Ep. 51: How to Kill a Bedded Buck
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As a guide and hunter, I've spent thousands of days in the field. This show is about translating my hard-won experiences into tips and tactics that'll get you closer to your ultimate goal, success in the field. I'm Remy Warren. This is Cutting the Distance. Right now, I just want you to picture this. You pulled off the perfect stalk on a giant mule deer buck that's bedded only 30 yards away. But now what?

As you move in on the stalk, getting within range is difficult, but just because you're close to a bedded animal with your bow does not mean that you should be visualizing fresh cooked back straps or patting yourself on the back just yet. It's not the time to take out your friend and text everybody you've been successful. Because in my opinion, you're really only halfway there at this point. A lot goes wrong when you're in close, especially that close. And while some of it can be controlled and there's things that you can do to put the odds in your favor...

there's a lot that can still go wrong that may be out of your control. So this week, I'm going to cover tips on moves you can make in that red zone. But before we do, I want to share the story of two perfectly executed stocks and what happened next.

The first stalk I'm going to talk about happened in the Southern Alps of New Zealand. I was hunting tar. I had my bow with me and I'd spotted this really good bull that had just come off the cliffs before the evening and fed down into the tussock. Now the tussock is like this really tall kind of like yellow grass and it's their primary food source. So they hang up in the cliffs in the daytime and then I watched him walk down through the cliffs and move down to where he'd been feeding and

He got in there and then just bedded down. But he moved down really late that day. So I figured I'll do my stalk while he's bedded and then he'll get up before it gets too late and I can get a shot. I worked my way down, crawling and sliding, just keeping the hill where he couldn't see me. Now this tussock is like, I would say almost knee, probably knee high, maybe a little bit taller. So I couldn't even actually see him while he was bedded.

As I stalked in, I'm like, just had to make good landmarks of where I thought he was because I'm essentially stalking in this big open mountainside of grass and I couldn't actually put eyes on the bull where he was bedded.

So I get in and then I see horn tips sticking up above the tussock. I'm like, sweet. I range it. He's within range in that 35 yard range, something like that. Set my pin, get ready and wait. And I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting. But as I'm waiting, I'm above him. And I know that pretty soon the thermals are going to shift and I'm going to get winded and that's going to be it.

Also, it's fairly open and once he stands up, if he looks my way, he might see me, but how tall the grass is and the slope of the hill, I might need to draw back and stand up and I might be in the open to do that. So maybe if I could do something to get him to look the other direction. I'm within range. I've pulled off a perfect stock. I'm almost thinking in my head, man, this is a done deal. This bull is so close. This is going to be awesome. He's probably one of the better ones I've been on with my bow.

So I think, well, they aren't necessarily afraid of noise as much as some other animals because they live in the mountains, rocks and other things are constantly falling. So I decide I'm going to take a rock and chuck it past him and hoping that when it hits the ground below him, he'll stand up and kind of look down that way, giving me time to draw back, anchor in and release. So I find a small rock and I give it a huck.

And I'm trying to be as quiet as possible so he doesn't hear me behind him doing this. And the rock lands maybe, I don't know, 10 yards past him in the tussock and doesn't make a lot of noise. And the bull doesn't do anything. He doesn't even react to it. So I'm like, okay. So I grab another rock a little bit bigger and give it a huck. And it lands. And as soon as I throw, my release is on my bow and I'm ready. As soon as that bull stands, I'm going to draw back. And this is going to be perfect.

I'm thinking, okay, nothing happened. So I grab a little bit bigger rock, give that rock a hug. As soon as that rock hits the ground, that bull bolted out of there faster than you could even blink. It did not work at all. Now I've done that rock technique before and had success. This time, I thought that was my best option. I figured it would work and it absolutely didn't. Now I'm going to share the story of a mule deer hunt.

I had spotted this good buck in this early season Nevada archery hunt, deer and velvet. I'm glassing for a particular deer and on this hillside across from me, I spot a really nice buck, like a high 170 class 4x4 with a big cheater coming off one side and he's by himself.

