Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #122: How Todd Mead Kills Big Bucks from the Mountains of New York to the Public Lands of the Midwest

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #122: How Todd Mead Kills Big Bucks from the Mountains of New York to the Public Lands of the Midwest · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan. This episode number on Tannis Show.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We're joined by Todd Mead, who's going to share this
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: how he's managed to kill big mature bucks all the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: way from the Big Woods Mountains of New York to
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: the public lands of the Midwest. All right, welcome to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by sit Gear,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: and today we're joined by Todd Mead, a hunter hamling
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: from the great State of New York. And Todd brings
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: some really interesting perspectives to the table as a deer hunter,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: as he's someone who has successfully hunted white tails in
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: some wildly different situations. He's had success both in the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Big Woods mountainous terrain of New York's at Arondic Mountains
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and the flat agricultural lands of the Midwest. And he's
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: done it all d I y and almost exclusively on
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: public land as well. So obviously this guy knows something
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: about hunting white tails, and I think we all can
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: learn a thing or two from him. So that said, today,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: I'm going to grill Todd all about his experiences in
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: both of these different types of situations. We're going to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: dive deep into what it's like to hunt in the
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  Speaker 1: big woods or mountainous situations like you might find in
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the Northeast, and exactly how to find and kill mature
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: bucks in those areas. And then we're also going to
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  Speaker 1: explore how Todd has been able to have equally as
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: impressive success on his cross country white tailed trips to
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  Speaker 1: the Midwest and public land situations like that. So all
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: in all, it's going to be a very interesting conversation
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: and I think a perfect way to kick off October.
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: But before we get tied on the line, we need
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to do two things first. This is a little, a
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: little bit kind of special here. Earlier this week October
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: four marked the three year anniversary of the day that
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: I quit my full time job and went in on
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: wired to hunt. Three years. It's uh, it's pretty hard
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: to believe that this much time has passed and that
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  Speaker 1: I've actually been able to do this for that long
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: without the whole thing crashing in around me. But but remarkably,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I've been blessed with this incredible three year journey so far,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and to be honest, you know it was it was
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: scary as hell when I quit my job back in thirteen,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: and many of you know that story. But I had
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: a great job with a big tech company and life
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: was solid and safe and going as planned. But but
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: that kind of life and job it wasn't where my
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: heart was. And I knew that that year until thirteen.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I finally had to make that decision. I had to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: finally decide to chase that dream, to listen to my heart,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: to wave goodbye to that safe, solid, secure and instead
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: of embrace the risk and the opportunity of doing what
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I love for a living. And now here we are
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: three years later, and I think you know by far
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the biggest reason why this whole thing is still going.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: It's because of you, guys. It's because wire Hunt readers
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and viewers and listeners have allowed me to share my
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: stories and my failures and my lessons learned. And you've
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: stuck with me through it all. You've you've listened to
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the podcast and you share the articles, you've given me feedback,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: you've given props to the companies have helped us, and
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: so so much more. And it's because of you that
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I'm getting to enjoy this three year anniversary today. So
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you, thank you, thank you,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: thank you. I can't say it enough, but I hope
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: in some small way you can realize just how appreciative
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I am and how much the wire dunk community really
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you all mean to me. You guys are the best.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you and thank you. Now to the second
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  Speaker 1: thing we need to do before calling Todd, we need
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: to thank another person will not personal company in this case,
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: that being Sick of Gear for sponsoring this podcast. They
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: were actually the very first company ever to support wired
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Hunt way back and I think two thousand and ten.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: They start off, and they've really been instrumental in keeping
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: this podcast and website afloat. So as we do every week,
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: we've got a sick story to share, and if you recall,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: in last week's episode, we began with a story from
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: sick employee Alex Tannembaum, who was relaying the kind of
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: experience of one his of his very first white tailed
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: bow hunts, and when we left off, he was in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the midst of a very close encounter that left him
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: with some interesting lessons learned about thirty five yards out
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: they did, they kind of you know, made a turn.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: Um it might have been because I made some noise.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say. And uh so I drew and
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: uh and then they were all three of them looking
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: like straight at me and like oh geez and uh
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and I still even have haven't even made a pick
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: like which one should I shoot, you know, like I
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: haven't even thought that far I had. I'm just like
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: I'm drawn and I got year and I'm like, uh
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: that one and uh and you know, put my pen
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: on and like like nothing feels good about this shot,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: like like not a single thing. Like I'm just like
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  Speaker 1: I'm shaking. I'm I I just I got nothing. And
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: but I didn't want to let down because for some reason,
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: like that felt like I would be like I don't know,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: I I think I was just still a pretty new
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: hunter and like that idea of letting down when I
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: had an opportunity to shoot, like I just didn't. It
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: just seemed like maybe that wasn't like a like a
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, a virtuous thing to do. Um, you know,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that wasn't like the that wasn't what a real hunter
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: would do. And so instead, um, I raised my bow
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  Speaker 1: up like way the heck over him and just touched
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  Speaker 1: off and just shot way over their backs. And because
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: then I could say, oh yeah, it was a clean
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: miss um you know. And uh so that was you know,
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  Speaker 1: in in that like kind of you know, flood of
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: totally illogical thinking and emotional thinking, that was that was
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  Speaker 1: what I did. Um. So, So, knowing what you know now,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: would you have done anything differently in that situation? Yeah?
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: I mean I guess looking back at it, if I
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: could have changed the outcome, Um, if I could have
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: done something differently, like knowing what I know now, but
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: you know the me of back then standing in that stand, um,
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  Speaker 1: I think I'd have just counseled that that Alex of
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: years ago to to have like the the the comfort
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: and the self assurance that like letting down it was okay,
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: that I didn't need to let an arrow go to
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: make the story better or to make to to have
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: to to sound more impressive to to other people. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you know that I they really they to have more
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: confidence in in in my personal ethic. Um. That's That's
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: what I would say to to that kid who was
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: standing in that stand that that morning, and that right there,
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: my friends, was a sick story. If you'd like to
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: learn more about Sick of Gears technical hunting apparel, you
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: can visit sick of gear dot com. And now let's
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: get back to the show and give Todd me to call.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: All right now with us on the line is Todd Mead.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to show. Todd, thanks for having me Mark. I
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: appreciate you asking me to be a guest on your show. Yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: I'm excited to chat. It's been a little while. We
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: we actually, well, heck, I don't know when I first
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: started hearing about you, maybe through social media or something, Todd,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: but as you know, we got to chat quite a
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: bit this spring when we were working. I was working
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: on a story for magazine where we actually featured you
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: in that, and I got to learn a lot about
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: how you're hunting and the kind of success you're having,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: and to be honest, I was I was very impressed.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: So I knew eventually we had to get you on
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  Speaker 1: here and share what you're doing with the audience. So
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  Speaker 1: I'm excited to do that now. Um, but I suppose
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: before we dig into the house and the what's of
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  Speaker 1: your hunting? Can you just tell us a little bit
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  Speaker 1: about your background as a hunter and kind of how
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  Speaker 1: you got to where you are today. Sure you bet.
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  Speaker 1: Uh right now, I'm forty seven years old and I
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  Speaker 1: live in what they call the Adirondack Park of upstate
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  Speaker 1: New York, and it's approximately five hours from New York
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  Speaker 1: City in an hour and a half of south of Montreal, Canada.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a pretty mountainous region. Most people that are
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  Speaker 1: familiar with New York don't know that New York has mountains,
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  Speaker 1: and the Adirondack Park is uh. It's approximately six million
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  Speaker 1: acres and about fifty two per cent of that is
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  Speaker 1: privately owned, so the other forty eight percent is open
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  Speaker 1: to the public for hunting, outdoor activities, et cetera. UH.
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  Speaker 1: In the area in the Adirondack Park, it's it was
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  Speaker 1: declared forever wild by Teddy Roosevelt, and UH he decided
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  Speaker 1: that you could never have motorized vehicles in there. Um
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  Speaker 1: you could, you you wouldn't ever be able to do
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  Speaker 1: any logging on the public land. So in some ways
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  Speaker 1: it's really hard to hunt. And that's what I'm faced
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  Speaker 1: with because it's a mountainous area and there aren't a
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  Speaker 1: lot of deer. Like in the area that I hunt,
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  Speaker 1: there are approximately one to five deer per square mile,
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  Speaker 1: so finding the deer that could be a really difficult task,
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  Speaker 1: and it's different from year to year depending on the feed.
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  Speaker 1: So originally I got my start when I was a kid.
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  Speaker 1: My father was raised on a dairy farm, and he
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  Speaker 1: never really had a lot of time to hunt. As
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: he got older, the dairy farm kind of went under
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and then he, uh he went to work in a factory.
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  Speaker 1: So when he started working in the factory, he had
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: a little more time and he began to hunt. So
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: he had a really late start. He was he was
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in his early twenties when he started hunting, and uh,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: since since he lived on the base of the Adirondack Park,
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: he decided to hunt in the Adirondex because it was
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  Speaker 1: easy to hunt close to home. So I mean that's
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  Speaker 1: pretty much where I started. He he was in his
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: early twenties, which is when I was born. So my
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: dad and I are really close in age. He's only
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  Speaker 1: twenty one years older than me, so a lot of
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  Speaker 1: people think that we're brothers, and I kind of like
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: it that way because my dad's also my best friend.
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  Speaker 1: So when I was little. He brought me into the
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  Speaker 1: woods and he he introduced me to hunting, but he
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: never really forced me to go, and he always asked
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  Speaker 1: me if I wanted to go. And I never really
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: took a liking to hunting. I always wanted to go
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: fishing instead. I wanted to be uh. I wanted to
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: be like a die hard fisherman. I'd spend every minute
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I had in creeks, ponds, lakes wherever I could go
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: to catch trout. And I just didn't like killing things,
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and it just turned me off. And as time went on,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I kind of I warmed up the hunting a little bit,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: and when he would come home, I would wait for
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: him to come home, just for him to tell the stories.
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  Speaker 1: And what really captivated me were the stories that he
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: brought home, and I thought to myself, I I think
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: I'd like to do that. I think I'd like to
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: make my own stories. And then then we basically started
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  Speaker 1: hunting together. I got my hunting license. In New York.
