Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 927: Burning Questions About Hunting and Managing Your Own Back 40 with Jake Hofer

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Ep. 927: Burning Questions About Hunting and Managing Your Own Back 40 with Jake Hofer · 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.
0:20
Speaker 3: Wired to Hunt Podcast. This week on the show, I'm
0:23
Speaker 3: joined by Jake Coper, the host of our brand new
0:27
Speaker 3: soon to launch podcast mini series, The Back forty Podcast,
0:32
Speaker 3: and today we are going to be previewing that show
0:35
Speaker 3: and answering some of the most important pressing questions that
0:39
Speaker 3: you and I are likely to face in the coming
0:41
Speaker 3: months as we take on the challenge of hunting and
0:44
Speaker 3: managing our own back forties. All right, welcome back to
0:54
Speaker 3: the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by First
0:57
Speaker 3: Light and their Camo for Conservation Initiative. Today the show,
1:01
Speaker 3: I am joined by Jake Hoefer, and as you just heard,
1:06
Speaker 3: he is joining us here in Wired to Hunt with
1:08
Speaker 3: a brand new podcast mini series. And so today in
1:12
Speaker 3: the show, when Jake joins me, we're gonna be talking
1:14
Speaker 3: about what this new show is. We're calling it the
1:17
Speaker 3: Back forty Podcast. We're gonna preview what you can expect
1:21
Speaker 3: in the coming weeks on this new show, and then
1:23
Speaker 3: we're also going to preview the actual content of that show,
1:27
Speaker 3: as Jake is going to have to run through some
1:30
Speaker 3: of the very same questions that our future podcast guests
1:33
Speaker 3: will as well. Now real quick, if you're not familiar
1:36
Speaker 3: with Jake, what I want you to know is this,
1:39
Speaker 3: he's one of the best podcast hosts out there. He
1:42
Speaker 3: has hosted in the past the Exodus Trail Camera radio podcast.
1:46
Speaker 3: Now he has his own Whitetail podcast show. He was
1:49
Speaker 3: a co owner or Exodus Trail Cameras. He also hosts
1:53
Speaker 3: the Land podcast and now also owns the Whitetail Master
1:58
Speaker 3: Academy I believe it's called Sorry. Jake and just a
2:03
Speaker 3: tremendous thinker within the white tail space. A great question asker,
2:09
Speaker 3: a great uh. He's really good at getting folks to
2:12
Speaker 3: explain exactly what it is that we as hunters need
2:16
Speaker 3: when we're trying to learn from these folks. And so
2:18
Speaker 3: because of that, when I found out that Jake might
2:21
Speaker 3: be available for some collaborations, I jumped really quickly to
2:24
Speaker 3: try to bring him on board here to Wire to Hunt.
2:26
Speaker 3: So there's gonna be a lot more of Jake to
2:28
Speaker 3: come this fall. I'm excited about some other projects we've
2:31
Speaker 3: got going on. But today, like I said, we're going
2:34
Speaker 3: to hear from Jake on this new show. We're going
2:37
Speaker 3: to learn about what the new show is going to
2:39
Speaker 3: be about, and then we're going to be answering some
2:42
Speaker 3: of the most pressing questions that you are likely to
2:45
Speaker 3: have if you hunt, you know, any kind of private land.
2:48
Speaker 3: This show is mostly private land focused. We're going to
2:51
Speaker 3: be talking about some management questions. We're gonna be talking
2:54
Speaker 3: about some hunting questions when you kind of have some
2:56
Speaker 3: control over the property. But there is some stuff that's
2:59
Speaker 3: relevant regardless. But again, we're really looking at this idea
3:02
Speaker 3: of what are the major questions that you or I
3:05
Speaker 3: have when it comes to tackling challenges on our own
3:09
Speaker 3: back forty whether that's forty acres or four acres or
3:12
Speaker 3: four hundred acres, whatever it is, those are the kinds
3:15
Speaker 3: of things we're trying to tackle with this show, and
3:18
Speaker 3: I will let Jake explain it here in a second.
3:20
Speaker 3: I don't think we need to be rambling on any further,
3:22
Speaker 3: but stay tuned for some great information today for habitat
3:26
Speaker 3: related ideas, management related ideas, hunting small properties and much
3:30
Speaker 3: much more. And you're going to hear about the back
3:32
Speaker 3: forty podcast, which I think you guys are going to
3:35
Speaker 3: really enjoy once you find out the wide breadth of
3:39
Speaker 3: experts that we have a part of this and the
3:41
Speaker 3: different types of topics we'll be covering as well. So,
3:44
Speaker 3: without any further ado, let's get to it with Jake Coefert.
3:53
Speaker 3: All right, joining me back on the show is Jay
3:56
Speaker 3: koefer Welcome back, Jack.
3:58
Speaker 2: Hey, it's good to be back. A lot of talk
4:02
Speaker 2: about here.
4:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're back in a different capacity today. Yeah, this
4:07
Speaker 3: is a different kind of appearance on the Wired Hunt
4:09
Speaker 3: podcast because you are appearing today as a guest on
4:13
Speaker 3: the podcast, you will be appearing next week as a
4:17
Speaker 3: host of a Wired Hunt network podcast. So, so congratulations
4:23
Speaker 3: on the new show coming out.
4:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm super excited.
4:26
Speaker 4: I you know, we had brainstormed of what can we
4:29
Speaker 4: do that would be really fun and exciting, and I
4:31
Speaker 4: feel like we came up with the format and style
4:34
Speaker 4: that was a lot of work, to tell you the truth,
4:36
Speaker 4: When you come up with an idea and you say
4:38
Speaker 4: this is what we'll do, way more work than some
4:40
Speaker 4: of the other ways to produce a podcast. So I
4:43
Speaker 4: hope people appreciate this format because there's a a lot
4:46
Speaker 4: of work, but it was a lot of fun.
4:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you are part way through the recording process
4:50
Speaker 3: so far, how would you say it is going to
4:53
Speaker 3: this point?
4:54
Speaker 2: It's going really good.
4:55
Speaker 4: So we've done six of eight and the it's been
4:59
Speaker 4: it's been really because I have thankfully had the opportunity
5:03
Speaker 4: to interview all these people before. So these are people
5:05
Speaker 4: that I'm already familiar with, and I know how some
5:08
Speaker 4: of them think already, and so had I had some
5:10
Speaker 4: preconceived notions of how they would answer some of these questions,
5:14
Speaker 4: and I have been shocked on a handful of them.
5:17
Speaker 4: And it's all rooted around the white tail questions and
5:21
Speaker 4: dilemmas everyone has, no matter how many years you've been
5:25
Speaker 4: doing it or if you're brand new, or whatever the
5:27
Speaker 4: case may be. These are issues that we all face.
5:30
Speaker 4: And you know, these guys find success, you know a lot,
5:35
Speaker 4: and they also have built careers around land and they
5:38
Speaker 4: have cumulatively. I'd be scared to know how much whitetail
5:42
Speaker 4: habitat they have impacted in a positive way. I would
5:46
Speaker 4: say it would be tens of if not fifty tens
5:49
Speaker 4: of thousands of acres or fifties thousands of acres would
5:52
Speaker 4: be my guest, So it was it's really cool.
5:54
Speaker 5: Yeah.
5:55
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:55
Speaker 3: So so I guess before we get into all of that,
5:58
Speaker 3: because I want to hear a little bit about what
6:01
Speaker 3: the process has been like. I want to discuss some
6:04
Speaker 3: of the thought that went behind both, you know, how
6:07
Speaker 3: we came up with this idea and format together, but
6:09
Speaker 3: then also how you came up with the questions and
6:11
Speaker 3: what that's been like in the field a little bit.
6:13
Speaker 2: And then to preview for folks.
6:15
Speaker 3: I'm going to ask your questions to you, yeah, to
6:19
Speaker 3: get your take on these things before we get to
6:21
Speaker 3: the real show next week. But really quick for people
6:25
Speaker 3: that are, you know, jumping in here before the show
6:28
Speaker 3: is actually out there to the world. What is the
6:31
Speaker 3: format for this new show going to be? What's each
6:34
Speaker 3: episode going to be comprised of?
6:36
Speaker 2: Give me the Bitch?
6:37
Speaker 4: Yeah, So basically it's one question and eight answers, And
6:42
Speaker 4: so what that means is we scheduled these questions to
6:45
Speaker 4: be timely based off of the excitement and anticipation of
6:49
Speaker 4: the season and some of the pitfall some of the
6:51
Speaker 4: dilemmas that we all face and so I wanted to
6:54
Speaker 4: find eight experts with a ton of experience that have
6:56
Speaker 4: faced a lot of different issues, a lot of different problems,
7:00
Speaker 4: are questions that they've been asked a million times over
7:01
Speaker 4: the years, and really get folks from Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois,
7:09
Speaker 4: you know, a big part of the whitetail population, and
7:12
Speaker 4: that way there's variety in some of the answers where
7:14
Speaker 4: they're not all from Iowa, they're not all from Illinois,
7:17
Speaker 4: and people can listen to different ideas from different areas.
7:20
Speaker 4: And that's how we came up with it because these
7:24
Speaker 4: are burning questions we all have where you just have
7:29
Speaker 4: I don't think anxiety is the right way to say,
7:30
Speaker 4: but this excitement and uncertainty because you.
7:33
Speaker 2: Want the season to go. Well, you've been you've been
7:34
Speaker 2: waiting all year, like you want this season to be
7:36
Speaker 2: your best. Everyone wants their their next season to be
7:38
Speaker 2: their best, and this is hopefully going to help. Yeah.
7:41
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think what makes I guess the
7:44
Speaker 3: way that we kind of came to this, you and
7:45
Speaker 3: I as we were talking about this, is that originally
7:48
Speaker 3: the idea was, Okay, we want a a podcast series
7:51
Speaker 3: that's primarily focused on folks working their own grounds, some
7:55
Speaker 3: private land, maybe some management, maybe just by permission. But
7:59
Speaker 3: you know, Tone does a great job with some of
8:01
Speaker 3: our public land focused stuff. We want to have something
8:03
Speaker 3: that was a little bit more focused on the guy
8:05
Speaker 3: or girl who's you know, working on their own back
8:08
Speaker 3: forty or they're back four hundred or the back four
8:10
Speaker 3: whatever it is. And when we kind of struck on
8:13
Speaker 3: this idea of like, oh, the back forty, kind of
8:15
Speaker 3: like the show, the television YouTube show that I did
8:18
Speaker 3: a few years ago, and when I started that project,
8:22
Speaker 3: the back forty, You walk out there on your property
8:25
Speaker 3: when you kick off this thing, when you buy it
8:28
Speaker 3: or when you lease it, or when you get access
8:29
Speaker 3: whatever it is, and you find yourself sometimes daunted or
8:35
Speaker 3: maybe you like go into tons of excitement and think
8:38
Speaker 3: you know it all. And then as soon as you
8:39
Speaker 3: get started and you're like, oh, wow, what about this
8:41
Speaker 3: or what about this?
