Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 935: Back 40 - From Good to Great: The Critical Mistake Most Hunters Still Make

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Ep. 935: Back 40 - From Good to Great: The Critical Mistake Most Hunters Still Make · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: People are their own worst enemy in that they're harvesting
0:04
Speaker 1: that year that they want just a year or two
0:06
Speaker 1: too early. So I would say the biggest thing you
0:09
Speaker 1: could do to go from that good to great category
0:12
Speaker 1: is be much more selective on what you're harvesting.
0:14
Speaker 2: We are back with another episode of Back forty Podcasts,
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Speaker 2: brought to you by land dot com, the leading online
0:20
Speaker 2: real estate marketplace to find your perfect rural, recreational, agricultural,
0:24
Speaker 2: or hunting properties here in the US. And this week
0:28
Speaker 2: we're diving into another topic. We all want to get
0:31
Speaker 2: better every season. We want to just incrementally get a
0:33
Speaker 2: little better. And this is rooted to get the expert
0:37
Speaker 2: panels to share something that maybe you're going to overlook
0:41
Speaker 2: this season unless you listen to this episode. And it's
0:43
Speaker 2: the biggest mistake hunters make from being good to great.
0:46
Speaker 2: And each guest has a different little take a different
0:49
Speaker 2: perspective on this. And I think that by the time
0:51
Speaker 2: you listen to this year, you're going to be able
0:52
Speaker 2: to take eight different things more than likely to have
0:56
Speaker 2: your season hopefully go a little bit better. And I
1:00
Speaker 2: often wonder you're finding success. You're you know, you're shooting
1:03
Speaker 2: good deer having good luck and he just wanted to
1:05
Speaker 2: get better. We're ready to dive into our expert panels
1:09
Speaker 2: without further ado. Let's get into the earning question and
1:12
Speaker 2: whytail dilemma for this week on back forty. First off,
1:19
Speaker 2: we have Jeff Sturgist to share what he believes keeps
1:22
Speaker 2: good hunters from being great. Here we go.
1:25
Speaker 3: You know, and I could see once you hit that
1:27
Speaker 3: private land set up, it's more in maintenance mode. Your
1:31
Speaker 3: public land hunting is scouting and verifying. There's some things
1:34
Speaker 3: you look at there. But I really feel like that
1:39
Speaker 3: to be a part of that five percent club less
1:43
Speaker 3: is more. I think one of the things that you
1:45
Speaker 3: can buck tradition on is in not fall for a
1:47
Speaker 3: lot of honisms out there, and one of the big
1:49
Speaker 3: ones that has kept a lot of people back that
1:53
Speaker 3: has been a quote tried and true huntism for decades
1:56
Speaker 3: and decades is you can't kill him from the couch
1:59
Speaker 3: and firm believe. I wrote an article a long time
2:01
Speaker 3: ago and it was about you know, I had I
2:04
Speaker 3: think I was flanked by a couple one hundred and
2:06
Speaker 3: sixty five hundred and seventy inch bucks that shot the
2:08
Speaker 3: year before by sitting, you know, one time for you know,
2:13
Speaker 3: six times for per buck, something like that, seven times
2:16
Speaker 3: per buck. But the point is that you can kill
2:19
Speaker 3: them from the couch, and you do that by being patient.
2:23
Speaker 3: And so there's one way to look at it is
2:27
Speaker 3: you have this select spot on public land, it's a
2:30
Speaker 3: little island to go in and hunt. There's a certain
2:32
Speaker 3: mature buck there. It's almost like you have to beat
2:34
Speaker 3: everybody in there and that, and there's truth to that,
2:37
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying there's not certain really high pressure
2:41
Speaker 3: situations where you're competing with neighbors almost and you want
2:46
Speaker 3: to get in and shoot the certain box. You're going
2:48
Speaker 3: to go, throw all cautions to the wind. You're going
2:50
Speaker 3: to that best spot. I don't choose to hunt those areas.
2:54
Speaker 3: If it's high competition like that, likely there's not a
2:57
Speaker 3: mature buck there to begin with. If there's that many
2:59
Speaker 3: people hunting it in that location. I'd rather go to
3:01
Speaker 3: a spot that had fewer deer, maybe less sign even
3:08
Speaker 3: in some of those areas out in Ohio public Land
3:11
Speaker 3: that I've hunted than the shawnee. I'd rather go in
3:13
Speaker 3: an hour and not see anybody than go in twenty minutes.
3:16
Speaker 3: And have tons of sign and see a lot of
3:18
Speaker 3: people knowing the mature boxer three quarters a mile away.
3:21
Speaker 3: So I like going to those areas where those there's
3:24
Speaker 3: not that pressure anyways. But then once you find those areas,
3:28
Speaker 3: being more of a tactician using the weather is critical
3:31
Speaker 3: to me. And unfortunately, there's a lot of movement studies
3:34
Speaker 3: out there, scientific movement studies that'll show that, well, deer
3:37
Speaker 3: just move consistently in the morning in the afternoon. I
3:39
Speaker 3: like to look at in terms of extremes, for example,
3:42
Speaker 3: a blizzard. If there's a blizzard, deer aren't moving. They
3:45
Speaker 3: might move right before, they'll move when it breaks, but
3:49
Speaker 3: when the blizzard's coming down, they're in a heidi hole somewhere.
3:52
Speaker 3: Not they don't get up and brows, but they're not
3:55
Speaker 3: moving long movements. Same with thunderstorm, high winds forty to
3:59
Speaker 3: fifty miles sixty million hour winds now. Maybe that's normal
4:01
Speaker 3: out in your area in the plane state somewhere, but
4:05
Speaker 3: typically it's not and it suppresses deer movement. And so
4:08
Speaker 3: if you look at the combination of all those things,
4:10
Speaker 3: severe heat, even severe cold, sometimes deer won't move in
4:15
Speaker 3: the morning hours when it's negative twenty, but as soon
4:18
Speaker 3: as it warms up to plus fifteen at eleven o'clock
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Speaker 3: in the morning, they're on their feet because they're conserving
4:23
Speaker 3: energy when it's cold, and they can expend more energy
4:26
Speaker 3: and conserve it at the same time while they're eating
4:28
Speaker 3: when it's a little bit warmer.
4:30
Speaker 4: We'll put all.
4:30
Speaker 3: Those factors together, temperature change, extremes of temperature, extremes of winds,
4:35
Speaker 3: extremes of weather, and it's obvious that your movement is
4:40
Speaker 3: suppressed when there are at extremities. So if you take
4:44
Speaker 3: those into an account and you look at the weather,
4:48
Speaker 3: to me, you can predict when there's going to be
4:51
Speaker 3: decent times to hunt when there's not. Now, maybe you
4:54
Speaker 3: just have to hunt on the weekends. There's nothing you
4:56
Speaker 3: can do about it.
4:57
Speaker 2: But even then you can.
4:58
Speaker 3: Make wise choices on stand selection and save your best stands,
5:02
Speaker 3: not for your first set, for when the conditions of
5:06
Speaker 3: the weather are optimum during that weekend. Said, maybe you
5:09
Speaker 3: have a three day weekend and your boss will let
5:12
Speaker 3: you take a Friday instead of a Monday, and you
5:14
Speaker 3: can let him know at the last minute, hey, I'm
5:17
Speaker 3: gonna take Friday off instead of Monday because that's the
5:19
Speaker 3: way the weather's slanting, so by the time you're putting yourself.
5:23
Speaker 3: I shot a lot of bucks on a common lease
5:25
Speaker 3: I shared with a friend of mine. I shot twice
5:28
Speaker 3: as many bucks as he did, and it was really more.
5:33
Speaker 3: He was a really good hunter. He shot a lot
5:34
Speaker 3: of amazing bucks. Two hundred and some engine Kansas for example.
