- Hey, everybody.

Welcome to "Michigan Out of Doors".

Thank you so much for joining us again this week.

If you caught the show last week, you got to see Big Buck Night East.

Well this week, we have Big Buck Night West from Grand Rapids at the Ultimate Sports Show.

Lots of big deer, lots of great stories.

You stay tuned.

I'm Jimmy Gretzinger.

It's time for "Michigan Out of Doors".

(gentle music) ♪ From the first spring rains ♪ To the soft summer breeze ♪ Dancing on the pine forest floor ♪ ♪ The autumn colors catch your eyes ♪ ♪ Here come the crystal winter skies ♪ ♪ It's Michigan ♪ Michigan Out of Doors - [Speaker] What a beautiful day in the woods.

♪ Someday our children all will see ♪ ♪ This is their finest legacy ♪ Wonder and the love of Michigan ♪ ♪ As the wind comes whispering through the trees ♪ ♪ The sweet smell of nature's in the air ♪ ♪ From the Great Lakes to the quiet streams ♪ ♪ Shining like a sportsman's dream ♪ ♪ It's a love of Michigan we all share ♪ - [Announcer] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by, by Country Smoke House, a sportsman's destination since 1988, featuring varieties of homemade sausage, jerky, brats, and gourmet entrees.

Holiday gift boxes can be assembled in-store or online.

Details at countrysmokehouse.com.

- [Announcer 2] By Anger Quest Pontoons, offering fishing pontoons designed by anglers for anglers.

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(upbeat music) - [Announcer 3] Jay's Sporting Goods.

Trust the tradition.

(bright music) (crowd murmurs) - Okay, our first lucky and skilled hunter of the evening is Shannon Wehler.

Her husband, Dennis, is here with her.

This is a 145 inch 11 point.

Shannon, you shot this with a crossbow in Kent County.

Do you remember what day it was?

- November 10th.

And so, we got done with work and it was late, but Dennis was like, "Oh, come on."

It was actually his birthday and he convinced me to go out, so usually we sit together, but we decided that this time, he would sit in the bedding area and I sat in the box blind in the back, and I got to the box blind, it was late, I spooked off an eight point, so I was like, "Well, there goes my night, but hopefully Dennis will get something," so I waited around for a little bit, didn't see anything, then I heard some rustling leaves.

Of course, it was a squirrel.

Was watching the squirrel for like five, 10 minutes and then I see this figure in the corner of my eye and I look and it's a deer.

Look a little closer, it's a buck, and I'm almost certain it's this big buck.

My heart's racing, I didn't wanna look any closer at the rack.

Thankfully, he was coming in really slow.

He'd stop every 20, 30 yards and look around, really cautious.

He got to 100 yards and hit a scrape and then he had the opportunity to go straight or he could turn east and head up a hill towards me.

He decided to head east towards me and I've never been so still in my entire life.

You know, holding my breath and once again, he's extra cautious, stopping every few yards, looking around, and then finally he got to 30 yards, turned right, gave me a perfect broadside shot and I took advantage of that opportunity and then after that, it was like slow motion.

He skipped away but I couldn't see him fall 'cause of the, there was a hill and some brush.

Immediately, I called Dennis.

I'm like, "I got him, I got him," and he's like, "Okay, well we'll wait a little bit," and that was the longest 45 minutes of my life, waiting, but then Dennis came to the box blind and we went and followed the trail and he went about 40 yards.

- [Interviewer] Tell me your version.

What happened on this hunt and where was it?

- On the youth hunt, I went out with my grandpa at 8:00 in the morning and this, I was like looking out the window and my grandpa was like, "Yo, I think I hear some leaves scattering."

And so I looked over to the right and I saw a doe, I was like, "Oh, you know, we can just let one that pass.

I'm waiting for a big buck."

He was like, "No, there's a big buck following it."

I was like, "Oh, shoot."

And I was, like, texting my sister, like, "Hey, do you have any bucks or any does over there?"

And then I quickly threw my phone down.

He was like, "Shh, be quiet, you're gonna scare away."

'Cause I didn't know how big this buck was, because I just thought it was, like, a decent eight or a decent nine.

And I knew he knew he was the big buck, but I didn't know that at the time.

So then the buck looked up at us and so did the doe and then they started running off and we're like, "Crap, that was our chance."

And I was like, "Oh, well," but my grandpa was like, "No, no."

So then they cut across the field and they actually came towards my way.

