Latest / Wired To Hunt Podcast / Ep. 412: Swamp Hunting Masterclass with Joe Rentmeester, Doug White, and Andy May

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Ep. 412: Swamp Hunting Masterclass with Joe Rentmeester, Doug White, and Andy May · Wired To Hunt Podcast

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Wire 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
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: your host, Mark Kenyan, and this is episode number four
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: twelve and tall in the show. We're back for another
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: one of our habitat specific roundtables, where our focus being
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: how to hunt deer and swamps, marshes and wetlands from
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Wisconsin all the way down to Florida. All right, welcome
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to the Wired to Hunt podcast, brought to you by
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: on X to Dani show. We're back here for another
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: one of our habitat specific roundtable master class, whatever you
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: want to call it. These things are. I think they've
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: been really interesting. We are drilling down to the nitty
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: gritty of hunting a very specific kind of habitat, and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: to do that, we get a bunch of different expert perspectives,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: as has been the case with all these roundtables that
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we've done so far this year. I'm joined by my
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: buddy Andy May, who I think most of you by
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: now know is one of the best d I Y
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: deer hunters out there in the country, and he's also
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: a swamp and marsh hunting expert himself. He does a
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: lot of this up here in Michigan and elsewhere, so
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: he's along to share his ideas. But he also nominated
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: two other swamp specialists to round out our group today. First,
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: we've got Joe rent Mester. He's a Wisconsin public land
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: bow hunter who many of you probably know from the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Hunting Beast or the Hunting Public public Land Challenges, or
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: his past appearance on this show. But secondly, we've got
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Doug White, and he's a more under the radar guy.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: You might know him if you are a part of
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Beast community. He goes by the name of
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: p K there. But what makes him particularly unique and
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: why I'm really excited that he's joining us here today
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: is that he's finding and hunting great deer in swamps,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: but he's doing it down in Florida. I mean some
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: really tough stuff, very different than what we're dealing with
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: in the Midwest in certain ways, but also interestingly similar.
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: So that's what we have in store. This is a
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: great episode. There's a lot to unpack, so I don't
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: want to uh drag this out too long. I think
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: we should just get right into it, enjoy the show,
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being here. Let's get into it all right
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: here with me on the line. We have got a
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: hell of a group talking swamp tonight. We've got Joe
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: rent Mester, Doug White, and Andy May and I'll just
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: thank you all from the get go for taking the
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: time to be here with us. And since we've got
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this four person format, which can sometimes get a little confusing,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just pitch it right to Andy to try
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: to get us started. And Andy, as we've done with
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: this series over the course of the last couple of months,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: you know, you've kind of taken the lead on finding
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: people who really want to learn from about the specific
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: habitat types. And I love that because if you want
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to learn from these guys, I know that every single
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: other person out there basically in the world can learn
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: something too. So so to kick us off, man, can
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: you tell me, you know a little bit about why
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: you chose Joe and Doug, who they are and what
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: they have to share here. Yeah. So we got Joe Rentmester,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: who you know, it's pretty well known. Um, he's a
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: phenomenal hunter. And what what I love about Joe is
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: he's a young dude, like he's a he's very early
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: still in his hunting career, um, but wise beyond his years. UM.
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: I tried to think back to like when I was
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: that age, UM, and although I was doing pretty well,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: I don't think I had near the knowledge that Joe has.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: UM you know I that same age. So he's just uh,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: he's a great hunter. UM. I've listened to his podcast.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We talk um through text message quite often, and he's
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: just a guy that I'm learning from. UM. I love
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: the the info he shares, like on podcasts and on
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Beasts and stuff. So I've just been real
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: impressed with him. I know he hunts quite a bit
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of this and he's had um some experience hunting with
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: a couple of other guys. One of his best buddies, UM,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: who he speaks very high of, uh, you know, as
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: far as hunting swamps and marshes, and then of course
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Dan Infall. So you know, he's he's had some good
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: teachers and guys to learn from himself. So I think
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: he's gonna be an awesome guy to chat with. And
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: then we got Doug White, who there's also a hunting
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: beast guy. UM, you know if if you're a Hunting Beast, UM. Member, Uh,
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: this is p K and he's he he's very well known,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: he is Mr Consistent. Um. What's cool about him is
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: he he's very private. UM, but he does share on
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the Hunting Beast and when you when you hear him talk,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: you just like, all right, this guy, this guy gets it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: He he knows what he's talking about. What I what
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I really wanted to I really wanted to have him
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: on here because he hunts, for the most part, a
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: completely different part of the country, but still hunts kind
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: of the swamps and marsh type setting. So he's he's
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: based out of Florida, and we'll let him dive into
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that a little bit. But like, I know nothing about that, um.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: And I'm guessing there's gonna be some overlap as far
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: as like what you know, maybe you and I and
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: Joe look for you know, in swamps and marshes. I'm
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: guessing there's gonna be some overlap there with with Doug.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: But I'm really interested to hear his take on on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: this whole setting. So it should be, Uh, it should
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: be a heck of a conversation. I think. Yeah, we've
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: got a nice mix of some salad Midwest experience, the
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: Upper Midwest experience. Then of course, you know, I know
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: all four of us have traveled quite quite substantially around
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the country, and then Doug bringing in that unique Southern twist,
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: is going to make this a really good kind of
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: overview of all things swamps, wet lands, marshes, etcetera. Um, so, Andy,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: where did you want to start with this? Yeah? One
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: more thing, one more thing about Doug that this uh
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: it was a few years ago. Like I'm always blown
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: away by his consistent success. He's always killing two or three, four,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: I don't know how many bucks a year. But there
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was this one picture of him and he's on one
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: of those paddle boards. He saw this, He's like he's
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: head to tell you know, all they could see is
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: his eyes and he's piddling out this nice book out
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: of some swamp down in Florida, And I'm like, who
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: who is this swamp murdering ninja here? Like I need
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: to talk to this guy. I mean, it was the
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: greatest picture of all time. So, um, yeah, actually I
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: want to start with Doug. Um. In fact, because I
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: was having trouble coming up with questions for you specifically, um,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: so mainly because I'm not real familiar with the type
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: of swamps and marshes that you have down there. So
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: maybe if you could like just explain some of the
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: different types of settings that you're you're hunting down in Florida,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: and then maybe we can kind of relate that back
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: to what we see up here. So Doug, if you
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: want to take that away, Yeah, yeah, man. Like most states, UM,
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of variation as you travel, mostly you know,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: from south to north. So basically out my back door
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: is the Everglades, which is I mean very similar to
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: a cat sill swamp, except it's just vast and endless,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: very very few tree islands. From cypress, which is like
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: a swamp um type of tree. Uh. You have you know,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: some cyper strands and cypress heads, very few oakheads. As
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: you travel up through the state, you get a little
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you get a lot of still a lot of marshes
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  Speaker 1: um that come out of like the you know, obviously
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  Speaker 1: Florida has a lot of water systems UM, and around
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: those water systems you get a lot of marshes uh,
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: swamps UM. I try to stay away from the canopied swamps,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: the big bass canopied swamps have some real tough stuff
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: to hunt. UM. And then as you get up into
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: North Florida, you get you know, you get your your ridges.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: You actually get a little bit of elevation, and then
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: you get swamps down in the bottom. UM very similar
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  Speaker 1: to a lot to like yuh like creek bottom type stuff.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: When you when you travel dug, I know you travel
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: to other states too, do you find that your experience
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: in the swamps of Florida translates to other wet areas
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: around the country, in the Midwest or wherever you're else?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You know, or is or is Florida just a beast
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of its own Florida, much of Florida, especially like peninsular Florida. Um,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: it is very I want to say it's different, but
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: there's obviously there's there's principles that that carry over. Um.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Everything in Florida is kind of magnified. UM. There's the
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: pressure is unreal. UM. The amount of deer in most
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: places is just very low. So the things that you're
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: keying in on, UM, it's a lot more UM detail oriented. UM,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: it's a lot harder in between. You got a lot
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: more space in between deer so but um, but it
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: definitely carries over the principles of you know, obviously the
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: deer they got a bet on dry ground. You know,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: they gotta have places where they can travel and eat,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: and it's all the same stuff. Yeah. Man, Well, considering
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: the challenges you're you're laying out there for Florida and
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: and that I've kind of assumed from just things I've
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: read in the past and heard from other people, the
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the deer that you've pulled out of these spots in
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Florida are is just doubly impressive. I mean, you've killed
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: some really nice deer for anywhere, let alone the I
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: don't know, the Everglades. I mean, that's uh, that's pretty Yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: A lot of the nicer deer that I've killed have
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: definitely come from, uh like north of Lake Okeechobee. It's
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: it's a lot harder. Of course, that one picture you
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: were talking about that was down south, Um, but yeah,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: down south south of the lake, it's uh, it's real
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: tough to find anything with some bone on its head. Uh. So, Andy,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: you know, the first thing that comes to my mind
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: when I think about swamps is scouting with maps. That's
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that's the first thing that pops in my mind. But
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I'm curious, what's the first thing that pops into your
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: mind when you started thinking about this topic, And are
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: we thinking the same thing or did you want to
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: kick these guys in a different direction. No, that's the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: that's the first thing, um that I think about too.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: In fact, um, that's one of the reasons I like
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: hunting swamps and marshes so much. I hunt quite a
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: bit of this stuff, um, and I find it, at
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: least where I'm at. I find it fairly easy to
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: break down and hunt, but not easy to get into them,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: if that makes sense. So like the game plan I
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: feel like for me is it's it's fairly easy to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: figure out where to go and what to scout, like
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the transition lines and all that are usually pretty clear.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: But what makes it hard a lot of the time
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is accessing it. A lot of times it's a lot
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: of physical work, which can keep obviously the majority of
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: the hunters out. I think like swamps and marshes tend
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to get are tend to be better in high pressure
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: areas because it just pushes more the more mature deer
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: into them. So I don't know if you guys kind
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: of feel that same way. But like as far as like,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: as far as cyber scouting and reading maps, like, I
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: find this the easiest to pick apart, but not necessarily
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: the easiest to access. That requires a lot of physical
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: labor a lot of times. Is would you agree with that, Joe? Yeah,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: so I would definitely agree with that. Um. The one
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: thing you if you throw in there is cedar swamps.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: If you were to look at like a cedar swamp
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: on a map, that's where you're really, in my opinion,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: you really can't decipher much. I mean you can cedar
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: swamps still have transitions and you can still kind of
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: find those, um, But with the cedar swamps, you really
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: have to get into them and kind of pick them apart.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: You have to kind of get in there on foot.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: So that part, I would say, is a little bit different. Yeah,
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: we have some of that up north northern Michigan. I've
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: actually never hunted like a true cedar swamp. If hunted tamarack,
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: if hunted like tag alders, lots of like the red os,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: your dogwood, um, just a lot of cat you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: cattel marshes and whatnot. But the cedar swamps we have
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: quite a bit of that up north, but I've actually
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: never hunted it, and I've heard the same thing I've
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: heard it could be very difficult. Um. How about you, Doug,
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: As far as like reading the maps, is that is
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: that pretty much what you start with? Yeah, for sure,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I'm a big map guy. I mean I live in
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: South Florida, so a lot of places I hunt. It's
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: a drive. I can't really put boots on the ground.