5:38
Speaker 3: He shot some monsters. But on that lease that we shared,
5:42
Speaker 3: I would let him pick his stand first out of
5:45
Speaker 3: the seventeen, and I'd pick what was left over. I
5:48
Speaker 3: always search for not our favorite stand, not even both
5:52
Speaker 3: the best stand, but the stand that had the least
5:54
Speaker 3: amount of pressure. And so I'd look at an area
5:57
Speaker 3: that I thought we hadn't pressured for two or three weeks,
6:00
Speaker 3: little hight hidden corner. And your favorite stand should always
6:04
Speaker 3: be the next stand you shoot a buck out of,
6:06
Speaker 3: not the last. And so if you hold true to
6:09
Speaker 3: some of your favorites, yeah they'll pay off here and there.
6:12
Speaker 3: But if you want to be in that five percent
6:14
Speaker 3: club shoot bucks eighty percent of the time your target bucks,
6:17
Speaker 3: then you have to do things a little bit different.
6:19
Speaker 3: And oftentimes that is on that property. Over that same
6:24
Speaker 3: year period of time, I shot seventeen bucks out of
6:27
Speaker 3: fourteen stands. I think he shot nine bucks out of
6:31
Speaker 3: two stands and eight out of one stand. And it
6:33
Speaker 3: was because he loved that horse we called the thorstbasher stand,
6:36
Speaker 3: and he loved going to it, and that was just
6:38
Speaker 3: vacation though you like going to it. He'd sit there
6:41
Speaker 3: doggedly and he loved that stand, and oh that was
6:44
Speaker 3: fine too. But those are some of the things I
6:47
Speaker 3: think that take to be a little bit different.
6:49
Speaker 2: There you have it. That's what Jeff has to say.
6:51
Speaker 2: I think fallen into hunting isms that can often be
6:54
Speaker 2: a trap, and you have to blaze your own path
6:56
Speaker 2: and figure out what works for you. And obviously it's
6:58
Speaker 2: worked for Jeff over the years. Next we have Don Higgins.
7:01
Speaker 2: Here's what he has to say. This is the biggest
7:04
Speaker 2: mistake from good hunters to great hunters. What is it?
7:09
Speaker 2: That's easy?
7:10
Speaker 5: I think that there's a lot of deer hunters out
7:12
Speaker 5: there that are very good at what they do, and
7:15
Speaker 5: they have got so good and so proficient at killing
7:20
Speaker 5: middle aged bucks like this called middle aged bucks, that
7:24
Speaker 5: they cannot change what they're doing to kill the next
7:28
Speaker 5: class of bucks. They're so stuck in their ways. You know,
7:32
Speaker 5: this has worked for me in the past. I just
7:34
Speaker 5: need to keep doing it and eventually I will kill older,
7:37
Speaker 5: bigger bucks. Well, older bigger bucks require a different set
7:41
Speaker 5: of rules. And I think that there's a lot of
7:44
Speaker 5: guys that have become so successful at killing three and
7:47
Speaker 5: four year old bucks that they just can't break those
7:50
Speaker 5: habits and habits that they've got to break if they
7:53
Speaker 5: want to consistently shoot five, six, seven, eight year old
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Speaker 5: whatever older bucks, because they're totally an animal. They played
8:01
Speaker 5: by a totally different set of rules, and the hunter's
8:03
Speaker 5: got to play by a different set of rules. And
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Speaker 5: I can't tell you countless hunters that I consider good
8:09
Speaker 5: hunters will never become great hunters because they just can't
8:14
Speaker 5: quit doing things that have worked on lesser bucks.
8:17
Speaker 2: How often do you have that conversation with someone that
8:20
Speaker 2: sends you an email, reaches out, runs into you at
8:23
Speaker 2: a trade show or speaking event. They're like, don I
8:26
Speaker 2: feel like I'm here, but I really want to get here?
8:28
Speaker 2: And then what's the reaction he say, well, you gotta
8:30
Speaker 2: stop shooting good bucks? Are they do? They say? Good point,
8:33
Speaker 2: I agree or no, I need to find different spot
8:35
Speaker 2: because I need to go find the great opportunities and
8:39
Speaker 2: keep my pattern.
8:40
Speaker 5: Yeah, and you know another thing is I can tell
8:44
Speaker 5: if a guy's never going to be a great hunter,
8:46
Speaker 5: he's gonna be running down great hunters. He's going to
8:49
Speaker 5: be making excuses. But for why does that guy always
8:52
Speaker 5: shoot giants? Well, he he's got lots of money, and
8:58
Speaker 5: he leases all this ground, he owns this great property.
9:01
Speaker 5: And or in my case, they'll say he turns loose pennies.
9:06
Speaker 5: You know, they've always got an excuse for why the
9:08
Speaker 5: other guy's doing it and why they aren't. If a
9:10
Speaker 5: guy's making excuses, he's never going to be a great hunter.
9:15
Speaker 5: I say that you've got a choice in life. And
9:18
Speaker 5: it's not just with deer hunting. It's with a lot
9:19
Speaker 5: of things. You can make excuses or you can find solutions.
9:24
Speaker 5: And there's too many guys out there making excuses for
9:27
Speaker 5: other people instead of finding solutions to their own issues.
9:31
Speaker 5: And maybe it's the place they're hunting. Maybe they need
9:33
Speaker 5: to spend more effort, Maybe they need to go out
9:35
Speaker 5: of state, you know, maybe they're stuck in a state
9:37
Speaker 5: like Michigan where there are no bucks the caliber they
9:39
Speaker 5: want to shoot. They need to spend their effort on
9:42
Speaker 5: finding places in other states, you know, like Iowa, Illinois, Ohio,
9:48
Speaker 5: come to the Midwest where those giants exist, and even
9:52
Speaker 5: at that, it might take years to find the right property,
9:54
Speaker 5: the right situation. But you can make excuses why somebody
9:58
Speaker 5: else is successful and you're not, or you can find
10:00
Speaker 5: solutions to your own situation. And that separates good hunters
10:04
Speaker 5: from great hunters.
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Speaker 2: That's Don's take here on this. And I think there's
10:08
Speaker 2: a lot of really good hunters and you heard it
10:11
Speaker 2: from him. What kind of separates the pack, for lack
10:14
Speaker 2: of a better way to say it, from being good
10:17
Speaker 2: to great? And that's his perspective, and next step we
10:19
Speaker 2: have skipsly on his take. What do you think is
10:23
Speaker 2: the biggest mistake hunters make from being good to great?
10:25
Speaker 2: They've killed noe on a five year period. They're shooting
10:30
Speaker 2: some good bucks, and it's human nature. People want to
10:32
Speaker 2: do better, constantly improved, and so wherever they're at in
10:35
Speaker 2: the country and whatever their standards are, they would identify
10:38
Speaker 2: as good, but they want to be great. What's the
10:40
Speaker 2: mistake that maybe's holding the.
10:42
Speaker 6: Back trigger management and discipline. I would say most people
10:51
Speaker 6: can't do it well. I've shot one sixties that are
10:55
Speaker 6: five year olds, and I really do want to shoot
10:58
Speaker 6: a giant buck. Okay, then that means that next time
11:01
Speaker 6: there's maybe a one sixty or one seventy that's five
11:05
Speaker 6: that walks by you. You know, as long as you knew,
11:08
Speaker 6: like there is some bigger deer in the area, or
11:10
Speaker 6: he could you know, maybe I'll hunt him next year,
11:12
Speaker 6: you can let him go, And a lot of times
11:14
Speaker 6: that's what That's how I'll get a lot of the
11:18
Speaker 6: deer I've got over the years. It's like that deer was,
11:22
Speaker 6: you know, one sixty five with a kicker at five
11:26
Speaker 6: years old, and I'm like, now, let's just see what
11:28
Speaker 6: happens with him. Well, a lot of guys can't let
11:30
Speaker 6: that deer go. Well, it's kind of it's kind of statistics.
11:36
Speaker 2: If your goal.