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  Speaker 1: At that time, you had to before teen years old
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to bow hunt, and uh, I began bow hunting when
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: I was fourteen, and then you couldn't rifle hunt in
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: New York until you were sixteen, and that's when I
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: began hunting with a gun. And in the early days,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: it was tough because I think my father and I
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: were kind of learning together. He had learned quite a bit,
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: but we used each other and we still do today
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: to to kind of bounce things off from each other
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: and learn as we go. And I guess that's kind
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of where I stand and and where I started. Uh,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely not an expert hunter. Uh a lot of people.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: I have a collection of deer heads and I bring
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: them to shows because I'm an author. I've written a
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: couple of books on deer hunting in the Adirondex. So
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to sell the books, I had to find a way
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: to promote myself, even though I'm not really a self
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: promotional person. So I decided I have I have over
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: twenty deer heads that are that are moun and my
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: father has some on top of that. So I decided
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: the best way to sell books would probably be to
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: go to these outdoor shows with the collection of deer
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: heads as my display. So then I went to the
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: to the shows and I brought the deer heads as
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: a display and and it was a huge draw and
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: then a lot of people began to think that I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: was some great hunter. And uh, although it might look
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: like I know what I'm doing on the wall, uh,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: the reason that I got most of those deer is
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: just because I said, and spend so much more time
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: in the woods than anyone else does. And if anyone
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: spends as much time as I do in the woods,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: they're definitely bound to get lucky at some point in time.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: So I like it, But but don't undersell yourself, Todd.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: You're you're doing a lot of things right, and I
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: think like to your point, the very most important of
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: all things we could possibly be doing as hunters is
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: putting in the time and energy, which definitely seems like
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you're checking the box on that one. But um, but
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: then also, I mean, right, you you were hunting the
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Adirondacks and the big mountains and the big woods, which
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: is this incredibly challenging environment. You were finding ways to kill,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: you know, seemingly lots of mature bucks, the kind of
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: bucks that you know, obviously someone in New York but
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: even anywhere would be pretty excited about. And then you
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: also started changing things up though, and then traveling out
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: the Midwest to right, when did that start? Yeah, that's correct.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: I Uh, for years and years I hunted the Adirondacks.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: And and if if you're familiar with the Aderondex, we
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: have what we call die hard Adirondack hunters that will
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: never ever leave the ader Ondex because it's so challenging
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and so rewarding when you kill a deer. There there
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: may be years where you might see one deer and
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: it might be a dough um. But if you see
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: any bucket, doesn't even matter what kind of bucket is.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: It could be a spike horn, a four pointer, could
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: be a monster ten pointer, it could be anything. Uh,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you're considered above average because some people go for a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: period of years without and seeing deer. So along the way, UM,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: I was fortunate enough to start killing a lot of
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: older deer and uh like good rack deer for the Adirondacks. Typically,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: the Adirondacks don't produce big rack deer as far as
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: score wise, because all their energy goes to surviving the winner.
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: So when when all the energy goes to that, there's
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: nothing left over for antler growth. And on top of that,
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: there there isn't much feed. Um, they're pretty much browsers,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of mast or anything in
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: the Adirondacks except for the lower portion of the Adirondack Park.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: Um So, along the way, when I started killing a
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: lot of these mature deer, my father, my father was
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: doing the same, and I became fascinated with big antlers,
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, I would like to kill big deer,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: and I would like to see more Dear because I
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: knew that I I knew I would no matter where
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: I went. I knew I would have no problem finding
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Dear if I could find him in the adder on dex. So,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: when we decided that we wanted to do something different,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: um I began shooting what they called the IBO National
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Triple Crown. And I was pretty successful at competitive archery.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: And I don't know, I think it was around I'm
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: not sure the time frame, but it was probably around
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the year two thousand two. I was shooting the third
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: leg of the National Triple Crown and I was in
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: southern Ohio and there was this guy in my group
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and I was shooting the semi pro class and he
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: was shooting in the hunter class, and for some reason
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: they had him in a group of three semi professional shooters,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and this guy was really nice and he was a
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: local guy. He was from right there. He was trying
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: to shoot so he could go home and he would
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: be done with the tournament. So as we are shooting,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: I was telling him that, you know, hunting was my
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: passion and uh and I loved archery, but I never
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: had a place to really bow hunt. So when when
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: he was done for the day, he asked me to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: go over to his car. So I walked to his car.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: He showed me this photo album of all these deer
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: he had killed, and he said, well, what do you
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: think I said, oh, they're pretty impressive. I said, you'd
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: probably never see a deer in a lifetime like that,
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: and he had our index. He says, well, he's since
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: you don't have really many bow hunting opportunities where you live,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: what do you think about coming out here and hunting
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: with me? So I asked him. I said, I would
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: love to come, but my father's my best friend, and
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I really can't come unless he can come with me
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: because I don't do anything without him. And he looked
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: at me and he says, that's not a problem at all.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So then we became friends. And he showed me some
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: places at a hunt in Ohio on public ground, and uh,
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: that's when I started my trip into the Midwest. And
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: from Ohio, I just continued all the way across the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: straight the states to Kansas. And to this day, I
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: always take a week or two and I hunt. Something
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is different in the Midwest. Um. I might randomly pick
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: it out, or I might hear about it from somebody
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: else like I did from this guy, and uh, and
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: then I just go and I hunt and I see
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: what happens. So that's kind of my story of how
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I transition from the Big Woods to the Midwest. That's awesome. Well,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: I want to talk about both of those two different
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: situations because we've got a lot of listeners that are
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: that fall into one of those two camps. But I
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: suppose let's first start where you started. Um, we don't
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: get to talk to enough people that hunt in areas
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: like you do in the other roundecks or in the northeast. Um,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: but there's so many listeners that do. And so I'm
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: excited to kind of pick your brain about how to
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: do this because it's so different from hunting here in
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Michigan or Ohio, where you've got, you know, lots of
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: egg land and small wood lots and easy little pinch
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: points and different things like that. I mean, it seems
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: like it's a totally different ball game. So I suppose
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: can you first, you've kind of elaborate, you've touched on
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: this a little bit already, but can you just kind
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of set the stage a little bit for us? You know,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: what is this big woods mountain hunting like in a
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: spot like where you're at New York and what you know,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: how is it so different than what the rest of
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: us have? Okay, to the average person, it would be
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: really scary because like where I hunt, there's probably there's
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: there's no intersecting road from from probably about twenty miles
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: from the point that I enter the woods. So if
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: you get lost and you're going in the wrong direction,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you're gonna have mountains to cross, or rivers to cross,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: mountains to climb, swamps to navigate through. And uh, it's
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to not be intimidated, which is one
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: reason why not a lot of people hunt it. So
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: when you go into the woods, you have to learn
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to you have to respect the woods, but you can't
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: be afraid of it. And you have to know how
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to use a compass. Um A GPS is good, but
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a GPS won't do you much good if it stops working.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: So I've learned to navigate with a compass. My father
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: taught it to me when I was young, and I
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: pretty much rely on a camp compass, even though I
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: carry a GPS rhino And uh, that's how I start.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: And when I say i pull up on the side
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: of the road and I'm going to go into some
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: place new, I have a general idea. I've looked at
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: it on a map and I know kind of what's
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: in there. And what I do is I I look
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: at different areas that I think I want to go to.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Like if there's a mountain that tapers down into a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: big swamp, I'll look at that, I'll circle it and
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: I'll be like, Okay, that's the first place I'm gonna go.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: So say it's three miles back in the woods. Um,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: if I've never been in here before and it's daylight,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: I'll just pick along and I'll observe as I go,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: and I'll make my way to that place that I
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: circled down the map. And once I'm there, i'll determine
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: is it a place that I'm going to come back to?
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: How many good places are between where I came into
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the woods and where I am, And then from there
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: I'll continue on to say and other place that I
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: have on there, and I'll try to loop all the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: way through it and see what I can find. Um,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: if I go through the area and I don't see
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: any sign that I'm looking for, such as big rubs,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: signpost rubs, old scrapes with like licking branches, stuff like that,
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: then I probably won't go back. I need something to
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: show me that it's worth my time to go back there.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: So so this is this whole the starting point, I think,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: at least for me, and I'm betting for a lot
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of people. Beginning in an area like this seems like
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the most intimidating portion of the whole hunt. When you
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: have this vast wilderness, all this landscape, and it's like,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: how do I find dear, how do I even start?
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the fact that you would look at maps,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: and one example you said was that you would look
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: where a mountain dumps off into a swamp. So can
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: you can you talk a little bit more about what
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: these different spots are that you look at or look
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: for as starting point. So that's one example. What else
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: would you look for in a map to say, Okay,
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: that's a good starting point, and this is a good
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: starting point. What are some of these key places you
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: would kind of focus in on to find where the
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: deer might be to begin with? Sure, I'll tell you
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: this is my favorite thing to do. Um I'll look
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: at a map and I'll see I'll try to find
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: what I call a bridge. And a bridge is going
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to be something that takes you from one area to
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the other. And let's say we have just to compare,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: like we have an ocean on both sides of the bridge, okay,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: and then on the opposite opposite end of each side
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: of the bridge, there's a there's a landmass there. So
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I look for the bridge that links things in. An
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: example of that would be say I'm going along and
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: I find a bunch of beaver ponds, and these beaver
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: these beaver ponds blocked the deer from going through them,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: like they're not most likely they're not going to swim
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: through the pond um. And then on the other end
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of the beaver ponds there's there's like really rugged cliffs.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: They're straight up and down cliffs, so you can't the
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: deer can't n have a gate because you know, they're
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: not rock climbers. So what I then I have a bridge.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: They have to find a way to get on the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: other side of the beaver ponds and travel on this
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: side of the cliff. So if you can find something
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: like that that will funnel the deer through an area
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: where they have no other option, that's gonna be most
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: likely a really good place in big woods. And there
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: are a lot of different places like these. Uh the
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: examples I used, I just used them because I have
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: a place that that I've killed a lot of really
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: nice deer that is just like that. And but it
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: could be a variety of different things that could be. Uh.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: It could be like a river. I mean, deer will
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: swim rivers, but if they can go along the river
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: and then they find an easier spot across the river downstream,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: like where it shallows out or something, then just look
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: for things to send the deer in the same area,
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: like they're really focus them in one area where they
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: don't have an option. Okay, so that makes sense. So
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: it's we're looking for funneling features. They're just they're different
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: funneling features than what I have in Michigan, Ohio. You know,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: instead of two big fields and a little narrow strip
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: of timber, it might be you know, like you said,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: it's all within timber, but there's different terrain features or
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: water features or things that still have the same effect.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Um do you kean and other like topographic features to
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: like saddles and ridges, points that kind of that kind
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: of stuff too. Yeah, there's there are some really good
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: places when you're hunting big woods, and you like what
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. When you find a swamp at the
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: base of a mountain, um, that's usually going to be
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a really good spot. And the reason being is there
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: you'll usually find a runway that goes along the swamp,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: and along those swamps there are usually a bunch of scrapes, rubs,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: et cetera. And the reason it's good is because the
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: dose will travel on the edge of the swamp and
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: bucks can be on the ridge above that, and if
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: the wind's blown uphill, then they can get a whiff
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: of it. And say the buck goes down into the
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: area by the swamp, he has an easy escape route.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: He can either go back onto the mountain, or he
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: can just jump into the thick cover in the swamp.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: So like when I find a swamp, it's uh, it's
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: definitely one of my first places I go, just because
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: usually that's where you're going to find the most sign um.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: Another thing too, in swamps, like I've never I mean
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I've seen it in the Midwest, but not like in
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: the in big woods, you'll find signpost rubs, which are
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: rubs that the deer will come back to a year
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: after year. And Uh, when you find these signpost rubs,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: that's usually a really good place to sit because just
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: like a scrape, a number of different deer will visit
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: the signpost rub and you can usually in the area
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that I hunt, you'll find them like on black ash trees,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: and they'll always be in like a lowland swampy type area.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes if you're in the area and you're looking for
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: those things in the spring, it'll be underwater. But for
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the most part in hunting season, Uh, you know, they're
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: usually pretty visible because the sign will take you past them.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: So how do you use that kind of sign? This
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: is one of the things that I'm always curious with
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: different people. You know, everyone kind of says that they
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: pay attention to rubs and scrapes, But I'm always curious
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: about how you're actually factoring that into your strategy. So, Okay,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: you find this signpost rub, or you find a big
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: scrape or something, are you actually now going to hunt
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: like right over that or is that just like a
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: piece of the puzzle. It tells you Okay, this is
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: a good general area, and then you look more. I mean,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: how do you use specifically the sign that you see? Yeah,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that's exactly, it's a piece of the puzzle. Well, you
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: now you have to put the puzzle together. Like now
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: you're now in that general area where you found the
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: signpost rub, you have to look for all the other
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: puzzle pieces you and you need the corner pieces to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the puzzle. Without the corner pieces of the puzzle, that
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: signpost rubs sitting there is all it's going to be
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: as a puzzle piece laying in the pile with the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: other pieces. So when I find that, I know it's
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: a good area. But now I have to determine what's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: the best area for me to sit in here. Um.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Usually what I'll do is now that you know, now
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: that we have trail cameras stuff like that. I'll put
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: a bunch of trail cameras in that general area, and
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: I'll try to determine where a deer going in the daylight.
