Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 801: Mindsets of the Whitetail Masters: Dan Infalt

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Ep. 801: Mindsets of the Whitetail Masters: Dan Infalt · Wired To Hunt Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt podcast. This week on
0:04
Speaker 1: the show, we're continuing our new series exploring the habits, mindsets, methods,
0:09
Speaker 1: and routines of the best whitetail hunters in the world,
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Speaker 1: and this week we're joined by Dan Infult.
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Speaker 2: Welcome to the Wired to Hunt Podcast, your guide to
0:22
Speaker 2: the whitetail woods, presented by first Light, creating proven versatile
0:27
Speaker 2: hunting apparel for the stand, saddle or blind. First Light
0:31
Speaker 2: Go Farther, Stay Longer, and now your host Mark Kenyon.
0:36
Speaker 1: All Right, welcome back to the Wired to Hunt podcast,
0:39
Speaker 1: brought to you by First Light and their Camo for
0:42
Speaker 1: Conservation initiative, in which a portion of every sale of
0:45
Speaker 1: first Light Specter, Camo claud whitetail gear portion of everyone
0:49
Speaker 1: of those sales is donated to the National and Dear Association.
0:54
Speaker 1: Big fan of that program, big fan of that organization,
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Speaker 1: and I'm a big fan of today's guest. You who
1:00
Speaker 1: are likely familiar with Dan Infalt. He has been on
1:03
Speaker 1: the show many times in the past. He is a
1:05
Speaker 1: well known figure in the world of diehard deer hunters.
1:08
Speaker 1: He is the founder of the Hunting Beast, Hunting Beast
1:11
Speaker 1: Gear and just one of the really impactful teachers within
1:18
Speaker 1: the deer hunting world in the last decade plus. He
1:22
Speaker 1: comes from Wisconsin. He has a unique way of hunting
1:27
Speaker 1: public land deer, pressured deer. He's really popularized a lot
1:31
Speaker 1: of hunting strategies around focusing on buck betting areas. All
1:36
Speaker 1: of this has been covered in detail in our past
1:38
Speaker 1: episodes with Dan, but today we're gonna get a different
1:41
Speaker 1: look at how he does things. We're gonna run him
1:43
Speaker 1: through this mindsets of the whitetail Masters set of questions
1:48
Speaker 1: that we've already talked with folks like Ben Rising, Andre Dequisto,
1:52
Speaker 1: and John Eberhart about. We're gonna dig into the nitty
1:56
Speaker 1: gritty of how he makes decisions, how he deals with
1:59
Speaker 1: the diversity, how he looks at the importance of hard
2:02
Speaker 1: work and mental toughness and decision making and all of
2:05
Speaker 1: these kind of behind the scenes processes that lead to success.
2:11
Speaker 1: So this isn't you know, what's the rub mein? What's
2:13
Speaker 1: this great man? How do I shoot a deer? This
2:15
Speaker 1: is how do I make good decisions? This is how
2:18
Speaker 1: do I apply myself to a challenge. How do I
2:22
Speaker 1: deal with things not going my way? There's a lot
2:25
Speaker 1: to learn from successful deer hunters on these topics, and
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Speaker 1: Dan Infelt proved to be a perfect example of this.
2:32
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed our chat, highly recommend you tune into
2:35
Speaker 1: this one, and I think let's just get right to it.
2:37
Speaker 1: I will give you one quick reminder. Our new White
2:40
Speaker 1: Tail Edu educational video series is live now on the
2:45
Speaker 1: meat Eater Clips YouTube channel. So it's meat Eater Clips Clips.
2:50
Speaker 1: Heading over there. Subscribe, You're going to see our new
2:54
Speaker 1: kind of everything you kind of need to know about
2:57
Speaker 1: the foundations of deer hunting video series that me and
3:00
Speaker 1: Tony Peterson are doing. We've had an episode out about tracks,
3:04
Speaker 1: We've had an episode out about what dear feet on.
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Speaker 1: There's upcoming episodes on rubs and deer poop and scrapes
3:15
Speaker 1: and travel and weather, all sorts of stuff like that.
3:19
Speaker 1: We try to break it down in a kind of
3:22
Speaker 1: back and forth conversational matter, but also drillian with specific examples, illustrations, graphics,
3:29
Speaker 1: trying to make this stuff as understandable as it possible can.
3:33
Speaker 1: So go to the media to close YouTube channel, subscribe,
3:35
Speaker 1: check out those videos. Thank you, and now, without further ado,
3:40
Speaker 1: my chat with Dan in Fault all right here with
3:44
Speaker 1: me back on the show is mister Dan in fault.
3:47
Speaker 1: Welcome back in.
3:48
Speaker 3: Hey, Mark, are you been?
3:50
Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm good. I'm really glad that we're able
3:53
Speaker 1: to have this conversation. It's been a little while. It's
3:57
Speaker 1: always surprising to me when I actually go back and
4:00
Speaker 1: the archives how long ago it's been since the last
4:03
Speaker 1: person we talked to and and somehow several years have
4:07
Speaker 1: passed by since our last one. So I'm glad we
4:10
Speaker 1: can fix that. Appreciate you making time for this problem.
4:15
Speaker 1: And you know, as as we talked about just before
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Speaker 1: recording this, I'm hoping this one's going to be different
4:21
Speaker 1: than our usual ones. We've had some really good chats
4:22
Speaker 1: over the years. We've dove deep into, you know, all
4:25
Speaker 1: of your tactics when it comes to beds and you know,
4:28
Speaker 1: aggressive mobile hunting. We did one of my what would
4:33
Speaker 1: You Do series a few years ago where I gave
4:35
Speaker 1: you a bunch of hypothetical situations.
4:37
Speaker 3: That was a great chat.
4:39
Speaker 1: But this one's going to be different than all those
4:41
Speaker 1: in that I'm looking to understand the why behind a
4:45
Speaker 1: lot of your decisions, understanding like your mindset, your decision
4:49
Speaker 1: making process, your habits, different things like that. So so
4:55
Speaker 1: feel free to get as in the weeds about that
4:58
Speaker 1: kind of stuff as you want. I'm really curious about
5:02
Speaker 1: what's going on inside your mind when you're going through
5:05
Speaker 1: the hunting season or making decisions all that kind of stuff.
5:07
Speaker 1: So that's my long winded wind up. But where I
5:11
Speaker 1: want to start dan is at the top with how
5:15
Speaker 1: you view success. So to start out, how would you
5:20
Speaker 1: define or how do you define deer hunting success.
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Speaker 3: That's a hard one because I really don't relate it
5:27
Speaker 3: to what I kill. I related to the chase. Everything
5:31
Speaker 3: about me is the chase. Matter of fact, if I
5:33
Speaker 3: kill something, it's almost like it's weird. You feel like
5:37
Speaker 3: you're done, you know. I mean there's a lot of
5:40
Speaker 3: times when you like think about you know, you're going
5:44
Speaker 3: to wrap it up. You've had a long arguing, you know,
5:47
Speaker 3: season where it's just been rough and you feel like, Okay,
5:51
Speaker 3: I got a break here. I'm just I killed this thing.
5:53
Speaker 3: I'm gonna wrap it up. I'm just there's only a
5:55
Speaker 3: few weeks left in the season. I'm done, and within
5:58
Speaker 3: a day I'm looking for another state. I'm back in it.
6:00
Speaker 3: You know, It's it's very difficult. So the success thing
6:05
Speaker 3: really is kind of measured in the chase. I think
6:08
Speaker 3: I'm unsuccessful if I fail on getting onto deer and
6:12
Speaker 3: i can't find a target and I'm not actively seeing sign.
6:19
Speaker 3: If I'm going out, I'm finding sign, which is almost
6:22
Speaker 3: always you know. I do get in some situations out
6:25
Speaker 3: of state where you get in dead properties or something
6:27
Speaker 3: you not find this stuff, but usually through moving around
6:30
Speaker 3: I can. But for me, if I'm in the chase,
6:33
Speaker 3: if I have a target and I'm going after it,
6:36
Speaker 3: it's success. I mean that that's my goal. Is My
6:39
Speaker 3: love isn't killing. My love is the chase. And I
6:43
Speaker 3: think it started out killing, you know what I mean
6:45
Speaker 3: when I was younger, and I think everybody does. I mean,
6:47
Speaker 3: you've got to get that kill under your belt, and
6:48
Speaker 3: then you gotta get the next one and the next
6:50
Speaker 3: one to prove that you're somebody, because that's the way
6:54
Speaker 3: you know your mind works. But once you have those
6:56
Speaker 3: kills and you've proved it to yourself, then it becomes
6:58
Speaker 3: about your own game, your own and it becomes more
7:01
Speaker 3: about the focus on the hunt, not really the kill.
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Speaker 1: So with that, with that being the case, do you
7:12
Speaker 1: ever set some kind of explicit goal though for a season.
7:16
Speaker 1: So I understand like getting under your having the chase
7:19
Speaker 1: is success, But is there any way to have like
7:22
Speaker 1: a specific goal within that or do you keep it
7:24
Speaker 1: pretty open? Now?