11:39
Speaker 6: Was to shoot a three year old, for example, you're
11:41
Speaker 6: almost always going to shoot a three year old, because
11:44
Speaker 6: for every five year old you see usually my like
11:49
Speaker 6: loose math, I'm making this up, but I might have
11:52
Speaker 6: to pass fifteen three year olds before I get a
11:56
Speaker 6: chance at a five year old. It could be math
11:58
Speaker 6: like that, very simple. So if my goal was a
12:01
Speaker 6: three year old, the chance of getting a five year old,
12:03
Speaker 6: so minimal because I'm going to tag out, I'm gonna
12:05
Speaker 6: shoot a three year old, and I'm gonna get so
12:07
Speaker 6: many more opportunities to those. Well, if my goal was
12:11
Speaker 6: I do want to shoot a giant and I know
12:13
Speaker 6: he's in the area, he's there's a one ninety that's
12:16
Speaker 6: six or seven years old, and there's also a couple
12:18
Speaker 6: five year olds in there, and some four year olds
12:20
Speaker 6: that are you know, one hundred and sixty hundred and seventy.
12:24
Speaker 6: You can't shoot those, and you probably will get a
12:27
Speaker 6: chance those those lesser bucks, And if you can't hold yourself,
12:32
Speaker 6: you know, discipline yourself, you're gonna end up shooting those
12:34
Speaker 6: and not get the giant one. And then the other
12:37
Speaker 6: thing where I see going from good to great is
12:42
Speaker 6: folks don't understand how many different items in hunting habitat
12:47
Speaker 6: down the list. It depends what level you take it,
12:50
Speaker 6: how many different eyes to dot and tease, it to cross,
12:54
Speaker 6: how many different mistakes you can make, and how many
12:57
Speaker 6: how many different things you need to do, you know,
13:00
Speaker 6: to shoot great bucks too. May if you're in the habitat,
13:02
Speaker 6: I could be like, here's a list of twenty things
13:05
Speaker 6: that you have to do or ten or five or whatever.
13:08
Speaker 6: It's a long list though, And it's the same with hunting.
13:10
Speaker 6: There's all these things. When you get to that kind
13:13
Speaker 6: of like top level stuff that you know, there's so
13:16
Speaker 6: many eyes to dot and teas to cross.
13:18
Speaker 2: It's crazy.
13:19
Speaker 6: And usually when guys are like, I have a giant farm,
13:23
Speaker 6: money is not an object, and I don't have good
13:26
Speaker 6: results and I'm a good hunter. You start going through
13:29
Speaker 6: and you're like, dude, you've got a list on habitat
13:32
Speaker 6: hunting techniques, how much you hunt. That's like one hundred
13:37
Speaker 6: items long. If you really start going through it all
13:39
Speaker 6: and say it, say it was twenty items long, and
13:44
Speaker 6: it's it's actually longer than that, but say it's twenty
13:46
Speaker 6: and you go through it with anybody that's like, I'm
13:48
Speaker 6: not satisfied with the results. I'm just I'm not shooting
13:52
Speaker 6: giants like people would think I should be. I don't
13:55
Speaker 6: want to admit this to anybody, and I have these
13:57
Speaker 6: conversations quite often. I don't want to publicly that I'm
14:00
Speaker 6: I'm very disappointed in my farm. They're missing all these things,
14:04
Speaker 6: all these common mistakes that I see it all the
14:08
Speaker 6: time that they need to fix, and it's if you
14:12
Speaker 6: want to do it, it's a it's a lot of work.
14:14
Speaker 6: People do not understand how much work and how many
14:18
Speaker 6: different things go into doing it, you know, at the
14:23
Speaker 6: top level. And so a lot of people will say, well,
14:25
Speaker 6: then I don't want to do it at the top level,
14:27
Speaker 6: and that's fine. That's that's the majority of people, right,
14:31
Speaker 6: And I totally understand that. But it is it's a
14:34
Speaker 6: lot of time and it's a lot of dedication, you know.
14:38
Speaker 6: On the other side, that too, it's not as much
14:42
Speaker 6: as is what people think. I mean, it's a lot
14:44
Speaker 6: of time and effort. But the same people are like, well,
14:47
Speaker 6: I can't do all that stuff. It's like, how much
14:49
Speaker 6: time do you waste on other stuff? Really, how much
14:52
Speaker 6: time do you do you blow on watching TV and
14:56
Speaker 6: sitting on your phone? Take out your phone, go look
14:59
Speaker 6: go the settings and to go to screen time and
15:04
Speaker 6: look at how much time did I waste on all
15:06
Speaker 6: these things? Hey, I could have been doing all these
15:08
Speaker 6: things for hunting. If that's what you wanted, I want
15:10
Speaker 6: to shoot a giant buck, Maybe your time should be
15:13
Speaker 6: utilized to that stuff. And I'm not saying that's the
15:16
Speaker 6: most important thing hunting if it's not the most important
15:20
Speaker 6: thing in my life, but if I want to be
15:23
Speaker 6: good at it, and it's like something, hey, I do
15:25
Speaker 6: want to be really good at it.
15:26
Speaker 2: It's just going to take a lot of time.
15:27
Speaker 6: And there's a lot of details to this stuff, a
15:30
Speaker 6: lot of details, and that only comes, you know, figuring
15:34
Speaker 6: some of those details out.
15:35
Speaker 2: Well, what are those details? How do I do them?
15:37
Speaker 6: It just takes time that you naturally acquire some every
15:40
Speaker 6: year as you grow as a hunter. I mean, you
15:43
Speaker 6: could say I was a good hunter at twenty five,
15:45
Speaker 6: and I was probably good hunter, but the amount of
15:47
Speaker 6: things I didn't know at twenty five that I know
15:50
Speaker 6: now is astounding, And the things I'll probably know in
15:53
Speaker 6: ten years versus today will probably be substantially different. I'm
15:59
Speaker 6: constantly trying new things, learning new things, being like old self.
16:03
Speaker 2: You did some really dumb things. Let's fix this, let's
16:07
Speaker 2: try new things.
16:07
Speaker 6: You know, good hunters are constantly evolving and learning new
16:11
Speaker 6: things and admitting that they don't have it all figured out.
16:15
Speaker 2: After listening to that, you probably realize there's a lot
16:17
Speaker 2: of different things that go into being a great hunter,
16:19
Speaker 2: whether it's managing your ground properly, how often you hunt it?
16:22
Speaker 2: All the things that he said, and I couldn't agree more.
16:23
Speaker 2: And as you're going through the season, I think you
16:25
Speaker 2: have to ask yourself those questions and make sure that
16:27
Speaker 2: you're doing the right thing at the right time. And
16:29
Speaker 2: if you screw up, that's okay, keep note of it
16:32
Speaker 2: and try not to make the same mistake twice. Next
16:34
Speaker 2: up we have Steve Hanson. Here we go. What do
16:37
Speaker 2: you think is the biggest mistake hunters make from being
16:40
Speaker 2: good to great? There's a lot of good hunters out there.
16:42
Speaker 2: With all the tools we have, I feel the bar
16:45
Speaker 2: of good hasn't gotten lower, but people have gotten more proficient, sure,
16:49
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people obviously want to
16:50
Speaker 2: get better. Everyone wants to get better every year, right,
16:52
Speaker 2: So what are some things that you think or what's
16:54
Speaker 2: one thing that keeps guys from being good to them
16:58
Speaker 2: getting up to the next level of being proficient or
17:01
Speaker 2: being more efficient? With proficient and efficient.
17:04
Speaker 1: Sure is, you know, if someone's looking at they're judging
17:10
Speaker 1: this by the calibler of deer that they're harvesting, so
17:13
Speaker 1: they're wanting to go from good deer to great deer.
17:16
Speaker 1: Ninety percent of the time, I would say people are
17:20
Speaker 1: their own worst enemy in that they're harvesting that deer
17:24
Speaker 1: that they want just a year or two too early.
17:27
Speaker 1: So I would say the biggest thing you could do
17:29
Speaker 1: to go from that good to great category is be
17:32
Speaker 1: much more selective on what you're harvesting, because obviously those
17:35
Speaker 1: deer live on the property you're hunting. You figured them
17:38
Speaker 1: out enough if you pass them up at you know,
17:41
Speaker 1: if your goal is a one seventy and you shoot
17:43
Speaker 1: this one at one fifty five, well that was most
17:45
Speaker 1: likely you're one seventy one year, one year down the road.
