Deer Hunting Shedding Light Outdoors

God created all things and we must fully enjoy them. Travis Williams, one of the founders of Shedding Light Outdoors, shares his passion for hunting and faith in God through their social media, website, and channel so people will understand more about hunting. Travis points out why it is vital for us to know what we’re chasing, and explains how knowing their habits and other things about them helps us to be better and successful hunters. He reveals the four F’s of why he is into hunting.

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Deer Hunting Shedding Light Outdoors – Travis Williams

Travis and I were in the warm-up talking about how fun it is to have guests come back after a year or two. Travis is with Shedding Light Outdoors. He hails from Southeast Ohio and they get some nice bucks in his neighborhood. Travis, it’s a joy to have you back on the show and I look forward to our conversation. Welcome to the show and what’s new with Shedding Light Outdoors?

Thanks, Bruce. We had a good time being on it and we’ve been doing good. We had our best season, the four of us in our group. On film, we got eight deer down and one not on film but it was a doe. It was a fun season. We got to go to some fairs, meet and talk to people and that’s what it’s all about for us. We’re not trying to make it big time but we’re average Joes having a good time enjoying the sport of hunting.

Shedding Light has more than just talking about the outdoors. Let’s talk about what’s behind Shedding Light Outdoors.

It started in 2015, my buddy, Travis Shirer, we used to do these goofy hunting videos. We did a squirrel hunting video and we did a groundhog hunting video. We never killed anything. It was a parody. We were making fun of hunting shows but at one point he videoed me shooting a doe and we were pumped that we got that on film. We had a buddy from college that was doing a Christian bow hunter blog and we said, “Let’s get together and make something out of this.” We have a passion for hunting but we also have a passion for the Lord and our faith. We believe in Jesus and that he has the power to change your life. He’s changed my mine. We said, “Let’s use this and film our hunts and see what happens.” We started that in 2015 and we added another member named Jim.

There’s more going on behind the scenes when you’re out. You notice this when you’re in the tree stand and you look up and you see that sunrise, there’s something there. It didn’t happen by accident. I believe that God created that. Our whole aim is to shed light on that. That’s our little goofy tag line, we want to shed the light on those kinds of things. You could shoot the biggest deer of your life but whenever you die, that deer is going to end up at Cracker Barrel or if you’re lucky maybe at Cabela’s but the question is what happens to you. That’s our message in what we do.

Thanks for sharing that. Folks, your choice about the sunrise, sunsets and special moments in the tree stand connect you with something. Figure it out. Let’s talk about your hunting experience. We’re going to talk about why we hunt. Travis, share what happened and how things went.

Being an average Joe, I don’t get all the time in the world to hunt. I can’t take a whole week off or anything like that. It’s days here and there and going into hunting season, my daughter has special needs. She’s had a lot of issues and she was coming up on a hip surgery. They planned that for November 5th. The rest of the world is like, “What’s the big deal?” but every hunter out there knows, “That’s a rut.” Ohio rut is then and I’m like, “No.” I’m trying to figure that out and I’m going to have to plan my days before and after and I’m not going to miss her surgery or any of that kind of thing.

Long story short, I hunted a couple of days early season but my whole goal was to try and stay out until the rut because I’ve always gone in and messed things up early on. I had a buddy who had a property where we had hung a stand and it had been undisturbed. We’ve never been in there and it was a good spot. He’s like, “Why don’t you come with me?” It was on October 26th. I honestly didn’t expect a whole lot since I had been sick that entire week, too. I had started to recover. We went in, he dropped me off at my stand. It was probably about 2:00 PM. I didn’t expect anything to happen until later closer to nighttime at 4:00. As I got up in the stand, since it was October, there were still leaves on the trees. I realized I didn’t have a whole lot of shooting lanes. In fact, I had the twenty-yard area around the tree stand. I got to thinking, “If a buck comes up through here, he’s going to go up probably right up above me or he’s going to come right below me.”

