It was an interesting week on the DreamDirt Farm, as you know one of the things I am passionate about is deer hunting. I take that back, I’m passionate about growing free ranging whitetails through propert nutrition, balanced habitat and sound harvest prinicipals but I do love hunting also. For the last three years I have had the honor of hunting with Heartland Bowhunters on one of my properties. For the last week Matt and Scott White from the HB Crew where here to enjoy some of the best whitetail hunting in Iowa. Even though I’ve probably been at some of the same functions as Matt and Scott this was our first opportunity to meet. Despite not having met them I was very familiar with their creative work through RockHouse Motion and Heartland Bowhunter TV.
Matt and Scott arrived on Tuesday ready to set up camp and because we knew they only had a short time to hunt we got right after it. Matt and Scott have loved ones and full time jobs back in Kansas so staying for an extended hunt wasn’t in the cards, but we were going to make the most of the time they did have. Despite what some may think, guys like this don’t just show up and have everything set up for them. Its hard work to kill a mature monarch buck in a 5 day period but when you have the work ethic these guys do, its possible. As we set out across the farm I noticed that they were very impressed by the land in western Iowa. Not just the farm we were on but the entire Loess Hills landform, it seemed to be a huge surprise to them that such a place existed and they’d never known about it before. Equally impressed by the farm they were on they commented several times on just how beautiful it was. I watched as Scott and Matt took in the sights, I could see what they were thinking, I could see a sort of child like exuberance as every sight hit their eyes. Its hard to imagine the Loess Hills if you have never been here, the White’s described it as “a whitetail mecca” because their interest is deer hunting but the truth is its a mecca for many things from agriculture to recreation. They were fresh off a successful Kansas hunt and they were ready to get on stand!
When they had their stands hung, I got out of their way and let them have at it. I returned to my place and hunted our farm, through the week we exchanged text messages through the day from stand to stand sharing our observations, thoughts and comments. I looked forward to their excited text messages about the huge deer they were seeing. Many people in my occupation want to build their creditability by shooting the biggest deer they can, an attempt to prove they are the best choice for your business and maybe they are, I love chasing big whitetails myself but where my passion really lies is in growing. From growing the nutrition they need to grow big, to the animal itself. I absolutely get a kick out of being able to produce big free ranging mature whitetail deer and allowing good people like the White’s an opporunity to hunt them.
The 5 day hunt ended without a deer tagged by Matt and Scott, but was not without a lot of excitment from trail cams to encounters with the big ones but thats hunting. Thats hunting big mature free ranging whitetails, there are no guarantees and many times the score settles in their favor, in fact most of the time it does. With the end of their hunt we had to talk about them coming back, their tag is good through January 10 and I think we’ll be meeting up again yet this year for a late season hunt. I’m tempted to share the photos of the deer they were after, but I know you’ll be able to see them on next year’s Heartland Bowhunter so for now that will have to remain a mystery. In January, hopefully I’ll be back with a photo of one of them and the story of the fall of an absolute Monarch buck. I know they’ll be prepared, a little more educatated about hunting “the hills” and maybe they’ll outsmart him on his home turf, maybe not!
Matt posted a few photos and a story about their trip to the Loess Hills on their blog thats worth a few minutes of your time.
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DreamDirt, Heartland Bowhunter, iowa deer hunting, Whitetail Properties
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