Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 363: What Would Steve Bartylla Do?

Transcript

Ep. 363: What Would Steve Bartylla Do? · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. All Right, welcome to the wire Hunt podcast,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: brought to you by on X. As I just mentioned,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: we're going to continue with the format I tested out
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: last week. So if you listen to what would John
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Eberhardt do? You know what to expect in this one.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: But today it's what would Steve Bartilla do. We've got
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: a very different perspective on hunting, a very different set
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: of experience, as a different approach. Um. So it makes
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: this an interesting different way of looking at things than
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: we have with John. Um. Steve hunts both public land
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and private manage land. He hunts uh, some spots that
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: he's able to do a lot of things with. He
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: hunts some spots where we can't do anything. Um. He
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I think one of my favorite things about Steve is
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: that he's very open to other ideas. He's very open to, Hey,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I don't know everything. This is the way it works
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: for me, it might not work for you. I always
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: find that refreshing about him. Um. But overall, most importantly,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the guy is a great deer hunter, a great communicator,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: about what he's doing, and he talks about everything from
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: how he would hunt, you know, with a family member
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: on the same property who's doing crazy things, what would
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: he do in that scenario? He answers questions about how
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: he might approach a situation where a dope comes into
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: heat really early, let's say mid October. What are we
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: doing that scenario? We talk about how he might hunt
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: in the rut when he's wondering if you changed dand
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: locations or not, if he's gonna do it, what time
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: of date. Those are just a couple of the hypotheticals
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: I throw out at him, many many others. This is
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: a long conversation, but a good one, so I don't
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: want to spend too much time beating around the bush.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Let's just get right into it. I hope you enjoy this.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: I guess I should preface this though, for I do
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that if you don't know who Steve Bartilla is, I
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: guess I'm just kind of assuming you do because he's
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: been on the podcast multiple times, I think three times
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in the past. He's great. He's a long time outdoor
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: writer for many of the different top deer hunting publications.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: He's been on a number of TV shows you've probably
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: seen him these days, and a lot of things for
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Deer and Deer Hunting Magazine and their shows, his television
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: show Grown Big. He's all over the place. Um, that's
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I guess all you need to know before we can
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: get into it. Now, Enjoy our conversation with Steve Bartilla,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: take some notes, think about how these scenarios might apply
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to your own hunting situation, and enjoy. All Right, folks,
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: I'm excited to have back with us Steve Bartilla. Steve,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: thanks for coming back on the show. Hey, Mark, it's
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: absolutely my pleasure and securely my honor to be able
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: to do stuff like that. Well, hey, right back at you.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I feel pretty lucky to be able to do it,
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: to getting to chat with folks like you and pick
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: your brains. Um, it's that time of year for a
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: lot of folks to ramp up into August is just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a steadily growing day by day rise and anticipation for
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: the hunting season. So I know a lot of people
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: are excited to just get their mind deep into white
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: tail stuff. And you were one of the first people
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I thought of when I thought, Okay, how do we
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: ramp up into the last part summer. You'd be a
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: good place to start. Steve, so pressures on. We're expecting
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: a lot. You gotta help us scratch that white tailage?
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Can you? Can you do it? I'll do my best, man,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I'll do my bes. How how is the summer prep
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: going for you so far? This year? Really exceptional? Um?
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: I'm working on two long term large management projects that
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: I've done now for years, and wow, I honestly I
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: pinched myself every day. Things are going extremely well in
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: those regards, and frankly, even when they aren't, it's like
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: you're getting paid to play outside. It's like the worst
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: day doing stuff like that. I mean, I know it's
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: an overly used cliche and all sorts of professions, but
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: my god, the worst day doing something like that is
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: by far the best day I ever had working a
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: real job over the course of my life. And I
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: had some cool real jobs. I like, how you don't
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: call this a real job. I do the same thing
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: with mine. It's now, don't don't let my wife here.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: This isn't a real job, and it never has been.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: It is. It is great stuff. So you're working on
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: these projects for other folks properties. How are your prospects
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: looking on any of the places that you have access
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: to this year, do you have any bucks particularly on
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the mind that are back and ready to go. I'll
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: be jeez, I know this sounds cheesy, and I sure
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: I sure thought it when I read an article about
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: this back when I was I don't know, maybe thirty
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: years old or so about some old time we're talking
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: about how yeah, you know, the longer I do this stuff,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the more enjoyment I get out of just watching other
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: people enjoy nature. And that's god, I've turned into that
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: cheesy old man. Um. I don't get me wrong. I've
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: this is sound politically correct, and I really don't care.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy killing deer that's that that obviously need
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: to die. They all are being utilized. I'm not talking
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: about going into going into low population areas and just
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: stacking them up or anything foolish like that. I as
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: you know, most of my harvest for the last geez
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: ten fifteen years has actually been on the dear management
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: and the things where I'm trying to balance the population
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: or or I'm trying to buy balance population. I'm not
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: talking buckdoor ratios. I'm talking about balance population with the habitat,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: to what the habitat can support that type of stuff in,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: and then to truly, truly try to drive yourself insane,
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: and you have to be a bit of a masochist
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: to do it, to try to actually manage wild free
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: range animals. You know, um that that stuff is actually
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: more fun to me these days than anything else. Yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: it's hard to explain, but I've turned into I've turned
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: into that cheesy whole time or my friends. And I
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: hate to tell you this, but someday I bet you
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: that's going to be you as well. Yeah, I passed
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: no judgment on you, because you're right, it probably will
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: be me soon. But so, yeah, there's a whole bunch
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: of cool dear run round out there on the managed grounds.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: And what I do is I split my time between hunting. Honestly,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: I split my time between hunting utopian hunting. Hell. I
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: spend half my time hunting those grounds, which really don't
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: get much better than that, um, and the other half
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: on public land and the things that I've noticed this year,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and it's actually actually, I think golden ray of hope,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: there's more stuff going on in public land this year
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: than their hands been since I was a kid. Yeah,
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: when you say that, are you basing that off of
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: trail camera pictures of really good bucks or have you
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: just been seeing I'm talking off and I think it's
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: a great thing. Um, what whatever you wanna however you
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: want to look at whatever the heck is going on
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: in this country, do you say, I'll tell you what.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: A lot of people are hitting the woods and holy man,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: did we ever need apt because our numbers haven't been
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: getting bigger? And that I thought is I mean, I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: know that's not the topic of today's conversation by any stretch,
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: but I thought that was a golden ray of hope.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it sucks when you get to your
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: public spot and you've noticed that there's people signed back
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: way the heck back in here now. But at the
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: same time, it's like, wow, cool, we're actually starting to
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: remember that we're connected to nature and that we can
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: do these types of things. Again, very true, very true.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: There definitely is a resurgence of of interest in hunting
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: those public places to people realizing that you know, there
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: is opportunity out there. You can't get in some good
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: hunting if you hunt smart, and that's definitely kind of
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: rekindled a lot of excitement in people, which is which
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: is cool to see. Yeah. Well, and for the past
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, I probably shouldn't admit this because this doesn't
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: make it sound as impressive when I've been dragging these
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: bucks out of here. But for the past five ten years, really,
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the amount of pressure on the public grounds that I've
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: been on and quite a bit of them, um, has
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: been going nothing but down, So the dear quality on
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: them generally has been going up. So in a weird way,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the timing on this is kind of nice. You get
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a bunch of people and haven't been spending a lot
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: of time in the woods, and they might actually have
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: some success and they may buy a license again next year.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: And for as much as we do not like seeing
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: thoset boot tracks in our in our public ground spot,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: if we're not seeing them, eventually we don't have public
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: ground to hunt anymore because hunting is not legal. Yeah. Yeah,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: we need we need advocates and people that are part
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of the community, right, we need to keep throwing the ranks.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: You got it, well, But that let's talk some real stuff. Yeah,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you mentioned that you do hunt utopia and
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: you hunt the public land. You've got this good mixture
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: of these very different types of hunting, and that's kind
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of one of the things I want to talk about
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: today because you have this experience managing and planning food
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: plots and managing timber, and you know, hunting deer that
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: you're able to watch you after year. But then you
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: also have this experience going to public land, hiking in there,
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: figuring it out without being able to manipulate anything. Um,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: those are two very different types of scenarios. And the
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: format for our conversation today, Steve, I thought is is
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: something I've just started testing out recently. It's it's this
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: idea I had to try to get a new level
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: of insight from people that maybe we've talked to in
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: the past. They had a lot of great stuff to share,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: but we want to kind of scratch this deeper than
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the surface. And so what I want to do is
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: present you with a bunch of different hunting scenarios. I'll
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: sketch out of a pretty detailed situation, and then what
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: I'd be curious to here from you is what you
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: would do in this scenario, Why you would do it, Like,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: what's your thought process? And then how you would actually,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you know, go forward with it. So if you're willing
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to go into Mark Kenyon's fun house of crazy deer
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: hunting scenarios, that's the game plan. Here will be an
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: absolute blast. But I am going to preface everything they
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: say right apprint that all anybody's going to hear is
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: one person's opinion. There's infinite ways to skin these cats,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and the best way to do it is the one
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: that works for you. But these are just but yeah,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: that sounds like a blast. Yeah, and um and and
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: that's how I love about it. You're always so clear
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: about the fact that this is just you know, your take.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It's there's it's not black and white. There's lots of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: different ways to do it. I like that about you, Steve,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: So never change, okay, never change. Light life has a
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: way of keeping me home for every time I think
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: I got this stuff really figured out, I get served
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: a humongous slice the humble pot. Deer hunting has a
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: way of doing that as it should be. So some
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of these are going to be more private land and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: management focused, some of these are going to be hunting,
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: some of these are going to be public land hunting.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: And and also so if I ask a question that
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: you know initially is about your private land stuff, but
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you have some thoughts if this is to be on
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: public instead, feel free to pivot that way too, and
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we'll just kind of see where things go. But here's
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: here's scenario number one, Steve. Let's say you just picked
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: up access to a lease, a small lease, um, and
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: for whatever reason, you can't hunt most of your other
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: old spots. You can't hunt these managed properties that you have.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: This is gonna be your your main spot now and
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: you just got access to it on August, and with
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: other plans coming up, you only have two weekends to
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: work on it. You've got two weekends to prep it. Um.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: You could do some minor improvements on it, and the
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: farmer who owns it says, hey, you can do some
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: food plots. You can do, you know, whatever you want
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: to do, as long as you don't mess with my crops.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: That's all he really cares. But just don't mess in
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: my crops. So you've got two weekends to kind of
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: do this last minute rush of work between August fifteen
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: and the end of the month. What would you prioritize
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: on the property during those two short periods of time
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: to work on it. Um, let me hear what's your
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: what are your thoughts there? You're gonna hate my answer,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: And that's what I'm gonna prioritize. Learning and what the
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: heck that you're doing on there and that and if
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: it takes me that, I may go ahead. I mean,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: if there's obviously I've never stepped foot on this fictitious ground,
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: so there may be a metal right in the middle
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: of it that every one of these deer either passed
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: next to or passed through in a route to get
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: to the farmer's grain or else elf or whatever whatever
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: crop he's got plants or crops he's got planted out there. Okay, Um,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: if if I got low hanging fruit like that, I'm
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: gonna plock it. And by that I mean, jeez, I'll
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: just go in there and spray it and throw some
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: throw some cereal rye down the same day I spray it,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: wait for the weeds to fall over, and pray for rain.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: And if I, hey, I'm not I'm not cash cropping
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: here like farmer. All I'm trying to do is creating
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: enough food to get the deer to stop by here
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: a little bit. And if that medal is as they said,
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: set up like that. Jeez, I'm gonna go ahead and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: put some licking branches around it too, because those are easy,
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: quick things to do. And by putting those licking branches
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: and the food, what I'm gonna try to do is
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to make a social hub slash staging
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: plot where even if food doesn't work out that great
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: with all these licking branches, man, every one of these
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: bucks wants to stop here at the local coffee shop
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: before they had to work. Um. But mainly, what I'm
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: going to try to do, unless there's some real low
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: hanging fruit like that, I'm going to spend the first
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: year trying to figure out what the heck to deer do.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: The biggest mistake I think we make is we got
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: two weekends. We got to make this happen. If you don't,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you need to learn what's going on there before you
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: can go ahead and set realistic goals on what I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: can achieve. And once I set realistic goals on what
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I can achieve, I can almost always find a path forward,
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: m a path to lead to those goals. And while
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: you're following that path, always remain rigidly flexible because when
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: things change, you want to change with them. You don't
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: match what your goals are to the ground, or I'm sorry,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you don't force the ground to match your goals. What
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: you do is for me personally, I study what that
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: you're doing. Was the habitat got for me? What doesn't
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: that have? How are they using the topography? How can
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I take advantage of all of these things? If I
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: don't know what they're doing, It's like throwing junk at
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: the wall and hoping it sticks. And some of them
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: probably will, but I'm going to have an awful lot
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of stuff to slide off that wall. Yeah, that's a
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: great point. So so what would you let that first weekend? Then?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: If you go into this first weekend knowing like, okay,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: most of this preseason work and even most of this
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: hunting season is going to be about just learning. This
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: is my first year. I need to learn that first
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: weekend of presumably scouting, could you walk me through you
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: know what that scouting work would be? Would simply be
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to walk the whole thing. Would it be
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna walk the edges and play some cameras. Is
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: it going to be you'll sit out the first night
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: in glass and then the next day you'll try to walk.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious the specifics this lease was let's call
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: our fictitious lease forty Okay, Um, so it's big enough
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that I'm not probably not gonna be able to set
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: up one spot and watch the whole darn thing. Um.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: The first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna get
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: my hands. I'm gonna jump on Google Earth and I'm
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: gonna bring up that property and get the aerial photography
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: of it, and then I'm going to find a total
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: map of it as well. And the first thing I'm
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: going to do is study the property itself and I'm
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: going to try to zoom out a little bit. Okay,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: what's this overall area? Like? Forty acres is not enough
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: ground to truly be raising deer on this forty acres Instead,
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: what they're doing is there. You like, what you're hoping
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: is they're utilizing this forty acres as part of their
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: greater home range and specifically you really hope it Mr
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: BIG's core area. That would be really nice. But um,
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to I'm gonna try to determine what
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: what this property has going forward already and how it
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: fits into the overall area now many times, but well
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: there was a jeez and this property was re leased
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: for a while, and what have been a glorious one
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: to have. Um, just a little eighty acre sliver doesn't
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: look that impressive. You go, you walk that eighty acres
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: and oh man, there's some nice your trail is going
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: through here, but it's really not overly impressive. And then
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: you jump onto Google Earth and your zoom out and
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: you see, oh, there's about five acres of timber to
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the south and about a thousand acres of timber to
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: the north. And every year that goes through goes back
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: and forth between those two chunks. September, they either have
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: to cut across wide open farm fields and they go
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: through your acres. Oh man, that's pretty darn speciality. But
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: you don't know until you zoom out. Now, look, really
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: study that area. Understand really this comes from as much
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: as possible, become a student away tales. When you find
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: that sign, ask why why did that buck? Why did
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: that dough? Why did that dear do this here? And
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the more you ask that, the more you can start
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: coming up with answers. Now I'm not I'm not sure,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: not pretending you're right all the time. But I'm telling
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: you what, I bet you. In the right property with
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the right topography or cover, I bet you I can.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I bet you I can hit on where they're bed
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and without every even stepping foot on there. And it's
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: not because I'm some great deer whisperer by any stretch
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of the imagination. It's simply asking why, over and over
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: and over and over while you find this stuff. You
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: find that buck bet on the off season, squat down
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: in it and look around? Why is that buck betting here?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Of every place he could bet? You know, um, why
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: is he actually traveling down the side of this point
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: instead of right down the middle. The more you start asking,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: you see patterns. You see patterns pop out, and then
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: next thing you know, you can start picking them out
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: on aerial photos. Aerial photos and topos are always my
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: security blanket, my first step. Then after that, what I'm
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: gonna do is I'm gonna come up with a checklist.
