Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Wired To Hunt Podcast #116: Steve Bartylla’s Big Buck Secrets

Transcript

Wired To Hunt Podcast #116: Steve Bartylla’s Big Buck Secrets · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast, your home for
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: deer hunting news, stories and strategies, and now your host,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Mark Kenyon. Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. I'm
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: your host Mark Kenyan. In this episode number one sixteen tay.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: In the show, we're joined by outdoor writer Steve Bartilla
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: for an incredibly fascinating deep dive into the strategies and
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: insights that have led his very impressive white tail success.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: All Right, welcome to another episode of the Wired to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Hunt podcast, brought to you by SI Gear. Like I
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: just mentioned today, we're joined by Steve Bartilla again. He
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: was with us early on in the podcasting years back
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: in two thousand and fourteen. Um, but Steve's gonna come
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: on today and talk about some really interesting things that
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I recently read about in his book Big Buck Secrets. UM.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Steve is a long time outdoor writer, frequent contributor to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: magazines like North American Whitetail and Deer and Deer Hunting.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: He's the author of I think four different books, uh,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: including like I just mentioned, Big Buck Secrets, which really
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: is a read one of my one of the most
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: enjoyable reads I've had in the hunting world in quite
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: a while. So that's gonna be the game plan. We're
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: gonna dive into a whole wide breath of topics related
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to deer hunting, managing, deer habitat, improvements for deer public
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: land hunting. Um, it's gonna be super interesting. But before
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: we get to that really quickly, Dan, my co host extraordinaire,
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you've got a few updates right, some some new things
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: going on your hunting world that we should probably touch
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: on before we call. Steve worked. I planted and finished,
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: well I shouldn't say finished, but I planted my very
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: first food plot. Very exciting. You did it. That's awesome, man.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: My buddy has a like a writing lawn, Moore, it's
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: a bigger writing lawn. More. Um, I hit up someone
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I knew who had something called a rhodo ho. It's um.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: It's not a tiller, but if you go over the
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: ground enough time, it really tears the dirt up. I
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: got that those Brassicas that you sent me. Um, I
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: got those in. I got the line put down, and uh,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: and then I I don't I didn't have a cul
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to packer, so I just took that same um writing
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: lawnmowre and wrote, drove over top of everything that I
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: just planted, and uh, the only thing I have left
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: to do is fertilize it. But hey, I got a
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: food plot in. That's awesome. That's a good feeling, isn't it.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what now. Granted I haven't checked to
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: see if anything sprouting yet or if it's grown or
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: anything like that, because that's kind of important. But when
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I was done with it, I felt like a man.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I felt like, look at what I have done. And
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: now the next thing. If you're at all like me,
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: at least after after every food plot I plant, I
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: just obsessively watched the weather now, just praying for rain.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: Have you found yourself doing that? Yeah? I did? Uh fortunately,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: uh the night that so I finished it last Friday,
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: and the next day it rained. Um, and we've had
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: like two three, two or three other rain storms since then,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: So the ground had moisture in it going in when
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: I planted, and uh, we've had plenty of rain since
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: then to help stabilize it. So I'm I'm pretty happy.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: What about what about your jungle that we talked about,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: It's still kind of a jungle. I cannot even tell
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: you what a debaccle this whole thing has been. So
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: on the bright side, I did get my on this property.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: I've got two main sections the food plot kind of three,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: but the pull back section is now planted and done,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: so I feel really good about that. I just happened
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: to be back there working on some stands yesterday, I
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: think it was, and it's germinating and looking good and
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: lots and lots of little fresh breskas popping up, so
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: that's in good shape. But on the front food plot,
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: you know where I had that jungle issue, it's been
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: a disaster. So I you know, right after I got
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: back from out west, I went out there and sprayed
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: it all down again. So I drove over it with
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a foe wheeler with a sprayer and sprayed all down.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: And then I call a friend who does some food
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: plot stuff and asked if you'd come out with his
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: brushag and MOA, Well, he wanted to do that. He
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: can't do that, But then he said, because I ran
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: it all over my fore wheeler, all the vegetation was
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: knocked down too low for him to really do anything
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: with them. More so he said, I can't do it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: Right now. So that was last week. I'm like, son
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: of a gun, So now what am I gonna do?
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: So I then said, okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna wait
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: a few more days and then I'm just gonna rent
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: a brushag on my own and do it myself. So
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: two days ago, or maybe no yesterday, I got I
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: rented a kind of self propelled walk behind brush cutting mower,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: you know, one of those things. Um and I rented it,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: drove into town, picked it up, picked it up, got
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: a trailer, brought it all the way back to my property.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: And I try to get to start, and it won't start.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Oh Jesus. And so he had to like an electric start.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So I try to get the electric start. It won't start.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: I keep messing with it. They gave me a jump
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: pack just in case, so I tried jumping it. I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: can't get to jump. So then I tried to pull start,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: you know, pulling McCord, trying to get to start that way.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I can't get to start. So I spent like thirty
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: five minutes trying to dick around this thing, trying to
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: do all these different things that get to work. I'm
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: looking on YouTube, like am I doing something wrong with
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: the jump pack or some I'm looking at, like frequent
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: issues with this brush cutter, all this kind of stuff.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I still can't find anything online. I called back to
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: the company, the place where I rented. I'm saying, hey,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I don't understand. I don't know why it's not working.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: And the guy, who was kind of a dick, he's
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: just like he's like, well, put it on the starter
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: stud and I'm like, I did it. He's like, what
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: You're doing it wrong. I'm like, dude, like, oh I was.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: I was. I was mad. You should have seen it
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: got no gas in it. Yeah. My wife was watching
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: for part of it, and like I was cussing and
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: kicking and like piste. And then I call another friend
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: who's better mechanical things than I am, and asked him,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: like what other things could I possibly do? Because I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: did not want to like have this whole thing like
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: not bely get done. I had to get this stuff done.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: I went to the whole rigmarole, going in town and
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: renting the stupid thing and dealing with these jerks at
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: this place who made me feel stupid even before when
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I was picking it up. They're saying stuff to me
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like he didn't like the way I backed my truck
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: up to the trailer or how I don't know, Like
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: he just really got on my nerves. Were you wearing
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a flat build hat? No, lot I was wearing. I
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: was wearing work boots, jeans, and T shirt. I looked
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: at like a good old farm boy. Okay, good, because
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: you know some of those guys, they're they're pretty judgmental,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: you know, honestly I was. I was like, I better
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: make sure not to wear like my little Chaco mountain
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Man sandals. These guys will really I think I'm a joker.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: But even though I looked apart, they still must have
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: thought I was an idiot because they treated me like
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: at least um so I already was upset about that.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Then the stupid thing won't work. So now I had
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: a call back. I feel like an idiot because I'm
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: calling back. He makes me feel like even more of
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: an idiot. Now I'm even more piste. I spent another
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: hour trying to figure out how to work it because
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: I don't want to bring it back, and then said
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: I couldn't get to work. And then they start right
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: away and said, well, we just gotta start what we're doing.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: But long story short, I spent like two and a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: half hours messing around with a stupid thing. Finally was like,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: forget it, I'm going back demanding my money back and
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: dropping this piece of ship off. And that's what I did.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I went back. I was mad. I told me I
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: wanted my money back. And then they went out there
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna start taking off the trailer and they
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: couldn't start either, So I felt better about that. At least.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: He's like, well, I don't understand why I can't get starting.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I don't even care right now. I'm
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: just glad you didn't because I would have been really
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: mad if you started right off the bat. But the
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: moral of this story is that I still didn't get
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: this stupid thing mode. But now my you know, Corey,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: my buddy Corey and I are going to try to
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: go in on renting a tractor, mower and disk and
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: he's putting in his first food plot, so we're gonna
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: try rent it maybe tomorrow or the next day, go
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: get his food plot fixed and then bringing up to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: my place and get this one done. And if I
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: can do that with a tractor, that'll do the job
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: real quick. So good luck with all that. Thank you,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: thank you. But I put up a new ground blind
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: on this future food plot to cover south and southwest winds,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: which is something I've never been able to hunt this
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: food plot on them before. But um but because I
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: now know that holy Field is coming out to this
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: food plot on those wind directions, or he was at
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: least last year, I wanted to get something in there,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: so I'm set up for that. I tweaked a new
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: tree stand on the back side of this farm based
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: on some spring scouting, so I'm feeling good about that.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: Um I cleared out lanes for another tree stand yesterday.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: UM so works getting done, man, the final products are
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: getting done. That's right. I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: for you. Thank you, sir. Guess what what two weeks
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: from tomorrow, I mean west bounded down? No, dude, I'm sorry.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: One week from we geez, holy crap. One week from
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: one week from tomorrow. Wow, you better get it together.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: And that crazy. I got some bad news on that front.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, this is a bummer. So the main piece
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: of public land that I was planning hunting out there
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: right half of it was state land, half of it
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: was block management land. Block management land is private land
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: that's open to public hunting out there, um, and that
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: every year that stuff has to get renewed. Well, August
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: was the time frame that the new renewal status is
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: updated in the books. And that whole piece of block
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: management land I was planning on hunting is not in
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: the program anywar this year. How many acres was that? Hundreds?
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: It was? Um, the state land is just this little
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: piece of river bottom ground, so it's cover. It's like
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: betting cover. And then the block management next to it
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: was all the crop fields and fence rows and fingers
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: that go excuse me to go out into it. So
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: that was my food source hunting. That was my evening
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: hunting spot, and then my morning hunting spot was going
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to be on state land. So now I don't have
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: the evening spot. All I have is the betting cover spot. Right,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: So now I'm kind of scurrying around trying to find
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: another decent opportunity. I don't, I can't. I have not
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: found another good food source that's open to the public
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: in that area. That was my one good food source,
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: So I might just be stuck hunting some of this
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: transition and bedding cover and hoping I can get in
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: there without spooking deer. I've got a couple of spots
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: like that. Um, but I was really hoping I'd be
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: able to have this lush green alfalfa field to huntover
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: like you see most people hunting out in Fontana. Right.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: So that's, you know, one more obstacle to try to overcome.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: But you'll figure it out. You'll figure it out. We will,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: so it'll be fun. I can't believe it's starting away
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: from now. So that said my friend, we we wanted
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: to try to keep this intro kind of short because, um,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have a long, interesting conversation with Steve. So
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: let's take a break now for a quick thank you
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: and word from our sponsors at sick of Gear, and
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: then we'll get Steve a call. So, as mentioned, we
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: need to thank our partners at sick Ka Gear for
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: their long time support of this podcast. And today's sick
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: of story comes from sick employee John Barklow, and John
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: shares story with me of an AHA moment that actually
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: happened for his friends when they saw John having success
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: on their shared deer hunting property while they were not.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: So here's John explaining exactly what happened. Not because I'm
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: a better hunter by any means, but because I've been
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: able to stay on stand longer. I've been the only
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: one that ends up killing a buck the last three years.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: And so they've been asking me. They're like, how are
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: you able to sit all day? You know, I mean,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: we we know you're you're stubborn. But but and I said, guys,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it's it's not because I'm tougher than you by any means.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: It's because I have the right gear. And they're like,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: there's no way you can sit there in those few
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: layers because I don't look real bulky, and they do.
