Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 675: Ted Zangerle on How Developing a Blended Scouting Strategy Will Keep You in Whitetails All Season Long

Transcript

Ep. 675: Ted Zangerle on How Developing a Blended Scouting Strategy Will Keep You in Whitetails All Season Long · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your guide to
0:04
Speaker 1: the White Tail Woods, presented by First Light, creating proven
0:08
Speaker 1: versatile hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First
0:13
Speaker 1: Light Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
0:19
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast. I'm your guest host,
0:22
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson, and today I'm speaking with Ted Zangerly of
0:25
Speaker 2: the hunting public about developing a blended scouting strategy that
0:30
Speaker 2: takes into account all of the tools at our disposal. Hey, everyone,
0:43
Speaker 2: welcome to the Wire to Hunt podcast, which is brought
0:45
Speaker 2: to you by first Light. If you haven't heard, first
0:48
Speaker 2: Light just released the Origin pant, which I thought was
0:51
Speaker 2: like a little bit crazy when I first got my
0:53
Speaker 2: hands on them. They're almost like wearing i don't know,
0:56
Speaker 2: pajamas or sweatpants and could be a midlayer, but also
1:00
Speaker 2: function pretty damn well as an outer layer. And I'm
1:03
Speaker 2: being honest here when I say when I first saw him,
1:05
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't think I'm gonna like these,
1:07
Speaker 2: but I gave him a good test run in South
1:09
Speaker 2: Dakota last year, and then in Minnesota, then in Wisconsin,
1:13
Speaker 2: and now I wear them all the time. When I'm scouting.
1:16
Speaker 2: Check them out if you want a versatile piece of
1:19
Speaker 2: hunting gear that you definitely don't currently have in your
1:22
Speaker 2: camel arsenal. So that's right, mister Kenyon. He's off again
1:27
Speaker 2: this week. He's actually out somewhere, and I don't know
1:30
Speaker 2: where because he won't talk to me. Mark is a
1:33
Speaker 2: little salty because we recently were in the Meat Eater
1:37
Speaker 2: office out there in Bozeman and we got invited to
1:40
Speaker 2: be on an episode of Meat Eater Trivia. Now, before
1:44
Speaker 2: we got on the mics, Mark told me that he
1:47
Speaker 2: had the whole thing in the bag and that, you know,
1:50
Speaker 2: me and Cal and Chester and Seth and everybody who
1:52
Speaker 2: was on the podcast. You know, we were all basically
1:55
Speaker 2: fighting for second place. Those are his words, not mine. Now,
1:59
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna spoil it for you, but let's just
2:01
Speaker 2: say this. It didn't quite go according to Mark's master plan.
2:05
Speaker 2: I don't know, probably because he doesn't really read a
2:08
Speaker 2: whole lot, so he's never learning very much. I don't know. Anyway,
2:11
Speaker 2: give that a listen and keep listening here because I
2:15
Speaker 2: have one of the unsung heroes of the hunting public,
2:18
Speaker 2: Ted Zangerly. Ted is the quiet guy. Who just kind
2:21
Speaker 2: of gets the job done. And while he's a young fellow,
2:24
Speaker 2: he has a ton of experience hunting white tails in
2:27
Speaker 2: multiple states. Throughout this episode, we dive into his strategy
2:30
Speaker 2: for scouting at home and on the road, and we
2:32
Speaker 2: get into the weeds on topics like trail cameras and
2:35
Speaker 2: managing pressure and figuring out where bucks end up when
2:38
Speaker 2: they aren't where you expect them to be. Basically, we
2:41
Speaker 2: talk about scouting in a way that takes into account
2:43
Speaker 2: the tools we have available to all of us, while
2:46
Speaker 2: mixing in real world observations and boots on the groundwork.
2:50
Speaker 2: I think you're gonna love listening to this one because
2:52
Speaker 2: Ted is such a good source of real world info. Ted,
2:56
Speaker 2: how you doing, buddy, No.
2:58
Speaker 3: I'm doing great. How are you doing?
3:00
Speaker 2: I'm good man. I'm happy to catch you at home.
3:02
Speaker 2: Finally we've been we've been playing uh, I guess phone
3:07
Speaker 2: tag a little bit here because you, uh, you know
3:09
Speaker 2: anybody who doesn't know you THHB boys sent you tend
3:12
Speaker 2: to travel around quite a bit, and we got you
3:14
Speaker 2: at home and I want to talk deer scouting with you,
3:16
Speaker 2: but but you just said something to me off air
3:19
Speaker 2: that we got to touch on a little bit. You
3:21
Speaker 2: said you were going to go fishing with diddy poles. Yeah,
3:24
Speaker 2: I need you to explain that to me and the
3:26
Speaker 2: rest of the audience.
3:28
Speaker 3: All right, Well, yeah, so I'm actually back home for
3:32
Speaker 3: a little bit here. I've been home for the last
3:35
Speaker 3: week or so, and I got ahold of a buddy
3:39
Speaker 3: this weekend and we're going to go set ditty poles,
3:41
Speaker 3: which is I think a lot of people call them
3:43
Speaker 3: bank poles, but I don't know. That's just growing up.
3:47
Speaker 3: That's what we've always done during the summer is go
3:49
Speaker 3: out and set diddy poles, which is just like a
3:51
Speaker 3: piece of small PBC pipe and then we'll cut the
3:56
Speaker 3: end off so it's a little bit of a point,
3:59
Speaker 3: and then we rig them up with fishing line and
4:02
Speaker 3: we'll go on the rivers and just drive them in
4:05
Speaker 3: the bank with a big mall drive them in the bank.
4:09
Speaker 3: And I think you can use like five per person
4:12
Speaker 3: on each fishing license. So we'll probably set like ten
4:16
Speaker 3: poles this afternoon, and yeah, just go along the river
4:20
Speaker 3: wherever you see a good snag or see a good
4:23
Speaker 3: little eddy or something in the river, we'll just set
4:26
Speaker 3: the poles and put you know, live bluegill or some
4:30
Speaker 3: shrimp on there, and then come back by a couple
4:33
Speaker 3: hours later and check them, and then just do that
4:36
Speaker 3: however long we want to see what we catch.
4:39
Speaker 2: Are you talking channel cats then? If you're using live bait.
4:43
Speaker 3: Uh, yeah, hopefully we'll catch some flatheads. I think there's
4:47
Speaker 3: flatheads and channel cats around here for the most part.
4:51
Speaker 3: But yeah, live bait. Hoping to catch some flatheads if
4:55
Speaker 3: we can.
4:56
Speaker 2: And I'm assuming since this is the style that you're
4:58
Speaker 2: using your fishing for them to eat them.
5:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep.
5:03
Speaker 2: Well, like, what's an average size there for you guys?
5:06
Speaker 3: Oh? Man, that's a good question. I don't really Probably
5:10
Speaker 3: on average, i'd say like inches a foot long maybe.
5:16
Speaker 2: Oh so they're pretty little, yeah, I.
5:18
Speaker 3: Mean usually you'll catch some bigger ones. Maybe that wasn't
5:22
Speaker 3: an accurate estimate, But I honestly don't really know, because
5:27
Speaker 3: we don't ever really measure them. Usually it's just like
5:29
Speaker 3: you're going along and checking the poles and taking them
5:31
Speaker 3: off the hook and throwing them into the boat if
5:33
Speaker 3: they're big enough to eat.
5:34
Speaker 2: But all right, let me ask you this a different way, then,
5:37
Speaker 2: what's the biggest one you've ever caught on a diddy pole.
5:39
Speaker 3: The biggest one, I think it was probably around thirty
5:44
Speaker 3: pounds or something, and.
5:46
Speaker 2: So in your your hand line and these in. Then
5:49
Speaker 2: obviously when you when you pull up there and you
5:50
Speaker 2: can tell there's one on there and you gotta you
5:53
Speaker 2: just throw on some gloves and pull them in or what.
5:55
Speaker 3: Uh yeah, well we'll have a net, so we'll just
5:58
Speaker 3: the line doesn't go like real far in the water.
6:01
Speaker 3: Usually it's only a couple of feet down in the water.
6:04
Speaker 3: So you'll be going along checking them and looking for
6:08
Speaker 3: them as you're going along in the boat, and you'll
6:10
Speaker 3: see if you see one bobbing like a lot of times,
6:13
Speaker 3: they'll be bringing them way down in the water. So
6:17
Speaker 3: you just pull over there. It's easier if you got
6:20
Speaker 3: another guy in the front of the boat because then
6:22
Speaker 3: the guy running the boat and just pull up and
6:27
Speaker 3: pinning the boat against the bank, and then the guy
6:29
Speaker 3: in the front can just pull them up and if
6:31
Speaker 3: they're big, or get the net and scoop them out
6:34
Speaker 3: of there and bring them in the boat. But if
6:35
Speaker 3: they're small, you just flip them right in. But yeah,
6:39
Speaker 3: it's pretty fun. Something done my whole life, so I
6:42
Speaker 3: like doing it.
6:43
Speaker 2: Dude, it sounds fun.
6:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is fun, like some young kids in
6:49
Speaker 3: the boat too, because you can just go along and
6:53
Speaker 3: you'll see a pole bobbing in the water or something,
6:55
Speaker 3: and oh man, you get excited and seeing that, especially
6:58
Speaker 3: the young kids.
6:59
Speaker 2: Do you ever can ny turtles?
7:02
Speaker 3: I don't think I've caught it on the diddy poles.
7:04
Speaker 3: I've caught some saft shell turtles on rodd and reel
7:06
Speaker 3: a few times.
7:07
Speaker 2: Yeah.
7:09
Speaker 3: Yeah.
7:09
Speaker 2: I'm taking my daughters over to Wisconsin later today and
7:12
Speaker 2: we're gonna do some brook trout fishing, and I'm gonna
7:14
Speaker 2: explain that this process to them because I think they
7:17
Speaker 2: would think that was freaking amazing because that is not
7:21
Speaker 2: the style of fishing we typically do.
7:23
Speaker 3: Uh huh. I'm sure they'd enjoy it. It's it's a
7:25
Speaker 3: lot of fun. It's pretty relaxed. You know, you're not
7:28
Speaker 3: handling a rod and reel the whole time. So once
7:32
Speaker 3: you get them in the water, it's fun to just
7:34
Speaker 3: float by and check them.
7:35
Speaker 2: So how long do you leave them out?
7:39
Speaker 3: It just depends on how much time he got. But
7:41
Speaker 3: a lot of times, like growing up, we would go
7:44
Speaker 3: out and set them and then we'd camp on the
7:46
Speaker 3: river somewhere and we'd check them like all night, So
7:49
Speaker 3: every two or three hours you'd go out on the
7:52
Speaker 3: boat and check them. And that's how that's honestly, how
7:56
Speaker 3: he catch the most is checking them throughout the whole
7:58
Speaker 3: night because that's when their most act, it is nighttime.
8:02
Speaker 3: So you know, that's what we usually do is check
8:06
Speaker 3: them every couple hours, depending on what we got going
8:10
Speaker 3: on that weekend. But you know, it's fun to go
8:13
Speaker 3: out and make a weekend of it and just camp
8:16
Speaker 3: on the river and check them on every every couple hours.