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: These are the places that jumped out at me. This
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: is where the creek runs through the property. I know
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that creek is a potential water source, and any flowing
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: water is a potential travel corridor, even when it's going
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: through timber. Um. Okay, so I want to check out
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: that correct that meadow, Oh man, that meadow fits great.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Now You've got all that nasty cover to the north,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: this meadows to the south, and fifty yards further south
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of that, so the farmer's fields. Geez, you think that's
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: a natural staging area, it is to begin with. So
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put it on steroids. Um. And the more
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: of those types of things I can see before I
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: ever stepped foot on the ground, particularly on the neighboring properties,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: because that's when you're controlling eighty acres, those neighboring properties
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: are gonna be a big impact on your hunting. Um.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: And so just initially I'm trying to get that flow.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: Then next what I'm gonna do is I'm even that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: first year, I'm I'm gonna hunt it. Although I have
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: went ahead and the only lease I ever had I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: set aside for a year just because I knew the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: quality of deer on there was not something that I
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: personally was interested in. I needed it needed a year.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: But um, that one was an extremely easy place to
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: figure out, and I had plenty of time to figure
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: it out before season. Um, but I will go ahead
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: in the scenario you're talking, I have no doubt I'm
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and set up a few stands. My
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: primary mission, though, is going to be where can I
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: set these stands so I can actually do a whole
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: lot of observing, have a chance at shooting something without
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: anything knowing I'm there. I'm not saying you're always able
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: to pull all that off, but that is no doubt
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: how I'm going to hunt. At the first few steps,
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and put trail cameras. I will have
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: an idea of how I believe the deer utilizing this ground,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: and then I'm going to try to pick low impact
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: spots that I can set trail cameras up in to
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: validate it or to tell me I'm wrong one of
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: the two. Um, and just kind of generally take that approach.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: It's not to me this type of stuff. Well, it
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: used to be, but it is no longer a race
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: to fill that buck peg. It's actually a race to
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: figure out this ground and how the deer use it.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Because once I got that down, I'm going to be
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: able to utilize that year after year after year after
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: year after year. I'm going to be able to do
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: minor improvements that are fairly darn minor. But man, does
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: it ever take that deer flow and put it on
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: steroids in a good way. But all of that type
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: of stuff, for me, it don't happen unless I learned
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: that property first. You when you talk about learning property,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: I'm sure part of that is trail cameras. And I'm
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: curious this is I've got I'm gonna get myself tangled
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: circles here. But one of the other scenarios that I
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: wanted to bring up is one that I'm gonna layer
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: on top of this one. Let's say we've got this lease,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: and here's the new SCENARIOM gonna throw at you. You
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: want to learn, you want to figure out what deer
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: out here. You want to figure out what these deer doings.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: So you want to run cameras to some degree. But
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: this location, this state does not allow any baiting, no baiting,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: no minerals, no attractings, nothing like that. So you can't
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: put a trophy rock, you can't put corn. All these
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: things that make it much more easy to figure out
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: what's out there. Um, we can't use it. What do
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: you do in that scenario, Sario, I'm in in on
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: one of the two managed properties. Mock scrapes are very
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: nice tools for inventorying bucks on food sources. I don't
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: care when it is. Just make that thing stick and
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: make that make that looking branch literally stick out like
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: a turd in a punch bowl. Put it right, smack
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: dab in that bux nose. Put it out in that
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: summer food plot, and you know what, they're not going
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: to work that anywhere near as much as they're going
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: to work them in in October. But when you're able
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: to create that social scrape like that the year rounds
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: I don't care what term you want to use for it.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: What I look at it as a communication hub where
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: they're they're not actually not pawing the ground hardly at all,
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: but they're working that licking branch. And what you'll notice
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: over summer, the does end up working in the liking
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: branches a heck of a lot more than the bucks
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: to um. But when you get that in the right spot,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you're going to end up having just about every buck
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: in that area stop off and visit once or twice
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: a month, just to keep up on everything else. Otherwise,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: think of it as thank you with it no different
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: than bowling, you know. I mean, sure there's some stakes
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: so while baiting and all that stuff, And I'm not
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: trying to rip on baiters in any way, shape or form,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: but most of us don't bait when we're hunting. But
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: yet somehow we're able to figure out fairly decent where
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: those mature bucks are gonna be walking. Do with the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: trail camera you do, I mean just your trail camera
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: is essentially a tree stand with somebody sitting in a seven. Now, Um,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: but the big the two big things that I really
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: focus on, well three. Obviously I want to get them
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: in spots where I will get intel, but way too much,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: way too much. We want to get intel on that
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: betting area that's a hundred yards back in the woods.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: So we go a hundred back in the woods and
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: slap camera on that betting area, when, huh, couldn't you
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: get intel on that bedding area almost almost as effectively
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: simply by setting up on the trail that leads to
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the betting area that dumps into that field. No, you're
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: not getting the exact same quality of intel, but you're
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: getting pretty darn good intel on what's going on in
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: that bedding area, because most of the deer you're seeing
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: enter that field off of that trail, either we're betting
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: in there or stopped by and this is it before
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: they came home. Really think about how can I get
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: this intel while putting my cameras in lower impact locations.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: One of the biggest sins I think there is when
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: it comes to using cameras is they're supposed to help us,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: not hurt us. Now, what a person can do, UM,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: if you have some of the louder flash cams, is
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: go ahead and set them up off the ground, or
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: you can even use them to your advantage. And that
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: is UM, don't take what I'm saying wrong. I do
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: not believe that most deer are afraid of a flash cam,
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: or even if even a camera that clicks to end
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: up getting used to it if it's on a mineral
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: liquor or a small water hole or a corner pile
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: or something like that. But now let's say that let's
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: say that metal that we set up that staging plot
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: in happens to be six years wide. I'm not taking
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: a sixt year in poke with my boated ear. But
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: what if I place that flash camera on the opposite
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: side of that metal. It's nowhere near enough to actually
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: scare that buck from not going in that metal again,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: but it tends to encourage a percentage of them to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: travel the other side a little bit more, and that's
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: where my camera happens to be. That's about the only time.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: That's about the only scenario where I think it is
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: acceptable for cameras too. I don't know, educate, for lack
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: of a better term, deer, there's a situation like that. Otherwise,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: really think about where you're putting those cameras, and think
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: about how you're checking them when you're checking them, all
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: that good stuff, because geez, way too often trying to
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: learn that ground, we end up exploding it by running
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: our own cams. Yeah, like you said, it can sometimes
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: be your worst enemy if you go the wrong way
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: with it. You talked about this little meadow that we're
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: turning into a into a little staging plot of sorts.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: Let's let's keep going with this scenario a little bit further.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna adjust it just a bit though. I'm going
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: to tell you now that most of your property is
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: relatively open. There's not a lot of great cover. There's
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: there's some, but most of the really good betting is
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: on your neighbors, mostly dear betting in your neighbors, and
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: most of your farm is a couple of fingers, And
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: then this meadow and the farmers crops you can't really
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: do anything with. So you want to try to figure
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: out some way to get that mature buck that's betting
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: on the neighbors to spend a little more daytime activity
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: or a little bit more of their time in the
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: day on your side. And that meadow maybe is the
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: only area you really have to work with. Let's say hypothetically, UM,
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: would you do anything different in that case? Would you
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: not plant that into a staging plot? Or would you
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: still do a plot? But would you do anything else
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: to make it more enticing? Would you add cover? Would
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: you throw a whole bunch of different things at it?
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Because that's the only thing you can improve. Let's say
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it's year two, maybe, so you've learned a few things.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: You now know that most of the bucks are betting
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: on the neighbors, etcetera, etcetera. Um, can you give me
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a little bit of an idea there so we got
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: the full happy tore metal. About the best thing we
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: can hope for from a cover standpoint is to get
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: some dose to bed in there. Um the buck. Mr
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Big has betted on the neighbors for a reason. There.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: Either he's got a he's got a great evergreen stand
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: down in some low land um and we're talking to
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: northern property. Or he man, he's got that point out
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: on the that ridge where you can see everything down
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: below him whatever for or there's an island on the
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: middle of their swamp. Now for whatever reason, he has
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: got primo betting over there. And you can't touch that,
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: um when you can't the idea of trying to get
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: him to bed over on your ground, I mean, there's
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: a chance you're gonna pull it off, but man, are
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you ever odds are really high. You're gonna work your
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: tail off that off on that and you are not
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: going to accomplish it. There is a reason Mr Big
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: is betting where he is. He is Mr Big. He
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: can go any dang place he wants out in the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: dear world, and he can do any darn thing he
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: wants within the dear world because he is the man. Okay, Um,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So you could rest assured there's a reason that he's
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: actually betting where he in the various spots he does,
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: and those reasons are because, for whatever, for whatever reason,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: he believes that this these are the safest places I have,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: whereas your doughs and fons and immature books place way
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: more comparatively, way more importance on being close to a
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: food source. Mr Big Scale swings hard to leave me
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: alone in a place I feel safe. So if I
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: know he and I'm sorry for going that deep in there,
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: but I actually think that when it comes to management,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: I think that is one of the most critical critical
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: things to grasp and that you don't go ahead and
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: try to force your ground and your dear to your goals.