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: And if I can establish where the deer are in
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: the daylight, then I know I'm on the right track. Uh.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: An example would be I found this signpost rob a
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: few years ago, and I put my camera on it.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So I got two bucks hitting the signpost tree, and uh,
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: one of them was in the middle of the night,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and one of them was at eleven fifteen in the morning.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, Okay, I only have two deer on here,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: the cameras here all year, so I'm like, the odds
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: aren't good for me to sit there. So I said,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I have to do a little more research and figure
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: this out. So then there's a stream that goes down
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: there and it kind of anders back and forth, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: then it dumps off into a bottom, and there's another
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: small mountain that runs down in and it creates a
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: bench across that stream. So there were a few runways
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: in there, and even though they are a hundred yards apart,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: I put a camera on every runway. On the three runways,
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: two of them. I had active daylight pictures like regular
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: daylight pictures through November and the other one. Uh, there
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: were some pictures on there, but nothing in the daylight.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And in all these runways there are only a few
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: you know, hundred yards apart or whatever. And uh so
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: then I just used that to determine, Okay, dear, go
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: through here in the daylight. I have a lot of pictures,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and uh, it's not like in the Midwest, You're not
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of pictures such as like hundreds
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: of pictures, Like I think I had four daylight pictures
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and three weeks. So I'm like, okay, this this is
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: a good spot because you know, you see so few deer.
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: So after I found that, um, I determined it, you know,
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: that's the place. And then after finding that and then
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: sitting there, then I was able to you know, to
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: see deer and pass deer up where before it was
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: just a shot in the dark because I found the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: signpost rub but I really didn't put the pieces of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: the puzzle together. And then after they all directed me
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: over there to where those three runways were, which was
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: just over the next hill. Um, then I knew, I
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: knew I had that puzzle figured out so that it's
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: time to go to the next one. So on the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: trail camera piece, can you can you elaborate on the
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: details of how you're using So it sounds like you're
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: finding a general area, you know, doing some on foot scouting,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: then you're fine tuning with trail cameras. But like, when
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: do you put out the cameras, how long are you're
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: running them throughout the year? How often are you checking them?
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of curious about that stuff. Yeah, this is
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: a tough one because I'm not around a lot so
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: what I used to do. This is a new area
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting, and I haven't hunted it, and uh, you know,
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I randomly hunted. I don't hunt it a lot, so
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to know what was going on
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: in there. So what I did is the first year
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: in there, I put the cameras in in July, and
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: by what the hell was it? By the end of August,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: I had no cameras left left because bears destroyed them.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Bears pulled them off trees, they smashed him on the ground,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and it was just a mess. So that first year
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: it was a disaster. So I'm like Okay, I can't
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: do this. I can't put them in here that early
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: because for some reason, that early the bears get him.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: So then I started putting them in our muzzle. Older
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: season usually opens the second weekend of October. So I'm like, okay,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I'll put him in the second weekend of October, and
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: I'll leave them there through the season, which is the
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: usually the first weekend second weekend of December. And what
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I did, I put them in there in the in
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: the beginning, and I put I always put some of
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: them on scrapes, like if I that area I was
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: just telling you about, I found a primary scrape with
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a licking branch in there. There's a bunch of rubs
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: around it, and it was on a runway. So I
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: kicked the scrape out and I put buck urine in it,
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and then I put a camera on it. And then
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: there were two runways on each side of that, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and they were well used runways, and I decided, well,
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: I'll put cameras on both of them. So so now
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: I have those three cameras right there. So I have
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: a one on a scrape that they use every year,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: figuring I'm going to get most of the deer and
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the most of the bucks in this area because they're
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: gonna come back to that scrape. So then I went in.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I checked it the next week because I'm I'm gonna
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: every weekend. I'm only in there on the weekend because
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: it's too far for me to hunt, like after work
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, and then I go way to the Midwest.
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: I usually leave for the Midwest the first in November,
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: so I have that one week to check it. So
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: I go in there, I check all of them, and
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: when I put that camera on the scrape the next week,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I had a daylight picture at nine o'clock the next
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: day from when I put it on there, and it
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: was a really really good buck for the adder Ondex
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and the two the two cameras on the runways had
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: nothing on them. So then now I'm now I'm in
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: the Midwest. So then I come home. And when I
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: come home, I usually come home on Thanksgiving week. So
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: on Thanksgiving Day, I'll drive my few hours north and
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: walk my few hours in the woods and i'll hunt,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you know, the morning and early afternoon for Thanksgiving, and
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: I'll go in and I'll check them. I'll check every
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: camera I have in the woods, and then I'll determine
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: what I'm gonna do from that point until the end
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: of our season. And so really I only check the cameras.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: I check them probably three times a year. I check
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: them that first week, um, when I come back from
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: vacation in the middle of November, and then I check
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: them the week after that going into the last week
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: of our season, and then I'll make any adjustments on
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: whether I think I'm in a you know, I could
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: be in a better spot and and things like that
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: based on what I see on the camera. So typically,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: and maybe this is different now that you're that you
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: spend time in the Midwest, But do you spend a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: lot of time hunting in that October time period or
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you're usually waiting untill later during guns season, um, you
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: know when you can still hunt and stuff like that.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: It's funny to ask that because I thought about that
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: today and I'm like, I think he's gonna ask me
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: this question. I don't want to answer it because I
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: have to be truthful. But yeah, I for twenty years, um,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: from the time I was sixteen until the time I
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: was thirty six, I can count on one hand the
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: number of days I missed in our entire season in
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: New York. In those days I missed. Uh, they're all
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: because I was sick. And uh, I remember one year
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: I missed one day because I was I was really sick.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get out of bed, and my father killed
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: a really nice buck on that day. And then I missed.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: I missed three days on another year because I was
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I had like the flu and I couldn't get out
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: of bed. And they're the only three days I missed
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: in those twenty years in the season in New York.
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: And Uh, what happened is when I started going to
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, I started getting a little less ambitious as
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: far as going into the big woods because I know
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: that I'm not going to see any deer. And I mean,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: I'll see deer, but the work you put into it
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: to see the deer, it's just it's beyond what most
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: people can comprehend. And I always put the work in
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: back then. But now as I've gotten older, I've I
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say I've gotten lazy, but I'm like, maybe I'm
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: smarter because I know what I'm going to see in
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: the woods at that point in time. So now I
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: kind of I back off a little, like, I mean,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: I'll I've hunted one day so far, but next weekend
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: our muzzle older season will open, and then I'll be
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: in the woods pretty much every day, just because I
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: always think in the back of my mind, this could
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: be the day A right. So how do you deal
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: with that though? As a hunter, knowing that you're gonna
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: see so few year and that you know that this
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: type of honey is so much more difficult than you
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: know what guys are dealing with these other states. I mean,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: what's your vice for another guy it's got a similar
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: situation like that? How do you handle that? How do
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: you deal with that knowledge, that painful knowledge that this
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: is a very difficult I just wrote an article about
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: this for New York Outdoor News, And uh, I think
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: I'm a little bit different than most people because that
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: when I don't see any deer, it drives me like
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I want a hot harder, because I'm like, I want
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: to see a deer, and I want to see the
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: deer that I want to see. Um, So a lot
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of people will get discouraged, and I'm kind to the opposite.
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I hunt with my buddy Brian, and he gets really discouraged,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: and I I don't really get discouraged. I get more,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I get more confident as I go, Like I can
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: always feel it when I'm getting close. I'm like, I'm
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: getting close. I'm getting close, and I'm not sure if
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: I'm convincing myself of that or if it's really happening.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: But I always, I always do these things to make
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: myself realize that, you know, the next minute could be
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: the minute that you shoot the biggest buck of your life.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: In New York, and what I do, I use little
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: things like if I see a new sign that I
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: hadn't seen before I go through some new country, I'm like, this,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: this could be the place. And I just use little
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: things to motivate me. So it's not I mean, you
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: have to find things to motivate you to go in
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: the woods. And one thing I just like and I
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: enjoy being the woods because I'm kind of a loaner
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: and I like to be alone, and I liked my
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: alone time and my mind wanders all over the place,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: and I've probably written a thousand novels when I've been
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: sitting in the woods, and it just gives me. It
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: gives me time to unwind and appreciate life because where
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I'm from it's really wild country, and uh, it gives
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: you a better appreciation for who you are and where
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: you come from. Yeah, I imagine so converse to that.
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: So right, there's this innate challenge to hunting an environment
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: like that. But tell me about the feeling when you
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: do kill a mature bucket situation like that. It's got
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: to be pretty incredible. Oh yeah, it's uh, it's an
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: unbelievable feeling. But then it can be followed by like
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: extreme sadness almost because like some of these deer, like
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: one deer, I hunted this one deer for a number
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of years and I'm like, I am going to catch
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: up to this deer, and every time the deer like
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: outsmarted me and it would blow, it would take off,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: I jump it. And for big woods, that doesn't happen
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: usually too often because usually don't find the same deer
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: in the same area because they're they're kind of wanderers there, nomads.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: But this one deer, like we we just went back
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: and forth. It was like a NonStop battle. And then
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: there was this really really crappy morning. I mean it
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: was it was brutal. It was nasty. It had snowed
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: all night. The snow were it was on the trees.
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: You couldn't see anything. And I was sitting there and
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: I heard like a little noise and I looked over
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: and the deer was it was looking right at me,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: and I had my gun in my lap. I picked
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: the gun up, I put on it, and it was
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: almost like we looked at each other and and I
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: could tell the deer was saying, oh ship, and but
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: he there was nothing he could do. And then I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: just pulled the trigger and it was over, and it
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: was I don't know, it's kind of I don't know
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: if you can compare it like this, but it's like
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: watching a movie and then the ending comes and you
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: almost want to cry because it's like, oh, man, that
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: that sucks. I knew that was going to happen, but
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: that sucks. Yeah. So I don't know if that's a
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, explains it well enough, but that's
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: kind of how it feels. Like it's a perfect analogy.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: You don't want that movie to end, Yeah, exactly. I
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: completely understand what you're saying. I get so caught up
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: in the challenge that when I accomplished the task. Well,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: like I I'm not. I don't know if I'm ready
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: for a new task. It's like, okay, I'm not. I'm not.
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: I haven't had enough of this of this one yet. Yeah,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: I have experienced something similar for sure. I UM. I
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: was kind of curious, as you mentioned a second ago,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: about the fact that you don't bump deer very often
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: this kind of in this kind of area because there's
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: just not that many deer. Um, how do these deer
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: react to hunting pressure? I mean, do they get so
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: little hunting pressure that it doesn't bother them, or do
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: they freak out because they're not used to seeing humans?
