Speaker 1: 0:00

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Speaker 1: 0:42

Hey, Lance, how you doing today? I'm doing good, man. How are you Fantastic? Well, listen, man, we got a lot to chat about. Obviously, we had a podcast scheduled for the other day, and you had quite a neat experience that we needed to go ahead and postpone this for a couple days, and I definitely want to dive into that one there too, but I'll leave that as a little teaser. What I want to know is a little bit of background for you. You can kind of tell our listeners you know where you grew up and then how you got involved with being one of the premier photographers for wildlife in this entire country. Man, I'd love to just kind of have you, you know, chat about that and we'll kind of thread the needle from there.

Speaker 2: 1:20

All right. Well, I was actually born in the Central Texas area in San Antonio, Was the largest baby ever born in the San Antonio Methodist Hospital at 11 pounds 10 ounces. But I don't know that. You really wanted to know all that.

Speaker 1: 1:33

That's a fun fact, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:40

It's interesting, I think I was the largest baby born there into the 80s sometimes. So anyway. But I grew up in the Central Texas area Seguin Gonzalez area and then my dad moved to South Texas for a job and he ended up when I was 16, managing a ranch down here in South Texas, the La Coma Red Gate Ranch, owned by the Benson family, and so I had always wanted to take pictures of wildlife like I'd seen in the hunting magazines, because growing up, you know, my dad was a gunsmith in the Skiing Gonzalez area, had a gun shop Earl's Gun Shop for many years, for like 25 years, and so I had always gotten the hunting magazines. We fished and hunted every weekend and so growing up, seeing the photos in the hunting magazines, I always thought, man, I would love to shoot photos like what I see in the hunting magazine, of deer and turkeys and all that kind of stuff. And so we would, you know, we were subscribed to all those magazines and I would actually, you know, after we're done reading them, everybody would read them cover to cover. You know, my brother and my dad and I no-transcript, and I always just thought, you know, I would love to shoot photos like those. I never thought I would be shooting photos for those same magazines one day, and so I would just kind of like drift off to sleep and dream about that stuff.

Speaker 2: 3:39

And so my dad bought a camera, a Canon AE-1 camera with a normal lens and a small telephoto like an 80 to 200 type of zoom kind of thing which is standard in the day. But I was 12 years old, 13 years old. He was afraid I was going to break it and that was like a big purchase for them. That was something my parents didn't have a ton of money, and so that was like really something that was, you know, nice and a luxury for them to have. And they were afraid that something that was made of glass and, you know, plastic and stuff like that, that I would, you know, drop it or break it or whatever. So they never let me, you know, really touch it or use it or anything like that. So it kind of made me mad, and so I said you know what, one day I'm going to get my own camera and I'm going to shoot my own photos.

Speaker 2: 4:27

So it wasn't until I was 16, uh, back in 1985, that I uh got a job working at Luby's cafeteria cleaning tables for a summer. And so I saved up $300 and I went to a veterinarian that I knew uh, that was knew that was Dr Steve Benson. That was, you know, related to all the Benson family and he was a wildlife photographer and so we were taking some of that. My dad was managing the La Cumbra Red Gate Ranch and you know it was a, you know, exotic game ranch and they had, you know, all these exotic animals as well as white tails, but it's also a big quail hunting ranch also know all these exotic animals as well as white tails, but it's also a big quail hunting ranch also. And so we would have to take the quail dogs, the English pointers, into the vet with my dad to get them to get their checkups and shots and stuff like that. So he had all these photos, steve Benson had all these photos on his wall of his vet business, and so while we were in there having him check out the dogs, I told him that I was interested in buying a camera to shoot photos at the ranch. And what did he recommend? So he actually, you know, slotted off like a half hour, like on the next Tuesday, and said come in at this time and you know we'll talk and you know I'll let you know what to get.

Speaker 2: 5:38

So I went in and I said I've got $300 thinking that was a lot of money back in 1985, or I thought it was and he said, okay, well, let's see what we can get for $300. So I ended up getting a Canon AE-1 program camera and a Canon 100 to 300, uh 5.6, uh aperture zoom, and I didn't get the normal lens. Like most everybody at the time. The normal lens was a 50 millimeter. You know no-transcript since I was a little kid. So I got this 100 to 300 zoom and basically ordered it in. The lens was 150 dollars, the camera was 150 dollars and compared to cameras nowadays that are many times more expensive than that with digital and mirrorless and all that stuff, that was actually really, really cheap. So but it was perfect for a 16 year old kid that you know was just saving money from cleaning tables.

Speaker 2: 6:39

So I bought that camera, got it in and my next question to Steve was okay, what kind of film do I put in? I mean, it was, you know, film back in those days print film, slide film, what and what do I set all these dials on? I had no clue how to even turn the camera on or run it. So he said, okay, we'll come in next Thursday at 3 PM and I'll show you what to do. So he told me to buy a roll of Kodachrome 64 film uh, which is slide film, and uh, which I bought. And he said this is what you do, this is your shutter speed, this is aperture, this is ISO, this is you know kind of what you do to try to get a good exposure. And he told me about the sunny 16 roll.

Speaker 2: 7:26

And so I wrote all that stuff down, took notes on it and went out to the ranch like the following day and shot that first roll of 36 exposure film and got the photos back and I ran into a photographer at Britain's photo which was a local camera store down here in South Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley down in McAllen, texas, where I'm from, and that photographer looked at him. I told her it was my first roll of film. She was like the studio photographer there. She looked at him and she said, man, you've really got a natural eye for composition. I was like, okay, I didn't know, I was just shooting photos of stuff at the ranch and my bird, dog and stuff like that. And so she gave me like a couple of sheets to put the slides in and looked at them.

