Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 1055: Back 40 - Finding the Best Place on A Property That has Had Little to No Improvements

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Ep. 1055: Back 40 - Finding the Best Place on A Property That has Had Little to No Improvements · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, welcome back to another episode of Back forty.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm Jake Hooefer and this week we're starting a new
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: batch of guests. Our panel has been updated with some
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: really awesome guests that you guys will get to hear
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: their insight and intuition and advice for one single topic
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: each week leading all the way to October first. So
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about a lot of things
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: here in this next.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Batch of Back forty.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In this batch, we have Bill Winki that really needs
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: no introduction. We have Adam Keith with Land and Legacy,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: We have Aaron Warburton from the hunting public, and we
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: have Jeff Sturgis from White Habitat Solutions. So we have
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit of diversity here throughout the Midwest talking
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: about things that will be applicable likely no matter where
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: you hunt white tails, and what problems you might be facing.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: And to kick things off, I often feel that the
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: best spot on the pharmist sometimes can be pretty obvious,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: if the property has been improved over the years, or
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: maybe you have some experience. But I wanted to go
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: back to the ground level, very beginning stages and principles
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: of finding the best spot and what does that mean?
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: What are the potential terrain features, what are the key
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: habitat items to keep in mind? And ultimately this should
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: hopefully have you relook at an existing piece and understand if, hey,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: this I think is the best spot, but maybe after
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: listening to this episode there's some other areas that might
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: make more sense.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Or number two, if you have just got new access and.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: You want to create your quote unquote best spot, you're
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: going to have a jump start here with this episode
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: of Back forty. To kick things off, let's go ahead
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: and start with Adam Keith with land Legacy. All right,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: we have Adam with Lane Legacy and we're jumping into this.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: And what I think is interesting because when people listen
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: to like how to find the best spot on the farm,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: a lot of times the answer is geared towards well, yeah,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: you put in this food pot, you do this work,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you do all these different things. But imagine you're either
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: going to a piece that you just got, you just
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: got at least you just knocked on the door.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Nothing's been done to it.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: And I want a kind of a step by step
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: process of finding the best place on a property that
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: has little to no improvement. So there might be some
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: existing infrastructure like row crops, there might be some sort
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: of a creek system, there might be an old cattle pond,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: so like, I'll give you the canvas to paint on
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: it a little bit. But it's not like you have
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: this bullproof set up and that's the best spot. Like
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: that hasn't been constructed and won't be constructed in this scenario.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's very exciting. Thanks for having me back.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: I think this is this kind of these questions always
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: make me look back, you know, going back to pre
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: landing legacy, pre my career and going okay, I got permission,
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: or I'm going on this new piece of public ground,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: what am I even gonna do? And I think primarily
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: the first and foremost question is trying to figure out
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: where they're going to be daylighting on this property, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: that means where are they betting or close to betting.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: The betting may be just adjacent, but for me, the
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: whole principle of success is figuring out where they're betting,
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: which means where they're at in daylight hours. So I'm
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: looking at the property just diving in with with that
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: in mind.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: So let's run through a scenario. I'm gonna make this
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: harder each step of the way too. The betting. The
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: betting is you found a real thick area and it's
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: on the very back part of the farm. There's row
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: crops I'm picturing, you know, a square and accesses from
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: the south for this example, and the best betting or
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: where you would deduct where they would be betted, is
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: on the very far north side.
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: So you have to go through everything to get to that.
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So I'm trying to figure out a travel corridor
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: in between. So let's just imagine it's uh uh, it's
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: got some terrain features. So I'm trying to figure out
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: those little side slopes or shelves or little steep draws,
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: maybe highly eroded draws, like I'm thinking southern Iowa or
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Ohio portions of Indiana where it's like it's too steep
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: for deer wanna they want to go across it. So
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at Okay, there's the betting area. Now where
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: would they be going from that betting area to the
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: crop fields or whatever the crop of choices at that time,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: whether it is still standing corn or it's standing beans,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: or it's early season, it's alfalfa. I'm going from point
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: A to point B and trying to figure out since
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: I likely can't get all the way back there, I'm
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: trying to find that terrain feature that gives me that
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: bottleneck to get in there with the appropriate wind and
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: capitalize on it.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so with it sounds like number one step one
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: is where do you think they're betting? And for step
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: two would be some form of terrain feature that you
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: can utilize with that because imagine, imagine you know, someone's like, oh, yeah,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: I think they bet over here, but I don't really
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: know how to hunt it or how do you pick
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the spot? Is a downwind of that betting area on
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: a terrain putre, like what's what are some ways of
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: sweeten the pot to hopefully increase.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: Your odds pretty much?
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: And then I'm of course looking at the weather trying
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: to figure out the day that he is going to
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: likely be moving in daylight hours, Like I feel like
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: there's so many different pieces or boxes that you have
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: to check to make it happen on a mature buck
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: that it's like, oh, he's in a spot, he's actually
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: on me, Like, first and foremost, he has to be
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: bedded close enough that I can get him in daylight hours,
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: and I feel like that's that's something A complete one
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: eighty to what I did as a young man was Hey,
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: I planted this beautiful food plot. Well that doesn't mean
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: at all that he's going to be there in daylight hours.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: And so you're like, Okay, I've got this beautiful food
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: plot and he's not here in daylight what am I
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: doing wrong?
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm not going.