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: They've got seven layers, nine layers, and they're like, there's
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: no way you can sit there with what you have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: on all day comfortable. And I said, well, it's it's happening.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I mean the proofs into pudding, right. I mean not
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: to say my you know, my feet or my hands
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: on occasion won't get cold. But I am able to
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: stay there, stay engaged in the hunt, um, stay involved
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: in what's going on, and then be able to because
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not balked up when the opportunity arises, able to
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: shoot accurately. And so finally I got my one, actually
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: both of them, I guests now um to convert, so
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: to speak, and I got them some pieces. And so
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: this last year they started wearing it. And I mean
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: the first day they came out of the field and
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: they're like, oh my god, I had no idea, Like
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I had no idea the advantage you had, and that advantage, well,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: believe it or not, both of his friends got shots
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: at great Bucks this past year. Coincidence maybe, but maybe
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: not so. If you'd like to learn more about the
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Sick of Gear advantage, visit sick of gear dot com.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: And now let's get back to the show. Alright, we're
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: here now with Steve Bartilla. Welcome back to the show. Steve. Hey,
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: thanks guys, and uh, it's socerely my pleasure to be here. Yeah.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Well we um. We were just talking a minute ago
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: about how much great feedback we got from our audience
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: when you joined us back I think it was two
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: thousand and fourteen. It was pretty early on in the show.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: I think it was episode twenty two, and now we're
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: on like episode one, sixteen or seventeen or something like that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: So I really want to get you back on here
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: to talk about you know, a lot of the different
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: things maybe that we touched on last time, but in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: greater depth, and a lot of new things too. Um.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: But before we getting me further, I think one of
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the things we touched on last time when we talked
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: back in the summer of two thousand and fourteen was
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: how busy you were with summer prep leading up to
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: the season. And now here we are again, just before
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the hunting season, right here before we need to have
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: everything done. I'm just curious, how are things going this year?
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Are you still scrambling around trying to get the last
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: stuff done? Or do you feel pretty good this year
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: with how things are set. I'm this is one of
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: those rare and magical times where I'm doing pretty good.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Wo yeah, I actually, uh, actually everything clicked into place
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: this year so far. I shouldn't say any of this stuff,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: but um, because of course everything's going to fall to
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: heck now. But ah here between is I think, you know,
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I do some long term management for a handful of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: of clients that pay need a man their grounds for him.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So the growing weather this year in my areas of
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Illinois and Minnesota has been frankly fantastic. He
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: couldn't ask for anything better. Um, if in those areas,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: of course, weather changes from spot to spot, but in
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: those areas, if your food pots aren't doing good this year,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: you might want to go pick up a book on
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: food plots, because, yeah, it has been good. I actually
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: just got out to check one of my food plots
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: yesterday when I was doing some stand work, and um,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: that one is looking very nice. I've got another situation
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: that isn't so good, so I still have some food
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: plot work, just simply from dealing with issues with weeds unfortunately,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: but so far, so good. It's a good feeling. The
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: thing I've come to grips with in more recent years
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: is we're not cash c happing a few weeds. Weeds
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: are deer feed grass I hate, but broad leaves I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: really don't mind him that much, So I know I
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: used to. I used to sit there and obsess about
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: my culver plots looking like golf course greens. We all
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: if they've got a few weeds in them that they
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: really don't care. I've milt on that a little bit
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: and The other really nice thing is that this is
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: going to sound like a lot, But I think I'm
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: down to only about thirty stands left to prep, and
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: that puts me so far in front of the game
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: that does sound like a lett I'm sitting here getting
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: all set to break up on I have less than
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: thirty thirty stands left to do, and I'm like, well,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, that's not gonna sound that great to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: most people. But I was somewhere around uh somewhere flirting
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: with two and fifty this year, so I'm pretty rilled.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but are these two plus stands stands that
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: you hunt or are they for clients? Both? A lot?
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: Quite honestly, a lot of them will never get hunted
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: this year by anybody. Um, I'm a very firm believer
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: when Mr Big is telling me that he is right
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to kill. I don't want to be able to get
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: in there and or put a client in there without
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: giving Mr Big any reason not to keep doing what
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: he's doing. So I prep. I tend to well every year.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I know darn well that over half the stands I
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: prepped will never get climbed up into that year. But
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: if I have a need not having to go in
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: there during season and doing any scouting or any stand
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: prep work. It's it's really a big deal. In my opinion,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I think that gives me a heck of an advantage
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to the point where, yeah, when it gets to be
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: well that the first day, when you're dealing with a
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of stands, I don't know about you guys
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: are actually young and in shape. Me I'm a fat,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: broken down old man. Um I get done with that
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: well the next morning, after the first day, you'd swear
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: somebody drove spikes through my upper thighs because then they
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: just burned. So I can't say. I can't say that
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: first day or two that I feel this way. But
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: after the first day or two, once I start rounding
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: into shape, I think the tradeoff is well worth it.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: You know, the extra work versus the ability to slip
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: in without having to do a darn thing. That buck
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: has no who you're there until it's too late. That
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: that is a big, very important thing if you can
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: pull it off. I'm going to get off on one
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: tangent real quick, if you don't mind, I do the
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: exact same thing on a on public ground, on public
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: ground in the spring, I go in and prep all
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: my stands I think I might hunt. Okay, now you
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: can't leave. You can't leave these stands on the public
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: ground I hunt. Um, you can during season, but not
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: during the off season. You have to check the regulations obviously,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: because state ground is different than county ground, which is
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: different than Cora engineer ground and so on. But even
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: though I can't leave those stands in the woods, there's
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: absolutely no reason I can't prep that tree, hang that stand, um,
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: be ready to hunt, take it down with me. So
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: now when it comes time to actually hunt on Halloween,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I can get in there an hour and a half
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: before first light and actually set up that stand because
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: all I have to do is put the sticks up,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: slap the stand in, and I'm ready to hunt. Yeah.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: Definitely better than having to do all the prep right
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: there in the dark before the hunt and make noise
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: and do all all that kind of stuff. Being being overprepared,
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: I think is never a bad problem to have, right
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: two women. Yeah, So, so, Steve, one of the reasons
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: why I want to get you back on here in
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: the show was that I recently read your book, Big
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Buck Secrets, and it was really one of the most
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: enjoyable hunting books I've read in a long time. I
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: really took a lot from it, and I wanted to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: kind of dive into a handful of different concepts you
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: talked about, and one of those first pieces that I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: want to touch on really relates, I think, right in
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: line with what you're already talking about here. One of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the things you touched on the very beginning was this
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: concept of pushing the envelope. Can you can you walk
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: us through what you mean by that when you say
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: that one of your most important things to do when
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you're fair out your hunting strategies is to push the envelope.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: What does that mean for you? Well, for me, it
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: doesn't mean doing stupid, risky things going back to the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: public for instance. Um, the idea of what would probably
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: pop into most people's heads by pushing the envelope, there
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: would be aggressively scouting, calling, rattling, all that type of stuff. Um,
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: that to me, that's not being aggressive, it's handstringing yourself.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Now you have to you always have to ask yourself,
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: how did the bucks in these areas get to maturity?
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: When you're talking about any heavily hunted location, they generally
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: didn't get there by being stupid. Now they either got
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: exceptionally lucky or they are very weary. So the last
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: thing in the world I want to do is go
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: ahead and go ahead and increase the risk of educating
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: them to the fact that they're being hunted in this location.
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: Getting off on a slight tangent, my whole approach to
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: hunting public land is find the areas that no one
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: else hunts. You do that, it's a me sanctuary, and
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: that's where you're gonna find the majority of your mature bucks. Um.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: But if you go ahead and draw attention to yourself, no,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you just is blew the gig because those bucks are
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: so dang where it's not even funny. Um what I
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: would applying it to that scenario. But what I'm saying
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: talking about more about pushing the envelope is having three
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: four stands already prepped well before season never starts. Now,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: in areas that if there's a good mature buck on
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that public ground, on those various public grounds that you
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: know what, odds are early high, this is gonna be
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: a great place to try to kill him because nobody
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: else goes here. Okay, And then taking it a step further,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: having three four different public ground spots already scouted out
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: and set up. You know, that's more along the lines
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of what I look as as pushing the envelope, stacking
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: as many odds as a person reasonably rationally hand in
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: their favor without breaking any rules or doing anything overly stupid. Yeah,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: so what are some of those different ways you can
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: stack the odds in your favor? If maybe we continue
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: with this example with the public land situation, you know,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: other than prepping numerous other locations, we are some of
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the other little things that you're paying attention to in
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: that scenario to help you push the down great question.
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: One of one of the most productive public public lands
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: stands I had for about five years running was a
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: strip of mature timber between two really thick clear cuts
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: clear cut regrowth um. They were using this strip of
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: mature timber as a funnel when they go through to
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: their normal trenivels, Because I mean, a good way to
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: look at things is if you think it would be
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a pain in the butt for you to walk through
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: something with a stand on your back, you know what
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: that that buck with that eighteen nine and sidespread it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: probably a pain for him to walk through as well.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: So I mean, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: reasons why they'll go into those clear cuts. Oftentimes they
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: live in the dark day, they're daylight core areas there
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: with him. But when they're just trying to get from
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: point day to point B, rather than walk through the
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: middle of that thing, they're going to take the path
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: release resistance. But that funnel area there, so you have
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: natural funnel um just because of the thick stuff on
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: both sides and the approximately hundred yard wide strip of
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: mature timber. I don't know about you guys, but I
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: can't cover a hundred yard wide strip of timber with
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: a bowl. So what I did there each spring, I'd
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: go in and I'd take up every darn decent size
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: fallen branch I could possibly find, and I created a
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: little blockade each spring and then fixed it up the
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the the following springs where you know what, I can't
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: cover a hundred yard wide things, uh funnel, but I
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: can cover forty yard white funnel. So I went ahead
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: and blockaded it down to forty yards those little To me,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: hunting is all about stacking as many little things in
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: your favor as you can whenever I think we are awesome,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: flat out awesome and getting out there and scouting our
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: tails off, finding that one spot, that one spot that
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: is this is the spot that I believe that I
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: am going to interrupt Mr Big during legal shooting hours.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: We hang the stand, we walk away with their chest out.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: But I think we missed a critical step, and that
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: is okay, this is the spot. My stand is up
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: in that tree. We're so much farther ahead than we
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: were before we did this. But now, what can I
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: do to make this location better? That that tree? I
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: kind of stick out like a sore thumb that a
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: little bit, but it's the only tree that would work.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: So let's cut some branches and go ahead and attach
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: it to the tree and make it so it has covered.
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Go ahead and put some on the back of the
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: tree so we've got back cover. Maybe put a couple
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: in the very outside of outside the platform so we
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: had a little bit of front cover. Now all of
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: a sudden, I can move and let's say sixt yards
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: up from the stand, that trail splits. One goes off
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: to the left and the other one to the right
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: where we were that were covered, and for whatever reason,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: that's not why we need to set up at we
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: need to set up where we are. We'll go ahead
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: and lay a couple of branches across the trailer you
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: don't want them to use. Does that mean every deer
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: now is not going to use that trail hat? No,
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: But all you need is the one deer that you're
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: trying to kill to do what you want. And I
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: think it's worthwhile. And then older control um targeting, targeting
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: specific stands for a reason, not just because this is
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: a really good stand, but this happens to be a
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: really good stand for this phase of season, and we're
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: in that phase of season now, so that's when I
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: want to hunt it when the odds are the highest
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: that that stand is gonna pay off, or something as
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: simple as what we were talking about originally having a
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of different stands up so that he's not
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: supposed to be back in here, but twice I and
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: my buddies have seen him back in there going through
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: this area. And he's not supposed to be doing this
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: during early season. He's supposed to wait until keep pre rout,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: but dangity's doing it now, So I'm gonna go kill
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: him now to just being able to jump when the
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: when the bucks are screaming, waving their arms saying, hey, idiot,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: come here and kill me. Having everything in place makes
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: me look heckful out smartyr I've yet to see the
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: big buck yell at me to have them come kill me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: But I'm hoping that happens here soon because I would.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I would love that situation. But it will, trust me,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: it will it take. I'm not gonna don't take what
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: I just said wrong. That's not normal. It's not But
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: there's been jeez six seven and bucks off the top
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: of my head over the years that literally jumping up
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: and down, waving their arms and saying, you idiot, I
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: am ripe, And until you got to do is show
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: up and not blow the shot inack. I've even had
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: a couple of them where I did blow the shot,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: but still they had such a death wish I ended
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: up taking. It's it's fun and humbling at the same time.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, I don't care what anybody out
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: there says. You know, if they're sitting there trying to
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: tell your listeners that they never they never make a
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: mess of things. Out in the deer woods. They never
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: blow shots. They never do anything stupid. Either they're I
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: hate to use the strong language, but either they're a
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: liar or they are a really bad hunter who just
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: never had the opportunities for things to go wrong. I
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: don't care who we are, how much of practice, any
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: of that stuff. Things are going to go wrong out there.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Sometimes part of what makes it sweet when they go right. Yeah,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's how me and Dan have made our
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: little mark in the in the industry has just simply
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: by the fact that we make so many mistakes. That
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: might be the one thing we have going for us
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: to this day. The most popular clip I have ever
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: filmed is me absolutely blowing a gift wrap shot at
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a at about a hundred and sixty eight point that
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: I was doing a tip for back in the days
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: that before Double Bowl, Arch re sold for their television
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: show on calling and rattling with decoys and ground block,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: and I had no no fantasy of actually calling anything
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: in I look up in there, well, jeez, there's about
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: a hundred and sixty eight point fifty yards away staring
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: at me. Oh man, this guy. I wasn't gonna film
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: any hunts of just filming an attempt. But why I
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: gotta get this on film? How often you go ahead?
