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

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

Tony Peterson is joined by videographer Max Barta, to answer viewer questions about his 12 in '26 film with Steven Rinella hunting whtietail in Nebraska. In the film they head to Nebraska with Pat Hoffman to hunt whitetail deer on Pat's family ranch. In this episode, they break down Tony's approach to scouting, setting up each hunter, and reading the deer. Watch Tony and Steve's "12 in '26" episode on MeatEater's YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/KizvptV13b0?si=57wsDr32ALpUE8Jd Connect with MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips Subscribe to MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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You're the one that did all the work, dude. You deserve it, man. You didn't deserve that clip. Hey, everyone. Welcome to the 12 and 26 companion podcast for our Nebraska whitetail hunt last year. I did with Steve Ronella and Pat Hoffman. Really cool film that came together. We are going to go behind the scenes here.

I'm sitting here with my buddy Max Barta, our videographer extraordinaire, who actually spent the whole week with Steve. Documenting not only the whitetail hunting, but the trapping. And we are going to just dive into some of the things that made it onto the show and some of the things that didn't

that the audience has kind of been asking us about or we've been getting questions about. just so basically like a behind the scenes breakdown of what really went into this hunt. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of fun. We'll just dive deeper into the preparation, the actual hunt. And yeah, like you said.

What it's like to hunt with Steve when he's trapping? All of that. And yeah, just a little backstory. Whenever I get asked to like go on a trip and Tony's there, I'm like, yes, I'm going. it's going to be a great time. Tony knows how to hunt deer,

and it's just something I look forward to. So what's something that was so special about this hunt for you? I mean, this was a, for me personally, when Steve called me, so I was actually walking out of the cat tail. Talk to us a little bit about like how this hunt came to be

and just like why you wanted to do this so bad. Well, I didn't want to do it super bad. But I did want to do it. But I was literally walking out of a cattail slew. I just killed a limit of roosters. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I get a phone call from Steve. And he said, hey, man, I got the best white tail hunt you're ever going to get offered.

We're going to do it next year. He explained to me that Pat's family has 3,000 acres. It hasn't been on it in 13 years or 15 years or whatever. And I knew what that meant. I knew I was going to be doing a lot of work. But I was also really excited because I don't get to do. I do a lot of public land stuff. For sure.

Can't use the cameras in a lot of places. I don't really get to work the deer the way we did on this hunt. So I was actually very excited to have a lot of raw land that hadn't been hunted in a state that I love. So that was a cool part. Knowing that I was going to get to go through the process of scouting and working the deer and setting up, I knew it would be a lot of work. And it was. Yeah, because you said you got the call in November. Or was it December?

December. and you basically have almost a full year to prep for this hunt. Right. Right. And so I guess what is some of the first things that you do as far as like, yeah, give me like a one, two, three step process, what you do when you first learn about, oh, I have access to this property or I'll be hunting this property this fall. What is one of the first things you do?

So this is something that didn't really make the cut at all because it's just not something you would film. But, you know, as soon as Steve said that, then we had a group text going with Steve, Pat, and I. And Pat started sending me, you know, screenshots from OnX or waypoints from OnX. And so I started looking at that ranch, you know, because I knew I wasn't going to go there for months, right? I was in the middle of the winter. It wouldn't do us any good. And so, you know, you start looking at Onex and start going, okay, I got a river bottom. I know there'll be White Tills there. Huge pivot fields. What's going to be in the? those and you know now you can zoom in on on x the satellite imagery is so good that you can see

cattle and so i started looking at like where are there cattle there were cattle everywhere and so it started to just get my mind around like where are the patches of cover where's the really open ground that isn't going to have deer and then just just trying to you know like get my bearings a little bit because i know when you do that you show up and then you're like this looks different oh yeah You know, like this, this field isn't what I thought it was. The river's deeper than I thought or whatever. You know, like, it's a good starting point. And so that's what I did.

And I spent, you know, a couple months doing that where I was like, oh, I got some free time. I'm just going to, like, start picking and choosing and started building my plan. And honestly, the first thing I thought of when I was looking at that, I was like, we are going to decoy the crap out of the bucks down there. Oh, really? Super open. Okay. And I've been using our Dave Smith dough decoy a lot the last couple years. And my daughters and I have been killing bucks on it.

And that thing is like, I'm very confident. I don't use buck decoys. And I thought the way that that ground was open, we were going to have to be in ground blinds a lot. So positioning a deer is important. So my head, I was like already looking like, I'm going to put cameras here, but I'm probably going to put a blind here. We're going to decoy a buck here. And, you know, I had some of it right. And I had some of it so wrong.

Okay. I feel like once you get on to Onyx and you start doing all this e-scouting, you kind of paint this picture in your mind of how everything's going to go down. You get there in July your first time. What was the difference between the actual, what was in front of you, and what you had painting in your mind? As far as cover, the river, just all the difference. circumstances that go into your strategy.

So, right. I drove down there the week of Fourth of July. I brought nine cameras down me. I brought nine cameras down with me. And what immediately struck me, I met Pat down there. Pat was down there with his family. His brother, Nick, was there.

They showed me around. I was like, okay, this place is way more open than I thought. Okay. You know, like when you're looking at satellite imagery, it's sometimes deceiving. If you look in the summer, it looks like everything's leafed out and there's lots of trees to work with.

And what I didn't realize was this was 3,000 acres and every acre was involved in cattle production. And so my thought process was, you know, I have this patch of trees here. This is good cover. I have a patch of trees here.

It's good cover. And then I got there and everything had been grazed. And so it was a very different kind of habitat than I was expecting. And it was way wetter than I thought. So there were cat tail sloughs. Like when I got there, I was like, this is a great place to hunt dogs. Yeah.

Like, and not necessarily deer. And so that changed things for me a little bit. And I am kind of pretty quickly realized I'm like, I thought we were going to have a high deer density. Like I was just like, this is a private land, Nebraska hunt. Yeah, next to river bottom. I was in acres. I'm like, there's going to be a ton of deer. And it did not take me very long walking around there where I was like, okay, I think the deer density's way lower than I expected.

It turned out to be way lower than even what I thought on that first trip. Okay. So there were a lot of things that I just had wrong. Yeah. Like I just, I had wrong and I had wrong from every, I went down there three times. Oh, really? Every time. Well, once was to hunt, but I went down there twice.

Okay, got you. Before that. And every time I had an idea in my head and then. I got there and I'm like, okay, this isn't it? Yeah. Like it kept changing on me. And were you, so you went there, hung a bunch of cameras. Were you impressed with what you found?

