Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 491: Ignoring Conventional Late Season Advice to Build a Pressured Deer Plan, With Clint Campbell

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Ep. 491: Ignoring Conventional Late Season Advice to Build a Pressured Deer Plan, With Clint Campbell · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, home of the
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: modern white tail hunter and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: host Tony Peterson, and today's guest is diehard white tail
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: hunter Clint Campbell. All right, folks, welcome to the Wire
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to Hunt podcast, which is brought to you by First Light.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You might notice that this is not the voice of
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. He texted me to say he and Spencer
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: were at something called Influencer School, which again I don't
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: really know what it means, but he did say he
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: was excited to watch some dude named Rob Kardashian speak.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know, anyway, I hope those guys have fun
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: down there. Today my guest is Clint Campbell. While Campbell
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: is a marketing whiz by trade, he also hosts The
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Truth from the Stand podcast, is a die hard public
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: land white tail hunter. I don't know if I could
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: name someone in the industry who scouts more throughout the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: year than Clint, who happens to hail from Pennsylvania, which
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: isn't the easiest state to hunt. This episode is a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: wild one because it's mostly not about big Bucks. I
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: mean we do talk about big Bucks quite a bit,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: but it's more about hunting the late season on pressure
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: ground and honestly focuses more on does and scrappers and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: just learning, dear. But it's also chock full of good
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: conversation in real world advice. So I think you're absolutely
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: gonna love it. Clint, Welcome to the podcast. I think
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: this is your first time on Wired Hunt, isn't it
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It is a long time listener, first time caller. How
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: about that? I can't believe I laughed at that cheesy joke.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I can't believe I said it. But you know, here
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: we are. Well, it's too late now. Uh. I'm really
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: glad to get you on. Man. You know, we've we've
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: been on each other's podcast few times and gotten to
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: know each other really well. And you you might be
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the most scoutingous dude I know. Like I I don't
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: know if I know anyone who actually I know people
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: who talk about it a lot, but I don't know
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: if I know anyone who scouts more year round than
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: you do. Wow, Man, that's a that's lofty company. Because
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: there's a couple of guys I know that beat me
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: on Miles, but You're right, man, I put a lot
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: of time in the timber um even in season. You know.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: Just this past week, you know, gun season ended here
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania, UM, and I went out on the last
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: day of gun seas a lot of times that that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: two week gun period for me is a lot of
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: resetting the clock, if you will, getting some household chores dunkuse.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I'm usually just getting back from a hunting trip and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: I've been grinding since you know, mid September. For me,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: where a special reg unit where I open up and
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: uh so this past Saturday, I went out just in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the afternoon. I had some honey do list chores. The
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: dude got those done, jumped out real quick, and I
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: didn't even get into a tree. There's a couple of
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: little places that I wanted to check out. Um that
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: usually isn't you know, doesn't have really a lot of
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: gun hunting pressure. I want to see if they anything,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: and they're kind of using it as a hidy hole.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So I basically just went for a scout, a walk
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: about for like three and a half hours and set
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: up my one setup was in the middle of a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: stream on a big rock to see if there was
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: anything crossing. It was watching some cross seeds and stuff
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, you know, found some found some rubs,
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: some old historical sign and stuff like that, but it
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: wasn't really anything to set up on. So I just
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: basically took a glorified nature walk, which there's a lot
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of times what you have to do, especially whenever you're
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: starting to get into late season, man, because a lot
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: of that sign that you're seeing in the timber at
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: this point really isn't worth worth a whole lot, so
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to speak, you know, Um, and it's really kind of
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: a different ballgame. You can kind of rely on some
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: early season stuff as a starting point. Um that really
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the puzzle pieces are you really kind of get a
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: brand new puzzle this time of year. Yeah, there's there's
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: just moments. You know, we talked all the time about
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: winter scouting and you know, summer scouting and all that stuff,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: But there's just moments during the season where if you're
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: hunting the kind of scenario that I know you're hunting
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, which is public land in in
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: p A or somewhere else, and you know same for
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: me in a in a bunch offferent states. There's just
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: these moments. Are these these things that happened during the
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: season where you're like, Okay, now it's I just know
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I have to figure something new out. And you can't
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: find a bigger event than the general firearms season typically
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: than that. I mean, it's kind of like, okay, this
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: this is there's a before and after. There just is.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people, you know, a lot of
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: people in my situation, your situation, listen to this. They're
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: they're getting into this point now where it's the gun
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: seasons are they're ending, and you're staring down the barrel
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: of late season. And for a lot of us, the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: traditional white tail hunting advice for late season sucks. And
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I've been I've been complaining about this forever, ever since
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I was at Peterson's Bowl hunting editing. You know some
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: of those guys articles. I'm like, this doesn't apply to us.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: And that's what I really wanted to talk to you
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: about today because I know, you know you're still sitting
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: on a buck tag and p A, you got dough tags. Um,
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: I've I don't have any buck tags left, but I
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: got some dough tags. And I really look at this
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: time of the season like it's the hardest. This is
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the most difficult time to hunt, and it really requires
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: a different kind of strategy than than the typical late
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: season advice we've been given. Yeah, I mean, to me,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: the two toughest times, at least in my opinion for Pennsylvania.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You know, might be different in some different states, you know,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: but a lot of pressure in Pennsylvania. Even early season
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: you know, bo bow hunting around here, there's a lot
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: of pressure. Um. You know, I've always tried to get
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: better at early season bucks so to speak. Right, So
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the October time frame, I hold guys in high regard
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: that can consistently get it done you know, early October
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: into like the law, so to speak. And I had
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: my best encounter during the quote unquote October law this year. Um,
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: so I feel like I'm getting there in that regard.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: The second, you know, the other hardest time of the
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: year is what youat. You know exactly what you said,
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: which is which is that late season time frame. There's
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: guys that I know that get it done with consistency
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: that time frame too, And I just kind of marvel
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: at those guys, right because like you said, it's there's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: clearly a B C and an a D when it
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: comes to when it comes to bow hunting late season,
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, before gun season and after gun season,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the deer going to be kind of uh push into
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: those little kind of nooks and crannies that are off
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: the beaten path that that that don't get a lot
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: of pressure, um and they're just not gonna move a
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: whole lot. You know, you do get a little bit
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: and I don't know if you would call it quote
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: unquote late season, but you do get a little bit
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of a reprieve if you're kind of fine tuned into
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: what that secondary peak peak breeding date might be. Right.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And so that's like my last kind of not my
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: hail Mary, but that's the last kind of movement I
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: that I'll usually kind of count on. And it really
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: just comes from scouting and paying attention to annual trail
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: camera data, knowing what places actually do turn on during
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: during that second peak breeding date. And I have maybe
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: two spots that I know that historically have turned on
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: for me around that date. And I know what that
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: date is around here because I'd see a flurry of
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: camera activity rate leading up to that date. And then
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: actually when I was in the Timber last year to
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: actually try to capitalize on it. I had some good
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: you know, just movement around me. Nothing that I was
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: going to pull my bow back on, but it just
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: kind of confirmed that that date is legitimate in that
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: timeframe is what I need to be those particular spots
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to capitalize on it. So that's kind
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of my game plan, man. And then what you were
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: talking about, which is just you know, trying to find
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: those overlooked places and um, not going to be relying
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: on on food sources because I don't have any, um,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: and really just hunting deer. You know, That's really what
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: it comes down to for me in late seasons, Like
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: I just want to be around deer from around deer,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: then I'm gonna I'm gonna eventually be in the game
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: for late season. So you before we move on to that,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: you actually try to take advantage of the second rout
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and and see if you can put something together when
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: the Fonds come into Astis or the does who didn't
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: get bread they swing background. Yeah, I do. UM. I
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: used to really not pay a whole lot of attention
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: to it until probably two years ago is when I
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: really started kind of like watching my cameras so to speak. Um,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: a good buddy of mine, Greglitzinger is is a guy
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: who has has used this date historically, and I kind
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: of picked it up from him. Um, and then I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: just started paying more attention to it, you know, on
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: cameras the first year and I was like, okay, I
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: saw some activity, is like, let me see if the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: next year I can try to capitalize on it. So
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: last year and went out and actually hunted in and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: around that time frame and just saw a lot of activity.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Now not every not every spot. You know, I focus
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: a lot on scrapes. I'm a scrape hunter during the rut,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: That's that's what I like, our pre rut, you know,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: that mid October to late October beginning of November time period.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: But that second breeding date, I will still kind of
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: pay attention to scrapes that are clearly going to be
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: outside of that I know, to be outside of dope
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: betting areas and just adjacent to doe betting. Those are
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: the ones that at least that I've seen that I've
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: had some movement during that second preak peak breeding date.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: And I'll literally just kind of watch cameras, you know,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, it's areas where I have cell cameras,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: because those are often times of places that are are
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the hardest to get to and get the least amount
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: of pressure. So I'll get I guess what you would
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: call like the most normal activity around those areas, like
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: unpressured activity, even though it is pressured, but it gets
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: the least amount of pressure. And so I'll have cell
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: cameras on those spots. I can just kind of keep
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: tabs on them, and I'll know just from watching them
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: for the past couple of years that once I start
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: to see a couple of young bucks, a couple of
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: does hit those scrapes again, you know that. You know,
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: second week of December, I'm like, Okay, it's getting ready.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: It's getting ready to flip for like one last two
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: days spurt right now. Whether or not a deer that
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: I want to shoot comes through there or not, or
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: is in that area or hasn't been killed, or you know,
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of factors that kind of go into it.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: But that's gonna be my last best chance to try
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: to get on one of my one of my target
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: deer from from this season. Yeah, that that second round
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: is a weird one because I've I've noticed the same
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: thing and when I leave trail cameras up that you'll
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: see those those bouts of activity tied to you know,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: I would say here, it's probably been uh, the second
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: week of December would maybe be the most. I've never
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: like pinned it down probably the way you have. But
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: that's one of those things you kind of hear people
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: talk about a lot, and it's really a fleeting thing.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: If you're not tied into it like you, Yeah, you
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: would be probably you know, you'd be well off to
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: pay attention to it, but also to just be like, Okay, well,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: if I'm going to spend some time hunting, now, I'm
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: going to spend it around this time frame and maybe
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: just get lucky. And I don't. I've never killed a buck,
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: uh that I could say was chase. I missed a
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: good one one time that was definitely chasing, but I've
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: never killed one that time frame. But you see that
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: little tiny window of opportunity open up and it's it's real,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: but it's a short one and you you got to
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: do your homework. Yeah, I'm put it this way. I'm
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: not pinning my hopes and dreams on it, so to speak.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: You know, it's one of those things exactly to your point,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: It's like before i get into that full on late
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: season mode where I'm going to really have to go
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: back to kind of bed hunting to a to a degree,
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: right and being on top of them or getting into
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: an area and getting you know, in the morning and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: catching them on their way back to bed, but still
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: having to be set up close to you know, to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: their to their bedding area. This is the last opportunity
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: to kind of capitalize on any type of you know
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: what I'll call like abnormal movement right to where they're
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: gonna they're gonna potentially make some mistakes, right. Um. But
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to your point, it's like you have to either have
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: a dough that has in the bread or you have
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: to have a fund that's hitting the right bio the
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: biometrics to to come into Estra's during that time frame
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: and don't necessarily always get it. That being said, if
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: you find a spot that does turn on at a
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: certain time, knowing that does pass their breeding dates to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: their dough fonds the same way, you can capitalize on
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: it late October early November, knowing when dough groups are
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: going to come in. If one place is coming in
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: during that second peak rut, as long as a dough
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: in that area or a fawn in that area that's
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: going to hit the right biometrics come in during that
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: time frame. It's going to be consistent year every year.
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: It's just a matter of whether the inventory is available,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: so to speak. Well, that's you know, when you when
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: you're talking about this, it really is a numbers game
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: that you need to try to understand. Because I remember hunting.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: I was actually muzzle or hunting piece of public land
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: here in the Twin Cities probably I don't know, eight
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: years ago something like that, and I had I had
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: been in there a lot scouting around, and I had
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: some doughs and you know, kind of kind of pinned
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: down and I was just trying to fill one more
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: uh antlerless tag. And I ended up going in one
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: evening and I ended up seeing a really good chase happened,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: you know, and it was it was a buck like
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: a hundred fifteen inch orre. But for for here then
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: it was like, you know, it's really great deer. You know,
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: I couldn't shoot him. I ended up killing a doll.