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: How often are you doing a temp on calling rattling
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: decoys and ground blinds and I actually get to kill
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: a hundred and six? I mean, this stuff doesn't happen.
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I whoa, this is awesome. Here he comes, I'm filming,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: I'm filming, I'm filming, and all of a sudden, he's
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: about ten yards away from the decoys. Okay, well, something's
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: gonna go down here one way or another. Either he's
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: gonna bolt or he's gonna crash that decoy, and then
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: he's gonna both. I gotta shoot this thing, something that
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: I wasn't planning on doing with a camera. So I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: shifted him to the back of frame. Come to folter
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: off thirty yards Let the errify he was twenty duck
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the erro and I went but as but as an
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: have a bonus. The farmer has spread manure on the
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: alf alfa field the day before, so you got to
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: watch that arrow skip forever across that field background. I
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: want to head and turn the camera back on me.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: Picked up the range fighter and said new tip of
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the day. Range finders usually actually their purpose. That's brutal.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: I got a random I got a random question for you, Steve.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Have you ever you know, you mentioned something about, you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, close the distance on that pinch point,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: you know, from a hundred yards to forty yards. But
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: have you ever purposely went into an area to screw
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: it up maybe or lay down scent or make noise
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: or bump a deer in order to try to kill
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: them in another location? I can honestly say I've never
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: tried it. I think that's a great idea. And that's
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: kind of what I mean by pushing the envelope when
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: they taking this full circle back to the original question
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: that I took us way off on attention on um.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: You know what, when I was a kid, and you
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: guys are young enough that you can probably relate to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: this as well. When when I was a kid, I
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: used to do all sorts of dumb things out hunting.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm not talking about dangerous things, but just dumb.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: There's no way that's gonna work everyone, So while they work,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: if you if you have nothing left to lose, you know,
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: it's one thing if you're talking about managing your property
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: and what you're trying to do is you're trying to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: you're trying to split your efforts as much between killing
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: deer and raising them. That's a different story. But if
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: you're just out there hunting and something isn't working for you,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: try something anything, because unless something changes, it's not gonna work.
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: And that is something that I wouldn't I would applaud
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: somebody for trying. I can't promise it's gonna work or not,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: but I would applaud somebody for at least trying. We've
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: lost so much we have. We're in a time where
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: we're both blessed and cursed with information. There's so much
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: information on how you hunt mature dear or white tails period, Okay,
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: that we tend not to try the off the wall
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: stuff anymore. And that's that is something that I think
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: is kind of being lost because I can't speak for
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: you guys, but I'll tell you what I learned a
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: heck of a lot more from my failures and I
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: ever do from my successes. Very true, Now, Steve, was
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: this you? I remember hearing someone mentioned this, and I
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: can't remember it was you or somebody else, But have
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: you ever used a trail camera, like set up across
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: the field one of you, like maybe a flash camera
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: or whatever type that you think maybe dear do get
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: spooked by, and then that would force them to possibly
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: come to your side of the field where you're actually hunting.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: Was that something you've done before? Okay, so I do
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: that awesome? Um. I protect particularly doom with the with
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: the red flash, the red flash or or standard flash cameras,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: because what I've found is you can never say when
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: it comes to deer hunting. In my opinion, you can
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: never say never or always. You know know that there's exceptions
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to everything. We're just playing odds more. Most often that
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: red flash or white flash is not enough to actually
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: spoop that buck off of that property on what what
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: he does if he doesn't like it. Most of them,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I would go so far as to say most don't care, okay,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: but there is that percent that they do not like that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: It is not natural. It it creaks them out, for
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: lack of a better term. Um, So they tend to
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: just shift their activities away from triggering the camera. And yeah, exactly,
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: there's a couple a couple of different locations them that
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: popped to mind right now that I've got older red
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: flash cameras set up on the opposite side of the
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: food source one hundred, just to nudge those ones that
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: don't like it a little bit closer to the stand.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: It's that type of thinking outside the box stuff that
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: that I was getting to that I said, I think
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: we've kind of lost I mean, we we've we're we
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: preach so much that you can't spook dear. You can't
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: do you spook dear. It's a kiss of that. Well,
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: in some situations it is, but in some situations you
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: can use it to your advantage a little bit. Now,
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: these deer are far from turned inside out spooked, but
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: you know they the cameras make them a little nervous,
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: So let's avoid them. If they're going to avoid them,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: might as well put them in areas that we can't cover.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: That way, they concentrate in more in the areas we can. Yeah,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: it's right in the line with a whole. Like we
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: were talking about stacking the odds, that's one more way
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: to stack the odds for a specific stand, to push
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: them a little bit closer in that location. Um. And
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: another one of these odds stackers um that I've that
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: I've heard you talk about in the past, is using
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: scrapes or created mock scrapes to do the same kind
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: of thing, placing mock scrapes near a tree stand location
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: to just potentially give you a slightly better chance for
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: a shot there. Can you talk about how you use that? Certainly? Um,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: what I what I do more often than not on
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: on stands. We all know, including most of your listeners,
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: there's lots of areas that if you set up on
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: a wide open field, a wide open, fresh clear cut
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that hasn't reached end yet, know anything, wide open, odds
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: are you're not going to kill Mr Big. He's not
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: coming up now. In Iowa and Illinois and northern Missouri
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: and certain areas of Wisconsin, sure you can, but it's
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: not like that everywhere. Um, when I am hunting the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: edge of an opening, what I'll do is how nine
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: times out of town, I'll go ahead and cut a
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: tree that when planted, when planted with a post hole digger,
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: um about three feet into the ground, is going to
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: stick out like a turn in the punch bowl and
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: have licking branches right at nose level. Of these deer
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: scrapes are essentially the white tails world's equivalent to human billboards.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: They're meant to communicate information to as many other deer
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: as you can. When that scrape tree happens to be
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: sitting out a fifteen twenty yards into that wide open
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: clear that wide open fresh clear cut, that meadow, that
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: cloverfield at Alfalfa Field, you know, pick Earn Field. So
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: I didn't feel anything open like that. It's like a
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: neon sign saying come on over here and make a
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: scrape because it's gonna stick out like a sore thumb.
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: So it's one of those little things that you can
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: do that again, just stack the odds the there's really
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: no great trick to it. The one the things that
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: would say is that if you're gonna use if you're
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: gonna be hunting here long term, you know, not just
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: this year. It's good if you use hardwoods simply because
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: I'm lazy. I don't want to go ahead and plant
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: this tree every single year if I don't have to.
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: When I can get three to four years of use
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: typically out of out of a hardwood versus a soft wood,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: um and then point those looking branches back towards the stand.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: So now when Mr Big comes into work and you
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: know he's giving you a good shot angle and he
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: is averting his attention away from you, so you don't
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: have anywhere near as much of an issue. Are coming
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: to folder taking your time settling the pin let in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the air? Fly? Do you see any Do you see
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: any um issue with a dead licking branch? So let's
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: say you put one up in the summer or last summer.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Even now, you still have this branch hanging out over there,
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Do dear prefer a live tree branch for this type
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: of situation versus that dead one? Like I guess I'm wondering,
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: should I be putting a hole in the side of
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: this tree so I can put in a new looking
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: branch every fall or something like that? Have I actually
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: contemplated doing that for the simple reason that if I
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: just have to put a licking branch on the side
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: of this thing every year, um, that's less work for me.
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: And when you're dealing with I mean I probably plant
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: fifty or so scrape trees this here. Well, you do
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: know what if I can eliminate and having to plant
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: forty of them because I have poles out there with holes,
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: and then I think that would be a good thing.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: I haven't ever tried that though. The only difference that
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I've seen in in usage from bucks is when you
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: do something. When I did something stupid and actually trying
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: to use the hawthorne tree, well't they didn't like rubbing
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: up against the thorns that much. Um. I only made
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: that mistake once, and I was desperate at the time
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: for something and the only thing I could come up with,
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: and it did not work. I completely wasted my time.
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: The other thing is is the in general, who with
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: within a reasonable extent at least the bush here that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: scrape tree is, the more activity it tends to tends
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: to suck in over to it, to it just because
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: it sticks over. But I've got I've got plenty a
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: glut of pictures and videos of bucks working clicking branches
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that are three years old, dead as a doornail, and
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem to matter to them. It's good to
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: know on this topic of scrapes. It reminded me of
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: an article I've read of yours recently. UM. I think
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: the article's titled something about wasting their time or talking
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: about dear time wasters or something like that, and the
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: kind of the gist of the article was some different
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: things you can incorporate onto a hunting property to potentially
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: keep a buck on your farm during daylight a little
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: bit longer. And one of the things you mentioned, we're
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: using scrapes or mox scrapes. Can you talk a little
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: bit about this concept of time wasters and what people
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: could possibly you know, what actual examples that of those
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: that might be sure, well, that's that's a big one
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: for people that both can manage their habitat you know,
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: not everybody can. Overwhelming majority of people out there hunting
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: probably are hunting like fin like I still do to
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: this day to an extent, but like I grew up hunting,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: and that was getting permission from their uncle, getting permission
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: from some neighbor lady, getting permission from god knows who.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: You go if there were a chains in your hand,
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: and you probably won't have permission the next year. Um,
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: but if you can control your ground, oh man, the
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: games you can play are just almost obscene. Um. Something
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: as simple as okay, during the off season, you're out
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: there scouting. You figure out that Mr Big is betting
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: on this point, and this point is one of the
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: best things of person One of the things that helped
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: me most in my evolution as a hunter is to
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: get away from just being content with finding sign but
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: trying to understand why that buck did this here? What
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: are the odds of him doing it again? Now? Um
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: asking the why questions when you're finding these beds in
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the off season, squat down in the darn things. Squat
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: down and look around and ask, Okay, I have all
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: the places that Mr Big could bet, why is he
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: betting in this location right here? You do that, You
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: do that even ten times, and the pattern starts to emerge.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: Now you see that they like. They like either being
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: on the very edge of the thick, nasty stuff that
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: one jump, they're gone, or they like to have a
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: very wide range of view, a very wide field division,
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: so they can see virtually everything that's going on around him.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: And then I'm not saying that the bucks always changed
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: their betting locations based on wind direction, but when that
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: wind happens to be coming over their backside, now now
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: nothing's sneaking up from behind them, and they can see
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: everything down below. Man, he's he's bullet proof. And because
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: of that, you'll find that mature bucks on the property
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: tend to bet in the same place as year after
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: year after year after year after he's dead, But here
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: comes another one year after year after he's dead, But
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: here comes another one after year after year, because of
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: all these advantages that that location gives them. Okay, so
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: so you find that look, you know, and getting off
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: on actually explaining a little bit better. Here, really easy
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: way to determine between stack. The odds of being right
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: in determining whether this is a family group betting area
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: or a mature buck is just playing the number and
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: the size of the beds you find a bunch of
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: you find three or four big beds, a couple of
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: small beds. Odds, are those nuts your family group? There
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: you find one or two big beds that are about
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the same size, especially if, especially if there happens to
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: be a rubber scrape in the area, and then there
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: happens to be a really big track in that bed,
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: odds are pretty darn good that was a mature buck.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: But so once you start putting this stuff together and
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: you figure out that I can't swear I know what
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: buck is going to be betting on this point this year,
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: but I can almost guarantee it's gonna be one of
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: the big boys, because that has so many advantages. Now
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: our food source is over to the west. If I
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: go ahead and create about a ten yard wide opening,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: and I can do it with a chainsaw, bolldozer would
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: be awesome, But I can do it with the chainsaw,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: no problem. We can have stumps. We can go ahead
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: and top seed some old cereal rye or some clover
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: right on top of the dirt, and it's going to grow.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: As I said to begin this, remember we're not cash
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: cropping or just trying to give the deer a little
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: bit of food. So I'll go ahead and create a
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: little ten yard wide uh strip going halfway back to
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: that bedding area. Then do a little edge feathering, which
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: is hinge cutting about a five yard band on either
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: side of that. So now we get more sunlight in here.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: When I'm cutting off those trees, I might as well
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: cut them in about chest level. Cut them off that way,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: the ones that are in the plot, because now I
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: can go ahead and I can nail a bunch of
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: licking branches on that. So he's going from that point
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: now down that trail working as scrapes going out to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the neighbor's farm field. I can get in there about
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: the whole fifty yards off the line. Hopefully those scrapes
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: slowed them down enough so now he's coming past me
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: ten minutes of shooting light left, which is I'm still golden.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: But by the time he gets over to the neighbors,
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: when he jumps that fence to get out on that field,
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: it's pitch dark though it's Those are the types of
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: little games that I play a ton on the managed grounds. Um,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: the more in general, the more time you can get
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: him to waste, especially when you're trying to raise box
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: that they're not power bocks, but we can't help them
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: get to maturity. God love the people that got them
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: being in some serios as I possibly could be. God
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: loved the meat hunters in the world. This stuff is
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: supposed to be fun. They have every right to do that.
