Early Season Success Exclusive Deer Hunt Captain Hook

Some say that hunting greatly relies on luck, but it mostly depends on skill. Ryan Nordahl, the owner of the Epic Whitetail Habitat LLC, came from a long history of whitetail hunting traditions. He shares how their family business started and how he got his early season 140-inch buck which he called Captain Hook. Ryan recollects the whole process of hunting Captain Hook – from setting up his gear to making his move and hitting the deer with his arrow. He also talks about how he learned his style of doing things and applying it to whitetail habitat management.

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Early Season Success Exclusive Deer Hunt Captain Hook – Ryan Nordahl

We’re heading to my old stomping grounds where I killed a number of deer a few years ago along the Black River between Osseo and Hixton, Wisconsin. Ryan Nordahl is the Owner of Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC. He’s married. He’s got a couple of kids. He’s a passionate whitetail hunter. We connected on Instagram. He’s got an early season buck story about Captain Hook. Ryan, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Bruce. I’m happy to be here.

I’m happy to be there because I got so many fond memories of hunting deer along the Black River. It’s great memories. I’m happy we connected about it. Let’s dive right into it. Let’s get the backstory and the hunt for Captain Hook.

As many of you know, Wisconsin’s archery hunting season started September 15th. My quest for the Captain Hook buck began in 2016 when he was two-and-a-half years old. He showed up in mid-October on our trail cameras. I had the trail cameras on a watering hole and an adjoining food plot. It’s an impressive deer. He had a G4 on his right side that was very long and hooked over. That’s how he got the name, Captain Hook, right away as a two-and-a-half-year-old. Fast-forward to 2017, Captain Hook blew up into about a 140-inch deer. This time, he was sporting three little kickers, two on the right main beam at the base and one on the left base, only about an inch or so long. We knew it was Captain Hook.

He sprouted a G4 on his left side. He’s a perfect ten-pointer with little kickers off his bases, a cool-looking deer. He was traveling at the time with another buck that I had named Left Eye who had about a three or four-inch tine coming off his left base, so hence the name, Left Eye. Captain Hook was a target buck. He was three-and-a-half years old in 2016. He was definitely on our watch list. He wasn’t on a hit list at all, too young. We think that a mature deer is four-and-a-half to five-and-a-half years old and older.

Fast-forward to March of 2018, I was able to pick up Captain Hook’s sheds that laid three feet from each other. I believe he was in a bed and got up, shook them off and I found them. It’s the first decent shed antlers that I’d ever found and a complete set. I was tickled and very happy to have them and then the work began. As many people know, we didn’t have much of a spring here. We had a late-season snowstorm. We got seventeen inches of snow in April. Come May, it turned right into summer. We had a lot of hot weather right away in May. It continued through the summer. We were planting food plots, doing a bunch of work, travel corridor improvements, hinge-cutting for travel corridors, improving some of our hinge-cut bedding areas for the thermal bedding come this fall and winter, things like that. Putting mineral out, setting trail cameras.

Captain Hook finally showed up at a mineral site on the trail camera, about the 17th of July was the first pictures I had of him. I estimated him at that point, the middle of July, at over 130 inches with a good full month of growing left. About a week before the archery opener here, I went in. I wanted one last check of my cameras. Lo and behold, he was on camera again. I had probably three weeks’ worth of pictures of him. On a consistent basis, he was coming in the mornings. On the warmer mornings, he was coming in consistent at a certain time after sunup at a particular waterhole. I have a tree stand about fifteen yards from that waterhole. I knew with the looks of the forecast that this was going to be the spot to take him if I had an encounter with him.

On a Saturday morning, I woke up about 3:00. I’m usually an early riser to begin with. I’m up at 3:00, go through my normal daily routine. At about 4:30, I showered using Scent Killer soap, got all my gear together in the Scent Crusher bag and got it all loaded up into my pickup truck. I had about a fifteen to twenty-minute drive to my hunting property down in Hixton, Wisconsin. I changed in the field and had about a 45-minute to an hour walk. I got in the tree stand finally. I kept a deer from the base of my tree stand as I approached. It was a low snort and I thought, “I blew it. I kicked him out of his bed. I won’t see him. I’m here, I’m going to sit anyway. I don’t think it was the deer, but I don’t know.”

