Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 732: Why and How To Specifically Hunt Does with Nick Pinizzotto

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Ep. 732: Why and How To Specifically Hunt Does with Nick Pinizzotto · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the whitetail woods, presented by First Light, creating proven versatile
0:09
Speaker 1: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
0:13
Speaker 1: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host, Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
0:23
Speaker 2: the show, we are discussing the increasingly urgent need to
0:26
Speaker 2: start harvesting more dos and we'll be talking through strategies
0:31
Speaker 2: to specifically target and hunt analyst deer. All right, welcome
0:41
Speaker 2: to the wire ton podcast, brought to you by First
0:44
Speaker 2: Light and their Camel for Conservation Initiative. If you're not familiar,
0:49
Speaker 2: the Camel for Conservation Initiative means that every sale of
0:52
Speaker 2: First Light spector Camo gear, a portion of every one
0:56
Speaker 2: of those sales goes back to the National Deer Association
1:00
Speaker 2: to help them with their mission to do good things
1:03
Speaker 2: for deer and deer hunters. And speaking of the National
1:06
Speaker 2: Deer Association, today's guest for our conversation today is the
1:11
Speaker 2: President and CEO of the National Deer Association, mister Nick Penzoto,
1:17
Speaker 2: and our topic today is doze. We're talking antler list
1:22
Speaker 2: deer and we're talking about this topic for a couple
1:26
Speaker 2: of reasons. Number one, kind of selfishly, this is the
1:30
Speaker 2: time of year, when we're talking December, when I really
1:33
Speaker 2: start getting extra excited about hunting for dos. I've already
1:37
Speaker 2: taken two this year, but I'm about to get really
1:39
Speaker 2: really serious about it just in the next couple of days.
1:42
Speaker 2: For whatever reason, it seems to be as that season's ending,
1:47
Speaker 2: getting towards that last third or last quarter, some of
1:50
Speaker 2: that stresses off. You've had all your big trips, the
1:52
Speaker 2: ruts in the rearview mirror, and now I like to
1:55
Speaker 2: get out there with my kids, get out there with
1:57
Speaker 2: friends and family, take out more new hunters and top
2:01
Speaker 2: off the freezer, get out there for specific dough hunts.
2:05
Speaker 2: And it's a lot of fun. And it's a very
2:08
Speaker 2: good time to be out there getting it done because
2:11
Speaker 2: does are still out and about. They're hitting the food sources,
2:13
Speaker 2: so it's a great time to do this kind of thing.
2:16
Speaker 2: But that's not the only reason why we're having this
2:19
Speaker 2: conversation here today. It's also because I think it's a
2:22
Speaker 2: conversation that's needed. As we're wrapping up the year. There's
2:27
Speaker 2: still some work to be done. I just got not
2:31
Speaker 2: just about two months ago and got an email from
2:35
Speaker 2: our dear specialist here in the state of Michigan that
2:39
Speaker 2: went out to all the hunters, I believe across the
2:41
Speaker 2: state of Michigan, letting us know that we are in
2:45
Speaker 2: dire straits, that we have a situation with our deer
2:48
Speaker 2: population in the state of Michigan and our ability to
2:51
Speaker 2: manage it because we have not been harvesting enough doughs.
2:55
Speaker 2: I think the number is since the early two thousands,
2:58
Speaker 2: our dough harvest, our antlas harvest has gone down thirty percent.
3:04
Speaker 2: And this kind of trend is not unique to Michigan.
3:07
Speaker 2: The National Deer Association published their Deer Report earlier this
3:12
Speaker 2: year and then again came out this fall with a
3:15
Speaker 2: pretty strongly worded article kind of raising the red flag
3:19
Speaker 2: on this the fact that antlas harvests continue to go
3:21
Speaker 2: down across many different states, across many different regions of
3:25
Speaker 2: the country. We are simply not managing and balancing the
3:30
Speaker 2: population the way that we need to if we want
3:32
Speaker 2: healthy deer populations and if we want to continue to
3:35
Speaker 2: do our job as stewards and managers of this resource.
3:40
Speaker 2: And so that's why we've got Nick joining me here
3:44
Speaker 2: on the show here shortly to better explain what all
3:46
Speaker 2: that means, to better kind of outline the trends we're seeing,
3:50
Speaker 2: to talk through why this stuff's important, Why we as
3:53
Speaker 2: deer hunters need to be thinking about this, Why dough
3:56
Speaker 2: harvest can influence our buck hunting opportunities, How all of
4:00
Speaker 2: this impacts the habitat, how this might impact the future
4:04
Speaker 2: of disease, impacts on deer populations, a bunch of stuff
4:08
Speaker 2: like that. So I want to cover the why and
4:11
Speaker 2: understand why are we getting these emails, why are we
4:13
Speaker 2: seeing these things in the reports, why should we care?
4:16
Speaker 2: And then number two, let's talk about how to do it,
4:19
Speaker 2: because I'm guilty of this. Here on the podcast, we
4:22
Speaker 2: talk a whole lot about how to kill mature bucks,
4:26
Speaker 2: how to target a specific buck, how to kill your
4:28
Speaker 2: first buck, how to do all this stuff bucks, bucks, bucks.
4:31
Speaker 2: We don't do a good enough job talking about dos.
4:33
Speaker 2: And there are some unique things when it comes to
4:36
Speaker 2: targeting does, when it comes to going out there on
4:39
Speaker 2: a hunt, specifically just trying to hunt analysts deer. So
4:43
Speaker 2: that's what the second half of the show is going
4:44
Speaker 2: to be about. If you are listening to this in
4:46
Speaker 2: September October, November, December, whatever it is. We are going
4:50
Speaker 2: to talk about how you can get out there and
4:52
Speaker 2: fill your analyst tags with different ideas, tactics, strategies, how
4:56
Speaker 2: to fill the freezer with an analyst tag. We'll get
5:00
Speaker 2: into all of that here today. So appreciate you listening.
5:04
Speaker 2: Why don't we just get to my guest, mister Nick
5:07
Speaker 2: Penzoto and talk about some does all right here with me?
5:16
Speaker 2: Now we've got a returning guest, my friend Nick Pennzota. Nick,
5:20
Speaker 2: thanks for being here.
5:22
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure. Mark, good to be back. And I
5:25
Speaker 3: listened to the show. I don't think I've ever missed
5:27
Speaker 3: an episode, and the only ones I don't listen to
5:30
Speaker 3: are the ones I'm on. So maybe I'll make it
5:31
Speaker 3: a point to do that this time.
5:33
Speaker 2: It's hard to listen to yourself. I don't like listening
5:36
Speaker 2: to myself either, Nick, So I don't blame you, gotcha.
5:39
Speaker 2: I do appreciate you, though, tuning into the show. Thanks
5:42
Speaker 2: for thanks for keeping me in business. Yeah, I'm also
5:46
Speaker 2: appreciative of the fact that you were willing to jump
5:49
Speaker 2: on here with little notice. But I had the idea
5:54
Speaker 2: for this podcast kind of last minute, and it stemmed
5:58
Speaker 2: from some conversations I've had over the last couple of
6:00
Speaker 2: days with some of my friends at Meeta Her. We
6:02
Speaker 2: were actually on tour here recently doing some live podcasts
6:06
Speaker 2: and been talking a bunch about the dough situation in
6:10
Speaker 2: Michigan and elsewhere. And as those conversations were going on
6:15
Speaker 2: with me and my friends, I'm also getting text messages
6:18
Speaker 2: from some of my buddies from your Field of Fork
6:21
Speaker 2: program that you guys do with the NBA. We've got
6:24
Speaker 2: a Field of Fork angeless hunt coming up this weekend,
6:27
Speaker 2: and a couple guys who I mentored years ago in
6:31
Speaker 2: that two years ago now who are going to come
6:33
Speaker 2: and hunt with me before that too. So I've got
6:35
Speaker 2: all these dough hunts coming up, and my sons are
6:38
Speaker 2: asking me when can we get out there and start
6:39
Speaker 2: hunting doughs. And I'm having this conversation about the dough
6:42
Speaker 2: population in Michigan. All these things have got all these
6:44
Speaker 2: conversations and thoughts going around my head, and it got
6:47
Speaker 2: me thinking about an email that I received earlier this year,
6:52
Speaker 2: and I teased this in the introduction to the podcast,
6:54
Speaker 2: but I got this email that most of the hunters
6:57
Speaker 2: in Michigan or all the hunters in Michigan got that
6:59
Speaker 2: they're on the use letter list from our deer lead
7:04
Speaker 2: in the state of Michigan, basically pleading with hunters in
7:08
Speaker 2: Michigan to start getting serious about does And you guys
7:14
Speaker 2: actually came out with similar language this spring when you
7:19
Speaker 2: guys came out with your twenty twenty three Deer Report.
7:22
Speaker 2: And then again there was an article you published in
7:26
Speaker 2: i think late September kind of raising a red flag
7:29
Speaker 2: on this issue too. So that's what I want to
7:33
Speaker 2: talk with you about, Nick, is is first off, why
7:36
Speaker 2: is this something that you guys are starting to scream
7:40
Speaker 2: from the rooftops about the fact that we need to
7:42
Speaker 2: get a little bit more serious about the antalyst hunting
7:46
Speaker 2: that we're doing.
7:48
Speaker 3: Yeah. Sure, And so it's interesting while you were seeing
7:51
Speaker 3: all that, we were having internal conversations because as we
7:54
Speaker 3: start to review the Deer Report like we do every year,
7:57
Speaker 3: started to see some really concerning things, and so we
8:02
Speaker 3: had internal discussion about coming out and saying, hey, it's
8:04
Speaker 3: time to start letting people know that dough populations are
8:10
Speaker 3: not where they need to be in a lot of places,
8:12
Speaker 3: and so it's time to remind hunters that taking dose
8:15
Speaker 3: is a good thing for a lot of reasons. And so,
8:18
Speaker 3: you know, just a bit of a disclaimer though, because
8:20
Speaker 3: I don't want people to get the impression that we're
8:23
Speaker 3: after shooting all the deer and that all the doughs
8:25
Speaker 3: need to be shot. It's also a very localized thing,
8:28
Speaker 3: because I know, even where I live in Pennsylvania, you
8:30
Speaker 3: might have one side of the mountain it's overpopulated with dose,
8:34
Speaker 3: and you got the other side that maybe not. So
8:36
Speaker 3: I would just ask listeners to take this, you know,
8:40
Speaker 3: and also make sure that they apply sort of their
8:42
Speaker 3: own situation to it. And I think the way we've
8:46
Speaker 3: when I say we like collectively the work that you
8:49
Speaker 3: all do, the work that we do at NDA, I
8:52
Speaker 3: think we've educated hunters to the point where they can
8:54
Speaker 3: kind of recognize if there are too many deer out there.
8:57
Speaker 3: And so when you recognize that, I also recognize that
9:01
Speaker 3: you are part of the solution to try to get
9:03
Speaker 3: those things back in control. So, just as a little
9:06
Speaker 3: backdrop of where this was coming from when we were looking.
9:09
Speaker 2: At it, yeah, yeah, great point. Can you highlight for
9:15
Speaker 2: me a few of the numbers or any of the
9:18
Speaker 2: trends that you've seen when you guys started looking at
9:21
Speaker 2: those reports last year or coming into this new year,
9:25
Speaker 2: that kind of got you guys to think, Okay, we
9:28
Speaker 2: do need to start addressing this even more than we
9:30
Speaker 2: have because you guys have been forever talking about responsibly
9:34
Speaker 2: managing the deer herd, trying to achieve some level of
9:37
Speaker 2: balance with habitat and ratio of bucks to doze. But
9:41
Speaker 2: what are some of those numbers that gave you pause?
9:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that goes all the way back to nineteen
9:46
Speaker 3: eighty eight. Was we were one of the first ones
9:49
Speaker 3: to tell people to try to shoot more does, and
9:51
Speaker 3: we had to explain to them why because it was
9:53
Speaker 3: a foreign concept to many. But we can maybe get
9:56
Speaker 3: into that in a bit. But some of the big
9:58
Speaker 3: numbers mark and this is one of the biggest that
10:01
Speaker 3: stand out to me, and that is twenty four out
10:04
Speaker 3: of the thirty seven what we would call sort of
10:06
Speaker 3: typical white tail states midwestern to eastern states were down
10:11
Speaker 3: on their dough harvests from their five year average, and
10:14
Speaker 3: so we can see a blip from year to year.