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: It brought my I called my buddy up. I was like,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: you gotta get a muzzle or we gotta try this,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: and went in and actually bumped into that same deer
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: chasing around a little bit of rout activity going on,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: you know, not like the not like you expected November,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: but it was happening right there at that time during December,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: and it was you know, I'm sure you know. And
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: what I mean by this is, you know, we always
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: talked about the rut like it's gonna save your ass
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: and it's gonna put deer in your lap. And then
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: you go hunt it and you have whole days where
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: you don't see hardly anything, or or stretches of days
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: and it's like, okay, this is this is a matter
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: of how many hours am I actually gonna put in
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: over this whole cup a week stretch. It's not like
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: I just get to pick the best day, go out
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: and sit and it's going to deliver onto me a
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: great deer like it might, but a lot of times
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: it doesn't. Well, you gotta like it's orders of magnitude
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: less likely during this time frame, and so if you
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: don't have your homework in place or no, you're gonna
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: be around something that's gonna work for you. You're gonna
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: be staring at a lot of empty woods, right yeah,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And I mean part of what when you when we
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: talk and I like to scout a lot and stuff
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: like that, and I mentioned that I do, you know,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of in season scouting and stuff too.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: It's like I've gone too often into late season holding
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: tags still, so I actually started kind of formulating game
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: plans as I'm working through October and or November. Now November,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: I'm usually gone for most of November on a trip
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: on a trip somewhere, so it's a lot of October scouting.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: What I mean by that is is that kind of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: looking and paying attention to where I'm finding deer early
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: in the year and knowing that, okay, these are kind
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: of like they're they're they're kind of locales for that,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: you know, early mid September through like October time frame,
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: whatever the case is that early season kind of like
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: core area that they want to spend time and a
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: lot of times that will hold true so long as
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: they don't get completely pushed out of there. And you
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: also have to take into consideration is that area not
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: as thick now or densely foliaged. Now that the leaves
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: have come off and stuff like that. There's some there's
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: some qualifying that you have to do, but just all
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: things be equal, a lot of times you can kind
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: of go back to those areas. But the one thing
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: that I'm doing during that time frame is like October,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you're always looking for white oaks, right, It's like, I
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: want white oak acorns, right, those are like the primary
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: food source in the timber that the deer all of
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: a sudden disappeared. Nobody sees them because they stay in
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: the timber and they're not traveling a lot because they're
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: they're holding up on those food sources. Well, I pay
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: attention to those in October, but I'm also going through
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: and I'm picking up acorns, going all right, here's a
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: red oak, al right, here's a pin oak here. You know,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: I'm going through and kind of qualifying, like my red
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: oak kind of stash, if you will, picking them up,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm looking at them to make sure they don't
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: have holes and make sure they don't have bugs, because
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: they're not gonna want to eat those that have bugs
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: if they don't have bugs. And I'm in the chips, right,
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: and so I start doing that even in October. To know,
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: like right now, I know of two spots that whole
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: deer that's super thick that people can't really walk through,
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you know, they won't walk through it to drive it
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. So gun season isn't necessarily going
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: to impact it per se. I mean it does impact it,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: but people aren't going to kind of walk through it,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: hoot and holler and putting on deer drives through these areas.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: And I know for sure there's edible red oaks that
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: are laying on the ground there. And so those are
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: kind of my two aces in the hole that I,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: you know, months ago, I already kind of like preordained
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: as like these are two spots I'm gonna be coming
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: back to in December because I know they have food,
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: and I know they have all the cover that they need,
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and I know it's not going to get touched a
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: little bit of a hike in and just super nasty thick.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: So to me, the late season game doesn't start in December.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: It almost starts, you know, in October. Kind of making
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: a plan for what you might need to run into
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: whenever you hit. When you hit that December time frame. Yeah,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: that that oak pattern is a good one because we
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: don't we don't hardly ever talk about that. All the
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: emphasis is on white oaks. And then when you get
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: into the late season, like we joked about earlier, the
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: emphasis is on destination food sources, right like where's that
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: cut cornfield, where's your food plot? Whatever. But you have
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: to work with what you have available to you, and
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: that that pattern of all the animals out there vacuuming
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: up all the white oaks are the white oak acorns
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: if they're available, and ignoring those red oaks until they
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: don't have a choice is huge. And it's so obvious
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: when you see them get on that pattern during the
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: late season because you just go, holy sh it, it it
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: looks just like it did in October, except now there's
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: snow on the ground or the concentrations on the on
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: different trees, and it really makes you realize, like, Okay,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: you can kind of play this. Uh, you know, this
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: is like a destination food source in some ways. To
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: it just might be like a hundred yards from where
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: they've been betting all season long. You know, it's not
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: going to be just that super easy to figure out.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Typical egg type of source. Right. And the other thing
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: too that people need to kind of think about for
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: late season is that, you know, it's it's certainly a
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: food a food game, but you're still looking for multiple
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: things that come together to kind of tip things in
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: your in your favor. You know, you'll talk to guys
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: who are really good rut hunters or just you know,
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: good hunters in general, if they're breaking down a piece
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: of property, you know they're oftentimes looking for, you know,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: multiple things come together, so either multiple terrain features that
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: are dumping into an area that create a thermal hub
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: that where a primary scrape is going to be laid down, Right,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: You're kind of looking for all these things that kind
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: of connect because now you've got four pieces of the puzzle,
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: so to speak, as opposed to just the scrape randomly
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: out in the middle of the woods that you're gonna
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: end up hunting. Well, it's like, well, why is it there?
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: If there's not a multiple things or multiple trails kind
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: of leading to it's probably not a great setup to me.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: It's the same thing when you get to late season,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: it's like, well, how many things can you stack in
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: your favor? Like how close is the betting cover, right, Um,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: do they have to to hit this food? Do they
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: have to or expose themselves? If so, it may not
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: be the best. The best set up is it close
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: to thermal cover, right, like something on the outside of
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: like a hemlock patch or something like that. You know,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: some killer you know, red acorn drop outside of the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: hemlock patch. Like those are the types of things, along
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: with like some type of terrain feature that's kind of
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: moving there in that specific direction. Like you're still looking
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: for those types of things. It's just the puzz of
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: pieces become a little bit different, you know. And that's
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: one thing that I think I've picked up from I mean,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: he's been on this show in the past is Johnny Stewart.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Johnny Stewart is probably one of the best late season
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: deer hunters that I've that I've ever met. The guy.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: He actually loves late season. It might actually be his
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: favorite time to hunt. And so all these little things
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: of like you know, looking at the red oaks to
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: make sure they don't have bugs, and making sure you're
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: kind of paying attention to thermal cover and how it
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: stacks up against how it stacks up against food. When
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you're walking through an area and you're scouting, you might
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: be close to some bedding cover. Maybe you don't have
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: a ton of red oak acorns around, but it's the
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: best security cover and maybe the best thermal cover. Paying
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: attention to what they're nipping, you know what I mean
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: at that at that time of year, they nipping the greenbrier,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: they're getting you know, birch bark or whatever the case is.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: And how fresh do those nips look? Right? And so
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: those are all the things I'm kind of looking at
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: whenever I'm walking through an area in late season. Because
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: if it's greenbrier and it's been nipped, but the cover
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: is not fantastic and the edges are browned, they probably
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: were there either a few weeks ago or a couple
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: of months ago and nipped that off right. But if
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: it's still kind of green and it looks like it's
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: relatively fresh, well, it's like, all right, you might be
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: in the game. They're either passing through and browsing, or
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: they might be betting close by. That's when you just
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: have to kind of understand what you're betting layers are
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in that particular area. Yeah, let's let's back up a second,
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: because you said something that I kind of live by
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: for late season. I look at it like from the
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: scope of their survivability, right, like everything every decision they're
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: making is about their survival. And like, I know this,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: this seems simple, but if you think about okay, well
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: food is number one, right, that's what we kind of think. Well,
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: they got to eat. If they don't eat, they're gonna die.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And a lot of the traditional hunting advice comes from
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a place where the other survivable factor or their surviving
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: factors not that big of a deal, right, Like, if
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: you're hunting a place that has no hunting pressure and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: you can control it, then food is going to be
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: their number one driver because that's what they need to
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: survive to to make you know, recover from the rut,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: make it through the winner, blah blah blah. But then
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: if you start saying, like you said, okay, well what
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: if the food sources out in the open and they
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: would have to go through the open to get there,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: they have to leave the cover, They're probably not gonna
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: do that. Like that might be the most important thing
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: right there, because it doesn't matter if you find that
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: bang in red oak, it's you know, it's out on
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the old fence line. The farmer didn't cut it down
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason. Yeah, they might use the crap out
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: of it at midnight, but who cares. Like when when
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: you start paying attention to pressure deer in the late season.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: I don't think you can overstate how important it is
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to figure out how they're moving in the cover and
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: where they're going to stay because you're working with you know,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know, eleven hours a daylight, ten and a
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: half hours a daylight, something like that. The rest of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the time, they can move freely and feed wherever they want,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and they're not going to put themselves in a position,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: you know, when they're coming out of that Pennsylvania gun season,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: they're probably not super stoked to go out at noon
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: and feed in the wide open on public land, right
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: And so I think you've got to kind of frame,
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: you know, if you're if you're in season scouting right now,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: you're planning on trying to fill buck tag, doe tag, whatever,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: and you hunt where there's a lot of pressure. Even
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: if there won't be a lot of pressure in the
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: late season, but there has been a lot of pressure.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: You have to really operate under the assumption that those
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: deer are going to stay in that cover during daylight,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: even if it gets to twenty below. Even if the
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: conditions mean it should be perfect deer movement, it probably
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: won't happen in the wide open. Yeah, And just just
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: a piggyback off that man. You know, it just made
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: me think of and I just want to caveat some
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: of this stuff. It's like a lot of the stuff
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: that I know about late season, I've either learned the
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: hard way by screwing stuff up, or I've been really
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: fortunate to have some really smart deer hunter friends like yourself,
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: or talk to guys like a Johnny Stewart or a
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Don Higgins or whomever, right, and just paying attention to
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: when they speak about things, and starting to try to
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: figure out what does that mean, you know, practically for
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: what I'm seeing whenever I'm out doing you know, when
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting late season or whatever. And one thing that's
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: always stuck with me was something I was talking to
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Don was just you know, Don has spent a lot
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: of time he had captive deer heard for for a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: long time and watched and washing deer and how they
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: kind of acted and stuff like that. That's where I
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: picked up that kind of uh dough extra state that
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: they passed to their from their dough to the dough fonds.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: And that's why you get that consistency around those family
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: groups and stuff like that. And the whole notion around
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: food is a little bit misleading, And when I was
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: talking to him, it made sense because essentially a deer's
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: biology works and in the way that you know, when
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: so biology kicks in in September and the test of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: stream for bucks ramps up and it forces them to move,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: people say, you know, they're you know, the October all happens,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and data has proved that incorrect. Right when you look
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: at how often bucks moved, they moved. Their movement increases
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: from like the summer through basically the end of like
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: roughly like mid December, right, and then it kind of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: starts to ramp back down. So biologically at the same time,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I mean beer dear or geared to survive, like that's
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: why there's such incredible animals. They can survive the harshest
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: conditions and being chased by some of the biggest apex predators,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: especially when you get out into like Ida home in
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: places like that where they're dealing with grizzlies and wolves
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: and harsh winners. Their metab of them actually slows in
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: the winter. They actually have to eat a lot less
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: in the winter. When you think that they need to
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: eat to refuel calories, then they actually need then they
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: do like in October. So their metabolis and actually slows
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: and allows them to stay bedded for longer, you know,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in the de basive, stay in security cover longer, and
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: almost go into like a form of pseudo hibernation to
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: a degree. And so you know, that's why you'll see
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: a discrepancy. And I don't have you know, a lot
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: of public hunters don't have you know, you know, pick
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: being or cut being fields or cut corn fields or
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: whatever to go hunt. But if you ever drive by
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and during late season, you're like, man, there's only a
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: couple of year on that field. You would think it's
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: late season they all need to be eaten. Not true. However,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: if you're looking at a storm coming through, a lot
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: of times you'll see them get up on their feet,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: like either right before a storm or actually in the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: middle of the storm because they're reluctant to move until
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: they absolutely have to. And that was one thing I
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: learned from Donnie. You know. It was basically the nastiest,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the worst, the most harsh conditions that you can possibly get.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: So snow, a little bit of rain, thirty degrees, twenty degrees,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: whatever it is, wind blowing fifteen miles per hour, that's
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the best day to see deer on their feet having
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: to go feed and make themselves vulnerable because the conditions
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: are now dictating that I need more calories, because the
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: conditions have now changed. My hibernation mode is only going
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: to get me so far. Right, But whenever you have say,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: average temperatures for that particular area and the and the
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: weather conditions are kind of average, you're going to see
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: a lot less movement on average, driven driven by food,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: which makes it that much harder because food isn't quite
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: the driver that people want it to be, or want
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: to think that it is for late season, just for
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: no other reason than dear biology. Yeah, well, and that
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: I think that's partially a symptom of what we've been fed.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Because if you if you give dear easy, safe food
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: to get to they're gonna go take it. All animals
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: will They don't. They don't turn down easy calories. But
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: out there where those easy calories don't exist, they're going
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: to default to survivor mode. And that comes in that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: form of not moving as much as we think. And so,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you know, you turn on the Outdoor channel or you
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: read you know, some of these articles and you go, okay, well,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: every deer. I mean you can you can watch huge
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: bucks die in late season food plots all night long
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: if you want to, on YouTube in the outdoor channel,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: and they'll be surrounded by fifty deer in one spot.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: And I think I think it's easy to kind of
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: internalize that and just assume, like, look at how powerful
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of a driver that hunger is. But you're looking at
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: a like a petreet dish. I guess not. This is
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: an experiment. This is not how it's probably gonna work
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: on that public land in whatever state you're hunting, and
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: so you have you really have to be aware of that. Yeah.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: I think I think one of the other you know,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: things that people you know, I don't want to say
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: many mistake, but that they make it harder on themselves
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: and it needs to be is that they late. I
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: don't want to see if they're swinging for the fences
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: in late season. But I think your methodology overall has
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: to kind of has to kind of change to a degree.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: And you know, I kind of use this methodology even
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: when I travel out of state during you know, pre
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: rut or rut, because a lot of times I'm freelancing,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Like this year, went to Kansas never I'd never I
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: was never in Kansas until I crossed the Kansas state
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: line this year, and so just kind of went in
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: completely blind. Um. But this is something I kind of,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: you know, picked up again from another guy that I
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: talked to you hunstantly. The adrand acts a lot um
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: you know, so New York, you know, big woods, lots
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: of gnarly, kind of harsh conditions and stuff like that. Um.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: And one of the pieces of advice that he gave me,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: and I think it holds true for late season, is
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: that whenever you're hunting those areas that are really kind
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: of tough, you know, you really first steps should just
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: really be to get in dear, you know, I mean,
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: find just find dear in general, right, Like, don't be
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: so picky as to like I'm gonna try to find
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: this particular buck, because I mean after gun season and
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: if you don't have eral camera inventory of knowing that
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: he's alive, he may or may not be there, right, So,
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: can I just find where dear want to spend time? Right, so,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: whether that's the snow, cutting some tracks, finding where, you know,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: backtracking them in the snow to figure out where they're
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: congregating and spending time. Like, to me, that's really kind
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: of step number one. Can I even just find where
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: the deer want to spend some time post gun season,
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: late season? That will help me kind of understand where
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: the thermal cover is because it might lead me to that.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: It might also lead me to what is their quote
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: unquote primary food source for that time year. It may
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: not ever be a primary food source any other time
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: of the year. But just getting yourself around deer getting
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: some sightings. Not only will I think put you in
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: a better position to have the type of account if
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: you want to have, but I think it'll do a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: ton for your psyche because that time of year, man,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: it's a drain, Like you're you're walking out knowing that
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: your chances of of success are less than they usually
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: are and there throughout the rest of the year. So
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: it's it's the minutes even further at that point, you know.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: So I think even for your psyche, it does a
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: lot just to go go find your first and then
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: kind of start to make a plan from there. So
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: let's talk about that, because I've been preaching about this
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a lot lately about learning to find deer concentrations first,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: not not starting out where it's one fifties or bust,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: you know, especially this, like you said, when you travel
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: to a new state and you're like, I'm going to
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: hunt public land in this state or that state, you're
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: we kind of sell this image like Okay, you're gonna
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: show up, you're gonna find a bunch of sign you're
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: gonna be targeting mature bucks right off the bat. But
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the reality is you don't even know where the deer are.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: You know where you think they might be, and you
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: gotta narrow that down, and then if you decide to
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: go after big bucks, then you've got to narrow it
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: down further. But the starting point is always where do
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: some deer live? How can I find them, observe them,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: get near them? And I think I think one of
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: the messages we've really got wrong in the hunting industry
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: is we've sort of glossed over that reality, which we
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: all pretty much do. Some some people are really good
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: at that, finding it quickly and moving on to the
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: big ones. But most people would be better served all
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: parts of the season, not just in late season to go,
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: how do I get my ass around some deer first?