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: But on my side of the fence, I have every
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: rate two to swave Mr Big from being over there
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: during legal shooting light. Having every time he works one
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of those scrapes, he's wasting anywhere from thirty thirty seconds
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to five minutes. And so often, I mean, you guys
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: know as well as I do. So often the difference
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: between success and a thrilling close call is nothing but seconds.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: And if I can waste fifteen more minutes of his
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: time on my ground, I am that much further ahead.
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: And along those lines, some more of the things that
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: I do is I try to on my managed habitat,
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: I try to divide it up. Rather than if I've
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: gotten eighty, rather than go ahead and put one main
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: food source in the place, I'm gonna put four, I'll
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: put four water sources on the place. I'll go ahead
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: and try to make it so that I have at
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: least four different areas of thick, nasty cover that the
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: doughs like to bed end. So now when Mr Big
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: he doesn't even live on our place now, he lives
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: over on he lives over on the neighbors. But he's
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: coming through to check dolls. Now he doesn't just have
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: to check one food source, one water hole, and one
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: bedding area. He has to check four. And when he
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: has to check four, he's wasting more time on our ground,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: obviously giving us a better chance of killing him. I
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: hope that kind of sort of answer to your question
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: a little bit anyway. Yeah, I know that's perfect, and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: it's it's interesting. Everything everything falls under this common theme
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: of finding ways to stack those odds. And as we
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: were talking about this, another thing that I've heard you
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: talk about in the past came to mind again, which
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: was kind of related to this whole habitat topic. If
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: we have the ability to manage habitat, or to at
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: least control who hunts our property, we can implement sanctuaries.
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about how you think about sanctuaries, how
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: you use them? Thanks who, I will tell you right now.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: For as much press, for as much press and coverage
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: on TV that food plots get, nothing, nothing makes a
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: difference for more habitat out there than sanctuaries. And it
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: doesn't cost you a cent. It's the entire approach that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: I take to the hunting public ground. You find those
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: pockets that nobody else is going, and guess where you're
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: finding the mature dear. Guess where you're finding the most
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: dear in those pockets here are no different whatsoever. Excuse me,
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: then our dogs at home in that we can train
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: them to accept virtually anything, and we can train them
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: to fee year virtually everything. And every single time we're
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: going out in the woods hunting, whether we're trying to
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: or not. We are training deer now most often we're
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: training them to do things that are against our interest.
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: Is hunting in hunt as hunters, you know, in the
• 50:18
  Speaker 1: sanctuaries are the exact or verse. We're training them to
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: do what's in our best interest. The first thing I
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: do is I go, well, first question, what is a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: sanctuary a sanctuary? If you're going to use the purest
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: definition a sanctuary as an area that we never step
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: foot in, period, end the story. I'm not a purist, okay.
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: I I am scouting these sanctuaries during the off season
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: every year. I will even put some tree stands up
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: in those sanctuaries with the idea that you know, going
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: back to how many stands I hang, going back to
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: the idea that I'm not hunting here. The only way
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: I'm hunting here is if I have pictures of Uster Big.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: I know Mr Big is living on this ground. I
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: believe he's living in my sanctuary. You know. By how
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: do you know? You know? Because his picture at the
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: food source every night happens to be between a half
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: hour to an hour after dark, you know, And from
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: the direction he's coming in, and he's coming in from
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: the heart of this eighty odds are he's not walking
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: all the way across the eighty to get here. He's
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: probably better back in that sanctuary there. When I just
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: plane cannot get it done from the outside of the sanctuary,
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: I will go in and hunt it once or twice
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the entire year, going well before first light, and I'm
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: planning on staying all day. Are killing one of the two?
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: Um But as I said, I'm trying not to. I'm
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: trying not to go into that sanctuary, and I'm not
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: going to go into it for any other reason except
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: for for on the off chance of hunting or uh
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: tracking a dear during season. Okay, So to me, a
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: sanctuary is essentially an area that I try to stay
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: out of during season as much as humanly possible. Um So,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: then how do you go ahead and define a sanctuary? Well,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest keys that a lot
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: of people miss is the natural human reaction as hunters
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: is you want to get as deep in the cover
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: as you possibly can. Hey man, that's where Mr Biggs living.
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: That's where I'm gonna go. But how the heck do
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: you get in there without alerting every single dear in
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: the property that you're hunting them, How do you get
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: out at the end of the day if you're going
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: to hunt the stand numerous times. Now, if this isn't
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: just a one shot deal, that is every bit as
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: important as the individual hunts, because far too many people
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: go ahead and explode their property before before the rut
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: even gets close, you know, which is why a lot
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: of quote unquote experts suggests a person shouldn't even start
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: hunting until the rut. It's because they're trying to train
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the deer on their ground that they're safe. With a sanctuary,
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: you can hunt that property hard the entire season and
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: still get the advantages. The way you pull it off
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: is anything that's high impact for getting in, getting out
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: or hunting right off the bat is a sanctuary. In
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: my mind, what I try to do is I try
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: to design properties so that they vary from property property,
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: but in general, so I can go ahead and hunt
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: the outside effectively in a low impact manner and leave
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: most of the deer cover just playing alone, just going
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: to it during the off season, do a little improvement
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: to improve the cover that type of stuff, but during season,
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to worry about me coming
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: in there. You're safe here while the neighbors, and this
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: is a huge key everybody. Most everybody complains about the neighbors.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: If they only hunted like me, if they were only
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: good hunters, if they only would have let that buck walk. Well,
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: you know what, those hunters, when you have a sanctuary,
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: they're your best friends because they're trashing their ground. They're
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: trashing their ground, and it does not take deer long
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: at all to figure out I'm not being disturbed over here.
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: So as season progresses, your deer numbers are actually climbing
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the more and more your neighbors are hunting. And at
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the same time, you're training them that, you know what,
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: it's safe to move around on this property during the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: legal light. Just like those public ground bucks. They realize
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: that within that same short of that area that's blocked
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: off by that nasty ravine that nobody's willing to cross.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Over there, I can move just find during legal shooting
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: hours and don't have to worry about it. I just
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: can't cross that ditch because over there, I move around
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: during legal shooting hours, I'm smelling and seeing people like crazy,
• 55:05
  Speaker 1: We're doing the same thing on our properties. We're designing
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: these areas that the bucks in the doors and fawns
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: all feel safe in, all are willing to move around
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: during legal shooting hours, and then trying to set it
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: up so we have little little staging plots right along
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: the edges. Count because there in that little half acre
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: opening in the middle of the woods. Mr biggas fire
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: more willing to step out during the legal shooting light,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: especially when it's right on the edge of this area
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: that he's never disturbed him. I got a quick question,
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: is that do you have a different sanctuary for different
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: wind directions? Because I have a property that a majority
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: of the food is on the south side of the
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: property and been depending on the wind direction depends on
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: where on the property you know they bed. So, Um,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: if I was to establish a sanctuary on one part,
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: do you feel that the deer would then come to
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: that sanctuary, even though the wind may not be right
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: for them to bed in that in that area. It's
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: good you're stacking the odds for that to happen, But
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: so many things, this is a really difficult part. I
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: just got done, if you don't mind me giving myself
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: a plug. Um, I just got done writing a Habitat
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: Habitat and Deer Management book UM that came out this
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: past spring. It was the most challenging writing I've ever
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: done in my life. I want to have done this
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: type of consulting work for right around just over twenty
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: five years. But every single property is different. So so
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: making blanket statements about how this is how you do
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: it and pacific terms, I'll play it what. It's tough
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: because on your ground, on your ground, it is entirely
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: possible based on what you're saying. Heck, it's probable that
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: the best thing you can do is that they have
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: they have numerous that your your deer have numerous areas
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: on that property that they prefer betting in a lot
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: of properties don't. As a matter of fact, most properties,
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: you've got one or two spots and actually where the
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: deer really like to bed, and they're going to probably
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: be bed there no matter what the wind is, because
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: they don't have other alternatives when they do. In a
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: situation like that, I tend to. I can't say I've
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: ever set up specifically set up sanctuaries based for a
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: given wind, but what I do is, man, I am
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: always thinking about wind direction when it comes to entrance,
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: hunting and exit, and what I want to do as
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: much as possible is I want my access to be
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: along the property line, and I want my orders blowing
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: into the neighbors when I'm heading over to the stand.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: I want my orders to be blowing into the neighbors
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: while I'm on stand. I want my orders blowing towards
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: neighbors when I'm leaving to go back to the truck.
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: And by taking that approach, you're essentially setting up sanctuary's
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: based off the wind direction because you're not hunting these
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: other areas when you have those various winds, if that
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: makes any sense at all. Right, interesting, So speaking about
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: betting areas, that brought me to another really interesting thing
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: I read about in your other book, This Big Buck Secrets,
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: where you talked about some interesting ways that you can
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: utilize knowledge about dope family groups to improve your hunting.
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: It's particular you talked about how you can key in
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: on dominant versus sub dominant doe groups during certain parts
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: of the year. Can you talk about that, because that's
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: something I've never heard about the for and I thought
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: was really interesting. Sure, and I should say, um, if
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: you don't mind before I answer that the book that
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: you're referring to, Big Buck Secrets is actually the it's
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: actually the final of a three parter, or it's wrapping together.
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to go ahead and wrap the three part
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: series together with a nice bowl and tie it up
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: and make it look all pretty. Um that what you're
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: describing there is not going to work everywhere. It's not
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: if you've got low doll number, if you've got low
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: deer numbers, the habitat itself is not stressed. If you
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: have healthy habitat, you know what, your your family groups
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: on this property are not stressed. But what ends up
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: happening when you're dealing with high deer numbers, and then
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: this happens whether you're dealing with medium, low, any type
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: of deer numbers period um, is that there's a hierarchy
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: to doe groups that is very similar to the hierarchy
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: that occurs within buck groups. We've all heard about the
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: dominant buck. That buck, that man, he strolls any and everywhere.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: All he has to do is give a sideways glance
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: to the competition. They stuck. They stick their tail between
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: their legs and go running for the hills. Now, um,
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: the same thing plays out in a weird way in
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the dough here in the dough groups. In that the
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: healthiest doe groups out there with especially if they've got
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: a little bit of an attitude, are the most dominant
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: dog groups out there. They're the ones that they have
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: the prime betting spot because they'll drive the competition away.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: They have the prime the prime food source because if
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: it's small, they're gonna go ahead and drive the other
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: dog groups away. You know, Um, I should actually back
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: up dough groups. Family groups are nothing more generally speaking,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: they're nothing more than a matriarch doll. You know that
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: that that great grandmother type, all her daughters, all her
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: daughters otters, you know, and so on down the line.