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: Back to the foundation, which is where is he laying
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the day to get him to
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: this food block. He may be here at night, and
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: so for me is going I'm looking at that betting
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: as first and foremost, trying to trying to identify that
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: because if he's not betted on the property or close
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: to the property, I don't have much of a chance
• 6:15
  Speaker 3: except for wait for the rut when he's up moving
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: a lot during the day. Yeah, which is a frustrating
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: game plan, if you even want to call it a
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: game plan.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: I've been there.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: I know it's fun, but it's not fun, you know.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: As a young man, I love the rut. As I've
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: gotten older, I hate it because it's like, throw the
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: plan out, because you're just you know, you can have
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: a pretty good plan, but a hot dough runs across
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: the county road and runs him out through the middle
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: of a wide open field, and all of a sudden,
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: a gun hunter rows him down. Like it to me,
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: it's like as private land managers, which is what I
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: usually am dealing with in my consulting business, and then
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: as a private landowner, it's like, huh, I want to
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: kill him long before the rut comes in, because that's just.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: The rut is chaos is chaos.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: And every day that you don't connect with that deer
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: you've been thinking about all summer, there's another day that
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: it could get killed by car or something.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: This is something real, silly. It's like that elephant in
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: the room.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: It's a giant stop watch, and each time it clicks,
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: you're like, oh, it's.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: Closer to the US, close to the closer.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: The rut it makes you gets you your anxiety raises.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: For sure, I want you to think about all how
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: many farms do you think you've been on over the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: years now, like ballpark hundreds?
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I think we're between Matt and I and a handful
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: of other consultants, we have. We're somewhere in between two
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: hundred and fifty thousand and three one hundred thousand acres
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: that we've covered in roughly ten years.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, so so think of all the different pieces of landscape,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: different habitat everything. Yeah, what how often is the best
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: spot on a farm? Just it was how the earth
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: was made? Like, how often is that really when you're
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: on a farm and maybe the guy he's like, man,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: we've had this farm for a while for whatever reason,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: this spot seems to be the best. And then you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: talk to them and you're like, oh, I can see
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: why that makes sense, But like, how often is the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: best spot already there from a terrain feature or something
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: else and you enhance that, or how often is it
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the best spot needs to be constructed?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Does that make sense? Yeah? I mean maybe I won't.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: I won't answer it in direct sense, but I would
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: say there is usually always great spots on the farm.
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: And I'll just say on average, we're working two to
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: three hundred acre size forms. That's probably the average size
• 8:37
  Speaker 3: when you add it all up, and I would say
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: there's always going to be a couple of really good spots,
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: meaning you can tell that there is a buck who
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: frequents the area, and that is almost always, in my opinion,
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: based on terrain. When I roll in there, it's like, wow, Okay,
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: I can look at the topo I'm scanning on X
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: and I see that little feature or it could be
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: throw on light R and I'm looking at the little
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: bend in the creek and it's just a few feet
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: higher elevation. Walk in there and sure enough you can
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: see a perennial bed, a bed that's used frequently, and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: you can see old rubs and new rubs, like okay,
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: this is this is awesome. Those are typically there. But
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: I'm always with the mindset we can always make it better.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's almost like figure out what the best
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: spot is, and then beyond that, it's like, okay, how
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: do we enhance that? Do we need to improve the
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: habitat in the adjacent area or access or whatever the
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: case may be.
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: But or hit copy paste twelve times over and make
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: that spot throughout the property?
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Interesting.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: How often are you on a farm and you know,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: you obviously look at it where you get there and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: then you have boots on the ground. How often does
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the landowner say, you know, you find the spot that
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you think.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Is really good, and they're like, huh, never really thought
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: of that.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, so it does happen more often than yeah,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: not that that happens a lot where it's like you
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: find those little spots. Typically, just trying to train the
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: guy to understand that we're we're looking at this backwards
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: and what he's probably used to where your Yeah, your
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: food plots are okay, they're great, they're whatever. But let's
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: go and figure out why you hired me, which is
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: because you're not getting this success you wanted. So let's
• 10:24
  Speaker 3: roll in, let's look at the let's find these betting areas,
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: and so we just try to look at the topo
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: features or look at maybe changes in the in the
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: structure that have a ten structure of the canopy and
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: roll in there and oh, there's deer beds. Okay, now
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: I've convinced you that I do know some lot of
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: what I'm talking about, and so let's figure out what
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: makes this so good and see how we.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: Can replicate it.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: Okay, and just to put a bow on it, you said,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: typically it's in relation to some form of terrain more
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: than likely where this best mood is going.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: To be for sure.
• 10:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I would say that to to kind of
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: piggyback on your last question. One of the more common
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: things that I run into is not the Okay, this
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: is a great spot and you knew it. It's more
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: of you think this is a great spot, but your
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: access is horrible, like, oh, this is your favorite spot.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: We roll in, I can see the stand, I can
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: see the old stand, I can see a blind that's
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: now placed here.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: What is making this? Like? Why why is there so
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: much honey?
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: This is our favorite spot on the whole farm.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: Well, your access is horrible, like what what?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: What are we thinking here?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Without hurting the guy's feelings that that's probably the most
• 11:36
  Speaker 3: common is you roll in, you find a spot that
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: the guy just absolutely loves, and you've got to convince
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: him that it's not so great.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And that's just based off of riskers rewards. So like,
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: let's say he had the discipline to say, you know,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: I only come in here when the time is right,
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: and here, Adam, look at this last year year before.
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm probably not calling you if that's the case,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: but you know last year and then four years ago,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: like yeah, I mean, what is that conversation, like, because
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: I feel like everyone everyone, no matter what the farmer's like,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: there's this spot that you want to go into so bad,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: but it just I can't wrap my head around it.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: And it's like maybe it's good once or twice, and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: then after that it's truly diminishing returns.
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: Very rarely am I dealing with the guy who it's
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: like repetitive success.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: You know, if he's having that, he's not hiring me.
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: And then at that point it's like, okay, so that
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: guy's irrelevant to me just from a working relationship.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: So you've got the guy who's had success.
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: Usually it's his favorite spot because he's killed the biggest theories
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: ever get on his farm and it was ten plus
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: years ago. Yeah, and he's like, I just wish I
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: had more, you know, more consistent success. It's like, yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: I wish you did too, So we need more consistent
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: access because.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: I feel like they're giving something up when you have
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: that conversation, like I'm giving up this spot or do
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: they see the ROI of making that decision.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: Basically I kind of take it with the approach of hey,
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I'm know you really like this spot. This is obviously
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: your favorite spot on the farm, and everything else feels
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: like a gar hole, So why don't we go and
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: make a bunch of spots that feel really great and
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: less gar holes.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: And with that.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Approach, it seems like they're way more receptive of it.
