. So in that case, wait that amount of time or wait till the next morning and then that deer is probably gonna be right where it bedded down at first and you will recover that deer now if it's a hot day you might lose some meat and that's

obviously a worst case scenario but it's better than not recovering the deer at all and if you're hunting later in the year when it's cold out many times that deer will be perfectly fine you'll be able to recover all the meat. So I would always rather recover the deer and as much of the meat as you can versus zero, which is why you would wait in certain situations. I wouldn't do it, you know, all the time. I would only do it if you have to do it. Ladies and gentlemen, Mark Kenyon.

Now in 2019, Mark wrote an article for TheMeaty.com called How Long Should You Wait to Blood Trail a Deer? Where he lays out all the scenarios about like lungs, guts, stomach, etc. Introduce yourself, Spencer. This is Spencer Newhart. And Mark also pointed out in there what his uncle used to do in the 90s. Tell folks that approach. You want me to remind you? Oh, I remember.

Yeah. It took me a second. But he would always just, this was just to get a little bit of a weight. After he shot a deer, this was during gun season, he would always bring a cigar with him, and he'd smoke that victory cigar, and that would force him to wait half an hour. So at least he'd give it a little time. Because the temptation a lot of times is you're so excited, you want to get out there right away and go find it. But he'd always at least smoke that victory cigar. And then he knew, all right, I gave it time.

Now I can go search. My old man was a firm believer. Circumstances didn't matter. It was 45 minutes. You could walk over there and it could look like someone had gone through the woods with a bucket of paint. 45 minutes. You could have basically seen it stumble and fall. 45 minutes. Right? No matter, you could have basically seen it

stumble and fall. 45 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, just that was it. Yeah, but see, that's the thing. Like, I had that happen this last fall.

Like, stumbling, whirling around, does a couple circles, but then all of a sudden it looks like he's got his feet underneath him and he rolls over

the horizon. There's lots of blood, but I'm like, you know what? You just don't know. And like, it is a good rule. Unless you see him laying there with his tongue out. A friend of mine was telling me a good story. He was just down fishing alligator gars. And a guy was describing to him how long, when your bobberber goes down how long to wait for you set the

hook and he said you want to wait as long as it takes to smoke a whole cigarette and my friend doesn't smoke and he pointed out he doesn't know what that means he doesn't smoke and he said the guy got kind of irritated and said i I don't know, count to 100. Hey, I feel like we're missing, we're not answering his question completely. I'm not done with the question. Oh, okay. Can I tell you what Mark specifically wrote in this article?

Please. Heart shot. Did I write it better than I said it? Yeah. Let me tell you what Mark says. Heart shot, recover right away. Double lung, 30 to 90 minutes. Single lung or liver, 4 to 6 hours. Gut shot, 8 to 12 hours.

But yeah, but the deer would have to kind of yell out what happened to it. This is if you can be confident with where you saw the hit. Yeah, there's a lot of evidence on your arrow, too, to tell you where you hit. Now, I think to even more fully answer this if someone said and i'll ask you uh mark have you ever in your life had someone know for a fact that the deer was dead and just out of sheer laziness say i'll go get it tomorrow i couldn't think of a single person i've ever met it's always you want to get it right now that would just be someone being lazy and dumb yeah uh i one time late at night kill the bull with my bow and it was dusk and it was in an area with a lot of grizzly bears

and made a decision i'll regret and we didn't want to open it up until the next day because we didn't want to open it up in the dark and let all that stink out and i mean it was already like getting dark and we were back in the pre-dawn darkness and had already lost the area around the ball joints and had lost the tenderloins on it. Yeah. I think. And I always saw, I should have just lit a big fire, sucked it up and got it done. And I thought it was supposed to get cold that night.

And then laying there for a few hours, we like, we had to hike a couple of miles back to our gear, laid there and just like all night. I'm like, it's not getting cold. It's not getting cold. Yeah. It went back and just felt like a dumb ass and i think even when it is cold an animal like an elk like they trap heat like it could be 20 degrees out and you're gonna lose meat yeah because that heat's just trapped inside of them yeah and it was just being like lazy and nervous and kind of

like overwhelmed by the logistics of like how are we we going to go get all of our shit? And we'll be wandering around the middle of the night and like, just made a dumb, right? Not something I'll do again. Brody's here. So you feel like we answered it thoroughly? Cause there's that little,

what the hell more is there to say? One thing that didn't get mentioned is whatever you want to do. Let me know what I can go on. I am. I'm stepping out. We never talked about when the animal was shot. This is like, I'm assuming an animal that's shot right before dark. You talking to me? I'm asking.

I'm out. Until Yanni says it's time to move on. You don't want to engage anymore? I'm turning it over to you. Maybe you can clarify for me, because the question is, he sees a lot of TV shows, such as ours, and other folks who shoot big game with it being a far hike to retrieve the animal. Then they say, wait till tomorrow.

Explain to me what he's meaning by being a far hike to retrieve the animal and how that plays into the question. You follow me? I'm sorry. See, I'm confused by the question and that part of the question. And you're asking me? Yeah, declare. That's why I'm asking if you felt like you answered it thoroughly.

First of all, you have to understand the question. I think he might be confusing two things. Okay. That's why, did you see the little addendum? The addendum I did? Mm-hmm. Where I said to know that it's dead

and just put it off till tomorrow isn't a thing I'm aware of. And then I went on to cite a time when I did that and what circumstances drove me to make that decision and pointed out that I had in fact regretted that decision. Yeah. Do you feel there's more to add? Well, it still just doesn't answer or clarify the part about like how it's like a far hike to retrieve the animal. But I think you're right.

Oh, yeah. I don't know what he means by that. Where he's just like maybe. I don't know what he means by that. Conflating two things. Yeah. But nobody else either has any idea what he's just like, maybe I don't know what he means by that conflating two things. Yeah. But nobody else either has any idea what he's trying to

say. Oh, like he's saying you did it because it was a far hike. He'll have to write back in again. Did you guys know that, uh,

Seth and Chester and the walleye tournament, their first walleye tournament day one, they, uh, 75 boats. They finished day one, 75 boats. They finished day one, number seven.

Oh. They were hoping to do top 20. They finished day one, number seven, their first ever walleye tournament, fishing in their, they had, they're fishing in their Alumacraft. We did all that begging and pleading to get them a walleye boat. We got them a walleye boat from Alumacraft. So they're like sponsored by Alumacraft. Finished day one, number seven. Had a couple problems.

Finished the tournament, number 17, out of 75 boats, but still took a cash prize. Huh. Good for them. How much was it? How much is it? 400 bucks. To conservation.

Where are they kicking that to? They got to wait and see how they do on the next ones. But those boys, first ever walleye tournament, finished day one, number seven, finished the tournament at number 17. Their goal is to finish top 20. Yeah, Seth said he lost a monster the second day. That would have really. Yeah, that would have pushed him up. I'm stoked for him.

That's so damn good. That's a hard body of water fish, especially when you live like six hours away. For them to roll up there and get 17th is... Oh, I'm going to tear that place a new one this weekend. Hey, folks. Exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. And boy, my goodness, do we hear from the Canadians whenever we do a raffle or a sweepstakes. And our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join.

Our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in on x are available for your hunts this season the hunt app is a fully functioning gps with hunting maps that include public and crown land hunting zones aerial imagery 24k topo maps waypoints and tracking that's right you were always talking about. We're always talking about OnX here on the MeatEater Podcast. Now you, you guys in the Great White North can be part

of it. Be part of the excitement. You can even use offline maps to see where you are without cell phone service. That's a sweet function. As part of your membership, you'll gain access to exclusive pricing on products and services hand-picked by the OnX Hunt team.

Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. OnXMaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. Guy wrote in real riled up about Big Horn National Forest in Wyoming. They're looking to start charging for dispersed camping. This is a solution brought forward two years ago by the, get this,

Bighorn Mountains Coalition Dispersed Camping Task Force. Currently, the force requires campers to move at least five miles after 14 days in one location this is just to prevent you from being cute right and moving into an area and then like moving to the other side of the valley to the other side of the meadow and staying another 14 days and then moving back to the other side of the meadow and staying another 14 days currently the force requires campers to move at least five miles after 14 days in one location. However, many campers, trailers,

and recreational vehicles are left on the mountain unoccupied for much longer than 14 days. I'm aware of this where, and I've been guilty of this in the past, where let's say you're going to go camping for a weekend and you want some really cherry spot

that you know about. You drive over on Wednesday and park the old camper or you'll get to a spot and there's nothing there, but it's old tent. Like no coolers, no water, like an old tent. And that dude's like, basically like my spot. Be back in a few days so that's when I go about cleaning up the forest you know and just that's when you clean

up yeah like oh someone forgot an old yeah however many campers trailers and recreational vehicles are left on the mountain unoccupied for much longer than 14 days which can cause frustration for other recreationalists who are following the rules and seeking a new place to camp every 14 days. One potential solution forwarded by the task force is the implementation of a yearly sticker all dispersed campers would have to purchase. The sticker would make it, as these personnel, Forest Service personnel are saying, the sticker would make it much easier to contact users who are violating the Forest's 14-day rule. In addition, the Forest is considering extending the 14-day stay order throughout the year. Currently, the order extends from June 1 through September 30. When I was turkey hunting recently, up in the northwest corner of the state,

I found where a dispersed camper had basically set up a community. I mean, they were there to stay on national forest land. I imagine it looked like they had spent the entire winter there. The order extends June 1 through September 30, and campers can stay in one place for as long as they want outside of those four months. Bighorn National Forest is currently the only national forest without year-round limits on dispersed camping.