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: And that there's in high deer a young high deer
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: number areas where you don't have a lot of hunting
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: pressure on the doll groups. I mean, it's not uncommon
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: to see a family group of more than twenty dolls
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: along with their nubbing bucks and sometimes even year and
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: a half old bucks. And now so picture picture property
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of deer, a whole bunch of
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: different dog groups. The healthiest, most aggressive dog groups are
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: the dominant ones, the least healthy, smaller, more passive dog
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: groups are the more submissive ones. So then throwing over
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: population where the habitat is being absolutely destroyed by deer,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: which is more habitat than we give it credit for.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Quite honestly, Uh, well, your lower wrung dog groups, they
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: aren't getting the nutrition because they don't have the best
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: betting areas. They don't have the best feeding areas. They're
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: picking up the scraps are left over. Okay, Now you
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: have to tie one mother factor into all this, and
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: that is timing of breeding. Okay. In general, I am
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: a very strong believer in photo period. I do not
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: believe in the moon theories in any way, shape or form.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: And I can cite all sorts of studies that have
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: been done on um road kill fetal tissue where they
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: back dated and you know what, the majority of the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: does year after year after year after year after year,
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: are getting bread in the exact same amount of time
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: according to those studies, regardless of the moon. But what
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: does play a role into individual dear individual dough ester's
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: timing is the health of the dough. The health year
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: that prime age breeding dough is higher the odds are
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: that she's going to come into estris early. Okay. So
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: because the dominant doll groups have the best of everything,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: they tend to have the healthiest dolls, and they also
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: happen to produce the first estra stoles of the year.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: And then we can take it another step further and
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: throw in the fons. Fawn breeding and anywhere in the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: continental United States occurs virtually every year, except for on
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: very very very horrifically bad weather years. You can deal
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: with the up of Michigan. You might be talking five
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: on a normal year. You deal with Iowa, you deal
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: with Kansas. You're talking jeez, you're talking as much as
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: of the doe fons will breed that first year. The
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: timing on their breeding is based on them meeting physical
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: and physiological thresholds. They that their body must mature well.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: Who tends to give birth to the dose first or
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: the fonts first each year? The healthy dose that got
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: that got bred earlier in the season, So they also
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: tend to be the ones to have the dough fons
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: come into estrus first each year. So you can't if
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: you can follow I mean that that's a I know,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: that's an awful lot to put together and follow. But
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: if you can connect those dots, you can see why
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: that cold stretch hits on October in the Midwest. If
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I want to hunt, if I want to hunt the
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: dough betting area, that's not a bad time as long
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: as I can go ahead and find that dominant dough
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: that dominant dough group's betting area. Now it's getting towards
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: the end of the rut, that's a really nice time
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: again to go ahead and target that dominant family group
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: dope atting area because they probably have some dough fonts
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: coming intestris in between the early and And also it's
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: not a bad time to go ahead and hit up
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: your least dominant dog groups because there tend to have
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: the most unhealthy dolls the ones that tend to come
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: intastris later the period in between. Flip a coin because
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you've got no clue, but it is a way to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: just again stack the odds a little bit in your
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: favor in very specific situations, if you happen to be
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: hunting ground that's overpopulated, if you happen to know observe
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: your dear enough to figure out what your dominant dough
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: groups are. It's not really hard when you watch them.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe one one's chasing the other off that food plot.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: Odds are the ones running are not the dominant ones.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: But if you can put all those things together every
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: once in a while, it can't work for you. So
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: just just to make sure I've got this right to Cliff,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: note it. We're talking on keen in on the dominant
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: dough family groups at the early stages of the rut
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: because we're likely going to get that first don estres,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: and then again towards that second rut time period because
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: those are most likely the groups have a fun that's
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: coming into estus. And then we'll key in on potentially
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: those least dominant dough groups maybe at the later talent
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of the rut when those deer are just coming into esters,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: and then like you said, during peak breeding anything is that?
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: Is that right? I get it all straight there? That
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: is it? In a nutshell? Yeah? You and you did
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: a much finer job playing tonight. I just had to
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: make sure that I had it straight in my head too. Um.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: But it's it's f it's a fascinating it's a fascinating
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: idea and it makes a lot of sense. Well, I'll
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: tell you what, trying to truly understand what makes the
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: deer tick. To me, there's nothing more fascinating in this world.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: I know. I know most people would think that's boring
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: as heck you guys, we don't. Hopefully most of your
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: audience doesn't. But that, to me is the most fascinating
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: part about all this stuff. And when I keep coming
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: back to over and over and over, the more complicated
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: I try to make this stuff, keep it simple, stupid.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: They're just animals. They're just animals that mother nature has
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: hardwired to try to maximize their odds of survival. Um,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: if you look at it that way, all of a sudden,
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: a lot of things start making a lot more sense. Yeah,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: so true. Continue on the rut topic. Another thing that
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: I've I've heard you talk about in the past a
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: little bit is how there's this commonly held belief that
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: during the rut, you know everything you know about your
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: local deer goes out the window and it's chaos. But
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: I've heard you talk a little bit about how there
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: is actually you can sort of pattern deer during the rut,
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: contrary to popular belief. Can you can you elaborate on
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: that certainly. The first thing I have to say is
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: my definition of patterning is not the same definition of
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: a lot of people that are trying to make themselves
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: look cool. I do not pretend to know what any
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: deer is doing seven period. My idea of patterning a book,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: a book, or any deer is that I've got a
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: pretty good idea that there's a pretty good chance they
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: might be doing this each day, or not necessarily even
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: each day, but on a somewhat regular basis. You know.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: I I don't pretend to know where a good number
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: most of the box that I shoot. I don't pretend
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: to know where the heck they've batted. Now. I think
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: there's a pretty good chance it was back on that
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: ridge back there, off that point, because just about every
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: year I have a good buck betting back there. But
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: I can't, I can't swear to it. I am not.
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: I do not sit there and think that when these
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: people are talking about patterning bucks out there, that they
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: got they know what these here are doing. Bolown. I
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: have been I actually started on the consulting end, consulting
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: for outfitters, and I can't tell you how many times
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: TV crews, you know, filmed segments about how they had
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: this buck pattern cold. They knew to set up here
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: because of this, that and the other thing. And it's
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: really weird because they didn't even know the buck existed
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: until the night before when the outfitish shoot showed him pictures.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: The amount, the amount of twisting that goes into what
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: patterning Endeared really is, it blows often blows my mind.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: And I not sound like too much of a jerk here,
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: but quite frankly, I think it's ego driven. You look
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: at me, I know so much more than everybody else. Well,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: I don't, Okay, what I do is I can figure
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: out that I'm getting this buck's picture here half hour
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: after dark on a consistent basis. Now he's coming from
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: this direction. He's probably betting over there, and this is
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: part of this food source right now happens to be
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: his primary food source. Now, that to me is patterning
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: a book. It's not anywhere near as glamorous or or
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: detail detail driven as a lot of people painted. So
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: what actually opened my eyes to this is over the years,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: you know, having so many cams out for various clients.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: You know, every once in a while you happen to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: have a dope betting area that's not that high impact
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: to get into. So you set up a video. So
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 1: you set up a camera on that scrape that's on
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: the edge of it, and huh, three or four times
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: a week during the rut, I'm getting this one box
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: picture either passing or working that scrape on the down
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: one side of that dope betting area. Isn't that a pattern?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: He's on somewhat of a consistent level. He's checking this
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: dough betting area. Why again, keep it simple, stupid, What's
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: what's the buck trying to do during the run. He's
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: trying to breed as many doughs as he can, which
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: isn't that many. But you know still that that's his
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: mission to find breed dose and not get killed in
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: the process. If if you let me, let me turn
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: this around on you for a second. Mark you're married, correct,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: Let's pretend you weren't. Don't answer this question. It is
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: a trap pretty much, yes, but but let's pretend you
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: weren't married. You are very familiar with the area you
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: live in. You desperately, desperately want to find a girlfriend.
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: Are you going to go into New York to try
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: to find one? Well, I go to New York before
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: the nearest town here. That's the reasons. Well, okay, we're
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: pretending you're not married, so your wife's relatives aren't gonna
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: kill you. But what a person is going to do
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: more often than not, because again, as I said, well,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: all this stuff, we're playing odds. We're playing odds and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: tendencies that by definition means their exceptions. Every once in
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: a while, Mark is going to head to New York,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: but for the most part, he's going to go to
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: the areas that he knows their girls at. And there's
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: nowhere that he knows that better than in the area
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: he lives. Why is the mature buck going to be
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: any different? And that mature buck, remember this is their
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: home range, is their house in their yard. Okay, they
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: have a darn good idea of what's going on in
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: general in that home range. Could somebody walk through your
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: yard with you knowing? Sure they could? They set up
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: a tent in your yard though, and you're gonna figure
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: it out. So so Mr Big has a really good
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: idea what the doe groups on within his home range
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: are doing during virtually I mean, I'm gonna say during
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: any time during the twenty four hour period. I don't
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: mean he knows every second of that twenty four hour
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: period where that one dough is, but he knows that
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: during the daylight hours, odds are pretty high that she's
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: gonna be back at her bedding area. So if he's
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: going to go ahead and try to maximize his breeding opportunities,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: doesn't it make sense for a for him to stay
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: home because he knows where these girls are here, he's
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: the dominant he's either the dominant bucker probably if he's mature,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: one of the more dominant bucks on the property on
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: most grounds, Okay, So he doesn't have to worry overly
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: much about people feeling those girls. And he knows where
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: they are, where odds are the highest, where they will
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: be during the daylight, where they'll be in early morning,
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: where they will be in early after in late early evening,
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: right before dark. He has a pretty darn good idea
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: where they're going to be after dark. So doesn't it
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: make sense for him to check those locations when he's
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: not with the dope, And if it does, isn't that
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: him following a pattern? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I can tell you that from personal experience, there are
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: a I would say over f of the I'll say
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: right around of the mature box on the various properties
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I managed for clients. UM. Part of what they pay
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: me for is to learn as much about what they're
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: doing as possible so they can take advantage of that
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: hunting UM, I'd say right around half of them if
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: they have a pattern outside the rut. Early reason. If
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: they have a pattern, I don't know what the heck
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: it is. I can't figure it out during the rut.
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: A pretty decent percent of those bucks I can't figure
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: out outside the rut, all of a sudden, their actions
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: make all the sense in the world and are pretty
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: darn predictable in some regards. In some regards, as long
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: as you use the loose definition of patterning that I do. UM,
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, it's easier to pattern a lot
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: of bucks during the rut than it is outside of it. Yeah,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: as you know exactly what they're after and you know
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: where they're going to be, right all right. I think
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: it comes down to, like you said, maybe how people
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: are defining it, because I mean, so many people talk
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: about well, I'm going to focus on this betting area
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: because I know bucks are going to be, you know,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: checking out for dose. Well, you're saying that you are
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: hypothesizing that a buck is going to be visiting this
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 1: area based on past experience or based on what you know,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: so essentially that you know you are based on this
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: decision on what you believe to be a pattern. Just
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: people aren't calling it that, um, but but there really
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: is something to it. Or and with those people you
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: just described, if they don't realize is they just patterned that?
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, if they know there's this hundred forty eight point,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: which I'll tell you what if you got a hundred
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: eight point, that's a pretty darn good I don't care
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: who you are, UM, But they know they have a
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: hundred and forty eight point that spends some time on
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: this property and they're actually going back there to set
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: up on that dopetting area hoping he'll come by. When
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: he comes by and they kill him, they had that
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: buck pattern better than I'm going to venture to say,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: at least of the quote unquote experts that are talking
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: about patterning gear. Yeah, Dan, WHOA, what do you got next?