I'm thinking this is perfect. A solo deer that I've got a pretty good vantage. So I just sit there for most of the morning and watch him. The buck's feeding. He goes and beds. And I look at and analyze the situation. I think, all right, it's still early. You know, there's not a lot of cover there. The sun's behind me at this point. He's going to get hot and move. Sure enough, buck gets up, moves.

And he goes a long way. So I was glad that I stayed in that position and didn't stalk. So he moves and he beds again. And the spot, I'm looking at it and I'm like, man, the winds are kind of shifty. I'm just going to wait and watch this deer. I've got a great view. I've got all day. I'm going to make this play right.

about an hour and a half after watching him bed, he gets up and walks to the next canyon over. He kind of drops down a little bit and there's, I'm just looking at where he could be going. And there's this one big juniper tree and the juniper trees are nice because they're, the leaves are really dense and close together. And it just provides this really dark shade. And it was good because it was kind of on this point where he'd be getting wind. And I looked at him like, man, please bed there, please bed there. And

And sure enough, that buck walks right to there and plops down in the shadows. It was perfect because there's some like rim rock cliffs behind it and like a good area to stock down. I could use some of the rocks and made some markings of where I was going to stock to. And this is maybe a mile or so away. So he was a ways out there, maybe even further than that, actually.

Decide, all right, now it's like mid-morning, 11 o'clock. The day is heating up. The wind's perfect. There's like a good thermal that day, just especially how hot it was. It was going from high desert, get these huge temperature swings where it might be a 40 degree temperature swing. And a lot of that picks up in that early morning. And so you get these huge thermals that just rush up the mountain. I'm like, perfect. This is going to be great.

I get above him, start stalking down. And I was actually self-filming. So I had to stalk this buck twice. I'm like, one, it's a really good, mature, high quality deer. I've got to stalk in, but I had to stalk in. And so what I was doing, because it was just really loud, rocky, almost like this volcanic type rock where you'd step on it. It's kind of like loose marbles a little bit. So kind of loud. And there's a few places where...

I just wanted to be extra quiet and had to stay low because the way that the cliffs came down, I couldn't go that direction. So I kind of had to pop out in a place where I thought there's a potential he could see me. So...

I'm crawling in and I would leave the camera. I'd crawl up maybe 40, 50 yards at a time, drop my bow, crawl back, get my camera, crawl back up, stalk with the bow. So I end up creeping in, getting my bow to 33 yards. And that buck's bedded there. I can see his antler tips coming out from either side, like a little bit of sage. And it's just perfect. Like, okay, do not stand up while I'm going to get the camera. I crawl back, get the camera, crawl back up and I get set up.

I'm now within 33 yards of this buck that I've stalked twice. It was the perfect stalk on a bedded buck. I mean, I just couldn't ask for more. I positioned myself and I do a little bit of investigating, you know, just to make sure that I see if I can get a shot, like sneak an arrow in there somewhere. And, and I can't.

I can just pretty much see his head and his antlers. So I put myself in a position where when he stands up, I'll have a shot. I can see where his antlers are at. And I kind of anticipate, okay, when he stands there, his head's actually going to be blocked when he stands, but his body's going to be in this one opening. I mean, you cannot get a better scenario. It's a great buck. So I get set up and I'm just waiting, waiting, waiting. Hour goes by.

The sun is just beating down on me. I've got my face mask on. I'm just trying to stay not melting in the sun, just focusing on this deer kind of just in a relaxed position. Another hour goes by like, all right, sooner or later, the sun's going to move enough where he's going to get hot and need to stand up.

And I had thought of every scenario. I thought, oh, maybe I could get a shot while he's bedded. Maybe I should toss a little rock, but I've had that work. I've had that not work. My preference is to not ever have to do that. Just wait for them, be unaware of your presence and not try to mess it up myself. You know, everything's really good.

