Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 823: Newest Moon, Bedding, and Movement Research and the Implications for Deer Hunters with Dr. Bronson Strickland

Transcript

Ep. 823: Newest Moon, Bedding, and Movement Research and the Implications for Deer Hunters with Dr. Bronson Strickland · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: the show, I'm joined by doctor Bronson Strickland, Professor of
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Wildlife Management at Mississippi State University, to discuss the latest
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: in white tail research and its implications for deer hunters.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: All right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt pod cast,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: brought to you by First Light and their brand new
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: line of white tail gear, which I've told you all about.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: You can learn more about it over at first light
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: dot com and our CAMO for Conservation initiative, which means
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: that every purchase you make of any of first Light's
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: gear in the Specter Camel pattern, which is the white
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: tail pattern, you buy something in that pattern, and a
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: portion of that sale is donated to the National Deer
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Association to help promote the conservation of our favorite big
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: game printer. So that's pretty cool. And in other news,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: stay two and there is some exciting stuff coming up
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: next week related to white tails in the world of
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: First Light, in the world of meat Eater. Last year,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: we had a big old celebration of white tail deer
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: for a week called white Tail Week. I don't know
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: if that's a creative name or not, but Whitetail Week
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: was pretty awesome last year, and we're bringing it back.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: It's next week, so stay tuned for even more white
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: tailed business than usual, including and I'm just gonna say it.
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: I don't know if this is something we're not supposed
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: to tease it or not, but my first two films
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: from last year are coming out next week, including the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: film that is going to be the Return to the
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Back forty. So I got to go back to the
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Back forty and spend some time with two of the
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: new hunters that I've been mentoring out there over previous seasons,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: help them get their first year on the Back forty.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: So we go back to the Back forty, we do
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: some hunting, we showcase everything that's happened on the property
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: in the year since that, barring some kind of unforeseen circumstance,
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: should be coming out next week. And the Wide nine film,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: the film that recaps my four year journey kind of
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: following studying and then hunting this buck we call the
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Wide nine here in Michigan. That's coming out next week,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: so make sure you are subscribed to the Meat Either
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: YouTube channel as well. Very exciting things to come. But
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: that is all neither here nor there. Today we are
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: talking dear research, dear studies, the science of what deer
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: do and why they do it. And our guest today
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: is one of the absolute best people to discuss this
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: kind of thing with. It's doctor Bronson Strickland. He is
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: a professor of wildlife management at Mississippi State University. They've
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: got this very cool program there called Deer Lab in
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: which they are producing all sorts of different fascinating research,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: publishing studies on deer behavior, dear habitat, all that kind
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: of stuff, and then they also produce a lot of
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: content to help educate folks on this kind of stuff.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: So Bronson is the co host of their Dear University
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: podcast and also active with the Deer Lab TV YouTube
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: channel that they have tremendous resources to go into a
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: lot of the stuff we discussed today, but in more detail.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So Bronson joined me today to get us caught up
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: on the latest and greatest in deer research. What the
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: data is telling us about white tail deer and what
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: they're doing. There's a whole lot of folks that come
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: on this podcast and say, dear, do this, deer do that,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: and that's anecdotal or that's because they've seen it a
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: lot over the years or heard it told to them
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: by someone, and it's a theory that they've picked up
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: and believe, which is great. I enjoy a good theory myself,
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: but it's great to see what the data actually says.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: And Bronson and his team have access to a whole
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: hell of a lot of data which shines a light
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: on some of the many questions that we white tailed
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: deer hunters have about why deer would do what they do,
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: when do they do it, how do they do it,
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. So that's what we cover
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: with Bronson. We get caught up on how things have
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: changed in the three to five years since we've had
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: this kind of conversation with him last and we talk
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: about some stuff around annual patterns, what the data, what
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the study is show about how deer may or may
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: not do the same thing year after year. We dive
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: really deep into new research around deer betting, where deer bed,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: why they bed, specifically buck betted, buck betting, how bucks
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: are betting, how often they bed, where they bed, how
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: many betting areas or sites do they have, all that
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff very interesting. We get into some things
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: around the rut, specifically patterning deer during the rut, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: then maybe most interesting for a lot of people, I
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: think Bronson shares a little bit of what will soon
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: be coming out around some very interesting new studies about
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the impact of the moon on deer movement. This is
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: a theory. There's there's several theories around how the moon
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: might impact deer movement. Many well known hunters live and
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: die by these theories, and Bronson went and did a
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: deep dive specifically into these theories that hardcore deer hunters
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: have and then looking at the actual kinds of questions
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: that we have around that. So will the move get
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: a big buck on his feet ten minutes earlier? Maybe
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: maybe not. Bronson is gonna tell us here today. I'm
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: excited for you to hear about it. I'm excited for
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: the rest of his studies to come out later this fall,
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: and it's gonna be good stuff. So without any further, Ado,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: I think we should just get to this very interesting
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: conversation and very applicable conversation. I want to make sure
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: that's very clear. This is this is applied science. This
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: is learning about the research and then discussing exactly how
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: this research, how this science can be applied on your
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: next hunt for this coming season, as you put together
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: your hunting plans and your strategies, how do you take
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: this new information and arm it or arm yourself in
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: a way that will make a more effective deer hunter.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: That's my goal today. I hope it's helpful, hope you
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: enjoy it. Here we go, all right with me. Now
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: back on the show for the first time in too
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: long of a time is Bronson Strickland. Bronson, thank you
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: so much for being here.
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: Absolutely happy too.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: Man, Like we were just talking about before we start recording. Uh,
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: somehow almost half a decade has passed since the last
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: time we did this, which is insane to me because
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: it feels it feels like it was almost just yesterday.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: So it's been too long, too long coming. And I've been,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: you know, following so much of your work over the years,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: you know, since we have talked in the past, you
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: guys have launched the Deer University podcast and your YouTube
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: channel and really have done an excellent job of making
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: deer research in science accessible for the average hunter and
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: whitetail fishionados. So I just want to start this off
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: by saying thank you for doing that, and kudos to
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: you guys, because you're you're really making it excess and
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: understandable in a way that not a lot of other
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: people are. So great work on that well, I just
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: want to make sure.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: Thank you very much. And it's a little bit self serving,
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I will admit, because we're really having a lot of
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: fun doing that, and we we really have a conviction
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: of taking all of this really sophisticated research and how
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: can we apply it for management and for hunting. So
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: it's been a blast.
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, you guys are taking the applied science thing
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: to a new level when you're actually hunters yourselves and
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: truly taking this stuff into the field with you, I'm sure.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: So all that said, you know, the plan today is
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: really to look at that very thing, like how do
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: we apply dear research and the science around deer behavior,
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: dear movement. How do we take all that from you know,
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: from the lab from a PDF, document from a podcast,
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: and apply it in the field for folks this hunting season.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: Because when this when this one drops, it will be,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: you know, right at the beginning for a lot of
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: different people's deer hunting season. So so everyone's chomping at
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: the bit to get in the woods, or maybe already
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: have been for a week or two. And now I
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: want to figure out how do we take our deer
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: hunting strategy and not let it just revolve around old
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: wives tales and you know, the trendy idea of the day,
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: but instead have our hunting plans grounded in true data,
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: research and insights. So that's a heavy burden that we're
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: going to place on your shoulders here today, Bronson, But
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: I will.
