Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 392: Mastering December with Don Higgins, Neil Dougherty, Gabe Adair, and Will Brantley

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Ep. 392: Mastering December with Don Higgins, Neil Dougherty, Gabe Adair, and Will Brantley · 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, and this is episode number three
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and today in the show, we're covering a wide swath
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: of late season hunting tactics with experts such as Don Higgins,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Gavid dare, Neil Doherty, and Will Brandon. All Right, welcome
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to the Wired Hunt podcast, brought to you by on X.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Today we're talking late season, how to master the late season.
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  Speaker 1: By the time you're listening to this, November is is
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: just about done and the peak there at least is
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: behind us. So that next phase of the season, next
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: thing on our horizon, it's the late season. That that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: period from December through January or whenever your season's end,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: that's what lays ahead of us. And for a lot
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: of people, this can be a tough part of the
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: season because you've been going at it for weeks and
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: weeks or months in your war down. But it also
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: can be a terrific opportunity for filling a tag, whether
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: that be killing a doe to fill a freezer or
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  Speaker 1: even and maybe especially killing a big old buck given
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  Speaker 1: some unique things going on at this time of year.
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  Speaker 1: So that's what I want to cover today, and what
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  Speaker 1: I want to do we're doing here is is taken
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  Speaker 1: a page out of the same playbook that we used
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  Speaker 1: back in October when I released the Mastering October podcast,
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  Speaker 1: which was a compilation of excerpts from old podcast we
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  Speaker 1: did early in the years of wire Hunt. Because I
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: know a lot of you, tens of thousands of you
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: are listening now that we're not listening seven years ago,
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  Speaker 1: so I want to make sure some of those archive
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  Speaker 1: really great conversations are getting heard by all of you
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: guys today. So what we're gonna do is, first, I
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  Speaker 1: want to lay out some foundational basics to hunting the
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  Speaker 1: late season. I want to kind of set the stage
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  Speaker 1: with the things that I personally am thinking about. And
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  Speaker 1: then we're gonna hear from four different experts with their
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  Speaker 1: own unique perspectives on hunting at this time of year,
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  Speaker 1: with their own regional differences and and style differences and
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  Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. Um, and then you'll hear
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  Speaker 1: some little bits and pieces from those guys, and if
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  Speaker 1: you want to hear more from any one of them.
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  Speaker 1: You can go back and listen to that full episode
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: where you can you know, here here much much more,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: get into greater depth on these topics. But at least
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this is going to give you a preview and kind
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  Speaker 1: of give you the punchiest, most important bits all in
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  Speaker 1: one place, allowing you to kind of figure out which
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  Speaker 1: fits your style and which would be most helpful for
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you to dive into further. So that's the game plan. Um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, it's the late season is an interesting time
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  Speaker 1: because because of what I guess I lead with, because
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  Speaker 1: more than anything, it might be the mental side of
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  Speaker 1: things is the most important because after you've hunted, maybe September,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: maybe October, maybe November, after you've done all that, it
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  Speaker 1: becomes harder than ever before to just stick with it.
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  Speaker 1: So I want to end on that topic. But first,
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  Speaker 1: here's who we're gonna talk about. We're gonna hear from
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  Speaker 1: Neil Doherty. He's an outdoor writer and a habitat and
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  Speaker 1: hunting consultant from New York. We're gonna hear from Don Higgens,
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  Speaker 1: He's also an outdoor writer, also a hunting and habitat
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  Speaker 1: consultant from Illinois. We're gonna hear from Will Brantley. He's
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  Speaker 1: down in Kentucky, hunts in Tennessee in other places like
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: that as well. He's written for Outdoor Life, Field and Stream,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera. And then Gayba Dair, who is a land
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  Speaker 1: specials for white tailed properties. He's over there in Iowa.
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  Speaker 1: All four of these guys consistently have success targeting deer
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  Speaker 1: across different parts of the country, killing big mature bucks,
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  Speaker 1: doing it year and in year out their wealth of knowledge,
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  Speaker 1: while also not only you know, having success themselves, but
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  Speaker 1: also being uh journalists, writers, consultants. They're able to to
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  Speaker 1: speak and work with many others to to get those
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  Speaker 1: different perspectives. So let's let's cover a few of my
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  Speaker 1: like I guess I call it a second ago foundational
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  Speaker 1: ideas to keep in mind at this time of year
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  Speaker 1: and and to kind of keep in mind as you
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  Speaker 1: hear from these four folks. Number One, the late season
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  Speaker 1: food is king, all right, dear, especially bucks, but really
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  Speaker 1: the entire herd. After the rut in November, they're worn out.
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  Speaker 1: They're tired, they are deprived of of food and sustenance,
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  Speaker 1: and with the winter kicking off, they need to kind
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  Speaker 1: of rejuvenate they need to refuel, so they're hitting food hard.
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  Speaker 1: Food is the name of the game. If you can
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  Speaker 1: find the top food source, you're gonna find deer. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: if you can control the food sources and put things
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: in place for late season, you're really going to be
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: in the cards. So food is very, very important. It's
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: gonna be different for wherever you hunt. It's different whether
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  Speaker 1: you can keep crops up or if you're in public
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  Speaker 1: land where you're just trying to find natural food sources.
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  Speaker 1: That's all locations specific, but first and foremost, you've gotta
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  Speaker 1: find high quality late season food. Each one of these
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  Speaker 1: guys is going to talk about that to varying degrees,
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  Speaker 1: give you some specifics on the types of food to
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  Speaker 1: think about. Number two. Pressure. Over the last couple of
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: months of hunting, deer have been increasingly pressured by that.
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  Speaker 1: I mean they're being hunted by a lot of people.
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  Speaker 1: They're being bumped around there, being chased, they're being shot at.
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  Speaker 1: So deer are really feeling them and by the time
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  Speaker 1: late season comes around, they've changed their behavior significantly to
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  Speaker 1: account for that. So these deer that might have been
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  Speaker 1: hanging out in wide open fields back and against or September.
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  Speaker 1: At this point, they might not be because they've im
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  Speaker 1: badgered in those places, so they are trying to find
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  Speaker 1: pockets where they feel safe, so sanctuaries. Maybe that is
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  Speaker 1: a swamp that hunters just never want to walk into,
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  Speaker 1: or maybe it's a property that no hunting is allowed on.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it's a a wildlife refuge or something where people
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  Speaker 1: can't go into and hunt those different kinds of things.
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  Speaker 1: You've got to try to find where are these pockets
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  Speaker 1: where deer have been able to avoid humans. That's where
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  Speaker 1: they're probably gonna hold up right now. You can create
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  Speaker 1: something like that. You can create a sanctuary in your
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: own property that you leave alone so that once the
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: late season rolls around, you still have deer to hang
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: out there, and then you take advantage of it and
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  Speaker 1: hunting near there or in there. Or you can go
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  Speaker 1: and find something like this that was created by default
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  Speaker 1: because other people don't want to get there, or because
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  Speaker 1: there's something about it that makes it hard. Maybe there's
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  Speaker 1: a little island that's surrounded by water that these bucks
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  Speaker 1: can bet on and never get bothered. Whatever it is,
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  Speaker 1: think about that. Look for that center your hunting strategy around.
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  Speaker 1: Then if you can find high quality late season food
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  Speaker 1: right there where one of these unpressured pockets is you
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  Speaker 1: have got the ideal late season scenario number three. If
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  Speaker 1: you can find those two things, the next step is timing,
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  Speaker 1: choosing when you're gonna go and hunt those places. This
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: is an important concept all year round. If you listen
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  Speaker 1: to the podcast, you know we've talked about a thousand times,
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  Speaker 1: picking your days, when you're gonna hunt, when you're not
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  Speaker 1: gonna hunt, not hunting too much when the conditions aren't right,
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  Speaker 1: because that pressures these dear further and change of their behavior.
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  Speaker 1: So you want to try to time those hunts to
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  Speaker 1: the best possible moments to take advantage when they most
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  Speaker 1: likely will move while reducing risk of of pressuring and
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  Speaker 1: educating those deer. This is even more important during the
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  Speaker 1: late season because of what I just described, how pressure
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  Speaker 1: these deer have been, how how high wired they are now,
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  Speaker 1: how on edge they are. So you've got to be
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  Speaker 1: even more careful than usual, because you know you might
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  Speaker 1: have just a handful of strikes to go into these
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  Speaker 1: best spots before that one mature buck says, with screw this,
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  Speaker 1: I'm done. My little stancwary spot is not a sanctuary anymore.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not moving anymore until after dark or I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: push back even further. So in a lot of cases
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  Speaker 1: that the timing is going to be dictated by severe
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: winter weather, really cool temperatures for your area, or snow.
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  Speaker 1: Those two things I'm generalizing here, but those two things
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  Speaker 1: can really get deer on their feet and moving. So
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  Speaker 1: you get that high quality late season food source, you
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  Speaker 1: find some unpressured deer still or a little pocket where
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  Speaker 1: they feel safe. You wait for that great weather and
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  Speaker 1: then bam and go in there and you've got a
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  Speaker 1: special opportunity. Finally, probably the most important thing I alluded
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  Speaker 1: to this several times already, but persistence, being able to
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  Speaker 1: keep at it, being able to stay positive and thinking
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  Speaker 1: that it's still possible. Man. That's that can be a
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  Speaker 1: tough thing all year long. But by the time you
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  Speaker 1: get to December or late November or January, you've been
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  Speaker 1: grinding at it, you've been trying, and if it hasn't
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  Speaker 1: come together for you yet, I know this from experience,
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  Speaker 1: if it hasn't come together yet, it can be really
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  Speaker 1: hard to leave the nice warmhouse, to leave the fire,
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  Speaker 1: to to get up early in the morning still and
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  Speaker 1: head out there. Uh, to leave your family and friends
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  Speaker 1: to go sit in a tree and freeze your butt off.
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  Speaker 1: That can be tough. So having the stick tutiveness to
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  Speaker 1: keep at it, to stay focused out there, to still believe,
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  Speaker 1: to keep working. You know, words can only do so much.
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  Speaker 1: So I can say this stuff and doesn't really change anything,
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  Speaker 1: but it is probably the crux that all this stands on.
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  Speaker 1: This is what's going to make or break success during
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  Speaker 1: the late season is do you have the mental toughness
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  Speaker 1: to keep at it? Um. So I want to read
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  Speaker 1: you a little passage here. I refer back to this
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  Speaker 1: book a bunch of this season. So I'm gonna stick
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  Speaker 1: with a theme we've talked about this book, The Obstacles
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  Speaker 1: the Way. I'm going to read a passage from it
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  Speaker 1: about persistence, because I think it kind of nicely sums
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  Speaker 1: up what I'm getting at here, and it it nicely
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  Speaker 1: sets the stage for the rest of our conversation here today.