All I need this buck to do is stand. And that's a field tag. I think I actually even, I was like 30 yards. You know, I had plenty of time taking pictures, texting my friend Joe, like, dude, I'm with him. I'm just like, I'm right here, man. 30 yards, just waiting. Been there for hours. Then I'm sitting there and I feel something, a slight tickle of wind on the back of my neck. And that deer blew out faster than that tar blew out.

I waited there all day. Everything was perfect. By every measure of success, I'd done everything right. And something that I couldn't control happened and that buck ran out.

I share those two stories to say there's a lot of different options, a lot of different things you can do, and a lot of things that go wrong. So the tips that I'm going to share today are ways that when you get into range, how to just kind of swing the odds in your favor. Because even on the perfect stock, there's a lot to manage and a lot to think about when you're in that close proximity to whatever you're stocking.

I think a major misconception about stalking an unbedded animal is that that's a time that they're very vulnerable. Now, it's a time that they're stationary, but it is not necessarily that they're vulnerable. They're bedded there because they have a certain net of safety. And that's why when you get within that, what I call the red zone, that range where you're close enough to shoot, but you're also close enough that...

a lot of things can go wrong and you may not have a shot at that time. So you're going to have to wait. And by waiting, you know, you're putting yourself at the mercy of natural elements that can change very quickly.

But there's also things, you know, having stocked many animals in the bed, I've been very successful doing it. And I found that in that crunch time, there's a few things that you can do outside of those things you can't control that really helps swing the odds of success into your favor.

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Now, before I even go too much further, my philosophy when I stalk in on something bedded is my first thought is I don't want to have to wait. Part of that is because I'm slightly impatient, but the other part is I've had things like that scenario where the wind shifts and the animal runs away.

Now, I think there's probably people that will tell you, oh, shooting at a bedded animal is unethical for whatever reasons. I 100% disagree with that. And I think that maybe the main reason that people say that or that's a misconception in my opinion is because –

They don't understand the vitals of the animal and they think that maybe the way that the animal's bedded or other things doesn't offer a good shot. I'm not talking about taking marginal shots on bedded animals that don't offer good shots. But what I'm looking for, the first thing I do when I stalking on a bedded animal is see if I have a shot.

And what I mean by that is I'm only going to shoot at a bedded animal if I have a shot that has as high a percentage of vital and success that I know when I release that arrow for 100%, that animal will die quickly.

And that is 100% doable. It's actually in my, like when I think about it, I prefer taking that bedded shot if it's a good one because the animal's stationary. I have time. I'm not rushed. There's not other factors in the way. I can take my time to analyze all the factors and then decide whether I'm going to shoot or wait. So it's this, as soon as I get in, I always make the shoot or wait assessment. Most of the time it ends up being wait, but there are those few times where everything's

everything's lined up just right where it can be shoot. So when you get in, the first thing you want to do is kind of analyze the situation and decide whether there's a shoot opportunity. To do that, I mean, I might be at 30 yards, but I'm going to take my time and really scrutinize how the animal's bedded. Being very honest with myself and saying this is a very big decision, so everything has to be 100% right. Is the animal bedded slightly quartered to me?

If it is, that's not a shot I'm going to take. On a bedded animal, that shoulder blade is going to be in the way. The vitals are going to be in an awkward position because of the way that they're laying. And so I'm going to pass. Is it bedded slightly quartering away? That might make a difference. Is it really steep downhill or is it more flat? Am I shooting up or am I shooting down? So I'm going to factor in all these things. I'm also going to use my binoculars.

and really focus in on the animal. And I can start to pick apart, okay, here's where the muscles are. How is it laying on the hill? Like, is it laying kind of back where its lungs and heart might be rolled up? And really understanding the position of the animal, where the vitals are, and just looking up close, even at that close range, saying, okay, here's where the vitals are. Here's where the bones are. Okay, I have a shot or I don't have a shot. That's the first thing that I generally do.

