The Truth About Drone Deer Recovery - How Well it ACTUALLY Works & Should Hunters Embrace It? w/Mike Yoder | Series: High-Tech Hunting; IQ-5

Hi, I'm Adam Lewis, and in this episode of the DRIQ podcast, we're joined by a modern pioneer in the hunting space, Mike Yoder,

talking the truth about using drones to recover deer and some of the big revelations about deer and hunters that he's learned in doing so.

Now, this is a controversial topic because it leads to so many different places and some modern ethical concerns.

So we have an honest conversation about many of those things.

In this part one, we begin by talking about how well drones actually work to recover deer, which I was really surprised and shocked by his stats,

and circumstances when it absolutely does not work and why.

Things Mike has discovered about us hunters regarding our shots and recovery attempts that we many times get completely wrong,

why hunters usually lose deer after a shot.

And it allows us a behind the scenes look at how the process actually works, and to begin to think about something very important,

if hunters should embrace using this new tech in the deer hunting world and just how we should do that if so.

So if you're curious about starting maybe a drone recovery business, you're a dog tracker who's thought about adding a drone to your repertoire,

or you're just a regular hunter who is not sure about using one in the recovery, this is your episode.

Welcome to Dear IQ. Here to help you hunt smarter, elevate your approach, and consistently tag exceptional white tail.

Whether you're just starting out or a long time hunter targeting mature bucks, this is your edge.

We bring you proven tactics, expert insights, and unfiltered conversations with high level hunters who just get it done.

Guiding you through at all is veteran hunter and strategist Adam Lewis, helping you spot what others miss, fine tune your focus, and unlock your full hunting potential.

So let's raise your dear IQ. Here's your host, Adam Lewis.

Okay, I'm here with Mike Yoder of drone and deer recovery.

You've probably seen him on YouTube, heard about him. He has some really cool videos using drones and recovering deer, and a bunch of other stuff he does with him.

But I'm really interested in talking to him today. So Mike, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, in this series, we're looking at technology and hunting, and some of this is a little controversial too.

We'll get into this in a two part series with some controversies that are generally out there.

And one Mike's been involved with with I think a legal battle, right?

Yeah, yeah, it's been a battle.

Yeah, so yeah, it is. Yeah, miss you again.

So I'm the bad guy here, but no, we'll talk about all that and the future of drones and his thoughts on that and everything.

But we're going to start with talking about recovering deer and some of the stuff Mike has learned with that.

But season three here, what we're doing, if you haven't done it, we have a quiz that you can take.

It's free. It's on our website. It's the season three quiz.

And guests are bringing questions. Do they, you know, throw out to the audience.

And you can take the quiz ahead of time and then listen to the episode for the answer.

So Mike's got a question for us. And so Mike, let's share that right now. What's your question for the audience?

Yes, my question would be, what do you think the number one question is that I get asked when somebody calls me to do a deer recovery?

They're asking me this question about my thermal drone.

Gotcha. All right. So listen to the episode that will be revealed here sometime in the episode.

Let's start with your background, Mike. You know, how did you get into drones, using drones, using them to recover deer?

How did you get into hunting, all that stuff? What's your, what's your background?

Yeah. So I'll start with how did I get into hunting?

My dad was never a deer hunter. So I seen my uncles hunt. They were into hunting.

They did a lot of gun hunting. That's the first type of hunting that I did was deer drives.

I remember that. And after being able to harvest, I think it was my first buck with a gun.

I wanted to try to get one with the bow. So I asked my dad if he would be willing to buy me a bow and he bought myself a crossbow.

I couldn't pull it back. There's like this pulley thing to try to help me pull back. I couldn't pull back.

So somebody had to help me pull back prior to going out and sitting behind the barn.

And so I built this little tree stand. It took a chair. It was like a little play chair had metal wheel or metal legs.

And took it, put it up in a crotch of a tree, had little wooden steps to go up it.

And I shot a deer out of that stand. And so it was game on after that.

There you go. What about the drone thing?

So I usually ask guys, do you want the long version or just a short version?

Well, how interesting, how more interesting is the long version?

Well, it depends how much you care about probably my personal life.

Because if I'm completely honest, it's like, how did I get into thermal drones is I was in a really bad point in my life.