Speaker 2: 8:14

And so then I bought another roll of film and it was one of those deals where it was already after the summer, after I was done working at Luby's, starting to be fall, and so I wasn't working during the summer anymore because I had to go back to school. And so I I'd had, since I was 10 years old, a lawn mowing business, and that's what I would typically do is do the lawn mowing business, you know, like throughout the week. You know, have my mom drop me off, kind of thing, and you know, mow a yard with my brother and and uh, would split the money from there, and so we didn't make a whole lot of money at the time. You know, mowing a yard was like 20 bucks, you know, and you know 10 of it was for my brother and 10 of it was for me. So it took a while to be able to afford, you know, film and developing. So I bought another roll of film and then I had to basically shoot a roll of film one week and then make enough money to pay for the developing the next week. So it was like every other week I'd get a roll of film and develop it. So, anyway, I started shooting photos and basically shot photos until I was 19 years old.

Speaker 2: 9:16

I was in college and was just shooting photos, just trying to build a file of wildlife photos. And specifically the thing that interested me the most about that first roll of film, what I photographed is, you know, a white-tailed doe that I photographed and the ranch had all kinds of exotics. You know, the first photo I actually shot was of a record book 25-inch black buck antelope and that they had told me about on the ranch, and I actually saw him and he was the first thing that I photographed. And I photographed bonnie bucks with new babies, zebras, ostrich. They even had rhinoceros on the ranch. You know, it was like really, really you know cool stuff that they had.

Speaker 2: 9:57

But it was that whitetail doe and that fawn that excited me the most. And so, you know, after that I just kind of loved whitetails and so just kind of concentrated on those and, you know, even though everybody was telling me you know that's the hardest thing to photograph, they're the, you know, they're the smartest and the most elusive and all that kind of stuff, I just wanted to photograph whitetails, I didn't care. So, anyway, I started shooting photos, accumulating a file primarily whitetail deer. I didn't care. So, anyway, I um started shooting photos, accumulating a file, uh, primarily whitetail deer.

Speaker 2: 10:28

I'd photograph exotics when I saw them. I'd photograph, you know, birds, songbirds. I'd photograph turkeys. I'd, you know, do fishing photos, cause my dad was an avid bass fisherman and I grew up bass fishing and thinking I wanted to be a professional bass fisherman. One day you know which you know I decided to be a professional bass fisherman. One day you know which you know I decided to be a wildlife photographer instead of doing that and so just kept uh shooting photos. And when I was 19, I started sending a few photos into some local state magazines and got my first photos published in a magazine called texas hunters directory. You've heard of it.

Speaker 2: 11:03

Okay, so, I, I, you know it was a small magazine at the time. Uh, they basically told me we don't pay for photos but it we have helped a lot of photographers start out. And so what we will do is we will give you six copies of the magazine, If you get anything published, and you can take those and do what they call tear sheets, which is terror, you know your published photos out of the magazine and then you send those to like the next magazine and it's like a credibility kind of thing, so, anyway, so I sent them a bunch of slides that I'd been, you know, accumulating over the years and gotten everything kind of edited down to some of my best stuff, and they ended up using one of my photos as a color shot inside and I think five black and white photos inside. And so I thought that was great. Um, because my one of my idols at the time that I looked up to was Jerry Smith, who's from Alice, Texas, and you know he was like one of the big field and stream photographers at the time. And why in the world he was selling to them is probably cause he was getting paid for it, and they just told me that, you know, cause I was a new guy that, you know, never sold anything. You know that they didn't pay. So anyway, he only had, I think, one or two shots and I had six. So I was like really proud of myself that I had more than Jerry Smith, you know. So, anyway, so they sent me the magazines and then I started sending, you know, the tear sheets into other magazines and you know, started, you know, trying to sell stuff. Couldn't really sell stuff.

Speaker 2: 12:31

So when I was in college at the University of Texas Pan American, which is University of Texas, Rio Grande Valley, now down in Edinburgh, Texas, I was working on getting a business marketing degree, I got to know the editor of the college magazine, which is called Rio Magazine, which Rio is, you know, river, in Spanish. So I had just written a research paper about ranching in South Texas and I had written about like three or four of the ranches that I was photographing at the time. And he said, hey, could you take this and whittle it down to one ranch and talk about ranching on that, that ranch, how they do it? And, um, he said, then you could write an article about it. And, you know, turn your research paper into an article and you know we'll see about your photos and maybe publish those with it. So I submitted that to him and they published the article and I think I had like nine photos inside or something like that. And I was really surprised because he said after the fact, after he gave me a copy of the magazine, he said here's a check for $90 for a photo text package. And so he, I got paid 90 bucks.

Speaker 2: 13:45

So that was 19 years old when I was in college, and then I started submitting more and more stuff and then, you know, the next place I got published uh, statewide was Texas trophy hunters magazine. Back in 91, I had the cover of a Texas trophy hunters and then they ran an article that I wrote for them with all the photos inside, about a big buck that I had for them, with all the photos inside about a big buck that I had photographed from three years old to seven and a half years old, and I wrote the article showing, you know, in the photos, how he had gotten bigger and smaller, you know, different years depending on his age, depending on drought conditions in Texas and stuff like that. So that was my next step of getting published was with the state magazines, but I actually got paid for it and I learned you need to negotiate prices up front and find out what their photo pay rates are before you submit to them. So then, the next place I got published, I sent them to a little bit bigger magazine and that was Bowhunter magazine, and I had the cover on Bowhunter a few months later, months later. So anyway, it just kind of started from there and by the age of 21 I was a part-time professional, put myself through college working at that camera store, britain's photo supply, which I took my first roll of film into.

