Launching Arrows: Buck Down! Doe Down! (Episode 308 Transcript)

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

GRANT: Cold fronts during early October can mean some fantastic hunting, and that’s exactly what happened for Raleigh and Daniel, as they both launched arrows this past weekend.

GRANT: Last Thursday night and Friday, a cold front was scheduled to pass The Proving Grounds with temperatures forecasted to be in the low 40’s and only warming to 60 degrees. Based on that news, Adam and Raleigh, Daniel and Matt, decided to go hunting. These conditions are great to get a mature buck on their feet during early October.

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GRANT: Raleigh and Adam headed to a stand we call Cave Crossroads, while Daniel and Matt headed to the same stand Raleigh hunted a week ago – we call Boom Dry Pond.

GRANT: We rarely hunt the stand at Cave Crossroads. It simply takes a very specific wind to approach and hunt without alerting deer in the area.

GRANT: We do keep that stand at the front of our mind during October. For some reason, we typically see rubs and scrapes along that section of logging road before we see ‘em anywhere else at The Proving Grounds.

GRANT: True to past years, Raleigh and Adam heard acorns falling and saw fresh rubs and scrapes as they approached the stand.

RALEIGH: I really hope to get a deer tonight, not only because that would be great and super fun, but the leaves are beautiful and that’d make some great footage.

RALEIGH: I’m hunting out of the same stand my dad killed Split Brow two years ago, so if I can kill something here tonight, that’d be a pretty cool story.

GRANT: While they were on the stand, Raleigh and Adam thought they heard deer crunch on acorns just to the north and out of view of their stand. Adam decided he’d try a grunt call just to see if he could attract a deer toward the stand.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) When you grunted, like I heard leaves crunch twice (Inaudible). Yeah.

GRANT: With shooting light fading, Raleigh saw a deer, whispered to Adam, and they started getting ready.

ADAM: (Whispering) Don’t move.

ADAM: (Whispering) Doing good.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) How many yards?

ADAM: (Whispering) The first pin. First pin, Raleigh, okay?

RALEIGH: (Whispering) First pin? (Inaudible)

ADAM: (Whispering) Yeah. (Inaudible) First pin. Hold on. Hold on. Let him come. Can you shoot him right there?

GRANT: What an intense encounter for Raleigh and Adam. Nice work under pressure, Raleigh.

ADAM: (Whispering) I think he’s down.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) I looked at the camera and it looked like it had low battery. I was like, “Oh, might as well pack up.” And I just saw something white. I was like, “There’s a deer.” I think I had it right in there.

ADAM: (Whispering) It sounded great, but I didn’t see that glowin’ nock.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) It doesn’t glow.

ADAM: (Whispering) Yeah, I know. And so, it caught me off guard. I forgot about that. I was just like, “I don’t know where it went.”

RALEIGH: (Whispering) Yeah. No, it doesn’t glow.

ADAM: (Whispering) It sounded great.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) And I knew just – like I had – you heard him running, and then, just kind of stopped.

ADAM: (Whispering) It sounded like it was just – when he was running, it was like, and then, he just stopped.

RALEIGH: (Whispering) Not really like a crash, just kind of stopped.

ADAM: (Whispering) Yeah. I would, I would bet he’s laying down there.

GRANT: I’m really proud of ya, baby.

RALEIGH: Okay. Sounds good.

GRANT: All right. I love you. Keep me posted. Be careful.

RALEIGH: Love you, too. Bye.

GRANT: After climbing down, Raleigh and Adam made a few calls to let us know what was going on. And that’s when they received the news about Matt and Daniel’s hunt.

GRANT: Daniel and Matt were just a couple of ridges away from where Raleigh and Adam were hunting. The Reconyx camera we had placed at Dry Pond had been very active with does and young bucks feeding on the white oak acorns falling in the area. In fact, the previous week I had taken a nice doe about 150 yards away.

GRANT: Most of the deer had been reaching the Dry Pond location right at dark. But due to the cold front, Daniel and Matt were willing to gamble they’d get there with plenty of shooting light.

DANIEL: (Whispering) You’re good? What is tonight? The ninth?

MATT: (Whispering) Yeah.

DANIEL: (Quietly) Well, a week ago, uh, to this very night, Raleigh and I sat in this tree and had a neat encounter right as shooting light ended. A doe came in about seven yards and Raleigh opted not to shoot it. But tonight, Matt and I are, uh, back in this stand. We checked cards yesterday and we noticed that there were a lot of deer still coming through. You can notice there’s a little water back behind us, but, uh, it’s, the mud is just torn up with, uh, deer prints, and so, they’re definitely hitting this area. Uh, so it should be a good night. Hoping Matt and I can, uh, make something happen.

DANIEL: (Whispering) (Inaudible) I only have to do half my face. I got the bottom…

MATT: (Whispering) Exactly. You got that covered.

DANIEL: (Whispering) Well, I’m gonna be honest. Matt and I were not expecting that to happen. We had a doe and two bucks come through just, just pushing her hard. And it was, it was fun to watch. Got our blood pumping and we still have about a half hour of shooting light, so we’re excited to see, uh, what else will happen tonight.

MATT: (Inaudible)

MATT: (Whispering) Doe right there.

DANIEL: (Whispering) Yeah.

MATT: (Whispering) Yeah, yeah, yeah.

DANIEL: (Whispering) Holy cow. What a night. Missed the first shot. Uh, she didn’t know we were in the world. Uh, she jumped, went about five yards, turned around, was looking right at us. Gave us another shot, and so, we think we heard her crash, so.

GRANT: Once they climbed down, Raleigh and Adam team up with Daniel and Matt and take up the trail to the doe.

DANIEL: That’s about right where we said she was, wasn’t it?