Or what do the cameras tell you? Well, what was weird is that this buck right here, which is the buck I killed down there, the very first deer I saw, we went into this spot along the river, you know, probably about 400 yards away from where I can. killed him. And I walked into this spot, looked around, got back to the side-by-side, climbed in, and I looked over, and that buck got out of his bed, and he was in the room. So the first deer I saw was a giant.

And you're like, expectations are up here. Right. And I, so he got up, ran away. I got out of the side-by-side, walked over, they started looking around and found a trail, and I hung a camera. And the first picture I got on the whole ranch was that buck coming back in there. Wow. And I was like, I'm like, holy cow.

Like this deer's really big. But it didn't, it wasn't like a reliable thing. Like even there was, it became pretty clear quickly that there weren't that many deer there and they weren't living there. You know, like, I mean, that was like a part of their route. But even then in the summer where you're like, I expect bucks to be here every day on this food source, you know, batched out the whole thing. it just didn't have that vibe. I started to realize I'm like, I think this is going to be

a more challenging deal than I expected. I actually thought it was going to be really easy. Yeah. And so he went down there a couple times and we're actually going to watch a clip here. Just kind of a funny moment. We'll tune into this right here. One of the things that sucks about filming

for meat eater is when you do something really stupid like close the gate and you're on the road? wrong side of it. Close myself in on the wrong side. I feel like, that's going to make it in a show. You're going to be like, oh, look at that. Dipshit.

And so, seeing that, you kind of feel like a big dummy. What's the most embarrassing thing that you've done that did make the fine cut, or the final cut? Well, I mean, because you filmed, like, the last how many years with me either? Four. And so like there's been countless number of times, you know. I am a mistake making machine. For sure. And that's something that, like, I try to get through in my writing and a lot of stuff, it's like,

you get a very curated highlight reel of success generally from people in my position. That's one of the reasons I actually like meat eater. It sucks doing something stupid like that. But I think we have an obligation to that. And I work for a TV show in a past life where, it was very common to not show anything like that. Like the host didn't want to be shown in any way like that. Misses,

they wouldn't show misses a lot of times. And I was like, man, it's all part of it. We're bo-hunting, right? So, I mean,

I think the worst one that I had, and this was kind of just personal, was a couple years ago, I snort we was in a really big buck in North Dakota on public land and just whiffed on him. I think I remember watching that. Yeah. And that was,

you know, the hard thing for me, me, the embarrassing stuff for me is, so when I started bow hunting, I had buck fever so bad. Okay. And it took me years to sort of rain it in. And I got a pretty good handle on it. And then I started filming a lot. And I don't, I'm not the kind of person who can tune things out. So like when I, when I missed that big buck in North Dakota, I know exactly what I did. I was, I was making sure that my camera guy was on it and I wasn't, that buck didn't have my full attention.

and I kind of filled in the blanks and going, he's going to come through at this distance, and that's where I'm going to kill him. And I looked at Dylan to make sure, because he was on the other side of the tree, took my focus out and looked back, and I just didn't even register that buck had walked way closer and just whiffed on him,

shot a little bit of hair off of his back. And when you do something like that, it just sucks. You're just like, you just live with it for like a year and then it drops, and you're like, oh, whatever, you know. Well, you also put it. put so much time and effort into this hunt and then just like you just choke that's right that's all you do dude totally and i mean it's like i i'm i'm gonna say that i definitely do that stuff when i'm

hunting on my own too it's just it's so much easier for me to make a mistake like that when i'm on film because my my focus just i'm like divided yeah and i think um for a lot of people they just don't realize there's a huge huge difference between just hunting and filming a hunt. Right. You know, it's like you have to make considerations that you normally wouldn't do if you were just hunting. Well, I mean, as a perfect example on that North Dakota hunt,

we ran into that buck two days later, and I had him at 21 yards making a rub, a very clear window to his vitals, and my cameraman couldn't get on him, and I had to let him walk. And, you know, I mean, but what I'm saying there, and that's just, that's a part of the job. I don't really care about that,

but what it is is like, and this is, this is like general advice for every bow hunter or every hunter out there is whatever level of pressure gets put on you it doesn't have to be filming with steve rnella like whatever pressure you put on yourself that is something that's going to potentially cost you because it's just it elevates the experience it it gets you kind of in that fight or flight mode which is buck fever and it's just a different level and so like when people go you know i want my first pope and young buck or i want I killed a bunch of 120s.

I want a 140. Well, when that 140 walks in, you've already put that pressure on yourself. That's where those mistakes come from. And it's like, it's part of what's cool because if you do it right, it's incredible. But putting that pressure on yourself or feeling that pressure is like such a recipe

for making stupid mistakes. Yeah. Back to the film. We get there, was it first week, November? Yep. So was it peak rut, do you think? Or where was the rest of? rut calculator, would you think?

Well, I mean... On a scale one to ten, what would you say the rut was like 10 being peak rut? One being nothing at all. I mean, you're at a nine for sure. I mean, for me personally, especially, you know, when you're the northern half of the country, that first week of November, the last week October is bang and first week of November is you've got to be there. I think we got down there on like the third or something.

So we were like right there. And that was the whole goal, right? We're like, we have this place. Nobody's going to hunt it. Nobody's going to be in there. let's go have like an amazing rod hunt. Yeah. And so bucks should be, or they could be, or they should be pretty aggressive.

How do you decide to use a decoy or not to use a decoy? Well, what I realized, for me personally, it's such a situationally dependent thing. Because it could do more harm than good, correct? Right. And so you'll see this on the film. you would have seen this if I had hunted longer anyway. Pat was rattling, blind calling. Steve was rattling, blind calling.

The more time that I spent down there and the more trail camera images I got, the more I realized, like, this is going to be a wait-am-out game, which is generally how you kill Big Bucks during the rut. Like, patience is everything. And I knew with the way we kind of had to protect an area that had doze in there and it had the most concentration of deer on the ranch. I'm like, these bucks are going to come in and they're going to leave and they're going to

orbit this thing. And I'm like, the best bet, I don't want them to know I'm there. I know that if we put in enough time, they're going to walk by. So I don't, I wasn't going to do any of that stuff. Like if I saw one cruising, I would have called to him maybe. But there's just like a difference in strategy where, you know, those guys are Western hunters primarily. And that's what a lot of people do when they do a hunt like that is like, well, it's the

run. I'm going to rattle. I'm like, well, there's no deer here hardly. So, like, if you were a big buck there, that density of deer, like, I just, I don't have that much faith in blind calling that way. Like, they're on kind of a different path. And it's such a, just put your butt in the seat, get the wind right, and just wait them out. And that's, you know, if we had a little bit higher deer density or, you know, maybe,

we had some deer coming into fields on there, which we didn't really have. Those decoys would have came out. We would have had situations. But the more time I spent there, the more I just realized, I'm like, I just don't, I'm not getting that vibe. Like, it's changing.