Speaker 2: 14:58

I worked there from 19 till I was 21 and then quit there and was going full-time photography, Not just wildlife, I shot weddings and portraits and all kinds of stuff and just trying to make my cameras pay for themselves. Plus, put myself through college, because my parents didn't have the money to send me to college but I, so I had to work a semester and then pay for the next semester, and so it took me seven years to get a marketing degree. That usually takes most people four years. So I was on the seven year. Basically the day after I graduated in December, I had set up a flight to fly to Montana on assignment for a magazine to photograph mule deer uh, for an article that the editor had gone on a hunt out there but he needed live live mule deer photos on the property. So he got everything set up, everything paid for to the ranch and so, you know, I've been traveling ever since and so I've, you know, traveled for the last, you know, 35 years or however long it's been 30 years all over the United States, Canada, Alaska, all over the place.

Speaker 2: 16:21

You know, photographing wildlife in general and I've gotten to the place where you know, basically at 24 years old, when I graduated from college, I considered myself full-time photographer because I wasn't going to college or anything like that, it was just 100% photography and I've been doing it, you know, full-time for you know 30 plus years, you know part-time, 35 total, and actually this summer will be 40 years since I picked up a camera back in 1985, the summer of 85. So the summer of 2025 will be 40 years. So I've been shooting photos a long time. I'm one of the old guys in the business now. I used to be the youngest guy in the business doing this professionally back in the 90s and you know been doing it ever since, and now I'm one of the, you know, the OGs, as they call it.

Speaker 1: 17:12

Well, you know something that you do too, kind of like you were looking up at those particular photographers.

Speaker 1: 17:18

You're like I want to be able to do that, and you know, and you eclipsed them on that time when you had the six published. But something that you kind of aspired to is to grow that. And then now you're also giving back. You're offering master courses through your website. There people can sign up to, where you can kind of teach people how to get in and get close, the right ways to take photos and have these, you know, cover quality images that you can come out to, cause a lot of these are really close encounters. You know, you're not necessarily using these crazy, crazy long lenses I'm sure you do it sometimes but you're trying to teach people on the methods to be able to get in there, get close and have these really high quality images. And I'd love for you to talk a little bit about your masterclass and kind of you know how you're able to mentor some other people to kind of get into this space and kind of keep this type of lifestyle going.

Speaker 2: 18:10

So if you wouldn't mind, maybe, chatting a little bit about that and what those opportunities look like. Yeah, the one of the big misconceptions or actually two misconceptions that people have, is that I'm using huge telephoto lenses, you know, like thousand millimeter lenses, photograph and deer at 500 yards away. Meter lenses photograph and deer at 500 yards away, and most of my photos are 50 yards or less, with most of my cover shots being 20 to 30 yards. And so through my classes and through the years I've developed techniques that allow me to be very close to wildlife. But I don't have to use big, huge lenses Like that first lens that I had, that 100 to 300, 300 millimeter. You take that and divide it by what was at the time the normal lens, which is a 50 millimeter lens, which is kind of like what RICs, kind of our perspective, and so you take 300 divided by 50, that comes out to a 6X magnification. When you think about a 6X pair of binoculars or a 6X rifle scope, that's not really that much magnification. It does bring it in six times closer but it's nothing. You would try to photograph a deer at even a hundred yards away, you know, with a 300, you would really want to have that deer, you know, like you know, really want to have that deer, you know, like you know, 20 yards away, to get, you know, some decent photos of him. And so I don't use big, huge telephoto lenses.

Speaker 2: 19:31

My lenses that I use for since the early nineties was a two lens setup, which it was a Canon 300 millimeter 2.8 lens, point eight lens and a 500 millimeter four point five or an F4 lens, and so basically the 300 was a six X magnification and the 500 was a 10 X. When you take 500 divided by 50, it comes out to a 10 X magnification. That was better for longer distance type stuff. So I didn't have to be quite as close. But you think about it, a 10x pair of binoculars is kind of a standard pair of binoculars. They are not really, and even like rifle scopes, you know, three to nine. You know, when I was growing up was kind of the standard scope magnification. Uh, now they're going up to the super high, like my son is 18 and he's just like really into long range shooting with his bow and gun and all this kind of guns and and so he's saying, dad, you know, you need to, you know, change out those old scopes for, like you know, 16 to 24. And he's talking about all these huge magnifications. Well, those lenses aren't even in the spectrum of the new, you know, scopes that they use nowadays.

Speaker 2: 20:38

And so I had to figure out, you know, cause most here, growing up in Texas and being you know, taught uh, deer hunting here in Texas. You know, because most here, growing up in texas and being you know, taught uh deer hunting here in texas. You know the typical setup is you have a feeder set up and you have a blind that's 100 yards away, and usually it's an elevated blind that's above them, uh, which I don't understand most of the time because it's on flat ground a lot of times, you know. So what's the reason for having an elevated blind? You know, other than you know it makes you feel like you're hunting more or something. But anyway, um, that's the typical setup. Well, 100 yards with a 300 millimeter lens. When I started out with it was a little brown dot in the photo, and so I figured out okay, I've got to get closer. And so I started. I I started making my own blinds, because this was back in the 80s and early 90s, when there was no pop-up blinds.

