This is the video transcript. To watch the video for this episode click here.

BROOKE: (Whispering) Smoked her. 54 yards. Boom. Done.

GRANT: Monday, January 14th and bow season was still open last week in Kentucky.

BROOKE: (Whispering) Boom. Done.

GRANT: And we filled some tags at The Kentucky Proving Grounds.

ANNOUNCER: GrowingDeer.tv is brought to you by Bass Pro Shops. Also by Reconyx, Trophy Rock, Non-Typical Wildlife Solutions, Muddy Outdoors, Eagle Seed, Nikon, Winchester, Redneck Hunting Blinds, Dead Down Wind, Record Rack, Foxworthy Outdoors, ScentMaster, Antler Dirt.

GRANT: Last week, Adam and Brian of The Growing Deer Team and Adam Brooke, one of our pro staffers, all loaded up and headed to The Kentucky Proving Grounds.

BRIAN: The first night in Kentucky, Adam Brooke and I jumped in the stand and we were right in the action. We had deer all over us; we made some great observations, but anything that was in range was not want we wanted to take a shot at. As the days progressed, Adam and I started honing in on where we really needed to be. We had to move the Muddys from tree to tree a couple times. But, finally, we ended up in the right spot.

BROOKE: (Whispering) Alright. Wednesday night, January the 9th. The fourth night of our hunt here on The Kentucky Proving Grounds. Trying to manage a few does. We’ve seen, the last couple days, deer absolutely killing clover up and down these roadways, so that’s what we’re on tonight. The cool thing is, we’ve got a, uh, weather front moving in tonight and the next couple days it’s supposed to rain, so we’re hoping that, uh, we get deer up on their feet moving in on us, so we’ll have our fingers crossed. We hope for a good evening this evening. That’s for sure.

BROOKE: (Inaudible) right there. (Inaudible) I can see them (inaudible (Whispering) You on her? If she puts her head down, I’ll take her. Smoked her.

BRIAN: Smoked her.

BROOKE: Smoked her.

BRIAN: Smoked her.

BROOKE: 54 yards.

BRIAN: Smoked her baby.

BROOKE: 54 yards. Got her right there. She’s going down. Boom done.

BRIAN: Nice shot.

BROOKE: You know, Mr. Hamby was gracious enough, allow me to come in here and try and take some deer and thin out some of these does. And we have had our tails kicked the last couple of days so, sometimes does can be rewarding and that right there is a rewarding doe, that’s for sure.

BROOKE: That’s a good sign, isn’t it? Complete pass through. Yeah. Right here. She’s a lot bigger doe than I thought she was.

ADAM: That’s the exit right there.

BROOKE: That’s the exit, right there.

ADAM: Let’s see your…

BROOKE: Let’s roll her…

ADAM: How far was it? 57?

BROOKE: 54.

ADAM: 54. Let’s see.

BROOKE: You can say 57. Right (inaudible) light on her. Right there.

ADAM: Oh, perfect. (Inaudible). Gonna have her body all weird.

BROOKE: Okay.

ADAM: Yeah, right out there by that sagebrush.

ADAM: January the 11th. Last morning in Kentucky. Brian and I were getting out of the truck this morning and we said it feels like turkey season. It’s warm. It’s in the 50’s to low 60’s at 6:00 in the morning. It’s a tad bit breezy. It rained last night. Big front came through. Tons of rain. Got clover. We got a southwest wind, so we’re hoping that some of the deer to the north of us will come out and maybe feed down along the clover out into the food plot. So, that’s the plan. We shall see if it works.

ADAM: (Whispering). I keep thinking I hear something. That way. I want her to run back close. Right there. I know, I know, I know. She didn’t see me. She didn’t see me. That’s a big doe, isn’t it? What? Ready?

BRIAN: (Whispering) Done deal.

ADAM: (Whispering) Boom.

BRIAN: (Whispering) Done Deal. That didn’t take long.

ADAM: (Whispering) Wow. After – how many days is this? Five?

BRIAN: (Whispering) We been here since Sunday. It’s Friday.

ADAM: What – the way this week has gone, I was envisioning, envisioning them to walk out and go right there and then walk that way. And so, I’m just sitting here thinking, “Okay. Well, I’ll kind of grab my bow.” And then I look and it was right there.

ADAM: Here’s you some blood. Holy cow. She’s pumping her now. Big ole nanny. And, uh, just a beautiful coat on her. She has a double white patch.

BRIAN: Uh, that’s cool.