And we need to just be on these pinch points and just ride them out. Yeah. So we get there. Everyone's excited. Everyone makes plans. First morning, and then this happens. What was going through your head at that moment?

Well, I need a backup from that. Okay. So the reason that I went into that stand is I hadn't had that buck. That was the buck that we had dubbed the split brow buck. Yeah, that's the, that was... That's this deer. Yeah, the target buck. That's the buck you named.

Right. So I hadn't had that buck on camera in a while. I knew that that stand was going to be a really good one. What I screwed up on that you don't see on the film is I had easy access to, to every stand and blind I put up. That was the farthest walk. And when I went down there in July, and then I went down there in August and hung that stand,

the mistake I made is I didn't walk that river. And so in my head, I'm like, the river's shallow, sandy, very typical Nebraska-type river. Easy to cross, maybe. Right. And so I was like, I'm going to get into that river. I'm going to go half a mile upstream. I'm going to pop up the bank and be right at that tree.

Well, as soon as we got out of the truck, and I'm in my knee highs, my cameraman's in his knee highs. We got into that river, and I immediately had water in my boots. And I'm like, this is deeper than I expected, and I can't read the bottom because it's dark. Yeah, and you're not using a headlamp? Well, I was using a headlamp. I didn't want to. I wanted to use a red lamp and just weighed the river straight up.

I totally misread it. And the reason that I wanted to go in there is because I was like, I wonder if I screwed this up. So I had my tracker on OnX. So I'm like, I'm going to send people into Strait. for sure. I don't want to send somebody in and have them get dunked in the dark. So you were, you almost wanted to be like the guinea pig. Right. If it was going to be too deep, I'll figure it out kind of thing. Yeah. So when we left, taking one for the team. Dude, I knew, like I had this feeling. I'm like, I think I screwed up. Like, I think I got to know this.

And so, and with Steve trapping and not going hunting, I'm like, I'm going to go, I'm going to go, I'm going to go get a track so I can share it with these guys. I wait into that river. I immediately know I screwed up. And so I'm like, now I got to either. I can't get out on the far side because I don't know if I can cross at the stand and that's where I expect the deer to come from. So I'm like, I have to be on the side I plan to hunt.

And so anyway, I had tons of time but it took me way longer because I screwed that up. I had to go wade through a bunch of willows and brush along the edge of the river and just really kind of like amateur amateur hour my way through the whole thing.

You felt like a rookie like it was your first time hunting, you know? Dude, right. And, you know, get to that stand late. I got to that stand and sent Drew up, and I'm looking at my phone, and I'm like, it's going to be legal shooting light when I get in.

Like, it just is, and I'm like, it's the rut, so you're like, whatever. But, you know, I've got, I'm wet, I've got water in my boots. I'm planning to sit all day.

And just everything, I'm like, I can just, like, I always do something like this to myself. You're just thinking negative, negative, negative, negative. Right, like, right. And Drew gets up there.

I go up after him. and I'm not even close. And I hear something and I look over and here's a deer walking and I can immediately tell. It's a big deer. I bring my binoes up and I see just this time

and I'm like, oh shit. Oh no. And so I'm like, Drew, you got to get your act together because this deer's coming and he's huge. And he moves, bangs his carabiner against the seat. Totally not ready, but he's like, you know, those dudes are professionals.

Like he got on it and I mean in a matter of just a couple of minutes from being on the ground to being in that tree, shot that buck. And I didn't know, I didn't know it was him. I kind of had gone from like seeing him in my binoes and just knowing it was good enough. And then shooting him and he runs off. When I was sitting in that tree afterwards, you know, the second guessing came in. I'm like, was he really as big as I thought? Like, what happened? And I realized I was just, like, geeked out of my mind.

And it happened so fast and so chaotic that I didn't have, there were, like, pieces clipped out of my, like, my memory. And I'm like, I don't know what's going on. And it ended up working out. But it was a, it was a crazy, crazy hunt. Well, I just feel like no one was more deserving in shooting the target buck than you. You did all the work. You did all the prep.

used your knowledge to break down the property and then it's like, perfect buck comes here and you make it look like it was the easiest thing ever. Like, you knew that buck was going to be there and you're just like, yep. Well, I mean, what's weird to me is, I don't really care. Like, I wasn't like hung up on the target buck.

So you didn't feel guilty about shooting the target buck at all? It just happens, you know? Look, I knew when I went into that stand, that was a good pinch point. Like I knew that there was a chance, but I believe that on every place we had to hunt. Yeah, it's like you're not going to put a stand or a blind there for no reason. Right. You know, like, you were like using your knowledge and you're like, yes, this has potential.

Right. And, you know, honestly, the thing that I thought, it was a relief to kill one right off the bat. Oh, I'm sure. Like, you could go into a hunt like that and everybody blanks and it's on you, you know. So getting one killed like that was cool. And it just kind of let me play guide and like relax the rest of the trip. So that part was nice. But I was actually kind of bum because I'm like, man,

I was just looking forward to spending time in a treater. Yeah, for sure. You know, like, and instead I'm like in a camper and I'm driving a side by side around a guide and Steve and Pat. But it was, I mean, it was cool, man. And that's like, to me, that's like such a good lesson in, like, if you do the work ahead of time, like so much of white tail hunting is one when you're not in stand. It's such a different beast from Western hunting. Yeah.

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Remember, for every $25 spent, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 1150. And a little behind the scenes, when you called or texted Steve that you shot a buck, we were still in the camper. Like not even dressed, not even ready to go out. And Steve was still like drinking coffee at this time.

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

And so what was that like you put all this work and effort into it? And you're like, you're doing what the first morning? I thought when he started texting us that he was going to coyote trap on that line. I thought he was joking. I thought he was joking.

I was like, but it's Steve so you just don't know. But I was like, there's no way. There's no way he's going to he's going to set up this freaking whitetail hunt

during the rut. We got three guys hunting and then he's going to show up and he's going to trap. And it was by far my biggest frustration point of the whole trip. because like

by the time the hunt happened, I knew we were dealing with a really low deer density. Like there just aren't very many deer on that in that area even. In fact, this is going to sound crazy,

but when I went down and hung stands, I went in the end of August and I stayed at a, I rented an Airbnb like 20 minutes from the ranch. We drove that, you know,

because you're getting good camera light and everything. So we drove that at first and last light for four. days and I never saw a deer in a field. And on that ranch, I'm like, man, we really don't have very many deer. And so I knew it was like a matter of spending time in the tree. Like I'm, I still believe that if we all spent enough time, it would happen. And so Steve's, I don't know if this is true and I'm filling in the blanks here, but Steve was like, yeah, my buddy who's a professional

trapper is like, this is the coyote mecca and you got a trap here. And that, that was what prompted him to do But I think, this is my personal theory. I think that most of the Western hunters I meet are not very patient. Pat was super patient. Oh, yeah, he definitely was. Pat was an all-day sit, no-problem guy. But I'm like, I think that Steve did this so he had an excuse to not sit all day because I had told him this before the trip.