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: You listen to what they're telling you. Then you take
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: what they're telling you that works for you when you
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: try to put it on steroids. Um, so we can
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: get the dose to bed there, but really, how much
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: if we're talking time wasting, how much time is that
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: going to waste for Mr big just to check that
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: little half acre thing. He's walking by it anyway, um
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: most likely to get back and forth between bedding and food.
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: So those looking branches share are a nice thing there
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: aren't they. I mean, we've all watched bucks work, work, scrapes.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: It's not like they walk up to it and within
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: two seconds they're on, They're they're gone. Now. They generally
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: waste anywhere from one to five minutes, And you know
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: is what would I do? I'm thinking so often as
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: a game of minutes. If I can get that buck,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: If I can get that buck to come in one
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: two minutes earlier, that's often all the difference I need.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: If the neighbors sitting on the other side of the fence,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: if I can waste one or two minutes of that
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: buck's time, you know what, the odds of him catching
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: that hunter climbing down out of his tree stand instead
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: of the last five minutes of light with him up
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: in it are a lot bigger. They're a lot better
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: those going ahead and adorning that metal with licking branches.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. If there's if there are bigger
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: time wasters for bucks than thickening up your woods and
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: offering a bunch of licking branches, I'm not sure what
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: the heck they are. Can you real quick, Sorry to interrupt,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: but can you elaborate on the licking branches. So I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: understand if there's a bunch of trees already overhanging and
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you can just clear our space or anath them, so
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: it becomes a natural mox scrape. But what if we
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: don't have those natural trees. Would you propose you know,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: pounding in a t post or a big wooden post
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: and attaching limbs or okay, tell me more about that,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: but whatever and anything that works for some guys. They
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: swear up and down right and left about hanging hemp ropes.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: You know what, that didn't work that great for me,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: But if it works for you, for love of Pepperoni pizza,
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: keep doing it. Now, hang a bunch of me. Personally,
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: what I'm doing nine times out of ten is either
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: bending a branch down, nailan one to a tree, wiring
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: it to a tree, or not. I actually do not
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: work with these gentlemen in any way, shape or form.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: But there's this product out there called scrape stick. They
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: went ahead and sent me a couple last year to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: check out. They're just a bracket that you screw or
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: strapped to a tree and slap a slap a branch
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: in it. I've used a couple of those last year,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: I've ran wires from tree to tree about big feet
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: off the ground and hung branches from them. It doesn't
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: matter how you skin this cap. The big thing is
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: get that branch right in that box, nose the other,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and I guarantee that you've got all sorts of people
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: out there right now, because this isn't a question I
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: get by far the most whenever I talk what type
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of branch should I use? I do not care what
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: branch you use. It doesn't I have seen bucks literally
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: trash trash hawthorn branches and licking branches with their three
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: inch thorns all over the darn things. When you put
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: that licking branch in the right spot, it almost doesn't
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: not matter what type of branch you're using. Personal me,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: I tend to stick to a hardwoods just because I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: don't want to replace them. Um. And the other thing
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: when it comes to mock scrapes is I suggest the
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: first year, don't even you scent scent. If you really
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: want to learn how to make mock scrapes, get out
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: there the first year and just play around with licking branches.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: Once you get that down, Once you get that down,
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: oh man, mock scrapes are easy because of the scent.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: There's nothing more than it buys me about about extra
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: activity at these locations. But if I start by using scent,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going to generally get better results. And that sounds great,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: but no, I want I want to get I want
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: to get my results initially. One I'm saying what I'm learning.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: You know, when I'm first learning how to make box
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: scrapes sing, focus on the licking branch, forget everything else,
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: because once you got that down, oh jeez, now now
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: you can start playing with sense and that type of
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: stuff and you can put your results on steroids. But
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: you learn how to make those bucks dance with nothing
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: but a licking branch, and the rest comes super, super easy.
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: And what you will find is the whole key is
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: to put that thing right in front of their nose
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: in an area with relatively open ground cover where dear concentrate.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: You do that. I honestly think it's almost as simple
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: as a deer can't help, but it's almost like a reflex.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: They can't help, but work that scrape. Um, I'll probably
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: go ahead and slat, so I will on a half
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: acre metal In that type of scenario you describe, I'm
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: gonna have at least a dozen, at least a dozen
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: prime licking brand to around that thing, because I want
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: this to turn into it just a scraping. Friends. Now,
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: I personally am gonna go ahead and slap uh making
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: them scrape dripper and either active scrape or golden scraper
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: hot scrape in that scrape dripper. But one of the
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: things you learn when you're doing this stuff is about
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: half the box love tearing into the mock scrape you
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: you you made, about the other half, they just get
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: really mad and they want to make one right next
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: to you. So when you're making these mock scrapes, always always,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: always make sure that you don't make one minimum of two, okay,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: and you're gonna see your activity go up quite a
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: bit right there. Okay. So now I've got these least
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: dozen mock dozen looking branches on this half acre opening,
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I'll go ahead and very little water bucket give them
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: one more and to come there. Um, if it's a
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: half acre, I can't really go to nuts on trees,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: but i'll probably i'll probably slap in, slap in, assuming
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: I feel good about this being a long term lease,
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, if this is going to be
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: a lease. Then I'm not sure I'm going to have
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: five years from now. I'm not doing this, but if
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I am confident it's going to be a long term
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: I will certainly go ahead and slap in a handful
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: of mass trees and that opening to go ahead and
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: complement the cereal rye that I'll be planting until the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: soil is in good health. And once the soil is
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: in good health, I'll go ahead and just top speed
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: clover into there, because quite honestly, if you only have
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a half acre food plot, clover is tough to beat
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: um for most places in this world. If he'll let
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: me do some stuff in the timber, without a doubt,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I will edge feather that um that food plot. And
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: by edge feather I mean I will either hinge cut
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a band of about five yard wide band around the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: food plot on the low timber value smaller trees. UM.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: There's oftentimes where you're in the mature woods zone and
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: you don't have smaller, low timber value trees. If I can,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna try. If that's the case, I'm going to
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: try to convince them to let me do a little
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: bit of logging for him. Maybe sell some because one
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of the biggest things I want to do is I
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: want to try to thicken up that woods, and I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: want to thicken up around the edge of that plot
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: so the deer that are walking through the woods fifty
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: yards away can't see into the plot. No, there's nothing
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of interest there. I'm just gonna keep going to the field. Um. Then,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: also you mentioned that the bucks are betting on the neighbors.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: That means there joe up in the fence somewhere. I'm
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: gonna find out where they're jumping the fence, and I'm
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: gonna try to figure out if I can get to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that spot without any get to that spot, hunt it,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and get out without anything knowing I'm there. Because really,
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: if I can find that spot, but I'm really going
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: to be doing is hunting that at and assuming I
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: can get away with it. Now, um that that it's
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I can get in, I can hunt it, I can
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: get out way more often than that without the deer
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: knowing I'm doing it. And I'll probably set up stand
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: if there's one spot, almost certainly will set up stands
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: on both sides of that crossing. If if I can
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: make safe winds on both sides because really, that's where
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I'm planning on killing that book. I'll set up about
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: fifty yards off that fence line, wait for him to
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: jump the fence to head on down to that stuff,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: and that's where I'm gonna shoot him. It sounds like
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: a pretty good plan, because just because it sounds great,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: don't I mean? I do want to pressace something. When
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: people talk like this, it always sounds great. It does.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: It doesn't always work out that darn easy, though, And
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you know that as well as I do. It seems
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: like too few people ever bother pointing that part out.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: That's it's it's it's important point. Let's let's talk a
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: little more on the hunting side, and let's shift from
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: a situation where you've got a small lease, you've got
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: control of it to now let's say you've gotten permission
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: on a property and it is a great property. It's small,
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: but it's great. It's it's kind of like that magical
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: eight you describe where it's between two huge chunks of
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: timber um. You know from maybe you know some people
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: that hunt neighboring properties. You just know that the grape
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: vine that this is an exceptional property. Lots of really good,
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: big mature bucks come off of this this little area here.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: But a family member owns the property. So you've got
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: this family member, they own the farm. They've given you permission.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: But for lack of a better better term, they hunted
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: like a knucklehead. They hunt, they don't think about when
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: they do a lot of silly things. They go in
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: there and push things around, and they just they do
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: things exact opposite of the way you would want to.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: So here's the question, here's the scenario. Would you just
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: avoid hunting it altogether because you know that your knucklehead
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: cousin or uncle or whatever is going to blow it
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: up and just make it a pain in the butt.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: Or do you stay to yourself. There's so much potential here.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: I know there's great hunting to be had. I gotta
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: figure out some way to change what he does. Would
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: you try to speak that, would you try to change
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: his ways, would you try to give him some advice
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: on how to do it better? Or finally, would you
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: just let him do his thing and you would use
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: his mistakes to your advantage and find a way to
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: use his knucklehead and moves to work in your favor.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: Which of those three options would you choose? And why
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: m I probably go with hybrid and make an option
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: for if you don't mind. And that is um and
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: that is I'm gonna I'm gonna hunt. Will I talk
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: to him, of course. But at the same time, here's
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: something I've learned along along. I used to consult for
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: outfitters and it used to drive me absolutely nuts. How
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: so darn many of these hunters. There they are before
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: they go out in the morning, wearing their scent lock
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: suits in the kitchen while the guys for frying bacon
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: eggs and hash browns. And I used to just what
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: are you guys thinking, Oh, that would drive me nuts.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: You've worked so hard to try to get this set
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: up so right, and now the outfitters send him some
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: kind of absolutely reached like the kidsen out. But wait
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: a minute, that's their hunt, not ears. And this stuff
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: is supposed to be fun. And if that's what's fun
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: for those guys. If if my cousin brother's uncle's sister
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: is really in to doing what he's doing, she's doing
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: out there and they're having a blast, you know what,
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: I'm sure not going to I'm sure not going to
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: push hard if they want, if I will gladly, gladly
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: try to help heck, virtually any hunter in this world
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: all that genuinely wants. But I'm not gonna I'm not
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: gonna shove it down his or her throat. Okay. What
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I will do, though, is I'm going to treat this
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: just like Jesus. I mentioned that consulted for a whole
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: bunch of outfitters. Now I was lucky. I consulted for
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: the generally speaking, the really good ones. But still, we're
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: really every outfitter. There's exceptions, but most outfitters these days
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: have to follow the same script because least prices are
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: so high and blah blah blah blah blah, profits just
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: keep going down. They just slap these people in the
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: same stands day after day after day after day after day,
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: and guess what. Eventually that dough jumps the fence and
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: something's behind it, and that's something that's behind it is
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: pretty darn big oftentimes. Um. That's really most outfitters I
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: know these days. That's how they stay in business, just
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: simply by by putting putting in the time he hunters
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: and these stands, and eventually, if that area is good
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: enough that dough is going to jump that fence and
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, Mr Big he knows, he knows the side
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: of the fence ain't fun and I ain't a place
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: that he should be. But oh she smells weight, who
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: pretty not to follow her? If if if that area
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: is that good and I don't have a spot that
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: is as good of quality of bucks for that area, Oh,
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting it. I'm gonna hunt it, and I'm gonna
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: put in a whole bunch of time because I don't
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: care how well you manage your property. I don't care
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: how poorly you manage it. If Mr Big ain't there,
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: you ain't shooting him. And Mr Big is in that area.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: And for as much credit as we do give Mr
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Big for being smart and he's no fool generally speaking,
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: they can't act really stupid sometimes, And when he does,
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: I want to be up in that tree to meet him.
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: So are you are you gonna wait then for the rut?
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Or would you would you? Would you? Would you look
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: at the rest of the year is kind of a
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: waste of time and just focus on the rut time period.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: I'm going to at all times, I'm gonna listen to
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: what deer telling me, and that is if I got
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: some trail cameras out there. It's a week before season,
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: and jeez, this buck I've got him. I've got a
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: buck a week before season. All over, these camera are
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: gonna be out there opening day, darn right, I am
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: if instead all I'm getting, I'm getting great buck pitchers, man,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: all sorts of great buck pitchers, and they're all at
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: eleven o'clock to four o'clock in the morning, and I'm
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: probably probably gonna find someplace else to hunt until the
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: run oh Les, we get a cold snamp and all
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: of a sudden he starts cooperating. And always, always, always
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: try to remain rigidly flexible in everything. I go in
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: with a plan for darn near everything on how I'm
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: going to attack this. But man, flexibility is my best friend.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: When I get new data, I'm going to incorporate that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: data into my equation and I'm going to see if
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: it gives me a different answer, And if he gives
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: me a different answer, I'm taking a different road. Makes sense, Yeah,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: you mentioned you mentioned a scenario that I actually wanted
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: to bring up next, which is getting pictures of a
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: mature buck leading and opening day. So let's say you've
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: getting pictures of a mature buck leading up to opening
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: day of the season. So let's say you've you're you're
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: getting daylight picks of the top buck you're after over
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: and over and over leading up to opening day, multiple picks,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: and during that week leading up to it, it it looks
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: really great. But when you look at the weather forecast
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: for the first three days of the season, it's crud like,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: it's hot, the wind is very subpar for the spots
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: you would want to go to try to kill him. Um.