I would have called myself an alcoholic. I was drinking. I was down.

I just went through an audit with my other business. It was called anywhere tree care.

Where Ms. Compton M did not it and told me I needed to pay them $87,000 right now.

Like it's no payment plan or whatever started.

I actually injured my back like two years prior to that.

And because all this stress for some reason, I started drinking and I was drinking all the time.

And one night, Jared Cheffler from Whitetail Drillin were buddies and he called me and he's like, how you doing?

And he could tell that I wasn't doing good. I was like, not really that good. I'm sitting, you know, in the living room for not knowing what I'm doing with my life.

I'm like, just here I am. I have a business. I have a house. I have a family and I'm drinking all the time.

And I don't know point in it. And so I started praying to Lord. I was like, Lord, give me something new.

Something that motivates me gets me going again because I'm an entrepreneur. I like trying new things.

Just like my business that I had before anywhere tree care we grew that thing did really well with it.

But I was kind of like, I was done with it.

You know, the audit did it. My injury. My back did it. Climbing trees all time. I was over it.

And so I started praying to Lord. I was like, give me something new. Something that gets me going.

And I had a buddy call me on like a Saturday and I went over to his house and he does commercial roofing.

And we started talking about thermal drones to do thermal thermal, thermal drones to do roof inspection some commercial building.

And I told him, yeah, I thought about getting a little thermal drone to do deer recovery. And he's like, I think that'd be a good idea.

And so I bought a $8,000 thermal drone at the time and made a small video about it.

Just took it out to our hunting land and filmed some deer laying around and took it to an outdoor show.

And at that show, my it was literally just a table with a black cloth over it.

And a old Mac book or not a Mac book, whatever the desktops are called.

It's an apple and I had this video playing on there. And my booth was to talk about booth at the show.

And a lot of people encouraged me there that they would think this is going to be a great idea to help people recover deer.

And so from then, I was like, OK, this is going to be a thing.

I knew that $8,000 drone isn't the quality that I was wanting to provide to people.

And so I saved up a bit more money and in September.

So that show was in January of 2022.

I bought it in 21 in December, 21 made that video went to that show in January of 2022.

And then in September, I bought a matri 30 tea. It's what we use now.

Well, now there's a later one out, but a matri 30 tea and it was about $22,000 when I bought it.

And that's the drone that really kicked it off and literally day one of season opening in 2022.

I got two calls and I was like, this is going to be nuts.

They haven't pretty quick then. I mean, really, it hasn't taken that long to get where you are.

And we can we can talk about that more later, but all right.

Cool. So let's let's talk about this.

How does drone cover work?

So someone calls you, right?

And you have people that you have a whole network, right?

Yeah. So we have, obviously, dronedeer recovery.com.

There's a drone, a drone deer recovery map where people have the proper equipment to be able to list on my website.

But they those operators or those pilots don't actually work for drone deer recovery.

They just have a platform to list their business on.

But yes, there's.

And she's I should have got those stats to share with you how many different states.

There's pilots and how many pilots we have on the map.

But it's it's the largest drone map currently that I'm aware of from people that provide de recovery services.

Yeah.

So how does that work?

So how does it go from start to finish if you're going to recover a deer with a drone?

How effective is it?

And I guess like what challenges do you face?

Those are three questions I guess together.

Try to keep me on track because when I go down and I try to ask or answer one question, I might get sidetracked and one.

How how does it start?

A guy calls me says, hey, I hit a buck tonight.

I can't find more blood.

You know, can you come help me, you know, find the steer?

I'm going to ask him a few different questions.

One is how far did you track him?

How long ago did you shoot him?

Do you have an arrow, you know, what type of blood do you have?

You know, those type of things. Did you jump the deer at all?

And then I collect that data.

It's more mental data.

I honestly guys asked me if I have this data like written down like broadheads and this and that.

I don't, but I should start collecting that because I think it could potentially help the hunting community.

With, you know, recovering deer, but I get that information because it helps me down the road.

No, if I have something similar, you know, was it according to, according away, was a broadside?

Did you give pass through all those questions?

And then we just, he drops me a pin.

He or she drops me a pin.

I say, okay, I should be out, be able to be out there at this time.