I was like, dude, it's going to be put in the hours and kill a deer. And I'm not, I know Western hunters will lose their shit because I said that. But it's just true that in the whitetail world, just patience kills big bucks. And in the Western world, it's so easy to go try to be proactive and make something happen. They're very different things. For sure. And it's hard. I've seen this with a lot of really good friends who are like crazy accomplished Western hunters.

They get into that white tail space and it's like, it's just hard for them. You know, it's the same thing like, you know, you take a lot of my white tail buddies and you put them out in the mountains. They're not going to do very well because it demands. a different thing out of you. So I think Steve was trapping because he didn't want to sit all day. Yeah. And I feel like also with Steve

is like he gets an idea in his head. He's like, oh, that's a great idea. And he's going to run with it no matter what, you know? And so, yeah, from a cameraman perspective is like each of us got teamed up with a hunter. And so Drew was with you. Ty was with Pat and I was with Steve. and so whatever Steve did, I had to go document, you know?

And so I was stuck trapping for the whole morning, you know? Right. And I want you to know that I requested you. And Steve took you. Yeah, I don't know. So it was just kind of funny and just like that whole mentality of like, oh, Tony just shot a buck and we're not even out of the camper yet. It's just like, it was hard for my head to wrap around, you know? Right.

Um, so target buck is done. Um, what's next? Uh, well, for me, it just became managing Pat and Steve around the wind. For sure. Almost like, like you said, guiding them, um, figuring out where's going to be the best sits. Right. Yeah. And I mean, we were, you know, we were still running cameras. It wasn't, I actually, the camera situation was weird. It confirmed some of the things that I thought, some of those pinch points, you know, you're talking about the mulberries, right? Yeah.

Not the actual camera. Right, right. The camera cameras. Okay. It was weird because it showed me a couple of the spots we killed were good enough, right? But it also, the spot that Pat sat all day on day one, you and Steve sat in there at some point that blind, that camera was,

three times as active as any other camera I had down there. I mean, that multery was lighting up often, and nobody saw a deer there. And when we were going into that hunt, I was like, somebody will kill a buck here. It's too good. There's too many doze, and it never happened.

And so in that way, that was like a cautionary tale camera-wise for me because it was showing me really good deer action, but for whatever reason they knew we were there. And so I kept believing in it because as soon as we get out, there'd be deer in there. But it just wasn't working. Like it just, I had something wrong there.

And so in a way, I let those, that camera talk me into that spot. But it also showed me like, hey, I'm not going to show you what you did wrong, but you're doing something wrong because these deer are still here. And that was, to me, that was actually pretty fun. Like the camera thing on this hunt was pretty fun because I don't get to do that at that scale. You know, normally I'm on public land, normally I'm where there's a lot of people, and I don't get to see that kind of thing very often. So that part was fun. But mostly that time after I killed, I spent like, okay, the wind's going to be out of the north until 11. The wind's going to be out of the south until whatever.

And just trying to like make sure Pat and Steve were on places where I was like, this is so worth your time here. And that, you know, it was tough because there weren't very many years, but it worked out. For sure. From your whitetail hunting experience, there's, I would say, four mainways to hunt. There's a tree stand, tree saddle, ground blind, and a natural blind. Out of those, what are your favorite? Like, what's your favorite? And yeah, you can tell me, yeah, it depends on this, that, this. My favorite thing to do is to go out with a light set of sticks and a very, very lightweight hang on or a saddle and just be mobile. That's like I like showing up.

Setting your saddle up and just hunting, you know. Right. And I mean, natural blinds, I do that a lot too. I don't like sitting in hub style blinds for deer. Like it's just, I do it, especially with my daughters. And I don't, I don't like big ladder stands. Like I just I like mobile stuff, you know, and it that was that was a tough element to this hunt because I knew that I had to find spots ahead of time that I could put Pat in and a cameraman or Steve and a cameraman and just like it has to be good enough and it's they're not going to be like we're moving. Like we could have moved sets, but I'm like that's going to be a whole different thing.

Yeah. And I like I feel like when you set a stand, you also have to think like this. well, first of all, this is a good hunting stand, but since we're filming, is it a good filming stand? Can I put a second stand above the hunter? You know? Right. And so on this hunt, you did a multiple different things.

You set stands, ground blinds, and natural blinds. Tell me a little bit more about these natural blinds. Well, I actually only did one natural blind. And that was partially because most of the trees down there that the trees were either like saplings or they were 100 years old. and four feet in diameter and you couldn't get a stand into them. And the one natural blind I put up, that was just in a spot

that had this great big tree and there were a bunch of scrapes from the previous year. It was right on a creek so they weren't going to get behind you and it was just like a, it was the spot that had the most previous year's buck sign.

I just couldn't, I couldn't get anything else going there and I walked all over that place. Yeah. I did put a pop-up blind probably 200 yards away from it that I thought would be a decoy thing. And that is kind of interesting because I put up, I think I put up five blinds and five double sets when I was there in August. And we only sat a couple of them. Several of the places that I set up, we never sat.

And they became a non-issue. And I had enough conviction in those spots to actually do a setup and then we didn't use them. and it was like kind of an eye-opener to me that I didn't I didn't really need to overdo it. You know, like I, I'll give you another example here just as it's sort of like, you don't get to see it on the film. You see a little bit of setup of me going in there, but I found this little frog pond on this part of this property.

It was in a, you know, for people who don't know, in that area you have these pivot fields, right? Yeah, because there's lack of water. Egg field, right? And then in the corners of those fields, usually have some kind of brush, cedar trees planted, some kind of habitat, right?

Good place to hunt pheasins. Yeah. Quail or whatever, right? And in one of those, there were some big cottonwood trees, and there was a little frog pond. And I was like, this pond is exactly what I like to hunt.

You know, and like, it's kind of in a series of patchy cover. And I put up a double set on that to shoot that pond. Yep. and I put a camera on it in July, and I never got a picture of a deer on it the whole time. Probably some cows, though.