Speaker 2: 21:28

I had to build my own blinds out of plywood or brush blinds or just camoing out and stuff like that. But I also made a. I had a local upholstery store make a cover for a Kodak I can't remember the brand Kodak projector stand and basically it's four legs and then it had like a table on top of it and that's where you put your projector and it had like legs that, you know, went in and out. And so I had this local upholstery shop make a cover with like a sock going out where I could put my lens out of it, and I made my own pop-up blind where I could put my lens out of it, and I made my own pop-up blind. So I started placing those blinds, those wood blinds that I would make, or brush blinds or that little pop-up blind, you know, like 30 yards away instead of 100 yards away to fill up the frame a little closer. And so I was doing that, you know, over 35 years ago. And so I've developed over the years, having traveled all over the United States photographing whitetails in just about every region of the United States and Canada and every habitat you can imagine, trying to take what I learned here in Texas and apply that to what I learned, you know, around the United States, you know, having to tweak things and change things based on the situation and every property's different. And so, basically, I've learned and kind of perfected the techniques of how to get very, very close to whitetail deer and especially heavily hunted whitetail deer. And so and those are the ones that taught me the most was, you know, deer that are heavily, heavily hunted, and so you know they're like heavily managed, you know, because to have a property that's heavily, you know, that's that grows big deer, you've got to shoot a lot of deer, you know call box does especially, and so those are your worst ones to try to fool, because those are, you know, they're trying to raise fawns, they're thinking that something's wanting to eat them ever since the day they were born and they're also the ones that are that are harvested the most. And so these deer, you know, get very, very spooky on a heavily managed place, even though they let the bucks grow to maturity and all that stuff. And, you know, let the deer, you know, show their full antler potential and full body potential, getting, you know, to full size at five, six, seven years old. But those bucks get very, very smart over those years, especially when they see so many of their buddies get shot right next to them, you know. So they wise up, you know, with all that negative human interaction.

Speaker 2: 24:05

So I deal with a lot of places like that because the magazines want photos of big, big white tails. They like big rack deer and so, you know, not unusually big, but they just want something that somebody can kind of dream about. It's kind of like Playboy magazine. You don't want to see, you know, like, you know, the standard girl. You want to see somebody that's like a little cut above the rest, and so they want to show photos of deer on the covers of magazines that are a little bit cut above the rest, you know, a little bit bigger, but not something that's, you know, ungodly big, like a lot of the breeder bucks nowadays and stuff like that. Um, so anyway, so I've developed these techniques and I started three years ago doing these master classes and you know I've been doing them before like on a one-on-one basis and I still do that to this day.

Speaker 2: 25:00

Ranch here in south texas that has, you know, a native whitetail herd that you know is on fourth 4200 acres that just, you know, grows some really, really big deer. They're very, you know, uh, the owner of the property is very management minded and he understands whitetails about as well as anybody I've met in the business. So, anyway, so I teach people that you don't have to have these monstrous lenses. I teach them how to get close to the wildlife or get the wildlife close to them so that they can fill the frames, their photos, and fill the frames of you know photos like you see up here, that you know it's not a little tiny brown dot, it's an impactful image of a whitetail deer and you can see every detail, down to the eyelashes and everything else. But it's because you got that deer close to you.

Speaker 2: 25:42

You're using lenses that are a lot less expensive. Uh, you're using lenses that you know don't have a lot of magnification so that they are very, very sharp, because they're not these big monstrous lenses that have all these you know design flaws in them and stuff like that, and and, plus, it saves you a lot of money. So, anyway, so the class really pays for itself and the equipment that you don't have to buy. Uh, that's so super, astronomically expensive. I mean you can buy those super, you know expensive lenses. But what? What people don't realize they see my lenses. You know I got the big white lenses like you see on the sidelines at football games, nfl games and college games, but they're not that much magnification. They're actually big around because they're gathering light. It's not so much the magnification.

Speaker 2: 26:29

Like right now, I changed from that earlier system that I told you the 302.8 and the 500 F4 system, two lens system to where I'm using now because I'm starting to shoot more video for social media Cause that's, you know, kind of the way things are going, and so I've moved down 100 millimeters for each of those two main lenses that I use as a two lens setup. So instead of a 302 point, excuse me a 302.8, I'm now using a 200 millimeter F2. So it's got more light gathering capability, capability, but it's a little bit wider. Uh, instead of the 500 f4, I'm shooting a 400 millimeter 2.8 lens. So a 400 is an 8x magnification. I went from 10x down to 8x. I went from a 300, which was 6x, down to a 200 millimeter, which is 4x magnification.

Speaker 2: 27:20

You know people use 4x scopes for, like hunting, cape, buffalo, like in close range type stuff. I mean that it's like a close range, you know, 50 yards or less kind of situation. With the same magnification and rifle scopes, nobody would use a 4x pair of binoculars. That that's hardly any magnification whatsoever. So anyway, so I teach them how to get close, how to get the wildlife close to them, how to basically be undetected, how to overcome the eyes, ears and nose of the whitetail deer. I teach them how to defeat what I call the danger detection system. You know, whitetail deer has their head up and that danger detection system is constantly scanning with their ears, their eyes and their nose All that is detected with that head. That's on a periscope. So I teach them how to overcome those three things which, as you know, with a white-tailed deer they've got some of the best eyes, the ears and nose in the animal kingdom. And so, anyway, so that's what I teach them.

Speaker 2: 28:20

I teach them about how to set things up to be able to get cover quality type photos. So it's a three-day class over four days. It's a half day where they show up midday and they're in the field that first afternoon, and then they have two full days after that and then they have a last half a day of morning before they leave, you know, after breakfast, the, the on the fourth day. So it's three full days. I limit the class to six people so that each person can have one morning or afternoon sit in the blind with me and I'm just there with them, one-on-one, answering any questions. You know, as we're whispering, you know we're not doing that while the bucks are there or whatever, but basically I, you know, tell them okay, you know you need to change this, you need to do that, and I work with them on their setup and how they're, you know, set up to shoot photos and I'm just there to advise them and or just shoot the bull if they want, and so, anyway, so that's, that's one of the cool things that we do.