Most of the recoveries are done at night.

So, thermals are good at night.

If they call me in a daytime, say you, say you went hunting in the morning and you call me, hey, I lost blood.

And it's 930 and the sun is fully shining.

I'm going to tell you, well, it's best to not do it in a daytime when the sun is out.

So let's plan on coming out there this evening.

And then I'll see if I can, you know, find the deer because in the sunshine, obviously the sun is hitting the ground and everything's blown up with thermals.

And you can't see anything.

So, unless it's overcast raining, not too many recoveries get done in the daytime, most of them get done at night.

We get out there, we get on our phones on a mapping, try to, you know, pinpoint it.

He says, this is where I tracked him.

This is kind of the scenario.

And then I'll take the drone off.

I'll go to that area first and I will just start looking in the general area, you know, just kind of scanning left and right.

You know, if I don't find anything in that area, I will just start grid searching.

So I will back it up back to maybe where the shot was taken, the direction he thinks the deer went.

And we just literally start grid searching just like you would if you'd be on the ground.

So, you know, straight line down, go over slightly, I'm back and do that.

Yeah, it's a lot of checking thermals that are rocks, checking thermals that might be water, lots of looking and not finding exactly what you're looking for.

In the beginning, when I first started, it was hard because I didn't have experience.

I was looking at rabbits, I was looking at coons, I was looking at all these things that were just a thermal signature, but I needed to look, I needed to know what it is.

And so in the beginning took a lot of time, a lot of time was spent looking at things I wouldn't need it to look at, but I had to, I had to to learn it.

And so back when I first started, it took me much longer to do a recovery than it does now.

But after, you know, grid searching, a certain amount of area, and we can't find the deer, then I usually, you know, I usually ask the hunter if he wants me to check in other locations, or is he good with the search, the efforts that was put in and then we'll call it out.

But that was question one, that's kind of how it goes down.

Yeah, so the second part was like how effective is it in how I had some questions as you were talking about that is how high are you and how big of an area to you typically search.

Before you might call it off or like, like how expansive does that get?

Yeah, so most of the recoveries, most of the time the drone is flying between 300 and 400 feet above the ground above the ground is if I'm flying up a hillside, you know, I'm going to have to be higher from where I took off.

But most of the time the drone is between that three and 400 feet footmark while I'm doing a recovery.

And the reason I want to be that high is one, obviously I'm not scaring anything on the ground and two is it gives me a wider field of view.

So I'm covering a broader area per swath of, you know, flying over over the area that we're searching.

What was the other question if you take a look at those I was just going to say some of your videos that I've seen like the at night I've seen some date time to where you just use the camera right like you could still.

And now I mean you get it once you know the deer is there, then that's when I turn the you know the RGB camera on the red.

I've a camera, but I usually always find something with thermal first and then which to the RGB camera now there are scenarios because of now the experience that we've gained.

We can't find anything in the area that we're looking and we've checked the waterways we've checked the creeks the ponds you know those types of things we might switch over to the RGB camera just to check those areas with the RGB camera, but it's still pretty hard to find a deer laying in water if it's not like belly up or something like that.

Gotcha. Yeah, I was going to ask you so these their heat signatures right.

What timeframe is a deer still warm enough to pick up.

Yeah, so the ideal conditions when somebody asked me that question is ideally the temperature range outside is between say 35 even 30 30 to 60 degrees.

If that was that that's kind of the temperature range 48 hours pretty easily 48 hour heat signature.

Gotcha. How effective have you gotten with that where you know these guys and I'm guessing to just be honest like some guys can't track very well or whatever maybe some guys do right.

So it's you're probably getting a mix back there of how good they did up to that point right.

Yeah, but how effective is it compared to other stuff like dogs or you know just actually good and actually good tracker.

So obviously in the beginning right there's this there's this little battle that was certain to happen between dogs and drones and how good is it.

So I don't I don't compare it to dogs anymore.

I think that dogs there's still place for a dog if you want to try a dog but I do know that I'm selling tons and tons of drones to dog handlers and it's I think it's because they would prefer the drone first and if the drone doesn't find it then let's try to put the dog on it.

How effective is it highly effective on you know mortally wounded deer.

