 Welcome back to the Great Outdoors everybody. Today I'm going to be taking you on my saddle hunting saga. So buckle up and hang tight. So spoiler alert already, the saga will be continuing because I don't know about y'all but I've had some bad luck here lately. I've heard this thing called the October Lull. I don't know if it's true or not but man I've just seen some deer disappear here recently. Archery goal number one this year was to get a deer with my trad bow. We accomplished that and now I'm moving on to my compound bow and my second goal was to be able to get a deer out of a saddle. I am late to the saddle hunting game. I think it's awesome. I think it's really something that I want to learn about and get into. So I got a saddle about four or five months ago, started tinkering with it in the backyard with the purpose of doing some public land hunts where I can't leave a blind or a stand just out there. You can just you know shimmy up the tree real quick and also just for hunting at the least just to play around with, to kind of learn, to get used to it, offer some more opportunities with angles and just you know give myself more leeway when I'm hunting out there on the lease. The problem is we don't have many tall trees so you kind of have to be in a specific area that has some semi-tall scrub oak trees. It's not like in north Texas, central and south Texas. It's really hard to find a straight tall tree. So this is the saddle I decided to go with. This is the tethered, it's made by tethered stafantom and I kind of like the idea of ascending with ropes. So I got me a rope ascender and I got a belay device so I'm able to basically just throw up some ropes into these trees and go. The reason I decided to go with that and so the sticks and stuff is because of the scrub oak trees that are just crazy, they're wild and you know shimmying up there with like a lineman rope or just doing the ladder method. A lot of times I could just grab on to the branches in the live oak trees and climb up that way. So that's why I decided to go with just the rope. Now I was at the lease a few weeks ago. It was hot, it was windy, I tried to make it before a cold front and it just disappeared. I finally got to see a 10 point trophy buck that I had seen on camera. You guys saw it in another video. I got to see him put my eyes on him trying to hunt for pigs. He came in for just a little bit where I could film him and he was just a really impressive deer and I'd love to get him with my bow. I'd love to get a doe with a bow as well, just something out of a saddle and I thought a saddle would give me more opportunities for him coming in and out and being skeptical where I could turn around and get some shot opportunities before he even gets to the feed. So I want to take you there first. When it was hot, windy, we had bucks running around and I saw the big 10 point. Absolutely covered up with cows right here. There's a cattle rancher out here. Hopefully he's going to migrate these things over to another pasture, but I doubt it. So another challenge we're going to have to deal with hunting on range. But this is our tree that I'm thinking about right here. So I was thinking about the one behind it here, but now I'm thinking we go into this front one and we have that back cover and we try to set up some sort of stand right there. I don't know. We're going to see how it looks. Really examine it. You ever get that little voice in your head that says like, you're doing some sketchy probably not a good move at your age bracket. Yeah, I just have that voice. I got a setup. I got my my tether already up there. I put a camera mount up there so I can film and I already took down some branches. There were some branches over here that were kind of drooping over there dead. They were getting in the way. There's just one more. So I decided to do one more sketchy thing. I went back and I got me a step ladder. I'm going to put it on top of the ATV. One more sketchy thing to do. Hopefully this all works out tomorrow morning, but if not, I'm excited about my first time to saddle hunt. Shots were good. Shots were good, but I shot the ground. So I didn't get anything on my first hunt, but I didn't die. So that's good news. And when I was scouting, when it was still a cold front, there was there were some great bucks. I mean, the eight points coming in, that's when I decided to break out the saddle to give myself some more opportunities, set up the camera arms, film. And then after that, I'd never got an opportunity to really film and harvest anything. So I didn't take it. So I'm being a little more selective on the bucks because we still got the rut coming up and we could see some crazy stuff coming out. But fast forward a week, that rain starts coming in, it's getting colds dipping down into the mid forties. I'm thinking I better head back out there and get in my saddle. No sanders or greys because when the cold fronts hit, the big bucks start moving. All right, we're on our second attempt on the saddle hunt up here. Last time I had a real bad wind, it was a south wind and these dear, these smart deer, they'll do a circle when they come in, checking for scents and they just got me. Just got a little spooky. Today we have perfect wind north, the northwest. We've got a lot of ability. Oh, nice. You've got to be careful moving, but it's nice that we have this wind. I'll be able to sort of look back and check to see what's coming. Usually when I'm sitting here in this other tree stand behind me, I'm just listening for them, but I'll actually be able to see who's coming and maybe get a shot opportunity of some more opportunities at one of these bigger bucks. But your action soon. Now the wind swirled a few times. He got a little spooky. I think the storm might have messed it up. Buck just pretty much ran out on that trip, y'all. It was just, it was cold. We had the right wind, but it was rainy and very windy. And I think with that wind, it just, it made a lot of deer just bad down. I mean, I didn't even get an opportunity at a doe. We could have shot old Bambi and her mom, but who's going to sleep at night doing that? So I might go back there and hunt that same spot if I see some bigger bucks coming back on camera, or I might just totally abandon that area and go set up my saddle somewhere else. Just depending, you know, how it's going during the rut. Maybe do some rattling, hop in there with the saddle. I think that's a great idea. But I really like the opportunities that this can give you. And just in a pinch, if you see a spot you like, you know, just see an activity in an area, you just hop up there, hop up there in the saddle. But I got to tell you, my first few times getting up there, I was sketched out. I was so scared to even lean back. It's just a different feeling. You know, I'm sure all you guys in the Midwest are making fun of me and all of the other guys in Texas, you know, the ways we hunt sometimes. I mean, it's almost better for me to go put a two by four in a post oak. Like I just stand on that and feel more comfortable. But now that I've spent time in it and really gotten, you know, things dialed and adjusted with it and figured out some things that work for me, I'm going to be hunting in this for a long time, I think, especially going out of state and other areas that have some more tree opportunities. But the hunt will go on, guys. We'll continue to try to get a deer out of a saddle this season. I'm sure it'll happen sooner than later. And then, you know, once the rut fully kicks off, I think things are going to be really fun. So I've actually got some land really close to here that I plan on hunting that I drew a tag for that I'm excited about. And I'm just excited for it to get cold and for the bigger bucks to get all bristled up. And oh, man, it's just so fun filming them in the cold. There's just something about it. And you see the steam coming out of the mouth. Thanks for hanging with me on today's hunting vlog. Leave me a comment down below if you've got some saddle hunting tips for me, some things that'll make my life a little easier that you notice in this video. I'm sure there's some good advice out there from somebody. Colonel Sanders sending it off right here. May God bless you in the great outdoors. And good luck. I'll see y'all in the next one.