10:17
Speaker 3: Maybe there are reasons for that, you know, everything ranging
10:20
Speaker 3: from bumper egg corn crop to not to ehd and
10:23
Speaker 3: other things. But the five year average is pretty important,
10:26
Speaker 3: and the majority of those states were down in that
10:29
Speaker 3: five year average, not just in the number of dose killed,
10:32
Speaker 3: but then the number of the ratio of does to
10:35
Speaker 3: buck shot. In an ideal situation, you'd have sort of
10:39
Speaker 3: that one for one at least, you know, which would
10:41
Speaker 3: be a balance. But we started seeing states that below
10:45
Speaker 3: that one one dough per bucks and more more states
10:49
Speaker 3: shooting more bucks than does, which is in some ways
10:54
Speaker 3: it's kind of almost unfathomable that that happened. And so
10:58
Speaker 3: this trend started back in about twenty fife, so from
11:00
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, with the exception of the COVID year of
11:03
Speaker 3: twenty twenty, more states or there were more bucks shot
11:08
Speaker 3: than dose on average. Just some other statistics that are
11:14
Speaker 3: important I think here. So hunters are shooting less deer overall,
11:18
Speaker 3: which is also something to consider. So back based on
11:21
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one data, forty one percent of hunters killed
11:25
Speaker 3: a single deer. And so some of your listeners might
11:28
Speaker 3: be sitting here, especially the ones that are successful every year, saying,
11:31
Speaker 3: you mean to tell me that less than half the
11:33
Speaker 3: people were shooting one deer. And that was true in
11:36
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one. In twenty eleven it was fifty percent,
11:39
Speaker 3: so that's a nine percent decrease. And then in twenty
11:42
Speaker 3: nineteen eighteen percent people killed more than one deer only
11:48
Speaker 3: eighteen percent, so less than two and ten more than
11:50
Speaker 3: one deer. Yeah, so basically, someone shoots their fills their
11:54
Speaker 3: buck tag. The numbers show that the majority of them
11:58
Speaker 3: are then hanging up their bows and rifles or just
12:00
Speaker 3: not trying real hard to fill an antlers tag. So
12:03
Speaker 3: I think those statistics would be pretty startling to most people.
12:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you mentioned about how you know, nationally, on average,
12:12
Speaker 2: we're starting to see more bucks killed than does in
12:15
Speaker 2: many states. In Michigan, we now can see real time
12:19
Speaker 2: harvest reporting because we've got the mandatory harvest report, and
12:26
Speaker 2: I just checked the other day, and it's not subtle.
12:29
Speaker 2: In Michigan. Now it is dramatic. There have been about
12:34
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty thousand bucks shot so far this
12:37
Speaker 2: year and less than ninety thousand does so almost twice
12:43
Speaker 2: as many bucks have been shot as does so far
12:46
Speaker 2: this year. I mean that is a stark, stark difference.
12:51
Speaker 2: And in that email I referenced earlier our antlust harvest
12:56
Speaker 2: is down on average, I believe thirty percent over the
12:59
Speaker 2: last twenty years here in Michigan. So, you know, pretty
13:03
Speaker 2: pretty dramatic change of what's happening there. So if this
13:09
Speaker 2: is happening, right, we're seeing analyst harvests go down across
13:12
Speaker 2: many states, I would assume then that is meaning that
13:16
Speaker 2: we're seeing deer populations go up. Is that? Am I right?
13:21
Speaker 2: Have we seen any kind of me? I mean, we're
13:23
Speaker 2: are we having that correlation as harvest goes down, populations
13:26
Speaker 2: go up and then everything that follows. Is that the case?
13:30
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, I mean, as we know, deer are pretty prolific.
13:34
Speaker 3: You know, It's why when people have maybe a localized
13:37
Speaker 3: DHD EHD outbreak, we remind them it's not the end
13:41
Speaker 3: of the world. That very quickly, within a year or two,
13:43
Speaker 3: that population will be replenished. And so if you think
13:46
Speaker 3: about those percentages of does you know antler list here
13:50
Speaker 3: not all state classifies them exactly as those, but let's
13:53
Speaker 3: assume most of those ant lists here are does it's
13:57
Speaker 3: inevitable that those populations are going to boom and become
14:01
Speaker 3: out of control, and so none of that's good. I mean,
14:05
Speaker 3: there's we have as an organization have strived from day
14:08
Speaker 3: one to talk about balanced herds, to talk about the
14:11
Speaker 3: importance of harvesting dose when it comes to the overall
14:14
Speaker 3: health of that herd. We're you know, reducing human deer conflict,
14:19
Speaker 3: which is something as hunters were not as focused on that.
14:22
Speaker 3: But if you're a non hunter, unfortunately, you're likely going
14:25
Speaker 3: to think mostly of a deer is something you're going
14:27
Speaker 3: to hit with your car or that you're going to
14:29
Speaker 3: have to chase out of your flower bed, and those
14:32
Speaker 3: things go up disease issues. I mean, unfortunately, my colleague
14:36
Speaker 3: Lindsay Thomas wrote an excellent article on the important deer
14:39
Speaker 3: harvest earlier this year, and he picked out the three
14:42
Speaker 3: states that were of the biggest concern and unfortunately for
14:46
Speaker 3: you mark your home state there in Michigan was number one.
14:49
Speaker 3: A twenty four percent drop in the number of antler
14:51
Speaker 3: lists here. I think that was from twenty twenty one
14:53
Speaker 3: to twenty twenty two or maybe the following year, and
14:57
Speaker 3: so the in the ratio of about zero point seventy
15:01
Speaker 3: five dose per buckshot, So that speaks to the numbers
15:05
Speaker 3: you talked about. And then you have Wisconsin, a fourteen
15:08
Speaker 3: percent drop from twenty twenty twenty twenty one season, and
15:11
Speaker 3: they are six percent below their five year average. And
15:14
Speaker 3: we're talking about states and particularly Wisconsin chronic wasting disease issues.
15:21
Speaker 3: Kentucky was third on the list, eleven percent down, And
15:24
Speaker 3: just this past week they announced that they had found
15:27
Speaker 3: CWD in Kentucky. Now, yes, and yeah, that's a huge
15:30
Speaker 3: that's a huge, huge concern. You know, CWD, habitat loss,
15:36
Speaker 3: habitat destruction, human deer conflict, none of that's good for deer.
15:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're both at this summit this summer nick
15:45
Speaker 2: related to a whole bunch of different parties coming together
15:47
Speaker 2: talking about chronic wasting disease and various solutions and ways
15:52
Speaker 2: to approach dealing with it in the future. And one
15:55
Speaker 2: of the most important things that everybody could agree on
15:59
Speaker 2: was the single most important thing we need to do
16:02
Speaker 2: is just better manage the population. Right, kill another dough.
16:05
Speaker 2: I think that was one of the simple takeaways we
16:08
Speaker 2: came out of that whole discussion with, like, let's just
16:10
Speaker 2: all get one more dough this year. And that's a
16:14
Speaker 2: pretty simple way to help make a positive difference on
16:17
Speaker 2: a really serious issue, right.
16:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. We tried to keep the messaging
16:22
Speaker 3: as simply as simple as possible. People can certainly understand that, hey,
16:26
Speaker 3: if you have tags, go ahead and please put forth
16:29
Speaker 3: the effort to do that. But as you recall, we
16:31
Speaker 3: also talked about some of the reasons why people weren't
16:35
Speaker 3: filling those tags, and there are some real issues there too.
16:37
Speaker 3: So part of it is that some simply are just
16:42
Speaker 3: in their focus is I want to fill that buck tag,
16:44
Speaker 3: and my focus is getting that buck, and I don't
16:47
Speaker 3: want to shoot that dough if I see it because
16:49
Speaker 3: my buck might be right behind her, and so they
16:51
Speaker 3: pass on it. So it's passed opportunities. But more tangible
16:55
Speaker 3: issues would be maybe I don't personally have the freezer
16:59
Speaker 3: space for one, or maybe the processor that I used
17:03
Speaker 3: to use no longer processes deer or is out of business,
17:06
Speaker 3: and so now I have struggle a struggle with dealing
17:09
Speaker 3: with it. So we're also trying to look at maybe
17:11
Speaker 3: removing some of those barriers from people that aren't killing
17:15
Speaker 3: the number of deer that maybe they used to making
17:18
Speaker 3: it easier to donate your deer. For example, I mean,
17:20
Speaker 3: I can tell you I only keep too deer per year,
17:25
Speaker 3: but I will shoot more than that, and so I've
17:27
Speaker 3: got luckily, I've got a processor nearby that will take
17:32
Speaker 3: deer for donation. But then I also have a personal
17:34
Speaker 3: list of people who want a deer, and so I
17:37
Speaker 3: try to fill that list as a way to help
17:40
Speaker 3: keep me out in the field. And also I just
17:42
Speaker 3: enjoy being out there. I mean, I love hunting. I
17:44
Speaker 3: hold on to ant list tags for the winter season
17:47
Speaker 3: just to ensure that I'm still going to have a
17:49
Speaker 3: chance to go out and hunt if I want to.
17:51
Speaker 3: And so my situation, though, is not the same as
17:55
Speaker 3: everybody else's. And I think what we're seeing is somebody
17:58
Speaker 3: goes out and even if they don't kill their buck,
18:00
Speaker 3: maybe they're just burned out because you know, going day
18:03
Speaker 3: after days a lot of hard work, there's a burden
18:07
Speaker 3: on people's time, and so they're just not getting out
18:10
Speaker 3: there and doing it.
18:12
Speaker 2: So you mentioned the disease issue. If deer populations get
18:17
Speaker 2: out of control, the density leads to disease transmitting more frequently,
18:22
Speaker 2: more easily. Right, You mentioned the increased vehicle collisions and
18:28
Speaker 2: the risk that poses to lots of folks around the country.
18:32
Speaker 2: Can you expand a little bit on the habitat side
18:34
Speaker 2: of things and kind of the long term implications that
18:37
Speaker 2: has on you know, deer and deer hunting, you know,
18:40
Speaker 2: years down the line too, because that's something that I
18:42
Speaker 2: think is easy to overlook, especially if you live and
18:45
Speaker 2: hunt in an agricultural area where you think there's food everywhere.
18:49
Speaker 2: But that's an issue all over the place, isn't it.
18:54
Speaker 3: It sure is. I mean, so there is the agricultural
18:56
Speaker 3: part of it. We'll tackle that first. We all may
19:00
Speaker 3: look at these big eggfields and say, wow, that's great.
19:02
Speaker 3: The deer have all this food. But when the farmer
19:05
Speaker 3: comes along and makes a harvest corn, soybeans or whatever,
19:09
Speaker 3: they notice it because they measure those things. It's not
19:12
Speaker 3: like they just say, well, it seems like we had
19:14
Speaker 3: a full truck this year. I mean they literally measure
19:16
Speaker 3: by the bushel what their yields are. And if those
19:19
Speaker 3: yields go down, then all of a sudden, they're tolerance
19:22
Speaker 3: for deer is going to be down as well, and
19:25
Speaker 3: so more of those deer end up getting shot because
19:28
Speaker 3: of crop destruction issues, not by hunters, and it just
19:33
Speaker 3: creates a very difficult situation economically and also opportunity wise
19:37
Speaker 3: for hunting. But then there's the other side of it.
19:40
Speaker 3: There's a forest management part of it. So not everybody
19:43
Speaker 3: is blessed to be able to have their own forest
19:45
Speaker 3: that they can manage and know one to cut trees
19:47
Speaker 3: and create early successional habitat. A lot of our giant
19:50
Speaker 3: public lands are like this, and so one of the
19:52
Speaker 3: reasons that public lands may be unfavorable in terms of
19:56
Speaker 3: good hunting spots is because the forest there's no regeneration
20:00
Speaker 3: because there are so many deer that they come in
20:02
Speaker 3: and they basically mow everything new that's down, So you
20:05
Speaker 3: don't get any good edge habitat, you don't get any
20:07
Speaker 3: early successional habitat, and therefore the hunting suffers. But these
20:11
Speaker 3: deer are still out there, or they're spreading out into
20:14
Speaker 3: these suburban areas where they really shouldn't be, and so
20:18
Speaker 3: there's also an economic loss when it comes to that,
20:21
Speaker 3: and obviously an opportunity loss as well. I mean, I
20:24
Speaker 3: live in a town. I live in hunting central western Pennsylvania,
20:29
Speaker 3: but I can still see if I get up early enough,
20:31
Speaker 3: I can see a deer walking down the street. And
20:33
Speaker 3: I live in town, and I also see movements to
20:37
Speaker 3: we have a green space here, a couple hundred acres
20:41
Speaker 3: that a lot of people hike and enjoy right next
20:43
Speaker 3: to the town, and it's got way too many deer
20:45
Speaker 3: in the forest is a mess, and they start talking
20:48
Speaker 3: about things like contraception and other things that are not ideal.