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: I hunt giant tracks of land. Um. So basically I
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: am narrowing down a lot on the map, and there
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: might be some huge pieces of public that I might
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: not even really go to because I can't narrow down
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: on the map because it's not the right uh sort
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: of terrain. You know, you got those those giant swamps
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: if they don't have good hard edges um or like
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: deep water edges or something that I can key in
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: on on the map. Um, you know, unless I have
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: some intel on that place or or you know, something
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: like that, I might just write, write that place off
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: and go somewhere that's more more catered to, you know,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: my style and a little more efficient. Can you elaborate
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: on that a little bit, Doug, Because I've i read
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: you write something about this where you said that you'll
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: you'll avoid areas with these soft edges as you call them,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: or kind of indistinct rolling terrain stuff like that, and
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: that you really, as you just said, really look for
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: those hard edges. Can you explain like what you mean
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: by that and what that looks like on a map,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: because imagine when someone's trying to figure out how to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: pick a part of swamp when looking at a map
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: at first glance. UM, for new people at least, that
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: could be intimidating. It's it's it can be hard even
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: when you've been doing it forever, especially if you're going
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: to travel to new places and new swamps where you've
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: never been in that area. And I've done that where
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: I've looked at maps and thought, you know, and ended
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: up when I'm standing there what I thought was the
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: high ground was a low ground and vice versa. UM,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: So you kind of have to take everything with a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: grain of salt. But UM, as far as maps where
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: you know what the train looks like, you know what
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: the vegetation looks like, and you can see it on
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the map. UM. Basically, you know, people have different terms
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: for the edge type, soft edge. Hard edge to me,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a hard edge is if I'm on the edge of
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: that swamp and you know, I'll just keep it. For
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Florida guys, if you've got cypress on your right and
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you got say, pines on your left, and you can say,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: reach out with your right hand touch to the cypress,
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: and you can reach out with your left and touch
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: of pines, that's a hard edge. You've got a hard
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: line right there. But if it kind of bleeds then
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and say it takes fifty yards a hundred yards where
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: it's mixed cypress and pines, Um, it's it's gonna be
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: a lot harder to nail down exactly where that deer
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: is gonna move through there. Um, So I don't know,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and what it looks like on the map. I mean,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: if you know what the different types of trees look like,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: or the different types of vegetation, um, I mean, it's
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: just gonna be literally a hard line, um where those
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: two two vegetation types meat that you don't want to
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: see them really blended together. Um. In some cases you
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: might if you're gun hunting, I like that kind of stuff.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: But if you're talking mostly like bow hunting, when a
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: lot of guys who listen to this are hard for
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: bow hunters. So I mean, you're really trying to nail
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: down where that deer is gonna walk, and uh, it
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: just makes a lot easier when you got the defined terrain,
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: like you said, with rolling terrain, same thing for whole country.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: I looked for the steep of stuff I can find,
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: and I looked for places that only have a little
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: bit of it, so I know where the key in on,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: because otherwise you're you've got the same problem with everything
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: looks good everywhere and you can't be everywhere. Yeah, yeah, Joe,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: do you look for something similar when it comes to
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: kind of prioritizing areas that have that really distinct hard edge. Uh,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: not necessarily, um, because when you have that around here,
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: it seems when you have that hard edge, you also
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: have um other people finding the same spots and pushing
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: the deer out of there pretty fast. Um. So then
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: you you end up finding yourselves in those spots that
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: don't have the hard edge, that are a little bit
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: more difficult to find out and figure out. Um. Yeah,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: So I mean I guess just really yeah, So so
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: that's interesting. So then what when you're looking at the map.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Then if the hard edge for you is working as
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: well up in Wisconsin or that part, what on the
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: maps are you keing in on otherwise? Sure, so you
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: can still kind of catch a little I'm thinking of
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: a local swamp near me, you could still kind of
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: catch little points that jet out or jet in. So
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: like let's say you have a line of cedars and
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: cat tails and it's it's more of a soft line.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: You can still kind of see those spots where the
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: soft line might dip in or the soft line might
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: dip out, And that's where I like to check. And
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: you usually have a trail either running into the seaters
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: or out of the seaters. Um, those are great starting points.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: But then it's tricky because there can be that one
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: low and high tree out in the cattails that is
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: holding betting that everyone's going past or um, it could
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: be very deceiving. So I mean, it's a starting point,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: but gosh, you really if you can, you really want
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: to tear through an entire swamp like that and just
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: kind of pick it apart. In my opinion, what else
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: does you? Oh? Sorry, go ahead and sorry, I was
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: gonna cut in real quick. Um, just to go off
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: of what what Joe was saying, I see the same
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: thing I see. Um, I end up finding a lot
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: of the book betting on some of those feathered edges.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Like it might be where, um, where a hardwood's point
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: kind of comes down into say the marsh or swamp,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: but then off of that there might be it might
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: go down into some like some tag altars and then
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: kind of turn into more like dogwood. So like on
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: a map, it looks like it kind of looks feathered. Um,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: you can still see an edge, you know, and a
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: point that kind of goes out into the marsh, but
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: it's different stages of like vegetation. Um. And a lot
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: of times I'll find the betting like in that in
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: that dogwood that's kind of out into the marsh a
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: little bit, but it just looks a little thicker, Like
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: on the map, it looks like a little thicker a
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: little more structure than say the cattails are just beyond that. Um.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: And then like Joe said, like a lot of times
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: there will be like a lone tree out there or
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: a small a small tiny island. It could be the
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: size of like a you know, five hundred square foot
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: house or something, or a hundred or a thousand square
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: foot house. You know, sometimes I'll find them in there,
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: but um, a lot of times we don't have that
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: real distinct edge. It kind of it kind of feathers
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: out into there. So that's it's kind of interesting to
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: hear the differences there. Yeah, so too. Back to you, Doug.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Then you're looking for the hard edges, which maybe is
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a little different than what we're seeing up here. Um,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: what about the other things that Andy and Joe just mentioned,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: stuff like those points shutting in and out or those
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: little islands. Uh is that something? Yeah, now they're spot
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: on it, really and I didn't really get too much
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: into it. But like with those hard edges, I very
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: rarely find books betted right up there. And obviously, like
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Joe said, if it's a good looking hard edge and
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to get to, you can bet you're
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: going to find a stand every you know, a few yards. Um,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: But it gives you a starting point, like Joe said.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, then you're looking for those more subtle
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: um you know, those little tucked away spots where those
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: bucks like to um hang out and let the other
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: deer and people walk right by sometimes or they're tucked
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: way back in, but um, yeah, I'm definitely seeing what
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: what they are saying. Also, okay, and on these maps,
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: you know, what are the things that you're looking for,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: like kind of visually on these maps to clue you
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: in on some of those other features. I it's really
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: easy to understand a really clear hard edge when I'm
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: looking at a map. But for someone down south that
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: has maybe a little bit different kind of wetland, you know,
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: our islands easy to identify. Are those little high spots
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: easy to identify when looking at an aerial map or
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: or what little clues are you looking for on that
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: side of things? Yeah? Yes, know, sometimes they are very clear. Um,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes they're not. Sometimes it takes you know, walking around
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: in certain terrain and figuring out what stuff actually looks
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: like on the map. Um. You know, I've had buddies
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: send me pens um and I said, man, this looks
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: like a good little clearing, you know, inside of the swamp.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: And I'm like that that's a gator hole, that's a pollen.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: That's not you know, it's gonna be chest the head
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: high water. Um. Just because I've walked through so many
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: of those places. Um, so some of it is easy
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: to see. You know, if there's a pine tree that's
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: in the middle of cypress and you get a picture
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: where those you know, the cypress aren't green where they
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: drop their needles. I mean, you're gonna see that pine
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: tree or that palm tree. Uh, if you've got a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: good resolution, you know, um on the aerial map. Um.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: But yes, a lot of times it is easy to
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: see UM. But then when I see that, like like
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: Joe said, if if you see it, man, other people
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: are probably seeing it. So you you kind of gotta
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: base that all. You gotta go in there and see,
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: you know, if somebody else hitting it, um or not. Yeah,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you what you mentioned. One of my biggest
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: issues I have up here in Michigan is when you
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: find those gator holes. That those things are real tricky
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: up here in Michigan. I gotta tell you. I mean,
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: I tell you, I cannot imagine hunting in a spot
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: where there could be gators as you're hiking in uh. Man,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: props to you. Uh Yeah, They're just part of life
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: down here. And I mean, for the most part, they
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: don't want nothing to do with you. All right, I'll
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: take your word for it. UM. I don't know if
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: this is the right next step here, but but I'm
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: I think we probably need to just spell out a
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: little bit more of the basic building blocks of swamp
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: hunting and that we've kind of mentioned. You look for edges,
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: you look for points, you look for islands, but we
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: haven't really talked about why that stuff matters, Like how
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: are these deer using these different features in a swamp? Um.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: We all know because we've talked about the stuff before war,
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: but it's probably some people out there who don't. UM,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: So I don't know, Joe, do you want to take
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: a first stab at kind of describing why some of
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: these key features that you mentioned matter, Like where are
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: these bucks betting? How are these deer traveling? Uh? What
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff are they feeding on or or heading
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to feed on? Can you kind of lay out what
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: you see up in your area and then and then
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: we'll bounce to to both Andy and Dug two at
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: light here. Yeah, So one thing, I guess I kind
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: of want to back pedal on a little bit that
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: will blend in with what you're asking. Um. Time of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the year makes a big difference for us up here
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: in the north where I guess I'm curious too in
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: Florida with what how time of the year changes things.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: But in the winter, for example, you're not necessarily going
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: to see the deer on the points because the point
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that you've got ice, you got snow, people are getting
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: into those swamps. Um, you've got cold weather and deer start.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: You start seeing the deer by us getting pushed into
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: like your seedars. And then where particularly in the seaters
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I find them usually are in your your tightest clusters
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: of cedars. Um they almost stick it on a map.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: Like if you were to look at a cedar swamp
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: on a map, you'd see like a real tight dark
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: spot where you get maybe say, um, ten cedar trees
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: just clustered really tight together, and they seem to just
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: bed under those in those types of spots. And uh,
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: in the winter part of it is they're getting out
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: of the wind in my opinion, um, and there they
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: have food right there at the seaters themselves. So time
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: of the ear makes big difference, um and refreshing me again,
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: I was gonna kind of blend it into your question there.