8:42
Speaker 2: Or what about this?
8:43
Speaker 3: And you start getting questioned after question after question that
8:46
Speaker 3: starts stacking up. And when you reach out to a
8:50
Speaker 3: friend or you look online for podcasts or YouTube video, like.
8:54
Speaker 2: What do I do about this thing? What do I
8:55
Speaker 2: do if my food plot sucks? Whatever?
8:57
Speaker 3: It is you're gonna get a million different answers right.
9:00
Speaker 3: And that is also a thing that I know you've
9:03
Speaker 3: seen as a podcast host right over my twelve whatever
9:08
Speaker 3: however many years has been that I've been doing the
9:09
Speaker 3: Wired Hunt podcast, one thing that has stood out time
9:13
Speaker 3: and time again is that there is no one single
9:16
Speaker 3: way to do this anything right. It's so funny though
9:19
Speaker 3: every almost every diehard deer hunter you talk to is
9:24
Speaker 3: very confident that their approach is the right way. They're
9:27
Speaker 3: always like, this is the way to do it. But
9:29
Speaker 3: then I listen to ten different guys and they all
9:30
Speaker 3: say different things. And what I think is unique about
9:35
Speaker 3: this format and what I think will be really useful
9:37
Speaker 3: here is that we are acknowledging the fact that there
9:41
Speaker 3: are many different ideas, many different ways to do this stuff.
9:45
Speaker 3: And what you do in each twenty these episodes is
9:47
Speaker 3: that we tackle one topic, one question. You present these
9:51
Speaker 3: eight different perspectives. They might be wildly different, they might
9:54
Speaker 3: have a lot in common. And then what I love
9:58
Speaker 3: is that you know your plan is to do a
10:00
Speaker 3: little bit of synthesizing yourself and kind of saying like,
10:03
Speaker 3: here's how I'm thinking this through, or here's how I'm
10:05
Speaker 3: talking here's how I'm going to deal with this myself,
10:08
Speaker 3: or here's what I think about X and Y, and
10:10
Speaker 3: maybe even I don't know how you're going to tackle this,
10:13
Speaker 3: but maybe there'll even be some part parts and some questions. Really,
10:15
Speaker 3: I don't know how to make sense of these four
10:18
Speaker 3: totally disparate different ideas here, and I think that's kind
10:23
Speaker 3: of cool that we're going to kind of work through
10:26
Speaker 3: that together in each one of these episodes as we
10:29
Speaker 3: learn from all these different people with different sets of
10:32
Speaker 3: experience from different parts of the country, and I think
10:35
Speaker 3: we're all going to be able to learn a lot
10:36
Speaker 3: because of that. So I love the way this is
10:39
Speaker 3: coming together. I love the format. I think there's you know,
10:43
Speaker 3: right now, we're doing an eight episode mini series run.
10:46
Speaker 2: I'm hopeful that we're able to do more of.
10:47
Speaker 3: These in the future because there's many, many, many more
10:50
Speaker 3: burning questions that we that we should cover in the future. So, yeah,
10:56
Speaker 3: who all do you have included in this run of
10:58
Speaker 3: the series.
10:59
Speaker 4: So when I was putting this list together, like I said,
11:02
Speaker 4: I've been able to interview just about everyone that I
11:05
Speaker 4: would love to have interviewed with, and I've got to
11:07
Speaker 4: know a lot of these guys, and so I recorded
11:11
Speaker 4: with Steve Hanson from Iowa. He is a really you know,
11:16
Speaker 4: fun history I always joke that I think he's helped
11:18
Speaker 4: more people kill their best dear than just about anyone
11:22
Speaker 4: he was. He was in the outfitting business, and he's
11:24
Speaker 4: just helped a lot of people. He works on a
11:25
Speaker 4: ton of farms. He's a licensed agent and has worked
11:29
Speaker 4: on a ton of habitat projects a ton, and so
11:32
Speaker 4: I brought in Steve Hanson on this. Another one is
11:34
Speaker 4: Don Higgins. I think he I think he should and
11:38
Speaker 4: will go down as one of the most impactful white
11:41
Speaker 4: tail land managers of our generation. I think his track
11:45
Speaker 4: record is really interesting, and also I think his approach
11:50
Speaker 4: is different in a lot of ways too, with where
11:53
Speaker 4: he's at regionally, and some of the strategies I think
11:56
Speaker 4: are a little bit unique too, So I wanted to
11:57
Speaker 4: get his perspective.
11:59
Speaker 2: Another one's Bobby Kendall. He's from New York originally.
12:02
Speaker 4: He does a lot of like very massive overhauls on projects.
12:07
Speaker 4: He's on many many farms and sees many different things.
12:10
Speaker 4: But he seems to have a bag of tricks that
12:12
Speaker 4: he likes to stick to. So I wanted to bring
12:14
Speaker 4: in his perspective of working on a lot of farms
12:16
Speaker 4: all at once. The next person is Jeff Sturgis. I've
12:20
Speaker 4: known Jeff for a super long time, have a lot
12:22
Speaker 4: of respect for him, and he's helped a lot of
12:24
Speaker 4: people identify issues with their farm, some different strategies and
12:29
Speaker 4: different philosophies.
12:31
Speaker 2: Next is Skipsly.
12:32
Speaker 4: I've got to know Skip over the years, and I
12:34
Speaker 4: think he has he has a ton of experience of
12:37
Speaker 4: looking at habitat and white tail hunting through a lot
12:39
Speaker 4: of different lenses, from starting with a small farm to
12:42
Speaker 4: managing a much larger farm today and what are the
12:45
Speaker 4: problems and challenges with that. Another one's Bill Winki. Everyone
12:48
Speaker 4: knows who Bill is. That was a very fun conversation.
12:51
Speaker 4: And then we had Thomas Milsna, who I have a
12:55
Speaker 4: lot of respect for. He's from Wisconsin. I think he
12:57
Speaker 4: set the county record twice for archery. You know, a
13:00
Speaker 4: really really great deer hunter and a very thoughtful individual
13:04
Speaker 4: when it comes to the landscape and very analytical when
13:07
Speaker 4: it comes to deer hunting. And so I just wrapped
13:10
Speaker 4: up the conversation with him and that was excellent. And
13:11
Speaker 4: then I'm gonna be asking you a bunch of questions too,
13:13
Speaker 4: with back forty experience and also a lot of knowledge
13:18
Speaker 4: in the brain and getting your hands dirty on different projects.
13:21
Speaker 4: So that's the roundabout list and kind of the elevator
13:24
Speaker 4: pitch of why I picked who I did, And I
13:26
Speaker 4: don't think I could have came.
13:27
Speaker 2: Up with a better list. It's such a good list.
13:30
Speaker 2: It's people that.
13:32
Speaker 3: I have had previous conversations with as well and always
13:36
Speaker 3: walk away from those learning something new, feeling inspired. And
13:40
Speaker 3: I love the idea of getting them all together, and
13:43
Speaker 3: we're going to get some really interesting angles on all
13:45
Speaker 3: these different things. And I think if you have four
13:49
Speaker 3: acres or forty acres or four hundred or seventy five
13:54
Speaker 3: or whatever, or if you've knocked on the door and
13:56
Speaker 3: got permission on a few kinds of places, I think
13:58
Speaker 3: there's going to be a lot here put into action
14:01
Speaker 3: in the future. So before we get into these questions
14:06
Speaker 3: which I'm going to run by you, force you to
14:08
Speaker 3: run your own gauntlet, just in case people have not
14:13
Speaker 3: heard you on this show in the past, or if
14:15
Speaker 3: they haven't heard your own podcasts. I do want to
14:19
Speaker 3: just peel back the onion a little bit and just
14:24
Speaker 3: get a quick sense of why this set of topics.
14:28
Speaker 3: Why a podcast about land management and hunting your own
14:32
Speaker 3: ground and improving your own ground. Why does that get
14:36
Speaker 3: you up in the morning. Why is this something that
14:38
Speaker 3: you have ended up building your whole life around. You
14:42
Speaker 3: could have done a lot of things, Jake, You're smart, dude.
14:45
Speaker 2: Why are you doing this? What's so special about this
14:48
Speaker 2: thing for you? Yeah?
14:50
Speaker 4: I mean I grew up in a pretty heavily white
14:53
Speaker 4: tail household. We had a small deer farm when I
14:57
Speaker 4: was growing up, So you really I took for granted
15:01
Speaker 4: of growing up in that type of environment where I
15:03
Speaker 4: got to watch bucks grow velvet every single year, I
15:06
Speaker 4: got to see when they would drop their antlers.
15:09
Speaker 2: I was blessed enough to have some really.
15:11
Speaker 4: Great farms that I could just run around all over
15:13
Speaker 4: as a kid, and so I just I've just always
15:18
Speaker 4: really enjoyed white tails. I've always enjoyed learning. I feel
15:22
Speaker 4: that there's so much that you can learn from other people,
15:24
Speaker 4: and there's so many ways to find success, and that's
15:27
Speaker 4: always motivated me to learn from others. And then as
15:30
Speaker 4: far as another interesting thing, so my dad used to
15:35
Speaker 4: car antlers of wood. I have those big, big sheds
15:38
Speaker 4: behind me were carved out of wood, and there's a
15:41
Speaker 4: funny story behind that. But like growing up and having
15:44
Speaker 4: the only roadkill, getting Frankenstein in the basement.
15:46
Speaker 2: Out of wood, it's such a weird thing.