I climbed back down out of the tree stand, I went over to this spot about 30 yards away and I trimmed a big shooting lane in that spot. I don’t like getting out of the tree stand once I’m in but I’ve got to have a shooting lane over there. I went back up in the stand and it was about 4:00. I’m sitting there reading a book and all of a sudden, I look up and I see horns. This buck came right over the path where we had walked and sure enough, he goes right up that path and he’s walking right toward that opening.

I get the video camera up, get it on and everything. I draw back because he’s about to go through that hole and he stops. I’m sitting there at full draw for about a minute and five seconds and he finally took one more step, gave me a shot and I took it. It hit hard. It hit a little low but right in the heart. He went down over the hill about 40 yards and crashed. He was a seven-point and it was my first buck with a compound bow. I’ve killed them with a gun and with a crossbow but nine years I’d been chasing a buck and I thought, “This deer is it.” He made me stand up and that’s what I’d been waiting for. I was tickled. He didn’t score, he was 98 inches but it was all on one side. If he had both sides, he was a two-by-five. He was cool and he was a real neat-looking deer. He’s considered nontypical and I got him mounted.

It was awesome because I got everything done before the surgery. Later in the season, it was in December. I only own three acres that I hunt on and in Ohio, you’re allowed to put out some corn. On my property, there’s no deer passing through unless I go ahead and put that out there. I thought, “I’ll put some corn out in the backyard,” and I did. I had some does coming in and I could use the extra meat. I got up in my daughter’s playset, the swing set and all that and I hunkered down. This doe came running into the backyard. It was exciting, as exciting as the buck but I got that on film, I called it The Playset Doe and it’s on YouTube. That was my season and it was good. I had a couple of other hunts here and there but that was the two deer that I got.

Let’s talk about lessons learned. What did you do differently that you hadn’t done the previous years?

Getting out and seeing what God created so we could enjoy them is everything. Share on X

Probably staying out. The previous years I got excited about trail cams in the summer. I put up trail cameras and I have these giant bucks in July and August. I’m like, “I’m going to kill one of these things.” I didn’t realize that their home range is going to shift in the fall and I’m learning a lot of this stuff as I go. I also realized that going in there so many times was throwing off the pattern. Many times, I see bucks looking right at my camera, maybe I don’t have it high enough or whatever and then they disappear.

All of the bucks that we killed, the three bucks that Shedding Light killed, all were on first sits, the first time in the stand. That taught me that you need to make the most of that first sit going in there, make sure you check the wind. That’s the main thing that I learned. I’m planning to do the exact same thing. I haven’t gone into my area a whole lot, I’m not putting out corn or anything like that. It’s best to stay out as much as possible and wait for the right conditions. I know the deer are there, I know historically when they show up, especially during the rut. I’m going to play my cards that way.

The first sit was the main thing that I took away. I learned that the first time in the stand, they don’t know you’re there. You climb down out and you can spray up with all you want to spray up but it’s hard to trick their nose. Once you leave, if a buck comes in that area, he knows. The next time he comes back, if he comes back, he’s going to be coming in downwind of that spot. You have a lot more to your advantage if you can make the most of that first sit. My main lesson is I love hunting early season as much as I can but it’s probably best if I don’t. It’s best if I can stay out, pick my hunts, especially that I’m a father of three kids. In order for me to be a happily married man, I know I’m going to have to pick the sits that make the most sense and not be in the woods all the time. My wife I don’t think would be a big fan of that.

The first three sits that you sit, that could be morning, afternoon, that could be three all-day sits that could be three afternoons but three times in that stand. Think of it as three strikes you’re out if you’re hunting in an area and hunting a mature deer. You can get away if you’re in the right place, on a food source, a transition area and you’re in a travel pinch point. I’m not talking about the rut but the first three times you sit at a stand are your best opportunities. Think about that when you’re rotating and you’re setting your stands because you want to cover the wind. If you had four stands, then you’ve got twelve sits.