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: What was your question? Yeah, I was just gonna ask
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: you to to describe how you typically see deer using
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: some of these key features. So you just mentioned one
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: of them being one of the kinds of spots that bed.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: But if you could even kind of run down like
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: these types of features are where I typically see them betting,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: These are how I typically see them traveling, using different
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: edges or points or whatever. Uh, feeding too. Just a
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: little overview of of those types of things would be
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: helpful to kind of lay the stage. Yeah. Um, So
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: I guess for the betting, it's just it seems those
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: loan when things are wet and there's not a ton
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: of pressure, those lone single tree is um, they have
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: a little base underneath them, just seemed to hold the
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: deer pretty well. Um. If there's not a lot of pressure.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: In my experience, they're not usually terribly deep into the swamp. Um.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: If you've got people right on the edge or getting
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: into the swamp a little ways, the deer might be
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: pressured in deeper. I've also seen it to where you
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: get so much pressure in the swamps, deer come out
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: of the swamps and they'll be better in your overlooked spots. Um.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: And then I guess to touch on food, I mean
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: food when you're trying to pick out a swamp to
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: food is so important in regards to what swamps are
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: holding the deer um in the early season. I guess
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: if you have a if you have a swamp with
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: new seating alf alfa butted up against it, you can
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: bet there's gonna be deer coming out on that side
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of it, in comparison to say, a swamp that's just
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: surrounded by, um, I don't know, hard woods that isn't
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: dropping acorns. So that's another thing is really for us
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: figuring out where that food is and and if the
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: deer are even going to be in those swamps, because
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I've got swamps up here that are awesome at certain
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: times of the year and they're just they're vacant of
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: deer at other times of the year. Um. So I
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: guess that that kind of gets you going on that topic.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Since sticking in the Midwest kind of area, Andy, what
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: would you add to this part of the country and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: how you're seeing Do you use this stuff? Yeah, I
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: see a lot of the same things, just just kind
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: of going back to like some of the features where
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you know, if if I'm talking, I mean, I guess
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: we're kind of talking about bucks here is specifically mature bucks.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm I'm definitely you know, we all know
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: about you know, the points that kind of that kind
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: of jut out into the marsh or swamp. Like Joe said, um,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: if there's water, anything that's high ground, which could be um,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: you know, a lone tree out there, or or a
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: little island of um you know, tag alders, or or
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of this stuff. I don't even know what
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: it is out there. It's just like high ground where
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: there's like little trees. UM. I see them betting on
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: that um bowls like along the transition where it kind
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: of goes it's like an opposite of a point, it
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: kind of goes in. I've seen them bed right there
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: on that kind of transition to UM. The one thing
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: that I actually learned this from Joe's buddy um Um.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's a marshbuster on the Hunting Beast, but
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: I listen to one of his podcasts and he was
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: talking about how even just different pockets of vegetation doesn't
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: necessarily need to be trees, but like a different a
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: different type of vegetation out in the marsh that's like
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: slightly different. UM. A lot of times those are really
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: not so easy to see on the map. But um,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: after I heard that, I heard that like a year ago,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: and I started looking for that on the map and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: started scouting out some of those spots on some public
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: playing around here, and sure enough I found some betting
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: in there too. So um, yeah, all that stuff, all
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: that stuff I mentioned, I see the betting. And then
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: one thing too, like with with the cattail marsh and um,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that's really cool and we all know this and most
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: people do now, especially with mapping technology, but you can
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: really zoom in on those on like Google Earth and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and really see like those trails like such detail, and
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: you can it will literally it's like a blinking sign
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: going to you know where some of these these deer
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: are bedded and then you can go out and verify
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: you with boots on the ground. Um. And then and
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: then to kind of kickyback off what Joe said as
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: far as like what which marshes and swamps are holding
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: um deer during certain times of the year. Like a
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: lot of my experiences in like um uh, like cattail
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: marshes that have a lot of dogwood around and those
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: seem to really pile in deer there during the winter,
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and I know they like to browse on the dogwood
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: and stuff. But that's I've been some of my best
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: late season spots is in some of those uh those
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: dogwood swamps there. But um, it's it's it's kind of
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: interesting to hear him touched on that. I wanted to
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: dive into that a little more later. But how about Doug,
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: could you go with go off to some of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: features that you see down there in Florida some of
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: the same stuff maybe, Um, yeah, a lot of it
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: is real similar. Um. And as far as I think
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: the question is like why it's important, I mean it's
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: important because obviously the deer, the deal relates to the
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: terrain that's their home, you know. Um. So if you
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: can find those points and those little islands and those
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: little trees, um, one thing I'll say, well, well, when
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: you get a lot of a lot of pressure. Um,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I see bucks kind of using those lone tree type beds. Um.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Not a terrible amount though, I've found it down here.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: They really like a little spot um where they've got
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: a canopy and they've got shade that that you know,
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: it's just it just it gets so hot. I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's just a really big deal for him. That's what
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I've been finding with a lot of the turre bucks
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that on the last few years I've been paying more
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: attention to it because I you know, I'd see one
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: of those lone trees out there and I'd go stomping
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: out to it, thinking that, you know, there's gonna be
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: and there's not. There's not a bed there, like man,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: it's it's too perfect. But then they're up. They're up,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: And it depends, like I said, with the pressure, because
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the pressure pressure will definitely push them out there. Um.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And also the amount of deer if there's if there's
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: too many deer up in the more favorable spots, then
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: it will push him out there. Um And then um yeah.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: And another big thing is just the way that they
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: they seem to always be set up um for some
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: sort of wind or thermal advantage. It just almost every
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: single big buck that I've seen moving or have found, um,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: you know, where he's hanging out, where he's setting It
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: just seems like they are always keying in on where
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: that one wind kind of funnels through or um or
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: where those thermals are dropping and sinking. It seems like, well,
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: it doesn't seem I know, I'm completely completely clueless when
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: it comes to figuring out how and where the deer
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: down by you would be feeding. You know, I can
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: understand the betting. The betting seems like somewhat consistent with
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: what we have up here. UM, But I'm trying to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: figure how like my understanding of food sources would translate
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: down to the south and down in the stuff here
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: and I'm not sure it does, Like what kind of
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: stuff are they feeding on down in this swampy wet country? Um?
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: And how like what are you looking for when trying
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: to figure that out? So number one is the same
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: as with you guys pretty much, Um, it's gonna be hoax.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: You know, why don't we get a lot of water oaks,
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: live oaks? Um? And the deer will definitely come up
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: and hit those. UM. But honestly, I am not really
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: That's something that I've been trying to set up my
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: game with is um food source uh and identifying UM.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: But honestly, I don't down here. These deer just they
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: nipped here and there. It's really similar. It's as I
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: can put it into it, like is big woods what
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: I hear those guys talk about in the big woods
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: up in the northeast. Um, that translates really well to
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: what I've seen in most of Florida. UM. You know,
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: bigger going to browse a lot time. There is food
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: right in their bedding. Um our brows right, and if
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it is in a really wet area, they eat a
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: lot of aquatic aquatic plants. I seem feeding in the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: water a lot. That makes sense. The next step, I
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: guess in my mind is taking all this digital scouting.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: We're looking at maps, We're looking for these features. We're
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: laying down way points. So this looks like a good point,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: This looks like a good island, This looks like us
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: an edge worth checking out. Um. And then of course,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: if you have the time, hopefully you're going to get
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: a chance to go out there and check it in person,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: ground truth in in some kind of way. UM, Doug,
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: I've read that you don't have a lot of time
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: to do on the ground scouting anymore, so you focus
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: primarily on in person or in season or sorry online
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: or maybe a little bit of in season stuff. But
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: can you lay out for me, you know, with your
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: limited time, when you get some kind of available bandwidth
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: to get some on the ground scout it again, like
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: what is the key thing that you're focusing on or
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: something unique that you key in on, other than like
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: you're gonna go look at this stuff? Is there any
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: more detail you can provide as far as the stuff
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: that you're specifically really focusing on or um prioritizing um
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: down here in most of Florida, I would, even though
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not a big guy on on sign hunting over sign, um,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: if you can find some good sign because there's just
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: not as many older deer uh and when they make
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: sign you usually it's for a reason. Um, So, definitely
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: finding some some you know, better buck sign is a
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: is a huge thing. And if you can correlate it
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: then to what you either already have scouted on the
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: map or can look at you know, they're on the
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: fly and kind of piece the puzzle together on why
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that sign is there and if you can make a
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: game plan. Um. So Yeah, Honestly, if I'm trying to
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: out it's usually I'm usually not scouting to look to
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: see what its rain looks like. Usually I know what
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: it's gonna look like pretty well. Um, it's more of
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: trying to you know, groundproof as far as is there
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: you know a good one around here. I don't know
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: if that answers your question. It does. What what's quote
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: unquote good sign look like in Florida, because I'm guessing
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: it might look a little different than good sign in Iowa. Yeah,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: I've never been had a pleasure, but I've been to
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: Missouri that's about the closes, and yeah, it's it's very different.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: There are some small places, uh, some small parts of
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: the state where there's actually pretty good gear numbers and
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: you can get into some better sign. But you know,
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: for most of Florida, good buck sign. You know, for
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: some guys, it might be any buck sign like that that,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: you know, anything might might get them fired up. Me,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for a bigger than average rubs, bigger than
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: average tracks. Um. If I'm do into kind of scouting
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: like where I'm actually looking for beds and obviously bigger
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: you know, bigger beds. Even though we don't usually get
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: those well defined beds. Um, you can generally if there's
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: something there you can look at, you can tell kind
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: of besides of the deer that's been laying there. Um.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean it's it's the same thing that
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: you would look for anywhere else. It's just scaled down.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I mean the big the big sign, the big tracks