15:49
Speaker 4: And then when I look back, I was like, that
15:51
Speaker 4: is so strange, but it definitely for me in a
15:53
Speaker 4: lot of ways of who I am today. And you know,
15:56
Speaker 4: I had the opportunity to record with some of these
15:59
Speaker 4: folks a lot over the years and get to know
16:01
Speaker 4: them and become friends, and so it's just been a
16:03
Speaker 4: culmination of a lot of great things. And I dreamed
16:07
Speaker 4: of owning a piece of ground myself ever since I
16:09
Speaker 4: was a kid, and I bought that farm. It's like,
16:12
Speaker 4: so before that, I was so interested in, Okay, how
16:14
Speaker 4: do you hunt permission? How do you how are you
16:16
Speaker 4: effective on small parcels? And then I bought a back
16:19
Speaker 4: forty forty acres and exactly like you said, all these
16:23
Speaker 4: new questions I didn't know really existed or I didn't
16:26
Speaker 4: care enough about hit me like a ton of bricks.
16:29
Speaker 4: And it's like I have so much to learn so
16:31
Speaker 4: fast so I can start making a positive impact.
16:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, you have talked to most of the guests so
16:39
Speaker 3: far for this series, would you say that there is
16:43
Speaker 3: more agreement on these topics or more disagreement than you expected.
16:48
Speaker 4: There's been a lot more agreement than I what I
16:50
Speaker 4: would have anticipated. I would say a general consensus would
16:56
Speaker 4: be about eighty percent agreement so far. Like per question,
17:01
Speaker 4: everyone had a little bit of a new twist, and
17:04
Speaker 4: the best part of this format was they all shared
17:07
Speaker 4: their own nuanced take about each one of them, and
17:10
Speaker 4: so everyone has a different way to your point of
17:13
Speaker 4: finding success, and they all almost all of them at
17:17
Speaker 4: some point gave a nuance of their approach and philosophy
17:20
Speaker 4: behind it, and you're like, okay, yeah, that is the
17:22
Speaker 4: task and this is how you go about it in
17:24
Speaker 4: your unique way. And so I felt energized at the
17:29
Speaker 4: end of each of those questions with I need to
17:32
Speaker 4: remember that this year. You know, I've recorded with a
17:34
Speaker 4: bunch of these people and I know that, but it's like, oh, yeah,
17:36
Speaker 4: I didn't really I knew that, but I didn't really
17:39
Speaker 4: consider that, or I forgot it, or it didn't hit
17:41
Speaker 4: me like that before. So I would say overall, a
17:44
Speaker 4: general consensus is there's been a lot of agreement overall.
17:48
Speaker 3: Right, Very interesting. Okay, So what I want to do
17:52
Speaker 3: is walk through each one of the questions that you
17:55
Speaker 3: put together for this series, And as a reminder for folks,
17:58
Speaker 3: each one of these questions will be an entire episode
18:01
Speaker 3: coming up, So I'd love to get a little bit
18:05
Speaker 3: of background on these questions. So why why you think
18:08
Speaker 3: this is an important question? Why you chose this for
18:10
Speaker 3: an episode? And then i'd i'd love to get your
18:13
Speaker 3: actual take, your personal take on this stuff.
18:17
Speaker 2: Does that sound good? Sounds great? Let's do it all right?
18:21
Speaker 3: And I am working off of kind of your rough
18:25
Speaker 3: list that you sent me, so if I butcher the
18:27
Speaker 3: question somehow, feel free to correct me. But I think
18:30
Speaker 3: I've got the list right here. So it is the
18:34
Speaker 3: order you sent me is the order of the episodes
18:35
Speaker 3: will be in.
18:35
Speaker 2: Is that right? Yep? Yep?
18:37
Speaker 3: Okay, So the first episode that folks will see is
18:41
Speaker 3: going to be tackling a question somewhere along the lines
18:44
Speaker 3: of I haven't put my trail cameras out for my
18:47
Speaker 3: summer or fall scouting yet, So where do I start?
18:51
Speaker 4: Yeah, you want to know the reason why I came
18:53
Speaker 4: up with that question to start off here?
18:55
Speaker 1: Yeah?
18:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah?
18:55
Speaker 3: Why?
18:56
Speaker 2: Why is that the first episode.
18:57
Speaker 3: Why is that the question that people will be getting
18:59
Speaker 3: an answer to at the end of July this year.
19:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, people are busy in the summer, and you ask
19:05
Speaker 4: anyone that's a die hard, why two hundred how are
19:07
Speaker 4: things going on behind every one of them?
19:09
Speaker 2: Behind? No one ever says I'm right on track and
19:11
Speaker 2: everything's going great. Never hear that one.
19:14
Speaker 4: And so that's if folks that haven't put out their cameras,
19:18
Speaker 4: I wanted them to know, are they truly behind the
19:20
Speaker 4: eight ball?
19:22
Speaker 2: And then number two.
19:24
Speaker 4: Maybe there's some ways you're running your cameras on your
19:27
Speaker 4: farms now that you should do different this year. And
19:31
Speaker 4: so that's the root of the question of you haven't
19:34
Speaker 4: put them out yet, so where do I start? And
19:36
Speaker 4: so that gets information out of these guests on this
19:40
Speaker 4: is exactly how they're going about putting their cameras. Are
19:43
Speaker 4: they hanging them super deep and betting? Are they tearing
19:45
Speaker 4: through the whole farm and taking notes again? Are they,
19:49
Speaker 4: you know, going around the fringes. Are they trying to
19:52
Speaker 4: key in on an early season opportunity? Are they trying
19:54
Speaker 4: to monitor a rough funnel throughout the rest of the summer.
19:58
Speaker 4: And so that was the root of the question because everyone,
20:01
Speaker 4: just about everyone uses cameras and a lot of people
20:04
Speaker 4: rely on the information that it's provided, and not by
20:06
Speaker 4: not having cameras out yet, they probably have some some
20:10
Speaker 4: fomo and so this is either to calm them or
20:13
Speaker 4: get them fired up.
20:14
Speaker 2: So that's to see what the answers are.
20:15
Speaker 5: Now.
20:26
Speaker 3: If someone were to listen to that episode in October first,
20:31
Speaker 3: or god forbid, November first, and they're thinking, I don't
20:36
Speaker 3: have my cameras out yet, are they going to still
20:39
Speaker 3: be able to get something from these answers? Is there
20:41
Speaker 3: going to be something that can be applied no matter
20:42
Speaker 3: what kind of time of year you end up being
20:45
Speaker 3: in that position.
20:46
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say absolutely, there'll be certainly some key
20:49
Speaker 4: pieces of information, whether you listen to that to the
20:52
Speaker 4: end of July or mid August or September or October
20:56
Speaker 4: and gosh, hopefully not November, but you're really busy, that's
21:01
Speaker 4: but yeah, it kind of breaks down a lot of
21:03
Speaker 4: their thought processes of where they're putting them and why
21:06
Speaker 4: and what's the information they're trying to gather, which seems simple,
21:09
Speaker 4: but it's a little more complicated when you're you're let
21:11
Speaker 4: free on the farm to try to go get that information.
21:15
Speaker 3: And you're right, it's like a simple concept, simple question.
21:20
Speaker 3: But again, what I think is going to make this
21:21
Speaker 3: really really interesting is hearing from these eight different people
21:25
Speaker 3: all about how they're thinking through their camera placement and
21:29
Speaker 3: what goals they're going to have and what they're going
21:31
Speaker 3: to do with it. I'm very excited for that. So
21:33
Speaker 3: what about for you? Where would you suggest? Where would
21:38
Speaker 3: you start if you were in this situation right now?
21:40
Speaker 3: What would you suggest to someone if they're jumping into
21:43
Speaker 3: kind of late summer? All right, got to get these
21:45
Speaker 3: cameras out. What can I achieve?
21:46
Speaker 2: What can I do?
21:48
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, to be completely honest, I'm just like
21:51
Speaker 4: everyone else.
21:51
Speaker 2: I'm a little behind right now.
21:53
Speaker 4: So I'm going to be deploying cameras and on some
21:55
Speaker 4: places I want to, And I think for me, the
21:58
Speaker 4: most important thing is if you had the ability to
22:01
Speaker 4: run cameras on that farm the year before, and maybe
22:03
Speaker 4: you had some summer intel or maybe you know there's
22:05
Speaker 4: some areas where there's good inventory spots of the farm.
22:09
Speaker 4: Maybe it's a maybe it's alfalfa, Maybe it's an edge
22:12
Speaker 4: of a cornfield that meets another field. You know places
22:15
Speaker 4: you necessarily might not hunt, but you want to get
22:17
Speaker 4: proof of life. You want to know if the deer
22:19
Speaker 4: you're dreaming about is still alive. And so a lot
22:22
Speaker 4: of those locations is based off of previous year's experience.
22:26
Speaker 4: Maybe throw out a few floater cameras in an area
22:28
Speaker 4: that has some sort of green food source for the
22:31
Speaker 4: summer period, understanding that they're likely going to shift unless
22:35
Speaker 4: you have a big farm. But if you're hunting, you know,
22:37
Speaker 4: a forty acre piece, a sixty acre piece, you're hopefully
22:39
Speaker 4: going to get more bucks throughout the fall. And this
22:43
Speaker 4: question leads into another question later on where people you
22:46
Speaker 4: know start to potentially panic based off of they put
22:48
Speaker 4: the cameras out. So that's where I'm going to start.
22:51
Speaker 4: And then even in some more sensitive areas, I am
22:54
Speaker 4: trying to be really organized when I go in. Like
22:57
Speaker 4: if I get a free Saturday, I'm gonna try to
23:00
Speaker 4: knock out absolutely everything for that Saturday. I'm going to
23:02
Speaker 4: put a camera up with a solar panel. I'm going
23:05
Speaker 4: to make sure I'm using either lithium batteries or a
23:08
Speaker 4: lithium or chargeable pack where I can I know the
23:10
Speaker 4: spot's going to be good.
23:11
Speaker 2: For the rut.
23:12
Speaker 4: I'm going to go in there and let it just
23:13
Speaker 4: start doing this thing, and hopefully I get a picture
23:16
Speaker 4: or two of the deer that will be utilizing that
23:18
Speaker 4: area in the rut. So that that's my personal strategy.
23:22
Speaker 4: I've been better at getting pictures of deer than killing them.
23:24
Speaker 4: So that's that that model does work to some degree
23:27
Speaker 4: most that's the case for most people, by the way,
23:30
Speaker 4: That's why we brought an eight expert. So yeah, so
23:35
Speaker 4: what about if you were asked this question on October first,
23:40
Speaker 4: Let's say someone just got or let's say you just
23:42
Speaker 4: get access to a new property October first. The season's
23:45
Speaker 4: starting today, but now you've got this brand new hundred
23:48
Speaker 4: acres you can hunt.
23:49
Speaker 2: How does your answer change?