8:20
Speaker 2: It's that sounds fun. Is is this a situation because
8:23
Speaker 2: you're you're reminding me of my day is growing up fishing,
8:28
Speaker 2: you know, the river and some other rivers in southeastern
8:30
Speaker 2: Minnesota where you know, and these rivers are like not
8:35
Speaker 2: catfish rivers, right you you'd fish trout in them, you know,
8:39
Speaker 2: earlier in the season and then as the water warms up.
8:42
Speaker 2: It tends to be sort of a small mouth thing,
8:44
Speaker 2: you know, And we used to catch saugers and some
8:45
Speaker 2: other stuff once in a while in there, but it
8:47
Speaker 2: was primarily small mouth. But you know, if my buddies
8:50
Speaker 2: and I would camp on the river, you know, you
8:52
Speaker 2: throw out some you know, nightcrawlers or something at night,
8:55
Speaker 2: you know, fishing around the campfire, and it was just
8:58
Speaker 2: non stop catfish. And you'd never guess that there was
9:02
Speaker 2: that population of catfish in there if you just fished
9:04
Speaker 2: it in the day. But as that sunsets, the whole
9:07
Speaker 2: thing changes, and it's just it was just so eye
9:10
Speaker 2: opening to see that there was this whole other world
9:14
Speaker 2: of fish that lived there that you just don't deal
9:16
Speaker 2: with if you're fishing at noon, throwing a top water
9:18
Speaker 2: for smallies or something.
9:20
Speaker 3: Uh huh. Yeah, No, it's a lot of fun. It's
9:23
Speaker 3: something I look forward to doing every year. I mean, like,
9:28
Speaker 3: we just had a little bit of rain last night,
9:32
Speaker 3: actually a pretty good amount of rain. It was probably
9:34
Speaker 3: inter two. So the river should be coming up, which
9:38
Speaker 3: seems to be when we do the best is whenever
9:40
Speaker 3: the river's coming up, So.
9:41
Speaker 2: Get a little bit more food washing down it and
9:43
Speaker 2: getting those fish more active.
9:45
Speaker 3: I suppose. Yeah. I don't know the science behind it.
9:48
Speaker 3: I just seems like that's what when we have the
9:51
Speaker 3: most luck.
9:52
Speaker 2: Man. That's I'm not often jealous of people going after catfish,
9:57
Speaker 2: but I like the idea that we should probably talk
10:01
Speaker 2: about deer scouting here, and you know, you and I
10:03
Speaker 2: talked a little bit before this. I mean, you're you're
10:06
Speaker 2: kind of in the same boat. I think. I think
10:08
Speaker 2: people who are fans of THHP would think that you
10:10
Speaker 2: guys are are just scouting non stop, but you kind
10:15
Speaker 2: of you kind of go do some other stuff after
10:18
Speaker 2: Turkey season wraps up for a little while, and you
10:20
Speaker 2: guys did some pig hunting, and you were just saying
10:23
Speaker 2: that you're you're kind of getting getting ready to get
10:25
Speaker 2: back into the summer scouting mindset now here, as you know,
10:31
Speaker 2: kind of the midpoint of the summer passes by.
10:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, so after Turkey season, a lot of times we
10:37
Speaker 3: all kind of split up and go our separate ways
10:39
Speaker 3: and go see family and whatever and take a little break.
10:43
Speaker 3: And then, like you said, we've been down in Texas
10:46
Speaker 3: hunting pigs and doing all that stuff. And now I've
10:51
Speaker 3: just been home for the last week or so. And
10:57
Speaker 3: then usually our intern for the year moves in about
11:01
Speaker 3: this time of year. I think our intern's coming on Monday,
11:05
Speaker 3: so we'll all or some of us will you know,
11:09
Speaker 3: be there whenever he shows up, and then we'll be
11:11
Speaker 3: there for at least a week. Or so probably, and
11:14
Speaker 3: that's when we usually start diving back into summer scouting
11:18
Speaker 3: around home.
11:20
Speaker 2: Do you you seem like the kind of guys who
11:22
Speaker 2: would have some kind of hazing thing or some kind
11:24
Speaker 2: of pranks you'd play on your interns, You guys have
11:25
Speaker 2: anything of that going on?
11:28
Speaker 3: We don't have anything planned, but I'm sure there'll be
11:31
Speaker 3: something that comes up.
11:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe that those pigs you were just hunting.
11:38
Speaker 2: How was it handling them after you shot him? Because
11:41
Speaker 2: I've hunted him in the summer, you know, on like
11:45
Speaker 2: axis hunts and just other hunts, and they are just well,
11:50
Speaker 2: I should say this, I've seen him just crawling with
11:53
Speaker 2: ticks and just fleas and pretty gnarly, and I've seen
11:57
Speaker 2: him not like, how were the ones that you were
11:59
Speaker 2: dealing with?
12:01
Speaker 3: There wasn't any ticks. I've never actually seen any ticks
12:04
Speaker 3: on them in Texas that's the only place I ever
12:06
Speaker 3: hunted them. But yeah, no, they're grimy, they're nasty things.
12:10
Speaker 3: Once you get up next to them, they're like just
12:12
Speaker 3: covered in mud and dry mud and everything, and they stink.
12:18
Speaker 3: But yeah, we actually we didn't take any meat home
12:22
Speaker 3: this year, but in years past we usually take them
12:25
Speaker 3: back to the ranch wayam and whatever, and then we'll
12:28
Speaker 3: look at the shot and because that's the main thing
12:31
Speaker 3: that we're trying to do, is see how these broadheads
12:33
Speaker 3: work on different different broadheads work and see if, like
12:40
Speaker 3: if they went through a bone or how that all happened.
12:42
Speaker 3: So that's like our main thing that we're looking at.
12:46
Speaker 3: But I know, Jake took quite a bit of meat
12:49
Speaker 3: back to Wisconsin to his dad a couple of years
12:52
Speaker 3: ago and smoked it up and that was really good.
12:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, they're, you know, as gross as they
12:59
Speaker 2: are on the outside, they're pretty good eating on the inside.
13:04
Speaker 2: Did you see have you seen any like crazy anomalies?
13:06
Speaker 2: Did you see anything you know with your broadhead, your
13:09
Speaker 2: gear performance that that has given you pause or has
13:12
Speaker 2: it been pretty Has it been pretty consistent as far
13:15
Speaker 2: as performance.
13:18
Speaker 3: It's pretty consistent. Seems like the single bevels definitely work
13:22
Speaker 3: the best as far as punching through bone. You know,
13:26
Speaker 3: But on those pigs, their's kill zone is so small,
13:30
Speaker 3: so you got to hit like this something the size
13:33
Speaker 3: of your hand about on them to actually kill them
13:35
Speaker 3: with the bow and arrow, it seems like, and kill
13:38
Speaker 3: them and find them, you know, down in the Texas brush.
13:41
Speaker 3: It can be pretty tough. But the craziest one to
13:46
Speaker 3: me that I shot it wasn't this year. It was
13:50
Speaker 3: a couple of years ago.
13:53
Speaker 2: I hit it.
13:54
Speaker 3: It was a really big pig and it came in
13:57
Speaker 3: and I had like a double bevel magnet, black hornet
14:01
Speaker 3: and like a five hundred and fifty grand arrow and
14:06
Speaker 3: I hit it good up and down, but it was
14:08
Speaker 3: just a touch forward and it hit it like right
14:10
Speaker 3: in a humor's ball. And I mean my arrow went
14:14
Speaker 3: in like about the length of the broadhead. It went
14:17
Speaker 3: in and snapped it off immediately, and that thing just
14:21
Speaker 3: ate it in my pretty much. My whole arrow came
14:24
Speaker 3: back out except for the broadhead, and that thing took
14:26
Speaker 3: off and there wasn't blood or anything. I mean, he
14:30
Speaker 3: just took it and kept on. Seemed like so you
14:34
Speaker 3: didn't find him, not that one. Nope. Yeah.
14:38
Speaker 2: Man, That's something I think people who don't have a
14:41
Speaker 2: lot of experience with pigs don't really realize, is you know,
14:45
Speaker 2: you kind of hear like, oh, they're tough, Like yeah,
14:47
Speaker 2: you know, you hit them in the shield, you might
14:49
Speaker 2: not get them or whatever. But it's like the wounding
14:52
Speaker 2: loss rate on pigs. If you have people who don't
14:55
Speaker 2: know what they're doing or they're not shooting very good,
14:57
Speaker 2: gear is pretty high.
15:00
Speaker 3: Uh huh. Yeah. They've given me quite the headache. Last
15:03
Speaker 3: couple of years I shot I killed two the first year,
15:06
Speaker 3: we went down there right off the bat and found
15:10
Speaker 3: both those, and then last couple of years have have
15:13
Speaker 3: been a little bit of this struggle. Like this year,
15:16
Speaker 3: I shot one and hit him good and passed all
15:22
Speaker 3: the way through him except for the fletchings of my arrow,
15:25
Speaker 3: and there was blood, like lung blood everywhere. And I
15:29
Speaker 3: tracked that thing for like three hundred yards through the
15:32
Speaker 3: brush and I mean there was tons of blood the
15:36
Speaker 3: whole way and I never could find him.
15:38
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's that's a different deal. I've hunted him
15:43
Speaker 2: quite a bit, and it to me, it's like I
15:48
Speaker 2: want that like perfect quartering away shot and like just
15:53
Speaker 2: if you slam into that off side shoulder, it feels like,
15:56
Speaker 2: you know, kind of halfway up, it's like they you know,
15:58
Speaker 2: they're like any other animal. Well then you know forty
16:01
Speaker 2: fifty yards and they're going to tip over a lot
16:03
Speaker 2: of times they tip over in sight. But if that
16:06
Speaker 2: margin for error on an animal like that is so
16:09
Speaker 2: much smaller than some other critters. It's it's just a
16:12
Speaker 2: it's a really cool experience, but it is something that
16:15
Speaker 2: it like humbles you quick if you make a little mistake.
16:19
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, for sure. No, it's been It's a lot
16:21
Speaker 3: of fun going down there and hunting them, but like
16:24
Speaker 3: you said, you gotta you gotta put a good shot
16:27
Speaker 3: out them, otherwise you are not going to come up
16:29
Speaker 3: with them.
16:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're you know when you say that, you
16:34
Speaker 2: guys are you know, kind of testing some broadheads out
16:36
Speaker 2: on them and taking a look, you know, post recovery
16:39
Speaker 2: on on what happened. And you know, you guys have
16:41
Speaker 2: the camera footage too, to see the exact shot as
16:44
Speaker 2: it happens. It's it's such an eye opener, you know
16:49
Speaker 2: when you when you get into that situation, especially if
16:51
Speaker 2: you have a lot of pigs, you know, I mean
16:53
Speaker 2: you you take most people and they go into deer season.
16:56
Speaker 2: You know, they might only take a shot or two
16:59
Speaker 2: and you know maybe one works out, maybe one dozen
17:01
Speaker 2: or whatever. But you might go hog hunting and shoot
17:04
Speaker 2: four in a day, and you know, just get to
17:07
Speaker 2: kind of stack up some experience on seeing you know,
17:10
Speaker 2: like not only how do you perform in the moment,
17:12
Speaker 2: but how does your gear perform in a way that's
17:15
Speaker 2: just not you're not going to get that quantity, you know,
17:19
Speaker 2: like in a typical big game hunt.