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: And when they do, it's like this huge change. They
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: do both of those things. Every I've seen deer do both,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: you know, both ends of the spectrum. Uh, it all
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: depends on the deer, and every deer is different. Like
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: I have this one deer that I've been chasing around
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: now for a few deer a few years, and it's weird,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: Like I'll put a trail camera up and then I'll
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: leave and then the deer will be in that buck
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: will be in the in the picture within an hour
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: of when I left. Yeah, and it happens every single time,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: and it's almost like he's toying with me, like he's
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: watching me or something. And then I have this other deer.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Um for the last four years, I've gotten one picture
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: of him, and it's been on all different cameras, and
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: as soon as that deer sees the camera or like
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the picture, you know, it takes a picture, he's gone
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: because I have it on like video and the picture
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: comes first and he bolts out of there so quick
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: it's it's unbelievable. And so, I mean, every deer is
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: kind of different. And I've had deer that I've jumped
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and they've stood up and they've just turned around and
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: looked at me, and I've shot him, and I've had
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: other deer that I've never seen him again. So it's
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: kinda every you know, it's kind of like people. Each
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: person is their own person in this area, kind of
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: each deer is their own deer. That makes sense. So
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: kind of going back to the building blocks of a
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: strategy in this kind situation, right, it sounds like a
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: lot of what you're doing is focusing on finding these
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: funneling features, something that funnels deer through them. But do
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you ever spend time actually trying to find bedding or
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: feeding areas. You know, does that even exist? Is it
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: all just betting and feeding? The thing is with the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: feeding thing is what I do is when the snow
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: flies while even when the snow is not on the ground,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can see where they paw around and leaves.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Like say, I'm sure you're familiar with this. If you
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: go to where there are a lot of oaks, you
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: can see where they pot around and leaves, leaves are
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: turned over and they find the acorns. UM. I always
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: look for that early in the year because if I
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: can find we're deer or feeding. Um whether usually the
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: area huh, it's mostly beech nuts, if there are any nuts,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And if I can find where they're feeding, I'll definitely
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: go there because it's like a gold mine because they
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: don't normally have that type of food because they really
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: only have brows in the area. So the instant that
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: I can find anything like that, um, I'll be sitting
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: on it. And it doesn't matter whether it's early season,
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: late season, middle of the season, because deer have to eat.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: And it's kind of like this. If you drive down
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: the street and you see a subway, chances are you're
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: going to see people in it, right, So it's the
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: same thing. So when I find something like that, it's
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: like a subway or a McDonald's, Like I know they're
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: going to be in it because because those restaurants don't
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: exist in that region, So I mean they're gonna go
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to the good food and uh. And then usually like
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: when the ruck comes along or whatever, I know Dose
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: will be feeding there. And if I can see Dose,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: and I know I'm gonna see Bucks because in the mountains,
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Bucks will go for miles to to search out a dough.
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: And as far as betting, like I've seen, I've seen
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of places where the same buck will bed
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: over and over. It might be like on a ledge
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: that overlooks a big bowl or something like that. But
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: on the opposite end to I think a lot of
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: our deer are like random wanders. They wander, wander why
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: under and then they get tired and they lay down
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: because it's not like they don't need a bedding ground
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: like in the Midwest and the Midwest they need the
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: bedding ground for protection. But in the big woods where
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: they don't really have a lot of predators, um such
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: as it's like humans, Um, the betting area doesn't. I
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: mean some places, I hut, you'll see it. But for
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: the most part, it's just random. They'll bed here and there.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: A lot of them like to bed high, you know,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: high on mountains and uh and stuff like that where
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: they're a little bit above everything. What do you what
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: do you think is the biggest mistake that most guys
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: and girls are making when hunting in places like this
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: because most people I'm making assumption here, tell me if
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: I'm wrong, But most hunters out there in the Adirondacks
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: or in Hampshire or Vermont or wherever Pennsylvania where they're
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: hunting this hilly, big woods country, most of these people
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: are not killing the big old bucks, the few big
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: old bucks out there. So what are these people doing.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: What's the most common mistake that these people are doing
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: that's keeping them from killing in that big old one.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know if it would be a mistake, but
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: most people just don't have the drive. I mean, it's
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: like what we just talked about, you need to go, go, go,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: go and go without giving up. In most people just
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: give up, um, I mean, they just don't have it
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: in their mental makeup to keep on going. But as
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: far as the people who hunt all the time that
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: actually you know they hunt every day and they just
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: can't catch up to them. There are a bunch of
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: different things that probably contribute to the reasons why they're
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: not successful. And one of them is I think that
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: people go too fast, like their ram ram ram, and
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: they don't pay attention to the clues that are around them.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: It's like what we're talking earlier with the puzzle pieces.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: As you go put the puzzle together, don't just walk
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: through the middle of all the pieces that are laying
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: on the floor. And that's what people do. They ram
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: through the pieces on the floor without really trying to
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: put all of them together. If you step back and
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: you take the time to put them together, then the
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: picture is gonna be painted in front of you. And
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: that's that's kind of what I try to do. And
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: another thing I know that like, I have a friend
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: of mine who he just can't figure out why everybody
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: else kills Big Deer and he has such a hard
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: time with it. He'll see him occasionally, but he doesn't
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: kill him. And he over analyzes everything. It's okay to
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: be analytical, but don't overanalyze yourself to death because he
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: just every single thing, and it hurts my head to
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: listen to him talk because I'm like, wow, I can't
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: even imagine like thinking that much. Dear Dear are habitual creatures,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: but if if you were able to figure out their habit,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: then you you kill a big buck every single year there.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: You know, even though they're habitual, they don't have habits
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: where you can just say, Okay, I got this figured out.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: Anybody who says they have Dear figured out, then I
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: have a hard time believe in that because a lot
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: of it just comes down to luck. You're you put
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: yourself in the right place and you're there at the
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: right time. Like a deer might go through an area,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: whether you're in the Midwest or whether you're in the Adirondacks,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: it might go through an area once a week. If
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: you're there on Tuesday and it goes through on Wednesday,
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: then you're out of luck. But if you're there the
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: same day goes through, then that's your lucky day. So
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: it's if you goes back to that, if you put
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: your time in, you'll probably be successful. And that's what
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: I always tell people. Just put your time in Yeah, yeah,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: it's funny that mature dear sure have a way of
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: making the best made plans look foolish. You can put
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: to your point, you have to do your best to
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: make those plans and look at the puzzle and to
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: try to put yourself in the best possible position, and
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: then at least you've got the best chance of getting
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that luck that you just need to wait for and
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: put your time into eventually get. So that's another thing
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: like people, I mean a lot of people too. Like
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: I hunted in most people in the Aderondacks, they don't
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: hunt specific deer and they hunt in parties. Um. That's
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: why I'm a little bit unique in uh, in the Adirondacks,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: because I hunt by myself and I usually try to
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: hunt a specific deer um. And you know, there are
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of things you have to pay attention to
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: when you're hunting a specific deer uh, And I think
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: people just don't pay attention to that. Like a lot
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: of my friends are trackers, and I tell people I
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: don't have the patients for trackers. Then my tracking friends
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: tell me they don't have the patients to sit. So
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you have to find you know, what works for you.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: And although I don't track, I still hunt so and
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: when I'm still hunting, I pay attention to things like
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: you know, a big buck is gonna have a you know,
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: a wider gate when it's walking and uh you you
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: usually know it's carrying a good rack. Like you'll see
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: where dose will go, Like they'll go underneath trees, they'll
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: go like in between trees in A big buck won't
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: do that because a lot of times as antlers won't
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: go through there, so he'll walk around it. So if
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: you pay attention and you see where deer, like a
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: deer walks around something, you're like, oh, that might be
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: the deer right there. You know, they might some of
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: them might have like a distinguishable mark on their track
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: or something like that. And a lot of people don't
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: pay attention. I mean, as you go you have to
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: look at the tracks and pay attention. Okay, that that
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: one has a chipped hoof, I can see it right there,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: and then you know it's the same deer. So I mean,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: just try to pay attention to two different things that
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: deer do. Mhmm. Yeah. The whole thing with tracks is
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: something that it's it's something that so many modern hunters,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: I think overlook because we have, you know, the technology
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: like trail cameras and stuff to make you know, scouting
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: a little bit easier. But it's something that I think, um,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: you know, you know, given what you're saying a lot
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: of other successful hunters, it's something that should not be ignored.
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get better at paying attention to that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: and learning what those subtle things are that you need
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: to look look for that might determine yes, this is
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: a mature buck, or yes this is the type of
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: track I need to be king in our this is
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: a recent track versus an older track versus you know,
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. There's there's a lot of
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: kind of woodsmanship that I think has been lost that
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: I think we, probably all of us, would benefit to
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: learn a little bit more about. Yeah, that's where I'm
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: kind of lucky because like at my age, I started
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: before all the technological advances and hunting, so I kind of,
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: you know, I have the best of both worlds. I
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: have the old stuff to go by and I have
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the new stuff to help me. Um, It's just like
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: when when I'm in the woods or whatever, and you
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of deer in an area. And Uh,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: I learned this from a friend of mine. Um, you
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: have a bunch of tracks, you get a track and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: you're lost in there. You're like, oh, where the hell
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: did he go? And uh, a friend of mine from
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: me and Randy Flannery, he says, you know, just take
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: a little stick, put it in the track and break
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: it off the same length as the track. He said,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: when you go through, just keep putting in the tracks
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: until you find you'll find the same track because it'll
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: fit exactly the same in the track. So then, like
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: if you thought a deer went out one way, you
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: could find out just by that little stick you got
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: in your pocket that it's actually gone the other way.
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: And you're not wasting a lot of time doing that.
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: So in the same thing, like people, people don't pay
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: attention to when deer p in the snow and uh,
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: bucks will almost always like they tend to urinate when
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: they walk. But at the same time, when they when
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: they urinate, they shoot a hole in the snow. And
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: uh does like if you see the tracks in the snow, Uh,
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: where does go to the bathroom? Uh? It'll the urinill
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: usually be behind Like where the rear hoof prints are
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: because does have to squat to pe usually, So I
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: mean you have if you pay attention to stuff like this,
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: then you'll have a better idea of what you're seeing
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: as far as the tracks, instead of just saying, oh,
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of tracks here, right, that's interesting. That's
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: uh to your point. So many of us run right
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: through the puzzle without even really paying attention to what
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: is there, without reading the clues. And that's one of
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: those things that I certainly have have probably not done
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: a good enough job paying attention to as well. So
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: that's super interesting stuff. Um. So, I guess unless there's
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: something big that you think we've left out on the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: big woods, I got let me ask that first. Is
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: there anything that we should touch on when it comes
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: to big woods or mountain hunting before we move on
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: to what you're doing in the Midwest, anything you want
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: to make sure that you share we touch Oh yeah,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: another thing on why people don't kill deer up there? Um,
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: what people doing this happens anywhere. It could be like
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: in Ohio like where you hunt, or you know where
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a buddy hunts in Michigan or whatever. A lot of
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: people will kill a deer, they'll kill a nice deer,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: and they'll go back there next year, and then we'll
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: go back there the next year and look back there
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: next year. I've killed a lot of deer in the
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: same places. But at the same time, if I kill
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: a deer in a place, I don't keep going and
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: back there just because I killed a deer there in
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the past. Like, if I go back there, there's a
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: reason why I'm back there, So don't keep returning to
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: the same place if the sign doesn't warrant you going
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: back there. Yeah, see, because people think, oh, I killed
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: a deer here last year, I'm gonna kill another big
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: buck here this year, and it just doesn't work that
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: way usually. Yeah, it's a great point, right, It comes
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: down to you said it, why why did they kill
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: big buck here? And if the answer to that question
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: as well, because he was randomly chasing a dough or something,
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: well maybe that's not somewhere you're gonna kill buck year
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: after year. But if the answer to that is, well,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: because this terrain feature funneled him down here, then maybe
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: that is a spot a right. I mean, that's exactly
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: it's asking that question. Yeah, And then I mean another
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: thing I do too is when I killed deer, if
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: it's on the snow, I always backtrack them. Okay, I
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: killed it, the deer is dead there Before I do
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: anything else, I'll follow the tracks backwards. And most people
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: will never take the time to do it because they're
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: so excited that they just killed a deer. If I
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: follow the tracks back where I might find out something
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: that could help me in the future. Um, and then
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: I want to find out where did the deer come
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: from and what was it doing before it got to me.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: So yeah, and uh, I mean that's another one of
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: those puzzle pieces. You might find another piece of your
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: puzzle even though you think you already put the puzzle together.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: So it's a little things like that that a lot
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: of people overlook or don't do. And uh, and I
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: think this stuff like that might help me be successful,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you know, more often than not. Yeah, yeah, it seems
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: like it. I love that idea to backtracking. I always
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: find myself like wishing, like it would be so cool
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: if you could. Of course, I wouldn't want this to
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: be in the real situation, but it it would be so
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: cool to be able to have a deer that you
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: could like track and see, you know, have a radio
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: collar on her somewhere. If I had a personal access
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: to just see what a deer does during his day.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: I know some researchers do have that, and I guess
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: maybe I just want to be a researcher and be
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: able to have that, um just to see how how
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: fascinated would be to see how a buck spends his day.