Guy's real mad about it. He's mad about the fees they want to charge? Here's what he says is going on. The Bighorn National Forest plans to charge in order to disperse camp on public lands. This is an abuse of the fee program and a blatant shakedown of public landowners. Let folks know about this issue and encourage them to write to their centers before the Forest Service gets drunk on fees. Please don't use my name or email.

I got to think on that one. Anyone got immediate? Yeah, I don't have a problem with it. A $20 sticker you throw on there to go camping on national forests. What's the, what's the big deal? Brody. I agree. I'm right.

I'm right there with you, Brody. I feel that, uh, we take it for granted because it's public land. We think that it's, should be just a free for all. I mean, these should be for free, but those roads that you drive in on to access your public lands with guess what?

They have to be maintained. And the people that do that have to be maintained and the people that do that need to be paid it's not like the forest service is rolling in cash you know what i mean yeah i mean did carl malcolm have a new truck when you guys saw him recently steve's not listening anymore he's on to the next article but uh tell me again i'm here like my job is to keep the show rolling so i'm just ahead thinking, and you guys can talk about what you need to talk about. We're going to get into this big-ass whitetail in a minute here. Mark, what do you think?

You wrote a whole book about how public lands are managed. Yeah, I think it's a hell of a deal. I think $20 for a year worth of camping, that's pretty good. But not as good of a deal as zero. Yeah, but true. You you could say remains a hell of a deal man i think it's not a bad idea that we'd be a little more invested in them like you guys both said there's a lot of there's a lot of cost to managing those places let's put our money where our mouths are i think we should add like a half a cent federal sales tax oh i would support

that that would just directly directly go to all public land i had to give a talk down in florida the other day and you know how everybody how it's become uh to to use tom mcguane's expression it's become over observed pitman robertson has become over observed among hunters right like every hunter on the planet now likes to point out Pittman Robertson contributions, which for people who've been hiding under living under a rock, um, there is a federal excise tax on all guns and ammo and other sporting goods equipment to the tune of about

13%. So when you buy a gun or you buy any ammo, you're paying a 13% excise tax that goes to support wildlife conservation. And most of the money comes from recreational shooters. What is it? 70, 80% higher comes from recreational shooters. So a New Jersey cat lady who buys a pocket pistol is kicking into Pittman Robertson. She might also belong to PETA, but when she bought the pocket pistol, 13% of that money went to wildlife work. So I don't know what the hell it is. Someone tell me

what it is. The overwhelming majority of the money is from recreational shooters, not hunters. Where was I going with this? Oh, I was pointing out when I gave a talk in Florida the other day about the future of hunting. I said, I invited the audience to ponder. Can you, as much as hunters like to celebrate Pittman-Robertson, industry people celebrate Pittman-Robertson, can you imagine what they would do to you today if you said, I got an idea. Here's my idea. Every time you buy a gun and every time you buy ammo, let's make it that there's a 13% federal tax on that purchase.

It would never happen. And it'll go to wildlife habitat. Dude, they would hang you. Oh, dude, it would make. They would hang you. It would make the deal that went down at the country's capital not too long ago, it would make

that look like a little rainbow gathering. Yeah. They would hang you for saying that. I think for so long most people, hunters or recreational shooters, didn't even know they were contributing that way. You know, it's just like a thing that became

more out. But now they love, but we love to celebrate. Now I'm like, okay, how would you receive it being increased? They would hang you. Yeah. It just wouldn't happen. Well, you're seeing it with the backpack tax ideas for, you know,

backpackers, hikers, bikers, the idea of doing a similar tax on that kind of gear. And year after year, that keeps getting shut down. What about a duck stamp for public lands? Like that kind of approach. Oh, they'd hang you. I would love it. If someone now came and said, hey, man, if you want to hunt ducks, you got to kick down.

What is a duck stamp right now? 25 maybe? Yeah, if you want to hunt ducks, it's an extra 25 bucks starting right now. All goes to the feds. But you don't think that, not just for ducks, but for public land hunters in general. Oh, why would it have to be hunters?

Why wouldn't it just be everyone who uses public lands? Well, I think that's even better. Because it's not just the money to be the administrative stuff. So for instance, my wife likes to go hike the M. Okay. She'd also be like, hold on, I need to do what?

Right? It'd be like an administrative. Because you take, like, hunters, it's ingrained in hunters that there's, like, this whole regulatory structure. And it's like, everyone knows, like, you got to go jump through all these hoops. And, like, dudes that ride their mountain bikes,'re sort of like blissfully unaware they're blissfully unaware of all the shit everybody else has to do yeah right do you gotta get a permit and pass these like classes and if you can't their heads would melt still a good idea sure i support it i support i think if you buy a mountain bike there should be every mountain bike and every trail

shoes should have a 50% excise tax. 50? 50. Big number, but. Any mountain bike. 50%. What about an e-bike? 75%.

Yeah. 50%. All right. The HuffBot. First, tell us, how do you get into the music business? I left my hometown when I was 19, two months after graduating high school, and packed the truck up and moved down. To?

Do what? Like move to Nashville. Yeah. 19, didn't know a person down there. How old are you now? 27. And what happened when you did that? Where'd you go live? You moved to Nashville? Yeah. 19. Didn't know a person down there. How old are you now? 27. And what happened when you did that?

Where'd you go live? I just had a one-bedroom apartment. Started playing open mics. Met some people. Started writing. Met Luke in 2015, two years after moving to town. And started going on the road with him, hanging with those guys. And the rest is history.

Dude, that makes you like America even more. It's crazy. So you're obviously playing guitar and singing and doing all that stuff a good bit before you left town. And moved out. Like when you were in your teenage years. I mean, I started playing guitar when I was 12. I wrote my first song when I was 14. How old were you when you killed your first deer?

I was 12. 12 years old. Killed my first squirrel when I was 10. You didn't start playing guitar because of that. but you killed a deer at 12 and started playing guitar yep what was your subject matter what do you mean like what was the sort of your theme of your music just life small town stuff girls not hunting oh yeah hunting was in there, too. Trucks, hunting, fishing. Where's the guitar? Over there. Hand over that guitar, Crenn.

I want you to just give us a little sample as we get into the story of this world record whitetail. What do you want, just like a beginning of it? Whatever the hell. Any song. Have you written a song about that buck yet? I have, but... Give us a little lick of that. I'll play one.

Oh, my. Phil will help you get set up there. What do you need to do, Phil? Is he going to play a full song? No, he's going to give us a little teaser, and then we'll have a full song later. Oh, okay. Right now. This is just a teaser, ladies and gentlemen.

So you know, like, the guy that killed the world record whitetail. Typical whitetail. Or, sorry, national typical whitetail record i should be fishing somewhere on a boat floating suntan cold can chilling reeling in a five pound large mouth good time grinning. Yeah, I should be fishing. Little teaser. Little teaser. So you learned in high school, packed up, moved to Nashville. Were you surprised when all of a sudden you started to make it?

I don't know about making it, but I mean, it was just cool to be in that. Do you have a day job? No. I just play music full timetime and write full-time. I call that making it. Yeah, I guess so. What do you call making it? I don't know.

A number one. Yeah, a number one song on the radio. Oh, so that's making it. That's making it for me. That's what I want. That's what you're shooting for. Well, I think there's degrees of it, but I think if you can, if you set out in the arts

and you get to where you don't have to do anything else, that's making it part one. I agree. Yeah. But you still hunted. Yep. And you still went hunting back home. Yep.

Did you start, do you hunt more where you came from or more down in Nashville? Indiana. Yeah, that's where I'm at now. I've moved down there, but then I moved back at like 24, and then I was just traveling back and forth, going every other week, every other two weeks or so.

So, yeah, I live in Indiana now. Was that part of your plan to go back there once you kind of got a foot in the door? It always was. I just didn't know how soon I would. I didn't know if it would be 30, 35, 40. You married? I got a girlfriend. How long you had a girlfriend for?

Four years. And you couldn't get married to her? Oh, yeah. That's the next step. What's her first name? McKaylee. Okay. What's the property you were hunting on?

185-acre hog farm. Same farm I killed my first squirrel on, where I killed my first deer. Really? Used to vaccinate hogs on it when I was a kid. Who owns the farm? Big farmer. You shouldn't be saying that, man.

Well, everybody already knows in my hometown, dude. There's already people. Well, there's a lot more people in your hometown than listeners. We're going to bleep that out. Can we bleep that? Yeah, give me a bleep out. His name's ****. No, no, don't even say that.