17:21
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it's a very It's a good place to
17:24
Speaker 3: go and test out your equipment for sure, and get
17:28
Speaker 3: some good practice in. Like you said, so, it's been
17:32
Speaker 3: a lot of fun going down there. We've been down
17:34
Speaker 3: there the last three or four years now and it's
17:37
Speaker 3: been definitely a learning experience.
17:40
Speaker 2: Do you so you said you guys are weighing them
17:42
Speaker 2: down there when you when you get them back typically.
17:45
Speaker 3: Yeah, at least this year, we were weighing them because
17:47
Speaker 3: we were like kind of having a little competition to
17:49
Speaker 3: see who could come back with the most weight and pig,
17:54
Speaker 3: and so we would weigh them. Every time we'd get one,
17:56
Speaker 3: we'd come back to the ranch and put them up
17:59
Speaker 3: on the scale and see how much they weighed.
18:01
Speaker 2: What were the weights, Like, we had.
18:05
Speaker 3: One that was one hundred and twenty pounds, one that
18:09
Speaker 3: was eighty five pounds, and then one that was one hundred.
18:13
Speaker 2: And forty Okay, yeah, I mean the pig thing's weird, right,
18:17
Speaker 2: It's kind of It's kind of like bears, where everybody
18:20
Speaker 2: talks about the big like the big specimens, but you know,
18:25
Speaker 2: you go hunt pigs in most places, they probably average
18:29
Speaker 2: like one hundred pounds, you know, like everybody's like, oh,
18:31
Speaker 2: I want that three hundred pounds wild bore or that
18:33
Speaker 2: Russian boar or whatever, and then you go actually hunt
18:36
Speaker 2: them and you're like, they're just pigs and they're not
18:38
Speaker 2: very big in most places. Uh huh, yeah, but they're
18:42
Speaker 2: pretty fun. We should probably talk about some deer scouting.
18:45
Speaker 2: Huh buddy, Yeah, let's do it. So you know, you
18:49
Speaker 2: guys are gonna end up in a ton of states
18:52
Speaker 2: every year, but you're gonna have some home hunting. You know,
18:55
Speaker 2: they're an eye, Well you're gonna you're gonna you're gonna
18:57
Speaker 2: have two like vastly different version of scouting. I would say,
19:01
Speaker 2: where you have that home game advantage and you can
19:04
Speaker 2: get out there and you can look at stuff and
19:05
Speaker 2: find beds and you know, run some cameras and do
19:09
Speaker 2: the you know, the long range glassing thing, the whole process.
19:12
Speaker 2: But then you know, all right, we're gonna show up
19:15
Speaker 2: in North Dakota and Oklahoma and right on down the line.
19:19
Speaker 2: How do you manage like the home and away game
19:22
Speaker 2: that you guys have going on.
19:24
Speaker 3: I would say, you know, like this next week, we're
19:29
Speaker 3: gonna just probably be scouting a bunch throughout Iowa, which
19:34
Speaker 3: a lot of these places that we're scouting when we're
19:36
Speaker 3: in Iowa, we've already hunted a lot, but it's just
19:39
Speaker 3: a matter of going back in there and just checking
19:42
Speaker 3: different pieces out, maybe that we haven't been into, like
19:45
Speaker 3: a corner of a piece that we've hunted before, going
19:48
Speaker 3: in there, checking stuff out and seeing what that looks like.
19:54
Speaker 3: As far as managing, you know, our time here and
19:59
Speaker 3: and no one never going to travel, we try and
20:03
Speaker 3: get them. We try and get the states nailed down
20:06
Speaker 3: the four season as good as we can. That's one
20:08
Speaker 3: thing that we've been trying to do a little bit
20:10
Speaker 3: better job of, say, uh, these last couple of years,
20:14
Speaker 3: is actually having like a set plan, or at least
20:17
Speaker 3: somewhat of a set plan of where we're going to
20:20
Speaker 3: be going, so you know, looking at those states that
20:26
Speaker 3: we're going to travel to. That's obviously just tons of
20:30
Speaker 3: looking at maps, seeing what the different public pieces look like,
20:36
Speaker 3: and just having as good of an idea of where
20:39
Speaker 3: you want to start once you actually go out there.
20:42
Speaker 2: Are you finding that it's a little bit harder to
20:45
Speaker 2: plan for specific states right now because you just I mean,
20:50
Speaker 2: you've got to draw more states and a lot of
20:53
Speaker 2: non resident licenses are getting capped. Are you are you
20:57
Speaker 2: finding that it's like sort of a work in progress
21:00
Speaker 2: every year where you're like, well, we know we can
21:01
Speaker 2: get a Wisconsin tag, but now we don't know if
21:03
Speaker 2: we're going to get that Nebraska tag, and it's it's
21:06
Speaker 2: sort of a there's a lot of moving pieces to it.
21:09
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. I mean there's been some states, like you said,
21:13
Speaker 3: that have gone to draws and whatever, so we can't
21:16
Speaker 3: just necessarily go out there and buy a tag. So
21:20
Speaker 3: that has been a little bit of a process trying
21:23
Speaker 3: to figure that out Each year as we go into
21:25
Speaker 3: the season, is trying to figure out, all right, we
21:27
Speaker 3: can maybe hunt here early, we could hunt over here
21:31
Speaker 3: early potentially, depending on what those regulations look like. But yeah,
21:38
Speaker 3: so a lot of times we're waiting for the elk
21:41
Speaker 3: draws to come out, and then because we won't really
21:44
Speaker 3: we try not to think about the deer hunting stuff
21:46
Speaker 3: too much until the elk draws come out because it'll
21:50
Speaker 3: depend on who's got an ELK tag. Okay, they're going there,
21:54
Speaker 3: and then this person's got an elk tag, they're going
21:56
Speaker 3: over here. So then after that all it's settled out,
22:00
Speaker 3: then we'll start looking at different states and trying to
22:03
Speaker 3: figure out where we can go in early September, and
22:07
Speaker 3: then so on and so forth.
22:08
Speaker 2: I guess, yeah, that makes me tired of just thinking
22:12
Speaker 2: about it. When you when you look at you know,
22:14
Speaker 2: the early season whitetail opportunities always overlap with l hunts
22:18
Speaker 2: and you know some of the mule deer stuff and antelope.
22:21
Speaker 2: It's it's a lot to plan, and it's it's getting
22:24
Speaker 2: you know, I mean, obviously you guys are in a
22:25
Speaker 2: unique situation and so am I. Where it's you know,
22:28
Speaker 2: you're thinking about multiple states and multiple critters, and it's
22:31
Speaker 2: it's a dumb thing to bitch about. I guess, like
22:35
Speaker 2: when you're like, oh, I got a hunt so much,
22:37
Speaker 2: it's hard to organize my schedule. But it's it's a
22:41
Speaker 2: changing landscape out there, man. We and we've been talking
22:43
Speaker 2: about this a lot with the license availability, and I
22:46
Speaker 2: just I just had a conversation with my elk hunting
22:48
Speaker 2: partner who lives in Colorado, and he said he's been
22:51
Speaker 2: at some of the you know, Division Wildlife meetings or
22:55
Speaker 2: stakeholder meetings or whatever they are, and it sounds like
22:58
Speaker 2: by twenty twenty five, I've uh, Colorado's over the counter
23:03
Speaker 2: opportunities are going to be gone and everything is going
23:05
Speaker 2: to be a draw. I don't I don't know if
23:07
Speaker 2: that's official yet, but you know, kind of the last
23:10
Speaker 2: domino to fall there in the elk world is going
23:13
Speaker 2: to be Colorado and it's coming. And so you know,
23:16
Speaker 2: anybody listening to this who's like, I want to go
23:18
Speaker 2: out and you know, chase an elk before I'm too
23:20
Speaker 2: old to do it. You get in the game now,
23:23
Speaker 2: somehow figure it, figure out how to get some points
23:26
Speaker 2: or do something, because this is going to get a
23:29
Speaker 2: lot harder real soon.
23:31
Speaker 3: Yeah, which that is. That's unfortunate, man, because I I
23:36
Speaker 3: love el cutting and I I put in for Wyoming
23:39
Speaker 3: the last few years and I haven't got Wyoming yet.
23:43
Speaker 3: I was really hoping I would get it the last
23:45
Speaker 3: actually last year I put in for like a specific
23:47
Speaker 3: unit and I was looking at go hunting. It said,
23:50
Speaker 3: all right, you got one hundred percent draw odds for this,
23:53
Speaker 3: so I'm like, all right, I'm probably going elk cutting
23:56
Speaker 3: if I put in for this unit. So I put
23:58
Speaker 3: in for it, didn't get it. This year, I did
24:00
Speaker 3: the same thing, not the same unit. I put in
24:03
Speaker 3: for the general out there, and it said I had
24:06
Speaker 3: real good odds of getting it.
24:08
Speaker 2: I didn't get it.
24:08
Speaker 3: Again, me and Zach both didn't get it.
24:11
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's tough, dude. And this year, you know,
24:15
Speaker 2: I was just out in Bozeman for some medi eater
24:18
Speaker 2: stuff and a lot of the First Light people who
24:20
Speaker 2: are from Idaho were there, and a lot of them
24:23
Speaker 2: were talking about how hard it is for them as
24:26
Speaker 2: residents to get some of the tags that they just
24:29
Speaker 2: kind of take for granted, you know, like a rifle
24:31
Speaker 2: cow tag and a certain unit or whatever. And when
24:35
Speaker 2: I was talking to my buddy the other day, he's like, man,
24:38
Speaker 2: you know, we had winter kill in certain parts of
24:40
Speaker 2: the West, just weird some weird weather events, fires and stuff,
24:45
Speaker 2: and he's like, it's really concentrating people in places where
24:49
Speaker 2: they could potentially get tags. So I think there are
24:52
Speaker 2: a lot of people out there this year who are
24:54
Speaker 2: surprised that they didn't draw tags that they probably would
24:58
Speaker 2: have last year and every other year before that. But
25:02
Speaker 2: it's just it's tough out there, man.
25:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it seems like it's just getting tougher, like
25:07
Speaker 3: you said, which is unfortunate, but that's just the way
25:10
Speaker 3: it goes. So I'm sure there's there'll be opportunities somewhere.
25:15
Speaker 3: It's just gonna be definitely a lot tougher.
25:19
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's just it's just changing. Uh, you know,
25:23
Speaker 2: maybe maybe it'll level off. I kind of doubt it,
25:25
Speaker 2: but it is what it is. When you guys are
25:40
Speaker 2: making that run through Iowa and you're scouting public land
25:43
Speaker 2: down there, and yet you know you have the chance,
25:45
Speaker 2: like you said, to sneak into a corner here and
25:47
Speaker 2: look at this, or go back into a spot you
25:49
Speaker 2: hunted the last couple of years. Do you see a
25:52
Speaker 2: lot of consistency in your in your good spots or
25:57
Speaker 2: or are you often like, man, we got to go
25:59
Speaker 2: check this ore because they were on there last year
26:02
Speaker 2: and you go in and it's just it's just different
26:05
Speaker 2: for whatever reason. Yeah.