A lot of negative things can go through, but keeping a more positive attitude promotes success in hunting. Share on X

Anyway, I got up in my stand, set all my camera gear, getting all set up. I could hear the deer moving around me. I was totally undetected. I could hear a deer at the base of my tree smelling the ladder sticks that I walked up. I got my bow pulled up in the tree, arrow nocked, and I was ready to go. The deer that was at the base of my tree finally appeared and walked out from underneath me. It was getting to be a decent light. I could see my pins on my bow and everything. I was not going to shoot this doe at all because we have our doe population, buck-to-doe ratio, right where we want it. We’re not shooting any does off of this particular 80 acres at all.

She came out. She took a drink of water at our waterhole. She proceeded to graze a little bit in the food plot travel corridor. She went back for a drink of water. I could hear a buck run up out of the south side of our property, coming up the ridge. I was sitting on top of a ridge that runs east and west. It’s pretty much smack dab in the middle of our property, a great travel corridor. Right where I was at, the ridge pinches down, it’s only about fifteen, twenty yards wide. I could hear him come up the south side. After the neighbors went in with their four-wheelers and stuff, there were deer running and blowing all over down there, I could hear it plain as day.

Pretty soon the deer that run up the south side, I could hear them raking on a tree, so right there is an indication that it’s a buck. I didn’t know at the time that it was Captain Hook. The doe that’s in front of me went back for a drink of water. She snapped her head up as I could hear that other deer walking in. You could read her body language. She tensed right up. The deer that was coming in, it was snort-wheeze. She bolted out of there. I was like, “This is a buck. It’s time to get ready.” He came in. He was coming at me straight on. I could see his main beams almost touch close together. I knew it was Captain Hook. It was like now or never, “Get ready.” I got ready. The deer turned to take a drink of water. He was quartered away. He was only fifteen yards away. I settled my pins on his vitals, pulled the trigger, and had a complete pass-through, clean pass-through. The deer took off. I realized that I didn’t turn any of my three cameras on, but I had an arrow in the deer that I was after. I was happy with that.

I knew I had to wait a little while for this deer to expire. I didn’t see him drop. I didn’t hear him drop. I knew I better give this deer a little bit of time. I didn’t even pull the trigger on the deer. The deer took off and I had three other bucks come in. A couple of year-and-a-half-old bucks and a decent two-and-a-half-year-old that will be promising in the next few years. I ended up waiting an hour, an hour and fifteen minutes in the tree. I saw eleven deer in that hour or hour and a half time frame, which made for a great quality hunt.

Even if I hadn’t seen Captain Hook, it was still a great hunt. I got down out of the tree. I got all my gear together, went over and assessed the arrow. The arrow had stuck in the water tank that we have for waterholes. I was able to pull it out clean though. It was cherry red. As bright and as grainy as the blood was, I knew it was a liver shot and possibly a lung. There were not a lot of bubbles on it. There were some air pocket bubbles on it. I proceeded to pick up the blood trail, which was obvious right at impact bled right away.

He went down the ridge about 100 yards and turned and went down the south side of the ridge. Gravity was taking him the rest of the way down to the bottom. I found a bed where he had laid. I picked up where he got out of there. He only went about another ten yards and laid down again. I was looking for where he got up out of that bed. I went about ten or fifteen yards away from that bed, leaving my bow back at that bed. I turned to go back to grab my bow. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye and here was Captain Hook about 30 yards away laying down looking back at me. I immediately hit the ground and tried belly-crawling back to get my bow. I happened to see him get up, front-heavy, and he trotted off.