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  Speaker 1: So here's a little segment from The Obstacles the Way
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  Speaker 1: by Ryan Holiday about persistence. For most of what we
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: attempt in life, chops are not the issue. We're usually
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: skilled and knowledgeable and capable enough. But do we have
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: the patients to refine our idea, the energy to beat
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: on enough doors until we find investors or supporters, the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: persistence to slog through the politics and drama of working
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: for the group. Once you start attacking an obstacle, quitting
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: is not an option. It cannot enter your head abandoning
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: one path for another that might be more promising. Sure,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: but that's a far cry from giving up. Once you
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: can envision yourself quitting altogether, you might as well ring
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: the bell it's done. Consider this mindset, never in a hurry,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: never worried, never desperate, never stopping short. Remember and remind
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  Speaker 1: yourself of a phrase favored by Epetitus. Persist and resist.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Persist in your efforts, resist giving into distraction, discouragement, or disorder.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Persist and resist. There's no need to sweat this or
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: feel rushed, no need to get upset or despair. You're
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: not going anywhere, You're not going to be counted out.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: You're in this for the long haul. Because when you
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: play all the way to the whistle, there's no reason
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: to worry about the clock. You know you won't stop
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: until it's over. That every second available is yours to use,
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  Speaker 1: so temporary setbacks aren't discouraging. They're just bumps along the
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: long road that you intend to travel all the way down.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Doing new things invariably means obstacles. A new path is,
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  Speaker 1: by definition uncleared. Only with persistence and time can we
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  Speaker 1: cut away to breed and remove impediments. Only in struggling
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  Speaker 1: with the impediments that made others quit. Can we find
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: ourselves on untrodden territory. Only by persisting and resisting can
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  Speaker 1: we learn what others were too impatient to be taught.
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  Speaker 1: It's okay to be discouraged. It's not okay to quit.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: To know you want to quit, but to plant your
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: fortress you've decided to lay siege to in your life,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: that's persistence. Thomas Edison once explained that in inventing, the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: first step is an intuition and comes with a burst,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: but then difficulties arise. What set Edison apart from other
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: inventors is tolerance for these difficulties and the steady dedication
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: with which he applied himself towards solving them. In other words,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it's supposed to be hard your first attempts aren't going
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: to work. It's going to take a lot out of you.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: But energy is an asset we can always find more of.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: It's a renewable resource. So stop looking for an epiphany
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: and start looking for weak points. Stop looking for angels,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: and start looking for angles. There are options. Settling for
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the long haul and then try each and every possibility
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: and you'll get there. When people ask where we are,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: what we're doing, how that situation is coming along, the
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: answer should be clear. We're working on it, We're getting closer,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: and when setbacks come, we respond by working twice as hard.
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  Speaker 1: So there you go. A few words on persistence, that
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: most important quality to success in the late season. If
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: you're asking me, I can tell you from personal experience.
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  Speaker 1: I don't know if we're in the late season just
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: this moment yet, but on November twenty two, which is
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: pretty late in the season, my persistence finally paid off
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and I was able to tag out in Michigan on
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: a very special buck. I'm very excited to share that
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: story with you. You're gonna hear about it next week.
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  Speaker 1: That will be my example of persistence, and I just
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: want to let you know that it's not easy. It
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: wasn't easy for me, but if you keep at it,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: good things can happen. So that's where I will leave
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you today. We're gonna hear from Neil Doherty first, Don
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Hagen's second, Will Brandley, and then gave a dare. So
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: let's get into it. I will give you one other
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: quick plug here the Back Forty that show I host
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: on the Meat Eater YouTube channel. New episodes are out now.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: Episode three just came out a few days ago. It
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: follows along with how we set up the property that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: we're hunting there in the Back forty, what the trail
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: camera survey showed us in the summer, some of our
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: tree stand prep, some of our tower blind prep we
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: put out there for the new hunters and for my
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: dad's hunt. You get to see the whole thing starting
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: to come together, which I think will illustrate for you.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: You know, how we were able to have the success
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: that I've talked about on the podcast, how my dad
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: killed his first archery buck, how I was able to
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: kill the draft time buck. You want to watch these
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: episodes that kind of build that whole story up, So
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: head on over to the Meat either YouTube channel check
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: it out. Please give it a watch, give it a
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: thumbs up, leave us a comment. I greatly appreciate your support.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: I hope you're enjoying that show. Um, and that's and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: that's about it. Oh one other thing that we should mention.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: We have a new book from Mediator, The Mediator Guide
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: to Wilderness Survival and Skills or Willderness Skills and Survival,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: I believe is what's called. I should have this in
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: front of me. Sorry, but checking out over the meat
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: either dot com or wherever books are sold, covers all
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: sorts of different wilderness preparedness outdoor skills. Uh, basically anything
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: you need to know to be handy and capable out
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: in the wild. This book's got you covered, so check
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: that out as well. That's it. Now, let's get into
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: some really interesting conversations about the late season. We'll kick
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: it off with Neil Doherty and uh, we'll talk to
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: you when it's all done. Whenever I think about the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: late season, I actually think. I don't mean this in
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: a weird way, but I think about you, Neil M
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: I don't know, okay, because because I talked to you
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: a year or two ago about the late season hunting
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: for an article I was working on. I think it
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: was for Quality White Tails magazine. Um, I'm not sure,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: but I think that was the magazine is for. And
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I talked to you about some of your different ideas
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: in the late season, and something you had mentioned in
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: that conversation I believe was that And you can correct
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: me if this is wrong, but I believe you had
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: said that you would if you had to choose, you
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: would choose hunting in the late season over hunting in
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the run. And that stuck with me. Is kind of profound,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: I guess. For number one, is that accurate? Is that
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: quote accurate? Before I got absolutely if you have the
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: ability to work with a piece of ground or even
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: you know, even if you're not owning the piece, or
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you have access to do some work on if you
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: have the ability to put some time in you know
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: kind of thinking game, and the strategy starts when we
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: start getting that whole rut mess And I chuckle, is
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: you know the rut? Everybody is equal to the ruck.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It's pretty much just grinding out the time in a
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: tree and sooner or later, you know, you might be
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: lucky enough for him to run buy it or you know,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: the buck you've been thinking about and dreaming about. It
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: could be three miles of the way of the day
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: that you're out there Saturday morning hunting. Uh So, it's
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: just such a lucky period of time. It could work
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: for you or it could just totally blow up in
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: your face. It drives me crazy. On the managed properties
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: that work with that, the help guys try to to
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: figure out how we're going to get him in the
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: rut because you just need to sit in the tree,
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: you know, and and kind of hope. But when we
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: get this late season period of time, you know, kind
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: of this whole strategy session and designing the mouse trap
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: of the property and strategic hunting of the peace and
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: pressuring and non pressuring areas, all this stuff can come
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: together and start to kind of almost put the deer
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: where you want them to be. And you have to
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: have help from other nature, but you can really start
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to develop a strategy in in work an individuals and
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: you know, if if everything winds up, you can get
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: done in a couple of days. So for my personal
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: hunting property, you know, I forget about the runne I
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: would I would take you know, we go as late
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in the middle of December here in New York this
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: year a little bit later in December twenty two, we
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: finish up and I would give up November and just
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: hunt that last four or five days a season. That
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: keep in line, it's after we've had sixty five days
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: a hunting. Uh, so the deer will worn down their
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: ground down. But but there's some strategies you can put
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: in place to uh, you know, to get him out there,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: especially if you can plant and do things like that.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: You're giving us hope. This is a good neal. Well, Yeah,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: as I'm saying all the strategy thing, I was still
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: lucky enough to you know, get it done here in
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: November and and uh pleasantly surprised Will the big one
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: to walk by and I was able to tag one.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: So it's it's still nice to have everything often they
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: come March and by and he didn't have to think
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: too hard. He just had to be in the right tree.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: So it's still happy to take the take the lucky
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: force of it. But this this is where really I
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: start to groove and get a kick out of the hunt.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: This late season stuff. Yeah, I've really started to see
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: some of the same things with some of the properties
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: that I've been able to hunt where you know, especially
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: in those areas where you can find either low pressure
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: areas within a property or if you actually control the property,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: if you can control the pressure. That's one of the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: things I found make such a profound difference to late
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: season success. But before we dive into into that or um,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: any one specific aspect, you mentioned a whole bunch of
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: different things there that kind of lead to success during
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: the late season. Um. So I'm kind of curious if
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: we can set the table at the high level, what
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: would you say are the high level ingredients for a
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: perfect or for a great late season hunt. And then
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: if you can lay those couple of categories out, then
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: I'm probably gonna want to dive into each of those
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: in more detail. But I'm curious at the top, what
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: are the categories of things that we need to start
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: thinking about to find that right hunt in the right place. Alright, So,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: so probably that the greatest limiting factor. I'm always thinking
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: of pre easing limiting factor. What's gonna object up the
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: program and screwing up screwp up for us. So the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: greatest limiting factor for late season is actually not the
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: inventory of box. And I'm always gonna trust that bucks
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: typically can if you deal with four or five year
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: old state usually are smart enough to get to that
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: point and you can almost kind of not guarantee they're
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: gonna be there come the end of the season, but
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: likely they'll be there. But the greatest limiting factor for
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: late in the year is to have the weather that's
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: going to force them out of their poles that they've
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: been hiding in there in my case sixty days of
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: hiding season or other places. Uh, the poort and will
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: force them out and bring them out whether they're gonna
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: be exposed to the gun or bow or whatever your
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: tool is of late year. So that number one is weather. Uh.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: In for a lot of us this year we are
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: we are highly weather dependent. This year. We deal with
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: warm temperatures and we'll get into that detail and probably
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a little bit later on, but we need to have
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: some stuff, some temperatures that are gonna burn some calories
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and force them to get out there. Uh. The second
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: thing is we have to be able to control pressure
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: and the in and try to get in a situation
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: where we we at least know what everybody's doing and
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: how they're playing the chessboard. Um, you know, even if
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: guys are hunting, know what their play is, so we
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: can kind of play off of that in a predictable manner.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: You know, Hunt Bob does this in this tour of
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: the property. We've stuct the deer to react this way
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and we kind of know how to play off of him.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: So you know, it's not necessarily no hunters in the woods,
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: but understand that they're out there and what the impact
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: is going to be. And then we have to rely
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: on the deer in the physical makeup of the deer
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: as well, so it is that still healthy. The rut
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: is a grueling, mean process in a white tailed box,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: especially if there's other age in the neighborhood, he's liable
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to have at this point in time, open abscesses from
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: antler wounds and busted up legs and torn shoulders and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: broken jaws. I mean, there's all kinds of stuff we're
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: seeing in photos now, and my customers are killing deer
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: that have just been pounded during the run. You know,
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: not to mention some hunting issues that can happen as well,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: that these there are in some cases will and out
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: and if you know your deal with the worn out
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: here that's going to change the women to react and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: trying to adjust my hunting strategy to versus a deer
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: that's fat and happy on you know, the last camera
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: you're pulled and looking to be a really good shape.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: How they're going to behave a little bit differently in
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: the late season as well. So all this stuff kind
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: of marries and comes together, and you know, as well
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: as the food sources in your neighborhood, so you know,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: knowing which you were able to plant and do the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: hard work and in May or June and food plot season.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: With this type of food sources, you're able to put
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: them down and kind of score for late and year
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: will dictate how that late season hunting is going to be.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So all that stuff kind of comes together and in
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: the juggle those variables, they determine whether or not you're
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: going to have some success late in the year or not.