26:07
Speaker 3: I mean there's some spots that seem like they're good
26:10
Speaker 3: every year. A lot of times it seems like we'll
26:15
Speaker 3: be hunting a spot and if it's good and we
26:17
Speaker 3: you know, are filming everything and doing all that. A
26:22
Speaker 3: lot of times people will figure it out and move
26:24
Speaker 3: in there. So that is one thing that we have
26:29
Speaker 3: to think about every year, is if you know, if
26:32
Speaker 3: we have some luck in an area, a lot of
26:35
Speaker 3: times people will figure it out and then they'll move
26:37
Speaker 3: in there. So then we kind of shift and we'll
26:40
Speaker 3: try and figure other stuff out, you know, close to
26:43
Speaker 3: there maybe but just something a little bit different. But
26:46
Speaker 3: a lot of times there something that we're doing is
26:50
Speaker 3: if we're always looking for like new chunks that might
26:53
Speaker 3: pop up each year, new chunks that might pop up
26:56
Speaker 3: into public. So that's one thing that we try and
27:00
Speaker 3: focus on, like this time year is like really looking
27:03
Speaker 3: at the maps, trying to find new pieces of public
27:06
Speaker 3: that might open up, and then we'll dive into those
27:10
Speaker 3: areas a lot and uh scout those if you know,
27:15
Speaker 3: we try and focus on stuff that we have never
27:17
Speaker 3: been into if we can, if that's available. But you
27:23
Speaker 3: know that's not always the case.
27:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, because does IWA have a you know, private land
27:30
Speaker 2: open to the public type of program. Do they have
27:32
Speaker 2: some kind of walk in program or anything down there?
27:34
Speaker 3: Yeah?
27:35
Speaker 2: Oh you do.
27:35
Speaker 3: Okay, So we're looking at that a lot because those
27:38
Speaker 3: are just like real small chunks a lot of the time.
27:42
Speaker 3: So we look at those quite a bit because those
27:44
Speaker 3: are the ones that seem to pop up the most.
27:47
Speaker 3: Like a spot that you maybe wasn't public last year,
27:50
Speaker 3: you'll find a little chunk of walk in that you
27:52
Speaker 3: haven't seen before on the map. So then we'll if
27:55
Speaker 3: we find a spot like that, we'll go to it
27:57
Speaker 3: as soon as we can and scout it.
28:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's uh. I do that in Minnesota here we
28:05
Speaker 2: have a walk in program, and then I do that
28:07
Speaker 2: in Wisconsin a lot, not not only for deer, but
28:11
Speaker 2: you know, some upland opportunities and stuff as well. And
28:14
Speaker 2: those those kind of programs, you know, even though you
28:17
Speaker 2: know in the Midwest and the East they feel different,
28:20
Speaker 2: like you said, because they're they're often you know, a
28:23
Speaker 2: forty acre chunk versus you know, a thousand acre parcel
28:27
Speaker 2: or whatever that you might get out west. But man,
28:30
Speaker 2: that they can be so good, especially when they're brand new.
28:34
Speaker 2: Like you said that, it's it's always worth paying attention to,
28:37
Speaker 2: you know, whatever state you live in or whatever state
28:39
Speaker 2: you're traveling to, what kind of programs do they have
28:44
Speaker 2: to incentivize private landowners to open up their open up
28:48
Speaker 2: their stuff to the public. It's that's it's pretty cool
28:51
Speaker 2: that we have that option in so many different states.
28:53
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, I like hunting those pieces because it seems
28:57
Speaker 3: like they're a little bit more obscure, a little bit smaller,
29:00
Speaker 3: a little bit harder to find on the map. So
29:03
Speaker 3: those are always exciting to go check those out, I think.
29:08
Speaker 3: And we've had some some pieces that pop up for
29:11
Speaker 3: a couple of years. We'll go in there and scout
29:13
Speaker 3: them and hunt them and maybe even have some luck,
29:15
Speaker 3: and then the next year they're back out of it,
29:18
Speaker 3: so they're back private, which is always unfortunate, but that's
29:22
Speaker 3: all right because it keeps us bouncing around and you know,
29:26
Speaker 3: tries to we try, and it's easier for us to
29:29
Speaker 3: keep you know, other people that might be watching the
29:32
Speaker 3: videos off our tail a little bit, I guess.
29:36
Speaker 2: I mean, how much of an issue is that for
29:39
Speaker 2: you guys, because I mean it has to be I mean,
29:43
Speaker 2: it has to be like front and center in your
29:44
Speaker 2: mind often that when you go to a place, people
29:47
Speaker 2: are just gonna figure it out and they're gonna go
29:50
Speaker 2: hunt it.
29:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's I wouldn't say, it's a huge issue. We
29:54
Speaker 3: try and do as good a job as we can,
29:56
Speaker 3: like hiding like landmarks and whatever as best we can,
30:00
Speaker 3: especially when we go to New States, Like, we don't
30:03
Speaker 3: want to go in there and be making it real
30:06
Speaker 3: obvious where we're at, because then people that are local
30:08
Speaker 3: there have been hunting that spot for years or whatever,
30:11
Speaker 3: and then we bomb in there and and then a
30:14
Speaker 3: bunch of people if people are able to figure it
30:17
Speaker 3: out from the videos, then we don't want to do
30:19
Speaker 3: that at all. So we try our best to keep
30:22
Speaker 3: it as obscure as possible and harder to figure out
30:26
Speaker 3: for people as possible.
30:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the dance, right, I mean, we mark
30:30
Speaker 2: and I we go back and forth on this a lot,
30:34
Speaker 2: because you know, for a long time, the audience was like,
30:38
Speaker 2: we want to see you go hunt public land, and
30:41
Speaker 2: you know that that sort of created the opportunity for
30:43
Speaker 2: you guys, and you know, guys like me did you know,
30:47
Speaker 2: do pretty well for a while. But now people are like,
30:50
Speaker 2: don't we don't want to see you there, you know,
30:53
Speaker 2: like we don't, we don't want you to blow up
30:54
Speaker 2: our stuff. But there's still enough people out there who
30:58
Speaker 2: love the public land thing that you know, We're always like, man,
31:02
Speaker 2: if we if we do this haunt on public land
31:04
Speaker 2: and we film it, how do we shoot it in
31:05
Speaker 2: a way where you just can't tell, and how do
31:07
Speaker 2: we talk about it in a way where it's like
31:10
Speaker 2: not very specific, Because I feel that way, like, I
31:14
Speaker 2: don't I don't want to blow up anybody's spot. I
31:16
Speaker 2: don't want to, you know, be that guy just to
31:19
Speaker 2: show up and scorch earth something and then get out.
31:22
Speaker 2: But I do want to, you know, I love the
31:25
Speaker 2: challenge of it. I love hunting public land, and there
31:27
Speaker 2: is a segment of the audience that really wants that,
31:30
Speaker 2: and so it's sort of a the eternal dance there is.
31:32
Speaker 2: How do you do that and keep as many people
31:35
Speaker 2: as possible happy and still get that product. It's tough.
31:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can be tough at times. We're trying. We're
31:43
Speaker 3: I think we're doing a better job of keeping it
31:46
Speaker 3: hidden a little bit better now. But yeah, and I don't.
31:50
Speaker 3: I don't. I can't blame people for doing that at all.
31:54
Speaker 2: So no, I know, And but you know, it's kind
31:56
Speaker 2: of weird. I always think about this. We It's easy
32:01
Speaker 2: to look at it from the perspective of, you know,
32:02
Speaker 2: an audience member and be like those THHP guys blew
32:05
Speaker 2: up my spot, and now all these people are in there.
32:09
Speaker 2: But there's an undeniable component to the hunting population that
32:13
Speaker 2: wants to not do any work and find a spot
32:17
Speaker 2: that's just banging. And I mean, sure you, I'm sure
32:20
Speaker 2: you guys deal with this all the time where people
32:22
Speaker 2: are like, hey, when you go to North Dakota, are
32:25
Speaker 2: you you know north of ninety four or south of
32:27
Speaker 2: ninety four, Like, are what river are you along? And
32:30
Speaker 2: there are people that are always trying to find spots.
32:32
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit of a little bit of
32:34
Speaker 2: blame to go around there, you know. And I always
32:36
Speaker 2: tell people, I'm like, man, the part of the fun
32:38
Speaker 2: of all of this, if you're gonna, you know, try
32:41
Speaker 2: that lifestyle a little bit or try a hunt like
32:43
Speaker 2: that is just doing the eat scouting and finding a spot.
32:47
Speaker 2: You know. It's like it's pretty satisfying to do that
32:49
Speaker 2: and then go out there and actually be on some
32:51
Speaker 2: deer and have a good hunt or beyond whatever critter.
32:53
Speaker 2: But it's it's sort of a complicated thing.
32:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, it can't be at times. That's I like to
33:00
Speaker 3: I like figuring a spot out, finding a spot and
33:04
Speaker 3: then going in there and being like, Yep, this is
33:06
Speaker 3: what I thought it was going to be like. And
33:08
Speaker 3: then you get into a bunch of deer, getting into
33:10
Speaker 3: a bunch of turkeys or whatever it may be, that's
33:13
Speaker 3: always a very rewarding feeling.
33:15
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, And I think, you know, kind
33:18
Speaker 2: of like what you said, where you're you know, looking
33:22
Speaker 2: for something new, get in maybe it's going to be
33:24
Speaker 2: small or whatever, and you know it hasn't been hunted yet,
33:27
Speaker 2: you know publicly. Anyway, that whole process of just finding
33:34
Speaker 2: finding those spots every year and just kind of being
33:36
Speaker 2: forced to almost is it's sort of a pain in
33:40
Speaker 2: the ass because it'd be nice to have an easy
33:41
Speaker 2: one once in a while. But it's also just really
33:44
Speaker 2: rewarding to go. You know what, it's Nebraska September one.
33:48
Speaker 2: I'm going to go do something in this part of
33:51
Speaker 2: the state I've never been to, and just just figuring
33:54
Speaker 2: out the deer is it's pretty sweet, man.
33:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is. It's a lot of fun. Like last year,
34:00
Speaker 3: I went to Kansas and and me and Keith went
34:05
Speaker 3: out there right before pronghorn season, so it had been
34:09
Speaker 3: like beginning of August, I think, and we went out
34:13
Speaker 3: there and scouted a bunch of places, which was mostly
34:16
Speaker 3: just driving around. We did a lot of driving and
34:18
Speaker 3: glassing and whatever, and then I didn't kill a deer
34:22
Speaker 3: there until like November thirteenth. I think I went back
34:26
Speaker 3: early September. Then I went back late October into the
34:31
Speaker 3: first week in November, and then went back again like
34:37
Speaker 3: on November tenth maybe, and then ended up killing a
34:42
Speaker 3: deer November thirteenth. But that was a long process of
34:46
Speaker 3: you know, kind of hunting out there all year and
34:49
Speaker 3: then finally getting one. That was a lot of fun.
34:52
Speaker 2: It's fun to it's fun to know you have a
34:55
Speaker 2: full season and you might be able to get back
34:57
Speaker 2: to a spot like that a couple different times. If
34:59
Speaker 2: it doesn't happen right away, there's there's a different level
35:03
Speaker 2: of pressure, like an easier level of pressure to deal
35:06
Speaker 2: with in that situation.