Speaker 2: 29:21

And then we teach the class, basically middle of the day and, um, you know, do that between sits, and we even do it after in the evening, because I have so much information to share with them and everybody that has taken it have just been rabid supporters of the classes and just, I mean one guy wrote an article about it Is it worth taking Lance Kruger's, you know, uh, white tail dream bucks up close masterclass, and it's just, it's been a real huge success. So, anyway, so I'm uh going to be offering those again this fall, uh, probably in November sometime, and uh, you know, if anybody's interested, you know they can contact me. I don't have, like, the date set up yet, so there's no masterclass. You know button, I've already taken that off because we've already done the ones for 2024. But if anybody wants to do something like in Velvet, wants to come down to some of my ranches or something, or you know, do you know something specific, you know I can book them on a daily basis. You know day rate type basis and you know teach them one-on-one so they don't have to, you know, have five other people that are trying to ask questions and stuff like that. So anyway, so I offer that on an individual basis but also as a group setting as well.

Speaker 2: 30:32

You know where all the food and lodging and all that kind of stuff is provided. So it's a great time and you know deer camp feel and you know everybody sitting around in the evening around the dinner table looking at photos, what everybody got during the day, and it's just, you know it's just an electric charged situation because everybody's supporting each other and high-fiving over. You know success with animals that you know we didn't think we would see. And you know there's other times that you know we don't see the deer that we're after at a specific spot the whole time. We're there the whole week, you know, but other times, you know, people get photos of the same deer, so it's a lot of fun and you know, great learning experience and you know Las Reyes, this is just an incredible place and you know good food and good fellowship and it's just a fun time.

Speaker 1: 31:21

Man, I mean, that sounds like checking all the boxes and I love that you know people who want to kind of get into. This is a really great fast track way to get in there and learn how to do this with one of the best I mean you have been I think probably one of the most I know you're the most you know covered photo photographer as far as on field and stream. I know that you've been in so many different books and magazines. I mean one of the most published, uh, white tail, deer and wild Turkey photographers in the world. Uh, and I know that there's so many things that you've put out there. Uh, I love that you also have a calendar each year that you put out.

Speaker 1: 31:54

Um and I and again, well, I'll have all the show notes, uh, below air in the show notes, all the links, but, uh, you know, to your website there, uh, to go ahead and pick that up and it looks amazing. You know, I want to kind of bring it back around to. Well, you know what I teased in the very beginning and you were talking about sometimes you're out there for multiple days in a row. You got a target buck in your If you want to talk about the book that you recently had an encounter with, which was the reason why we had to kind of pause this for a couple days, because it's just phenomenal. I know that that's something that people will be able to see in the future.

Speaker 2: 32:29

We're not going to show it today, but if you wouldn't go ahead and talk about what made that book in particular so special, Well, I had seen some video back in mid-December of a white buck that I had only seen one of this type of buck before and what it is is he's a palmated buck and basically looks like he's part fallow deer or part moose. You know he's just got these big paddles, you know big palms on his antlers instead of main beams that are kind of rounded and that kind of thing. So I contacted, I remembered the deer from December but I was photographing on so many properties all over the state. Basically the whole month of December and January I was, I was gone photographing in a blind. The only time I was basically back home, uh, was for Christmas and new years and stuff like that, and so and and plus my son was bow hunting at several of these properties, you know, throughout the year trying to get his first buck with a bow, and so that was like that actually has been like a three year, you know timeframe of him trying to get one and you know shooting at a couple and they, you know his bow was too loud and they ducked you know ducked the string or whatever you call it, and anyway, jumped the string, that's the word and so you know, went right over their back and all that kind of stuff. So, anyway, so he was with me but I had found out about this buck back in December, mid-december, and I wanted to contact the landowner because I had met him previously but I'd never photographed there. And so I remember that buck and I was just thinking, man, I would love to have that deer in my book and I'm working on a book project that I'm going to be photographing for for the next couple of years that I hope to produced and published here in the next few years. But basically I thought I would love to have that deer in my book because he's such a rarity.

Speaker 2: 34:25

The last time I had seen a palmated deer was back in like 1995. When I was like 25, 26 years old, I was guiding hunters in Michigan and one of the one of the hunters on the ranch, my hunter, shot a palmated deer on the ranch and but I never got to photograph it because I didn't even know the deer even existed. He, he showed up and I was like you know, shoot that buck. I mean, he's a, he's a really unusual buck and he shot it and the only photos I got of him was when the deer was dead. Never got any photos of him alive because I didn't even know he even existed. And so here it is, you know, 30 years later, and I had never seen a palmated deer. Even though I've been to some of the top properties in North America, seen thousands and thousands of mature whitetails, I had not seen another palmated deer.

Speaker 2: 35:19

Well, when I found saw the video of this deer, I contacted the landowner like late January because I was just gone and had everything scheduled with all kinds of landowners all over Texas and and going to the hill country and central Texas and all over South Texas. And so I said hey, is there any way I could try to photograph this deer? I'd really like to get him in this upcoming book that I'm working on. And we set things up for me to arrive like the 31st of January, on Friday night, which was just this last week, and so I arrived Friday night. He said here's the problem We've got 10,000 acres, we have no feeders on the ranch. Problem We've got 10,000 acres, we have no feeders on the ranch, we have no blinds on the ranch and we have no game cameras.

Speaker 2: 36:04

We saw this deer back in December. We saw him a few times and there was like a one mile area that they had seen him and they said but we have no idea where he is, we don't really concentrate on that part of the ranch because it's not considered like one of the better parts of the ranch. They've got like at the far south end of the ranch it's more bottom land habitat, and he said that's where our bigger deer are. We, we go down to that end of the ranch most of the time and so I said well, that's the deer I want to photograph.