MATT: Yeah. I think so.

DANIEL: Right below…

MATT: Right below big oak.

DANIEL: …big oak.

ADAM: Just a touch back, but not too bad. About center of the, if you drew a line straight in the center…

DANIEL: Yeah.

ADAM: …that’s about what you get. (Inaudible) great big Havoc, like that, it ain’t – you don’t even have to worry about it.

GRANT: It was an easy job to find the doe Daniel shot and a short drag back to the truck.

UNKNOWN: Whew!

GRANT: Once they completed that task, they all loaded up, headed back to Cave Crossroads and take up the search for Raleigh’s buck.

DANIEL: Got my (inaudible) on, but you got good hair. There’s blood all the way up to the flexors.

MATT: Oh yeah. That’s good.

DANIEL: Where it was coming back out, so that’s good.

RALEIGH: Yeah.

GRANT: Raleigh and Adam had thought they’d heard a crash, but they weren’t completely for sure. So they wisely backed out, went and helped Daniel and Matt and gave the buck time to expire.

RALEIGH: Here’s blood. This is all blood.

DANIEL: More blood. I don’t think you have to go too far.

RALEIGH: There’s a cliff.

GRANT: As they took up the trail, it was easy to follow all the blood. But about 100 yards into it, they heard something no hunter following a deer wants to hear.

MATT: (Whispering) Whoa. Whoa.

UNKNOWN: (Whispering) Lights off.

GRANT: They bumped that buck and knew the best plan was to back out and wait until the morning.

ADAM: As soon as we broke over that hump, that’s when it really started. (Inaudible) and it was like, that’s when we were just like, “Let’s get out of there.”

GRANT: The next morning was a ride of emotions for all of them. The blood started out great, but as it progressed, it was harder and harder to stay on the trail.

GRANT: As with all tasks in life, the GrowingDeer Team really believes in completing every task. And they weren’t about to give up just when the blood got sparse.

RALEIGH: Blood.

GRANT: They decided to spread out and kind of grid search the area looking for blood or the buck. And wouldn’t you know it, they found the buck and all of them were overcome with joy.

RALEIGH: Well, that was quite an adventure. It was a pretty long morning. The blood got really thin, at some points. We were just kinda looking around for little dots of blood here and there. After following the trail, we finally got our hands on this guy. This is the biggest buck I’ve killed with my bow, so far. And it’s a really nice one. The antlers are super dark. It looks to be about a four year old. Um, just an interesting deer, interesting story, great hunt, overall.

GRANT: Congratulations, Raleigh, on a great buck, and to all the guys that helped, for not giving up and sticking it out, even when the going got tough. We estimate this buck was four and a half years old and was even more surprised that we only had two pictures of this buck the previous week in a food plot about 200 yards away and no pictures of him throughout the summer. It was a great day for the GrowingDeer Team as we celebrated the success of both Raleigh and Daniel and lots of venison for the freezer.

GROUP: (Talking)

GRANT: If you’re like me, you’d hunt everyday if you can. But you’ll have better success if you wait on conditions that are more favorable for deer to be active during daylight hours. The two teams used different strategies and both of ‘em produced great results.

GRANT: It’s important to note that deer are creatures of habit. Whether you’re using two years of historical data, or recent trail camera pictures, you can capitalize on those tendencies of deer behavior.

GRANT: Success for us means food on the table. But like most hunters, we don’t always use the same techniques to prepare venison. We first cleaned up the venison, removing any large pieces of connective tissue.

GRANT: Tracy and the girls had a desire for some venison tacos. This meant busting out the LEM grinder and preparing some meat.

TRACY: Oooo. The grinder.

TRACY: This is an exciting thing here.

TRACY: That’s nice.

TRACY: Grant got the first deer this season. Matt and Daniel have cut it up, and now, we’re ready to start grinding it up. In years past, we haven’t ground that much venison, just because it’s pretty arduous on a grinder that’s not made for venison. This grinder’s a heavy duty grinder that’s gonna be able to take it and make a short work of it.

TRACY: The girls have asked for some tacos this week. So we’re looking forward to grinding this up and being able, um, make some tasty taco.

TRACY: I’m just really impressed by this LEM grinder. In years past, when we’ve tried a grinder, it’s been, you know every couple of minutes, you’ve got to take the plates off and clean ‘em. This ran clean. It just amazing through put on it. The literature claimed 11 pounds per minute. I think I’m the slow one here that was feeding it. I’m sure it’s very capable of that. And this, this is just a, a wonder to use.

TRACY: We’re gonna run it through the grinder one more time on the fine grind. And then, we’ll have us some ground venison for the freezer.

TRACY: (Inaudible)

TRACY: This is the part of the equipment that makes it run through so much faster. It’s called the big bite technology, and this bigger gap here allows you to put in bigger pieces of meat and get, makes it go through that much faster.

GRANT: It was fast work with the grinder, and we couldn’t wait to try out the tacos.

GLEN: I’ll follow you.

GLEN: Yeah. Yep.

GRANT: In case you’re wondering where I was during Raleigh’s great hunt, I’ll share with you. I was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota with my father. You may recall I hunted with my dad earlier this season. And right after that hunt, he was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. This is a serious form of cancer, but fortunately, it usually responds well to chemo. My dad and I are already very excited about upcoming hunts. And if that doesn’t work out this fall, I can’t wait to get him in a turkey blind this spring. My family and I are extremely grateful for the cards and letters that’s already came in encouraging my dad. And we really, really appreciate your prayers.

GRANT: I hope there’s a cold front getting ready to pass wherever you hunt, but no matter what the weather conditions are, take time each week to get outside and enjoy creation, and daily, slow down and listen to what the Creator is saying to you. Thanks for watching GrowingDeer.tv.