If if there is a more if the deer is mortally wounded you were looking at at that 98% success rate on a more mortally wounded deer.

But we are looking for deer that often I mean 75% to 80% of the deer that we find that we're shot are still alive and most of them will live really or all of them will really okay.

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Okay and here's your high IQ moment how good are you at determining the quality of your shot and hit on a deer many of us think we are but psychology and forensics has proven that human beings are notoriously bad recall details of intense situations where they're car crash and armed robbery or a high adrenaline moment of a shot on a buck details many times get fuzzy or completely distorted.

And deer being crepuscular and mainly moving in low light conditions as to this all too common effect of seeing things not really as they are so here's a few quick tips to help you on that file first like a recovery knowing what exactly happened at the shot first if you're a bow hunter use lighted knocks these help you see the point of impact much more accurately second consider getting a small camera for your weapon that will allow you to replay and analyze the hit.

Third get educated on deer anatomy the bones and organs under the hide at different positions so you can take better shots and also know what you actually hit doing these things will help you or a track or make the right decisions that lead to a high rate of recovery that's high IQ and something to think about all right and now back to the podcast.

Yeah because if you're finding that night they can't shoot them to finish them off anyways legally and so then it's like well here's where they are.

I guess it gives them a point in the morning to go and start right yeah start try to track or find the deer or maybe they can finish it off when light comes you know.

Yeah finishing off thing I get that question to the and I'm sure we'll get into because you brought up controversy like you know are you guys using these drones to hunt.

Say you even find a deer that has been shot let's just let's say he was shot in the shoulder and he has a big limp and he's just laying in this brush pile and you think you're going to go sneak up on that deer.

Good luck like these deer even though they look like they are about to die it is unreal how much will they have to live in so to think that you're just going to walk in and finish them off super difficult.

Gotcha how far is your typical track I'll call it or how far from the hit the usually find deer and what are kind of the far reaches like is it typically oh yeah they were within a hundred yards or what does that look like.

Yeah so most deer get found within one thousand yards of where they were shot once we push past that thousand yard mark our you know our searches past a thousand yard mark.

That I'm telling guys usually at that point unless you push the deer unless the coyotes got on him or something just random happen they're not going to go that far usually a deer gets hit if he doesn't get push he will go and he will lay down relatively soon and so I you know most of the deer are found in that 200 to 800 yard range that are.

Dead if we go over the thousand yard mark it's it's rare to find them dead I mean I found it right I found a deer over a mile and a half away but they were pushing yeah so that's when you have the hard to heart with them and let them down easy right.

Trying to find in it yeah yeah by that time once we go over that thousand yard mark we've looked at so many different deer so many different animals they they probably believe that if the deer is in the area we would have probably found it and yeah they started putting it together that okay if he's made it this far I I understand right that he's probably going to be back.

Yeah that's interesting to me that so what percentage did you say or did I don't know if you did say.

If the deer is mortally wounded meaning that it's actually dead we say about 98% success of finding it so rare and the reason I have the way the reason we say that is because I always tell people please do let me know if the deer either returns back on trail camera or you're out here later and you see buzzards or whatever the case might be your shed hunting and you find them.

Let me know because I want to know was he in the search area if he was in the search area then that's going to help me try to figure out well why didn't I find him you know was he underneath the log or or whatever it might be so rare so rare that people call me back and say we found the buck dead.

There was a recovery that I did that we did not find the buck and they were right there with me and they were watching my screen of a TV monitor 24 inch TV monitor they can watch it while I'm doing the recovery and I did this recovery or it wasn't a recovery I looked and looked and look and could not find it and they were like yep we get it we're just going to walk down there and see if we can find some more blood and try to get on the blood trail they couldn't find it.

Call it off they called me I think it was it was the end of the season they call me back and let me know that hey they did find the buck dead and he was in fact in the search area but they themselves said they do not believe that the buck was in that area when we looked so they.

Circle back yep they believe the deer moved off may have come back with infection and then actually died back there because they were like you you search we we remember looking and they said you search right here where we found him.

Yeah what percentage did you say of ones that aren't mortally hit though that I don't know if you actually said 75 75% of the deer that we find that were shot are still alive yeah I think at one point last year we were even higher than that and it's unfortunate yeah where.