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: You know, we all, you know, almost making assumptions about
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: what I think they're doing and where they're traveling and
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: how they're doing it. But I would love to, like,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: like if you, once you killed your buck, if you
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: could like press a little button and then it shows, Okay,
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: here's what he's been doing his whole life. I mean,
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: that would be so interesting. And I guess what you're
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: doing backtracking is a real life way to get a
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: little bit of insight into that. So I like that idea.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: It's entertaining, Yeah for sure, Yes, Yeah, that helps a lot.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: Which is trickier. It seems like these days we don't
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: get quite quite as much of it. I feel like
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: it did when I was younger. But um, so let's
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: talk about when you made that transition heading out west.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: We've talked to a number of different hunters over the
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: past couple of years who live in different parts of
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: the country that traveled to the Midwest, And I think
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: there's lots and lots of people like that who have
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: their their week of rut vacation maybe where they're gonna
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: go to their big buck holy Land state, and they've
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: got to fit in all their hopes and dreams into
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: that seven days or whatever it is. You've been able
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: to do this consistently successfully? How do you Let's start
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: at the beginning, how do you start that? How do
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: you even pick, like where you're going to hunt? What's
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: a good because you're doing most is on public land,
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: I think, right, so how do you even begin that?
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: How do you pick? Okay, this is a good public
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: land spot, this isn't or anything like that. But actually,
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: before we make this shift, let's pause briefly to think.
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: Our partners of this podcast episode Mayven Optics and Maybe
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: is a relatively new company creating high end optics like
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: binoculars and spotting scopes for serious outdoor adventures. But they're
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: doing it differently than anyone else out there, and the
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: biggest differentiator is that they only sell direct to the consumer.
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: Through their website, and this allows them to do a
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: couple of things. First, because they don't have a retailer middleman,
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: they can sell these very high end optics at significantly
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: lower prices than the other optics manufacturers out there. And secondly,
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: they're also able to offer a huge amount of customization
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: options for these optics. I'm talking all which different builds
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: and colors and camels and engraving and all sorts of
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: really cool stuff. But what do you really get when
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: upgrading to a high end optic like this? That's what
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: I recently asked Maven co founder Brendan Weaver. Well, I
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: think you know it's a lot of money. You know
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: it's and and I don't mean to downplay that that
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: you know you can you can buy a decent binocular
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: and lomart and that it works for a lot of people. Um,
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a thousand dollars is a lot of money to spend
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: on something, and so it takes a lot of consideration.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: And you know, I guess what I tell people is that, yes,
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: if whatever you're doing is is kind of aimed at
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: going out super early staying out late, in the value
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: that you get during those two times of the day.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: If that's a high value to you, that's when you're
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: gonna see something like what we put out there is
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: that's when you're going to see the difference if you
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: take our stuff out and you line it up against
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: every other brand in the market in the middle of
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: the day, great light, Um, I know what to look for.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: You know, you can show people the differences in it.
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: Um And granted you're going to see a big difference
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: between something that's super cheap and what we're putting out,
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: but um, it's it's that extra you know, forty five
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: minutes to an hour and sometimes even longer than that,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: that you can get in a day from using something
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: like a maiden product, because if if you know, you
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: don't get to get out there and hunt all that
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: much um and a lot of stuff happens early and late,
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and if you can stretch that out for another hour,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: you know, and let's say that you've got you know,
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: you've carved out your vacation time. You've been looking forward
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: to this hunt for for five years. You put it
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: together with your buddies and you can make use of
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: an extra hour of daylight at day over you know,
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: a week, that's a lot of time, and that's you know,
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: that can be pretty important, and it's you know, there's
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: a there's a there's a chance that you don't want
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: to spend you know, step up from two d fifty
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: to a thousand dollars to make that happen. But I personally,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: I think it's worth that money to get that kind
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: of performance. And that's what you get, UM. You get
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: you know, you get flawless glass, but you get fantastic
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: low light performance UM when you step up into a
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: glass like ours. I can definitely attest to that. I've
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: been using Maven binoculars for the last two years now,
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: and wow, what you can see in those final mens
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: of daylight is way, way, way different than I used
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: to with my old cheebows. So if you'd like to
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: check out some Maven binoculars for yourself, even build up
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: a sample set, you can go to maven built dot com.
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: That's Maven and then the word built b U i
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: lt dot com. And now back to the show with Todd.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I was just asking Todd about how he begins this
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: whole process of finding a spot to hunt on public
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: land in the Midwest. I do a lot of research,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: UM and another thing is I have a pretty big
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: network of people across the country. Um, you know, I
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: shot competitive archery for thirty years and I met a
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: lot of people across the country, so that usually gives
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: me a relatively safe area to start. Like if I
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: know somebody that lives say I know somebody lives in
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: Michigan or whatever. Then I say, well, how's the hunting
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: near you? And then we talked a little bit, and
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, if I was coming out there hunting,
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: where do you think a good area of the state
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: would be to go? And you know, they give me
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: their opinion. Then I'll go online. I'll look at it,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and uh I'll start looking around a little bit, and
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: then I'll I'll search different hunting forms to see if
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: anybody talks about those places in uh. I guess you'd
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: call me a stalker. Like I don't, I don't say anything.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: I just read all this stuff, okay. And then if
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I say, I go like online on a forum and
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: I find somebody I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh, like, actually,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: I've hunted Colorado the same same place for years in
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: elk hunting, and uh so then this year I was
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: looking at a different area. I just wanted to explore
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit. And I'm like, holy kyl, there was
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: a guy that's signed on right there in his hometown
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: is the same exact place I'm going. So I just
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: sent the guy, you know, I said, hey, you know,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: i've hunted out there since and I'm coming out. Do
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: you know anything about this area? I mean, it's just
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: a generic random, you know, question or whatever. And you'd
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: be amazed at how people help you. And as long
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: as I'm not infringing on him, like he's gonna give
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: me information and uh like, I get a lot of
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: information that way. And Okay, for every ten times you
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: do it, you're probably gonna strike out eight times, but
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: then you might just hit that one person that could
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: really help you. Um. Some people aren't willing to help
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: other people are. And I formed lifelong friendships through stuff
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: like that. I know, years ago. I it was in
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: the mid nineties. Maybe I was online and I this
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: person wanted uh information on this special draw unit for
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: elk hunting in Colorado. I had just haunted it the
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: month before, and I knew I wasn't getting drawn for
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: probably four or five more years. So I just typed
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: the guy said, this is my phone number. Give me
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: a call and give you any of the information that
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: you would like. So he he called me up and
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: he said, well, what can you tell me about I said, well,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: I've haunted it three times, I said, and when I
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: was in there, this is what I learned. And this
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: is where I killed the elk, and this is where
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: I saw a lot elk. This is the place I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: would avoid. Well, he went in there, he killed a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: really nice elk, and that he said to me, said, well,
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: he says, if I can ever return the favor, he says,
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: I'll return the favor. And uh, I think it was
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: actually maybe. And in two thousand and six he called
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: me on the phone. We kind of kept in touch
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: set like you know, emails back and forth now and then,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: but it wasn't It wasn't like a regular contact back
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: and forth. But we did keep in touch. And like
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: two thousand and six, I think he called me and
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: he says, hey, says, uh, I got a place that
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: you can look at hunting out here. He says, I
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: have a little more time now where I can be
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: involved in it. Blah blah blah. And he lived in Kansas,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: so that's how I started hunting in Kansas, and then
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: when I started going out there, he gave me more
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: and more information. I met more people out there, and
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: one thing led to the next. So that's kind of
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: how I go about finding my places. And then I'll
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: also go through like every almost every state has UH
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: on their website. They have conservation in areas. UM I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: click on almost every single conservation area and I study
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: everyone and I write down what it has that I like,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and then if I find enough the stuff that I
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: like in it that I I set it aside. I'm like, Okay,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: this one has to get looked at further. So then
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: I'll go down and then I'll come up with say
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: thirty or forty of them, and then I'll just keep
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: on narrowing it down until I find the place I want.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: So then when I decide where I'm gonna go, I
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: have my place I'm going, but I have no idea
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: how many people are going to be there, So I'm
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: like crossing my finger. It's not gonna be overwhelmed with people.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: So when I get there, I have a plan. I'm
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna look at this place, that place, in
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: that place, and I'm usually with my father, and neither
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: one or two of my friends. So there's like four
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: of us that travel together. So each of us bites
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: a chunk off and we all go in our own directions,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: and then we come back and we decide it's worth
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: hunting or it's not worth hunting, and if it's a maybe,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: then we'll we'll give it an you know, a couple
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: more days or whatever. But if it's a no, then
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: I go to my next place on there, even if
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: it's a three hour drive away. Okay, we're going to
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: the next place. And I won't waste time in some
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: place once I get there that it doesn't show what
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: I wanted to show. And so I don't get sucked
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: into some place that I shouldn't be. And uh, I
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: think that's a secret. You just you have to be
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: willing to move, and you have to be willing to
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: blow a week or two of your vacation. If I
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: come home with nothing, I don't care because I come
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: home with nothing before. And if I come home with nothing,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: then it's it's a bad trip if I didn't learn anything.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: But if I learned something that I'm probably going to
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: capitalize on that. And then in the next trip. So
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: I want to I want to take a jump back
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: to something, and then I want to talk a little
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: bit more about those first couple of days of your hunt.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: But first, you said that you're looking at all these
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: pieces of public claim, like you know, you find it
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: on the state website, and sounds like you're you're looking
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: at maps and stuff. And you mentioned that you're looking
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: for certain good things in these properties, and if the
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: property has enough of the good things, then you're gonna
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: focus on that. What are the things you're looking for?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: What are those good things that you're trying to key
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: in on to tell you that this property could have potential.