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: Do you think when it when it comes to these
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 1: you know, all all these does um do you think
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: that people should be paying more attention to where those are,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: let's say in late October, as opposed to where buck
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: sign is popping up. I think you'd better be paying
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: at least as much attention to it. That's a great question.
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: I let mean this will probably put in two perspective
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: my thoughts on dolls. When I'm laying on improvements for
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: on for my clients on private ground and we're talking betting,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: I never mess around with buck bets. I'm focusing on
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: doll bedding because if I know where they are, I'm
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: gonna know where Mr Big is, where I can kill
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: Mr Big during the rot. You know, I I think
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: that you. I think a person does get a bad
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: rap frankly from US hunters. They are looked at by
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: too many. I think they're looked at is nothing but past.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. Those dolls, especially the ones they
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: are living that have daylight core areas on your ground,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: they're your best friends because they're telling they are dictating
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: what Mr Big is going to do as long as
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: he's not with a doll. Another getting off on a
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: little I'm going to go so far as to say
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: almost useless, dear, tribute something that something that I believed
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: everybody talks about how dolls are are leading bucks around
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: during the rut, when you're talking about a mature buck
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: once he's crawled her. I do not have a shredded
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: doubt in my mind whatsoever that she's not the one
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: dictating movements to her. To him, he's dictating her movements.
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: He's pushing. He's the one who in Iowa's pushing her
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: out in the middle of that pick cornfield. She doesn't
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: want to be there. He wants her there because he
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: can see any type of competition coming up and try
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: to steal her away. You know, Um, I've actually one
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: of one of the bucks. I'm looking at this hanging
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 1: on my wall as we speak. You know, was you know,
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: crawl the dough and she wanted to go up the
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: point he wants. Thankfully, he wanted to get a drink water.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: I watched to go around or three different times tiner
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: in the side and push her down to that water hole,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: which I was very thankful for because my stand was
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: covering that water. So, speaking of um, of this idea,
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: you know, we just talked a little bit about understanding
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: what these bucks are gonna do during the rut, and
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: you know, understanding what Mr Big wants is the dough
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: and everything like that brings me back to this whole idea.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: And I've heard you mentioned this this phrase. I've heard
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: you say a lot quote unquote listening to Mr Big,
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: and I think you know what that means is is
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: how to pick up the clues that these bucks are
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 1: giving us. You know, like you said a buck, you
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: know the occasionally these bucks are jumping up and down,
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: waving their arms saying kill me. How do we get
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: better are at listening to Mr Big? I guess what
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: do you mean by that? And how do we get
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: better doing that? I think it. I think it really
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 1: starts by just asking yourself, by first understanding the rod cycle.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, you've got early seasons, You've got what is
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: kind of a misnomer in the October lull. What that
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: really is, more than anything, is based off of pressure.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: You know, we're a lot of a lot of both
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: seasons either starts middle of September or October one. So
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: the woods goes from being relatively peaceful. Let's face it's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: not that much fun being out in the woods going
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: for a walk in August. You know, just for the
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: heck of it, because well there's a lot of bugs
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: out there, a lot of bugs and a lot of
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: thorns that like to scratch you, um, and you can't
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 1: stands hot and sweaty and gross. So for most of
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: the summer and early or late summer, these bucks that
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: they're left pretty much alone, these deer left alone. Know
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: if they're now all of a sudden, both season starts
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: and he got all us yard ages running around the woods.
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: Now that tends to push bucks a little bit more
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: nocturnal because their testosterol levels are low. All they're trying
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: to do is fatten up for the rut. You know,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: I don't have a reason I have to move a lot,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: So if I get pressure, I'm not gonna I'm gonna
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: move even less. Then you get into the scrape phase,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: you know, the scrape phase of season. What are bucks
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: trying to do, well, they're advertising their presence. They're advertising
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: their presence partially to dose but mainly the other bucks.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: What they're trying to do is they're trying to make
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: it so that when he finds when Mr Big finds
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: that dough a couple of weeks later and in November,
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: and along comes, along comes as nearest competitor, He's already
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 1: send a message to him, don't mess with me, buddy,
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: I am at the top of the food chain, and
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: I will hand you your butt on the platter. Because
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: he doesn't want to fight. He really, I really firmly believe.
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: Longer I do this, the more firmly I believe. Of
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: the mature bucks, they are honest, most of them. There's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: gonna be exceptions. There is always that one guy in
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: the crowd that wants to fight anybody over anything. But
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: the majority of them they don't want to because that
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: is man. That is nasty stuff. You know, if you
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: ever really want to get an idea of how much
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: force is expended when two mature bucks go at it,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: just go ahead and take take some three and a
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: half year old shed you found one year. Try to
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: break off a time the amount and this is I'm
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: talking about just on a three and a half year
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: old buck. You know, snapping a tying off at the
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: main beam is not easy. It takes a tremendous amount
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: of force. Now take that four and a half five
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: and a half year old buck and imagine what it
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: takes to break that entire that entire beam is right
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: or left beam off of his head. You know the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 1: amount of force. It's like it's like going ten rounds
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: with with Mike Tyson. I don't care if you win,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: you lost because he hits you and it really hurt.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: And now you're going into the breeding season where you're
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: gonna if you're a mature buck, you're gonna average losing
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: anywhere froment body weight. And as soon as the breeding
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: season is over, guess what you're in winter and even
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: in even in a Missouri or a Iowa or a Kansas,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: that's the seasonal low point for food. So now I've
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: got to go ahead and try to recoup my body
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: during the during the hardest point there is that that
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: that nature throws at me. Okay, by going through the
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: right cycle and understanding it, ask yourself, what is it
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 1: that Mr Big wants during that time early season October
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: Lawley wants to be left alone fatten up for the rout.
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: You know, during the peak scrape phase. He wants to advertise, advertise,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: advertise his advertised steak out, his his notch in the
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: buck hierarchy. Then you get into the breeding season itself,
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: what does he want. He wants breathing opportunities after the
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 1: breathing phases over. What does he want? He wants food.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: He wants food to try to recoup his body. You know,
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: when you when you grasp that concept, not all you
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: have to do is ask yourself, what does Mr Big
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: want today? He wants food? Okay, what's my best food
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: source that's closest to where I've been getting his pictures
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: or where I've seen him or where I've seen his sign. Okay,
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: that's it there. Well, kind of telling me that that's
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: probably where I should hunt today, isn't he? Yeah, yeah,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: Now that's that's what I'm That's what I mean by
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: listening to Mr Big and the other the other Big
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: way is okay. So, and this is where information overload
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: can kind of get you in trouble. So we know,
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: we know that the best odds are killing a buck
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: on a scrape is to wait to that last week.
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: That last week it peaks scrape phase because his testosterol
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: level is skyrocketing them. And by waiting, we haven't given
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: any clues that he's in danger working that scrape. But
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: now all we do is slip up in the stand
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: and our odds are best to kill him. And yet
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: that's what I should be hunting. I should be hunting
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: that scrape that's back by that doe betting area, in
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: an area he feels safe. But I just swapped chips
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: and man in the last two weeks. I've got the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: bucks picture that I want to kill four times or hey,
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: let's say five times during legal shooting hours out on
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: that alfalfa field. Well, I'm gonna listen to it, and
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go hunt that alfalfa field, even though that's
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: not the best place to be. Supposedly we're peaks. Great,
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: he's all about right now, he's all about advertising his
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: presence and all that stuff. But he's telling me that, geez,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: these four pictures, four or five pictures in a fourteen
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: day period during legal shooting light, that's good odds. He's
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: telling me to go over there and kill him. So
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm gonna listen, even though even though my
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: own general philosophy is telling me that's not where I'm
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: supposed to be. I'm supposed to be or well, let's
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: make this even better, it's during the rut, it's during
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: peak breeding phase, and there he is out in the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: middle of that that alfalfa field, you know, eating day
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 1: after day. Well, I don't care that he's supposed to
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: be chasing does. He's telling me that's where I gotta be,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: and I'm gonna listen. So you mentioned there another topic
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: that I want to touch on, the kind of naturally transitions.
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: I think perfectly here if we're listening to miss to
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: big for paying attention to these different tendencies, whether it's
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: observed or it's based on what we understand about what
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: dear typically are doing that year or that time of year.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: I think the next most important decision is not necessarily well,
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: first you need to know where, but next is when
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: do I strike this idea of when is the right
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: time to go in there, because I think, you know,
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: as you've alluded several times, it's really important to keep
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: the pressure low so they are there in present and
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: moving normally, and then strike when the time's right. So
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: this is something we always we like to talk about
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: this with a lot of our different guests, and I'm
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 1: always curious to hear each different person's perspective on which
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: factors that they pay attention to the most. You know,
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: do they really pay attention to temperature or baro metric
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: pressure or moon or all these different things to help
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: them decide when to strike. Can you tell us what
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: factors matter to you? How do you make that decision?
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: The primary that's the factor that's gonna trump everything for
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: me every single time. Is any type of pictures or
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: visual sightings. If I'm seeing, if I'm seeing, I don't care.
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: Here here's a good example, um buck that I killed
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: probably four years ago. Now, okay, firearms season it just ended. Okay,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: um I'm doing. I'm doing a camera swap chip swap
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: here in the morning of the day after firearm season.
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: Mature bucks are not supposed to be moving during daylight. Now,
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: they just went through the war. But one of the
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: cams that I swapped, it's got, it's got pictures in
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: the last we'll say, the last ten days, and had
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: pictures of one mature buck out in at six different
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: times during legal shooting light, including the day before. Man,
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: I'm going. I went ahead and as soon as I
• 1:28:52
  Speaker 1: saw that, I threw a ladder stand in the back
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: of the truck. I went and set it up and
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 1: I and here it is the day after. This is
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: an ill and a way. Um, the day after second
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: shotgun season, which puts us in December, it is eighty
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: some degrees with a thirty mile wind. You're not supposed
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: to kill a buck on it. In situations like that,
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: on an open clover field, it's not supposed to happen.
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: But I didn't tell him that when he came out
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: a half hour before dark and I shot him. You know,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: if if visual observations or trail cameras are telling you
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: something that trumps everything for me every single time, you
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: know after that it's matching the phase of season with
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: what they want, and what stands do I have that
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: are ideally suited for that phase of season. If it's
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: a crappy weather day, you know, it's hot, it's windy,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: like the day that I killed that buck that he
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: should not have been out there, you know when he
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: was he was a five and a half year old buck. Now, Um,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: But if I don't have recon like that, if it's
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: a crappy weather day, I'm going to hunt the low
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: impact stand, one that I believe offers me a chance,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: but one that I also am not overly worried about
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: messing things up on. I can get in I can
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: get out. I'm not going to disturb anything. Perception is
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: reality for both humans and for deer. If they don't
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: perceive you're hunting them, you're not okay. So if I
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: can pull that off, that's where I'm gonna go on
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: a crappy hunting weather day, and I'm gonna save my
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: higher impact stands for those days where Okay, it's been
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: you know in the here it is November, it's been
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: in the forties forties, forties forties, and today it's a
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 1: higher twenty four degrees with a five to ten wind.
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: Now is when I'm going into those higher impact stands
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: because that fit phase the season, because the stand location
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: matches what he wants and the weather is telling him
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: to get up and move. I'm just it's all, it
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: all just keeps excuse me, it all just keeps going
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: back to stacking the odds for me. What about some
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: of these specifics, um, you mentioned coal front there? What
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: about pressure? Do you pay attention to barometric pressure? I
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: don't pay a heck of a lot of attention to
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: barometric pressure just because I don't have a barometer. I
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 1: do think that, I do think that, UM, I think
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 1: it was deer and deer hunting as I don't think
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: they did the study, but but at least four or
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: five times they've done over the years, they've done articles
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: on barometric pressure. Without a doubt, seems to be one
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: of the biggest keys to getting bucks up on his
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: their feet and moving. You know, when you're gonna make
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: me look silly because I can't remember what that range is,
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: but there is that range out there were barometric pressure
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: gets bucks up and moving. But it also happens to
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: happens to be associated the barometric pressure happens to be
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: associated with shifting fronts. So when you get that cold snap,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: you're doing it by default. Frankly, right right now? What
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: about the moon? Then? You mentioned you don't believe the
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: moon has any influence on the timing of the rut,
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: But do you think anything related to the moon influences
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: just time of movement during the day. You know, there's
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: been it's been said so many times that on full
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: moons afternoons think but mornings and midday is great that
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: I tend to believe there's something to it. But I'll
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 1: be brutally honest with you, I've never noticed the difference.