7:26
Speaker 3: You know? I'm sure there is ways to have goals,
7:28
Speaker 3: and I'm sure most people do. And I notice most
7:30
Speaker 3: of your younger people are real goal oriented, But for me,
7:35
Speaker 3: it's never really been goal oriented. I mean, if I'm onto,
7:40
Speaker 3: say a two hundred and twenty inch animal, I'm keeping
7:42
Speaker 3: a little secret. Obviously, I'm not shooting one hundred and
7:44
Speaker 3: fifty one hundred and sixty inch animals because I have
7:48
Speaker 3: that hope that I'm going to get that animal. But
7:51
Speaker 3: I have no problem shooting a mature gear that scores
7:55
Speaker 3: eighty inches if it's got a big, heavy beefy rack
7:57
Speaker 3: with a couple of points. I just love mature bucks.
8:01
Speaker 3: So it's not really I don't really have goals. I just,
8:05
Speaker 3: you know, I don't shoot things that I don't feel
8:08
Speaker 3: as a challenge and I just like mature animals. But
8:12
Speaker 3: I will hold out for something bigger if I've seen
8:16
Speaker 3: something that I really want.
8:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned that failure would be, you know, just
8:25
Speaker 1: not getting on sign not having that pursuit. Can you
8:31
Speaker 1: elaborate a little bit more on what that failure has
8:34
Speaker 1: looked like for you in the past, or what like
8:37
Speaker 1: if this coming season where to pass and X, Y,
8:41
Speaker 1: and Z happened, you would say, Oh, that was a
8:44
Speaker 1: very specific failure. Could you just elaborate on what that
8:47
Speaker 1: looks like and why you would view that as a failure.
8:49
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think one of one of the things I
8:54
Speaker 3: view as a failure has been my struggle with my shooting.
8:58
Speaker 3: I've had some very bad had issues with my eyesight
9:02
Speaker 3: the last few years and have a very hard time
9:04
Speaker 3: focusing on my pins and my target at the same time,
9:09
Speaker 3: and it's led up to some very bad hits and
9:11
Speaker 3: I've lost some animals, and that is one of the
9:14
Speaker 3: hardest things to overcome, especially if you're open about it
9:17
Speaker 3: and you put videos out and you show people that stuff,
9:19
Speaker 3: because you take a lot of ridicule and it's hard.
9:23
Speaker 3: But I feel like people have the same problems and
9:26
Speaker 3: you don't want them to go through what you're going
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Speaker 3: through and think they're alone, so I show it. But
9:31
Speaker 3: it is I am human, So you look at that
9:34
Speaker 3: as a failure. And two seasons ago I got through
9:36
Speaker 3: a season where I think I wounded it was either
9:41
Speaker 3: three or four big bucks and didn't end up killing
9:43
Speaker 3: an animal, and I was really, you know, not feeling
9:48
Speaker 3: good about that. That was definitely a failed season that
9:51
Speaker 3: I'd like to take back, you know. So that's been
9:55
Speaker 3: one of my biggest goals recently, has just been fixing
9:59
Speaker 3: that problem.
10:04
Speaker 1: So so that that leads me to then one of
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Speaker 1: the other questions I had, which is, when you have
10:10
Speaker 1: a struggle like this, within within the sphere of deer hunting,
10:14
Speaker 1: I guess really anything, but in this case, with a
10:17
Speaker 1: problem like that, with a challenge like that, how do
10:21
Speaker 1: you fix it? How do you get better? How do
10:23
Speaker 1: you push through a struggle like that? What's that process
10:26
Speaker 1: look like for you?
10:27
Speaker 3: So the process for me was, I mean to really
10:30
Speaker 3: shoot a lot was the first thing I tried, and
10:34
Speaker 3: I could hit targets like you wouldn't believe. And then
10:37
Speaker 3: you get the confidence up where you believe that you
10:39
Speaker 3: can you know you can execute, and then I'd get
10:41
Speaker 3: in the field and one buck in particular really sent
10:45
Speaker 3: me over the edge. And it was last year in Iowa.
10:49
Speaker 3: I had a real nice buck come in at ten
10:51
Speaker 3: yards and I drew back the bowl early because he
10:53
Speaker 3: was coming up close and I was kind of skylight,
10:56
Speaker 3: and when the buck got into range, I had to
10:58
Speaker 3: bowl back and I was locked on the pin on
11:02
Speaker 3: the on the bowl and I had I was following
11:06
Speaker 3: where I wanted to shoot, and I was just waiting
11:08
Speaker 3: for him to turn in quarter to a quarter away
11:11
Speaker 3: from me a little bit, and as soon as he did,
11:14
Speaker 3: I shot, and I watched my arrogo right where it belonged,
11:16
Speaker 3: and we couldn't find that deer and I was like,
11:18
Speaker 3: I shot it right behind the shoulder. It was quarter
11:20
Speaker 3: and away. It was a perfect shot, and we couldn't
11:23
Speaker 3: figure it out. And I went back and I watched
11:25
Speaker 3: a video footage and the deer literally quartered to me
11:29
Speaker 3: instead of away from me, and I shot it in
11:30
Speaker 3: the shoulder, but my eyes saw me hit it behind
11:33
Speaker 3: the shoulder. And my new fix it after that was
11:38
Speaker 3: to talk to some people that I knew, that I
11:41
Speaker 3: know are way better shots than me, who have had
11:44
Speaker 3: similar problems. One of them was Jay Trudell, and he
11:47
Speaker 3: had the exact same vision problem. And I sat down
11:51
Speaker 3: with him and I wanted over everything that was going on,
11:53
Speaker 3: and he said what he did was he knew exactly
11:58
Speaker 3: what the problem was. He said, when you're pulling that
11:59
Speaker 3: bowl and you're focusing on that pin, you're losing sight
12:03
Speaker 3: of the deer. I said, yeah, absolutely, I says, it's
12:05
Speaker 3: getting blurry, and he said that you know at that point,
12:10
Speaker 3: you know, you got to focus on the deer until
12:13
Speaker 3: it's time to shoot, and not the pin, and then
12:16
Speaker 3: when the deer gives you a shot, focus on the pin.
12:19
Speaker 3: I started doing that, but I was still having issues
12:21
Speaker 3: because at the time I'm looking at the pin, I'm
12:23
Speaker 3: not looking at the deer because of my eyesight problems.
12:27
Speaker 3: So struggling through that, I went to other people for help,
12:33
Speaker 3: and Steve Pagel, the guy who used to own Forge Bows.
12:39
Speaker 3: He's retired now. He's a really good friend of mine,
12:41
Speaker 3: and he knows bo's and equipment and like nobody else,
12:46
Speaker 3: and the hunting that guys went through is incredible, and
12:49
Speaker 3: all the different people he's mentored. He's like, there's a
12:52
Speaker 3: little hidden gem in hunting that not many people know about.
12:55
Speaker 3: But the guy's just an incredible man. I went to him.
12:58
Speaker 3: I went over to his house and I sat down
13:00
Speaker 3: and I talked to him about the problem, and he
13:02
Speaker 3: ended up telling me that he thought I should put
13:05
Speaker 3: a lens in my peep, and he got out a
13:11
Speaker 3: bunch of equipment. And he's retired, but he still has
13:14
Speaker 3: a bunch of stuff laying around. And he had me
13:17
Speaker 3: look through a bunch of lenses and do it through
13:19
Speaker 3: sites and holding a pin out in front of me
13:21
Speaker 3: and stuff. And he went through all the lenses until
13:25
Speaker 3: it got to like the worst one, and then it
13:29
Speaker 3: worked for me. And right now I'm shooting at lens
13:33
Speaker 3: and the peep and I'm really feeling good about it.
13:36
Speaker 3: I can see my target, see my pin, so really
13:39
Speaker 3: in this case. Usually I work out all my problems internally,
13:43
Speaker 3: you know, if it's hunting related, if it's anything to
13:48
Speaker 3: do with the deer or the woods or the terrain,
13:52
Speaker 3: I worked that out internally. But when it comes to equipment,
13:57
Speaker 3: I'm not the greatest with equipment, so I always rely
13:59
Speaker 3: on people who who are you know, and I go
14:01
Speaker 3: to most people.
14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that too. Forgive me
14:10
Speaker 1: for focusing on failure here for a while, but I
14:13
Speaker 1: want to ask you one more failure related question, kind
14:17
Speaker 1: of rewinding the tape a little bit. You've been doing
14:19
Speaker 1: this for decades at an incredibly high level. I'm sure
14:23
Speaker 1: there must have been some of these other hunting related
14:28
Speaker 1: failures where something went wrong, where you made a mistake
14:32
Speaker 1: and coming out of it it changed everything for you.
14:34
Speaker 1: You learned something, it opened your eyes to something, or
14:37
Speaker 1: it forced you to change something. Is there any failure
14:40
Speaker 1: like that over the past decades that stands out to you?
14:43
Speaker 1: Is is like an inflection point for you?
14:46
Speaker 3: If so?