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: And then we add in a couple betting areas. I
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: teach them how to run trail cameras, and all of
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: a sudden, they've got big deer on the farm walking
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: in daylight.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: No, now they're a believer. Yeah that makes sense.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Well, Adam, we're gonna have you on back fordy Here
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: a couple more times in the coming weeks. But where
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: can people fallo along with what you have going on?
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: You have a lot of great content.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you social media, Land and Legacy. You can
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: check out our podcast as well. Just search Land and
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: Legacy and all your major platforms are there.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: You have it.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: That is Adam's insight. Always appreciate getting a variety of
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: different opinions, And you know, I think it's pretty interesting
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: hearing that oftentimes, even when he goes to a farm,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: the best spot might not be as obvious to the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: to the current landowner. So I think that is some
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: great insight for the next part of this episode with
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Aaron from The Hunting Public.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: All right, Aaron, welcome to a new season of Back forty.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: We're gonna be running you through a bunch of different
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: questions and dilemmas that will help people building up all
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: the way to season, all the way to opening day,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: and this one I think will be very unique to
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: you because a lot of these guys almost hunt primarily
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: on private land. I know you hunt on some private land.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: I know you got a little bit of private land,
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: but you have obviously the hunting public, and that's almost
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: two different animals in my opinion. You could say otherwise,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: but this here is to help folks that either are
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: over complicating things and they just simply want help finding
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: the best place on a property that has little to
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: no improvement. So something that doesn't have a food plot
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and a blind and it's real obvious, Hey, that should
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: be a pretty good spot. What is the step by
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: step process to find quote unquote the best spot on
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: any given piece of property?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: In your opinion, first.
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: Thing I'd be looking, and that's pressure whether it's private
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: or public, or small or large properties doesn't matter. So
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: if I'm going to a property. In consulting with the
• 15:10
  Speaker 4: people that hunt it, just use forty acres as an example.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: I'm going to ask.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: Where are you hunting, where are your tree stands at,
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: where your blinds, and how do you get to and
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: from those, how frequently do you hunt them, what wind
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: directions do you hunt them on, at et cetera.
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to take a map.
• 15:29
  Speaker 4: They're going to show me all that information, and then
• 15:31
  Speaker 4: I'm going to cross off about ninety percent of that
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: map from where they've been and where they leave scent
• 15:35
  Speaker 4: and where their camera is that they go in and
• 15:38
  Speaker 4: out of to check all the time or whatever it is,
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: especially if they have like two or three favorite stand
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: locations that they hunt like every week or something. I'm
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: just going to cross off all that, and then I'm
• 15:49
  Speaker 4: going to I'm gonna make it very simple. A lot
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: of times we go right to that spot and boom,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: that's where the big buck sign is. That's either where
• 15:57
  Speaker 4: big bucks are are bedded or or that's where they're
• 16:01
  Speaker 4: traveling through because it's the one place they can kind
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: of maneuver through the property to check dose and other
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: deer and whatnot without being detected. You know, Eberhart Eberhart
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: says it, well, you know when he talks about that,
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: it's like, you're he's trying not to be found by
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: the deer. He's trying to play, you know, if he
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: can go to an area on that property where he
• 16:24
  Speaker 4: can hide from other human beings. I guess that's what
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: he's trying that I should back up. He's trying not
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: to be found by people. So if you if you
• 16:34
  Speaker 4: perform that exercise in your brain and go to the
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: area of the property where there's no people, where would
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: be very difficult to find you if you were a
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: person looking out there, that's usually where we find the
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: best locations. That's not necessarily true everywhere, but I mean almost,
• 16:51
  Speaker 4: that's like the number one thing that I've looked for.
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: Does that ever shock those folks? They're like, holy yeah,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: we never go over here. This is what we've been
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: miss all the time. Time, Yeah, all the time. Yeah.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, we never.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: We'd never really hunt the backside of this ridge for
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: one reason or another, or it's really thick in there.
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: There's you know, the wind's always swirling down there, so
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: we never go down there. Now, I mean, that's another
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: challenge in itself. You know, you find these areas and
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: then they they are just difficult to hunt for a
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: variety of different factors. But that is also consequently where
• 17:24
  Speaker 4: most of the mature buck movement happens that we've seen.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: So in that scenario, I picture two different likelihoods, and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you would have more experience to tell me, but one
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: of them would likely be not far from maybe their
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: house or off the road where they just completely avoid,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: so that one has really good, easy access, and then
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the other, you know, level of that is something real
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: far back where the access is real bad. So the
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: next step in that conversation like, all right, eron, Yeah,
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: this is where the bucks are. Okay, now how do
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I hunt? How do I hunt it if it has
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: bad access or if it is way back in the
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: back of the property and that's why we don't go there, Like,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: what's the next step to point them in the right direction?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: If they haven't been having success doing whatever program they've
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: been using. I'm always a big fan of just kind
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: of throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: Just try a bunch of different stuff.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: If you've been coming in to this property like it,
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: for example, if you have a gate in a road.
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: You know, on the forty acres that you're hunting, and
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: you pull into that gate and you walk in from
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: that gate every time, I would do everything in my
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: power to try to access that property a bunch of
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: different ways. You know, maybe you can only come in
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: from it from one road, but you can park there
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: and swoop way around a fence line and cut all
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: the way up your boundary you know, of your property
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: and hook in from the back. That just something different,
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: a different way to get in and out of there.
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: That would be the number one thing that I'd start
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: thinking about, and then I would I would go and
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: hunt those spots, not being worried about book and deer
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: the first year. I would just if it's a spot
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: that you don't have experience hunting, some things you're going
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to be able to figure out, you know, by listening
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: to podcasts and thinking about stuff. But you really need
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: to go and sit the spot. You need to see
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: how deer use that particular spot, how the wind behaves
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: in that particular spot, and then learn from that, you know.