17:49
Speaker 1: So I would say that would be you know, being
17:51
Speaker 1: able to judge deer and pass deear up is probably
17:54
Speaker 1: going to be the biggest thing, biggest difference I know
17:56
Speaker 1: of the guys that truly kill high end deer every
17:58
Speaker 1: year and the ones that always want to and seem,
18:01
Speaker 1: you know, to be a year behind so to speak.
18:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you think trigger discipline is the biggest That
18:07
Speaker 2: would be the biggest thing that I see for sure.
18:09
Speaker 2: So what about for the guy that once goes first
18:12
Speaker 2: pope and young buck that yeah, you know again, I
18:17
Speaker 2: think of like Pennsylvania, Michigan or Ohio, where right, you know,
18:20
Speaker 2: like the each state in each area has a different
18:23
Speaker 2: ceiling or potential ceiling.
18:24
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, if if your goal is
18:27
Speaker 1: is that and that is something you haven't attained up
18:29
Speaker 1: to that point, you've got a one hundred percent focus
18:32
Speaker 1: on hunting where they are, if they're If a poping
18:35
Speaker 1: young deer is a rare deer in your neighborhood, then
18:39
Speaker 1: move to where one is, go scout more, find one,
18:42
Speaker 1: but don't invest your time hunting where what you're after
18:45
Speaker 1: isn't you know, If there's not one there, you can't
18:47
Speaker 1: get them. I don't care how good of a shot
18:49
Speaker 1: you are. I don't care how many hours you put
18:51
Speaker 1: in the stand. So at that point, if your goal
18:53
Speaker 1: is to up your game to whatever the next level is,
18:56
Speaker 1: make sure that that target animal exists where you're you know,
19:01
Speaker 1: and then devote more time to If you don't have one,
19:03
Speaker 1: devote more time to scouting than hunting, even if it
19:06
Speaker 1: means you've got a scout during the hunting season. You know,
19:09
Speaker 1: I see way too many people that just pile into
19:11
Speaker 1: a stand and sit there all day because they're hunting,
19:13
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Where I would rather say, hey,
19:15
Speaker 1: I don't even have a buck to hunt. It's October
19:18
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, it's nice and cold out, but they've just
19:19
Speaker 1: harvested all this corn. I'm going to drive around tonight
19:22
Speaker 1: in glass. I'm gonna see if I can find one.
19:24
Speaker 1: Then I find one, then I'm back in the game again.
19:26
Speaker 1: But if you don't have one to hunt, just randomly
19:29
Speaker 1: sitting in a stand a lot of days may not
19:31
Speaker 1: pay off.
19:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's Steve's take on this white tail pondering question.
19:37
Speaker 2: Next up we have Bill Winki. Here we go. This
19:40
Speaker 2: is the biggest mistake hunters make from being good to great.
19:44
Speaker 2: So they have some success, and you know, this panel
19:49
Speaker 2: of experts, they aspire to be as efficient or as
19:53
Speaker 2: successful as everyone that I'm interviewing for this series. What
19:57
Speaker 2: are you doing different than a good hunter?
19:58
Speaker 7: I'll just hunt better spots usually, you know. And I think, gosh,
20:04
Speaker 7: I learned an article Conbucon's volting back is a long
20:07
Speaker 7: long ago, and I said, I bet you if we
20:11
Speaker 7: if we took the best deer hunter in the United States,
20:16
Speaker 7: it'd be somebody who hunts public land in Pennsylvania or
20:20
Speaker 7: Michigan or somewhere like that. In the shooting two and
20:22
Speaker 7: a half year old bucks every year. That that guy
20:27
Speaker 7: you're trying to loose in some spots that I get on,
20:29
Speaker 7: he's probably gonna be at least as successful as war
20:33
Speaker 7: than what I am. So that the real game is
20:38
Speaker 7: the diligence and the time and the commitment to find
20:42
Speaker 7: in those bucks to hunt in the first place. And
20:46
Speaker 7: you know, that's really what it boils down too. There's
20:48
Speaker 7: there's almost because the skills involved. Everybody can learn those.
20:53
Speaker 7: If you can learn, you know, the stuff we've been
20:56
Speaker 7: talking about serious so far on entry, how to be
20:59
Speaker 7: bullet grew, you know how to shoot your bowl really well,
21:03
Speaker 7: you know how to play the win. A lot of
21:05
Speaker 7: that stuff guys can figure out after a few years
21:08
Speaker 7: of money. But what they don't have is two or
21:11
Speaker 7: three big mature bucks gone. And that's what it comes
21:17
Speaker 7: down to. It's a simple answer. And so the best
21:20
Speaker 7: hunters are the ones who are the best at money.
21:24
Speaker 2: It's been fun for me because that that answer has
21:27
Speaker 2: been somewhat similar. Of the guys that are have a
21:30
Speaker 2: lot of nets out are the ones that are actually
21:33
Speaker 2: the best hunters. They don't say they have some magic
21:35
Speaker 2: superpower of making a big deer show up in front
21:38
Speaker 2: of them within their bow bow range. And that's it.
21:40
Speaker 7: That's I've kind of resolved myself to that back because
21:43
Speaker 7: you look around and see that these guys kill them
21:45
Speaker 7: two or each year, every other year or whatever. It's
21:47
Speaker 7: like the commitment required to do that something that I'm
21:51
Speaker 7: not really to make, you know, because for one reason
21:56
Speaker 7: or another, they have the money, the energyar or whatever
22:00
Speaker 7: is to make that happen. Nothing against their hunting skills.
22:04
Speaker 7: I'm sure they're good hunters to but probably not really
22:05
Speaker 7: that much better hunters than a lot of people. They
22:09
Speaker 7: just are really good at finding these big deer. And
22:13
Speaker 7: that's that's. That's the hunt before the hunt. If you
22:17
Speaker 7: have to pick the which of those two hunts is
22:19
Speaker 7: the most important, it's the first one.
22:21
Speaker 2: I think Bill has a really fair point on his
22:24
Speaker 2: take here. You have to be realistic with your own work, schedule,
22:27
Speaker 2: your own lifestyle, your own obligations, where you hunt, what
22:31
Speaker 2: opportunities are there. And I think that's a very real
22:34
Speaker 2: way to look at it and put it. So I
22:36
Speaker 2: appreciate Bill chiming in and giving his opinion. And the
22:39
Speaker 2: next step we have, Bobby Kendall. Here we go.
22:42
Speaker 8: I think that the number one thing that could take
22:45
Speaker 8: somebody from a good hunter to a great hunter is
22:47
Speaker 8: the ability to think like a deer all throughout the year.
22:50
Speaker 8: No matter what you're doing, you're always thinking from the
22:55
Speaker 8: deer's perspective of what it is you're doing, and you
22:58
Speaker 8: need to use use that information against him. So some
23:02
Speaker 8: examples like it's it's so easy to watch videos nowadays
23:06
Speaker 8: and learn to do all this stuff, use all these
23:08
Speaker 8: tools in our our in our tool belt, you know,
23:11
Speaker 8: switch grass and corn and all the different stuff you're planning,
23:16
Speaker 8: and it's it's easy to go out there and and
23:18
Speaker 8: and just throw it all out there. But if you
23:22
Speaker 8: step back, there has to be a strategy behind it.
23:24
Speaker 8: There has to be Do I have a plan for
23:27
Speaker 8: this food to work in October? Do I have a
23:29
Speaker 8: plan for this food to work in the summer? Do
23:32
Speaker 8: I have a plan for it to work in November?
23:34
Speaker 8: Do I have a plan for it to work in
23:36
Speaker 8: late season? Is it put out there in a way
23:40
Speaker 8: that I'm going to get a shot and a bow
23:43
Speaker 8: shot it fish quickly and efficiently. Because I'm playing the
23:47
Speaker 8: odds game, he only might walk some many days in October.
23:51
Speaker 8: I have to be able to get in there does
23:53
Speaker 8: this location pull my thermals as well as the wind direction,
23:57
Speaker 8: so I don't get screwed in October, you know, am
24:00
Speaker 8: I do? I use a cent free box here because
24:03
Speaker 8: it's an October spot to hedge against swirling winds and
24:07
Speaker 8: and and you know, all that stuff in the month
24:10
Speaker 8: of October because this is probably where he's going to
24:12
Speaker 8: be in October, because he's going to be market territory.