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: that I'm looking for might look like though tracks in
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: the Midwest. And what about a bigger than average rub.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: What's the bigger than average rub look like by you? Um,
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: anything that man, that's that's tough to answer. But you know,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: anything that's getting up where the center of the rub
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: is up above your knee, that's gonna be a two
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: year older or a better deer. And then we do
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: get the occasional I've seen some places that were ripped
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: up where it's you know, the rubs are up to
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: your chest, and that's usually a deer that has pretty
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: long times. You're a pretty ride rack or is you
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: know tall or maybe all those things hopefully Yeah, okay,
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: uh Joe, what about you when it comes to your
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: on the groundwork, is there anything kind of unique that
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: you're looking for other than just like confirming that yes,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: this stuff you saw on the map has some sign,
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: anything kind of next level or specific that you do
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: that maybe is a little bit different than others. I
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say I mean next level, but to kind of
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: take in a slightly different direction, not necessarily even just
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: maps for us, we have to confirm that there's a
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: big deer living in the area. So shining is a
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: big one that I'm assuming they can't do. They don't
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: do it for I don't know. I shouldn't assume that
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: they don't do it in Florida, but just confirming deer
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: exists in an area through shining, um, and what fields
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: are using and what areas are in I guess i'd
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: be curious if that's something in Florida or not you
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: are legally allowed to shine. I believe I don't do it,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: so I don't know if there's time frames. I know
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: you definitely cannot have no weapons in the car. Yeah right, sorry,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: go ahead, no ahead, alright, sorry about that. UM. So
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: I'm curious what you're seeing kind of up there around Wisconsin.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: You kind of touched on a little bit of like
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: where you know, maybe like in the marsh type setting
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: where you're seeing dough betting as opposed to buck betting,
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: and then also just kind of maybe blend that into
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: like where you're where in your experience have the biggest
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: oldest bocks. Has there been a certain type of feature
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: or type of of pocket of cover where you've seen
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: the biggest oldest bucks betting. Sure so in the swamps, um,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: I've seen. I've seen spots where you just have one
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: solo buck kind of betting on some bogs, and then
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: the next year that buck has gone and you've got
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: eight or ten does on those same bogs. M I've
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: seen that. I guess we're the biggest oldest ones. Are
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: is usually some freak overlooked spot. Um. I know it's
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: kind of a clear cliche thing to say nowadays, but
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: like you take a look at I mean, for for
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the listeners, if you watched my one video of the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: buck I shot over his bed, he was with a great,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: big old buck and just a little point that wasn't
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: getting bothered. Um. Now that's not swamp, I guess, but
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: that's an overlooked spot. There was another one. Um. Really
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the buck got very old and when we finally did
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: find where he was hanging out, it was between three
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: three parking lots, kind of down in some little cattails,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: just a little hole next to like a little creek. Um,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: it's just it seems like it's those overlooked spots. If
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: it's too obvious of a spot. They just don't make
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: it to an old age. Yeah, that's kind of been
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: my experience too. It's like it's either the overlooked or
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: it's just those ones that are just like so hard
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: to get to, Like they're the farthest away from access
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: or it's just uh, there's some sort of barrier like
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: a river or some standing water or something that you
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: gotta get to. It's just like it seems like those
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: two things, um or where I found, you know, either
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: the biggest box or the biggest bucks signed um. But
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: then it could be it could be any one of
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: those features that we talked about. It could be you know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: a little tiny island. It could be a loan tree
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: out there, or even some some of that some of
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: that dogwood. But it just seems like those two things
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: are where if I really think back, where I found
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: the the oldest and the biggest box. UM. What about you, Doug?
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Um? Yeah,
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: I mean it's tough because, like you guys know, it's
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: also situational. Um. But I'll say it seems like the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: biggest oldest ones, um, they're very rarely actually in those
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: spots where you look at a map and it's like
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: a neon sign. I mean once in a while, like
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: you said, if they're real far from access um or
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: something like that, they'll be using that traditional stuff. But
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: it seems like the ones that are kind of sliding through,
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: like the seams, you know, the gaps in the pressure,
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: they've they've got some little spot works for him. Um.
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: And a lot of times what I've been finding lately
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: is they like those real I don't really know what
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: they're called. They're not exactly a point um of dry ground,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: but they're more like I call them, like a belly.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: It's so sort of like a kidney bean shape, um,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: little knob, a little little bit of higher ground. And
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: they seem to really like that because it doesn't just
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: give them this real small little spot, gives them kind
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: of like their own little area. Um. You know. And
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: like I said, if if it has that overhead canopy
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: with the shade, it's got brows, if it's got you know,
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: security on the backside, whether that's deep water or cattails
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever. Um. It seems to be that when I'm
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: finding you know, like if I shoot one and back
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: chuck into its better or if I happen to jump
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: on or something like that. It seems to be in
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: the last few years, I've been noticing that they're in
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: these spots that are just subtle and they just they
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: don't really scream that to you, even if you walk
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: right by it. I I've found a few within the
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: last few years where I've walked within bow range of
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: that bed several times times and never knew it was there. Um,
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: And that that kind of stuff is kind of hard, uh,
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: you know, to relay, you know on a podcast, but
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: if you spend your time out there and you really
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: combed through stuff. Um. One thing I've been telling guys,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: if you if you know a big buckets in like
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: a certain area and you can't find them, man, turn
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: on your turn on your GPS tracker and and grit
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: it like you're looking for a shed or you're looking
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: for a dead deer, because sometimes you are literally walking
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: right by them. Mhm. Yeah, that's good stuff. Andy. What
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: about you on the well you just mentioned a little
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: bit on that front, But back to the the on
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: the ground stuff. You know, Doug just mentioned sometimes you've
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: got a grid searching area almost to really identify those
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: little hidden spots. You just seem to be a master
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: of scouting anything. But I know this stuff in particular.
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Is there anything you would add when it comes to
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the on the ground side of scouting out these swamps
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: and wet lands. Is there something you do uniquely or
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: something that's particularly important to you other than just covering
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: a lot ground. You know. I always have said, like,
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: I don't think necessarily that I'm the best at reading
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: maps or even kicking up things, uh, scouting as as
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: some of these guys out there. But what I will
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: say is I'm very, very thorough. Like I will scout
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: the same areas multiple times, even though I've walked everything.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: I will walk at multiple times because I missed stuff. Um.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: I missed stuff that I'm sure some other guys wouldn't um.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: And it often takes me. I I think I pick
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: up on the obvious stuff, um, but it often takes
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: me two or three or four times, say scouting marsh
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: to really get a grasp of everything. So I will
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: purposely go out there. Um, there's this one in particular
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: that I'm I'm really trying to learn. I had a
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: I've had a couple of good encounters out there. Um, well,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: a couple of good encounters two years ago, and then uh,
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: that same buck was out there this year. And I've
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: been out there three times in the last week and
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a half. And it's not that big a piece, but
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: I'm really just trying to dissect it. And it seems
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: like every time I go out there, I learned a
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Um And and I've also I've always thought this about
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: myself too. It often takes me a few years to
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: really kind of master a certain area. Um. Yes, I
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: can often dive in and take a good buck out,
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: but to really to really learn it intimately. I feel
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: like I'm a little slower than than some guys that
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: uh um, I don't. I don't know, I don't. I'm
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: not sure exactly why, but I feel like I'm a
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: little slower to pick that up. So I actually spend
• 44:07
  Speaker 1: more time. I might take twice or three times as
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: much time out there. Is you know a guy like
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Joe or a guy like Dan or or or Doug. Um,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know that for sure, but that's uh, I
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: think that's what I have to do. I think we're
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: in the same boat. And that's exactly what I was
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: alluding to. Is you know, I've spent I don't even
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: want to know how much time breading maps and thought
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I was pretty good at it. And like I said,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: some of these spots I've hunted in for years and um,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, like you said, scouting the spot two
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: or three times, even doing it within a short period
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: of time, going back that second and third time. I
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: think a lot of guys they scout something and they say, well,
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: I scouted it, just like they'll look at a map
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and they'll say, Okay, well I know what that looks like.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: But when you stare at that map and then you
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: shut it down. The next day you stare at that
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: map again, and you stare at again, new things pop
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: out at you. Um, And it happened for me. It
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: happened looking at the and it happens on you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: boots on the ground all the time. Man. Yeah, well
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: that's good, that's good to here. That makes me not
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: feel so bad. But I do. I feel like you know,
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: I pretty much I do what you guys do. I
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: work those transitions and then I branched out from there.
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: But I do I comb it the whole thing, like honestly,
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: like you said, Doug, like I'm looking for a dead
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: buck because that's the only way I can make sense
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: of everything. To be honest with you, Um, I don't
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: think I'm as quite as good as like reading a map,
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: although I do think Marcia's and Swell Marcia's in particular,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: or some of the easiest to read. I don't think
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: I'm as good at it as some guys. So I
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: do need to be just extremely thorough and often I
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: need multiple hunting seasons out there to really get it,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and then things start coming together and then I find it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: I feel like I end up finding it really easy
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: to hunt once I figured that out. Um, But it
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: takes me a while to get there, even though I
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: might take a good ball out, you know, early on,
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: it takes me a while to get there where I
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: feel like I really haven't figured out. So should we
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: move on to some of the actual hunting kind of
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: styles then, um, because if we've we've kind of covered
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: well the things to look for when you're preparing scouting
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: with your maps, scouting in person, scouring this stuff, trying
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: to learn it. But it's a whole another step than
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: trying to take that information to actually apply it once
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: hunting seasons open. Um. I don't know, Andy, where how
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: do you want to I don't know where your head
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: was that with this, but but do you have any
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: thoughts on how you want to start this part of
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: the conversation or should we just start basic and and
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: just see, uh favorite favorite ways to approach on swamps?