I didn't even get cows in there because they were kept out of that corner. Okay. Literally never got a deer. And so when I went there in July, I found it, put a camera on it, I still believe the deer were going to come, hung a double set on it in August, and ended up pulling that set after I killed my buck, because I'm like, there's nothing over here. No photos, no nothing.

You know, that was, I had like a lot of kind of dead program stuff that I thought was going to kind of hack it and it just didn't. And so it was an interesting challenge that way. Yeah, for sure. We are going to watch a clip of Steve in this natural blind. And I, like, I've built plenty of natural blinds before for like duck hunting or goose hunting. You know, and like, I respect it and take some work and like you blend in probably the best, you know. And so I had full confidence that this was going to work. But yeah, we're going to watch this clip and have a little laugh about it.

Right. And that moment of truth happens soon. When a buck steps from the woods already fully aware that I'm trying to hide there, I attempt to pull my bow as though I'll somehow shoot from the position I'm in. which is nearly impossible. And all I managed to do is get a partial draw before I really spooked the buck.

That buck, when he came out, like, a little backstory, Steve is to my right. I have a camera on a tripod facing him and also my handheld camera. And I was the first person's spot that buck. And I just slowly, like, that buck comes out and he's just,

right on us the whole time. He knew we were there, but he didn't know what we were. Right. And so I'm just like kicking Steve like, hey, there's a buck. Like, and I'm like, how's this guy going to shoot? Right. So when you're playing guide, you tell people to go to these spots, but you don't really tell them how to hunt. Tell me, tell me what did Steve do wrong and what you would have done differently? I would say for sure the spiciest moment that I had with Steve off camera was after he got back from that hunt. Oh, he was so frustrated.

He was pissed at me. And I'm only getting the story from him. I'm just going to say this. If you see somebody go out into the White Hill Woods and they sit in a natural blind and they don't have a face mask or face paint on. You're not thinking this stuff through. What I should have told him, and I didn't think about this, and this was on me as I should have said,

hey, get there early, cut some extra stuff, and build up that blind. Because it's been up for a couple months. It's going to be kind of beat down. And the thing about those natural blinds is they work really well when you set them up correctly. But you have to hide yourself. And that one, you know, I didn't know the way that buck came in, they could come in from, you know, about 270 degrees there because you have that creek behind you. So they're not going to come in behind you, but they could have come in from everywhere. and when you're sitting there like that kind of in their line of sight,

like at their level, it's just tough. And so I should have told him he should have built that blind up more. But that was just like sort of a many mistakes at one time type of thing. And, you know, whatever. Like that stuff happens. But definitely should have been built up a little bit more. you get some fresh stuff cut with some leaves so they're blowing in the wind and just like give yourself like that layer right you know and it that's the one thing that i do when i set up a natural blind for white tails i mean i have i'm covered i sit behind something and then so you have to do that kind of when you set up a videographer too is like you stack up a bunch of stuff and you're just filming around that yeah right and so your movement is already behind this sort of um you know at least a layer of

cover. And then that's the same thing. So he's a lefty, so he should have had stuff built all the way up on his right. So he could have just rolled on. Yeah. So he could just draw on. Yeah. And so, you know, if you're in that situation and that buck comes out and he's, he catches you off guard, you're never going to kill him. Yeah. Like he's just, you're done. And do you, are you sitting on your butt when you're hunting these natural blinds or are you like on your haunches, on your knees? So it depends. But I'm always in a situation where I can get to me. my knees. Yeah. You know? Because that's, that's the whole name of the game. Yeah, because I feel like in that clip we just watched,

Steve's first instinct was like, oh, I'm going to draw from my butt. Right. You know? So hard. And like, I don't bow hunt. I don't archery hunt. And like,

I don't think I could do it. And like, do you think you could, do you practice that at all? I mean, I have. Yeah. You know,

and I've, I shot a deer a few years ago on film sitting a lot like that. it's not ideal. Like some setups you're just like, this is just kind of how I have to be. Because you're setting up where you're going to kill a deer. You know what I mean? Like you're setting up so like you have to just use

whatever is available to you exactly on that spot. But that was just one. You know, I should have told him to brush that in more. And it was just like a, it was like a bad deal. Yeah. You know. So another cool behind the scenes is Pat still has a tag, Steve still has a tag,

and this buck basically spooks and like, how far do you think Steve and Pat were away from each other? We measured it on on X. My first instinct was to say 600 yards, but I don't think it was that far. So, yeah, after Steve and I, well, yeah, Steve would probably blame me for spooking this buck,

but after Steve and I boogered this buck, this buck heads in past direction. Yeah. And are you confident in saying that buck that Steve and I ran into is the same buck that Pat ended up. Yeah. Ended up shooting.

Yeah. And I mean, this is what you don't see on the film too is that where Pat killed, there's a fence line through this cat tail slew. Okay. And it is like a really cool pinch point. Or I guess I should call that a funnel because they're going to walk a couple hundred yards along this thing. But the way that that worked out is as soon as that buck spooked and he

was pointed in Pat's direction, it was almost a guarantee if he kept going, he was going to hit that funnel and have to follow that fence line. Because either way it's going to be super wet and just not that, like that's the route. And so for that deer to go do that and then hit where Pat was at. And Pat was in a ground blind because all those trees they were way too big for a stand. That was what I had to work with. But it's cool, like knowing what I know about how the terrain

was, it's cool to understand that that buck, even though like theoretically you could look at it, go, he could go anywhere. But if he's, if he's going that direction, he's going to naturally fall into that funnel. And so, you know, a cruiser

would do that, most deer would do that and that deer did that too. And then Pat killed him. Yeah. And I think Pat was the perfect example of putting your time into it. Right. And it pain off. You know, Pat, the whole first day, sat in that ground blind, you know?

And blanked. Yeah. Didn't he saw a possum? Right. I think it was. And then that second day, was he in the same blind? I can't remember. Nope.

No, okay. But he was still on the same plan of like, hey, I'm sitting this blind from sun up to sundown. You know, it just so happened that buck came in mid-morning and Pat ended up making a perfect shot. Yeah, Pat, dude, Pat's a badass man. Yeah. He is, he is a cool dude. And he has a very, very, uh, a good, like demeanor, like a good, he has, like a vibe about him that's just what good hunters have. Yeah.

Like, he's not, there's not a lot of second-guessing. There's a lot of conviction. and they're just like he just sees stuff through. And so that was freaking sweet, man. Yeah. To get, to have him kill that buck, that was a great deer on day two. That was such a relief. Oh, yeah. Well, no, I was going to say, like, if, so out of the three hunters, the most deserving to kill Buck would be you because you put all the time and effort.