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: And this is this becomes like real evident when you travel,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: but it's also really evident when you you turn this
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: corner from now, gun season is over, now, the snow
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: is fly in. We've got three weeks left or a
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: month left. However much of the season, now, can you
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: get yourself around deer? Could you realistically go out and
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: kill a mature dough on public land right now? Like
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: do you do you have that dialed? Or are you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: not there yet? Because that's not that's like no easy
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: thing to accomplish either. Yeah, that's not a given man,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: especially when you get into some states like Pennsylvania and
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: Michigan where it seems like at birth they're born to
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: look up a tree, you know what I mean. So
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: it's like even that time, that time of year, even
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: trying to kill a doe and stuff. And so for me,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, there's no shame in my game. Man. It's
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: like when I go out, I'm literally just trying to
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: find a deer. I want proof of life. That's really
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: what I'm kind of looking for at first. And then
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: from there, if I have some intel about a buck
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: maybe being around that I was chasing earlier, earlier in
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: the year, if I feel like I can get a
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: beat on it, and I'm gonna make I'm gonna make
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: a concerted effort to try to figure out where he
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: might be spending some time. But a lot of times,
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: what I'll start to do during late seasons, like as
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to get around deers, I'm starting to formulate
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: a plan also for the following year, like I try to.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: I'm a working guy like everyone else out there. Man,
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: I work at nine to five like everybody else, and
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: so I try to double up on, you know, what
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I get out of a trip or out of a scout,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: out of a hunt as much as I possibly can.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: So when I'm hunting, like I was saying earlier, when
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting slash scouting an area in October, I'm already
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: thinking about what I might be able to take from
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: this spot for for a late season hunt because I
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: don't have time to come back out and do it again,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and then whenever I'm hunting during the late season and
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: just trying to find where deer at because again, like
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: I said earlier, you know, in some instances, depending on
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: like the variables and stuff like that, what you find
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in late season could also be relevant to what you
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: might need to know in that mid September early October
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: time frame. And so I'm paying attention to those things
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: and starting to get my scouting in early already for
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: the next year and formulating the plan, you know, And
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: so I'm always trying to double up and be as
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: efficient as I as I as I possibly can. But
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I think for most people out there, man
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: just trying to get on deer and kill those on
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: public land and fill some tags and just get some
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: confidence and knowing that you can locate deer when the
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: chips are down, not just for hunting late season, but
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: it also builds confidence whenever you decide to travel and
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, because you're ultimately when you know a
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: lot of people have aspirations to go travel, and more
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: people are traveling now than ever before, and that's great.
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: I would I would say that you don't need to
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: have a ton of time to go scout to take
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: travel hunts during the course of the year, you know,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: if you get comfortable with freelancing, and part of that
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: is is like taking some of these challenging times of
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: the year, like late season and having to build a
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: plan on the fly to try to find dear. That
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: same approach you can take and pour over to a
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: pre rut hunt or a rut hunt in Kansas or
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in Io or in Iowa or wherever it is that
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: you might want to go. And so to me, it's
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: like there's a lot of connectivity between the challenges of
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: late season that you face and how those challenges can
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: kind of help you prepare for other parts of the
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: season and other challenges you might face, whether it's traveling
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: or different terrain and different topography or a different habitat
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: that you may have never encountered before. So I think
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of value and just attempting the hunt
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: in late season and if it ends up coming to
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: fruition that then to me, it's just kind of a
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: cherry on top. Yeah, if you want to figure out
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: whether you're really good at this stuff, go try to
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: kill something on public land in the late season and
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you'll you'll find out how you're you know, how your
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: sad name is, how you know, how your timing is
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: on your draw, how good you are at reading fresh sign,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: and you'll find out a lot about your your mental
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: state as a hunter, because it's I think, I mean,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I think that most of the places
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I hunt, I would have a much easier time killing
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: a really big buck in September October on those public
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: chunks that I would have targeting any deer right now
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: and getting it done within the next couple of weeks.
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: Like it literally opening my aperture up to include every
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: deer as a shooter, because it is. It's it's a
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: different ballgame out there. And one thing that you're you
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: mentioned there that I really believe in is, you know,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: like this might not be the most appealing time for
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of people to go out hunt. And I
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: get that, Like, you know, the season's winding down, it's
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: holidays are coming up, there's a lot of there's a
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: lot of excuses to not go. Yeah, there there's a
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: lot of reasons to stay out of the woods. But
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: one of the things that makes you a better hunter,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it's not just going to hunt right now, it's time
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: in the woods. It's time in season, scouting, time figuring
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: stuff out. And I think, I honestly think this extends
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: way beyond just act the actual act of scouting or
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: hunting for deer. Like I've I've talked about this quite
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: a bit, but I'm I'm like heavy into pheasant hunting
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: right now. You know, the late seasons kind of my time.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what, man, We we only hunt
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: public land, and the amount of freaking deer I jump,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: and the amount of sign I find and the amount
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: of random beds I find in places, I promise you
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: every time I follow my labs around to chase roosters,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: I'm leveling up my dear game just because I'm out
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: there going through places I would not go through if
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: I was scouting deer. And late season kind of can
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: do that for you as well as far as like
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: your typical early season plan, even though you might kind
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: of be in the same areas, it's going to be
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: a different thing. It's gonna be a changed program from
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: what you've done before. And when you have to do
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: that to succeed, you're gonna level up your game, oh percent. Man.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: As you were saying that. The thing that came to
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: my mind was that late season is just you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: whether you're successful or not. To kind of push through
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: late season is will It's a willpower, like can you
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: grind through the sits? It's going to be cold, it's
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: gonna suck. Uh, you're not gonna see a lot of deer.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: You're probably gonna question what you're set ups most of
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the time, right because you're probably not going to see
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer. Um, your entry and exit has
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: to be stealth um, your scent game. You're not sent
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: control necessarily, But like how you play the wind is
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: like of the utmost important. I mean, during the rut,
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: you can get away with a little bit of BS
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: here and there because they're not thinking, you know correctly,
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: they're making mistakes, you know, or bucks are making mistakes.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: At least those are you know, seem to always always
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: be on point um. But your but your game is
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: fully on display at that point, right, Like all your
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: flaws are magnified. So if you have any in your game,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: if you have gear that squeaks, you're dead right like,
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: so all those things. So it's like it's really a
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: time of year where attention to detail becomes paramount, right, like,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: because if you don't have it, you know, you have
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: very little chance of success in a lot of instances anyway,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: And every time or every little piece or every little
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: thing that you're doing correctly is just magnified and it
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: reduces your chances that much more. One thing that I
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: do try to do during late season, and it's it's
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit nutty, um because the the the possibility
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: of of of of death is potentially there. But I
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: do like to use water access a good bit during
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: late season, um, just because of that. Like, I feel
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: like in the late season, it's so hard for me
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: to be quiet. The leaves are so crunchy. If I'm
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: still hunting or scalped through an area, it's like I'm
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: blowing everything out that's within like a three yard radius
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: of me. Um. And so a lot of times I
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: will try to find areas, you know, during the off
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: season and think about, like, Okay, is this set up
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: potentially good for the late season, and does I have
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: water access Because to me, if I can find a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: place that I that I know that there are deer.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: Again going back to the idea of like just find deer,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: that they're deer that like to be in this area,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: and can I use water access to get in, especially
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: if it's an area where I can slip up an
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: embankment like twenty yards and being a tree like to me,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: there's the eye because I've just now taken the mistakes
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I could make before I even get into the tree
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: out of the equation, you know, and now I'm just
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: left with the mistakes I might make while I'm in
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: the tree, which you know, let's be honest, there's plenty
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: of those as well. But if you say water access,
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: do you mean uh, using a kayak? You yeah, what
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you know, waiting you know, a little bit of both,
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: but a lot of my access is is kayak, you know. Um,
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: you know, I will hunt some places that I'm trying
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: to think there's anything that I actually wait in. There's
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: one spot that one spot that I will I will
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: wait in depending on the route of access that I use.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: But by and large, when I'm using water access around here,
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: I feel like there's plenty of people who are willing
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: to wade, you know, at least you know, there's some
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: small game duck seasons and stuff like that. And so
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: I've I've had some bad run ins in those instances.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: So a lot of times those areas I just kind
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: of I kind of let alone. Um. But the areas
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: where I actually have to use a boat to where
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: you it's either a boat or swim, those are the
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: ones that I found that I can get away from
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: people a little bit more. And I've found people, especially
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: when it gets cold, windy, with a little bit of
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: pre sip, I basically had the place to myself. People
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just aren't willing to go out, you know, and endure
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: those conditions and kayaking and get wet and you know,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: be cold and and potentially flip your kayak or walk
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: through and you know, walk way through the water whenever
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: you have to pull your boat up the shore and
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: like you know, fall in the water or whatever. Like,
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: there's a ton of things that can potentially go wrong
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: and get wet um and a lot of people just
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: aren't willing to do it. And so and it also
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: reduces a lot of the mistakes you can make at
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: the beginning of a hunt. And so that's a lot
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: of times why I'll look for those kind of areas.
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I'll even kayak into places I've never been before on
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: a whim just knowing that I'll have stealth access and
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it might be a place I want to go check out,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: you know, and some kind of again going back to
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: killing two birds with one stone. I'm gonna get a
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: little bit of scouting in, learn a little bit about
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: a new area, and I'm getting into a place super clean.