14:47
Speaker 1: Could you tell us about that?
14:49
Speaker 3: Off the top of my head, I can't think of
14:50
Speaker 3: much one I can give you is And I don't
14:57
Speaker 3: know if it's exactly what you're looking for because a
14:59
Speaker 3: little off topic. But I've had an issue with you know,
15:05
Speaker 3: I'm one, I'm fifty seven now, is still hunting like
15:09
Speaker 3: I'm twenty? And I noticed this a few years ago,
15:14
Speaker 3: and I change it. Is I would go into the
15:16
Speaker 3: season with some crazy plan that I'm going to go
15:20
Speaker 3: to some island in the swamp that's three and a
15:23
Speaker 3: half miles back that I know there's going to be
15:27
Speaker 3: deer their opening date, there's oaks there, there's no other
15:29
Speaker 3: oaks around. Nobody's going to go back that far. And
15:33
Speaker 3: at you know, late fifties, I don't quite make it,
15:38
Speaker 3: or or I get out there and I'm so dead,
15:41
Speaker 3: I can't do anything. So I do have to realize
15:46
Speaker 3: my limitations, and I have put that in perspective, and
15:49
Speaker 3: I just don't do that anymore, you know. And I
15:51
Speaker 3: do realize that there are some people who can't. You know.
15:54
Speaker 3: I still make long trips and stuff, but I'm just
15:56
Speaker 3: saying that some of them that I was doing, we're
15:58
Speaker 3: far beyond my realm, you know. And and I shouldn't
16:02
Speaker 3: have to go and attempt those, to fail them, to
16:05
Speaker 3: find out that I can't do them, and waste an
16:07
Speaker 3: opening day.
16:12
Speaker 1: So how have you been how have you been accounting
16:14
Speaker 1: for that change? Like how is your approach or or
16:17
Speaker 1: even your mindset going into the season now changed because
16:19
Speaker 1: of these kind of newfound limitations.
16:23
Speaker 3: Well, you know, a lot of times I'm hunting with
16:26
Speaker 3: a friend, and that friend is half my age and
16:31
Speaker 3: twice my bill. I generally send him to those spots.
16:35
Speaker 3: But I'm still I'm still pushing my limits as far
16:38
Speaker 3: as I can, you know what I mean. But I'm
16:40
Speaker 3: trying to know my limitations so I don't fail. So
16:43
Speaker 3: don't I don't get out there in half do something?
16:45
Speaker 3: You know?
16:48
Speaker 1: Yep, that makes sense. So so speaking of other changes,
16:53
Speaker 1: so this doesn't have to be failure related, but I'm
16:56
Speaker 1: just curious about other shifts in your hunting approach. So
17:02
Speaker 1: for me, there was a period of time up until
17:05
Speaker 1: I was like twenty three maybe, in which I kind
17:10
Speaker 1: of you know, you were one of the people that
17:12
Speaker 1: really drilled this home for me many years ago when
17:14
Speaker 1: you said something along the lines of, if you're trying
17:18
Speaker 1: to kill a mature buck, you can't just hunt deer.
17:21
Speaker 3: Right.
17:21
Speaker 1: I was hunting deer for a long time and then
17:23
Speaker 1: I all of a sudden at one point realized, oh,
17:25
Speaker 1: they're a different animal. You have to approach it differently.
17:27
Speaker 1: And that was one of those things where when that
17:29
Speaker 1: light bulb flipped on for me, all of a sudden,
17:31
Speaker 1: everything was different. And that was like a fork in
17:34
Speaker 1: the road for me.
17:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.
17:36
Speaker 1: Can you remember any forks in the road for you
17:38
Speaker 1: when you made a change, or you had to shift
17:40
Speaker 1: in mindset, or you discovered something out there that all
17:44
Speaker 1: of a sudden changed everything for you as a deer hunter.
17:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can tell you about one that's happened since
17:48
Speaker 3: we've talked last.
17:50
Speaker 1: So no, great.
17:51
Speaker 3: I did some mom studies with trail cameras where it
17:55
Speaker 3: wasn't just me. I had some friends and acquaintances and
17:58
Speaker 3: people in form and stuff send me stuff. But we
18:00
Speaker 3: put trail cameras in betting areas and put them on
18:03
Speaker 3: exits and stuff to learn specific things. And I learned
18:06
Speaker 3: some stuff that really opened my eyes, confirm some thoughts,
18:12
Speaker 3: but really locks and things in And one of the
18:16
Speaker 3: things was that a lot of these betting areas that
18:19
Speaker 3: are really good seem to have like a two week
18:22
Speaker 3: peak period when the mature bucks are in there, and
18:25
Speaker 3: they're not there every day obviously, and they bet a
18:28
Speaker 3: lot shorter than I thought, you know, like they're only
18:30
Speaker 3: there a couple hours and they get up and they move.
18:32
Speaker 3: I think they're still there, but they're in a different
18:34
Speaker 3: bed or whatever. But I found that the timing is
18:40
Speaker 3: pretty exact. I mean you really got to, you know,
18:43
Speaker 3: do your detective work and figure out when they're in
18:45
Speaker 3: a certain area. What I mean by detective work is
18:48
Speaker 3: really looking at why are they betting here? Is it
18:50
Speaker 3: because of acorns? Is it because of security cover? Is
18:54
Speaker 3: it you know, are the rubs from early season or
18:56
Speaker 3: the rubs from late season or they from rut Are there?
18:59
Speaker 3: No rubs? Are the you know what sign do I
19:03
Speaker 3: have to tell me what time frame that deer was there?
19:07
Speaker 3: Like if you look at the deer I shot two
19:09
Speaker 3: years ago. It was a real monster buck I've been
19:13
Speaker 3: chasing for years that lived in a marsh and I
19:18
Speaker 3: could never kill the thing because it always lived in cattails.
19:20
Speaker 3: It would never come out in daylight. And I had
19:22
Speaker 3: a couple of trees where I could hunt it. But
19:24
Speaker 3: he had figured me out there, and I kept going
19:26
Speaker 3: back at it, just trying to figure out what am
19:28
Speaker 3: I doing. There's got to be some kink in this
19:31
Speaker 3: thing's armor. It was a seven and a half year
19:35
Speaker 3: old deer, and I had hunted it for quite quite
19:37
Speaker 3: a few years, and I ended up going out there
19:41
Speaker 3: one day and just looking through these cattails for some
19:44
Speaker 3: sort of way to hunt off the ground or something,
19:47
Speaker 3: you know. But the beds were kind of scattered and
19:48
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of areas. It was difficult, and it
19:51
Speaker 3: was difficult to find areas where the cattails were low
19:53
Speaker 3: enough to shoot. But I kept trying, and I stumbled
19:56
Speaker 3: into something that I had seen before but never really
19:59
Speaker 3: took notice. It was this little island. I want to
20:03
Speaker 3: say it was thirty yards long and ten yards wide
20:08
Speaker 3: that just had some willow brush on it. And uh,
20:12
Speaker 3: I walked over and looked at this willow brush and
20:14
Speaker 3: there had to be twenty or thirty beds behind it,
20:18
Speaker 3: and all the willowbrush was torn up with rubs, and
20:21
Speaker 3: that particular willow brush, you know, it had to be
20:24
Speaker 3: that buck that was doing it. But that particular willow
20:27
Speaker 3: brush had those beds under the willow brush and they'd
20:31
Speaker 3: lose their leaves in October, and I'm thinking all this
20:34
Speaker 3: had to be you know, in that early season portion.
20:38
Speaker 3: I mean, that deer would have to be here quite
20:40
Speaker 3: a bit and just that little window. So because of that,
20:45
Speaker 3: that's how I killed that buck. As I ended up
20:47
Speaker 3: hunting and base on that sign, you know, I figured
20:49
Speaker 3: out that timing and that in correlation with those trail
20:54
Speaker 3: cameras telling me about timing and timing is is kind
20:58
Speaker 3: of a weird thing. You know. You see a lot
20:59
Speaker 3: of these guys will say, you know, I'm saving my
21:02
Speaker 3: best spots for rut, But what do you just hunt
21:05
Speaker 3: rut bucks? You just you know, every one of these
21:08
Speaker 3: spots has different timing and they're not always about rut,
21:11
Speaker 3: and rut can be really hard to hunt. I mean,
21:13
Speaker 3: if it's a funnel or it's something like that, you know, Okay, yeah,
21:17
Speaker 3: it's probably a rough spot. It's probably best for you
21:19
Speaker 3: to save that for rut. But there's a lot of
21:21
Speaker 3: spots where they're really good in say September or early October,
21:26
Speaker 3: or even January or February. You know, however, your season
21:28
Speaker 3: goes if you time it right and if you don't
21:32
Speaker 3: burn it out before that time comes. So knowing that
21:35
Speaker 3: timing was, you know, getting more in tune with that
21:39
Speaker 3: timing was a real key for me recently.
21:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, so something you said triggered like PTSD for me
22:03
Speaker 1: in which I have found myself oftentimes laying in bed
22:07
Speaker 1: late at night during the season, just going over and
22:11
Speaker 1: over and over in my mind, like what is this
22:13
Speaker 1: deer doing? Why can't I figure this out? Like where's
22:15
Speaker 1: the kink in his armor?
22:16
Speaker 3: You said?
22:17
Speaker 1: You said that line, like you're trying to fare out
22:19
Speaker 1: the kink in his armor? And I'll often find myself
22:21
Speaker 1: just swimming in my own mind, trying to think through
22:24
Speaker 1: every different possibility. What am I doing wrong? What's he
22:26
Speaker 1: doing differently? Why am I approaching this the wrong way?
22:29
Speaker 1: What does that process look like for you, you mentioned
22:31
Speaker 1: one thing that you do, which is go back out
22:33
Speaker 1: there and scout more. Is there anything else you do
22:36
Speaker 1: when you find yourself in that position where you just
22:38
Speaker 1: can't find that kink in his armor? How do you
22:41
Speaker 1: think through that challenge?
22:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's an interesting question because that is a
22:46
Speaker 3: struggle I go through constantly, and I don't just do
22:50
Speaker 3: it during season. I do it all year. It's really weird.
22:55
Speaker 3: I was just thinking about this the other day. I
22:58
Speaker 3: was talking to some people about it. It's like twenty
23:01
Speaker 3: four to seven, three sixty five. Every day I get
23:05
Speaker 3: up thinking about what can I do today to better
23:07
Speaker 3: myself this fall? And I have to mix that with
23:12
Speaker 3: keeping my wife happy by being a husband and a father.
23:15
Speaker 3: But I still have a plan every single day. What
23:17
Speaker 3: am I going to do today? Like today, I'm thinking, okay,
23:20
Speaker 3: I got to get home, I gotta do this with you.
23:22
Speaker 3: Then I got to do some video editing. I want
23:25
Speaker 3: to go check this spot out if I have time,
23:27
Speaker 3: maybe fifteen minutes. But every day I do something which
23:30
Speaker 3: I think your average person would think that that's nuts.
23:33
Speaker 3: But that's the level that gets you to success. I'm having,
23:36
Speaker 3: if you know. But during the season precisely. You know,
23:41
Speaker 3: I'll run across a big buck or I'm hunting when
23:43
Speaker 3: I knew about but I'm not getting them in my spots,
23:46
Speaker 3: and I'm you know, I'm moving through. I'm specifically thinking
23:50
Speaker 3: about where I see his sign, where it could be
23:53
Speaker 3: coming from. I'm sitting in a stand waiting for that
23:56
Speaker 3: deer to come out thinking already thinking about, well, if
24:00
Speaker 3: he's not here, what's he doing? Where's he at? Where
24:03
Speaker 3: didn't I look? One of the things that really goes
24:06
Speaker 3: through my mind a lot is where has nobody else looked?
24:11
Speaker 3: How are people thinking about this? Because and we've had
24:14
Speaker 3: a conversation before as they're in their overlook spots. But
24:17
Speaker 3: that's constantly going through my mind is where are those spots?
24:21
Speaker 3: Where aren't people looking? I'm trying to scratch off how
24:24
Speaker 3: are they missing something? Because if that buck's alive out there,
24:28
Speaker 3: there's definitely some spots people are missing. Because most of
24:30
Speaker 3: what I'm hunting is heavy pressure, so and even when
24:34
Speaker 3: I get into private, ironically it seems to align with
24:39
Speaker 3: the way I hunt in public, only exception being they're
24:44
Speaker 3: not as well behaved. They kind of do wander around
24:48
Speaker 3: a little bit more they don't get precisely locked into positions,
24:51
Speaker 3: you know, with less pressure, but they still do kind
24:54
Speaker 3: of seek out those spots where you rarely go, maybe
24:57
Speaker 3: even more so because I think on a farm or
25:00
Speaker 3: a property that's got like ten guys on or they
25:02
Speaker 3: really got a plan or to go through it the
25:04
Speaker 3: same way, perk the same all the time, where it's
25:06
Speaker 3: not different minds going in or from different directions, you know.
25:10
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean it's constantly trying to pick apart
25:13
Speaker 3: word that thing is at. Where is he in daylight?
25:17
Speaker 3: You know, where's that little window that he's moving in
25:19
Speaker 3: daylight on any given day.
25:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, So, continuing along this line of thinking, you know,
25:29
Speaker 1: when it comes to trying to untangle this maze of
25:34
Speaker 1: various decisions you're trying to make. Another one of the
25:37
Speaker 1: decisions that I oftentimes find myself tortured by is deciding
25:42
Speaker 1: where to hunt on a given day. And this is
25:45
Speaker 1: like a cousin of what we just discussed, because you're
25:48
Speaker 1: part of what we're talking about here is exactly what
25:49
Speaker 1: you just describe trying to figure out. But you know,
25:51
Speaker 1: the morning of the hunt or the afternoon of the hunt,
25:54
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to decide, well, which of these possible
25:57
Speaker 1: tree options that I've set up, or which of these
25:59
Speaker 1: zone or whatever might be. That's always something where I'm
26:02
Speaker 1: debating back and forth. Can you talk me through what
26:05
Speaker 1: your internal dialogue looks like when you are making that
26:08
Speaker 1: level of decision.
26:10
Speaker 3: I kind of rate my spots for a given time period.
26:16
Speaker 3: Let's say it's the early season, it's the beginning of
26:18
Speaker 3: the season. I've got my spots rated for an area.
26:23
Speaker 3: What does get a little confusing with me is I
26:25
Speaker 3: do hunt several bucks at once sometimes, so I have
26:27
Speaker 3: different properties I might hunt, but for one particular property,
26:31
Speaker 3: I have that listed in order where I think I
26:34
Speaker 3: should be at that time frame. And what will stop
26:38
Speaker 3: me from going from to point to number one or
26:40
Speaker 3: a or whatever you want to call it, is that
26:43
Speaker 3: maybe I have to walk past number three or something.
26:47
Speaker 3: It's gonna be a balance of the best spot versus
26:50
Speaker 3: the damage, and it's going to be a balance of
26:53
Speaker 3: what the wind's doing. So I'll look at the wind,
26:55
Speaker 3: I'll look at my best spots for that wind, and
26:58
Speaker 3: then I'll say, well, can I get to that spot
27:00
Speaker 3: and still hunt this other spot, or am I going
27:02
Speaker 3: to screw that spot and sometimes I'll go round about
27:05
Speaker 3: way to get there. Another thing I do is I
27:07
Speaker 3: don't go directly to those spots that you know I'm
27:10
Speaker 3: I'm actually in the mindset that a lot of times
27:13
Speaker 3: those deer might just be off somewheres right and you
27:16
Speaker 3: could go along. So what I'll do is I'll I'll
27:19
Speaker 3: plan out a path to my tree stand that is
27:23
Speaker 3: not a straight line like everybody else would take. So
27:26
Speaker 3: I scout my way, and I try to plan for
27:27
Speaker 3: an extra hour and take a path in and I
27:30
Speaker 3: look for hot sign because I find I find if
27:33
Speaker 3: you find big tracks, you know, big rubs that are
27:40
Speaker 3: fresh coming in and out of a transition where it's
27:43
Speaker 3: probably betting that's way better than going to a spot
27:46
Speaker 3: where I scout it and I think a dear is
27:48
Speaker 3: going to come from the finding that sign that day
27:50
Speaker 3: is a better option. So it'll stop me from getting
27:54
Speaker 3: to my spot. But then I'll just hunt that spot
27:55
Speaker 3: again the next day if that spot's unsuccessful.
28:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. Okay, I want to
28:07
Speaker 1: pivot a little bit here and shift a little bit
28:11
Speaker 1: away from your decision making process and look at this
28:15
Speaker 1: from a slightly different angle. I'm curious about how you
28:21
Speaker 1: look at success in other people.
28:23
Speaker 3: So by that, I mean.
28:26
Speaker 1: If you could think of one other whitetail hunter that
28:28
Speaker 1: you know who you view as like truly top notch,
28:33
Speaker 1: someone who you look up to, or someone who you
28:35
Speaker 1: look to is like, man, I can learn someone from this,
28:38
Speaker 1: or learn something from this guy, or where this guy
28:40
Speaker 1: really knows what he's doing. Could you speak to me
28:43
Speaker 1: about someone like that and what it is that you
28:47
Speaker 1: see in them that makes them so successful.
28:53
Speaker 3: Usually what I see in success with people at hunting
28:57
Speaker 3: is people who have a very positive attitude, who always
29:02
Speaker 3: believe in themselves what they're gonna do. They seem to
29:05
Speaker 3: just make their success. You know, I literally believe that
29:12
Speaker 3: you could take a dart and throw it out a
29:13
Speaker 3: map and every day sit where that dart lands and
29:16
Speaker 3: you do better than the average people. You'd have success
29:18
Speaker 3: if you went out and you pounded and really tried.