20:54
Speaker 3: And so those are the types of things that overpopulation
20:57
Speaker 3: cause that aren't necessarily just related to this, but are
21:01
Speaker 3: very important.
21:04
Speaker 2: Okay, now here's another one. If we if we were
21:10
Speaker 2: to be selfish a little bit and just think about
21:13
Speaker 2: the things that a lot of deer hunters default too.
21:18
Speaker 2: I'm guilty of this sometimes myself. I can get the
21:21
Speaker 2: big buck blinders on sometimes and I'm just like so
21:24
Speaker 2: focused on like shooting that one target buck or seeing
21:27
Speaker 2: a bigger deer, or seeing an older deer. Right, we
21:29
Speaker 2: get excited about that kind of stuff, And that's okay
21:31
Speaker 2: to get excited about that kind of stuff if that's
21:33
Speaker 2: something that we really care about. Having it out of control,
21:37
Speaker 2: doll population is going to hurt a lot of those
21:40
Speaker 2: types of goals as well. Right, I mean kind of
21:43
Speaker 2: to your point there when it comes to even in
21:45
Speaker 2: an agricultural area, you know, even though there's lots of
21:48
Speaker 2: food prior to the harvest, once they do pick the
21:51
Speaker 2: beans and harvest the corn, and that waste grain disappears.
21:56
Speaker 2: You know, by the time you get to February or March,
21:59
Speaker 2: if you have way too many deer, there's not a
22:02
Speaker 2: lot of food left out there. And if the force
22:04
Speaker 2: is picked clean, all of a sudden, you've gotten nutritionally
22:07
Speaker 2: depleted critters. Once you're getting into the spring, when these
22:11
Speaker 2: deer are struggling the most, right, that's not good for
22:13
Speaker 2: antler growth. That's not good for lactating dos later into
22:17
Speaker 2: the spring early summer. There's a lot of downsides when
22:20
Speaker 2: it comes to that side of things as well.
22:22
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean you're hitting on really sort of
22:25
Speaker 3: the key concepts of herd health, which when you go
22:29
Speaker 3: all the way back to when the National Deer Association
22:32
Speaker 3: previously known as the Quality Deer Management Association was started,
22:37
Speaker 3: it got the reputation for being an organization it just
22:40
Speaker 3: cared about big bucks, and I think people miss the point. Okay,
22:44
Speaker 3: nicer racked deer is a symptom of quality herd and
22:51
Speaker 3: habitat management. So you can enjoy opportunities better deer if
22:56
Speaker 3: all population is in control and the herd is more balanced.
23:00
Speaker 3: Habitat is balanced, and so we still very much care
23:03
Speaker 3: about all those things and are very core to our mission,
23:06
Speaker 3: but we try to talk about them a little bit
23:08
Speaker 3: differently so that people don't miss construe what we're about.
23:12
Speaker 3: And so to your point, and it's hard sometimes to
23:16
Speaker 3: just explain generally how seeing less deer is actually better
23:20
Speaker 3: for you as a hunter, and so it's very subtle.
23:23
Speaker 3: You mentioned things like different times a year and not
23:26
Speaker 3: having that food available. So for every pound less that
23:31
Speaker 3: a young buck is able to eat throughout those winter months,
23:34
Speaker 3: and the harder it is on him, you will see
23:37
Speaker 3: that impact on that deer's antler growth later, because the
23:39
Speaker 3: first thing that a deer's body does is it takes
23:41
Speaker 3: care of its body, and then from there the antler
23:46
Speaker 3: growth and so on is going to be largely dependent
23:48
Speaker 3: on how healthy that deer came through the winter and spring.
23:51
Speaker 3: Same thing with lactating does. Let's say that you have
23:54
Speaker 3: a dough that had dropped two fawns, and she's trying
23:57
Speaker 3: to feed two fawns throughout the spring, but her nutrition
24:00
Speaker 3: isn't good. And now you've got these two Let's say
24:02
Speaker 3: one of those is a button buck, okay, and now
24:05
Speaker 3: he is maybe he's born later to begin with, and
24:08
Speaker 3: then he's not getting the type of nutrition he needs
24:10
Speaker 3: as a yearling deer, and now he struggles his entire
24:14
Speaker 3: life to catch up from that. And so it's not
24:18
Speaker 3: even just a one year thing. A lean year can
24:20
Speaker 3: actually lead to multiple years of being lean and not
24:23
Speaker 3: reaching full potential. So I know that we all want
24:27
Speaker 3: to see deer when we hunt. It's not fun when
24:29
Speaker 3: you go out and you sit in the freezing cold
24:31
Speaker 3: and you maybe don't see anything, But that's part of
24:35
Speaker 3: the deal. If you really care about the overall herd
24:38
Speaker 3: health and and really if you want to see bigger,
24:41
Speaker 3: better bucks, which a lot of us do, dough management
24:45
Speaker 3: is a critical part of that.
24:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, And what about I mean, I know we like
25:00
Speaker 2: to see a lot of deer, and I'm guilty of
25:02
Speaker 2: it too. I like to see a lot of deer,
25:04
Speaker 2: but I also like to see certain kinds of deer behavior.
25:08
Speaker 2: And this is another one. If you have a more
25:11
Speaker 2: in balance buck to dough ratio and a more balanced
25:15
Speaker 2: herd structure, age structure, all those kinds of things, it
25:18
Speaker 2: can lead to more exciting hunts in a different kind
25:21
Speaker 2: of way too, Right, Can you speak a little bit
25:23
Speaker 2: to how you know your dough population and bucks to
25:27
Speaker 2: dough ratio can impact like the rut and that kind
25:29
Speaker 2: of stuff that we always dream about.
25:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's funny because we've listened I'm sure both
25:35
Speaker 3: of us to one hundred podcasts over the last few
25:38
Speaker 3: weeks talking about the rut. I mean, you've had several
25:41
Speaker 3: great guests on talking about this issue and one of
25:44
Speaker 3: the things that comes up. And it's funny because I'll
25:47
Speaker 3: hear you and Tony going back and forth on this
25:49
Speaker 3: when you guys are together about how man, it's like
25:52
Speaker 3: the first week in November and I haven't seen a
25:54
Speaker 3: deer for three days. What's going on? And so the
25:57
Speaker 3: reality of that is is, if you know, let's put
26:00
Speaker 3: this into a human perspective, right, if you're a young
26:05
Speaker 3: man or young woman trying to meet a partner and
26:08
Speaker 3: you're in a town that's got one hundred thousand people
26:10
Speaker 3: in it, you ain't gonna have to go far. But
26:12
Speaker 3: if you're in a small town, you're probably gonna you know,
26:15
Speaker 3: with fewer people, you're probably going to have to go
26:17
Speaker 3: further to meet that person. And that's the same thing
26:20
Speaker 3: with deer. I mean, if there's a good mature buck.
26:22
Speaker 3: Let's say you've got him, even if your property's a
26:25
Speaker 3: small one. Let's see, have one hundred acre property and
26:27
Speaker 3: you've got a mature buck that you're after, and you've
26:30
Speaker 3: been passing doors all along because you just keep thinking
26:32
Speaker 3: he's going to show up one of these days. Well,
26:36
Speaker 3: he doesn't have to go far to find those does.
26:38
Speaker 3: He's going to find the first one, he's going to
26:40
Speaker 3: have her in the area that he wants her, and
26:42
Speaker 3: then he's going to be able to easily find the
26:44
Speaker 3: next one. And he doesn't have to really go far.
26:46
Speaker 3: He's not really challenged a whole lot, as opposed to
26:49
Speaker 3: if your dough herd is in balance or at least close.
26:52
Speaker 3: I mean, one to one is pretty difficult to achieve
26:55
Speaker 3: in most cases. But even two to one, he's going
26:59
Speaker 3: to have to do a little, you know, put a
27:01
Speaker 3: little effort for it to go find that though, as
27:03
Speaker 3: opposed to just pretty much staying close to his feed
27:05
Speaker 3: and staying close to his bed and being able to
27:07
Speaker 3: accomplish that breeding. He doesn't want to, especially mature deer,
27:11
Speaker 3: does not want to expend all the extra energy if
27:15
Speaker 3: he doesn't have to. He doesn't want to get into
27:17
Speaker 3: fights and brawls with other bucks if he doesn't have to.
27:20
Speaker 3: But you as a hunter, if you're sitting there, man,
27:22
Speaker 3: that can make for a long boring road. Sitting there
27:26
Speaker 3: during the rut and not seeing any deer. That's that's
27:28
Speaker 3: likely the biggest cause of it. As opposed to multiple
27:31
Speaker 3: bucks moving across the landscape you get, you're going to
27:33
Speaker 3: see more chasing, You're going to see more cruising. If
27:37
Speaker 3: you're seeing that, you're seeing more sign laid down things
27:39
Speaker 3: are probably in pretty good order in terms of your
27:41
Speaker 3: buck to dough ratio in those areas.
27:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the few places that I've been able to
27:46
Speaker 2: hunt and like that, you're also seeing you know, bucks
27:50
Speaker 2: doing buck things like vocalizing and getting really you know,
27:55
Speaker 2: aggressive with each other. You're seeing bucks actually fighting, and
27:58
Speaker 2: you're seeing you know, snort and just cool stuff like
28:01
Speaker 2: when I've been to Iowa and some of these locations
28:03
Speaker 2: like that, it's just so different than where I'm in Michigan.
28:06
Speaker 2: And a lot of it has to do with some
28:08
Speaker 2: herd structure things like that. I mean, you know, here
28:12
Speaker 2: where I live, this general area is very much like
28:14
Speaker 2: the first situation you described where there's so many does
28:18
Speaker 2: that every buck is set, he doesn't have to work
28:21
Speaker 2: hard at all because he gets gets done, and he's
28:24
Speaker 2: he's got another six, seven, ten dos within ten acres
28:27
Speaker 2: to pick from, and then he's off to the next one,
28:29
Speaker 2: and ten minutes later he can likely be finding another.
28:33
Speaker 2: And it can make for some slow days when they
28:36
Speaker 2: when the bucks don't need to work hard, the hunter does.
28:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, and eight structure is important there too, you know.
28:42
Speaker 3: It's uh, older bucks understand better how to you know,
28:48
Speaker 3: do those types of things, so they're going to be
28:51
Speaker 3: more prolific kind of scrapers and serious scrapes, you know,
28:55
Speaker 3: and and and rubs and aggression towards other deer, whereas
28:59
Speaker 3: the younger bucks. Again, to get back to people, your
29:02
Speaker 3: game is a lot better when you're in your twenties
29:05
Speaker 3: than it was when you were in your teens, right,
29:07
Speaker 3: And so it's the same thing with deer now.
29:11
Speaker 2: I'm not sure about if I had to re enter
29:13
Speaker 2: the game in my thirties, I might have lost it.
29:15
Speaker 3: So well that then you're just that big old mature buck, right,
29:19
Speaker 3: and you hope that you've you hope that you've established
29:22
Speaker 3: your dominance in a way that the doughs just come
29:24
Speaker 3: to you.
29:24
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think at this point I'm that really
29:26
Speaker 2: old lazy, dumb deaf buck that's missing an eye and
29:29
Speaker 2: kind of limpse along Lasn's better. That's that might be
29:32
Speaker 2: where I am.
29:33
Speaker 3: So I gotcha, I can relate.
29:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, thankfully. My my wife is still is still sticking
29:38
Speaker 2: by me. So here's this thing, you know, when it
29:43
Speaker 2: comes to the whole dough thing, and you mentioned this
29:44
Speaker 2: early on, there's always exceptions to what we're talking about here, right,
29:47
Speaker 2: Like there are some places where we need to be
29:50
Speaker 2: more aggressive with dough harvest, like we're talking about here,
29:53
Speaker 2: But then there's other spots where that's not the case, right,
29:55
Speaker 2: I mean up in northern Michigan and a lot of
29:57
Speaker 2: places that I hunt around my my deer cam up there,
30:00
Speaker 2: it still seems like it's it's pretty down load deer populations.