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: What do you wanna do? Yeah, let's do that. Let's um,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: let's maybe have them dive into a couple of different
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: scenarios maybe that they've experienced or some text exist they
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: used say that, like maybe like that early season in
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: the swamps or marshes, um, you know, kind of some
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: textbook stuff, or or maybe maybe a couple of stories
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: of some mature bucks you've taken. And then I'd be
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: more interested too to hear about the rut in the
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: swamps and marshes, because that's I haven't had as much
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: success in those areas during the rut. I've killed some
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: deer there, but most of my success has come early
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: to mid October to that late October time frame, and
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: then I don't know, I just haven't had quite consistency
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: during the rut in that type of in that type
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: of setting, so I'd be curious so and and going
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: even into late season too, because Joe, I know you've
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: you've had some great late season hunts in the in
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: the march, So how about we start with you. Yeah,
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: so that's that's a tricky one. Um gosh. In early season,
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: the biggest thing is is do they know they're being
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: hunted yet or not? Um, because you could you can
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: catch them. I mean, like like I said earlier, right
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: on the edges of the swamps, it seems where they're
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: they're not pushed in deep, they're not um. It almost
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: seems like they're not bedded so much with their nose
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: in mind. Um. And then once the pressure hits, it
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: seems like now they start betting with their nose and
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: their eyes. If they can use their eyes and the
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: swamps it's a little bit harder. But sometimes you get
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: like a hillside where people are walking down off of
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: down into a swamp and the deer are watching that
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of times. Um. So yeah, once the pressure hits,
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: it kind of seems to change. Uh. During the rut.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: For for me, I'm kind of in the same boat
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: as you. I had a little more success this past
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: year during the rut getting onto deer. The big thing
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: I noticed in the swamps during the rut is when
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: a deer is in a certain area um whether he's
• 48:48
  Speaker 1: with those or or not with those, it seems like
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: he's just in that area for a few days and
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: then he's gone. And then he might look back through
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: a few days later and then he's gone. And that's
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: kind of something I've noticed with the wireless troke cameras
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: um and then in the late season, but it's just
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: the late season changes so much. So like up by us,
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: in the late season, you might have a thirty degree
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: day or you might have a minus ten degree day.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: And in those swamps they shift around so much, so
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: they might be when it's a little warmer, they might
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: be kind of in the dogwood in the open um,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: chewing on dogwood, where they don't mind a little wind
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: to get into them. When it when it gets a
• 49:20
  Speaker 1: little bit colder, a little little nastier, then they're tucked
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: back in the real thick stuff. Trend seems like keep
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: keep the wind off of them. So it really varies,
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: and I guess when I think about it, in all
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: those scenarios, one thing I see a lot of is
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: when you have a buck using a bed or using
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: a spot, it doesn't seem like it's for a real
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: long period of time. He's there for a short window,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: and if you don't capitalize on it, he's he's off
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: doing something else, or it's gonna be a few days
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: before he's back through there. Yeah. I uh, it's interesting
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: you say that because I was, Um, I was out
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: scouting um last week and I sent this polo, which
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: is like it's like a video message app. I was
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: sending it to Joe Els here in justin right um
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: of this this little cattail marsh where there's this little
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: island in the middle of it, and it's small. I
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: mean it's the size of my living room. And there
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: was a boot and Crockett sized buck that I was
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: hunting here in Michigan a few years ago, and he
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: lived across this major highway and every year during the
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: rut he would, um, he would venture across into the
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: side that I can hunt. And I had hunted him
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: the year before. He was like a like a low
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: one fifties eight and um, that's when I really kind
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: of figured out his pattern. I was like, Okay, I'm
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm definitely gonna kill this buck next year, and
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: I was, I had, I was all in on this book.
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: In fact, the whole season, I was basically foregoing everything
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: else locally, and I was basically every night that I had,
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: I was sitting observation just so I knew exactly when
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: this buck got into that march, because that's what he
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: had done the year before. And it was like late October,
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: and he all of a sudden, he started showing up
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: in that march and I could see him out in there,
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: and he wouldn't move far off that island um in daylight.
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: And to be honest with you, there's the property line
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: where I was hunting, Like I couldn't actually hunt the marsh,
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: but I could hunt right up to the edge of it,
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: and he just wasn't coming my direction in daylight. But
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: he had the year prior. As the season went on,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: like into the rut, so I was just biding my
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: time observing. I started seeing this deer. I started getting
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: pictures of him um after dark, and then it was like,
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: you know, an hour before or an hour after dark,
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: then thirty minutes after dark. I mean, it was it
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: was accumulating exactly how I thought this would play out,
• 51:50
  Speaker 1: and it was. It was just about time to move
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: in and start hunting this deer like in some in
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: some some funnel areas. And he ended up getting poached
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: out of some guy's backyard over by the highway there
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: a guy shot him with his hand gone out of
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: his car. But I said, the reason I bring that
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: up is because he showed up in that little marsh
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: just for a very brief time. He wasn't there before,
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: and he wasn't there after. But you if you didn't
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: know that, you would never have a chance at this book.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: But um, it was. It was very cool. I sent
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: I sent the video of that little little betting area.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that brings back a heart, heartbreaking memory. That's
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: a painful one now. And if you, if you, if
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: you could have hunted that spot, let's say it was
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: all open to you and you were hunting those observations
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: stands all those days, letting up to it, then you
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: finally see he's here. What would you have done differently
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: if you could have hunted right in there? Can you
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: describe exactly how you would have approached trying to hunt
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: him if you didn't need to wait off back on
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: the edge of the ki did. Yeah, So where I
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: could only where I could access to I could see
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: about a hundred fifty hundred fifty yards two hundred yards
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: into that into that marsh um and and he needed
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: to come my way, but he was going parallel to me,
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: so he was he was actually working out of that island.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: A few times I saw him in daylight. He was
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: slowly kind of working out of that island. He was
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: nipping on some red brush, just kind of browsing um.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: And then he was working his way up like into
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: the fringe area where the hardwoods kind of dipped down
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: into the marsh. So he he was making it to
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: the edge. Like if I could have hunted that edge,
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: it was like a little it's like we talked about
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: a bowl, like where the hard edge or where the
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: edge of the woods creates a bowl instead of a point. Um.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: He was working right into that. So had I been
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: able to access that property, I I could have gotten
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a crack at him there, probably in that late October
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: time frame. But he was what he was doing is
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: he was kind of slowly getting out of his bed
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and he's working up into that and then he was
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: laying down sign he was really starting to hit the
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: scrapes and rubbing up his area and stuff. He's just
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: basically keeping tabs on the dos is, just starting to
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: check on the area. And then when the dough started
• 54:08
  Speaker 1: coming and heat, that's when we really started, you know,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: seeing him move. So there were guys hunting that property,
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: they just they had no clue that that's where he was.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: I I knew just because the history and the sightings
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: and the trail camera dada, I kind of put it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: all together. But it was it was very interesting because
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: they were all hunting up near the food, which was
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: quite a ways away, and this buck wasn't making it
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: anywhere near you know, their daylight. Um. In fact, when
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: he would make it over to where I was hunting,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: like the year prior, he was doing it all via
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: like security cover. He was never like um, showing himself
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: out in the open. So they he was. It was
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: it was very interesting how that deer was just living
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: right under their nose and moving right under their nose.
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: But um, you know that's I mean, that's a testament
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: of like how how most hunters, a lot of the
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: average hunters out there, they'll sit on that field edge
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: and they'll see you know, and handful of younger Bucks,
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: but you know that big one is is surviving back
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: in there in the cover. So yeah, uh, did you
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: want to pitch that same question you had for Joe
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: a second ago Doug's away? You might maybe repeat it
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: because I forgot what it was even so maybe Doug
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: did into Yeah, So yeah, basically, UM, maybe touched on
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: your strategy um of hunting in the swamps or marshes
• 55:35
  Speaker 1: kind of early season, kind of taper that into like
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the mid season rut and then maybe even late season
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: a little bit. I know that's a long, open ended question,
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: but you can kind of touch on your strategy there.
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: I would do my best. Yeah. I love hearing you
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: guys talk about, um all the history that you get
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: with Bucks. That's that's awesome. I don't I don't run
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: cameras or any of that, so I don't get to
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: do that. But I think the way that you and Joe,
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: the way that you're able to figure out deers just incredible. Um.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: But anyways, so what I find, and I think Joe
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: said the same thing in early season, Um, I've made
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: this mistake of over hunting a swamp. You might say, Um,
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: I've done this both in state and out of state
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: to where I'm trying to dive in and those deer
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: aren't in there yet unless there's food in there, unless
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: there's oaks back in there. Those deer are generally, like
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: Joe said, they're out on the edges. Um. What I've
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: actually found it's kind of funny is it seems like
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: those those batchelor groups of bucks will be also where
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: they can watch access and it's like the first time
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: that a hunter comes in there and you blow them
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: out of there, they won't be back in there again
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: until next summer. Um. So you've got to be real careful.
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Um because once you kind of go in and they
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: know it's hard early season, once they know they're getting hunted,
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: it's really hard to kill them. Um. So yeah, that's
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: been my experience there. But um, you definitely can't do it.
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: The one thing I will say, uh, early season, um,
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: not so much in my state. By the out of state,
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: if you can get into like that mid September, those
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: bigger deer are pretty much all rubbed out. And if
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: you can find those rugs, I mean you're you're you're
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: going to be in the money. And that's what That's
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: a really good thing for somebody that's just kind of
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: traveling just looking for any good buck, you know. Um,
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: that's something that I've had some good success really keying
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: in on. Um. And then once you get to you know,
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: I guess closer to the rut. I mean, everybody kind
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: of knows how to hunt the rut, you know, the funnels,
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: and I like a lot of um. What I can
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: on a lot is like the deeper water because it
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: forms sort of like a back wall. Um. You know,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: deer obviously they swim great. I've seen them swim rivers
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: and and lakes. I've yet to see a deer really
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: swim across deep water in a swamp unless they're getting
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: out to a ball or something like that. But so
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: what I like to do is find where where those
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: are cutting around that water and if I can access
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: somehow um behind that, you know, whether it's wading through
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: some deeper water and the actually climbing up like say
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: the cypress tree that's in that water, and I never
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: have to cross that trail. Um, it's just money because
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: a lot of times that deeper water, especially if there's
• 58:20
  Speaker 1: sun hitting it, it's it's gonna pull those thermal as
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: soon as you know in the evening and the morning
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: is gonna pull those thermals. Then once the sun comes up,
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: you know, obviously your thermal is are gonna be going up.
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: And I've just found it to be really bulletproof. Um.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: And then late season, I really don't have much experience
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: with late season because our rut in Florida goes all
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the way through in the march into some parts. So
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you know, once we hit the rut, I pretty much
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: followed the rut um all through all through the year.
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: I've read you describe your hunting style as quote by
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: any means necessary style. Uh, what does mean? And why
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: is that so effective for you? Especially in places maybe
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: like this swampy country. Um, I think it's effective like
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: anywhere if if you can get out of your own
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: mind and out of the box of what everybody tells
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: you of how you have to kill deer, and then
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: you know how you have to kill a big buck. UM.
