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“Your mom and I are thinking about buying a farm. You want to come home this weekend and walk it with me?”
As crazy as it may seem to some, those words have been etched in my mind for 14 years. This is how my dad opened the conversation when he called me in late-September 2005; and after walking the farm the following weekend, I knew his words provided the perfect start to the story of my first buck off the farm. A farm now affectionately known as The Farm with No Name. A farm that has humbled me like no other thing – other than fatherhood - has done in my 37 years on this planet. You see, I was certain the story wouldn’t take long to write. After all, on my first hunt there, I had a P&Y 8-point inside bow range and as a disciple of the Drury brothers, I knew if I invested enough time, effort, and money, reward was certain. What a fool I was! Over the next 13 seasons, bucks named Deuce, Porky, Moe, Captain Jack, Daryl Dawkins, and Wilson would get my hopes up, then repeatedly crush my soul. I would spend nearly 2,000 hours in a treestand or blind, and another thousand or two checking cameras, planting food plots, and prepping stands. And money? It’ll buy blinds, cameras, gear, lime, fertilizer, food plot seed, treestands, hundreds of batteries, and several tons of corn. But money only buys big bucks if you hunt inside a fence…
I’ve left blood, sweat, and tears on The Farm with No Name, all in the pursuit of what was supposed to be the inevitable. My reward was not the wall full of bucks I’d envisioned, but something much more valuable. I was rewarded with a life-altering journey that gave me the humility and perspective that only comes from pursuing something difficult, then failing again and again before finally realizing success. Had I shot that 8-point on my first hunt and had things went the way I was certain they would, I’m not sure I’d want to hunt with me today. When a hunter says he/she can’t put into words why they do what they do, and despite my best efforts to convey that sentiment through this story, know that for us diehards, this is a story about who we are and why we do what we do.
My name is Jesse and I’m a bowhunter. This is the story of my first buck off The Farm with No Name.
---
The Build
With 13 years of failure behind me, I entered the 2019 season with a fresh perspective about hunting and what I should get out of my experiences outdoors, especially on The Farm with No Name. I was excited about the prospects of a good season, but not because of my “hit list”. See, long lists of shooters with cleverly assigned names is a thing of the past. Not only are there less big deer than there used to be, I also don’t run as many cameras, don’t move them around nearly as much, and I’m no longer baiting. As a result, my hit list was the shortest it has ever been heading into the season. One buck represented my entire hit list: the Wide 8. With pictures from both the 2017 and 2018 seasons, we had history and I knew he was fully mature at 5.5, or older, so he was a legitimate shooter. Although not the biggest buck ever photographed on the farm, and having passed bigger bucks in pursuit of giants and ghosts, the Wide 8 was true to his name as arguably one of the widest bucks to have ever called our place home. With a great spread and solid brows, he had my attention and until something else diverted that attention, the chess match between him and I was underway.
The Farm with No Name is 80 acres, but it hunts small due to restricted access. At one time, I ran as many as 10 cameras here and quite frankly, the process of running so many cameras hurt my cause more than it helped. Now, I run 4 cameras, with only 3 being allocated to the role of scouting, the fourth being relegated to security duty. Once hunting season rolls around, those 3 cameras go over the same 3 mocks scrapes, giving me an accurate assessment of what’s going on within 3 separate areas of the farm. When a buck begins to appear on all 3 cameras, I leverage 13 seasons of learning to decipher where he’s coming from, heading to, and where best to intercept him. The 2017 season was the first season where I really felt I’d pulled all the pieces of the puzzle together and on Veteran’s Day, I almost got to write this story. But, true to my bad luck, it was not meant to be. I failed to execute in the moment of truth and hit a nice buck I’d named Wilson, high and through the infamous “no man’s land”. He survived 24 hours, only to be shot by the neighbor the next morning. It hurt my pride, but I learned much more than to aim lower on the body and bend more a the waist when shooting from an elevated position. I had pieced together scouting intel and for once, a buck followed the script. I was certain another buck would do the same in seasons to come and this season, the Wide 8 started acting a lot like Wilson.
Something else I’ve stopped doing over the years is hunting during October. I only hunt our farm in October if conditions are absolutely perfect. This year, that meant I’d only hunted there twice before November arrived, logging just 4 hours in a tree. Looking back at hunting logs, I hunted more than 50 hours in October during the 2007 season. There were several seasons where I burnt out the farm before conditions really warranted it. Along with male-pattern baldness, old age comes with patience and while I hate my bald spot, my newfound patience has made me a better hunter!
In the rain on Halloween day, I checked all 3 cams and cut one last tree out of my way in a spot I call the Corner Pocket. The short story about the Corner Pocket is it is the site of the first food plot planted on the farm and it has about everything to offer that you could ask of a spot. Proximity to bedding. Food. Topography. Scrapes. Advantageous access. And favorable wind conditions. With a bit of manipulation from me over the years, it’s become a textbook “Drury-approved” spot and is one of my favorite places to hunt. If you care to learn more about this spot, watch this short video where I go into depth about what makes it such a great spot.
.
What that cam check confirmed was the Wide 8 was all but retracing Wilson’s steps from two years prior. “The Sanctuary” is a spot immediately adjacent to the Corner Pocket. Several years ago, I convinced my dad to stop brushhogging this area and what was once a ½-acre thicket, is now 3+ acres of prime bedding cover. Wilson liked to bed there and based on camera intel, so did the Wide 8. More importantly, the does love it and this time of year, that’s a recipe for success. With solid scouting data and a forecasted break in the weather, November 1st, 2019 was lining up to be a perfect collision of circumstances. But, as our late-friend Ted would say: “There’s always a but…” I’d been here before and I’ve come to expect defeat, so my enthusiasm was tempered. Surely I’d find a way to mess it up…
“Your mom and I are thinking about buying a farm. You want to come home this weekend and walk it with me?”