What's your opinion, Mark? Absolutely not. Would you not say that? I better say than sorry. Why are you guys so adamant about this? Because OnX makes it so damn easy. Yanni, I could find your property in one minute from now if I wanted. I understand, but would you...

Well, you'd have to know my wife's name. I do. That's true. What, you'd have to know my wife's name. I do. That's true. What do you think is going to happen? They'll start edge hunting it. Maybe there's some state land like a quarter mile away. It's already happening. Maybe the neighbor has his farm on the lease network.

Allow our guests to weigh in here because this is already happening. I mean, people already know where it is. We're already finding deer with their heads cut off. I mean, right outside of this property. So people in our, yeah, it's terrible. Stuff will get leased up around there. It's terrible. So, yeah, I've already been in contact with DNR about it.

I'm like, dude, we've already found three deer with their heads cut off after this. So it's brutal. Like there are people who would be out shooting deer or moving over in that region. At night. Being like, there's got to be another one. Neighbors around have been finding people on trail cams late at night. It's crazy. All because of a deer.

So in order to not add to that, Phil should bleep it out. Yeah. Maybe we should bleep it out. Yeah, we'll do it. Is this a buddy of yours place? It's one of my dad's best friends. And you grew up on that property? Yep.

He did too, pretty much. I mean, once them two became buddies in high school, I mean, they were hunting together into their 20s, 30s, and whenever I came. And how would you describe the property? I mean, they raised some crops on it? Yeah, it's probably 50-50. Crops and timber. And what would be like a normal deer that gets killed there?

Well, my biggest was 134 inch that I killed in 2020, named him Larry. And did you guys feel like that was a big buck? Oh, that was like, oh my gosh, I was. That's a nice buck. Yeah, I was calling my dad. Hey, you got to get off work, man. You got to come see this deer you know but his where's your old man work uh decatur county highway department okay and uh but his biggest one which was the biggest on the property 153 inch oh okay which i was a freshman whenever he killed that well so like you know not i mean not even

close to what you got but i mean mean like, like good deer. Yeah. There's always good deer there, but I mean, our only rule is 15 inches wide. If he's looks like he's 15 inches, you can shoot him. And then does the hog farmer hunt it too? He's got other properties that he farms and he goes and hunts the cabin woods. It's just another, another one down the road. How many guys are hunting that 180 that you hunt? Pretty much just me, my dad and my nephew Easton just got into it. He killed his first deer with me this past year and he's seven. So me, him, and then maybe two other guys on occasions, but pretty much just me and my dad. And do you guys run trail cameras out there?

Nope. I don't run trail cams. Because you just don't or because you don't i used to in high school uh just never really do no more i just i felt like when i was in high school i'd always i would always go to where that camera was so i just decided i'm just gonna go deer hunting that's just kind of what i started doing does the property have some like historical tree stands that your dad hunted out at one time now you hunt out yeah so like i i know the property like the back of my hand so i just kind of where i've killed deer seen deer or dad have killed has killed deer seen deer i just go put my climber up or i got four set stands on the property and just kind of mix it up and you guys hunt you guys hunt gun season archery season yeah did you used to hunt with a regular bow before you start hunting with a crossbow? Yeah. Why'd you switch? Too gross on my shoulder.

Still got them. You want to feel them? Yeah. Where are they? One there. And one right back here you can feel. What's that from? They just said I can get it cut out, but it's right on some nerves right there.

Is it bone? One's growing on the bone. The new one is. And that's why I think i can't get a bow back no more because sometimes it'll catch like i'll get sometimes i'll be watching tv and my right arm will just go tingly oh so can anybody hunt with a crossbow in indiana or do you have to get like a doctor's permit no you can now yeah so i bow hunted from 14 to like 23 24 and then i bought a used 300 crossbow from my buddy what kind of crossbow did you get uh what the heck it striker striker crossbow so i've been using that ever since you got a nicer one since shooting that huff buck i don't oh man

there's an opportunity for someone out there striker hasn't reached out huh i don't think they make them no more oh i think they't reached out, huh? I don't think they make them no more. I think they were made by Bowtech, but I don't think they've, yeah. Huh. Yeah. They want to remake them, I guess. Now, do you hear, is there like a network of hunters in the area where you're hearing about what's going on? Of this deer?

No, no, no. Like in the vicinity of this property. Yeah. And we're in southeast? Yeah, Indiana. Southeast Indiana. In the vicinity of this property. And I know that you got a 130s buck.

Mm-hmm. Your old man got a 150s buck. Yeah. What year did he get that? That was, I was a freshman, so 2010, maybe. Meanwhile, are you hearing like, oh, Joel Blow on the next place over got a 190. Yeah, you hear stuff like that, but I mean, it's 150-inch, 160 is pushing it. You're like, dang, he got a 160-inch deer.

It's usually about 130 to 150 is like the big deer. And has it gotten better through your lifetime? Like so many places have. Yeah. I mean, it went for about two years after I graduated high school. It was pretty bad. Like, cause we just took a ton of deer off of it. Yeah. Brown it's down.

Oh, when I was a kid, man, I was just, you know, whatever it was. And so I, I actually let it go for about two years and then I started hunting it again. And yeah, so I was hunting my sister's property, a county over. Just letting some bucks live. I was just letting it, because I wasn't seeing any deer. So I was just like, let's just let it go. And then my nephew Easton started getting into it just this past year. And I was like, which I had hunted it in 2020 and killed that 134.

But that was the first year that I really started hunting it again was in 2020. So 2021, got back into it, hunting two weeks straight, just trying to beat my 134. And the first shooter that walked out was moose. So on this topic of how things have changed, a big change happened in Indiana. I mean, you probably know the date better than me, but maybe 10 years ago, 8, 9, ten years ago indiana switched to a one buck a year rule yep so now like no matter what well it was right before i started hunting so when i

was 12 it was one buck one doe and then it went to like one buck two does but before then you could kill two bucks i believe that was before I was deer hunting. So there's been a lot of talk about how much Indiana has bumped up in the record books and stuff like that since switching to that. It's become much more of a quote unquote trophy destination. Yeah. Got it. Because those bucks, a whole lot more people are thinking before shooting because they know they'll be done. Yeah.

If they do. Same thing in Kentucky. Instead of being like, I'm going to shoot the first one I see. And then with my second tag. Yeah, look at Michigan. You heard that a lot. So that was the first buck you saw. That was the first shooter I saw.

I was on day seven or eight, eight to 10 hour days. Maybe I'm jumping ahead, but was this- You are. Go ahead. No, I'm going to say it was- Can you wait for it to get ready for that? Do you know what I'm going to ask? No. Go ahead. No, I'm going to say it was... Can you wait for it to get ready for that? Do you know what I'm going to ask?

No. Go ahead. No, I'll wait. Well, is it on that line of thinking or does it take us back a little bit? It's on the line of thinking of this buck. Like he said he shot it. It was the first buck he saw. I have a question about that buck.

Could have been asked and answered by now. Huh? Can it wait? Yeah. We're just not to the buck yet. Well, I thought we were. He said it was the... He jumped the gun. I'm new. I'm new. I don't know what to do. Okay. I'll hold on.

The man's just a songwriter. What do I do with my hands? You'll end up asking the same question, I bet. Oh. Yeah, I have no doubt. I just want to like... But then you get all the glory for asking no no i won't ask when we get to the deer i'm not gonna ask anything sliding the note sliding the note what i'm trying to establish here is i'm trying to establish um to what degree there's like a rumor around town or whatever about an absolute toad running around people been seeing i had never even heard about him whoa till after i killed him that's what i was getting at no one at church is like holy shit nope and i don't know whatever they say there was only two people that in my area, they came by the next day and was like, start showing me trail cam pictures, videos.

Oh, they secretly knew about it. Yeah. They weren't sharing it with us. You know, like, oh, here's a 140 we've been after. But nobody knew about this deer. It had been pretty quiet. But I think everybody knew about the deer. Just no one's willing to tell anyone.

Exactly. So you later learned that some people were aware of it for two to three years were aware of this deer and i didn't even but they weren't blabbing about it yeah they weren't blabbing about it it wasn't and did they know that we're spending a lot of time on your place no they didn't know i mean they it was this deer was traveling so far dude it was it's crazy he we got him confirmed eight miles whoa yeah did this buck have a name by other people yeah so the guy eight miles he had him as a megatine junior yeah apparently five six years prior there was a 195 that that guy killed

that they believe was this the The sire. This genetics. So I don't know. Is Mark Kenyon the guy? Is he the one who named it? No. Megatine Jr.? Mark is drunk. He's like, Megatine. Best I got.

He's like, Megatine Jr. Megatine Jr., yeah. So then I named him Moose after I... Well, actually, whenever I saw him come up the ridge, I was like, that's a freaking moose, man. And then it just stuck. Can we go back to the eight-mile-away guy? Yeah.

Who's this guy? His name's ****. You might want to bleep that out. Yeah, give me a bleep there. And what's his story? Dawson, if I were you, I wouldn't even be talking about my sister's property one county away. That's too specific. See, here's the thing about me.