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: See a guy like justin right, the way that he's
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: killing these deer is phenomenal. He's he's sliding in in
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: the bedrooms and sometimes killing him the same day that
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: he's pumped them, and a lot of guys will tell
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: you that, you know, and I know, Andredquisto kind of
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: marketed that whole thing. Um, but you know, I've kind
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: of developed the same thing as if you're doing what
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: everybody else is doing, you're gonna get the same thing.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: So you know, I kind of thought to myself when
• 59:47
  Speaker 1: I was younger, is you don't want to just be
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: a deer hunter. You gotta be different. You gotta figure
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: out something that's different. And I mean, even like still
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: hunting through flooded areas. Guys will tell you, I mean,
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: you can't really, you can't still hunt a flooded area
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: unless you know how to walk silently, which is a
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: discipline itself, walking through water and not making noise. So, um,
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: I think just getting outside of the box using your
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: head um. And I think one of the biggest things
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: is is understand if you're going for a mature deer,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: is understanding how they use their nose, um, because so
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: many times you know the game is over before you
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: even know you're in the game. Um, So I don't
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: I don't know. That was a bunch of There's a
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: lot too clear, there's a lot to unpack there there's
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: some good stuff. I have to ask about walking silently
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: in the water. You said, that's a that's a tough
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: thing to do on its own. So how do you
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: pull that off? Anyone who huts into swamp will probably
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: have to do something like this, whether it's in gator
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: country or beaver country or points in between. So what's
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: the what's your trick to pulling that off? Uh? Just
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: going slow, being silent. And there's certain depths of water too.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: When you get oh, I don't know how deep it actually,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: maybe it seems like six maybe eight to ten inches
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: of water. You can move at a pretty good clip
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: and make minimal to no noise um. But you know
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: it's sometimes it's if it's shallower water and you got mucked.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, you're literally having to lift your foot up out,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: wait for the drips to come off, slide your foot
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: back in um. And obviously you're not doing that for miles.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: You know, you're you're kind of bumping into a spot
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: where you're expecting to maybe run into a deer um
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: either bedded or moving through that area, and you're just
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: sliding through up. I mean's just like it's just like
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: still hunting in the wood, you know, like crunchy leaves, um.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: You know, you gotta work around with what you got, um.
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, it's mostly a balance comes into it too,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: and that muck when you pick one, you're one foot up.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: You better have some balance otherwise you're gonna make a
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: lot of noise when you go stamper and sideways. Yeah,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: I understand that when you do this still hunting through
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: standing water, that you do some what you call cover calling.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Can you can you describe that? Yeah, I've done that
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: in the past. I really haven't done that lately. But basically, um,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: like if if you're sliding into an area and if
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: you do it enough and you jump enough bucks, you
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: kind of get a sense for like, man, I feel
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: like there might be a buck right up there. And
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of times when you get into these area
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: when you get back into because what usually when I'm
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: I'm still hunting one of these spotted areas, it's because
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: you really can't hunt it from a tree. You really
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: can't hunt it from the ground effectively, unless you know,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: win in cut lanes whatever before. This is an area
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: where a deer has unless they're doing drives and stuff
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: like that they have not um coming in contact with
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: humans being in there hunting them, especially a human that
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: can walk here slowly and quietly through the water. Usually
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: they know from you know, half a mile away, here
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: comes the guy sloshing through the water, and they know
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: right where you are and when when you're coming, and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: when you can side in there quiet and then you
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: make a few calls. Even old bucks, I mean, they're
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: sure it's another deer like there. There's no doubt in
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: their mind because there's no way that somebody could have
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: stepped in their own. Um. And I've found out to
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: be effective. Um. Like I said, I don't do a
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: lot of that anymore, UM, mostly because I don't hunt
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: those areas as much. I hunt further up north where
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: there's better Dear, I hear you anything else when it
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: comes to trying that still hunting approach in any kind
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: of swamp, any other considerations, you know how you're when
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: you plan to do that. You know if there's certain
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: days that you would do it and others you wouldn't,
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: or certain situations or anything. Yep, definitely try to stay
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: away from doing it on the weekends. I've gotten several
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: bucks killed, um, either by other hunters. I actually jumps
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: went up to got hit by a car. Um. You
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: gotta be careful about what you're doing when you're moving
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: those deer around on public land. Uh if you do that,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: I mean, and obviously I'm also really not doing it
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: during prime time. I mean, the worst things come sliding
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: up on somebody, or like I said, you jump the
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: deer and then he gets shot or shot at or whatever.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: Um So, yeah, midday I like to do it. Um
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 1: So I said, I don't do a lot of late
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: season hunting, but there is one area that I do hunt.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: It would be considered late season as well, after the
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: rut um. And that is actually how I like to
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: hunt that area because I can scout it while I
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: hunt it. Uh generally late season, mid day, not a
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: lot of guys in the woods. You bump a deer around,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: he's generally gonna be all right. Um So yeah, definitely,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: you know, and then like during the rut, you do
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: have some guys who will slit all day, so you
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: might not want to do it too much when other
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: hunters are in the woods. That that'd be my thing.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: Uh Andy, your joke to either one of you guys
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: employ the ground of approach in the swamp too. I
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: can imagine there's I mean I've I've done it myself
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: actually where there's situations where you know, there's there's some
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: reason to want to be in a spot, but there's
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: not a good tree. There's a lot of swamps, or
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: there's just cattails are just stringy, little nasty trees and
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: there's nowhere good to get elevated. Um uh, Andy, is
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: that something that you're thinking about often? And have you
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: pulled it off? Yeah? I have. I do a lot
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: of still hunting, but I haven't done much in the
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: swamps or marshes. Um. I have hunted from the ground
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: or very very low like out of the saddle. Um.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: I've talked to Joe a little bit about this because
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of times, um, you get some sometimes it's
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: hard to find good trees, especially um where you need
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: to be for these some of these older books. A
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 1: lot of times are you know, yeah, there's these hardwoods,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: these hardwood islands or points that go down and yeah,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: if if they're coming up into there in daylight, like
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: like Joe said, maybe early before the you know, the
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: pressure really hits and maybe got some maincorns dropping. Then
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: then it's a little easier. You can probably find a
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: good tree to get into. But when they're staying out
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: there and there may be only getting to that transition
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: edge or or um not quite getting up into the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: high ground UM in daylight. A lot of those trees
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: on the edge are they're not really conducive for a
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: tree stand or saddle. Some of them you can, some
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: of them can get just low. And like what I've
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: told Joe about is lots of times I'll find a
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: tree like that and I'll set up in the saddle
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: literally at ground level or or six inches or a
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: foot up and just use that tree as my cover, UM.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: And then I got a you know, basically that ground
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: level shot, and I might be covering. I might be
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: covering a trail or one or two trails, or or
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: scrape right on the edge or something like that. UM.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: But a lot of times I'll be hunting just right
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: from the ground and I'll just tuck myself, you know,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: kind of in the shadows, like off to the side,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: UM kind of I guess perpendicular or off to the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: side of where I expect move to be. I haven't
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: done it. A large amount of that but I've done
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: a fair fair amount, um. And I know Joe, Um,
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: I'll let him get to this, but I know he's
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: He's told me of a couple of situations where he's
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: hunted from the ground on some of those islands, like
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 1: way out there, and I think his buddy does that
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: quite a bit. So Joe what he got in that regard. Yeah,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: I'm I'm not going to be the expert in ground heading, um.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: And that's where we gotta get Jordan on one of
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: these podcasts. But Jordan has done super well, um, because
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: you get these like like you kind of mentioned earlier,
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: as you get these high spots, there's no trees around,
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 1: and he'll just tuck himself kind of down into the
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: cat tails, say twenty yards from the bed, and a
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: lot of times those deer are only moving twenty yards
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: before dark and he's just sitting on their trailer off
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: to the side of the trail and when they come through, Um,
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: you gotta be ready. You have a split second to
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: get that shot in there. So I wouldn't be the
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: best person to talk to about doing it on the ground. Now.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: Like Andy, I believe you said that that big six
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: pointer that you shot this year in Ohio that you
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 1: did that with the saddle. Your feet were on the
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: ground right and you were kind of leaning back in
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 1: the saddle. Yeah, I was. I actually had the platform,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: but the platform literally was like five inches off the ground.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: So that wasn't really it wasn't really swamp, but it was.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: It was very um, it was swamp like it was.
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: It was very tall grass like kind of uh, kind
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: of like crp like very tall weedy stuff with some
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: pockets that cover. So it did kind of was similar
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 1: to like a cat till marsh cat tell Marshan some sorts.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I was. I was basically at eye level, um.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: And that's the way I've set up a lot of
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: times in the marsh there too, right on the edge.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: And that's that's another good point too. In the swamps,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: you have to be so careful in trees because you
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: don't have that main trees and once you start sliding
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: up one and suddenly you've got eyeballs looking at you
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: and you don't even all that it's happening. Whereas say
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: you're hunting hard woods or farmland, um, you can climb
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 1: trees and deer can't see you. But in the swamps,
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: it's a little different. You have to you you gotta
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: make that decision. Do I really want to climb this tree?
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: Is it gonna burn me if I climb this tree?