My number two would be Pat because it's his property, you know? And so just seeing that was so awesome. and it just made me happy. And then that last person who deserved the buck with Steve because he's not putting the time into it. Yes, he's great hunter. Don't give you wrong,

but he's not putting his time into it and he's focusing more on trapping. Obviously, that was a huge challenge of this hunt. And I could tell you, like, we would get back meeting at camp and Steve would be like, all right, I got to go check traps. I could just see stuff.

smoke coming out of your ears. Talk a little bit about that. And how was that just eat it at you? Well, Steve has been very open about how he feels about White Tails generally. Like, he'll tell you that he loves mule deer way more and that white tails aren't that cool, blah, blah, blah. And so, like, there's always, like, that point of contention. But honestly, the one thing that I've learned about Steve Ronella is that, like, if Steve

likes it, it's something I don't care about and vice versa. We were in that camper. We were talking about fishing. And he was like, my favorite kind of fishing is like the cold, deep water in Alaska. And I was like, give me the flats in the Bahamas that are 85 degrees. Like, total opposite. I'm like just everything that we talk about, you know. And so it's just how he is.

But that trapping situation, I will say this, that was a huge pain in the ass. He knew it. It actually kind of became a thing. Everybody knew. Yeah. But you could see when Pat killed that there was like a vibe shift. Yeah. Where he's like, oh shit, like all the pressure's on me now.

Yeah. Things got a little tense for a while because you're like, you got to get your ass in a tree, buddy. You're the last one. Everybody's waiting to go home. Yeah. You know? And he's out there running a trap line. Yeah.

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Remember, for every $25 spent, you get 10 additional entries. One winner will be selected to win the entire prize pack. But don't wait around. The giveaway ends Monday, October 12, 2026 at 1159 p.m. Yeah, it was just kind of crazy to me that like you go on this whitel hunt. and you spend just as much time trapping as you do as White Tull Hunting, you know? Yeah. Which is hilarious.

But Steve's trapping and the amount of time that Steve put in to White Tull Hunting did pay off for him. Yeah. But it was close to not paying off because he made this, I wouldn't say a mistake, but it was, what would you call it? well I mean I don't want to give it away yet but are we going to watch the clip yeah we're going to watch the clip but what would you call it let's let's watch the clip okay and then we'll get to it we're going to watch it so um yeah I guess a little bit of backstory before this I think it was like day two I was starting to get sick and like just the sickness came out and just knocked me on my butt and hunted day three through the sickness and I was this miserable in this tree stand.

It was cold, windy and I'm just like, okay, I got one more morning left in me. And Steve and I get up into this tree stand and I have this all-out cough attack. Just hacking up a lung and there's nothing I can do to stop this cough. Okay. and Steve is just like, oh gosh. He understands that I wasn't feeling well. Everyone knew it was not like I was hiding it. And so he kind of expected this.

And he was probably thinking like, I probably should have took a different camera guy. And I cough for a straight minute or two. And then I finally get this cough under control. And I'm not kidding you, it was 30 seconds later, Steve makes it sound and that was his signal of like,

hey, deer coming. So let's watch. That deer was still moving. Right. So there's a lot to unpack here. Yes. The thing, the first mistake he made here was he thought that that buck

in that stand was going to look up and bust him. And I'll tell you, I've really started to look at a lot of my hunts like I'm trying to be really honest about what are the advantages I have in a situation and what are the disadvantages. One of the advantages that I figured we were going to have which I think was 100% true on this hunt

was that these were not going to be the smartest white tails we've hunted. These were not public land. Yeah, because they haven't been hunted in X amount of years. So you have bucks that and like I know people will lose it over this, but I've hunted Nebraska a lot. I've killed a, the biggest buck I ever killed

in my life was on public land in Nebraska. I've hunted there a lot. They're not deer that are, at least in my experience, are super cagey, are looking up in the trees all the time. Some places I hunt, like Northern Wisconsin, I get busted all the time by deer.

Yeah, because they're probably walking like this. It's just a different thing. And so on this one, I'm like, we're not going to be dealing with bucks that are going to be super cagey. You know, not to say that they wouldn't windier pick you off or whatever, but I just knew and you have peak rut. So the whole reason that I killed that,

this buck here, a huge part of it was he was so rutted up. He just didn't have a clue. That's why I got to shoot at him as many times as I did. Like he was just, like he was in one mode. Can I see him? For sure. Keep talking about him. And so Steve thought there's no way this buck's going to walk in and not bust me. And I would look at that situation. I'd go 99 out of 100 times that buck comes in and he's not looking up at you. He's cruising. And so in his head, he's like, I can't draw. And I'm I can't do anything until that buck's right there, which whatever, you know, like, you're kind of erring on the side of caution,

but it was unnecessary. But what he did, and a lot of bow hunters do this, is, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to draw, I'm going to stop him, I'm going to shoot. That's the thing going around in your head. His thought was, I don't know if I'm going to be able to draw without getting busted, it wouldn't matter at that range. If that deer sees you, you just still kill him.

but in his head I know where he was going he draws he mers him get him to stop and instantly punches that trigger it was almost like he went to stop him and they're just like a reaction right and I'll tell anyone who's listening to this or watching this who's who's a bowhunter if you do that which we all do right

I stop deer all the time shoot them if you go out into your backyard and you draw and you make that sound and then go to shoot the odds are you'll punch that trigger or you'll shoot maybe faster than you need it is like a thing

that just like psychologically just tells you you gotta let this go and that's what he did. And you know I mean lucky for him and to his credit he was on that buck. For sure he was right in the wheelhouse right in the boiler room

aiming at it you know. Right. But it's like a it's a very it's a sort of a very interesting psychological thing like acknowledge because you start that clock ticking because you've made you know auditory contact with him that buck knows something is going on now so in your head you go

I have X amount of seconds to get this shot off or that buck's gonna bolt because I've now changed this the vibe of this situation that like if it were me well I guess it's different when you're on film because you always kind of try to stop them but that buck you could kill that buck all day along just walking like that nice and slow he was super close but didn't know you were there. Right. Yeah. It's just, it's, uh, it's like an interesting thing to watch

to see how that play out, because people will see that and they'll go, he totally rushed it and punched the trigger, which he acknowledged and he did. But that happens a lot when you, when you're in that situation. Yeah, I just I just can't even understand it because, I mean, you think about it like,

so let's say you have a a pointer or a flusher in your pheasant hunting, right? And you have a new hunter, right? Like somebody who's like, They're on their first rooster hunt. Okay. And that pointer locks up, tripod point right in front of them.

They walk up or that lab. The tail is just, you know, helicopter. Yeah. You're like, that sucker's right here. And they know it's coming. And so they're standing there, get ready to take that safety off,

and that big rooster gets up, and it's both barrels they miss. And it's just one of those things. Like, there's too much going on. Yeah. Because now you're thinking, I'm going to get my chance.