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: One thing that I look for is I'm from the Adirondex,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: So I'm looking for pieces of land to have a
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: lot of timber on it, which you know, of course
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: sometimes that's hard to find in the Midwest. Uh. Number one,
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: I know if I find timber, it's going to keep
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of people out of it, because people are
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: afraid of the woods, uh, no matter how big they are.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: So if I can find acreage that's you know, anything
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: above like a thousand acres of wooded area, then I'll
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: definitely circle that, Like this is a place I need
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: to go because a thousand acres it might not seem much.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: But if you're in a thousand acres of woods and
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: you've never really hunted woods, you've hunted field edges, stuff
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: like that, it can be really intimidating for the average guy.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: So I looked of that, and I look for places
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: I can access only by boat. So if I can
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: only get there with a boat, then I'm almost sure
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: it's going to be good. So you know, I do that,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: whether it's a river, a lake, a stream like whatever
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: it is, So those two things out of the way. UM.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: I also look for areas that either are closed to hunting. UM.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: It might be a place around there that has there's
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: no hunting allowed. It might be owned by like a
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: government agency. UM might be owned by say like a
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: church group and they own a big piece of land
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: and there's no hunting allowed on it. Because then I
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: know there's no hunting allowed on it. It works as
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: a sanctuary for deer on the public land, and that's
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: where they're gonna go. Yeah. Um, I look at plat
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: maps to see who owns the land around it, and
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: then I'll research that online. I'll be that silent stalker
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: again and some places. I one place that I found
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: was really good because I knew that this person hunted
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: on their own land and they were a presence in
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: social media, and I'm like, I just found your land
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: and uh, and it bordered public land, and and I
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: had read where they had killed like a hundred ninety
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 1: engineer on it, and I'm like, there's no way that
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: deer wasn't living on that public land. So I mean,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: you have to It goes back to the whole thing
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: about you have to be a little more motivated than
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: everybody else. And that's kind of what has led to
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: me being successful. I think, Yeah, I do a lot
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: of that plat books talking too, But I've got a
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: buddy who just takes it to a whole different level.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: Like he literally knows everyone for like two counties. If
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: you mentioned the last name, He's like, oh, yeah, such
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: and such is over by this street in that street,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: and I hear there's a there's a co op down
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: the road from there, And I heard that such and
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: such has got the number six book buck in the state.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: And he knows everything for all the southern Michigan. And
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: I should get together, Yes, yes, there'd be some interesting conversations. Um. Actually,
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you one of the best places I ever found.
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: Let's get it. I was driving. I was driving down
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: the road and my dad and I had a general idea.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Somebody told me, go look in this area. And I'm
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: in southern Ohio. So I'm driving along and I'm like,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: we're driving down this road and I look and there's
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: this guy taking this picture on the barn. He's got
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: his deer heads on a barn and he's taking a
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: picture and he's got his bow, you know, and he's standing.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: And as soon as we drove by, and I looked
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: and I said to my father, said, turned the freaking
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: car around. I said, that's so, And so I said,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: I saw him in North American Whitetail last month. And
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: he turned around. And this is on a back road
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. We're basically kind of lost,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: even though we know we know where we are, but
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: we don't know how we got there. So we meet
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: this guy, and uh, and we started talking to he
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: introduced himself. In the course. I know who he is,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: but I you know, I know his name, and I
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: know him from reading about him. But I don't you know,
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: I don't personally know him. So then we talked back
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: and forth and he's and he's saying, oh, yeah, he
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: thinks we're just we're not pretending we're hunters or anything.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: We're just kind of like, you know, oh, those deer
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: are cool, blah blah. He doesn't know the first thing
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: about us. So anyeah, we got a bunch of information
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: about him. Then it turns out like the picture that
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: he was taken on the bar and that showed up
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: in another bow hunting magazine, and I'm like interesting, And
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: then everything he's talking about in there, I'm like, I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: know exactly where he killed his deer and it bordered
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: all public land. Wow, that's pretty awesome. There's there's some
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: good stuff down that part of the state, that's for sure.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: So I mean a lot of it's, like I said,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of things are just luck.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: I mean, I was lucky to be driving down the
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: road that day and he was there. I would have
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: never known that he lived there because I wasn't doing
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: the old plat mapping down there, because it was just
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: a place I was randomly looking at. So I love it.
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you just gotta be present and out there trying
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: and just sometimes luck will fall into your letting that
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: applies to hunting or finding places down or anything like that. Um,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: really quick, it's kind of taking a little tangent here.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: You talked about how one of the things you look
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: for is water, where water keeps people from accessing places.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: And when we talked earlier this year, you told me
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: about a pretty cool little lightweight canoe I think or
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: kayak or boat that you used to access these spots.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: What was that? Because that sounds like a tool that
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: a lot of people would would find handy. Back here
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: in New York, a lot of people do like backcountry
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: fishing in ponds where they gotta kit. They have to
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: carry boats for miles into the woods on trails and
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: some of them go, you know, like cross lots with
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: no trails in the boat. They're called Radisson canoes. Um.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: What they do is they come with tours. You sit
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: in the bottom of the canoe and it's lightweight, it's
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: like pound and U they come with. You can get
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: a shoulder strap for him so you can carry them
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: kind of like a backpack almost and you walk through
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: the woods with them. And these things are great because
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: they're fairly stable. They're not you wouldn't want to be
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: in it if you if you weren't comfortable in a canoe.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: They're fairly stable and they can get you almost any
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: place that you want to go, and we use them.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: We usually bring two of them with us. And uh
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: then there were able to get down small streams, were
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: being able to get across big rivers, uh ponds, lakes
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: and but one thing you really have to do is
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: you have to have a life jacket with you. I
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: mean I would never go in the water without a
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: life jacket. How expensive are those? Do you have any
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: idea what they were on? Oh? Shoot, I would say
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: the last I knew they were running between like six
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: and seven bucks, but that that was a long time ago,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: so I don't know. Um, they make another there's another
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: person up here in the aud Ondecks. It makes a
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: kevlar canoe and those are a little bit more unstable
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: for me. And there are a lot more expensive and
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: they're called hornback canoes and they're made right here in
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: the Adderandecks. Interesting, I was just that I was an
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: ari I last night actually, and they had something called
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: an o Ru kayak. The brand was o O are U.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: It's hide a spell it And it basically was a
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: kayak or a small canoe that packed up with a
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: back with backpack straps on the back of it, and
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: it packed up into basically I don't know, like about
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: the size of if you were to buy hang on
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: Tree Stand, the box that I hang on Tree Stand
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: comes in, that's basically what this packed down too. And
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: then you could just throw that in your back. That
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: was an interesting idea I saw too. I don't I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: don't know how much that costs, but having a portable
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: boat like that would seem super superhanded access in these spots.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: So so fast forward. Let's fast forward back to where
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: you were talking about last. So you've found your different
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: You've got a handful of different public properties you're gonna
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: hunt now, you and your buddies and your dad. You
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: start going out there these first few days, So tell
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: me a how are you hunting those first couple of days?
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: You are you just sitting observation stands? Or do you know,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: like I want to go right to the best spot, Like,
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: tell me how are you first hunting? And then what
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: do you need to see that either tells you to
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: stay or go to a new spot. We we probably
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: piss off a lot of people because we're kind of
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: like wild Banshee Indians. Uh. We will walk through every
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: single bit of the property, like I'll cover every single
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: bit of it. I mean, I'll walk, I'll zig zag,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: I'll do everything. And I'm sure people get piste because
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: it's in November. You're on public land, people are on
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: their vacation, and I'm walking all through the woods and
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: we all do the same thing. And what we do
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: is we walk in the first day, We'll try to
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: determine where do we want to go, like where do
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: we want to start on the next day, and then
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: like I'll either market with my gps um like okay,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: I'll mark the way point and then I'll have it
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: right there and like this will be number one, number
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: two or whatever. And then the next day I'll go
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: back there. We'll all go back to wherever we found
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: and we'll hunt there in the morning and then we'll
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: see what happens in the morning. We'll meet in the
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: afternoon and then we'll come up with another game plan.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: And like say you're hunting on like a you know,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: public area that's four thousand acres or something, and it's
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: it's not a bunch of different roads. We'll all go
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: to a different road and we'll all do our thing,
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: and then we'll come back and we'll discuss it, and
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 1: then we'll make a plan from there. Like my father
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: and I try to cut do what it's called cut
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: areas off. Like if he finds a place and it
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: looks like, uh, you know, two of us can be
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: in one area and we might be able to get
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: a big buck. Say there's big Bucks signing there, and
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: then be like, okay, maybe if two of us are
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: in here fairly close together, then one of us will
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: get a chance. And that's really key to hunting. You
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: need really really good hunting partners. If you don't have
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: the right hunting partners, your your trips can be a disaster. Yeah,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: Like I mean, you can't care who kills the deer.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: I don't care who kills the deer, whether it's me,
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: my buddy Doug, my buddy Brian, or my father, I
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: don't care who kills it as long as one of
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: us gets a good deer. Like like right now, I'm
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: getting a lot of the you know a lot of
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: people have found me because I had to do a
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: little self promotion because of my books and stuff. But
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: those three people that hunt with me, my father, Doug,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: and Brian, I mean, they're just as successful as I am,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: and without them, I wouldn't be as successful as I am.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of like a team type thing. Yeah,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: So when you're out there, what is going to tell you?
