At 76, Ron Poole has been shooting bows for 70 years. He grew up running wild on a game management area along the White River in southeast Arkansas. He has 5 Boone and Crockett bucks and about 27 Pope and Young bucks, and he's never run a trail camera for deer. We drove to his place and sat down in his trophy room to talk about how he finds big bucks: hot feed trees, fresh sign that only lasts a week, open-woods bedding, and leaving a target buck alone until it's time to kill him.

In this episode:

- Shooting bows since age 4

- How he met Richard Fought, after passing nine bucks before 9 AM

- Why every feed tree tastes different and the sign only lasts 6–7 days

- Why bucks skirt feed trees downwind, and where to set up

- Grunt calls that sound like a deer, not a hog

- Rattling: tangle the antlers, don't bang them

- The 233-inch Iowa buck, runaway mules, and a blowing doe

- Why big bucks bed in open woods, not thickets

- How a river can split the rut

- Leaving your target buck alone until the pre-rut

- Finding acorns in the mountains by elevation

- Red oaks vs. white oaks in a dry year

- Persimmons, locusts, mimosas, and other overlooked deer food

- Fertilizing a white oak to make deer pick it first

- The doe figure-eight: where to hang during the rut

- Reading bottomland timber on an aerial map

- Why killing big deer consistently isn't luck

- The only scrapes worth hunting

- Walking in like a squirrel hunter

- Waiting for daylight to walk in, then hunting all day

- Carrying a climber and walking until it feels right

- Finding one tree in the dark with no GPS

- Trapping as a kid and the $27 possums

- Hunting with knapped chert heads

- Self bows, bamboo bows, Osage, and hickory

- Tuning arrows to a stick bow, arrow weight, and broadheads

- The 85-pound recurve that outran the compounds

- Shooting compounds with no sights at the world championships

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Kyle had gone almost 20 years without killing a mature buck with a bow. Then, on Alabama's opening weekend, he jumped one out of his bed at 12 yards in an old cattle catch pen. Instead of leaving, he sat down in the grass, and the buck came back 15 minutes later. With Jacob on his honeymoon, Kyle and Thomas Myers join Andrew to break down that hunt, how to hunt a Black Belt cattle farm, and your questions.

In this episode:

- Hurricane knocked green acorns to the ground: will deer still eat them?

- What can you learn from seeing deer at night?

- HOT TAKE: bow shots past 60 yards aren't bowhunting

- 20 years of bowhunting without a mature buck, and why

- The shooter buck Jacob missed for his wedding

- A cold front at the wedding and why Kyle had to go

- Slipping into an old catch pen on a high-wind day

- Jumping a bedded buck at 12 yards

- Overhead cover when you're set up on the ground

- Why less gear makes you a better woodsman

- Moving through cover: shade, shadows, and stopping every few steps

- How a Black Belt cattle farm lays out

- Do cattle ruin your deer hunting?

- Why bucks on a farm live on 15 to 40 acres

- Will a buck come back to a bed you bumped him from?

- Hunting pastures like Midwest funnels

- The trail camera that missed three giants

- When white oaks aren't dropping: mountain chestnut oaks and water oaks

Mentioned in this episode:

- Travis Murray on setting up on the ground - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4Eib99ax8k

- 23 Years of Data Reveal the Only Days Worth Deer Hunting | Dr. Bob Sheppard - https://youtu.be/8VhjagGAfgE

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Use code "SOUTHERN" for a discount on Whitetail Hill food plot seed & trees - https://linkly.link/2myBP

Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

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Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear

Tim Knight put the rifle down for good in 1985, and he killed most of the bucks on his wall the same way: rattling from a climber with his antlers on the ground. We sat down in Tim's trophy room in Georgia to get into his yo-yo rattling method, why he wants to sound like two small bucks sparring instead of a buck fight, and why his favorite week to rattle comes before the does are ready.

In this episode:

- Going bow-only in 1985

- The "scout hunt": why a climber beats lock-ons and ladders

- Why your first sit in a spot is your best one

- What a 3 AM trail camera photo really tells you

- Calling deer the way you call turkeys

- How a snagged antler string led to yo-yo rattling

- Sound like two small bucks sparring, not two giants fighting

- Why the last week of October is his favorite week to rattle

- The snort wheeze: the most underused call in the woods

- Why he hunts evenings, and taking time off in hours instead of days

- Setting up within 50 yards of thick bedding cover

- The scrape transplant trick to challenge a buck's dominance

- Learning your hard and soft mast trees

- Using the tree for cover

- Calm evenings and swirling wind

- Why small antlers, and making ground noise from the tree

- How often he rattles and why he waits for the sun to set

- The conditions that give him the most confidence

- Yelping like a turkey on a noisy walk in

- Why 3D targets teach you to aim too high

- His 1991 Pope & Young full-body mount

- Paper tuning and broadhead flight checks

- Sharpening and oiling broadheads for penetration

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Use the promo code "southern" for a discount on your OnX Hunt membership here - https://l.linklyhq.com/l/1tyfm

Check out Latitude Outdoors for your mobile hunting gear - https://2ly.link/1zVDI

Use code TSOP15 for a discount on Mossy Oak - https://linkly.link/2ERb8

Use code SOUTHERN20 for a discount on all Vortex apparel, including eyewear