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Gray Ghosts of Mexico: Coues Deer Hunting with Tim Maddock, Madd Hunts
240 Plays14 days ago
This week on the TRICER PODCAST, Drew sits down with Tim Maddock of Madd Hunts, a true expert in chasing the elusive gray ghost—Coues deer. Tim and his sons manage thousands of prime acres in Mexico, delivering world-class hunting opportunities for serious Western hunters.
Tim and drew dive deep into hunting trophy Coues bucks in Mexico, managing herds for age and quality, letting young bucks walk to grow into giants, and hunting water for success
If you’ve ever dreamed of hunting south of the border, this is the podcast for you. Plan your next adventure with Madd Hunts
MADD HUNTS
TIM MADDOCK
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/madd_hunts/
Website - https://maddhunts.com
TRICER USA
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#Tricer #TricerPodcast #CouesDeer #WesternHunting #MexicoHunts #GrayGhost #HuntMexico #MuleDeer #TricerPodcast #BackcountryHunter #HuntTheWest #CouesAddiction #WesternBigGame #SpotAndStalk #DIYHunter #HuntingPodcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Themes
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to the Tricer podcast, where we talk all things hunting, gear, and the great outdoors. Before we begin, let's start things out right and put God first. Lord Jesus, I thank you for Tricer, and I ask that you can use this podcast as a way to bring joy to all of our listeners.
00:00:17
Speaker
We lay Tricer and this podcast at your feet. Amen.
Meet Tim Maddock, the Coos Deer Hunter
00:00:22
Speaker
All right, Bow Disciples 3 here in SoCal, James Visser shooting events.
00:00:28
Speaker
Kind of fun because my good buddies from Arizona came over, Maddock family, and I've been trying to get Tim Maddock on with me for like two years now, but he's just too cool to come on my podcast. So I tied him down and said, Tim, let's do a podcast together while we're sitting here.
00:00:44
Speaker
And most you guys probably don't know Tim. Yeah. But if you love coos deer, you probably don't love them as much as Tim. ah Probably not. And Tim probably has killed as much, if not more, coos deer than most people um have ever killed in their lifetime. He's ah he's a big coos deer killer. he has an obsession with coos deer.
00:01:06
Speaker
And Tim only, you go to Tim's house and the the wall is covered in deer. So Tim, we'll talk about the Lord's deer today. We are. Best deer in the world. Best deer in the world.
00:01:17
Speaker
When did you kill your first ghost? so You know, I've been hunting them for, I want to say, about 25 years now. um First one I killed was in Arizona. I don't know the exact year. I know Cade had been born.
00:01:33
Speaker
Cade was born in 2000, so it would probably be 01, 02, somewhere back in there. That's when you killed your first coos My first coos deer. Really? That late? Yeah. i I did not kill a coos deer in my youth. I didn't do it until I was an adult.
00:01:49
Speaker
And my idea was that I had... I had kind of given up on some of the the more difficult to draw
Why Coos Deer: Strategy and Preference
00:01:59
Speaker
mule deer hunts in Arizona, the Kaibab, the strip, that type of thing.
00:02:02
Speaker
I wanted to go hunting every year, and you could still do that with coos deer back in the day. And so I yeah i i drew a ah Unit 31 December coos deer tag, and I went hunting in Unit 31 and killed a 101-inch buck, my first time ever coos deer hunting, and it's...
00:02:23
Speaker
Just a full-blown addiction after that. Well, mean, I guess, I mean, you're not that old. So, I mean, you're your early 20s at that point. I mean, you're 23, 24 years old at this point, right? Yeah.
00:02:34
Speaker
it wasn't that... i guess, you know, you kind of started... You're still early. Early, but... um Not I wasn't a teenager. You weren't a teenager. It wasn't like my kids who were hunting coosiers since they were 12 or your boys who've hunted coosiers since they were six. Yeah.
00:02:48
Speaker
Whatever. But ah and I mean, honestly, to this day, you still can draw coosier tags in Arizona, New Mexico pretty much every year. Some some units, some yes. And, you know, it's like anywhere. the The quality units, they're going to get drawn out first.
00:03:03
Speaker
And some of the more easier to draw units aren't going to have as high a trophy quality or the best, you know, rut hunting times, that type of thing. But, yeah, there's places you can draw almost every year or every year. As an out-of-state guy, there's some units, like the southern units, you can hunt pretty much every year. But it's going to an October tag, and you're probably looking at a 90s class buck.
00:03:24
Speaker
i mean If that. If that. High 80s, cost buck. A good deer, respectable deer. you know You can get your three byes in there. You get some good bucks. But nothing crazy. And you do have some better units in there, like 23 and stuff. But it's going to take you a lot more points. like I actually have...
00:03:40
Speaker
I think 13 deer points right now in Arizona, and I'm half tempted to burn them on a 23 or something and go hunt the late season tag. But it's in time I can go
Preseason Scouting and Early Hunts
00:03:50
Speaker
to Mexico two weeks later and actually get a real rut hunt and do it. And it's just like, I don't want to burn them. Right. And it's, it's you know, you just have to weigh it out and balance it out. What what are your goals? What are you trying to accomplish? And, you know, the the caliber of deer.
00:04:05
Speaker
October hunts aren't always the worst thing in the world. A lot of times if you have the time to go do your preseason scouting, you can find them when they're still bachelored up and in that summer routine and go right into their bedrooms and get them killed. Some of the biggest deer in the the state are killed that way every year.
00:04:20
Speaker
um But it takes a lot of, you know, preseason work in order to do that. Busy guy like you may not have the time to do that. And, you know, a rut hunt is a little better in maybe that scenario where you can just show up and have deer that are cruising through these areas during the rut or pre-rut unless i lived in arizona precursor to something that might be happening next year. I don't want to fully say it, but somebody might be making the switch to Arizona. Arizona's got state, so.
00:04:53
Speaker
It is got state. So I can say this. So yes, there is that chance of doing the rut hunt and you get to see more deer, but the biggest deer in the state are killed every year Typically,
00:05:06
Speaker
um In that August archery hunt or that early October hunt because these guys are scouting them all summer and finding them because those bucks Don't move like you kind of you could find them within that 500 yard circle a coos deer and they're gonna be in the 500 yard circle until that rut, right? They're gonna kind of be in there They might travel to water a mile every three days or something in two days, but they're gonna be Generally, if you could find them you can kill them with a problem. The coos deer is even though you found them You might look at the same hill for three days until you see them And they're on that same hill for three days.
00:05:38
Speaker
In the shade, in the shadows, and in the thick stuff. And they just don't come out to show themselves, to get themselves killed. So you've got to just put in the... the effort and have the patience to stare at the same place over and over and over and again for days
Tools of the Trade: Tricer Tripods
00:05:54
Speaker
on end. And coos deer are the reason why we have tricer because I love looking for of all deer.
00:06:00
Speaker
There is nothing more rewarding than finding a coos deer in his bed in the middle of the day. I told people all time like you glass from like people talk like the morning because they're up and they glow right? Yeah. And you find that deer at like one o'clock and you're like gotcha.
00:06:15
Speaker
and that's what you have to do to find these big bucks look into the shade in the middle of the day a lot of times they're not up in the morning or in the evening glowing they're getting up in the middle of the day to change beds they might they might not even move out of their bed they might stand up and turn around or move three feet to stay in the shadow and you know you're just catching a little piece of a deer and you're right tricer gives us the tripods and the flexibility and the comfortability. The micro panning was built for coos deer.
00:06:49
Speaker
Absolutely. It was built for coos deer because like, I mean like when I first made it I called Cody Nelson. I was with Cade, your son, on a hunt. And I was like, I called Cody Nelson, and i was like, I just changed the game. like It's like I found so much deer because I was going so slow.
00:07:04
Speaker
But I can tell you like the majority of the the big bucks I find are from that 11 to window because they they stand up for just long. it's You might get five minutes on their feet.