29:21
Speaker 3: And the most successful people I know are people that
29:24
Speaker 3: play it like a game of chess, where they're always
29:26
Speaker 3: working on an animal, but they have that belief that
29:29
Speaker 3: they're gonna kill that deer every day. And I try
29:32
Speaker 3: to mimic that with myself. But the people I know
29:36
Speaker 3: who have a really positive attitude that never question what
29:38
Speaker 3: they're doing. And that's hard to that's hard to give
29:42
Speaker 3: people advice to do, because you can't tell somebody, well,
29:44
Speaker 3: you got to have positive attitude. You have to always
29:46
Speaker 3: believe because you've got to earn that. You got to
29:49
Speaker 3: gain that, and that's not something you can just buy
29:51
Speaker 3: on a shelf, which is how people like to solve
29:54
Speaker 3: their problems nowadays. But it's that that's that inner confidence.
29:58
Speaker 3: I think you can make a lot of the stakes
30:01
Speaker 3: and I see that. I see a lot of people
30:03
Speaker 3: that are making mistakes that I made years ago, and
30:07
Speaker 3: they don't see it in themselves, but they're still highly
30:09
Speaker 3: successful because they're so motivated. It's the want thing. If
30:14
Speaker 3: you've got a guy who's got skill, that don't mean
30:18
Speaker 3: crap if he doesn't want it, because he'll never be
30:20
Speaker 3: motivated to go then extra mile. He'll never be motivated
30:23
Speaker 3: to really, you know, pound those stands. He won't if
30:25
Speaker 3: he doesn't really, really deep down want it. He won't
30:28
Speaker 3: be making that plan like I'm doing. He won't be
30:30
Speaker 3: sitting at work in a meeting listening to somebody talk
30:33
Speaker 3: about a chart while in his head he's thinking about
30:36
Speaker 3: where he's got to be that evening. You need that,
30:39
Speaker 3: and you'll only get that to really, really deep down
30:42
Speaker 3: wanting it. And those are the people who are successful,
30:46
Speaker 3: even if they're lacking in skill or lacking in some places,
30:49
Speaker 3: they will have success just because they want it so bad.
31:00
Speaker 1: Let's drill into a little bit more of that kind
31:02
Speaker 1: of intangible there which which resonates really strongly with me.
31:07
Speaker 1: And one of the things that a lot of people
31:09
Speaker 1: hear is we gotta work hard, Like hard work is
31:12
Speaker 1: the ticket, right. But I think there's sometimes a disconnect
31:15
Speaker 1: between what you know when you hear her, when you
31:18
Speaker 1: hear hard work, versus what hard work actually looks like. So, Dan,
31:23
Speaker 1: what what does hard work look like for you?
31:27
Speaker 3: Like?
31:27
Speaker 1: Define hard work when you when you say you're working
31:30
Speaker 1: hard or the best deer hunters work hard, what does
31:32
Speaker 1: that actually mean?
31:34
Speaker 3: Well, let's just compare my work to other peoples. So
31:40
Speaker 3: for you or your listeners, this week, I probably walked
31:46
Speaker 3: probably six or seven miles and a lot of it
31:50
Speaker 3: was through knee deeper deeper water to get to isolated spots,
31:54
Speaker 3: to look at places I haven't been before, to scout areas.
32:00
Speaker 3: I don't think anybody else is doing that at this
32:01
Speaker 3: time of the year. I'm doing it twenty four to seven.
32:03
Speaker 3: I'm out there all the time. And it's not a
32:06
Speaker 3: matter of I've got something to prove or anything. It's
32:09
Speaker 3: what I want to do, you know. I'm I'm sitting
32:13
Speaker 3: around thinking about I've never looked at that property. I've
32:15
Speaker 3: got to get over there. It's part of my day's plan.
32:18
Speaker 3: You know. It's like it's like if I don't hit
32:21
Speaker 3: that this week or next week, it's not going to
32:23
Speaker 3: get hit before season because I got to hit this
32:25
Speaker 3: other property of the week after that. And I'm just
32:28
Speaker 3: constantly looking at stuff, and you know, like this time
32:31
Speaker 3: of the year. The other day, I spent walking a
32:36
Speaker 3: mile back to an isolated like a grassy prairie type
32:41
Speaker 3: thing that went up against a swamp and glassing a
32:44
Speaker 3: mile stretch of that, you know, sitting in the middle
32:47
Speaker 3: of it with optics watching for dear to come by.
32:51
Speaker 3: I don't see any tracks of anybody else being out there.
32:53
Speaker 3: I don't ever see anybody else glassing when I'm out
32:55
Speaker 3: there parking there. You know, I think right now, everybody's
32:59
Speaker 3: worried about fireworks, They're worried about picnics, they're worried about
33:02
Speaker 3: their old lady. They're worried about going to the beach.
33:05
Speaker 3: I'm worried about my next white tail. And that's what
33:07
Speaker 3: that work is about. It's not necessarily physically damaging, damaging work.
33:11
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's it's just you have to be involved,
33:15
Speaker 3: you have to keep pushing it, and I can't tell you, gosh,
33:20
Speaker 3: it's got to be you know, probably fifteen percent of
33:25
Speaker 3: my biggest bucks came from just one day, on a whim.
33:29
Speaker 3: I got up and went out to field and glass
33:30
Speaker 3: and found some giant buck in a place I wouldn't
33:32
Speaker 3: have been hunting. And I might not have killed in
33:35
Speaker 3: that year, but I was hunting that deer, even my
33:38
Speaker 3: biggest one. I had a sleepless night in July and
33:43
Speaker 3: I just got up went shining because I couldn't sleep
33:48
Speaker 3: and just found this buck in a place I would
33:49
Speaker 3: have never hunted. And then I hunted him for two years,
33:52
Speaker 3: had two years of enjoyment hunting that deer, and ended
33:54
Speaker 3: up killing him because of one night in July when
33:58
Speaker 3: I couldn't sleep. And what if I did go out
34:00
Speaker 3: that day, that probably still got a deer, but probably
34:03
Speaker 3: not that one. And that's the biggest deer I ever killed. Yeah,
34:05
Speaker 3: you know, it just takes one day, one scout, and
34:09
Speaker 3: that's what you gotta have the mindset. You gotta have
34:12
Speaker 3: that one scout. Yeah, it probably won't do much for you,
34:16
Speaker 3: but it might be the day that locks it.
34:19
Speaker 1: In for you. Man. That's such a great point, such
34:24
Speaker 1: a great reminder too. The flip side, I feel like,
34:29
Speaker 1: or one of the other sides of this, or if
34:31
Speaker 1: I'm looking at some of the consistent and tangibles that
34:35
Speaker 1: I see with the most successful hunters, one of them
34:37
Speaker 1: is what you just describe there, that that obsession, that focus,
34:42
Speaker 1: that hard work. But then there's also another side of
34:45
Speaker 1: it on the mental side. And you alluded to this
34:47
Speaker 1: a little bit, but just just mental toughness, like being
34:50
Speaker 1: able to push through whatever might be. Can you can
34:54
Speaker 1: you talk to me about what that looks like for you.
34:56
Speaker 1: Can you define mental toughness in the context of hunting
34:59
Speaker 1: and how that factors into success.
35:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that has a huge part of it.
35:05
Speaker 3: You know, I can't speak for other people. I can
35:08
Speaker 3: just speak for myself. I've noticed that I don't let
35:13
Speaker 3: things bother me, like how people react to me, how
35:16
Speaker 3: people treat me, or things that go on around me
35:18
Speaker 3: or in my life. I'm not the kind of guy
35:21
Speaker 3: who breaks down ballowing when one of my friends dies
35:23
Speaker 3: or something. It hurts, but you get over it. Where
35:26
Speaker 3: I noticed that other people get real upset. Like my
35:30
Speaker 3: son is just an absolute killer. He really is into
35:34
Speaker 3: the hunting. I really love what he's doing. But if
35:37
Speaker 3: he wounds a deer or in one case, a bear,
35:42
Speaker 3: he'll quit hunting for three years. It'll bother him so much.
35:46
Speaker 3: Where whether it's unfortunate or not, I can get over that.
35:51
Speaker 3: It's not like I like it. It's not like I
35:53
Speaker 3: want that to happen and do everything I can to
35:54
Speaker 3: keep that from happening again. But I know I got
35:58
Speaker 3: to move on. There's nothing I can do to fix stat.
36:00
Speaker 3: And I think if you're gonna dwell on things, if
36:02
Speaker 3: you're gonna let things bother you too much, it's gonna
36:06
Speaker 3: really affect your success. That's just how it is.
36:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there any way to get better at that?
36:16
Speaker 1: Or is there been anything for you over the years
36:18
Speaker 1: that has helped you kind of work through that?
36:24
Speaker 3: You know, I think the experience is what does it?
36:26
Speaker 3: I think you just face your issues. You just you
36:32
Speaker 3: just got to keep at it, you know. So I
36:33
Speaker 3: try to instill in my kid that bad things occasionally
36:37
Speaker 3: happen and you just got to get up, wipe yourself off,
36:39
Speaker 3: and keep going. But it's easy to say, it's hard
36:42
Speaker 3: to really instill that into somebody, you know.
36:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Easier said than done for sure. Another another
36:53
Speaker 1: part of this, there's the there's the dealing with adversity,
36:57
Speaker 1: like when things go wrong or you know, just aren't
37:00
Speaker 1: going your way and trying to get over that. But
37:02
Speaker 1: then there's also just the the grind effect. You know,
37:08
Speaker 1: when you're thirty days in or ten days in or
37:11
Speaker 1: sixty days in and nothing's going right, and you've hunted
37:15
Speaker 1: all day straight for so many days and you were
37:17
Speaker 1: just worren down to an absolute bloody pulp, right and
37:20
Speaker 1: you're freezing. Nothing's going right? How do you how do
37:25
Speaker 1: you handle those moments? Like what's what's the internal dialogue
37:29
Speaker 1: like for you on that day when it's November thirteenth
37:33
Speaker 1: and you haven't seen a good deer for fourteen days
37:35
Speaker 1: or whatever it might be, how do you how do
37:38
Speaker 1: you push through that? How do you talk yourself through that?
37:41
Speaker 3: You know? I remember if you go back to like
37:44
Speaker 3: round late nineties, early two thousands or whatever. Why don't
37:50
Speaker 3: you used to just bother me? If I went like
37:51
Speaker 3: thirty days without having a shooter in front of me,
37:53
Speaker 3: and I used to the grind used to start to
37:55
Speaker 3: get to me, and I'd be like, I'd be so
37:57
Speaker 3: burnt out that would go out and hunt. If something
38:02
Speaker 3: did show up, I wouldn't even be ready because I'd
38:04
Speaker 3: be so distraught over how the season's gone or something,
38:09
Speaker 3: or you know, and then I'd let it mentally get
38:11
Speaker 3: to me what other people would say or whatever. That's
38:14
Speaker 3: all gone away. I don't know why, but I can
38:17
Speaker 3: hunt one hundred days in a row and it does
38:20
Speaker 3: not bother me one bit. And really, I think I've
38:24
Speaker 3: come to peace with knowing that when you're hunting mature bucks,
38:29
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if you're seeing small bucks. It doesn't
38:31
Speaker 3: matter if you're seeing those. They're not even the same
38:32
Speaker 3: animals like you saw a peasant or a rabbit. I'm
38:35
Speaker 3: just worried about those mature bucks. You got to know
38:37
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of them out there. If you're
38:38
Speaker 3: hunting pressured public land, it's not like like hunting a
38:45
Speaker 3: managed property or release, where you know you're going to
38:48
Speaker 3: see some good bucks that you know on a daily basis.
38:51
Speaker 3: You can go on public land, you can see nothing
38:53
Speaker 3: for ten days. And then for some people they're like,
38:57
Speaker 3: if I can't even see a dough, how am I
38:58
Speaker 3: going to kill a mature buck? But I'm hunting in places,
39:02
Speaker 3: and if you're doing it right, you probably are too.
39:05
Speaker 3: You're probably not even going to see anything unless you
39:08
Speaker 3: see a big book, So you're going to see a
39:10
Speaker 3: lot fewer of the small stuff. If you're putting yourself,
39:13
Speaker 3: you're locking yourself into a position where that deer would work.
39:16
Speaker 3: You get further away from the food, further away from
39:19
Speaker 3: the you know, the major activity places where people expect deer,
39:24
Speaker 3: because that's where mature books go back to height because
39:27
Speaker 3: they start to understand human pressure, and you just see
39:30
Speaker 3: less deer. So you've got to be able to go
39:33
Speaker 3: ten twenty days without seeing something. So I don't know
39:36
Speaker 3: what it is, but I got something in me where
39:39
Speaker 3: I can go thirty days and not see much of
39:43
Speaker 3: anything and go out on day thirty one and really
39:46
Speaker 3: believe I'm going to kill that deer. I think what
39:50
Speaker 3: it is is, I think I really I've done it
39:52
Speaker 3: enough times that I'm real confident that the idea I have,
39:58
Speaker 3: the plan I've come up with, the spot I'm going
40:00
Speaker 3: to hunt is the spot, and then when it fails,
40:03
Speaker 3: I'm able to talk myself back into the next spot
40:05
Speaker 3: is the spot. And fully believe, even though I've went
40:08
Speaker 3: thirty days without seeing a deer, that day thirty one
40:11
Speaker 3: is the day. And I've kind of come to the
40:15
Speaker 3: mindset that when I hunt down a property where I
40:18
Speaker 3: put my pressure, those deers stay away from my stinky
40:20
Speaker 3: ass and they go over to other spots. And it's
40:24
Speaker 3: like I wear out that property and you kind of
40:26
Speaker 3: know that he's going to be, you know, over on
40:28
Speaker 3: this other end, or you know, if he's not over here,
40:31
Speaker 3: I kind of follow the sign. And if you're following
40:33
Speaker 3: the sign, I mean, I'm not hunting a property that
40:35
Speaker 3: doesn't have rubs and stuff. If it doesn't have sign
40:37
Speaker 3: of big bucks, he's not there. I'm moving on all
40:39
Speaker 3: deer leaves sign. You know, I can't tell you how
40:43
Speaker 3: many times people will ask me, well, the property that
40:45
Speaker 3: I hunt, I can't find any big rubs, you know,
40:50
Speaker 3: should I go deeper? If you're not finding big rubs,
40:52
Speaker 3: he's not there. All deer rub you know, so maybe
40:56
Speaker 3: he comes in later, maybe he doesn't, but you got
40:59
Speaker 3: to be able to move around, you knowing a lot
41:01
Speaker 3: of these people just don't get that kind of philosophy.
41:17
Speaker 1: And it's funny. Some of what you're describing here is
41:20
Speaker 1: like there's like a chicken and an egg kind of thing,
41:22
Speaker 1: because you have this tremendous confidence in what you're doing,
41:25
Speaker 1: and you can convince yourself that you are doing the
41:27
Speaker 1: absolute right thing, and that is like a superpower that
41:30
Speaker 1: you have because it gives you the focus and the
41:32
Speaker 1: belief to every day go out there and do it right.
41:35
Speaker 1: But the only way to get that experience, and the
41:38
Speaker 1: only way to get that confidence is to go out
41:41
Speaker 1: and get the experience which you just described, which requires
41:45
Speaker 1: you to do the hard work that you described earlier,
41:47
Speaker 1: and all of that builds. It's like a snowball effect exactly.
41:51
Speaker 1: And if you continue putting that relentless hard work and
41:54
Speaker 1: keep on going out and going out and doing that,
41:56
Speaker 1: eventually it gives you the confidence to then go and
42:00
Speaker 1: do that more often to feel good about it right
42:02
Speaker 1: right exactly.
42:03
Speaker 3: I mean, you wouldn't even be able to get up
42:05
Speaker 3: and go scouting during the summer, like I do if
42:07
Speaker 3: you didn't believe it was going to help you in
42:08
Speaker 3: the fall, you have to have that just mental belief
42:11
Speaker 3: even even in miss the failure.
42:19
Speaker 1: So do you would you consider yourself an optimist?
42:23
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just uh, I get I guess
42:28
Speaker 3: I always have my glass full. You know, it's always full,
42:32
Speaker 3: even if it's you know, got this much in it,
42:35
Speaker 3: or I can see the screen there, you know it's
42:37
Speaker 3: it's half full, even when it's a empty. You know,
42:42
Speaker 3: I always believe in It hasn't always been that way,
42:45
Speaker 3: but it's it's gotten that way through success. I think
42:48
Speaker 3: the success, you know, build your your ego up just
42:53
Speaker 3: enough to believe in yourself. Where you you work harder,
42:56
Speaker 3: you believe in yourself. You think you can do it.
42:58
Speaker 3: You think you now do everybody, even when you're they're
43:02
Speaker 3: doing better than you, you still believe that you can
43:05
Speaker 3: do it.
43:06
Speaker 1: You know.
43:07
Speaker 3: It's yeah.
43:13
Speaker 1: So I love where this is going, and I'm curious
43:19
Speaker 1: about some of these other little things, like I think,
43:22
Speaker 1: I think this is very eye opening. The way you
43:25
Speaker 1: look at self belief, the way you look at your
43:27
Speaker 1: hard work, the way you look at kind of your
43:29
Speaker 1: your your confidence level, and how that informs what you do.
43:33
Speaker 1: I'm curious if this manifests itself in your daily life
43:37
Speaker 1: in any kind of way. Are there any important habits
43:41
Speaker 1: in your daily life or in your hunting season life
43:45
Speaker 1: that you always have to do?
43:47
Speaker 3: Like?
43:47
Speaker 1: Is there a thing like every morning you do this thing,
43:49
Speaker 1: or every time before you go out hunting you do
43:51
Speaker 1: this thing, or every night before you go to sleep
43:53
Speaker 1: you do this thing. Is there anything like that that
43:56
Speaker 1: that comes to mind that you find important for you
43:59
Speaker 1: as a deer hunter.