Now, a couple tips on that. When you're within range, when you're in that red zone on a bedded animal, one of the tips that I always think about, because I've had this blow my stock many times, is being careful to shield your optics from reflection. A lot of the time, maybe the sun's out there, it's high in the sky.

Every time you raise up your rangefinder or binoculars, you run the risk of the sun hitting the lens and then throwing out almost like a signaling mirror flash that can go...

into the dark shadows of where it's bedded or somewhere else and catch the eye of the animal. So every time I raise my optics up, I make sure that they're shielded, they're covered with shade and nothing's going to reflect off that lens because even if the animal can't see you, that flash can travel for, I mean, airplanes can see that flash from 10,000 feet above. So it's not unexpected for a deer to catch that in the peripheral vision. That's something that you just definitely want to be careful of when you're in that red zone.

So let's say we've got a clear shot. Everything looks good. Awesome. That's a great scenario. I'm going to take that shot. That doesn't happen very often because I do scrutinize those shots so much and you should too. But so now the option is to say, no, we can't take a shot. We got to wait. What you're waiting for is you're waiting for that opportunity. And that opportunity normally arises when the animal stands up.

So right now I'm just going to run through my process when I get within range on a weight scenario.

The first thing I got to tell myself is I got to be patient. I need to be patient enough to give that animal time to naturally stand and give me a shot. And I go in with the mindset that the sun might be beating down on me. I might be there for hours, but I'm already this far and this is how I'm going to be successful. So you just have to get your mindset of be ready to wait. And when I'm stalking in on a bedded animal, I go in with that mindset every time. Hey, I got to be ready to wait. You're going to stalk in and then you're going to be patient.

As soon as I get within that range of where I'm going to shoot from, where I'm going to sit and wait, I probably won't be able to stand up. So I'm going to set my body in a position where my knees are perpendicular to the line of the deer. So it's like to describe it a little bit better. Think about yourself shooting at a target. Your legs are like if you drew a line from your toe tips, they should be pointing toward the target. I'm going to do that same thing with my knees while I wait.

So there's not a lot of movement, not a lot of shuffling around. I've seen so many times or had instances where I'm just sitting comfortably in like a different position. The deer gets up and now I'm just squared off with it and I draw back, but my body position's awkward. I don't have as much mobility to move and it's really hard to make a good shot or impossible to get, you know, a good shot off.

So the first thing I do is I set my knees. And what I like to do is I kind of sit in a way where one side of my body's on the ground, and then I've got kind of my knees stacked on top of each other. So I'm sitting comfortably because I might be there for a long time, but I can easily move into a sitting shooting position already ready already, if that makes sense.

Now, the other thing that I do is I always obviously have my bow ready, arrow knocked ready, you know, have the release ready, whether it's a, if you use like a back tension style or thumb release, it's already hooked on the D loop or, you know, sometimes I'll just sit there with my release. I use a wrist release just hooked onto the D loop for the most part, you know, on those long weights, you got to make yourself comfortable, but you also want to make sure that wherever you set your bow, you can raise it up without making a lot of movement, without making a lot of sound because you're

you might not have a lot of time and you might have to, you know, be from zero to a hundred in a very short amount of time without making a lot of noise. So we make sure that that bow is ready, that bow is like in a way that you can easily get it up and draw back without having to do too much.

Now I'm also going to pre-range the deer as well as other things around the deer or whatever I'm stocking in on. So I'm going to range where they're at. I'm going to know exactly where that deer is. I'm going to set my pin for that. And then I'm going to range stuff. That's like, okay, how that next tree, what's just understanding the distances around because

you may not have time to rearrange. So there's so many times where you might draw back right when he stands up, the buck stands up, you don't have a shot, he walks off toward this other bush to go bed down, and you're kind of guessing, but you've had the time to understand and just really know that area where you're at. Know all possible scenarios before they happen.