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: But at the same time, you know that everyone's starting
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: to hunt, right, Hunting pressure is gonna ramp up significantly.
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is a property to other people hunt too,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: so you know that, hey, these other guys or my my,
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: my cousin might start hunting. So you know you've got
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: a balance, like the change in dear behavior that's going
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to happen with hunting pressure versus the benefit of of
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: hunting early that first night but with poor conditions. What
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: would you do? Would you still hunt opening night even
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: with those poor conditions because he was moving daylight. He
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: might change that after the day or two of hunting,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: or do you wait until you've got the right conditions,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: because you just you do not want to go in
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: there with things wrong. Well, how would you think through
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: that and what would you do? Okay? The first thing
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I would do is probably have four times as many
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: stands as anybody's thinking right now. Um, just because my
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: my philosophy on this when it comes to private grounds,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: my philosophy is I want I do not want to
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: be messing around in that timber. If I'm doing on
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: a field of edge, don't worries, but I am not
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: messed around in that timber for anywhere from two weeks
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: on through season unless I absolutely positively have to. And
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: if if it involves the tree stand, that means I
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: didn't do my job, either for myself or my client,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: one of the two. Um, you go ahead, and no
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: matter how many stands, you make sure that you have
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: every decent spot, sincerely decent spot. I'm not talking about
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: it's okay, you could kill it here here, but every decent,
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: truly decent, a good spot on that property you should
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: have set up. And if it's if it is a
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: really good spot, you should have it set up with
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: multiple wind directions if possible. Okay, Um, it is a
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: lot of people look at that as a pain, particularly
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: when honestly, um, now, well, let's stick to this myself.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: I hunt about h I've bet of the stands that
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: I prepped each year for myself. That's it. And a
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: lot of people look at the extra standard. Oh man,
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: you're working. No, no, please, please work me. I mean
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: that just means I got a bunch of good spots
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: to set up, and the advantages, the advantages of being
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: able on November, forget about that December. All of a
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: suddenly this buck showed up from nowhere, and now he's
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: going ahead and he's betting on that need just barely
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: over that neighbor's line. So I can't set up on
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: that fence crossing we were talking about before. Now. But
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: oh jeez, if I had one in this pinch down here,
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: that would be perfect. Well, if I don't have one
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: there already, that's my own ain't fold. And the reason
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: that I have one there is yeah, I haven't said
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: it one time this entire season, but you know what
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: if that buck does show up on the oh I
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: got to do is walk into the wood to climb
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: up that stand, and he has no clue on there.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: The advantages of that are huge. Me personally, I'm going
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: to go nuts ouder control and I'm going to hunt
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: that box. But that's also because I believe that I
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: can pull it off. If I didn't with an if
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: he wind, I'm not going to do it. I'll wait
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: until I get a good wind, because that if you
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: don't and I hesitate. In the last five ten years,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: I hardly even talk about this anymore because I think
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I think way too many people either dismiss it out
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: of hand or believe it but yet don't take seriously
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: how much f it is to pull it off. When
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: it comes to I can defeat my toast as a
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: smell I have up until late season, I have no
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: doubt whatsoever in my mind. But I'll tell you what,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: it takes a lot of work. This is not something
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: you do in a half hour a week. You're spending
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: forty five minutes. I spend forty five minutes every time
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: before I go out prepping just to be able to
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: do that. Is there anything that you're doing that's above
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: beyond the normal. I am stargling with the most disgusting
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: tasting stuff you've ever put in your mouth. It's a
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: vanishing hunter, and you have to find it on the
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: internet because they don't even sell it in stores anymore. Um. Otherwise,
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: it's not really it's not really any one thing. It
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: is being unbelievably thorough and meticulous. If you're bringing it
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: out in the woods with you, it's got to be treated,
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: period into worry. You know. That includes the glasses that
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: are on my head as we speak now. This year
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: I finally got smart because I had to buy new
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: glasses and actually had a weird, stupid story. My wife
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: accidentally bought me uh sunglasses online rather than regular ones.
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: So I'm like, you know what, I could actually use
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: a couple of extra pair ofs and of regular glasses.
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna so this year I actually bought a pair
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of glasses that I use for nothing but honey. And
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: I know that sounds so ridiculously overkill, but ab solutely,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: everything you bring out in the woods with you, without fail,
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: must be treated. About eight years ago, I was scared
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: getting winded and I couldn't figure out what the heck
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: was going on. I knew it was something. I went ahead.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: I got some moisture in my bowl case and my
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: boat case got a little funky smelling. That's all it took.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: And I was even sprayed my bowl every time, but
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: obviously not getting every square inch of it. That's all
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: I talk to get winded. I went ahead and address that, said,
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: oh man, we're back in the game, and we were
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: surrounded by deer again last night without getting But you
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: have to be unbelievably meticulous your boots, think like hack,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: you gotta wash them out now. That grunt tube that
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: you're blowing into all season long has so darn much
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: back t your and it's not even funny those optics.
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: If you don't need to bring it in the woods
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: with you don't. If I have to go back to
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the truck to get my gutting gloves, a knife, and
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: a toe rope, it's been a really good day. It's
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: a good point. That's a good problem. Yeah exactly. Let's
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: move forward in the month of October. One. One real
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: quick thing though, and that the biggest place I see
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: people falling down of all places, is they go ahead
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: and they buy all this scent free stuff, and they
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: take that shower and they dry off with that towel
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: that was treated with a fabric softener and you're wiping
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: perfume all over your darn body. Your toilet treats need
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: to be treated every minute seriously as you're hunting stuff.
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: And then if you've got to drive to where you're going,
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: do not wear your hunting stuff in the vehicle where
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: treated cold, and just to get to where to where
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: you're going and change there all right, now, I'm done,
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: I hear you. I try to do all that as
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: best as I possibly can. And like you said, it's
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: it's a chore, it's not easy, but it's it's those
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: little details that can make all the difference. Yeah. Sure,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: And as I said, for for a lot of people
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: out there, don't do it if it's not fun. Please
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: for me personally, if I don't do this, it literally
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: drives me nuts. Every single time the word switches just
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: drives me insane. But anyway, anyway, I know that feeling
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: when that one switches and your panicking. That's no fun. Um.
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: Let's push into mid October. A lot of people, not everyone,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: but a lot of people are quite hesitant about hunting
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: during mid October. There's the you know, there's all the
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: talk of the October lull. Some people won't hunt mornings
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: throughout most of October until later in the month because
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: of all these things. So I want to throw a scenario.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: You have to see how you would approach it in
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: that time period. It's mid October, a big cold front
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: is hitting, so you've got that blessed cold front coming in.
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: It's gonna drop down for maybe it's been very warm
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: that STIPs in the seventies, it's gonna drop down to
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: lows in the twenties and maybe even the first snow
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: of the year. I mean exceptional. You don't have much
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: time available to hunt though, because of I don't know,
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: You've got to work a regular day job or family
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: stuff going on. It's gonna keep you from being will
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: hunt the ideal time period. So you've got two options.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: You can hunt the very first morning, so you have
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: to hunt in October morning, but it's the very first
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: morning after that coal front hits, or you could wait
• 59:07
  Speaker 1: two days in hunting evening. Would you go right away
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: and hunt the morning, or would you avoid the mornings
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: and hunt later after the coal front and get that evening.
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: I cannot do both. You can't do both because I've
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: got a real life, and I can pull off one
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: kitchen pant and one additional thing. Pick pick which date
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: or which of those options you'd like to hunt, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: then I'd like to hear your ideal hypothetical stand you
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: would hunt for that scenario. Yeah, I would pick the
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: morning and that hunted doe betting area. Why because we
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: confuse buck running behavior with the rut all the time.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: They are two completely different animals. I don't care about
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: the actual breeding days. All I care about is running
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: buck activity. Okay, that their testosterone levels have been I
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: am assuming we're talking the Midwest, some place midwestern points north. Okay, Um,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: their testosterone level has been building now for a couple
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: of months. Okay, it's nowhere near peaking yet, but it's
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: starting to get it's starting to get itchy time. Okay,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: now that cold front hits that cold I mean, I'll
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: be honest with you. You're taking a colder than if
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: it's seventy seventy seventy seventy for the past ten days,
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: gimme fifty. And I'm treating at the exact fame and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: I'm actually more optimistic. Um, when you have a fifty
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: degree temp drop, that can that that's intense, And when
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: you have stuff that intense every now and then, what
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: I think, I'm so smart, and I know it turns
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: out to the exact opposite um, but you get in
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: that twenty degree drop, and that is that's something special.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: I don't care if it's going from nine to seventy
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: or seventy to fifty or fifty to thirty. If you
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: had four or five plus days in a row of
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: those high tempts at boom, the bottom falls out by
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: ten fifty degrees, you get your tail out the woods.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Because those bucks, if it's mid October, I guarantee you
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: that they are the majority of them, are acting just
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: like it's November five. And you think that's just simply
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: because they've been waiting. The anticipation has been building in
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: that that weather que gets them over the hump that
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: they need to at least start checking them out eggs
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: and and at the same time, there's I can all
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: but promise you there have been a door or two
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: bread already around there. And they're not stupid. They probably
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: were the ones bread that did the breeding. We try
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: so hard, and especially with the way or weather patterns
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: are getting just stupidly whacked out, that is messing I'm
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: telling you sometime we can have a long, long, long
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: discussion that would borrow your audience to tears about about
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: how this stuff has abbs so loutly positively messed up
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: white tail patterns too. I mean, it's jeez. I'm watching
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I'm watching not last January, but the January before. For
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: the first time in my life, I'm watching a mature
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: a dobe and mounted in January, and last year I'm
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: watching on October one, I'm watching a dear a dole
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: stand to get bread. It is so all over the
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: map these days, it ain't even funny. But even before now,
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: more breeding occurs well before and well after the rout
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: than we give a credit for. Okay, the peak rout
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: and it gets tighter. The further north you get, it
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: gets beer the further south to yet, because mother nature
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: is Mother nature is a charge of enforcing positive and
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: negative reinforcement, and the further north to get mother Nature
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: gets really mean, um button uh, there are all jeez.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: I remember all the way back when I was in
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: college working with an outfitter and him showing me what
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: was a high eight footage at the time of a
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: mature buck mounting a mature dough in mid September. More
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: breeding occurs before the rut than we can after the
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: rugh than we give it credit for. It's just that
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: the majority of breeding occurs during this window. So I
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: believe Mr Big already has had at least the smell
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: of this stuff his testosterone in his building. He's been
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: around the block more than once. He understands that some
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: doos are going to come in early, most of them
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: are going to come in on time, some of them
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: are going to come in a little bit late. And
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: oh then we got the doll farms coming. None of
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: this is new to him. Okay, So when that temp
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: drop occurs, with all that other stuff going on, I
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: I it seems as if, as I said, I can't
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: talk to deer, but it sure seems as if he
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: can't help himself. It's just too darn much. Gotta get
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: after it, yep. But then there as soon as attempts
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: start climbing again, Oh that's done. What about this? What
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: about Because what you've described is something that I think
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: people have seen in the past, where a doe comes
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in early and there's this moment of chaos around that doll.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: But the inevitably that doe is going to you know,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: be out of heat, and then it's going to be
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: back into this waiting period for the rest of the
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: deer to come in. So what if you see this
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: moment of excitement in early to mid October where a
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: dolle comes in early you can tell that doll must
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: be hot because there's bucks chasener. It seems like all
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: of a sudden the rud is hit. But it's October
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: eight or ninth or something like that, and you know
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: it couldn't possibly be the peak of the rud obviously.
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: So I would imagine in that scenario, when you see
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: that happening, you say, Okay, I gotta hunt right now
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: because there's there's something special happening right now. But how
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: long would you imagine that lasting? Would you keep hunting
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: for two or three days as if it's this RUD activity,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: or would you stop after the first day? Or would
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: you hunt for what do you what's that time frame?