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I guess I still want to know what's the criteria
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: to to stay or go? You know, if you if
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: you guys go out there and you you you're checking
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: out these areas. If you see another hunter or a
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: couple other hunters, is that game over. We gotta try
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: to find a different spot or is it give me
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: some more details on that. It all depends on the area.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, like if I go into an area and
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: there are people hunting in there. Like one of my
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: biggest pet peeves when I get to where I'm going
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: and there's somebody parked there and I'm like, oh man,
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: But then I'm like, wow, there's a lot of woods
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: in there. Most people hunt, you know, certain areas all
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the time. They don't move around. So I'll go in
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: there and I wander around. If the person isn't in
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: an area that I found that I like, I'll stay
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: in there. If they're an area I found that I like, that,
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: I won't go back because I don't think it's fair
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: to them. Even though it's public land, it's not fair
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: to them. So when I'm in there looking around, I
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: usually look for as many scrapes as I can find
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: in a fairly tight area, um, you know, where they're
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: not far apart, and I look for multiple runways that
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: come together, like maybe two, three, four or five runways
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: that all come together around those scrapes, and then I
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: need some thick cover around there someplace you and uh,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: those are the places that I usually look for. If
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: I find all of that in one place like uh.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: Usually when I find a place like that, I go
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: back to the camp and I show my buddies and
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: I market on my GPS just so I know where
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: it is. So if they want to go there and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going there, I could just give the way
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: point to them, then they can go find it and
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: I mark on their the killing tree because because usually
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: when I find a spot, I'm almost sure we can
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: kill a good buck there. Yea, So how are you
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: actually hunting a spot like that? Thenice. I think you
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: said that you hunt that first morning, then come back
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: and meet up. But the rest of the hunt, then
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: let's say you find this good spot you set up. Um.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: You know, do you hunt all day during the run
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: on these trips or do you move around throughout the day? Uh,
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: tell me a little more about that. Yeah, it depends
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: on the day. Um. Throughout my hunting career, no matter
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: where I've been, whether it's been in the Adirondacks, the Midwest,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: or wherever you're during the season, you're always gonna have
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: one or two days where deer are just going bananas
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: in the woods. Like I mean, there's deer running all
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: over the place. You're seeing bucks. Uh, you know, one
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: after another a day like that, Like when I come
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: across that day and I'll know what it is when
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: it happens. Uh, I'll sit where I am all day.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: I won't move Um On other days, I base it
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: on the on the activity through the day. If I
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: get to I usually sit until eleven thirty or twelve.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: If I get to twelve and it's kind of slowing
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: off and there's not a lot going on, I won't
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: really go out of the woods. I'll just move to
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: another spot. So I'm still in the woods, but I've
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: just moved my location. So that way, I'm I'm staying
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: active and I'm I'm just moving around and I'm not
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: like I'm not gonna wear a spot out. I'm just
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: gonna keep on moving and moving moving. So what about
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: trail cameras? Do use trail cameras on these Midwestern trips
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: at all to help you scout these public spots? Oh? Yeah,
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: I used them. And the thing with using them as
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: you just have to be willing to throw a hundred
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: bucks out the door because people are gonna gonna steal.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: Last year, we found a Last year, Brian and I
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: were walking around in Uh. I saw this really big bucket,
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: was probably like a hundred and sixty inch deer, and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: it was going away from us, and my father was
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: he didn't feel well, and he was sitting on this
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: like ditch and the deer was going right towards that ditch.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: And I said to Brian that deer is gonna walk
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: right by my father, And sure enough, it came out
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: into this opening. But then it it sensed something was
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: wrong and it went the other way. So anyhow, we
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: went out and we met my father and uh he
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: decided he was gonna sit in there the next day. Well,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: on the way to meet him, Brian and I found
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: this incredible scrape and there was a there was a huge,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: huge rub there. I mean it was as big as
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: my thigh, and so we put a camera on it
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: because it was it was really active, and I was
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: pretty sure it was that deer, even though I wasn't positive.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, I want to picture of that deer.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: So we put the camera on there, and then my
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: father we we walked around. My father he found a
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: spot for the next morning, so we're like, okay, next
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: morning comes. I dropped the two of them off there,
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: and then I continued up the road to go to
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: another spot. So I come back to get them and
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: my and Brian says me, you're not gonna believe what
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: happened this morning. I said, what he says, some guy
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: came crashing out of his tree stand with his flashlight,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: got in your father's face, grabbed his grabbed him by
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: the shirt, asked him what the app for you doing
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: in here? Blah blah blah. You're ruining my whole hunt.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: And this is an hour before daylight. So and my
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: father is like, what the heck, buddy. So my father
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 1: just moves, you know, he moves his stand and he
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: goes and he said, someplace else. So we didn't go
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: back in there because we saw the guy's vehicle there.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: I know what his vehicle looks like now, So I
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: could see it there the next few days and then
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: it cleared out. So my father decided, well, I want
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: to go back in there and hunt again. We'll see
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: what happens because the area was fairly large. So he
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: goes back in there and I told him, I said,
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: when you're down in there, it's probably like five days later.
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: I said, when you're down in there, get that trail
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: camera for me and bring it, you know, bring it out.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: And he comes out of the car and said, you
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: get my trail camera. He's like, uh, it's not there,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: So I know who took it. I mean there, there's
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: no doubt about it. And it's like, you know, and
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: then what we do is we have a term for
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: those people, and we we just called them. When you
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: pull into the parking lot and you have somebody like that,
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: it's I hope we don't meet angry man today because
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: you're you're going to get a lot further ahead if
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: you're not angry. Man. Yeah, how do you deal with
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: other hunters out there? I mean, I know some guys
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: that like to, you know, just keep to yourself. I
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: know some guys when they hunt public, they talked to
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: everyone they see, and they kind of try say, Okay,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting here, you're hunting here, I'll try to daddy
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: your hair. You know, how do you how do you
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: try to manage those interactions to deal with that best?
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: That's really difficult at times. It depends on the other person.
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: To be honest, I'm I'm fairly quiet, but my father
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: is like the mayor. He has to talk to everybody
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: in town, so he he gets all the information we need.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I talk, but I don't. I don't
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: go out of my way to talk. But if my
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: father sees somebody at tree stand, he'll walk right over
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: to him, talk to him, ask him how long they've
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: hunted there, blah blah blah, you know where you're from.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: And he's made some really good friendships. Actually, we've made
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: some really good friendships from doing that. But then when
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: you get in the opposite situation, like what I just
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: told you. Like this year, when I was in Colorado,
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 1: we we one day we decided to hunt someplace different
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: and we had to drive there on an old forest road.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: So we pulled off this forrest road and I had
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: hunted there before, and I pulled down in there and
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: there's a guy there and it's I don't know, it's
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: like hour and a half before daylight, and he's standing
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: next to his vehicle putting his socks on. So I
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: pulled up and I said, I said, where are you
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt today? And he's like, he starts swearing at me.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: He's like, you gotta be off and kidding me. Are
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: you really going down in there? I said, it's a
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: huge area in there. I said, I just want to
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: know where you're hunting so I can make sure I
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: can avoid you, because I'm really familiar with this mountain.
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: And then he just teed off on me. And then
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: finally he got in his vehicle, spun the tires in
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: the dirt, and took off. And I'm like, and I
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: said that, I said to Brian afterwards, because Brian, I'm like,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 1: was I in the wrong there? I mean, it's public
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: land he doesn't own the land, and I said, I'm
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: not going to interfere with his times. I'm going up
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: with an entirely different drainage than wherever he says he's going.
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: It's not he's not gonna hear me, not gonna see me.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: He's gonna have no idea where I am. Wow. So
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: every person you deal with is different. It's just like
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: daily life, like if you go to the grocery store.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: You know, sometimes your cashier is nice, sometimes she's not.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, it just depends on who the person is
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: you're dealing with. So true. So back to your hunt.
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: Back to one of these hunts. You're targeting lots of
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: times thick cover with some you know in the cover
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: type scrape areas, lots of different runways coming together. Are
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: you also I mean it sounds like, I mean these
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: types of areas probably are funnels of some type, But
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: are you also keying in on like the traditional Midwestern
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: type funnels to you know, where like the pinched timber
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: between two fields or that kind of stuff, or you're
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: trying to just is that kind of stuff the types
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: of places where you see all these other guys in
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: public and you're trying to get back off at that's
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: exactly where I see all the other people. Like people
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: like to read magazines and do exactly what it says
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: in the magazine, which is conducive to hunting your own
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: land or private land. Like it's it's funny because everybody says,
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: if you'll if you read public land hunting, and you know,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: I'd be the first one to do this, to say, oh,
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: get as far as way as you can. I've killed
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: two of my biggest box. I could see the road
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: and I could see people walk ng on the road,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: and uh and everybody said, oh, you can't kill big
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: deer next to the road, and you most certainly can
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: if you do it the right way. And uh so
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: I kind of I don't know. I I use different tactics,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: but as far as that goes, like being next to
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: the road and stuff like that, Um, if you can
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: find a place where deer across the road, you can
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: usually see their tracks in the dirt right there. Um,
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: most people are going to be right next to a
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: parking lot. And what I do is we'll do well,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: like what we call it, drop off, drop me off,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: and I'll run into the woods right there, and the
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 1: one deer I killed. I was. I was about seventy
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: five yards from the road down down into a gully,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: and I could see back up into the road like
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: where where the road crusted, where people were walking up there.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: And I killed a really big ten point, like a
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty ten pointer, and I could at the
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 1: time that I killed it, I could see three other
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: people that we're hunting, but they were just standing on
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: the road. That's awesome. Yeah, So I mean you you
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: have to be a little bit creative and you have
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: to be willing to take a chance. So yeah, how
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: aggressive are you in other types of tactics like calling
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: or sense or decoys or any of that kind of
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: extra stuff. Do you do you fool around with anything
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: like that? On these hunts, I usually sit in a
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: tree and I'm pretty quiet because one thing that you're
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: gonna get on public land, no matter where you go,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: you're going to hear the guy that's over there with
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: his dear bleat and he doesn't stop all day. Like
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: last year, I was hunting a piece of public ground.
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: I climbed in the tree and it was a long walk.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: I got in there an hour and a half before daylight,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: and uh and I'm right next to a road by
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: private property. I'm right on the border public road, but
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: or public property and private property. But I can see
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: the road, but I couldn't come in that way because
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: it's private. So about a half hour before it gets light,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: I can see somebody coming so and they have a flashlight.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: I turned my flashlight. I'm in the tree and I'm
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: in this row of pine trees. I flashed the light
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: at him twice. And there's two people and they turn
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: their light off, and I don't know what they're doing.
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: I can't see him. It's dark. They're probably a hundred
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: yards away. So then I see one light come on
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: and it starts coming right to me. The guy comes over,
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: climbs up a tree right next to me. He's twenty
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: yards from me, but I can't see him because it's
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: all pine trees. He gets in the tree, it's before
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: it's even daylight, and he starts calling on his grunt call.
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: Then he's rolling his bleak can or I'm like, oh
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: my lord, and I'm I have a little bit of
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: a temper sometimes. Okay, this went on until eleven o'clock,
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: so I'm what is it's like five hours? Yeah, for
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: or five hours and NonStop. It never it never went
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: for more than uh like maybe fifteen minutes. So then
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: finally I I and he knew I was there, but
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I've had off of this. So I
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: coughed really loud, like you know, basically like the shut
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: up cough, and then he's quiet. So then like another
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: ten minutes he starts doing again. And then finally I'm
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: texting my father. I'm like, this guy is driving me
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: f and crazy. So then I couldn't handle and I
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have done this, and I don't like admitting
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: I did this, but all my buddies thought it was
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: funny as hell. Finally I couldn't hell anymore, and I
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: yelled shut the f up, and the guy. The guy's
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: twenty yards from me. He climbs down the tree and
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: he kind of like tiptoes out of there, back out
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: through the private ground. And I felt really bad afterwards,
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: but I just couldn't handle it anymore. You were you
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: were the angman that I was. Yeah, so I decided
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: I better not be angry man anymore. So so then anyhow,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: after the guy leaves, Okay, I had seen a few
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: deer throughout the morning. They were filtering through the area
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: was I was next to the CRP field and I
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: could see deer out through there. Within a half hour
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: of that guy leaving, Uh, bus just started filtering through there.
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: And then I sat there for another hour or two
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: and I saw nine different bucks, but I saw nothing
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: the whole time he was doing that. It was almost
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: like they knew that he left. Wow. Yeah, So that's
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: my story of So speaking of setting up tree stands
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: in the dark and stuff like like like that guy
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: was doing and we climbed up next to you. What's
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: your what's your tree stand set up? You know that
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: you're using for these types of hunt because it sounds
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: like you're moving around a lot and you're kind of
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: setting up on the fly. What do you use? How
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: do you go about doing that in a way that's
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: not messing things up? I? Uh, what I do is
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: no matter where I go, especially if it's a place
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: I've hunted before, I'll find one place and if it,
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: if you can, if it's allowable, I'll put a portable
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: tree stand there and I'll leave it and that's gonna
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: be the spot that I'm going to go back to.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: You know, fairly regularly. I'll visit it throughout the so
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: I'll leave that there so I'll always have something to
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: go to, you know, it'll be out of the way
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: of other people, where I think is out of the
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: way of other people. And then besides that, I carry
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: a you know, lone wolf sit and climb tree stand
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: and that's what I have on my back and I
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: walk all over with it. When I'm walking through the
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: woods doing the the exploring stuff like that. It's always
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: on my back. So after a few weeks it gets
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: a little bit heavy, but I mean it is what
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: it is. And the only thing that really stinks is
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: sometimes you can't you have to get in a tree
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: instead of the right tree, and it can cost you,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: but I mean that's the price you pay, and you're
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: on public land, so it's you know, you do what
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: you can. Yeah, yeah, that's that's one of those tricks,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: is like figuring out the right balance between the right
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: spot versus the right tree and all that. And I mean,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: how often do you fine tune on a public land
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: hunt like this where you only have a handful a
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: short handful of day? Is like, are you the type
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: that you know you set your stand in this general area,
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: and you like the general area, and you're just gonna
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: put in your time there because eventually something will go right.