One thing that I think is huge is anticipating where the deer is going to be when they stand and understanding whether you have a shot or not. What that's going to do is that's going to give you a good indicator of when you're going to draw. I think this is like a major novice mistake. You stock in on a buck, it's bedded and that buck stands up and as it stands, you draw and you have no shot and you're holding, holding, holding, holding, holding.

you're holding for a point where now you can't hold any longer. You have to let down and you're at a very vulnerable position where you're probably going to risk spooking that deer by letting down at some point. So what I like to do is anticipate when I'm going to get my shot before I even think about drawing back. So

One thing that I use as a good indicator, especially as like mule deer, you can use their antlers and just see, okay, where's its head and neck where the top of its head is. If it's sitting up right is generally kind of where its body, like the bottom of its body line is going to be depending on the hill and other things. So I'm going to anticipate, okay, when it stands up, am I going to have a clear shot or is it going to stand up and I'm going to have branches in my way? Am I going to have an obstructed shot above the animal or am I going to have a clear shot?

Because understanding what's going to happen next when it stands will help me make a better decision of when to draw.

Now, as you're sitting there, you want to anticipate when that animal is going to stand up because that's when you can get ready. I've noticed like mule deer and elk, every animal kind of makes its own little move before it gets up. And so you're just going to watch them. Mule deer often you'll see like this crazy ear flick and then they start to stand up. Elk kind of like to rock their antlers back and forth before standing up. So every time I see those movements, I'm like at the ready in that draw position. My bow should already be vertical, my release on, and I'm ready to pull back.

Now there's times where they do those moves and they don't get up or whatever, but every time you see a stand-up indicator, you want your bow already up and ready so you don't have to make those movements later. Because the time that animal's bedded is, if you've been sitting there for a while, you already know it doesn't see you. You know that's the time to get set up. You don't know what's going to happen after it stands, so you really need to be ready in those moments and anticipate that standing up beforehand.

My preferred option is if I know when the animal stands up, I'm going to have a shot. I like to draw back while that deer's standing. I can think of so many times where, especially with Mueller, I've been successful. As that deer stands, I see those ears flick. I see him start to go. And as he's standing up, you know, his head's now probably facing downhill. It's going to be hard for him to look uphill and stand if that's the position that he's in. You know, I try to anticipate that. But as he's standing, I'm drawing.

So as soon as he stopped, I'm already settled in and can release that arrow before he goes, takes a step, anything like that before he's too distracted or too focused in on anything. Like while he's distracted standing up, I'm generally drawing if I know that I'm going to have a shot when he's fully standing.

If I don't think I'm going to have that shot, I'll wait. Now, often animals, when they stand from the bed, they're going to be thinking about a couple of things and you want to try to anticipate this. Are they going to just be moving a little bit to re-bed? If you see that the sun's just beating on him now, you're going to think, okay, he's going to go toward the shade. So which shade is he going to go to? The same tree or is there some other spot around that you've already pre-ranged where you think he might walk to?

A lot of times they'll stand up, they'll stretch a little bit, they'll walk out a little ways and start feeding. That's a big one. That's where pre-ranging comes in. And if that's the case, you aren't going to have a shot. What you're going to want to do is as soon as that animal starts to make a move and look away, that's when you're going to draw and be ready to take your shot.

As I'm sitting there, you know, you've got time. You've got a lot of things to think about. So when I stalk in on a bedded animal, one thing that's going through my mind is just my shot process, what that shot's going to look like, what I'm going to do. You know, think about picking a spot on the animal. Think about calming your nerves. You've been within range of this animal for long enough. If you start to get that,

crazy amount of you know excitement that's when you start to rush things so allow that time when you're within range of this animal to just kind of meld into the surroundings and it really does make a difference if you think about it there's times where i've stocked in on deer that i know i'm not going to shoot and it's it's almost like they just never leave like you have opportunity after opportunity when you're in on a deer that you're trying to kill

You get this rush of adrenaline and that rush of adrenaline causes you to rush things. And by rushing things in many ways causes different outcomes.