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: So one of the first things you mentioned, Neil was weather,
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: and that is I think you know a lot of
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: people would agree one of the very most important variables
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: to late season success. And like you mentioned, it's been
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: pretty warm throughout a lot of parts of the country. Um,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: So let's dive into that first you know, when it
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: comes to the late season, what kind of weather are
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: we looking for, um and how do we take advantage
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: of that? Yeah, so, so you know, I'm watching this
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: stuff really closely to the point of we finished out
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the month, and I'll tell you from my region of
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: the country where I'm where I'm currently sitting right now.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm in a parking lot in a little
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: bit of town getting ready to guide some some of
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the hunters over the client I work for on their
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: late season hunt, their last couple of days up hunting.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: And I'm tuned into the point that I know that
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: the temperatures from the last thirty days has been seven
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: point seven degrees about normal. And it may not sound
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: like a big deal, but the white tail have had
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: to burn a significant amount of less calories to stay warm.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And what that's going to result and you can see
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: this in the skinny shed, what that's going to result
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: in is we have BiDi fact contents that are higher
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: than they were last year and the year before the
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: year before that. So I have deer that are relatively full,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: they're fat, and they're not it's worn down, or for
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: that matter, they're not even close to where they are
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: on average. Uh, and now this is a perfect storm
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: of deer and not wanting to come to a food plot.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: You need to have it here that's kind of worn
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: down a little bit for this late season hunt to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: come together. And you know, I four or five years
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: ago we started looking at this. I really was of
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: the opinion that, hey, it didn't really matter so much
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: that you had a bumper crop of acorns all September,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: October and November and your property. If you could get
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: December snows the pile up a little bit there four
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: or five days of below average temperatures, your deer would
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: come to the food plots. And I think that was
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: were I wasn't the cost of kind of understand what
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: was going on there. But the bottom line is it'll
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: bring them to the plot a little bit. But if
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: they're going to consistently get to the plot, especially in
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: states where they have pretty high hunting pressure, you need
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: to have a deer that's kind of worn down. The
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: fat content has worn down some, and it's they don't
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: have the luxury kind of hanging back and not eating
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: for a couple of days. They need to go and
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: consume the food in the good locations and in the
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: head back and you know, get back to the bush,
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: and those circumstances. We see a lot of these. And
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: when I'm not talking about two year old bucks showing
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: up on a food plot preying around a yearling bucks
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: that I'm talking about the four wards and the fives
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: and the seven year olds that are in out there
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: that really know how to play the game. When they're
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: worn down. Then we see them showing up from the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: plots going a bit and it's not unfortunately, it's not
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: a couple of days of weather. So where I personally
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: am and we're a lot of us us already this year,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: your seven eight ten degrees about normal for the last
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: dirty days. If you've been paying attention to those kind
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: of things, the fact contents were really probably higher than
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: than what you would hope for on those dear and
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: you're here look at the ten day forecast and going, hey,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of days of a little bit below
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: average temperatures, maybe we get a little bit of snow.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: What it was likely to take for you to have
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: that significant feeding event that you you know, calling sick
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: from work and and and charge out to the woods.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: It's probably gonna take a good bit of snow covering
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: for three or four days to cover up a lot
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: of those easy excess foods and then force him into
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: the high concentration foods. Uh So it's it's we're we're
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: kind of in a tricky position for a lot of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: people on specially East Coast and kind of the central
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: part of the country this year in terms of whether
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: we're gonna get the deer to come out with the
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: weather's gonna properate force or not, and we'll get that
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: kind of that mass movement where things are a little
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: bit easy on the hunting side. So one of the
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: big things, and this is you know, kind of just
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: re saying what you said there, But one of the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: major um points that I focus on a lot during
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: late season is my timing and and you know, not
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: pressuring those deer at all until timing is just right.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: During the late season, a massive amount of that correct
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: timing is related to getting this weather event like you
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: mentioned that will push these deer out early before dark
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: into some type of food source. Um. And so a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: lot of my hunting this time of year is doing
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: just what you mentioned, watching the forecast, waiting for that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: event and then you know, taking off work or whatever
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: to make sure I hunt on that day or whatever.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Beat Um, I want to talk a little bit more
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: about those specific conditions, but I want to first what
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: happens if you don't get then, like what happens if
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: I have a week of vacation or whatever it might be,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or a guy has a gun the guns season is
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: open December one through six or whatever, and it's forty
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: or fifty degrees the whole week and no significant event.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, what do you do in that type of
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: situation when you you want to hunt, This is your
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: chance to hunt, but you just don't have those correct
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: weather conditions. Are you of the mind that you say
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: just still don't hunt? Just you have to wait it
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: out and maybe you only get one hunt threst of
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the year, or which is there some other option when
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the weather isn't ideal in the late season? All Right,
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: So we've been playing a lot with formulas, and you know,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: I do work with some outfitters and we're trying to
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: balance pressure versus results. Okay, so we've been playing and
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: tweaking these formulas this time of year, late season the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: year that are not rut driven. Uh and and keep
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: in mind too, we're not we're saying they're pretty well
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: done with the rut. If your phone's reach six seventy pounds,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: they're gonna come into astris. A lot of those do
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: fonts can come into astris. Does that weren't read in
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: the first time can cycle in later. So while we're
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: all sitting back here saying at fifty degrees, don't go hunting,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it's a small percentage. It might be ten or fifteen
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: percent of your doughs aren't currently read that could fire
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: up and bring the big guy out in any minute,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: and you can shoot him on a six a day.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So there is still a little bit of kind of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Las Vegas luck ahead of us as a potential. It's
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: not you know, hey, let's shut the season off and
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: not go. But if we're strictly you know, forget about
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: that lucky variable of a postible esther still go back
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to the feeding window. If we have fat, happy deer, uh,
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: and we have temperatures that have been running by ten
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: degrees above normal, the frequency of hunt that I'm advising
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: that clients as they can hunt for about two days
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: and they better pull out of the woods and give
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it about a seven day rest um and and even
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: in the big pieces, these are five acre pieces, thousand
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: acre pieces, put a couple of days on him and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: I give him a break to try to keep it
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: as fresh as possible and be extremely strategic, like you're
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: talking about in terms of the weather and the wind,
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: and in trying to pick the days when they might
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: be ill, feel a little bit fresher, to show up
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit earlier. Are things of that nature. So
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the cooler days and days you're gonna try
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to go out. We're really this time of year limiting
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: our morning hunting pressure just to try to you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: take one more shift off the fields or one more
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: shift off the properties. Is slipping out in the evening
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: when we's a little bit more of a concentrated and
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: feeding environment. So, uh, no other type of strategy we're
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: doing in uh. In our last book we put out
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: we we've heard to it as kind of a drone
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: drone hunting. We were kind of taking analogy out of
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: the military, and and this time of years where you
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: almost envisioned the drone is circular. I'm gathering camera footage,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, hopefully we're in a state where wireless
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: cameras are available to us. You're getting that wireless input
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: to your cell phones, so you're not putting pressure on
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: your deer or you're checking your cameras every seven and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: ten days, you know, middle of the day, total wal pressure,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: trying not to get in the middle petting areas, and
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: you're watching and watching, and you're looking for to show
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: some kind of vulnerability. At the same time, you're watching
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: the next ten day weather forecast. I'm you know, up
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: at four o'clock in the morning every morning looking at
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: the weather forecast. I might think I'm crazy. You haven't
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: memorized by now a lot, just trying to see hopefully
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: it's gonna get cold. And yeah, I've got a couple
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: of good bucks. I'm trying to wear it down in
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: our place here. So you're you're saying, bam, I'm just
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: looking for that that change at weather for book has change.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It's gonna start to set up. We're gonna change the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: schedule a little bit and try to get to the woods.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: But you know, long we round the block on that,
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: it's it's you get you really have to measure the
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: pressure and really start to look at things. This time
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: of year, and you have to figure out how much
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: pressure you can put on it on a weather window
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: unlike we're having right now, where the temperatures are five
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: ten degrees below normal. We've got blow and snow, we've
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: got blizzard conditions. It's been snow covered for four or
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: five days straight, seven days straight, and then deer getting
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: beat up with wind, chills and stuff like that. You
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: can almost grind it, you know, you can grind in
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: some cases, grind up a field over and over and
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: over again. Uh even a situation sake, standing corn or
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: something like that, just put a ton of pressure on.
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: They're just going to keep on comment as they have to.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: Um And you can really get a good opportunity that way.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Not and you can't get down out of the tree
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: and spook all the deer off the field every night.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: But if you're sensible about it, trying to, you know,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: chip away at the corners a little bit, you can
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: get some really good honey. And but this is not
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: one of those years where you can manhandle a piece
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: of property. Yes, so I gotta I got a quick question.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry to interrupt Mark, but okay, so we're
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: talking about this late season type of hunting, and you
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: know they're focusing on the bed too food source pattern, right,
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: So if the weather is not, if the weather may not, scream,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: get in the tree, stand and sit on this field
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: edge of this food this food source or this food plot.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Are you telling any of your clients to take your
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: stand and get back further in the woods to you
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: catch them in a staging area or maybe a travel
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: route at the end of you know, great, great, great
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: input on that. And and here's where we're gona watch
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: our cameras. So if our cameras are showing some good
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: deer the frequency I'm looking for. Let's say we take
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: a seven day window and I have a shooter bugs
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: showing up four out of the seven days in front
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: of the camera. I say, that's that's high frequency. So
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I'm really pretty pumped about that level of use. You
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: gotta believe he's coming to the field at other locations
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: as well, not just past your camera. If he's showing
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: up at two or three in the morning every time,
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: you know, eleven thirty, twelve o'clock at night, four or
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: five hours after dark, I'd probably say he's just hunkering.
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: So tighten. It's not going to be anywhere even close
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: to that field edge or within two hundred yards of it,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: when I can still get you know, have legal shooting light.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: If he's an hour after dark, if he's a half
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: hour after dark, he's just on the edge of twilight,
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm getting photos like that, then we're gonna take
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: a real hard look at it. Uh, it possibly being
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: at them now. Now here's another variable. So most of
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: my client's own ground, or they're playing on leases that
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: they have long term, and and we have back here
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: and East a relatively competitive hiding environments. So I may
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: be working with a three acre piece of ground and
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: there's you know, a hundred acres or three or four
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: hundred acre pieces that enjoy it. There's a lot of
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: potential tags and lots of potential hunters in the woods.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: And one of the things I worked with my clients
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and say, you know, when we're dealing with with quality deer,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: deer of age, it's a long chest match and it
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't happen necessarily end at the conclusion of this season.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: So when we're growing deer year after year, we get
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to know we might hunt them for two or three
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: years before we finally get a chance to have, you know,
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: the moon, the stars line up and we connect with them.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: But one thing that can change that absolutely is when
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: my property and my property to pack with guys and
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: rifles around the edges right now that you know they're
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: kind of a perceivers, a lot of good deer in
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: there and there they work are just hard. If I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: bumped him out of a bedroom, One, he's definitely not
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: showing up the food pluck because I came too close
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to him. And two, if I move them too far
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: is debt because I'm you know, the deers within three
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: yards of a property line at the skips across that thing,
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: he's just not gonna get back. So you do have
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: to run. You have to know your neighborhood and know
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: what you get away with. In some cases you believe
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: it or not. I've had years or I say, you
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: know what, guys, he's gonna be bigger next year. And
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: that can be a very difficult scenario if you're looking
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: at five days left in the season going, oh man,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna gonna fold up my tent and
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: and give up on this year. But sometimes if you're
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: really trying to cultivate that one buck and and you
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: want to have him for another year of playing chaff.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: You sometimes you have to back off them and just
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: say it's just not gonna happen this year. And I've
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: done in a bunch and swallow the tags. And these
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: are on pieces that you manage. Now, if you're in
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: a public way and hunts, your permission to hunt situation,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you don't know what your access is totally different. There
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you go for you know, going and try to make
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: it happen. But but I air on the side of caution.