Speaker 2: 36:34

I don't want to just photograph just any other deer, I'm going to try to photograph him and that's one of the things that I've done over the years. That I do a lot of is I will like trophy hunt, which to me, trophy hunting is when you go after a specific deer or a specific class or size of deer. Um, and I will go. I will fine tune that down to where I'm going after a buck, will fine tune that down to where I'm going after a buck, and so that has taught me a lot of how to figure out whitetails over the last 30 something years.

Speaker 2: 37:06

And so we set up based on local knowledge. The best local knowledge you can get is the landowner or the person that actually saw the deer, and so they told me where they saw him. And because I didn't get to meet him till nine o'clock at night it gets dark at six, 15, six, 30. Um, we were basically there with flashlights trying to figure out where can I set up a blind? And you know, south Texas they feed and they they don't have feeders on this ranch but they do, uh, use road feeders, you know, on trucks, and spread it out on roads and stuff like that and send arrows and that kind of thing.

Speaker 2: 37:40

And so they didn't really feed this area. I didn't even know if it even come to corn or not and if it even ever really tasted corn. And so we set up this blind in the night with the flashlights, and he said this is one of the places we've seen him, but we've also seen him like a mile south and you know, on down the road basically. And so I set up a blind with the best knowledge I had that I could see in the dark. You know, you know this little opening. And so I set a blind up. We went back to the ranch house, had supper, went to bed and got up the next morning. I sat in that blind and so I was supposed to be there, because he has a regular job this is the grandson of the owner and he said I can be there Friday and Saturday, I'll meet you there or no. I can be there Saturday and Sunday, I'll meet you there Friday night. That's why he got there at 9 o'clock at night. So I was going to be there Saturday and Sunday. And so Saturday morning I had a spike and like five does and fawns come in. So I knew, I knew this was going to be tough. You know, I from the outset I knew that I would probably walk away with no photos of this deer at all, cause I I that happens to me a majority of the time where I don't see the deer that I'm after and so or photographing. And so middle of the day I set up another uh setup that was more of an afternoon spot. That was probably 400 yards away from this uh, north of this, and I set that up for an afternoon light and the other one I had set up for morning light. And so I set that one up and came back and sat in that one that afternoon, which usually I like to let the blind sit for at least three to five days before I sit at them. But this part of the ranch they only lightly hunt, this ranch they only take like, they only do like four hunts, but within those hunts they'll shoot. You know they'll have groups of like five or six hunters but within those hunts they'll shoot. You know they'll have groups of like five or six hunters. So they only shoot like 20 something deer. But they really concentrate on that best area which is way south of where I was it was like several miles from where I was on this 10,000 acres. And so anyway, I sat there in the afternoon in my afternoon blind. And so the deer they're kind of fine with a new blind being there, even though the deer were actually kind of spooked by it a little bit. They they were like really kind of watching, but they would kind of come in. So anyway, I sat there in the afternoon, nothing came in.

Speaker 2: 40:11

And that evening one of the grandsons he has this business that he's doing thermal drone surveys, deer surveys. I think it's called Rio Vision Solutions or something like that, and the name of the ranch actually that I was on is called the Triple Drop Ranch, which a lot of people have followed them on Instagram and stuff like that. And so and Sam the grandson said, hey, tonight, why don't we go and try to see if we can locate this deer and see where he is? So maybe we can move the blinds to wherever he is located. So we go up. I'd never seen like nighttime drone work with thermal the ones that are always seen in the past was just like the daylight type. You know that you fly during the day, djis and stuff like that. Well, he has a special high dollar thermal one that actually has a spotlight built into it that will follow the camera and have a spotlight at night so you can have the thermal vision of it, of the animal. And then you get closer to it and zoom in and then you can have the um, the spotlight version, so it's like full color. So we he went up he said this isn't ideal conditions, because he said with the thermal it works better if you do it like at like five o'clock in the morning, because all the vegetation and everything has cooled off.

Speaker 2: 41:34

And one of the things I found out, he actually he would sit there in his uh vehicle in the front seat running, you know, with his little uh remote control, and the other landowner, grandson and I were sitting in the back seat with a like a 20 inch, 30 inch screen that he hooked up to it and we would watch as he would move around. And so the first thing we saw he was like, hey, there's, I think that's a deer right there. And so he like moved in closer to it. Well, it was glowing white and I said, yeah, I think that looks like a buck. Well, it was actually a cactus, because cactus absorb a lot of heat during the day. And it was like in the eighties when I was there last weekend and so that absorbs heat. And I found out that also mesquite branches and mesquite, because it's black, absorbs a lot of heat also. And so he said it's better when you go like five o'clock in the morning, because those things have cooled off and they're not glowing white like the deer. You know, deer, turkeys, coyotes, everything basically glow white with his setup.

Speaker 2: 42:34

So anyway, he flew for probably I don't know an hour looking to see if we could locate that deer. We located a bunch of deer. We saw coyotes, we saw a bobcat that was right behind my blind, uh, tons of armadillos, jackrabbits, hogs, uh, we saw pretty much everything, multiple white tail deer, but we did not see the buck we were after. And so they, they basically told me you know, we don't know what to tell you he may be here. He said we saw him during the rut. He might have just been through here and maybe he lives somewhere else, you know, a mile or two away. We have no clue if this is his home area or not. And here we are after the rut, post-rut, you know, chances are very high that you're not going to see anything. So anyway.