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: So that's something kind of different than the swamps too.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: Can you describe, like, in a situation like that where
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: you think that you could be with an eye shot
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: eyeball range of a bedded deer and you're worried about
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: getting too high up there? Have you found any kind
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: of sweet spot? I know it's going to be depending
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: on the tree and a lot of specifics, but if
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: you had to say, like, man, you know, if I
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: can get at least six or seven or nine or ten,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: or is there any kind of like sweet spot that
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: you typically try to get into that's low enough that
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: you're not going to get eyeball but high enough that
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: you're still out of you know, most sight, or or
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: anything you're thinking about Maybe I'm maybe I'm asking an
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: impossible question, but anything you think about in that situation, Yeah,
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: not necessarily. I think what it comes down to is
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: in the swamps, a lot of times you have your
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: one trail that you're shooting and you've gotta get up
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: just high enough that you can shoot that trail, but
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: then you do kind of run into the problem. You
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: gotta consider the deer are gonna be sunk down into
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the mock, so now is their whole belly gonna be
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: covered up? So you gotta make sure you can get
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 1: high enough to make a good shot to that trail
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: where you're expecting the deer to come through. But you
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: gotta also not be so high that the entire rest
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: of the swamp can see you. You know, you almost
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: just have to use your gut, use your best instinct. Um,
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: consider where all the deer betting, and think to yourself,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: can they see me? Um? I mean, obviously, if you
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: scouted in spring, you can figure a lot of that out.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: But um, when you're hunting in the moment, usually you
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: don't have that luxury, you know. Yeah, bouncing over to you,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: Doug on this topic of trees, Um, i've i've I've
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: read a handful of interesting things that keep referring back
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: to that that made me very interested in your style.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: And one of the things is that you are very
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: particular and patient when it comes to picking the right tree. Um,
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: supposedly sometimes taking thirty to forty five minutes just standing
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: there thinking about it. Um, sometimes I feel like I
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: do the same thing. Can you can you tell me
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: that is that accurate? Do you still do that? Why
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: do you do that? Okay? And then walk me through
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: your thought process, like what are the things you're thinking
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: about to get to that final decision. Yeah. Sometimes, Like
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: sometimes I'm trying to help pick a tree, like for
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: you know, my buddy or whatever, and I think that
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: like they think that I'm zoning out, but really you're
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: dropping milk read You're looking at what it's doing when
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: the wind's blowing. You're looking at what it's doing when
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: the wind stops. You're looking at what you think is
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: gonna do when the sun sets, you know, and the
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: thermost kick in. And but sometimes I think a lot
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: of stuff like what Joe is talking about. I mean,
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 1: you really don't have too many tree options, so you
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: have to get in where you can. And um, and
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: like he said, he stole the words out of my mouth,
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 1: is like basically just highd up to get a shot. Um.
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 1: You know, it's kind of it's like as high necessary
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: and low as possible is the way that I like
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: to hunt. But um, and then what's going through my head.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: Is you know, like Joe said, I mean, if you've
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: got one trail, it's pretty easy to see what where
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: that deer is gonna come out, um, But it's a
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: little more like ambiguous than You've got to really kind
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: of dissect it um as far as the options of
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: where that deer is gonna come out, um and where
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: you can shoot two from which tree. And then obviously,
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: like I said, your wind, because you can't have your
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: wind going the wrong way, um, at least not when
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: he's gonna come by, which you know that's a different
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: thing is sometimes the wind is going the wrong way,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: but you know it's going to settle down, and you
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: know those thermals are gonna kick in, and you know
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: he's probably not gonna come by until after that, so
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: you set up for that. Um. But yeah, it's it's
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: probably would be funny if some people could watch me
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: stand there and look at three different trees for thirty
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: You brought up the wind. Let's let's talk a little
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: bit about the unique wind or thermal impacts when hunting
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: and swamps, especially when you've got standing water. I would
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: imagine there's some different impacts. I've seen some different impacts there.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: Uh is that something you can describe it all in
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: your situation? Dug you gotta. I mean, are the temperature
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 1: swings wild by you? Or is it always kind of
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: hot and humid? I have no idea how that might
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: impact thermals or wind changes and stuff like that. What
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: do you what's going on for you and that? Um? Yeah,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: so it is pretty wild. Um temperature changes usually, but
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: like early like September October, it's usually hot, human muggy
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: even at night. UM. But yeah, like you said, with
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: the thermals, I think one of the big things down
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: here that I've noticed is like it's so the sun
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: is so intense that I think it really heats up
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: any of that water that they can get to. I
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: mean if you walk in there in the morning before sunrise.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of times I wear like jungle
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: boots or sneakers or whatever. Um, and it's like stepping
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: in bath water. Uh. If you're if you're stepping through water, uh,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: a space that is like exposed when the sun is up,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: so even all through the night that that water is warm. Um.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: And that definitely pulls a lot of thermal activity. UM.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: It's almost like a magnet like a thermal magnet, and
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 1: it just sucks everything from around from the dry ground.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: So how then do you factor that into you know,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: planning where to hunt and how to you know, pull
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: a fast one on a buck that seemingly would be
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: able to take advantage of that. Yeah, So, I mean
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: the bucks are definitely keying in on that um where
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: they can, but you just have to find a spot
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: where you can get in UM. And a lot of times,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: I like, I really like to hunt below the water
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: line because a lot of times those bucks are kind
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: of right there at the waterline, right below it, you know,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: depending on what the terrain is, what the pressure is
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: UM and if you can find a way to access
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: it and climb down thermal of him, it's you're kind
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: of in his blind spot and it just it's it
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: usually works out pretty well. I'm not following you. How
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: are you hunting below the waterline? What do you mean
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: by that? So basically you know where the water you know,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: So if you're walking from the dry ground toward the swamp,
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: you know, at one point your feet are gonna start
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: getting wet, and then as you go deeper into the swamp,
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: that water is pointing to get deeper. Um, so depending
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: you know that, and that water line is obviously right
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: where the water starts for where the water usually is,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: and that's generally within that area depending on the terrain,
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: depending on how fast you know, the terrain falls off
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 1: and gets deeper. Um, you know it's going to dictate
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: where that deer travels most of the time. But he's
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: generally going to travel at or below that water line
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: to catch all those thermals that are getting sucked in
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 1: from the dry ground. I follow, you know, okay, uh Joe,
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: would you would you add anything when it comes to
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: wind or thermals in wet swampy stuff. So exactly what
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: he said, if you're if you're sitting, if you've got
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: the option to sit on the edge of a swamp
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: or just into the swamp. I think that's kind of
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: what he's saying. Um, he nailed it on the head.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: You kind of want to be in the swamp because
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: at last, let you got your scent sucking down into there. Um.
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: I guess from a more broad perspective for me with
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: the but you're more open cattail swamps around here, the
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: wind is pretty consistent. I mean, you can almost you
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: can almost look and see what the prevailing wind is
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: and that's what it's gonna be. Um. You've always got
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: those different little things that can kind of mess up
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 1: winds in certain spots, so you gotta pay attention. Um
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: when you get into the cedar swamps, that's where the
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: wind gets really sketchy and it really starts to swirl.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: And I guess that's another thing that just makes cedar
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: swamps so difficult to hunt, is you you do have
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: those swirrel spots swirling spots, and you say, you get
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: a west wind and it might swirl one way. You
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: get an east wind, it will swirl a completely different way,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: and that I think dictates the bedding a little bit too.
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: Um in those cedar swamps. I've got one spot where
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: a hill kind of butts up to the back of it,
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: and the winds will kind of swirl around that hill,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: and uh, the deer o bed right at the bottom
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: of that hill in the in the cedar and it
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: just it could be very difficult in the seaters, I
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: guess is my experience. Yeah, I hear you there, Andy,
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: What about you would you add anything on that one? Um? No,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: I think they pretty much covered it. The water thermal
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: thing that took me a long time to figure out.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: By the way, I felt like an idiot, like I
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: was getting busted so much um, and I never figured
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: that out. It might have been from someone on the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: hunting beast when I, you know, years ago, when they
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: finally cluded me into what the heck was going on there,
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: like even hunting like water holes, you know, early in
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: the season. Um, you know, like I'd have the wind
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: in my favor and things would die down and it
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: felt like I'd still have you know, a slight wind advantage,
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: and deer would come into the you know, the water
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: hole or you know, to take a drink, and I'd
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: get busted. Um. So it took me. It took me
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: years to kind of figure that out, and then I
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: started hunting it, um using it more to my advantage.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 1: So there's one spot in particular in this marsh where
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: I used to kind of blaze through the cattails and
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: there was a sweet tree that was basically this It's
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: like it's like a creek bottom, but on each side
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: of the creek bottom is like cattails and then you know,
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: red oce your dogwood and then it kind of you know,
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: blends into like some oak ridges and then fields. Well, anyway,
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: the way that it's shaped, it tapers down and like
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: all along that creek bottom is bedding. And during the
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 1: rut it was just an awesome, awesome traivel corridor for bucks.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: And it kind of pinched down in this one area
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: where I like to hunt. And there was this one
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: tree that was kind of out in the middle of
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: this funnel and that it was just in the perfect location.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: It was a great tree with great cover, and I
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: hunted it and deer was often passed by between me
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and the water there there the creek bottom edge, you know,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: at in the evening, and I would get busted early.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: This is early season where it's still kind of getting warm,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: you know, get the temperatures are warm during the day
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: and then they cool, but the water temperature is still warm,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: and that's where you're starting to get that. I would
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: get that pull there and I could not figure it out.
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: And then finally I started I got clued in out
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: of that, so I started paying more attention. Well, then
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: I started coming in. I started wading through that creek
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: and there was a tree that was literally I stepped
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: up right off the bank and I climbed my tree
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: like it was right on the edge. And then all
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: of a sudden, I could hunt that spot and I
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: was completely bulletproof. And it took me a while to
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: figure that out. And I wasn't quite where I needed
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: to be for archery rain shots. There were some deer
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: that passed by in range and some that were just
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: out of range. But what's cool about that spot? As
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: I could hunt it repeatedly as long as I had
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: somewhat of an east wind, even if it dwindled down
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: to light and variable, I could count on those thermals
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: um to pull towards the water, and you know, I
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: would drop milk weed, it would go right to that
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: water and then it would kind of follow the way
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: that the stream was was running. Um. But it was cool.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: I mean I literally could hunt that if I wanted
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: to hunt that ten days in a row. During the run,
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: I could. I would not get busted. Um, And I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: killed a lot of deer out of that tree. But
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: it was it was good when the that that poll
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: would happened when the temperatures were still you know, getting
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: up into the you know, seventies, sixties, even fifties but
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: once it started getting colder, that that poll wasn't nearly
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: a strong and sometimes non existent. So that's something to
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: keep in mind too. It's a great example. Uh, Andy,
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: I know you've got to bounce here pretty soon, and
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: we're gonna wrap this up entirely here pretty quick too.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: But do you have a final question or topic you
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: want to run by these guys before you've got to
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: take off? Yeah, I got I got one question. Um,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: so we talked Doug, you mentioned it, Uh Joe, I
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: know you think about this too quite a bit. In
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: the swamps and or marshes. You know, there's gonna be
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: some betting that is wind specific. You know that they're there.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: They usually bend bed here with this type of wind
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: coming off the land, you know, coming off the high
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: ground or whatever. And then there's gonna be these other
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: spots that are more any type wind where they could
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: be there on any given day in most days. Can you,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: from your guys experience, can you maybe touch on a
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: few of those that were because of the terrain and
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: the features, it's it's a wind specific bed and if
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: they're you know, if the wind isn't blown out of
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: this direction off this piece of high ground or whatever
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: they aren't there, and then and maybe some other examples
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: of any wind type bedding. UM, let's start with Doug
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: oh boy, okay. UM. So I would say most of
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: the beds that I know of are any wind. UM.