23:50
Speaker 4: If that's the case, I'm going to be excited to
23:52
Speaker 4: start because there's nothing more fun than knowing trying to
23:55
Speaker 4: figure out what's out there. So my biggest thing would
23:58
Speaker 4: be I live in farm country, Illinois, so a lot
24:01
Speaker 4: of these parcels maybe have a parcel like that I'm
24:03
Speaker 4: as picturing is I don't know, twenty or thirty percent
24:06
Speaker 4: timber and the rest of its open fields, and so
24:08
Speaker 4: depending on the type of crop, I'm probably gonna walk
24:11
Speaker 4: all the edges of all the fields try to figure
24:13
Speaker 4: out where there's different you know, maybe there's a creek
24:16
Speaker 4: system there and you can get an idea where there
24:18
Speaker 4: might be some funneling going on. The other thing would
24:22
Speaker 4: be looking for scrapes on the edge of these fields
24:25
Speaker 4: to put up a camera for inventory. That would be
24:28
Speaker 4: I would bring a weed whacker and some handsaw and
24:33
Speaker 4: a backpack full of cameras and I'm going to do
24:34
Speaker 4: a big loop and then I'm gonna look at the
24:36
Speaker 4: map online and see if there's any terrain features that
24:39
Speaker 4: are going to be really exciting to inventory and try
24:43
Speaker 4: to be as efficient as possible. What has been interesting
24:46
Speaker 4: throughout these conversations is there's some people that would say
24:49
Speaker 4: they would go in and cover every inch of it
24:51
Speaker 4: while they're already in their October one, and some of
24:54
Speaker 4: them would just go on the fringes and just like, hey,
24:57
Speaker 4: I just want to know they're there, and I'm going
24:58
Speaker 4: to put the game plan, put a bank game plan
25:00
Speaker 4: together kind of on the fly, and I probably fall
25:04
Speaker 4: on more of the side if I'm going to go
25:05
Speaker 4: try to cover as much as possible, to learn as
25:07
Speaker 4: much and the other thing too, is a lot of
25:10
Speaker 4: these guys, some of them are most of them are
25:12
Speaker 4: hunting a specific buck too, and then there's some that
25:15
Speaker 4: are hunting, you know, maybe three or four mature bucks,
25:18
Speaker 4: and I would be in the category of hunting, you know,
25:21
Speaker 4: a amature buck, not a single single deer. And so
25:24
Speaker 4: if I bump one off, hopefully there's still you know,
25:26
Speaker 4: two other ones that I have an opportunity yet. Yeah, okay,
25:31
Speaker 4: next question, the best spot on my farm has bad access.
25:38
Speaker 3: How do I hunt it this year? So background on
25:42
Speaker 3: the question, and then what would you do?
25:45
Speaker 4: The amount of times I've heard people say, oh, there's
25:48
Speaker 4: a sweet spot, it's so cool. I found it when
25:50
Speaker 4: I was shed hunting. I found it. I remember from
25:53
Speaker 4: the year before. I walked in there scouting in November
25:56
Speaker 4: and this reeked a buck and it was just a
25:59
Speaker 4: big buck oasis. And then they usually follow up with
26:02
Speaker 4: I can't get back there. I don't think I can
26:03
Speaker 4: get back there. I don't know if I should get
26:05
Speaker 4: back there. And that's every every almost everyone I talked
26:09
Speaker 4: to has said something to that degree. And so that
26:12
Speaker 4: was the root of the question of Okay, these guys
26:15
Speaker 4: are very successful, do they go in to hunt that area.
26:20
Speaker 4: Do they go in to hunt the spot where you
26:22
Speaker 4: have to walk through ninety percent of the farm and
26:23
Speaker 4: scare three different dough family groups for the hail mary
26:27
Speaker 4: shot to hunt whatever feature that makes that spot so special.
26:31
Speaker 4: And the answers may surprise folks, they may not, but
26:37
Speaker 4: that that was the root of the question, because I
26:39
Speaker 4: guarantee there's been a spot that you know that you
26:41
Speaker 4: could think of right now, like I wish I could
26:43
Speaker 4: hunt that, and maybe you did hunt it, or maybe
26:45
Speaker 4: you didn't hunt it, and so sure, that's the that's
26:48
Speaker 4: the challenge these that's a white tail dilemma.
26:50
Speaker 2: Every hunter has spaced, every single one.
26:52
Speaker 3: Yes, I know what Don Higgins answered, yep, yep, Okay,
26:59
Speaker 3: So it's your take, my take, and it's the worst
27:03
Speaker 3: answer in the world of podcast.
27:04
Speaker 4: It depends. But I'll give you an example. There was
27:07
Speaker 4: last year where I shot my archery buck. The access
27:09
Speaker 4: was not very good, but I hunted at one time
27:12
Speaker 4: and I shot a buck.
27:13
Speaker 2: So in that scenario worked. There's been times where I've
27:16
Speaker 2: tried that.
27:17
Speaker 4: And it feels more like I'm pounding my head against
27:19
Speaker 4: the wall of this spot is so good, why is
27:20
Speaker 4: it not working? And I forget about the deer I
27:23
Speaker 4: scared on the way in and the way out. I
27:25
Speaker 4: forget about the deer that I heard snorting because the
27:27
Speaker 4: wind wasn't great. Because maybe it is an awesome spot,
27:30
Speaker 4: but there's not a good place to blow my scent.
27:32
Speaker 4: And so going into this season a slightly more wise,
27:39
Speaker 4: I would be on the side of how can I
27:41
Speaker 4: still hunt that movement or hunt that feature, but maybe
27:44
Speaker 4: it's one hundred and fifty yards away versus the spot.
27:47
Speaker 4: I just got off the phone with a friend and
27:50
Speaker 4: he's new farm. It was just perfect, And I brought
27:53
Speaker 4: this up that I've launched in the series and he's like, man,
27:56
Speaker 4: that one spot, you know, down to the bottom you
28:00
Speaker 4: got to walk through everything, Like, man, that spot looks awesome,
28:02
Speaker 4: but I just don't know how to hunt it. And
28:03
Speaker 4: I was like, well, you have to listen to a
28:04
Speaker 4: new episode of a new show that's coming out soon.
28:07
Speaker 3: Stay tuned.
28:08
Speaker 2: That's right. So it's a question that we all.
28:10
Speaker 3: Battle, Yeah, and you're right, there's no one single answer
28:15
Speaker 3: to it, and so much of hunting, so much of
28:19
Speaker 3: a lot of these decisions and these questions, like even
28:21
Speaker 3: back to like the trial camera question, you brought up.
28:23
Speaker 3: Do you go in on October first and cover it
28:25
Speaker 3: all so you learn everything at once, or do you
28:27
Speaker 3: stand the fringes and be careful. It all comes down
28:30
Speaker 3: like risk and reward. Yep, you're balancing what's the possible
28:34
Speaker 3: positive outcome of this pressure I'm going to put on
28:38
Speaker 3: in one way or another, and then what's the negative
28:40
Speaker 3: ramifications what's the possible risk here? And then those two
28:45
Speaker 3: levels are constantly changing, depending on time of year, depending
28:49
Speaker 3: on how your property lays out, depending on how much
28:53
Speaker 3: access you have, depending on how many other people are
28:55
Speaker 3: hunting in. All of that is like the sliding scale
28:59
Speaker 3: that you can constantly have to be, you know, adjusting
29:02
Speaker 3: the weight of each one of these variables and trying
29:03
Speaker 3: to understand I'm not sure with the right metaphor here
29:05
Speaker 3: if the metaphor is like a scale with weights or
29:08
Speaker 3: if with.
29:09
Speaker 2: The multiplier with the multiplier, Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's it.
29:12
Speaker 3: So uh yeah, it's it's one of the most frustrating
29:18
Speaker 3: slash fascinating aspects of deer hunting. Seriously.
29:23
Speaker 2: Yeah.
29:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's more questions than answers a lot of times,
29:28
Speaker 4: or maybe not, maybe that maybe there would be more
29:30
Speaker 4: answers in questions, because I think that's I would say
29:33
Speaker 4: there's more answers than questions.
29:34
Speaker 2: That would be the more correct way to say it.
29:37
Speaker 3: Right, because everyone's got their own take on every one
29:39
Speaker 3: of these questions. Yeah, okay, so some of your questions,
29:44
Speaker 3: some of our episodes are a little bit more high
29:46
Speaker 3: level as well. You've got some that are pretty tactical,
29:48
Speaker 3: and then you've got some that kind of zoom out
29:50
Speaker 3: to the thirty thousand foot overview almost like more thematic,
29:54
Speaker 3: And this next one's one of those.
29:57
Speaker 2: This question, this episode.
29:59
Speaker 3: Will be asking about what the biggest mistake is that
30:02
Speaker 3: people make that's keeping hunters from going from being good
30:07
Speaker 3: to being great. So, what's what's creating this divide between
30:11
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of good and then just a handful
30:13
Speaker 3: of great hunters? What are the mistakes there?
30:17
Speaker 2: How did that come to be?
30:18
Speaker 3: How have you been framing that up for these guests?
30:21
Speaker 3: And then what do you think?
30:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the root of the question everyone wants.
30:26
Speaker 4: I would feel if you've listened to deer hunting podcasts
30:29
Speaker 4: you want to get better, you wouldn't be listening to
30:31
Speaker 4: anything and trying to self educate if you didn't want
30:33
Speaker 4: to get better, and so I think good to great
30:36
Speaker 4: is objective, right, Maybe a great hunter means something to
30:39
Speaker 4: me than what it does to you. And that's part
30:42
Speaker 4: of the you know, having a subjective question like that,
30:45
Speaker 4: because it creates an open opportunity for the guests to like,
30:49
Speaker 4: what is a good hunter?
30:49
Speaker 2: What is a great hunter?
30:50
Speaker 4: But I think most people there are serious hunters with
30:54
Speaker 4: all the tools and information that are available, are good.
30:57
Speaker 4: And I think that there's some things like what are
30:59
Speaker 4: the these guys doing differently that makes them great?
31:03
Speaker 2: Because they are great?
31:04
Speaker 4: I mean, their track record is you know, they're doing
31:06
Speaker 4: a lot of the things that we all aspire to do,
31:08
Speaker 4: and a lot of them are later in their hunting
31:10
Speaker 4: careers where they've gone through the trials and tribulations to
31:13
Speaker 4: be good to great. So that was the basis of
31:17
Speaker 4: the question, and the answers were kind of all over
31:21
Speaker 4: the place. Ironically, they were kind of all over the place.