That bird's going to get up right there. And it happens, and your brain just melts. Yeah. Another question that I have, just not being an archery hunter, a bow hunter, is how do you know when to start tracking? I mean, there's a lot that comes into play is like, oh, did that animal turn? Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, did it drop some, you know, like. When you're filming, you have the benefit of just getting to watch it and go, all right, we can slow this down.

You can see where that arrow impacts. And it, honestly, that has taught me a lot. lot about how archery tackle performs and deer reaction and stuff. I mean, I shot a buck a few years ago in North Dakota from the ground on public land that we filmed. And that arrow went all the way through that buck. And in it, I don't know how many frames per second we film in 60, 120, whatever it is. 24? 24. Oh, well, in between two frames, it went in and came out. That arrow fully penetrated and fully got kicked out. And so in my head, I was like, man,

I didn't get very much penetration there because my brain's only registering so much that's going on. And then you watch it on film and you're like, oh my God, that fletching disappeared inside of him and poked all the way back out. So you get that. But it's really just a matter of like, what is the evidence?

And again, so I know I said that white tail hunters are patient and Western hunters aren't as much. One area that I see a lot of impatience in West. Whitesail hunters is trailing deer. Okay. People, they just want to get on that blood trail and get going. And it's always, almost always a better idea to play it safe. You know, because people go, oh, well, coyotes are going to find it, or it's too warm.

You can get away with a lot. Like, you can get away with a lot of warmer weather than people think. The coyote thing is often kind of overblown. It's like an excuse we use. It's not always, but often. Yeah. I feel like the coyote thing is, like, very common. in for like the overnight maybe.

Sure. I mean, and it's certain areas, right? But mostly we're just not that patient. Like we want to get on the trail. And so it just depends. You know, like if you know you made a good shot and your arrows in the ground covered in bright red blood and he meal kicked on the way out or whatever,

you're like, okay, I'm going to go. But if it's like, you know, when I shot that buck of mine, um, my first shot, I had no idea where it had. hit. I just knew I hit him. Yeah, because you could also hear that meat report. Right. The way he reacted, I was like, okay, that wasn't great.

The second shot hit him right next to the heart. You can actually see there's two broadhead cuts, like side by side in the pocket, but it must have, like, missed his heart by, like, I mean, it had to be within, like, millimeters. And so on that one, you could watch that and be, like, at Deer's toast, and he might go. a mile. Yeah, it's a dead deer running almost. So it's like you got to take in like what was your initial reaction? Where do you think it hit?

What does the arrow show you if you can find it? What's the first blood show you? Like, and then so you build this plan you go, okay, I'm going to give it two hours even though I think I smoked him. Then you get out there and you're on the trail and you find a little bit of gut material in the blood or

you go 250 yards when you're like, there's no way he should gone 100. And then it's like, okay, now you have new relevant data. You better reassess this situation. Is it time to back out? Is it time to get the dogs? Like, what is it? But generally, it's like, be really patient and trust the actual evidence, not what your brain is telling you? Like, what is the sign and the spore and everything show you? Yeah. I've, I've been on three whitetail hunts with you now. And I would say that's one thing you're really good at is just being patient and just taking in what you're actually seeing as far as blood, how much blood's on the aerial.

And yeah, I just think you're just really good at it. And I think Steve on his buck didn't feel so great about it. But yeah, you saw the footage. Right. And... How much time do you get? We're almost at an hour, four minutes. Yeah, that's probably pretty good.

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

and there he was laid up. So, yeah. So there's a, there's like an interesting thing that happens. From a hunter perspective or? Well, yeah, from a hunter perspective. Okay. So Steve, Steve knew he punched that trigger. Yeah. So now he has that, that doubt, right? Like, I, I probably didn't do the job I needed to because I know I screwed up that important part, right? So his, his default is to go negative. I do that all the time. Oh, yeah, I'm sure. It's easy to do. do. But the reason he does it and I do it and a lot of people do is if you've been on enough

blood trails, I mean, ask any guide out there, ask anybody who's been around a long time and been on a lot of them, uh, un, unearned enthusiasm. Like, if it's, if you're, if you're too optimistic right off the bat, you have a, you have like a high odds of being disappointed and the high odds of making a mistake. So you see people with a lot of experience generally default, to like, I don't know, man, we got to play this safe. I'm super worried. And, you know, you could see it when we found that buck. Steve's like, oh, yeah.

Like, he was plowing. Like, I felt like the hit was good. But it's very common to immediately default to like second guessing mode and low confidence mode for people who've been there a lot. And then when you have people who haven't, they often just are like, I think I smoked him. It looked perfect right behind the shoulder, you know, and then you're on a, you know, know, all night ordeal over and over and over again. And so it's like a, it's interesting how different people, like experience level plays into how you react to that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. I remember one point in this video, you mentioned how it would be a lot of people's dream to hunt with Steve Ronella. What is like the biggest or hardest thing to do with hunting with Steve? and then you could ask me that from a film perspective and I'll tell you. I got a pretty good idea. Your answer, buddy.

You know, I don't, I mean, obviously Steve, Steve's super famous. It's like a weird case, right? I like hunting with people who have a lot of experience just to see. What do they do? Right? Like, I have a cameraman that I use a lot, who I use a lot, Dylan Lentz, who's a really good white tail hunter. I like hunting with him, filming with him,

because he'll make observations or he'll question a decision I'm making. Yeah, you don't have to babysit him. Well, not only that, but I learn from him. Yeah, okay. And so, like, Steve, you know, when we're white tail hunting, I'm in the driver's seat. But he's a guy who's done a lot of stuff out there,

and he's like a very generally capable outdoorsman. And so I enjoy that part. Like, honestly, I like being around people who are, even if he's not like specifically super good at white toe hunting he's really capable in the outdoors and he's and he's like a student of the game and so anybody anytime i can be with somebody like that like i've spent a lot of time with some wildlife photographers uh who don't hunt very much but i learn so much from them and so i like being around people who've been out there a lot and i don't spend a lot of time with people who are trappers like i don't spend a lot of time with people who do a lot of his stuff so that part's fun. And honestly, he's kind of a pain in the ass, you know, because he's like, I know, I know how to do this, you know? And he's a little bit stubborn, right? But it's also, it's fun for me to watch him because I can see him wrestle with what he thinks he should do and what I say. And I've done two, two white-tail hunts with him. We did one down in Oklahoma on public land. And he, he will, like,

defer and he'll be like, all right, I'm going, you say this, I'm going to try this. And he will actually go through that stuff and it works. And so he's like an interesting. Yeah. Because you feel like you shouldn't tell him what to do, but you have to. Yeah. And you feel like he won't listen, but he will, you know. Well, and I think he's definitely the kind of person that will, like, take your knowledge

and like try to learn from it too, which is awesome. Right. Yeah. And I mean, he's, we've been kind of ripping on him. but he's actually, like, super funny. Yeah. He's, like, super down to hang. It's generally been, like, my first time I did with him, I was like, I don't know if this is going to be a nonstop stress fest.