35:07
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, And we're obviously very lucky to be able
35:11
Speaker 3: to go out there all year and be hunting all year.
35:14
Speaker 3: So it's you know, pretty awesome to be able to
35:19
Speaker 3: go out there for a week and then come back,
35:22
Speaker 3: and then go back out there different week and then
35:24
Speaker 3: come back and go back out there again. So but yeah,
35:29
Speaker 3: it's a lot of fun once it all works out,
35:32
Speaker 3: very rewarding for sure.
35:34
Speaker 2: When you talk about you know, I want to go
35:36
Speaker 2: back to those those smaller spots in Iowa when you
35:40
Speaker 2: when you talk about that, do you find that that
35:44
Speaker 2: people kind of they overlook some of those small parcels,
35:48
Speaker 2: and you know, if you get in on something like that,
35:51
Speaker 2: Like I'm like, if I if I had, you know,
35:53
Speaker 2: a little forty acre piece of walk in and I
35:56
Speaker 2: pulled up there and there was another truck there, I
35:58
Speaker 2: wouldn't go in there. And I think a lot of
36:00
Speaker 2: people are like that, you know, I mean, some people
36:02
Speaker 2: will come in on you no matter what. But do
36:04
Speaker 2: you find that you sort of get like a little
36:06
Speaker 2: margin of safety on those smaller properties because people might
36:11
Speaker 2: kind of ignore them, and if you know, you're the
36:12
Speaker 2: first truck there in the morning, you might not have
36:16
Speaker 2: people walk in on you.
36:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it seems like it, especially on those smaller chunks.
36:21
Speaker 3: And and I well, there's obviously not a ton of
36:25
Speaker 3: hunting pressure, so most of the spots we go to
36:27
Speaker 3: there's not a ton of people lurking around, but definitely
36:33
Speaker 3: on those smaller chunks you know, a lot of times
36:35
Speaker 3: they're out in the middle of not a lot of
36:38
Speaker 3: times are out away from like a big chunk of
36:41
Speaker 3: public or something. I would say, So it seems like
36:43
Speaker 3: people aren't going to those nearly as much as maybe
36:47
Speaker 3: a giant chunk of public.
36:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I've started to really kind of hone in on
36:53
Speaker 2: those smaller properties too. I mean, I feel like my
36:57
Speaker 2: sweet spot is either you know, I want fifty thousand
37:00
Speaker 2: acres to work with, because you can you're gonna get
37:03
Speaker 2: away from people if you have just enough land, or
37:06
Speaker 2: you get that really you know, pretty small chunk that
37:10
Speaker 2: people just kind of are going to overlook or they
37:12
Speaker 2: might not go in there on you, and you can
37:14
Speaker 2: really work it at certain times of the season. And man,
37:18
Speaker 2: I feel like, at least for me and my style,
37:22
Speaker 2: that that's that's such a good opportunity to just drill
37:26
Speaker 2: down on a spot and figure out what they're doing
37:28
Speaker 2: and work them without having kind of that you know,
37:32
Speaker 2: like nagging feeling that at any moment there's going to
37:35
Speaker 2: be you know, five extra trucks in the parking lot
37:37
Speaker 2: and people are gonna be going through there. Uh huh.
37:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it's fun to hunt the different types,
37:45
Speaker 3: like you were saying, like either a small chunk or
37:48
Speaker 3: a big chunk, because you've got to tackle it so
37:50
Speaker 3: much differently. I feel like, just like with a small chunk,
37:53
Speaker 3: you gotta be real careful where you go. Maybe you're
37:56
Speaker 3: glassing from the truck, and then you'll go in and
37:59
Speaker 3: make a sick and then you'll try and get back
38:01
Speaker 3: out without disturbing anything. Where like a big chunk, maybe
38:04
Speaker 3: you're going in and you're just scouting your way through
38:07
Speaker 3: trying to find a spot, and it's fun to It's
38:12
Speaker 3: it's cool to hunt those different pieces in different ways,
38:15
Speaker 3: you know, Like with a smaller chunk you gotta be
38:17
Speaker 3: real strategic, and then with a bigger chunk, maybe you
38:20
Speaker 3: can get a little bit more aggressive and dive in
38:23
Speaker 3: and walk around until you find something that you like
38:26
Speaker 3: and then hunt it that way.
38:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that I think the I think when you deal
38:31
Speaker 2: with small chunks, which is you know, so common, you know,
38:35
Speaker 2: private and public for Midwest and Eastern whitetail hunters, you
38:40
Speaker 2: really learn how to manage your presence and you know
38:43
Speaker 2: you're you should be hyper aware of it on any
38:47
Speaker 2: kind of ground you're on, But if you're on public land,
38:49
Speaker 2: you really are aware that, Like, man, I can't. I
38:53
Speaker 2: can't just go blow through here and be sloppy because
38:57
Speaker 2: I don't know who else is going in there. I mean,
38:59
Speaker 2: you don't, you don't want to anyway, but to me
39:01
Speaker 2: it feels like it just Man, it sharpens the blade
39:04
Speaker 2: a lot when you're working little properties like that, because
39:07
Speaker 2: you can't. There's only so many mistakes you can make
39:10
Speaker 2: before it's going to really suck to hunt there.
39:13
Speaker 3: Yeah. One example of that is when a couple of year,
39:17
Speaker 3: I think it was twenty nineteen, WARB and I were
39:19
Speaker 3: hunting and it was during the rut and we were
39:22
Speaker 3: hunting like one of those real small chunks, and we
39:25
Speaker 3: had scouted it during the summer, and I don't even
39:28
Speaker 3: think we went back over there until it was like
39:32
Speaker 3: the first week in November. I believe. We just drove
39:35
Speaker 3: by there just to see what was going on and
39:37
Speaker 3: spotted a buck out there, and it wasn't much. It
39:41
Speaker 3: was just it was like a hayfield on top I think,
39:44
Speaker 3: or maybe it was a crop field. I don't remember,
39:46
Speaker 3: but it was whatever it was, it was cut so
39:48
Speaker 3: there wasn't anything any cover except for like two little
39:51
Speaker 3: draws with trees in them, and then there was a
39:54
Speaker 3: pond in one of the draws, and me and him
39:57
Speaker 3: hunted that spot I think three three days. I think
40:03
Speaker 3: we went in there that afternoon when we drove by,
40:06
Speaker 3: spotted that buck. So we slid up a fence line
40:08
Speaker 3: a little ways and sat down, and we're seeing some
40:12
Speaker 3: bucks and just some quite a few deer out there.
40:16
Speaker 3: So then we went back in the next morning on
40:20
Speaker 3: a different side and jumped in there and ended up
40:24
Speaker 3: seeing two bucks that morning, didn't kill either one of them,
40:29
Speaker 3: and then we went back in that night, didn't kill
40:33
Speaker 3: anything that night, and then the next morning we ended
40:35
Speaker 3: up killing one. The next morning we dove straight into
40:38
Speaker 3: the middle of it and ended up killing that killing
40:42
Speaker 3: a buck there that was actually decoy buck in twenty nineteen.
40:49
Speaker 3: But that was fun because it was like, you're just
40:51
Speaker 3: we were just trying to be so careful, all right,
40:54
Speaker 3: we can slide up this fence line. Now we're gonna,
40:56
Speaker 3: you know, slide up this little draw. And we weren't
40:59
Speaker 3: going very far from the road because I mean, there
41:01
Speaker 3: wasn't an opportunity to go very far from the road really, yep.
41:04
Speaker 3: So it was just it was fun to go in
41:07
Speaker 3: and all right, we're going to go in and set
41:09
Speaker 3: up here, and then you'd see some have some action.
41:12
Speaker 3: And then but we kept seeing these deer. All these
41:16
Speaker 3: bucks were cruising and they kept going by this pond,
41:19
Speaker 3: and they were going like right by this damn and
41:21
Speaker 3: they were coming into it from two different directions, like
41:24
Speaker 3: making an X and coming into that one pond in
41:27
Speaker 3: the middle of the piece. And so finally we were
41:30
Speaker 3: we got good conditions for it, and we dove in
41:33
Speaker 3: there well before daylight and just said all right, we're
41:36
Speaker 3: just going to go for it now and just went
41:38
Speaker 3: straight to that spot and ended up killing that one
41:40
Speaker 3: that morning.
41:41
Speaker 2: So you guys took a little property, scouted it, some
41:44
Speaker 2: showed up there to hunt, played the edge game till
41:47
Speaker 2: you saw for sure where you're like, that's the spot,
41:51
Speaker 2: and then you dove in and killed once you moved
41:54
Speaker 2: into you know, so like several layers of observation, you know,
41:59
Speaker 2: observing an hunting at some point, and then you're like
42:03
Speaker 2: that that's where we have to be, and moved in
42:06
Speaker 2: that next level and killed him.
42:08
Speaker 3: Yep, pretty much exactly we went because that was a
42:12
Speaker 3: small chunk that had just popped up that year. Like
42:15
Speaker 3: we were talking about with those little walking chunks, and
42:17
Speaker 3: it had just popped up. So we went in and
42:20
Speaker 3: scouted it sometime in July or early August, and it
42:26
Speaker 3: was me and Warb and Jake and Zach I think,
42:30
Speaker 3: And there's actually a video of Zach and we were
42:35
Speaker 3: out there on that piece and we jumped like a
42:39
Speaker 3: few different bucks out there, and all of a sudden,
42:43
Speaker 3: Zach just takes off running and like chases this after
42:47
Speaker 3: this buck. Where he was chasing that buck at is
42:51
Speaker 3: actually pretty close to where we ended up killing the
42:53
Speaker 3: one that year. And so we went in there in
42:56
Speaker 3: the summer, scouted it. A lot of deer in there,
42:59
Speaker 3: found a lot of sign from the previous fall. So
43:04
Speaker 3: then but then, like I said, we didn't go back
43:06
Speaker 3: over there until November, at least that's what I'm pretty
43:11
Speaker 3: sure somebody else might have gone over there at some point,
43:13
Speaker 3: but me and war didn't go over there until that
43:17
Speaker 3: first week in November, and then that's when we ended
43:21
Speaker 3: up seeing a bunch of bucks out there during the rut.
43:24
Speaker 3: So yeah, we were just sliding up fence lines in
43:29
Speaker 3: little draws and getting in spots where we could hunt
43:32
Speaker 3: but still see like the whole piece. And then just
43:37
Speaker 3: from doing that and observing seeing bucks go into that
43:40
Speaker 3: one spot by that pond from two different directions, they
43:44
Speaker 3: would always seem to end up right there, and then
43:46
Speaker 3: we just dove in there and ended up killing the one.
43:49
Speaker 2: So was that a situation where there was pretty limited
43:52
Speaker 2: cover in that area. So that was kind of I mean,
43:55
Speaker 2: if they were going to move and stay hidden, they
43:56
Speaker 2: were going to have to use that pretty much.