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: It's very very rare for me to find a bed
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: that I think is uh wind specific, mainly because I
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: feel like in the swamp it's not just the wind UM.
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: I think they're mainly. What I've found by me is
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 1: they're mainly keying in on those thermals, the thermal activity UM.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: And then they're also using at least one, if not
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 1: to other senses meaning uh, they're using their sense of site,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: or they're using a lot of times of a sense
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: of hearing. And I think that they just feel so
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: secure when there is standing water around them, UM, especially
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: if they can see up toward a dry land where
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: any anybody would normally come from. UM. I just feel
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: like they feel like they're bulletproof. And I will say
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: I do think they gravitate to those spots that are
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: in favor for them for the most predominant winds, the
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: most or prevailing I forget which term is right, but
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: the wind is that is most common. UM. And also
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: I found the kind of spots where the terrain UM.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 1: I find a lot like in broken terrain UM where
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: it's kind of open, maybe it's kind of brushy, and
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: then there's like some uh scattered maybe like islands of
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: trees where those those little islands actually kind of pinball
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: the wind. And it seems to always pinball it into
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: the same spot or into you know, towards the same
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: in those books. Uh seemed the key in on that. UM.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of one that is when specific,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: and I just I just can't think of one that
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: I've that I've ever found. And I also don't run
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: the cameras like you guys do a lot, so I
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: don't have enough intels to say like, yeah, this bucket
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: here every time on a on a you know, a
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: north wind, and he's never got on a south wind. UM.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: It's not something that I've found. Yeah, yeah, he I
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: was afraid to say it, but he said exactly what
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: I was thinking. I just don't see that much one specific,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: and I think it's I mean, I'm just gonna repeat
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: everything he said. It's it seems like it's just more
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: that they feel so secure in there, and I think
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: what it really comes down to is their nose. They
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: haven't smelled humans in those swamps for say weeks or months,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: and they just feel so secure in there that if
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: a human does come tromping through there, they're gonna hear
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: it and they're gonna be able to get out of
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: there in time. I don't see it that often now.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: Before I talked about that one um the cedar swamp
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: situation where when the wind is hitting if you can
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: picture just picture like a rectangular cedar swamp with a
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: circular hill on the side of it, When the wind
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 1: is hitting the side of the hill that the cedar
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: swamp is not on, it seems like the wind almost
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: comes around both sides of that hill and kind of
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: meets right in that one spot and that then there's
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: a lot of deer in my experience in that particular spot.
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 1: I've seen it where you could just count on deer
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: being in there, but to hunt it is extremely difficult. Um.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: But yeah, I haven't seen that much when specific, I'd
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: be curious to hear what Mark and Andy have to
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: say on this. Yeah, and it's just real quick. I
• 1:24:39
  Speaker 1: want to piggyback on that. Sorry, Um, what he said
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: about like that island or that hill, I do see
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: that as well. Um. And sometimes they will kind of
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: position themselves a little bit different for the wind, you know. Um,
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: But I don't see them betting in a completely different area. Um,
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: just because the wind is switching. I know you gotta bounce, Andy,
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: But do you have thirty seconds to give us an
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: example of this wind specific? Yeah, I'm good as long
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: as i'm you know, as long as i'm done, like
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: some forty five, I'm good. So you can edit that out. Sorry, Well,
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: what do you get? Okay? So I it's you know,
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: this is it's obviously really hard to prove this right
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: because we're not we don't know if the deer are there. Um.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: I feel like the times that I have seen where
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: it's where I think it's more wind specific, is when
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: they're bedded like right off of a point, um. And
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: a lot of times that wind is coming like down
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: off the point off like the main woods are the
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: main high ground, um, and they're bedded right off that point.
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe a little a little clump of trees like right
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 1: off that point in the cattails or something. I feel like,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: if there's any that's wind specific. It's that now as
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: far as like the islands or you know, the pockets
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: that are way out there in the marsh, or the
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: or the lone trees where it's like kind of surrounded
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: all by thick cover, all by cat tails, are all
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: by um, you know, good security cover. I feel like
• 1:26:16
  Speaker 1: those are more any wind um. But you know, I'm
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: not going to go out and say for sure that
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: their bet only bet on those points, you know, on
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: a specific wind, because I've haunted them when the wind
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: isn't quite like that, and I've still had deer come in.
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: I just haven't. I haven't killed a good one with
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: the wind like blowing right in my face on a point,
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: but I have killed a couple off of a point
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: with my wind blowing out into the swamp and it's
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: just missing that bed. So I don't. I don't know.
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 1: I would I defer to someone who has more experience.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: I guess, um, I have a lot of experience in
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: this type of setting, but I don't know that I'm
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: confident enough to say one way or the other. But
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: if I was going to point to one that it
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 1: seems more wind specific, is is when there's a point
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: coming off the main ground, the main woods going out
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: into the marsh, and the deer better like right off
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: that point. M makes sense at least if I can
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: add one thing. So well, it kind of seems that
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 1: we're all kind of saying the common thing. It doesn't see,
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of non wind specific betting. One thing
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: that is very specific with the wind is how early
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: they seem to be willing to get up and actually move. So,
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you've got it where the wind is,
• 1:27:35
  Speaker 1: if they can leave their bed and have the wind
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: in their nose, it seems like they're much more willing
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: to get up early versus if they if they don't
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: have in their nose and they can't send check as
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: they're coming out of the swamp, it seems like they'll
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: move a little bit later. So that's one. Well, a
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: lot of the betting doesn't seem specifically win specific. How
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: they move in and out of it and what time
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: they do does seem that way. Yeah, that's a good
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: point to they could they could have been there and
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: just not getting to where I was in daylight. Um,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: That's why I said, it's it's kind of hard to
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: prove um, But yeah, I don't know. That's good stuff
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: to hear you guys say that you don't see much
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: win specific though. That's that's pretty pretty eye opening because
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I was I was kind of convinced on the point
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: thing that I had it figured out, but maybe not,
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: but you might. You might, you might have that point
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: figured out. I think it also has to do with
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: how many options the buck has. If there's different points
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: that are good for different major winds, then maybe he
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: does bounce around to the best point for that day.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: But I just don't have enough experience with tracking specific
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: bucks on specific wind to really say that that is
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: or isn't. H I H. I love the level of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: the level of like new ones you can get with
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: this kind of stuff, Like I, I don't have enough
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: experience in this specific instance to say anything, but I
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: just geek out about the fact that there is something
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: to say about it, like the fact that that we
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: can sit here and and kind of go back and
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: forth about all the little intricacies of how these bucks
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: might use these specific terrain features. Like that is why
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: hunting and really diving deep into a specific kind of
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: habitat just fascinates me, Like just trying to really understand
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: how these puzzle pieces go together at this level of detail.
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: It's it's the top of the peak. I think when
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: it comes to deer hunting. Um, it's it's just fun.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: Let alone, how successful can make you be. It's just fun. Um.
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 1: And that being the case though, UM, as much as
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 1: I'm enjoying this, I do need to wrap things up
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: on my end, So I want to just end with
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: a quick, rapid fire kind of question for each one
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: of you guys, um and and kind of leave it there.
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: And my question I'd like you each to give me
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: your take on, is what you think the biggest mistake
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: is that most people make when hunting in a swamp
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: like once that one big thing or or one specific
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not the biggest, but if it's one specific
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: thing that you think matters a lot, that a lot
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 1: of guys or girls are probably screwing up on this terrain. Uh, Joe,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: what what jumps out to you first? Yeah? The first
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: thing and it's the thing I did wrong for the longest,
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: is uh just messing around too much? You know, you
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: kind of you read some sign, you think you figure
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: out a spot, and you're just in there too much,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: messing around, and you just really need to stay out
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: of those spots. And when they're when they're ready, or
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: when you know that deer's coming, either jump in and
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: kill them. That's this is the biggest thing, is people
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: just messing around too much, all right, Doug, Um, I
• 1:30:41
  Speaker 1: got two in my mind. One is access but everybody
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: talents access um the importance of it. But one big
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: thing that I found in Florida is sitting all day.
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: Guys think that bucks don't move because it gets too hot.
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: And most of the deer that I've killed have been
• 1:30:57
  Speaker 1: between like ten and three ish, and a lot of
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: them over ninety degrees. Those bucks will get up and move,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: So pack your launched. That's my that's my tip. Wow,
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: And what about you, Andy? One final mistake that you
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: want to make sure I don't make next year, I'd
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: say I'd say most guys get intimidated by it as
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: far as um accessing where you really need to go
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: to get into the big ones. So um, if you
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 1: can get past you know the mental block of maybe
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: having to wait in you know, up to your belly button,
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: or to kayak in through some stuff that you're not
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: sure you're going to get out of or um, you know,
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: walk in sinking up to your knees. If you can
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: get past that, I don't think that they're terribly hard
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: to hunt, but some of these spots that you need
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: to get to to get to the older bucks are
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: hard to get to. So if you can be mentally
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: tough enough to do that, I think, um, you'll be
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 1: way ahead of the average guy out there. Wise words,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: all right, Andy, Doug, Joe, thank you all. This is uh,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: this has been a lot of fun, and I know
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of folks are gonna benefit from us,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: So thank you. It was fun. Man enjoyed it. Thanks yep,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: Thanks guys, Thanks all right, And that is a rap.
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: I hope you guys learned as much as I did
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: in this one. Man, there's so many places across the
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: country where there are swamps or wet lands or marshes
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: or catdil, you know, potholes, whatever it might be, that
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: that you can apply these kinds of ideas too. So
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: I'm hoping a lot of you are gonna be able
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 1: to take this to the woods and use it this fall.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: Well that said, I will just offer a couple quick reminders.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: Number One, make sure you are signed up for our
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: white Tail weekly newsletter. It's the place that we share
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: all of our new white Tail content from the Mediator
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: and wired Hunt team. You can go to the meat
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: eater dot com to sign up. Secondly, make sure you're
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: following wired Hunt on Instagram. And I think that's it
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: for the moment. A lot of exciting news to come
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: in the next couple of weeks. I'll be sharing with
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: that with you soon, but until then, thank you for
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: being here, thanks for your attention, and stay wired to Hunt.