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: So that's it's it's an interesting concept that I've never
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: really thought about, because if you wanted to do water
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: access where I live right now, you have to just
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: sharpen your ice skates because right right, yeah, you're not
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: you're not paddling anywhere. But I you know, I do
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: use like frozen slews and cattail lose a lot this
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: time of year because like you said, hey, it keeps
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: you low, which is good, but it's also potentially the quietest,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: least intrusive route that you can get. You just gotta
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: be a little careful so you don't fall through, because
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that sucks. Uh, But it's it is an option, and
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it you know, the one thing about that that you
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: know when you when you talk about taking a kayak out,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: we should just say this, please be very safe. Anybody
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: who's considering that, because cold water if jackets a must, yeah,
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: like you gotta have. Yeah, just don't be don't do
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: something stupid to get yourself hurt. Like there's been plenty
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: of times where I wanted to go out, but the
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: wind was just so bad where I was like, you
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: know what, it's it's not worth it. You know, it's
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: like you know, winds ripping across the water. I'm like,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: you know what, I've got a little f ten like
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: kayak or it's like a ten foot kayak or whatever,
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: the little troll and motorus that I used to get
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: in and out of places and stuff like that. I'm like,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: you know what, Yeah, there's some white caps out there today.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: I don't think this is gonna work for me. Real, well,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: let's just go head and call it. Let's walking somewhere
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: and you know, maybe I don't kill something today, and
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: that's just fine. I get to go home. So that's
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: the most important thing. Let's let's leave the chest thumping,
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: bad ass ray of the western hunters and that stays
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: safe out there in the white tail world. But but
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: your point is a good one in that you know
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: everything that you do, and we preach about for the
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: early season or rut hunting, any any other time, but
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: the late season, you know, the entrance routes, the exit routes. Uh,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: you know you're set up as far as are you
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: skyline are? You know, how's the wind for you? All
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: of these things that we worry about. And these these
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: little details, I guess they're not little, these details of
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: the hunt that we really try to shore up because
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: we know they stack the odds in our favor. They're
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: just laid bare in the late season, you know, like
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: you just you make so much noise, and there's a
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: lot of times in the late season where it is
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: just calm and quiet out there, and moving around is
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: really tough. So if you don't have a bulletproof access route,
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: you're screwed right for get go. And you said something
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: a little bit ago that I want to touch on.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: You're talking about, you know, Bucks being on their A game,
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: and then you said does and you said something to
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: the fact that dose are like always on their A game.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: And man, I really think that we oversell how like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: how cautious Bucks are and undersell how easy it is
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: to generally kill those When you're talking pressure deer, I
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I see so many does that kick my ass and
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: bust me that it's it's amazing. And then you'll see
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: bucks walk through good bucks that are oblivious. You just
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: caught them moving and it really it really serves you
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: well as a deer hunter. A if you love to
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: eat venison, because you're gonna target more does, but just
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: to to round yourself out a little better, to kind
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: of like not just focus on the trophy buck thing
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: or not just troph you know, focus on the buck
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: of a caliber that you're you aspire to. That's all
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: well and good. But if you're not like able to
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: consistently get into shooting range of doughs and take a
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: few every season, or you know, get drawn and make
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: your shot on a mature dough every season, you've got
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: some stuff to learn, because they will teach you. Oh man, yeah,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, I would say there's not a cagier animal
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in the White Tie Woods than a an old dominant
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: dough that's had four or five berthing cycles and had
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to raise four or five groups of does, right because
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: she was not only responsible for keeping herself alive, but
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: also you know, her pons alive. If you think about it,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: we're also chasing bucks during the most vulnerable time of
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: their their year essentially, right, So we're getting the easiest
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: opportunity on them, and dose are kind of they're always
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: on high alert, you know. Always there's not a time
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: of year where they lose themselves biologically speaking, and they're
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: thinking about not surviving. That's why, you know, if I'm
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: out on a rud hunt somewhere, you know, if I
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: find a buck that's on a dough. And this happened
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: while I was in Kansas. There was a buck that
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: I knew was in a particular area and he was
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: on a dough and I saw what he did the
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: night before because I glassed him, and I was like, man,
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: I bet he's gonna do the same thing the next day.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: We'll sure enough, he followed that dough was in the
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: same general area because she wanted to go feed back
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: at that same spot. Right, And so does can be predictable,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: and you can use them as like a little bit
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: of a canary and the mi shaft to a degree. Um,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: but they're also especially you know, whenever that bucks kind
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: of got his guard down, they're the ones who are
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: on high alert. Now you're trying to be four eyes
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: versus you know, versus two and I think That's the
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: other thing whenever you start hunting late season, because now
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: you know bucks. You know, if you're talking with true bucks,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: they're still gonna probably be off a little bit by themselves.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: But if you're if you're not targeting like the top
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: end of the you know, of bucks, and you're just
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: trying to shoot a decent buck on public land or whatever,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: you know, a lot of times you'll start to see
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: those groups kind of start to come back together, like
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: you would during the summer, where you've got some like
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: two year old bucks and some does and some funds,
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: all kind of like living roughly together, and you know
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: you're now dealing with four six, eight ten eyes. However,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: many deer happen to be traveling in that group that
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: you're that you now have to beat, right, And that's
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: the other challenging thing. If you're just targeting does in general,
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: whether it's late season or any other time of the year,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: they typically aren't by themselves, you know, And so your
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: game's gotta get really good at no one when to draw,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: you know, no one when to stay hidden. You know,
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: when your opportunities are pick out, which do you want
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: to potentially kill or whatever the case. Is and be
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: able to beat all those noses, all those eyes, and
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: all those years. You know, it's and it's I would
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: like it. It's almost you know, elk hunting. You know, yeah,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: the bulls are a little bit off their game, but
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: at that time of year, dude, it's like you're not
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: just trying to beat the bulls. You're trying to beat
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: the bulls plus however many cows they have with them,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: you know, and that's the hard part. Well not only that,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: but you know, you know how it is if you
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: get if you get busted by a big buck and
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: it happens, you know, they've they go wide eyed, saucerided,
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: and they take off and they might stop a hundred
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: yards away and check you out, and you know, walk
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: off or run away, and that's kind of the end
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: of it. But you get busted by a doll and
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: she lets the whole world know that there's some asshole
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: up in the tree, and she's gonna she's gonna make
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: it miserable for you. And they just they just prove
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: a lot more challenging than you know that the hunting
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: industry gives him credit for. And I really think I
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: mean what you said they're about. You know, if you
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: took a five and a half year old buck in
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: a five and a half year old doll, you know
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: that buck looks after himself like he's he's taking care
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: of himself. He has a less stressful life overall by far,
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: other than being on a bunch of people's hit list
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: because he's walked by trail cameras, he's got stupid names, whatever.
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: But you take that doll and she's raised X amount
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: of fawns every year, and she's had to think about
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: her survival and their survival, and they're just a different
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: kind of challenge. And I actually think, uh, that's part
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: of the reason that I actually really like hunting late season,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: because I go, if I have a buck tag left,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm looking for a buck, but I'm also
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for whoever I can legally tag. I'm not not.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: There's no pickiness left at all. And when you when
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: you open yourself up to that and you start to
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: try to kill them, not just sit there and watch
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: them walk by, or not just sit there and be like, oh,
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: they're out in the field. That's good and like, I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: don't care about them. It's fun to watch, but when
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: you actually actively try to kill them, you learn a
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: lot about yourself as a hunter because they they'll beat
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: you a lot of times. Oh yeah, man, I mean,
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: you know, especially if you're you know, if you're not
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: hunting some really kind of obvious you know, I'll say,
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: like you know, just field edges or whatever where they're
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: they're getting ready to slip out and their scent checking
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: like a little you know, low spot in the field
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: where they gets like the thermal draw and they feel
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: all safe and good and they're going to kind of
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: come out of this area and it's you know, you know,
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: a private piece of property or whatever. Then they haven't
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: gotten bothered all yere and you're doing some dope maintenance ensure.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: But it's like during the course of the year on
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: public landing, people are hunting them as well as they're
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: as they're hunting box, you know what I mean, And
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: so you know, their their caginess there. There's not really
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: a safe spot for them necessarily, right, Like they're they're
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: kind of always having to be always having to be
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: on alert, especially in this particular area. Man, like where
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: I hunt, you know, I had one this year. Um,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I'll just give an example right, So a buck, especially
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: that time of year, I've had an encounter with a
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: buck where I clearly got picked off. Let's say like
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: mid to late October, and I saw that deer back
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: on that camera in like three days, four days whatever, Right,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: there was a group of does that I saw that
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: one of them that I wanted to kill, and she
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: slipped around this corner and I drew. She just happened
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to look up and saw me as I was at
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: full draw, and she was gone. Right, It wasn't that
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: was I want to say, like October second or something like.
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: It was like the very beginning of October. I never
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: saw another doe group hit that camera until almost the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: end of November. And I'm not in that in in
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: that same area, there was multiple bucks that kind of
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: happened to pass through there during the course of rud
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: like whatever the case it was. And I particularly found
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: this spot a little bit of water access. It's a
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: gnarly little pinch that is like a perfect little rut funnel.
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: It pushes all the deer through this kind of you know,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: little area, and that dough caught me. And not only
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: did she avoid that area entirely, but the does that
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: were with her and avoided that area entirely for the
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: better part of almost two months before I go. Now,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying they didn't come on the back side,
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: but that's just kind of like proving the point. It's
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: like they did just enough to skirt that particular area
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: because they had one bad encounter there where I've had
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: bucks have a bad encounter. And you know, as long
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: as there, as long as it happens during the right
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: time of the year when they're you know, a little
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: bit vulnerable, you can get away with a good bit
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: with a dough with those like you just you just can't,
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: you know, like they're just not gonna let you. They're
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: just not gonna let you do it, because all there
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: is to it. Yeah, and this this is something, uh,
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: and I totally agree with you. I have. I could
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: talk for hours on the amount of times I've targeted
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: dough as that got my ass kicked. I mean I've had,
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: I had, I had one experience here, uh, in the
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: suburbs of the city that this was a private piece,
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: the little private piece surrounded by a whole bunch of
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: little private pieces, and so there was the density of
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: hunters is really high there because everybody's got twenty acres
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: or you know, and there's bull hunters, gun hunters on
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: every property, so these deer get hit hard. And you know,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: it's it's close to a million people, so there's just
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: they're not easy, dear. But this this property had one
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: little kill plot on it and there was a dough group.
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: This lead matriarch Dough. She was like really identifiable because
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: she was a great, big old dough, long nose, and
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: she would pick me off every time i'd hunt. If
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: I saw her not just hunting that little food plot,
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: but hunting that property, she'd get me. And so I'm like,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: I'm killing this doll, like this is like my target
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: deer for the year. And I put up blinds for her,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: I put up stands for her, and that dough got me.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: She beat me. She just beat me. Every time I
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: hunted her and I had her close, I got I
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: almost got drawn on her. Once she busted me took off.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I mean, it was just like one of those deals
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: where I'm like, I've never I've never dealt with a
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: situation like this with a really like a good buck
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: that I had like this much experience, and I'm like
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: this son of a bitch lives here. I know where
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: he's gonna go eat. But this dough, I'm like, she
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: lives here, She's got phones. I've seen her, she's been
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: here a couple of years. Like I know this dear,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: and I couldn't kill her with my best efforts. And
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: what it really makes you think, and and this whole
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: late season conversation is there's like, there's no way that
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: easy makes you good and so and you know, in
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: the hunting industry, we promise easy a lot, right, like
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: we sell products, and we do. I'm as guilty as anyone,
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: believe me, I understand it. And we promise get rich quick.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: But the reality is when you look at the badass
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: hunters out there, they're choosing the difficult hunts. They're they're
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: putting themselves in a situation to hunt harder deer because
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: they get better. And and then when they start killing
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: some of those dear, they start to get really good.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: And so if you're thinking, well, man, I don't you know,
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I don't have any bucks left or I don't have
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: any ace, you know that that's worth hunting for bucks
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: in the late season. Tell you what you want to
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: have some fun and challenge yourself and get better. Just
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: say all right, I'm just gonna go I'm gonna go
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: put a couple of dolls in the freezer, say it
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that way, get a little cocky, and then go give
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: it a shot and let's see what happens. Yeah, I mean,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: I think to something you hit on there, It was
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: just like the way to get better is to do
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: to do hard things, right if I were just if
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: I were to summarize it, and you and I talked
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: about at one point, you know, building your neural network
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: for big deer, right, that was a conversation you and
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: I had, I think at one point you even wrote
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: an article about it for for Meat Eater or you know,
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: how how to basically get better at killing big bucks.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: And what are basically comes down to is like you
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: got to be in the woods and you need a
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: breadth of experiences, right, and sometimes you need to have
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: those really kind of challenging experiences that that you know,
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: that shape you. For me, late season somewhat is kind
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: of freeing, you know, whether we want to admit it
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: or not, you know, we all experienced some form of
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: pressure probably you know, during during the regular archer season,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: gun season whatever the case is, people watching social media
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: seems like everyone's killing a big buck except you or
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: or whatever the case is. Um you know, which can
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: you know not to some pressure and some anxiety and
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: and you know, take a little bit of the fun
• 52:17
  Speaker 1: out of it. Late season for me is kind of
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: like one of those things where, you know, I treat
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: it as there's no expectations at this point, right before
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: gun season, just because there's gonna be more hunters in
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the woods, has a more opportunity for them to you know,
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: grow legs. I typically go out and pull all my cameras,
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: so whenever I go back out for late season, I
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: literally don't know what deer is in the area, with
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: the exception of maybe like one or two of those
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: cell cameras I have placed in like really hard to
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: get highie holes and I'm gonna watch for that second peak,
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: you know, breeding date or whatever. Aside from that, it's
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: almost like hunting brand new areas that I just have
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: some information about the terrain and the topography, but I
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: don't know anything really about the deer herd for that
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: time of year, like who's available, who's not available, etcetera.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And so to me, it's a little bit free because
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: I can take some swings and misses and it doesn't
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: feel as as damning. Like I feel a lot worse
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: during October when I know I've got like a particular
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: deer in an area and I've I've figured him out
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: and he should be here at this time. He likes
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: this win, and I go set up and I either
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: don't see him or I see him and don't get
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: a shot. Right like that feels pretty bad, And most
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: people probably experience that. What I don't mind and don't
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: feel bad about is challenging myself with very little information
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: and just saying, you know what, toy, I'm gonna go
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: get better. I'm gonna do something that's gonna be really hard,
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: and at the end of the day, I'm either gonna
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: come home with something in the in the bed of
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: my truck or I'm gonna go I'm home with the
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: tags that I left with, but a whole lot smarter
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: than I was whenever I left, right, And I think,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: if you start to frame things like that, because that
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: experience is gonna make me better next September, next October,
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: next November. Because I don't know how many times on
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a hunt where I've drawn from an experience that I
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: had to three years ago. And you and I talked
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: about this where it's like maybe I saw like a
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: piece of topography that was like, oh man, I saw
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: this somewhere and I hunted it like this, and the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: deer should do this, and this is what the thermal
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: should be doing here. It's like, like you said before,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: like there's no better teacher for deer hunting than just
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: spending time in the world. But there's no pill, there's
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: no silver bullet, there's no special spray that somebody can
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: sell you that's gonna make you better at it. If
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you want to be better at it, you just have
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: to spend the time in the woods. You've got to
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: eat a little bit of a little bit of poop
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: along the way. It's going to happen, you know, and
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: you just kind of have to suck it up, you know,
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: and just get and take those bad moments or those
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: less than ideal moment and say, I'm gonna stack those
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: on this pile here, because there's always something to kind
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: of take from it, And what can I take from
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: that kind of moment. And the other thing I started
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: doing too was journaling during the course of the year
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: and just writing stuff down because it helps you really
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: remember things. And if you go back. I like that
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: at the end of the year to go back and
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: kind of start to read through my notes from the
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: entire season and see what happened on these different hunts,
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: these different dates, what the conditions were, and stuff like that.