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: I just don't want to bump these deer or pressure
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: of these deer. And and right now with the weather
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: conditions the way they are, that matter. It's it's not
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: even so much as it's just warmer this year, it's
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: if you bump a five year old back or six
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: year old block now post breeding season, when he's not goofy,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: if you bump him, he's going to be significantly changing
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: his patterns for you know, the next five to seven days.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Not saying he's not going to kill him the next day,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: but but he's just not going to tolerate that path
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: that pressure too well. And and especially get out of
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: the Midwest and go to areas with a little bit
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: more hunting pressure. You know, those deer are gonna affect
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: and change quite a bit, and I'm really luctant to
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: found some are a bit too close to him. So
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I like your idea, but I just would like to
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: try to make sure we're in one gear that betting
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: area a little bit of room, and then just to
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: know if we're we're really willing to pressure and maybe
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: maybe run the risk of run them off the property
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: and not seeing him again. It's the fine line you
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: have to walk, isn't it. It's it's kind of a
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: tight rope. Yeah, and I probably air on the side
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: of caution too much. But he know, uh, I'm working.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: We're let's you know, we're killing deer. There are five
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: six seven years of age uh in in properties that
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: one they're too small to typically do that. And too
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: we're in areas in the country where there's really high
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure. So um, we have to be real cautious
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: in those areas to get that kind of uh was
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: kind of results, so so, Neil. One of the important
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: distinctions I think you made was the difference between hunting
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: on a scenario where you have control of the property
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: at the lease or you own the ground versus being
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: on public or private, and how different those two scenarios
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: are and how different your mindset needs to be. UM.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm in one of the situations similar to the latter,
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: where I have permission on a piece of private ground,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: but other people can hunt it. And I've got the
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: shotgun season here, opening an aisle in four days. I
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: know a lot of people are gonna be hunting it,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: so it does require a little bit more the aggressive tactics,
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: maybe like Dan mentioned, or something totally different, UM, But
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: it's just a really important point that I want to
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: emphas last everyone out there, is that you know, keep
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: in mind what your specific scenario might mean and why
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: you might want to be a little bit more aggressive
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: versus a little more passive and careful if you have
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: that control. Like you mentioned, Neil, I think airing on
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: the side of caution is definitely the way to go. UM.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: But back to something we mentioned a couple of minutes ago,
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this weather, these conditions that help
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: you know when to go in and strike, like you mentioned,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: I love that drone strike analogy. By the way, I
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: borrowed that. I really like that one, um, how much
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: how much of a temperature drop or how much snow
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: on the ground do you believe you need to trigger
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: a significant feeding event? All right, So here here's what
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: I've kind of every year. This time year, we're getting
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: our first snow in this part of the world. So
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: we have the first snow covering, and I'll get a
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: million texts from my clients that are out to oh, yeah,
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be a great morning this morning. They all
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: get back at eleven o'clock, and so we didn't see
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: you hear the first snows of the year. Generally outside
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of the right, I'm finding deer to be incredibly paranoid
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: and not moving at all. Uh. And you know, we've
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: got to take it from their perspective. They've been probably
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: being ground down a little bit with hunting season. Now
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: they're incredibly exposed. So I'm not seeing a lot of
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: good movement the first snow. Give it about thirty six
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: hours worth of snow covering, and you know, it's all
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: systems normal, and they're right back doing what they do.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: So I'm not a big fan of the first day
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: of the snow. But a day and a half after
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: that first snow. I'm really starting to look at it
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: temperature wise, we're just looking at the normal temperatures. I
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: think you have boiled down to if it's normal temperatures
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: or below. And I like to get ten fifteen decreased
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: below normal with some wind, I mean some raw stuff
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: where it's gonna beat you up in the tree. Those
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: are the kind of temperatures we're getting good deer to
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: show up, and and it's not oftentimes it's not just
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: a quick little front blows through. And you can certainly
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: play the game of hunting front to deer feeding during
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: the front, post front, after the front, that kind of thing.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: But what we're talking about here is the weather conditions
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: that kind of force them to feed during daylight hours
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: and they're in a scenario where it's cold and the
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: deer burning too much energy defeat at night when the
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: nighttime temperatures are plumbing and yet lots of wind and
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: still keep the line. You know, when a deer is
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: laying down and it closes events and its body events
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: being it's it's kind of it's growing area and its armpits,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: and those are the areas where it loses the vast
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: majority of the heat it can lay down for two
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: or three days or you know, a couple of days
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: and burn less calories, and it can walking up to
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: the courtfield to try to consume food. So uh, they
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: will go for that day or two laid down if
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: they have to, but at some point they really start
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: to get gend up to go to food if that
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: weather is again five ten degrees the low normal and
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: whatever your normal might be. I've got clients and say,
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: you know, forty five degrees is normal for them, So
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: when its thirty five degrees, you know, we're in that
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: perfect storm. My part of the world this time of year,
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I'm typically looking at temperatures you know, below twenty degrees,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: prefer lee and the load of mid teens at ninth
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: and and just kind of following nasty in that type
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: of scenario is going to trigger deer and bring him in.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: They give you a quick little story from last year.
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: So last year we had that pumper crop of eight
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: corns that everybody talks about there like marbles on the
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: forest floor, and in I couldn't buy a deer to
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: come to the corn fields or any of the brassica
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: plots and eat. Guys getting some camera photos but camera
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: photos are about what they usually are. We're having, you know,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: deer census meetings at camp, going, hey, geess, do we
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: even you want to shoot those? This year we're not
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: seeing anything where of all the deer gone, so you know,
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: the neighbors are all on panic. We're kind of trying
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: not to be seasoned and say, you know, it's it's
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: just a blip with acorns. But in the back of
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: our mind going where of all the deer gone? And
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: it's a terrible both season eat tag. You know, there's
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: no chance to shoot painting, defer peace and even the
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: luck of the ride it doesn't happen. Roll around to
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: this late season window. We're into December of last year,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: the muzzleloader season kicks in. That's that's mid December, and
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: finally the temperatures dropped and we picked up twelve inches
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: of snow. I waited a day and a half, actually
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: canceled a couple of road trips, got back home, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: within three days of that snow being on the ground,
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: the property went from having five or six years showing
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: up on the standing corn field that granted pressure had
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: been low, to now there's eight or nine bucks showing
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: up with fifteen to twenty does in the field was
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: full and there's age there, you know. I was able
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: to tag a great buck that that late season window,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: and the next night went back and tagged the bear.
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: And then then the temperatures changed and the snow melted,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: and I went right back to four or five six
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: year in the boot watches, you know, primarily fonds, and
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: it was just a social thing. They went to the
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: field to kind of hang out, dancer out a little bit,
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: but they weren't going for the work of feeding. And
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: it was in that case it took that eight ten
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: inches of snow that little weather event, and it was
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: literally a three or four day weather event, and then
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: assume as it melted, it was over. And I watched,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: of course the cameras postseason and for that batter that
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: entire year. Because they were so full of fat from
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: the acorn crop that we had. It took significant snows
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: in February to put them in the corn uh And
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: you know, at mild weathers that we had even January February,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: no one's been in the woods for a month and
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: a half. The deer still weren't hitting those feels in
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: the way that I would have expected them too. They
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: were just you know, obviously in really good body condition.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: And that goes back. You know, we were talking about
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: body condition before. Uh, my clients on a whole. When
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: we see a deer that's got a significant limp or
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's got some kind of issue going on
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: right now from fighting or other things, we're batting, probably
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: about to carvest that deer on an energy packed food
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: source like the carbohydrate like corn or dry soybeans, things
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: like that. We're back and probably to harvest that deer
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks in and they're when
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: they're kind of getting beat up and they're trying to
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: repair their body. We do extremely well harvesting those d
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: or you know when when they get to that point, Uh,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: it's it's uh. I've had two or three of them
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: that showed up just in the last couple of days
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: with customers that you know, Buck, they've been chasing for
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: two or three years and had finally we got him
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: and oh, by the way, you know, somebody poking Aunt
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: Warner's rerent and uh and he was a little bit
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: beat up and finally he showed up during daylight hours,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: all right, next we've got, Don Higgins, I would love
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: to hear from you done to kick things off here,
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: what do you believe is the single most important thing
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: that someone needs to keep in mind during the late season.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: What's the first and foremost thing that everybody needs to
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: keep first firsthand thinking about as they start hunting these
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: final weeks. Well, you know it's ironic. When I wrote
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: my first book ten years ago after I shot that buck, Buck,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: we was just talking about A short time later I
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: wrote my first book, and when I talked about the
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: late season in that first book, I kind of downplayed
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: it as one of the worst times of the season
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: too to shoot them mature buck. But in the years
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: of the past, I've totally changed my mind a hundred
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: eighty degrees. Now I believe that the late season is
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the very best time of the year to kill a
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: mature buck on purpose. But the key is you you've
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: got to you've got to have a good food source,
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: and you've got to have an undisturbed betting location. If
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you've got those two together, and then you've got made
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: because there's they're very likely to be a mature buck there,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and then you just gotta wait for the it's about time.
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: And if you need the worst weather possible, the worst
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: of weather gets the better your odds. So you know,
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: I've got a couple of different farms that I manage
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: and uh where I'm allowed to plant food plots and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: things like that. And on both those farms that you know,
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I've got my stands in place, I've got the food
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: plots in place. I've stayed out of the I didn't
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: cover all fall, and I'm just waiting. I'm just biding
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: my time, waiting on the perfect opportunity. And whenever the
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: temperature you know, gets down around zero at night, y's
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: single digits during the day as a high. When it
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: does that for a few days, you can just you
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: can count on the bucks on every day in the woods. Really,
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if he's a mature buck or yearling
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: buck or dough. Under those conditions, they're going to be
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: on their feet in the afternoon headed to that food
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: and they're more than likely going to get their way
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: before dark. And you know, I kind of set the
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: table throughout the entire year by pinting those food plots,
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: by staying out of those betting areas. But then when
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: the time's right, I get into those stands, and you
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: can you can kill you know, the biggest buck in
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: the woods on purpose, year after year after year that way. Yeah,
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: So I want to I want to dive into kind
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: of each of those different things you've listed out there,
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: But before that, I want to touch on the topic
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: that I think is it's on the minds of a
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: lot of people right now because we talked about these
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: exact same things you listed out here, in the importance
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: of timing and waiting for those weather conditions that can
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: get those big deer on their feet. But for like
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: me here in Michigan, we're dealing with, you know, high
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: forty forty degree temperatures, and none of that really great cold,
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: nasty weather that we want is in the forecast for
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the rest of the year really um from what we're seeing,
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of people worried, you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: are we going to get that late season weather we
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: need to get a big buck on his feet. So
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: my question for you, don is, let's say you like
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you have all these things set, you have the food plots,
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: you've got the stands, you've stayed out, you've done everything right.