30:03
Speaker 2: I know there's concerns up in northern Minnesota and northern
30:06
Speaker 2: Wisconsin places like that where someone up there listening to
30:11
Speaker 2: this might be fuming and saying, what are you guys
30:14
Speaker 2: talking about? We never see deer, it's horrible, et cetera.
30:21
Speaker 2: Can you can you give me some semblance and an
30:25
Speaker 2: idea of how you guys recommend a hunter figure out,
30:29
Speaker 2: you know, do I need to be getting more aggressive
30:32
Speaker 2: or do I not? Is it simply just an eyeball test,
30:35
Speaker 2: like what do you feel or should we be getting
30:37
Speaker 2: serious about a deer census. Can we get a hold
30:40
Speaker 2: of our state biologist and just ask like, what's the
30:44
Speaker 2: actual steps we should take to figure out that?
30:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so there are anecdotal there is anecdotal evidence,
30:51
Speaker 3: and then there's science that you can use. And everybody's
30:53
Speaker 3: situation is different. If you're someone that's just your public
30:57
Speaker 3: land and you're unable to go in and do an
30:59
Speaker 3: actual deer trail camera survey, which if you go to
31:02
Speaker 3: the National Deer Association website, type in trail camera survey,
31:05
Speaker 3: we'll show you the science of how you can do that,
31:08
Speaker 3: take you step by step into calculations, and you'll know
31:11
Speaker 3: how many deer per square mile that you have. For
31:13
Speaker 3: a lot of people, though, that's not going to be realistic.
31:17
Speaker 3: So I think part of it's a visual test or
31:19
Speaker 3: knowing at least your local herd. So I know I
31:23
Speaker 3: actually own some land. It's not a huge piece of land,
31:26
Speaker 3: but I can tell you that I am on top
31:29
Speaker 3: of understanding what deer living there. Okay, So through trail cameras,
31:34
Speaker 3: through looking at my habitat, through my own harvest data,
31:39
Speaker 3: I'm pretty confident on most of the deer living there,
31:42
Speaker 3: especially the bucks, but even the dough family groups that
31:44
Speaker 3: when I see them, I can pretty much recognize who
31:47
Speaker 3: they are and have some idea of where they come from.
31:51
Speaker 3: And so I can tell you that during the first
31:53
Speaker 3: day of our firearm season this year, I saw twenty
31:57
Speaker 3: two deer that day. Now, when I'm out there hunting
32:01
Speaker 3: archery season, which is what I do mostly, a pretty
32:04
Speaker 3: average or decent night for me is I'm going to
32:06
Speaker 3: see four, maybe six deer. And so there's a difference
32:09
Speaker 3: between the deer that are living on me for the
32:11
Speaker 3: most of the year and the deer that I may
32:13
Speaker 3: have recruited because of pressure and firearm season or whatever.
32:16
Speaker 3: But the pointing saying that is when I went out
32:20
Speaker 3: with firearm, didn't I didn't intend to shoot a dough.
32:23
Speaker 3: My focus was I would do some more of that
32:26
Speaker 3: in the winter archery season. But when I saw twenty
32:29
Speaker 3: two deer on opening day, regardless of whether they were
32:31
Speaker 3: directly living on me or I recruited them from nearby,
32:36
Speaker 3: I decided the next day, the first nice, big adult
32:38
Speaker 3: dough that comes in, I'm shooting that deer, because man,
32:41
Speaker 3: that's concerning to me. As much as it was exciting
32:44
Speaker 3: to see that many deer, I knew in my mind,
32:47
Speaker 3: and I own land in a CWD management zone, you
32:51
Speaker 3: know what, I need to do my part here, and
32:53
Speaker 3: I need to shoot a deer, And so I did.
32:54
Speaker 3: I shot the deer and I donated it to a
32:56
Speaker 3: friend of mine. So some of it will be anecdotal.
32:59
Speaker 3: If you just feel like you're seeing what seems like
33:01
Speaker 3: too many deer, you're getting a lot of them on
33:03
Speaker 3: your trail camera, that's probably a signal to you to
33:06
Speaker 3: go ahead and start filling more of those dough tags.
33:08
Speaker 3: And so you know, there's the science and there's the anecdotal.
33:12
Speaker 2: So to your point, a lot of folks just probably
33:16
Speaker 2: aren't going to go and do a scientific trail cam
33:19
Speaker 2: survey of their population. Is there any kind of like
33:22
Speaker 2: rough back of the napkin kind of estimate? And I
33:27
Speaker 2: know there's no good answer to this as I'm posing
33:31
Speaker 2: this question to you, because it's all going to be
33:32
Speaker 2: habitat dependent too, But I can imagine there's gonna be
33:36
Speaker 2: some people listening thinking how many deer is too many deer? Right?
33:40
Speaker 2: I mean, let's just say you hunt a hundred acre
33:43
Speaker 2: piece of ground. Let's just to make it simple, it's
33:47
Speaker 2: kind of mixed habitat, some kind of agriculture, some kind
33:50
Speaker 2: of cover. You know that probably applies to a whole
33:54
Speaker 2: lot of hunters across the country, some kind of mix
33:56
Speaker 2: like that, one hundred acres. Is there any kind of
34:00
Speaker 2: rough number that we can throw out there and say like, hey,
34:03
Speaker 2: this is way too many? This is probably right? Or
34:06
Speaker 2: is it just so situationally dependent it's not even worth
34:09
Speaker 2: tossing numbers up.
34:11
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, as you know, I work with a lot
34:14
Speaker 3: of wildlife biologists, right, and they're always going to tell
34:17
Speaker 3: you they're always going to start their answer with well
34:19
Speaker 3: it depends.
34:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're getting really nervous as I pose this question.
34:23
Speaker 3: Yeah they are. No, Yeah, they sometimes they rarely let
34:27
Speaker 3: me out to actually talk to anybody into public because
34:29
Speaker 3: they're afraid I'll mess up. But no, I mean, so
34:34
Speaker 3: you know, there are It doesn't have to be a
34:36
Speaker 3: deer trail camera survey. There are other things you can do.
34:38
Speaker 3: You can do pellet counts, there are some vegetation surveys
34:41
Speaker 3: you can do. But in terms of hey, is there
34:44
Speaker 3: just sort of like a general number that you know is,
34:46
Speaker 3: for example, is fifteen deer per square mile? Is that
34:49
Speaker 3: the right number is thirty deer per square mile? It
34:52
Speaker 3: does depend. But when I think about like the area
34:55
Speaker 3: that you live in Mark, which I have been to,
34:58
Speaker 3: and I under understand kind of what you're looking looking
35:00
Speaker 3: at there, it actually is very similar to the area
35:02
Speaker 3: that did I live and hunt in. You know, fifteen
35:07
Speaker 3: deer per square miles probably pretty good because you've got
35:10
Speaker 3: that's not a huge gigantic number, and there's a lot
35:13
Speaker 3: of food around, there's a lot of edge habitat uh
35:16
Speaker 3: and so there's opportunity. But I would say if I
35:19
Speaker 3: were to go an hour or so north of where
35:21
Speaker 3: I live into the Alleghany National Forest, that's too many
35:24
Speaker 3: deer for there because you lose the agriculture and if
35:27
Speaker 3: you don't have good eggcorn years or other good mass years,
35:31
Speaker 3: it can be really challenging for deer. So it does depend.
35:34
Speaker 3: But if you're talking about sort of that very traditional
35:38
Speaker 3: mix of hardwoods with with some agriculture, but not not
35:43
Speaker 3: the not the hard Midwest where you're you know, you're
35:45
Speaker 3: thinking Iowa and Kansas and gigantic agfields. You know, I've
35:49
Speaker 3: always in my mind kind of thought of that as
35:51
Speaker 3: just a general rule of thumb. You know, fifteen's pretty good.
35:53
Speaker 3: You might be able to hold a few more. But
35:55
Speaker 3: I'd rather, I'd rather have a few less, but bigger,
35:57
Speaker 3: healthier deer than to try to get to that already
36:00
Speaker 3: number or even beyond that, because that's when you start
36:02
Speaker 3: running into issues.
36:03
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I I don't know how to get the
36:08
Speaker 2: real number, but I bet around here it's got to
36:12
Speaker 2: be more like fifty to one hundred deer per square
36:15
Speaker 2: mile where I'm at. I mean, it's not it's not
36:19
Speaker 2: out of the question to see twenty to thirty five
36:24
Speaker 2: to twenty to forty deer in an evening sit, you know,
36:27
Speaker 2: on those like banger nights where the conditions are right
36:29
Speaker 2: and the corners came down or something. I mean, I've
36:32
Speaker 2: had a lot of nights like that over the years,
36:35
Speaker 2: and it's hard to make a dent in that. You know,
36:40
Speaker 2: when you've got a little bit bit of ground here
36:42
Speaker 2: and there, you can hunt and I feel like, you know,
36:46
Speaker 2: I feel like I'm doing I'm trying to be a
36:49
Speaker 2: part of the solution. But it almost seems like to
36:51
Speaker 2: make any kind of real dent, it's like you need
36:53
Speaker 2: to take ten, fifteen to twenty dos something like that,
36:56
Speaker 2: and that's a lot for any one single person to do.
36:59
Speaker 2: How do you how do you think about like the numbers?
37:04
Speaker 2: Nick Like in a situation like I'm in, like I've got,
37:06
Speaker 2: you know, a couple of permission pieces in a square
37:09
Speaker 2: mile area, and I'm one guy, and I am inviting
37:13
Speaker 2: friends and new hunters and stuff to come out and
37:15
Speaker 2: do that kind of stuff. But how do you feel,
37:16
Speaker 2: like how many doughs I should be taking? Is it
37:19
Speaker 2: just like as many as you possibly can, or is
37:21
Speaker 2: there a way to be a little more scientific about it?
37:25
Speaker 3: Yep. So obviously the first thing is going to be
37:29
Speaker 3: how many tags does your state allow you? I mean,
37:31
Speaker 3: that's that's another challenge I hear from people, Well I'm
37:33
Speaker 3: only allowed to have one antler list tag. Well, that's
37:36
Speaker 3: probably a bigger issue to be taken up with your
37:39
Speaker 3: state management agency. But I think in most cases nowadays
37:43
Speaker 3: it's pretty generous, especially in you know, the Northeast and
37:48
Speaker 3: even up in the areas you live Upper Midwest. I know,
37:50
Speaker 3: when I buy my license in Delaware, I get four
37:53
Speaker 3: antler list tags right off the bat with that license,
37:56
Speaker 3: so I think that's good. My general advice would be
38:01
Speaker 3: get as many tags as you can get, and then
38:03
Speaker 3: from there you're going to sort of play it by
38:06
Speaker 3: what you see, right so I can get I think
38:09
Speaker 3: up to six tags now where I live. This year,
38:12
Speaker 3: I didn't buy six. I think I bought four, and
38:14
Speaker 3: so I'm still holding onto a couple of those, and
38:17
Speaker 3: I'm going to let what I've seen this year help
38:20
Speaker 3: dictate that. Not scientific, but as I'm familiar enough with
38:24
Speaker 3: my area that I'm pretty comfortable with that, and I
38:27
Speaker 3: know now based on what I've seen, I've already filled
38:29
Speaker 3: that one extra tag. I know. I want to go
38:31
Speaker 3: out in the winter season and fell at least one
38:33
Speaker 3: more antlerless tag and try to encourage other people in
38:36
Speaker 3: the area to do the same thing. I'm one thing too,
38:40
Speaker 3: I want to caution people because you'd brought up what
38:42
Speaker 3: you might see right now. It's also a little trickier
38:44
Speaker 3: in winter because if you happen to live near one
38:47
Speaker 3: of these big bag fields that was cut down, you
38:49
Speaker 3: might be recruiting deer into there from miles away and
38:52
Speaker 3: that's why when we do our trail camera surveys that
38:55
Speaker 3: are the scientific evaluation, those happen in August when you're
39:00
Speaker 3: dealing with your local herd that lives on you for
39:03
Speaker 3: most of the year, and not those unique situations where
39:05
Speaker 3: you might be drawing deer in from a from a
39:07
Speaker 3: large distance. So that's another reason, by the way, to
39:10
Speaker 3: fill your dough tags early if you're focused on local management,
39:14
Speaker 3: because you're you are taking a deer that is a
39:16
Speaker 3: resident or nearby resident of the place you're hunting. That
39:20
Speaker 3: all changes once you have gun seasons, moving deer around
39:23
Speaker 3: and deer get into sort of their winter habits or
39:26
Speaker 3: finding where that food is. And so you might be
39:28
Speaker 3: shooting a deer now that lived three miles away for
39:32
Speaker 3: most of the year.