And so I got a second chance at it and I was so excited and I started putting my gun out the window and then it got a clear shot right at it and it ran about 40 yards and I, and we were so excited and then about, we couldn't wait like 10 more minutes so we went out, like, not even five minutes after to go check to see if it was dead or not.

We went out and my grandpa was in the blind stone.

I went out to check.

I was like, "Holy cow, this is the buck that we've been waiting for."

And I dropped my phone.

I was, like, in shock after seeing this buck.

- Well, for a teenager to drop their phone, that's a big deal.

(group laughs) - Yeah.

- [Interviewer] How far was the shot?

- [Alli] 40, 50 yards.

- [Speaker] 45, maybe, yeah.

- [Alli] 45.

- So I got home from school and asked my dad if I can go hunting before cadets.

And he said, "Sure," so we went to my grandpa's and we got in our stand and he said, "We have an hour and 15 minutes to hunt," so 15 minutes later, my dad, I said, "Dad, there's a deer," and he's like, "Do you still see it?"

And I was like, "Yeah, it's a three point," and he was like, "Oh, that's not, that's way bigger."

'Cause there was two and so he's like, "There's one behind it," and I looked behind it and my dad's like, "Do you see it?"

And I was like, "Yeah."

Then he said, told me not to look at the horns to not get buck fever.

(crowd laughs) So it walked a little bit and it stopped for like five minutes and my dad asked me if he wanted to shoot it and I told him, "No."

(crowd laughs) - Worth a try.

- And then it walked a little farther up towards our food plot and he asked me again if he wanted to shoot it and I told him, "No," and then it got into our food plot at 25 yards and I shot it.

- Nice.

Now, did you look at the antlers at any point during that time?

- No.

- Wow.

Nice job.

Okay so Dad, Dirk, tell us your perspective out there.

You were trying to talk him out of shooting it?

- I wasn't trying to talk him out of shooting it.

I recognized right away that this doesn't happen very often, hunting.

I said, "Buddy, I've been doing this for 30 years.

I've never seen one half that big."

And so as it was coming in, I said, my point was like, "We don't really wanna mess this up, buddy."

Would you like dad to take care of this?

"No, Dad, I got it."

And it did, as he said, it kinda hung up probably 50, 60 yards away for probably five minutes.

And then it came right out, 25 yards, and he shot it.

- [Christie] I could not see hot big he was at- - [Interviewer] How far was he at this point?

- Probably 40 yards out, but I had buck fever so bad, I was shaking like a leaf.

So while those deer were distracted, I got my crossbow set up on the window and I saw him working his way over to the other deer and I'm like, like I said, I was shaking so bad, and he was stuck behind some trees and I'm like, "Come on, one more step.

One more step."

He took a step out and I took the shot.

He jumped up, looped around, and stopped about 40 yards away from me and I'm like, "Come on.

Go down.

I know I got you.

Come on, come on."

And he took about 10 more steps and then he laid down real slow.

And I was like, "Oh my goodness," so I text my husband.

I'm like, "BBD."

And he texts me back and he's like, "What?"

'Cause we had just been texting before this.

And he's like, "Well, how big is it?"

And I go, "I don't know," because at this point, I couldn't tell how big he was.

He had a branch stuck in his rack with green leaves on it, so I waited for them to finish their hunt and they came with the ranger out to get it.

I did not get down before that, so I did not, I know, that was a- - So how long were you there, waiting?

- At least an hour.

- Ooh.

- Yes, yes.

So I shot him at 6:12 and it didn't get dark for quite some time.

So anyways, they showed up and my son was the first one to see him and he's like, "Mom, there he is," and he was laying, you know, with his head elevated off the ground and my husband's shaking me, he's like, "You didn't tell me he was this big!

This thing's like an Ohio buck," and we were all dancing around in the woods, jumping up and down.

Oh my goodness, it was the best.

- It all started in the morning.

It's just a normal day, just going to school.

I looked to my left from the driveway and I see a doe like right down by the crick bed and I'm like, I didn't think anything of it.

Anyways, I went to school.

After first hour, I checked my phone, I got a text from my brother and I'm like, "What the heck?"

He sent a picture from the night before that he saw this deer in our driveway and I was like, "Yeah, you're joking.

Like, that's not a Michigan deer."

Obviously, like, you never seen anything like this.

And I was like, "All right, well, we'll probably never see it again."

And then, like, the next hour, there's some people calling my dad, like, "There's a big buck in, like, on your property.

Like, right by the front, right by the road."

And I was like, "No way, like, I just saw the doe there."

So anyways, I was like, "Mom, you gotta call me out of school.

