This episode is just me being straight about my Illinois rut hunt. I shot a smaller 8-point. He wasn’t a hammer, a magnum, or anything people are gonna freak out about online but the hunt was really an amazing experience after I parsed it out over the last few weeks. I achieved some things that were breakthroughs for me and that was important.

The problem lies not in what happened, but how I perceived it as it was happening and even for a while after it happened. I really did struggle with comparing myself to guys on Instagram where it looked like another 170 was dropping every 30 minutes. Not only did it make me second guess myself after I took the shot, but I was initially embarrassed and considered not posting anything about it.

That's the shame. I accomplished something really big for my journey and I was embarrassed about sharing it. Social media has really messed with our heads as hunters — making us second-guess hunts we’d normally be pumped about, and compare ourselves to guys hunting managed farms or doing this for a living. Most of us aren’t in those situations, and that pressure gets into your decision-making if you let it.

This the best advice I heard this offseason: “You can’t get good at killing big deer if you don't get good at killing deer.” There is a lot that goes into that and I talk about what that means to me. That was in my mind when this buck walked in. I needed the rep. I needed to execute a real shot on a real animal instead of sitting around waiting for a 170 that may never show and then going back into my yard and pounding foam again.

This episode is just an honest look at where I’m at as a hunter right now, what I’m working on, and why this buck mattered to me even if he wouldn’t break the internet.

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