Now, it may not be that the animal necessarily senses that, but it may sense you doing movements at times you shouldn't. So one thing while I'm there, I kind of think through this process of, okay, I'm going to wait for my opportune shot. I'm going to draw back. I'm going to focus in on that spot. Like you've had time to look at the deer. You don't need to look at the antlers. You just think about making a perfect shot and whatever your process is for going through that shot. You know, me personally, I just kind of think about

picking a spot on that animal. I like to find one, one hair. Like I think about aiming for one hair and I think about where that's going to be and what I'm going to visualize and pick a spot, focus in. And then I don't even think about the rest. I just shoot.

And that for me has been very successful. Now, the thing you don't want to think about, because I've done this and every time I do, it doesn't work out, is that those thoughts of, oh, I'm so close. This is such a done deal. The times you're just counting your success before it happens. Every time you do that, you literally shoot yourself in the foot because there's this psychological thing of when you think something's easy, you're not going to be able to do it.

You don't take all the precautions that you need to take. You get lax, you sit funny, you, and then things go wrong and they go wrong really fast. So if I keep that mindset of it's still difficult, I'm not there yet. I need to like follow through, think about the plans and the execution, not how close I am. And when that deer stands up, oh, this is just such a done deal. Backstraps tonight, baby. That's like...

Every time I start thinking about that, thinking about how I'm going to take a field photo or who I'm going to text first, I know it's not going to work out at that point. But it's because in my mind, I get lax and you just end up doing things that aren't focused in on the exact task at hand.

There are so many facets to spot and stock hunting, and there's so many different scenarios, but just having this type of information I think is really going to help you if you encounter maybe a new situation that you haven't seen, or maybe you've done this a million times, but just kind of thinking through a few of these things that I go through every stock. I found that as I got better at understanding the things that went wrong,

I became a lot better at making things go right. And that's just time in the field and understanding what to do in certain scenarios. And I'm really thankful for that, having that opportunity. There are a lot of stocks that don't work out or things go wrong that you can't control, but

I try to limit the things that I can control from going wrong. You've already got so much stacked against you doing something like not being ready for when the animal stands up, not having your body in the right position, you know, not accounting for this or that.

in crunch time, just one little mistake there could mean, you know, the difference between getting a shot and not. So I try to control all those little things. And I think by just kind of understanding some of the little nuances like that, even just shielding your optics from the sun and stuff like that, you're going to be a lot more successful in the long run. And you're just, you're minimizing your chance to mess something up. And that's what this is all about.

I hope you've enjoyed a little bit of the, this kind of, I guess it'd be like a three week thing on spot and stock tactics. So if you missed any of the other two, we talked about cutting off, we talked about, you know, planning your stock on a bedded animal, and then now obviously getting within range and what to do when you're in the red zone. So if you missed any of those, you know, feel free to go back. If you got friends or whatever you think you enjoy this podcast, please, I appreciate the support from everyone, you know, share it. And I really appreciate that.

Next week, I want to talk about a little bit of summer scouting and maybe some stuff to plan for that fall season. So if you get a little bit of time to go out and pre-scout some tips on that, I think that'll be huge for your success as well. So I'm really excited about that. Also, as a reminder, I talked about it last week, but I've got a massive gear giveaway. I want to just support you guys for supporting me. So I'm going to give away a

a package of gear that is essentially everything you need to hunt from now until forever. It's like, it's just an awesome package of great gear, high quality gear. That's going to last a long time. So yeah,

If you're interested in that, you can go over to my Instagram page. I'll just leave that link in my bio there so you can find it easily. And yeah, I'm super excited for this season coming up. I'm excited for you guys to share your success with me. There's, I know some people in California have already been chasing some blacktails in the A-zone and there's going to be some antelope season starting in a couple of weeks, you know, depending on tag draws and then early mule deer seasons, August mule deer season. So,

I'm excited. You know, as always, feel free to share your success or your stories. I've got a lot already from people, black tail hunting and some good spring bear stories. So I appreciate it until next week, get within range and don't count your eggs until they're hatched.

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