31:24
Speaker 2: I thought.
31:25
Speaker 4: I thought a lot of the questions, I thought the
31:27
Speaker 4: most common answer would be you gotta stop shooting good bucks.
31:31
Speaker 2: That did come up. But the other theme I had
31:34
Speaker 2: noticed was effort.
31:38
Speaker 4: It's effort, yeah, having you know, whether that's multiple spots
31:41
Speaker 4: knocking on more doors having planned a B C, D,
31:44
Speaker 4: E f G.
31:46
Speaker 2: Because we've talked about this on like buying land.
31:50
Speaker 4: One of the mistakes I think people make is they
31:52
Speaker 4: buy a farm and they just hunt it to death,
31:54
Speaker 4: and I think that's like part of being from good
31:56
Speaker 4: to great. So it was a very fun question because
32:00
Speaker 4: everyone wants to find success and what are these guys
32:03
Speaker 4: doing that are making them great? So that was rude
32:06
Speaker 4: and that was one of the themes that I picked
32:07
Speaker 4: up that I thought was pretty interesting.
32:10
Speaker 3: I think that this one might be one of the
32:11
Speaker 3: more interesting episodes, even though it's one of the most
32:15
Speaker 3: open ending questions, or maybe because it's one of the
32:18
Speaker 3: most open ending questions, people are going to take in
32:20
Speaker 3: many different directions, but all of them coming from such
32:23
Speaker 3: a strong background themselves. So I'm intrigued. What is what's
32:30
Speaker 3: your angle on this one, Jake, What do you think
32:32
Speaker 3: is the key?
32:33
Speaker 2: Oh?
32:34
Speaker 4: Man, I think it's I think a lot of it
32:38
Speaker 4: comes out of effort, I really do. I think there's
32:41
Speaker 4: in the world we live you can go after and
32:43
Speaker 4: get whatever you want with the right amount of effort
32:46
Speaker 4: and looping in the right people to learn the right
32:49
Speaker 4: things and I feel that people who I feel like
32:52
Speaker 4: it's easy to fall into a rut like, hey, these
32:54
Speaker 4: are the two farms I hunt, and whatever is there
32:56
Speaker 4: is what I'm gonna hunt. But I aspired a chase
32:59
Speaker 4: X caliber of deer and maybe that area just doesn't
33:01
Speaker 4: produce it, and so you might be great for the area.
33:04
Speaker 4: But maybe that measurement of great is internally and more
33:08
Speaker 4: self fulfilling, because I think that's probably what it is.
33:10
Speaker 4: I think a lot of these people, although they've made
33:12
Speaker 4: a career with white teal hunting, they're truly passionate and
33:15
Speaker 4: ate up about getting better every year and learning.
33:19
Speaker 2: And it's not it's not vanity.
33:20
Speaker 4: I think that that's something that a lot of people
33:22
Speaker 4: misunderstand with like people that are that have a reputation
33:25
Speaker 4: for killing big deer. I really think ninety nine percent
33:28
Speaker 4: of those people they do not do it for vanity.
33:30
Speaker 4: They do it because they are addicted to learning, addicted
33:32
Speaker 4: to hunting big deer, and uh, I think there's nothing
33:35
Speaker 4: wrong with that.
33:38
Speaker 2: I can't argue with that.
33:41
Speaker 3: I keep on finding myself wanting to jump in with
33:43
Speaker 3: my takes on these, but then I catch myself because
33:47
Speaker 3: I'm just a wait, yeah, and do one of these myself.
33:49
Speaker 2: So's I keep on having to bite my tongue.
33:51
Speaker 3: It's very difficult for me to do that. Jake.
33:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're gonna get you get all the you got
33:56
Speaker 4: all the questions in advance, and we get to discuss
33:58
Speaker 4: the reason why you have a leg up.
33:59
Speaker 2: So I do.
34:00
Speaker 3: This is true, but I don't think it's gonna make
34:05
Speaker 3: my answers any better than these other guys, So that's
34:07
Speaker 3: for sure. Okay, next one, and this is one that
34:11
Speaker 3: again we've all been in this bucket or in this
34:13
Speaker 3: boat before. I can't find a buck to hunt, now what?
34:18
Speaker 3: And I think this is a question that would work
34:21
Speaker 3: on August first, or October first or November first. I've
34:27
Speaker 3: had that happen every single one of those dates. So
34:30
Speaker 3: tell me about the question.
34:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I think as anticipation builds, so this is
34:34
Speaker 4: going to go live around mid August, and that's where
34:37
Speaker 4: the deer basically done growing and buddies are sending you
34:40
Speaker 4: pictures of giant deer they have in velvet, and you're
34:43
Speaker 4: just feeling like a loser if you're like, I can't
34:44
Speaker 4: find anything to hunt. I have my cameras out, I've
34:47
Speaker 4: done everything I could, and there's a level of panic,
34:51
Speaker 4: and I think it's probably self imposed panic for everyone.
34:56
Speaker 4: And so I wanted to get an idea of are
34:59
Speaker 4: you screwed? Or should you be optimistic? Should you be
35:05
Speaker 4: searching high and low to maybe find a deer that
35:08
Speaker 4: would get you excited to hunt. And so that was
35:10
Speaker 4: the basis of the question. And I've talked to people,
35:15
Speaker 4: you know, like, hey, i' was receiving I got nothing
35:16
Speaker 4: to hunt, And the point is like, well, if you're
35:19
Speaker 4: that guy and you say it like e or should
35:22
Speaker 4: you be e or or should you be super excited?
35:24
Speaker 2: So that was the basis of the question.
35:28
Speaker 3: Did you get the answers you expected on that one?
35:30
Speaker 2: A little bit of a mix. This one was a
35:32
Speaker 2: little bit of a mix. I think.
35:35
Speaker 4: You know, people talk about the shift from summer to
35:38
Speaker 4: fall ranges, and that was something that we did cover
35:40
Speaker 4: a lot. And there was some specific details too of
35:44
Speaker 4: some of the in some of these areas of how
35:45
Speaker 4: far maybe that shift is because you hear a shift,
35:48
Speaker 4: does that mean five.
35:49
Speaker 2: Miles or does that mean one mile?
35:51
Speaker 4: Or what habitat type to what summer habitat to fall
35:54
Speaker 4: habitat And that episode, I'm really excited about because I
35:59
Speaker 4: think there were some things that I got reassurance from me.
36:02
Speaker 4: I'm run a cameras right now, I don't have there's
36:04
Speaker 4: a farm, right don't have a mature buck on camera
36:05
Speaker 4: right now, And then I'm a little nervous, But hey,
36:07
Speaker 4: I don't have to be unless you listen to the
36:10
Speaker 4: episode and come up with some other reasons.
36:11
Speaker 2: But I think, no matter when it is, I.
36:14
Speaker 4: Think there's to your point if you could listen that
36:17
Speaker 4: a variety at different times and give some tangible strategy
36:22
Speaker 4: to try to find something to hunt.
36:24
Speaker 2: So that's and the other thing too. One of the
36:27
Speaker 2: common things themes was finding one is usually the hardest part,
36:31
Speaker 2: so you gotta work really hard.
36:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's what's the way that you deal with this?
36:38
Speaker 3: How do you think about this when you find yourself
36:41
Speaker 3: in that in that camp?
36:42
Speaker 4: I don't panic, I think, and I used to because
36:46
Speaker 4: I've had the ability to run a lot of cameras
36:48
Speaker 4: on a lot of different farms, and so I just
36:50
Speaker 4: had noticed that some farms would have a lot of
36:52
Speaker 4: self summer velvet bucks, and I was super excited. And
36:55
Speaker 4: then after a few hard frost, the habitat type changes,
36:58
Speaker 4: they all disappear and it's like, oh, that wasn't really great.
37:01
Speaker 4: And then there's other farms where I'm I'm I'm most
37:05
Speaker 4: excited about what shows up in October because usually they stick.
37:07
Speaker 2: Around and those are the deer that you're gonna have
37:09
Speaker 2: an opportunity to hunt.
37:10
Speaker 4: And so I do not panic, and usually I have
37:13
Speaker 4: to tell you know, friends or people that reach out
37:15
Speaker 4: like I don't have anything on Campwait, it's gonna get better,
37:18
Speaker 4: especially if the habitat is a good fall habitat and
37:23
Speaker 4: or there's crop rotations. And that's a huge thing in
37:26
Speaker 4: farm country where a ditch out in the middle of
37:29
Speaker 4: nowhere that has standing crops all the way around it
37:31
Speaker 4: and there's food, maybe a creek runs through, Like, there's
37:33
Speaker 4: a lot of resources for a deer to hang out there.
37:35
Speaker 4: You take out a lot of the the site barrier
37:39
Speaker 4: of crops, that whole that whole ditch is gonna hunt
37:42
Speaker 4: a lot different. Now a buck may push it, or
37:44
Speaker 4: a domemat, a buck may push a dough out there,
37:46
Speaker 4: and that could still be a great a great spot.
37:48
Speaker 4: But everything changes, and so you just gotta you gotta
37:51
Speaker 4: be aware of that and be optimistic, but don't.
37:53
Speaker 2: Be lackadaizable would be my my take on it.
37:56
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, and that brings me to like the next
37:59
Speaker 3: situation though, is like are there situations when you should
38:02
Speaker 3: be worried or when you should be like, oh, there's
38:05
Speaker 3: not a buck here. I'm interested in hunting, and now
38:06
Speaker 3: I do need to like go to Plan B, Plant C,
38:10
Speaker 3: Plan D and find one. Did did Did some of
38:13
Speaker 3: the guests kind of go that direction with it?
38:15
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, oh yeah, we got Thomas Mills.
38:17
Speaker 4: I answered that question in a really fun way to
38:20
Speaker 4: where a point of like, hey, if that is you, yeah,
38:23
Speaker 4: you should feel you should panic. And it's very specific,
38:27
Speaker 4: and so I'm gonna have to leave a cliffhanger on that.
38:29
Speaker 4: I feel like a guy that's trying to sell a
38:30
Speaker 4: book but not talk about the book, and like you
38:32
Speaker 4: have to buy the book to hear it.
38:33
Speaker 2: So I apologize for that, and I don't know where
38:36
Speaker 2: the line is.
38:38
Speaker 3: Well, we're always walking on the line here on the show.