39:33
Speaker 2: Right, Yes, So that that brings up a good and
39:36
Speaker 2: good kind of segue to actually doing the thing. So
39:40
Speaker 2: you just answered my next question partially, But are there
39:46
Speaker 2: any better or worse times to start targeting dough So
39:48
Speaker 2: you just you just made a case for targeting doughs early.
39:52
Speaker 2: Is there any other reason why it's a good idea
39:55
Speaker 2: to take a dough early versus late, and then vice versa.
39:58
Speaker 2: Is there any reason why a late season jial kill
40:01
Speaker 2: is better or worse.
40:03
Speaker 3: Generally speaking, anytime you have an opportunity is going to
40:06
Speaker 3: be a good time. Okay. Now, I'm not saying you've
40:09
Speaker 3: got your target buck coming in and he's following a dough.
40:12
Speaker 3: I'm not saying shoot the dough in that situation. Okay,
40:15
Speaker 3: let's be realistic about it. But earlier in the year
40:20
Speaker 3: is more likely that you are removing a deer from
40:23
Speaker 3: the property or nearby property, that you're hunting a deer
40:26
Speaker 3: that uses your place. Okay, So locally, you are helping
40:29
Speaker 3: your situation more locally, and also at a time when
40:35
Speaker 3: you're probably not that you're not always focused on a buck.
40:37
Speaker 3: But let's be honest, when we're going out there and
40:40
Speaker 3: we're still sweating and we're carrying a thermicell, likelihood of
40:44
Speaker 3: seeing the buck we're after might be a little bit
40:46
Speaker 3: tougher during that time. And so just it's just a
40:50
Speaker 3: mental approach, like you know what, I am setting aside
40:53
Speaker 3: the first couple of weeks of the season to focus
40:55
Speaker 3: on antler list deer. Don't get me wrong, if I
40:57
Speaker 3: see a buck that i'd like to shoot, I'm going
40:59
Speaker 3: to shoot it. But my focus is going to be
41:02
Speaker 3: to try to fill some of those dough tags. If
41:03
Speaker 3: you do that before the rut, you are able to
41:06
Speaker 3: help with some of those things that we talked about earlier.
41:09
Speaker 3: Those are, you know, a dough or two less than
41:11
Speaker 3: bucks are going to be able to chase nearby during
41:13
Speaker 3: that time. So it's very helpful that way. But in
41:16
Speaker 3: the winter too, I don't want people to get me wrong.
41:20
Speaker 3: Even if you do shoot that dough that maybe lives
41:22
Speaker 3: three miles away, you're still helping the situation. You're still
41:26
Speaker 3: helping somebody, and you're also either putting meat in your
41:29
Speaker 3: own freezer or to a friend or to someone who
41:32
Speaker 3: really needs it. And you know, we still have an
41:35
Speaker 3: awful lot of hungry people in this country, and people
41:37
Speaker 3: don't understand how far those donations go. And I feel
41:42
Speaker 3: really good about it every time I donate a deer
41:44
Speaker 3: through those programs. So I love to hunt. I can't
41:47
Speaker 3: eat all the deer, but there are other people that
41:49
Speaker 3: can help with that. So you're always helping the situation
41:53
Speaker 3: anytime you take a dough out.
41:54
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, I've heard some people say you shouldn't shoot
41:57
Speaker 2: a dough in the late season because you're killing your
41:59
Speaker 2: future bucks because those are doughs that have already been bred,
42:03
Speaker 2: and now you're just wiping out your future deer. What
42:06
Speaker 2: do you say to that person, Yeah.
42:08
Speaker 3: I mean, if you just want to look at the
42:09
Speaker 3: math of it, well, certainly, if you take out a dough,
42:13
Speaker 3: but if you take her out before she gets pregnant
42:15
Speaker 3: or after, regardless, you're likely taking out two or three right,
42:18
Speaker 3: and so inevitably in that population you're going to have
42:22
Speaker 3: button bucks or bucks that are taken out. That's just
42:26
Speaker 3: the reality of the situation. You are not deer very resilient, okay,
42:32
Speaker 3: and so you should be focused less on numbers of
42:35
Speaker 3: bucks and more on quality and age class of bucks
42:38
Speaker 3: and having deer throughout those age classes. And so to
42:43
Speaker 3: have twenty five yearling bucks running around every year where
42:47
Speaker 3: you live doesn't really help your situation. It's too many
42:51
Speaker 3: deer to begin with. You're not getting that type of
42:53
Speaker 3: hunting opportunity that you may desire for mature deer or
42:58
Speaker 3: we talked about mature deer behavior, have that that's what
43:01
Speaker 3: we used to have where it was you know, people
43:04
Speaker 3: would shoot any buck, which is fine. I would never
43:07
Speaker 3: tell anybody to put the value of the tag is
43:09
Speaker 3: what you put on it. You do with what you want.
43:12
Speaker 3: But back in the day it was in your state,
43:15
Speaker 3: my state, any buck with an antler was a buck,
43:17
Speaker 3: and you shot it, and you probably only had one
43:20
Speaker 3: dough tag. Your state only allowed you maybe one dough tag,
43:23
Speaker 3: and so easy to see what happens with population issues.
43:27
Speaker 3: But I would say, if you're trying to do that
43:29
Speaker 3: math and saying, well, if I kill a dough, I'm
43:31
Speaker 3: killing that buck that I'm going to kill four years
43:33
Speaker 3: from now, that's a pretty tough, unrealistic math problem there.
43:38
Speaker 3: It's a tough way to live your life as a hunter.
43:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that the risk, like the possible downsides,
43:43
Speaker 2: are far outweighed by the upsides of doing all the
43:46
Speaker 2: other things we mentioned. Now you did, you did lay
44:00
Speaker 2: out one scenario that I have worried about, especially during
44:04
Speaker 2: that November timeframe or even early December, when there's that
44:07
Speaker 2: second rut possibility. I've always been kind of allergic to
44:11
Speaker 2: shooting a dough during that time period when a dough
44:14
Speaker 2: might be bringing a buck along with her. But I
44:16
Speaker 2: actually did it for the first time this year. I
44:18
Speaker 2: shot a dough during the rut this year. With apprehension,
44:22
Speaker 2: but I was like, I'm gonna do it because i'd actually,
44:26
Speaker 2: you know, as as listeners of the podcast know, I
44:29
Speaker 2: hit a buck I've been after all year in the
44:31
Speaker 2: shoulder at the end of October, and so when November
44:34
Speaker 2: rolled around, I was like, I just need to, like
44:36
Speaker 2: I need to get some confidence back. I need to
44:38
Speaker 2: have a great shot on a dough and I just
44:40
Speaker 2: wanted to like just feel good about something again. So
44:42
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going I'm gonna take this dough.
44:44
Speaker 2: It was November, I don't know, I can't remember. Somewhere
44:46
Speaker 2: in that first week or ten days of November, somewhere
44:49
Speaker 2: in that ballpark, yep, and and took a shot, got
44:52
Speaker 2: her and immediately was like, worry though, oh man, that
44:57
Speaker 2: is there gonna be a buck that's gonna come through
44:59
Speaker 2: here and smell that dough and then go off, you know,
45:02
Speaker 2: follow her back into the woods that way, or what's
45:04
Speaker 2: going to happen? Or did I spook something else? I
45:06
Speaker 2: was thinking about all those things, but I said, forget,
45:08
Speaker 2: I just got to get a dough here. But what's
45:11
Speaker 2: your take on that, Nick? As far as shooting a
45:14
Speaker 2: dough during the rut, the risk of that in any
45:18
Speaker 2: kind of way impacting the rest of your hunt that
45:20
Speaker 2: day or anything. Is that all overblown and we're just
45:22
Speaker 2: you know, getting worked up about nothing.
45:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
45:26
Speaker 3: First, I got to tell you what I was listening
45:28
Speaker 3: to the show when Tony was using the analogy of
45:30
Speaker 3: going into a bar and getting stabbed in the shoulder.
45:33
Speaker 3: I literally laughed out loud when I heard that. That
45:36
Speaker 3: was that was top top rate. But yes, yeah, it
45:41
Speaker 3: was so. Now, I think that we often give give
45:47
Speaker 3: all of these deer in situations way too much thought
45:50
Speaker 3: and credit that we should. Deer are disturbed constantly out there,
45:58
Speaker 3: and they are unable to the problem is we process
46:00
Speaker 3: information as human beings, and so that's the that's the
46:03
Speaker 3: lens we see the world through. Deer do not process
46:06
Speaker 3: their world like that. I mean, you shoot, if two
46:09
Speaker 3: deers stand in there, and you shoot the one right
46:11
Speaker 3: beside the one that stand and it doesn't go through
46:13
Speaker 3: that deer's mind, well, that deer just got shot, right,
46:17
Speaker 3: That's not how a deer's mind works, right, And so
46:21
Speaker 3: don't be worried about if you shoot a dough what
46:24
Speaker 3: that's going to do to your chances of getting a buck. Realistically,
46:29
Speaker 3: if you do shoot a doe and that buck was
46:31
Speaker 3: in the area, and he does move off for that
46:34
Speaker 3: period of time. He doesn't move off forever because in
46:38
Speaker 3: his mind he's processed that he saw someone get shot
46:41
Speaker 3: in that area. He processes that, you know what, I've
46:43
Speaker 3: been disturbed by human Humans are bad, and I'm going
46:46
Speaker 3: to go somewhere where I'm safe. And then at some
46:48
Speaker 3: point he's going to return to that area or be
46:52
Speaker 3: available in some other area. And you know, I see,
46:56
Speaker 3: I just hear and see so many things about even
46:59
Speaker 3: with chore bucks, well, those are just they're just different deer.
47:03
Speaker 3: And so this is an interesting challenge I'd put out
47:06
Speaker 3: to people. Everyone's running trail cameras, right, pick out a
47:10
Speaker 3: couple bucks, just random ones, even yearlings, and then see
47:14
Speaker 3: how many times you actually see those deer during a
47:17
Speaker 3: hunting season. You might not see any of them in
47:20
Speaker 3: the daylight. And so just because some bucks have bigger antlers,
47:24
Speaker 3: we have said they're the wiser, smarter, and they're deer,
47:27
Speaker 3: They're still deer. They're still deer, and we give them,
47:31
Speaker 3: I think, way too much credit for how they process
47:34
Speaker 3: information and how things we do may impact them. And
47:38
Speaker 3: so yeah, again, if you get a nice shot opportunity
47:41
Speaker 3: to doe in November and you see that there's no
47:44
Speaker 3: buck around her, that's a great time to take her,
47:47
Speaker 3: take her, get her out of the woods, and you
47:49
Speaker 3: fill the tag and get back focused on bucks.
47:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So anytime it's a good time should doe.
47:57
Speaker 2: Another dilemma that I know a lot of folks face,
48:01
Speaker 2: and I've sometimes thought through too, is which dough to
48:04
Speaker 2: shoot or should I shoot this dough or not based
48:07
Speaker 2: on the situation. So I'll lay out a couple of scenarios.
48:10
Speaker 2: Number One, if there's an adult dough with young what's
48:13
Speaker 2: your take on shooting that adult dough with young Number two,
48:17
Speaker 2: if there's a group of does and you can see
48:19
Speaker 2: summer older, some aer younger, which is the best dough? Take?
48:22
Speaker 2: Do I shoot the big old one? Do I shoot
48:25
Speaker 2: the younger one? Doesn't matter? What do you think about those?
48:29
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm primarily for focused in a perfect situation of
48:33
Speaker 3: going for the biggest, oldest one if I can. But
48:36
Speaker 3: at the same time, if an eighteen month old dough
48:38
Speaker 3: presents a good shot opportunity, I'm not going to wait
48:42
Speaker 3: on the other dough. If I want to fill a
48:44
Speaker 3: dough tag, because we all know how quickly a dough
48:46
Speaker 3: hunt can go bad if one of them smells you,
48:49
Speaker 3: and now you don't shoot any deer. And so you know,
48:52
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever shot a dough fond that
48:55
Speaker 3: I knew was a dough fawn. Maybe one, except in
49:00
Speaker 3: a winter season where those dough fonts are darn near
49:02
Speaker 3: as big as adults. But my focus is if I can,
49:07
Speaker 3: I want the biggest, oldest dough. But I've got no
49:11
Speaker 3: qualms at all with shooting an eighteen month old dough.