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: Do you think do you think that those particular um
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: events like rising barometer and moon phase should be important
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 1: to a hunter that may not have like a lot
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: of time throughout the season to hunt. They're they're more
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: of a I can hunt when it's time type of scenario.
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: I think that you just absolutely hit a home run
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: with your statement in that. What I think is that
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: barametric pressure, moon whether all that type of stuff sounds
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: great for people like me who I mean, I let's
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: face it, none of us can really hunt any darn
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: time we want to, but some of us get a
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: lot closer after than others. You know, um, I'm guessing.
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: I'm guessing you too get to hunt a lot more
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: than a lot of your buddies do because it's part
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: of your job. Dan, Maybe not, but sorry continuing, Okay,
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: well not coning, Dan, Mark, you can hunts most of
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: your buddies you so for somebody like you, somebody like me,
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: it makes a lot more makes a lot more sense
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: to pay attention to barametric pressure. It wasn't that long
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: ago where I actually had a real job and I
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: had two weeks vacation that i'd save up every year.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: I worked my way up so I had three weeks
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: totally actually being the being the gracious person that I was,
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: saved a week for the family and set aside two
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: weeks for myself. And yes, I am making fun of myself.
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: That was back then, but you know, um and actually
• 1:34:38
  Speaker 1: might be part of the reason why she's my ex wife.
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: But there's a big there's the big lesson of the day, folks.
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: But I'm telling you right now, I'm going to pretend
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: it was all her. But but when you're doing that,
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: you don't. It's great that you know that that when
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 1: the barometric pressures and this range right here, that's when
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: deer moving the most. But man, you took a week's
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: worth of vacation, and are you going to sit at
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: home or in the cabin because of the barometric pressure?
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: Isn't right? You can't afford to. You're gonna go out
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: and hunt. The reason that I think it's it's a
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: little bit important for the for most quote unquote normal
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: hunters is because I'm not going to head to the
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 1: best highest impact stand location I have when it's twenty
• 1:35:34
  Speaker 1: degrees above normal and it's a twenty five our wind,
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go for a lower impact stand. And hope
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: to catch a break. But I'm going to save that
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: higher impact stand for later in the week when the
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: weather shifts and now all of a sudden, at least
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: the temperatures down to normal and we're dealing with a
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: ten to fifteen mile and our wind instead of real
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: high tempts and a our That's how that's how I
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: would factor, well, pack if that's how I factor to
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: this day where I hunt based on those types of things.
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what, when you got a limited
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: number of days, you're gonna hunt, and if you're not,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: you're probably not all that eat up by hunting. You
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: to begin with good point speaking of stands, um, and
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: kind of pivoting here a little bit. But another somewhat
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: counterintuitive thing I've I've heard you said, at least something
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: that maybe goes against some popular advice, Um, is the
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: idea of over hunting stands. But how that can be
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: a good thing at times if it's the right stand
• 1:36:41
  Speaker 1: or time. Can you talk to me to talk to
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: us about how you learn this lesson about the importance
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: of over hunting hot stands. Oh, the how I learned
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: it is just yet another one of the long line
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: of failures, which I'm very I'm great at failing, and
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: I figure, if you're gonna fail, failed gloriously or don't bother.
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 1: But um, but there was a This was way back
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: when I was consulting for an outfitter had put in
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: a soybean plot real late. Um, and here it is,
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: early September. I've got a hundred and eight four that's
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: bachelor grouped up with a couple of year and a
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: half old bucks that are head hitting these soybeans on
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: a daily basis. And you know, darn well, that's exactly
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: where I am on opening day. I'm up there and
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: oh sucky, there he is. There he is, but up
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: he got spooped off, um just by maybe he was
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: nothing big. It was just by some deer running around. Okay, well, man,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta give this stand four days off
• 1:37:49
  Speaker 1: now because I just hunted it and you gotta keep
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: your impact low. So now five days later, I'm back
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: up in that exact same stand. There he is again.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: He's coming. Call he is dead. I mean, man, this
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: is an hour before dark, and he keeps feeding closer
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: and closer and closer. He's at fifty yards right now.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I could take that shot, but ding, you know, I'll
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: be more comfortable at thirty yards. Um. As a side note,
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: I practice out to a hundred yards just so that
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: I can when everything is perfect. I mean, here he
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: is broadside, head down, eating that I can take that
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: fifty yards shot. Um. But this is so gift wrapped. Man.
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 1: Let him come, and sure enough he's working into forty yards.
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: I'm getting ready, and all of a sudden, something in
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: the woods catches his attention and he's staring and staring
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: and staring. Man, if he was only broadside, now i'd
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 1: be letting that arrow fly. But he's not. He's quarter
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: to me, and he takes off running and oh comes
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: a three and a half year old buck. Now he
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 1: actually spooked from him making a rug back in the woods.
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 1: All right, got to give it another five day break
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: before I go back in. While I show up, and
• 1:39:01
  Speaker 1: now the soybeans are all yellowing. That was so incredibly
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: stupid because Mr Big is no longer coming to that
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: food source, because the soybean leaves are no longer green
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: now they're yellow. He doesn't want them anymore. Buck patterns
• 1:39:19
  Speaker 1: are very using my definition of patterning, are rarely rarely
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: stable for long periods of time overseason. So when a
• 1:39:30
  Speaker 1: buck is telling you again going back to uh, going
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: back to jumping up and down, waving his arms, screaming hate,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: kill me, idiot, you don't sit there and wait for
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: five days before you go back in there again. I mean,
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: I sincerely believe that if I would have hunted that
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: stand every day until I killed them, I would have
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: killed him. But instead of having a couple of weeks worth,
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: or instead of having to shy of a couple of
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: weeks worth of opportunities to hunt, what is a buck
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: of a lifetime for me? Now? I took a handful.
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: I took three shots at it. I limited my own
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: I limited the number of opportunities I had at that deer.
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 1: And it was actually the outfitter I was consulting for
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: at the time, Tom Inderbow, one of one of the
• 1:40:21
  Speaker 1: the premier white tailed mines out there as far as
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: I'm concerned. When you're talking hunters, as he's the one
• 1:40:27
  Speaker 1: who drilled into my head, s feet, you're blowing it.
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: You keep hunting. You know he's going to change, So
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: you keep hunting that buck until you either spook him
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: or you kill him. One of the two, and in
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: those types of situations, I think he was right and
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: have done it that way ever since then have killed
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: a handful of books that I don't believe I would
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: have killed otherwise. So really, what it amounts to is
• 1:40:52
  Speaker 1: when you're when they're hunting, when they're hitting a food
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: source that you know is seasonal. You know I I
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: know that soybeans, Those soybeans are seasonal. Lists soon as
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: those things start to turn, they're gonna lay off them
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: again until after they've completely dried up, draight out, and hardened,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: then they'll go be hitting it again. A situation like that,
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: you hunt that stand as often as you can while
• 1:41:16
  Speaker 1: at while those soybeans leaves are green, when that buck
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: is coming out, when that buck is coming out to
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 1: that brassic a plot on a regular basis during during
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: legal shooting light, but it's just that half acre blair
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: assic a plot. You've got a ton of your hammering
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: a while this food is going fast, you hunt it
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: while you can, because when it's gone, he's not going
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: to be there anymore. He's still probably hopefully going to
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: be on the property, but he's not going to be there.
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: And the key is is being able to get in,
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: hunt and get out without them knowing you're there. As
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: long as they do not know you're there, you're not.
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: What if this was a high pact stand though, What
• 1:42:01
  Speaker 1: if the spot that you were seeing this great action
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: on that you know that this is where they're going
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: to be at. What if that is a high impact spot?
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: Do you still risk it and go in there because
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 1: you know that the odds are you know, disproportionately high
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: at this time and they won't be there in the future.
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: Or do you change your perspective little bit? Am I
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: Do I control this ground or as somebody else let's
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: just hypothetically say it's well, can you can you say
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: on either or if it's by permission or on your own,
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: because I'd be curious to hear how you approach that
• 1:42:31
  Speaker 1: differently with each If this is if this is ground
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: that I control myself and my goals, my goals on
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: the ground I control. I don't own any it's clients.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: I think somehow there's an old saying God looks out
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: for children and fools. I have an add on for
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 1: they slap on the end. Obviously got the back end
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: covered because I have some opportunities that are incredible if
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: I and when I have those opportunities, what I'm trying
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: to do for the clients is it's actually split between
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: trying to kill deer and trying to raise them. If
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: raising deer is important to me on this ground, I'm
• 1:43:14
  Speaker 1: going to be much lower impact because killing him is
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: only half the battle for me. The other half is
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: raising him. And if I'm spooking them to if they're
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: hammering this area right now on my ground, that means
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: they are and over in the neighbors. Okay, so they're
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 1: What I'd probably do is I I picked my spot
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: my shots a little bit more selectively because I don't
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: want them. If I spook these deer off this food
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: source right now, they're safe as if they're in their
• 1:43:44
  Speaker 1: mama's arms because they're heading here on the ground that
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: I managed during legal shooting light. So that at that
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: absolute Stud three and a half year old that I'm
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: trying to get one more year, that's Stud two and
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: a half year old that I'm trying to get one
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: more year on He's every bit is important to me
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 1: in that situations. The buck I'm trying to kill in
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: that situation, I'm probably not gonna hunt it night after
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: night after night. But I still I'm gonna push a
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: little bit harder. I'm gonna push it until I get
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: busted that first time, and then I'm going to back off.
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: I'm going to back off, and I'm going to give
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: them a chance too. I'm not going to push it hard.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna push it. I'm gonna try to make sure
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: I don't push it so hard that they change their patterns,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: because their patterns are working for me. If this happens
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: to be my my neighbor's ground, who is nice enough
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: to give me permission to hunt it, I'm gonna hunt
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: that location over and over and over and over and
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 1: over until they stop use them. But but this goes
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 1: back to what you were saying about pushing the envelope
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: a little bit. In my mind, pushing the envelope is
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: having multiple spots to hunt. So if I blow this here,
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: I still got to land over there. I got the
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: public land over there, and I've got another another piece
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 1: of ground that I was able to trade some trade,
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: some work for hunting rights over there as well. No,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: I think that most people, in my opinion, are way
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: too willing to settle for hunting that one spot. I
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: want to have other options because if I have other options,
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: that means that a I'm don't have to pound. Um,
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: I don't have to pound properties When things aren't going well,
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: hunting more isn't can improve it. Okay, Um, By not
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: going well, I mean you're not seeing squat for deer
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: or anything close to what you want to kill for
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: a deer. If that's happening, I don't want to hunt
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: that property even harder because one, obviously it's telling me
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: that if I got mature bucks here that I want
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: to kill, they're not cooperating with me right now, so
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: let's give them a chance to cooperate, or they're not
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 1: there at all. Kind of hard to hunt something that's
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: not say, well, it's easy to hunt something that's out there,
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: but it's real tough to kill them. Um. But having
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: those extra options virtually anybody who's got a driver's license,
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 1: even in Illinois, Illinois gets if I recall correctly, you
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: guys are from Illinois. Are You're not Dan's in Iowa.
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not actually in Michigan. Okay, Well, I was completely
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: wrong on that Iowa has a decent amount of public ground. Um, Michigan, Michigan.
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: The up has got a ton of them. Not really
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: familiar with the Lower Peninsula that much as far as
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: how much ground is available. But most most of your listeners,
• 1:46:41
  Speaker 1: if they're willing to drive a half hour forty five minutes,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: odds are they can get into public ground hunting. And
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: public ground hunting really gets a bad rap, you know
• 1:46:51
  Speaker 1: it does. I mean, I'm not pretending for a second.