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna give you my best, that's all I can promise.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: I trust that you will. So there's a lot of
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: different directions we go with this. There's a lot of
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: interesting stuff that your team's been working on. There's a
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: lot of things I know, folks, other folks around the
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: country have been working on that you guys are always
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: staying up to date on. I want to start at
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: the very top level. I want to I'm curious about
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: what is most fascinating to you when it comes to
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: the latest deer research, deer science, and kind of looking
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: at the window of the last three to five years
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: or so since we've done a big roundup like this
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: personally on this podcast, what in the most few recent
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: few years has been the most significant break from conventional
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: wisdom that has been illuminated by recent deer research or science.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: Is there something that has really changed your perspective on
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: things more so than anything else.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I guess there's a lot of things that have happened,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: and you know, a lot of it in the past
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: five years has been centered around CWD and including movement
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: data and such as that. But I would say relative
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: to hunting, and not to pat ourselves on the back,
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: what's soever. I think the most eye opening thing for
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: me and the team here has probably been the betting
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: and the betting affinity and my story Mark, and you know,
• 11:12
  Speaker 3: for a lot of people as well, it's when you
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: go back to when we were cutting our teeth hunting
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: and getting our information from hunting magazines and so forth,
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: there was a lot of information about you know, a
• 11:26
  Speaker 3: buck's bedroom, per se, and that they had this one
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: spot on the landscape, and that is where that older buck,
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: that mature buck, that dominant buck, that was going to
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: be his territory, that only he was going to be
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: and what we saw and I have to put a
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: qualifier here that's going to apply for probably a lot
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: of the stuff we talk about. The results I talk
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: about are based on a landscape of the Southeast, and
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: so if you're in Michigan, if you're in Ohio or Iowa,
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: you may see something completely different. But what we generally
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: saw down here is that there are many, many more
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: betting areas and betting sites than we previously thought.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: And so.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: If we're trying to focus our hunting on there's that
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: one place, and hey, if you're in the Midwest and
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: you're in a cover restricted landscape, that may work very
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: very well. But if you're in more of the eastern
• 12:33
  Speaker 3: US or outside of an agricultural region, we're just seeing
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that there's a lot more different betting areas and a
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: lot more movement and use of those throughout the course
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: of the season. So finding that one spot to intercept
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: that buck is probably probably going to take a lot
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: of stand sitting to catch him.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I will say at least in some of
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: the content you guys have put out where you've discussed
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: some of this betting research that that you guys have
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: been working on. You've shown some of the aerial views
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: of the of the sample sites where you're doing this.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: A key thing is it is varied, right, There's there's
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: a strong diversity in fields versus timber, small food plots,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: big egg fields, big chunks of timber, rivers, all that
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff. And and while that is different than
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: some stretches of like the very most open parts of
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Kansas or Iowa, I also did not look at that
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: as being terribly divergent than what I'm used to in
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: the Midwest. So so I when I looked at what
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: you were showing me there, I still found it applicable
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: to a lot of places I hunt in Michigan or
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: Ohio or anything like that. So I think you bring
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: up a good point, but I would not discount it
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: so much to say that it's not applicable because it
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: didn't look at that different. That said, there there was
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of really interesting stuff in the at least
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: the things I've seen so far. We guys have broken
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: down the unique aspects of how deer are actually using
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: betting areas, and you mentioned something that I think is
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the key thing, betting sites versus betting areas. Can you
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: elaborate a little bit on what that means, how you
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: guys have worked done to try to differentiate that or
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: measure that, and then maybe get into some of the
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: detail of specifically, you know, how many different sites on
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: average are we seeing a buck used during a day
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: or during a period of time, how many different areas
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: Because I think, again, from a hunting perspective, if I know, well,
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: he's he's got one or two big zones or he
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: has ten big zones, that's going to significantly change my
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: hunting strategy.
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, so, I guess a little background here. We
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: were able to measure this. These are bucks that have
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: GPS callers on them, and we're getting a low cation
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: from them every fifteen minutes, so that really enables us
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: to fine tune, you know, their movements and how they're
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: navigating the landscape, how long they're bedded, where they're betted,
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: et cetera. We differentiated this by what we're calling is
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: a betting site is going to be the area where
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: we get greater than four consecutive points, and we called
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: that within a within a twenty yard area. Now you
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: might say, why would a betting site be twenty yards,
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: because there's error associated with the GPS callers, with the
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: triangulation and so forth. So we felt confident that if
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: we're getting four consecutive points within a twenty yard range,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: then that buck is probably betted there. And it might
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: be six consecutive points for an hour and a half,
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: et cetera, but we had to have at least four,
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: and so we would call that a betting site, and
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: so we would draw a little dot on the map.
• 16:04
  Speaker 3: Whereas that betting site, now, a betting area is differentiating
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: that the area needs to be two sites that are
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: greater than a one hundred yards apart. So, in other words,
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: if a buck came in and had a betting site
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: and the very next day came back and had a
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: betting site within fifty yards of where it was the
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: day before, we would consider that the same betting area.
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: So that is how we calculated. We basically grouped sites
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: together and if they're close enough, we called it a
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: betting area. So that's how we broke that apart.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, did you guys look into what the average length
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: of the use of a betting site is. So I'm
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: by that. I'm curious, you know, how long when a
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: buck does get into these zones, how long is he
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: usually there until it gets up and moves to another spot.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: Because another key thing that I know that you guess
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: found is that they use multiple betting sites per day, right,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: So I guess you could you dive into both the
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: average length if you have that handy, and then how
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: many different times they're shifting these locations throughout a given day.
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I hate to say it, but this is
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: a this is a context as it depends on the
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: time of the year and mainly with the rut. But
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: if you smooth it out and just come out with
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: some averages, we're looking at four different betting sites and
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: four different betting bouts per day. Now, on some days
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: you might have three different betting sites during the day.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Some days you may have one. And so we see
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: this relationship, especially during the rut, where there's going to
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: be less time in the bed and more time on
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: their feet. So if we were going to look at
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: an average scenario, an average scenario is going to be
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: after the more arning movement about. So before sun up
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: and we have a movement about, and then roughly two
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: to three hours after sun up, they're going to have
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: their first bedding event for the day, and that's typically
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: going to be an hour or two. And surprisingly, we
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: see a lot of midday movement. Now that is not
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: going to be an extended movement about like you're going
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: to see in the morning or the afternoon. It's kind
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: of like getting up for a snack. So it's not
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: they're not going to the restaurant for a meal. They're
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: just getting up for a snack. So we'll see that
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: around midday, which of course is going to present some
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: hunting opportunity if they're on their fate during mid day.