I gotta get home."

(crowd laughs) Anyways, I'm like, " You know what?

I got a quiz in third hour.

I'll just finish that, and then I'll come home."

Totally failed it.

Got like a D on it.

Got like a 63%, but it was worth it, you know?

Got home, then me and my mom climbed up in the blind because we knew where it was bedding, this doe and then, yeah, got there, saw it at, like 3:00 pop out and just went right back in.

And then around 5:30, came back out following the doe across the field.

Shot it at like 180 and dropped it.

- Wow.

Unbelievable.

There's a lot of really cool stickers and everything on that, too.

And you guys had never even seen this buck or knew it was on your property before that day.

- Yeah, the whole neighborhood knew it apparently, but we didn't.

(crowd laughs) - [Interviewer 2] That's amazing.

So, let's give your mom some credit for being a cool mom.

She did call you out of school and she sat with you?

- Yeah, and she came out with me, yeah.

- November 16th, and we hunted opening day, and I shot at eight point, and then we decided to do deer drives the next day, and a couple of my other buddies and my brother, they killed two eight points, and then I got there and we did this short, real narrow push on this power line, and he come popping across that 250 yards with a doe, and I was trying to shoot the doe 'cause I didn't see him first, and then I seen him, so I shot, thought I'd missed, walked up there and he's laying there.

And- - 250 yards?

- Yeah, on a dead run.

- On a dead run?

- Yep.

And- - Are you sure?

- Not even joking.

(crowd laughs) Not even joking.

- Maybe he stopped for, like, a minute.

- Nope.

No, it was all, I don't even, that's just pure luck.

I don't know how I did it.

Got up there and I seen where the deer ran across, and then I seen just the biggest blood trail I've ever seen in my life, and I looked over and he's laying there, and he picked his head up and looked at me.

So I shot him again, and then I started freaking out.

And my brother was the first one out there, and he come out and then we both started screaming, and everybody in the county had to hear us.

(crowd laughs) - So how many people were on the actual deer drive?

- We had, I think there was a total of 12 people there that day.

- Wow.

Well, we used to do those back in the day, but I don't think we ever shot one actually doing a deer drive, so this is pretty amazing.

So is this, was it all private ground up there or some public or?

- [Aaron] All public.

- [Interviewer] All public.

- It was the last day of our county fair and I was like, "Dad, just let me go to the fair and be with my friends," and he was like, "No, we gotta go hunting, like, this deer is gonna be there," and I was like, "Fine, I guess we'll go hunting," and so, you know, it's like 70 degrees out that day, the wind is all blowing in the wrong direction, so we're going to Cabella's to get gilly suits and we get back home and we find everything and we're getting ready and then my dad's like, "Ava, we gotta army crawl through the beans."

And I was like, "Are you kidding me?"

And he was like, "I'm definitely not," so we start army crawling through the beans, the beans are hitting me in the face, and I'm just like, so over it at this point.

And so we get everything set up and they're, like, the deer start coming out.

There's a bunch of does and then this 10 point comes out, this really, really nice 10 point, and I was like, "Dad, this deer is not gonna come out."

The sun had almost gone down, last day of the youth hunt and my dad was like, "It's gonna come out.

We just have to wait."

And I was like, "Dad, please, just let me shoot this deer."

- All right, hold on.

I gotta ask.

So are you still slithered down in the beans, or where are you at this point?

You're on the ground.

- We're laying in the beans.

(crowd laughs) We're literally just laying there, waiting and hoping that this deer is gonna come and then my dad's like, "Oh my god, Ava, Ava, Ava!"

And then out comes this deer and we're like, "Oh my god, it's the deer.

It is the deer," and we're getting everything set up and I'm shaking so bad, I have such bad buck fever, and I'm shooting on shooting sticks and I keep lifting the back end of them off the ground and my dad's like, "Ava, put the shooting sticks on the ground," and I'm just not listening and he's like, "Okay, I guess you're just gonna do it," so, and my dad's taking a video of me the whole time so I shoot the deer, and you see it, it like runs off the camera and it's almost dark at this point and we're going, we're looking for it.

There was no exit wound so there was no blood anywhere, and it looks like it just runs into the woods and we're just looking and we're looking for it.

It was the longest night of my life.

- [Interviewer 2] You forgot all about the county fair probably.

- [Ava] Yeah, I did.

- [Interviewer 2] Okay, cool.

(laughs) - It was November 10th.

It's like the coldest day of the year so far last year and snow on the ground, I just knew he was moving.