• 19:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, it may be a situation where you can
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: only hunt it the last hour of the day when
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: the day winds die off and the thermals fall into
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: a creek bottom or something, you know, especially if it's
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: down low where you got swirling winds, or it may
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: be a situation where it's so thick in there and
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: there's so many deer bedded around the periphery of that
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: thick area that you got to wait for a cold
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: for like a wet, windy day, and go in there
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: at three o'clock in the morning before any deer get
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: back to bed, you know. But all those different things
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: I just mentioned are doing something different than what you
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: normally do, which is probably pulling up to the gate
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: an hour before light, parking your truck, walking down the
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: same mode path, and then jetting off of that to
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: get into your stands or whatever. It's same thing in
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: the afternoon, getting there an hour or two and a half,
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: three hours before dark, rinse and repeat. I would just
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: be trying to think of different ways, different things to try,
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: and don't be afraid to fail, because you'll try things
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: and you're gonna spook deer and they're gonna smell you,
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: and you're it's gonna feel like a daunting task at first.
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: But what you're doing is you're just learning. You're relearning
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: all of this, these sort of uncovered or these hidden
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: gems on your property. You've got to relearn all those spots.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Do you think that by doing that some of the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: other old obvious spots become better again because you're you're
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: not hunting there religiously and you know, burning out the spots.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: So it makes it a little farm better in that scenario.
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, And I would like to I'm always trying
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: to catch them off guard somehow or another. But you
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: know that all changes with timing and and that sort
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: of thing. Like if you're if you're dealing with early
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: part of the rut, when bucks are traveling long distances
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: and your property links a bunch of different cover types together,
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: a bunch of different vetting areas together, well, then people
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: sometimes they're a little too timid in how they hunt,
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: you know they are, and especially on a small property,
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: they're so worried about blowing the deer out, blowing the
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: deer out, blowing the deer out. But you may have
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: one really big buck that uses that property two and
• 21:32
  Speaker 4: a half days a year, and it's October thirty first,
• 21:34
  Speaker 4: November first, and then he's gone on November second, you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: And He may come through there two other times at
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: three am in the middle of October, but those are
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: the only two days in the entire fall that he's
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: on your property during daylight because a hot dough or
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: his rut you know, cycle brought.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: Him through that area.
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: And if you could have been leaving sent there for
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: a week before that, as long as you didn't blow
• 21:57
  Speaker 4: all the dose out of the area, he's still going
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: to make his trek through there. So keep that in mind.
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: It just kind of depends on the time of the year, uh,
• 22:08
  Speaker 4: and the other factors that are going on. But yeah,
• 22:11
  Speaker 4: going back to it, I ultimately want to try to
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: surprise him. I want to try to catch him off guard,
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: and then once they start getting onto my game, I
• 22:18
  Speaker 4: want to be able to throw.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Another curveball at him.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: That makes sense, which might be going back to your
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: old school stands that you really like hunting, that you
• 22:25
  Speaker 4: haven't hunting for a month, and then.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And then they then you smoke a giant out of it,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: and you're like, see, the spot's always been the best.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yep, exactly, But what about this scenario.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of people will run into
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: this and they everyone can think of the best spot,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: you know, whatever, whatever piece that is. Uh And when
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: I say best I also relate that to the best sign,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times those are in bottoms where
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: it's really challenging to hunt. Do you think the best
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: strategy is to try to sneak in there, you know,
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: right at last light when the thermals are pulling down
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: in the evenings or or are you trying to what's
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: your strategy? Because I know everyone can think of a
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: spot where they're standing in the bottom like it's ready
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: to be but it's not gonna work, Like, what are
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: you do in that scenario?
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: A man?
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: It depends on the details of the situation. You know,
• 23:08
  Speaker 4: if the deer betted real close and they're starting to
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: get up an hour before dark, it's gonna be really
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: difficult for you to get in there, unless you've got
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: a creak or something like that that you could come up.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: But that's not to say that it can't work. It
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: certainly can you know if it's oh man, I'm trying
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: to think those bottoms are very very challenging that for
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: that reason. But you know, thermals don't behave the same
• 23:38
  Speaker 4: way the day winds. Do I guess that's the first
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: thing I'd start thinking about. So people get in their
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: heads that well, you know, the day winds will be
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: blowing my scent right back up the way the deer
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: are going to be coming from, so I can't go
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: in there and hunt. Well, if the day winds fall
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: to below seven or eight miles an hour and you're
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: down in a bottom, they the wind, your scent may
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: do the complete opposite of what you think. It may
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: go down into that creek or that drainage or whatever
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: it is that has made the bottom. You know, it
• 24:07
  Speaker 4: may get down in there and it may either pull
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: or it may pull one direction. Once you start figuring
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: out which direction it tends to pull, those thermals get
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: very predictable. So I mean, I've had situations where I
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: could hunt those bottoms as long as it was less
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: than ten mile an hour wind, I could go in
• 24:32
  Speaker 4: there two or three hours before dark set up. In
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: every single time, regardless of the wind direction that day
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: on your weather app my scent was always going down
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: that ditch every time. Now, if those if those gusts
• 24:46
  Speaker 4: or wind speed picks up, then you've got another animal
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: to deal with, you know, and that's your that's kicking
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: around and wind swirl especially if you're in a bottom.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: You don't want your wind swirling so much that it's
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: going around to the surrounding ridges, because then you're gonna
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: start spooking you know, adjacent bedded.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Deer on every knob. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so on every knob.
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: So you know it's gonna take hunting it and seeing
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: what the wind does. But yeah, that that has been
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: an an add advantage in some of those situations is
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: when you get to when you get to the point
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: where you can start to predict those thermals in that spot, that's.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Gonna be when you want to hunt it.