38:42
Speaker 3: All right, Well, I hope that I'm not in that
38:45
Speaker 3: boat this year. I was in that boat last year
38:47
Speaker 3: a lot of it and never did find a deer
38:51
Speaker 3: that I was too terribly into.
38:51
Speaker 2: Well, I guess that's not true. I found.
38:53
Speaker 3: There was one dear I was after, and you know
38:54
Speaker 3: about it because I killed it right after I told
38:56
Speaker 3: you I was gonna yep. But then in my other
38:58
Speaker 3: main area that was a doozy.
39:01
Speaker 4: But did you find anything that throughout the fall that
39:04
Speaker 4: showed up.
39:06
Speaker 3: No, not that I really wanted to hunt.
39:08
Speaker 2: You have to learn it.
39:09
Speaker 3: And yeah, there's been two. There have been two, you know,
39:13
Speaker 3: bucks that I was hoping to hunt that year in
39:14
Speaker 3: this other area, and they both one of them disappeared early,
39:17
Speaker 3: really early. One of them disappeared early October. And then
39:21
Speaker 3: one of them, one of those deer got killed by
39:23
Speaker 3: someone else, I found out later. And then one of
39:26
Speaker 3: those deer showed up randomly for like three four days
39:28
Speaker 3: in November and then disappeared again.
39:30
Speaker 2: And it was only at night.
39:32
Speaker 3: And he went from being a homebody for three years
39:34
Speaker 3: to being a ghost at five. And uh, I don't
39:39
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, any idea if he's around anymore.
39:41
Speaker 3: Probably not.
39:42
Speaker 4: So we had to listen to that episode. You'll you'll
39:44
Speaker 4: feel energized and discouraged at the same time.
39:47
Speaker 3: Yes, I plan on it all right, next episode, next question,
39:53
Speaker 3: And this is another one we kind of alluded to earlier.
39:55
Speaker 3: This is you said, this gets you excited. It gets
39:57
Speaker 3: me very excited too. This is one of my absolute
39:59
Speaker 3: favorite things. I just got access to a new farm.
40:02
Speaker 3: What should I do now? That's the best walk in
40:05
Speaker 3: a new farm. The excitement, the optimism so so great.
40:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, the root of that question is a lot of
40:14
Speaker 4: times people, you know, maybe maybe as season approaches, they
40:16
Speaker 4: get a little bit more aggressive. Maybe they decide to
40:18
Speaker 4: buy a farm. Maybe they decide to you know, at
40:20
Speaker 4: least pops up and they scoop it up. Maybe they
40:23
Speaker 4: get permission. And the reason I asked this question too,
40:25
Speaker 4: it's around August twenty fifth, and so you can't do
40:29
Speaker 4: all these big awesome projects that everyone talks about. Go
40:32
Speaker 4: do a you know, a ten acre TSI cut, or
40:34
Speaker 4: doze in a new road, or you know, carve out
40:37
Speaker 4: this new giant food plot. So you the question is
40:39
Speaker 4: rooted in the idea of you kind of have to
40:41
Speaker 4: play the cards that you're dealt right now. And so
40:45
Speaker 4: that was an interesting caveat to the question to where
40:50
Speaker 4: once again there's kind of a variance of answers. There
40:53
Speaker 4: was I would say a general consensus amongst all of them,
40:56
Speaker 4: but it's a super exciting time. But you have to
40:59
Speaker 4: be thoughtful one methodical, and these guys are all thoughtful
41:02
Speaker 4: and methodical. So that's why I felt like it was
41:03
Speaker 4: a perfect question for him.
41:15
Speaker 3: Now, you know, I could see there being two angles
41:18
Speaker 3: on this. There could be some guys who it all
41:21
Speaker 3: depends on the time of the year, but in this time,
41:23
Speaker 3: with at least the episode dropping, you know, at the
41:25
Speaker 3: end of the summer, maybe some folks would be like, Okay,
41:28
Speaker 3: I just got asks to the farm. It's too late
41:30
Speaker 3: to do anything. It's just how do I hunt it
41:32
Speaker 3: as it is right now? And then I could see
41:34
Speaker 3: maybe some people would still be like, hey, it's there's
41:38
Speaker 3: still time to do something, and maybe they would aggressively
41:41
Speaker 3: try to make one last minute change of some kind
41:44
Speaker 3: or something. Did you get people with both of those
41:47
Speaker 3: two different ideas or is everyone like hands off, it's
41:50
Speaker 3: too late, or what was the any consensus on that front?
41:54
Speaker 4: It was more conservative than what I had initially anticipated.
41:58
Speaker 4: And that was the fun because I had some Like
42:01
Speaker 4: I said, I had some guesses how some of the
42:02
Speaker 4: like a lot of the people have interviewed multiple times,
42:04
Speaker 4: so I kind.
42:04
Speaker 2: Of think I think I know how they think.
42:06
Speaker 4: But they do, but I don't clearly, and the general
42:11
Speaker 4: consensus was being pretty conservative and very thoughtful with what
42:17
Speaker 4: do you do now? And that episode should be pretty
42:20
Speaker 4: interesting for folks because inherently, even even some of their answers,
42:25
Speaker 4: I feel if you were the guy that fell behind
42:27
Speaker 4: throughout the summer, that it's that a lot of the
42:31
Speaker 4: philosophy is very applicable.
42:33
Speaker 2: To that to that individual as well.
42:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, Jake, you just got access to a new
42:39
Speaker 3: farm at the end of August or early September, and
42:42
Speaker 3: we'll say you're in Illinois, so your season opens in
42:44
Speaker 3: one month's time.
42:46
Speaker 2: What do you do? I'm hanging.
42:50
Speaker 4: My ideal situation is I'm going to have a full
42:53
Speaker 4: free day dark to dark, ideally no interruptions throughout the day,
42:57
Speaker 4: and I'm going to have as many cameras as I
42:59
Speaker 4: think i'm going to need. I'm going to bring as
43:01
Speaker 4: many prehan sets as I think I'm going to need,
43:04
Speaker 4: and I just go through about my day and try
43:07
Speaker 4: to use whatever whitetail knowledge is in my brain to
43:11
Speaker 4: read and anticipate what is going to go on. In
43:15
Speaker 4: a perfect world, if there was an area where I
43:18
Speaker 4: could still get in some food, I would probably like
43:20
Speaker 4: to do that, but I don't necessarily think I would
43:23
Speaker 4: unless I felt very very confident of this is where
43:26
Speaker 4: it needs to go and this is the reason behind it,
43:28
Speaker 4: because that's a pretty big decision to bring in equipment
43:30
Speaker 4: and do that. But I'm just going to go in
43:32
Speaker 4: and hang a lot of cameras and hang a lot
43:34
Speaker 4: of stands if it makes sense. If there's only like
43:37
Speaker 4: two good spots that make sense where I can blow
43:39
Speaker 4: my scent and have good access, and I'm only going
43:43
Speaker 4: to hang two sets, but then I'm going to hang
43:45
Speaker 4: multiple cameras to get tell that's my plan.
43:49
Speaker 3: And you said earlier when we were talking about cameras
43:51
Speaker 3: that you would error.
43:54
Speaker 2: I think you said this.
43:54
Speaker 3: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you said
43:56
Speaker 3: that you would be more of the kind of person
43:58
Speaker 3: who would walk like every square inch to figure it
44:00
Speaker 3: out versus stand on the outskirts.
44:02
Speaker 2: Is that true?
44:03
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say for sure, because there's not a
44:06
Speaker 4: lot of big farms here, so it doesn't take very
44:08
Speaker 4: long to cover forty acres or fifty acres. I mean,
44:10
Speaker 4: if I fell into a dream scenario where it's you know,
44:13
Speaker 4: a thousand acres, no no way or even or even
44:15
Speaker 4: two hundred, I think I probably wouldn't, but a forty
44:17
Speaker 4: to twenty, a fifty, probably an eighty. I'm probably going
44:22
Speaker 4: to cover not a thousand percent of it, but there's
44:25
Speaker 4: many of the arteries of the farm that I can.
44:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the next one. And this one gives me
44:34
Speaker 3: heartburn just saying it. I imagine there will be people that
44:39
Speaker 3: will get heartburn just a clicking play on that podcast,
44:42
Speaker 3: because if they are clicking play on that podcast, they're
44:45
Speaker 3: doing it because they have they're either experiencing this right
44:48
Speaker 3: now or have in the past, or anticipating this possibly
44:51
Speaker 3: happening to them in the short term, which is, uh,
44:55
Speaker 3: my food plots look like crap. Now what So you've
44:59
Speaker 3: got a failed food plot. We've all been there, very distressing,
45:04
Speaker 3: especially if it's getting late into the year. If it's
45:06
Speaker 3: like a fall food plot, you just playing in August
45:08
Speaker 3: or something, and now it's September and it's looking bad.
45:13
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm there too often. I never like it.
45:16
Speaker 3: What tell me about the question? Give me some thoughts.
45:19
Speaker 4: Everyone everyone always has very high expectations for food plots,
45:23
Speaker 4: and they see it on Instagram or a magazine where
45:26
Speaker 4: it's just you know, looks perfect, and everyone's no matter
45:29
Speaker 4: how good the food pot looks, they always wish it
45:31
Speaker 4: could look a little bit better more than likely, And
45:34
Speaker 4: a lot of people put a lot of stock into
45:35
Speaker 4: food plots too, So that was part of the root
45:37
Speaker 4: of the question of if your food plot looks like crap,
45:41
Speaker 4: is your season bust or is it you know, is
45:43
Speaker 4: this something truly distressed about? And some of those guests
45:47
Speaker 4: dove into that naturally, and it's been really dry the
45:52
Speaker 4: last handful of falls. So most fall food plots have
45:54
Speaker 4: not done well based off of your planting method and
45:58
Speaker 4: everything else too. So what are some what are some
46:01
Speaker 4: under what are some commonalities of why your food plot
46:05
Speaker 4: is failing as well? If it fails every single year,
46:08
Speaker 4: what are you doing? Are you not addressing the soil?
46:12
Speaker 4: Maybe you need to consider a perennial instead of a
46:15
Speaker 4: fall food plot. So those are all things that most
46:17
Speaker 4: people plant food plots. Most people wish they look better,
46:20
Speaker 4: everyone wishes they didn't fail, and everyone's been in that boat.
46:23
Speaker 2: So that was the root of the question.