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: Or do you tend to air on the side of
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: you know, you hunt that first day and you see
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: the bucks, you see it, you have a good encounter,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: but the bucks like seventy yards away or something. Are
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: you gonna just hold it out there because eventually something
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: will coming closer? Or do you like to move like
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: right away, to get up close to where you're seeing
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: the action and just keep on adjusting, even if it's
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: only like thirty yards. Yeah, my father and I are
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: a little bit different. Like last year, he was in
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: this one area. He kept seeing this really big buck.
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: He moved three consecutive days, and I told him to leave.
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: I set the tree stand. He moved it three times.
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: I said, leave it alone and sit sit where it is, okay.
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: So then in the end he ended up getting a
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: shot in. Of course I had the bad spot and
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: blah blah blah. But I'm I usually don't move a lot.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: If I if I sit someplace and deer filtering through there,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: and I'm and I know I'm in a good spot,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: like a place where a lot of things come together
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: right there. I'll just wait it out, um, because it's
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: not like I'm hunting in a field where I can see, Okay,
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: they're coming into the field over there, they're coming through
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: the hedgerow right there, So I'll kind of wait it out.
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: And another thing is I don't usually stay in an
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: area too long. I'll hunt there, like one morning. If
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: I don't see any activity there, I'm usually out of there.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: And then if I go there and there's a lot
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: of activity, i might sit there the next day and
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I'm done there. So I'll kind of
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: move around a lot, and then like going into it,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: I'll end up like if I go back there in
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: the future, if it was worth returning, I'll have a
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: lot of spots to return to that I know are
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: are pretty good spots. So that's one of the challenges
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: I have during the rut, is when I find a
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: spot that like should be a good rut spot, or
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: maybe I even know historically it's a good rut spot.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: You know, there's something to be said for just putting
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: your time in there right and eventually something will come through.
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: But then there's always the the altar earned on the
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: other side of the coin. That's if you're not in
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: the action where it is right now, you could be
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: missing at all. And so, like I always battle with
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: this internal debate of do I just stick it out
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: here long enough and you're here long enough, what happened?
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: Or do I keep moving around until I find that
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: you know the hot spot at that time of the year.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: How do you how do you make that decision yourself?
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, how do you know when it's time to
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: go versus one it's time to day. That's that's really
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: that's really easy for me, and I always give people
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: the same exact advice. Uh, I go with my gut.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: Whatever my gut tells me, That's exactly what I do.
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: And sometimes it go it's against what my mind tells me.
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: Like my mind tells me, like what you just said,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: this is a good rot spot, I really need to
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: stick it out, But my gut says I can kill
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: a deer around that creek crossing. Something inside me tells
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: me that's the spot to go. I never second guess
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: that that's where I'm going. So it's, uh, it's like
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: I said earlier, I don't overanalyze my gut tells me
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: to do this, and that's exact actually what I'm gonna do.
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I found myself slowly getting to that point a little more.
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's something that comes with experience, I imagine
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: for more and more people. And I think as I
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: get more and more experienced, I start I'm beginning to
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: have more faith in my gut. And to your point,
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: I think when you start going that route, I think
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: it's two things. One, your gut is probably right that
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: that quote unquote gut instinct. It's just the accumulation of
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: years and years and years of all this experience kind
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: of informing you subconsciously of you know something. But I
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: also think maybe I'm wrong on this, But when you
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: go with a gut decision, you will inherently have more
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: confidence in what you're doing. Then, because if you followed
• 1:34:42
  Speaker 1: your gut and you're sitting in the spot where your
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: gut told you you should be, you're gonna feel more
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: confident about that hunt. And I think when you're more
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: confident in where you're sitting in hunt, you're more alert,
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: You're more ready to take advantage of whatever might actually happen.
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: And so I think, I don't know maybe it's a
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy sometimes where because you believe in it,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: because you try us to your gut, you actually can
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: make something good happen. Maybe maybe it's just like two
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: percent better chance. But I don't know. Maybe sometimes that's
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: how it takes. That's exactly it. Like, uh, when when
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: my gut tells me to do something, I'm like, I'm
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I might be like a freaking nature,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: but like everything inside me tells me this is the morning.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: And if I go into the woods and I'm like
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: I should have said over there, as soon as that
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: thought comes in my head, I'll get out of the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: tree stand. I don't care if it's been daylight for
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: a half hour, and I'll go to that other spot,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: Like I don't I don't waste any time. Like as
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: soon as something tells me you shouldn't be here, I
• 1:35:39
  Speaker 1: go to the other place. And that's something I think
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of people struggle with. I think, especially on
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: these short trips like that, it's so easy to stay
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: put right. I mean, it's that's the easy the easy out.
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: But I gotta believe that when you I mean, and
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: I've every year I'm in stimlar situation. But when you
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: only have seven days or five days or ten days
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 1: or whatever to get it done, right, I mean you can't.
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: You can't miss those opportunities. You have to go for it. Yeah,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: it's I mean you're gonna come up empty handed now
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: and then. But I mean, if you keep gaining experience,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: then you're gonna learn the places to avoid and the
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: places to go, and like years and years of experience.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: Like I can look at something and say I don't
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: know about that, and then I put my father there.
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: That's the just in case spot, just in case he
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: might see something there, and uh, then I go to
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: the good spot man how to hunt, and that's what
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: he gets. Now. It's funny, though, we will share stands.
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: Like one year he sat in this stand for five
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: straight days. There was there were a big buck. There
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: was a big buck chasing a dough on the opposite
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: ridge and he could see it, but it would never
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: come down across the ridge over on to his side.
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: And it was over there every day, and he didn't
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: want to move over to that other side. So finally
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: he said of me, says, you come over and sit
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: in my stand, and I'm gonna go down to the
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: bottom of the hill and that thing's gonna come off
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: there someplace. So I'm like, okay, and I've been hunting
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: somebody's else. I went over there, I climbed up sad
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: in the stand. It's a daylight, it got daylight. I'm
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: there for half hour, and at that point I shot
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: the biggest buck that either one of us had ever shot.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: So whenever he looks at he says, yeah, that's my dear.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I said, yeah, but I shot it. Oh man, That's
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: how it goes sometimes. So so we have got to
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: wrap wrap things up, Todd. But I want to get
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: one final thought for me. I guess if you could
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: offer one final piece of advice or one final concept
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: that someone needs to wrap their head around that we
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: haven't talked yet about when it comes to hunting this
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: type of scenario, what would that final wisdom be? Oh, shoe,
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: I have like a zillion things. Um, you can pick
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: any of the zillion. I'll probably get crucified for this,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: but I'm gonna tell you, don't pay attention to the
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: wind h and don't listen to all the moon and stuff.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: If you have vacation and you didn't know it when
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: you picked it, and it's during the full moon. I've
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: killed just as many deer in the full moon or
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: half moon, uh as I have any other time. Um.
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: I think a lot of public hunting land, um, dear
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: deer used to you know, surviving. They have to survive.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, I think a lot of
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: public land has less pressure than private land, as long
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: as you find the right pieces of public land. And
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: what I mean by the wind the wind thing is
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: if you're hunting in in places where you know they
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: are they're wooded, like big mountains like right hunt Adirondacks
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: or in the Midwest where I look for the big
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: timbered patches. Uh. When you set up like there might
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: be those four five runways I was talking about. When
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: you set up there, I mean you might have an
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: idea where you think the deer coming from. But most
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: people take their vacation during the rut in the deer
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: tend to run wild then and they'll come from every
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: direction in the woods. So don't get up in the
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: morning and say, oh, I just that's a really good spot,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: but I just can't hunt there because of the wind.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: Because the wind does funny things. Um. I've been in
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: a stand where I knew the wind was bad, like
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: what the wind said on the on the weather app
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, bad wind, bad wind, because it's
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: blowing up into that field. I'm on the edge of
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 1: the field. But at the same time, I had hunted
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: it enough to know that when the wind was in
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: that direction, it blew up and over the field. So
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: too many people, when they look at the wind report,
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: they think they know exactly what the wind is gonna do,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: which they do, but they don't know exactly how that
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: that wind reacts in the area that they hunt. So
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, pay attention, but don't let that ruin your hunt.
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said to you know
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: what you were just saying, Like, when you have such
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: a short time span to hunt this area, sometimes you
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: do have to push all the chips in on the
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: right spot. If everything else is right, but the winds
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: a little wrong, you know, it's either you don't hunt
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: the good spot and you never know, or you do
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: throw a hail Mary and you know you're never gonna
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: catch that touchdown if you don't fill the hall marry
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: once in a while exactly. So that's very very interesting
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: thought there, and makes a lot of people. People can
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: crucify me now, I'm sure, I'm sure you'll I'm sure
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: it'll be alright, Todd. So this has been super This
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: has been super interesting. I I enjoy these types of
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: talks where it's it's something that's applicable in lots of
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: different situations. It sounds a lot of things you're doing.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: They can work all over the country, whether you be
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: in Indiana or Kansas, or Pennsylvania or Vermont or Michigan. Um,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: I think there's something we can all take away from this.
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: So so thank you, Todd. And if anyone listening wants
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: to check out your books or anything else you've got
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: going on, is there anywhere they can find that online? Oh? Sure,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: I have a couple of different websites. Uh. My my
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: main website is just my name, Todd Mead dot com.
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: Then I have another website it's called a d K
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: trail cam dot com, which is uh, it's basically a
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: bunch of trailcam pictures from the adderandex And Uh, you
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: can find me on Facebook. I'm on there. It's just
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: my regular name. I don't know what my profile picture
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: is right now. It might be an ELK or something
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: on there. Since there are a number of me in
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: the United States, I got you're probably the only time
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: made standing in the mountains though, yeah, something like that.
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: I hope I am awesome. Well, Todd, thank you so
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: much for joining us and for sharing all this insight
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: and expertise. And as we kind of alluded to earlier,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: two people should look for um a little bit more
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: from you and some upcoming issues of the magazine, right
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: ah yeah, hopefully, yeah, hopefully the author made me look good.
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: That guy's a real piece of work from what I understand.
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: Borrowing some unfortunate surprise, I think there'll be an interesting
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: story written by me featuring some cool stuff from you
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: and some other guys, So keep anye out for that
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: in a future issue Outdoor Life. And that said, Todd,
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: I guess good luck to rest of the season, and
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: uh and please stay in touch, all right, thanks a lot,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: and good luck to you and your friends. Thank you,
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: and with that we will wrap this one up. But
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: before we go, we need to thank our partners who
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: have helped make this podcast possible so big thanks to
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: Sick of Gear, Redneck Blinds, Hunter, a Maps, Yetty Cooler's Ozonics,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: Carbon Express Mayben Optics and the White Tail Institute of
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: North America, and like I mentioned last week, give these
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: guys a shout if you appreciate them helping out with
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: this podcast, or if you end up trying some of
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: their stuff out, let us know we'd love to hear
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: about your experiences. And with all that said, thank you
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: all for tuning in today. I hope you enjoyed this
• 1:42:57
  Speaker 1: conversation with Todd. Good luck in the wools, and as always,
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: stay wired to Hunt m