At that point, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe that this deer was not dead yet. I decided I’d better wait for another half-hour or so before I pick him back up. About 40 minutes had gone by, I got back on the blood trail. I had followed it for probably another 150 yards or so, and completely lost blood. I knew he had to be in the area. I started a grid pattern back and forth through this area, about a ten-acre area or so. There was no sign of anything. I was checking every trail in and out of there, no blood, no fresh tracks, anything. I decided to regroup and go back to the last spot of blood. As I was walking out of there back to the last spot of blood, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye again and here the buck was still alive in less than twenty yards away. I had an arrow nocked, so I came to full draw immediately. As I was settling into the pins to take a shot, he got up and trotted on out of there again, not offering me a shot. He didn’t move fast, but I didn’t have a shot opportunity.

I immediately gathered all my stuff and got out of there. This was at 10:00 in the morning. It was getting to be about 80 degrees out at that time, 85 degrees maybe even. My heart sank that the deer was not expired yet. I knew he would expire at some point, but I knew he needed time. I got out of the property altogether, came back home, did a few things, talked to a buddy of mine from Eau Claire, Mike Markowitz, who offered to come down and help me recover the deer. We decided we’d meet at 4:00 on the property, and we did. I took the four-wheeler back up over the hill and showed Mike where I had last seen the deer laying down. We scouted around that area a little bit, not finding any blood. We probably got about 70 yards or so from where he had bedded down. Mike found a spot of blood and we started to pick up the blood trail again.

He ran out into our neighbor’s bean field, where I have permission to be on his property to recover any deer. We give them the same permission, as well, it’s the neighborly thing to do. He runs into the bean field, which has pretty much dropped all its leaves. We found pin drops of blood. We knew this deer was not in the field. We had glassed the field over good. We checked the edges, any trails coming in and out of the bean field. We probably searched for another hour with no sign whatsoever. My heart was sinking. We were close to calling off the search.

We went to go back and find the last blood. We were walking back along the edge of the bean field, and I came across a trail that I wasn’t quite sure if I had checked or if Mike had checked at all. I decided that I better go in to cover my tracks. I got in about twenty yards and I finally discovered a spot of blood. It was an obvious spot of blood. It was probably an inch in diameter or so and splattered. We started picking up more blood. We tracked it about another 50 yards or so and we lost it again. The trail split ahead of that.

I went one way, Mike went the other way. For probably fifteen or twenty minutes, we searched around like that with no sign. We crossed paths. Mike went where I’d come from and I went to where he’d come from. About five minutes later Mike, with authority, said my name. The trail that he was on had gone into a patch of goldenrod that was about head high or so. Mike said, “I saw that the goldenrod, the interior of it, was rolled down and I went through where the trail went and there he was laying. This was about 6:00 in the evening. I tell you that was the end of a long, hot, worrisome day. I thought I had lost this deer. When we found him, it was very emotional because it brought the end of a great chapter on a great deer. All the hard work and everything had culminated at that point. All the hard work from spraying all the way through summer to the time we recovered the deer. I was happy and grateful for that deer. He’ll end up going about 155 to 160 inches, I believe. That’s my story.

It’s a gorgeous early season whitetail buck from West Central Wisconsin. Ryan should be very proud of that. The thing I want to add to that story is that Ryan stayed with it and worked it out. The deer was there. You shot the deer. You know where the deer was hit. You picked up the arrow and you did your investigation forensics on the arrow. You got a good idea of what was happening or what had happened. The way he’s told the story, he stayed after it. Sometimes we get frustrated or, “I can’t find him.” Three hours have gone by and the meat is piled up but I can’t use the meat. There are a lot of negative things that can go through. In researching you a little bit, Positive Affirmations, Think and Grow Rich, or any of these books where you keep a positive framework on it. The other thing is the ethical part of it is that you shot the deer. You’re going to do everything possible to recover that deer. I know friends that they’ll give it their best shot. They’ll call in tracking dogs. They’ll do whatever they need to do to bring the deer back. That bodes well. That’s a great segue to Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC and what you bring there. Let’s share why that business came to be, what you’re doing with it, how are you doing with it, how people get in touch with you, and all those factors of Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC?