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: And start to interrupt you Bronson, but is that specifically happening.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Are you speaking outside of the rut or is it
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: just inside the rut.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm kind of smoothing it all over, so non
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: rut and rut, okay. And so when we get in
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: the rut, you're going to see less, uh less betting bouts,
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: and the duration of those betting bouts will be less,
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: if that makes sense.
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And then that that snack time in the rut
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: then expands to not just a snack time, but also
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: a seeking time too, right, so that at the same
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: time activity is higher. Conventional wisdom would say, right, right,
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: so I'll continue.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, So so we typically see that, So we're
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: going to see that first betting bout you know, after
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: their their morning movement, there's going to be a little
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: bit of movement during the day. We actually even pick
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: that up with food plots, and so we're able to detect.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: We have all of our food plots on the landscape digitized,
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: so we know where they're at, and then we'll actually
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: see some visits to food plots at a time when
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: you normally don't think of it, so more than expected
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: they will be there at noon or at one pm.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: And then we actually see the decrease or the most
• 20:06
  Speaker 3: infrequent use of food plots about three pm, which is
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: good if that's when you're typically you know, going to
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: the stand and going to be in the vicinity of
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: a food plot. That that part is good, but it
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: also was telling on you. You've probably seen this mark
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: on those days where I'm gonna get back right back
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: out there at noon, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: early and I'm gonna have a long and you get
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: to a food plot area and you and you bump
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: deer off the plot. Well, that's probably what you're seeing
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: right there, is that little snack movement there during midday,
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: and then they go bed down again and then have
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the longer movement about in the afternoon.
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: So back to the betting side of things, and we
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: talked about how you guys differentiate between sites and areas,
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: and you mentioned it that at the front end, that
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: there's more betting or diversified betting maybe would be a
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: way to think about than some of us think. Do
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: we know on average how many different areas most bucks
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: will have or what at least you guys have found,
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: because I think you know, as you talked about, a
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: lot of people think, like, man, this is that Bucks
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: bedroom and we put all of our cards into that
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: one spot. What is the reality there? I'm not sure
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: if you touched on that actual number.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: I think it depends on how large you define the bedroom.
• 21:50
  Speaker 3: And so we provided a great example and it's just
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: one buck during the rut, But we selected that buck
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: intentionally because his number of betting sites and his number
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: of betting areas was very indicative of the population average.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: And so over a two week, over a fourteen day period,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: a particular buck that was middle aged three and a half,
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: he had forty one different beds during that two week
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: period and seventeen different betting areas. Now, those seventeen betting
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: areas are spread out over about a square mile, So
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: you got to put all that into context. Is that
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: buck showing an affinity from when he's going to bed
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: down a particular area, Yes, yes he is, but it's
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: not a two acre spot. It's not even one hundred
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: acre spot. It's about a six hundred acre place. So
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: we know where he's spending time. But to be able
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: to go to the exact place where you think he's betted,
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: that's problem. Yeah, However, think of it this way, Mark too.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: It also provides opportunity. And so the way I've been
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: trying to tell the story as well is we've got
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: two different ways to approach this. There's reactive meaning that
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: we're taking what the deer or the bucks are giving us.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: We're trying to pattern them. We're trying to find the
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: ideal locations. If you have the luxury of being on
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: private land and if you own the land, especially now
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: you have the opportunity via habitat management to create areas
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: where there's going to be a higher probability of bedding.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: And so now you go from reactive to proactive or
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: you're trying to relegate areas of your property where there's
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: going to be a greater likelihood that they're going to
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: bed and do those such that you can be able
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: to set up between where you know food is where
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: you have designated areas of cover and set up in
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: between those.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so speaking of that, one of the things
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: that I that I think I recall from a chat
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: that you and your team had about this data was
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: that it was harder than expected to define exactly the
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: key characteristics for a buck to want to bed there
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: because there seemed to be a lot of there' seem
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: to be a lot of diversity and what individual bucks prefer,
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: like one buck really wanted to bet around oxpos of rivers.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: One buck though was all about you know, two different
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: cover types coming together or something like that. Is there
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: anything that you could say, like, yes, definitively, this was
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: a much more likely place to pull in buck bedding
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: or any kind of characteristics like that. I'm assuming there's
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: some conventional wisdom here, like the basic things we all
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: understand is still true. But could you, I guess, expand
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: on that.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: Sure? Sure, So one of the things I know and
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: one of the things we're working on. And so we
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: got some wonderful feedback from people when we went online
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: with this and started talking about it. So here's what
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: we know, because here's what we measured is we went
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: to many of these areas where these bucks bedded, so
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: these betting sites, especially some places where numerous times a
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: buck was betting there, and we measured the vegetation. And
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: what was revealing was that it really did not matter
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: whatsoever the type of vegetation. So it could be hardwood stems,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: it could be grass, it could be BlackBerry, it could
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: be any form of vegetation as long as it provided
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: really good screening cover, meaning visually, when the buck beds down,
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: it's essentially hidden and you can't see it. Now, the
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: next step that we're literally working on now is if
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: we zoom out a little bit more and rather than
• 26:09
  Speaker 3: just looking at the place it's bedded and the vegetation
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: characteristics around it, are there any landscape features that might
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: be more associated or facilitate a buck being bedded there.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: And the one thing that we heard a lot based
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: on our study area is we have a big river
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: corridor that completely bisected this big sixty thousand acres study area.
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: And so for one thing obviously, is that adjacent to
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: that river is we have a lot of cover right there,
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: you know, And it could be switch cane, it could
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: be BlackBerry, it could be a lot of things, but
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: we have some cover adjacent to it. But is the
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: layout of that relative to the river. Is the layout
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: of that cover relative to the river relative to the
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: prevailing wind when that buck and go goes and selects
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: that area to bet down. That is what we're trying
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: to reconcile right now for any.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: Patterns interesting Now correct me if I'm wrong, But I
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: feel like I read something in one of your reports
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: about there also being an increased usage of betting areas
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: that also had food or basis content present in them
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: as compared to a betting area that has screening cover
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: but does not have the food. Is that is that accurate?
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: That was a different study that was in a different
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: study area, and that was using camera trap data. But yes,
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: if we just if the metric were just use, meaning
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: how many times are we seeing deer photos or buck photos?
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Then yes, we saw greater use in areas that combined
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: some cover with or adjacent to food. You're exactly right.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: So that would that might I I guess, give someone
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: who's who has an ability to manage or and or
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: selecting places to hunt that a old field that has
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: a mix of grasses and forbs and any kind of
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: different kind of low lying, diverse habitat that might be
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: a more attractive bedding site than a purely switched grass
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent field that has that cover but doesn't
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: have the food content.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: Right, Yes, but now we have to separate is that
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: what we want from a hunting perspective. So if we
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: break it down very simply, so think mark of a
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: think of a four year old clearcut regenerating, and it
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: is full of cover, and it is full of brows,
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: and there's forbes there, there's a diversity. It's going to
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: be very very difficult to get into that clear cut
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: and hunt that buck. On the other hand, if we
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: have let's simplify here, and let's say we had a
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: food plot or maybe a managed opening that we maintain
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: with fire but where the vegetation structure isn't as tall,
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: but it is providing a good open area where a
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: deer can feed, and one hundred yards away or adjacent
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: or several hundred yards away is cover. And whether that
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: cover be forests cover with little food, or whether it
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: be something like switchgrass. Now we have a scenario where
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: we've essentially are going to force the deer to leave
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: cover and move and go to an area for food,
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: and that presents hunting opportunity.