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: I am very lucky, and then I get to hunt
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: utopia and I get to hunt. What is viewed by
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 1: the hunters of the world is a scourge of hunting
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 1: ground public ground. Um, I'm not going to pretend that
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: hunting public ground is anywhere near as easy as hunting
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: you told me, because it's not. But more often than not,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: public ground has got some bucks on it that you'd
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: be more than happy to drag out. And that gives
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: me places to head when things aren't so great. Hopefully
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: I answered your question in there somewhere I can't even
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. Got off on so many tangents,
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: remember what it was. You're the king of tangents, you know,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: But they're they're good. That's compliment. If you're going to
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: fail woriously or don't bother. No, this is uh, this
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: is I could talk about these types of things with
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: you for for hours. That I really enjoy your perspective
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: and a lot of these things and a lot of
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: things you say resonate with me a lot, because it's
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: very much. I'm not sure if it's just because it's
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: so in line with what I believe, or because just
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: what I believe so much of it comes from you.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure which came first, but you might you
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: mind if I make myself look like a colossal jerk
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: here for a second. Thank you finally someone making us
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: look Yeah, this is nice for change you. There's there's
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 1: a reason I like and respect you guys, because you're
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: in this industry and you actually hunt. You have to
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: know as well as I do, the majority of the
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: people in this industry that are quote unquote experts by
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: our definition, they don't hunt. They kill stuff. Yeah, when
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: you go when you go from and there's there's nothing
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: wrong with this. I don't This is not so our
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: grapes or anything. You know what. God loves the people
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: that are able to do this for a living and
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: that that genuinely enjoy it. But when you go from
• 1:48:55
  Speaker 1: guided hunt to guided hunt, to guided hunt, to guided
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: hunt to guided hunt, and the only payments these outfitters
• 1:49:03
  Speaker 1: are receiving his publicity. So what they tend to do
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: is they tend to save that one area where that
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: good buck is coming out on. They tend not all
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: of them, but a good percent tend to save that
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: area for their quote unquote expert who's coming in. All
• 1:49:19
  Speaker 1: they do is climb up a stand and kill something.
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: Well you know what, that's you you come. It's really
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: easy to jump to all sorts of conclusions that aren't
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: very accurate in the real world. The other the other
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 1: scenario that happens quite a bit is I'm as I've
• 1:49:38
  Speaker 1: just got done saying, you know, God looks out for
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: children and fools, and I got the back end covered there.
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: I've been very lucky to manage now five very large
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: properties over the years where these guys that they they
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: go ahead and they give me budgets that are beyond
• 1:49:57
  Speaker 1: what most people would think. They're saying, h and just
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 1: go ahead and set this up to make it the
• 1:50:03
  Speaker 1: very best of your hunting property you can when you're
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 1: hunting on properties like that, when they start hitting. When
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: they really start hitting their stride, it's hard to look stupid.
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 1: It is, I mean, the things that work for you there.
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: You try that stuff on your uncle's farm, you try
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: that stuff on public ground, Man, are you gonna look
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 1: real stupid, real fast? When when you don't ever hunt
• 1:50:33
  Speaker 1: those types of scenarios, it's hard not to believe your
• 1:50:37
  Speaker 1: own press clippings. It's hard to believe that, you know what,
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: taking to taking two carbon arrows and tapping them together.
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 1: It sounds like rattling antlers. Really isn't the greatest thing
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 1: in the world to try to do on that uncle's property,
• 1:50:51
  Speaker 1: because it's probably not gonna work, But it works a
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 1: lot better when you're dealing with the pope and young buck.
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: For every forty akers and you're talking about a five
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: thousand acre property, you know, chances are one of those,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: one of those Pope and young bucks are gonna walk
• 1:51:09
  Speaker 1: by you. Whether it had anything to do with you
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: clicking those antlers, those two carbon arrows together or not,
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 1: it comes really easy to jump to all sorts of
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 1: conclusions that just don't add up. And that's why I'm
• 1:51:25
  Speaker 1: I'm it's not an accident that I still hunt public ground.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: Part of it's quite honestly an ego trip. I shouldn't
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 1: say this, but you kill a three and a half
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: year old buck, I don't care if it's a hundred inches.
• 1:51:38
  Speaker 1: When I drank a three and a half year old
• 1:51:39
  Speaker 1: buck off a public ground, I feel like I did something.
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 1: I mean, it's a source of pride and it helps,
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: it helps hone my skills. But at the same time,
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: as I said, I know this makes me sound like
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 1: a colossal jerk, but I cannot, for the life of me,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: understand how people themselves can stand up there it's in
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: front of a TV camera, whether it's in front of
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: an audience and a deer show where if it's in
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: a magazine and tell normal hunters how they should hunt
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: when you never ever hunt like that normal hunter does.
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 1: That's quite honestly, why I think that the three of
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 1: us can relate to each other so well or three
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: d or not three killers. Yeah, and I agree with
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: everything you're saying there. And on top of all that,
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: I think what we're doing is a whole lot more fun,
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: like actually dealing with the challenge and really having to
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: learn these deer and really putting in the work that's
• 1:52:35
  Speaker 1: a lot more fun and fulfilling than ever just climbing
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 1: up a tree stand and killing something that you know
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: someone told me would be there. I did I personally,
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: and like you said, there's nothing wrong with it, you know,
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: to each their own. But that just doesn't do it
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: for me. Um, I'm I hunt for the hunt. I
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: can honestly say I've never went on a guide that
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 1: hunt in my life. Not because, as I said, I
• 1:52:57
  Speaker 1: I cut my teeth on the consulting act be consulting
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 1: for outfitters. God love, people are going guided hunts. There's
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: absolutely positively nothing wrong with that in any way, shape
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: or form. But the thrill isn't there for me. I
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: don't wait to me, I mean, I know this sounds
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: cool and all that stuff, but no bs. To me,
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: killing the gear is not the rush. The rush is
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: somehow figuring it out well enough that I can be
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: within shooting range of that mature deer and he doesn't
• 1:53:30
  Speaker 1: know him there. That to me is the rush. To me,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: the rushes Jesus must be ten years ago now when
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 1: I thought I might have figured out something about dominant
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: family group dominant doe groups, and then spending the next
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: you know, six seven years trying to prove it wrong
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: and not being able to prove it wrong. I just
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: figured something. That is the rush and the stuff for
• 1:53:57
  Speaker 1: me figuring out those little things, putting together the jigsaw
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 1: puzzle that every one of these properties are, whether it's
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: public ground or private ground, and figuring out the picture
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: it paints that gives you the best odds of killing Mr. Big.
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: That is the rush killing the deer is that there's
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: obviously I don't think there's anything wrong with killing deer,
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: And frankly, I always look forward to the seasons where
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: my clients have too many dolls and I've got to
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 1: kill a bunch of dolls because this isn't politically correct.
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: But I really like killing deer, especially when I can
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: go ahead and donate the extra venison that I won't
• 1:54:38
  Speaker 1: be using to feed hungry people, and actually get to
• 1:54:41
  Speaker 1: pretend I'm doing something good in this world for once.
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: That's fun. That's that's what drives me on this type
• 1:54:51
  Speaker 1: of stuff. That and quite honestly, habitat improvements where I'm
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: trying to get a dear to do this and whow
• 1:54:57
  Speaker 1: can you believe it? He just did? Wow? Isn't that
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 1: the coolest darn thing you ever saw. He was doing that,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: and I now have him do this. It's just those
• 1:55:08
  Speaker 1: stupid things I get off on. Yeah, No, I think
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: you're among kindred spirits here. Me and me and Dan
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: are very much in the same boat as you and
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: uh and man I gotta believe that most of our
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 1: listeners probably can relate to a lot of this too,
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: but it's much as they hate to say this, Steve,
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: we have got to wrap this conversation up. We've We've
• 1:55:27
  Speaker 1: probably taken more time than than you were expecting, so
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: thank you for that you can. I don't I love
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: talking about this type of stuff, especially when it's with
• 1:55:36
  Speaker 1: people like you guys. You guys do if this, If
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 1: this and the last interview was beneficial to your audience
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form, you were, you guys
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 1: are the ones that deserve the credit because you know
• 1:55:51
  Speaker 1: better than I do. I'm not a good interview. You're good.
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 1: I've I've thoroughly enjoyed this um and you guys, you guys, Yeah,
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: it is my pleasure. And you guys better be proud
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 1: of his heck or what you built there, because I
• 1:56:09
  Speaker 1: you deserve to be well. Thank you. We really appreciate that.
• 1:56:13
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, well, if we want to continue
• 1:56:16
  Speaker 1: throwing compliments, I'll throw one more year way really quickly
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: and just say that to the point I made earlier,
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 1: your books are terrific. I own two of them. I
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: haven't read The Habitat yet, but I'm definitely going to.
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: I really quick. Want to give you an opportunity to
• 1:56:31
  Speaker 1: let our audience know where where should they go to
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: find those books, because I think they definitely should try
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: to give him a reader they can um if if
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 1: they want to give them the cheapest they can, they
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: should just go to Amazon. I kild the dirty little secrets.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: One of the dirty little secrets about writing books is
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: the amazons of the world. We can get them cheaper
• 1:56:52
  Speaker 1: than the author can um so any if you just
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: do a search on my name on Amazon, you'll come
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: up with all four of them. Otherwise, if the person
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: wanted an autograph copy uh www Dad, dot food, dash plots,
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 1: dash for dash deer dot com minus signs between each
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: one of those words, you can buy an even there
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 1: and would be more than happy to sign them. But
• 1:57:20
  Speaker 1: I'm telling telling your audience right up front, you can
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: get them all all cheaper straight from Amazon. You throw
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: in a fifty dollar charge for your autograph though, right I.
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: If I did, my book sales would be far worse.
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised people don't some people that order the books.
• 1:57:42
  Speaker 1: It has absolute for me directly, has absolutely nothing to
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 1: do with wanting a signature. They have no idea they
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: or even to get one. And I'm surprised I haven't
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 1: gotten books back asking for reasons. That's awesome, well, Steve,
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: this this has been great. We really appreciate you owning
• 1:58:00
  Speaker 1: us and sharing your perspective and everything. And hopefully we
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: can stay in touch over the coming months and we'll
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: have some great stories to share from another successful hunting
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: season for you. Sounds great, gentlemen, alright, if you don't mind,
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: I just want to thank your audience. Um, I I
• 1:58:17
  Speaker 1: couldn't do what I do without them, and that's not
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: lost on me for a second. And to say I
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 1: appreciate it just seems to be not doing any kind
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: of justice whatsoever. But trust me, it is not lost
• 1:58:33
  Speaker 1: on me. How incredibly blessed I am to do what
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 1: I do and I all that to your audience. Yeah,
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: that's that's a great point in both both Dan and
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: I too. We we appreciate everyone listening and uh man,
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: this is good stuff. Steve, thank you so much. Oh
• 1:58:51
  Speaker 1: my pleasure. Guys. All right, well, I have one more
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: piece of advice for you today now that we're wrapping
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: this up, and that is to go back and listen
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 1: to this entire conversation with Steve again, because there was
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 1: just so much valuable information I think packed in this one.
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 1: I think there are so many things that you can
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: take away from this and apply to your own hunting
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: season and you will see better success. Listen to it again.
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: There's a lot to digest. I'm going to do the same,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: and I hope you really enjoy this one and found
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 1: as valuable as I did. Now real quick, before we
• 1:59:28
  Speaker 1: shut this down, we need to thank our partners who
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: helped make this podcast possible. So thank you too, Sick
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: of Gear, Trophy, Ridge, Bear Archery, Redneck Blinds, Hunter, A,
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 1: Maps of Zonics, Carbon Express, Maven Optics, in the White
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: Tailed Institute of North America. And with all that said,
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: thank you as well for joining us today. We really
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: appreciate your time, appreciate you spending this couple hours of
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 1: us talking. Dear and hopefully it found us as educational
• 1:59:55
  Speaker 1: and interesting as I did. And finally, of course, I
• 1:59:59
  Speaker 1: hope you'll stay wired to hunt that