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: I give it about two days generally speaking. For for
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: if I'm if I'm hunting all right here, I'm hunting
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: some public ground and I'm watching a four and a
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: half year old and the whole man if you're watching
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: a four and a half year old on Wisconsin public ground,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: you're doing something right. I'm watching a four and a
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: half year old chasing around this doll, and if that
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: far and a half year olds chasing them around, chasing
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: that door around, I can all but promise you there's
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: gonna be others chasing them around too. There's gonna be
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: that one three and a half year old in the
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: entire county that happens to live on this ground as well,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: and a couple two and a half year olds and
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: a handful of one and a half year old and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be us. It's gonna be fun to watch
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: because she's the only the only show in town, and
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: man does she smell pretty? And that odor is wafting
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: across that land. Um, I'm gonna hunt it probably like well,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: I will go in there, back to that public ground
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna hunt that just like it was the
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: rut for in that specific area as close to that
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: zone as I've been seeing this. If there's a betting
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: area right around there, you can bet I'm gonna hunt
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: that tomorrow. O. Um, Because say, I think this is
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: just think, but my experience has done, dude, tend to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: play this out. When that occurs, you've got about two
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: days of excitement before things calm back down to normal again,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 1: just because of just because of the snowball effect that
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: that dough running around out they're created. Because now about that,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: that likely that four and a half year old bucks
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: more often than not ended up with her. But that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: three and a half year old was still running around
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: out there. And I'm telling you what, on public ground,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: I will shoot that three and a half year old
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: every day of the week and say thank you, Can
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: I please han noo? Yep, that's a good buck? Yep?
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: What about this? What if all this you know, we're
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: talking a lot about October. I gotta imagine from past
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: conversations and things I've read, and from a lot of
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: kind of common um a common approach to deer hunting
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: is be careful in October, hunt when you can hunt smart,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: but be careful not to mess up your spots before November,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: right because that's when you're gonna get the most activity,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: the most opportunities, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. What if I told
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: you that November is off limits, you can no longer
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 1: hunt in November. You can hunt October, do whatever you want,
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: but November it's off limits, can't do anything. How would
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: you hunt differently in October if that was the case,
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: Not that much differently, because quite frankly, um, quite frankly,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: I think that hunting the same stands. But the stands
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: that are hottest in November generally aren't hottest in October.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: You know, that's one thing that U I'll tell you
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: what one of the most humbling yet beneficial learning experiences
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: of my entire life was those years consulting for outfitters.
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: You want to put your learning through a long steroids have. Oh,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: depending on how many outfitters I was working with per year,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: anywhere from seventy five to two and fifty people telling
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: you what you did wrong. I'll I mean, you better
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 1: have thick skin. But at the same time, you know, yeah,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: some of them didn't have a clue what they were
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: talking about, but a lot of them did. And what
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: that actually taught me is that guy who comes or
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: a girl who goes ahead and works a real job
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: and scrimps and saves all day, year or multiple years
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: in many cases, to go on this hunt of a lifetime.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: He doesn't give a darn about it's October fourteenth and
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: that it's eighty degrees and that the deer aren't moving. Now,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: all he cares about is this is my dream hunt.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: So you got to figure out a way to put
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: that guy on a deer or you're not doing your job. Um.
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: What that really ultimately taught me is, honestly, generally there
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: are a few rare exceptions, but generally speaking, the stands
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: I want to hunt in November and not the stands
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I want to hunt even on a Halloween. Um. So
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: generally speaking, no, I'm not going to go ahead and
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: alter alter my general style. About the only thing I
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: would alter, though, is that that um scrape that's on
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: the down one side of that dough betting area. I'm
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: gonna hunt it a little bit more aggressively. I mean,
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna hunt it anyway either way, but I'm going
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to hunt it probably a little bit more aggressively than
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: I would otherwise, because otherwise I'm going in there thinking, yep,
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: I want every time I'm go into a stand, I'm
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: for hunting a buck. There's all sorts of stands I
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: crawl up into just for fun. But when I'm going
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: into what I consider a buck stand. I'm not going
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: into it unless I believe that I have a legitimate
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: chance of filling my tag at this spot today. Okay, um,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: but I am going to be a little bit more
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: aggressive if I don't get to hunt October. I'm sorry November,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: just because what I do view it as is okay things,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: my gents. I'm sure this is why you asked me,
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: you know, is what was I doing. My general approach
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: the season is to start very low impact and slowly
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: ramp my impact levels up because Mr Bag will tolerate
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: a heck of a lot more guff for me on
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: November ten than he ever would on October one or
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: December one. Okay, um. That is the one part that
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: I would alter, is I probably would, I know probably
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: about it. I would be a little bit more aggressive
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: and how often I'm hunting some of these higher impact stands,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: But otherwise my approach really wouldn't change. Let's look at
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: another a pivot off of that a little bit. Let's
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: say you can still hunt November now you're not October.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: You hunt November, but you've got a world class buck
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: that you're hunting, world class like the biggest buck you've
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: ever had a chance at. It's you know, two some
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: inch seven year old buck. You've been watching him for years. Um,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: he's he's become this object of obsession. But you have
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: a bunch of neighbors now that know about him too.
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: And you're in a small private let's say eighty acres,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: and your neighbors all know about this, dear, and they
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: are very good hunters now too. They've got it. They're
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: they're pretty dialed in. Um, and let me let me
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: adjust a little bit. In past years, there hadn't been
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: these great hunters. Now you've got all of a sudden,
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: for whatever freak scenario, all these really good hunters are
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: now surrounding you. So you have a lot of high
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: quality competition for this world class dear. Would that change
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: your typical your typical ramp up you would start carefully,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: you would ramp up towards November? Or would you say
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: there's always really good hunters. If I don't kill him early,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: inevitably one of them will. So I'm gonna take aggressive
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: stabs earlier in October, because if I don't get it now,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: it's not gonna happen at all. What would your thought
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: process be with that kind of scenario, Well, shave fifteen
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: inches off the rack, a year off of his age,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: and go ahead and make the property considerably bigger. And
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: I wasn't that exact scenario back. Um. I I approached
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: it as I hunted him like I was the only
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: person in this world hunting him because I can control
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: what I can control, but I can't control what they do.
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying that this is right, wrong, or indifferent.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying this is how I thought it through. Um.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: I went ahead and I started hunting him on the
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: very Now I was lucky in that, and this is
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: going to play a role in this, Okay. In this case,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: his core, ay was smack dabb One of his primary
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: core areas was smack dabbing in the center of the
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: property that I'm managing. Okay, I know that's his home base.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: The last thing in the world in that situation I'm
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: going to do is boot his butt out of his
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: own home base onto the neighbors. Okay. So I started
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: a very very very low impact nibbling away at him,
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't until jeez, it wasn't until I got
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: real aggressive on I think It was November three or four,
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: maybe the fifth where I actually I actually went. I
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: this one. I knew, I believed, I knew where he
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: was betting, okay, And there happens to be a bunch
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: of dough betting just on just to the south of
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: where he's betting. You've been out on these points, then
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: there's this flat that's just prime dough betting. Okay. I
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: went on November three or four five, right around there,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: on a very windy, wet day. I went in and
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: hold an all day for him in there, and actually
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: he busted me cold. Yeah. I was looking one way
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: with the by knocks, watching a watching a young buck
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: chasing the door around, and I hear a twig snap
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: and I slowly turned. I mean, but it didn't matter.
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: He was sitting there at six yards stare in a
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: hole in me. He was watching me, watching the dough chase,
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: watching the young buck chase around the door. Talk about
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: keeping your eye on the prize, um, Yeah, And then
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: then it's like, okay, now what do I do. I mean,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: there's he's out of here, guaranteed, no, But do I
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: stay I ain't. There's a chance he could get on
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: something hot and if he gets on something hot, she
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: wants to be here. But yeah, the rest of the
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: cit was really fun. Um, but I that was my
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: one crack. It's like, I'm gonna wait till November to
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: get aggressive on him, and I went right in there
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: after him. And then what I do is I ended
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: up sitting the whole day, never saw him again, um,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: and got the heck out and all right, I'm I'm
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: done going aggressive now until we get much later, because
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: I feel that I play all these games in my head.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: I think that I've got one mulligan on a buck
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: like that that I can probably get away with something
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: like that happening once. Now. I'm not saying I'm gonna
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: be able to kill him out of that tree stand
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: now after that, but I'm saying that I don't believe
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: that one encounter was enough to totally blow him out
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: of that area. He has lived here for seven and
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: a well actually he's a seven and a half euro buck,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: but he's actually lived in this area from the time
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: he was one and a half on and for the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: last two years he's been the man. He's had the choice,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: and there's a reason he's choosing this is because that
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: betting area is primal, so I don't think that one
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: encounter is gonna be enough to blow him out of there.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: But I ain't gonna risk number two. So I went
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: back to nipping more at the edges of what I
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: considered his core area and ended up ended up thankfully,
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: trying to shoot him without taking off the safety on
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: my gun, um during our firearms season. And I say
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: thankfully because I jerked on that trigger so darn hard
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: that I couldn't have even hit the sky if the
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: safety had been off. But it was enough for me. Okay,
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: Because I don't do this type of stuff. I hunt
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: mature books. I rarely said this is the only book
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: I've ever this is the one I'm killing her. I'm
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: not killing nothing period in the story. Um, And I
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: just actually seen him once all season long. And now
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: it's the end of November and there I'm sitting there
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: with a shotgun in my hand, and you're sitting at
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: sitting at a hundred and twenty yards. And as I said, honestly,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: if I had not forgot to turn off the safety,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: I guarantee I would have missed him, because I was
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I was a ball of nerves. But then it's like, okay,
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: just chill your butt the heck out. He has no clue.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: You just need to get your stuff together in this
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: book is yours. So thankfully he was quartered towards me
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: by that point, so I had to sit there for
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: about two minutes, and it wasn't enough to get my
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: act together and actually make the shot. So what did
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: you you know, going from usually hunting mature bucks to
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: now that year being after the buck? Did you learn
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: anything unique that season from that buck about either you
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: or about what big old special bucks like that do,
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: or how to kill a single deer like that? Was
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: there any big takeaway from that season? The big takeaway
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: is I enjoy hunting bucks a lot more than I
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: enjoy hunting a single box. Well, that is stressful, that
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: is I mean, it was incredibly rewarding. Okay, and there
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: have been there, don't get me wrong. There have been
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: other bucks over the course of the years that's set
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: out to kill, but it hasn't been I am not
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: shooting anything. It's kind of cool as we're talking, I'm
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: sitting there looking at his pedestal out but there's never
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: been another buck in this world. But I said, no,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: it's it's himmer nothing read end the story. And I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: figured it would be a one time thing at the time,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: and yeah, I'm glad I did it. It was. It
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: was a thrillingly frustrating, stressful experience. But no, I have
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun just going out there and hunting
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: the mature bucks period, to be really honest with you,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun. Yeah, I certainly can relate to
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: the stress part. I end up hunting one single mature
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: buck by default a lot of years because the only one,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 1: and that ends up being I don't know, it's prematurely
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: graying my hair. I think. I think I'll say that
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: exact same thing here. What I should say is what
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: I did is I had it in my mind that
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: it didn't matter what the heck else stopped stepped out.
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: That this I mean, And I'm I'll be brutally honest
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: with you, if a step to heck, if or stepped out,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: you know, fifteen inches smaller than this one. I'm not
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: promising I would have stuck to my guns because of
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: being originally flexible has its benefits, okay, But in my
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: mind it was this ear bust period and the story,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: you know, and I've been in the situations you're talking
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: about a whole bunch where yeah, you only have one
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: mature bucket the eerie. But I'm telling you, if something
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: even marginally close to it shows up, I'm shooting it
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: and I'm saying thank you. Whereas in this one, I
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: passed up some ridiculous stuff or bucks that there's no
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: way I'm passing up under normal just and I'm glad
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 1: I did it. But it's it was a one time
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: thing for this guy, because everybody has their own different
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: special things that float there about, and that was well here,
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: I've actually horrific experience when um blue tongue came through
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: one of the properties I was managing back in two
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: thousand third. I mean, I've had blue tongue come through
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: so many I really honestly think on most of the
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: properties I managed not think. I know that we lose
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: five to ten percent of the deer there each year
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: to blue tongue UM, but this was a particularly horrific
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: year and we lost sevent of all the deer on
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: in this area. I'll tell you a lot. You go
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: through a junk like that once and you either go
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: nuts or you learn how to look at things differently.
