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Make It Happen Outdoors
Welcome to another episode of Whitetail Rendezvous, this is your host, Bruce Hutcheon. Folks, just sit back, we’re going to have a really good conversation with Michael Kotzum Make It happen Outdoors. Michael, welcome to the show.
Michael: All right, Bruce, thanks for having me.
Bruce: Hey, let’s give the listeners a little bit of your background, what you do for a day job and how you got into Whitetail hunting.
Michael: Okay. So during the day, I am an IT nerd. I do some of the backend storage work for Wall Street. Other than that, I try to get outdoors is much as possible. I started deer hunting about the age of five or six with my uncles. That blossomed into me taking over as much as I could of the whole process as I was getting older. I grew up down in Georgia and Alabama, and at the age of 15, my family and I moved out to Oklahoma. And there’s a vast difference in both the Whitetail habitat as well as the sheer numbers of the population between the two locations, so I had to completely relearn how to deer hunt after we moved. One of the large items being is down in the southeast, you have a two to three month gun season.
I started deer hunting about the age of five or six with my uncles
Here in Oklahoma, it was recently expanded a few years ago, but when we first moved, there was a 10 day rifle season, everything else was archery. So I had to learn how to archery hunt, and as you well know, it’s a lot different getting within 20 to 40 yards of a deer versus 2 to 300.
Bruce: Did I lose you?
Michael: No, sir.
Bruce: Oh, okay. So let’s talk about the hunting tradition and how you got started as a hunter.
Michael: Well, around the holidays, my family and I always got together. And during that time, I’d see my uncles coming back from deer hunting around lunch time or in the evenings, and one day one of my favorite uncles offered to take me out deer hunting with him. And he was kind enough to take me out earlier in the season, so that it wasn’t too blistering cold. But oddly enough, being five, six years old, I enjoyed sitting there not making a noise, waiting for deer to show up, and he allowed me to pull the trigger on a deer at a young age. He really was a great teacher and helped ease me into the sport, and he showed me all aspects of it, both the bloody side of it, he taught me to…
Bruce: Hold on a second.
Michael: Okay.
Bruce: What is going on?
Michael: I don’t know. I’ll have the [inaudible 00:03:24].
Bruce: That was Buffalo Wild Wings.
Michael: That was a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial.
Bruce: I have no idea. Okay. Start again, I’m sorry.
Michael: Sure, no problem.
Bruce: I’ll cut that out. Go ahead.
Michael: Okay. So but he really showed me the entire process from start to finish, and he taught me to respect the animals, only shoot what I’m going to eat, and he showed the hard work that went into it. So it was really at an early age ground into me, the entire process and the love of the hunt.
Bruce: In the warm-up, we talked about lessons learned, and let’s just share whatever parts of that conversation you want to because so many times, listeners, we get in situations and at the time, we think they’re real important, but in the huge scheme of things, really let’s think about what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. Michael, let’s talk about it.
Michael: Well, as a hunter, I primarily hunt public land
Michael: Well, as a hunter, I primarily hunt public land. I’ve had very little luck in gaining access to private land, either via lease, or knocking on doors. So I’ve stuck with public land. And I’ve had pretty decent success with it. However, several years ago, I had a good buddy of mine who I had grown up with to some degree, gone to church with. We became pretty much like brothers. We hunted together, fished together, I was in his wedding, I was the best man, and so everything that occurred in the outdoors, we were together enjoying it as a team. Two years ago, we started off our deer season October 1st, and neither one of us had any luck the first day.
The weekend was coming up on October 6th. October 5th, however, on Friday my friend was able to get out and hunt that morning. And he told me about a very large buck that he had seen accompanied by a smaller deer, and he wasn’t able to get a shot at about 35 to 37 yards. So the next morning, we hoped to make a play on the deer’s movement. And since my friend had seen the deer first, I had him pick which stand he wanted to sit in, and then I selected another stand further on down the trail that I suspected the buck took. About 9:45 I texted my buddy, neither one of us had seen anything. I was getting kind of hot. Oklahoma early-season is very, very warm.
And he said, “Okay, well let’s stick it out until 10:15.” And so at 10:05 I stood up, decided to take a drink, and I’d hung my bow on a gear hanger above me, and I looked off to my side and there was a six point at 10 yards. And given the size of the deer in the early season, I was going to pass on him. He started to go on past me, saw another deer up behind him, and when that deer stuck out of the brush, I was amazed. He was a 150 inch 11 point. And on public land, those are very few and far between. So I was able to cautiously put my drink away, grab my bow. Because of how I’d stood up with my safety harness, I had to spin 270 degrees in order to get on him. By that time, he made it out to about 25 yards and standing behind some brush.
The six point got pretty spooky and decided to dart through my shooting line. Luckily, he stopped at the very edge of it, and with the larger book following him, he stopped short of the end of the shooting line. So he gave me a 25 yard broadside shot. I was able to make good hit on him. It passed through, right through the heart, and I wasn’t able to see him go down. He took off across the creek. So I waited for my buddy to get there and he, and one of his friends, and myself were then able to track the deer. And we found the deer about 150 yards down the trail, and immediately I knew something wasn’t quite right. Instead of being as jovial and congratulatory as we typically were when a deer was taken, there was overall silence really from him.
There was a halfhearted congratulations, and then he stood off to the back.