I know a guy in Wisconsin. He hunts 40 acres, he and his daughter. They sit no more than three times and over the past ten years, they’ve taken a mature buck during that time. All the rest of the time they’re not doing any work, they go in after season and they look for changes on the ground when the snow comes and tweak things as they need to. They go in April, May and June in the food plots. Once they get that set, they don’t go in there. They got their trail cameras but they got a Wi-Fi setup. Everybody can’t have that but they’re nonexistent. They’re ghosts on their own land and the deer know that. They slip in, do what they need to do with the right wind and the right stand and they’re very successful. Their neighbors know that there’s deer there. On the fence line, there are a lot of stands and that’s the way it is because in Wisconsin you have the archery hunt, then you have the gun hunt. Travis, thinking about first sits. You’ve got three acres, but are you sitting on the Ohio River or are you in suburbia where you have a special permit? Talk to me about hunting the gym set.

I’ve got three acres and I’m outside of a town. We live close to the Ohio River but my hunting is not on the Ohio River. Hunting out of the backyard, I border about probably well-over 300 to 400 acres around me that’s pretty well good and big timber. There’s a spot right across my road where a factory company owns it and there are about 500 to 700 acres over there. You have to work there in order to hunt that. I’ve thought about, “Do I want to quit my job and go work in the factory so I can get into that place?” I don’t think so.

I know deer are coming and going through my backyard, I see them all the time. In fact, I walked out and there were two does and some fawns. They’re crossing through there but when you get into the late season, they’re starting to hide a good bit. It was using food. I know some guys don’t like the whole corn thing but it works and it gets deer in my freezer. I don’t typically do that. Where I normally hunt, there’s a guy at church that lets me hunt his 120 acres. That’s where I spend most of my time. I was like, “I’m pressed for time. I don’t have a ton of time left in the season and it’s cold. I know those deer want something to eat and I know I might have a shot.” I put some out and sure enough, they came in and it worked out.

That’s not my normal practice and it’s not the way I normally do it. The guy has a bunch of alfalfa fields. In the area, there are plenty of corn and soybeans but not on the farm where I hunt. It’s a good rut spot. Deer are coming in there, passing and going. I got a lot of does that stay and stick around and the bucks eventually show up. I’ve had some big buck encounters and I missed one a couple of years ago. I can’t fathom guys out west like you that can figure out giant properties. The idea of going into a place with thousands of acres, it blows my mind. I’m hunting 100 acres and it’s taken me five years to figure that property out, what the deer do and how they move and stuff. Maybe I need to learn more.

When I first started elk hunting out west, we paid a trespass fee. This is a long time ago. Somebody knew somebody and we paid the trespass fee. The guy said, “I love Wisconsin hunters,” and we all said, “Why?” He said, “You know how to hunt elk.” I went, “I’ve never hunted elk in my life.” He said, “Yeah, but you know how to hunt whitetails. Have you ever killed a whitetail with your bow or your rifle?” I went, “Yeah. It’s not a big deal. I’ve killed lots of deer. Not a lot of big deer, but I’ve killed lots of deer.” To me that’s the joy of hunting, killing lots of deer. He said, “The thing about whitetail hunters is they understand where the deer come from, where they are going to and then all you have to do is extrapolate that.”

Let’s say you have 10,000 acres. At any one time, those elk are only in 10% of that environment, that habitat. You go, “If I was an elk, where am I going to be early season? Where am I going to be during the rut? Where am I going to be and why am I going to be there?” Once the guns go off, you’ve got an orange army out west in the Rockies. You can see so far and you go, “There are 50 people out there.” You’re looking five to ten miles. It’s all different but the biggest thing is that whitetail hunters understand their 40 acres well. As you have found and spoken, to dissect 120 acres, it takes a lot of time. There are many subtleties that because Uncle Jack killed a buck from the deuce of spades stand for ten years in a row with his gun doesn’t mean it’s a good bow stand.