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: And I'm always able to kind of go back and
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: in hindsight because I it's it's the whole Monday morning
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: quarterback thing. You know, hindsight is always twenty right, I can.
• 55:00
  Speaker 1: I'll go back and kind of the mistakes I made
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: are now super obvious when I go back and look
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: at it again later, Right, And you're gonna make plenty
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: of those mistakes and lacies because it's just a hard
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: time to hunt. And you you kind of take that
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: catalog and keep those notes and you go back after
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: the season you look at it, Man, you will have
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: a gold mine of information, not just scouting information of
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: like what could be in play for next September October
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: as far as food sources and you know, betting and
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, but just like your approach, your thought process,
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: what wind mapping areas for future purposes, right, and starting
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: to put those puzzle pieces together. Eventually you're gonna have
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: enough data about those areas and have built your neural
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: network enough to the point that you're gonna start killing
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: in those spots and having the types of encounters. You're
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: gonna kill that dough that's been whooping your ask for
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: ten years, you know, and then maybe you might fill
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: the tag with that target buck you've been trying to
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: kill that ends up using that as a hidie hole
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: one year. So something you said there I want to
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: expand on when when you mentioned uh kind going on
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: the late season, it's sort of freeing because it's like, well,
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: I got a couple of weeks left, I got low standards.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: What what? What you're also saying is I expect to
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: screw up, and I'm okay with that. And I think
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: this is one of the secrets to public land hunting,
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: that especially going to a new state or a new
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: chunk of public land you've never been to, where you're like,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: I got four or five days, six days whatever. That
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: people don't really realize happens to them, you know, if
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: you stay at home and you've got a lease, or
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: you hunt your grandpa's farm, or you've got some property
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: that you're you're you know, and you go, Okay, the
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: dear do this at this time of the year. So
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to do this, or I'm not going
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: to do that, or I'm gonna play this safe because
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: I know if I don't go now, I can go
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: out on Halloween when the cold front moves in and
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: I'll kill him. You're, you know, you're taking maybe the
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: right approach. It might be right to take the cautious approach,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: but you're also not really putting yourself in a very
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: good position to fail and learn from it. And when
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: you go to that new public land or you know,
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: you or your standards and you go, you know what,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out and try to kill a doe, uh,
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: you know, right before Christmas, and you don't really have
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: that pressure killing a big buck, or you don't really
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: have that pressure of like screwing up something that you
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: felt like you put a bunch into and you want
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: you don't want to be cavalier with it. And then
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: you go somewhere where you can just kind of throw
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: caution in the wind. You learn a lot about hunting
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: because you take those swings, you know, and you screw
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: up a lot, but that's how you learn. Well yeah,
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: and I mean there's not it's not a mystery as
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: to our I love when we talk about this stuff
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: because we get all like we go completely in the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: in the gutter and talking about things that may or
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: may not even be related. But you know there's a
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: reason why people or it's proven. I think it's from
• 57:41
  Speaker 1: you know, from birth to five years old, you learn
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: more information, you know, or you get more information or
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: more education than you will in the remainder of your life. Essentially,
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: like you learn the most you've ever learned in those
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: first five years of your of your life. And I
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: kind of equate that to hunting. And I almost think
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: like anyone who are not saying, like your first five
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: years because I think you know, like me, you know,
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: when you're young, you got introduced by your dad, your uncle,
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: your grandfather, whatever the cases. Pennsylvania it's twelve, and you
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: know you hunt those first whatever years. I would say
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: for any hunter that whenever they start to get serious
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: about like bow hunting, for example, it's like whenever you
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: consciously say, yeah, I'm really into this and this is
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: something I'm passionate about and I want to do it,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: and I want to get good at it, right, like
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: from that moment on the cloth, like you were just born.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: You were just born birth as a passionate bow hunter.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Those first five years should be full of you swinging
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: for the fences and and striking out a lot, because
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: that's the best opportunity you're gonna have. If you start
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: to try to kind of compartmentalize things and like seek
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: perfection for every hunt, whatever, you just kind of decide
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: you're gonna be passionate about something. Man, you are, you are.
• 58:48
  Speaker 1: You are reducing your experience opportunities immensely by not having
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: those swings and misses. When I finally got out of
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: my own way. I didn't learn this till I was older, Unfortunately,
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: when I finally got out of my own way and
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: was just like, man, you know what, I'm gonna just
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: start swinging for the fences and I'm gonna do some
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: stuff that's probably I'm gonna do stuff that people have
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: said is absolutely wrong, and I'm going to do it
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: just because, you know, because I want to see it
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: and learn it for myself. I want to see it,
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: you know. And once I started doing that, it's not
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: a mystery like all of a sudden, tags started getting filled,
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: encounters went up exponentially. I was always on on or
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: around deer. I could more easily look at maps and go, like,
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: this is where the sign should be, and just be
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: able to go to those spots and cut down my
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: scouting time and stuff like that. Like it was that
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: like willingness to just say, you know what, I'm willing
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: to just go screw some stuff up and that's okay
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: because it's actually gonna shorten things for me in the
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: long term, you know. And so now I'm able to
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: qualify thinks so much more quickly. And it's because I
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: took that more free and approach. And I think late season,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: if you're hesitant to do it, late season is a
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: great opportunity to kind of get a taste of it
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: and see if it's something you can stomach. Because it's
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: not for everybody, and I totally get that, but I
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: do think it's the fastest way to grow and get better,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: as you've got to have some failure along the way
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: and to until you explained it so eloquently there, I
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: probably would have disagreed with you a little bit and
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: said that you could get the same thing traveling out
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: of state. But I don't think so, because I think
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: it's too easy to carry the big buck thing with
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: you across state lines. And and most people travel, you know,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: they don't travel to shoot four keys. Most people don't.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: And so I totally agree with you. Now you you
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: totally convinced me that this is this is probably the
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: best path to do that. And I do think there
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: is a parallel to some extent traveling, at least from
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: the perspective of not giving yourself an out, because I've
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: seen I'm sure you've seen this too. But you know,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: you you go to whatever state, I don't care what
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: it is, and you're in a campground and there's some
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: other other hunters in there. You know, pretty common scenario, right,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: and you know they swing through and talk to you,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: you talk to them whatever. And I've been to so
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: many situations like that where I've talked to people and
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: they'll be like, yeah, you know, we've been here three
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: days and haven't seen a year yet. Or we've been here,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: you know, four days, and we're just like glass and
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: trying to find the right one. And they're not hunting.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: They're going out looking for a deer and like my
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: buddies and I we go out, we're like, Okay, we're
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: hunting every chance we can. It doesn't mean we won't
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: do some scouting and some glassing or something like that,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: but it's tied into the act of hunting somehow because
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: you learn how valuable it is, and you really learn
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: how valuable that those experiences in that time is when
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: you start having some kids and you've got those job
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: obligations and everything, and you're like, I literally do only
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: have four days to hunt? And so am I gonna
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: burn one kind of messing around trying to run trail
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: cameras when I've only got four days? Or am I
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: Am I gonna waste a second? Probably not? And you know,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I think as you get older, you realize, like, man,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: the more I put into this, the more I'm going
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: to get out of it, And that kind of situation
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: really kind of it just it just contextualized, like it
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: makes you realize like, Okay, this is this is what's
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: important about about hunting, Like this is how I kill
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: stuff and this is how I get better. You get
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: a taste of that traveling, and you certainly get a
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: taste of that when you go out and hunt pressure
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: deer in the late season to piggyback when you're when
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: you're traveling piece. I think that that like once you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: start to get like, you know, I'm not saying don't
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: do it like earlier, do whenever, whenever you want to.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: But for me, it was, you know, that was kind
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: of like the big you know test to a degree.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: It was like I had this kind of freeing experience
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and was making some mistakes and kind of willingly doing so.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: And then from there I was like, you know what,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: let's take the show on the road and see and
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: see what happens, you know. And so I'm always you know,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: every year, I'm trying to fill a tag when I
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: go out of state every year. Um, but really I'm
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: just chasing an experience, you know, it is what it is,
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: what it comes down to. Um. This year, like I said,
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: was Kansas. I never hunted Kansas before. We were in
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: an area where there weren't a lot of trees necessarily.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: I'd never hunt almost exclusively from the ground before, so
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: that was new for me, and I went into it
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: just knowing like, hey, I'm gonna have a really free
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: experience because I'm not chasing a one seventy even though
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: they're Kansas has them right, They've got giants. I was
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: chasing a good, respectable buck on public land, and it
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: was the first one that I would see is the
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: one I was gonna arrow right. And I made a
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: lot of mistakes. I mean, I had plenty of time
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: while I was out there. I had like two weeks,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: but I made a ton of mistakes, and I probably
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: made a mistake mistakes probably the first two weeks I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: was there, to be quite honest, right, because it was
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: it wasn't until the second week that I finally figured out,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: like I finally got on deer and I was starting
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: and I'll see them consistently, So it's like the puzzle
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: pieces started coming together, and it just wasn't meant to be.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Had a couple of opportunities, it just couldn't get the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: deer to kind of take the last two steps I needed,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: and and you know, and that's and that's bow honey.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: But I look back on it again, in hindsight, I'm
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: looking at it just like you know, you take a
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: late season hunt and you swing, you know, for the fences,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: and you go out willingly knowing it's gonna be hard,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: and you make some mistakes and you step back and
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: you look at it and I go, man, here are
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: like five areas where I didn't know anything about anything
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: when I got there, and now I got a lot
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: better idea about hunt from the ground sticking to the shadows.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: When I should like how soon should I draw? Or
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: one should I draw? When I have a deer approaching?