44:00
Speaker 3: No, the only thing I do is hunt every day
44:05
Speaker 3: before I go hunting, I go hunting.
44:06
Speaker 1: I guess that's a good daugh fair enough. So then
44:14
Speaker 1: what about this? What about looking at it this way?
44:17
Speaker 1: Is there anything unique about how you hunt, or how
44:22
Speaker 1: you approach hunting, or how you prepare to hunt. Is
44:26
Speaker 1: there anything unique along those lines that your friends or
44:30
Speaker 1: other folks thinks crazy or absurd or stupid, that you
44:37
Speaker 1: instead think is really important and helps you. Ah?
44:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, I can't put my finger on anything. I know
44:46
Speaker 3: that most of the people that I would consider friends
44:51
Speaker 3: that I hunt with, don't thinks, don't take things that
44:54
Speaker 3: extreme that I do. They looked at it as a
44:56
Speaker 3: little bit crazy. Hunting the places I do and the
45:00
Speaker 3: ways I do, or doing it on a work night
45:03
Speaker 3: or a night where if you're actually successful, you're gonna
45:06
Speaker 3: really have a problem. But I can't put my finger
45:11
Speaker 3: on any one thing.
45:11
Speaker 1: Now, that's all right? How about this one? Is there
45:19
Speaker 1: one commonly held belief within the deer hunting world that
45:24
Speaker 1: everybody else believes is true but you think is complete bullshit, that.
45:29
Speaker 3: You can fool of deer's nose. I don't think there's
45:32
Speaker 3: any way you can possibly do anything at all that
45:37
Speaker 3: would would help you from a deer's move nose other
45:41
Speaker 3: than to not walk where he walks, and to keep
45:45
Speaker 3: the wind from hitting them, or the thermals or the
45:48
Speaker 3: air currents, and a lot of my setups and everything
45:50
Speaker 3: goes into looking at exactly how the wind's going to
45:53
Speaker 3: flow through those trees. I think most of the people
45:55
Speaker 3: that tell me you can't hunt with you can't hunt
45:59
Speaker 3: the wind because of swirling winds don't understand how to
46:01
Speaker 3: set up. Because maybe you can set up where you
46:04
Speaker 3: want to set up, But if you look at the
46:06
Speaker 3: forest and you look at how the wind's going to
46:07
Speaker 3: go based on the thermals, where the water is, where
46:10
Speaker 3: the openings are where the wind's going to swirl. And
46:14
Speaker 3: from years and years of checking that with milkweed and
46:17
Speaker 3: looking at that and hunting it, I've kind of come
46:20
Speaker 3: to the conclusion I can kind of look at that
46:22
Speaker 3: stuff and figure out my best scenario. And that doesn't
46:24
Speaker 3: mean I don't get winded, but it gives me a
46:28
Speaker 3: better advantage. But I do believe that just about everybody
46:33
Speaker 3: out there, probably ninety ninety five percent, believe there's something
46:35
Speaker 3: they can do, whether it's rubber boots, whether it's taking
46:38
Speaker 3: a shower. I think everybody. You know, some people believe
46:41
Speaker 3: fully that if they were scent lock, it'll just completely
46:43
Speaker 3: eliminate their scent whatever. I don't believe any of that.
46:48
Speaker 3: I believe you cannot fool a deer's nose, and I
46:52
Speaker 3: think everybody else thinks you can.
46:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard to argue with the fact that their
47:00
Speaker 1: nose makes us look like fools nine percent of the time,
47:05
Speaker 1: that is for sure. So this is interesting. You just
47:10
Speaker 1: you just point out one way in which you are
47:13
Speaker 1: pretty different from many other white tail experts, we'll say,
47:16
Speaker 1: quote unquote experts. What would be two or three ways
47:23
Speaker 1: that you would say that you and every other very
47:28
Speaker 1: successful deer hunter is the same. So can you think
47:32
Speaker 1: of two or three things that you and all of
47:35
Speaker 1: the other best deer hunters.
47:36
Speaker 3: You know, I think all across the board, it comes
47:39
Speaker 3: back to that want. They really got to want it.
47:42
Speaker 3: I think it doesn't matter. You know, there's always a
47:46
Speaker 3: big argument between the like guys who have a big
47:50
Speaker 3: property versus the public land guys. But everybody puts work
47:54
Speaker 3: into it. Everybody puts effort into it. Everybody puts money
47:56
Speaker 3: into it. I put I put half of my paycheck,
48:01
Speaker 3: half of my money, if not more, into hunting, just
48:04
Speaker 3: like the guy who has land. It's just I aim
48:07
Speaker 3: my money at different things. Right, We're all the same.
48:10
Speaker 3: But the guys who are successful, whether it's private land,
48:13
Speaker 3: where it's public land, no matter what they do, all
48:18
Speaker 3: spend there all day long daydreaming about deer. And they
48:21
Speaker 3: spend a lot of time scouting. They spend a lot
48:23
Speaker 3: of time working on the land, whether they're just working
48:25
Speaker 3: on food plots and having the exact right position that
48:29
Speaker 3: they'll have a stand in the right position, or they're
48:31
Speaker 3: working on how's this deer going to move so I
48:33
Speaker 3: have the stand in position, or how is it going
48:36
Speaker 3: to go through this land versus pressure. Everybody is thinking
48:39
Speaker 3: about the deer, how they're going to move, how they're
48:41
Speaker 3: going to get them. And if they're not, they're not
48:42
Speaker 3: having success. So I'd say everybody that is having success
48:47
Speaker 3: is probably a thinker. They're probably a guy who really
48:50
Speaker 3: contemplates what they have to do. They're probably not followers,
48:55
Speaker 3: you know. You see that, and I'm sure you see this, Mark,
49:00
Speaker 3: ninety percent of the people out there on hunting boards
49:03
Speaker 3: or watching this this what we're putting on right here,
49:07
Speaker 3: or following us or followers, they say, I like what
49:11
Speaker 3: Mark Kenyon does, or I like what Dan Infaul does.
49:14
Speaker 3: I want to be just like him. I'm going to
49:17
Speaker 3: do everything the way he does, which very seldom works.
49:21
Speaker 3: You've got to build your own, you know, you know style,
49:24
Speaker 3: You've got to learn what you got to learn and
49:26
Speaker 3: believe in yourself. You take tidbits from me, you take
49:30
Speaker 3: tidbits from Mark. What can help you? And you say, yeah,
49:33
Speaker 3: but that Dan's crazy about scent control, He's nuts. So
49:36
Speaker 3: I'll take Mark's approach and scent control, and maybe Dan's
49:39
Speaker 3: got something with his betting stuff. You know. But everybody
49:43
Speaker 3: can help you, you know. But you see that the
49:46
Speaker 3: guys who have the greatest success are not followers. They
49:49
Speaker 3: usually have a unique style of their own. You know,
49:53
Speaker 3: they're usually something unique about them, you know, whether it's
49:57
Speaker 3: you know, look at Eberhart up in Michigan. Guys pretty
50:03
Speaker 3: weird about some things, but you can't argue his success
50:07
Speaker 3: because you know he's doing something different than everybody else
50:10
Speaker 3: in the public land in Michigan. You know, every one
50:12
Speaker 3: of these guys that's highly successful, way above the norm,
50:17
Speaker 3: is always a very unique individual who thinks about things
50:20
Speaker 3: in a different manner.
50:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, so true, very very very true. You mentioned how
50:31
Speaker 1: everyone and I love you made a great point that
50:34
Speaker 1: everyone is is spending an inordinate amount of their energy
50:39
Speaker 1: and resources on this thing. The amount of resources they
50:42
Speaker 1: have or where they aim those resources might be different,
50:45
Speaker 1: but it's still a huge chunk of their mental energy
50:48
Speaker 1: or financial energy or whatever it is. And that brought
50:52
Speaker 1: to mind one thing that's a little bit of a
50:55
Speaker 1: side path here. But when you think about how you
50:59
Speaker 1: are are spending your money on deer hunting, I'm curious
51:04
Speaker 1: a little bit because you've got an interesting kind of viewpoint.
51:06
Speaker 1: Given the fact you have worked on gear, have a
51:09
Speaker 1: gear company. I know your tinker. So I have two
51:14
Speaker 1: questions related to this. First off, what is the single
51:20
Speaker 1: purchase that you can think of of one one hundred
51:23
Speaker 1: dollars or less that's most positively impacted your hunting enjoyment.
51:29
Speaker 1: So one purchase of less than one hundred bucks that
51:33
Speaker 1: made the most positive difference for you that you can remember.
51:38
Speaker 3: I would probably say that that would be like a
51:42
Speaker 3: Spartan Forge app or an Onyx app. I think you
51:47
Speaker 3: can't argue with the success and why that's given people.
51:52
Speaker 3: I kind of it's kind of like a the Hated
51:56
Speaker 3: kind of relationship because at the inset of those apps,
52:02
Speaker 3: public land hunting just changed dramatically. All the little spots
52:05
Speaker 3: that looked like they're private but they're public that I
52:08
Speaker 3: knew about from studying paper maps and stuff all changed.