GRANT: As you’ve seen, it was another very productive week for The Growing Deer Team. An advantage to harvesting does during the late season, is you can get data on exactly when they were bred. On does that are harvested as part of a wildlife management program, we simply remove those fetuses; use a ruler developed by Joe Hamilton, the founder of the Quality Deer Management Association; measure them to see how old they are and then flip it over to a calendar on the back and back date to see what day they were bred.

GRANT: 327. That doe was bred on November 23rd. November 23rd.

GRANT: If the seasons are open long enough in your area for the fetuses to be big enough to measure, you can collect a large enough sample size to really define when the bulk of the breeding occurs on your property.

GRANT: Part of my excitement is a year round management program we’re involved with at The Kentucky Proving Grounds.

GRANT: I need three, three samples. One is just everything. You know, Jeff, we’re looking at 30+ bushel an acre here.

JEFF: Absolutely.

GRANT: On, on a, on a site that was literally pine stumps last year.

JEFF: I know it’s unbelievable, unbelievable…and it..even in a drought…

GRANT: And even in a drought year.

JEFF: year.

JEFF: Even if it was an ideal year, it’s unbelievable.

GRANT: Yeah. Yeah. It’s one thing to generically plant the food plot. But it’s another thing to do soil samples every year to make sure the nutrients are in the ground that can transfer to the plants and the deer and doing vegetative samples of what they’re eating at different times a year, assures you that that nutritional plane is there so deer can express their full potential.

GRANT: Now, here we are in January – these beans haven’t been harvested. A little shocking to you, isn’t it?

JEFF: Odd to see this kind, kind of a bean stand this time of year for sure.

GRANT: Yeah. Jeff, of course, is an expert in nutrient and soil analysis. We grew these for deer browse. You can see that these are Eagle Seed beans chest tall on Jeff and I, but we want to see the nutrient value. It’s one thing to grow a big crop. Trees are big. But deer would starve to death if they’re eating trees. So, Jeff, we obviously grew a good crop here, but explain to me just really briefly and simple for me, so I can understand it, about what happened here. The nutrients transferred and came to this crop. What happened here?

JEFF: Well, we know we, we started with soil. Then we planted the crop and it’s all a cycle. Started with the soil, got into the plant and now we’re going to see what the feed value is of the plant before it goes into the deer.

GRANT: Just like everything in life. Cycle. We start from nothing, we grow something and it goes back into the soil.

JEFF: That’s correct.

GRANT: It’s always a cycle.

GRANT: Most major agricultural universities throughout the United States offer a soil sampling service. But I like to use a private lab, Waters Ag. There’s a link right below me, because they specialize in custom analysis to help me produce better crops. I want to send samples to your lab and see exactly what the deer are getting. And of course, when deer eat soybeans, they tend to just do this and pull off the pods and all.

JEFF: Hmm. Hmm.

GRANT: Put the pods in their bellies, spit the stems out. So the best way for me to determine what’s going in their body is what?

JEFF: Actually, take part of the plant and take it just like you, like you demonstrated is how that deer is going to strip that off the plant. I would; that’s exactly what I want to test and see what the protein content and fiber is and so forth.

GRANT: And, literally in the matter of 24 to 36 hours, you’re going to email me those results back and I can see exactly what’s going on.

JEFF: That’s exactly right.

GRANT: You know, Jeff. It’s also important to realize that even though we do this, we may not get exactly true representation, because deer are using their nose and everything else to figure out exactly which is the best bean pod here. And if there’s one that maybe an insect damaged or it has a little virus or disease, deer will pass that up. So, this is what I call a minimal analysis. Because deer are eating the very best available.

JEFF: That’s correct. And so, we gotta make sure we got good representation. It’s not going to be the highest or the lowest, necessarily as far as feed content, but, we have a good representation.

GRANT: That’s right. So, that’s why we kind of walk around and get here and there. Like a deer does when you see them out in the field. They don’t just stand in one place like a cow or sheep.

GRANT: We’ll have those result back this week from the lab and I’ll be glad to share those so you can see our combination of Antler Dirt and the plants we’re growing and how we’re feeding the deer at The Kentucky Proving Grounds. As you enter into the post hunting season; you’re shed hunting or out working with food plots or preparing for the next year, take a moment to enjoy Creation and a quiet moment to let the Creator talk to you. Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv.

ADAM: Okay. How do I say this? Sun’s coming up. Bluebird day. Crisp and warm. Not crisp and warm. That doesn’t make any sense. Rained all night. Some. Um. Nope. The switch flipped overnight. Nope. (Laughing) I saw your face. I was like, “Ey…”