24:14
Speaker 8: So I can see him wanting to come down that line.
24:17
Speaker 8: So I'm gonna eliminate those scrape branches so he has
24:19
Speaker 8: to come here. Like always thinking reverse engineering everything from
24:25
Speaker 8: the way that a big deer thinks all the way
24:27
Speaker 8: to when you're picking your tree stand locations. I think
24:34
Speaker 8: good hunters can identify the spots and they can plant
24:38
Speaker 8: the stuff, but they when it comes time to picking
24:44
Speaker 8: what stand to be at that day, they're not thinking,
24:47
Speaker 8: like a deer, well where is he going to be
24:48
Speaker 8: today because of the wind direction and he's using his
24:51
Speaker 8: nose to look for doze or you know. Uh, as
24:55
Speaker 8: you get into the end of October and into November,
24:58
Speaker 8: there's all these micro phases or date phase mindset, there's
25:02
Speaker 8: all these mindset shifts, and so when you have the
25:05
Speaker 8: ability to think like a deer and be ahead of them,
25:08
Speaker 8: you know, Like I call October twenty eighth boomerang phase,
25:12
Speaker 8: and I think it's a little phase that happens where
25:14
Speaker 8: all these mature bucks kind of have their territory that
25:17
Speaker 8: they're marking, and then right around the twenty eighth you'll
25:20
Speaker 8: see them boomeranging out of their core and overlapping into
25:23
Speaker 8: other deer within the same age class. And so if
25:26
Speaker 8: you know that, you can be like, well, I haven't
25:28
Speaker 8: got his picture here, but you know, it makes sense
25:32
Speaker 8: that he's going to show up here now because we're.
25:34
Speaker 2: At that phase.
25:34
Speaker 8: And as these faces change, you're ahead of it because
25:38
Speaker 8: some of them are so short window like that, that's
25:41
Speaker 8: a fairly short window before his mindset changes to territory
25:46
Speaker 8: marking to actually does.
25:49
Speaker 2: So what I'm hearing is seems almost more instinctual.
25:54
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's instinctual, but it's like also like.
25:56
Speaker 2: Common sense, like, but most people don't think that way.
25:58
Speaker 8: Yeah. I think if you take a step back and
26:01
Speaker 8: maybe we do a podcast on this and think and
26:03
Speaker 8: just like dive into the mindset of a buck through
26:07
Speaker 8: the deer.
26:07
Speaker 2: Season, if you're behind.
26:10
Speaker 8: I've heard people say, you know, if you're if you're
26:12
Speaker 8: doing what you see on the trail came a week
26:14
Speaker 8: ago or two weeks ago, especially in November stuff, you're
26:17
Speaker 8: too late, it's already happened, which is right, But on
26:19
Speaker 8: the flip side of that, you need to know where
26:22
Speaker 8: to be ahead of him as we change, you know,
26:26
Speaker 8: so the season almost very systematic. Like for me anyway,
26:30
Speaker 8: like I have a plan and it's like I don't
26:32
Speaker 8: even care it's today and now I'm gonna be doing
26:35
Speaker 8: this type thing, Like it's November twenty eight. Their mindset is,
26:40
Speaker 8: oh my god, I just lost, you know, however much weight,
26:43
Speaker 8: and I'm about to die because it's getting really cold
26:46
Speaker 8: tomorrow like that, November twenty is my date. Like that's
26:49
Speaker 8: when their mindset kind of changes. So, you know, I like,
26:55
Speaker 8: I feel there's something about wet standing soybeans in October,
26:58
Speaker 8: Like it might be one of they're less desirable food sources,
27:01
Speaker 8: but on a really rainy, soaker of a day, you
27:04
Speaker 8: might have every deer on your farm in in October.
27:06
Speaker 2: So it's like thinking, like a deer which is a
27:09
Speaker 2: really hot tip. That's a really hot tip. Oh yeah,
27:13
Speaker 2: that happened right down the road here, it's a really
27:16
Speaker 2: hot tip. Yeah, happen right down the road here. So
27:19
Speaker 2: I mean to summarize, it's it's a good good from great.
27:24
Speaker 8: A deer and not just doing all this stuff we
27:26
Speaker 8: all do now, like there's you know, you might go
27:30
Speaker 8: to you might knock that out.
27:33
Speaker 2: I'm right or wrong.
27:34
Speaker 8: Everybody does it different, but like you might come out
27:36
Speaker 8: to my place and see how it's set up and
27:38
Speaker 8: be like, oh, yeah, that makes sense. But in my mind,
27:42
Speaker 8: like I mean, it's everything is done to like to
27:46
Speaker 8: an exact for an exact reason. But yeah, just thinking
27:50
Speaker 8: like a deer and having a plan for the whole
27:52
Speaker 8: season and then using his mindset against him, you know,
27:55
Speaker 8: instead of like we have a logging division obviously, instead
27:58
Speaker 8: of just and it's all situational because as I'm saying this,
28:02
Speaker 8: this is the south facing hillside that we log the
28:05
Speaker 8: heck out of, But it's because of some strategic things
28:08
Speaker 8: we got going on down here that makes it so huntable.
28:10
Speaker 8: You don't need to go up in there. But if
28:12
Speaker 8: you've got a big wooded farm and you can't do
28:14
Speaker 8: a bunch of food, maybe further east or something Kentucky
28:18
Speaker 8: instead of just clear cutting the whole farm. Maybe you
28:21
Speaker 8: select cut it, but you take areas, go scout, see
28:25
Speaker 8: where the deer are already betting on whatever knobs, Identify
28:31
Speaker 8: a tree for that wind relative to the betting area
28:35
Speaker 8: somewhere you can kind of get in there and then
28:37
Speaker 8: stand there in the beds and look up at the
28:39
Speaker 8: sky and south sky, and just mark those trees and
28:44
Speaker 8: just open the light in to puff on that betting spot.
28:50
Speaker 8: And then when that thickens and the rest of it's
28:53
Speaker 8: not thick and he goes looking for does, now you
28:56
Speaker 8: have connect the dots. So now when he goes and
28:59
Speaker 8: he's looking for does, when he goes to that thicket
29:01
Speaker 8: that's only a tenth of an acre, he's not gonna walk.
29:04
Speaker 8: Before he could just cruise by fifty yards down the
29:06
Speaker 8: hill because it was easier walking and just look over there.
29:10
Speaker 8: But now when he gets there, or if there's even
29:13
Speaker 8: like when I'm picking a tree a stand spot, like
29:16
Speaker 8: if there's a tree top that naturally fell down, I
29:19
Speaker 8: might get down into that tree top, even though it
29:22
Speaker 8: might make more sense to be in a tree right
29:23
Speaker 8: over here, because in the rut, when he goes there,
29:26
Speaker 8: he's gonna come on this side of that tree that
29:30
Speaker 8: he can't see into to smell for dough, and same
29:32
Speaker 8: thing on those little thickets. So you got these connected dots,
29:35
Speaker 8: and when he goes, he's most likely going to be
29:37
Speaker 8: on the down side of that little thicket so he
29:38
Speaker 8: can smell in it. And you've already reversed engineer by
29:42
Speaker 8: the way he's thinking. So back to the original question,
29:46
Speaker 8: is always thinking like a deer, always reverse engineering, whether
29:50
Speaker 8: you're hunting ground that you cannot do any manipulation and
29:53
Speaker 8: you're just you versus him and you're scouting and you know,
29:57
Speaker 8: I still love doing that, or if you're go crazy
30:00
Speaker 8: over the top with development, it still works most efficiently
30:05
Speaker 8: when it's reverse engineer from the way a big deer
30:07
Speaker 8: is going to use it in a way that you
30:10
Speaker 8: have a plan for the whole season.
30:12
Speaker 2: That's Bobby's opinion on this question. Appreciate him sharing it,
30:14
Speaker 2: and we have up next Thomas Mills Nutt. So, what
30:18
Speaker 2: do you think is the biggest mistake that keeps hunters
30:21
Speaker 2: from going from good to great? In your own opinion?