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: You're waiting for the right moment for that right weather.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: What do you do if that correct weather never comes?
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: Are you just gonna just not hunt or do you
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: have a backup plan? Well, I don't hunt very often,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: that's for sure, because I'm hunting the biggest bucks I
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: can find, and a lot of times that means that
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: I'm not looking at things from just one season perspective.
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: I'm looking to kill that deer, and if it happens
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: this season, great, but I don't want to go in
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and tip him off when the conditions aren't right. Next
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: year he could be twenty inches bigger, and uh, if
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: you've educated him, you've just made him, you know, three
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: times it's hard to kill. So a lot of times,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: you know, if the weather isn't perfect, all hunt secondary locations.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: I will stay out of my prime locations, and uh,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you know, I might watch a feeding area from a
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: distance just to see if if there happens to be
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: a buck coming out before dark and one that i'd
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: want to target, which is very very rare for that
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: to happen. But I'm not one just to sit home either.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: I've got to be out there dom something, so I
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: just as soon sit back and watch from a distance.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: And and see if maybe there's a buck coming out
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: that that I wouldn't expect, you know, under those conditions.
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: But you know, mature bucks are unpredictable. Yeah, So it
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: is a lot of your time then, Um, obviously based
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: around food sources. But are you on top of the
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: food source on a field edge or are you do
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: you hunt back in the timber at off? Well? I
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: like to be as close to the betting area as
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: possible without spooking the deer. I guess kind of tough
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: in the late season, you know, when the foliage is
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: gone and you've got snow on the ground with them
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: there can see you getting into your stand from a
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: long ways off. Um, But a lot of times the
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: betting cover that I'm hunting is it comes right up
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: to the edge of the food plot. So I'll but
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: then fifty yards or so with the edge of the
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: food but I'm still you know, right on the edge
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: of the bedding cover as well. So can you can
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: you elaborate on those two pieces right there? Um? First,
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: I guess let's start with the food source. Can you
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: tell us you know, what are your ideal food sources
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: during the late season? Um? Could you maybe tell us
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: about the types you could plant and then maybe any
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: types of food sources that are found you know naturally
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: other ways. Well, by far, my favorite food plot is soybeans,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: and the worst the weather gets, the better those soybeans are.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: And they just they'll draw a deer like a magnet um.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: And you're if you're using the grain, actually the soybean
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: grain to attract those deer other than than the forage
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. I also like to mix it up,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: but just to have some things, you know, for diversity, uh,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: turn ups sugar beets, those kind of mixes, uh, you know,
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: just to give the deer something beside soybeans. Corn something
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I haven't put much effort into you simply because it's
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: it's an expensive crop to grow and get a good crop.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: It just takes a lot more cash outlay and equipment
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: that other food plots don't. So uh and soybeans I feel,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: attract deer better than corn anyway, especially during that brutal
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: cold conditions. As far as natural type browse, you know,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: just anything like for simmons or or apples, late hanging
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: apples and you know might still be around. Just you
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: want you want as much diversity as as possible. But
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: but a big old pot of soybeans in the middle
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: of that it will do the trick. Yeah, so so
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: question about soybeans. One of the knocks against planting soybeans
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: for food plots is that they can be browsed under,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: browsed over very quickly in the summer. If you've got
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: a small plot of beans, it's easily to be to
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: just get slammed by deer right away and knock the
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: whole thing out. Um, So, how do you go about
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: attacking that issue? Do you just plant very large soybean
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: fields or do you use anything like a food plot
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: fence or anything to keep the deer out of it
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: until late season. Well, the deer population where I'm at
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: has never been to the point where I had an
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: issue with them wiping out a food plot. So I
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: just make my pots as big as as I possibly can, uh,
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: and they're gonna where they come out into the plot,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: you know, the corners or whatever, They're going to browse
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: it down some there. But I've never really had to
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: had an issue like some guys have where they've really
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: browsed it down to nothing. So I've never had to
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: use electric fences or anything like that, although I've heard
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: good reports from guys that have Okay, is there a
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: minimum size do you think that most people should think about?
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: That would be kind of the smallest you want to go? Or?
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Am I okay with trying to put together a half acre,
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: quarter acre, little honey hoole saving plot? In most parts
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: of the country, if there's a decent deer population at all,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: you're gonna need at least an acre, and the three
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: acres be even better. Okay. I know a lot of
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: guys when they think about food plots are thinking about
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: something the size of a garden or a small yard
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: or something like that, and I'm usually thinking in terms
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: of a minimum of an acre. Okay, And then I
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: guess my final question I've got about your food plot
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: tactics here. Um, when you're designing these food plots, are
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: you just going with whatever openings you have or are
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: you keeping in mind a specific type of shape to
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: the food plots to make it more conducive to hunting
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: in any way? Um? What's your thought process there? Well,
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: I'm usually going with what what the land affords me
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: as far as the rains. Um, I think you can
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: overthink things and try to make it a lot harder, harder,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: and more difficult than it really is. I would rather have,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: you know, if you had say three or four acres
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: that could be put in a food plot, rather than
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: try to make it some weird shape that's going to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: force the deer to do this and do that. I'd
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: rather have the whole thing in food and attract more
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: dear to the spot. Okay, interesting kind of my opinion.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I understand some of these philosophies, but I
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: think a lot of that stuff is made to sell
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: articles more than it is to kill bucks. So I
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: just I don't buy into a lot of of things
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: that that that some people promote. I think just get
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: as much food out there as possible, and the deer
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: are going to be there fair enough. So then the
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: second piece of the equation that we talked about the cover. Um,
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: you know, what should somebody looking to be looking for
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: when it comes to quality late season cover. What does
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: that look like? Well, that's extremely thick if it's also
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: got some thermal cover. Cedars pines, A lot of the
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: oaks species will not. A lot of some oaks species
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: will hold their leaves in the winter. Pan oaks salt
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: tooth oak, shingle oaks. Those species will hold their leaves
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: all winter long and provide you know, some wind and
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: thermal cover for the deer. But the main thing is
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: you want it thick, but you know you want it
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: free of human intrusion. And that goes for the entire year.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: You don't want to be stomping in your late season
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: betting area in October and in ruin it months before
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: you're you're planning to hunt. That freedom of human intrusion
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: is probably the most important thing, even more so than
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: the type of plants and and the the way of
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: the terrain and everything. See your big believer in the
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: sanctuary theory, right, absolutely absolutely. Can you tell us a
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: little more in general why you think that having a
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: sanctuary is important for the whole year? Really, well, if
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: you just think of like a say, a state park
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: or something that is near your home you may be
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: familiar with where you know you can drive through there
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: any time of the day and and see deer browsing
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: and walking about freely with what They're not alarmed or anything.
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: And most of the cases, the only thing that sets
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: that particular cover apart from anything surrounding there is just
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: human intrusion or like thereof. And you know, nothing has
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: been done in particular to make the betting cover inside
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: that state park any better than the cover outside. But
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: it's the freedom of human intrusion is why the deer
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: there and why they are so comfortable there. And if
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: you can recreate that, even on a smaller scale, and
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: on top of that add better cover, well then then
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: you really got it made. Are you avoiding morning sits
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: during the late season completely? Yep? Definitely, just like October.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: The only time I have morning is in November. Okay,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: now again, I'm I'm trying to try to help my
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: buddy Dan out here, right, I just want to keep
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: going back to this example. Okay, so Dan doesn't know
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: where the sanctuary is. What kind of scouting techniques can
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: he employ or anyone in a similar situation employ at
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: this time of the year to try to figure out,
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: you know, where this buck might be because inherently, right,
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: there's the risk of spooking that deer. And now, after
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: all this pressure, if you do push this deer a
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: couple more times, you might never get that one or
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: two chances that you might get. So is there anything
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: you can do to to learn or figure this out
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: um safely without risking too much, you know, spooking that deer. Yeah,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: it's a matter of learning the property a year on
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: and it's going to take a few years. But once
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: you've got your property figured out, you're gonna know where
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: that buck is gonna be even before he's even born.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: You're gonna know today five years from now where a
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: mature buck is gonna be on your probably five years
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: from now where he's gonna be, just based on you know,
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: hunting pressure in the train and things like that. So
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: rather than I think a lot of hunters are always
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: a step behind the deer. They're always trying to figure
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: out what the deer doing. And I learned a long
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: time ago, instead of being a step behind the deer,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: you need to be a step ahead of them. In
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: other words, in October, I know where the deer is
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: gonna be, the bucks are going to be in November,
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: and where I need to be sitting in November. In November,
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: I know where I'm gonna need to be in December,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: in January. So thinking instead of playing, you know, a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: step behind the deer trying to figure out what they're
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: doing today, you need to figure out what they're gonna
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: do tomorrow and be ready for him when they do.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: So it's really it's learning those typical patterns that deer
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: are gonna are going to follow based on the terrain
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: and based on the habitat, and then making um you know,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: educated assumptions based on what you know historically these deer do. Yeah,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: because unless something major changes on the property, they're going
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: to be doing the same thing year after year after year.
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: Another piece of this pie that we haven't touched on yet,
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: but I imagine factors to some degree into what you're
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: doing this time of the year is trail cameras. Um
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: Are you using trail cameras during the late season to
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: help you, you know, fine tune any of these assumptions
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: and ideas you have, or are you avoiding them this
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: time of year. No. I start running trail cameras about
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: the first of July every year and run them until
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the bucks shed their antlers in February or March. This
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: time of the year, what I'm doing is I've got
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: the trail cameras on food sources, and you know, about
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: every ten days or so, I'll check them just to
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: see if a new buck might have showed up that
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: that wasn't there earlier, and just kind of keep tabs
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: on what individual are using particular food plots. Yeah, how
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: are you checking those cameras? And um what time of day?
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it in the middle of the day, and
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: I'm doing it on an a t V. I just
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: ride right up to the edge of the food plot.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I leave the thing running and I don't even try
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: to be quiet, but I avoid the betting cover, you know,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: as much as possible. I come in from a different
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: direction than from the betting cover. Um, but being on
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: that a TV, there's deer here. You're coming and they're
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: not busting out. Like if you would sneak in there
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: and happen to bust something, it would be a whole
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: lot more stressful on them than that a TV is. Yeah, yeah, okay,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: that makes sense. You could use a tractor or anything
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: really truck yep, just as long as they don't associate
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: with a hunter, right right exactly? Yeah, okay, So kind
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: of moving on to a couple of these other slight
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: tactical offshoots. Is there anything else when it comes to
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: calling or send there? Any of these things are relatively
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: aggressive that people you typically used during the rut. Is
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: there ever use case for calls, decoys, sense, anything like
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: that during the late season? You know, years ago, I
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: had a situation where we had a blizzard blow in
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: and on all the local deer during that blizzard hold
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: up in one thicket And I snuck into that thicket
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: three different days with rattling antlers, and each time I
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: rattled in at least one, if not too mature bucks,
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: and I never did get one killed for various reasons.