00:07:17
Speaker
stand up Sometimes you just stand and turn around. But lot times you get them up for the middle of the day. might get... five 15 minutes of this kind of milling around in like a 10-foot circle, eating a little bit and then lay back down, and that's when you have to find them.
00:07:29
Speaker
To the point now where I carry eye drops in my binocular harness because I will glass all day long because i know that if I'm not looking through the glass, I'm missing deer in the middle of the day. Because that's when those big bucks, they stand up and they make that little, because the sun shifts yep and they have to get up. they don't want I mean, imagine like, you know, we're sitting here right now, it's shaded, but like every everyones while the sun keeps burning through and i almost want jacket off. yeah You know what I mean? yeah And that's a deer, but they can't take their jacket off. So that sun starts hitting and they got to get up.
00:07:57
Speaker
ye And they never really, I mean, sometimes they do kind of dig get up and sit down. most of them, they kind of get up in the middle of round for a few minutes yeah and then get back down. And that's when I find a lot of them. other than you know you do find embedded as well but man you're looking for a tail flick you're looking for an antler and everything looks like a freaking coos deer and but that's early season yeah which that's yeah that's the challenge with the the october november hunts and um they're just they're hard to find and you get it in your blood and
00:08:28
Speaker
You know, there's just nothing that's that's better.
Early Challenges and Learning
00:08:31
Speaker
It's it's the biggest chess match you've ever played with an animal Like i'm telling you like the buck I shot with you guys this year in mexico The coosier way to freeze Mm-hmm and not move.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yep And like i've watched deer sit for an hour and not flinch. Yep And not even know i'm there. Yep, and they just stand there. It's like that buck I shot with you. He knew I was there should story, I guess.
00:08:55
Speaker
So we were with Shed Crazy. were all down hunting with the Matic guys down in Mexico, a bunch of us all in. And I was with you. And Ben ben missed a javelina like four times, like 400 yards. He's like, my gun's off. And I'm like, i don't like your gun's off, Ben.
00:09:09
Speaker
I think it was just running javelina, We were shooting off the trees. And we were just doing, you know. And so I'm like, you know, let's just go back to the house. midday. Let's go bring my target out. I have some steel plates so we can stand up, you know, real quick. And we can shoot it.
00:09:22
Speaker
And so we're like, well we don't want to blow everyone else's hunts. Like, we'll go right here because we're not going to blow the boys because we didn't know where the boys were, but we knew they were. We thought they were a lot further than they were. Right.
00:09:33
Speaker
So we set the target up 100 yards, and Ben just freaking pinwheels this target twice. I mean, it's still there, the copper on my target. He stacked two copper bullets. And here come the boys. I see the boys. It's Connor and Cade, Tim's kids, running down the street. And they're like, did you get them? Did you get them? And me and Ben are like the most unserious people in the world. So we get along so well.
00:09:53
Speaker
And we're like, yeah, we got them. We're high-fiving. And we had no idea what happened. Well, I guess... And we stood this buck up. that The boys thought it was like a mid-90s buck. um We found later after I killed him. It wasn't, but it was mid-80s buck. was a good buck.
00:10:08
Speaker
But when we shot that target, the ping, ping, it stood this it stood this deer up, and he started running. yep So they're like, he's up here. He's up here. And then so they're like, well we're going to this way. And I'm like, well, I'm going to go up this draw here and hope I can cut him off.
00:10:23
Speaker
And I'm walking up, and I was thinking they were going to kill the buck. The way they went. because they kind of i don't I just had a hunch. like If I go this way, sometimes you get a hunch. right My hunch was right this time. yeah I walk up and I'm like, holy crap, there's that bucket. 290 yards.
00:10:39
Speaker
Frozen. because He saw me. ah He just thinks if you stand still enough. yeah I'm not going to see him. And most of the time they can. And that buck, most of time they can. Because there's times where gloss a buck upstanding, look over and hit him, I got a buck, and look back and I can't see the deer for five minutes, and he's standing in the same spot. Right.
00:10:55
Speaker
And so I'm like looking at this buck and I'm like, oh man, if you're still standing there, and I knew at this point i'm like, he's not the buck we thought he was going to be, but I'm like, if you're still standing there, when take my backpack off I'm going to shoot you. Put my backpack down. He's still standing there. like, okay, if you're still standing there, when i get prone on the new RP bipod, i'm go I got down prone, and I put it through both shoulders dropped him where he stood. and But that we call him the target buck. Even though he wasn't our target buck, we call him the target buck. who It was just too good of a story not to have that story, and we killed him.
00:11:24
Speaker
But that deer stood. I've never seen an animal that wanted to flex a muscle. Yeah, that's, that's, how I, I had one this year on water that a buck, nice buck, came up over a berm and he stood there for an hour and a half and I'd record him for five minutes and then stop and record him for five minutes and he just stood there for an hour and a half looking out over this represso, this dirt tank and finally some does came in the other side and he watched them for about 30 minutes and then he finally just trotted off and went the same way as the does, but
00:11:59
Speaker
Didn't even come into the water. Never came into the water. He just checking the water. just Just checking. He was using the water as a social gathering area. It was during the rut. But ah they don't have to move. They don't necessarily move a lot. They can. um But they can they can sit there statue still for hours on end if they need to.
00:12:18
Speaker
So one thing can say about Cousier is when they do move, it's over. lot of times when they move, it's like three canyons of moving. like that Once the tail goes up, like your gig is up. Like a mule deer, don't want to say they're dumb. I mean, they're definitely not smart scoops here.
00:12:32
Speaker
oh A mule deer that's like less than five is probably to give you a look back. Yeah. Some of the older bucks are just going to be gone. But like a coos deer, once that tail goes up, they're not looking back. They're not stopping. They are bouncing and bouncing and bouncing until they are, you know, a mile away, gone Three ridges over. Three ridges over. I always say three ridges the word I always use. Well, like the bucks when we were driving into camp. Remember the the yeah couple of bucks that we bumped? And I think, didn't they start off at maybe 150, 200 yards away And you know there's how many eight ten of us sitting on the side of the road in our trucks big dear looking at these deer nobody's being quiet and um As soon as they realized what we were They bounced and not one of them ever ever stopped Again after that so they'll they'll go and they'll keep going and going and going you got to be quick when you're after them you can't give them time
00:13:24
Speaker
yeah um to If they're rutting especially, you can't give them time to to move and work their way away because like you're saying with a mule deer, they're different. They don't they don't behave the same. They don't just lollygag around and sit there and look back at you and those kind of things. theyre They're gone. There is nothing better though than like, because like you said, they are still, right? like I've had deer where I've bedded them into bush, got 100 yards from the bush, laid there for three hours, and then stood up because that's good convinced they weren't in the bush, and then blew the deer out.
00:14:00
Speaker
Multiple times I've done this. yeah my Two times in particular, and I've known now that if I see a deer go into a bush, he is
Hunting Adventures in Mexico
00:14:07
Speaker
still in that bush. Yes, and then there's also the exact opposite of that. You stare at that bush, and you sit there and you tell your buddies that, hey, he went into that bush, and there's no way he can get out of that bush without us seeing him. So keep watching the bush, keep watching the bush, and all of a sudden, you know, three hours later, you realize he's 300 yards away, and somehow he snuck out of the bush. Yeah, without you even seeing him, just moving... They're ghosts. They're there half the time, and they move and get away the other half the time.
00:14:38
Speaker
So it's a challenge. I swear, this is this is another real-life me screwing up hunting story. I screw up more than i am successful. but i was with my boys. Most of my cruising hunting is my boys hunting um because it's harder for me draw tags and not to burn points.
00:14:54
Speaker
Toys are going to Mexico. But find... i find um This buck, it's middle the day, like two o'clock. He's ah pushing a doe.
00:15:05
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, there's a buck. Let's go after this buck. And it was probably about a thousand yards. get where it was We get over there. And I'm like, I know he's in this draw. We move up and we're like 100 yards. and I'm like, oh, there's the does. There's a doe and a fawn right here. Right.