46:25
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I have followed the Jeff's Sturgist
46:29
Speaker 3: method of dealing with food plot failure. A lot, and
46:33
Speaker 3: have also reached out to them many summers early falls,
46:36
Speaker 3: like Jeff, what about now?
46:38
Speaker 2: What about this situation? What do I do?
46:40
Speaker 3: Given this? So I'm sure they have something great to
46:43
Speaker 3: say on this one too.
46:44
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was a lot of really good answers for this,
46:47
Speaker 4: and a lot of the answers were very very common
46:50
Speaker 4: on the strategy, the seed type, maybe the rates, and
46:55
Speaker 4: some of them dive into maybe, you know, why why
46:58
Speaker 4: did it fail? Was it because of weather? Is it
47:00
Speaker 4: because of a different reason.
47:01
Speaker 3: Because you were a horrible farmer?
47:04
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, right, maybe that is the case.
47:07
Speaker 3: It's probably the case for most of us being amateur
47:11
Speaker 3: ad hoc farmers for a few weeks a year. Yep,
47:15
Speaker 3: all right, Well what about you if you've got a
47:17
Speaker 3: fouled food plot?
47:18
Speaker 2: How do you tackle it?
47:19
Speaker 3: Or what would you suggest to someone who's in that
47:21
Speaker 3: in that situation.
47:22
Speaker 4: I I've had, I'll say this, I've been able to
47:27
Speaker 4: run a drill from a county NRCS office and so
47:30
Speaker 4: that has really.
47:31
Speaker 2: Helped keep moisture in the soil.
47:34
Speaker 4: And before I did that, i'd work the dirt and
47:36
Speaker 4: you know, like the classic steps that we all kind
47:38
Speaker 4: of grew up on. I would have more failures with that,
47:41
Speaker 4: and since using a drill, I've had a lot better
47:43
Speaker 4: luck of retaining soil moisture and keeping something on the
47:46
Speaker 4: on the in the plots year round and not letting
47:49
Speaker 4: weeds take over. So that's been something that thankfully I
47:52
Speaker 4: haven't had a major failure the last couple of years.
47:55
Speaker 4: Prior to that same thing, Jeff sturgis cereal box of
48:00
Speaker 4: you know all these different you know, oh, it's right,
48:02
Speaker 4: you know, all these different things that is going to
48:03
Speaker 4: green up and grow really fast.
48:05
Speaker 2: And so.
48:07
Speaker 4: That's been my I hope I don't have to do
48:09
Speaker 4: that this year, but I could. You know, it's it's
48:10
Speaker 4: weather dependent, and I have paid way more attention to
48:16
Speaker 4: getting actual soil samples. Like before, for three or four
48:19
Speaker 4: years ago, I never got a soil sample that's like, oh,
48:21
Speaker 4: you know, if this is dirt, it should grow whatever
48:22
Speaker 4: I want. And so I've been educated more on that,
48:25
Speaker 4: and so it's a moving spectrum, and I think that
48:28
Speaker 4: question will be helpful for everyone bait, you know, even
48:32
Speaker 4: if you're just starting out or if you've done food
48:35
Speaker 4: pods for twenty years. I feel like there's some things
48:37
Speaker 4: in there that will be helpful for everyone, which I'm
48:40
Speaker 4: really happy with how that episode is turning out great.
48:45
Speaker 3: Speaking of heartburn, next question, my whole area got hammered
48:50
Speaker 3: by e HD.
48:52
Speaker 2: Now what h.
48:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, that that was a hard question to ask some
49:00
Speaker 4: of these people because they had experienced that. When I
49:04
Speaker 4: when I asked Bill yesterday, I was like, I promise
49:07
Speaker 4: I did not ask. I did not formulate this question
49:09
Speaker 4: to cause pain for you. But the reason being is,
49:14
Speaker 4: unfortunately there's parts of the country that are seeing more
49:17
Speaker 4: EHD cases than you know, Southern Iowad, Northern Missouri has
49:21
Speaker 4: you know, been kind of the epicenter of a lot
49:23
Speaker 4: of EHDU outbreaks over recent years, but there's been cases
49:27
Speaker 4: in Ohio, other states, Indiana, and so the question is, unfortunately,
49:32
Speaker 4: you may have to face this in a five year period,
49:34
Speaker 4: a ten year period. And I wanted to talk to
49:36
Speaker 4: people that have experienced it, or have consulted on farms
49:39
Speaker 4: or been on farms that you got decimated, and what
49:42
Speaker 4: do you do and what's what's the recourse? Is there
49:45
Speaker 4: a silver lining to this? I feel like there's a
49:48
Speaker 4: lot of different perceptions of EHD, and these people are
49:53
Speaker 4: super serious about white tails and they want the white
49:55
Speaker 4: tail her to do well, and so I feel like
49:57
Speaker 4: a lot of them are self educated. Are they have
50:00
Speaker 4: a doctorate an EHD? No, but probably pretty close. So
50:05
Speaker 4: I wanted to I wanted to dive into all this because, unfortunately,
50:08
Speaker 4: we all may have to face it in some capacity.
50:11
Speaker 3: Did you did you run them through the key filter?
50:16
Speaker 3: They shouldn't be allowed to answer that question until they
50:19
Speaker 3: can tell you what the acronym e h D stands for.
50:22
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I could say it, but I would mispronounce
50:25
Speaker 3: it epizootic epozootic camorrhagic disease.
50:29
Speaker 2: That sounds right. You might have missed a letter, or
50:32
Speaker 2: maybe you nailed it. I don't know.
50:34
Speaker 3: I might have missed a letter too, but I'm pretty
50:36
Speaker 3: sure that I said, So, what what do you do?
50:42
Speaker 2: What?
50:42
Speaker 3: What would you say to someone who's in that situation?
50:44
Speaker 3: Have you been in this situation yourself?
50:47
Speaker 4: Thankfully this past year there was some e HD cases
50:51
Speaker 4: uh near where I was at. There was unfortunately, fortunately
50:54
Speaker 4: not wiped out by any means, so that that was
50:57
Speaker 4: a bonus. I have never had a face ah, true
51:00
Speaker 4: catastrophic EHD wipe out because I had a lot of
51:04
Speaker 4: different areas and that's this seems like it doesn't wipe
51:06
Speaker 4: out a whole county.
51:07
Speaker 2: It wipes out different pockets.
51:09
Speaker 4: And so it's a little bit moralizing when you're excited
51:12
Speaker 4: about a deer and you maybe watched throughout the summer,
51:14
Speaker 4: you knew them from the year before, and then you
51:16
Speaker 4: know there's this massive dry spell or you start hearing
51:18
Speaker 4: about oh, so and so found fifteen deer dead and
51:22
Speaker 4: blah blah river and it starts to linger in the
51:25
Speaker 4: back of your mind of well did he he is
51:27
Speaker 4: not on camera?
51:28
Speaker 2: Is he dead? And it's not fun. But everyone has
51:32
Speaker 2: faced the thought process.
51:34
Speaker 4: Of did that deer die of EHD in the last
51:37
Speaker 4: two weeks, the last month. And I framed that question
51:44
Speaker 4: in a way it was not necessarily confirmed too, because
51:47
Speaker 4: I feel like EHD is always a rumor.
51:49
Speaker 2: It's always in the rumor mill. It's always a rumor mill.
51:51
Speaker 4: It's never I found fifteen, it's so and so heard
51:53
Speaker 4: from so and so that so and so.
51:55
Speaker 2: Found, you know, fifty deer.
51:57
Speaker 4: So I framed it as it's rumors, it's I've heard
52:00
Speaker 4: hearsay and yeah, but thank gosh, I have not had
52:04
Speaker 4: to experience that. But some of those questions, some of
52:06
Speaker 4: the answers were probably what you could expect, pack up
52:10
Speaker 4: and go somewhere else, because that's you can't magically make
52:13
Speaker 4: them appear if they're dead.
52:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, which is true if you get hit really bad.
52:20
Speaker 3: But I feel like there's a silver lining sometimes. But
52:23
Speaker 3: I'll save my I'll save my answer on that. Again,
52:26
Speaker 3: I need to shut up and stop talking. Okay, ehd
52:31
Speaker 3: let's move on from that one. Here's another one of
52:34
Speaker 3: those like higher level thematic kind of ones. What can
52:38
Speaker 3: hunters do now to make sure that the next twenty
52:41
Speaker 3: five years of deer hunting are better than the last
52:44
Speaker 3: twenty five? And when I read this question, I kind
52:48
Speaker 3: of was not confused, but I was curious from like
52:52
Speaker 3: what angle people would approach this. Would they be looking
52:55
Speaker 3: at this, like, how do I make my next twenty
52:57
Speaker 3: five years better like individually versus the last twenty five
53:00
Speaker 3: five years? Or how do I make sure that like
53:02
Speaker 3: deer hunting in general for everyone is better for the
53:05
Speaker 3: next twenty five years. Did you have a specific one
53:09
Speaker 3: of those that you were thinking when you wrote this,
53:11
Speaker 3: or were you kind of knowing that it could go
53:13
Speaker 3: either way and you wanted that to be the case.
53:15
Speaker 4: I was trying to leave it open ended because I
53:17
Speaker 4: wanted to see and this is how I asked the question.
53:20
Speaker 4: Almost every time, you or me, or anyone listening to
53:26
Speaker 4: this wants to make the next twenty five years of
53:28
Speaker 4: deer hunting better than their last. And a lot of
53:32
Speaker 4: the answers were individual based, because I've framed it as
53:37
Speaker 4: you know, you as an individual, you're only one guy,
53:39
Speaker 4: and you know, can one guy create enough impact to
53:42
Speaker 4: make it better for everyone?
53:44
Speaker 2: And maybe that was some of the answers.
53:46
Speaker 4: But I purposely left it to where you could look
53:48
Speaker 4: at it holistically or individually, because why two hunting is
53:51
Speaker 4: extremely selfish endeavor for a lot of these A lot
53:54
Speaker 4: of these guys, I would say, I feel like they
53:56
Speaker 4: would probably describe themselves in some way as a loner
53:59
Speaker 4: or someone that enjoys hunting by themselves, or you know,
54:02
Speaker 4: they they don't have a camp and they bring in,
54:06
Speaker 4: you know, ten of their high school buddies and you know,
54:08
Speaker 4: ten of their friends, and they just go about it
54:10
Speaker 4: like all these guys are very methodical and work really
54:13
Speaker 4: hard for their for their own goals and satisfaction. So
54:17
Speaker 4: there are some really interesting answers on a holistic approach
54:21
Speaker 4: and how one person can make an impact for many people.