That’s the thing, you’ve got to be a student. Going in the woods and getting lucky, there are a lot of people that do it and it’s probably because it’s on their first sit. You hear that all the time, first time hunter going in the woods the first time. It’s probably more so the sit than the hunter but I do think there’s something to being a student and to learn. I’m planning on going elk hunting and I’ve been learning as much. I went years ago and I didn’t study. I went and I was dependent upon the people I was going with rather than taking the time to learn elk. Any hunter, part of our job is to know what we’re chasing, know their habits, know things about them and know what they eat. That’s going to make you a better hunter and make you more successful.

I’ll give a shout-out for Corey Jacobsen, he’s probably the best guy on the web with podcasting, Elk 101. Check that out. If you’re coming out west, two things. Corey Jacobsen, it’s $100 a year to be a member. Then GoHunt.com, they’re $150 a year. GoHunt.com/Insider has the best DIY research for ten western states and they’re better than anybody else in the industry. I wrote a lot of the articles for Colorado myself for goHUNT. I know something about what they look for and they were very demanding. I’m fortunate I’ve lived in Colorado since 1985. I’ve hunted a few places and shared that. There’s a shout-out for Corey Jacobsen, Elk101 and GoHunt.com/Insider. If you join the Insider, use the promo code WR, and you’re going to get a $50 gift card from GoHUNT. Having said all that and more, why do we hunt? Why does Shedding Light hunt? What’s so magical about hunting? We know the spiritual side of Shedding Light Outdoors, but why do we get out there?

Everybody has faith in something even if they’re atheists. Share on X

There are a lot of different reasons why people hunt. For me, I’ll start with faith, friends and my father. I’ll give it the three Fs. I’ll start with my dad. He is the one that introduced me to hunting and he introduced me to a fun type of hunting when I was a kid and that was coon hunting. That was the first thing, I remember being five years old going coon hunting and going out in the woods and you hear these dogs barking way off in the distance. I never understood what the difference was in the way that they bark but once they hit that tree and they start sounding off. Dad would say, “It’s time,” and then I would take off running through the woods to try and get there as fast as I could. It was time with my dad. That was the main part of it. I got to go squirrel hunting with him and then deer hunting. Initially, the reason I hunted was that it’s what we did together. It was our thing, spending time with him. Fast-forward a few years and he and I are in a blind together. We didn’t hunt a whole lot after I started bow hunting because he was still doing more gun hunting at that time.

A funny story, we were in the hunting blind and I had a muzzleloader. We were sitting there waiting on a deer and this doe showed up right in front of us. I go to get the gun up and he’s got that netting in his blind and he says, “You’ve got to get a little bit higher,” because I’m looking through the scope, I can see the deer fine but what I don’t realize is my barrel is not higher than the window. I get a little bit higher and that doe looks right at me and he goes, “You’ve got to get a little bit higher.” I got a little bit higher. I didn’t ask because I’m like, “I got this deer that’s about to bolt,” and I shot. The deer went about 40 yards, piled up and he’s like, “Good job. You put a hole in my blind.” I look down and there’s this ring of fire, I didn’t get high enough and shot a hole in his blind. Memories like that with my dad, they’re good. He passed away because of cancer and I look back at those things. Why I hunt, part of it is it’s what he taught me.

Some of the main things I learned in life were in the truck driving out to a spot with him. There’s something about hunting with friends and being out there with people. I like going by myself, I do enjoy it but having my buddy in the tree stand with me, if I’m filming him or he’s filming me, I’m a better hunter then because I know I shouldn’t be on my phone. He’s going to be making fun of me if I am. Hunting with friends and that camaraderie is another big part of hunting and faith. It’s something about being out there and disconnecting, putting this thing down and being out in nature. We film our hunts but getting out and being in it, seeing what God created and the fact that He made it so that we could enjoy it, that to me is everything. I’d say those three reasons. There are probably a lot more but those are the ones that come to mind for me.