00:15:20
Speaker
And I swear to you, we sat there for an hour and we're 100 yards away from a bunch yellowgrass, which is like they love yellowgrass. Yellowgrass and scrub oaks, you find yellowgrass and scrub oaks, you're going to find deer.
00:15:31
Speaker
Right. You get up to a certain amount of elevation, you're three or four thousand feet in Arizona, you're going to find deer in those desert units. And yeah. I swear we're sitting there. i'm like, he's got to be in there. i'm like, let's just move over 10 feet. move or ten feet 15 deer stood up.
00:15:44
Speaker
Yeah. And I always saw two or three deer and 15 deer stood up and blew that thing. And I'm like, where the heck were you for the last hour? I mean, right in my face. You know what I mean? 15 or 18 inches of yellow grass. And you didn't even see them. I mean, they were, we could have maybe been 100 yards from these deer. Yeah.
00:16:05
Speaker
And I blew them of there and they were gone buck was go sold the buck is any time I've got a 12 year old with me You're never gonna get a cross around the thing fast enough, right? Nor do you want to but uh, yeah, man. All right So youve youve now you've got the bug.
00:16:18
Speaker
It's 2000 you kill your 101 which is like Anything over a hundred Arizona is pretty damn good ah Really good really good buck in Arizona is really good, right? um When do you make your first trip south?
00:16:35
Speaker
Well, a few years later, i don't i don't remember, it was probably four or five years later, and i had the bug. I had actually gone back and killed another buck in Arizona that wasn't as good as my first one.
00:16:47
Speaker
um Still a 90-inch buck, but but i i i want I had the bug, and I wanted to continue to to you know go out and progressively do better and better as a coosier hunter.
00:16:59
Speaker
And i I booked a hunt with an outfitter in Mexico, and I went with him and, you know, I actually went three years in a row. The first two years I didn't shoot awesome deer, shot okay deer, but I just, I had this driving, you know, feeling that I wanted to keep going back for bigger and bigger and bigger. I killed 101. wanted 110, that even 105, 108, 110, 113. And went this outfitter and,
00:17:29
Speaker
um and so i went with this outfitter and I hunted with him on the third year. I finally killed a 113 with him, which was now my second biggest deer.
00:17:41
Speaker
And i just, now I've got not just the coos deer bug, but I've got the Mexico coos deer bug. And that was 22, 23 years ago when I first went to Mexico.
00:17:54
Speaker
And, you know, it just, it progressed and progressed. And finally it just got... to the point where i I wanted to continue to go to Mexico, but I didn't want to do it through guides and outfitters. I knew the process. I knew how to do the paperwork. I knew how to you know come and go across the border. I knew what I needed to do to kill her to clean my skull caps and hides and that type of thing.
00:18:20
Speaker
And so I wanted my own ranch. And ultimately, that's what I did. And that's where the whole mad hunts... deal started was going and getting my own ranch and I started bringing Kate and Connor down when they were young um my other son Corbin who's not involved in the business but I started of bringing them down to Mexico as Corbin's the best guide you have I mean i hunted with Corbin and we killed a 108 within like three minutes of being in the blind I mean me and Corbin killed like um A few things together. have fun. Yeah, Corbin is great. He loves to hunt. He doesn't like to do it on like a competitive level. level
00:18:56
Speaker
He likes to go hunting when he wants to. And if he doesn't go today, well, maybe I'll go tomorrow. And, you know, so sometimes he's on, sometimes he's off. Yeah. He's not a psychopath like the boys. Caden Connor are psychopaths. They're just like me with Coosier. They're addicted. Caden Connor try to be competitive with me. and ah you know Any good father, I want them to kill bigger bucks than I've killed.
00:19:21
Speaker
um But they think that somehow it's competitive. And it's like, no, I want you to kill. I really legitimately want you to kill a bigger buck than me. But they're competitive with each other, as you know. They're competitive with you. They're they're competitive about just coos deer and finding big big bucks and you know just having great opportunities and good family time.
00:19:42
Speaker
It is. i joke around all the time. like We're a team, right? When we go out in class together. But like you always want to find the first deer. oh there's oh yeah find the version You always want to find the biggest deer.
00:19:53
Speaker
It's just fun. like I was talking to Cody Nelson about this. i'm like yeah There's something about, like yes, you're glassing your friends, but like turn about like first deer, got him you know over here, and then like finding him. because you are like You are looking, but we you're all working together too cause it's such a team. Coos deer is a team sport. like you can't now nuts i mean It is in the on the on the drinkers, which we're going to about. You guys are of like the specialists of the drinkers.
00:20:15
Speaker
yeah but like From a glassing spot and stock standpoint, Your partner is just as important as the hunter. Because if you have a guy who gets out of the glass, your hunt's done.
00:20:27
Speaker
you have They have to stay in the glass for three, four hours.
Teamwork in the Hunt
00:20:30
Speaker
lot of times you're using a radio. It's the eagle. it He's in the bush. yeah Move this way. Move this way. Because even in Arizona, even if it's open desert, it just doesn't look... You're worth finding these deer these BTXs a mile away sometimes.
00:20:44
Speaker
Right? And it just doesn't look the same when you get there. So you have to have guy who can really... like Talk to you and you can communicate with it. He could tell you like he has to know what a hundred yard yards looks like yeah from a mile away He has to know okay, you see that bush that has the Y-shaped Segura and then it's got a um It's got the the pucker bush and it's it' shaped like ah you know this and there's a tombstone rock right here He has to be able to communicate with you from a mile away and walk you in ye and stay in the glass Yep. you have to You have to be able to point out those landmarks.
00:21:17
Speaker
You have to understand kind of each other. And your you may not be sitting in the same position and have the same exact angle on something that I do. And so you might describe it as being left or right of a rock, but from my angle, it it isn't left or right. It's straight behind it or...
00:21:36
Speaker
You know, sometimes you say, oh, it's 50 yards from a rock, but when you're looking at a rock that's 1,000 yards away, 50 yards 50 yards, is it really 350 yards we're...
00:21:49
Speaker
Yep. Overestimating or underestimating what the actual distances are. So you have to be able to communicate that. You have to be able to, I don't know, trust the the guy that's behind the glass. If you're the if I'm the shooter. You've got to trust the guy behind the glass. I might leave you behind while I go in with a radio.
00:22:07
Speaker
And I've got to trust that, hey, you're just going to keep me in an earbud. You're going to keep talking to me and letting me know. Okay, the buck is still bedded down. He's still there. Move to the left, move to the right.
00:22:19
Speaker
You know, stop. The buck's looking at you. You've got to be able to have that communication and and be able to trust the guys that that you're working with for sure. yeah We killed a buck in Arizona two years ago when Cade was there.
00:22:32
Speaker
And i found i found this buck, and it was... ah it had to be a mile. was a long stalk. And the whole time, like we don't know they went we went towards it, and we had to go like four... wouldn't call them ridges. They're like 100-foot ridges. right it's kind of like this it's like this's kind of this flat with like rolling.
00:22:49
Speaker
Little finger ridges. Finger ridges. And we were going through all his fingers. And like, by the time got over there it's like, we don't know where he is. He's kind of in this. They're like, no, he's in this cut right here. They'll tell us, stay on the rifle. He'll come across. He came across.
00:22:59
Speaker
Had little bit of a circus with Isaac, but he shot him like 415 and got him down. Right? Right. little bit we There might have been one a couple shots that were pulled that day. But ah bottom line, the deer died. But we wouldn't be able to do it without Cade staying back and like telling us, OK, you're good. Stay there. Drop. Don't go any further.