It, I've been tracking his movements, I've been tracking the pressure, the barometer.

I was big into the barometer last year.

For whatever reason, I, it just something about the pressure that moves these deer and yeah, he came in mid, I would say late evening, came walking in and normally the deer would come in, walk, walk, walk, and curl right here.

He comes walking in, I look and I go, I go, "Man, what is that?

A deer?"

All of a sudden I just saw one side and the other side was obstructed by some trees and I stepped out and did this huge scrape, thrashed the crap out of the trees and stood there for what felt like hours.

And I'm watching him at 60 yards and at a crossbow and I'm like, "I got this new Raven and I know I can take that poke, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna give him a little second here."

And so he starts walking in on the same trail every deer did and all of a sudden just stopped and just went, and took a left turn and kept walking.

I'm like, "No."

I'm like, "No, buddy, come on back."

And he just kept going, kept going.

So finally I threw my body out of the blind, made a noise, stopped him and I shot him at 47 yards.

And I knew I hit him.

I figured I hit him pretty decent and I sat in the truck for another hour, called my cousin, started at the A's of my phone book and went all the way to the Zs with everybody I knew.

And there, and of course you're just like, "Let's not jinx it," you know?

So I'm like, "Well, maybe, maybe we'll find out.

Hold on."

Soon as we walked up and followed the blood, I'm like, "Here we go."

And it kept picking up, kept picking up.

And I'm like, "I've seen this story before where it picks up and it just dies and there's no blood or anything like that," but it just kept going and finally there he was, up there, he ran probably about 60 yards and died.

And the noise that comes out of grown men when you see a big buck.

We looked at each other, my cousin and I, and we giggled and looked at each other, looked at him, we giggled and we're like, and that happened for about five minutes and then- - Can you tell us what that sounded like?

(Dan imitates giggling) (crowd laughs) - [Interviewer 2] All right, Anna.

So Uncle Gary talks you into going out on the afternoon hunt.

So tell us what happened at that point.

- So we were at our family Thanksgiving and we go out to our blind and we see a flock of turkeys just standing there.

So of course we spook 'em because we gotta walk all the way up to the box blind.

So once we're in the box blind, we waited like 20 minutes and then like a buck and, a button buck walks out and we watch him cross the field.

He gets in front of the stand, just kind of like tempting us, but of course I don't wanna shoot a button buck.

So he crosses the field into our turnip field and five does just walk out from the right side of our big field that our box blind's on.

And the does walk across and then randomly out of the brush on the turnip field, a doe pops out and Uncle Gary just says, "Oh my goodness.

There's a huge buck," and you just see his rack thrashing through the woods.

He's just walking right out.

So he walks out and he turns broadside and lifts his head and like eats some of the leaves on the branch, and I just shoot.

It was just kind of scary and I just get the gun on him and shoot.

- You didn't even tell Uncle Gary you were gonna or anything?

It was just, okay, you did have some communication.

- Coordinated a little, right?

(crowd laughs) - So we, Uncle Gary's like, "No," and I'm like, "Can we go find him?"

And he's like, "No, no, no.

We are not going to find him yet.

He's too big to go find.

We need to let him die."

(crowd laughs) So, we're just waiting there for like an hour and half in the blind, just waiting there, and we call my mom and my dad and I'm, like, shaking so bad, and my dad comes out with our, on our four wheeler and we just go out to the woods and walk over, and we see him laying down 40 yards into the brush.

- Couple years of history with this deer, few encounters during bow season.

On November 15th, about 10:50, I see a doe in the fence row and behind it is him.

Watched him breed her in the fence row and he popped out into the field, and got a shot on him.

Hit a little far forward in the shoulder so we let him lay until the afternoon and went out there, tracked him to a bed in the swamp and he had his head up.

Only shot I had was on his neck there, so shot him again, he got up, started bounding in the swamp.

Shot again, took a couple more bounds and went down, I'm like, "Sweet."

- So how many shots was that?

- We're at three at this point.

- [Interviewer] Okay.

(crowd laughs) - So called my friend who's on the other side of the farm and said, "Hey, I think he's down.

I'm gonna need some help figuring out where he's at in this swamp."

So he comes over and I showed him where I last saw him go down and I worked my way to him and I'm looking for him and I can't see him.

And from about 10 feet away, he jumps up again.

And I shot again and he went back down.

And then- - [Interviewer] And he's at, what'd you say, 10 yards?

- [Joe] Probably about 10 feet.

- [Interviewer] 10 feet?