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: And I'll tell you what that it was a painful lesson,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: but I learned to create then that you know, this
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: stuff is supposed to be fun. If it's it's up
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: to you to make it fun. So don't do things
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: that stress you out. That's it's hard to argue with
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: right there. Well, and everybody does. I mean, jeez, I
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: know this, I mean I could. I hate to say this,
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: but I almost beat up in a seventy some year
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: old marshmallow that ended up shooting one of the when
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: the last good bucks we had remaining, and it was
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: all because and it had nothing to do with him.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: It had to do with going from fifteen mature bucks
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: that I mean, I was at gold, this was going
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: to be awesome, to blue tongue in e h D
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: bringing him down to four. And then neighbors. I'm sitting
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: there trying to trying to limp all four of them
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: until next year now because we've just been decimated and
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: the neighbors ended up shooting them all. And no fault
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: for the neighbors from trying out loud. That's one hundred percent.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: They're right. As a matter of fact, when I went
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: over when they shot the last one I've grabbed a
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: set of Chaz from the buck from the year before,
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: stopped off at the house and went ahead and copied
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 1: I don't know thirty or forty different trail camera pay
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: cheers of the thing. Over the years, I had hundreds
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: of him. I was planning on given the guy him
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: until he made the mistake of going to one of
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: his buddies saying I shot an absolute runt management four
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: and a half year old that day. Um, and he
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: before I got to congratulate him, I heard him mentioned
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: to one of the Yeah, that one over there would
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: have been a good one if you've given it a
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: few more years. And I lost my I lost my stock.
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 1: I mean I I was face to face with the
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: seventy some year old guy who went maybe three hundred
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: pounds and didn't look like he'd done a day of
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: worth of physical work his entire life. I got my
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: nose almost touching him, and I'm spitting all over him
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: as him as I am just chewing his butt, secretly
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: praying that he is silly enough to say anything, because
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: if he does, I'm gonna I'm gonna go nuts on
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: him right here in the meat house. I just can't vision,
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: this version of Steve Bartilla. This is new to me.
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: I stress is and am incredibly powerful thing. And thank god,
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: thank god he didn't because it was. It took me
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: about ten seconds after spitting on him to be utterly
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: embarrassed with myself and it's like, my god, you almost
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: beat up this old man for for nothing, and it hadn't.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, he was a jerk for what he said.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: It was more ignorant than anything, but it had nothing
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: to do with that. It had. This stuff can drive
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: you're nuts if you'll let it. They are not our dear.
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: They are free range dear that can go any darn
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: way they any darn place they want. And you know what,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: if your neighbors don't have the right to tell you
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: what you can do on your side defense, you don't
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: have the right to tell them. And that guy deserved nothing,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: no minus to comment. He deserved nothing. But hey, congratulations,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: here's a chettish, here's a set of sheds from him
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: last year, and here's a whole bunch of photos. Man,
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: that is a great beer. Congratulations. Pressure pressures. Pressure has
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 1: a way of sucking the fun out of this stuff.
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: Ye know what, That's why we do it because this
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: stuff is I mean, there's more reasons to it than that,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: but really a big part of us is stuff is
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: supposed to be fun. So don't do stuff that's not fun.
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: That's simple. This is my annual pep talk I have
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: to give myself because I inhevitably get stressed out over
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: the same things, because I get so into it and
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: so focused on my goal that at some point November
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: I have to have this tree stande intervention with myself
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: that I have a come to Jesus meeting with yourself. Yeah,
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: I've I've had. That's exactly what I had. After that,
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: it's like, look, you need to you need to stop
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: stressing out over what you can't control. You cannot control disease,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: you can't control whether or not the neighbors shoot a
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: deer that you'd rather they didn't. That is one legal
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: You focus on what you can control, because every bit
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: of this stuff that's getting on your nerves is sucking
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 1: energy and pleasure from this experience, and that energy could
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: actually be used on things that can make a difference.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: Because sitting here being all upset and worked up about
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: how all these great deer are dying. Yeah, you can
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: do that all day long, and if I give you
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: a quarter, it's still not enough to even get a
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: cup of coffee. It accomplishes nothing. I have to I
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: know it's easier to say than do I. I've been
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: working on this for ten years now and I still
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: don't have it completely down, but I am closer and
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: and generally speaking, Louis men who go three hundred pounds
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: are safe once again in this world. I'm glad to
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: hear that now. I hate to keep harping on the
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: topic of stress, um, but I'm gonna throw a question
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: out that's kind of related to this, with dealing with
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: a stressful situation during the hunting season, which is a miss.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: Let's say you miss a great big buck you've been
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: chasing all season with let's stay with your bow, um,
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: how do you handle that scenario? Do you do? You
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: take a couple of days off? Do you go fick you?
• 1:28:40
  Speaker 1: I guess I'll just let you walk me through if
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: it is a straight miss. I didn't want to use
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: that running around the woods, and I'm not worried about
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: whether and I mean I just messed up. I hit
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: a branch in that are, or I rushed the shot,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: and I'm glad I don't missed him. I go ahead.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: I tried to replay the scenario as impassionately dispassionately is
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: I possibly can? How did I mess up? What can
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: I learn from this? Learn from it? Literally, fear that
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: less than your brain, and get the heck over it,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: because obsessing over a misshot isn't doing you any good. Now,
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: if I wounded dear, it's gonna it's not. I'm not
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: going to get over it quite as fast, which quite honestly,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: I don't think we should, because hey, it's our actions
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: that went aheadn't did that. But what I'm gonna do
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 1: is I'm going to exhaust every possibility of actually at
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: every legitimate, reasonable possibility of retrieving that deer that I can.
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: And one thing I would say is I do think
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: and I don't think it's out of laziness. I think
• 1:29:53
  Speaker 1: it's honestly out of ignorance and ignorance for some reason
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: to become a bad word in our in our society
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: to but guess what, every single one of us are ignorant.
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Ignorance just means we don't know something as much as
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: we should about something. And that's there's no shame in
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: admitting that. Um, but I do think it's more ignorance
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: than anything else. But a lot of people are way
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: too fast to give up on trying to find that
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: deer that they wounded. UM, mainly, as I said, just
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: because I don't think they know what to do. But
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: the systematic grid searches checking every single ditch, check every
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: fence crossing, or every log that they would jump for
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: blood spatter on the other side. And I'll tell you what,
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: when it comes to finding wounded deer, if you've got
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: a do not quit no matter what attitude, you're going
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: to find a heck of a lot more than than
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: most people are. Yeah, that's a tough, tough scenario being
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: but you're right. The best thing to do is is
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: to try a little harder. Every time you start feeling down,
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: just keep on keeping on and be as thorough as
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: you humanly possibly can. I would hate to guess how
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: many trees people have walked by that are trying to
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: find their dear and their dear lane right and has
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: literally crawled into that tree top and died or down
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: in the check every one of those ditches. That's so
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: often it's pressed up against the bank to the point
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: where you can barely even see it when you're looking.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: But yeah, thorough and don't quite has a lot to
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: do with success. So so we'll move on from the
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: down earth side of hunting, um, the part that we
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: don't like to have to spend too much time thinking
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: about and hopefully never have to, although inevitably those those
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: things do happen. But let's let's move to the best
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: part of the hunting season for a lot of people,
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: which is the Rut. We like to think of it
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: as the super Bowl. It's that they we've looked forward
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: to all year. It's it's Christmas in November. Um, A
• 1:32:04
  Speaker 1: couple of scenarios to throw at you in November. One
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: of them is is something that I asked a lot
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: of folks about, and it's something that I'm always constantly,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: um finding myself wondering about. Is is when to make
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: adjustments during the run. So let's say you are hunting
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: in a primo location it's I don't know, November three,
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: four or five, six, somewhere in that ballpark and you
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: see the mature buck. Let's say we we don't have
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: a bunch of these things running around we don't have
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: seven or eight or nine mature bucks. We've got one
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: maybe two. And the buck er after I should clarify
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: that property when I was talking about was stupid big.
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: But anyway, yes, so this is a smaller property. We've
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: got one maybe two, and we see one of these
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: big mature bucks step out out of range I don't know,
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: seventy yards or something like that, and he's he's kind
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: of cruising. He cruises by and just piers. There are
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: some people who would say, you should relocate where you
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: saw that buck. You should go and hunt there the
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: very next day, or even some people if it's early
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: in the day, they might pick up and move there
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: in the middle of the day and hunt there in
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: the evening. Other guys would say, no, I'm sticking to
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: my guns. I'm in this spot for a reason. Eventually
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: that buck or another mature buck will come through this spot.
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 1: How do you react to a sighting of mature buck
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: like that just out of range? Which which option would
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: you take? I use a three strike rule. If I
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: see the same book that I want to shoot, or
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: two different books that I want to shoot, do the
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: same thing twice the third time, I'd better be sitting
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: there one time. I don't think for me personally, I
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 1: think reacting off of one sighting is just too darn reactionary.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: And I mean, dear do things all the time once.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: I mean every day they do something that that they
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: don't normally do once. You know, I can't guarantee that,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: but I think that's a pretty darn safe bat. Okay, Um,
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: but when you see either the same buck do the
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: same thing twice, or two different mature bucks do the
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: same thing twice, well, there's probably now I start taking
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: that seriously. Now I'm gonna know, I'm gonna shift. Okay, Now,
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: what about this slight adjustment? What if what you what
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: if you saw that morning you're hunting and that mature
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 1: buck is chasing a dough and you see him chasing
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: this dough into a betting area. Maybe oftentimes there's a
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: belief that sometimes they will see like a circling eventually
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: happen where that dough will kind of take that buck
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: in a circle and they'll pass through there. Again, would
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: you make a move immediately or very soon after in
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: that kind of case or is it still the same
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: three strike role? If I if I'm going to stand
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: over there at that betting area, I'm crawling out right there,
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: walking a over and crawling up. If I don't have
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: a stand there, I'm not gonna run. I'm not going
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: to yank this stand shifted over there and reset it
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: because to me, that is way, way, way too much risk,
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: you know, the odds of being able to get away,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: to be able to get away at I'm guessing it's
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: like eight nine o'clock in the morning where we're just
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 1: seeing this whole thing play out. Now at eight nine
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning, I'm gonna yank my stand now.
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: I don't use If I had a climber, that might
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: be a different story. But I hunt out of out
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: of hands and not climbers, just because of a few
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: bad experiences in my youth with Baker climbers um which
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: were one percent in my fault. But I still doesn't
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: change the fact that jeez, I went down way too
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: many trees with them way too fast to be to
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: ever really be completely comfortable in them. It's all in
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: my head. But um ah d there than as I said,
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: if I was a climbing tree stand hunter, I I
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: probably would shift right then and there. But if I
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: don't have a tree stand there. I'm not going to
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 1: go ahead and set up a tree stand fifty yards
• 1:36:15
  Speaker 1: off to the east on the edge of that bedding
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: area right now, because geez, that buck is chasing that
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: door around there and adds they're really good that I'm
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: gonna get busted by something trying to pull it off,
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: and geez, I just went ahead and became my own
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: worst enemy. So it's kind of it's what all these
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: types of deciations for me are balancing odds and what
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: there's And I wish I couldn't say that this this
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: is the line that where it flips. I can't. It's
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: just in my Okay, what do I have to gain?
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: What do I have to lose? Does this makes sense?
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: I go through that no us times every set. I mean,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: when I'm watching that buck chase that dough, I'm going
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: through that. Okay, Do I try to go ahead and
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: call her call him off, that dough He's got what
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: she wants when he wants already, that dough is not
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: going to be happy with hearing the calling going on here.
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: M getting out. Let Let's just let this play out.
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: Let's let it play out in the see because I
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: think the odds of it going south are too high
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: to take this risk. Their heads a straight away. Now, Okay,
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty darn sure she's not planning on coming back.
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: All right now, you throw the book at him, because
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 1: what do I got to lose? Those are the type
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: that's the type of stuff that's always going through my head.
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 1: Um what you kind of answered this for that scenario.
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm just curious if we put it in more
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: general generalities here. Lots of times there are folks that
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: during the rut will hunt one kind of location in
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: the morning and they want to hunt a different kind
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 1: of location for the second half of the day or
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: for the evening hours. Maybe they want to be closer
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: to a doe feeding area or something for the during
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: that rut time period. If you were going to make
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 1: a stand change during the rut and you're hunting, let's
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: say you're hunting pretty much the whole day, but you
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: want to shift locations at some point, all of the
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: things being equal, what time would you think is the
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: safest time typically to make that move? Because I always
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: worry about this because during the rut you do have
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: this increased midday movement of mature bucks. Cruising. So I'm
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: always trying to wonder, like, what is the possible lowest
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: point of of risk during the day to make that shift.