00:23:14
Speaker
Right. Because we didn't know where he was at that point. Right. And it's legal do it. Yeah, it's legal do it run the guy in the glass He has to when you trust is gonna stay in the glass if it's a guy there's gonna be like running through his water That's a Tim's daughter or my grand man through right here. So ah The family business, but ah yeah, you have to get your trust up there So but what you guys really and you guys are just now starting to do some more of the spawn stock stuff in Arizona But what you guys really are known for what you are known for Maddock
00:23:46
Speaker
is being like the king of water down
Waterholes and Cameras: Key Strategies
00:23:48
Speaker
there. I mean, you've killed very large deer, And you've done so by developing ranches and figuring these deer out in the flats, which is the hardest way to hunt these deer, is in the flats and sitting water. Yeah. And not only sitting water, but sitting water for 12 hours a day, 14 hours a day in the heat.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah. You guys will do it for 10 days straight and you guys will pass 105 inch deer, get to the inch deer like you killed last year so how did that start for you because you do guys when you first went down to the maltose you were hunting it like i hunt yeah i i thought that we were going to hunt that ranch as a glassing ranch and it had some finger ridges on it it has some actually big mountains um but as you know there's no deer on those mountains they're thick a few but not no a lot yeah and so the deer don't go up onto the peaks the the deer stay down in the flats on the little fingers in the little arroyos and and in the cholla flats and so what we had to learn to do was to hunt the deer where the deer are and so we just you know happenstance we you know every time we we arrive in camp we'd go look at the water holes and we would see that
00:25:09
Speaker
They're tracked out. And so we knew that the deer were coming to the water. And pretty soon we just started to put trail cameras out and see what was there. And we discovered something that I think we already knew, but we sort of, you know, had that aha moment in our minds that, oh, these deer...
00:25:27
Speaker
they come to the water holes in the middle of the day. And everybody talks about kooz deer, and it's kind of a known thing that the the bucks come to the water in the middle of the day, but how many people really put all their marbles in that in that basket? I'm telling you folks, 11 to two o'clock is the kooz deer hour.
00:25:44
Speaker
Yeah. it's really It really is. It 100% is. And so that that first year, we got six or eight trail cameras, and we started to run these trail cameras, and we were finding some giant deer coming in during the day.
00:25:57
Speaker
And, you know, it just progressed, and now we're running over 200. Six or eight. I laugh at that now because yeah you guys are psychopaths. We have six or eight cameras a waterhole. Just one waterhole half the time.
00:26:08
Speaker
So we have waterholes that have have a dozen or 15 trail cameras on one represso, one dirt tank. And we run, if if it's a good rain year and the waterholes are all full, we'll run over 200 trail cameras in one year.
00:26:24
Speaker
and We just know if a buck comes into a water hole, it's only a matter of time before he comes back to that same water hole again. And so we full send it on on that premise that if there's a buck that is a big buck that we want to shoot, he will come back to that water hole.
00:26:44
Speaker
And hopefully in that that you know five, six, seven day time period that we're there and we've learned that if our butt is in the chair in a ground blind at that water hole we're going to get an opportunity to kill them and you know most of the time we do but the buck that you were after for example i hunted that that you killed um you two years ago you and phil hunted them for two years each We hunted that buck ah for for several years. i i i get them all mixed up now, but i myself, Phil, ah we hunted that buck for at least two years. I think there was somebody else that hunted it in the meantime as well.
00:27:21
Speaker
But we have probably at a grand total over several years of 30 or 40 days chasing that buck. So you killed it first day, second hour?
00:27:34
Speaker
Right at hour two? Right at hour two. So we had... This buck, again, the cool about running these cameras, you really get to pat on these deer. And some of them are like once every four days, once every five days. This buck was like every day at 9 a.m. with a forky and with a three-by.
00:27:49
Speaker
And I go, hey, me and Connor are going to kill buck at 9 a.m. Watch. Yeah. and we're out And at this point, Phil Kramer, who also one of the best cootager hunters out there. Great person, great hunter. An awesome guy. i love Phil.
00:28:01
Speaker
This buck is like, we're kind of hunting the edge of Phil's ranch as well. Yeah. And so this buck, 9 a.m., Connor's like, there he is. And he comes off of Phil's ranch onto your ranch. And I, 9 a.m., I just hammered this buck, and I actually sent Phil a full tripod set up.
00:28:17
Speaker
and But Phil actually was like, dude, I'm glad someone got him. Phil's a good guy. Because i shot him on the downside. I shot my buck. He was, he was before, I shot him at 108, but he was like 118 the year before. He had another point, and he was just bigger, because he was just, this buck was so elusive for so long,
00:28:36
Speaker
he just He actually got to a point where he these buck gets so old on your guys' is ranches down there that they start regressing. He was regressing. Yeah. yeah And it's just it was neat to see that Phil's thing was like, man, and same thing with you. Like, gosh, he's finally down. Because this buck could have, for all we know, just died of old age. he was getting It was so hard to kill him. And we have that happen every year that bucks disappear, that, you know, whether they just get old and run down and a lion gets them or whether they just die of old age, however that works and in nature. But um we have bucks every year that that are giant bucks that, a they never they never created an opportunity for us to realistically go after them.
00:29:14
Speaker
um You know, we try to go after the biggest bucks that are coming back and creating opportunities for us to kill. If a buck sometimes is a ghost and it it comes in once in November and then we don't see it again until you know December 29th and you know he may just be cruising around and we never have a ah real opportunity to kill him um and that happens a lot and then we have bucks that that we watch them year after year and maybe they're nocturnal or maybe they um They come in in November, beginning of December, and then I don't know where they move off to, but they they sure don't show up on any of our cameras ever again, ah until the next season.
00:29:53
Speaker
So we are constantly going after these deer and trying to find these new deer and these opportunities to get them, but sometimes deer just never give you an opportunity
The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hunting
00:30:07
Speaker
to kill them. Well, they say right? Big bucks don't get big because they're stupid. They're certainly not.
00:30:11
Speaker
um And you guys only, I mean, you guys like, you guys have a do not shoot list, which I know makes you pretty frustrated sometimes, right? Like you guys have some 107, 108s that you guys won't shoot cause you're like, no, he's only three. Yeah. And yeah, sometimes two, but.
00:30:26
Speaker
Poor Kyle, poor Kyle, dude. He's always crying and moaning. It's do not shoot list. Do not, you know, well, you know, but it's like, it's going to be a great buck. And you know, like a three-year-old 108, it's going to be a high teams buck.
00:30:37
Speaker
You don't want to kill that buck. A five-year-old 108 is probably going to be a 108. You know what i mean? a two-year-old, 103, 105 gonna giant. giant, so yeah. lot of times We will only casually bring them up or casually show people pictures, and we won't even allow people to go over to to those areas. um You know, we just, we don't want to kill them prematurely. We want to let them reach that potential.
00:31:02
Speaker
And even at four and a half, the buck that Cade killed this year, he passed him as a four and a half year old buck, which in most people's minds is a mature buck, even ours. He was a mature buck, but...
00:31:13
Speaker
He just needed another year and Cade killed him and I i think he's 112 inch buck and it's Cade's biggest buck and you know we're thrilled for Cade but Cade passed him up as a three and a half year old at like 105 and then as a four and a half year old um he was 110 inch type of deer and Cade just said we're not even gonna hunt him this year and so nobody hunted him and then this year he came back and Cade I think killed him on day three.
00:31:44
Speaker
um And Cade's just excited as all get out. Yeah, first deer he's killed in like four years or something. Oh, man, yeah. He he put out a video for it. But it was a... He's a deer snob.
00:31:57
Speaker
Cade? Yeah. He's a deer snob. Cade's a deer snob. You know what? When you've hunted Mexico for as long as we have... You realize what you can get. You just become a deer snob and i I don't, I try to only be a deer snob with myself and not with you, for example, or with you know the general public or people that come through. i I get such a huge opportunity to go kill these world-class deer every year. So I i get to be snobbish about... I've never seen so many big coos deer in one room as your house. Let's throw it out there. tim has
00:32:28
Speaker
Tim is the master of water, and Tim has more large coos deer on his wall. And the most beautiful deer, too. I mean, coos deer are so beautiful. They're so much prettier than mule deer. I mean, mule deer are, like, hairier and darker, and they got hair from other ears. And the coos deer are just, like...