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: Um my fault, really, But so I I know those
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: tactics can work during the late season. But the longer
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: I've hunted, the more I've realized that a mature buck
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: is is an animal. It's on edge all the time anyway,
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: And the last thing I want to do is putting
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: more on edge by making a sound or as sent
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: to try to attract him, because I think he's so
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: alert anyway that you just make him hyper alert when
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: you do that. And the odds in the late season, especially,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: we're just one little creek from your bow or anything
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: I'm sending, you know, running to the next county. I
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: don't want to put him on alert anymore than he
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: already is so I avoid those tactics even though I
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: have no doubt they can work. Okay, all right, Dan,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: what do you what do you think about this? Do
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: you have any other questions for done to help make
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: sure you kill a deer here in a couple of
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: weeks and I really want kill him? What is something
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I may be overlooking or anybody could be overlooking for
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: late season and he likes to tactics or strategies. Well,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: I think the main thing is they is most people
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: try to do the same thing during the late season
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: that they've done, you know, basically all seasons. They get
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: all hung up on sign for one thing. And you know,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I've hunted more than one mature buck that the deer
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: were hurted up up, except the mature buck wasn't with
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: the herd. He might have fed in this very same
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: field with the herd, but the herd came from one
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: direction and he would come from a totally different because
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: he wasn't bedding with him. So I think you got
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: to keep that in mind at these mature bucks. Even
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: though the late season that bad weather can can tip
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: the odd your way just a little more than what
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: they were, they're still survival experts and they're not going
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: to take chances, but they don't have to take So
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: you just got to kind of always go into it
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: with an open mind and not expect the mature buck
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: to be doing what the rest of the herd's doing
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: because he's he doesn't do that at the beginning of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: the season, he doesn't do that during the rut, and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: he's not gonna do it during the late season a
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: lot of times. Okay, so we've heard from Neil out
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: in New York. Then it was Don Higgins in Illinois.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: Now we're gonna shift south to Will Brantley, who's over
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: in Kentucky, doesn't hunting in Tennessee and other southern states
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: as well. Here's a Southern perspective on the late season.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: What's the Will Brantley late season recipe? How do you
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: approach it? Well, you know, it's it's not um you know.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: For for one, I I personally, um haven't hunted the
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: late season just a ton because we're in a one
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: buck state in Kentucky. And uh, most years, fortunately I've
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: I've killed my buck by the late season. Um, but
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the last few years, uh, you know, I mentioned my
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: buddy Miles, who's who's come in and and uh hunted
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: late season with us here. Well, gosh, she's been coming
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: in six or seven years in a row now, um
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: and uh, and he's killed three good bucks here in
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: the past. He killed two this year. He killed one
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: in Tennessee and and one in Kentucky and uh and
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: killed a good one uh in Kentucky last year. And
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: that was you know, both of those were mid December
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: hunts and kind of after the after you know, definitely
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: after our peak of the rut. But still when some
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: things we're going on, I still think there were a few,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: uh you know, a few those maybe coming into heat
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: and definitely some bucks interested. But I think that the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: big takeaway from from the good deer that that he's
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: killed just in the past couple of years during the
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: late season has has definitely been uh, you know, probably
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: even more of a hyper focus on some of the
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: things that we were talking about earlier about your stand
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: access and um, you know, and choosing the conditions and
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: things like that. And um. The deer that Miles kill
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: with us last year, UM was in a stand I knew, um,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: you know, about where this deer was bedding. He was
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: coming out of a pretty big woods area with a
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: lot of cutover stuff. I knew the deer was bidding
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: in that area somewhere. And we'd hunted this deer pretty
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: much all season, from the early season through the rut
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: around this one particular food plot, and it had gotten
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: a lot of pictures of him. But I had a
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: stand set in this bedding area, and um, we avoided
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: it all season, mainly because there was no way to
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: drive before wheeler into it to get somebody out of it,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: and um, there's really no way to sneak into it
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: of a morning without you know, you may get in
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: there without bumping the deer, but you may not. But um,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I knew after our gun season this deer
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: was still alive, and uh, you know, and so we
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Miles and I kind of went for broke. I said,
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: you know, hey, we're gonna put you, Uh, we're gonna
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: put you in the stand. We may spook the deer
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: before you get a shot at him, but you know,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: we've only got a few days of the season lest
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: so this is where we're gonna go. Um and uh,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a little masked uh left in
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: this in this area. But more importantly, I think it
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: was just right on the uh bread on the edge
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: of where this buck was bedding and kind of between
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: where he was, you know, where he was bedding and
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: see even all year long. And I mean it wasn't
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: wasn't rocket science on picking the spot, but it was,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: you know, it was kind of that last minute go
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: for broke the approach and he killed that deer his
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: his first evening in that stand. So um, this year
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: was it was a little different. Um, you know, he
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: he he killed his buck, you know, chasing does in
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: a food plot right before dark out of a out
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: of a box line. And the and the buck that
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: he killed this year was it was a deer that gosh,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: we had a ton of pictures of him two years
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: ago and then he just sort of disappeared and we
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: got killed. Um who's a real tall tight rack eight
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: point A couple of years ago we named him up tight.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: Actually I hate naming dear, but this one just begged
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: for a name. So um and uh. And then I
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: was just out of town on a hunt and Michelle
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: was pulling trio camera cards and got a picture this dear,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and man, he's gotten pretty pretty cool, growing a bunch
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: of kickers and things around his bases and just sort
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: of showed back up around like say, around Thanksgiving and
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: sort of hanging around our food plots. And I assume, um,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: I'll look as we had a couple of family groups
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: of those around there, and you know, he showed up
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: in daylight. My house killed him. So um, you know,
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: good good food sources and and good stand set ups.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: I don't think my strategy would change a whole lot
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: in the late season versus any other time of year,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: other than I might get a little more aggressive on
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: some of the places that you know that I'm gonna
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: sit or you know, try to access. Yeah, that's an
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: interesting point because I feel, at least for me, there's
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: there's two times of year when I feel like it
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: makes sense to go for the home run, to take
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: that risky aggressive move. It's it's either the run because
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: you've got this disproportionate chance that dey are going to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: be a little bit off their game. There'll be a
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: little bit um, I don't want to say stupider or
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: something like that, but you've got a little bit more
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: of a chance of them making a mistake, and so
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: it makes sense to kind of go for the home
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: run during the rut and then and then to your
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: point this time of year, the late season, because what
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: do you have to lose, right the season is gonna
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: end anyways, UM, might as well give it a shot.
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: And UM, it's interesting that that worked out for you guys,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: And that kind of worked out my hunt. This this
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: bucket killed in Michigan. I he showed up in daylight
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: that morning. I saw him from a long distance away.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: I was, Okay, I have to get in there and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: hunt right there tonight. But the wind was pretty darn
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: lousy for it. It was I would never I would
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: never hunt this area with that wind. But I said, well,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: it's it's December. He's here this this one day. He's
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: not consistent at all. Um, he's been like once every
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks, kind of dropping in. Um, I have
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: to I have to strike. It's kind of an now
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: or never. And so I tried to find a way
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: to to take a risky situation, minimize the risk as
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: much as I possibly could, but just went in knowing like, hey,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: there's a fifty chance it's either low everything out here
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: or I'm gonna kill him. But sometimes you have to.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: You have to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta have
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: the confidence to you know, hey, all the all the
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: pieces are here to tell me that there's a pretty
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: good chance he's gonna come by this afternoon. Now you
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: know he may spooking, but you know, like say, you've uh,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: you don't have many many chances left by this point
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: in the season, so you've got to try. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, Um, you mentioned those two things. Sometimes you're
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: more aggressive and you're smart at your stand sites, and
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: then you've gotta be hunting the right food. Um. What
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: what kind of late season food sources are worth king
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: in on in the places that you hunt Tennessee, Kentucky. Um,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: whether it be you know, planted crops or native for its.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: What do you guys really focus on this time of year? Well,
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: so far as native stuff, um, you know, uh, mass
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: is still important at this time of the season. Now,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: we had kind of a spotty mass crop here. Was
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: really only one of the best mass crops I think
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: you can get the hunt. And that's some trees were
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: just dropping like crazy and others had nothing. So you know,
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: if you could find a really good white oak that
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: was dropping, uh, you were gonna see some deer under it.
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: That's usually by this point in the season. You know,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: most of the white oaks have been pretty well cleaned up.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: But we, uh, we have a lot of different red
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: oaks species, and um, although they're not as preferable to deer,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: they still eat them, and they definitely eat them late
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: in the season. And what what I find around here anyway,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: is that on a lot of the oak ridges, the
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: red oaks will tend to grow right on the very
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: tops of them. You know, I guess where the soil
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: or whatever it is isn't quite as good as what
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: I've been told anyway, and uh, you'll get a lot
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: of deer action, um cleaning those things up, some of
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: the big post oaka acreents and things like that. So
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: they definitely hit those, um if you can, if you
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: can find them. And and I mean again, uh hunting
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: mass it's um. Sometimes you you walk past a bunch
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: of trees and there seemed to be acron's land everywhere
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: on the ground, and then you get to one particular
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: tree that they're hitting, and that doesn't look any different
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: than any of the others. I can tell any difference
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: in the nuts. But for whatever reason, there's that one
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: that they like and we you know, we we were
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: hunting in in Tennessee the other day and there was
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: a there was a red oak tree like that that
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, that deer were hammering it and walking
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: past fifteen other red oaks. It looked just like it
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: to get to it. So um, so that's a that's
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: a big one. Um. You know, we still have some
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: green stuff um growing pretty much year around around here.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: You know, they'll be um different little pieces of uh
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: you know, forbes and and native vegetation and things like that,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: and and deer always gonna gonna nibble on that stuff.
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: And from a food plot perspective, I mean, I plant
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: most of my food plots are a blend of uh
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: la dinald, clover, chickory, and oats. Um. I do plant
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: some brassicas and a lot of times they won't even
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: eat them around here until after the season goes out.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: We usually just don't get weather cold enough to to
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: really uh to to make Braska is that attractive. I mean,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I have had some brasket plots that were hit pretty hard.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: But um, I've got one that that I planted and
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: I walked through the other day and they're turn ups
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: the side of the softballs just laying there on the
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: ground and doesn't look like they've been touched. They hit
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: the they hit the greens early, you know, when they're
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: first coming up, and you actually can get some pretty
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: good early season hunting over him. But then through the
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: course of deer season, they just they just don't mess
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: with them. My whole lots. It makes a really pretty
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: food plot, but they just don't eat it a whole lot.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: So um, the clover, the chickory, and the oats, I
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: mean they in this at this latitude, they are green
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: just almost year around. I mean, if we get a
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: really deep freeze, you know, late which which we usually will,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, they'll go dormant for a while. Um, but
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: for most of deer season, they're gonna be pretty green.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: And uh, and the deer are gonna eat that stuff.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you can get any really anything that's
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: that's green like that, um, they're gonna be on And
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: then of course you're you know, your harvested grain fields,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: your your cut corn fields, and your and your bean
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: fields and things are going to nibble around in those
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: and we get a lot of our um, a lot
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: of our farmers will do a cover crop of some
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: sort um, usually wheat sometimes uh you know, sometimes rye.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: Every now and then some of the organic farmers will
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: will drow oats into a field. Uh dicon rad issues
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: will get some of those. But um, you know, any
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: of those any of those pick crop fields that have
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: had a cover crop, especially with a cereal grain, are
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: gonna have a lot of deer on them this time
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: of year. So yeah, yeah, definitely seen similar things up
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan. Um, no, no one thing that is different.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: I imagine we talked about how you know, there's this
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: careful balancing act we have to make all throughout the
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: season between when do you strike when you get aggressive
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: versus when do you played a little more safe and
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: maybe observe or maybe don't hunt some days and during
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: the late season. So much of what I'm doing up
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: here in Michigan usually or or anywhere in the Upper
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: Great Lakes maybe Wisconsin Minnesota is is keying in on
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: certain weather events that really pushed deer out to feed.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: So like a big snowstorm coming through, or like arctic temperature,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: something really extreme like that can really get deer, especially
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: that mature buck that maybe wasn't moving in daylight at
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: all that might finally get them up and moving. So
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: when I see something like that come through, I mark
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: it on the camera. You know, gotta hunt on that day. Um.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: But somewhere like Kentucky or Tennessee, that's kind of mid country. Uh,
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: you probably don't get big snow events like that. You
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: probably don't get those big arctic temperature events is often
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: at least um, so so correct me if I'm wrong.