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: How do I need to set up my decoy? You
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: know what I mean? Where should I be in relationship
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: to my decoy? Like all those things that you don't
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I mean, you can watch a YouTube video, you can
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: listen to two guys wax poetically on a podcast about
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: it like that you're currently doing, you know, you know,
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: but until you go out there and actually do it
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and see it for yourself. That's whenever rubber meets road
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: and you're like, Okay, I got it, you know, and
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: it's like and you're you're way less likely to make
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: that that mistake again. But if you don't put yourself
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: in those kind of precarious situations, you know you're going
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: to be doomed to make those really fundamental mistakes. Until
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: you just go out and do it right, It's like
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: you can't you can't shell it, you yourself from those
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: from those failures, you know, forever, you gotta go out
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: and kind of kind of do. I mean, it doesn't
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: matter what deer hunter worth their salt. Anyone who's really
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: good has had those. I mean, you know, give a
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: good example like Andy May for example. I mean, just
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: like that guy. I like, all that guy does is
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: kill big deer, you know what I mean. But you know,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: if you sit and you talk to him about like
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: his approach and how he's developed it over the years, Like, yeah, man,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: he's he's swung and missed too, you know what I mean,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: Like that's that's just that's the approach. The thing we
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: only ever see is the conversation about how the successful
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: hunt went down and how smart I was and the
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: gripping grin. You know, you don't really ever see people
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: willing to kind of talk about or very few people
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: willing to talk about, Hey man, this is where I
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: screwed up along the way. You know, I had this opportunity,
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: this opportunity and just didn't just didn't work out. And
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: here are the three things I'll learned from it. Right
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: That to me is like the valuable stuff, like the
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: gripping grin is all nice to look at someone doing that,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: but someone who's willing to share with you the warts,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Like that's where the goal is. Yeah, that's that's the
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: stuff you learned from and and there is there is
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: something to the reality of like, yeah, like you said,
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: you can consume whatever you want, and I want you to.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: I'm a content ater. I'm like, please keep consuming deer
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: hunting information. Everybody like, please ramp it up, even I
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: don't care. You know, do you do you? But there's
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: there's some things that you just you you're not gonna
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: learn from me, You're not gonna learn from Andy May,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: You're not gonna learn from anyone. And I think they're
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: they're most easily understood when you take somebody who's just
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: just take somebody who's in the stage of deer hunting
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: where they've killed some those they killed some little bucks,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: and they're like, you know what, I want that first
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: big buck. I want that mature dear, whatever whatever caliber
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: it is. There's such a consistent thing that happens in
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: that stage where people tend to hit the wall for
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 1: a while, like they might, you know, have some encounters,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: but it breaks the deer's way every single time, and
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: they just timing of the draw, missing, bad shot, whatever.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: It just takes a while to get over that hump.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: And when they do, a lot of people who get
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: over that, the big buck kills become more consistent. Not
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: be every year, but it's like it's it's something changes there.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: And the other thing where you see that that real
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: world experience like that you just can't get from someone
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: else is what happens when the shot goes wrong. And
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: I ran into this. I was reading a threat on
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: something might have been both Sight or something the other day,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: and it was about gut shots and liver shots and
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: the advice that was given in there. I was like, man,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: some of these people seem like they've never actually shot
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: a deer poorly, or they're not admitting to it, or
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: they've never been on a blood trail of a gut
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: shot deer. And you know, all these other factors come
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: in right, like well, what kind of broadhead were you using,
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: What was the actual angle of the shot, like what
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: was the reaction? All this stuff that's kind of kind
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: of gets left out in an internet conversation like that
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: that you would know if you shanked it and hit
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: one in the guts, and you go, here's all the
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: things I'm factoring in because I've been down this road
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: before and I do not want to lose this. Here.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: I know I killed him. I don't know when he's
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: gonna die, but I know he's going to and I'd
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: really like to recover him. And so you don't get
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: those kind of like that kind of real world experience
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: reading about it. And like even if you post on
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: the best hunting forum in the world and you're like,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: I shot a buck in the guts, what should I do?
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: You're gonna get fifty million different answers and it's really
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: not gonna matter to your situation. Maybe there'll be some
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: maybe there'll be something that rises to the top, you know,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: like please wait X amount of hours or please do
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: this or that, But mostly you got to go through
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: that ship a bunch, whether it's something you did or
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: you're helping your buddies out or whatever, to just like
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: sort of frame your own like like the carve your
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: own path and go, uh, you know, past has told
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: me when I did this too early it was a
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 1: big mistake, or when I pushed it, or when I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: talked myself into this. I did not get that, dear,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: And when I just went to bed and got up
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: an hour before first light and got out there, I
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: found that deer a hundred and twenty yards away, stone dead.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: That kind of experience, man, it is just freaking gold.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: And you don't get it, Like you don't vicariously get it. Yeah,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: you can't get That's the one I think. It's the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: one thing I love. One of the things I love
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: most about bow hunting is that you can't cheat it.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: There is no cheating it, you know. And what you
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: were saying earlier about you know people. You know, you
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: see people given advice or whatever the case is, and
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: it seems like they may may not have ever shot
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: a bad deer or a deer poorly or whatever the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: case is. Or even whenever you start killing some decent
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: deer you hit a wall or whatever. It's like I'm
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: kind of in both camps, like I've eaten tag. Well,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: this year isn't over, but at this point I'll have
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: eaten tags for two years straight at this point in
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: multiple states. And last year I hit a good one
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: in Missouri that was that was on film, which you
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: know sucks even worse and lost it. Um. You know,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: in the year before that, I was in Iowa and
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: I missed the same deer twice, same big deer ice
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: and I kept finding him and we find him now.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: That had a happy ending because the last day of
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: the hunt, I actually shot a really good shot, a
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: really good buck at like four o'clock on my last
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: day in Iowa. Um, so things ended well. But you know,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: and I think the thing is is when you have
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: those mistakes and when you're doing this, you know you're
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: having these maybe challenges. If you will, you know, the
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: worst thing you can do for yourself is be dishonest
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: and untruthful to yourself. Like be honest and owned the outcome.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: You be accountable for whatever happened. It doesn't make you
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: a bad person. But the first thing I needed to
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: do when I missed that buck in Iowa was like
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: if I were going to have if I had any
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: hope for filling that tag and Iowa the days that
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: I had remaining after I missed him the first time,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: I had to be really honest and be accountable for
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: why I actually missed him, not any like well the
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: sun was in my eyes, you know what I mean,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: Like make up some excuse you can tell your buddies
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: to make you feel better, Like, no, it was the
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: biggest year at that point I had ever seen from
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: a tree. And I got shook and I rushed, and
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: I rushed the shot and I shot under him, plain
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: and simple, you know what I mean. Like that's that's
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: all there was. That's all there was to it. The
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: second time I missed him, I probably took a shot
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: that was ill advised because I thought I could slip
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: through in between some some brush or whatever the case was.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: And I mean I never hit the deer. Both times
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: I clean missed him. The second one was I hit
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: some debris and it just knocked knocked my air on
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: the dirt, you know. But I had to be honest
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: with myself as to why I missed. So the third
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: opportunity I got my time, you know, played played things
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: correctly and made a good shot. You know. Um the
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: one in Missouri was you know, And because I've been
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: truthful with myself, it's like I could analyze things. It
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: was on film, the shot looked awesome. When we actually
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: slowed it way down, you could see there was a
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: small branch that a small like little cedar twig that
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: was there when before I shot, and it was gone
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: after I shot, just enough to knock my arrow off
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: and kind of slap him instead of sticking, you know
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: what I mean. And that was and that was that right,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: you know. And so you just kind of have to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: own the outcomes of those things in order to get
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: in order to get better. Otherwise you're just kind of
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: cheat and just kind of cheating yourself. So that I do.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time shooting in the off
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: season working on my shot sequence. You know. That was
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: the only thing I knew to do, was to do that.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: I've put myself in the right spots. I just needed
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: to be better when the moment of truth kind of hit.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: I needed to have my ship together, you know. And
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: so that's essentially what I worked on like the past
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: two years in the off season, you know. But it's
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: like I'm still searching to try to fill a tag
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: this year. I think growth comes in different ways, man.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: You know, when you mentioned something about, you know, growing
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: as a deer as a deer hunter, it made me
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: think of something you know that really isn't even related
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: to to deer hunting to a degree, And I learned
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: this from you know, you know Dan en Fault. Everyone
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: knows Dan Legend, right, bed hunter, you know, probably one
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: of the best guys you'll ever meet, give you the
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: shirt off his back. And I've had the opportunity to
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: talk to him on my show and just text with
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: him and stuff like that. And the thing that always
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: struck me was that, you know, I think deer hunting
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: helped you know, if you're truthful to deer hunting, ultimately
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: you can become a better deer hunter. But I think
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: you can take those same principles they actually help you
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: become better at all things that you do, whether it's
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: being a husband, being a father, or whatever the case is.
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: And I remember talking to Danny. He's been really open
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: about this, just in whatever shows he's been on about
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: that he would essentially he's made mistakes and the biggest
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: regrets he has is the amount of time he's spent
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: away from family chasing the legend, so to speak. Right,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: And that dawned on me this year because it's mid
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: October laterst. October, had two really great encounters. I knew
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: where there was a good deer, a primary scrape, the
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: wind was perfect for it. Coold Front blows in, I
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: should be in the tree. My daughter had an equestrian
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: competition that morning. My choice was go to a place
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: where I knew in my gut, I knew that I
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: would probably see the deer that I had seen the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: week prior in the same spot and probably get a
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: shot opportunity at him this time. Or I'd be a
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: good dad and go to my daughter's writing competition. And
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: it was a no brainer. I went to the writing competition.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Haven't checked that camera since I don't know if that
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: deared them back through the area or not. Right. I
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: text Dan right after that and said, I think that
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: I've actually grew as a deer hunter today because I
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: made the right I made the right choice. In your
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: words were ringing in my ear as I was debating
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: on what I should do today. I made I made
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: the right choice as a as a man, and I
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: think a lot of times deer hunting and prioritizing things
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: you know, or getting in the right scenarios is about
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: prioritizing right. It's like you've got to prioritize is the
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: wind key, what's the weather? What are my thermals going
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: to do? Like you're making your list of priorities. That
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: becomes a lot easier when the priorities in your life
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: are in order and you're accountable in those areas, and
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, it becomes a lot easier
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: to be accountable in the deer woods. And so that
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: was kind of like my big learning lesson. If I
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: said I had one big growth up, you know, growth
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: spurt this year as a as a hunter, it was
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: actually having those priorities kind of in check probably led
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: to me having the encounters that I had this year
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: because I had things kind of taken care of. Dude,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: I could not agree more. I Mean, one of the
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: biggest revelations I've had in my life is when when
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: my little girls were born, I went from kind of
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: unlimited hunting time. Like I really didn't need to be home.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: So if I went out of state, I could stay
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: and you know, I would I would block off like
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: ten days, and if I didn't have anything killed, I
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 1: didn't need to go home, and so I could I
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: could stick around. And that was a huge gift, right,
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: Like I just I just took it for granted. I'm like,
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: I just I'm just gonna go untill I killed it.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: Was it was a huge part of my early success.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't have to rush things. And then
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: when we had our little girls, it was like, now
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: you're a weekend warrior and you've got four days and
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: you've got the pressure of At that point, you know,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: if I didn't kill you know, x amount of deery year,
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: I had nothing to write about. I wasn't gonna make
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: any money, and so I had I had all kinds
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: of pressure coming in. But what it made me realize,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, man, I love deer hunting and I
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: love big Bucks and the whole thing that goes along
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: with it, but it's not that I like, it's not
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: as important as I had made it before I had kids.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, at that same time, I quit drinking too,
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: and so I started to really kind of just go, man,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: my time is it's different now, Like my time is
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: my time, but a lot of it's not my time,
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: and I'm okay with that. It's my family time, it's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: my kids time. And it just it helped me get
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: to a place where when I was staring down the
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: barrel of it, my wife's pregnant with two kids, and
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: I'm like, holy sh it, this is gonna this is
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: gonna destroy everything I love. Really, what it did was
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: it just showed me like, just just use the time
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: that you have left wisely use it and you'll be happier.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: And I actually had less time to hunt and I
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: cared way less about big Bucks after that, and I
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: started just tearing it up on those short hunts, and
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: it was like the thing that was different was my mindset.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: It wasn't like you gotta go be this badass big
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: Buck hunter. It was just like, I don't know, You've
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: got four days philled tag to figure out something. Don't waste.
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: Don't waste the time you have because you've got to
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: be home, you know, Sunday night to take the girls
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: trick or treating or whatever. And it put me in
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: a place where I was just like I'm filling tags
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: like freaking crazy, and like on paper, it should have
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: went the other way. But it was like what you said,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: It was like, Okay, put prioritize what you need to
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: get your ship together and all of this stuff in
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: your life, not just targeting Big Bucks. All of it's
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: going to get better. It's a hard thing to understand
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: till you go through it. Yeah, it's it's uh, I
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: saw like a quote somewhere and I forget, I forget
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: exactly what it said, but I'm gonna I'm gonna essentially
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: butcher it. But the net net of it was, or
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: the gist of it was, is that essentially hard things
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: basically lead to it to an easy life, right. And
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: so it's like the life might look easy, but it's
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: the hard stuff that you had to do in order
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: to create that, to get that life for yourself, right,
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: And that's kind of the to me. It's like I
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: kind of look at it away with with with deer hunting,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like like going back to what we
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: were talking about with late season. It's like taking those
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: swings and misses, doing the challenging hunt, you know, and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: and and going back to what we're just talking about
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: with prioritization, like double dip, like that's my big thing. Man.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm don't get a ton of time to
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: get out, Like I try to scout as much as
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: I possibly can, and I do, and I do scout
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: a lot, but I'm always trying to use like things
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: for multiple purposes. You know. It's like even with my gear,
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: it's like my gear. I try to make things have
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: have double purposes, so I'm not carrying extra stuff, you know.