00:32:44
Speaker
elegant yeah they're just beautiful they're they're pretty man they got that the short coat and just yeah great ghost man but we're we're we're just we're blessed to have the opportunity to go hunt them where we do um on these ranches and do it year after year after year so I get to be a little bit of a snob, but at the same time, when somebody that new is going with us, they've never killed one, they've they've never had the opportunity to kill a big one, or they're trying to kill a bigger one than their last one.
00:33:13
Speaker
You know, i don't I don't want to be a snob to them. Everybody's at a different level. Yeah, everyone different trophy. You know, one thing that it was shocking to me is you guys don't hunt over feeders. I was like, oh they're going to hunt over feeders down here I've tried. And you don't. You guys do hunt over water, and you guys have even made some of your own water. I killed my buck over water you made. Yeah. um but Down there on the Maltos. And and and what I'm shocked that these little whitetails don't love corn.
00:33:41
Speaker
I've tried. They don't have protein. I've tried. That same little drinker that you killed yours on. I put a little feeder on there. It was on a T-post, a little green feeder. It held 50 pounds of feed. We put alfalfa pellets. We put corn. we put We tried to see if we could get these deer to come into feeders.
00:34:03
Speaker
And they won't, I can pour it on ground. You're feeding javelina. are. I can pour the food right on the ground and the deer will walk right past it to go to the water. They just don't care about the food. They've never been trained, so to speak, that corn is good to eat or alfalfa pellets are good to eat.
00:34:23
Speaker
So i I tried it to see if we could do it. And i Some of the feeders have food in them for like three years, and it was going bad and moldy, and finally I just dumped it out and and gave the feeders away to a buddy, and we don't we don't use feeders.
00:34:42
Speaker
i I don't know why they won't take to it, but um some guys say that if you had more time, you could introduce ah like like hay type of alfalfa to it. Alfalfa might be a way to do it. and Yeah, that there's some ways, but but I'm not down there twenty four seven to be able to do that day in and day out. So, um you know, our our ranches don't have feeders on them to this day because I just couldn't get it to work.
00:35:08
Speaker
And the reason I say that is like I hunted Texas this year and it was like a dinner bell. Oh yeah. And all of sudden there's deer and oryx and zebras and all this crap coming in, you know, javelinas, pigs.
00:35:19
Speaker
But in Mexico, like it truly is like, it's a real hunt. Yeah. It's a real, it's not like you're going down and you're guaranteed a buck. Like you could sit for a week and not kill a deer with these guys on water. If you're hunting, there they also have open, you know, like my, my jam is obviously glassing.
00:35:34
Speaker
I like it more. Right. I have ADD. I'm a psychopath and a blind. Like you don't want to blind with you. I know you have ADD. But I find a lot of deer. You do. I find a lot of deer. You do. um But I, uh...
00:35:46
Speaker
It's a real hunt. like It's not like you're going down there guaranteed a deer. You're going to sit in this blind. And honestly, like these chairs here that we're sitting there now, Tim, i was like, Tim, what chair should I buy? Because he can buy blind chairs. They're not comfy. He's telling these, whatever, these $120 sportsman's chairs whatever. Because you're going sit in this chair.
00:36:02
Speaker
For 12 hours? Yep. Yep. We like to get guys into their chair by about 6.45, into their blind, and they don't leave later in the season. It's shooting light all the way up to about 6.30 at night. So it's a 12-hour set.
00:36:17
Speaker
said um And we've just we tell everybody that comes down to hunt with us bring the the best most comfortable Silent chair that that you can if you just go buy a little you know plastic Walmart chair for for you know 15 bucks then your butts gonna be paying for it throughout that day so These, actually, they they're not a square back chair. They've kind of got a roll back to them, and they've got a lot of padding in them.
00:36:46
Speaker
um If you're rifle hunting, you can get away with a lot more noise. than not Not that we want you to be noisy, but a little squeak and stuff in the chair doesn't doesn't seem to to bother them. And most of the time, rifle hunting, we're sitting back 50 to 70 yards is where we kind of like to be.
00:37:01
Speaker
So we've got a little bit of room for a squeak or two here there. blind. In a blind. Almost always in a blind when you guys are hunting. Pop-up ground blinds. That's that's how we do it in the bushes. and I was shocked that they didn't... I mean, they kind mean, there's a few where I hunted them they kind of, like, would, like, look at it.
00:37:18
Speaker
But, like, I was shocked how, like, lenient they were with a blind. Yeah. Well, you know, if if people watch the YouTube video of you hunting your buck in Mexico, talking to Corbin, he'll tell the story to me and Cade and Connor that you and him never stopped talking the entire morning.
00:37:39
Speaker
And so that goes to show that you can actually get away with with quite a bit more. Because you guys were laughing and joking. were having a good time. We were having a good time and they were fun.
00:37:49
Speaker
And it's usually not until that 9 o'clock time when the deer start to come in that's what want to talk about, too. and Yeah, but you guys were kind of right up to that threshold, and it just so happened your buck came in at 9. But, um you know, you guys were were kind of having a good time in there. And, in fact, somebody here at the show just a few minutes ago was laughing about it, saying, oh, yeah, as noisy as those guys were, I can't believe that buck even came in.
00:38:12
Speaker
So they they do, and, you know, we don't want people to be noisy, but but you can get away with it quite a bit. What's shocking about Mexico, and and this must be what, when you hunt deer in Mexico, you're actually hunting like they deer in their natural state.
00:38:27
Speaker
yeah like it's It's private land, yes, but it's public in a sense that it's like it's never been hunted Mexico. And the deer don't start moving until 9 a.m., 8, 30, 9 a.m.
00:38:39
Speaker
In the States, it's like you have that first hour from like gray light until 7 then they're going to start bedding down. yeah Maybe 8, 30. It's like 8, 30. In Mexico, they don't even start moving until 8,
Behavioral Observations and Regional Differences
00:38:49
Speaker
30, 9 o'clock. They're all a sudden oh, deer, deer, deer.
00:38:51
Speaker
I don't know. ah what What do you contribute to that? It's so strange to me. we rarely ever even see a deer come in before eight o'clock we've killed a few bucks over the years but very few before eight o'clock um i attribute it my my best guess is i think that the deer away from the water are moving and doing their thing feeding and rutting and stuff but away from the water and so after you know the first couple hours of light They're now thirsty and they're ready to bed. So they hit they they go hit water on their way to bed, especially a lot of the does. They come in at 9, 10, 11 o'clock.
00:39:29
Speaker
And so they're going to their bedding areas and they pass by the water and they stop for a drink. The bucks, I think, they'll actually go bed down. and A lot of times they might be bedded down.
00:39:42
Speaker
Earlier and at 11 12 o'clock they'll start coming to the water as more of a social call ah Than ah an actual water during the rut. They're kind of seeing who's coming in hot. Yeah, it's a great place that you know same thing reason we're hunting there they're out there too Exactly and so a lot of times I think the bucks come into the water but We don't even see them. they They'll come in maybe 150, 200 yards from the water hole, 300 yards, and they'll stand under a mesquite tree and they won't move like we were talking about. They'll just stand there.
00:40:12
Speaker
And from our little enclosed pop-up ground blinds, he might be 300 yards this way, just standing there. and You don't even know. We don't even know that he's there. and Some does or some other bucks will come into the water and he'll, you know, they have that sixth sense. They know what's going on around them. He knows that there's other deer in the vicinity. He can hear them or smell them or whatever.
00:40:35
Speaker
And so at some point he'll circle back around the water to come check on who's been there, what they're doing, how many deer, hot does, whether he needs to, you know, defend his territory against another buck or come breed a doe. You know, I just...
00:40:50
Speaker
they're They're there, yeah but they're out of our sight, so they're just not nearby. Even on our mountain ranch this year though, it was like, Like at 8, 39 o'clock, they really started moving. It was strange.