I wouldn't even be on this podcast. I don't get too shook up. I don't get too shook up about it. It's whatever. Mark's like, I got a piece of advice for you. Leave. This is a great time, I think, to bring up how Dustin is not the same hunter that Spencer and Mark are. We need to talk about those differences

and why these guys, like right now, their panties are literally in a wad. Because I'm saying names. And you're over here like, yeah, whatever, bro. It's all good. It's deer hunting. It's deer hunting. Because he got the bark. I'm a deer hunter.

I got to fill the freezer. He got the bark. Yeah. It's like, shoot, I just go deer hunting. I love deer hunting. That's good. So is your apprehension based on the fact that people are just going to descend on this corner of Indiana?

I work so damn hard to find a property hunt that I'm really stoked on, whether it's public land or by permission or whatever, that I would not tell my wife like what I'm doing or like what property I'm on. Because that's like how precious I think that is. We got a guy like that and he fell out of his tree and about died. Laid there for days because he didn't like to tell anyone where he hunts. His wife didn't even know how to, didn't have any idea where to say. When he never came home, she's like, I don't know. He's out hunting. No one knows where he goes.

The stakes are that high. Yeah. But this happens all the time. I mean, I'm sure it happens out West too, but locally in the Midwest, it happens to myself. I've got guys trying to lease stuff around me or lease stuff that i have access to for free yeah they find out that you hunt there they've seen what you've killed there and all of a sudden it's gone or they hear from the lander well i'm being offered five thousand dollars by this other guy can i share something a little behind the scenes if he was like if he let me tell a story. I'll try to make quick.

One night, like here's advice for anyone with kids, anyone married with kids. If you want your wife to not be mad at you, take your kids to go do whatever you're going to do. No one ever got mad at a spouse who had took all the kids to do something. You're like bulletproof. Except one night, me and my buddy tony took all of our kids so we had a shitload of kids and we took them clan digging and things got carried away and we were gone way late on a school night and i got on the phone driving and got yelled at and then he got a call and got yelled at and he said to me um if they if this is his quote

if we were the way they wanted us to be they wouldn't like us it's true my wife's like yeah i would but point being if he was like Like all like that He wouldn't be on the show Sure Right Cause I would've been like Just a If he was a big buck blowhard

That's why Just another Spencer and Mark Yeah Just another Spencer and Mark We need another one of them Marmar Big beer Like a big buck blowhard

I wouldn't have been like Wanting to talk to him I like big buck blowhards What I'm saying It wouldn't have been like I wouldn't have I wouldn't have been An entertaining story to me Yeah I like big buck blowhards. What I'm saying, it wouldn't have been like, I wouldn't have found, it wouldn't have been

an entertaining story to me. Yeah, I get that. Are you jealous that he has a buck named after him now? No, I have a buck named after me. You do?

Yeah. You ever seen it? It's on my water bottle. I imagine. Oh, right. The buck I killed when you were off in the hospital?

Oh, that was the one I helped you pack out. Yeah, a guy made a sticker and it was called the Rinella Buck. That's right. Heck yeah. He made a guy made a sticker, and it was called the Rinella Buck. That's right. Heck yeah. He made a really nice decal, the kind that you put the whole decal with the sticker behind it on something,

and then you wait a couple minutes, rub it in, and then you peel that big plastic piece off, and the decal is just left. Well, Steve ran around with the whole thing on for a couple of years. The decal. Because I didn't know that's what it was. Until we're like, hey, man. I mean, unless you're really trying to protect that decal, you know, you can peel that other part off and it'll look cooler.

Did the decal... No, I tried to do it. It was too late. It kind of ruined the whole thing. Did the decal have you like fidgeting with your belt and your pants? No. Under? Do you have my pants around my knees?

No. The guy that was eight miles away, he was on to it. Yeah, so he came like three or four days after I killed this deer, and I got a Facebook message from him. It was like, hey, dude, this is going to be crazy, but I hunt over here. I'm pretty sure I was hunting that deer. I had already had a guy I'm not going to say the name so we don't have to bleep it out

I think it's funny say the name and then Phil I'm writing all this down I'm kind of a shark here Phil's going to go online and start selling the unbleaped cut I've been doing it for about two and a half years now

new website pops up where to find huffbuck.com yeah but uh so he come over the next day because he wanted to see this deer he knew that that was the deer you know he had this deer after talking to him in his sights the year before as an 11 pointer guest him at about a 195 really 200 yards free hand couldn't pull the trigger so he comes over and oh he just put his head down right when i open up that walk-in cooler he just goes that's him he goes that's him and i said yeah then he starts showing me all the cams you know trail cam pics videos oh yeah so i, he had three years, two, three years of him. And then, like I said, three or four days later, come down. He's like 25 minutes away and starts showing me from Moose as a three-and-a-half-year-old 10-pointer to an 11 and then into 12 when I killed him. No kidding.

He jumped from 175 to 195 to whenever I killed him. Do a lot of people have his sheds? One guy I found matches him. Say his name. Do a lot of people have his sheds? One guy found a matching shed. Say his name. Say his name. What is his name? I don't even know his name. Oh, shoot.

Sleep. I can't remember. But anyways, he brought him to the Indianapolis show I had Moose at, and he said, I found him side by side, and he had him scored there 197 with giving him a 20-inch spread. Never from the year before? That's from the year before. Wow.

When did you kill him? Was it during the rut? Yeah, it was November 4th. So he was wandering a lot. Yeah, he was walking right through the woods. First week of November, man. Our buddy Clay, he's got a great story. This kind of shows one of the things that's cool about clay is uh he was after a big giant buck in his neighborhood and he lives in a you know like it's not like big ag areas right

it's little chunks here and there and um it's hard to keep track of a deer right yeah but anyways he's aware of a big giant buck and find some of its sheds and then he hears of a guy, right, that got it. And he was like, ah, damn, you know, like the story's over, right? Yeah. But Clay brought him and gave him the matching sheds. Damn. A couple sets of sheds. That's pretty cool. Gave them to the dude, yeah.

Damn. Has anybody brought? I take it your buddy, that dude didn't give you those sheds? No, I was hoping I'd get them. You need to subtly suggest he listened to this episode so he hears that story. Yeah. Gets a little guilty. Yep, I know.

I've talked to him at the Indianapolis show, and he said there's too much people wanting these sheds, so I was just like, you know, collectors and stuff. So I was just like, well, let me just make some replicas of them or something. You know? Do you know the last time this buck was spotted by someone else, whether it was on trail camera or in person, like how far he came to wind up in front of you? See how this is flowing, Brody? Yeah.

So what was the question again? Yeah, how far did this buck, like, travel as of late before you killed him? Well, I mean, so the only time that we have him confirmed at eight miles away is only december through february that's the only time and then on oh but i thought he had him he had him in his sights no no this is who's adjacent to my right beside my property that i have oh yeah the neighbor had him the Adjacent to my, the woods I hunt. And he didn't come tell you. Yeah, he didn't come tell the next day after I killed it, and he saw pictures and goes, that's him.

Your own neighbor. Own neighbor. No, he's a cool guy, though. So when you see him, you're like, hey, what's going on, man? How's deer hunting been? Well, I never really. No, like he said, dude, we're chasing this 140. Look at this 140.

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like, you know... He threw out a red herring. Yeah, but there was no 200-inch talk about any deer. Like, nobody knew about it. Oh, if I was your neighbor, I'd have been like, listen, there's a big 140. If you see him, shoot him because there's nothing.

There's nothing bigger. I would shoot him and then get out of the woods. Don't hesitate. Get out of the woods. Don't hesitate. Get out of the woods and don't come back because that's it. Yeah. So why were you in this spot on this property? And like, why did that buck want to be there? What was he doing?

So going back to pictures. So after that next day, brought some pictures over. And so his first daylight was october 17th that was his first daylight he got of him and that's when i was like i gotta start taking work off you know like it's this guy saw him on a camera camera yes on what do what he saw october october 17th was his first daylight really so then so he's coming into the rut he's like he's starting to show up yeah five a half, you're always starting to show up in the daylight. And so I come home. But you didn't know that.

I did not know. So I just come home. I always take off the last, I don't do nothing, the last week of October and the first week of November, I go deer hunting. That's all I do. You don't write no songs? Oh, I do it from a tree stand, but. You just write them in your head? Yeah, I'll just get on my phone and write, but.

You're not up there in like in the tethered saddle with that guitar. I don't have a six-string with me up there or anything. So he was getting pics of him constantly, 28th, 29th, 30th, October, and I shot him on November 4th. Pretty crazy. Did he never, like, had a close encounter? Nope, not. The year before he did was that 200 yards was the only time he saw him. So he had been getting pictures of him, but like I said, I didn't know about it.

So I hunt that last week of November or last week of October. You're like a serious enough deer hunter where you're like, come the rut, I'm hitting two weeks hard. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I deer hunt all the time. So the reason why I was there was I was on day seven or eight, and I got four set stands on that property. So my nephew killed. How far is this from your house? Okay. Yeah.