What factor do you know the stuff with that like oh they all shot him the shoulder or something like that is there anything that pops out yeah most most of our shoulder shot or hit a bone and actually deflected weirdly do we were it wasn't my recovery I think it was right heart he was doing a recovery for us and the buck was quartering away and they you know recording my shot.

Shot and they seen the arrow penetrate and it went all the way to the flushing and mad found the deer chasing those with the arrow in them but what the only thing we can figure out with the quartering shot that was on it is when the arrow went in it must hit a rib and then deflect it and then just snuck up in between his hide yeah that's the only thing we can come up with so.

There's so many different scenarios that we've seen with the arrows still in the deer that it's like some of the stuff you just can't explain and try to figure out like why it did those things yeah like I mentioned this on my podcast before the last year in Ohio I hunt down Ohio I shot this deer it was harsh quarter away it was like under under me pretty close like 10 yards or so but I put it I thought it was a great shot right so I had.

Same high you know behind the shoulder I got behind the shoulder I thought it went through it on its right side and it lodged in his left shoulder and it's running away with this like looking like it was stuck in his left side I was like let's right through the ribs he's dead never found a drop of blood couple search all over nothing right a couple days later the neighbor sees him in his back yard he's like are you sure you shot that deer chasing the doe in my backyard I'm like yeah I shot it he's.

Like it doesn't actually get hit yeah I know wild but I must have snuck somehow over the spine like you know it was a shoulder hit basically but yeah it's crazy you can think you have this great shot you know and we're stuff happens another crazy thing that we see so often is and and you'll see you can watch it in the videos is like the deer has an arrow in it and it looks really sick like it looks like it's going to die.

And it actually just never dies it's like it's crazy what they can hey yeah what has other than this like crazy how resilient they are I guess as you know what you've done with the drones and deer taught you anything else about deer that's like really surprising sometimes when you find a deer just how they lay it's it's I didn't know that deer lay with their feet out for you.

It's kind of like a puppy I didn't know they do that that was odd when I seen that the first time dude I found a doe once completely flat like it was dead I was like oh somebody shot a doe it's dead watch if you're a little bit picked up it said it was that relaxed just sleeping so I just watching deer do natural deer things is it's pretty cool to see him what about tracking deer what have you learned about that?

Because a lot of guys struggle you know they they're all amped up in the situation right they might not totally know where they hit it maybe they do or they think they hit it here maybe not maybe they push too much or whatever what have you learned about tracking in general and how hunters react from this that maybe we could learn from like I don't know I'm sure there's a lot of stuff I mean I say it all the time in video

and in podcasts is adrenaline right there's a lot of adrenaline happening when you are taking a shot at a at a buck that you're trying to harvest and so seeing things that actually weren't quite what you think that you saw

like and I hate to say it like that it's like well I know I hit him right here well you tell me right here is the camera you can physically see

where the wound is on the deer because the cameras are that good what explain this I mean I get what you're saying but clearly something something happen between the time that you think this is what you saw and now what you're actually seeing on the deer.

Yeah so you're saying you you find the deer with the drone and it's laying down there and it's still alive and you turn the RGB maybe on and you're looking at it and you can see oh yeah that's where you hit it.

Yeah like no I hit it back there no no yeah yeah for example guys says quartering away shot I seen the arrow it tucked in just behind the last rib it you know I just seen it go in it went all the way into the front

fletching we find the deer the deer is laying still alive going to die the the arrow is in the back flank literally almost all the way in the back flank

is buried in a little ways maybe it pushed out in the meantime but not you know not all the way to the fletching but work you're talking it was off by at least 16 inches from where he thought that he shot the deer.

I wonder how much of that is hunters not wanting to admit they made a bad shot.

No I don't think it's that I actually I actually do not believe that it's that like I think it's you just see things.

Yeah see things different yeah interesting I think it has something to do with the adrenaline.

Yeah and having so quick I mean yeah I've been so quick maybe it's a low light conditions you know and you know it's a split second thing that happened and yeah it's tough.

Yeah what would you say hunters are doing wrong like when they go to recover because obviously I mean if you get a lot of business there's a lot of people making poor shots or poor recoveries or well I mean I think this has been happening this has been happening for years and years this is now just being shown.