00:41:02
Speaker
And like, I thought you guys were crazy. And they're like, what time we getting up? Well, we'll leave here like at light. I'm like, what? No, you need to be in the blind an hour before dark. They're like, no, trust me, you don't need to. Right? And you just, the cool thing is too, is like hunting down there, you gotta get a comfy, get your comfy sweatshirt on. Like you just like, yeah you bring a cooler in there, you set up for the day, like cozy and do it.
00:41:21
Speaker
It's definitely not my favorite way to do it. Cause I'm just too much of a, I want a glass. Like I want to look around. Right. But it is cool. It is cool. I'm going come in. can say, kind of a funny story.
00:41:32
Speaker
We had... a On camera, on the and the game cameras, you get such a cycle of their you know of of seeing what's going on with them. There was Kudamundi that came in every day at like 11 o'clock.
00:41:44
Speaker
And there's photos. Not anymore. Not anymore. There's photos of this Kudamundi, and he's running my buck off the drinker. He chased my, this it was a Bork Kudamundi, ran my buck off the drinker. and I'm like, I'm going to kill buck. I'm going to kill that Kudamundi.
00:41:57
Speaker
So I shoot Chubbs, my buck. yep And I go back days later and I'm killing that Kudamundi. I got a picture both of together. it was kind of cool. One thing i i could say that you guys probably have the best collection of game camera footage of Kuzgeer probably in the world. I mean, arguably in the world. only anybody who would have more.
00:42:15
Speaker
I don't either. Especially now that we've banned game cameras and in Arizona. Yeah, yeah. um You guys have... Like you can see a deer from spike to maturity on your cameras over the years.
00:42:28
Speaker
Yeah. And sometimes it might be three or four drinkers away, but you guys have footage where I can actually look at my deer from like, Hey, here he is when he's two, three, four, five, six, seven. yeah Oh, he's peaking. Oh, we missed the peak. You know?
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, if we can if we can get pictures of a buck that is a recognizable buck, so there's distinguishing characteristics that he has, whether it's with his antlers, whether it's a split in his ear or something, and we can do that when he's you know two and a half years old. we can We feel like we're pretty good at putting an age on ah on a deer when he's one, two, or three years old.
00:43:02
Speaker
If we can do that, we can follow him. through his lifespan a lot of times and so we know when they're four and when they're five and we know when they're getting to that that time frame where we better kill him or he's not going to be bad which is like that probably five to seven ranges and they really start peaking five to seven four and a half four and a half to seven they kind of start peaking out Yeah, we consider a four-and-a-half-year-old buck a mature buck.
00:43:25
Speaker
We don't consider three-and-a-half-year-old buck a mature buck. And so what we're learning, the longer that Caden and Connor and myself hunt down there, the more we've discovered for ourselves that we don't want to kill deer until they're five-and-a-half, six-and-a-half, seven-and-a-half years old just because they're really more mature. These are throwing an extra kicker in there, a little sticker, a little bit extras, little more mass. Yeah, they start to really get And their bodies start getting a lot bigger too. You notice that like, you go and shoot, even with Mule Deer, like the buck my kid's job this year is probably seven or eight years old. He was just,
00:43:58
Speaker
A cow elk. I mean, they just get bigger. It's like a man. Like, I'm 40 years old now. I'm starting to put weight on. I'm like, I'm getting bigger. I'm getting thicker. get more rolling. You get a little thicker. And these bucks just get thicker. Their nets get thicker. Their heads get bigger. That's when you really start seeing how big these things are. Man, I'll tell you what. It's hard to judge a coos. Like, you need to spend—I spend hours looking stuff trying to judge what a deer is, and I still get them wrong. Well, and to throw a monkey wrench in it, you hunted with us two years ago on a desert ranch that has giant coos deer bodies.
00:44:31
Speaker
And then this year we went to a mountain ranch that... 100 pound bucks, 110 pound versus 125 pound bucks. Correct. And it throws you off. It bigger. It throws you off trying to determine antler size because you're using this commonality between the body sizes, but the body size from a desert to a mountain ranch are different. Desert ranches are generally going to be bigger bodies.
00:44:54
Speaker
I find it strange too, like... Especially, I mean, it's the same thing in this. I saw a little bit more of it New Mexico this year. I saw the blend. I saw, it's the first time ever saw a coos deer running with mule deer in New Mexico this year. But like the two species don't really blend.
00:45:10
Speaker
Like if you go to a coos area, like I know like the place I love hunt in Arizona, it's like there's a line I could draw where I guarantee you it's going like, if I go above this altitude, there's going to be coos deer. it's like a 3,000 foot mark, 3,300 foot mark. And below that, going to be mule deer. And they don't really mix. It's like on your desert ranch, you've seen like one or two mule deer?
00:45:30
Speaker
We had, I believe, one mule deer spike, and it was four or five years ago. And we've never seen another mule deer on these ranches. Which wild, because you could go 10 miles away, and they're high-racking 240-inch mule deer. Yeah.
00:45:45
Speaker
um I believe it's said that the whitetail species, whether it's an eastern or a Texas or Canadian, you know, northern whitetail species, it's a more dominant species than than the mule deer.
00:45:57
Speaker
I think that's what what biologists say. I mean, I know you see them running deer off and in yeah up in like Montana and stuff, like, you know. I've seen coos deer bucks run off mule deer does.
00:46:09
Speaker
And, you know, a coos deer buck and a mule deer buck are, there's easy 70, 80 pounds difference, maybe 100 pounds difference. Oh, more than that. I mean, gosh, that deer that Isaac shot was probably 250 pounds this year in Colorado. Right. Bears are not as big. They're not as big as Colorado. Yeah, the desert species of mule deer. Just as big.
00:46:26
Speaker
But I've seen that with my own eyes, but um that that's just a few instances here and there. But I i believe that whitetail deer are more dominant-minded deer than the mule deer, and they'll actually run them. I've seen whitetail on video, on like YouTube, run off elk.
00:46:45
Speaker
Really? Yeah. So, I don't know. Yeah, it's weird. They don't mix, man. Like, if you're finding... Like, if you have a... Like, I had a mule deer tag this year, and I swore kept running into kooze deer. It's like Murphy's Law, right? I want to go back and un-mule or kooze deer in that unit so bad.
00:46:58
Speaker
um But if you're fine in kooze deer, you're probably not going find mule You're probably going to find kooze deer. It's like a great barometer. Like, okay, where am I at? Yeah. And typically, it's like, for me, it's like you almost...
00:47:09
Speaker
At least in the States, not so much Arizona or Mexico, but like in the States, like if you're finding a mule deer, you're probably to go little bit higher. You'll find some coos deer. Generally, yeah. Generally, generally. generally like it's not At least in Arizona, is my so like it's the lower stuff's going the mule deer, the higher stuff's going Which is weird because it's so strange to me like in Arizona that the mule deer aren't up higher. It must be the coos deer running them off.
00:47:30
Speaker
Because you go to... Colorado or Utah you go hot It doesn't make any sense to me that Arizona it's like they the mule deer are low the coos deer are high Yeah, and they don't mix it could just be that the coos deer are dickheads and they're running them off I don't know like get down of the desert where it's hotter Yeah, it's cooler up there.
00:47:48
Speaker
There's more water up there there There's more, you know, it's more everything you so you get more food up there and they those deer men they stay down on those mesquites and down low They're built to just be desert deer. Desert deer. I mean, there's a few of them in the pines, but there is they're built to be a desert species of deer.
00:48:04
Speaker
Yeah. And it is strange, too. Like, you don't have coos up in the Kaipab. No. Why is that? the Grand Canyon separates them, so i don't I don't know that the coos deer could migrate across the Grand Canyon. You think that's what it is?
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah, um I mean, I've i've seen coos deer as far north as Flagstaff, but I i don't know why they don't go more north. They got them on the Moglin Rim, they got them 22, they got them on there. Do they have an 8? Do you guys have them around? Oh yeah, or but there's there's ah a's a really tough unit to hunt for coos deer because it's so thick, but there's a great genetic line of coos deer in unit 8. It's a good bow hunting unit.