49:13
Speaker 3: The first dough I shot this season was an eighteen
49:15
Speaker 3: month old. They are very good to eat. They're also
49:19
Speaker 3: of good size, and they're also typically alone, and so
49:22
Speaker 3: you don't have the battle of trying to beat a
49:24
Speaker 3: bunch of different eyeballs and that type of thing. So
49:28
Speaker 3: you know, I wouldn't waste a whole lot of time
49:30
Speaker 3: being focused on that. If you get a good shot opportunity,
49:33
Speaker 3: take the good shot opportunity. But I do have a
49:36
Speaker 3: tendency to focus on the bigger, older wins if I
49:39
Speaker 3: can do it.
49:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I'm right there with you. Okay, So we
49:45
Speaker 2: don't really get into this whole lot, but it is
49:48
Speaker 2: worth talking about specific tactics when you are actually going
49:52
Speaker 2: out on a dough only hunt, like you're out there
49:54
Speaker 2: either in an ant li list only season or you've
49:57
Speaker 2: got your buck tags failed and you're just trying to
49:58
Speaker 2: kill some doughs. Every year, I get to this time
50:02
Speaker 2: of year and I'm like, all right, now it's dough season.
50:05
Speaker 2: Like I'm you know, when I've got that buck tag filled,
50:07
Speaker 2: or when I get late, I usually just like revert to, Okay,
50:10
Speaker 2: I really got to get working on management if I
50:11
Speaker 2: haven't got enough down yet. And it always seems like
50:15
Speaker 2: early in the year I think to myself, Oh, it's
50:17
Speaker 2: so easy. I'll be able to get does whenever I want.
50:19
Speaker 2: And it seems like whenever you're trying to kill a buck,
50:21
Speaker 2: the doze or everywhere, right, But as soon as you're
50:23
Speaker 2: specifically trying to kill one, all of a sudden things
50:26
Speaker 2: don't quite work out that way. So does your approach
50:31
Speaker 2: two hunting? Does Does it change at all throughout the
50:35
Speaker 2: season or would you say that the general tactics to
50:37
Speaker 2: try to kill an analyst deer, you know, apply in
50:41
Speaker 2: September just as much as they apply in December.
50:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, they certainly change by the season. You know, early
50:48
Speaker 3: season is another reason to try to shoot them early
50:51
Speaker 3: is because you're getting in there before they've been bothered
50:54
Speaker 3: and disturbed a whole lot, you know, maybe when they
50:56
Speaker 3: enter your shooting area or your food plot early seas
51:00
Speaker 3: and they're not nearly as in tune as they will
51:03
Speaker 3: be the next time they come out there in the
51:04
Speaker 3: time after that. So there's that factor. And then in
51:09
Speaker 3: that winter season too, one of the things I found
51:11
Speaker 3: is unless you have one of those dynamic food sources
51:14
Speaker 3: that's drawing deer in from everywhere, those deer that you
51:17
Speaker 3: were seeing in August are kind of moved back into
51:19
Speaker 3: those same areas again, and so you're dealing, you know,
51:22
Speaker 3: sometimes with those deer that live on your property most
51:25
Speaker 3: of the time and know it best. So I'm still
51:27
Speaker 3: certainly focused on food in the winter season. That is
51:32
Speaker 3: very much the driver during that time of year. But
51:35
Speaker 3: I would say what happens is mark guys that are scouting,
51:38
Speaker 3: they're mostly scouting bucks, and so just think about going
51:42
Speaker 3: through trail cameras. How many people listening to this flip
51:45
Speaker 3: through their pictures and they just up and they see
51:48
Speaker 3: dough and it's like the leat deleite, deleaite, deleaite, and
51:50
Speaker 3: they put no stock into what they're looking at. I
51:53
Speaker 3: think you had Steve Bartilla on a while back and
51:56
Speaker 3: he was talking about this. He's always so entertaining, but
51:59
Speaker 3: he was talking about this to the point and I
52:01
Speaker 3: was nodding my head saying, you know, that's right. We
52:03
Speaker 3: don't really look at those pictures to know, hey, this
52:07
Speaker 3: dough group's been hitting, this has been on this trail
52:10
Speaker 3: like every day for the past week, and so when
52:12
Speaker 3: I'm deciding on my spots to go hunt that deer,
52:15
Speaker 3: I really should be looking at that data. And so, yeah,
52:19
Speaker 3: I think that's the biggest part of it, is be
52:20
Speaker 3: willing to scout and understand what your does are doing,
52:23
Speaker 3: and you're going to be a much better dough hunter
52:25
Speaker 3: because of that. You don't just throw that out the
52:27
Speaker 3: window and say, well, yeah, there's always does out there.
52:30
Speaker 3: I always see dose, But how many do you actually see,
52:33
Speaker 3: especially if you're bow hunting, how many do you see
52:35
Speaker 3: within range that you could have shot? That's a completely
52:38
Speaker 3: different question.
52:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very true. So it does really come back
52:43
Speaker 2: down to some of those staples of deer hunting. We're
52:46
Speaker 2: just you know, you can discount. I'm not worried about
52:49
Speaker 2: rubs down, I'm not worried about scrapes now, But tracks
52:51
Speaker 2: and droppings and trails and sign of feeding, all that
52:55
Speaker 2: kind of stuff, all of a sudden becomes really important.
53:00
Speaker 2: I guess. The nice thing. One of the reasons I
53:02
Speaker 2: love dough hunting so much is that you typically have
53:05
Speaker 2: a much more target rich environment or target like your
53:09
Speaker 2: pool of possible targets has all of a sudden gone
53:12
Speaker 2: up dramatically, and so you know, any sign is usually
53:15
Speaker 2: a good sign in that kind of case, right, So yeah,
53:17
Speaker 2: get a little more work with Yeah.
53:19
Speaker 3: Good old, good old fashioned woodsmanship. I can tell you
53:21
Speaker 3: ry hunting Delaware with my friend Ron Hawes there. We
53:26
Speaker 3: don't really do it with cameras at all. It's all
53:28
Speaker 3: based on reading the leaf litter, fresh trails, fresh tracks.
53:33
Speaker 3: We can see clearly areas that have had a lot
53:35
Speaker 3: of activity, and we get down window those trails and
53:38
Speaker 3: set up I mean trail, I just say trails, and
53:41
Speaker 3: something popped into my mind, that's something else heavy trails
53:44
Speaker 3: for dose. They're the ones making those trails. It's not
53:46
Speaker 3: your mature box, right, and so trails are very good
53:50
Speaker 3: sign to get yourself on dose, you know, get the
53:52
Speaker 3: wind in your face, get within range of that trail,
53:54
Speaker 3: and you're going to likely have an opportunity.
53:58
Speaker 2: Okay, as we're less right now, as we're talking, Let's
54:02
Speaker 2: say there's someone listening right now, it's December, and they
54:05
Speaker 2: hear all this and they say, all right, I gotta
54:08
Speaker 2: do my part. I want to take another dough. Can
54:11
Speaker 2: you just name for me a handful of different ideas.
54:14
Speaker 2: I know we's talked about scouting for sign or scouting
54:17
Speaker 2: for locations, but if you just had to start throwing
54:20
Speaker 2: some food sources out there, or some types of habitat
54:23
Speaker 2: to look for at this time of year to have
54:24
Speaker 2: some late season success on some doughs, what kind of
54:27
Speaker 2: stuff might you we be thinking about?
54:30
Speaker 3: Yep. The obvious ones are, if you happen to live
54:33
Speaker 3: in an agricultural area and there's some you know that
54:35
Speaker 3: there's still some waste grain available, that type of thing.
54:39
Speaker 3: You're seeing a lot of deer there. I'm sure right
54:41
Speaker 3: now that's the easy one. But let's say you don't
54:43
Speaker 3: have that. So within the within the woods, a more
54:47
Speaker 3: wooded setting, where is that edge habitat or where is
54:50
Speaker 3: there some early successional. And when I say that, not
54:53
Speaker 3: everyone might understand what I'm saying there. So younger age
54:57
Speaker 3: classes of vegetation growing up among some of the older
55:00
Speaker 3: rage classes. So your shrubs, young trees, a deer are
55:03
Speaker 3: really moving heavily toward brows. And so you may be
55:07
Speaker 3: walking by a couple a couple down trees that you
55:10
Speaker 3: never looked at. We'll stop for a second. Look at those,
55:13
Speaker 3: look at look at the ends or the deer nipping
55:15
Speaker 3: the buds off of you know, young shrubs or you know,
55:19
Speaker 3: or they are they working those brows areas. Those are
55:21
Speaker 3: just as good as food plots, you know. Frankly, another tactic.
55:25
Speaker 3: You want to see a bunch of deer, if you
55:27
Speaker 3: happen to own the land, get out with your chainsaw
55:30
Speaker 3: and knock down a couple of trees and then set
55:32
Speaker 3: up on those, because that's instant food plot. I mean
55:35
Speaker 3: I have seen deer, yeah, I mean it's almost like
55:38
Speaker 3: they can hear the chainsaw and it's like a dinner
55:40
Speaker 3: bell where you know, you cut a tree down. In
55:43
Speaker 3: less than a few hours, they're in there and they're
55:46
Speaker 3: feeding on those on those fresh ends. So that's a
55:49
Speaker 3: great opportunity. Any leftover eggcorns, if you can find them,
55:52
Speaker 3: can be a gold mine. Typically at this time of year,
55:55
Speaker 3: you're you're looking at your red oaks that maybe have
55:57
Speaker 3: been not eating up early in the year when the
56:00
Speaker 3: whites were preferred. So if you can find some ake corns,
56:03
Speaker 3: a late dropping soft mast, some certain some species of
56:08
Speaker 3: crab apple trees don't drop their apples until well into
56:11
Speaker 3: the winter. I mean those, if you can find those
56:12
Speaker 3: are a gold mine. If you've got some snow on
56:15
Speaker 3: the ground, that the deer going to lead you to
56:16
Speaker 3: where they are, So really it does get back to
56:20
Speaker 3: you know, there's trail camera data, but then there's also
56:22
Speaker 3: boot leather data where you can get out and find
56:24
Speaker 3: these areas. But you're going to find the deer near
56:26
Speaker 3: the food and the cover, certainly this time of year.
56:30
Speaker 2: So one of the things that a lot of folks
56:32
Speaker 2: talk about when we're targeting a mature buck in the
56:35
Speaker 2: late season is not always, but usually folks prefer evening
56:42
Speaker 2: hunts in the late season, and usually the same case
56:45
Speaker 2: in the early season. Two right, and there's a lot
56:47
Speaker 2: of talk about moorings, you know, being harder to pull off,
56:50
Speaker 2: at least without spooking deer without deer figuring it out,
56:52
Speaker 2: just because accessing these places while deer on their feet
56:55
Speaker 2: can be harder. So there are scenarios where you can
56:58
Speaker 2: do it, for sure, but on average more difficult when
57:03
Speaker 2: we're just targeting dos, though, would you say that's still
57:07
Speaker 2: the case or do you think, yeah, it's worth doing
57:10
Speaker 2: those morning hunts now in the late season or early
57:12
Speaker 2: season when you're targeting antly lists because there's again, like
57:15
Speaker 2: we said, there's more of them around, less risk. They
57:19
Speaker 2: might be a little bit more tolerant of you know,
57:21
Speaker 2: your impact anything like that.