30:27
Speaker 9: Yeah, there could be a lot of things, right, and
30:29
Speaker 9: like you said, you have to define your own success
30:32
Speaker 9: so that ultimately might dictate what that thing is, but
30:36
Speaker 9: on a general skill from my experience what I see
30:40
Speaker 9: across the board, and something I constantly preach and coach
30:42
Speaker 9: to clients. It's all about thinking ahead, right, you know,
30:47
Speaker 9: planning long term, long term mindset versus all a short term.
30:51
Speaker 9: One thing I say to clients frequently is you can't
30:54
Speaker 9: kill great deer if you kill good deer. And that's
30:57
Speaker 9: kind of this long term thinking, this mindset of right
31:02
Speaker 9: now isn't as important as what can build to the future. So,
31:07
Speaker 9: you know, I always say every year's a building year.
31:09
Speaker 9: I've said that before, right, every year's building year. Ever
31:10
Speaker 9: years a building year. If you kill all the good dear,
31:14
Speaker 9: or you just keep on settling for whatever level you're at,
31:18
Speaker 9: you're never going to achieve the next level, you know.
31:21
Speaker 9: And again there's a lot of different variations of that.
31:23
Speaker 9: Sometimes it's pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It's
31:26
Speaker 9: really easy to get comfortable hunting the same few stands,
31:30
Speaker 9: hunting the same way you do, and being content with
31:34
Speaker 9: a certain level or quality of animals that you're harvesting.
31:39
Speaker 9: But ultimately, if you approach a season or habitat, project
31:43
Speaker 9: or land management, whatever, might be thinking every year's a
31:46
Speaker 9: building year.
31:47
Speaker 2: Every year's a building year.
31:48
Speaker 9: And also don't fall into this pressure where you feel
31:51
Speaker 9: like you have to just tag that buck and move on.
31:55
Speaker 9: Then things start to build up and with that patience, right,
31:59
Speaker 9: we hear that all the time. Impatience is a virtue,
32:01
Speaker 9: but it's true across the board, from habitat development to
32:04
Speaker 9: sitting in the tree stand and holding out for that
32:07
Speaker 9: higher caliber gear. If you have that patience, it doesn't
32:11
Speaker 9: take that long really for things to build up, to
32:13
Speaker 9: level up to Now you're operating at this completely different
32:16
Speaker 9: level and a different mindset, and I think that's what
32:19
Speaker 9: it takes. You know, it's just that patience in general,
32:21
Speaker 9: and passing up a mediocre season or a good season. Right.
32:25
Speaker 4: I guess it's all relative.
32:26
Speaker 2: Right.
32:26
Speaker 9: I might look at it and say it's mediocre. You
32:28
Speaker 9: might look at it and say that's a really good
32:29
Speaker 9: season for you. A few years of that and then
32:31
Speaker 9: it's time to level up. But being willing to pass
32:34
Speaker 9: up certain opportunities to level up and with that push
32:38
Speaker 9: yourself out of the comfort zone, you know, back to
32:42
Speaker 9: that comfort zone thing. Understanding when to be aggressive is
32:45
Speaker 9: probably a big part of that. But I think more
32:48
Speaker 9: than anything else, it's being patient and focusing on the
32:52
Speaker 9: fact that every year is a building year, especially in
32:55
Speaker 9: this game, right hunting, We hear us all time, hunting
32:57
Speaker 9: is conservation. Hunting is conservation. If we want to be conservationists,
33:02
Speaker 9: that we need to be thinking long term. Right, So
33:04
Speaker 9: it's not so much that's happening this year. What can
33:06
Speaker 9: I do to get better this year. I don't have
33:08
Speaker 9: to fill my tag every year. Long term mindset that
33:12
Speaker 9: to me shift at my perspective or or maybe increase
33:16
Speaker 9: my maturity level as a hunter, and I raise my
33:19
Speaker 9: standards and that just becomes the new normal. Right then
33:22
Speaker 9: you're just operating at a different level. You know, there's
33:25
Speaker 9: a lot of different things that go into being a
33:27
Speaker 9: great hunter, though, right You know, your level of observation,
33:30
Speaker 9: the time that you put in all of these things
33:32
Speaker 9: are going to dictate your sess in the long run.
33:35
Speaker 9: And all of that goes hand in hand with pulling
33:36
Speaker 9: the trigger too soon. If you if you settle for
33:40
Speaker 9: something that's less than great, then you're not investing the
33:44
Speaker 9: time to become great essentially, right, So, you know, settling
33:47
Speaker 9: for good isn't always the worst thing, but that takes
33:50
Speaker 9: away from the time invested in becoming great. And you know,
33:53
Speaker 9: the same goes with shooting a good deer versus a
33:56
Speaker 9: great deer. Giving that deer time to mature and express
33:58
Speaker 9: its full potential. That levels you up. So you know,
34:01
Speaker 9: there's yeah, there's a lot there. It's all relative. You
34:04
Speaker 9: know what, how do you define a great hunter versus
34:06
Speaker 9: a good hunter? Again, it's all really relative. But I
34:08
Speaker 9: really think patience and just thinking long term is the
34:12
Speaker 9: biggest factor involved.
34:14
Speaker 2: Do you think it really boils down to the fear
34:18
Speaker 2: of failure. There's another way to look at that too, Yeah,
34:22
Speaker 2: very much.
34:22
Speaker 9: So you know, I don't know exactly how that quote goes,
34:26
Speaker 9: but there's never it's not a failure if you learn
34:30
Speaker 9: from it, right, And I think that's a huge part
34:32
Speaker 9: of hunting is everything is a learning opportunity at life
34:35
Speaker 9: in general. Right, you can look at it as a
34:37
Speaker 9: failure or look at look at it as a learning experience.
34:41
Speaker 9: So again, making more aggressive moves or being patient. Yeah,
34:45
Speaker 9: there's going to be seasons. I've certainly had seasons. Not
34:48
Speaker 9: that long ago, I passed up a one hundred and
34:50
Speaker 9: what turned out to be one hundred and sixty two
34:52
Speaker 9: inch nine pointer that had a thirteen inch brow time. Right,
34:54
Speaker 9: I passed it up because I was after a different deer.
34:57
Speaker 9: That was a learning experience, right, I've probably I should
35:00
Speaker 9: have capitalized on that.
35:01
Speaker 2: I ate my tag that.
35:02
Speaker 9: Year, but I had a really good season and I
35:05
Speaker 9: ended up learning a whole lot more about the deer
35:07
Speaker 9: I was chasing, which led to, you know, subsequent years
35:11
Speaker 9: of success based on that intel that I collected.
35:13
Speaker 2: And really again it leveled me up.
35:14
Speaker 9: It changed my perspective on how it hunted the property,
35:17
Speaker 9: which equaled a lot more long term success. That wouldn't
35:21
Speaker 9: have happened if I would have pulled the trigger and
35:22
Speaker 9: killed that deer and tagged out when I had the opportunity.
35:25
Speaker 9: So it really does come back to that patient side
35:29
Speaker 9: of things, you know, and again thinking long term.
35:31
Speaker 2: Do you think there's any shortcut to becoming great?
35:34
Speaker 4: No, No, there isn't.
35:37
Speaker 9: I mean, in this digital age, this information age.
35:42
Speaker 4: I see this a lot.
35:43
Speaker 9: You know, I'll end up on a property and someone
35:46
Speaker 9: will pair it certain concepts that they get off a
35:49
Speaker 9: YouTube or from other professionals or other influencers, and it's
35:54
Speaker 9: good information, but you don't really ever understand what's applicable
35:58
Speaker 9: to your situation. Until you either age, try to apply
36:00
Speaker 9: it or be experience a situation where it's necessary. Right,
36:05
Speaker 9: So you can soak up a lot of information, but
36:07
Speaker 9: until you actually go out and get some experience invest
36:10
Speaker 9: the time in it, you don't really know what's going
36:12
Speaker 9: to work for your situation or not. So again, a
36:14
Speaker 9: lot of that is learning through failure, and failure is
36:16
Speaker 9: the best teacher, right. We hear that all the time,
36:18
Speaker 9: You've heard it since we were little kids.