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, Yeah, you make a very good point there.
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: Speaking of that, it brings up another thing that I
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: think I saw you discussing with. I think it was
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: Natasha Ellison, who I believe has helped you with with
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of this analysis on your team there there
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: have been some discussion around distance or the most common
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: distance from a betting air to a food plot. So
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: you're looking at, you know what, where these bucks are
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: choosing to bet in relation to food, And that's something
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: that I think a lot of US hunters think about
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a lot. And there's some commonly held beliefs like okay,
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: you're going to have a layer of does and fawns
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: first betted closest to food. And then a little bit
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: further back from that you might have some younger bucks,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: and then maybe the furthest back in the prime betting
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: might be where those mature bucks are. That might be
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: like an over generalized theory that you commonly hear. You
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: have you guys been able to find if that, well,
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: it's to be true or what have you found?
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: What we have found is we can address that on
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: the buck side. But unfortunately in the study we did
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: not simultaneously have dose collared so that that would be
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: fantastic if we did, but maybe in the future we
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: can do that. But what we found is Natasha, who
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: is a mathematician so we can trust her math in
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: making these calculations, is she looked at all of the
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: betting sites and the location relative to food and mathematically
• 31:13
  Speaker 3: was able to determine all of the different distances that
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: would be possible from betting site to food and what
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: was the average or most frequent distance that a buck
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: was bedded to the food that he went to in
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: an afternoon feeding bout, and it came out to be
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: about two hundred yards. Of course, there are instances where
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: it's closer, and then that's going to depend on your
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: local area, where is the cover you know in that
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: particular area. And there were instances where the buck may
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: have traveled over one thousand yards. But if you look
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: at over both these years, over this large study area,
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: the sweet spot that we found was about two hundred yards.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: Interesting. So another betting detail that I recall you guys
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: discussing at one point that I'd be curious to hear
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: a little bit more about is we're I think an
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: overarching thing here is that these deer, these bucks, likely
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: have more betting areas than we maybe have given them
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: credit for historically. Because he just described on average, maybe
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: there are several hundred yards away from food. Generalizing, but
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: one thing you guys measured was circuit time for betting areas, which,
• 32:27
  Speaker 2: as I understood it was how often a buck is
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: returning to a betting air, so he uses a betting site,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: how long does it take him to return to that
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: site if he does, because I remember seeing some data
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: that showed that. And again, correct me if I'm wrong
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: on any of this, because I'm sure I am trying
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: to recall stuff that I looked at when I was
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: researching all this. But I think of all of the
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: betting sites, you guys looked at, fifty percent of them
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: were one and done. So about fifty percent of those
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: betting sites where they betted here and they never return.
• 32:54
  Speaker 2: But that means that there was another fifty percent of
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: betting sites that bucks did eventually return to, and three
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: percent of the sites they returned to more than two
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: hundred times. So that was wild to hear that that's
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: the case. But all that's to say that so fifty
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: percent of the time they were returning to one of
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: these betting airs. Again, could you walk me through I guess, Hey,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: did I get any of that wrong? Could you expand
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: on any of that? As I try to remember these things?
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: And then finally, how often or how long is it
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: taking them to come back to these betting AARs for
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: those ones that they do return to, Because it basically,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: as I ramble on and on here, what I'm getting
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: back to is, as a hunter, I'm frequently thinking to myself,
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: all right, if I think this buck is better than
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: this zone, and if I knew I saw him here yesterday,
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: is is he gonna be back every day this week?
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Or is he coming back once a week? Or is
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: he coming back once every two weeks or should I
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: expect that man if I sit this zone for the
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: next three or four days, he's gonna come back eventually.
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: Those are the kinds of insights I'm trying to pick
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: up here. That's a lot of through at you.
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: Sorry, well, a remarkable job, so good retention there, knowledge
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: retention there. Yeah, you got it right. So about fifty
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: percent of those sites were one and done, never used again.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So then we had to look at, okay, for those
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: that are revisited, how often are they revisited? And then
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: that's where the circuit time comes into play. So we
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: have fifty percent or one and done, and then we
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: have about twenty five percent where they revisit a couple times, two, three,
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: four times. And then we had those supersites, which, to
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: be completely honest, now some of those super sites that
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: is more like what we where we began with the
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Bucks bedroom. Maybe there are a few places on the
• 34:46
  Speaker 3: landscape where they do come back, you know, more and
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: more and more. But that circuit time was typically for
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: the ones they came back to was one to two days, okay,
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: So wasn't going to be the morning site and then
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: coming back you know the very next day. It might
• 35:05
  Speaker 3: be there one morning, afternoon somewhere else and then you know,
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: twelve to twenty four hours later coming back to it.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: Interesting. Okay, So I suppose with this betting analysis that
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: you guys did, what has been the major application for you? Like,
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: now that you've as you as a hunter personally, have
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: have looked at this data, how have you applied that
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: to your hunting strategy.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I have become I've tried to become more aware of
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: what is going to be quality betting cover for Bucks
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: as best we can. And you know, you always have
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: to think about this too. Sometimes Bucks do things we
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: don't understand why was it betted there? But I try
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: to look at areas where I can at least assume
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: have good reason to think this is probably an area
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: that's going to be very undisturbed. You know, it's going
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: to be a little mini sanctuary place and that's probably
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: going to be a good cover area. But the hard part,
• 36:17
  Speaker 3: mark is that it's not just one area. There's going
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: to be a lot of these different places on the landscape.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: So that again is what makes it difficult. I've kind
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: of moved more into picking out some of these betting
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: areas may be more difficult in the landscape, I am
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: in to be able to differentiate and make the call
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: unless we can go in there, like we said, proactively
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: and make these areas really good. But I've started looking
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: more at how food plots and this could also be
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: a managed opening. It's just it's easy to use the
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: food plot as an example and how these areas can
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: serve as hubs of activity and so hub a meaning
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: thinking of a train station. There's a lot of different
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: routes coming to it. But what we're seeing is that
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: those food plots, if they're good ones, is that there's
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: going to be a network of movement over the landscape
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: utilizing those food plots. And here's something else that Natasha
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: calculated that I thought was just fascinating. We started looking
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: at how often bucks are going to food plots when
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: we go from the nine rut into the pre rut,
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: into the peak rut and the post rut, and we
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: basically see this ascension of they're using it a lot,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: and they use it more during the rut, and then
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: of course they're using it during the post rut, so
• 37:55
  Speaker 3: that when you look at it that way, it's just
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: a tally. Did a buck go into a food plot.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: We caught him there. Yes, it's a tally of frequency,
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: but when we look at the duration of time that
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: they're spending on the food plots, it is completely different
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: during the rut as compared to the pre pre pre rut,
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: So before the pre rut and then the post rut,
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: and so at that point is there is a greater
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: duration of time. So before the rut they're going to
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: the food plot to eat. During the rut, that is
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: more of a social aspect, and we've if you've hunted,
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: you've seen that. The buck comes in, he looks around,
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: he win checks heat checks, et cetera, and he goes
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: on and he's probably going to go to another food
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: plot and do the same thing. So we see a
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: great amount of visitation but very low duration. And then
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: as the rut wines down and the post rut comes along,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: that's where we see a boat feeding about is taking
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: place on those food plots. So that is changing the
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: way I'm hunting. And I guess to summarize, I was
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: very long winded. There is I'm thinking of during the rut.