So yeah to say that people are making just now starting to make bad shots.

No not that I'm not saying that no but what I guess what are we seeing I guess what do you see the people are doing wrong you know I'm not trying to bash people because we've all made bad shots you know.

I don't want to I mean what are they doing wrong do they push deer you know do you see that a lot where like oh you should back that way earlier or.

Yeah I mean you could say that there's definitely deer being pushed not majority of the deer now in our area with you know drone deer being around for almost four seasons believe it or not and people might not like to hear this but people aren't even hitting the trail because if they are even this this close to thinking that it's not a great shot they don't even want to step foot in there.

Because yeah they'll just call me yep they'll just call me and one one because they don't want to bump the deer if the deer is not dead give it more time to is if they do find the deer dead rather than going in the direction that they were going to go get the deer and maybe we're doing the search and we see another big buck it gives in a it gives in a way to go recover the deer without blowing out the other.

So there's an outsider here close to us that if the his client shoots a deer and they don't see it go down or have really really good blood he does not push the deer be or you know go after it because he knows he has other deer in the area and rather than going all through it and messing it up they'll

drone come in a grout where the carcass is and then they'll come up with a game plan to go in and recover the carcass more of an extraction then yeah

floundering around the woods that makes sense I mean if I was an outfit or I'd probably probably do the same thing yeah yeah yeah so even myself like I you know I used to love getting on the blood trail and just trail in it and then you find your deer but I have

as much fun finding the the deer dead with my thermal drone knowing it's dead and then getting on the blood trail and then tracking the deer because I get to find it twice yeah like guys give me crap about it

they're like oh you you're taking the fun out of because you're not tracking your deer no there there's two different ways here it's just like that

use trail cameras to you know try to keep eyes on deer and hunt deer and pattern deer like that or guys that do it from you know just sitting

and scouting with binoculars it's the same thing so when I shoot a deer yes it's probably a good shot I get my drone I go find the

deer I get excited oh yes he's down and then I go back on the blood trail and then it trail the blood without that

thing inside me like am I gonna bump him is he gonna be here is he there is what you know without that I

get to still do a blood trail it's actually a much less intrusive thing no you're helping out people's

anxiety yeah well there's time to talk to you I'm under recovery I mean if it's a big deer you know

I might be there not rarely do I have to look over 20 minutes but if I'm there over an hour people are

starting to get really concerned but if we do find a deer and we've been looking for over an hour and

then we find them then the excitement is through yeah well I was gonna ask yeah how long is the

average time so you said like 20 minutes yeah so I when somebody asked me how long does it take to

recover a deer there's two scenarios early season super difficult it's almost at a point where I

try to encourage people to not use a drone because if you have a really bad experience with a drone

in early season because it's too thick then you think they're not gonna work and that's just not

true but in the early season a recovery that would take me when the leaves are off take me you know

say 10 minutes that same deer might take me 40 minutes to find because there's literally

no way to see down through the trees unless you get all the angles just right and you see a little

blip of a thermal down through you know all these leaves and then you try to get your RGB camera

just focused right to punch down through the trees it is incredibly hard to find deer early season

also early season is it an issue that it's just warmer out does that no I was gonna ask what is

the difference the trees do hold heat in the in the summer months but you can easily see the

difference gotcha what how much of difference do you need to be able to tell something's there

like like one degree five degrees yeah yeah I don't know the exact degree but I the camera the

thermal camera on it is so good that if the sun is gone down if the sun has gone down the ground

cools off so much faster than like the wood the rocks and the the creeks and that type of stuff

so now that I know what image I'm looking at it's it's not something that's going to distract me

totally was distracted in beginning when I started this without the experience that I had

but now it's like sun goes down I'm ready to rip so somebody shoots a deer what would you say like

when should they do certain things like when should they stop tracking when should they

consider a dog when should they consider a drone when shouldn't they I guess

could you mention like early season if it's super tough with a drone what do you suggest then

or there's so many there's so many dog trackers now that have drones that you could call a

dog tracker that has a dog and a drone but the the dog guide will probably still launch his drone

and see if he can find it and if he can't find it then he will put his dog on it so I

would say early season you know the leaves are still on a dog probably has a better chance of