52:12
Speaker 3: People got all over the place. But at the same
52:15
Speaker 3: time that it hurt me, it also helped me. It
52:20
Speaker 3: helped me, uh not miss my mark to a tree,
52:24
Speaker 3: you know by twenty yards where you just blew the
52:26
Speaker 3: bedding were out. You know, it helped me make a
52:29
Speaker 3: path to those spots. I mean those apps. You know,
52:34
Speaker 3: everybody argues about crossbows and all that crap, and these
52:37
Speaker 3: big debates. ONYX has killed more derd than anything else
52:40
Speaker 3: in this world. It's put people back in these marks,
52:44
Speaker 3: back in these hills. It's a deadly tool.
52:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, very good point. Okay, so then what about this?
52:56
Speaker 1: If you had to give up all of the hunting
53:00
Speaker 1: gear that you currently use, all of your favorite your
53:03
Speaker 1: tree stands, your bow, any piece of equipment that you
53:08
Speaker 1: really truly value, your good optics, anything that's high end,
53:12
Speaker 1: that is, you know, the thing you trust and believe in,
53:14
Speaker 1: and then you have spent some extra money. If you
53:17
Speaker 1: had to give it all up except for one piece
53:21
Speaker 1: of top tier equipment, so you could keep one thing
53:24
Speaker 1: that was like best of the best, all the other
53:26
Speaker 1: stuff you had to return and just have like the
53:29
Speaker 1: very entry level stuff for everything else. What's the one
53:31
Speaker 1: thing you would want the top tier thing to be.
53:35
Speaker 3: That's a bad question for me, Mark. You know I'm
53:38
Speaker 3: a minimalist, right, so I'd probably say my pants. I
53:41
Speaker 3: want to keep my pants. Yes, but really, I go
53:46
Speaker 3: out hunting, I have a bowl, a release, and because
53:51
Speaker 3: I film a camera, arm and a camera, a tree
53:53
Speaker 3: stand and sticks, and I really don't take anything else.
53:56
Speaker 3: I don't take a pack, I don't you know, sometimes
53:59
Speaker 3: I'll have a bottle of water around if I'm gonna
54:01
Speaker 3: be out for a long time. But I don't even
54:03
Speaker 3: like that because it's something that could make noise and
54:05
Speaker 3: it's kind of not natural to.
54:09
Speaker 2: You know.
54:09
Speaker 3: I try to just be my bow, my stand, and
54:13
Speaker 3: that's it. I would say a lot of other people
54:18
Speaker 3: are more versatible hunting on the ground. I find that
54:21
Speaker 3: hunting on the ground, I get busted a lot more.
54:24
Speaker 3: I mean I get seen a lot, or the deer
54:26
Speaker 3: get too close to me before I notice them. Trees
54:29
Speaker 3: help me a lot. I think they help everybody a lot.
54:32
Speaker 3: But a lot of other people are would give away
54:33
Speaker 3: to stand real lazy. I wouldn't want to give away
54:36
Speaker 3: to stand. I will hunt the ground when I have to,
54:39
Speaker 3: and a lot of times I do have to because
54:41
Speaker 3: these deer tend, these mature deer tend to gravitate to
54:45
Speaker 3: areas that don't have huntable trees. So I could hunt
54:48
Speaker 3: on the ground, but I really rather not give up
54:50
Speaker 3: my stand. But that's really all I have is a stand.
54:53
Speaker 3: I don't take anything with me. I have a pocket knife.
54:59
Speaker 3: I guess you say, my milk weed. I love having
55:01
Speaker 3: milk weed and being able to see the air currents
55:03
Speaker 3: when the wind stops, because it's always different than when
55:05
Speaker 3: it's blowing. When you feel it dead, com is always
55:08
Speaker 3: a different current than windards of breeze. So milk weed
55:12
Speaker 3: is something I would not want to give up. Where
55:15
Speaker 3: I think people think they can use powder and the
55:17
Speaker 3: prices do nothing when there's no wind. Milk weed does
55:21
Speaker 3: it follows the air current?
55:25
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And that's one of those things that just
55:29
Speaker 1: about any one of us can get our hands on too.
55:31
Speaker 1: It's a great tool. So one last question for you, Dan.
55:37
Speaker 3: If we were.
55:40
Speaker 1: On the highway heading to Best Pro Shops or Cabellas
55:43
Speaker 1: or something like that, and there was a big old
55:46
Speaker 1: billboard right there along the side the highway, and I said, Dan,
55:49
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the opportunity to put anything
55:52
Speaker 1: you want on that billboard. You can leave the deer
55:55
Speaker 1: hunters of America one final message. This can be a
55:59
Speaker 1: piece of advice to help their success or their enjoyment,
56:02
Speaker 1: or some kind of reminder that you want to make
56:04
Speaker 1: sure every deer hunter gets on this billboard. What would
56:08
Speaker 1: you put on there?
56:10
Speaker 3: Ah, jeez, that's a hard question. Put me on a
56:15
Speaker 3: spot with that one huh.
56:19
Speaker 1: To simplify it could be just the single most important
56:22
Speaker 1: piece of advice if you want.
56:24
Speaker 3: You know, I guess I would struggle with trying to
56:29
Speaker 3: find something that would encourage more people to hunt. I
56:32
Speaker 3: can't stand it when I see people promoting less hunting
56:37
Speaker 3: and saying like, don't do these podcasts, don't do YouTube
56:40
Speaker 3: shows and stuff. You're attracting people to the public land. Yeah,
56:43
Speaker 3: attracting people to public land. That's what I want to do.
56:46
Speaker 3: I want more people to hunt. So if I could
56:47
Speaker 3: do something where it would encourage more people to hunt,
56:51
Speaker 3: that's what I want to do. My goal has always
56:58
Speaker 3: been to, you know, make people better hunters, well, making
57:02
Speaker 3: hunters better people, and that's always been my goal. I
57:06
Speaker 3: don't know how I put that in print, but I'm
57:09
Speaker 3: sure if I spent the night trying to figure it out,
57:10
Speaker 3: i'd plan something I could put on a billboard.
57:15
Speaker 1: I love that. I like that that idea and that
57:18
Speaker 1: that's such a great mission. There's people are really missing out,
57:22
Speaker 1: the folks that don't get to go out there in
57:23
Speaker 1: the woods like we do and experience these things and
57:25
Speaker 1: see these things. It's it's a tragedy that more people
57:28
Speaker 1: don't get to live that, you know, you know.
57:31
Speaker 3: I think when you look at some of the people
57:33
Speaker 3: that don't hunt and their actions and the way they
57:35
Speaker 3: talk and stuff, and you look at the people that
57:37
Speaker 3: do hunt, I think this whole world would be a
57:39
Speaker 3: better place if everybody got the experience hunt.
57:45
Speaker 1: I agree. So Dan, you have you have completed the
57:51
Speaker 1: gauntlet of the of the what we're calling the mindsets
57:55
Speaker 1: of the white tail Masters. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I
57:58
Speaker 1: thought you are your PERSPECTI it was really useful and interesting.
58:01
Speaker 1: So thank you for that. And can you give folks
58:04
Speaker 1: an update on anything new with with media content, you're making, products, gear,
58:12
Speaker 1: anything that folks you know about.
58:14
Speaker 3: I'm going to be at the Mobiles show in Michigan,
58:19
Speaker 3: what is at the end of July here last weekend
58:24
Speaker 3: with with Beast Gear selling our tree stands and sticks
58:28
Speaker 3: and I'll have shirts and stuff and you come meet me. Otherwise,
58:34
Speaker 3: if you guys haven't checked out, check out my YouTube show.
58:38
Speaker 3: I do a lot of I filmed the scouting, the
58:41
Speaker 3: week to week events. It's pretty educational. It's not as
58:46
Speaker 3: entertaining as some other shows because I get more into
58:48
Speaker 3: the nuts and bolts. But if you're into that kind
58:51
Speaker 3: of thing, come check that out.
58:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll vouch for you, Dan. I as I've told
58:59
Speaker 1: you many times over the years, and as many people know,
59:02
Speaker 1: this is not some surprise the folks, but you're a
59:05
Speaker 1: hell of an educator. You've helped a lot of people,
59:07
Speaker 1: and I for one, am very appreciative of it. So
59:10
Speaker 1: thanks for the chat today, Thanks for everything you've done
59:13
Speaker 1: over the years, and I'm excited to see how this
59:16
Speaker 1: upcoming season goes for you.
59:18
Speaker 3: I appreciate you having me on Mark.
59:21
Speaker 1: All right, and that is a wrap.
59:22
Speaker 2: Thank you for being here.
59:24
Speaker 1: Appreciate you listening. Stay tuned. Next week We've got another
59:29
Speaker 1: Mindsets of the White Tail Masters episode and this one's
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Speaker 1: a special one with a special guest of sorts. I
59:35
Speaker 1: supposed to recall him. So hope to see you then.
59:38
Speaker 1: Until next time, Stay wired Ton