• 39:16
  Speaker 3: Maybe I'm not hunting on the food plot, but I'm
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: trying as best I can discern to think of the
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: corridors and the connections linking a network of food plots,
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: whereas in the post rut, I may just hunt, you know,
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: decide I'm gonna hunt directly on food. He's going to
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: be there.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: So I don't know how this changes my thinking, but
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: I think I frequently thought when I am looking at
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: a map and trying to think through how deer might
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: use an area, I often think of the of a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: betting area as the hub of the wheel, and then
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: the spokes are all leading out from a main betting
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: era to the three or four different main food sources
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: that I might think that they're feeding on. So I've
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: always thought of the betting area being the hub and
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: that being the more consistent factor. But am I right
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: to take the data that you are sharing here and
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: should that make me rethink that? And is it more
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: accurate to think of the food sources as the hubs
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: and that the spokes should be leading to the many,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: many different betting areas And might that be the better
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: way to think of a strategy?
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we're both right. I think you and
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: I could sit here with a crayon or PowerPoint and
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: we could come up with a scenario where cover is
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: limited in that landscape, and what you described would be
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: precisely correct. I think we could also come up with
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: scenario that would be common in the South to where
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: cover is abundant and food is limited. So you know,
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: when we think about Midwest versus the South or the East,
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: we go from a cover rich, food limited environment in
• 41:05
  Speaker 3: the South to a cover limited abundance of food in
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: the Midwest. And so I think it depends on the
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: landscape that you're at.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point. Interesting. So we talked about
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: affinity for betting areas and how often they're gonna come
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: back to a betting area. But before we start recording,
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: you mentioned that there's been some stuff you've been looking into,
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: maybe a slightly larger scale, about how you know bucks
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: might be returning to certain areas, possibly year after year.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: Do you want to expand on that a little bit,
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: because this is something that I think ties into something
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: that has been picking up more and more steam within
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: the hunting world, which is this idea of like annual patterns,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: And I'd love to hear what you maybe have learned
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: about that from you know, backed up by data. Possibly.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and so this is interesting to me, and
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: this is a classic example of owning up to being wrong.
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: I was absolutely wrong about this five plus years ago.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: And so we man say that, well, we have all the.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Subundance of camera data.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: I would get this question constantly before we had this
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: GPS data of you know, I'd get an email, why
• 42:25
  Speaker 3: is it that I have this buck? I have them
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: on camera every day or every other day, and then
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: they would give me a specific week or even a
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: three day period, and they would say, it seems like
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: every time around the seventh of November or whatever day
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: he's gone, or just the opposite, seems like the third
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: week of November, this buck is always back. And what's
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: going on there? And before we learned about what we're
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: called these mobile personalities and these home range shifts and
• 42:57
  Speaker 3: the stuff, that we didn't really realize what was going on,
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: really had no way to measure that. I honestly thought
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: somebody's batteries in their camera had run out. I thought
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: they weren't checking it, or the buck was still there
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: on the property. He was just maybe not on that camera.
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: But what we started seeing is, first of all, we
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: have these mobile personality bucks that do these extreme shifts,
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: and they're typically doing this shifting at about the same
• 43:26
  Speaker 3: time a year. One of our great examples was the
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: buck that would fall and winter in Mississippi and spring
• 43:35
  Speaker 3: and summer in Louisiana and swim the Mississippi River to
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: do that, and the timing of when he did it
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: two years in a row was remarkably similar. So that
• 43:43
  Speaker 3: just got me thinking of the bucks that we have
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: two consecutive years of data. Because remember some of these
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: bucks we put a collar on them. In the first fall,
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: they die, they get shot, whatever. But of our subsample
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: of bucks that we have the collar on them for
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: two years in a row, Natasha was able to look
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: at from year to year. So from the first week
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: of November in twenty seventeen to the first week of
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: November in twenty eighteen, how much overlap? And she looked
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: at it two ways. If you do their little home
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: range on a weekly or monthly scale, is what is
• 44:24
  Speaker 3: the proportion of overlap of their range use or area
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: use from one year to the next. And then if
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: you go to the very center the hub of activity
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: of those two areas, what's the distance between those two areas?
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: And I have to look at my notes here, because
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: I don't have it committed to memory, the amount of
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: overlap from year one to year two. And this is
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: great because this is occurring during the hunting season. We
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: see the greatest amount of overlap during the hunting season
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: in October November to Bid November. We see greater than
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: eighty percent range overlap from year one to year two.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And we only see a difference from the center or
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: the hub of those activities of only about two to
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: three hundred yards.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: Wow. And so in your study area, that time period
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: would be like early season to pre rut, right, because
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: in Mississippi, your peak of the rut down there would
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: be more like December January.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Correct, that's right, that would be pre rut.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: Yes, okay, so let me stay that back to you
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: and make sure I've got this right. So what that
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: data says is that for me, on a year to
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: year basis, these bucks were essentially matching up this They
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: were hanging out in the same areas at the same
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: times about eighty percent of the time.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: I think I would say it this way, if you
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: let's try to maybe frame it the way what a
• 46:13
  Speaker 3: hunter would do. Let's say a hunter on a property,
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: had a grid of cameras and plodded on a map
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: all the areas that they were getting photos of this buck,
• 46:26
  Speaker 3: and they drew a polygon around that area. It's like,
• 46:29
  Speaker 3: we know this buck is on this property and this
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: part of the property. The following year, on average, that
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: buck will be using eighty percent of the area it
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: was using the year before.
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, So these home ranges, these core ranges, have
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: you know, year after year fidelity they're going to stick
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: to that. Now here's another fill up question. I don't
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: know if you guys have had the time to look
• 46:58
  Speaker 2: into this, but has that change or has that level
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: of certainty changed the older buck gets So would we
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: say that that overlap is even higher on a buck
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: that's four or five six versus two three four? Have
• 47:13
  Speaker 2: you been able to dive into that level yet?
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: We have not, and the primary reason for that. So
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: our sample is primarily three four and five year old bucks.
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: When we capture them they're three, four or five, that's
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: going to be like eighty percent of our sample right there.