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's the number one thing for if you're bow hunting,
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: for sure, you got to get them close, and you
• 25:28
  Speaker 4: ain't gonna get them close with the wind swirling real bad,
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: especially a big one.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: No.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well I think that's that's super helpful, and I
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: think that gives folks a little bit of liberty to
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: try some new things and also catch them by surprise.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: That's the summary of that.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So, Aaron, where can people follow along with with everything
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: that you have going on?
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: Mostly just at the hunting public on YouTube, that's where
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: we post most of our current content. We still got
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: some content on Amazon Prime, and then on Facebook and
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: Instagram and TikTok and one on all the socials, but
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: mostly on YouTube.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: All right, moving a ride along, We're going to jump
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: into our conversation with Bill Winkie. Bill has had a
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: lot of experience on a lot of different farms over
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: the years and has provided a lot of great educational
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: content over the years. So without further ado, let's go
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: ahead and get into Bill's take on the question of
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: finding the best spot on the farm, step by step,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: starting a ground zero. All right, Bill, we're back for
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: another round of back forty. It's a pleasure to have you,
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to be running you through questions that
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: will lead up to dilemmas or questions that a lot
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: of people fall into, leading all the way up to
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: October first. But to kick things off, I often feel
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: that a lot of people want to simply find the
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: best place on a farm, and so sometimes that's a
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: little bit more obvious if it's been worked on, there's
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a food plot, there's been a lot of work that's
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: already been done, and the blueprint is kind of already
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: in front of you. So now I want you to
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: shift back to maybe days where used to knock on
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: doors or maybe just a brand new farm. And what
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is the process of finding the best place on a
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: property that has little to no improvements is kind of
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: the root of this question.
• 27:06
  Speaker 5: Well, it's going to depend on the time of the
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: season that you're trying to hunt. So what time frame,
• 27:12
  Speaker 5: like does it matter? Like this is any point?
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So this is more summer scouting, so you can still
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: identify that, hey, this is going to be really good
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: in November, or this could be really good in January,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: you know, So Okay, seasons.
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: Not not necessarily good early season spots or anything like that.
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: Yep, so anything you want.
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: So I think the most important first step is always
• 27:32
  Speaker 5: to find what they're feeding on, to find the food.
• 27:35
  Speaker 5: And I've always said you find the food, you find
• 27:37
  Speaker 5: the deer, and you know during the rut, you know,
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: you find the doe, you find the bucks. Well, the
• 27:45
  Speaker 5: dose are going to be where the food is too,
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: at least at first. You know, once they get harassed enough,
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: then you know they'll stop coming out to feed in
• 27:53
  Speaker 5: the in the more obvious places. So that's, uh, that's
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: got to be the first step. I always to figure
• 27:58
  Speaker 5: out what are they likely to be feeding on, because
• 28:01
  Speaker 5: they're not going to be too far from that, And
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: if it's say a typical agriculture type of environment, then
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: you know they're going to be in the back corners
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: of the crop fields, or you know, spots that are
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: a little bit less visible from the roads or from
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: the houses, someplace over the backside of a hill. You
• 28:20
  Speaker 5: know that it's not too hard to figure out where
• 28:22
  Speaker 5: they're going to come out. At a lot of times,
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: there'll be a draw that comes up out of the timber,
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: and that's you know, you figure, okay, that's where they're
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: going to be coming out to feed. But the challenge
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: really comes when you don't have obvious food sources, so
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: could just be big timber, Like maybe it's an eighty
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: acre property in the middle of a you know, a
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: five six, seven, eight hundred acre timber tract. You might
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: not really have much of a feeding area, So you
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: have to identify that fact that maybe what you're dealing
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: with is only a bedding area or you know, a
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: pass through area. You know, right now, we're just starting
• 29:02
  Speaker 5: to scout acorns and we're finding a lot of them
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: on certain types of trees. So that's another thing is
• 29:10
  Speaker 5: you know, you're out there doing some scouting, pay attention
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: to where the acorns are, because even if it's an
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: egg environment, the deer is still going to go where
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: the acorns are because they would rather eat acorns than soybeans,
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: are almost anything. You know, maybe alf alfa would rival acorns,
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: but you know they'd rather eat acorns than corn or soybeans.
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: So that's another thing to look for again, find the food,
• 29:34
  Speaker 5: find the deer. Then the obvious stuff is just the
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: terrain related funnels, you know, and those generally jump out
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: at you if you've done very much scouting. You know
• 29:44
  Speaker 5: they're going to go around the head of a ditch,
• 29:47
  Speaker 5: or you know, they might cross a creek. You know,
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: in the areas where the banks are the most gradual,
• 29:54
  Speaker 5: if there's a bluff edge, you know they're going to
• 29:56
  Speaker 5: walk along that ridgetops. They have a certain way that
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: they move on those, you know, the usually on the
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: down wind side of a ridge line that's usually where
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: the bucks will travel.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: So there's a lot of.
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: Really like common movement characteristics that you can look for.
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: But that's what I would do, is that I would
• 30:16
  Speaker 5: start with an aerial photo and a topo map, and
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: I would do a lot of my scouting right there,
• 30:20
  Speaker 5: and then I would go on site to verify my
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: hunches based on what I saw on the aerial photos
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: and the topo maps, just to you know, to get
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: that terrain part figured out and that travel you know,
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: the obvious travel routes figured out. And that's more of
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: a rut pattern. The feeding areas are more of an
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: early season pattern and maybe a late season pattern, depending
• 30:41
  Speaker 5: upon how much hunting pressure is in the area. Is
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: that Does that answer the question? If you got to
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: start big, you start broad, You're gonna learn as you go.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's gonna be hard to identify the absolute
• 30:53
  Speaker 5: best spots just you know scouting. I've learned that the
• 30:56
  Speaker 5: hard way that you think I will I can find
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: the tree. You probably won't find the tree. You might find,
• 31:02
  Speaker 5: you know, the right area, but it's gonna be it's
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: gonna take some experience to find the tree.