So you don't need to go stay somewhere. You're just hunting. No. Yeah, you're hunting out of home. Yeah. So I took my nephew out on Halloween because he killed his first doe in September, which was ewe season. First deer he ever killed. First time ever going out, put 25 grains of powder in a 50 cow and let him smoke one at 15 yards. So it's pretty cool.

How old is he? Seven. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So it was his first time. So he's way ahead of where I am. So, like I said, I've been hunting that whole week, that last week of October. And on Halloween, I took Easton out again so he could kill his first buck.

So he could have easily killed this deer because this was before I shot him. He could have been the guy. He could have been the guy. So I told him, like, right when we get in the stand, I said, Easton, like, you're buck hunting today. First buck comes by. And, you know, he just went to Bass got in the stand, I said, Easton, like, you're buck hunting today. First buck comes by. And, you know, he just went to Bass Pro for the first time how many weeks ago, and he was like, hey, Dusty, hey, Uncle Dusty, wouldn't it be crazy if we killed a big buck and got it in the Bass Pro shop?

Literally said that, and I started laughing at him. I'm like, Easton, I'm like, that's not going to happen. I said, but first deer comes through with some, you know, horns on his head. You can shoot it. And he killed a five-pointer about 9 o'clock that morning. And I killed a doe right after. What's a five-pointer? Is that a two-by-three or a five-by-five?

Come on, Spencer. You know that. It's a Michigan five. Yeah. He had one on one side, two on the other, and then two little. Yeah, it's a Michigan five. I'm the blank-by-blank crowd here. Just more specific helps out folks.

Yeah. Yeah. I've switched to that. But come on. It was a little deer. But've switched to that but come on it was a little deer but it was his first buck so it was pretty cool you know so i'm buck hunting so four days later i'm going through these four set stands you know just depending on when how the weather is and then so you're being like you're being serious yeah i mean you're being serious. Yeah, I mean. I mean, you're playing the wind and thinking ahead. Yeah, it's like, I don't get too shook up about it.

But it's like, I go deer hunting. You know, it's just, it's deer hunting. Are you using any cover scent? I use Heat Wave. Heat Wave cover scent. It's a calming scent. Heats it up to like 107 degrees and disperses. What do you think about that, Mark?

It's pretty wild. That's not my cup of tea, but teach their own. Hold on. I thought you were in those jams. Seems like it worked pretty damn good. That's my thing. Hey, it's like he had no idea I was there. I can't say it worked, but you can say it didn't hurt that bad.

Exactly. Yeah. So, but that evening, I just decided, like, I had been hitting those set stands pretty hard, you know, with Easton, and then I was hunting them by myself, too. So I also got a climber that I got eighth grade year when I bought my first bow. Still got it. What kind of climber? It's a Summit Viper.

Did you get a new climber? No, I ain't got it. Oh, yeah, I did, actually. They did give me one. They gave me two did actually. They did give me one. They gave me two actually. So anyways, that evening I just, I hunted until about noon, until lunch that morning on November 4th. One of my set stands, same one where Easton killed the five pointer out of. And so that hunted until noon, went home, got lunch, came back.

I didn't even know where I was going to go. What time did you get back up in there? About three. Okay. It was about three o'clock was whenever I took the truck back. And I took my climber with me. I didn't even know where I was going to go. What time did you get back up in there? About three. Okay. It was about three o'clock was whenever I took the truck back and I took my climber with me. I didn't even know where I was going to go. I just, I'm going to mix it up today. It was about 45, 50, it was pretty warm day, 45, 50 degree day in November. And I was like, I'm just going to go to this West end of the farm. Like I didn't even, I hadn't been back there in a while.

And all those other sets are the East side, right? Yes. All my other ones are on the East side. So I usually leave the west side of the farm to the deer. You know, I just let the property lines about a hundred yards from where I set up from property line. So, uh, yeah, got up about three o'clock that evening, you know, put my scent up, got my climber up, sawed off two limbs. And within three and a half hours i killed the biggest deer in the usa didn't see didn't see a deer all evening didn't see a deer all evening and that was the first deer i seen hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada.

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by the OnX Hunt team. Some of our favorites are First Light, Schnee's, Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX Club, y'all. All right, so why are we through the actual moment? Hold on, Brody, is your question ready to come right up?

We're coming up on it. Are we getting close to it? You already asked it. I knew you would. The rumors about the book. up we're coming up on it are we getting close to you already asked it i knew you would the rumors about the butt like did people but i feel like you're leaving a lot out for these two whitetail nerds over here like there's no like funnel oak flat like oh yeah you just go hang in the woods no so like i'm up on oak flat um yeah so uh the acorns were dropping oh yeah what do you call those do what what do you

call acorns the things that grow on an acorn patch acorns okay yeah or oak patch we say go up to the oak patch and you know um so yeah got up 3 30 whatever didn't see a deer and uh it was about 6 30 right i'm talking right whenever the sun hit the horizon. But tell me more about your setup. What do you mean? You're hunting in the oaks. Yeah, oak grove. I got a creek running about, and that's where I seen about 70 yards to my south or to my north, I mean. And then there's woods all around.

And then about 300 yards back is the cornfield i mean it's just a huge ass cornfield like i said it's 50 50 timber and uh crops but spencer's getting nervous too many yeah he's like uh-oh had you ever climbed this tree in the past nope this was the first time because i saw two limbs off going up like i had been around there before but i never got up in this tree had you been up there that season uh- No, I hadn't been back here since high school. This story is so, it's like an archetype of a hunting story. There's so many that go just like this.

Yeah. Where either a new hunter or someone, like in your situation, where you always hunt one area, and the first time you go to the one spot you never go to, the big buck gets killed. Because that big buck's like,

I'll tell you one spot they never go to. Exactly. So there's people who say, how come is it that the new hunter that goes out for the first time ever shoots the big giant buck or the kid or whatever

and it's always because they would pick the place that all the pros would never go or in this case, the one spot that for whatever reason you didn't go

and that's where they gravitate towards. Because the buck, he hangs out there and doesn't see people in trees shooting arrows at him. They figure it out. Did you leave,

was it like, can you say you never, you left it for the deer. So like, do you guys kind of treat it as the sanctuary? Like it's off limits most of the time? I mean, they're like, uh, one of our buddies, he goes back here and hunts it. But me, I just always just leave it over that way. Cause it's pretty thick that on the West side. So I just always leave that for the deer and stay on the East side. And that's where most of the funnels are really but back there is that oak flat and then the property line so here's my question yards you're gonna hunt over there more often now in

the future i think i'm going to i think i'm going to uh this season for sure i'm gonna try it out that east side's gonna get real good again yeah I'm gonna leave it About a year or two off And then go back in a year or two See how it is Okay well the last question I'm gonna ask you in a little bit Is um You realize it's all downhill from here

Oh I know it Okay so uh I'll ask about that So give me the moment Oh shoot So I'm talking So you're sitting there You're like

Yeah I got the song Second verse Yep I actually did write a song that week And and it's called Country's a Good Thing. And so I was just sitting there on my phone texting my girlfriend, texting my dad, you know, no deer. What were you texting about? Just, you know, no deer. You seen any deer? Nope.

And I'm talking. And he texts you at dusk. Yeah, it's right as the freaking, I'm talking right. It's so crazy because right when the sun hit, like I got a text and I'm pulling my phone out and he said any deer and i'm about to text back and right when we get a text back no deer ain't seeing a deer and right as i'm about to text i look to my left and i just see movement and all i saw was these big ass antlers facing me with his head down and he put his head up and that's when i went oh my, that's a moose. And after I seen him, I didn't, you know, you're thinking, where's this deer going to go? Is he-

How far out is he? He's about 70 yards when I first see him. And I'm just like, you know, I'm blacking out. I'm just shaking like crazy. You know, I'd never, I'm thinking 180, 170, 180 inch deer, like nobody's going to believe this. And he starts coming right to me. Is he feeding in the? No, he's just, he's just walking through the woods, man. It was, it was where he's just moving saplings on his way by. I mean, it was crazy. Yeah. And so. No clue. Not nervous. Had no idea. Had no idea. And you had good wind. Good wind and some good scent. Heat wave scent. So, so anyways so anyways um i didn't even have time to range find

him so my range finder's in my pocket but it's quick like from when he put his head up to me going wow this is the biggest deer i'd ever seen in my life he's coming right up the ridge and i mean it's saplings all over the place so i'm just like when do i when am i going to shoot him so i just whistled at him when he was maybe 40, I was just guessing 40 yards. Cause it was a minute, minute and a half, two minutes. I don't even know. I blacked out and, uh, I did and I whistled at him and he looked at me. Give me the whistle. Oh, okay. Like literally whistle. Yeah, just a little whistle. And he looks at me and I can't shoot him. I mean, I'm just sitting there with my crossbow and I can't, I got two saplings right in the boiler room