Epic Whitetail Habitat comes about from a long history of hunting traditions in my family. My father got me into hunting when I was six years old, sat in the tree stand with him for the first time on the first day of archery season in 1984. That will give you a perspective of how old I am. I grew up on a dairy farm, I farmed with my brother full-time out of high school for fifteen years. In 2011, I walked away from the dairy farm. It’s because of the size we were at with the dairy farm, it wasn’t supportive of two families anymore. It was easier for me to walk away. My brother is older than I am. I let him have the authority. I had various jobs in the last few years. I knew working for myself was my path in life. Some time ago, I sat down. I thought about, very long and very hard, what it was that I wanted to do and I knew my passion, my life’s work was to serve the whitetail deer and to serve people who pursue the whitetail deer and have a passion for the whitetail deer as much as I do.

In 2013, I had the privilege of going along with a couple of buddies on their property who had hired Jeff Sturgis, another whitetail property manager. I learned a lot from that gentleman. I’m happy and grateful for that experience. I started going on YouTube researching other people in this industry, Steve Bartylla, Jake Ehlinger from Michigan. I started to study those guys, study what they’re doing, what they’re offering their clients, their management plans and everything. I came up with my own way of doing things. When I got into dairy farming, that’s what I did too. I worked off of our family farm, working for other guys and I learned my style of doing things. It’s the same when it comes to whitetail habitat management. You learn from others, but you put your own twist on things.

When it comes down to a thorough management plan system, having a food plot is not enough. It’s a whole combination of things. Share on X

In September of 2017, I proclaimed that Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC was going to be my business. I’ve worked hard at it, putting videos together on YouTube, and I’ll launch them on Facebook and Instagram as well. I started getting clients in about March or April of 2018 that took me to Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Eastern Minnesota. In 2019, I’m looking forward to going out to Pennsylvania, West Virginia and helping a few clients out. I’m a blessed guy. I’m keeping a positive attitude. I want my clients to have more success than I do when I go into these properties.

Going back to my business, everybody thinks, “I have a food plot and that’s good enough.” It’s a whole combination of things when it comes down to a thorough management plan system. Starting with food plots, how my clients access their property, how they can access their stands better, going in undetected, playing the wind, things like that. We evaluate how the deer are traveling to and through their properties, where they bed, where their safe zones are, where they socialize the most, things like that. I come up with a written plan for these guys. I’ll do a map and a complete written plan for them as well that they can follow. It’s a process that can last them the entire duration that they own their property. Hopefully, it’s for a lifetime that they own their property or if they decide someday they want to sell, that habitat plan can go along with the new owners of the property as well. That’s a little bit about my business and what I do. I also offer planting food plots and helping guys to do hinge cuttings. Most of our food plot work remains in the state of Wisconsin, Eastern Minnesota, Northeast Iowa due to our location, where we’re at here in West Central Wisconsin.

How do people get a hold of you? How can they reach out to you?

They can direct message on Instagram or Facebook. I also run ads in some of the local papers and stuff with my phone number. My personal phone number is (715) 299-0134. My email address is at [email protected].

I know there’s no certain pricing. Do you have an hourly rate or is it on a property basis? How do you price your consulting?

I have a flat rate when I do my consultations when I go out to visit my clients. I have a flat daily rate. If we do any food plot work, that’s usually by the hour if it’s a small amount of acreage. If we get more than an acre, we start charging by the acre. We have a little bit of smaller equipment. It’s only fair if we get up over that acre amount that we charge by the acre and not by the hour.

Are you sponsored by Antler King or you just like their product?

I just like their product. I have a little bit of family history with the owner of Antler King. I’m not related to Todd Stittleburg in any way, but he worked with my father back in the mid-‘80s. He and my father worked on developing Antler King Mineral, which got Antler King its start. My dad basically told Todd Stittleburg to run with it and see where it goes. Who would have ever thought that many years later the hunting industry would be where it is now?

Nobody would have foretold that.

That’s part of what motivates me the most to do what I’m doing is my dad never took a chance. I don’t want to be like that. I took a chance and went after my dream and it’s been a success for me. By the grace of God, I’m truly blessed to do what I do for a living.

Ryan, I hope we can cross paths when I’m in Wisconsin. I’ll be in Wisconsin. That’s the plan. I’ll look forward to that. We got another story because he’s got a buck up there called Long-Tine Flyer. It sounds like “long-time player,” but it isn’t. Ryan is going to share the story. There is so much character on that buck.