Like, I don't know if he's going to bitch if I cook burgers and not something fancy or whatever. And he's, like, he's, like, way more easygoing when he, like, gets into the mode. Like, you can tell it takes him a little while to unplug from whatever he's got going on and get into it. But once he gets into it, he's, like, pretty just like, okay, we'll do this. do this, whatever. So it's interesting, but yeah, that's my experience. I'm not sitting in a tree with him

swinging a camera around. Oh gosh. Go ahead, buddy. Well, like I said before, there's a huge difference between hunting and filming a hunt. When you're filming a hunt, you have to get all these shots to help build the story. You have to get

like some walk-by shots. You have to run up there, have them pass. You have to do all these B-roll shots, scenic shots. You have to film the same branch about five different times in five different ways, you know. Do all these focus polls. But I feel like the biggest thing with Steve is he wants to hunt as naturally as possible, which makes sense. He's there for five days.

He wants to have the odds stacked in his favor. And so, like, in a tree is like, like, I'm. I have to switch lenses as quietly as possible, but it's going to make some noise, you know? Right. And so there was so many times where I would be, like, moving slowly, switching a lens, you know, and I would make a little noise,

and it would just be like, you know, just the death glare. Like, hey, shut up. You're making too much noise, you know? And, like, I feel like when you film with someone, the more time you film with someone, you can read each other. And so, like, it was really easy for me to read Steve. It would be like, hey, I got to quiet down or, like, knock it off with the B-roll, you know?

And so, like, and also, Steve is a big fan of not doing any retakes. And so I'm constantly sitting in that tree thinking one, two steps ahead of, like, okay, what's he going to do? Is he going to look left? Is he going to look right? When is he going to grab the bow? you know, and so it's just like a constant. Right. You know, there's no breaks.

You have to be on 24-7 or else you're going to miss that shot, you know? And so, yeah, that was the biggest challenge for me was just, like, not making that much noise. So. I mean, people don't understand. And, like, I'm not complaining about this. This is just an observation. It's hard to sit two feet away from somebody. for hours on end and days on end

in, you know, like you said, you have different goals in mind. I mean, the overarching goal is to get a kill on film and get your show, but how that comes to be isn't from just sitting quietly and not moving. You know, like, it's a tough deal. Yeah. One last video we're going to watch.

Kind of ended on a happy, fun note. This was one of the, the first evenings, and Steve didn't like how much I was moving. And this is something that didn't make the cut, but I just think it was absolutely hilarious. You make a video, both, this shouldn't have happened. Your professional feedback, what more do you want? Oh, man, that was just hilarious. Yeah.

Goodness. It's, uh, I don't know. I don't remember if you and I, I don't feel like we had any too contentious moments, but generally when I film a, a whitetail hunt, I will end up having to apologize to my videographer at some point. I remember the last white tail hunt I filmed with you. You were almost full draw on this buck, and then you look up and realize I'm filming the wrong buck, you know, so. Well, right.

That worked out. Yeah. So that didn't lead to anything, but I just, I filmed a fishing show this summer, and Lauren Moulton, one of our good videographers, he came out and filmed that with me. And he and I were reminiscing. We filmed one week in November the second season together. And it was a rough hunt. We had a rough hunt.

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

you got to chill the phone out. And we had a little spicy back and forth and then got into that tree and killed a buck and it was great. But almost every time at some point, it just breaks a little bit, you know? But that's like it's like the nature of doing something like that

where you have all that pressure on you to get the film and you're just, you're, you know, like those competing interests or like the competing routes to the same goal. Yeah. You know, it gets a little feisty once in a while. And I've, this is the last time I'm going to say it.

There is such a big difference between hunting and filming a hunt, you know? Yeah. So, all right, Tony, it's late September. Fall is here. I think a lot of people want to know what trips or what's your fall look like.

Man, I have some cool stuff I'm working on. Talk about them? I'll talk generically generally about it. I got a couple of white tail hunts on public land, cool spots, cool situations

that I'm building a couple films around, and I have another one on public land that I'm not going to talk about yet that's going to, I think it's going to be unlike any white tail hunt that's ever been filmed. I don't think it's out there yet. So I'm very excited about that.

So I'm going hard toward the public land, white tails, fall a couple different states maybe an extra country in there somewhere and just just going after like those like what i feel are just very like real world you know like anybody could do them hunts and just trying to show like that process like i feel like at least for my audience like generally like that's like bread and butter man like people want to see that and i and i like doing that like going to living out of a tent just hunting those deer where anyone can and so that's what i'm going to be doing very, very soon.

Well, that's just so relatable to the, to the viewer, too. You know, like, that's what a lot of people are doing these days. For sure. That's sweet. What's one thing you're looking forward to the most? Is there any one hunt that you're... You know, I'm doing a hunt in Minnesota that we're going to paddle in with kayaks. And it's a property, it's a public, it's a piece of public.

Actually, there's a couple pieces in there. that I hunted when I was like a teenager and hadn't been back into for, I haven't set foot in there in 15, 20 years for sure. And it's just sort of this like nostalgia hunt on this place where I was like learning how to white tail hunts. And like I went in there in the beginning of September and scouted around. And it just, dude, I got so excited. And it just brought back like so many memories. And so that one is, that one's really cool to me.

And then, you know, the other ones will be hunting with my daughter's off film. I'm like, we've got a lot of deer to hunt, a lot of forkeys and spikes to target. I would be scared if I was a forkier spike. Yeah, we don't, they don't get a lot of mercy from the Peterson girls. That's funny. That's awesome. Well, Tony, great job if no one's told you about this hunt. I had a lot of fun filming it.

I had a lot of fun just watching it as well, too. and it just makes me want to pick up a bow. Start flinging some arrows. You got to, buddy. No, I appreciate it, man. That is our companion podcast for this 12 and 26 film where Steve Rinella, Pat Hoffman and I went down to Nebraska chasing bucks on Pat's family ranch.

Had a hell of a time down there. We had a lot of fun. Had a good four-day run. You can check it out if you haven't watched it yet. It's at the Meat Eater YouTube channel. If you do go watch it, leave us a comment. Let us know what you think. Tell us what you want to see us do more films about.

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

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