Speaker 2: 43:24

So the next morning I went back and I sat in my morning spot, didn't see him again. This was Sunday morning. So Saturday blanked out. Morning and afternoon, sunday morning blanked out. So I went back, talked it over with the guys and I said you know, what do y'all think? Should I move the blind? What should I do? And they said I think you should move it like south to the other spot that we've seen him before. So it was like 1040 in the morning. We'd just eaten breakfast.

Speaker 2: 43:50

I was driving to one of my two blinds and I was going to take my morning blind and move that like a mile south and as I came around the corner I saw deer in the road right in front of my afternoon blind and I put binoculars up through the windshield and he was 10 yards from my blind eating corn and on the road in front of my blind, 10 yards from it, and he had several other deer with him. And so I just I actually shot cell phone video. I can show you the little 18 seconds of video and you, you know it's it's cell phone, but you can see the big blobs of antler. I mean the big, the big flat palms of antler as he was feeding. You could tell it was him. So I backed out, I went around and got my morning blind out of there and took, went back to the ranch house and said, hey, what do y'all think?

Speaker 2: 44:46

And they were like, well, this is the area he's right in front of your, blind, and so that's that's. You know no reason to move it to the other place. So I went back there that afternoon, high hopes, sat there all afternoon. Actually, know what sunday morning I didn't see a deer in that morning, blind, no, spike, no, does no, nothing that I had seen, actually fairly consistently before that.

Speaker 2: 45:13

Go back to the afternoon, blind on sunday afternoon, high hopes, he'll come back, no sign of him. And I think there was just like some small one and two-year-old bucks was all I saw and does and fawns. So I was kind of bummed because I was thinking this is going to be the afternoon. But I thought, okay, next day this is Monday morning I thought I'm going to sit there because I saw him at 1040. I thought I'm going to sit there till 11 or 12. And so got in there, sat there until 12. He didn't show up at all, none of the deer. Actually I had some small bucks and does show up. But that was it. So I went back and ate lunch Monday afternoon. So I went back and ate lunch Monday afternoon. I sat there from three, 30 till seven toes pitch black. He never showed up again. So all day Monday, no dice.

Speaker 2: 46:16

The last day I could be there was Tuesday and the ranch owners, they had already left and they said you can just stay here. You know, here's the combo to the front gate, here's the here's. You know you can use the ranch truck with a feeder on it and all that kind of stuff. And so I was just there by myself on the ranch. And so Tuesday came around and I was like, well, this is my last chance.

Speaker 2: 46:39

Well that the night before I had texted you because I had remembered I think I've got a podcast with George sometime in February, but I didn't realize when it was. And I looked and I was like that podcast is supposed to be tomorrow, on the 4th of February, and so I texted you like at 10.07 at night and said, hey, sorry, I didn't realize when this was. I'm on a ranch standing my stay, I'm after a palmated buck and maybe we can reschedule it for later. Well, I didn't hear back from you. I guess till the next morning. You were probably already in bed or whatever, had your phone off.

Speaker 2: 47:13

And the next morning, at like 745, I get a response from you and I, you know, basically we were texting back and forth and I said you know, I'm here in the blind, I haven't seen anything, and I explained the situation to you and you're like that was a really cool reason to, you know, have to reschedule a podcast is because you're after this buck. So anyway, I was, like you know, today's, the last day I still may not see him, so I'm sitting there. Then, about nine or nine thirty in the morning, about two hours after we had texted, the buck came in and I got a couple thousand photos of him, video of him. He was like 20 yards away. I got all kinds of photos of him, awesome photos, and so anyway, I texted you a photo off the back of my camera, you know, really poor quality, you know cell phone pic of the deer, and said success, I finally got him. So so it was kind of cool that we were talking back and forth and I, you know, I was able to get him while we were kind of talking in the blind, so anyway. So that was. That was kind of neat. And then that afternoon I went back to the blind and got him in the afternoon also on Tuesday.

Speaker 2: 48:18

So once he finally figured out you know there's corn there, I think he thought maybe there. You know, cause when they're driving, uh, with those those road feeders on the front of the truck or whatever you know they'll, there'll be spillage off the off as they hit bumps and stuff like that. Some of the corn will come out of those feeders. And so when I saw him at 1044 on Sunday morning I think he thought it was just like spillage, because they never really feed in that area. They, you know, feed in the better part of the ranch, you know on the South part. And so I think he had just found the corn that was on the road and, you know, just walked away. And so then when he found out that I had put spots of corn out in specific places where I wanted particular backgrounds and stuff, he finally found that and he was there.

Speaker 2: 49:04

You know he didn't come in at all on Tuesday, um then, or not at all on Monday, and then on Tuesday I think he found the corn, maybe in the night or something leftover corn from the day before and he was in there both morning and afternoon, so anyway, so it was really cool.

Speaker 2: 49:20

I got some great photos of him and, um, I haven't even looked at them on my computer, but you know I I got a bunch of good stuff of him, so I'm pretty, pretty excited and pretty thrilled about what I got. So I at least got photos of him for, um, you know, for the book. I don't know if I'll ever get them on the cover of a magazine, cause he's got these palms that are, like you know, double the width of hands, got little short tines on them, uh, but he's got seven on his right and six on his left and, um, you know, his longest time is probably five inches, four inches, you know. I don't know what it is, it's just like it's crazy looking. He looks like a moose or he looks like a fallow deer.

Speaker 2: 49:59

I mean, it's just bizarre.

Speaker 1: 50:01

No, it's, it's amazing, it's. It's one of the most beautiful deer man. I've seen it. I, I, I cannot wait for people to be able to see that. So, um, you know, whether that's the book or whether it's a cover of a magazine or whatever you decide to do with it, I can't wait to have that uh be shared and get people. You know, obviously you know that I'm a big Milanistic fan.