He’s got a few little kickers on each G2 as well on both sides. That particular deer, I shot him in 2013. I had a little bit of history with him. In 2012, during our late season, about a week-and-a-half before Christmas that year, I had this buck coming in at about 50 yards. At that time, he did not have the flyer. If he had it that season and broke it off, I do not know, I was not running trail cameras at that time in 2012. Fast-forward to 2013, I had seen this deer about a week before archery season in the field. It was in the dark. My headlights on my vehicle had shined him. He’d gotten up and taken off so fast. I noticed that flyer at that time. I wasn’t sure that it was a flyer. I thought it was velvet hanging off of him. I wasn’t running any trail cameras that summer either.

Finally, I put out a trail camera after the 1st of October of that year. I noticed that it was a flyer. It was like he became number one hit list buck, the only buck I wanted that year. Every picture I had of him up until about the 7th of November was a nocturnal picture. We made the mistake of hunting this deer too hard too many days. I found a creek crossing where the majority of the deer coming into this particular plot were crossing. I figured I’d catch him in the morning, beginning of November, coming off the food plot and back to bedding. That was the 6th of November that I set that stand. On the morning of the 7th, I got up and got out there. I was like, “I should go up to that food plot. I have a hunch that he’s going to be there.” I decided, “No. I set this stand on this creek crossing, I’m going to go there.”

I hunted until probably 11:00 or noon that day and I never saw a deer. This is the 7th of November. I never saw a deer that morning. I got down out of the stand. I run up to that food plot, checked that camera and he had been there at 7:30 that morning. I had three different pictures of him. Friday morning, nice and crisp, it was about 25 degrees that morning. I went up to the food plot. The wind was not in the most favorable direction that morning. I set a different stand across from my normal stand to play the wind. As soon as I got daylight, I crashed the horns together. I rattled in a small fork-horn buck that morning. About fifteen minutes later, Long-Tine Flyer came in. He was coming in a totally different direction than I had anticipated him to come in. He ended up being at eight yards, but I could not get a shot.

It was thick and brushy there and I could not get a shot. He turned and walked out of there. He wasn’t spooked out of there or anything like me. He couldn’t smell me, nothing. The following Sunday morning came, I went back up into my primary stand because of the wind direction, and got up there, got settled in. At daybreak, where you could start making out deer, Long-Tine Flyer comes in and he caught me reaching for my bow. He bolts out of there again. This is a mature deer. This is a six-and-a-half-year-old deer. I’ve had two encounters with him, now he’s busted me so he knows he’s being hunted.

On Wednesday night of the following week, I was in the same stand. He came in the right at last of shooting light, offered me a shot at twenty yards. I took it and I ended up shooting under him. Number one, I couldn’t see my pins well and I risked it and shot. Thank God I shot under him. It turned out being a blessing. Those were three encounters, one shot at him. On Thursday night, I went back after him on the same stand. I had a nice four-and-a-half-year-old eight-pointer come in. In anybody’s book, he would have been a great buck to have. I said to myself, “No, I want Long-Tine Flyer and I’m going to do what it takes this year to get him.”

I let that four-and-a-half-year-old walk. The remainder of the week, into the weekend, I hunted at my brother’s farm because the property I normally hunt was about two miles off the main farm itself. I hunted my brother’s farm and with no luck. On Sunday afternoon I decided, “This is going to be the day I’m going to kill him.” I said it to myself all day long, “I’m going to kill him this afternoon.” At 4:30 that afternoon, he came into the food plot. He came right down, coming to my direction, got about twenty yards again. I was able to get a full draw on him, I stopped him. As soon as I pulled the trigger on my release, the deer took a step forward and towards me. I caught him in the last rear abdomen and it came out his flank on the opposite side. It was a bad shot. I knew right then and there that this deer needed time.