finding a carcass if it's dead if it's not dead then I mean we're in the same boat at that point

right yeah I would say I've not done a test I I would like to put a dog on a trail of a deer

that you and his drone yeah yeah I would like actually like guys like I got shot him I know I got

shot him it's a bad shot on my part I screwed up you want to get a dog out put a dog on it

competition I'm going to give him I think that's your next youtube video man yeah I really think it is

all right well let's end my in Michigan that's an incredible dog tracker we actually did a recovery

he he had his dog on him down here in Kershaktan and he he told the client he's like let's just stop

let's get Mike out drone deer and let's see if we can find this Bach because his his dog couldn't

get on him but he also told the client like with how my dog is tracking because he's so good at it

that he was like I I don't think the deer is dead but again you never know so let's try to get

the drone out here and then we did go out and ended up finding a deer a long long away away

you know still walking so that dog tracker up there I got to give it to him he he has found a ton

of deer yeah that'd be interesting interesting to see a little competition there so as we wrap up

Mike you've told quite a few stories that thing is really interesting and people can see those on

your YouTube channel I know but is there one that's like really unusual or memorable like a story

you could share of a of a recovery well it's got to be the one I did just last year I thought the

video would do better than it did but I think you know guys look at the channel and they've watched

you know a hundred deer recoveries and it's just it's the same thing it's going to be Mike going

out finding a deer and they just kind of forget about the channel even though we have you know

over a hundred thousand people on the channel but anyhow the story goes guy put a shot on a buck

Jason my business partner went out found the deer still alive but not doing well it was early season

lots of leaves on the trees and we so he found him dropped a pin on him Jay had to go do something

the next morning so I went back to double check that the uh that the the buck was still there

prior to the the guy going in and trying to harvest the deer I get there I go right to the pin actually

I got a backup Jay found the deer was coming down with his drone to get a little bit better

look because early season is just so hard in it's so thick you're trying to shine your spotlight

down through it and you're trying to get a good look well Jay comes down and hiss the tree and

his drone goes down literally no joke watch the video it's stuck in the tree well I go back there

and I look I'm looking for the deer and it's morning and so I have a certain length of time before

that sun comes up comes over the hill because it's not overcast and when it hits that hill I'm done

like as far as thermal so I'm not going to be able to find anything then and so I'm looking I'm

just looking for this deer I am it you you can see it I'm just kind of like circling circling

circling circling in this area to try to get down through the trees because that's the hardest

thing is trying to find a hole to punch down through and I cannot find this deer and Jay is convinced

that that deer is dead and I was like the deer's not here sun comes up hunter is you know feeling

pretty down about it and uh I was like okay well we might need to come back later and look for him

but I'm gonna look for that drone now because we can't we don't know where this drone is I start

looking for the drone I find the drone in the tree and so now I'm like dude now we got a little

bit of a story here found a buck buck ran away crash drone let's see if we can recover the drone at

least we got you know a twenty thousand dollar drone back we go to that place in the afternoon I

climbed the tree I get the drone out and then I tell Jay it's game on we're gonna go try to find

this buck and by that time he had brought in a dog to track this deer because he was also convinced

that that deer is dead because he he was so convinced where he hit him dog was there literally there

and we got the drone out and me and Jay started flying looking for this deer moved a couple different

times finally finally down through the trees 800 yards away from where the deer was originally shot

I find the sucker I go absolutely nuts I I yelled so loud that my voice went completely horse

I could not even talk I was that fired up that that will go down as the best recovery I've ever done

it's two recoveries two recoveries yeah awesome man well thanks for sharing all that um hopefully I

know audience members will get a lot out of that one so next time we're going to talk about

drones and some legal stuff that you know because these are not legal in all states we'll get into

that in a legal battle Mike's been in talk about fair chase and all that stuff so join us next time

but Mike thanks for joining thanks for having me okay and here are your high IQ takeaways in

challenges if you're a four or against drone use in hunting think about why the reality is that all

new technology from the light bulb to the internet has been met with pushback and has both pros

and cons but technology keeps coming the question to think about is how much is good in hunting

and how do we determine this put that in the comments below as we continue this discussion

on this topic in our next episode you won't want to miss that and I'll see you then

you