54:25
Speaker 4: And then there was some that if you want to
54:29
Speaker 4: have the next twenty five years be better than the last,
54:32
Speaker 4: you are going to have to make some specific things happen.
54:36
Speaker 3: Interesting, Well, Jake, what about you, How how do you
54:42
Speaker 3: think a hunter now can make the next twenty five
54:44
Speaker 3: years better?
54:46
Speaker 4: I think it's I think you're going to have to
54:51
Speaker 4: work really hard. I think you're going to have to
54:54
Speaker 4: lock up some form of private property so you can
54:59
Speaker 4: make posit sive impacts on the landscape and also hopefully
55:03
Speaker 4: inspire others to do the same. I truly feel that
55:06
Speaker 4: some of the best habitat managers and people that are
55:09
Speaker 4: ate up with white tails take such good care of
55:11
Speaker 4: the ground and inspire others to do the same. You
55:16
Speaker 4: look at this craze of managing timber properly. No one
55:20
Speaker 4: used to be excited about that, and so you look
55:23
Speaker 4: at that. You can't do that on public ground. You
55:25
Speaker 4: can't create you know, they do it on a large scale,
55:29
Speaker 4: but like as an individual, you can't do that. I
55:30
Speaker 4: can't go take a chanceaw and go do ts I
55:32
Speaker 4: on a piece of public So I think that.
55:35
Speaker 2: You could, you just might get you might get serious trouble.
55:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's kind of my thought process, and I
55:41
Speaker 4: do think.
55:44
Speaker 2: We always look back.
55:47
Speaker 4: Part of the reason I asked that question too, is
55:48
Speaker 4: people romanticize over a nostalgia, and so everyone says that
55:53
Speaker 4: you know the path, it is just the good old days.
55:55
Speaker 4: We're going to say that in twenty five years, right,
55:58
Speaker 4: And so that was another of the question of I
56:01
Speaker 4: knew everyone would romanticize. No one said, well, out the
56:04
Speaker 4: last twenty five years have actually been pretty dang good,
56:06
Speaker 4: and I don't think we had to do anything better.
56:08
Speaker 4: So that was another like kind of thought process behind
56:11
Speaker 4: the question. But yeah, I don't I don't have a
56:14
Speaker 4: great answer because I think it's it's loaded. I mean,
56:16
Speaker 4: that is a loaded question, and I I got more
56:19
Speaker 4: enjoyment asking it than I did answering it.
56:21
Speaker 2: I'll tell you that.
56:25
Speaker 3: So final question is are we are you doing the
56:29
Speaker 3: bonus episode final question or no? Was that the last
56:32
Speaker 3: episode or is there a ninth episode that we.
56:35
Speaker 4: Got to figure that out? Yeah, so I would say
56:37
Speaker 4: there's eight for sure, and we're going to figure out
56:39
Speaker 4: what we're gonna do with the alternate the alternate question.
56:42
Speaker 3: Do you want to answer the alternate or do you
56:44
Speaker 3: want to hould off on that as a secret.
56:49
Speaker 4: I mean, we could tease real quick, we go over
56:50
Speaker 4: real quick, okay, and maybe people will pipe in and
56:54
Speaker 4: tell whether they or not or whether or not they want.
56:55
Speaker 2: You to do that one, although I might be too
56:58
Speaker 2: late that.
57:00
Speaker 3: So this is this is an interesting one because I
57:02
Speaker 3: think this question gets to maybe how each one of
57:07
Speaker 3: these hunters defines success or how we define success. I
57:11
Speaker 3: think that's what this question gets at. Maybe at least
57:13
Speaker 3: that's the way I look at it. But the question
57:15
Speaker 3: is this, do great hunters really shoot a buck every year?
57:22
Speaker 4: The root of that question is everyone goes into season
57:25
Speaker 4: with really high expectations and goals, and everyone wants to
57:29
Speaker 4: fill their buck tag, right, That's why you do all
57:32
Speaker 4: the work year round. And some of these hunters, you know,
57:37
Speaker 4: like the follow up question asked a lot of times
57:39
Speaker 4: out of the last ten years, how many years did
57:41
Speaker 4: you not shoot a buck? And there was actually a
57:44
Speaker 4: common percentage to where it was like, Okay, these are
57:48
Speaker 4: some of the best hunters for this percent of years.
57:52
Speaker 2: Either their target buck their.
57:53
Speaker 4: Hunting died you know from EHD, neighbor shot them, disappeared,
57:58
Speaker 4: or they couldn't find a deer that made them happy,
58:01
Speaker 4: or you know, the list kind of goes on, but
58:03
Speaker 4: there was a certain percentage that seemed to follow amongst
58:07
Speaker 4: those hunters. But none of them, now there was another
58:10
Speaker 4: really good answer within that of the answer was bluntly yes.
58:15
Speaker 4: And the reason being is just because you can't find
58:18
Speaker 4: a high scoring deer, maybe there's a mature buck that
58:21
Speaker 4: you could, you know, help ensure got shot, which I
58:24
Speaker 4: thought was a really interesting perspective. But none of them said, like, yeah,
58:29
Speaker 4: every great hunter shoots a buck no matter what, and
58:31
Speaker 4: they just lower their goals until they magically, you know,
58:33
Speaker 4: come across the deer so they can say they shot
58:35
Speaker 4: a buck for the last fifty years, fifty years that
58:38
Speaker 4: that did.
58:38
Speaker 2: That was not the answer. Yeah, what's your answer.
58:42
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say every single year, but I would say
58:46
Speaker 4: when they said the percentage that was kind of the
58:47
Speaker 4: thought process of it was about eighty percent, about eighty percent,
58:51
Speaker 4: ninety percent, one was seventy percent. So you know, ten
58:55
Speaker 4: out of ten years the only eat attack three times.
58:58
Speaker 2: And I would say that's probably accurate, I really do.
59:01
Speaker 4: And but you know, because the reason I think is
59:06
Speaker 4: that high too for a lot of those people, because
59:08
Speaker 4: they put so much work and they have option ABC, D,
59:10
Speaker 4: E FG, And you know, I think that's a something
59:15
Speaker 4: that I'm consciously trying to do every single year to
59:17
Speaker 4: have a lot of different options because crazy things happen.
59:20
Speaker 4: You can lose permission, something crazy happens, and so when
59:24
Speaker 4: you have all your season riding into one plan, that's scary.
59:29
Speaker 2: Bet, it's a scary disaster. Yes, yes, yeah, that's the truth.
59:34
Speaker 3: I know how that feels sometimes. Well, what is there
59:41
Speaker 3: anything else that you want folks to know about this
59:44
Speaker 3: series coming up? That they should be thinking about, that
59:47
Speaker 3: they should be looking forward to, that they should.
59:50
Speaker 2: Be anxious about.
59:54
Speaker 3: What should they what's the last thing that folks should
59:58
Speaker 3: be living here today with knowing about what's to come.
1:00:00
Speaker 4: They're going to have a weekly eight person panel of
1:00:04
Speaker 4: coaches to lead them along in the excitement of season.
1:00:09
Speaker 4: So each of these are thematically following the excitement of
1:00:12
Speaker 4: the season. Different opportunities of you know, windows of opportunity
1:00:16
Speaker 4: prior to season, and whether you've been hunting for a
1:00:19
Speaker 4: super long time or you're new, this is going to
1:00:22
Speaker 4: be your weekly check in to get expert advice on
1:00:26
Speaker 4: one topic and dive not super deep into it, but
1:00:29
Speaker 4: get the quick and dirty with some nuance for every
1:00:33
Speaker 4: single topic.
1:00:33
Speaker 2: So I'm really excited about it.
1:00:36
Speaker 4: And you know, I I with just some of the
1:00:39
Speaker 4: conversation and they're like, man, that's a really good idea.
1:00:41
Speaker 2: I'm excited. I'm excited to see how this turns out.
1:00:43
Speaker 4: So I'd love to hear people's feedback because I think,
1:00:46
Speaker 4: you know, most podcasts just like this one. You know,
1:00:48
Speaker 4: it's just you and I talking, and so I think
1:00:50
Speaker 4: there's this a lot of information and perspectives and a
1:00:52
Speaker 4: short amount of time to you know, get refined and
1:00:55
Speaker 4: relate to one of the eight people, four of the
1:00:57
Speaker 4: eight people, or you think all eight of them are crazy.
1:01:00
Speaker 2: That's gonna be up to you.
1:01:02
Speaker 3: Well, I think one way or another, it's gonna be fascinating.
1:01:04
Speaker 3: I'm very excited about it. I'm glad it's come together,
1:01:07
Speaker 3: and I appreciate you putting in the time and effort
1:01:10
Speaker 3: to bring this to Fruition. So thank you for that. Yeah,
1:01:14
Speaker 3: I appreciate the opportunity absolutely. All right, man, Well, I'm
1:01:18
Speaker 3: excited to tune in. You and I are gonna be
1:01:20
Speaker 3: doing some stuff together next week, which I'm excited about,
1:01:23
Speaker 3: and recording my version of this or my part of
1:01:25
Speaker 3: this series. So looking forward to seeing you soon and
1:01:29
Speaker 3: making all.
1:01:29
Speaker 2: That happen awesome.
1:01:30
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for having me on here, all right,
1:01:35
Speaker 3: and that's gonna do it today. I appreciate you joining us.
1:01:38
Speaker 3: Please tune in next week for the first episode of
1:01:41
Speaker 3: the Back forty podcast and every week for the next
1:01:44
Speaker 3: eight weeks. I'm sure you guys are gonna enjoy this one.
1:01:47
Speaker 3: We get some really interesting insights as you heard here
1:01:50
Speaker 3: with Jake kind of previewing things. I can't wait to
1:01:53
Speaker 3: tune into the full shows myself, so stay tuned for that.
1:01:57
Speaker 3: Stay tuned for future episodes of Wired Hunt, of course,
1:01:59
Speaker 3: the Foundations podcast excuse me, the Foundations Podcast with Tony.
1:02:04
Speaker 3: We've got a new season of ret Fresh Radio coming
1:02:06
Speaker 3: up here soon too, as we mentioned, and it's gonna
1:02:09
Speaker 3: be a great fall. So until then, stick around for
1:02:12
Speaker 3: the next week's podcast. Thanks for being a part of
1:02:14
Speaker 3: this and stay wired to Hunt.