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: The issue is we just have two years with them.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: In a perfect world, we would get a yearling buck
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: post dispersal and be able to follow it if it lived,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: follow it to six or seven years of age, that'd
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: be the best way to Thanks for that question, but
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: unfortunately we don't have that.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's really interesting to see to see that.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Now here's another one that I know. I believe your
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: data has supported this, and I know other studies have
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: supported that. Many bucks have random excursions that they take
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: throughout the year, where they will, you know, for whatever reason,
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: randomly take off and go way outside of their home
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: range for a handful of days or twenty four hours again,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: whatever it is, and then they come back. Have you
• 48:19
  Speaker 2: been able to see if those map up year after year?
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: Like will do you have any examples of a buck
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: going on an excursion at relatively the same time year
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: after year that might support you know, the people who say, like, hey,
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: this this random buck shows up the first week November
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: every year and then I don't see them the rest
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: of the year. Have we been able to document anything
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: like that in the study.
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: We have not. Marked that's a good question. We have not,
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: but we haven't looked at it that way. We were
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: able to go through and document the excursions and the
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: frequency of it and so forth, but we did not
• 48:57
  Speaker 3: look at the subset of the data of of the
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: bucks yet where where when they took their excursion and
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: where they excursed too, and see if it's related to
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: the following year. But we can put that on the list.
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: Look at that's a good question.
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I imagine you've got a very long list because of
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: this kind of data. I imagine there's so many different
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: questions you'd want to apply to it right right, and
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: and dig into and see see what's there. There's probably
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: years and years worth of analysis you could do with
• 49:28
  Speaker 2: this stuff. Absolutely, you mentioned these mobile deer personalities. Could
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: you expand a little bit on that. I think you
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: guys have differentiated basically bucks into two categories, either mobile
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: personalities or sedentary. Could you could you discuss that a
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: little bit, how you differentiate them and and what's the
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: proportion of one to the other?
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Sure thing? Yeah, so sedentary? Uh, that is essentially what
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: we think of a deer's home range is throughout the year.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: Meaning if you were to take a bird's eye view
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: or nowadays we'd say a Google Earth view, is that
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: you would look at the points of all his locations
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: and they would just be in one big area. If
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: you took a particular time period apart. You know, for
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: this month, it might be in this part of its
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: annual home range and then this part in its annual
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: home range. But essentially it's all overlapping, and it's about
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: depending on the buck, it may be five hundred acres,
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: it may be fifteen hundred acres, but essentially a great
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: deal of overlap for twelve months out of the year.
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: But we found out about thirty percent of the bucks
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: have just what we termed as mobile personality, meaning that
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: for part of the year they have a completely distinct
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: and non overlapping home range. And so very simply well,
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: the buck I referred to earlier that swam the Mississippi
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: River is our best example. Those are non overlapping home
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: ranges that it had in Mississippi and it had in
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: Louisiana and the river in between, and there's like fifteen
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: to eighteen miles, you know, in between those, and so yeah,
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: what we learned is that there's about thirty percent of
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the bucks are doing that is they're going to spend
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: part of their year in one location and then they
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: might go a mile or two or ten and move
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: completely somewhere else and spend a portion of the year.
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: So I feel like at least what I have kind
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: of zeroed in on and without data, have kind of
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: thought that about give or take that amount of the
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: bucks in the places I hunt, about a third of them,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: give or take, seemed to disappear during what a lotus
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: called the September shift. So like that first week of September,
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: give or take, you know, most the bucks lose their velvet,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: And that tends to be when I have seen and
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: most folks I talk to tend to see if there's
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: going to be some dispersal, some shift in range, that's
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: usually when it happens. Is that what you guys are
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: seeing as well with the data, is that when these
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: mobile personality bucks make that range shift, or is there
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: a different time of year that's happening.
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what what you're referring to there is I would
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: call the the bachelor group breakup, so that that is
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: uniformly happening right there. What we're seeing, I guess, is
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: a special case of that in two ways. Number One,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: the distance that they shift to is further, and the
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: time of year can be completely different than during that
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: September bachelor group breakup and what we found on average,
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: And I keep saying on average, because bucks are individual,
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: and we have some that do extraordinary things and we
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: have some that are very predictable. But on average, if
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: you look at the center of their activity during the
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: summer and then the center of activity when they do
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: the shift, the shuffle that you're talking about, it can
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: be one thousand to fifteen hundred yards apart. That's kind
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: of a good range. And so when you break that
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: down into normal property sizes, not on a ten thousand
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: acre property, but on a five hundred acre property, when
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: you have that shuffle or that shift, you have some
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: bucks went off your property and you traded them for
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: some bucks that came on to your property.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I guess the only other thing I'd be curious would
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: be when it comes to this, this idea of site
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: affinity for bucks, going back to you know this, this
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: idea of of annual trends or patterns lining up. Has
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: that effected your hunting at all? Personally? Have have you?
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: Does this make you lean more into learning individual bucks
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: tendencies in some kind of way or is there any
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: other application to that for you?
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah? I think the uh for me? Anyway, I think
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: the take home is whether it is from observation or
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: more likely it would be from camera data. Is whenever
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: you see a buck using a portion of the property
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: in a particular time of the year and you're unsuccessful
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: connecting with that buck, or maybe it's a buck that
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: is of interest and he's three years of age and
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: I would really like to see him at four or
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: at five. Is we've demonstrated with with reasonable confidence that
• 55:00
  Speaker 3: you could predict that buck the following year is going
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: to be in that same area. So do your homework
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: ahead of time and be set up so when he
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: starts using that area you can capitalize on it.
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So another version of this would be this idea
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: around focal areas specifically during the rut. You know, for
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of years folks have talked about during the rut,
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: you can't pattern bucks. They're all over the place. It's crazy,
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: it's chaos. And then I can't remember how when this
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: verse came out, but some number of years ago, five
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: to ten years ago, I feel like you started hearing
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: about some data that came out about how I actually
• 55:41
  Speaker 2: there's been identified focal areas for many bucks during the
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: rut that they do return to over and over again,
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: and I'm just curious, did you guys see something similar
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: in your data more recently? Do you have any updates
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: on that? Is that still something that we can be
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: thinking about and looking for when we develop our rut
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: hunting strategies.
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think the group that first termed that
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: were my colleagues in South Texas and Aaron Foley and
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: Randy DeYoung and those guys. Yeah, they started finding. Now again,
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: different landscape, different landscape, the distribution of cover can be different,
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: but they started finding these areas and I think the
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: way they reconciled it was they essentially started seeing focal
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: areas and a circuit that these bucks were going to
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: these focal areas. But what they surmised was that in
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: every one of these focal areas where there was cover
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: is a group of doves, and so that buck is
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: on a circuit to go in heat check. Are there
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: any does in Estris? If they are great, If not,
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: they're going to go to the next focal area. I
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: would say with us, it's similar to what we just
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: talked about with this affinity and them coming back to
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: the same areas every year, and how that's even shifting
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: from year to year, but they're still using the same area.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: Another thing mark that I thought was really interesting was
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: that we see throughout the year, as we've known for
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: a long long time, the home range, the area used
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: by a buck is going to increase during the rut,
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: probably by fifty percent, maybe one hundred percent. It could
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: possibly double. But what was interesting to me is that
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: on a daily scale it is absolutely uniform from no rut,
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: pre rut, peak rut, post rut, et cetera. They use
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: two hundred acres per day. If you look at a
• 57:49
  Speaker 3: daily home range, if you encapsulate the area that they
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: used in a day, it's two hundred acres. So how
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: that works out to the home range expanding is that
• 58:00
  Speaker 3: in the pre rut, from day to day, with those
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: two hundred acre home ranges, there's overlap. Then when we
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: get into the rut, there is a greater distance between
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: two hundred acres here two hundred acres there. That's what
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: makes the home range grow during the rut.