I called up a buddy of mine who knew I had been hunting the deer and was also hunting the same deer with me when he’d come up once in a while. I called Kevin and I said, “I’ve got an arrow into him. It’s a bad shot. We’ve got to wait until morning. I know the next morning is Monday morning, but if you could somehow come up and help me recover this deer that would be great, I want you to be part of this.” He goes, “It’s no problem. I’ll be at your doorstep at 7:00 on Monday morning.” “Don’t you have to go to work?” “No, my boss will understand,” Kevin says. At 7:00, Kevin was there.

Take a chance and go after your dream. Share on X

We’re talking fifteen hours since I had shot this deer. We waited for it to get good light and had a cup of coffee together. We went up onto the property. I found where the blood was. We trailed him probably about 50 or 60 yards. He crossed one of our logging roads. We got to the other side. We couldn’t find any more blood. We looked for probably an hour and I said, “Let’s go into this next section of our woods here. Let’s get on every trail, anything we can do to pick up blood, any sign.” We’d done that for probably the next hour-and-a-half, two hours with no sign of anything. I told Kevin, “Let’s go back. Let’s pick up the last blood and get on our hands and knees, whatever we’ve got to do to find more blood.”

As we regrouped and were walking back, we come up over a knoll in the property in a pine plantation. I looked down one of the pine rows and about 80 yards down there was this buck laying stretched out across there. “He’s done.” He was stretched out. We run down there. I picked up his head and we started snapping a couple of pictures and the deer started trying to get up. I couldn’t believe it either. I nocked an arrow quick and jacked one into him. We’re talking seventeen hours after I had originally shot the deer. He was sick enough where he wasn’t going anywhere but still wasn’t dead at that point. I was able to get another arrow into him and finally put him down. I said to Kevin right there, “Even if I had waited a couple of hours and got on him right away, he was only bedded 150 yards from where I shot him.” If we would have kicked him up, we’d have never found that deer. God had it in his good graces to let us find him.

It’s another great story about persistence and recovery. Everybody loves to post the pictures of wonderful bucks and does that they take. I love to hear the stories of what it took after the hunt and how you stayed on it to get him on the wall. That’s a great testament to you, Ryan, as a hunter. Ryan, I want to thank you for being an early-season success guest on Whitetail Rendezvous. To the audience, you can learn a lot from Ryan. Tell them how to get in touch with you.

It’s Ryan Nordahl, Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC. I can be found on Facebook at Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC, on Instagram, @EpicWhitetailHabitat. I’m also on YouTube. I can also be reached via email at [email protected] or I can be contacted directly on my phone, voice or text (715) 299-0134.

With that, we’ll close out another exceptional episode of Whitetail Rendezvous. Ryan, on behalf of over hundreds of thousands of readers of the show, thank you for bringing it.

Thank you, Bruce.

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About Ryan Nordahl

I am so happy and so very grateful to hone my skills of my passion for the whitetail deer every month of the year on the properties I hunt, and the properties of my clients. I love writing and speaking about what I do, and have been blessed to write blogs and do podcasting interviews for various outdoor forums and websites. And I absolutely love sharing my proven habitat techniques with my clients.

I was first introduced to hunting in 1984, at age 6, when my dad let me tag along on an evening hunt on the first day of the Wisconsin Archery season. And I can honestly say that I haven’t missed a season since even though I couldn’t legally harvest a deer until age 12.

I grew up on my grandfather’s dairy farm in west cental Wisconsin, and eventually took over the diary cattle end after graduating from high school. I farmed full time with my older brother, Glay, untiil 2011 and I absolutely loved that part of my life. But my absolute passion for whitetails never left.

In 2013 I met a Habitat manager by the name of Jeff Sturgis. He was invited out by my good friends to do a consultation for them, and I was fortunate enough to be asked to tag along. Little did I know then the impact that consultation would have on my life. I learned so much from that day long visit that I went to work immedialty on my family’s property. I had begun experiencing success right away that very first season. Born out of that success, along with my partner, Casey Hayden, who joined me for hunting in 2014 I came to form what is known today as Epic Whitetail Habitat, LLC.

If you cannot afford the funds to hire us directly, I highly encourage you to follow us and watch our videos and read our detailed blogs on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.