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: And so when I'm out scouting or when i'm out
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: hunting for late season, I'm actually starting to scout for
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: next year. And while I'm hunting during October, I'm actually
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: starting to scout and look at food sources and stuff
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: for a late season. So it's all that prioritization and
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: doing the hard work so the hunt is easy for
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 1: the hunts are easy, so to speak, right, the same
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: thing in life, it's like you lay the foundation, that's
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: the hard part, and then once you do that, the
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: life you get to live on top of it's pretty
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: It is pretty cake. Man. Yeah, And you know you're
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: I know that you're we should clarify something. I know
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: that you scout a ton, but you're also very targeted
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: in your approach, and there's there's something probably worth exploring
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: a little bit there as far as instead of you know,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: I think you could I think again kind of like
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: what I just talked about, you can put it on
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: paper and be like, all right, you've got ninety days
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: this year to scout, and people will be like, oh
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: my god, you're gonna figure everything out. You probably don't
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: need that. You probably need you know, a day a
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: week or I mean like a three hour block a
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: week or something would probably be a better way to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: put it instead of framing it in days. Because if
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: you if you have a targeted approach, it's like you
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: can get a lot of stuff done. You know, my
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: wife is always my wife's really good about me being gone. Now,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: like we've got through all that stuff in our lives
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: and it's it's pretty sweet. And there'll be times where
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: I'm like, i gotta go over. I just want to
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: walk this property in Wisconsin, and she'll be like, well,
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: you can be gone all weekend. I'm gonna be like
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: and I'll be like, no, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: leave super really Saturday morning and I'll be home to
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: make the girls breakfast. And she'd be like, no, you
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: can go, And I'm like, I don't need that. I
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: just need to go just scratch the itch and just
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: take this time to go look at this one spot
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: or walk this one route, and then I'll be done.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 1: It's good enough because you know, you sit at home
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: and you look at your on X and you've been
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: to places like that before maybe you've been in there
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: or somewhere similar, and you go, I just I just
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: need to know, like I just need to see this
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: in person to tie this together and know whether it's
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: worth more time or whether I'm going to show up
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: there to hunt in October and just get to a
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: point where you can you can take those little bites
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: and they're worth something. Yeah, And I think it gives
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: back to that the whole idea around prioritization that we
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: talked about. You know, a good example of that is,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: you know, this past year, um and hope if I'm
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: gonna make it back up there in the next couple
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: of weeks to to do some late season hunting, but
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: you know, there was a new piece of big woods
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: that I really wanted to tackle, you know, and not
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: that caliber a deer is everything, but you know, I
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: knew I had had a sneaking suspicion that they were
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: a really good deer in this one particular area. It's
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: it's it's it's in the hundred thousand plus kind of
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: acre range. So it's a lot to try to cover, right, Like,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: you're not gonna cover all of it, So how do
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: you how do you break something like that down and
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: how do you do it over the course of a summer.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: And I literally had three days to go scout it
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: in totality over over the summer, just because we had
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: a late snow a pilot of snow last year. The
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: snow didn't melt off very very quickly. Then when it did,
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: it just kind of went away and then spring popped,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: and so like trying to find like all the sign
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: from last year was super challenging. And so really it
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: was me prioritizing, say, all right, I'm gonna look at
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: these handful of spots and that's it. Like I could
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: get wide eyed and just like walk all over the
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: place with no purpose. But I'm gonna look at these
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: particular areas and I'm gonna run some cameras in them
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: this year, and I'm gonna qualify them and if they're
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: if they suck, then I know that they suck, and
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: I'll move into some new areas or whatever. Well, it
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: turns out I found some hammer deer. I sent you
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: some pictures of some of the deer that I had found,
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: and there are some hammers that were there. And I
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: had a chance to hunt him once this year and
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: and didn't see anything. But then now the plan is
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: to go back for late season again double dipping. I'm
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: gonna go back from late season and a crossing my
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: fingers that we get a little bit of snow so
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: I can do some track and try to backtrack them
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: to either like secondary food sources, which would be primary
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: food sources now, but what would be secondary food sources
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: during the during the fall, try to backtrack them back
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: to betting and start to try to either kill a
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: deer here in late season anything we'll do at this point,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: or I'm going to start to make a plan for
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: next year and understand where they really want to spend
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: a lot of time, because I've got some really good data.
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: I know there's killer deer there, and I know I
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: have them at night, and but I have them on
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: the cusp of like they're not far away, but just
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: I'm not in the right spot. So I need to
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: kind of tweak it and figure it out, and I
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: can go hunt it for probably two more days and
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: hang some cameras and I'll probably have a total of
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: like six days scouting this whole area, and I'll have
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: a really good idea of what they're gonna do. In
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: in in daylight for next season. And so if you
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: think about it, that's a total of like six days,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: you know, and not even eight hour not even eight
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: hour days. Gonna be honest with you, I'm I'm a
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: late riser in the off season for scouts. I like
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: to get up, have my coffee, you know, mill around
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: a little bit, and then I and then I head out, um,
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: you know, so in total, it's like I might have
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: six days on that piece, and like I said, it's
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: a total of probably like a hundred and some out
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 1: thousand acres and I've got some really good prime spots
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: to take a swing at next year. And so it's
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: just really all about prioritizing and understanding terrain, knowing what
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: habitat is there, taking a small bike, getting some data,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: and then using that data to kind of fuel your
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: your AI machine, if you will, to try and then
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: to to really kind of throw gas on the fire
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: of like, all right, now I know what I'm looking for,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: let's good find more of that, and where do I
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: see spots that looks similar to those places? Well, and
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: and and kind of tucked into that lesson, there is
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: the long game approach, and that's something we we kind
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: of we portrayed this this this image a lot of
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: times that it's like, all right, East scout, find this spot,
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: go in there, scout it hunted, killbuck, go move on whatever.
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: And when you talk to people who are pretty into
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: public land hunting and target big bucks fairly often it's
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: it's always that's the same kind of conversation. Right, Like
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: you're talking about like, yeah, I'm gonna draw Iowa next year,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: it's like, oh, have you been down to the Less Hills?
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: Have you been into this spot? Have you been into
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: that spot? And you realize that people who are doing
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: this a lot are just there. It's not like I'm
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: just scouting for this year, or it's not like you're
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: just going into a spot because you're like, I'm going
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: to kill a big Pennsylvania buck on this piece of
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: public land this year. It's like, I'm gonna go feel
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: around in here and see what kind of vibes I
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: get and if if it's right, like I'm gonna start
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: digging in a little bit deeper. And it might not
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: be this year, it might be three years from now,
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: but you might swing back around there, or you might
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: just work on it for a couple of years before
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: you even hunt it, but you're just going, is this
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: is this the place where this can happen or not?
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: And you don't you don't figure that out like right
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 1: away most of the time, you know, like I have.
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: I've had a ton of people ask me about my
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: Iowa hunt last year on public land, and you know, like,
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: how did you find that spot? Where were you know,
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: everybody wants to know where you're hunting. You know, obviously
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell them, but I I started
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: thinking about it because I didn't scout that place a ton.
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: I turkey hunted it with the intention of scouting it.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: And then I did swing through coming back from an
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: alcohunt or sorry, coming back from an antelope hunt, and
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: looked at some properties that were there that kind of
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: interested me. But I didn't have a bunch of time there.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: But I did have a bunch of time in the
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: state over the last I don't know, five or six years,
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: looking at different properties, just going like, man, I don't
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: I don't hate this ground, but the camping sucks. So
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: for my kind of hunting, it's not great or I
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: don't mind this, but there's like a lot of evidence
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: of hunters here, and so that's kind of kind of like, no,
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not really convinced. And then I found
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: the spot that I hunted, and I was like, Okay,
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: this is worth that extra investigation. Then it became worth Okay,
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: now I'm gonna pay for that freaking tag and I'm
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: gonna go down there and I'm gonna take those dates
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: and do it. But it sounds you know, you write
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: an article about it, or you talked about it on
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: a podcast whatever, it's kind of like sounds like a
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: very simple thing. But a lot of the best public
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: land hunts there's there's years built in there. Whether you're
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: at home or on the road, it's not just like
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: so simple, it's just like here's the spot and I
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: go hunt and kill one. Yeah, a lot of times,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: especially you know, out of state. For me, it's a
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of freelance um, just by nature of
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: what I do for a living and being able to
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: get away and stuff like that. But to your point,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: I played the long game at a lot of other places,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: so I get a lot of intel on like on
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: things that work and terrain features that are gonna that
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: are gonna work, and just like to your what we
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: were talking about earlier, building that neural network of information,
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: of deer hunting information. So it's like I've seen different things,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: and if I see that same thing in Iowa or
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: in Kansas or whatever, I kind of will know what
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: the setup needs to look like or whether or not
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: it's going to be an area that might that might
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: have deer. But that spot in p A is certainly
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: a long game. Like my my intention was was that
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: maybe in three years I'll kill a deer on it.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 1: And my wasn't even planning to hunt it this year,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: And truthfully, I thought, I thought it would take me
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: till next year to find good deer. And so I
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: felt like I was almost like a year ahead because
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: I got on really good deer, you know, the first
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: the first year, and I had him in daylight all
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: leading up to the phone them when they shifted, like
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: it just I was still getting them, but now I
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: was getting them, you know, getting them at night essentially,
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 1: you know. And so for that spot specifically, you know,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: next year feels like the year that I'm probably going
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: to hunt it. I'm on the fences to whether I'm not.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to travel for white tails next year, So
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: it might be my travel hunt. It will be in state,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: but it might be my my travel hunt. Um, but
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: staying true to staying true to my style. I on
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: a whim on a shotgun kind of whim. But an
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: Idaho elk tag. Never been to Idaho. Uh, probably not
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: going to get a chance to go scout or do
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: any scouting. But I'm gonna go to Idaho and wing
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: an elk hunt for for next year. So I'm gonna
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: have a little bit of both. Man, you know, the
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: other thing is too man. I really the value for
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: me in the long game came from working a lot
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: with my with my buddy Chad Sylvester. He and I
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: went to Kansas together. He killed like a hundred and
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: seventy in deer. He's just it was a hammer of
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: a buck. Great hunter. But he has a really like
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: annual kind of approach with trail cameras and TRL camera data.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: And it was spending a lot of time with him
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: and hunting with him, scouting with him, hanging to trail
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: cameras with him and stuff like that was really where
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: I learned, you know, I mean I kind of knew
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: how to do, you know, use annual data or whatever.
• 1:28:17
  Speaker 1: But the way he does it, it's just so much
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: more specific in specific areas to where once I kind
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: of understood his method, like I was able to kind
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: of poured it over to like the places I'm hunting
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: solo and stuff like that and kind of use that
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: same approach. And so I rely a lot, especially locally,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: on annual trail camera data. It's not the end all
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 1: be all. It's a tool. It's not my strategy. It
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: is a tool by which I make my strategy and
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: kind of qualifying a piece understanding, especially during the rut
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: time frame, what kind of what time certain areas are
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: going to turn on you travel corridors or over the cases,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: you know what time or deer coming through being all
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: the time, stamp them backtrack then where is the closest betting,
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: where's the closest secondary food, you know, all those types
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: of things. But I use that annual data and I've
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: watched it bear out so many times on specific deer
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: year over a year, within specific kind of like couple
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: day windows to where it's like I really start to
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: use that now going back to prioritization again to where
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: it's like, if I am going to go hunt. I'm like,
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: it's this three day window because I know, you know,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: and look, there's still deer, they're still wild animals, it's
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: still public land. They may or may not show up.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: I can guarantee you that they're going to be in
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: that area during that time frame. They may not be
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: in that spot, you know, and so that's when the scouting.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm saying the cameras are a tool, not
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: a strategy. You still need to kind of go in
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: and kind of understand what's going in in your woods
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: and where are they going to potentially be within that
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: three day window, because you can almost guarantee they're going
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: to be in the area, but where exactly and why
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: are they going to be in one spot versus another. Yeah,
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: that's his approach, and that that dude knows what he's doing.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: His approach is fascinating because we we hang cameras, we
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: check them, or you know, it's more more and more
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: cell cameras now and it's like, Okay, they're and now
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna go hunting, or they're not moving.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: Now I guess I'm not gonna go hunting. If they're moving,
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: you've already missed it. Yeah, exactly, And that's that's something.
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad you put that that way, because you know,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: I've bumped into people, uh, you know on the road
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: when I'm hunting certain chunks of public land who have
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: you know, the same amount of time as me, and
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: they're trying to run a trail camera program in like
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: four days or five days on a property they've never
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: been to. I'm like, what do you do? Like how
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: does this seem like a good idea to you? But
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: when you look at his approach and what you're doing,
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: it's it's that long game again, and it's just like, Okay,
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: you only have x amount of days, you only have
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: x amount of time, and if you have enough spots,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: you know you've got plan A, Plan B, Plan C.
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: And you're like, okay, I gotta I got a three
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: day weekend coming up. What you know, the last five
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: years this place has been on fire around Halloween, and
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you know, the conditions are setting up where it's like,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: this feels like this is it It's lining up or not.