and I'm about to just throw up. Like, I'm just like, I can't shoot this deer. Like, do I gut shot him? No, I can't do that. You know, like that's stupid. And, uh, I had maybe a yard. I was just like, man, if he takes one step, I think I can sneak one in there. And I let him take one more and I whistled again and he took a second step instead of just that was he looking up in the trees then yeah he was so he knew where the sound was coming yeah he knew and right whenever he took that second step i had a little sapling again so i just had to go a hair to the left and just pulled the trigger quick smoked him he ran 50 60 yards straight west stopped looked around all i could see was the rack behind him you know and i'm seeing his ass big like that oh man that's the biggest he looked and uh he stops about 50 60 yards looks around i'm just going go down go down baby and then he starts doing the dance flicking his tail and i said oh yeah he's dropping and drop fell back into the holler that he came from and

i just went let's go just i put my hands up shaking like crazy uh called my girlfriend mckaylee like i said i was on day seven eight so she's when you gonna be home you ain't gonna kill big deer you know i'm like baby i gotta be out there to kill something bigger than my 134 you know i was just trying to beat that and when i sent her that picture she was like oh my god well when i called her i was like you don't even understand. Like I just smoked a 170, 180 inch deer. And she's just fired up about it. Cause even though she doesn't really know, you know, like I'm just saying it's the biggest deer that I've ever seen, you know? And, uh, yeah. Then I called my dad right after and I said, pops, you're going to need to get a crew out here. I said, I'm still in the tree. And he said,

now take your time dust. He's like, I know you're shook up and you're worked up about it but just just wait to come down till we get there which i did i was already i was already i already why did he want you to wait just because i was shook up yeah he knew that i was i mean yeah i want you to be safe yeah exactly yeah and so uh i waited for them i didn't go see the deer i just took all my stuff up to the field edge. Like I said, it was about 200, 300 yards. Oh, man, that's some strong willpower there. And the buck was only like 70 yards away. I saw him go down, so I knew.

But I wanted my dad and everybody to be there when we got up because I knew this was going to be, I didn't think, you know, a state record or anything like that, but I just knew it was going to be probably the biggest deer that any of us have ever seen or going to kill. Not the biggest typical in USA history. Yeah, exactly. And he was just 70 yards from your tree stand, and you chose not to go look.

He was, yes, 50, 60 yards. I watched him fall, and he went down in the holler, and I was just like, ugh. And I knew, but I knew he was huge, but I didn't go look. I waited until he's one of the boys of, he's got three boys. The hog farmer. Hog farmer. They all come out. Are you writing down all these

spots yeah believe it or not every single name gets come out of his mouth and so uh they all come to develop software that just finds names yeah finds names and big buck stories and bleeps them out yeah he'll still sit back at home let it all just do it yep so uh yeah we got up on him and we're all just like in shock really you. We're just looking around, high-fiving, and just like, well, what's he going to score? And I'm just thinking, 180. And I said 185 was like, that was me pushing. I'm like, he's maybe 185.

And then he goes, the proper name, he goes, I'd say he's high 160s. And I said, I think he's a little bigger than that man i said give him some credit but you know we're just we're not guys we don't put tape on deer we don't if they're close to 15 inches we shoot them it's just like yeah you know that's just how it is so us trying to figure out how big this deer was was like you know whatever so i got him out there in the woods and took six of us to get him out i was gonna ask what was his body like was he just he was 300 is what we're he's probably 230 field dress so 300 on hoof is what we were guessing it was me and six other guys

oh it's brutal you actually weigh him to get 230 we didn't we were just guessing just from deer we've killed prior you know um just guessing them off that but yeah it was a i had my shirt off by the time we got up to the field edge after dragging him because i was just i'm out of shape and dragging deer shows you how bad out of shape you are so uh yeah we got him in the truck and uh took him back to the house and at this point i have started to send like snapchats you know to my buddies i said boys like i killed a 180 and my buddy blake and byron am i allowed to say their name oh yeah they're not they're just my friends you know they're just my friends and they come up they're like i said yeah we're gonna we're gonna skin this deer out you know we do all our processing and

stuff in the basement at the house and uh my buddy blake said put the knife down do not touch that deer he goes i'm coming over i'll be there in 15 minutes to cape it you mean to cape it out yeah and we were going to cut the back straps out and everything you know and uh so he comes over he goes that is not that's a 200 inch deer he goes let me put a tape on it like he he's never really he's not a official score he knew enough he knew enough to where where to put it and how to you know yeah and we got the yanni does all my scoring for yeah and we got the number and he goes you're gonna need to get this in a safe dude i'm like no dude i'm just like no dude like he goes you're gonna need to get pictures like professional pictures of this deer and i started laughing at him i'm like dude i'm not calling up a photographer to get this a picture of me and this deer like thought he was nuts i thought he was nuts he's like i'm telling

you dude so i called my photographer that i used for like my music and stuff and i was like hey you want to come take a pic that this was the next morning i was like hey i killed this deer yesterday evening you want to come take some pictures? This was the next morning. I was like, hey, I killed this deer yesterday evening. You want to come take some pictures? My buddy said, this is going to be a big deal. And sure enough, the next day was whenever you called. Spencer called me. Yeah, Luke texted me, and I said, that's not my world,

but I know who he ought to talk to yeah i guess i can kind of go into that night too after like because luke called me at that once i had said like after we yeah get into that this part is fun yeah so like after we knew kind of what we had you know me and my buddies and my dad were just downstairs drinking beers like damn this is crazy kind of beers you guys drink well we had the words right out of my mouth we had rolling rock that night oh good pennsylvania beer yeah we were drinking a little bloody mary mix in there i just i keep the white pale you know white ale and um so we're all just down there and i couldn't sleep that night after they all left like i was just i kept getting up and going checking on him you know just after my buddies were telling me like dude this is a big

deal like you're gonna need to get this in a safe and I'm just like shoot I better like not go to sleep tonight like what if these pictures get out you know I didn't know yeah and so uh uh about two o'clock at morning I get that night is whenever I tweeted out. Like, it was just a tweet. Like, I couldn't sleep. I was just like, I think I killed the biggest deer in Indiana. Like, Indiana state record. And so I put no pictures, no nothing. And Ray, I was telling you about Ray Fulcher, who he wrote, like, when it rains, it pours and stuff.

Like, oh, he's touring with Luke and been buddies for a while now. And he texts me. He goes, oh, Huffuff he calls me oh he goes oh huff now let me see this deer that you tweeted about so i sent him two pictures right after i sent him i'm in bed and i get a call from luke luke combs i'm like shoot go out into the kitchen i'm like what's up luke how you doing man it's been a while you know and he goes bubs he calls me bubs because i was always the youngest you youngest kid on whenever we go on tour and stuff. I was the opener, and I was always 21, 22.

I was just the young guy in the group. And he goes, Bubz, you don't even realize what you did, did you? I said, oh, man, it's huge, man. This is going to be a wall hanger, man. He goes, no. He goes, don't do anything. A wall hanger. Yeah, he goes, don't do anything.

He goes, I'm going to call somebody for you. And I said, all right, cool, man. I appreciate it. And then he called me again the next day, and then Spencer called me right after. And then that's kind of how the story launched, I guess. Crazy. Yeah, I don't want to be a douchebag, but I'm uniquely suited. I don't want to be a douchebag.

I'm uniquely suited to help out somebody like to be a douchebag. I'm uniquely suited to help out somebody like Dustin in this situation. Oh, I knew. And when I suggest, can I walk you through? I suggested Spencer because Spencer, one,

pays attention to this and Spencer knows what happens when people shoot big deer. Yeah. And like what the steps are. I used to work for North American Whitetail. And I told Spencer.

I told Spencer, did I warn you? I think I told Spencer. I told Spencer, did I warn you? I think I warned you. I warned you. Not to exploit him. Did I? Yeah, I think he did. See that?

Maybe. That was in one ear and out the other, Steve. Spencer was just like, big buck, big buck, big buck, big buck, big buck. Gotta go, Steve. Gotta go.

Gotta go, this guy. Did Spencer do you right or do you wrong? He did me good. Okay. Uniquely suited to help someone like Dustin in this situation. I used to work with North American Whitetail, who is like the proprietor of big buck stories. They want to buy them for their cover of their magazine. I've covered like world record deer in the past.

I've talked to Bass Pro, Cabela's, some of the folks that have killed some of the biggest deer in the world about how they went through the selling process of their antlers to profit off of these situations. And we've also covered like a lot of big bucks on our website and other places and like sort of the fallout from that,

whether it's like accusations of poaching or just the all the negative things that can come from that yeah so the next day dustin and i probably spent like an hour on the phone yeah talking about like here's here's the next steps uh to like set you up to to benefit and to get this thing legitimized yep yeah the fat and skinny oh it is if you shoot a big old buck, call Spencer. Yeah. If you got a world record buck, hit me up. I'd love to talk to you. Coach me through it.

He did, too, man. You sold the deer. I did. Well, hold on. What was one of the big... Spencer spent an hour with him and gave him the whole thing, but we're not going to hear any of that? Give me one main takeaway.