One thing that is prevalent unfortunately especially on social media is we don’t get along. We don’t reach common ground sometimes. I’m not saying everybody but many times a person, they shot their first doe with a gun, a muzzleloader, compound, crossbow, whatever but they’re happy and they got meat in the freezer. One of the reasons we hunt is because we eat the meat. All of a sudden, someone will say, “That’s great, congrats,” and then somebody will peep out, “Why did you shoot that doe? Why did you shoot that spike buck? Why did you do whatever?” It doesn’t match up in their sandbox where they’re at. They could be, “I’m mature deer only. I’m QDMA, I’ve got a ten-year plan, I’ve got all this,” and his neighbor could care less. He’s got five kids to feed, he’s got two days to hunt and it’s brown and it’s down. Both are fully supported in the hunting community but for some reason, we don’t do that. Why do you think we do that to ourselves?

You made me think of the fourth one, it’s food. That’s probably the main one. That’s why we go out, to get that on the table. It’s a pride thing. There are a lot of ladies hunting but there are a lot of guys, probably primarily guys, that are out there and we like to beat our chest. There’s something special about shooting a big deer. Growing up, I saw these guys shooting big deer and I would be jealous because all the other guys are like, “Look at you, you shot this deer.” You get recognition. For the longest time, it was big racks. Everything was big rack this, big rack that. It was all about, “He’s only a 130-incher. I’m going to let him pass until next year.” “He’s only 140.” You see these guys passing on deer that would be a trophy to probably 95% of the hunting community but these guys are hunting in great states, in great locations and good for them if that’s what they want to do. It’s shifting from racks to maturity, “He’s only a three-year-old or he’s only a four-year-old.” I don’t know if you’ve ever eaten a five or a six-year-old but they don’t taste good. The younger they are, the better they taste.

I’ve been hunting for years with a compound bow and I passed on probably a 110, 120-inch ten-point deer years ago. He walked underneath my stand and he didn’t make me stand up. I don’t regret passing him but I have to think that Facebook and what I’ve seen on TV was the reason I didn’t want to stand up. If I’ve never killed a buck with my compound, why am I waiting for a giant deer to come by? Why not cut my teeth on a smaller one? He was a good deer and I got good footage of him. There’s something there that we hit on. If you want to wait and you want to shoot mature or old bucks because it’s a challenge, it’s harder and you want to put a real big wall mounter, I’d say go for it. I’d say that’s a challenge. If you got the time that it takes to do that and it does take some time, but if you’re the average Joe like me and most of the people that hunt, we like seeing it on TV.

We like to see big bucks but our experience is we need to put meat in the freezer. It’s way cheaper than going to the store. I hate whenever I see guys dogging other guys online or whatever about, “You’ve got to let them grow.” It’s meat and that’s the primary need. I had to learn that. This buck that I shot was 98 inches. He’s not impressive to anybody else but to me, he meant the world because it was a buck that was before my daughter’s surgery. It was a buck that I was proud to put on my wall. He’s unique, a freak on one side and a cool story. To me, I had no problem shelling out the cash to get him mounted because he was meat in my freezer and he was my first compound buck. If anybody wants to dog that, they’re welcome to. You can dog it but I wish we’d be a little bit more supportive of each other.

It’s an acceptance that we need to have because, in discussions with a lot of guys and gals, there’s about 80% of the people out there that are neither pro-hunting nor anti-hunting. They’re not hunters flat out and that’s a lot of people. How we portray our sport, our passion and what we do is huge. One way is simply invite some people over that never had venison to say, “Come on over, we’re having a barbecue.” Bring in some jerky. It doesn’t matter, bring them and talk about it. Don’t say anything, feed them the meal or summer sausage for the football games. If you go to college or high school football games, bring some summer sausage, slice it up and put some cheese and say, “Try this.”

They go, “This is good. What is it?” “It’s venison. I got it and I go to Joe’s, the processor in town and he makes it up and shares it.” The guy says, “That’s pretty good. I’ve never hunted but I like this. Can I get some more?” “Sure.” You develop that relationship and then invite him along and say, “If you ever want to come and sit, I got a double-blind or I’ve got a ladder tree stand. Come along and see. Let’s do it.” Getting back to your driving passion, faith, that’s a great way to get a person out there that is clueless to what God has planned for his life. I have found that to be interesting. You have a lot of discussions around the campfire and most everybody to a man, they might not believe in God but they know there’s something about it all.