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: And I was gonna ask, you know, obviously you spent
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: a lot of time here on your new farm when
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: when you first you know, looked at the top of map, like,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, this should be the best spot on the farm.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Has that seemed to be true or has it been
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit more unpredictable than what conventional wisdom would
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: tell you from looking at a map and your gut
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: instinct too.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: No, I think they're doing what I thought they would,
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: you know, And I grew up hunting this type of train,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: and even the Southern Iowa farm was similar from a
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: train standpoint, just not as as much relief. You know,
• 31:41
  Speaker 5: where this one, you know, the tops of the bluffs
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: and the valleys are five hundred feet apart. On the
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: Southern Iowa farm they might have been one hundred and
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: fifty feet apart, but it still had the same, you know,
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: the same effect on how the deer moved, you know,
• 31:52
  Speaker 5: where they bedded, where the bus traveled during the run,
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: the types of funnels they moved through. So I don't
• 31:57
  Speaker 5: think I was surprised by that. The thing that really
• 32:01
  Speaker 5: surprised me the most on this farm was how little
• 32:04
  Speaker 5: these deer come out in the open. And that's been
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: really perplexing to me because every place I've hunted, you know,
• 32:10
  Speaker 5: the deer kind of make themselves vulnerable by coming to you,
• 32:14
  Speaker 5: and on this farm they don't. You have to go
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: to them which took me a couple of years to
• 32:19
  Speaker 5: figure out. And they're harder to kill when you have
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: to go to them because you hunt them on your
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: terms when they're coming to you, you're hunting them on
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: their terms when you're going to where they're at, which
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: that's a lot different.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Why why do you think that is?
• 32:34
  Speaker 5: I don't know. I think there's there's This was cattle country,
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: so I don't think these deer generation after generation have
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: had fruit sources, you know, they just it's just been
• 32:45
  Speaker 5: you know, feeding on brows, feeding on acorns. You know,
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: maybe they traveled someplace else for the winter, you know,
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: in the past, because there was no food here. There
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: was no food plots, there was no agg you know,
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: anywhere nearby. So these deer where you know, they kind
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: of had a little bit different lifestyle, I think than
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: what I'm used to. Plus, the density is not real high,
• 33:06
  Speaker 5: and there is tons of brows in the timber, and
• 33:10
  Speaker 5: we've had a lot of really good acorn years and
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: this farm is like ninety percent oak, and there's just
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: one hundred thousand oak trees. I don't know how many
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: oak trees are. I mean, it's not like tens of
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: thousands it's more than that. And wow, I mean they
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: don't even eat all the acorns. You know, they're in
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: the fall, they're still viable live, you know, good good
• 33:29
  Speaker 5: acorns in april. That just can't eat them all. So
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: there's just too much food in that sense. So these
• 33:36
  Speaker 5: dere don't have any stress. And the easiest deer to
• 33:39
  Speaker 5: kill are the ones that are under stress. You know,
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: whether it's late season, you know, it's cold and they've
• 33:44
  Speaker 5: got to get the corner or whatever it is, or
• 33:46
  Speaker 5: maybe it's it's really dry and they're stressed because they
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: got to have some water. You know, anything that makes
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: them like vulnerable or you know, creates stress, gives you
• 33:56
  Speaker 5: something that you can take advantage of, and these dere
• 33:59
  Speaker 5: just don't seem to have very much of that. So
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: they've been they've been tougher to kill.
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: Let me let me ask you this question.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: So obviously you had a book written Creeks and Ditches,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and so it's focused on creeks and ditches. What if
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: there's a creek that runs through a property. What is
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the first thing you do if you see a creek
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: is running through property.
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: On the top of that, well, I mean, you know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 5: for one thing, there's going to be swirling wind swirling,
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: but you also know that there's a bunch of really
• 34:25
  Speaker 5: good funnels because if you look at the topographical map
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: or the aerial photo even you can see the S
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: curves in the creek. Well, the middle of the S
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: is where the banks are gradual, Like each bend has
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: a high bank because you know, the creek always cuts,
• 34:41
  Speaker 5: you know, when it turns. The deer generally don't cross
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: on those high banks. So if you find big sweeping
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: gradual turns with the you know s, you know the
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: middle of the S, you're gonna have a lot of
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: deer funneling through that one spot where you've got gradual banks.
• 34:58
  Speaker 5: So it's pretty easy pattern hunt if you can figure out,
• 35:02
  Speaker 5: you know, how to control your scent because you know,
• 35:05
  Speaker 5: you get down in those valleys. If you're hunting on
• 35:07
  Speaker 5: a crosswind, then you're gonna get a lot of swirling
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: Sometimes when the wind dies, you can hunt them pretty
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: effectively because you're just gonna get the thermals pulling your
• 35:16
  Speaker 5: scent right down in the same direction that the water's going.
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: And you know, I've had some success doing that over
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: the years, and a lot of times in the evenings
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: right before dark, last hour let's say of legal sheoting time,
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: that wind will lay right down and you'll get that
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: thermal effect. It's just whether or not you can, you know,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: stay undetected long enough in that location for that last
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: hour to pay off. But you and that's an obvious one.
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: The creeks, they create a lot of funnels and that's
• 35:46
  Speaker 5: what they're good for. And in the deer we usually
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: travel along the side of them also, but there are
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: going to be some very obvious crossings in the middle
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: of that big.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Ass all right, Well, Bill, I appreciate your your insight
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: and step by step guide to white people in the
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: right direction. I think there's a little bit of grace
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: hearing it from you that you might find the area,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: but it might take a while to find the spots.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: So I think there's some grace to that.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: No, I think that's true.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: Awesome, Bill.
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: Where can people find everything that you have going on?