Speaker 1: 50:26

Uh, I haven't haven't taken a couple and had a few off our property and uh, you know I'm still looking for that big buck to have you come out and and uh photograph out there too. So we'll be in touch. Oh, the second I see one. It's like I got you on speed dial for that man. I got you in the favorite list ready to go. It's just been a bunch of dough and coming from smaller bucks, uh, that we've seen. But you know it's, it's been amazing. I mean, that one buck I had is one of those things too. You know it's one of the largest that's ever been taken in North America and it just happened to be, uh, one that you know we had.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Kind, I got into the stand that one day. But you know, um, and I'll leave a link to that too, cause that that's a fun little story. But you know, I know that you've you've taken pictures of so many different you know types of deer. Obviously we've got Turkey season coming up too, so, uh, we'll just be staying in touch and you know I'll get you back on again. Image to you know, maybe check out some of the different photos that you've had there too, like some behind you there, and just kind of take a look at some awesome deer pics. You know I want folks to go visit your website. Why don't you tell us you know where they can go and maybe some of the social media handles that you have, so that people can kind of follow along your journey? If you don't, mind.

Speaker 2: 51:38

All right, yeah, my website is my name, basically Lance dash. You know the little hyphen thing, krugercom. Uh, so that's L A N C E dash, k R U E G? E R, dot C? O M.

Speaker 2: 51:52

And then I'm on um uh, Instagram, and that's at Lance krugercom, or it's just at Lance Kruger, lance underscore Kruger, it's just at Lance Kruger, lance underscore Kruger. Then on Facebook, you can also find me at Lance Kruger Photography. On Facebook, that's my business page, and then just plain Lance Kruger for my personal page, but that's more family photos and stuff like that. Then I'm on LinkedIn also, and that's just under Lance Kruger. You can find me there.

Speaker 2: 52:25

So those are the main ways. I post photos every day and at least one photo, and sometimes up to three photos. I'm about to start moving into turkey photos here pretty soon, but throughout the year, 365 days of the year, I post a deer photo, because that's by far my most popular and most requested photos is of whitetails. So during the spring and summer I'll do a whitetail, I'll do a turkey and I'll do a fishing photo and so anyway. So you'll see three per day throughout the rest of the spring and summer and then in fall I'll do, you know, three, maybe four photos per day, and it's mostly all whitetails during the fall and winter.

Speaker 1: 53:00

And I'll tell everyone who's listening or watching these photos are amazing. They are, you know, top tier, without a doubt. I love following and just be able to check out what you got each day, but I can't wait for, you know, your book to come out to you know everyone. Make sure you go and order those calendars. It's well worth it. I just love them. Man, you are such an amazing photographer. I love that you're also sharing your knowledge that you've had through all these years and this experience with other people and kind of helping pass that baton along to the next generation who's going to you know, enjoying this and being able to share our abundant amazing wildlife that we have in this country. Lance, thank you so much for joining me. I'll definitely have you back on and look forward to that and hanging out with you sometime soon Sounds good.

Speaker 2: 53:47

And one thing, the last thing that I would say is, right now I'm actually having a sale on my calendars and if they want to go to my website, they can put in 10% off all in uppercase and they will get 10% off my calendars, which the calendars are $30. And they will get, uh, priority shipping over ground shipping. So, anyway, and I'm just running that through the month of February and then I'm going to not be selling them anymore. But, uh, that's my 2025 calendar and it's like one of the heaviest duty. Uh, on 130 pound card stock paper, every, every page is made of the same stuff. It's not like they slip a you know cardboard in in so that the you know newspaper quality, you know paper feels like it's substantial, you know like they do at the grocery store or whatever at the bookstore. So, anyway, it's got 12 photos of really big bucks. The story behind the photo, or a honey tip, or a photography tip, or behavioral information. It gives what camera equipment I use for each photo, exposure information, as well as the other thing a lot of people want to know is how far away were you when you shot that photo, and so it tells the distance on each photo how far away the deer was from when I shot it with that particular lens and it gives like feeding times, you know, game and fish activity. It gives you the days of the month. That that's the best. So there's a lot of information with it and so it's been a super popular thing. I've been doing it since 2019.

Speaker 2: 55:12

And so, anyway, if somebody wants to get one, even though it's the month of February, they can, you know, get a calendar and use it for the rest of the year.

Speaker 2: 55:20

A lot of people like to frame them because they're frameable type prints it for the rest of the year. A lot of people like to frame them because they're frameable type prints and instead of buying a print from me, that's, you know, like an eight by 10, is, you know, like 80 bucks, I believe a hundred bucks you can get 12 eight by 10s basically for 30 bucks. So, and with the sale it's even cheaper. So, anyway, just want to let everybody know that I do have those calendars and that's available on my website on the shop section. Just go in there and you can either do it as a one-time purchase or as a yearly subscription that it will just come to you automatically in your mailbox each fall. As soon as I get them printed, I ship all the subscribers out first and it'll just show up in the mail and they won't even have to think about it or remember it.

Speaker 1: 56:01

I love it. All right, everyone, go get your calendars, go check out the website, sign up for that masterclass If you're interested. Make sure you're following Lance on the socials and, yeah, make sure if you're looking to get some awesome prints for your ranch or for your office. There are so many amazing ones to choose from. Seriously, you could spend all day.

Speaker 2: 56:26

Don't let your boss see if you're looking, because you will spend all day on your computer there. Lance, thanks again for joining me and I appreciate all you're doing. Sir, You're welcome. Thanks for having me. I enjoyed it. George Cheers, Take care.