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: I I'll be honest with you, I look at it more,
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: not so much from the risk standpoint, but from the
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: reward standpoint. Um, I if I've been Okay, So here's
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: a very real six scenario. It's November seventh. I'm gonna
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: be hunting. Then I'm going to get in early. I'm
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: going to hunt it down one side of a dough
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 1: betting area back in the timber. Okay, Well, once you
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: get to that last hour or so, last hour and
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: a half before dark, and no betting areas were really
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: worth a dark because the dos are gone. Mr Bigs,
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: no idiot. He realizes that, oh yeah, about two hours
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: before dark, the does get up and they start me
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: and ring around doing a little browsing in the woods
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: as they slowly make their way to h to whatever
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: food source. I mean, if you're up in the big
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: woods of the Big Woods or wherever, it might be
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: a clear cut, or if you're down in I would's
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: probably an egg field. But either way, he realizes that
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: they generally get up about this time. They generally started
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: me and during their way to to the food plot,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: They've generally arrived at the food plot at such and
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: such a time, no different thing. You understand what the
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: daily events are that go on in your home. So
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: does Mr Big. This is his dying house. Okay, So
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: at that point I don't want to be sitting on
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: that dope bedding area anymore. But I also understand that
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: I gotta beat I gotta get out of here before
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: everything really starts going two nuts in the woods. Otherwise
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna be running the gauntlet getting to my understand. Now,
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 1: if I am running the gauntlet getting to my other stand,
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to just go ahead and do a
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: normal walk. I'm going to essentially still hunt my way
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: over to the other stand, not believing that I'm going
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: to shoot something, but just believing that, oh, there's a
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: deer up in a boat, and I really want to
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: see them before they see me. And every now and
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 1: then something really weird happens. And at one of the
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: bucks I'm looking at as we speak, I sat shot
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: at twenty yards on the ground. I walked up to him,
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: and when I got thirty yards away, he crouched down
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: really hard in his bed, and I couldn't shoot him
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: there and took ten more steps. He stood up for me,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: and I shot him. That's the only buck I can
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 1: ever say I did something like that with. But you know,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: and I was glad I had a bowl, and I
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: was glad I had my hair win the bowl. And
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: I'm glad I came to fuldraw even when I didn't
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: think there was any way this was really going to happen.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: So I do try to keep you try to keep
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: my options open, just because every now and then a
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: blue moon happens. Okay, But generally speaking, I do a
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: stock to the stand just just because I don't want
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: to explode stuff. If I don't have to, um, but
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: i'd want to be I'd probably make that switch about
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: a good honest at least three hours before dark. The
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: one thing I have noticed over the years in my
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: experience listens a lot to do with outfitters. Outfitters generally speaking,
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: try to hunt their clients as late in the morning
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: as they possibly can, and then the clients get back,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: get something to eat, blah blah blah blah blah, maybe
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: take a little nap, and then end up getting out
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: with two hours left in the afternoon, I would much
• 1:42:25
  Speaker 1: much much rather be if I'm sitting on a this
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: who gonna sounds stupid, But if I'm sitting especially on
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: an inwards food plot, but even on egg feels where
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: I can see back into the woods, I end up
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: seeing a lot more mature box activity or to two
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: hours before dark than I do those last two hours.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: And I do think, I do think that a lot
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: of people, especially with more without fitters than anything because
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: the scenario I described, but end up getting only to
• 1:42:59
  Speaker 1: their after your news stands during the rut way too darn. Wait,
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: so it's probably gonna be about four hours before dark
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: I'll shift from the betting area on down to the
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: food plot or hunting food in some way, shape or form,
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: because really, when I'm doing some hunting dolls Mr Vegas
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: Hunting does so guess what I want to hunt, because
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: if I hunt the same thing he is, I'm going
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: to intercept his patterns. And a lot of people think
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: that mature bucks don't have patterns during the rut, but
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you I've a lot of them. I think,
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: cling to patterns more tightly during the rut than any
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: other time. Of year. I remember talking with you about
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: this a few years ago, um, and how you had
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 1: been seeing how they'll have these core areas typically associated
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: with Doll family groups that will kind of cycle through
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 1: typically checking these spots where they've come to find that, yes,
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: there are going to be does here. Um, but that
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: was probably five years ago. Has your thought process or
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: your beliefs around patterning deer with a is that evolved
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: at all over the last five years? Are you just
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: anything forgotten to be more and more? I mean at first,
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 1: when I first thought I figured this out, oh, I
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 1: I was more than a little bit leery because everyone
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 1: and I do mean everybody else as oh fair, oh
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: you can't. You can't patent box during the run. I
• 1:44:24
  Speaker 1: mean I've heard that my whole day life. But then
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: just so much of this to me is just it
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: doesn't pass the common sense test, just common flip and sense.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: White tails are not that complicated of animals, And frankly,
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: when people try to make them complicated, I honestly believe
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: it's either they don't have a clue what the act
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: they're talking about, or they're trying to impress somebody. Um,
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: They're they're just they're trying to survive, nothing more, nothing less,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: and they like it when they're comfortable and half be
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 1: at the same time. UM, I'll be brutally honest with you.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: I forgot what the heck we're talking about. I had
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: asked if you're if your thoughts on patterning during the
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 1: run changed at all. Mr Big knows his house just
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: like we do. Um, just like our dogs are pets.
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: Do you know he knows where these where these family
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: groups are most likely going to be during any period
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: of a twenty four hour period he's trying to breathe
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: these does Do you think he's checking the dope when
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: he is not actively breathing a dough? Do you think
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: he's checking that dope betting area during the daylight when
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: they're there more days than not. Of course he is,
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: because he's trying to find hot does if that's not
• 1:45:53
  Speaker 1: a pattern, I don't know what the heck is you?
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: Is it possible that, oh jeez uh different mature buck
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 1: ended up wandering in He got on a Estra's doe,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: took him over his home range line and took him
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: to an area he's never been before. He got done
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: with her started headed back home. Oh, I picked up
• 1:46:15
  Speaker 1: the scent of another one. Now next thing you know,
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: he's three miles away from home and he's walking through
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: this betting area and man, he sees the buck you're
• 1:46:23
  Speaker 1: hunting and he drives him the heck off to stuff
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: like that ever happened? Of course it does. And early season,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: when the farmer goes out and cuts the wood right
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: around his field all day, does that impact defeating that night?
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: Sure it can, especially if he decides to do it
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: until dark. Now there's all. And when a coyote goes
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: into goes into Mr Big betting area on October three
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: and boots him out and he goes you know, ends
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: up shifting to a different betting spot he's comfortable with
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: a mile away. Did that changes patterns? Of course it did.
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: All sorts of things can alter a bucks patterns. But
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: if stopping and checking that food source because he knows
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: those are gonna be there after dark in these betting
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: areas during the day, because he knows those are going
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: to be there during the day, If that's not a pattern,
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: what the heck is? And I'll tell you I get,
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: I can I have. This is where trail cameras and
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: especially Jeez for those who can afford him or conics.
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: Trail cameras are God's gift to hunting in that when
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: you have picture after picture after picture after picture of
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: the same mature box checking the same food sources and
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: the same betting areas during the run, really hard not
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: to call that a pattern, isn't it? Howd argue that?
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: And that's what the beautiful thing that the thing that
• 1:48:03
  Speaker 1: has But I flat out love about running the ridiculous
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: number of trail cameras that I do is there are
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: so many things people are saying out there that this
• 1:48:18
  Speaker 1: is the way it is. I'll tell you what, pictures
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: don't why? And I've got picture after picture after picture
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: of mature bucks doing all sorts of things we're told
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: over and over and over they just playing, don't do?
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 1: Do you run your cameras? Do you let me rephrase this,
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: which do you find more valuable having your trail cameras
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: on photo mode and you don't need to touch them
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: or go bother them for weeks and weeks and weeks
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: on because the battery stcard lasts a long time, or
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: having your cameras on video mode where you can maybe
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: get more information but fills up the st card much
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: more quickly. Batteries run down much more quickly. You have
• 1:48:59
  Speaker 1: to go in them more often. Uh. Both, but for
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 1: different reasons when it comes to UH, when it comes
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: to just playing I ding and inventorying the standing stock
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: of white tails on that ground at any given time,
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: I really like pictures because I'll go ahead and get
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: four five, I'll set it to rapid shot burst and
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 1: I'll get four or five, six, seven, eight pictures. Uh,
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 1: there's one buck and I can zoom in, I can study,
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: I can do all this stuff, um that I can't
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: do with video. When it comes to understanding white tail behavior, Oh, man,
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: does it ever fuck battery life and card space? Going
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 1: ahead of setting setting your camera to HD mode for
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: two is it's continue with shooting and oh we can
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: get to be painful going through some of those sometimes
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: when you got fifty, when you got fifty chips, you're
• 1:50:12
  Speaker 1: going through of the But man, if you want to learn,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: I'm to this day by far the best teacher I
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: have ever had when it comes to hunting or white tails,
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 1: because they don't know how to lie, they don't know
• 1:50:29
  Speaker 1: how to deceive you. All they do is they go
• 1:50:32
  Speaker 1: out and they live their life, and you sit there
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: and you watch them, and they will teach you everything
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: you need to know. I like, I studied here, and
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: the videos are invaluable for that. But that's how, that's
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: how I've been able to put a whole bunch of
• 1:50:53
  Speaker 1: stuff together. Like, Okay, there's a picture of that buck.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: That didn't tell me much. All I know right now
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 1: is that wait a minute, he is quite a ways
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: out of his normal area. But I've got it on
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: video mode instead, So oh, there goes just I just
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: caught the flash of a dough flying through and oh,
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: here's that buck right behind here. Ah, so I bet
• 1:51:19
  Speaker 1: you he went ahead and came across a dough whose
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: home range overlapped his. He got honor, And that's why
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: he's actually over here. It's not because he's coming over
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: here looking for a girl. He's actually had a girl
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: leader him here. And then um, something like this, Jesus, nasty,
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 1: nasty eight point on one of the properties I managed
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: years ago. Just an absolute proof of a bully of
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: a buck um seven and a half years old, built
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: like a brickout house, and he was not shy about
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: throwing his weight around. And I go ahead and shoot
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: him one night and by midnight that same night, three
• 1:52:06
  Speaker 1: and a half year old who had spent a ridiculous
• 1:52:10
  Speaker 1: amount of time over here. Now I have video footage
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: of him getting this butt handed to him two weeks before,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 1: by this eight point and now last six hours after
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: he shot that buck is back? Is that a coincidence?
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: And then that happens a third time in the fourth
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 1: video mode? Is my greatest teacher. I need to h
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: I need to better utilize that. I've always been hesitant
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: to do it because of the better and st card implications.
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 1: But I've been continuously getting more and more becoming more
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: aware of what I'm missing out on. So you probably
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: just put the nail on the coffin there for me, Steve,
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: I gotta do it good, because the big thing that
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: so many people do is they look at you. They
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: look at their trail camera data. Not there are many
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: people actually study it. Where was that buck coming from,
• 1:53:07
  Speaker 1: where is he going, what's he doing? Why is he
• 1:53:09
  Speaker 1: doing it now? That type of stuff, and really think
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: when it comes to I can't hammer this enough when
• 1:53:16
  Speaker 1: it comes to utilizing trail cameras. If you want intel
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: on high impact locations, first ask yourself how can I
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: get that saint, How can I get close to that
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: same level of impact intel from a lower impact location? Um?
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: And then when I when I actually do go back
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 1: in there and set up cameras, there's the second gun
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: season closes. The second the last gun season closes, that's
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 1: when I shift my cameras to high high impact locations.
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 1: I really want to figure out or when my tag
• 1:53:54
  Speaker 1: is full of whichever occurs first. And can you explain
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: why that is? Um, just because I don't want Okay,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: So after deer season, after gun season is over, I'm
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: no longer anywhere near is worried about the managing aspect
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: of deer. Okay, there's not that many of us out
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: there anymore in late season, Okay, And frankly, it's gun
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: season where you lose the majority of the deer that
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: you're trying to limp along another year. So as soon
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: as guns the last gun season for the year ends,
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not talking about if they have a special do
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: season at the end of season that I don't count.
• 1:54:37
  Speaker 1: But um, in most states it goes firearms and muzzleloader hunting.
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 1: Once muzzleloader hunting is over, that is when I'll seriously
• 1:54:48
  Speaker 1: start to consider putting cameras into high impact areas that
• 1:54:53
  Speaker 1: I want to understand what's going on back there. If
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: I still have a tag or or this is a
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: client it's ground and they have tags, they're still hunting.