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I know you're still posting videos.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: Just the Bill Winky YouTube channel. That's the best place,
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: and you know I do check in there all the time.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: So if you watch a video and you have a
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: comment or a question, you know I'm going to do
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: my best to correspond with you there.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: All right, folks, there, you guys have it.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to roll into the next and last guest
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: here for this week. It is with Jeff Sturgis of
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: White Tail Habitat Solutions. Jeff is probably consulted on more
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: farms than just about anyone. This should be very helpful
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: for anyone. Let's go ahead and close it out here
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: with Jeff Sturgis.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: Here we go.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: All right, Jeff, welcome back to back forty. We're gonna
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: be talking about different dilemmas and questions that everyone has
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: building all the way up to October first, starting today
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: July twenty third, and to kick things off, I want
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: to ask the question of you know, sometimes there's a
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: very obvious best spot on a farm, maybe a really
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: great destination food source, or maybe a spot that has
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: great access, something that has been worked on and tinkered
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: and it's like the best spot has likely been designed
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: to some degree, so we're gonna scrap that, We're thrown
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: out that out the window for someone that is just
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: getting access to something new or just got permission or
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: a new lease, or just bought a new property. In
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: your opinion, what is finding the best place on a
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: property that has had little to know improvements. What's that
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: step by step process?
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: Now are we talking for the early season or more
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: of the rut? Now we're looking up to October first,
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: you know that timeframe.
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: Great, great qualifying question, I would say overall, So for
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: someone that's that's relatively new or this simply needs a refresher,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: So maybe we could break it down. What is it
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: like early you know, before the pre rut, even then
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: pre rut rut and so on, we could, you know,
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: quickly kind of go through each pace.
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: Sure, and I look at like the early season, I'm
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: really focusing on food sources, so that afternoon hunt in
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: the early season is premium to me, really hard to
• 38:09
  Speaker 6: go into the morning. There are those setups in the
• 38:10
  Speaker 6: morning where you can wait at the backside of a woodlot.
• 38:13
  Speaker 6: There's ag or food on the opposite side of the woodlot.
• 38:16
  Speaker 6: You're waiting for those bucks to come back into the
• 38:18
  Speaker 6: backside of that wood lot ready at your feet in
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: the morning. A pretty low impact to access, maybe off
• 38:23
  Speaker 6: a road across the creek or something, and just kind
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: of thinking of some circumstances. But unless you have a
• 38:29
  Speaker 6: pretty defined morning setup, it's really tough. So afternoon they're
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: hitting food, and that food that they're hitting in the
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: early season is usually not there just two or three
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: weeks later, whether that's beans, even early season white acorn drop,
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: open hardwoods where they're eating leaves. Bucks and their bedding
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: areas are different. Then they're more in open areas. They're
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: not going to crush your velvet. So I'm looking for
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: areas that sometimes are out in the fringe areas of
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: property where they're going to a neighboring food source. Again,
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: this is a property that hasn't been set up, and
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: so I'm looking at where are those bucks going from
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: on the property right now, and where are they going
• 39:02
  Speaker 6: to on the neighboring food sources, and how can I
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: set up that It's probably going to relate to open,
• 39:07
  Speaker 6: more mature timber, easy access in and out, and then
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: I'm not going into the heart of the property where
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: I might destroy betting that's going to pay off really
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: good later. And that's where when it gets later in
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: the season, and you'll see that those early season rubs,
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: those first rubs in early September, and it seems like
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: there's a little lull after that. So if you really
• 39:28
  Speaker 6: want to find an early season hotspot. There's typically some
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: rubbing going on in that area when it gets later.
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: I'm looking for those betting area funnels, backside of betting
• 39:38
  Speaker 6: areas where it's almost like you're flipping around. I'm going
• 39:41
  Speaker 6: in the morning away from food, getting on the backside
• 39:44
  Speaker 6: of betting and waiting for those deer to come back
• 39:46
  Speaker 6: to me. Now I'm not just going and saying, well,
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: this is a cool betting area. I'm going to get
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: on the back side. I'm backing up against a cliff,
• 39:54
  Speaker 6: against maybe a neighboring horse pasture neighboring or one hardwoods
• 40:01
  Speaker 6: open ardwoods where I don't think the deer are going
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: to be, so that I can come in through that
• 40:06
  Speaker 6: open type cover, get to the backside of that betting area,
• 40:11
  Speaker 6: and then find some funnel, whether it's a change of habitat,
• 40:14
  Speaker 6: a swamp edge, a creek edge, an inside funnel where
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: you have a change in habitat in two different directions.
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: You're getting in the middle where those movements form more
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: of an X. Not necessarily looking right at a buckbed.
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: I think that can be overrated. Where you think a
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: bucks area you get in and on him and you
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: spook him because he was fifty or one hundred yards away.
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: I want to be on the outside edge so that
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: I can find that perfect movement relating to some type
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: of funnel system and then blow my scent into a
• 40:43
  Speaker 6: non deer area. And those are some of my favorite spots.
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: You'd say that less than twenty percent of my sits
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: are in a morning betting area downwind spot like that
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: on a funnel system, but they account for probably seven
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: percent of my bucks throughout the entire year, especially the
• 41:03
  Speaker 6: oldest box with a bow, And so late to October
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: early November, I'm always thinking about the next great morning
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: stand backside of bedding, opposite access from the food, and
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: so it's like in the early season focusing on food,
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: and then as it gets into late October November, I'm
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: really starting to look at those betting areas. And if
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: you add a water hole on a new site, that
• 41:26
  Speaker 6: can be golden because not only will that buck may
• 41:28
  Speaker 6: be key on that in the early season if it's
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: next to an open, mature bedding area that he's hitting,
• 41:33
  Speaker 6: but if it maintains that movement of funnels cruising areas
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: parallel to field edges, maybe a perfect saddle or a
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: bench system, then you can expect it to really heat
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: up late October November when he's cruising and working up
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: a thirst.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: So you've you've probably consulted on more farms than anyone.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I think that might be a fair statement to say,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: would you.
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: Say a lot? Anyways?
• 41:58
  Speaker 6: It's bright maybe sixteen hundred or so, like in twenty
• 42:02
  Speaker 6: two seasons, so and there might be someone with more
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: out there too, but yeah, a lot anyways.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so when you were looking at you show up
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: at the farm and you know, you kind of go
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: through your process. How often when you see a terrain
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: feature on a property where you just get pretty excited?