- It's thick.

So, walk over to where he went and I can see he's still got his head up there but I got a perfect shot at his chest, and put another one through his chest and he got up and ran 25 yards and went down.

- Now have you ever shot at a target at 10 yards?

Or 10 paces?

(crowd laughs) - Yeah.

- 10 feet?

- Yeah.

- That's one tough buck.

- Yeah.

- Jeez.

So walk me through after that.

Did you, were there other people on the property?

What was going on afterwards?

- It was just me and my buddy at that point.

Made some phone calls and we got him out of the swamp and everybody met us up at the farm to see him and celebration started.

- I ended up grunting three of the bucks in and then there's a buck that we've been, we've been actually hunting.

We figured it's a six and a half year old buck, we call him Gimpy.

So somebody had shoulder shot him three years ago, so he kind of limps around.

He was out there too, so he stands up and then of course the, then the four point pops out.

So like, "Okay, well, I wonder if this big guy's gonna be behind the four point."

So sure enough, this guy pops out behind the four point again.

I ended up blowing the grunt call.

Gimpy ends up walking across the field and literally decides to come in the corner where I'm standing.

So he stops 15 feet from me and he's staring right at me.

And I'm just standing there with a crossbow up.

I had ranged a bush that was about 40 yards and this guy was probably 60 at the time, so he's coming around.

Gimpy's standing there looking at me, which I would've shot him if I hadn't seen that.

I mean, I've been trying to shoot that, that deer for a couple years.

So he actually stood there long enough to, 'til this guy hit the 40 yard bush and I shot and yeah, nailed him.

He ended up running across the field.

I watched him go up into the pines and I didn't wanna go after him because obviously this is the biggest buck I've ever shot.

So my son saw the commotion.

I mean, he saw it all happen.

So he texted me, "Did you get him?

Did you get one?"

And I said, "Yeah, I got the giant from last night."

And we ended up pulling out and I ended up coming back the next morning and recovered him the next morning.

- And it was a good shot and everything?

He went down?

- Yep, yep, yep.

I ended up recovering him the next morning.

I just kinda sat there for about 45 minutes just staring at it and, and I've never even seen a deer this big in the wild.

So, yeah, dream come true.

- I'm from Sheboygan.

I'd gotten a nice Northern Michigan eight a few days into the season up there and I saved my second tag to come hunt with this guy on some property my son had just purchased in Clinton County.

It was on November 22nd.

It was a nice, clear, cold morning, and as we were driving there, we were trying to decide where we're gonna sit and I told Trevor, "You take the good box blind.

I'll go up in the tree blind."

But he wouldn't have any part of that.

He wanted me in the blind, he had just shot a nice nine point, opening day.

So, that's where we went and just as it was getting light, they have a pond on the property, and I'm in this blind, and I had to, like, strain way behind me just to see out a window through some brush, a silhouette of this deer, like, reflecting off a pond water with a morning light.

- Jeesh.

- Only five or 10 seconds I saw him, at 250 yards, but he stood out, and I got on my phone and text Trevor and said, "Be ready.

There's a huge buck."

And he, Trevor was like another three or 400 yards, on the other side of this pond.

So anyways, now my head's on the swivel, I'm looking, looking, looking, and about 20 minutes later, there's a little window in the door blind, and I spotted it walking across some cut corn.

He was kind of going towards three does, but not really showing any interest.

And I wanted him to stop, so I was about ready to yell at him, and he did stop at 150, and I shot, and I knew I missed him.

And fortunately, (gentle music) and this was another God thing, he gave me another chance.

He ran about 20 yards out to 170, and I made my adjustment, shot, and I knew I hit him at that point, but then he disappeared.

So I texted Trevor, said, "Hey, I shot him.

I'm gonna be tracking soon."

And I waited a bit, went down, he went about 50 yards, double lung shot.

- Wow.

- And when I came upon him, there was this name they gave this deer in the area called "The Legend".

And I said, "I think I got The Legend."

And back home, once everybody found out, my phone was blowing up and on Woods 'n Water too, you know, all that.

And I think I could run for mayor of Sheboygan now.

(interviewer laughs) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Well, thanks to everyone that made the Big Bucks Night so much fun, and who knows?

Maybe if you get lucky, we'll see you on stage next year for "Michigan Out of Doors".

(bright music) - [Announcer] "Michigan Out of Doors" is presented by, - [Announcer 4] Get away from it all, to your own place.

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(gentle music) Closed captioning brought to you by DD Ranch Foundation.

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