44:00
Speaker 3: Like I said, it was like a crop field or
44:02
Speaker 3: a hayfield, I don't remember, but it was cut so
44:04
Speaker 3: it was like ankle high grass out there. So the
44:08
Speaker 3: only cover there was really was these two little draws
44:13
Speaker 3: and it was just a small drawl probably maybe one
44:18
Speaker 3: hundred yards wide, and then it would run up into
44:21
Speaker 3: the piece a little ways and then it would just
44:24
Speaker 3: go back into that open field. So those bucks, they
44:29
Speaker 3: were cruising the top of the ridge and dropping down
44:31
Speaker 3: into that by that pond. From two different ridges, they
44:34
Speaker 3: would come along there cruising and then they would drop
44:37
Speaker 3: down into that pond, it seemed like every time. So
44:40
Speaker 3: that's what we were seeing, and then that's when we
44:42
Speaker 3: were like, all right, we got to get right in there.
44:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good lesson there because I think I
44:49
Speaker 2: think it's so easy for people, you know, especially people
44:52
Speaker 2: who maybe don't have a ton of experience, to go, Okay, well,
44:56
Speaker 2: you know this dude to hunts water all the time,
44:58
Speaker 2: So I'm just going to find water. And it's like,
45:01
Speaker 2: you know, in your region, in your area, on your
45:03
Speaker 2: property or the public you're hunting, if there's a whole
45:07
Speaker 2: bunch of water around, that's that's a bad plan. Like
45:10
Speaker 2: if you're if you're a big woods hunter, finding cover
45:15
Speaker 2: isn't your problem. You have to find what is what
45:18
Speaker 2: is more rare that the deer wants. So in that
45:19
Speaker 2: situation you're talking about, there's pretty limited cover, you know,
45:24
Speaker 2: those deer are going to use it. So now your
45:26
Speaker 2: job isn't you know, isn't to call the obvious shot
45:28
Speaker 2: and be like, well they're going to go through the cover,
45:30
Speaker 2: But how are they going to go through there? And
45:32
Speaker 2: how are you going to hunt it where you don't
45:33
Speaker 2: just absolutely blow it out because you're just working with
45:37
Speaker 2: that little gift of a draw. And I think that
45:41
Speaker 2: we look at scouting and go, well, I just got
45:43
Speaker 2: to find the thing that the deer going to use,
45:46
Speaker 2: the food source or the travel route or whatever. But
45:50
Speaker 2: that's like just the beginning, because you have to figure
45:52
Speaker 2: out how you're going to get there and how you're
45:54
Speaker 2: going to hunt it and preserve that movement. And that's
45:56
Speaker 2: way harder than just figuring out where deer like to walk.
46:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it seems like, you know, you go out
46:03
Speaker 3: and do your summer scouting and whatever, and you get
46:05
Speaker 3: some spots that you're excited about, but then really once
46:10
Speaker 3: you get in there, everything starts to change throughout the year,
46:15
Speaker 3: so you're just constantly looking for like fresh sign over here. Okay,
46:21
Speaker 3: now we're gonna just over here. You know, you might
46:24
Speaker 3: not be right on that spot that you scouted during
46:26
Speaker 3: the summer. You might be close to it, but you
46:29
Speaker 3: know you got to just go in there and then
46:30
Speaker 3: adjust accordingly to whatever the deer doing at that time.
46:35
Speaker 3: And that, to me is the funnest. I love that because,
46:39
Speaker 3: like in season, you get in there in a spot
46:42
Speaker 3: and then you're just you know, you have somewhat of
46:44
Speaker 3: an idea based on the scouting that you did, but
46:47
Speaker 3: then little things pop up and your little light bulbs
46:51
Speaker 3: start going off, and then you're like, all right, we
46:53
Speaker 3: got to just over here. Now we're gonna pop over
46:55
Speaker 3: this way. That to me is a lot of fun
46:58
Speaker 3: because it's just always changing throughout the year and eventually
47:02
Speaker 3: you get it right and then you get an opportunity.
47:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's I think that's the thing. You know that
47:09
Speaker 2: you guys have shown a lot of whitetail hunters that
47:14
Speaker 2: we didn't really get from a lot of traditional hunting
47:18
Speaker 2: media because it was it was created on places with
47:23
Speaker 2: a high level of deer consistency. You know, like a
47:27
Speaker 2: lot of the traditional you know, magazine articles and then
47:30
Speaker 2: TV shows and now YouTube uh, you know, episodes are
47:33
Speaker 2: like they're filmed on places where the deer are consistent.
47:37
Speaker 2: Let me put it that way, like they're going to
47:39
Speaker 2: end up in that food plot or they're going to
47:41
Speaker 2: use the same ridge every year because there's nobody messing
47:43
Speaker 2: with them. And it's a very kind of controlled, curated setting.
47:48
Speaker 2: But most people don't have that. I mean some people do,
47:51
Speaker 2: but most people don't. And so it is that game
47:54
Speaker 2: of you know, not maybe continuous year long scouting, but
47:58
Speaker 2: definitely hitting those real important points the winter scouting and
48:01
Speaker 2: then the mid to late summer glassing and trail camera
48:05
Speaker 2: work and whatever and building sort of building that database.
48:08
Speaker 2: But it only takes you like seventy five percent of
48:13
Speaker 2: the way there maybe, and the rest is just kind
48:17
Speaker 2: of what you're talking about, like what are you finding
48:19
Speaker 2: in season that you can kind of backfill and go, Okay, well,
48:23
Speaker 2: I saw these bucks up here down there in the summer.
48:26
Speaker 2: I know they're around here, but now what I'm seeing
48:29
Speaker 2: is like the most current information you have to plug
48:32
Speaker 2: in and it's going to lead you places you probably
48:35
Speaker 2: didn't expect back in August. But that's like that's the game,
48:39
Speaker 2: Like that's how it works.
48:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. I mean, like we'll do all kinds
48:45
Speaker 3: of scouting and whatever during the summer, and then by
48:50
Speaker 3: the time it's mid October, a lot of that's just
48:53
Speaker 3: out the window, and you're just going wherever you're getting
48:58
Speaker 3: little clues, you know, and you just base it off
49:01
Speaker 3: of that, and it's just an ever evolving process until
49:07
Speaker 3: you finally finally get one.
49:09
Speaker 2: I guess well, and you don't have to wait till
49:13
Speaker 2: October a lot of times for that stuff to change.
49:15
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, exactly. And I know you guys have
49:17
Speaker 2: done this quite a bit and I have too. Where
49:19
Speaker 2: you know, if you hunt a state that's got like
49:21
Speaker 2: a September one opener, and you're like, man, I'm going
49:23
Speaker 2: to pattern those velvet bucks. If you spend you know,
49:29
Speaker 2: some portion of maybe the first ten days of September hunting,
49:32
Speaker 2: you will see those bucks go from velvet to hard antlered.
49:36
Speaker 2: And you will see some of them that don't seem
49:39
Speaker 2: like it's influenced by pressure change. I mean, they're going
49:42
Speaker 2: to do things a little bit differently, and you'll see
49:44
Speaker 2: movement a little bit later. And just it's so much
49:48
Speaker 2: of that stuff's happening regardless of whether we pressure them
49:52
Speaker 2: or somebody else does. And then you think about all
49:54
Speaker 2: those situations where now they are getting real pressure on
49:59
Speaker 2: public land in spots and the leaves are coming down
50:02
Speaker 2: and the food sources are changing, and it almost always
50:06
Speaker 2: is a game of plugging in what you find right
50:09
Speaker 2: now and what you observe right now to make a
50:12
Speaker 2: plan for tomorrow.
50:13
Speaker 3: Yep, for sure. That's that's what makes it so fun,
50:18
Speaker 3: is just it's always something, always is changing, and you're
50:22
Speaker 3: just constantly playing cat and mouse with them, and uh yeah,
50:27
Speaker 3: it's a lot of fun. Like last year, me and
50:31
Speaker 3: Keith were hunting a piece where we'd found a bunch
50:34
Speaker 3: of like real fresh scrapes. We'd actually hadn't scouted this
50:38
Speaker 3: piece during the summer. We just dove in there, and
50:42
Speaker 3: I think Jake actually went in there the week before
50:44
Speaker 3: and found some fresh sign and then he was going
50:48
Speaker 3: to a different state. So me and Keith dove in there,
50:52
Speaker 3: and you know, we would we were hunting this ridge
50:56
Speaker 3: system on top, but then it would drop into this
50:59
Speaker 3: river bottom and tons of like thick cover where there
51:02
Speaker 3: was a bunch of good bedding and stuff, and we
51:06
Speaker 3: kept thinking, you know, this is probably the spot down
51:09
Speaker 3: here off this ridge, but we kept running into freshtine
51:13
Speaker 3: up on these ridges, so we'd just stop and then
51:15
Speaker 3: we'd hunt that, and you know, we'd find a scrape
51:19
Speaker 3: and we'd stop and we'd hunt it, or we might
51:21
Speaker 3: bump a dough or something, and we're like, all right,
51:22
Speaker 3: we better hold up here and hunt this for tonight.
51:26
Speaker 3: Even though we kept thinking the spot deeper in there
51:29
Speaker 3: was the spot to be, we just kept like stage
51:32
Speaker 3: hunting our way in there, and eventually we got good
51:36
Speaker 3: conditions to really dive all the way into the piece
51:40
Speaker 3: where we thought maybe the bucks were actually moving around
51:44
Speaker 3: in the daylight. And when we got those good conditions,
51:49
Speaker 3: we dove all the way in there, and I mean
51:52
Speaker 3: we blew out I think we probably blew out fifteen
51:55
Speaker 3: dos on our way in there. And it was always
51:58
Speaker 3: like you'd see something. You'd see a deer get up,
52:00
Speaker 3: and your gut would just getting a knock because you're like,
52:03
Speaker 3: oh God, I hope that wasn't the buck. But then
52:05
Speaker 3: you could see it and it was a dough and
52:07
Speaker 3: you're like, all right, we got to just keep going
52:08
Speaker 3: a little bit, keep going, and we just kept bumping
52:12
Speaker 3: doe and eventually we got to the spot where we
52:14
Speaker 3: wanted to be and then ended up killing a buck there.
52:17
Speaker 3: But it's like that's the end season scouting. I guess,
52:21
Speaker 3: like we hadn't we hadn't scouted that spot during the summer.
52:25
Speaker 3: We had been in there years past and knew that
52:28
Speaker 3: it was a good spot. So then when Jake went
52:32
Speaker 3: in there and found some fresh sign, then me and
52:34
Speaker 3: Keith dove in there, and you know, we just slowly
52:38
Speaker 3: picked our way at it, but we weren't going off
52:40
Speaker 3: of any sort of summer scout, and then we were
52:43
Speaker 3: just going off of the sign that we were finding
52:46
Speaker 3: from you know, probably that the night before.
52:50
Speaker 2: Basically one thing that I haven't heard you say, is
53:08
Speaker 2: anything about trail cameras are they? Like, to what level
53:14
Speaker 2: do you rely on trail cameras for summer scouting?
53:18
Speaker 3: It depends, I mean sometimes. I mean we always put
53:22
Speaker 3: them out there. Every year. We put trail cameras up
53:25
Speaker 3: in the summer, and then we'll put them up and
53:28
Speaker 3: we'll be adjusting them throughout the fall. I guess wherever
53:31
Speaker 3: we're finding the best stuff.