I can invite somebody to come to church and they might come to church. I don’t think that’s a bad thing to do but sometimes the friendship, going out, forming friends with people and getting to know them. For me, I get a chance to talk to them about hunting and all that fun stuff and usually, faith comes up because it’s part of our life. Everybody has faith in something. Even if they’re atheists, they have a faith probably in themselves, I suppose. I look at that and it’s a great opportunity to form those relationships. Your Facebook friends, there’s no connection there.

One more thing is taking a young person out. I enjoy it that’s one of my favorite things. I got to take a young guy out and we had deer on top of us. We were in this stand I’d never hunted and these deer are coming right below us. It made it tricky to get shots. He took a shot at this spike and there was one little tiny tree and his arrow stuck right in that tree. I got his first miss on video for him and he loved it so much he went out by himself a couple of weeks later and he killed a deer. I was pumped for that. That to me is what it’s all about, being able to get out and spend that time with people.

Knowing what you are chasing is going to make you a better and successful hunter. Share on X

How do people get in touch with you guys?

We’re on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. You can go to our website, SheddingLightOutdoors.com. On Facebook, you can look up @SheddingLightOutdoors as well. On Instagram, we’re @SheddingLightOutdoors on there. We’re probably the most active on Instagram and Facebook and then throughout the season, we do things on YouTube. We’re not posting every single week but that would be the best way to get in contact with us and follow what we’re doing. We try and put out good content. I’m getting better at my video editing and those kinds of things. Hopefully, it’s something that you enjoy watching and not just goobers in the stand.

Travis bought some Buck Wild Coffee a while back. How was that coffee?

It was delicious. I have no problem saying that at all. I like grinding my own beans. I got the whole bean, ground it up and drank it probably about a week and a half.

Was it a dark roast? What kind of roast was it?

I got either the medium or the light roast. That’s usually more my style. I can’t remember which it was, probably the light. I love it. I give two thumbs up to the Buck Wild Coffee. It’s good stuff.

You can get Buck Wild Coffee at WhitetailRendezvous.com/shop. It’s twelve ounces at $13.99 for light, dark or roast. Travis, it’s a pleasure. Send me some pictures of what happens. Let’s make sure we connect after the season and find out how Shedding Light did.

Thank you very much for having me, Bruce. I appreciate it.

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About Travis Williams

I am not a professional hunter. I often wonder if I should be allowed to go in the woods with some of the dumb mistakes I’ve made. I once missed out on shooting a big 10 point because I forgot to put a firing cap in my muzzleloader! the tv shows portray a great white hunter out in nature shooting a 170 class deer on the first day of the season. I say good for him. but that’s not me.

I am a self/youtube taught hunter who’s had to learn hunting lessons year by year, season by season the hard way. yet I can tell you this… I love it. I may not make it pretty. I may not have the best hunting gear. I may be impatient and have spooked more deer and turkeys than I’ve killed. but I love it.

I’m just an average guy who really enjoys nature and the hunt. I grew up hunting coons and squirrels in southeast Ohio. I now chase deer and turkeys in southeast Ohio. but more importantly than all of that… I chase the lord. I believe God created me to live for him and that he sent his son to die for me. and the bible tells me whatever I do, to do it all in the name of the lord.

So I hunt and do my best to respect what God has created. I am not a hunter who just happens to be a Christian. I am a Christian that loves to hunt. I currently am blessed to serve as family minister at the Belpre Church of Christ in Belpre, Ohio. I am also blessed to be the husband of Kate Williams and the father of Hadassah and Ansley Williams. I am excited to be a part of shedding light outdoors. I hope to shed some light on what God’s word teaches and maybe some hunting tips that I learn along the way.