57:23
Speaker 3: Yeah, I go back and forth. I think every situation
57:27
Speaker 3: is different. So my particular property, I don't have any
57:31
Speaker 3: agriculture within a few miles of my place, and so
57:35
Speaker 3: it's what I plant these and all of my plots
57:38
Speaker 3: are kind of like interior plots. There's not really a
57:42
Speaker 3: great way for me to get in on mornings to
57:45
Speaker 3: intercept those deer coming from feed to bed. Okay, if
57:49
Speaker 3: I was in the Midwest, I used to live in
57:51
Speaker 3: hunt in Ohio, I would hunt mornings there more often
57:55
Speaker 3: because there were more obvious opportunities to get between food
57:58
Speaker 3: and bed, and there were ways I could get in
58:00
Speaker 3: and do that, but for the most part, my experience
58:02
Speaker 3: has been that deer are kind of moving back to
58:05
Speaker 3: bed earlier during these winter months and are coming out
58:08
Speaker 3: of their beds earlier also, so evenings have always been
58:11
Speaker 3: better for me, and so I spend most of my
58:13
Speaker 3: time there. But in my particular environment that I have,
58:17
Speaker 3: I hunt very few mornings, except for, you know, when
58:20
Speaker 3: the rut is really kicking off, just because the situation
58:24
Speaker 3: doesn't dictate that that's a good spot Delaware, I'm going
58:27
Speaker 3: to hunt a lot of mornings because we can get
58:29
Speaker 3: a half mile off the main feeding areas and intercept
58:32
Speaker 3: those deer going back to their beds. So it really
58:34
Speaker 3: is sort of site specific.
58:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, So something I've kind of stumbled on in recent
58:41
Speaker 2: years when it comes to the end of the year,
58:44
Speaker 2: when I'm down to the last week of hunting season
58:47
Speaker 2: or something like that, we've got a late antler list
58:50
Speaker 2: firearms season, so you can gun hunt for does right
58:53
Speaker 2: to the end of the year. One of the things
58:56
Speaker 2: I've started doing on these properties I've got permission on
58:59
Speaker 2: that have a lot of ads. You know, I can't
59:01
Speaker 2: get in there before daylight without spooking all sorts of
59:03
Speaker 2: deer off these ag fields in the morning, right, because
59:05
Speaker 2: there's deer out there they're feeding just before daylight. But
59:09
Speaker 2: what I have found is that there's usually a few
59:13
Speaker 2: deer that linger on those fields after daylight. And so
59:17
Speaker 2: what I've started doing is actually waiting till daylight and
59:20
Speaker 2: then kind of spot and stalking my way through these fields,
59:24
Speaker 2: trying to find that dough family group or a few
59:26
Speaker 2: doughs that are lingering, and actually sneak into gun range,
59:30
Speaker 2: you know, twenty minutes after daylight and get a shot
59:32
Speaker 2: at a deer like that. That's been pretty effective for
59:36
Speaker 2: me recently, being able to like get an extra hunt
59:40
Speaker 2: in those morning hours. And it's kind of nice. I
59:43
Speaker 2: wake up late, I slip in there, I sneak in,
59:45
Speaker 2: and if there's dos out there, great, I get a shop.
59:47
Speaker 2: If not, I can go back to the car, go
59:49
Speaker 2: home and go to work, or take the kids to
59:51
Speaker 2: school or whatever. It's been a nice little additional way
59:55
Speaker 2: to get some hunts, and that have been pretty effective
59:57
Speaker 2: without a you know, without impacting the property to my
1:00:00
Speaker 2: and without taking a lot of time either.
1:00:03
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that strategy with a rifle in particular.
1:00:05
Speaker 3: I mean, you have a firearm, you don't have to
1:00:07
Speaker 3: get within thirty yards of that deer, and so you
1:00:10
Speaker 3: have the advantage of being able to see. You don't
1:00:13
Speaker 3: need a flashlight. And if you spot a deer, let's
1:00:15
Speaker 3: say you spotted deer a couple hundred yards off, you're
1:00:18
Speaker 3: going to be a lot more effective at getting close
1:00:20
Speaker 3: enough when you can see where you're going and you
1:00:22
Speaker 3: can read that deer's behavior, you can see when they're
1:00:24
Speaker 3: looking at you when they're not. And so no, I
1:00:27
Speaker 3: absolutely love that strategy. I think generally we all probably
1:00:32
Speaker 3: don't have to be walking into our hunting spots in
1:00:35
Speaker 3: the middle of the dark. We could probably all walk
1:00:37
Speaker 3: in right about daybreak and be maybe even better off.
1:00:40
Speaker 3: So that certainly applies in this situation in the winter.
1:00:44
Speaker 2: Yeah. So all this, though, comes down to a little
1:00:46
Speaker 2: bit back to the impact we make on on deer herd, right,
1:00:50
Speaker 2: the pressure effect. And I mean, you know me, at least,
1:00:55
Speaker 2: I'm pretty like obsessive about that stuff, and I worry
1:00:57
Speaker 2: a lot about the pressure I'm putting on the deer
1:00:59
Speaker 2: herd and all those kinds of things. When it comes
1:01:02
Speaker 2: to does though, do you think that they are more
1:01:05
Speaker 2: tolerant of our impact? Like sometimes I think they are,
1:01:08
Speaker 2: And then other times I see like that old nanny
1:01:10
Speaker 2: Doe who seems to be like on edge more than
1:01:13
Speaker 2: a buck half the time. Do you think we can
1:01:15
Speaker 2: get away with more when we're just targeting those doughs
1:01:19
Speaker 2: or not?
1:01:20
Speaker 3: So I think you can get away with more in
1:01:22
Speaker 3: terms of that dough is still going to want to
1:01:25
Speaker 3: move even though she knows that there's been pressure. But
1:01:29
Speaker 3: you've got a different kind of deer moving at this point. Okay,
1:01:32
Speaker 3: you've got a dough that's willing to move, but she
1:01:35
Speaker 3: has not taken many steps without wind checking, you know,
1:01:38
Speaker 3: looking at all the likely spots where she's probably seen
1:01:40
Speaker 3: you before, checking the ground in case somebody's walked through there.
1:01:45
Speaker 3: That dough that you're trying to shoot right now is
1:01:48
Speaker 3: not the same animal that you were trying to shoot
1:01:50
Speaker 3: back in September October, and so it's hard to get
1:01:55
Speaker 3: close to them. I mean, there's a one particular dough
1:01:58
Speaker 3: that I've been after, and the only reason I know
1:02:00
Speaker 3: it's the same deer is because she's got she's she's piebald,
1:02:04
Speaker 3: and it's not mad. It's it's sort of subtle, but
1:02:06
Speaker 3: she's got a lot of additional white on her and
1:02:09
Speaker 3: ever since the day I said that, you know what,
1:02:10
Speaker 3: this year, I would like to shoot that deer because
1:02:12
Speaker 3: she's older, she's she's been there since I bought the place.
1:02:16
Speaker 3: It has been impossible to get anywhere near that deer
1:02:19
Speaker 3: because she's old, she's smart, and she's not the same
1:02:23
Speaker 3: deer that she was at the beginning of the season
1:02:24
Speaker 3: when I didn't want to shoot her.
1:02:26
Speaker 2: So, man, we need to do a podcast all about
1:02:29
Speaker 2: target does. How to get one target dough for the year. Yeah,
1:02:34
Speaker 2: it's hard something.
1:02:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen that deer again. Going back to the
1:02:37
Speaker 3: buck example, we try to say mature bucks or they're
1:02:40
Speaker 3: just so smart and you can't see them. Well, that
1:02:43
Speaker 3: dough I have only seen on the hoof twice this
1:02:45
Speaker 3: entire season. Yeah, you know deer deer.
1:02:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, they are. I think one of the
1:02:51
Speaker 2: reasons why it feels like maybe you can get away
1:02:54
Speaker 2: with a little bit more with does. Maybe not that
1:02:56
Speaker 2: you can get away with any individual dough, but it's
1:02:59
Speaker 2: just that in most cases there just are more of them.
1:03:01
Speaker 2: So there might be like that one mature buck, and
1:03:04
Speaker 2: if you spook that or educate that one mature buck,
1:03:07
Speaker 2: well then that's going to significantly change things. But you
1:03:09
Speaker 2: might have ten DOS you're working with. Where I am,
1:03:11
Speaker 2: you might have forty DOS that you're working with, So
1:03:13
Speaker 2: you can afford to be more aggressive sometimes knowing that, yeah,
1:03:17
Speaker 2: I'm going to educate five of them, but they'll be
1:03:19
Speaker 2: thirty five more or five more or whatever, you know,
1:03:23
Speaker 2: so it can be worth getting a little bit more aggressive,
1:03:25
Speaker 2: especially when you're getting towards the end of the season
1:03:28
Speaker 2: and you're running out of opportunities, you know, get after him,
1:03:32
Speaker 2: because if you don't, it's definitely a zero. So that's
1:03:37
Speaker 2: that's something to think about. What about you know, have
1:03:40
Speaker 2: you have you done any aggressive wonky things with dose?
1:03:44
Speaker 2: Have you ever decoyed for dose? Do you ever call
1:03:46
Speaker 2: for does anything like that?
1:03:49
Speaker 3: I've decoyed Actually the first, uh, the first deer I
1:03:53
Speaker 3: shot this year responded to a decoy. Now the decoy
1:03:56
Speaker 3: wasn't for her, it was it was for a buck
1:03:59
Speaker 3: I was after, but she responded to it. I had
1:04:01
Speaker 3: several dose respond to it, but I would consider favorably.
1:04:06
Speaker 3: But I can't say that I have ever specifically gone
1:04:09
Speaker 3: out and tried to decoy I mean, dough or just
1:04:13
Speaker 3: they're so less tolerant in general, they they and then
1:04:19
Speaker 3: they get into stomping and snorting, and then they can
1:04:21
Speaker 3: they can blow up your whole hunt. But and so
1:04:23
Speaker 3: because of that with Dose, I just try to be
1:04:25
Speaker 3: where I think they're going to be and keep it
1:04:27
Speaker 3: simple that way. I think a lot, especially this time
1:04:30
Speaker 3: of year. I think an awful lot about my cover
1:04:33
Speaker 3: in the tree and being able to get a shot
1:04:34
Speaker 3: off where the vegetation's gone, and so it's more or
1:04:37
Speaker 3: less trying to get as close as I can without
1:04:39
Speaker 3: them seeing me. At the same time. It sounds simple,
1:04:42
Speaker 3: but I try to keep it pretty simple this time
1:04:44
Speaker 3: of year.
1:04:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am the one thing I've thought about recently
1:04:51
Speaker 2: if I didn't have the firearms season that we do
1:04:53
Speaker 2: have in Michigan for does, if I was just bow hunting,
1:04:56
Speaker 2: I bet you a dough feeding decoy could be pretty
1:05:00
Speaker 2: aren't effective for just like getting other deer to feel
1:05:02
Speaker 2: comfortable at least to getting close and check it out,
1:05:05
Speaker 2: and then you know you better take a shot at
1:05:07
Speaker 2: them before they do get wonky and spooky about it.
1:05:11
Speaker 2: But something that has worked well for me in BO
1:05:14
Speaker 2: season has been doing a fun and distress call oh
1:05:17
Speaker 2: interesting to get does to close the distance I've had
1:05:20
Speaker 2: a number of deer that I've a number of doughs
1:05:22
Speaker 2: I've called into range that way, and I think you
1:05:26
Speaker 2: could do it. I'm sure you could do it during
1:05:29
Speaker 2: firearms season. You just wouldn't need them to close as
1:05:31
Speaker 2: much distance. But the one risk in bo season is
1:05:35
Speaker 2: that you bring in a deer that's very on edge.
1:05:37
Speaker 2: It's like I can get does to run in to
1:05:40
Speaker 2: me like they will run to you, But that dough
1:05:43
Speaker 2: is like on pins and needles. And so a few
1:05:45
Speaker 2: years ago I did this and I had a dough
1:05:47
Speaker 2: in range, but she jumped the string big time. But
1:05:51
Speaker 2: I think you know, if you've got a dough out
1:05:53
Speaker 2: there at one hundred and fifty yards or something, and
1:05:56
Speaker 2: you've got a three fifty or shotgun or something, and
1:05:59
Speaker 2: you're thinking, man, sure would like it if she was
1:06:01
Speaker 2: within one hundred. I wish she was closer. Man, that's
1:06:04
Speaker 2: a pretty good tactic. You can get her to close
1:06:06
Speaker 2: the distance to seventy or sixty and she's not going
1:06:09
Speaker 2: to jump a bullet. That might be a thing to
1:06:12
Speaker 2: consider if you want to get a closer shot. And
1:06:16
Speaker 2: you know, it's not hard to make that kind of
1:06:18
Speaker 2: sound and to get a dough curious enough to come
1:06:20
Speaker 2: and check it out.