What was the one thing that Spencer said in that hour where you're like, man, that was a really a hot tip for me. Well, it's just, I didn't know anything about the business side of deer hunting. I just, I didn't even know there was deer shows or anything. Like you go take a deer to a deer show or whatever. So like he was coaching me through like the magazines and interviews and this is, you know, what these go for, what a cover of a magazine, what this is. So I didn't know anything about that stuff. How long did it take before taxidermists started calling you? Oh, shoot.

It was the next day once I posted it. Yep. Did Spencer ballpark for you what someone might pay for that rack? Yep. How close was he? He was right on it. Dead nuts. Yeah.

Jeez, man. Now, I realize you probably can't, you have like a non-disclosure. You can't tell us. Can you tell us we beep it out, though? Can we just beep it out? Don't make him break the contract. No, Spencer can probably give it to us. When the guys bought it from you,

I honestly don't know the number. When the guys bought it from you, you signed an NDA? I signed a bill of sale. No, but that's not an NDA. Yeah, but we keep it. It's between me and him as an undisclosed number. You agreed not to talk about the value. Yeah, we agreed to not talk about it.

Can I ask you what you did with your money? It's in a very safe location. You buried it. He buried it right under that tree there was one record holder i talked to luke brewster i think has still the non-typical world record whitetail yeah he had said he was offered a hundred thousand dollars and he turned it down he wouldn't tell me who it was i asked him like could i have three guesses and i got it on the second guess who the offer was from. But once word had got out that

he wasn't going to accept $100,000, nobody really bothered me anymore. There was another guy. Oh, okay. So, alright. So, let's put an end to the bidding war. Yeah, there was another guy. What did Buck Bowden sell that huge moose for? I want to say it was 60s, I remember. 40 or 60. There was another guy who killed,

I think it was the Louisiana or the Mississippi state record, non-typical, who had said, he couldn't tell me again the details of what it exactly sold for. But he said that he had an offer of $30,000 he was about to accept, but somebody came in at the last minute and made a better offer that included more money plus more replicas that he ended up taking. So those, Dustin can't tell us what the number would be, but something. You have to use your imagination. Did you get a replica? I got a replica. How many replicas? I can get I'm going to get the property owner one.

How much does it cost to get one? $1,500. I was going to say we should get one for the studio, but yeah. We kind of blew all of our money on this meat tester. Listen! The money we had left, We kind of blew all of our money on this meat tester. Listen. The money we had left, Corinne blew it on this chest of testers.

If that's something that you're into and Dustin's into, we definitely need to have a replica of the Huffbot. Oh, you know what we did buy? This actually. Did you guys hear about this? Spencer, at auction. What'd you pay for it, Spencer? this actually... Did you guys hear about this? I don't know yet.

At auction... What'd you pay for it, Spencer? At auction, we bought an 8-foot punt gun. You finally got one. We bought one about 10 days ago. $20,000. Can you fire it? We're going to make a lot of money off this punt gun.

Can we fire it? Oh, yeah. That's what the whole thing's about. When's that party happening? We have to make a feature film about that. An 8-foot long... That's what the whole thing's about. We have to make a feature film about that. An eight foot long investment. He calculated it out to be a two gauge. It's estimated

that throws about one pound. Throws a pound of lead. For reference, a turkey load is like two ounces max. Eight foot long punt gun. You pull a string to make it go off. It just looks like a shotgun with a never-ending barrel on it. $20,000 at auction.

An H&H. We're going to make the world's best performing YouTube video of all time. My, oh my. You know, remember Gallagher? How he used to like. Another 80s reference from Steve. That's actually modern for him. For you young whippersnappers.

There used to be a comedian. He had two schticks. He had two schticks. Watermelon? He liked to toy with the English language. So he would be like, there is T-H-E-I-R. But there is T-H-E-R-E. What gives?

That was like some of Gallagher's humor. And then he'd do that line of humor about why things are spelled the way they're spelled. And then he'd get out a big sledgehammer and he would smash fruit. Watermelons were big for him. That was like, when you went to see Gallagher,

that's what you got. He was smashing watermelons. He'd smash anything you think of. I bet you Mark and Spencer have no idea who you're talking about. Well, peep the crowd. Sometimes he would put the fruit on a piano. That was exciting. People in the know would bring plastic sheeting at a Gallagher concert.

The reason I bring up Gallagher is me and Spencer are going to take to shooting all manner of stuff with our punt gun. I'm, I'm ready to see that. I won the auction about 10 days ago. We hope it's going to be here in June. So Dustin, I got to ask you. So anyways, uh, can I go? Yeah. Yeah.

I'm just putting a button on that. I don't know why I'm even talking about that. No. Oh. Does a, does a world record buck taste better than a run of the mill 135? Oh yeah. What happened to all the meat? I've ate about four or five packages of it, of the backstrap.

Can you send us a chunk for our meat tester? Yeah. Oh, that's great. Hey, I'm actually going to do some jerky. How about jerky? Or do you guys want actual? We just need a little chunk. We need a little chunk of meat.

Yeah. Whole muscle. Yeah. And we'll tell you, we'll tenderness test it. Hey, listen. Let's do it. When you're telling people the stats. Let's do it.

You'll be like, it scored this. Had a tenderness test of 4.3. Best tasting world-class whitetail out there. I'm getting backed up on questions. I feel like Steven Ronella right now. I'm done. I can hold it all in there. I'm done.

I'm done. I'm just listening from here on out. So you've eaten four or five packages. Are you savoring it? Are you valuing that meat as much as the guy that bought the antlers from you is valuing that bone? Well, I mean, it's just whenever McKaylee, my girlfriend, wants to have some deer loins. If you're open, when you send Steve his little bitty chunk, if you want to send me like a roast, I'm going to have a damn party.

It was a little chunk. Listen, folks. I would love to taste a little bit. I'd be down to every potluck in the world because it'd be a great way to bring it up. Well, you know that meatball you're eating, how do you think about that? It's a world record meatball there. You might be interested in the fact that it's a world record meatball there. You might be interested in the fact that that's a world record. Yep. That'd be pretty cool to,

you know, share that with some friends and have a little party eating a world record buck. We had a Friendsgiving November 30th after I killed the deer and

ended up taking, taking it over there and frying it up, having a poker, having a poker and I was like, you boys better get your Snapchat

saying that you that you're a world-class whitetail here. National record. One thing we talked about, Dustin, was that this is going to happen regardless of what your next steps are, that folks are going to call you out as like, you poached it, this was a high-fenced deer, whatever.

And I imagine that happened either way, but I was like, you should really get a game warden over there to just take a picture of you and the buck together and the game warden standing there. And that'll like shut some of this down. Go see the gut pile, whatever. Yeah. So like, and that's what I did. I called DNR and I talked to the lady and she was just like, like the dispatcher or whatever.

And she was just like, I said, I killed the like possibly state record in Indiana. And she was just like, had no idea what I was talking about. I'm like, who do I need to talk to? She's like, you per like i know yeah and i'm just like who how i need to get somebody here to check this deer out so like but anyways like nobody ever came so then like three or four days five days later i'm getting calls from dnr well i'm back in nashville what are they calling you about wondering like where i killed this deer well like they were now they're following up they're starting they're starting to get calls from people all over the place. Really?

Yeah. Oh, he poached it. He shot it with a rifle. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Because of why? Just people talking. It's unreal, man. Doesn't matter what the story is.

Like Pat Durkin said. Because it's impossible. Haters going to hate. It's really impossible. That's not what Pat Durkin says. Which to me it was impossible too, but it happened and it's just like. You know what Pat Durkin says. Which to me, it was impossible too, but it happened. And it's just like. You know what Pat Durkin says?

Uh-uh. Big bucks make people stupid. Yep. That's true. Oh, he doesn't say haters going to hate? Haters. I would love to hear him say that. I think you're confusing Pat Durkin with a young lady who sings pop music.

Yeah. Go on. So I'm down in Nashville, you know, writing songs that week and get a call. Hey, when can you be, you know, when can you be back up here to show us where you killed this deer? I said, well, I'm not going to be home

for another two, three days or so. So they went out there. I told them, gave them the property owner's number and went out there, found my gut pile, found my tree. They were texting me. I had the DNR number and went out there, found my gut pile, found my tree. They were texting me. I had the DNR number and he said, uh, is it, was it this tree? Two limbs cut off about 20 foot up. I said, that's it. I said, gut pile should be about, you know, 60 yards in that holler. And they found it. What was left of it, you know, there was coyotes had got to it,

but, uh, what was left of the gut pile. And there was a week or two that went by, you know, there was coyotes had got to it, but what was left of the gut pile. And there was a week or two that went by. You know, I thought everything was squashed. Like, okay, cool. They're still getting more phone calls. Well, they wanted to come have another sit down. So I said, well, come over to the house and sit down on the couch. I'll make some coffee. I'll tell you about the whole hunt if you want to, you know, hear about it.

So they're just getting calls from people who are like, it has to be foul play. Yeah, that's what they were saying. They're like, we just keep getting calls. Like, man, and we just want to. I said, well, I said, here's the antlers. I showed them the antlers and I told them everything. They asked to see the arrow or anything like that? No, no, no.