• 1:55:02
  Speaker 1: I'll wait till season is done or they fill their
• 1:55:05
  Speaker 1: tang to go ahead and move in. But that is
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: when I actually get my into Keep in mind, as
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'm sure more than a few people
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: are thinking as they say this, Yes, dear patterns do
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: change over time, but generally speaking, they're going to use
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: the topography of the exact same way no matter what
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: time of year it is. They generally used the same
• 1:55:28
  Speaker 1: travel corridors when they're trying to get from point A
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: to point B in summer versus spring versus fall. You
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: know that type of stuff. Speaking of that, I want
• 1:55:43
  Speaker 1: you gotta wrap this up. I've kept you here for
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: about nineteen hours. Your day has been completely awashed now
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: because we've been talking bucks for so long. But I
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: do want to end with one last sort of a
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: rapid fire set of questions that relates to what you
• 1:55:59
  Speaker 1: just suggested. Their little bit as far as how dear
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 1: behavior or movements will shift throughout the year I want
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 1: to I'm gonna present a date. I'm gonna give you
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 1: a date, and then I would just like to hear
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: from you, like the first thing that comes to mind
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: the top hypothetical stand location for that date. I realized
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of other outside variables, but just think
• 1:56:21
  Speaker 1: of a hypothetical scenario that would be perfect for that date,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: and and kind of briefly explain the stand site for
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 1: that date, and then only give you another date and
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 1: on I list off a handful of dates throughout the season,
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: and I'm just curious to see how your hypothetical stand
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 1: setups would shift. And then we'll wrap it up right
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: after that. So, first date, October one, Where are you
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: hunting food? Food? Or the trails tour from UM at
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: this point, Mr, big strength of that and up for
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: the hell it's about to come. Best food? What would
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: your top food source at that point? Early season? L
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: self was really good. Clover can be really good UM
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: and surprisingly to most people if if you're using the
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: right strains, borassicas can be a really really powerful early
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: season food source. UM, if you happen to have that
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: one oak Ridget's drop and that's a really good spot.
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: If you're hunting the big woods, those metals and those uh,
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: those clear cut regrowths are both really really hard to
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: beat that time here October twelve. It depends on the temperature. UM.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 1: If it's the temp drop like you were describing earlier,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting the rut, I'm hunting doze um dough betting
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: areas in the morning and the food source and they're
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: dominating in the afternoon. And if that buck has been
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: consistently coming in an hour after dark, you give me
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: that twenty degree temp drop, I'm expecting to shoot him
• 1:57:55
  Speaker 1: a for half hour before dark right on that same
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 1: food source. And don't bet again to me, because that
• 1:58:01
  Speaker 1: happens a surprisingly high percentage of time. UM. In that
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: is the exact scenario. When he's coming in consistently a
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: half hour to two hours after dark, and now all
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: of a sudden you get that twenty plus degree tempt drop,
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: I'm playing it on him being there a half hour
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: before dark that day. UM. If it's not a scenario
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: like that, I'm probably hunting a low impact spot just
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: to get the fixed of sitting at a tree stand,
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: but not wanting to mess things up unless I have
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: intel on a specific buck doing something. If I do
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: at any point, I'm I'm jumping oct scrapes back in
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 1: the woods, preferably in the morning. November four, um door groups,
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: door groups in the funnels uh or the funnels UM
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: separating them or the thickest, nastiest cover I can possibly find,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: or the dose feeding primary food source in the afternoons
• 1:59:10
  Speaker 1: November same thing, December seven, December seven. In the mornings,
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: I actually late season morning huntings to me stink in
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: every way except for setting up on dough groups and
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: trying to catch Mr Big going after going after a
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 1: dough fon UM. So in the morning, might be hunting
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: a dough group in the afternoon. I'm sitting food. Now,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: when I'm saying I'm sitting food, that doesn't always mean
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sitting on food, but it's food related in one way,
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: shape or form. I mean you're sitting on the food source,
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: or I'm setting a travel corridor leading to that food source.
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: And quite Le's lead. The decision between the two is
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 1: going to be made on based on how confident I
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 1: am that Mr Biggs may show up before dark. The
• 2:00:07
  Speaker 1: less confident I am that he's going to show up
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: before dark, the closer to the betting area I'm trying
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 1: to be. Do things change it all in January seven,
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: one month later? Um No, it's the exact same approach
• 2:00:20
  Speaker 1: for me. The only thing is is the later you get,
• 2:00:23
  Speaker 1: the more and more food becomes king. And how if
• 2:00:27
  Speaker 1: there is a if there's a secret to trophy buck hunting,
• 2:00:31
  Speaker 1: to mature buck hunting, it's a late season so much
• 2:00:35
  Speaker 1: better than most people realize, assuming you've got an area
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 1: that's low pressure. And of course, yes, and thank you
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 1: because you are. If you're talking, if you're talking late
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 1: season on public land and in northern Wisconsin, good Dane,
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 1: look body, because you see a squirrel. It's been a
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 1: good set. Um No, I'm I'm talking out. I'm talking
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: about hunting mature bucks in the mature buck meccas, that
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: is late seasons. I actually learned a couple of things.
• 2:01:12
  Speaker 1: I learned doing trophybuck profiles for North American white tail
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: of years and years and years ago. A ridiculous amount
• 2:01:21
  Speaker 1: of private landowners are killing their biggest bucks in December
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: and January. The other thing I learned is when it
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: comes to the surprising thing is a approximately half of
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: the big buck stories I did were from people hunting
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: public ground or what may as well be public ground
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: because their uncle tent lets everybody in anybody into hunt.
• 2:01:44
  Speaker 1: And the thing that I found so fascinating about those
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: is the overwhelming majority of bucks that are killed in
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: those scenarios are killed by kids and first time hunters
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: because they don't know any damn better. Now, they end
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 1: up going places that you and I aren't and mark
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: because we're too darn But how does a buck actually
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: get to be five and a half six and a
• 2:02:06
  Speaker 1: half years old in this scenario like that? Well, they
• 2:02:10
  Speaker 1: get to be that old by not doing what they're
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: supposed to do, and we actually get to be too
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: darn smart to be able to shoot them, If that
• 2:02:16
  Speaker 1: makes any sense. I think we we often chase our
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: tails right into uh tag sandwiches oftentimes. Oh you darn right,
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 1: that is the truth. Well, Steve, as always, this was
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: this is a blast. I'm sufficiently more excited than I
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: thought even could be, and ready to get going on
• 2:02:38
  Speaker 1: stout scouting some new public land last night. Got eyes
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: on a couple of shooters, so I've got all sorts
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: of excitement roiling within me right now. Um, for people
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: that want to learn more from me, who enjoyed this,
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: who want to get more from you. I know you've
• 2:02:52
  Speaker 1: got a lot of things out there. Where can they
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: go to to see what you're up to right now?
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: To get your books or your videos or your articles
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: or anything like that. I'll be brually honest with you.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: And this is gonna sound so cheesy, but hopefully you
• 2:03:06
  Speaker 1: know me well enough know that I actually am the
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: cheeseball with is me? Um, I'm if you don't mind
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: for a second, I'm some kid raised by a divorce
• 2:03:19
  Speaker 1: mother from northern Wisconsin whose home room teacher but his
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: wrestling coach twenty bucks, wouldn't even graduate high school. I'm
• 2:03:29
  Speaker 1: not supposed to be here. I had no idea how
• 2:03:33
  Speaker 1: tough this was supposed to be to break into this
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: field or any of this stuff. And I sure didn't
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: do it because I am so unbelievably smart. I did
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 1: it because so many the people that are listening to
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: this stuff when I had them, threw me on their
• 2:03:49
  Speaker 1: shoulders and carried me to the dance. I am extremely
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: lucky in that I've been able to I don't even
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: live my am dream o heay beyond the wildest dreams
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: I've had. I'm as we speak, I'm managing almost ten
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: thousand acres of dirt. For dear, I'm not supposed to
• 2:04:12
  Speaker 1: do that, Okay. The only reason I'm doing this is
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: because so many of the people that are listening empowered
• 2:04:20
  Speaker 1: me to do this. So I'm finally at a point
• 2:04:24
  Speaker 1: in my career that I don't need to make a
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 1: lot of money anymore. And I don't need to I mean,
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: don't get me wrong. I'm in solid middle class as anybody,
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: and it will never be more than that, but I'm
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: in a position where I'm going to remain solidly middle class.
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to do. What I'm trying to do these
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: days is to give away as much stuff of this
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: that I can for free as I possibly can. Um
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: every weekday on Facebook Steve Bartella Outdoors, I'm doing a
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: free post um that is. I mean, jeez, I went ahead.
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 1: Last year I wrote an entire book, one chapter a
• 2:05:06
  Speaker 1: day on Facebook. And don't get me wrong, I'm not
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 1: a huge fan of Facebook in any way, shape or form.
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: The guy gets on my nervous to the max, but
• 2:05:16
  Speaker 1: it is a tremendous platform to share stuff for free.
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: And that's really what I'm doing now. I'm trying to
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: I'm on a essentially a thank you to her. I'm
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: trying to say thanks to everybody. I simply put Mark,
• 2:05:35
  Speaker 1: I can't believe that I've lived lived this life and
• 2:05:38
  Speaker 1: it hasn't been me. It's been the people that are listening.
• 2:05:41
  Speaker 1: And I'm trying to say thanks. And I'm in a
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: position where I can, so I'm just giving out. I
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: am doing a whole bunch of work for Deer and
• 2:05:49
  Speaker 1: Deer Hunting. Um. They went ahead and converted the growing, big,
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: t grown, big online show I've done for six years
• 2:05:58
  Speaker 1: now into a television show. UM. This year, I'm actually
• 2:06:02
  Speaker 1: going to uh this year, I'm actually going to It's
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: gonna be on Fresh. We're gonna break down properties on
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: how to uh, how we actually set how I set
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: them up. Um. But Deer and Deer Hunting Facebook page
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 1: has a ridiculous amount of my stuff on there for free,
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: and then I write exclusively for their magazine these days.
• 2:06:26
  Speaker 1: But mostly what I'd really encourage people do is between
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: YouTube and Facebook, you can get so much of my
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: stuff for free it's not even funny. And I'm not
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: saving anything for books. Or anything like that. I'm doing
• 2:06:41
  Speaker 1: my best to say thanks to all those that brought
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: me to the dance and made it so that the
• 2:06:47
  Speaker 1: stupid kid from northern Wisconsin got to his literally lifted
• 2:06:51
  Speaker 1: beyond his dream. I mean, I get paid to play
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: in the damn woods month that is, that is a
• 2:06:59
  Speaker 1: pretty earn good dream to have right there into to live.
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 1: I'm right there with you, Steve Well. That's not lost
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: on me that it was not me who brought me
• 2:07:09
  Speaker 1: to the Well. I can tell you for for myself
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: and all the other listeners, we certainly appreciate what you're
• 2:07:14
  Speaker 1: putting out there and what you're sharing with us because
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: because it's helping so so thank you for that my pleasure.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: The one thing I would say is, take from me
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: and everyone else out there anything you see a value,
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 1: and for the love of God, throw away the rest.
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: If you don't think it applies to you, don't use it.
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: I can promise, I guarantee right now as we speak
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: something I believe five years from now I'm gonna look
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: back and say, how could have I ever been so simple?
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: I just don't know what it is yet we all
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: are learning. None of us have all the answers. And
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: even when we even if somebody does have all the answers,
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: all they have are all the answers from their scenario.
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: Every single scenario is different. Trust yourselves, you guys and girls.
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 1: You're the experts on your land, not us, and certainly
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: certainly not a bunch of overpaid quote unquote experts. But
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 1: never ever, ever hunt deer remotely like you do. That's
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 1: that's some perfect wisdom to end this one, I think, Steve,
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: because you're absolutely right. You gotta take the good, leave
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: the bad or irrelevant fier scenario, test it, see what
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: works for you, Iterate, learn, and keep on keeping on.
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: And if you do that long enough, someday we all
• 2:08:39
  Speaker 1: might be half the deer hunter the Steve Bartila is right, No,
• 2:08:44
  Speaker 1: you'll be pen of times do you do that sometimes,
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: deer hunter? Alright, Steve, well this is great. I appreciate it,
• 2:08:50
  Speaker 1: and uh, let's chat again soon. Sounds great, my man,
• 2:08:54
  Speaker 1: sounds great, And good luck to everybody out there this year.
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: If nothing else, please remember the most important things and
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: all this is that you don't come home in a
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: body bag and that you actually have fun. Very true,
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: all right, and that's a rap I hope you enjoyed
• 2:09:11
  Speaker 1: this one. I I just I just really enjoyed chanting
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: with Steve. He's genuine, he is a real person, and
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: he throws a lot of great information out there for
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: all of us to to take in and enjoy. And
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: he's very generous with that. So make sure you check
• 2:09:31
  Speaker 1: out what he's got going on. He didn't plug him,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: but I will plug his books for him. He's got
• 2:09:35
  Speaker 1: some great books. Big Buck Secrets is when I'm like,
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 1: in particular, I'm actually rereading that right now. UM check
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: them all out and until next time, thank you, and
• 2:09:45
  Speaker 1: stay wired to hunt.