• 58:17
  Speaker 2: And so that's just the data supporting the generally believed
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: concept that you're gonna have bucks checking out different zones
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: to find a doing heat right, right, But so I
• 58:30
  Speaker 2: guess with that being said, and then what also what
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: Folly in their team saw though, does that still support
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: the idea that if you know of a core a
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: couple core dough hotspots that you effectively to it some
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: degree could hunt for a specific buck by dialing in
• 58:50
  Speaker 2: on that spot or two just knowing that, man, this
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: is where historically this buck has always wanted to check
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: dose here. And rather than chasing your tail going here,
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: going there, going everywhere, you could hypothetically volume set one
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: of these hot spots that you know historically he's been on,
• 59:06
  Speaker 2: because there should he should continue to return and check
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: those to some bearing degree.
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: Right, yep, yeah, I think it's right. So let's think
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: of it now, maybe not a focal area relative to cover.
• 59:21
  Speaker 3: Let's think about it as that hub or that focal
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: area relative to a productive food plot or a network
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: of food plots. And like we said earlier, bucks are
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: visiting food plots during the rut, but their duration of
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: stay is amenimal, but more subplots.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: A right, right, more food plot visits, but just shorter duration.
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: Correct, it's actually about the same. Yeah, there's a little
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: bit less visit in the post rut. You're exactly right.
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: But they stay for a long time because there's a
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: feeding bout involved. So they're visiting those food plots. I
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: think that's very akin to what Folly found out, but
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: just the habitat of the vegetation is different. That was
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: more relative to cover patches. The buck is visiting. I'm
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 3: talking about them visiting food opportunities because at that food
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: opportunity is there is going to be a group of
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: does somewhere around that using it.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: And so in both cases it's actually just where's the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: dough hotspot? Like where's the dough concentration? And in some
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: areas that's going to be well, let's talk about with
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: the limiting factor is right, and the limiting factor in
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: certain places like for you, it was that we've got
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: these food those are the limited resources. So that's where
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: your best doll concentration will be versus middle of nowhere, Kansas.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: It might be cover equals your dough hot spot because
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: that's the one concentration is something rare. That's a really
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: key insight I think for people is to think about
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: that way. It's so easy to get stuck on Well,
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 2: this person said cover, and so I've got a zero
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: in uncover at this time of year. But again you
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: have to always look at what's the context in your
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: situation in your place. Very interesting, So I want to
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: give us a little time here at the end to
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: cover off on a few things that every time I
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: get to talk to someone who's so drastically smarter than
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: I am, and so much more grounded and data than
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: I am, that you can correct my preconceived notions myths
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: that I believe in, you know, app of the day, algorithm,
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 2: predicting trends of the day, etc. There As a diehard
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: whitetail hunter, we all have these different ideas around what
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: triggers deer movement, whether it be wind and weather conditions,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: whether it be the moon. Of course that's a big one.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: So I'd love to get your take on some of
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: those and where things stand today. I know we talked
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: about this the very first podcast we did together, like
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 2: ten years ago maybe and you basically, if I remember right,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: I think most of it you said was hogwak. But
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: I'd love to hear where things stand today. Let's start
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: with the moon. Maybe do we have or is there
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: anything new when it comes to any possible correlation between
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: the moon and deer movement.
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: So we did a survey mark online. Because we are
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: we're doing an exhaust we are wrapping up a very
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: exhaustive analysis. So a couple of years ago we put
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: some data, a very crude analysis I did of just
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: looking at moon phase meaning new moon, full moon, and
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: then just looking at daytime movements, nighttime movements, et cetera.
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: In my eyes, both as a researcher and as a hunter,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 3: I was not motivated by those data. There may on
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: a particular day been a subtle increase, but it was
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: not enough to motivate me. Well, then we got an,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: I guess, an outcry. We got a lot of feedback saying,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 3: but you didn't look at moon position, you didn't look
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: at moon rising overhead, underfoot all that time. So we
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: we have looked at that to a great detail, and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: we are hopefully we're just a few weeks away from
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: doing uh, Natasha and I and others, we will do
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: a one to two hour exhaustive, tedious review of those data.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: But but before that, we wanted to basically mark ask people.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: We did a survey and when you when you pin
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: someone down, so mark, I might I might approach it
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: like this with you, I might say number one. Here's
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: the first question of the hierarchy of questions. Number one,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: Do you believe the moon is affecting deer movement? Yes
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: or no? Do you can you can or cannot answer us?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Up to you?
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 2: Sure, Sure, I guess I will answer because I am
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: so torn on this because I would say if I
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: had to say yes or no, I gosh, I'm so
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: right in the middle of Bronson. But I guess I'll
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 2: say yes. But maybe it's a little.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Okay, So eighty three percent of people are like you.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: They believe the moon has some type of influence. So
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: then once you go into your dichotomous ski there now,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: So now we go into the yes, I think it influences.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: Now, just got to say, I love the fact that
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: you just said dichotomus key on this podcast. That's one
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: of you don't hear that one too often.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: So if you said yes, now we've got to ask you, Okay,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: how how do we measure it? Is it that they're
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: moving a greater distance, Is it that they're up on
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: their feet earlier in the day, is it that they
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: are bedded less, et cetera.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: This is the key question. These are the questions that
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: I've wanted to know for so long because every time
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: this moon thing comes up, I've always felt like the
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: studies have not looked at the right things. They haven't
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: looked at the little stuff like that that doesn't maybe
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: matter statistic it doesn't register its statistically significant for most studies,
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: but for a hunter who cares if a mature buck
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 2: travels fifty yards further ten minutes earlier in the day,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: that is a huge significance for the hunter. So, yeah,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: you're getting to the the key stuff.
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: And that is precisely the feedback. And so before we
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: did this, I wanted not as agotcha or to catch anybody,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: I really wanted to understand or you're familiar mark with
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: the term effect size.