Did they talk to the landowner? Yeah, talk to the landowner. Yeah, and it was just like, the thing about it was is people think that i live in nashville so it was a residency thing but i i'm an indiana resident i just travel for work you know to write songs down and record songs so like there was this huge thing of like i said well you can look at my bank statements i said i've been living here i said i moved away at 19 but i moved back and now i just travel back and forth i said but the. I said, I've been living here. I said, I moved away at 19, but I moved back. And now I just travel back and forth. I said, but the past five, six years, I've been, you know, here, you know? So yeah, it's, but we finally squashed it. We all took

pictures together. And so, yeah. So here's what I wonder about situations like yours and other people that have gone through this. You shoot this world-class deer. This was never something you were trying to do, right? You just want to be a deer hunter. But now you stumble into this world-class deer. Now you're dealing with DNR. You're dealing with allegations of poaching. You're dealing with the business side. All of a sudden, people are offering you money for the deer. People are inviting you to shows. and now you're traveling all over the country and you're talking to a thousand people and everyone wants a piece of you. You glad it happened? Like, are you okay with this? Do you like this? Or has it been like, eh, got more than I bargained for? I've prayed for a long time

for music to, you know, I just needed a break. You know, know i had 300 in my bank account when i shot this thing so it has completely changed my life in a the best way ever it's crazy nice yep that's awesome uh remember how i told you i was gonna ask you about do you like it's all downhill from here yeah i mean i'm buck hunting so now have you redefined a shooter buck i'm going back to 134 inches 134 if i can beat my 134 and just work it's like this never happened yeah it's just like and if i can maybe get lucky enough to work my way up to 140 150 160 one that's going back to where you were on november 3rd yeah i'm not even gonna that's just hit the reset button yeah it's just the reset i'm and my thing is like it's awesome, but it's like, I get just the joy out of shooting a doe, you know, or I just love deer hunting.

I love eating deer. That's great, man. Yep. Your girlfriend stayed with you through this whole thing. Yep. Yep, she's with me. You know how many antler chasers that are like. The fame.

Yeah, do you get approached by women who just want to be closer? Like how if you're in prison, women want to write you letters just because you're in jail? No. No antler chasers. Thank God. You kind of answered my question, but I'm going to ask you anyways in case you want to just add to it because you said you had 300 bucks in your bank account. Yeah.

Which would mean that make the decision to sell pretty easy. Yeah. But it's still the USA record. Yeah. Which would mean that make the decision to sell pretty easy. Yeah. But it's still the, you know, USA record. Yeah. So was it easy? That was, it took me two months after talking with Spencer and really trying to figure out like what my best option was, you know, and I'm getting, I had two offers and me and him were talking about bass pro and like i was waiting for them but they never called i had contacted them and i was just trying to figure out if there was more people would be interested but i only had two well then the one guy he made a

real good offer and was like come see me and uh i was over there for like eight or nine hours just bullshit and then you know just i was picking guitar we were just you know and then he's a guitar player he had like three or four guitars not only not only monster whitetails i mean he had guitars guns everything over there i mean it was awesome it was awesome ted nugent ted nugent was it ted nugent no what i like about uh you calling him moose right afterwards was when the hole in the horned buck was killed back in 1940, he was killed by a train. And some railroad workers had found the deer who had no familiarity with hunting or really wildlife in general. And they actually argued about whether it was a moose or a whitetail at the time. No way.

That's crazy. Wow. Yeah, like, that was my first thought. Whenever I first saw him, he put his head up. I just go, moose. Holy shit, moose. This is a moose. Like, what is a moose doing in Decatur County, Indiana?

You know, I'm just like, what the hell? This is a hog farm, you know? What the hell, man? So, yeah. All right, you ready to play a song for us? Yeah, I might have to tune it back up, though. It's probably got out of tune so far. Whose guitar is that?

It's Hayden's. Yeah, Hayden's. You don't travel with a guitar? As long as you do not have a guitar over one shoulder and that deer rack over the other shoulder. Here's why. Here's why. Luke gave me that guitar. Which guitar?

The one I got to Taylor. It was his first show guitar guitar and i've had it for about five six years now you don't like travel with it i don't know it's i'm putting it up in a it's going in a glass case on the wall yeah i don't want yeah i would like to get a copy of a replica of that deer head deer antler when they make those what is it just on a skull cap like a fake skull cap yeah it's just skull cap and then So that's just what the antlers cost and then whatever the taxidermy and stuff is. Did you keep the real cape or you lost the real cape? I got the real cape.

That was in the deal. I said, I want to have the real cape, so I've got to keep it. Who are you going to have stuff the deer? I had- It's already done? Yeah, Charlie Watts in North Vernon, Indiana. Oh, you should have had John Hayes do it. Well, this guy was 30 minutes down the road.

This guy's 30 hours down the road. Exactly. Exactly. If folks want to see the Buckeye, I imagine you're going to be traveling with this thing at some trade shows coming up this year. Do you know what stops you're going to be making? Yeah, so we're in...

I'm actually doing Smoky Mountain Knife Works. Got a show there on July 9th from 11 to 4, playing for like 45 minutes, then just showing the deer off. Oh, bringing your two passions together. So that's what we're doing. That's when I was talking like deer hunting into a deer business. It's just crazy that it goes hand in hand, country music and deer hunting. So that's what we're going to start doing is bring guitar, play 45 guitar, play 45 minutes, show the deer off and tell the story. Dude, that's great.

July 9th, August 20th, we're in, where's that at? Kansas City. And then I'm in Bloomington, Illinois on the 27th of August. And then we're working on September, October, November shows. Man. Then you get back in the tree stand. Oh, that's what I told him. I said, I said, said i got at least have

some time for my 2022 buck because you know that's right from the 25th to the 8th and i only killed two deer last year usually i kill three or four years so i'm running low on me i'm saving that i'm saving moose so i'll put him in the back. Yeah, I'd always have a little bit, man. I'd always have a little bit. The next day, before you and I talked, Luke Combs was making the introduction, and one of the things he said was that he's like, this is going to change his life, and it couldn't have happened to a better dude. And he was right.

That was so damn cool to hear that story, and how you're not me or Mark Kenyon killing that buck. Yeah, man. It's crazy. And he knew that it was going to help me. Like, that's why he called, you know, texted you. You know, we've been friends for a long time. And just, I've been praying for something in music to, what in the heck, you know, like,

and sure enough, a deer walks through and I shoot it at 40 yards and now I can do the deer and the music, you know, hand in hand. It's just. It's great, man. It's, it's, It's God, man. It's just how it is. Amen to that. Yep.

Play us a song. You can do a love song. Can I tune it first? Oh, yeah, of course. Cool. Are we doing one song? One song, yeah. You're staying for our tribute show.

Yeah. I'll just play that fishing song. That's fine. That's great. Just it goes good with the meat eater, you know? I should be fishing Somewhere on a boat floating Sun tan, cold can chilling

Reeling in a five pound large mouth Somewhere on a boat floating, suntan, cold can chilling. Reeling in a five pound large mouth, good time grinning. Yeah, I should be fishing. Hell, I should be in a deer stand. Sipping coffee from a cup, watching the woods wake up spitting red man waiting on a big buck slip up 30 30 in my hands i should be in a deer stand a hundred mile away from us everyday rat race hate this backed up traffic far from these skyline night lights concrete high rise makes it hard to find them stars catch a sunset wish eyes down a back road back home sitting on the best damn honey hole i know shouldn't be caught up in this fast life city living man i should be fishing Yeah, I should be way out there

Without a worry or care in the world Instead of staying still stuck here With some dude in a suit honking in my rear view I could use a Calvin line beer Gotta get out of here A hundred mile away from a Saturday rat race Use a counting line, beer. Gotta get out of here. A hundred mile away from a Saturday rat race. Hate this backed up traffic.

Far from these skyline nightlights. Concrete high rise makes it hard to find them stars. Catch a sunset, wish I was down a back road. Back home, sitting on the best damn honey hole I know. Shouldn't be caught up in this fast life city living man i should be fishing man i should be taking it slow Taking it in with a west wind blowing just right A hundred mile away from a seven day rat race

Hate this backed up traffic Far from these skyline night lights Concrete high rise makes it hard to find them stars Catch a sunset, wish wish eyes down a back road back home sitting on the best damn honey hole i know shouldn't be caught up in this fast life city living man i should be fishing man i should be fishing Woo!

Song of regret. I wrote that song about living in Nashville, Tennessee. Then you moved back. Then I moved back. Then I wrote a song about it. Have you gone fishing more? Yes. Good.

Oh, yeah. We're going to prioritize fishing gone fishing more? Yes. Good. Oh yeah. We're gonna prioritize fishing a lot more these days. Alright man thanks for coming on. Cool I appreciate y'all having me. Thank you. Dustin sticking around for trivia which we have two big announcements coming up on. Please tune in to Wednesday's episode of Trivia with Dustin. Wednesday Dustin

Huff, owner of the, former owner of the shooter of the Huffbug. Shooter of the Huffbug the shooter of the shooter of the yep the hunter that killed the huff bug Dustin Huff cool man

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