00:48:45
Speaker
good archery unit good yeah ah good august unit yes it's a unit that has to be scouted a lot in order to just learn where the pockets are and if you're going to hunt it with archery then you've got ah you know have a tree stand or somewhere that's drawing those deer in and with the the bands now on on salt and feeding deer and trail cameras and trail cameras it's really tough you gotta find the water you gotta glass them and It's so hard to glass. It's a thick manzanita, scrub oak, junipers. Up top, there's pines.
00:49:14
Speaker
It's just really a tough unit to find coos to use. here's something really cool. I always put this to Africa. In Africa, everything's legal. You can kill whatever you see, and you can use whatever you want. They had... um the thermal binoculars. Oh, yeah.
00:49:28
Speaker
Oh, my gosh. Because right now, it's like hazy out. It's cool. If it's cool weather, I can look at this mountain. There's a mountain next to it. It's all bushes. You can't even see in this mountain right Yep. And I can tell you where 15 deer on the mountain are. Man, if you could use thermals for cruise deer, would be... And please, I'm not going to use thermals for cruise deer. I'm not going to own a pair of these binoculars.
00:49:46
Speaker
But my gosh, if you could use thermals, yeah it's like a cheat code for like, there's deer there. Oh my gosh. And you can find them with your binoculars. It was like, you could just find... You could tell what species it was. but these Yeah, it was cool. We've done some thermal hog hunting in Texas with some some guys there.
00:50:03
Speaker
And I mean, it's amazing. You can tell for the hogs, you know, if there's ah a hog with white spots or a white hog with black spots, I mean, you can see that in the thermal.
00:50:15
Speaker
And, you know, they they don't show you color. They show you contrast and heat. But yeah. I don't know. I guess the the white, you know, heats up to a different temperature than the black part of the hog. Oh, that's the middle the day when the rocks are heat up you can't use them anymore because the rocks get too hot. Yeah, but to my knowledge, you're not allowed to take thermals to Mexico, so that's safety I'm wondering can throw binoculars, though.
00:50:37
Speaker
I'm curious on the binoculars. I think you have the scope, so I'm wondering if you can throw binoculars, but at the same time, I feel like I'd be cheating. Like, it was such a cheat code. Yeah. I was telling Kate, like, Mexico, hunt at night.
00:50:48
Speaker
I don't think I shoot deer at night. Even though i could use light, you could bring lights down there. You could bring some lights in. There's a buck that's coming in. You could use some green lights and do that and you can hunt them. But it's like, man, like, I don't know. There's a certain things. There's like, what's what's it, what's it, Leopold said? Like there's, there's ethics and laws. Right.
00:51:03
Speaker
And you're kind of like, do you, like, what would your thought be on sitting water at night with
Technology and Ethics in Night Hunting
00:51:07
Speaker
green lights? Well, so there's certain deer on, on our ranch that we call them ghost deer. And,
00:51:14
Speaker
They're really, they come in at night or they don't come in very often. And those are the deer that we, me, Cade, Connor, we talk about, man, we wish there was a way to hunt them at night.
00:51:25
Speaker
um We never have. And i just, I don't know if it's cheating or not cheating, um but there are a certain a group of deer occasionally that would be- It's tempting. it It's definitely tempting. It's legal.
00:51:41
Speaker
um I don't legalities aside. We just there's places that on on the ranch that that I'm certain we could go do it and we might be able to be successful.
00:51:53
Speaker
But then you sit for 12 hours a day. Do you really want to go home and have dinner and then go back out and sit again all night? I mean, you got to sleep at some point. So it just, yeah I don't know how to make it work.
00:52:08
Speaker
Haven't fooled around too much more than talking to Caden Connor about it. But the green lights are pretty slick. I know we had the other on a ranch this year looking for some oryx out of Mexico. And it was like, if we could have, would have heard those at night.
00:52:21
Speaker
Yeah, I would definitely do that. That would have been like, they were only coming in night, that that they were Elan and Oryx on this ranch, and like, yeah if we would have hunted at night, would have killed them, right? And he was just like, they just weren't coming in during the day, so we were on my camera every night. We'd get out of the blind, and an hour later, they'd be on camera that night, and I'm like, man, if we had green lights, we could definitely shoot these. We were talking with our bows, could have got them. And they have those green and red hog lights that exact slow glow, they turn on, not not necessarily the ones that are attached to your rifle or whatever,
00:52:50
Speaker
but you put them on a t-post and they slowly come up to the green or red light they use them in texas a lot and you could turn your light on your gun and yeah and and get them that we we could do that with uh with the oryx and eland on that ranch uh but never never done it with a coos deer yet um don't know maybe someday i don't know yeah i don't know i i think about it like man there's some deer but i'm like i just want to give him the chance At some point, you've got to sleep, too. You've got to sleep.
00:53:18
Speaker
You know? so All right. That was a fun pod. We always end with a hunt story. Want to tell us hunt story? Which hunt story? Any hunt story, man. Any hunt story. Give me a hunt story, man. It could be you shooting a squirrel when you're sick. I don't care.
00:53:31
Speaker
Or could be shooting the 130-inch deer a couple years ago. Give me any hunt story, man. So that that big buck that I killed um a couple of years ago was a buck that we had one of my buddies hunting him the first year we found him.
00:53:44
Speaker
And we figured he was somewhere in that 108, 110-inch range. and And my buddy sat for him for nine consecutive days for 12 hours a day. and ah he never had the opportunity. he He ghosted out on us that year and my buddy never got him killed.
00:54:01
Speaker
108 hours. Hours you're a math guy aren't you? i I can't do math that that faster that good, but we'll call it a hundred and eight hours um The next year Kate and I were out setting up trail cameras in November and We had just set this drinker and we were on our way to the next stop and We're riding down this two-track road on the ranch in my side-by-side and just out from the right side going across to the left side in front of us maybe 15 yards
00:54:37
Speaker
runs this giant buck and it it it was huge it's not the biggest buck i've ever seen but it was a giant buck and i literally put my my foot on the brake and stopped and kate and i there was this moment that neither of us could say anything and we looked at each other and finally we broke the silence and that was a giant and and we had a conversation about that buck and we actually turned around and went and put more trail cameras back on the water hole the whole roads lined up now
00:55:07
Speaker
We went and set more trail cameras up there and all of the water holes in the areas we went and we we added trail cameras to it. um So that's in November. We came back in December and and obviously we go to those areas in that vicinity and we never found the buck.
00:55:24
Speaker
And I mean, there were some distinct features on this buck that we were looking for that that I knew if I saw this buck that I would recognize him again in a heartbeat. So we were kind of disappointed that we we go back in December and that buck isn't on any trail camera anywhere nearby. And so we were bummed.
00:55:43
Speaker
We hunted through December and we came back. and i think yeah Cade was sitting one water hole and I was sitting another water hole and two or three days into our January hunt this buck appears on one of the water holes we call it skunk tank but this buck appears on that camera I see it I immediately recognize that the two kickers coming off the G2 said Cade I got our buck we're both excited
00:56:15
Speaker
So Cade, we make the decision that he's going to sit that buck. He and I saw the buck together, so it's fitting that one of us goes to hunt it. We decide Cade is going to go hunt this buck.
00:56:26
Speaker
um we go and At this point, how big is this buck? We believe he's 125 inches. and We take Cade's ground blind and we move it to where this buck is coming in.
00:56:40
Speaker
And we set up the ground blind and it's like 2 o'clock in the afternoon, 2.30. two thirty And I say, Cade, do you want to just sit here the rest of the day and I'll come back tonight and get you?
00:56:53
Speaker
And he's like... No, I'll just go back tonight. i'll say I'll sit at the rest of the day. I'll sit at the ah the rest of the hunt. We said, okay. So he went back there tomorrow or the next day.