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: But if that's the case, what do you key in
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: on as far as weather factors or anything like that
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: to to kind of guide you during the late season. Well,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: it's still like to look for cold fronts, um. You know,
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: I like to hunt, you know, in the if if
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: I can catch an afternoon when a cold front is
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: is just about to pass through, when it's you know,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: the temperature has fallen and it's kind of a steady drizzle,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: um before the wind really kicks up. I mean, I
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: seem to always see deer on their feet during those conditions. Really,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: regardless of whether it's the early season or the very
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: last day, those conditions seem to put deer on their
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: feet around here. Uh. And then um, in the late
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: season in particular, I think those postfrontal high pressure days
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: when it's you know, the sun's bright and it's cold
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: and still and there's a heavy frost like um, those days,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: I mean you you almost always can can count on,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: you know, pretty consistent deer movement and uh, you know, man,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: besides that, um, late in the season, I mean the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: temperature and in the stage of a cold front aside, Um,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: I like sunshine. Um, you know, we are our winners
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: are especially this year, like we get a lot of
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: days rich forty five degrees and drizzling rain, and it
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: just seems like it is like that, you know, for
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: days on end in the in the wintertime in this
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: part of the world, and it gets muddy and sloppy
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: and all of that, and um, you know the sunny days, um,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: the clear sunny days. I just I don't know, I
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: like to go outside on days like that, and it
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: just seems like wildlife. You know, they just as a
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: rule they take advantage of weather like that when the
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: norm has been kind of cloudy, gloomy, you know, just
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: just kind of bland weather. So sunny afternoons in the
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: late season, you know, I I can't I haven't documented
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: that or anything, but just one of those things that
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I do seem to see more dear on their feet
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: when I'm out and about, you know, um, doing my
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: thing thing. So those are the conditions that that I
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: kind of like to look forward at least this time
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: of year. Yeah, yeah, I feel like, Um, I feel
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: like I've heard similar things too, and even I think
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: lots of times you'll get those nice sunny days tend
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: to come with that postfront high pressure system, right, Um,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: so you kind of get those those coinciding factors that
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden make it especially good. So when
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: you get that, those are that's another one of those
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: check it on the calendar, gotta make it happen kind
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: of day. If you have the flexibility. Um, I feel
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: like late season especially is, and it's it's important all
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: year round. I guess early season in late season maybe
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: more so, but it's if you can there's gonna be
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: a handful of special days each year that are gonna
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: be just just a notch or two above all the
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: other days because of some kind of system moving through
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: and if you can find a way to have the
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: flexibility to make sure you're there on those couple few
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: special days. I'm not saying that they it's always gonna
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: work out. It's not not saying that you're not going
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: to kill a deer on a ran um day, that
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: all the factors aren't aligned, But it just seems to
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: be that if you can take advantage of those few
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: special ones, you're gonna just put yourself in a little
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: better position. That's that's worth doing if you can. Oh yeah,
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: absolutely absolutely. Sometimes some days you get in a tree
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: and you just know things be al right, you know.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: I love I have a totally different physical feeling on
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: those days, Like it's usually when I'm getting things ready
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: at the house, doing my final prep, loading the truck,
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: whatever it might be. On the days where you just
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: have that feeling your gut like it's a kill day,
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: where you just know everything's lined up. That's one of
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: my favorite things all year round as far as like hunting,
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: Like what you just know when those special days are there.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: I don't know. The sense of anticipation, excitement is just
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: it's turned up to eleven on the dial, and I
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: live for that. So so all this stuff's great, and
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: it's it's the knowledge is so important when it comes
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: to hunting all year round, of course, but late season
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: especially Um, but I think sometimes the toughest thing is
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: just staying motivated. You know, after a long hunting season,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: you're tired, you're worn out. Maybe things have been going bad. Um,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: it's cold, you're recovering from eating turkey and ham and
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds of pounds of stuffing and mashed potatoes.
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: It can be kind of tough to pull yourself back
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: out there. Do you have any kind of final parting
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: words of wisdom as far as that side of things, Um,
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the late season and just keeping
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: after it. Well, it's okay to be comfortable when you're
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: deer hunting. Um. You know, there's some really good clothing
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: out there made that that helps keep you warm. But
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: even with the very best stuff on, Uh, sitting in
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: a little bit lock on stam when it's in the
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: teens is tough. Um. You know it's sometimes it's necessary,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: but um, you know there's nothing wrong with being in
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: the ground blind with a buddy heater, or being in
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: a box blind with a buddy heater and and keeping warm. Um.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: You know, when I'm hunting during the rut or any
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: time that I need to, you know, to put time
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: in the stand that I that I know I may
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: be sitting there a while. I always bring a thermos
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: of coffee. Um, maybe it's spooked a deer before, but
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: I can't really think of an instance where I'm like, yep,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: that dear spook because I was drinking coffee. Um, you know,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: I mean, so I I bring a thermis a coffee.
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: It helps pack past the time. I bring plenties next
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: and I and I read like crazy on the stand. Um,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not a fan of playing on my phone
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: a whole lot when I'm in the tree. I mean,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: I do same as everybody else. I'm checking emails on
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: Facebook all that crap. But um, you know it's a phone.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: Batteries die quickly, uh this time of year. So so
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: there's that part of it. And uh, you know, you
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: start scrolling through in the video plays or whatever like
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: it can really get distracted. But um, there's something about
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: a paperback book. And I picked my books carefully. You know,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: I definitely want to get something that I want to read,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: But I've got to get a book that I need
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: to be sure that I can quickly slide it into
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: a jacket pocket or a kip pocket or something like that,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: and like Michelle and I are really we both read
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a ton in the stand, um, but we're really careful
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: about which books we pick. We don't pick hardback books
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: because you know, if you happen to drop one out
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: of the tree, it's gonna make a lot of noise.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: But like small paperback books that you can slip into
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: a pocket quickly, um, you know, and you can sit there,
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: you can read a little bit, you can cast your
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: eyes up, you know, twice a page and just kind
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: of check around. And it actually keeps you pretty still
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: to have a book on your lap and just turning
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: the pages with your thumb in a way that you know,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: even messing with a phone, you're moving around a little
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: bit and there's a few more distractions involved. So um,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: you know, you still need to pay attention obviously, but
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: it's uh, it's okay to have some things to occupy
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: yourself on the stand. You know. It's not like century
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: duty or something. So I've always I've always felt the
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: same way, I'd rather have something like that that, especially
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: for me, like during all day sits in November, that
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: kind of thing, a book or reading something on my
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: phone or whatever might be. I'd rather do that and
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: stay out in the woods all day because of that
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: little bit of help, versus coming in for four hours
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: or two hours or whatever and completely missed that window
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: of time out there. So if you need a little
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: something to help you, go for it. As far as
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned, Yep, absolutely. Okay. Now to wrap it up,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: we've got Gabe A. Dare. He's over there in Iowa.
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: Let's hear his thoughts on late season hunting. So now
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: we're staring December in the face. From your perspective, is
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: the best behind this? Or do you like the late season?
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: Do we have some good things still ahead for us here? Yeah?
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: I love late season anymore. I don't like November. I mean,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I can I know I killed my two biggest year
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: killed you know in November, my my two archery two
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: hundreds of both November or tenth and twelve. Um, but
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: you had when when I peeled them off the wall, boy,
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: it real quickly goes to late October, late late November
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: and later you know. Um, I struggled a lot in November,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: and so you know I started getting into that tenth
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: and twelfth and I haven't got anyting killed. I almost
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: start you know, looking towards the twenty one and on,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: because I just we really struggle, you know with these
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: bigger gear once they start locking down with those And
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: so yeah, I love late season. I'm as you know,
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: I don't farm actively right now, but I've grown up farming,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: you know, and so we've got equipment, We're fortunately got
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of food, and so I love late season. Um,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: you know, I would rather give gear a place to
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: live and hunt them on the edges and hunt them
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: on foot. That's you know probably you know, when you
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: know you you put that together with interns and exit,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: and I think you got a thick at that point,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: you know, I think you gotta made and so um,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: you know, with with late season coming up, you've got
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: good food sources, good grain. I'm a big grain guy.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: When it gets late i'd really have corn beans. Um.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: You know, when you get to that late season hunt
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: and you've got good food and you can get in out,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: it's as deadly as any part of the year in
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: my opinion. So so if someone you know, right now,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: it's it's today's last day of November. So we're just
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: starting to make that transition into December into that late
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: season kind of phase of the year. Um, is there
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: anything that should be done that people should be thinking
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: about or or even actually physically doing right now to
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: prepare for this late season? Um? Or would you say,
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: you know, just get out and start hunting food or
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know, is there any kind of transitionary things
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: they should be doing right now to get ready for
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: that best late cold weather and hunts? You know? And
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: I would say, you know, if you've got to do something,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: you're buying the eight ball, and it always got to
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: be done ahead of time. You've got to kind of
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: prepare and have your stuff set up, because at this
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: point I just locked down everything. I keep everything to
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: a minimum. Um. And I really watched my cameras. You know,
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: we'll we'll run a bunch of camp where you know,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: they start coming back with the scrapes real hard. Once
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: the run lines down, it seems like the signpost kind
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: of you know, so you can run some cameras back
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: on the scrapes and a lot of food source stuff
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of time laughs. You know, I run a
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: lot of time labs cameras so I can see the
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: whole food plot before the sun goes down. And so
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: that's what I'm doing, you know. And and that's the
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: other thing. You know, a lot of these food plots,
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: I may have them set up to where, you know,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: they are tight to the bedding, you know, which is
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: when you get those deer in the real early you know,
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: because I've killed a lot of here in lots of years.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: I've killed a lot of ear at three o'clock in
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: the afternoon, you know, five or six, seven year old
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: and hex U two years ago I killed the night
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: and a half year old and it was like three,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: you know, So but that yeah, but that's kind of
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: getting back into that. You know, the foods where it
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: needs to be. It's close to the bedding. They don't
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: have to move very far to get to it. But
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 1: then I've also got that you know, component of if
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put some food here, you know, how can
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 1: I monitor? How can I check it? You know, that's
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: kind of like the blind deal. I tried to set
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: it up to where, you know, as long as I
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: got the right wind, I can get in there, pull
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: some cards, get out midday or or late morning, you know,
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: and not hav any issues. Um, you know, we're big
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: on vehicles too, you know, Well, I'd much rather pulling
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: somewhere like a farmer would, you know, just in case
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: something is on the food, you know, the middle of
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: the day. I really pulling there. And you know, sometimes
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: I'll even take the tractor and you know, just because
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: they're used to it and it doesn't bother them as much,
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: you know, But I'd much rather, you know, take a
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: risk with a vehicle or attractive and you know, walking
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: up the hill and blowing out of fields, you know,
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: on foot. So a lot of things with the with
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: the trail cameras you were talking about, you know, monitoring
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: these and you talked about using vehicles access it and
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: things like that. Um, how often do you go in
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: to check these cameras, because that's always something I struggle with,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: is to your point earlier, you want to keep everything,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: all your impact as minimal as possible. But at the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: same time you need to monitor these somehow so that
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: you can make sure you're hunting at the right time.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: So how do you balance that? Um, you know, if
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: the wind's right and I'm cautious, I'm not going into
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: their bedroom to get these and so I I don't
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: worry about that as much. Not what that said I'm
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: not check them every day, but I don't worry about
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: it too much. I'm really careful with my feet. Um,
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: you know, I'll really take care of my boots. But
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: the wind's right, you know, I'm not leaving a munch
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: of boot tracks, which I'm there again. That's kind of
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: one of my my deals. I really watched my floot tracks. Um,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me too much. You know, I'll slip in,
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: slip out. You know. I think I think deer expect
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: a certain amount of pressure. I think that they can
• 1:26:26
  Speaker 1: they live with the next amount of pressure, and I
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: think that's a pressure that doesn't bother them. You know,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: you're not going into their bedroom. You're not bumping them
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: out of bed. You're not you know, as long as
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: you're not flowing wind right down into a drawer or
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: ditch or block the woods they're in, you know, and
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: you're careful, that's your feet. I'm big on feet. Um,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: you know, I don't think it really hurts me too much,
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: you know. So you know, if I know there's a
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: good one in there, and I'm really monitoring, I mean
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: I I may check camera, you know, like that big
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: one this year. We were checking the camera every couple
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: of days, you know. But we we got in, got out.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: You know, we didn't do on the wind at all,
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: But if we had the right wind, we'd go. We
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: events flip out, check it, you know, and make a
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: decision from there. Yeah. Do you do any other scouting
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: of any kind this time of year? Maybe glassing or
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: are literally walking around at all? Anything else other than
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: the cameras? Yeah. Glass, I'm a big I'm a big glass.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: I've got all kinds of places. Most of my farms,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: you know, they're tough, but you know we've got advantage points. Um.