36:20
Speaker 4: Failures.
36:21
Speaker 9: You know, I just came from a client property and
36:24
Speaker 9: we were talking about random scenarios, and you know, one
36:28
Speaker 9: of the scenarios we were discussing was injuring a deer. Right, Like,
36:31
Speaker 9: you make a bad shot on a deer. If you're
36:34
Speaker 9: a good hunter or you know, good or great doesn't matter,
36:37
Speaker 9: but if you're a moral, responsible hunter, you should feel
36:41
Speaker 9: really bad if you make a bad shot on deer.
36:43
Speaker 9: It's inevitably going to happen to anyone who bohunts, right,
36:46
Speaker 9: But that pain sticks with you a long time, and
36:48
Speaker 9: the next time that opportunity comes up where it's a
36:50
Speaker 9: marginal shot, you're either a going to have practiced a
36:54
Speaker 9: lot more with your bow through the off season and
36:57
Speaker 9: be more confident to make that shot, or b you're
36:59
Speaker 9: just not going to take that shot, right. That's a
37:01
Speaker 9: result of that experience or that pain that came with
37:04
Speaker 9: a prior failure. So I think that there's a lot,
37:07
Speaker 9: like I said, a lot that comes with those failures
37:10
Speaker 9: in general.
37:12
Speaker 4: But it's not that straightforward. You have to live it.
37:15
Speaker 2: You can't just jump. You know.
37:17
Speaker 4: One of the things I say frequently too.
37:19
Speaker 9: You know, you said your goal is high, but think
37:22
Speaker 9: about climbing a set of stairs or climbing a ladder
37:24
Speaker 9: to get there, because you can't just jump straight up
37:26
Speaker 9: and obtain that goal. And if you can, maybe you
37:28
Speaker 9: can hang on for a short period of time, but
37:29
Speaker 9: it's not sustainable, right, So you have to work your
37:32
Speaker 9: way up to achieve that level of greatness.
37:34
Speaker 2: Any any one like a one liner for someone to
37:37
Speaker 2: go from good to grade to remember as it's October
37:39
Speaker 2: or November and they're like, man, I remember when Thomas said,
37:42
Speaker 2: remember this?
37:44
Speaker 9: I mean the thing that I say, I repeat it
37:46
Speaker 9: quite a bit to clients. And I guess the reason
37:48
Speaker 9: I do this is because I do have a lot
37:50
Speaker 9: of clients that are good hunters. You know, a lot
37:53
Speaker 9: of clients are good hunters, but they're looking to take
37:55
Speaker 9: it to that next level. And again, like I said previously,
38:00
Speaker 9: you cannot kill great.
38:01
Speaker 2: Deer if you kill good deer.
38:03
Speaker 9: So if you're always going out and settling for a
38:06
Speaker 9: certain age class of deer, you're either a not letting
38:10
Speaker 9: those deer mature. Or if there are older age classes
38:14
Speaker 9: or higher quality of deer, higher caliber of deer in
38:17
Speaker 9: the area on the property, then you're not doing things
38:20
Speaker 9: to give yourself an opportunity to kill those deer because
38:23
Speaker 9: you're settling for the other deer. And that might be
38:25
Speaker 9: you know, again, there's a variety of ways that you
38:29
Speaker 9: can accomplish that. It might be through habitat improvement, through
38:33
Speaker 9: manipulating movement on your property to increase opportunity. It might
38:37
Speaker 9: be just that patience factor, right, holding off for it,
38:39
Speaker 9: or just being a better hunter.
38:41
Speaker 2: Right.
38:41
Speaker 9: I mean, it's a lot easier to kill a three
38:44
Speaker 9: year old deer than it is to kill a six
38:46
Speaker 9: year old deer. So a lot of people are going
38:48
Speaker 9: to settle for a three year old deer versus waiting
38:51
Speaker 9: out for a six year old deer.
38:52
Speaker 4: Now, every situation is different.
38:54
Speaker 9: I might have a busy life, family at home and
38:58
Speaker 9: I have a very small amount time to hunt, so
39:00
Speaker 9: I need to go out and capitalize on that opportunity.
39:02
Speaker 9: No one's here, at least I'm not here to judge
39:04
Speaker 9: that person, right, But if you're constantly killing that quality
39:07
Speaker 9: of deer, that caliber of deer, you're never going to
39:10
Speaker 9: achieve the next level unless it's bite pure luck. So
39:13
Speaker 9: you know, incrementally gaining confidence, incrementally gaining skills, all those
39:18
Speaker 9: things come with repetition and experience, time invested into the process,
39:24
Speaker 9: and learning through both failures and success along the way.
39:29
Speaker 2: Thomas is a guy that continues to get better every year,
39:32
Speaker 2: it seems like. And that's his perspective. And last, but
39:35
Speaker 2: not least, we have wire to hunt. Resident post Mark
39:37
Speaker 2: Kenyon on his opinion for this question. Okay, you're having
39:41
Speaker 2: a lot of good seasons, just good, good, God man,
39:45
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm getting one percent better. But I
39:48
Speaker 2: want to make a big jump. I want to become great.
39:50
Speaker 2: I want to start killing my target buck. I want
39:53
Speaker 2: to start stao stepping this progression of a white tail
39:57
Speaker 2: deer hunter, a serious whitetail deer hunter. What do you
39:59
Speaker 2: think keeps most hunters at good versus great?
40:07
Speaker 10: There's as you were asking that question, I had like
40:10
Speaker 10: three or four different things all pop off my mind.
40:12
Speaker 4: There's so many different things that can.
40:15
Speaker 10: Be that like barrier to breaking through the threshold, I
40:21
Speaker 10: think one of the obvious ones.
40:22
Speaker 4: But it's like, it's not sexy, and it's something that
40:25
Speaker 4: so many people.
40:25
Speaker 10: Talk about over and over and over again that maybe
40:27
Speaker 10: it becomes annoying or you lose out you stopped hearing
40:31
Speaker 10: it because it's been said so many times.
40:33
Speaker 4: But truly, when I made the shift from.
40:38
Speaker 10: You know, kind of just like coasting until actually focusing
40:43
Speaker 10: on all of the little things, like when you really
40:45
Speaker 10: become detail oriented, when you really are willing to not
40:48
Speaker 10: take shortcuts, when you are really willing to start caring
40:51
Speaker 10: about all the little things, those small improvements all steck
40:56
Speaker 10: up in a really, really really big way and eventually
40:59
Speaker 10: to killing becoming great. Like That's that's the unsexy answer,
41:03
Speaker 10: is that it's not any one thing. It's taking everything serious.
41:08
Speaker 10: It's doing all the little things right. It's putting in
41:11
Speaker 10: that work throughout the entire year or as much of
41:13
Speaker 10: the year as you possibly can. That is the stuff
41:15
Speaker 10: that all adds up. But it's it's you know, when
41:18
Speaker 10: somebody hears that. It's hard to just be like, Okay,
41:21
Speaker 10: I'm gonna press that button and all of a sudden
41:22
Speaker 10: that's gonna work.
41:23
Speaker 4: Right. That doesn't do it.
41:24
Speaker 10: There's not an easy button, there's not a silver bullet.
41:27
Speaker 4: But I do think that's the case.
41:29
Speaker 10: Now, there are other like shifts or like mindset shifts
41:32
Speaker 10: that can really help. Like something we talked about the
41:34
Speaker 10: other day that really helped me was really looking at
41:37
Speaker 10: the year as a full calendar and how everything changes
41:41
Speaker 10: on a day to date basis, and how you need
41:43
Speaker 10: to change your hunting season throughout to follow along with that.
41:46
Speaker 10: So it's having like a calendar for your year and
41:48
Speaker 10: really thinking about how you hunt differently at every time
41:51
Speaker 10: of the year, and how you apply pressure to your
41:53
Speaker 10: property at different times of the year. All that really helps.
41:55
Speaker 10: That helps me a lot. I think another thing that
41:58
Speaker 10: really could actually change somebody's success in a dramatic way,
42:05
Speaker 10: and interestingly would not even require them to become a
42:08
Speaker 10: better hunter, but could change their success would be simply
42:12
Speaker 10: get more access if you had more places to hunt.