00:57:05
Speaker
And when he did, he pulled the card. that We were there like 2.30, the buck was in at 3.30 that next day. Cade was not he did not have his butt in the chair, which is what we say.
00:57:19
Speaker
And so obviously he he lost that opportunity to kill that buck. He hunted it, I want to say, another six days um for for that hunt, and and that year never got it killed.
00:57:31
Speaker
I was bringing a group of hunters later on that month after we were done. I went and sat it for another three or four days. Never had the opportunity to it. This is now becoming three-year buck.
00:57:44
Speaker
This is the second year. But you're going on to year three now. Now that year is over. We come back the next year. And we put trail cameras in all the same places hoping to find this buck and he was at the exact same tank. He was there early.
00:57:58
Speaker
He was there in ah November when we first set out the trail cameras. And... um i Sat in the year before our Cade sat him the year before and so it was my turn to sit the buck and Cade had another another buck that he in fact it was the buck that he killed this year that he went and hunted and I Sat for him in December I sat in six days in December and I want to say on day three um
00:58:30
Speaker
now I don't know what happened. I don't fall asleep in the ground blind, but I must have been distracted because on the evening of day three, I pulled the the trail camera cards.
00:58:42
Speaker
I went back to the ranch and I looked at it and the buck passed in between me and the waterhole um while I was sitting in and I never saw the buck.
00:58:53
Speaker
So something happened that I was distracted and i don't believe he spent any time there but he walked across and I missed the opportunity in December. And that's when you realize realized it was going to be a quick shot for this buck.
00:59:07
Speaker
Yes. That's when we realize this buck is not going to give us the the hour of walking in slow and standing. Correct. And so I come back in January, back to the same tank. We have more pictures of him.
The Triumph of the Largest Coos Deer
00:59:20
Speaker
Day five in January, I look up. It's actually the evening. We kill very few deer in the evening time, but it does happen. Yeah. I looked up and there's a doe about an hour before dark and she's coming into the into the water. She's already at the edge of the the water. This is a cement drinker. We call them bevendettos.
00:59:41
Speaker
She's right up next to it. And I thought, okay, well, this is a good scenario. He could come sneaking in, um which a second later I'd glance up and a buck stepped out of the edge of the brush.
00:59:53
Speaker
and stopped all I can see is his head and through the bushes I can see his leg up to his chest I'm like okay throw up my binos it's him and I'm like okay well Now I gotta wait for him to to take a step and the this is all going on very quickly in my mind but it dawned on me pretty quick that he wasn't coming there to drink. He was following his doe in, he was watching his doe drink and he wasn't going to take another step closer to the water, I didn't feel.
01:00:29
Speaker
He watched his doe. I felt like as soon as she was done watering, she was going to turn around and walk out the same way that she had just come in. So my choice was to shoot him through the bushes or don't get a shot on him at all.
01:00:44
Speaker
So I looked through the scope in my rifle and there was a perfect little clearing of branches. He's only 60 yards away. yeah There's a perfect little clearing of of branches and Cholla cactus right to his vitals.
01:00:59
Speaker
and i yeah I have it on video. i I turned the video camera on and I put the shot right through. i didn't see any branches or Cholla cactus fly.
01:01:10
Speaker
I saw a flash of movement as he... I hit him and he just turned and flopped on the ground and and I was able to to harvest the biggest biggest deer, biggest coos deer that I've ever killed. Where did he grow? He grows over 130.
01:01:27
Speaker
He grossed just under 130. Oh, he grossed under. Yeah, he's 129 and I believe 4.8. In fact, he's at the Boone and Crockett Club convention in Missouri right now.
01:01:41
Speaker
Yesterday, I just got the email from them. He got panel scored because he's one of the largest typicals killed in the last five years scoring panel. So they shipped him ah to to the show in Missouri. will go the The show doesn't take place until later on this summer, ah which my wife and I will go to. But he's been panel scored, and I haven't looked to see to open the email yet to see what he scores. You don't want to know what he came in at?
01:02:10
Speaker
Honestly, I... ah Scores are scores and and it's fun and and everything to talk to your buddies about. I really don't care. He's the coolest buck. You have to SCI score. They'll give you a higher score. Give me a higher score. Get an SCI score. The Boone and Crockett guys are going to drag him down to 123 or something. We can go score shopping for him. Yeah. But yeah, so ultimately it doesn't matter to me what he scored. It would be cool if he was a 130-inch buck, but he's not. He's ah a 129 and change. He's not going grow up in croc, that's for sure. Yeah, i think he, you know, if anything, i'm it it doesn't matter. They might get you a few inches off of him. I don't think they'll take inches off of him, but...
01:02:45
Speaker
it's It's fun to say that I have a ah ah buck that is going that high in the book. or that it's a it's i mean, that buck right there is every bit of a 400-inch elk.
01:02:57
Speaker
More than a 400-inch elk. It's more than a 400-inch elk. When you consider the fact that he's a typical three-point, a typical three-by-three, I probably will never see a bigger, typical three by yeah than than this buck. um he's a He's a giant. He's a beautiful buck. He's got mass. He's got length. He's got width. He's he's got everything he's got it all you could ever want, except he doesn't have the last couple of eighths of an inch to get him up over 130, but who cares?
01:03:28
Speaker
He probably never would have. Well, he definitely ain't going to know. He won't now, but he's he's on on the wall, but... Definitely fun. It's really cool. That story is important to me because it Cade and I worked together for that buck. We both saw him Cade had an opportunity. I had an opportunity um I'd have been just as happy if Cade killed him, you know the buck that Cade ended up going after he didn't kill that year, but it's the buck that Cade went back to this year and killed this year So it it turned out to be a really really cool the saga Saga circle story that yeah, I i was pretty shocked how much work you guys put into these deer You're not to sit in water and killing things. It's like it's work, but man, I'll tell you what I love hunting with mad hunts. I love the boys i love dad i mean the whole family's involved. I mean right now I've got both wives here grandkids for mad hunts family operation Madhouse on Instagram where it matters on YouTube. What else you guys where we find you guys how we book comes guys
01:04:31
Speaker
Our website is madhunts.com. Cade and Connor have Instagram accounts. And if you know me, Only fan eye fans only. He's got only fan. A good photo account. I don't do social media, but if you go to the website at www.madhunts.com, that has my phone number. It has Cade and Connor's Instagrams. And you're welcome to to call, text...
01:04:54
Speaker
email, ah Instagram, you know, however however we hook up through social media. Go book a hunt, DIY Hunts in Mexico. I've got hundreds of thousands of acres now. get a hunt booked before, mean, you probably got to get booked by July, right, to really get down there.
01:05:09
Speaker
Yeah, we got to start doing gun permit permits in the end of August, beginning of September. But we offer do-it-yourself hunts. We offer a semi-guided hunt to help you learn the process of coming in and out of Mexico and learning the paperwork and all of that.
01:05:22
Speaker
And we've got mountain ranches, which you've hunted both now, the mountain ranches and the desert ranches. um We've got a lot of archery guys that are starting to go and starting to... to capture this idea of sit in water um but we're we're we're picking up more and more mountain ranches as well. where It's still relatively affordable. you're going to get all into it for less than five grand.
01:05:45
Speaker
oh yeah Something around, you know, maybe that made a little bit high side, that's gun permits, everything. You go down to Mexico and have the adventure of a lifetime and ah get some tacos, have some old Mexican lady just making you food over a stove. You know what mean? like It's just a good time, man. so Highly recommend mad hunts. Highly recommend going to do it.
01:06:03
Speaker
Thanks, Tim. Let's do it again. Anytime. Anytime, dude. Right on. Thank you. Later. Thank you for listening to the Tricer podcast. Do us a favor and like and subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on.
01:06:17
Speaker
Give us a follow on Instagram and Facebook at Tricer USA and go and check out all of our innovative gear at www.tricerusa.com. Until next time, shoot straight, have fun, and always put God first.