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: That's the yeah, make sure I've got it right.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 3: The difference between a treatment, so treatment or control, the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: effect size is the difference those two. So you mentioned
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: something a moment ago statistically different. So I wanted to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: move away from us saying such and such was or
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: was not statistically different. I wanted to wanted it to
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 3: be a useful effect size of treatment. And what we
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: found is that there were again two groups of people.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: There was a group that, yeah, I think the moon
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 3: affects them based on what I've seen and what my
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: dad and my grandpa said. But when you pin them on, okay,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 3: what does that mean? Well, I don't know. I just
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: know the moon affects them. And then you had what
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: I would call the cover slash bed bow hunting out
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: of a saddle sounds like me. Now that's the dialed
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: in person. And what they said what was really really important.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: It was if that buck is on his feet five
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 3: minutes earlier, and that buck moves one hundred more yards
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: before sunset, then that gives me an advantage. Heck, yeah,
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: so what we generally found. And again I don't want
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: to steal Natasha's thunder. I know she wants to talk
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: about all this in great detail on a podcast, but
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: the result will be meaningful to the type of hunter
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: that you are. So we did see some differences, meaning
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: the value of the non moon day. However, we were
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: calculating the effect of the moon the control day versus
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: the treatment day. There were some subtle differences. To me
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: and the way I hunt. It would not be meaningful
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: enough for Mekay for someone that wanted to get I've
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: got a two minute opportunity before sunset that that buck
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: may be moving through two minutes before then. They may
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: look at our results and say, all right, there's something
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: there interesting.
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, now, I know you don't want to spill too
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 2: many of the beans, and I'll make sure people go
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 2: listen to the rest or listen to the full scoop
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 2: on your podcast. Dear University, everybody should go there subscribe
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: like share, But tell me this, Can you tell me this?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: Can you tell me what variable or related to the
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: moon seemed to have that strongest connection. Was it overhead
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 2: underfoot times matching up with the first hour of daylight,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 2: last hour of daylight, that kind of thing, or was
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: it moon rising setting times matching with that and anything
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 2: like that?
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: If I remember correctly, because my goodness, Natasha sliced this
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: up every way possible, there were just about every one
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: of those categories mark had the smallest difference. But remember
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: sometimes the direction was not what you thought, meaning sometimes
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: the effect was not positive that it moved more, but
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: it was that it moved less. And so everything that
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: we looked at had a little bit of an increase
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: or a little bit of a decrease. And what we
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: essentially did was we paired together the amount of time
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: that it was in the bed that day, the time
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: of day that it was up on its feet and
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: started moving, and then from when it started moving to
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: sunset the distance of ground that it covered. So we
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: kind of have three different measurements there.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: That's perfect. Do you have any of those specifics you
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: could share now or do we need to wait for them?
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: We got to wait on that boat.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: I had to ask, Yeah, well, that's fascinating. That's very
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: interesting that you guys were able to look to that degree.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 3: And what we're going to do with that mark is
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: we went a different route. We didn't write like a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 3: twenty page document with a bunch of narrative. We basically
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: went into every one of these theories and gave a
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: heading of here's the hypothesis, here's the theory, here's how
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: we did it, here's the result. Turn the page, here's
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: the other one. So we've got about ten pages of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: every type of moon theory with the data and the
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: graphs and the interpretation and all that is going to
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: be free for download in a few weeks.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: Amazing. Yeah, So do we have a target date? When
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: do we should look for that?
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 3: My target is like October fifteenth, okay, but sometimes at
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: the university the wheels turned slow. Sure, but it's going
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: to be out of our hands and literally in a
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: few days and then it has to go into production
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: and so whenever that gets produced and put online.
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: Okay. So there's been a lot of people that want
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: to see that. Of course, where should they go to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: see that and or sign up to be notified of
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 2: it or anything like that.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: We will have a copy of it for download on
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 3: our website MSU deer lab dot com. We will also
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: as soon as it is available with the download link,
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: it'll be on social media, so MSU dear Lab, Facebook
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: or Instagram, it'll be out there.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: Okay. Last couple quick questions. So you're doing this exhaustive
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: moon study, which I'm so glad it's happening. Has there
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 2: been anything done like this that I haven't heard of
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: somehow when it comes to weather impacts, So exact same
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: questions you're asking with the moon, but you know, barometric
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 2: pressure being the variable we're controlling for and looking at,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 2: or wind speed or delta of temperature change over the
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: course of a twenty four hour period or something like that.
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 2: Because there's all these theories around that too. We all
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: love cold fronts. We all think, not all of us,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 2: but many people think that a rising barometer gives us
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 2: an increase in deer moent YadA, YadA, YadA. But again, historically,
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 2: most studies have not backed that up. Is there anything
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 2: new on that front that you know of or that
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: you guys may be working on.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we are working on that, and so we're going
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: to get the moon stuff out. After that, we're going
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: to get on the home range shifting stuff that the
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: year to year affinity stuff that is out. And Natasha
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: is also working on that exact question. So she is
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: going to be looking at that. And it's more complicated
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: than it seems because with weather there are so many
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: intercorrelated aspects of that. Is it the temperature, is it
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: the wind speed? Is it the barometer? Is it the direction?
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: And so we really need someone with her capability to
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: really tease all that apart for cause and effect. But
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 3: that is on the list and our goal it may
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: be January, but our goal is to also get that
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: out this steer season.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 2: Amazing, you guys are doing good work. I'm very thankful
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: that these very nuanced looks at these questions are now
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 2: being sliced and diced and examined because there's a handful
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 2: of folks like got like me out there who are
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 2: dying to know and very glad this is all going
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: to be coming to light so ronson as I knew
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 2: it would be. This has been fascinating. I appreciate your
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 2: insight and everything you guys are doing over there at
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 2: Mississippi State. You just gave folks a couple good action
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 2: items there as far as where they can go to
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: get the moon study. But is there anywhere else you
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: want to direct folks if they want to learn more,
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 2: if they want to connect with your team and the
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 2: content you guys are putting out there.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you for mentioning this earlier. But yeah, all
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: of the stuff we've talked about today and in the
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: future is going to be on the Deer University podcast.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 3: And just be forewarned, it's a bunch of dorky scientists
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: type people and so we can get into the weeds.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: We love it.
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 3: But the good thing about a podcast is that you
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: can hit fast forward. You know, if we get stuck there,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: just fast forward.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: But we do that.
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: We also take that same information, especially when there's a
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: visual context to it, and we put that on our
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: YouTube channel, so go there, and then of course on
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: social where we do little snapshots, little figures and so
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: forth on Instagram and Facebook. So if you go to
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: the podcast or social media, that pretty much captures it.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: All right, wonderful. Well, I will continue to be following
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 2: from Afar and anxiously awaiting the Moon study and then
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 2: V two of the weather. Yeah, I'm very excited about that.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: So thank you for doing that work. And man, just
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: thank you again for this. It was great. Catching up
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 2: is great, getting to get update on where all these
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: things stand and getting all of our understanding on the
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: science of deer up to speed.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: So thank you for that absolutely anytime. Happy to.
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: All right, and that's it for today. Thank you for
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: being here, Thanks for being a part of this community.
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 2: As we just discussed, make sure you go follow all
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: of Bronson's and the Deer Labs content and resources. Lots
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 2: of good stuff out there. And I think with that said,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 2: I'll lets you all get out there to the woods.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: Best of luck and until next time, stay wired to hunt.