42:16
Speaker 10: And so much of what people have success, like the
42:21
Speaker 10: deer they kill, is determined by the properties.
42:23
Speaker 4: They hunt, the places that they hunt.
42:25
Speaker 10: There are and I don't mean this to offend anyone,
42:28
Speaker 10: but there are a lot of people with a ton
42:30
Speaker 10: of big deer in the wall that are much worse hunters,
42:33
Speaker 10: worse quote unquote hunters then people who have way fewer
42:37
Speaker 10: deer on the wall. Simply the only difference is where
42:41
Speaker 10: they hunt. One person hunts in one state, one person
42:43
Speaker 10: huntsing the other. Or one person has a thousand acre
42:46
Speaker 10: family farm and one person's been trying to scrap together
42:49
Speaker 10: tens and thirties and forties by door knocking. That can
42:52
Speaker 10: make a huge difference, a monstrous difference. So that alone,
42:56
Speaker 10: if you simply put in time to get access to
42:59
Speaker 10: new places in more places, that could totally change your trajectory.
43:03
Speaker 10: And honestly, that's a big part of my story in
43:06
Speaker 10: that when I started, I started deer hunting a forty
43:09
Speaker 10: acre piece in northern Michigan that was surrounded by public
43:11
Speaker 10: and that's all I knew for years up until my
43:15
Speaker 10: late teens. That's what I did. And there was four
43:17
Speaker 10: keys and six pointers and a year and a half folds.
43:19
Speaker 10: If you saw a two year old, it was the
43:20
Speaker 10: biggest buck anyone'd seen in three years. So growing up
43:24
Speaker 10: with that context and with that opportunity set, the success
43:28
Speaker 10: I could have was incredibly limited. And by being stuck
43:32
Speaker 10: in that box, not only was my opportunities to kill
43:35
Speaker 10: deer limited, but also my opportunities to learn were limited.
43:39
Speaker 4: And so that's that's this other thing.
43:41
Speaker 10: If you add new access, if you get new permissions,
43:44
Speaker 10: or you scout me public land, or you buy a
43:47
Speaker 10: farm or whatever it is, you do two things. Number One,
43:50
Speaker 10: you increase your opportunities because you might have a better
43:52
Speaker 10: place now and right there, like instantly, all of a sudden,
43:55
Speaker 10: you're a better hunter because you have deer to hunt,
43:57
Speaker 10: or bigger deer to hunt, or older deer to hunt.
44:00
Speaker 10: But then by hunting new places, that is one of
44:03
Speaker 10: the absolute fastest ways to learn and to get better.
44:06
Speaker 10: And so you're achieving two things in the same single decision.
44:10
Speaker 10: You are increasing your opportunities and instantly having new learning opportunities.
44:15
Speaker 10: That's going to help you become a better and better
44:17
Speaker 10: and better heart. So I think if you do that
44:20
Speaker 10: while also having this commitment to doing the things, the
44:24
Speaker 10: little things right, if you do those two things, you
44:27
Speaker 10: have a strong opportunity to move up towards a great hunter.
44:32
Speaker 10: Those are the first two things that can online. I
44:34
Speaker 10: think there's a thousand different things we could talk about.
44:36
Speaker 10: I'm sure there's people who said something like, wow, you're
44:38
Speaker 10: not gonna be a great hunter if you shoot good deer,
44:40
Speaker 10: or there's gonna be people who say, you know, I
44:42
Speaker 10: don't know. There's a thousand different ways you could take this,
44:44
Speaker 10: and I'm very interested to hear what everybody else said.
44:47
Speaker 10: But I think those two things in tandem could make
44:51
Speaker 10: could break people through the glass ceiling, take to the
44:54
Speaker 10: nuxt level. Very simple and not like profound, I guess,
45:00
Speaker 10: but those two things could absolutely change the success that
45:04
Speaker 10: anybody's having.
45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and that was another reason I asked this
45:09
Speaker 2: question because there's a lot of different answers, and once again,
45:13
Speaker 2: it could be dependent on all the different things that
45:16
Speaker 2: every white tail hunter faces, whether it's access challenges or
45:19
Speaker 2: I mean, the list goes on and on if you
45:20
Speaker 2: want to go from good to great. And I think
45:22
Speaker 2: that people inherently just want to get better, and so
45:26
Speaker 2: maybe the goal here was is that what's one little
45:29
Speaker 2: thing that I could just get a little better at
45:30
Speaker 2: to get Maybe I'm just okay, maybe I'm really bad,
45:33
Speaker 2: and I want to be okay and good and stare
45:36
Speaker 2: step it up. But this was there was a wide
45:39
Speaker 2: variety of answers, and I think if someone's listening into
45:41
Speaker 2: this once again, it's applying number one, being real with
45:45
Speaker 2: yourself and number two is it am I disciplined? Am
45:48
Speaker 2: I putting in the effort? Because I think it's easy
45:50
Speaker 2: to say, well, I could kill those deer if I
45:52
Speaker 2: had the same access, And I think, well, if that's
45:55
Speaker 2: the case, and you aspire for those goals, then you
45:59
Speaker 2: have to do things in order to have those opportunities.
46:01
Speaker 2: And they're probably right. If they didn't have the opportunity
46:04
Speaker 2: to hunt here like that, I think they would be successful.
46:06
Speaker 2: And I think that's uh, you know, we're here in
46:09
Speaker 2: Iowa right now, and last night we were have people
46:13
Speaker 2: move here because they're so ate up with this to
46:16
Speaker 2: have an opportunity to have a great deal. And I
46:19
Speaker 2: think that, you know, I think the what is great,
46:23
Speaker 2: what is a great deal, and what is a great
46:25
Speaker 2: hunter might be completely different. Maybe a great hunter means
46:27
Speaker 2: that you introduced twenty new people to hunting, and you
46:30
Speaker 2: were a great mentor and you taught them a lot
46:31
Speaker 2: of great things. And then twenty years later, all those
46:34
Speaker 2: twenty great hunters, we turn into great hunters. And so
46:36
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of really interesting ways to
46:39
Speaker 2: look at this, and hopefully this is inspiring everyone to
46:43
Speaker 2: challenge themselves just to get a little bit better this fall,
46:47
Speaker 2: take mental notes and discontinuing to enjoy this season and
46:51
Speaker 2: not have any added pressure. Next week, we're diving into
46:55
Speaker 2: something that people are in panic mode. We're getting into
46:58
Speaker 2: mid August. Now. They listen to the first episode, they
47:00
Speaker 2: hung their cameras and they're like, man, I don't have
47:03
Speaker 2: any deer on camera, and we're going to dive into
47:06
Speaker 2: what to do when you haven't found a deer yet.
47:08
Speaker 2: There you guys have I hope you guys enjoyed this
47:11
Speaker 2: episode and maybe it opened your eyes, maybe you took
47:14
Speaker 2: a quick look in the mirror. I know I did.
47:16
Speaker 2: It's like, man, I can definitely do better at some
47:17
Speaker 2: of these things. And that's the purpose of this episode
47:20
Speaker 2: to find the things that make folks that seemingly have
47:22
Speaker 2: great seasons every single year. What are they doing differently
47:25
Speaker 2: and how can I emulate that? And maybe that's doing more,
47:28
Speaker 2: maybe that's doing less. It just completely depends on what
47:31
Speaker 2: your circumstances are, and next week we have the next dilemma.
47:35
Speaker 2: More than likely there's been a big buck pictures floating
47:38
Speaker 2: around and the question is I can't find a buck
47:41
Speaker 2: to hunt now what? So that's what we have next week.
47:44
Speaker 2: I hope you guys tune in for another round of
47:47
Speaker 2: this expert panel as we're getting closer and closer to
47:50
Speaker 2: deer season, and each week we're going to keep chipping
47:52
Speaker 2: away at some of these issues, some of these dilemmas
47:54
Speaker 2: that we all face as we're building up to deer seasons.
47:56
Speaker 2: So we'll see it