53:35
Speaker 2: So hold on. So if you go, let's just say hypothetically, uh,
53:39
Speaker 2: you find a new chunk of walking land and you
53:43
Speaker 2: want to You're like, man, that's that's brand new on
53:46
Speaker 2: you know, e scouting. It looks pretty bad ass. When
53:49
Speaker 2: you go in there the first time in the summer,
53:51
Speaker 2: you're you're definitely going to bring some cameras with you.
53:53
Speaker 3: Most times, Yeah, we're really bringing cameras with us and
53:56
Speaker 3: setting one up. We have a ton of trail camera
54:00
Speaker 3: so we're able to do that where we can just
54:03
Speaker 3: kind of spread a wide net of them wherever we're
54:06
Speaker 3: scouting at. I would say that the best example of
54:13
Speaker 3: using a trail camera to kill a buck that I
54:16
Speaker 3: have is it was I think it was August, Me
54:21
Speaker 3: and Warb and Goots went into a spot and scouted
54:26
Speaker 3: and we found a bunch of real heavy trails and
54:29
Speaker 3: like old rubs from the year before, all coming out
54:32
Speaker 3: of this real thick creek bottom and it was coming
54:35
Speaker 3: up through these hardwoods out to these agfields. So we
54:38
Speaker 3: set up a trail camera right there, and it wasn't
54:42
Speaker 3: a cell camera. So we went in there like the
54:45
Speaker 3: week before season opened and checked the camera and there
54:48
Speaker 3: was a bunch of bucks on it. But there was
54:50
Speaker 3: a bunch of bucks. It was interesting because there was
54:53
Speaker 3: a bunch of bucks in velvet coming up through that
54:56
Speaker 3: trail until like the last week is said, September, and
55:01
Speaker 3: they had and then they weren't on there from like
55:04
Speaker 3: the last week of September to the first week of
55:06
Speaker 3: October or to the first the day before October, I guess.
55:11
Speaker 3: So we saw that and we were like, okay, so
55:14
Speaker 3: they were coming out this trail coming out of that
55:17
Speaker 3: bedding area that we had kind of found in the summer.
55:20
Speaker 3: But now they're not coming out there, so where are
55:23
Speaker 3: they going now? And we had scouted this ridge that
55:27
Speaker 3: was just a little ways to the oh what would
55:32
Speaker 3: that have been west of there, west of the camera,
55:36
Speaker 3: and we knew there was a bunch of red oaks
55:38
Speaker 3: up there, and that's what was dropping the most that
55:41
Speaker 3: year was red oaks. So after seeing that they're all
55:46
Speaker 3: those bucks were coming out of that bedding area and
55:48
Speaker 3: then that like it was like a hard switch where
55:51
Speaker 3: they weren't coming by the camera, We're like, all right, well,
55:55
Speaker 3: I wonder if they're going up that ridge now and
55:57
Speaker 3: feeding on those acorns. So me and Goot went in
56:00
Speaker 3: there opening day, which was October first, and instead of
56:05
Speaker 3: going by that trail camera, we ducked off into the
56:09
Speaker 3: woods and started scouting away through these ridges and it
56:14
Speaker 3: only took like two ridges, and it was like straight
56:17
Speaker 3: west of the camera, and we found a real big
56:21
Speaker 3: buck track in one of the ravines. And then we
56:24
Speaker 3: popped up on this ridge and it was just like
56:26
Speaker 3: tore up. It looked like not with buck sign, but
56:30
Speaker 3: just tore up with feeding sign, Like you could see
56:32
Speaker 3: where the deer had been in there and palling at
56:36
Speaker 3: the ground and trying to get to the acorns and everything.
56:39
Speaker 3: And there was one little rub up there that looked
56:43
Speaker 3: to be pretty fresh. It didn't look it wasn't anything crazy.
56:47
Speaker 3: It was just right by all that crazy feeding sign
56:52
Speaker 3: that we had found. And we just set up right
56:55
Speaker 3: there and ended up killing a buck that night.
56:58
Speaker 2: And how far was that from the camera where he
57:02
Speaker 2: killed him?
57:02
Speaker 3: It was probably two hundred yards. It was like the
57:06
Speaker 3: camera was in a spot upon like right on the
57:12
Speaker 3: edge of this agfield, and then it dropped down into
57:14
Speaker 3: a ravine and then popped back up on this ridge,
57:17
Speaker 3: and that was where we ended up killing the buck.
57:19
Speaker 3: We just instead of going to that camera and then
57:22
Speaker 3: moving around from there, we dove in before we got
57:25
Speaker 3: to the camera and started scouting away through those ridges.
57:28
Speaker 3: And then that ridge that was just straight west of
57:32
Speaker 3: the camera is where we found all that feeding sign
57:35
Speaker 3: and then we ended up killing that buck. But it's
57:40
Speaker 3: that's the best example I've out of, you know, using
57:43
Speaker 3: a trail camera to try and figure out where the
57:47
Speaker 3: deer are. You know, he wasn't. It's interesting because a
57:52
Speaker 3: lot of times, like even I think of, you know,
57:55
Speaker 3: there's this buck, all right, he came by the trail
57:57
Speaker 3: camera the night before. Now we're gonna go set up
58:00
Speaker 3: like right by the camera. It seems like every time
58:02
Speaker 3: I've done that, Ye, there's nothing ever shows up like
58:06
Speaker 3: you see, all right, buck came by there the night before.
58:09
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go sit up there and then you see nothing.
58:12
Speaker 3: And so that was kind of a cool one because
58:15
Speaker 3: we saw that they were on their a bunch coming
58:18
Speaker 3: out of the coming from the direction where we found
58:20
Speaker 3: all that betting sign and uh, and then they had
58:24
Speaker 3: shifted a little bit, but we didn't know where exactly.
58:27
Speaker 3: And then we went in there and found all that
58:29
Speaker 3: tore up. That ridge was all tore up, and that's
58:33
Speaker 3: where we ended up killing them. They had just shifted
58:35
Speaker 3: over just a little bit, And so that was that
58:40
Speaker 3: was a pretty cool one.
58:41
Speaker 2: Do you know. Do you know what I love about
58:42
Speaker 2: that story? What's that that most people would probably just
58:47
Speaker 2: assume one of two things that somebody went in there
58:51
Speaker 2: and blew that river bottom out and those bucks were gone,
58:55
Speaker 2: or because it was getting close to October, they went
58:58
Speaker 2: nocturnal and the lull came in early and those deer
59:01
Speaker 2: weren't moving, you know. I mean, if you hear that
59:05
Speaker 2: a lot, you know that that's the danger of trail
59:09
Speaker 2: camera usage. I think, you know, one of the dangers
59:13
Speaker 2: is you're gonna fill in the blanks, you know, So
59:16
Speaker 2: like what you're talking about there, if you have that
59:18
Speaker 2: camera up and you've got consistent buck movement up that trail,
59:22
Speaker 2: up that ridge, and then all of a sudden it
59:24
Speaker 2: dies off. If you're not in a place where you're like,
59:28
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go figure out why that, like you guys did,
59:31
Speaker 2: like there has to be a reason why, and you're
59:35
Speaker 2: not just assuming the worst. You're just like, okay, well
59:37
Speaker 2: something changed, you know, like something something took those bucks
59:41
Speaker 2: off of this specific pattern. I think a lot of
59:44
Speaker 2: hunters would look at that and stop with with you know,
59:48
Speaker 2: checking the pictures and go all right, these deer are
59:51
Speaker 2: not killable or I'm gonna set up here anyway, because
59:55
Speaker 2: they were coming through here like crazy, and maybe maybe
59:58
Speaker 2: you'll pick one up. But it's such a simple explanation that,
1:00:03
Speaker 2: you know, what you guys had going on was, you know,
1:00:06
Speaker 2: it's late September, and then all of a sudden it
1:00:08
Speaker 2: gets into right at the beginning of October, and that's
1:00:11
Speaker 2: when a lot of that mask has fallen down. So
1:00:13
Speaker 2: those bucks never left, they didn't go nocturnal, they just
1:00:17
Speaker 2: shifted a little bit. And if they're off by twenty feet,
1:00:19
Speaker 2: your trail camera suddenly becomes something that could work against
1:00:22
Speaker 2: you if you don't go figure out why did dry up?
1:00:25
Speaker 2: Why did those sighting or you know, why did the
1:00:27
Speaker 2: images dry up? It's such a good lesson in that hunt.
1:00:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was. It was eye opening to me too.
1:00:34
Speaker 3: It was like because I mean, there could have been
1:00:36
Speaker 3: somebody that went in there and blew them out of there.
1:00:39
Speaker 3: We didn't really know, but we just decided, well, there
1:00:43
Speaker 3: was i mean a good amount of different bucks coming
1:00:47
Speaker 3: through there, so they got to be and they were
1:00:50
Speaker 3: all coming from that same direction that we had scouted,
1:00:54
Speaker 3: so where we found all the good bedding, and we
1:00:58
Speaker 3: were like, they got to be still in here somewhere,
1:01:01
Speaker 3: just a matter of finding them, and it just happened
1:01:04
Speaker 3: to work out on the very first time it went
1:01:06
Speaker 3: in there. But yeah, it's trail cameras are. They can
1:01:12
Speaker 3: be your friend or they can be your worst enemy sometimes.
1:01:16
Speaker 2: I mean, you know that that example there is so
1:01:20
Speaker 2: poignant because it shows how to use them correctly. We
1:01:26
Speaker 2: if you put them out there, and they gave you
1:01:29
Speaker 2: so much proof of life, so much proof that those
1:01:32
Speaker 2: bucks were living there, and then they gave you proof
1:01:36
Speaker 2: that those bucks had changed their pattern. So everything, if
1:01:40
Speaker 2: you use that correctly, everything those trail cameras did was
1:01:43
Speaker 2: was a net benefit to you. Even when they showed
1:01:46
Speaker 2: you now they're not here, But you have to use
1:01:49
Speaker 2: it that way, and you have to use them as
1:01:51
Speaker 2: like a complimentary tool to that boots on the ground
1:01:54
Speaker 2: scouting and that end season scouting. But many can. They
1:01:57
Speaker 2: can be a badass tool is long as you don't
1:02:00
Speaker 2: use them to tell you things that aren't true. And
1:02:03
Speaker 2: that's that's where we get into a lot of trouble
1:02:05
Speaker 2: with a nocturnal bucks or things like that. It's like, man,
1:02:08
Speaker 2: just because they didn't walk in front of this camera
1:02:10
Speaker 2: doesn't mean they're not killable. They just something changed. And
1:02:14
Speaker 2: you know, you you you mentioned this and I did
1:02:16
Speaker 2: too with you know, well, maybe they blew up. You know,
1:02:18
Speaker 2: maybe somebody blew out that river bottom. You know, those
1:02:21
Speaker 2: bucks aren't elk, They're not going four miles away, you know,
1:02:25
Speaker 2: so if somebody went through there and did blow them out,
1:02:27
Speaker 2: you know, And that's like the conclusion you come to
1:02:30
Speaker 2: with your with your camera usage, that's fine, but do
1:02:34
Speaker 2: you know that? And like if somebody walks through there,
1:02:37
Speaker 2: you know, public land, those bucks get bumped a lot,
1:02:40
Speaker 2: Like how much how much does it really matter if
1:02:43
Speaker 2: you're doing your work? You know, Like I think it's
1:02:45
Speaker 2: I think it's dangerous just to assume the worst every
1:02:49
Speaker 2: time something happens that you kind of don't expect.