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Is there a specific terrain feature or do you get
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: excited when there's a creek system? Obviously where you're at
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: in the country, like there's would you would you call
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: yourself in the driftless region, would you say that's fair?
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so like the driff region where there's a
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: lot more terrain features a bluff country.
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, we have like on our property, it's up
• 42:38
  Speaker 6: to three hundred feet of elevation change cross server in Wisconsin, Right,
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: I hunt where I hunted for a long time. It
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: was more like four point fifty new property we're gonna
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: hunt Wisconsin's more like one hundred to one hundred and fifty.
• 42:51
  Speaker 6: But I like those features because terrain narrows downwards. Deer
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: aren't just as much as where they are, so a
• 42:59
  Speaker 6: lot of the steam faces they aren't, and that would
• 43:02
  Speaker 6: include even self facing slopes. Deer want to have flat
• 43:05
  Speaker 6: They want to be able to run across saddles, move
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: on bench systems, bed in flat areas, and so if
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: you use steep train to access where deer aren't, blow
• 43:14
  Speaker 6: your scent off, that steep terrain then allows you to
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: get in and out of property without spooking deer that
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: might be on the flat side on the backside, get
• 43:22
  Speaker 6: up to a point, look at a bench down below.
• 43:25
  Speaker 6: But it also allows you to navigate the wind and
• 43:28
  Speaker 6: cheat the wind. So you can really cheat the wind
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: when it comes to hunting. An elevation change because you
• 43:33
  Speaker 6: can blow your scent at the deer from up high
• 43:35
  Speaker 6: in the morning, and you can use the wind to
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: run your scent into the side of a hill knowing
• 43:41
  Speaker 6: it's going to go downhill into a draw, which allows
• 43:44
  Speaker 6: that wind to pull down in the afternoon evening and
• 43:47
  Speaker 6: if I'm on flat terrain, it's almost like you're looking
• 43:50
  Speaker 6: for the same kind of concepts. And what I mean
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: by that, it's how can I access through big, open
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: hardwoods and then get up against a swamp edge. Maybe
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: it's a wet swamp, or I could blow my scent
• 43:59
  Speaker 6: into the swamp. Maybe I can back up and blow
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: my scent into the open hardwoods. But those hard defined
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: habitat changes of swamp land to hardwood edge or upland
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: edge I really try to focus on so you can
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: look at a property and really when you're looking for
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: that diversity and edge, it's a matter of you look
• 44:19
  Speaker 6: at an aero photo from above and you're looking at
• 44:24
  Speaker 6: a woods field habitat. The more colors, the more sizes
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: and shape change, the more habitat diversity. And when you
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: can see that relate to a creek system inside corner
• 44:35
  Speaker 6: of a woods or field edge, when you can relate
• 44:37
  Speaker 6: that to terrain and flat features, then you can really
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: take an area that's five hundred acres and just start
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: acting locations that have the greatest amount of diversity and
• 44:48
  Speaker 6: the greatest amount of edge and funnels, and you might
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: come up within that five hundred acres five to ten spots,
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: and it's pretty easy to go out identify historical sign
• 44:58
  Speaker 6: of old rubs and scrapes that show history of sign
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: in that location and narrow it down to three or
• 45:02
  Speaker 6: four areas you want to focus on really quick in
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: an upcoming home.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's that's a great starting point. And
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I those are all great things for someone that's trying
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: to figure out where to be and how to how
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: to utilize the wind and predict your movement and be
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: able to get in undetected. Like that's the core principles
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: of figuring out a good spot.
• 45:24
  Speaker 6: Well, and I can think you can avoid some traps.
• 45:26
  Speaker 6: When you see rubs in early October, they use it
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: from early September, and they use it from those summer patterns,
• 45:31
  Speaker 6: not fall patterns. A lot of times those rubs might
• 45:34
  Speaker 6: be in a white oak acorn stand that's not available
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: in late October November, and you get you gravitate, especially
• 45:40
  Speaker 6: as a newer hunter, to some of that sign, and
• 45:43
  Speaker 6: you really have to ask yourself is this sign reflective
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: of early season or is this this sign really reflective
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: of a pattern that's going to stay in through the
• 45:52
  Speaker 6: rut and in through the heart of the season where
• 45:54
  Speaker 6: I want to put the most time in and have
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: my vacation time, you know.
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: And so yeah, well, Jeff, where can We're going to
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: have you on every other week here leading all the
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: way up to October first. But in case people want
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: to get more of your content, you post a bunch
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: on YouTube, really great information. Where can they find that?
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: Then just look up white Tail Habitat Solutions on YouTube.
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: I post a little bit on Instagram too, and then
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: our site, Whitetail Habitat Solutions, you can easily find if
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: you are looking for us white Tail strategy content. Doesn't
• 46:23
  Speaker 6: matter what it is, hunting the weather from building habitat.
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: You can look at that title and just look on
• 46:30
  Speaker 6: Google or YouTube and a lot of my stuff will
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: come up towards the top. Even just typing in white
• 46:35
  Speaker 6: Tail Habitat Solutions and stretch grass or navigating the rut
• 46:39
  Speaker 6: or hunting the weather, and it'll come up for you,
• 46:42
  Speaker 6: just so you can get some free information, not even
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: having to buy anything from us.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: All right, folks, I hope you guys enjoyed this episode
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: and enjoy this format. Next week we're going to be
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: bringing back Bill Winky. Jeff stur just Aaron and Adam,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: and we're going to dive into a new question and dilemma,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and I'm going to go and preview it now. And
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I think ultimately it's what's one thing every hunter is
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: making way too complicated. So over the next week you
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: get a chance to think about maybe something that you
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: are over complicating, and you get to hear what they
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: have seen as a potential pitfall of general folks that
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you and even them at the times, that could overcomplicate
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: a thing, regardless of what angle it is with hunting
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: white tails. So I hope you guys have a great
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: rest of your week. We will see you next time.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: See if