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: You know that we can go park and just glass
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: and sit and watch and you know, and I like
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: doing that because I can cover a lot more ground.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: Growing up, my father was big. You know, that was
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: one of the things we did. You know, we cover
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of ground. We had a lot of ground
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: to hunt grown up, um, you know, and so rather
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: than being stuck or can find in one spot, you know,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: we could bounce around and cover multiple farms and look
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: at stuff and you know a lot of deer I kill.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: I mean that's kind of where it will start. You know,
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of times it's all I'll pick them up
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: from glasso or scouting you know, their picture. But when
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: you can lay eyeballs on and watch them for ten minutes,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: you know, making natural movement, and then you can really
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: start to you know, connect the dots at that point.
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: And so a while of the deer I shoot. You know,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: that's a big part of it, is his glassing, scouting
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: from the road, pulling into high points, you know, anywhere
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: you can get away with it. So so would it
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: be fair to say that you are doing that more
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: often than maybe you're even hunting during the late season. Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: My cameraman's love me. They love you know, because I'm
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: not the guy that's gonna just pound it out for
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: seven straight days. I mean I may hunt one day
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: in seven, you know if that's you know, because I'm
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: not I'm not big on blind hunt. I don't like
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: to just goes, Oh it's going here the winds right,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: you know. I like scenarios. I like no big here
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: and there. I like to have a game plan. That's
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: what gets me fired up anymore, you know. And so
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: when I can really start, you know, I like going
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: into a set because I've got a whole bunch of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: data getting me there. I don't like going and just
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: setting all day and a set somewhere to say I'm hunting.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: You know, I would rather go go pick them points
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: apart and start putting them together and be really fired
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: up going in somewhere because I know he's either they
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: are closed before he's been there, you know. And so yeah,
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: I do have ton discounting. I would. You know, this year,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: we we weren't hunting mornings much at all because I
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: didn't want to go take the chance. I knew I
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: had his I had his kitchen. You know, I can
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: hunt him in the bedroom, but I knew I had
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: the food. I knew that we could get in and
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: out super super easy. It was like a dream set
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: up for in and our and so I just you know, mornings,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: we we took a couple of shots seen him once,
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: you know, about killed him that first move I made
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 1: on him. But you know, in the mornings, i'd go
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: run around the sections and part and watch and just
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: see if I put eyeballs on him, and and we did.
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: You know, we've seen him quite a bit. Yeah. So
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: so in the late season then what what has to
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 1: be present as far as conditions or data for you
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: to take that shot. Um. Like right now, I'm struggling
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: with after that year. Um, I've got a handful of
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: five year olds that didn't grow much um. And so
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: I'm really struggling with him. And I'm rolling the dice,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: maybe all of them, but one for letting them go
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: another year and see what happens. Um. But you know,
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: it's like that one deer. I'm gonna want to I'm
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: gonna I want to get a beat on where he's did, right.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I know where he likes to bed. I
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: know kind of where his home is. Um. But I
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: wanna I want to get him in on that food plot.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: I want to see him on camera. I'd like to
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: see him in daylight, you know, whether it's scouting that
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: food plot from a distance or slipping in and pulling
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: a card. Um. But yeah, I won't. You know. I
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: talked to Adam, my cameraman, just earlier today and and
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: he asked me what's going on? I said, absolutely nothing.
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: And it won't be the weather's warm, I said, once
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: it cools off, I said, I'm gonna keep watching cameras.
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep scouting, and once I really get one,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: you know, once you know one's in there, and then
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: then I'll get after it. But if I don't know
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: there's one in there, I'll leave it alone, you know.
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: And so between cameras or or glassing you know, a field,
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: I'll sit back, um, rather than take a shot and
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: go up in there and you know, just on a
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: whim and and you know, maybe something happens and and
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: figure it up and you know, and set yourself back.
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: M hm. So so would you not even go in
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: if we got a great set of conditions? So let's
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: say you haven't gotten eyes on them, you know, recently
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: in daylight or something like that. But we just get
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: this mega cold front and snow. Will something like that
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: dream scenario be enough to get you to go in
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: there even though you don't have the sighting or the
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: picture to tell you to go or is it no,
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: I gotta have that yeah? Yeah, And that's if you
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: get a you know that that big cold push coming down,
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: big front, cold temperature, snow, you know, the perfect storm
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: everybody wants and looks like you got all roll the
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: dice on those average conditions. Now I'll just sit back
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: all way, you know. No, I killed a lot of
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: deer in average conditions because there again I went full
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: the car or glass the field and wow, he's in there,
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: you know, fortyfore dark and and then you know, the
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: next night getting there on very fair you know, conditions
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: that are fair at best, you know, warm or wind whatever,
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: and get killed. But yeah, if I get that perfect
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: storm of big front moving in cold camps some snow combined, yeah,
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: then then what I do is if I don't have one,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: really you know, a beat on one, then I just
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: use my gut of Okay, I'm pretty sure this is
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: where he's gonna be, this is where he's always been,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: this is where he likes to be at this time
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: of the year. And then I'll take my shot, you
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: know at that point. So weather we'll get me, will
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: get me on a food source, even without you know,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: getting some sort of data, No one, they're in there.
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: So so what about this scenario. Then let's say you've
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: got a handful of different types of food sources on
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: your property in the late season. Maybe you maybe you've
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: got a grain field somewhere, maybe that's corner beans. And
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: then maybe you've got a green food source, maybe it's
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: brassicas or something like that. Uh, and who knows what else.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: Maybe then there's a natural forage area. Maybe there's still
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: some acorns or something along those lines in another section
• 1:32:53
  Speaker 1: near firm. I find myself in this dilemma. I'm gonna
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: go into a late season hunt. Conditions seem good, and
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, which food source should I folk of something?
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: Because so much late season hunting is focused on food?
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: How do you choose the right food? Is there any
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: set of conditions that you said, Okay, now i'm gonna
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: focus on green. Now I'm gonna focus on grain. Now
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do something different. How do you think about that? Um,
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: that's the corn is king. That is easy. I mean,
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: I just I've always lived like and here's late season.
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: You know, you get your guys to a diehard being guys,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: and I always laugh and say, you better hope my
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: corn plotting across the sense or across the road from me,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: because I'm gonna own them. And and I truly believe that.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: I just don't. I think beans are great. I think
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: they've got this place. I think they're they're awesome food
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: source for a longer time frame. You know, It's like alfalfa.
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: I think alfalfa is probably the one I've taken off
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: my farm and I've putting it back on my farm.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: And I think alfalfa is, you know, if you want
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: to hold gars, one of the most important, you know, components.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: I think beans have an awesome place, But when you
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: get right down to late season hunting and what they
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: really need, it's it's car it's corn. You know, they're
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: gonna come to you. You know, you've got a food
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 1: plot that's half corn, half beans. I'm not saying they're
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: gonna go all, you know, but that corn is gonna
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: own the majority of them. And I think with consistency,
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: it's gonna there's gonna be some nifer. Yeah, they're gonna
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: they're gonna hit. You're gonna see bearing the beans a
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: little more in the corn. But I think consistently, day
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: in day out, when you're hunting, you know, in our
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: region where you're snow and cold, and their survival mode
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 1: corns game. Do you give any do you have any um?
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: What am I trying to say? Green food sources like turnips,
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: Brassica's rape kill, all that kind of stuff. Does that
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: do much for you? Yeah? We use them, Yeah, we
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: use them. And I think there's some you know, like
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: post right like right now, you know, first gun season
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: for US early December. I think it's phenomenal, um, you know,
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: because it's the last green eyng else has done turned
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: and you know if you've got some green and everything
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: else has already turned. Yeah, you're you know, you're you're
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: in the chips and so and so. That's where you
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: know a lot of these different you know, food sources
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: have their spots, you know, and out on them and
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: I love them. But when you start talking consistently, day in,
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: day out, corners king. All right, And that's a wrap.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: Thank you all for tuning in. I hope you find
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: this one helpful. Um. I will just leave you with
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: the same reminders I gave you at the top, which
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: is number one. Check out the new book from Meat Eater,
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: The Meat Eater Guide to Wilderness Skills and Survival by
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: Stephen Ronnella, with contributions from other folks on the team too,
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: So check that out at Amazon or the metior dot
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: com wherever you want to find it. Also check out
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: the back forty which is on the Meat Eater YouTube channel,
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: new episodes coming out every Sunday. And finally, have faith
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: keep at it, have fun. The late season can be
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: a great season, but you've got to have that mental
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: toughness and stick tuitiveness to enjoy that. So I'm wishing
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: you well and hoping for the best and until next time,
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: thank you for listening, and stay wired and Dart