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: It's not just going okay, well is there a big
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: buck in the It's with me because I had a
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: picture of him last week because that's a different thing, right, Yeah,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: And the funny thing is it will start to help you,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: at least for me, because hunting in you know, even
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: hunting around home for me is almost like hunting out
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: of state in terms of how much time I have
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: because of my career and stuff like that. And I'm
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: fortunate that I work remotely, so yeah, I can slip
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 1: out in the morning before work and maybe split out
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: a little bit early from my home office and get
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: out the woods, you know, after work or whatever. But
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: I'm still kind of relegated to like X amount of
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: days during the course of the year that I can
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: legitimately get out and hunt, and so I have to
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: be And I was one thing this year that I noticed,
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: like it did a lot better than I've done in
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: years past. It like I was just very strategic in
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: my strikes where it's like I was having quality sits
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: every sit And it's kind of knowing that long term
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: data as to when areas are going to be good
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: versus versus you know, potentially you know less less than
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: good so to speak, you know. But what I've kind
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: of found for me at least, and I would have
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: never thought this, you know, because I previously was always
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: kind of a run hunter, Like I loved that first
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: week in November, end of that last week of October
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: kind of time frame I'm actually changing now, Like my
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: favorite time now to hunt and when I'm actually having
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: consistently the past couple of years, when I'm having my
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: best encounters is actually that time frame like the sixteenth
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: through like rate snack dab, like the middle of the
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: low kind of time frame. Like my best encounters in
• 1:32:18
  Speaker 1: Pennsylvania this year where the sixteenth and the eighteen. You know,
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: we're the best, you know, the best hunts that I had,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: your public land hunter, right, I mean it really, dude,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: I've been preaching this a while, like you know, the
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: US preached it to me, and I've not listened to you.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: You know, I shouldn't have been listening to Tony this
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: whole time. Well, dude, I mean you just you see
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: that happen. I mean, I think there's a good window
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: in mid October any way, just generally, I think it's
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: a better window than than we kind of hunter thing.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: But I also think if you're hunting public land, you
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: know you talked about this right at the beginning, there's
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: a there's a flurry activity around the opener, and then
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: there's a flurry activity around the run, and right in
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 1: between that is a time when everybody tells you that
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: you aren't gonna move and the hunting is gonna suck,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: So people don't go hunting. And those deer react to pressure,
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: and they move around and they check scrapes, and they
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: lay down sign and they spare a little and they
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: do their thing. And if you're if you're a public
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: land hunter, the rut can really suck because the amount
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: of people out there, But two weeks before that, two
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: and a half, three weeks before that can be amazing
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: because you can just work the deer and not worry
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: about the people. Yeah. The other thing I've evolved in
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: the past couple of years to just kind of, you know,
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: piggybacking off of that, is actually October mornings over evenings,
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: Like I prefer. I feel like if I am going
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: to get any hunting pressure, it's going to be people
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: who are going to follow that, like, well, you're going
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: to use it as a reason the typical media like
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: you can't hunt mornings in October, like everyone should be
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: hunting evenings until the last week of October, They're going
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: to use that logic as an excuse to not get
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: their ass out of bed and go hunt in the
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: morning at four o'clock in the morning. I'm getting up
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: at four o'clock in the morning, getting in the woods,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm seeing them bucks till like nine, you know,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: completely unpressured, unbothered, you know, good to go. Um. So
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: I've actually changed my tune where it's like, I really
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: like the middle of October during the law is probably
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite times now, and actually October mornings
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: over evenings, Like you give me a good crisp October
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: morning over and evening, I'll take that, you know, nine
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: times out of ten. And that's just going back to
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: like having these experiences. I've taken some swings and misses,
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: you know, and I've tried some you know, I've had
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: plenty of morning hunts that failed, and plenty of evening
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: hunts that were a little bit better. But when I
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: started going back looking at like journals or carrying a
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: video camera with me, going back watching video from previous
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: mons and stuff like that, I started kind of recognizing
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: the pattern I'm like, and then looking at trail camera
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: data as well well. Again playing the long term game,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: going like, hey, this is weird when I look back
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: at my journal and then I look back at like
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: the video that I was able to capture, and I
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: look back at my trail camera activity. Man, I'm getting
• 1:34:50
  Speaker 1: a lot of natural movement in and around these prime
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: locations in this window in the middle of October, and
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: all of it in the morning. Like, well, it doesn't
• 1:34:58
  Speaker 1: I'm not a rocket scientist, you know. It's like just
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: gonna take the obvious and go like, hey, that seems
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: like a pretty good, pretty good time that I should be.
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: I should be in a tree somewhere. Yeah, you man,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: you hit on one of my that triggers me if
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: I could use a new Age term here, uh, because
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: I think you know we know where that came from, right,
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: like we can it came from people giving advice who
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: didn't you know, they can afford to wait. They have
• 1:35:22
  Speaker 1: the places where they can wait for the rut, they
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: can wait for better conditions. But it also comes from
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: our just like such a reliance on sitting food and
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: so you know, you think about early season, you're gonna
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: sit field edges and whatever if you have them available
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: in the early season up until the rut and obviously,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: like a lot of people just that's what they hunt.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: And so even even really bad hunters generally know, like
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna walk in and sit on the edge
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: of a soybean field in the morning. So it's like, well,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: I guess I shouldn't hunt, because that's the option I've
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: given myself. When you hunt pressure deer and you don't
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 1: have that that you know, destination food source option nearly
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: is available to you. And if it is available to you,
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: everybody's hunting it. You go, I gotta get in the cover,
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: and when you get in the cover, you go, oh,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: dear still move all the time when they feel safe.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: It's just they're not out in those places that are
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: easy to hunt. I mean, you know, I've killed a
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: pile of deer in September and October in the mornings,
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: and I had a I had an experience on I
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: think it was opening weekend in Minnesota, probably like six
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 1: years ago, where it was just a nice morning and
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: you know, I got dough tags, I got a buck tag,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: And I've been trying to just sit longer and longer
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: and longer, so I'm not necessarily doing all day sits
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: in the early season. But I'm getting much closer because
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, if I got a day to hunt,
• 1:36:44
  Speaker 1: i'mnna hunt. And so if I if I leave, you know,
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: like that's fine, I'll go grab a burger or something.
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: But you know, I like trying to like I like
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: trying to push myself to just be like, okay, instead
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: of getting out at ten o'clock, sit till eleven or
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: eleven thirty or twelve or whatever, like shortened that window
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: when you're gone. And I was doing that, and I
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: had seen a few deer. I think I saw a
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: little bucket some does. And then it was like at
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: that time where I was like, okay, I'm out of coffee,
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: like there's you know, it's September whatever, you know, it's
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: not going to happen. And I look over and here
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: comes this like hundred forty class buck just browsing his
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: way through the woods and he was he was close,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: but it was thick. I never got a shot at him.
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: But it was like eleven o'clock in the morning in September,
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: and I was like, God, these things are out here
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: just doing their thing, like they're not like what we
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: think we know is not what they actually do a
• 1:37:33
  Speaker 1: lot of times. And the more you kind of go, Okay,
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be a contrary and I'm gonna hunt differently
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 1: than I've been told to, you start seeing how we
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: believe these things that just simply are not true out
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: there in the deer woods. Yeah, I mean, if you
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: look at you know, colored deer data and stuff like that,
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: it's they're just not moving. I mean, they still have
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: to move, like, they gotta get up, they gotta stretch,
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: they gotta take a leak. They I mean they eat
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: what is it five times a day, I think is
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 1: what it is, right if I'm not if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: So they've got to go eat at some point where
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: they're bedded down. So if you think about it realistically,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: right during the course of twenty four hours, if they
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: get back to bed at six o'clock, like they've got
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: to get up sometime around ten to go grab a
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: munch somewhere, you know what i mean. So it's like,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think during that time of year, Yeah,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: it's important to be like up in their wheelhouse. I'm
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: not saying you need to hunt like necessarily right over
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 1: their bed, but the closer you are to it, obviously,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: the better off you are, you know. But they're not
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of opportunities. But if you can kind of
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: get in tight to where they're gonna want to spend
• 1:38:28
  Speaker 1: their daylight hours, they're gonna have to at some point
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: get up, you know, and and feed, take a leak,
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: you know, go to the bathroom, whatever the case is.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: And I think you're right, you know, I think that
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: they do. You know, they do move a lot more
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: and they I don't want to say it can be
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: easily killed, but they are more killable than we want
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: to they we want to think they are during that
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: earlier part of the season. Again, I think a lot
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: of this stuff comes down to, you know, excuses for
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: not wanting, for not wanting to the same reason why
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: people blow off late season, right dear, aren't gonna move.
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: They're all hold up after gun season. There's no food around.
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: I don't have a bean field to sit over, so
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to hunt. You know, those are aren't reasons,
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: their excuses, you know, because those deer are still there somewhere.
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 1: You know. That's the one frustrating thing I think, you know,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: should I shouldn't be on social media during like hunting
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: season in general. But but you know, a lot of
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: during you know, the p A gun season at least,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: you get a lot of people saying there's no deer
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: on the Pennsylvania game Lands. You know, I don't see
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 1: any deer. There's no deer in this section or this
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: section or whatever the case is. And it's frustrating because
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: you just you know, it's it's not true, right, but
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 1: some people just like take it as the gospel if
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 1: they're not seeing dear that there's that there's no deer there.
• 1:39:40
  Speaker 1: But the reality is is like, have you been sitting
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: that place for fifteen years and has the habitat changed
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: around you? That clear cut that was good fifteen years
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: ago is now fifteen years old, you know, or whatever
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: it is, right, And it's just frustrated to me. To me, like,
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: I just always feel like this is maybe like a
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: jerk thing to say, But anytime I see someone post
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: something like that, you just sent up a red why
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: that you don't know what you're doing, you know, And
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: to me, that's what I take that as. And that
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: might be a jerk thing to say, but that's immediately
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: what I think. I'm like, you're actually not a deer hunter.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: You're dear You're you're a dear sitter. You know, you're
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: a dear waiter. You know what I mean is is
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: what it comes down to? Well, yes, and that's what
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: you know to circle back and tie a bow on
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: this whole thing. That's what we've been preaching all along
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: is get out there. Just get out there and find out.
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: You know, like I said, you know, I spend my
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: free time chasing dogs through cattail slews right now, Like
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 1: that's I live for it. I love it. And the
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: amount of deer that I see and the amount of
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: beds that I find on public land right after the
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: gun season went through is always incredible to me. And
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: I promise you I could go into every dive bar
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: and all these little towns and start talking to anybody
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: wearing camel or blaze orange and be like, hey, do
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: you think there's any deer left on that you know
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: are of public land right outside of town? And they'd
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: be like, you know, this guy's crew hunts through there.
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 1: That guy's crew hung so that there's no way and
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: those deer are in there and they never left. So
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: we now know if Tony shows up on the next
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: Mediator show with a Black Eye. Will now know what
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: conversation Tony had at the bar this week? Yep, Well
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: I don't. I don't spend a lot of time in
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: bars right now, but I would promise you forgot about that.
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: I promise you that I could find people. I know
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: that that mentality is out there, and I know that
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: it's it is not good for you as an individual hunter.
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: If you want to have more fun out there, fill
• 1:41:32
  Speaker 1: more tags, and and and just become better. We gotta
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: wrap this up, buddy one. One last question. You've got
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: a buck tag left in p A. You got do
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: tags left. Let's talk about that buck take for just
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: half a second. You said before it's green Light City.
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: If he comes through, what's what's where? Did? Where did
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: your standards drop to now with that buck tag? Oh man,
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: that's a tough one. Um. I'm always kind of This
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: year is a little different than most, I'll put I'll
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: put it that way. There is a particular deer that
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: has caught my fancy. Um, and I've told myself at
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: the beginning of the year, and I hate doing this.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: I typically don't chase a a single deer, especially on
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: public land, but this guy is just really unique. Um
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: and I know I figured out where he was betted
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: too late and when he when he shifted essentially like October.
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: He mid October he started moving and I just I
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: kind of lost him. And I caught up with him
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: around the twenty and again around the twenty seven, and
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: I missed him by a day two different times. He
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: is kind of the deer that I'm after tim or
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: bust for me, essentially. But I will put it this
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: way that if a good looking Pennsylvania public land buck
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: comes by that makes me get excited, I'm gonna stick
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: an arrow on him. So I'm gonna I'm gonna academically
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: say the one deer that I'm after, because he's the
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: one I've been kind of obsessing over this year. But
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: the reality is, if it gets my heart a pitter pattern,
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: then there should there could be some carbon flye and
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: you you should work in the outdoor industry because that
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: was a great lesson in weasel words right there. Yeah
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: you like that. Yeah, you didn't fin yourself down to anything.
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: You left yourself and out to shoot a little one.
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: But we don't know how small it is. We know
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: you're targeting a big one. I love it, man, Clint.
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: Where can everybody find your podcast? Your social media all
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: that stuff. Yeah, you can follow me at Truth from
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: the Stand on Instagram and Facebook Active. There got some
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: stuff up on YouTube and the podcast is Truth from
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: the Stand Deer Hunting Podcast. You can find that everywhere
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: that podcasts are available. Awesome, Thanks Buddy, Thanks Buddy, appreciate it.
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: That's it for this week, folks. Be sure to tune
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: in next week for more white tailey goodness. This has
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: been the Wire to Hunt podcast and I'm your guest host,
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 1: Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so much for listening.
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: And if you're looking for more white tail content, be
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: sure to check out the meat eator dot com slash
• 1:43:53
  Speaker 1: wired to see a pile of new articles each week
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: by Mark myself and a whole slew of white tail addicts,
• 1:43:58
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• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: to view the weekly content we put up m