1:02:51
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah, yeah, no it it can be very
1:02:57
Speaker 3: helpful and most I mean, it always is helpful. It's
1:03:01
Speaker 3: just sometimes they can be frustrating. I guess like last year,
1:03:06
Speaker 3: Warbur and I hunted a we had a trail camera up,
1:03:09
Speaker 3: a cell camera during the rut, and there was bucks
1:03:12
Speaker 3: going by it like crazy in the daylight, and we
1:03:16
Speaker 3: just kept going in there and setting up close to
1:03:18
Speaker 3: it and never never once even saw a buck in there,
1:03:25
Speaker 3: but they just kept coming by the camera and we
1:03:27
Speaker 3: could not quite figure out where or how exactly to
1:03:32
Speaker 3: kill one of them. And it was that was one
1:03:35
Speaker 3: where it was like, all right, this is really frustrating
1:03:37
Speaker 3: because they're coming by this camera. We just can't seem
1:03:40
Speaker 3: to get ourselves quite in the right position.
1:03:43
Speaker 2: You know, did they know you were going in there?
1:03:46
Speaker 3: They might have, I don't really know. It was it
1:03:49
Speaker 3: was a weird deal because we just kept picking a
1:03:52
Speaker 3: way around there, and you know, like every every day
1:03:58
Speaker 3: we'd get a picture of a really nice bucket on there,
1:04:00
Speaker 3: and we just cannot quite get one in bow range.
1:04:04
Speaker 3: We never I mean we saw one one time I guess,
1:04:09
Speaker 3: didn't kill him. But and like I say, this was
1:04:13
Speaker 3: during the rut, so it's a little bit harder to
1:04:15
Speaker 3: predict buck movement, I would say. But we just kept
1:04:22
Speaker 3: going in there and picking away around that camera in
1:04:26
Speaker 3: different spots wherever the conditions were good for it, and
1:04:29
Speaker 3: never could quite get one killed. So that's where I
1:04:32
Speaker 3: guess I say, sometimes they can be frustrating where you're like,
1:04:37
Speaker 3: all right, they're going by this thing every single day
1:04:40
Speaker 3: and we just can't quite get ourselves in the right
1:04:42
Speaker 3: position to kill one for whatever reason. And they make
1:04:46
Speaker 3: every hunt exciting because you know there's a bunch of
1:04:48
Speaker 3: bucks in there for sure.
1:04:50
Speaker 2: But that's I mean, that's another good lesson there that
1:04:53
Speaker 2: you know, we kind of take for granted a lot
1:04:55
Speaker 2: of times, is if you're getting consistent pictures of a buck,
1:04:58
Speaker 2: especially with cell cameras, I mean, you're not there, and
1:05:02
Speaker 2: when you are there, everything changes. And so some situations
1:05:07
Speaker 2: like a you know, the right field edge type of hunt,
1:05:11
Speaker 2: you know, you could really dial in to killing a
1:05:14
Speaker 2: buck that way with a cell camera or you know,
1:05:17
Speaker 2: maybe a food plot or whatever that you have just
1:05:19
Speaker 2: like totally badass like airtight access. But you know, when
1:05:24
Speaker 2: you're talking public land or you know, some private land
1:05:27
Speaker 2: just just permission based and other people might be in there,
1:05:30
Speaker 2: and you know, just the whims of mother nature. It's
1:05:33
Speaker 2: just a really good starting point a lot of times
1:05:36
Speaker 2: is getting those pictures. But you have to accept that
1:05:40
Speaker 2: reality that it doesn't matter if he's if he's coming
1:05:43
Speaker 2: through at six o'clock every day and working a scrape
1:05:45
Speaker 2: and it's broad daylight and whatever, you're not there, and
1:05:49
Speaker 2: that changes so much. I mean, where you park and
1:05:52
Speaker 2: how you walk in and probably a lot of things
1:05:55
Speaker 2: that we're not even aware of. You know, maybe you know,
1:05:58
Speaker 2: maybe you jump to deer around the way in that
1:06:00
Speaker 2: you didn't even know was there and it ran past
1:06:02
Speaker 2: his betting area or whatever. But you have to listen
1:06:05
Speaker 2: to you have to pay attention to what the deer
1:06:09
Speaker 2: show you in that situation, because the trail camera is
1:06:11
Speaker 2: giving you a view of that world that doesn't involve
1:06:16
Speaker 2: your presence, and then your presence there kind of trumps
1:06:20
Speaker 2: everything because you have to be there to kill them.
1:06:21
Speaker 2: And so you know, those trail camera images are awesome,
1:06:24
Speaker 2: and like you said, they pump you up, but what
1:06:27
Speaker 2: are you actually seeing when you go in there, because
1:06:29
Speaker 2: if if the deer aren't coming through, then something's going
1:06:32
Speaker 2: on that you're gonna have to adapt to.
1:06:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, it's it's a fun game to play
1:06:40
Speaker 3: most times. It's just sometimes you get it right and
1:06:43
Speaker 3: sometimes you don't.
1:06:44
Speaker 2: I guess it is fun. What's what state are you
1:06:47
Speaker 2: most excited to hunt this year? Don't say Iowa?
1:06:50
Speaker 3: This year? I actually don't have any hunts playing. I
1:06:54
Speaker 3: don't think other than Iowa. I think I guess I
1:06:57
Speaker 3: got a Mississippi tag, which I'll hunt at some point,
1:07:01
Speaker 3: But other than that, I actually don't have any hunts
1:07:05
Speaker 3: planned for my that I'm actually gonna be carrying a
1:07:09
Speaker 3: bow at the moment, really, So.
1:07:12
Speaker 2: That's a little disappointing to me. If I'm gonna be
1:07:15
Speaker 2: honest with you.
1:07:16
Speaker 3: I know, I'm sure it is last year I had.
1:07:19
Speaker 3: Last year I had Kansas and Iowa. I think that's it.
1:07:23
Speaker 3: But uh, this year, I don't have anything planned really.
1:07:27
Speaker 3: I'm not sure exactly where where I'm gonna end up.
1:07:31
Speaker 3: I know we're going. I think we're going out to
1:07:34
Speaker 3: Wyoming to start. Greg's got a tag out there, and
1:07:38
Speaker 3: then possibly North Dakota again. Early I think Jake's got
1:07:43
Speaker 3: a Kansas tag Kansas muzzloader. That's about all I know
1:07:48
Speaker 3: as far as that goes. And then Warb's cousin has
1:07:52
Speaker 3: an elk tag and Zach's dad has an elk tag
1:07:55
Speaker 3: out in Wyoming, so they'll be doing that, and I'm
1:07:59
Speaker 3: not sure where will be the rest of us. I
1:08:01
Speaker 3: guess all.
1:08:02
Speaker 2: Right, how about this, then, what is your favorite state
1:08:06
Speaker 2: to hunt public land whitetails in? That's not Iowa.
1:08:10
Speaker 3: H'm trying to think of. We're all of hunted. I
1:08:15
Speaker 3: really liked hunting Kansas last year. That was a lot
1:08:17
Speaker 3: of fun. I haven't actually been up to North Dakota.
1:08:19
Speaker 3: I'd really like to go up there and hunt.
1:08:22
Speaker 2: You never hunted North Dakota, I haven't.
1:08:24
Speaker 3: I've never even been up there in film. I'd like
1:08:26
Speaker 3: to go up there.
1:08:27
Speaker 2: North Dakota's pretty good, That's all I'm gonna say about that.
1:08:32
Speaker 2: Pretty fun state, pretty cool, pretty diverse. I think in
1:08:38
Speaker 2: a lot of people who've never been up there, I
1:08:40
Speaker 2: think would assume, you know, And we do the same
1:08:43
Speaker 2: thing with South Dakota and Kansas and Nebraska, right is like,
1:08:46
Speaker 2: if you've never been there, you kind of think, oh, there,
1:08:49
Speaker 2: you know there's not much going on there, but you know,
1:08:52
Speaker 2: North Dakota. One of the things I love about it is,
1:08:54
Speaker 2: you know, I can be on the east side of
1:08:56
Speaker 2: the state and have kind of a very typical type
1:08:58
Speaker 2: of white tail hunt, and I can go to the
1:09:01
Speaker 2: west side of the state and you know, you're you're
1:09:04
Speaker 2: in the middle of elk and mule deer an antelope
1:09:06
Speaker 2: while you're hunting white tails, and you know, you know,
1:09:09
Speaker 2: in air that smells like sage, and it's just a
1:09:11
Speaker 2: different experience. It's that's that's a badass state. I like
1:09:15
Speaker 2: North Dakota a lot.
1:09:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking forward to going up there at some point.
1:09:19
Speaker 3: I don't know when I'll make it up there exactly,
1:09:21
Speaker 3: but maybe this year.
1:09:23
Speaker 2: I know when I'm gonna make it up there. This year.
1:09:25
Speaker 2: I have that one on the books already. Well, we
1:09:29
Speaker 2: better wrap this up, buddy. Uh, it was you know,
1:09:32
Speaker 2: it was a pleasure to talk to you as always.
1:09:34
Speaker 3: Uh.
1:09:34
Speaker 2: I appreciate you coming on here. I hope you guys
1:09:36
Speaker 2: go catch the crap out of the catfish on your
1:09:38
Speaker 2: diddy poles. Uh. Where can everybody find all your guys' stuff?
1:09:43
Speaker 3: You can find all of our hunting videos on the
1:09:47
Speaker 3: Hunting Public YouTube channel, and then we've got Instagram and
1:09:53
Speaker 3: Facebook and TikTok all under the Hunting Public and I
1:09:59
Speaker 3: think think that's about it. I think we have some
1:10:01
Speaker 3: videos on Amazon Prime as well, so those are the
1:10:05
Speaker 3: main sources to find our videos.
1:10:09
Speaker 2: Awesome, buddy, thanks so much for coming on.
1:10:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, thanks for having me.
1:10:14
Speaker 2: Be sure to tune in next week for some more
1:10:16
Speaker 2: whitetail goodness. Has been the Wire to Hunt podcast, which
1:10:18
Speaker 2: is brought to you by First Light, and I'm your host,
1:10:20
Speaker 2: Tony Peterson. As I always, thank you so much for listening.
1:10:23
Speaker 2: If you're looking for more white tail content, or maybe
1:10:26
Speaker 2: you just want to check out those pants I keep
1:10:27
Speaker 2: talking about those Origin pants, head on over to themeateater
1:10:32
Speaker 2: dot com. You'll see a pile of new articles every week.
1:10:36
Speaker 2: You'll see when we drop a new series, like we
1:10:39
Speaker 2: just dropped that buck Truck series by those Element Boys.
1:10:42
Speaker 2: All kinds of great hunting content over there. Go over there,
1:10:45
Speaker 2: check it out. And as always, I just want to
1:10:47
Speaker 2: thank you again for your support. It really means the
1:10:50
Speaker 2: world to us that you guys come here and listen
1:10:52
Speaker 2: to this every week and my Foundations podcast, we truly
1:10:55
Speaker 2: appreciate it so thank you for that