As crazy as it may seem to some, those words have been etched in my mind for 14 years. This is how my dad opened the conversation when he called me in late-September 2005; and after walking the farm the following weekend, I knew his words provided the perfect start to the story of my first buck off the farm. A farm now affectionately known as The Farm with No Name. A farm that has humbled me like no other thing – other than fatherhood - has done in my 37 years on this planet. You see, I was certain the story wouldn’t take long to write. After all, on my first hunt there, I had a P&Y 8-point inside bow range and as a disciple of the Drury brothers, I knew if I invested enough time, effort, and money, reward was certain. What a fool I was! Over the next 13 seasons, bucks named Deuce, Porky, Moe, Captain Jack, Daryl Dawkins, and Wilson would get my hopes up, then repeatedly crush my soul. I would spend nearly 2,000 hours in a treestand or blind, and another thousand or two checking cameras, planting food plots, and prepping stands. And money? It’ll buy blinds, cameras, gear, lime, fertilizer, food plot seed, treestands, hundreds of batteries, and several tons of corn. But money only buys big bucks if you hunt inside a fence…
I’ve left blood, sweat, and tears on The Farm with No Name, all in the pursuit of what was supposed to be the inevitable. My reward was not the wall full of bucks I’d envisioned, but something much more valuable. I was rewarded with a life-altering journey that gave me the humility and perspective that only comes from pursuing something difficult, then failing again and again before finally realizing success. Had I shot that 8-point on my first hunt and had things went the way I was certain they would, I’m not sure I’d want to hunt with me today. When a hunter says he/she can’t put into words why they do what they do, and despite my best efforts to convey that sentiment through this story, know that for us diehards, this is a story about who we are and why we do what we do.
My name is Jesse and I’m a bowhunter. This is the story of my first buck off The Farm with No Name.
---
The Build
With 13 years of failure behind me, I entered the 2019 season with a fresh perspective about hunting and what I should get out of my experiences outdoors, especially on The Farm with No Name. I was excited about the prospects of a good season, but not because of my “hit list”. See, long lists of shooters with cleverly assigned names is a thing of the past. Not only are there less big deer than there used to be, I also don’t run as many cameras, don’t move them around nearly as much, and I’m no longer baiting. As a result, my hit list was the shortest it has ever been heading into the season. One buck represented my entire hit list: the Wide 8. With pictures from both the 2017 and 2018 seasons, we had history and I knew he was fully mature at 5.5, or older, so he was a legitimate shooter. Although not the biggest buck ever photographed on the farm, and having passed bigger bucks in pursuit of giants and ghosts, the Wide 8 was true to his name as arguably one of the widest bucks to have ever called our place home. With a great spread and solid brows, he had my attention and until something else diverted that attention, the chess match between him and I was underway.
The Farm with No Name is 80 acres, but it hunts small due to restricted access. At one time, I ran as many as 10 cameras here and quite frankly, the process of running so many cameras hurt my cause more than it helped. Now, I run 4 cameras, with only 3 being allocated to the role of scouting, the fourth being relegated to security duty. Once hunting season rolls around, those 3 cameras go over the same 3 mocks scrapes, giving me an accurate assessment of what’s going on within 3 separate areas of the farm. When a buck begins to appear on all 3 cameras, I leverage 13 seasons of learning to decipher where he’s coming from, heading to, and where best to intercept him. The 2017 season was the first season where I really felt I’d pulled all the pieces of the puzzle together and on Veteran’s Day, I almost got to write this story. But, true to my bad luck, it was not meant to be. I failed to execute in the moment of truth and hit a nice buck I’d named Wilson, high and through the infamous “no man’s land”. He survived 24 hours, only to be shot by the neighbor the next morning. It hurt my pride, but I learned much more than to aim lower on the body and bend more a the waist when shooting from an elevated position. I had pieced together scouting intel and for once, a buck followed the script. I was certain another buck would do the same in seasons to come and this season, the Wide 8 started acting a lot like Wilson.
Something else I’ve stopped doing over the years is hunting during October. I only hunt our farm in October if conditions are absolutely perfect. This year, that meant I’d only hunted there twice before November arrived, logging just 4 hours in a tree. Looking back at hunting logs, I hunted more than 50 hours in October during the 2007 season. There were several seasons where I burnt out the farm before conditions really warranted it. Along with male-pattern baldness, old age comes with patience and while I hate my bald spot, my newfound patience has made me a better hunter!
In the rain on Halloween day, I checked all 3 cams and cut one last tree out of my way in a spot I call the Corner Pocket. The short story about the Corner Pocket is it is the site of the first food plot planted on the farm and it has about everything to offer that you could ask of a spot. Proximity to bedding. Food. Topography. Scrapes. Advantageous access. And favorable wind conditions. With a bit of manipulation from me over the years, it’s become a textbook “Drury-approved” spot and is one of my favorite places to hunt. If you care to learn more about this spot, watch this short video where I go into depth about what makes it such a great spot.
What that cam check confirmed was the Wide 8 was all but retracing Wilson’s steps from two years prior. “The Sanctuary” is a spot immediately adjacent to the Corner Pocket. Several years ago, I convinced my dad to stop brushhogging this area and what was once a ½-acre thicket, is now 3+ acres of prime bedding cover. Wilson liked to bed there and based on camera intel, so did the Wide 8. More importantly, the does love it and this time of year, that’s a recipe for success. With solid scouting data and a forecasted break in the weather, November 1st, 2019 was lining up to be a perfect collision of circumstances. But, as our late-friend Ted would say: “There’s always a but…” I’d been here before and I’ve come to expect defeat, so my enthusiasm was tempered. Surely I’d find a way to mess it up…
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