1:06:22
Speaker 3: Yeah. Calling in the winter has worked well for me
1:06:24
Speaker 3: for bucks anyway, especially grunk calls, which you know, for
1:06:28
Speaker 3: most of the year, I never have much success with
1:06:30
Speaker 3: them at all, But I've had over the years a
1:06:32
Speaker 3: lot of success on bucks in the winter, And so,
1:06:36
Speaker 3: you know, I just think at that time, deer kind
1:06:38
Speaker 3: of like they're hurting up a little bit more. They're
1:06:40
Speaker 3: kind of trying to find each other, and they are
1:06:43
Speaker 3: going to be curious maybe and that dough distress. Maybe
1:06:46
Speaker 3: that doe had lost her fond during the gun season,
1:06:48
Speaker 3: somebody shot it and she hears that wants to respond
1:06:51
Speaker 3: to it. I'm thinking back to an old VHS, like
1:06:53
Speaker 3: back in the eighties. You might not even have been
1:06:55
Speaker 3: born yet, but it's like an old Roger Raglan video
1:06:59
Speaker 3: where they were doing this dough in distress and these
1:07:03
Speaker 3: doughs were like running in and it was blowing my mind.
1:07:06
Speaker 3: You know. Of course, I've never really done it since then,
1:07:08
Speaker 3: but I can certainly understand where it would.
1:07:10
Speaker 2: Work for you. Yeah, I mean I've seen something similar,
1:07:13
Speaker 2: so it's something to think about. So kind of along
1:07:16
Speaker 2: those lines, are there any other ideas tactics, best practices
1:07:24
Speaker 2: that we should be thinking about when we're going out there,
1:07:27
Speaker 2: either for the rest of this season trying to fill
1:07:28
Speaker 2: a few more dough tags, or next year when we
1:07:30
Speaker 2: get started early, anything else to help us be more
1:07:33
Speaker 2: effective managing that dough population.
1:07:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I really think mark, as much as
1:07:40
Speaker 3: people were always looking for sort of that sexy new
1:07:42
Speaker 3: tactic or the silver bullet, there is never any substitute
1:07:46
Speaker 3: for effort, And so it's scouting. It's taking the time
1:07:50
Speaker 3: to look through all of your camera photos and ask
1:07:52
Speaker 3: yourself what they're telling you it's going on, and reading
1:07:55
Speaker 3: what's going on on the ground, being aware of your
1:07:58
Speaker 3: surroundings and hunting deer really kind of the old fashioned way,
1:08:02
Speaker 3: minus the technology that will always get you I think,
1:08:07
Speaker 3: closer to deer than just you know, well I'm just
1:08:11
Speaker 3: trying to kill a dough. Well maybe you should. You
1:08:14
Speaker 3: should track during a year how many you might have
1:08:16
Speaker 3: seen six or eight deer in a night. How many
1:08:19
Speaker 3: of those could you actually have shot with a bow.
1:08:21
Speaker 3: In particular, that number is not as big as you
1:08:24
Speaker 3: probably think it is.
1:08:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, very true. It's it is no small feet to
1:08:28
Speaker 2: kill any deer with a bow. And to kill any
1:08:31
Speaker 2: deer with any kind of weapons still an accomplishment. And
1:08:34
Speaker 2: I'm always reminded that this time of the year when
1:08:37
Speaker 2: I'm when I'm trying to get a crack at an
1:08:38
Speaker 2: antly list, and they make me feel like a fool
1:08:40
Speaker 2: time and time again. So would you say, Nick, that
1:08:46
Speaker 2: the motto that we came out of that summer this summer,
1:08:49
Speaker 2: which was one more dough, is that still the model
1:08:51
Speaker 2: we should carry with us this next two three, four
1:08:54
Speaker 2: weeks as we wrap up the season. Is that a
1:08:56
Speaker 2: good idea for most folks? Now exceptions, There are exceptions,
1:09:00
Speaker 2: So look at your region, look at your area. But
1:09:03
Speaker 2: for those of us in high deer density areas, is
1:09:06
Speaker 2: that something that would be worth encouraging everyone to try
1:09:08
Speaker 2: to get just one more dough at least this year?
1:09:10
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, Because we we try not to look so
1:09:13
Speaker 3: much at year to year data as much as trends,
1:09:17
Speaker 3: and so I don't like to look at that trend
1:09:19
Speaker 3: going back to twenty fifteen where now all of a sudden,
1:09:21
Speaker 3: we're shooting more bucks than we are. Does Okay, let's
1:09:25
Speaker 3: go back and look at those trends where we talked
1:09:28
Speaker 3: more about shooting dos and the importance of it and
1:09:30
Speaker 3: how hunters responded to that, and how we did eventually
1:09:34
Speaker 3: get to the point where we shot more does than
1:09:36
Speaker 3: bucks in that harvest, you know, get let's get back
1:09:40
Speaker 3: to that, and then let's maintain it. Like even on
1:09:43
Speaker 3: our end, we can't get lazy and say and not
1:09:46
Speaker 3: talk about the importance of shooting does as much as
1:09:49
Speaker 3: we should, we probably shouldn't. If we get to the
1:09:52
Speaker 3: point where we have a meeting and say, hey, we
1:09:54
Speaker 3: really need to talk about shooting does again, then we've
1:09:56
Speaker 3: probably missed opportunities along the way to talk about it.
1:09:59
Speaker 3: And it's not anything you do intentional, but it's not
1:10:04
Speaker 3: always the sexy headline, right, like, oh, there's that headline
1:10:07
Speaker 3: about shooting more dos again. Yeah, But if you put
1:10:09
Speaker 3: it out there and people see it, it does make
1:10:12
Speaker 3: an impact. And I think we all need to be
1:10:13
Speaker 3: committed to talking about that.
1:10:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think along those lines, And I'm guilty
1:10:17
Speaker 2: of this as much as anyone. It's so easy to
1:10:21
Speaker 2: get really excited about and to celebrate, you know, getting
1:10:24
Speaker 2: a crack at a buck. Right, I've posted a photo
1:10:28
Speaker 2: of every buck I've shot this year. I've not posted
1:10:31
Speaker 2: a photo every dough I've shot, I've not maybe celebrated
1:10:34
Speaker 2: it externally as much, and I should do better that.
1:10:37
Speaker 2: So I'm going to try to do a better job
1:10:39
Speaker 2: of fully celebrating every one of these deer I certainly
1:10:43
Speaker 2: appreciate them all, but maybe I'm not talking about as much,
1:10:47
Speaker 2: and that might be a missed opportunity to showcase, you know,
1:10:52
Speaker 2: how much we appreciate these critters and that food and
1:10:54
Speaker 2: the meals and the experience and all that. So I'm
1:10:57
Speaker 2: going to make a little personal goal to share every
1:11:00
Speaker 2: every one of the doughs that I will hopefully be
1:11:02
Speaker 2: putting a tag on here before the end of the
1:11:04
Speaker 2: season and celebrating those fully. And i'd encourage everybody else
1:11:07
Speaker 2: listening to you know, if you're able to get out
1:11:09
Speaker 2: there and get another dough or a few more, does
1:11:12
Speaker 2: celebrate them, share it. Tag me in your dough photo
1:11:16
Speaker 2: on Instagram. I'd love to see it. I'd love to
1:11:18
Speaker 2: give you a virtual high five, and hopefully we can
1:11:21
Speaker 2: all where appropriate, make make a positive difference with these
1:11:27
Speaker 2: these deer herds and get some great food along the way. So, Nick,
1:11:31
Speaker 2: anything else you want to add.
1:11:32
Speaker 3: Before we wrap it up, No, and I appreciate you
1:11:34
Speaker 3: saying that, I mean, you're you're someone that has a
1:11:36
Speaker 3: lot of influence, and so people watch what you're doing,
1:11:39
Speaker 3: and you know, I think that certainly will go a
1:11:42
Speaker 3: long way. And yeah, and I take pictures of every
1:11:45
Speaker 3: every analytust deer I shoot. I post the pictures of
1:11:48
Speaker 3: all of them. I did a little ramt on one
1:11:50
Speaker 3: of them from this year in the gun season, saying
1:11:51
Speaker 3: I try to fill my dough tags and yeah, I
1:11:54
Speaker 3: don't have the influence you do, but I know even
1:11:56
Speaker 3: if ten people see that and a couple more people
1:11:58
Speaker 3: shoot a dough because of it, then it was worth it.
1:12:01
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think that's wonderful advice and looking forward
1:12:04
Speaker 3: to seeing those dough pics.
1:12:06
Speaker 2: One last question for a nick yep. Where can folks
1:12:09
Speaker 2: go to learn more about the National Deer Association. Where
1:12:12
Speaker 2: can they become members, get involved all that good stuff.
1:12:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you appreciate that. So dear association dot com.
1:12:18
Speaker 3: Just google Deer Association. I don't think people were using
1:12:21
Speaker 3: URL so much anymore. And we have a big orange
1:12:24
Speaker 3: join button right at the top, and we've got multiple levels.
1:12:28
Speaker 3: I always point people to our so we have three levels.
1:12:33
Speaker 3: We have our life membership, which typically are with us
1:12:38
Speaker 3: for a long time to get to that level. But
1:12:40
Speaker 3: we have a premium membership, which is where I want
1:12:42
Speaker 3: to point people to because right now we're still running
1:12:46
Speaker 3: us like thirty five bucks, and you get discounts at
1:12:48
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of really great partners of ours on gear.
1:12:51
Speaker 3: You're going to burn that thirty five bucks up really quick.
1:12:54
Speaker 3: But then we also have a no cost level where
1:12:57
Speaker 3: all we need from you is your address, your email
1:12:59
Speaker 3: at and you can you can try us out for
1:13:01
Speaker 3: free for a while and learn more about what we're
1:13:04
Speaker 3: doing and maybe you'll you'll jump on that premium level.
1:13:06
Speaker 3: So thank you for that opportunity. Mark appreciate it.
1:13:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, hey, thank you for what you guys do.
1:13:13
Speaker 2: For a long time now. I've followed the work of
1:13:17
Speaker 2: the QTMA and now the NDA. I follow it closely.
1:13:19
Speaker 2: I've appreciated it, I've benefited from I've learned so much
1:13:22
Speaker 2: from the things you put out there, and I'm thankful
1:13:26
Speaker 2: for the work you're doing. So thank you, Nick, thanks
1:13:28
Speaker 2: to everyone on the crew. And uh yeah, I should
1:13:31
Speaker 2: become a life member. I'm not a life member. I
1:13:33
Speaker 2: keep on re upping individually every year, and I guess
1:13:36
Speaker 2: I just need to bite the bullet and get on
1:13:39
Speaker 2: there so I don't need to remind myself every year
1:13:41
Speaker 2: to resubmit, so I'll be worth of Thedear Association dot Com.
1:13:45
Speaker 3: We'll give it. You get a rifle now. Life members
1:13:47
Speaker 3: are getting a Bold Action rifle and either six point
1:13:50
Speaker 3: five creed More or three oh eight. So there's never
1:13:53
Speaker 3: better than when I became a life member. I got
1:13:55
Speaker 3: a cheap set of luggage, so I'd much rather had
1:13:58
Speaker 3: the rifle.
1:13:59
Speaker 2: All right. Timing's good. Yeah, Well, thank you Nick, appreciate it,
1:14:03
Speaker 2: Thank you Mark, all right, and that's gonna do it
1:14:07
Speaker 2: for us today. Thanks for joining me. Appreciate you tuning
1:14:11
Speaker 2: in and being a part of this community. I actually
1:14:13
Speaker 2: just wrapped up two nights on the Meat Eater Live
1:14:16
Speaker 2: podcast tour, got to meet a bunch of you, got
1:14:19
Speaker 2: to hear your stories, and it just reminded me of
1:14:23
Speaker 2: why I do this. It's so much fun to get
1:14:25
Speaker 2: to see the impact we're making, to hear from you,
1:14:28
Speaker 2: to hear how you know your hunts are going and
1:14:30
Speaker 2: they're improving, and you're having great experiences out there in
1:14:33
Speaker 2: the field, and it just really brought a big, big
1:14:37
Speaker 2: smile to my face, and I'm just excited to keep
1:14:40
Speaker 2: it going more and more episodes to come. There's more
1:14:44
Speaker 2: season yet for many of us, so get out there,
1:14:47
Speaker 2: enjoy these final weeks or months of the season, have fun,
1:14:51
Speaker 2: and until next time, stay wired to Hunt.